Unofficial support for LOTEs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Unofficial support for LOTEs - Essay Example For example, during marriage ceremonies, they use these languages because the main marriage makers in the city have memorized the languages. Different churches use these languages in their masses with an example being the Catholic Church since they conduct their services in Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, and Haitian. Television channels and different newspapers publish their news in LOTEs, in mayoral campaigns, the New Yorkers apply LOTEs. Finally, they allow interpretation of government proceedings for LOTEs to enhance understanding among the population (Mair 166). In NYC, dissimilar departments value and encourage the use of LOTEs. For example, both the domestic and international business sectors in the City have implemented a policy to promote LOTEs, as they believe it attracts many individuals involved in business. This method is applicable with the AT & Tlanguage line, which is a full time free telephone service interpreting more than 140 LOTEs to NYC banks, utilities, hotels and businesses (Mair 167) The ethno-linguistic enclaves in NYC support language maintenance through different manners. For example, they speak LOTEs in their homes, in business activities, churches, during marriage ceremonies and government proceedings (Mair

Plot summary of the old man and the sea Essay Example for Free

Plot summary of the old man and the sea Essay The Sea is the story of an epic that makes a very great effort between an old, who has a lot of experience of a particular activity and he is the epitome of a modern human life, it was happened in a small fishing village near Havana,Cuba, The waters of the Gulf of Mexico, in the 1940,s in the twentieth century. The writers of modern age focused on man as well as psyche of man rather than society, so that Ernest Hemingway wants to write the old man and the sea ,which was the old(Santiago) suffered from alienation ,that alone all the time, it was one of the features of modern age. (Miller, 2002: 3). In 1930,s and during the second world war Ernest Hemingway was lived in Cuba, and because he was loved hunting and fishing and in the age of childhood he fished and hunted with his father, so that he began to write the old man and the sea in the last years of his life and published in the 1952 as a single issue of human life in modern age. In that small village, the villagers must work, which work it is fishing to get money so as to sustain in life, so that each members in the village go to sea with his boat or skiff in the early morning for fishing, and Santiago, old Cuban fisherman was one of them, but alone. As (Ernest Hemingway said). He had a shack which was a small building made of woods, in it a bed, a table, one chair, a picture in colour of Sacred heart of Jesus and another of Virgin of Cobre of his wife on the shelf in the corner under his shirt. He had a small boat and gone eighty-four days without took a fish. The boy named Manolin, that the old man took him when he was five years old and the boy loved him too much and loyalty for him, when the boy saw him without taking a fish in the first forty days while he took three fish in the first week. It made the boy, unlucky to see the old man each day went and came, went and came with his skiff empty and without fish, then the boy came to help him such as coiled lines or the pole, harpoon, brought coffee, sometimes with some food from Martin or Perico, and newspapers that talked about baseball, then it would been the discussion between Santiago and Manolin, that Santiago had a huge  admired for the Great DiMaggio, he was great in baseball player, and whose father was fisherman. The boy left him because his parents forced him to do, and go to another boat. The parents of the boy with the villagers called Santiago salau or unlucky and laughed at him, but Santiago said toward Manolin I knew you did not leave me because you doubted, then the boy said no it was true because my father made me left, so I must obey him, finally the boy left him and Santiago goes to sleep, in his sleep he dreamt lions that played on the white beach of Africa, this was a sense when he was a very young man. The next morning before sunrise Santiago went to Manolin’s house to wake Manolin so as to carry Santiago’s gear to his boat and drinking coffee, on the beach wished each other good luck. (Miller, 1988: 3-20). This time that started with the new day Santiago decided to go far out from others fisherman in the sea, he rowed steadily away from shore toward the deep waters of Gulf Stream. The first he heard the leaps of the flying fish then he saw flying fish pursued by dolphins a diving, circled seabird, he considered to be his friend, and he followed farther and farther out the seabird that was hunting for fish. One of the old man’s’ lines goes taut, and then the old man said out laud, would made a lovely piece of bait. Big fish pulled the boat every day farthest from shore until lost lights of his village. He can’t increase the tension on the line, because if it was too tauted it will be break and the fish will get away. It was a kind of struggle big fish (Marlin), and Santiago, that Marlin wants to get free and the old man wants to get his aim, goal, and desire that stands for life. Because he could not took big fish in to his boat and said a loud I wished I had the boy, but nothing, then he said to himself you have to work better, it was a kind of encourage himself, and he was optimistic all the time although he was alone, and can’t catch a fish, so as to helped himself he said toward Marlin I loved you and I respect you but I will killed you dead before sunset, after that a small tired bird named (Warble) came from north toward the old man’s boat, perched on the taut fishing line that linked the old man to the big fish, the old man told the bird to stayed and rested here to live and to sustain like other any man or birds, he said you were tired and loneliness as me. He didn’t mentioned the Hawks that waited for little bird, suddenly the Marlin surged, and the bird left him without any reaction, Santiago didn’t aware of the bird because his hand was bled, while marlin was quiet, the old man took the line with his back and ate the tun a that he caught day before, then turned to his imaginary mind to baseball, the great DiMaggio, and he wondered if DiMaggio would stayed with the marlin. The marlin woke and jumped out of water again and again and began to circle around the boat for hours and the line taken by Santiago’s hand that fought with the circling fish, after hat he pulled the fish on to it was side by the boat and plunged his harpoon in to it. (Miller; Asiaing. com, 10-37). Note; now he was happy, comfort and without any harm or pain because he got or completed his great aim, desire with the catching of big fish. Here the long strength struggle finished between The Old Man, and the Marlin with the fish lurched out of the water and dead, he pulled the boat toward the fish fastened the fish to the side of the boat. He thought how much money he could make from such a big fish, and he imagined that DiMaggio would be proud of him. The old man found himself wondered, luck, happy, and got his aim, goal, and he rowed toward his village with the great won in his life, but his happiness long less which an hour later amako shark arrived having smelled the marlin’s blood, the second fight and struggle began with sharks that wanted to eat the marlin’s flesh, he was able to killed a number of sharks with his knife and weapon, but he lost his knife and things in the process. He was failure after all and when he got back to the shore of his village there was nothing left but the head, the Skelton, and tail of the marlin. He beached his boat and went to his small building slept and dreamed the lions and turtles. The next morning, Manolin came to the old man’s shack with brought a coffee and despite the old man’s bad luck he decided to go fishing with him again. The entire fisherman had gathered around the Santiago’s boat and measured the Skelton at eighteen feet. Hemingway employed a number of images that link Santiago to Christ, the model of transcendence, who turned loss in to gain, defeat in to triumph, and even death in to new life, and as a representative character for everyone in the society. (Miller, 2002:26-31). Major Characters in the old man and the sea: *Just we had two major characters, 1-Santiago, (The Old Man). 2-Manolin, (The Boy). -Santiago; The old man of the novella’s title. He was a Cuban fisherman, suffered terribly throughout The Old man and The Sea, he had went eighty-four days without caught a fish, and became laughingstock of his village, but he was able to patient. (Miller, 2002: 5). -Manolin; was present only in the beginning and in the end of The Old Man and the Sea, but his presence was important, because Manolin’s love and loyalty for Santiago highlighted the Santiago’s valued as a person and as a fisherman. (Miller, 2005:6). Minor Characters in the old man and the sea: We had four minor characters in the old man and the sea. 1-Marlin, (Big fish). 2-Joe DiMaggio. 3-Martin. 4-Perico. *Marlin; It was a big fish, which was the greatest aim and goal of Santiago. The struggle more than three days between Santiago and Marlin, it was the trying by Santiago to catch Marlin, he had took marlin, but it was destroyed by sharks later. (Miller, 2002:5). *Joe DiMaggio; although he never appeared in the story. He was one of American most famous baseball players; Santiago worshiped him as a model of strengthen and young. (Miller, 1988: 55-56). Note; he always *Martin; Martin a cafe owner in Santiago’s village, didn’t appeared in the story. Manolin often went to martin for Santiago’s supper and others. (Miller, 1988:12). *Perico; perico was the owner of the bodega in the Santiago’s village. He didn’t appear in the novella the old man and the sea, but he served an important role in the fisherman’s life about the scored of the baseball’s newspaper. (Miller, 2002: 6).

William Butler Yeats Adams Curse Essay -- William Yeats Adam Curse E

William Butler Yeats' "Adam's Curse" The poem "Adam's Curse" (William Butler Yeats, reprinted in Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd ed. [W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1988] 147-148) carries the theme of a curse throughout the poem, and ties it in with experiences in the text. "Adam's Curse" can make connections with three situations that are central to the poem, and they are the following: first, the "pain and hard work" (footnote 6 p147) of deciphering poetry; next, the "pain and hard work" (p147) of being a woman, and finally the "pain and hard work" (p147) of making love work. These connections create and support the central story of the poem, and give the poem its unique feel. The feel of the poem is helped immensely by the form which is unassuming, as it lets the story tell itself without interfering. Together, the form and the numerous examples of a disheartening plague create a solid piece of work that can make a reader's heart cry. " A line will take us hours maybe/ Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought/ Our stitching and unstitching has been naught†¦"(4-6). With these lines, Yeats sets up the situation of poetry reading and deconstructing a poem for greater meaning for his three main characters. They invest many hours pondering poetry and if this exercise does not turn up deeper insight, all their work of examining the poem from different perspectives and angles- hence the "stitching and unstitching"(6)- has been for nothing. The narrator and his companions define themselves by their work, and deep down inside of them their toiling represents the core of their beings. This sentiment is best exemplified by the lines "Better go down upon your marrow bones/ And scrub a ... ...e poem, without getting caught up in the wording and structure. "Adam's Curse" is a poem that increases in sadness as the verses build up to the end. It is an end where the narrator realizes that he is not able to love "in that old high way of love,"(37) and that he is as vacant as the moon that illuminates his thoughts and his heart as he comes to the dreary conclusion. It is also an end that reveals the true curse of Adam in the darkness of night, a realization with such doom that it could not have been uncovered during a sunny unassuming afternoon. It is the close of a session that leaves the participants with nothing to say, feeling empty from the revelations that they could not quite muster up. This inadequacy leaves the three characters with an empty husk for a heart, forcing them to be alone searching for new ideas to validate themselves-a true curse indeed.

Essay --

Anwar el-Sadat tried to change the Arab world by making peace with his adversaries, the Israelis. Born in the poor peasant village of Mit Abdul-Kum, Anwar el-Sadat grew up appreciating the rare opportunities he was given. From an early age, Sadat was exposed to the difference between the rich and the poor peasants like him. After graduating from the University of London, Sadat ultimately failed in his acting career, so he joined the army. As a young boy, he was very nationalistic, believing in the strong history of the Egyptian people. He despised the fact that the British, and not the Egyptians were ruling Egypt. Feeling frustrated with this fact, Sadat created a revolutionary organization with fellow soldiers in his unit. One of these soldiers, Abdel Nasser, is credited with forming the Free Officer’s association, but Sadat played an integral role in laying the groundwork for the revolutionary organization. Despite the fact that Islamic Fundamentalists view Anwar el-Sadat as a traitor, he was a brave and successful revolutionary in his peace negotiations with Israel, resulting in the historic Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. During the summer of 1941, Sadat and his military troops planned to takeover the government and exile the British. His military troops arranged to meet at the Mena House Hotel, but to Sadat’s disappointment, his unit was the only one to show up, leaving his first attempt at expelling the British unsuccessful. The fact that his first revolutionary attempt was ultimately a failure benefited Sadat in the long run because he never alerted the authorities of his anti-British behavior. Aware of Sadat’s attempt at a revolution, he was recruited by the Free Officers to help al-Masri fly to Iraq. Sadat was successful in ... ...ife for the cause of peace with Israel, Sadat dared to do the impossible and succeeded. Since the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was signed in 1978, there have been no wars between Egypt and Israel. From the beginning of his presidency in 1970 to the end of his presidency in 1981 Sadat always had peace on his mind. Throughout his life Sadat participated in the British expulsion from Egypt, the regaining of land lost in the War of 1967, Soviet expulsion from Egypt, becoming the first Arab leader to ask and receive help from the United States, the first Arab leader to travel to Israel and address the Knesset, and the first Arab leader willing to and successfully make peace with Israel. Breaking down a psychological barrier, with the assistance of President Carter and Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat accomplished his revolutionary idea of Egyptian-Israeli peace.

Importance of Cross Cultural Communications Essay

Effective cross-cultural communication is one of the most important issues dealt with in business, particularly when a firm operates at an international level. Communication is a process with three key elements, which includes a source, an audience, and a channel. Communication derived from businesses will have listeners that include, but are not limited to customers, employees, suppliers, and the community (Caddy et al.). These listeners contribute to the success of a firm, which is why there is so much emphasis put into creating appropriate channels of communication. This effect is further amplified when dealing at an international level, where the effect of culture and time has more bearing. What makes effective communication important is the fact that it affects all aspects of the business function. Therefore, failing in just one of these areas can create repercussions that reverberate throughout the whole company. This essay will examine the importance of cross-cultural communication, and how it is intertwined with a firm’s HR management, strategic planning, operations, ethical decisions, and marketing campaign. Human resource management deals with people within the organisation first and foremost. For a Human Resource manager, managing the cultural aspect of communication becomes is vital because of the effect it can have on each individual employee. In an international work environment, there will likely be a number of employees from different parts of the globe sharing the same space (Parzhiger 2002). This can be a source of friction within a work environment, particularly when you consider that ethnocentric attitudes can exist within a workplace (Han et al 2007). Such friction within the communication process can manifest itself through racism, bias, prejudice, and discrimination (Parzhigar 2002). Not only are such actions considered illegal, but it can also contribute to low morale within the workforce. This eventually leads to unmotivated and therefore unproductive staff. In order to resolve such cross-cultural issues, a Human Resources manager must first come to realize that both individuals and groups differ in terms of the way they communicate (Parzhigar 2002). That way, policies or extra training programs can be established to act as a guide the actions of  employees. Many managers, though, are fail to realise such differences, or unqualified to handle them. This is why much consideration must be given when deciding who is qualified to lead an international assignment (Hodges 2003, p. 450.) By acknowledging people’s differences, the manager can create policies that will limit friction in the workplace, thereby ensuring that it runs peacefully. An effective communication system will help a firm gain a distinct competitive advantage because the constraints of time will be limited. Time distances can often be a hindrance to a company looking to collect information from overseas branches or partners. Firms have combated this problem by utilizing contemporary technology such as phones and videoconferences (Bovee 2008). This will help firms operating at an international level, collect information from overseas subsidiaries or clients more effectively. Additionally, by keeping these relationships close, manager’s gain the ability to access new technologies developed overseas (Han et al. 2007). The ability to forecast overseas trends and harness new technologies is another competitive advantage gained by having effective cross-cultural communication channels established. Proper market research, where communication aspects such as culture are taken into account, will help the firm in this regard. By establishing these effective channels, a firm can more readily anticipate particular changes in tastes and technologies of other countries (Han et al. 2007). This will allow thereby the firm to strike a balance with regards to price and availability, which, in turn, will give them a competitive advantage (Hodgets 2003). Managing operations will be much more efficient once cross-cultural communication issues have been dealt with. Many cultures employ a hierarchical approach to communication, but often this method of results in important issues being dodged. This problem is highlighted in an (Nakamoto 2008) article on Japanese companies. In the article it is reported that many of the Japanese companies employ a very rigid communication structure, and overseas managers were hired to create a more efficient method of  communication. An open exchange or direct method of communication is much more effective as ideas can be garnered from different levels of the organisation. Overcoming various linguistic issues is another operational benefit experienced when an effective communication channel is established. Due to the legal issues of each country, language differences do not only affect face o face interaction, but written communications as well (Bovee 2008). Through proper planning and research, however, a business is able to preempt such a problem from occurring, possibly by arranging for an interpreter to translate. Failing to establish an effective means for communication when an ethical issue arises can be detrimental to the stability of a workplace. This problem is particularly pertinent, when you consider the fact that globalization has diversified workplace cultures. This can lead to what Huntington (cited in Eunson 2005) described as a ‘clash of civilizations’, due to the different perspectives on morality in the western and eastern countries. Neglecting this issue can create permanent dissention or dissatisfaction between co-worker, which, as highlighted earlier, leads to low productivity levels and high staff turnover rates. Only by establishing a means of communication where ethical issues are taken into account, can prevent such an implosion from taking effect. Effective communication channels can only be effective when the moral views of other cultures are taken into account. Contemporary management in western society, for example, attempts to find practical solutions while more conservative nations seek more ‘foundational’ ones (Parzhiger 2002). Cross-cultural communication is also valuable to firm looking to establish good marketing systems. The aim of marketing is to try and link business with customers and the ability to understand the unique traits of a particular culture can help give a firm an edge over its competitors. This point was illustrated in a communication video (Balnave 2006), where a lack of an ineffective channel of communication with a particular culture was a  cause for their advertising campaign to be viewed as inappropriate. Establishing effective communications, however, will allow a firm to capitalize on local markets through support of their local culture (Han et al. 2007). As the evidence compiled in this essay has shown the importance of effective cross-cultural communication should never be diminished. It is one of the most important aspects to consider when trying developing an international brand. Through the establishment of communication training and relevant policies, employees will be better equipped to interact with their foreign counterparts. It will also assist the firm in understanding foreign cultures, and markets, which ultimately improves their strategic planning. However the biggest benefit experienced by communicating effectively is internal. It creates a more harmonious work environment, a more efficient way of relaying information, and more productive staff. Bibliography Caddy, I Cull, M Tibbits, G 2008, Business Academic Skills, 1st edn, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney’Communicating Effectively in the Global Workplace’, 2008, in Bovee, C(ed), Communication Today ,9th edn, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle Rivee, New Jersey. Eunson, B 2005, Communicating in the 21st century, John Wiley and Sons Australia ltd., QLDHan, J, Wild, J, Wild, L 2007, International business: the challenges of globalization, Pearson Prentice Hall, New JerseyHodgets, RM Luthans, F 2003, International management: culture, strategy, and behaviour, 5th edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New YorkNakamoto, M 2008, ‘Modernisers span a cultural divide’, Financial Times, 22 May, Parhizgar, KD 2002, Multicultural behaviour and global business environments, International Business Press, New York

Pride of Intellect Punished in the Short Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Pride of Intellect Punished in the Short Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne Free Online Research Papers From the first date of their publishing, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works have never been dismissed as purely entertaining, or fodder for the masses. Both his earliest writing under pen names and his accredited later works have always been respected; early admirers include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allen Poe. Poe said of one of Hawthorne’s short stories that â€Å"Every words tells, and there is not a word which does not tell.† Each word â€Å"tells† because the stories are packed with symbols of the day and allegories for our lives- he saw in his own work what he frankly described as â€Å"an inveterate love of allegory† (Arvin xii). While never representing himself as a moral authority or openly espousing traditionally Protestant values, Hawthorne’s short fiction reads as a series of illustrations about human joy and human folly. The allegories are quite clearly understandable in his stories involving science and scientists, particularly Aylmer in â€Å"The Birthmark† and Rappaccini in â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter.† Both stories portray men of secular learning who use their knowledge not to cure or truly heal, but to alter that which they deem unworthy, and with disastrous results. In â€Å"The Birthmark† and â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter,† Hawthorne condemns mankind’s prideful idolization of science as damaging to all that is good in humanity and spirituality. Both fascinating to ponder and very relevant in any examination of Hawthorne’s work is the environment that spawned both his genius and his values. Repetitive themes and tendencies can be better understood by exploring what Hawthorne was exposed to as a youth. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a culture still strongly influenced by its Puritan ancestry, and few aspects of his writing can be described as untouched by it. Peter Conn characterizes the relationship in his article â€Å"Finding a Voice in a New Nation† by telling us that â€Å"the Puritan ancestors who provided Hawthorne with his amplest materials also gave him his angle of vision and instructed him in his technique† (83). Maintaining a morally pure lifestyle was for centuries surrounding his lifespan of paramount importance in New England- ample material indeed, for works very much centering on sexual morality, such as The Scarlet Letter. His â€Å"angle of vision† and †Å"technique,† while subtler, are still products of a Calvinist set of ideas, where mankind is generally undeserving, and many of the stories illustrate our various failings. Certainly â€Å"The Birthmark† and â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter† do nothing to praise human efforts, with one scientist killing off his lovely wife and the other his pretty daughter. In discussing Hawthorne’s studies of human nature, Newton Arvin describes the state of mind that gave birth to such tales: What he found made it impossible for Hawthorne to share the great glad conviction of his age that, as Emerson had told it, ‘love and good are inevitable, and in the course of things’; he came closer to feeling that guilt and terrible wrong are inevitable; that at any rate, they are terribly deeply meshed in the texture of human experience. (Intro XV.) Humanity and their efforts seemed more generally apt to failure than success, for Nathan; considering this, and the nonexistence of any higher considerations in his upbringing other than God’s sovereignty, it is unsurprising that we should read two short stories about tragedy and failure resulting from scientists attempting to alter Creation. More specifically, Hawthorne condemned human efforts and endeavors that he saw as prideful or self-superior. â€Å"To pride himself on one’s intellectual powers or attainments, to cultivate the intellect at the expense of the sympathies†¦ this was for Hawthorne the deadliest form that human guilt could take† (Arvin XVI). What could be more ‘intellectual at the expense of human sympathy’ than one person performing dangerous cosmetic procedures on another, harming that person’s body and mind? This is the picture that Hawthorne paints in â€Å"The Birthmark,† with the main character, Aylmer, pridefully failing his young wife in several ways. We are told that â€Å"he had devoted himself†¦ too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion.† The author that we have met cannot possibly approve of his hero loving his science more than his wife, and he goes on to set us up for a powerful out come later: â€Å"Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral.† Whatever happens will be remarkable and bring home to us a â€Å"moral,† which is no less than we would expect from the New Englander. Aylmer almost immediately shows us how he feels about God’s creation, telling his young wife that her birthmark â€Å"shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.† The husband hurts his wife here, declaring a feature of her body unattractive and goes on to declare an intention of removing the shocking mark. A mark of earthly imperfection would not be appropriate for humans to try and alter, but he makes the attempt. Knowing what we do about Hawthorne’s disapproval of â€Å"pride of intellect,† Aylmer’s arrogance must be condemned. He exhorts his wife â€Å"doubt not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought- thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being† (152). His belief in his own abilities is continually set up for us, even to claims of being able to create life- surely God’s province alone- with no consideration for his wife’s true welfare. Barbara Eckstein comments that science has become religion for Aylmer, and so surely attempting to modify his wife through his science is akin to worship for him (Eckstein 511). The scientist Rappaccini in â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter† is even less kind than misguided Aylmer, railing against one who condemned the turning of his own daughter to poison, in the name of science, â€Å"Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman†¦?† (209). Even prior to learning of his daughter’s impending death, we cannot like or sympathize with this man who used his daughter as a scientific experiment. Humankind is not perfect- Biblically, since the sin in Eden, perfection is out of our reach, and considering the two men of science that strive to create perfection in their subjects adds another element to Hawthorne’s condemnation of such practices. Leland S. Person Jr. distills the point that examining these characterizations brings up: â€Å"Hawthorne depicts character after character who destroys what is human† (Person 437). Our two examples, Aylmer and Rappaccini, bear this out dramatically. Early in the story, we learn that Dr. Rappaccini creates an incredibly beautiful garden, but is not content to cultivate for medicine the fruits and flowers that he finds; rather, he engineers new and terrible breeds, as another story character tells: It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised within those substances which we term vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than Nature, without the assistance of this learned person, would ever have plagued the world withal (186). The scientist who uses his learning to alter nature is suspect already, but Rappaccini deliberately creates harmful plants, perverting the earth’s bounty. He has gone farther, however, in changing his young daughter according to his purposes: she has â€Å"been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until†¦ she herself has become the deadliest poison in existence† (201). Natural, unaltered flowers wither at her touch. Butterflies fall dead from the sky when she breathes on them. At this point in the tale, Rappaccini has already destroyed his daughter, although she lives. He claims that he has improved on what God created, but his version of perfection deprives the girl of all human contact, and ultimately results in her death. â€Å"The Birthmark† also depicts a scientist seeking the perfection that is denied to humans, inevitably failing. Hawthorne repeatedly describes Aylmer’s view of his wife’s birthmark as an â€Å"imperfection,† and the only thing holding Georgiana back from being the ultimate physical specimen. The cure takes her young life, but that is a risk that the husband/physician declared that he was willing to take, by applying his admittedly imperfect science to a piece of his wife- science that the â€Å"large folio† wherein he records all experiments shows to fail as often as it succeeds (158). But when Georgiana says that she worships her husband, he demonstrates that he has not learned from earlier failures, telling her that if he succeeds in removing the birthmark, she can â€Å"worship me if you will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it† (159.) This arrogance is offensive even to a modern reader, and would have read as nearly blasphe mous when it was published; nowhere is Hawthorne sympathetic to his learned characters: â€Å"mechanists like Aylmer [and] Rappaccini sinfully assume that knowledge of mechanism gives them power over life† (Person 437). Examination of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s early environs has shed light on his disdain for personal pride in human endeavors and his creation of characters that meet tragedy once they committed this sin, but the short fiction considered herein more specifically showcases the grievous punishments meted out to men of science who got beyond themselves. Interestingly, the America of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was not one likely to produce writers with immense respect for the fields of scientific research; only in the 1840s did the term â€Å"scientist† come into popular usage, as a descendant and variant of ‘philosopher’ or ‘chemical experimenter.’ Glen Scott Allen describes the state of American science in these decades by telling readers that â€Å"many university professors of the time moonlighted as ‘consultants,’ offering their services as soil analysts, patent advisers†¦ and the like.† He goes on to quote a European naturalist’s characterization of the state of science in the US, that neither a man of the day â€Å"’nor any other American have a mind for purely scientific researches; they look for practical result† (Allen 6). Few favors were done for the indifferent reputation of scientists by the hawking of pseudosciences such as phrenology and mesmerism. The great Puritanical inheritance of dependence on the will of the Almighty, coupled with the perception of a narrow distinction between unregulated charlatans and ‘men of science,’ was enough to produce a nation with little adoration for the profession. In the eyes of his first readers, contemporaries, Hawthorne’s blaspheming scientists may very much have deserved their punishments. While science and medical treatment are not condemned wholesale as flouting God’s will in the twenty-first century, traces of the attitudes of Hawthorne’s ancestors can be found today. A unique perspective on two old short stories recently surfaced in American politics: George W. Bush’s President’s Council on Bioethics began their first meetings with a reading of â€Å"The Birthmark.† The executive director of the committee, created to address moral and ethical (even Biblical) questions surrounding cloning and stem cell research, is a zealous Christian and selected the tale for his fellow committee members to examine. Discussing the story and its likely applications in the meetings, Fred Edwords elaborates: Here we have an image of science as inadequate because it fails to consider the supernatural- and an image of scientists as prideful and self-defeating perfectionists who should be satisfied with nature. Such was a common literary view in 1843. But the advance of both time and science hasn’t helped much†¦ biological research continues to suffer from a negative literary image (Edwords 2). Modern Americans, in a culture far more permissive, less devout, and more centered on self esteem- a form of that deadly pride- love to consume tales wherein people who manipulate biology fail miserably; Jurassic Park and The Island of Dr. Moreau come to mind. Certainly Hawthorne found no less sympathetic an audience in his day. Our close examination of language, setting, plot and nearly any other elements of â€Å"The Birthmark† and â€Å"Rappaccini’s Daughter† yields a condemnation of worshipping science and of the arrogance of humans who do so, neglecting what is human and what is spiritual. Men who use their superior scientific knowledge to pervert, but not to heal, are painted as selfish and punished; concurrently, the notion of ‘perfecting’ humanity is destroyed. They got beyond themselves and suffered for it. Stepping back from these two short stories and considering other major works of Hawthorne’s bears out this conclusion. The Scarlet Letter is more commonly recalled as a moral tale, where the mores of Puritan New England and human frailty are masterfully portrayed, but it also speaks of the dangers assuming â€Å"life is strictly a function of ‘mechanism; and that having knowledge of the mechanism is to have power over life itself† (Trepanie r 317). Chillingworth is the vehicle for this lesson in the novel; he too feels the pride of the scientist, and Hawthorne does not reward him for it. While admittedly removed from our lives by the span of a century and a half, the author’s personal views and fiction defining them on science, human failings, pride and the necessity of respect for nature (creation) are still fascinating today. Our own political system today echoes with the uniquely American struggle to define what is important and acceptable, and what is crossing the line of what is divine: congressional committees are making decisions on biological research and bioethics with a dead advisor, born two hundred years ago, and this policy is cheered on by many. Certainly Hawthorne never foresaw an outcome like this, but a reading of his work from this frame of reference is modern and relevant, whatever the personal beliefs of the reader. Allen, Glen Scott. â€Å"MASTER MECHANICS AND EVIL WIZARDS: SCIENCE AND THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION.† Massachusetts Review, Winter 92/93, Vol. 33. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. 1 March 2007. . Arvin, Newton. Introduction. Hawthorne’s Short Stories. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Random House, 1946. Conn, Peter. â€Å"Finding a Voice in a New Nation.† Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Eckstein, Barbara. â€Å"HAWTHORNE’S ‘THE BIRTHMARK’: SCIENCE AND ROMANCE AS BELIEF.† Studies in Short Fiction, Fall 1989, Vol 26. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. 1 March 2007. . Edwords, Fred. â€Å"GETTING STARTED ON THE WRONG FOOT.† Humanist, March/April 2002, Vol 62. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. 1 March 2007. . Hawthorne, Nathaniel. â€Å"The Birthmark.† Hawthorne’s Short Stories. Ed. Newton Arvin. New York: Random House, 1946. . â€Å"Rappacini’s Daughter.† Hawthorne’s Short Stories. Ed. Newton Arvin. New York: Random House, 1946. Person Jr., Leland S. â€Å"HAWTHORNE AND HIS CULTURE: THREE RECENT VIEWS.† Studies in the Novel, Winter 1992, Vol 24. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. 1 March 2007. . Pfister, Joel. â€Å"Hawthorne as a Cultural Theorist.† The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ed. Richard Millington. Cambridge, UK: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 2004. Trepanier, Lee. â€Å"THE NEED FOR RENEWAL: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S CONSERVATISM.† Modern Age, Fall 2003, Vol. 45. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. 1 March 2007. . Research Papers on Pride of Intellect Punished in the Short Fiction of Nathaniel HawthorneMind TravelBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm XHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionThe Masque of the Red Death Room meaningsHip-Hop is ArtComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoCapital PunishmentPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyRelationship between Media Coverage and Social andArguments for Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)

Cold War Timeline

Cold War Timeline The Cold War was fought in the aftermath of World War Two, from the collapse of the wartime alliance between the Anglo-American led Allies and the USSR to the collapse of the USSR itself, with the most common dates for these identified as 1945 to 1991. Of course, like most historical events, the seeds from which the war grew were planted much earlier, and this timeline starts with the creation of the world’s first Soviet nation in 1917. Pre-World War Two 1917   October: Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. 1918-1920   Unsuccessful Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War. 1919   March 15: Lenin creates the Communist International (Comintern) to promote international revolution. 1922   December 30: Creation of the USSR. 1933   United States begins diplomatic relations with USSR for the first time. World War Two 1939   August 23: Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact (‘Non-Aggression Pact): Germany and Russia agree to divide Poland.   September: Germany and Russia invade Poland. 1940   June 15 – 16: USSR occupies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania citing security concerns. 1941   June 22: Operation Barbarossa begins: the German invasion of Russia.   November: US begins lend-lease to USSR.   December 7: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor causing the US to enter the war.   December 15 – 18: Diplomatic mission to Russia reveals Stalin hopes to recover gains made in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. 1942   December 12: Soviet-Czech alliance agreed; Czechs agree to co-operate with the USSR after the war. 1943   February 1: Siege of Stalingrad by Germany ends with Soviet victory.   April 27: USSR breaks off relations with Polish government-in-exile over arguments about the Katyn Massacre.   May 15: Comintern is closed to appease Soviet allies.   July: Battle of Kursk ends with Soviet victory, arguably the turning point of the war in Europe.   November 28 – December 1: Tehran Conference: Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill meet. 1944   June 6: D-Day: Allied forces land successfully in France, opening a second front which liberates Western Europe before Russia needs to.   July 21: Having ‘liberated’ east Poland, Russia sets up the Committee of National Liberation in Lublin to govern it.   August 1 – October 2: Warsaw Uprising; Polish rebels attempt to overthrow Nazi rule in Warsaw; Red Army sits back and allows it to be crushed to destroy the rebels.   August 23: Romania signs armistice with Russia following their invasion; a coalition government is formed.   September 9: Communist coup in Bulgaria.   October 9 - 18: Moscow Conference. Churchill and Stalin agree percentage ‘spheres of influence’ in Eastern Europe.   December 3: Conflict between British and pro-Communist Greek forces in Greece. 1945   January 1: USSR ‘recognises’ their communist puppet government in Poland as the provisional government; US and UK refuse to do so, preferring the exiles in London.   February 4-12: Yalta summit between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin; promises are given to support democratically elected governments.   April 21: Agreements signed between newly ‘liberated’ communist Eastern nations and USSR to work together.   May 8: Germany surrenders; end of World War Two in Europe. Late 1940s 1945   March: Communist-dominated coup in Romania.   July-August: Potsdam Conference between US, UK, and USSR.   July 5: US and UK recognize communist-dominated Polish government after it allows some members of the Government-in-exile to join.   August 6: The US drops the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima. 1946   February 22: George Kennan sends the Long Telegram advocating Containment.   March 5: Churchill gives his Iron Curtain Speech.   April 21: Social Unity Party formed in Germany on Stalin’s orders. 1947   January 1: Anglo-American Bizone formed in Berlin, angers USSR.   March 12: Truman Doctrine announced.   June 5: Marshall Plan aid program Announced.   October 5: Cominform Founded to organize international communism.   December 15: London Foreign Ministers’ Conference breaks up without agreement. 1948   February 22: Communist Coup in Czechoslovakia.   March 17: Brussels Pact Signed between UK, France, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg to organize a mutual defense.   June 7: Six Power Conference recommends a West German Constituent Assembly.   June 18: New currency introduced in the Western Zones of Germany.   June 24: Berlin Blockade Begins. 1949   January 25: Comecon, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, created to organize Eastern bloc economies.   April 4: North Atlantic Treaty signed: NATO formed.   May 12: Berlin Blockade lifted.   May 23: ‘Basic Law’ approved for Federal Republic of Germany (FRG): Bizone merges with French zone to form a new state.   May 30: People’s Congress approves German Democratic Republic Constitution in East Germany.   August 29: USSR detonates the first atomic bomb.   September 15: Adenauer becomes first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.   October: The Communist People’s Republic of China proclaimed.   October 12: German Democratic Republic (GDR) formed in East Germany. 1950s 1950   April 7: NSC-68 finalized in the US: advocates a more active, military, policy of containment and causes a large increase in defense spending.   June 25: Korean War begins.   October 24: Pleven Plan approved by France: rearmed West German soldiers to be part of a European Defence Community (EDC). 1951   April 18: European Coal and Steel Community Treaty signed (The Schuman Plan). 1952   March 10: Stalin proposes a united, but neutral, Germany; rejected by the West.   May 27: European Defence Community (EDC) treaty signed by Western nations. 1953   March 5: Stalin dies.   June 16-18: Unrest in the GDR, suppressed by Soviet troops.   July: Korean War ends. 1954   August 31: France rejects the EDC. 1955   May 5: FRG becomes a sovereign state; joins NATO.   May 14: Eastern Communist nations sign the  Warsaw Pact, a military alliance.   May 15: State Treaty between forces occupying Austria: they withdraw and make it a neutral state.   September 20: GDR recognized as a sovereign state by USSR. FRG announces the  Hallstein Doctrine  in response. 1956   February 25: Khrushchev begins  De-Stalinization  by attacking Stalin in a speech at 20th Party Congress.   June: Unrest in Poland.   October 23 – November 4: Hungarian Uprising crushed. 1957   March 25: Treaty of Rome signed, creating the European Economic Community with the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. 1958   November 10: Start of Second Berlin crisis: Khrushchev calls for a peace treaty with the two German states to settle borders and for Western nations to leave Berlin.   November 27: The Berlin Ultimatum issued by Khrushchev: Russia gives West six months to solve Berlin situation and withdraw their troops or it will hand East Berlin over to East Germany. 1959   January: Communist government under Fidel Castro set up in Cuba. 1960s 1960   May 1: USSR shoots down US U-2 spy plane over Russian territory.   May 16-17: Paris Summit closes after Russia pulls out over U-2 affair. 1961   August 12/13:  Berlin Wall  built as east-west borders closed in Berlin and GDR. 1962   October – November: The Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of nuclear war. 1963   August 5: Test Ban treaty between UK, USSR, and US limits nuclear testing. France and China reject it and develop their own weapons. 1964   October 15: Khrushchev removed from power. 1965   February 15: The US begins bombing of Vietnam; by 1966 400,000 US troops are in the country. 1968   August 21-27: Crushing of Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.   July 1: Non-Proliferation Treaty signed by UK, USSR, and US: agree not to assist non-signatories in gaining nuclear weapons. This treaty is the first evidence of  dà ©tente-era cooperation  during the Cold War.     November:  Brezhnev Doctrine  Outlined. 1969   September 28: Brandt becomes Chancellor of FRG, continues the policy of  Ostpolitik  developed from his position as Foreign Minister. 1970s 1970   Start of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between US and USSR.   August 12: USSR-FRG Moscow Treaty: both recognize each others territories and agree to only peaceful methods of border change.   December 7: Warsaw Treaty between FRG and Poland: both recognize each others territories, agree to only peaceful methods of border change and increased trade. 1971   September 3: Four Power Treaty on Berlin between US, UK, France and USSR over access from West Berlin to FRG and relation of West Berlin to FRG. 1972   May 1: SALT I treaty signed (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks).   December 21: Basic Treaty between FRG and GDR: FRG gives up Hallstein Doctrine, recognizes GDR as a sovereign state, both to have seats at UN. 1973   June: Prague Treaty between FRG and Czechoslovakia. 1974   July: SALT II negotiations begin. 1975   August 1: Helsinki Agreement/Accord/’Final Act’ signed between US, Canada and 33 European States including Russia: states the ‘inviolability’ of frontiers, gives principles for state peaceful interaction, co-operation in economics and science as well as humanitarian issues. 1976   Soviet SS-20 medium-range missiles stationed in Eastern Europe. 1979   June: SALT II treaty signed; never ratified by the US Senate.   December 27: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1980s 1980   December 13: Martial law in Poland to crush the Solidarity movement. 1981   January 20: Ronald Reagan becomes US President. 1982   June: Start of START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) in Geneva. 1983   Pershing and Cruise missiles placed in West Europe.   March 23: Announcement of the US ‘Strategic Defense Initiative’ or ‘Star Wars’. 1985   March 12: Gorbachev becomes the leader of USSR. 1986   October 2: USSR-USA summit at Reykjavik. 1987   December: USSR-US summit as Washington: US and USSR agree to remove medium-range missiles from Europe. 1988   February: Soviet troops begin to pull out of Afghanistan.   July 6: In a speech to the UN, Gorbachev repudiates the  Brezhnev Doctrine, encourages free elections and ends the Arms Race, in practice ending the Cold War; democracies emerge across Eastern Europe.   December 8: INF Treaty, includes removal of medium-range missiles from Europe. 1989   March: Multi-candidate elections in the USSR.   June: Elections in Poland.   September: Hungary allows GDR ‘holidaymakers’ through the border with West.   November 9: Berlin Wall falls. 1990s 1990   August 12: GDR announces a desire to merge with FRG.   September 12: Two Plus Four treaty signed by FRG, GDR. US, UK, Russia, and France cancels remaining rights of former occupying powers in FRG.   October 3: German Reunification. 1991   July 1: START Treaty signed by US and USSR reducing nuclear weapons.   December 26: USSR dissolved.

Its Not About School Prayer Essays - Prayer, Religion And Children

It's Not About School Prayer Essays - Prayer, Religion And Children It's Not About School Prayer The question of school prayer has been moved from one of the storage rooms way beyond the wings to somewhere prominently on stage, if not front stage and center. The most important thing about the discussion of a school prayer amendment is not school prayer as such. People of eminently good sense and religious conviction can disagree about whether there should be prayer in public schools and, if so, what kind of prayer and who should be in charge of it. Those decisions should be made by thousands of communities and local school boards across the country. That is called democracy. An amendment is needed not to mandate or even to encourage school prayer but to restore to the people their right and responsibility to deliberate and decide a question that bears upon the kind of education they want for their children. Parents who are serious about the moral and religious formation of their children should have no illusions that adding a prayer at the beginning of the school day will achieve that goal. Public policy should help such parents send their children to schools that share their educational goals. This means school vouchers, education tax credits, flexible charter schools, or other instruments that can enable parents to exercise real choice in education. That, however, does not obviate the need for a school prayer amendment, which might better be called an educational democracy amendment. Quite apart from the merits or demerits of prayer in public schools, an amendment is needed for three reasons. First, it is a necessary check upon the overreach of the imperial judiciary. The school prayer decisions of the early 1960s were a particularly blatant instance of judicial activism. The Constitution neither mandates nor prohibits prayer in the schools. What the Constitution says about school prayer is absolutely nothing. For almost two centuries nobody thought that school prayer was a constitutional question. It was up to local communities and their school boards. (Some scholars claim that a fairly small percentage of public schools actually had such prayer.) That is the way it should be again. Those who claim that the American people are not capable of deciding the question in a civil and mutually respectful manner reveal an unseemly contempt for the democratic process. Our point, however, is that what the Constitution does not say is unconstitutional is not unconstitution al. The Constitution does not say that prayer in the public schools is unconstitutional, therefore it is not unconstitutional. One may argue that school prayer is unfair, divisive, mischievous, or just plain dumb. But it is not unconstitutional, and apparently it will take an amendment to make that clear. The second reason for an amendment is that it will challenge the judicial advancement of the pernicious ideology of the naked public square, of American public life denuded of religion and religiously grounded values. Whatever else one may think of the school prayer decisions of the 1960s, they sent a powerful message that ours is a secular society, and that a secular society is one in which religion must be expunged from any sphere that is designated as public. Combine that with the notion that public is a synonym for governmental and the conclusion is inescapable that religion must retreat wherever government advances-and government advances almost everywhere. This has been the unhappy pattern of more than thirty years. An amendment can check that pattern and perhaps, in due course, reverse it. The third reason for an amendment, closely connected to the first two, is that the incoherence of church-state jurisprudence over the last three decades is tied up with the school prayer decisions. Many, if not most, of the justices of the Supreme Court in the last decade have at one time or another publicly admitted that the Court has gotten itself into a brier patch of confusion and self-contradiction when it comes to the religion clause of the First Amendment. In our view, the Court's decisions have created a situation in which the no establishment provision of the religion clause has increasingly undercut the free exercise provision, even though the free exercise of religion is manifestly the purpose of the religion clause. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger has observed

Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizend Essay

Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizend United and why What are the implications for political discourse in the U.S - Essay Example The financial support of a political post in a corporation is likely to influence corporate staff to engage in corrupt deals. One may not have enough resources to campaign for the seat, a factor that may influence them to engage in corruption to raise the required financial resources for the campaign. If the Court decision prohibited all forms of financial support for political candidates, candidates would learn to make their own personal efforts in campaigning and not rely on financial support from corporations (Abrams, 2011). This is an indication of able leadership by the political candidates who can sponsor their campaigns without external  financial  support at the same time; the decision encourages discrimination in contest for corporate political seats. It is not easy  that all the candidates win a political support from a certain organization. For this reason, the ruling seems to encourage discrimination in corporate leadership. Another reason that I disagree with the ruling is that it may interfere with transparency and accountability in elections. Some corporations may go as far as sponsoring election rigging to ensure that the preferred candidate wins the elections (Abrams, 2011). Election rigging may be one of the most serious problems in the economic and political development of corporations and nations when it is extended from the personal level to the corporate level. The  decision was one of the most surprising decisions in the political sphere of the country, especially given the sensitivity on union and corporate money being used to sponsor federal elections (Neuborn, 2011). Despite the fact the funding of federal campaigns by corporations was banned; the law is not easy to implement if political campaigns in corporations are treated differently. In my opinion, political campaigns need to be treated equally regardless of the level of the campaign, and the seat being contested. It is unfair to have financial sponsors for corporate

Critical thinking is not just thinking but thinking which entails self Essay

Critical thinking is not just thinking but thinking which entails self improvement and this improvement comes from skill in using standards by which one approp - Essay Example ording to Alpert (2004) seems alien, a bug that keeps on nagging there is â€Å"something drastically wrong---even if they themselves do not sense it[†¦] they sense something is radically out of joint in the narrative they tell, enact, and are.† Depression affects the social being in individuals that it is a sate of sadness that affects the individual being to the point of disrupting daily activities and clinical depression may be seen even without meeting any criteria for specific diagnosis. Clinical depression is not a temporary state of sadness but something that is recurring or worsens as days go by and may last up to weeks or longer. There are a lot of evidences that depression is not a simple chemical imbalance in the transmitters in the brain, but it is the most common belief so that anti-depressant pills have become common treatment for millions of depressed women around the world although there are persistent researches that prove otherwise. Incidentally, reports (wikipedia, 2006) cite clinical depression as the second leading cause of disability in the US next only to heart disease and may soon be a global symptom by 2020 according to the World Health Organization (qtd., wikipedia, 2006). Ketterlinus (et al, 1994) presented that â€Å"depressive problems may be substantial and associated with significant social impairment [†¦] but the social malfunction extends well beyond antisocial behaviour.† As early as 1550 BC, depression has appeared in Ebers papyrus and had been described and observed. In consideration to Pepper’s (1942) view that â€Å"People construct their own environment and lifespan,† the various conceptual perspective all apply to social depression with the likely views as follows: Mechanistic – there is a narrow focus on loss of an important person, or an object of affection for any depressed individual. Likewise, therapists adapt various methods that may be narrowed down on the certain cause of the depression of a patient as may

The Implications of Cultural Diversity on Organizational Performance Essay - 1

The Implications of Cultural Diversity on Organizational Performance and The Role of Human Resource Management - Essay Example (Sommer, 2005) The attempt has been proactive in nature since the relation between performance and the incorporation of competent individuals from diverse backgrounds is all the more necessary in the times much like today. Cultural diversity and organizational performance both have significant bearing on the overall working regimes of the organization and thus should be given the importance that these deserve in essence. No organization can meaningfully progress today without efficiently responding to demands and pressures generated by cultural diversity. Adoption human resources management (HRM) for such recommendations which has been provided in this assignment would contribute effectively to maximize the benefits of cultural diversity within an organization. Workforce depends a great deal on the way in which workers perform their duties and remain committed to the growth potentials of the business. It does not really matter if the workers are full time employee or contingent and part time ones. What is needed and looked upon is the manner in which employees work towards attaining the goals and objectives of the business and provide benefits to the eventual position of the organization. This is the single most quintessential basis for the workforce to identify with and no other aspect is deemed in the same vein when it comes to the amount of significance that workforce could exhibit on any given day. If the organization has a major share of temporary workers within its fold, it is of paramount essence that the organization’s own culture is strong and there are no apprehensions in this basis whatsoever. (Buttner, 2006) This is because organization’s culture lays the foundation stone for their devotion and work place performa nce levels to a higher magnitude. Any set of values and beliefs make up a culture. On the same pretext, an organizational culture is a set of values, morals, beliefs, traditions

Technological change in organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Technological change in organizations - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that the development of technology has changed the entire world of business. This change has encompassed activities from very basic level of idea generation such as through CAD (Computer Aided Design) to product or service production by CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) and post business activities.   From the computer revolution to the Internet and most recently and constantly growing Internet based applications such as trading on the Internet, social media, etc., have all forced businesses to harness their adaption to high-paced change by anticipating it rather than following the change merely for survival. Fast pace of technological change has also proved to be proportional to the benefits it brings to business. Immense literature has been developed based on studying various aspects of the technological change to business. ISACA, global nonprofit IT association, has predicted that the entire year 2012, IT departments of business will be collecting huge data from various sources. Growingly conducting a complex procedure to manage the bulk of zeros and ones in a way that benefits the firm with growing return on investment will remain a challenge for IT departments of businesses. This big handling of data constantly grows on the horizontal as well the vertical bases with more of 40 percent projected growth in global data generated in year 2010 while spending on IT has increased by only 5 percent. The rise in demand for people handling big data is so steep that availability of big data analytical talent in US in year 2018 is expected to override the supply (Manyika et al., 2011). (Manyika et al., 2011) Data sources range from consumer behavior at physical outlets to a large number of internet subsections. The emergence of a ubiquitous phenomenon in 2000 has changed the entire business model, constantly challenging IT department to increase capacity to manage (Kenney, and Marshall, 2000). (Kenney, and Marshall, 2000) For instance, technique in retail industry such as bar code, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and vendor-managed inventory (VMI),  etc. (Smaros, and Holmstrom, 2000), and similar techniques multiply pressure as retrieving and constantly updating data remains with the IT section. Similarly, Self Service Technologies (SST’s), mainly adopted in the financial sector with the Internet banking and ATM, etc., has already put extensive pressure on the IT section. Though these techniques have been developed in the past, constant efforts from the marketing side of business to offer various promotions and extracting information based on consumer activity require increased efforts from the IT section in respect of the program development, i.e. the way information can be retrieved or updated. Applications of social media such as Facebook, twitter, blogs; heavy video content such as Multimedia content, which already accounts for more than half of the Internet traffic, is expected to grow by 70 percent in year 2013, with

Hospitality Management Industries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Hospitality Management Industries - Essay Example Hospitality management is known as the oldest services provided by human beings. The industry was replacing its older ways with newer techniques and ideas slowly and gradually; however, Isadore Sharp’s ideas brought a drastic change in this industry that are: Before Isadore’s era, medium sized hotels were not that lavish and weren’t also rendering exceptional services. However, Isadore helped changing this mindset that exceptional services can only be rendered by large hotels. Therefore, since then, medium sized hotels and resorts are also trying to provide exceptional services and thus, increasing their customer base and revenue. Isadore, by his ideas of exceptional services bought another change in the industry that people should always get the same level of satisfaction from the hotel. Therefore, hotels and resorts have to keep maintaining their short term and long term strategies all over the year. Gift card is another incomparable and unique service provided by Four Season to their customer. It helps one to buy a gift card for their loved ones, which is redeemable worldwide at any Four Season hotel for overnight stay, dining experiences, spa treatment and other services that are

Technological change in organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Technological change in organizations - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that the development of technology has changed the entire world of business. This change has encompassed activities from very basic level of idea generation such as through CAD (Computer Aided Design) to product or service production by CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) and post business activities.   From the computer revolution to the Internet and most recently and constantly growing Internet based applications such as trading on the Internet, social media, etc., have all forced businesses to harness their adaption to high-paced change by anticipating it rather than following the change merely for survival. Fast pace of technological change has also proved to be proportional to the benefits it brings to business. Immense literature has been developed based on studying various aspects of the technological change to business. ISACA, global nonprofit IT association, has predicted that the entire year 2012, IT departments of business will be collecting huge data from various sources. Growingly conducting a complex procedure to manage the bulk of zeros and ones in a way that benefits the firm with growing return on investment will remain a challenge for IT departments of businesses. This big handling of data constantly grows on the horizontal as well the vertical bases with more of 40 percent projected growth in global data generated in year 2010 while spending on IT has increased by only 5 percent. The rise in demand for people handling big data is so steep that availability of big data analytical talent in US in year 2018 is expected to override the supply (Manyika et al., 2011). (Manyika et al., 2011) Data sources range from consumer behavior at physical outlets to a large number of internet subsections. The emergence of a ubiquitous phenomenon in 2000 has changed the entire business model, constantly challenging IT department to increase capacity to manage (Kenney, and Marshall, 2000). (Kenney, and Marshall, 2000) For instance, technique in retail industry such as bar code, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and vendor-managed inventory (VMI),  etc. (Smaros, and Holmstrom, 2000), and similar techniques multiply pressure as retrieving and constantly updating data remains with the IT section. Similarly, Self Service Technologies (SST’s), mainly adopted in the financial sector with the Internet banking and ATM, etc., has already put extensive pressure on the IT section. Though these techniques have been developed in the past, constant efforts from the marketing side of business to offer various promotions and extracting information based on consumer activity require increased efforts from the IT section in respect of the program development, i.e. the way information can be retrieved or updated. Applications of social media such as Facebook, twitter, blogs; heavy video content such as Multimedia content, which already accounts for more than half of the Internet traffic, is expected to grow by 70 percent in year 2013, with

A social or cultural phenomenon or aspect of Chinese contemporary Research Paper

A social or cultural phenomenon or aspect of Chinese contemporary society (since 1949) - Research Paper Example My focus will remain largely on the effects and defects of these past and present trends urbanization and village-to-city migration defection. In this context, I will also give particular focus upon the relatively new research done on the position and plight of migrant women in the social structure of the modern, urbanized, industrial China, in broad reference to the central issue of migration. My topic will refer particularly to the works of contemporary urban and social theorists like Martin King Whyte, Wu Jieh-Min, Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Acka, among others. I will also consult authoritative government demographic reports and journals to expand the purview of my research and present a comprehensive analysis of the same. Urban-Rural Relations: A Brief Look into the Past The Maoist revolution of China, spanning the 1950s, led by the dynamic leader Mao Zedong, as well as the related economic reforms of 1966-78, had aimed to create a society of equals replacing a dense capitalis t system of greed, corruption and exploitation. One the iconic and historically significant socialist uprisings, it had ventured to establish a communist and ‘egalitarian social order’(Whyte 2010). There existed, however a large gap between theory and reality. Instead, of stabilizing and equalizing the various social strata by creating an economic and cultural balance of sorts, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution deepened the gulf between the social classes and created a kind of politicized ‘serfdom’ that kept China away from an ideal communist reconfiguration of the society. (Whyte 2010) Migration and Intra-social Disparities The post-Mao era saw an unprecedented influx of rural migrants to the rapidly developing cities and urban centers of flourishing business, creating a cheap labor force. This rural to urban defection of poor Chinese laborers, especially during the 1980s, can be cited as the most extensive labor flow in the history of the world (Z hao 1999) This proved to be both an economic blessing as well as an indicator of social upheaval. The Rural migration to the urban area of China has been the focus of several social, cultural as well as demographic and anthropological studies. In 1992, records indicate that a staggering 150,000 people were stranded in the railway stations of the Sichuan and Hunan provinces during the ‘Spring Festival Migration’. (Bakken 1998) Laborers from flooded and poverty-stricken rural regions also defected for shelter and jobs to Shanghai, Fujian or other wealthy cities. Under the strict social and political system of hukou or householder registration, they existed mainly as second-class citizens, even outcasts, as Wu Jieh-min pertinently points out in her essay â€Å"Rural Migrant Workers and China’s Differential Citizenship† (2010). Due to the government restriction on rural to urban migration, a deep economic disparity developed between the two. As a result, a tre nd of added incentives attracted rural migrants illegally to the large industrial cities. While the labor source was fully utilized by the greedy and profit driven industries, factories, conglomerates and corporations, however, the socio-cultural history as well as economic and political evidence suggest systematic marginalization. The differential system of perception is a sad reality in the lives of the Chinese migrant families. Case in point, the unequal system of hukou

Cost of delivery Essay Example for Free

Cost of delivery Essay 1. The chain stores’ request to reduce cycle time by shipping directly to the stores would seriously affect the service model and delivery costs for BKI. Because, the proposed model would mean that BKI would have to process more number of deliveries in smaller quantities and transport them separately to each store. Cost of delivery will increase due to smaller quantities to be delivered directly to stores resulting in more trips, farther distances and lower economies of scale. This is in complete contrast to the more structured and systematic current model of weekly deliveries of standard quantities to the stores’ warehouses. 2. In my opinion, Joe Rutner’s proposal of establishing a set of six company-owned facilities to act as regional DCs seems to be a step in the right direction for taking on the supply chain requirements of BKI’s customers in the future. Rather than dismissing this store’s request as a one-off case and handling it on a temporary basis, Rutner has proposed a solution that is likely to take the company forward into the future. He understands that the retail stores are themselves are looking to cut costs by improving their inventory and supply chain management and such requests would become common from most if not all of the existing customers. Moreover the new retail stores mushrooming in the market are likely to have less regional facilities and would need the proposed arrangement from BKI. 3. The matter of ownership of these facilities is very important for the success of this proposed supply chain arrangement as the management of BKI needs to study the long term impact of the costs involved. In the long term it would be better if BKI goes for direct ownership of the facilities as it would benefit the profitability of the operations by keeping the costs of maintenance lower than those involved in the alternatives such as co-owned or franchisee structure. However, the management will have to consider the availability of capital resources if it opts for direct ownership. The capital required for the facilities could be lowered to an extent by going for rented building rather than constructing new premises. This would decrease the time required to implement the new proposal also.

Health and Safety in Construction

Health and Safety in Construction This chapter begins with a general discussion on the concept of safety before examining the modern concern with workplace health and safety, specifically in the construction industry. To better relate to the scope of this study, it will also review the current workplace safety and health situation in the Singapores construction industry. Subsequently, an overview of the safety legislations and policies undertaken in Singapore to improve construction safety will be investigated. Introduction to Safety Although the term safety is very often used in our everyday life, the concept of safety can have various meanings for different people. According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, safety is defined as the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk or injury. Moreover, as safety is commonly viewed from the perspective of specific injury domains, some injury preventive researchers defined safety as the prevention of crime and violence whereas the others described it as a feeling of being out of danger or as a satisfaction of the basic human physiological needs. Hence, due to the multitude of views on the definition of safety, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centres on Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention has developed an international consensus on the conceptual and operational aspects of safety in 1998 (Nilsen et al., 2004). They have defined safety as a state in which hazards and conditions leading to physical, psychological or material harm are controlled in order to preserve the health and well-being of individuals and the community. This definition of safety contains two dimensions, of which one is objective and can be assessed by measuring behavioural and environmental parameters whereas the other is subjective and can be evaluated according to the feeling of being safe (WHO, 1998). In addition, safety is a resultant of a complex process which integrates humans behaviour and interaction with their physical, social, cultural, technological, political, economic and organisational environment. According to Maurice et al. (2001), the optimum level of safety can only be attained with the presence of four conditions that proved beneficial in defining the domain of safety. Table 2.1 indicates the four basic conditions for safety. Table 2.1 Four basic conditions that define the domain for safety Four Conditions for Safety 1)  A climate of social cohesion, peace and equity between groups that protects human rights and freedoms 2)  The respect of the values of individual and their physical, material and psychological integrity 3)  The prevention and control of injuries and other consequences or harm caused by accidents 4)  The provision of effective measures to cope with undesirable traumatic events Source: Maurice et al. (2001) Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Before 1880s, there was little interest in work safety and minimal protection for the safety of workers in their workplaces because legislation, precedent and public opinion were all in favour of the management (Pearson, n.d.). Moreover, workplace accidents were perceived to be cheap and were often disregarded because there were no workers compensation laws that protect the interest of workers. Thus, work-related accidents were common then. However, in the late 1900s, workers safety and health in the workplaces begun to receive increasing attention due to the rapid industrialisation of the United States (U.S.) and the establishment of unions that promote the need for safer working conditions. Hence, the high fatalities and injuries rate then compel the federal government to implement various acts to force the industries to reduce the occurrence of work-related accidents or illnesses so as to improve on the safety standards of their workplaces (Aldrich, 2001). Some initiatives of the federal government include passing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in 1970 and the enactment of the workers compensation laws. Therefore, tighter employers liability and the steep increase in the cost of accident due to the compensation laws have initiated the employers interest and concern with work safety (Aldrich, 2001; Alton, n.d.). As a result, significant improvement in the workplace safety and health performance can be observed as fatalities rate in the U.S. declines from 27 deaths per 100,000 workers in 1950 to 3.5 in 2011 respectively (BLS, 2012; Kaufman, 1997). The safety performance in British industry had also improved significantly since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) in 1974 as the fatalities rate has decreased from 2.9 per 100,000 workers in 1974 to 0.5 in 2011 (HSE, n.d.). Like OSHA, HSWA is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in the United Kingdom (UK). Figure 2.1 illustrates the work-related fatalities rate among different countries. Safety in the Construction Industry Safety has always been a major issue in the construction industry. In many developed and developing countries, the construction industry has constantly been ranked as one of the worst industries in terms of the frequency of fatalities and work-related injuries. Unlike the other industries where it mostly consists of a stationary fabrication setting with little changes in working procedures, equipment and labour force, the working environment in the construction industry is generally complex and ever-changing. This is due to the multidisciplinary and multitasked aspects of the parties involved in the project and also the use of sophisticated plants, equipment and construction methods (Teo, Ling, Chong, 2005). Thus, this highly differentiated and unstructured nature of the construction industry makes safety management extremely challenging (Gambatese, Hinze, Haas, 1997; Lingard, 2012; Zhang, Teizer, Lee, Eastman, Venugopal, 2012). Many research and studies over the years have attemp ted to look into improving construction safety using various concepts such as designing for safety (Gangolells, Casals, Forcada, Roca, Fuertes, 2010), HR practices (Lai, 2009; Lai, Liu, Ling, 2011) and BIM technologies (Azhar, Nadeem, Mok, Leung, 2008; Kiviniemi, Sulankivi, Kà ¤hkà ¶nen, Mà ¤kelà ¤, Merivirta, 2011; Qi, 2011; Zhang et al., 2012) For instance, the Britain authorities have long recognised that safety should be addressed from the very start of a project and they are the first to introduce the Construction (Design and Management) Regulation in 1994 and revised in 2007 respectively. This regulation places duties on clients, designers and contractors for consideration of safety issues from design through the demolition stage of a project (Hecker Gambatese, 2003). According to Gibb (2002), this regulation has lead to an increase in the profile of construction safety among designers in several European Union (EU) countries. Additionally, Australia has also introduced the Model WHS Regulation 2011 whereby have to provide a Safe Design Report that specify the hazards relating to the design of the structure to the person carrying out the construction work (Safe Design Australia, 2011). Therefore, good safety planning and management throughout the project life cycle become an essential prerequisite for most construction projects because without a thorough understanding of safety issues on site, undesirable work-related accidents will occur. This will then incur additional costs, unnecessary project delays and in the worst situation, the loss of lives (Lai et al., 2011). Therefore, the next section will attempt to understand the different safety issues on sites by first identifying the various root causes of accidents. Causes of Accidents According to Teo (2009), accidents are unintentional and undesirable events that can cause pain, suffering, damage and injury to the affected person(s) or property, if not a combination of both. While not all work-related accidents will cause physical injuries or damages, the occurrence of any accidents on site will definitely challenge the quality of the construction site operation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the various causes influencing safety performance in the construction industry so as to better develop strategies to tackle this concerning issue. A review of the literature on construction safety reveals that much research efforts have been directed to understand the factors and causes that can influence construction accidents (Abdelhamid Everett, 2000; Hamid, Majid, Singh, 2008; Hughes Ferrett, 2008; Suraji, Duff, Peckitt, 2001). Many types of theories have been developed throughout the decades to understand the accident causation factors. The earliest research can be traced back into the 1930s were Heinrich (1931) had pioneered the accident causation theories by developing the five-domino model of causation. The domino theory had been the foundation work of many other models that were developed by other researchers thereafter. According to Ridley (1976), most of the accidents on site are either caused by unsafe acts, unsafe conditions or frequently a combination of both. An unsafe act refers to a violation of an accepted safety procedures which then permits the occurrence of an accident whereas an unsafe condition refers to a hazardous physical condition or circumstance that are in violation of contemporary safety standards. Table 2.2 present the development of different theories that were developed to understand the accident causation factors. Table 2.2 Development of different models to understand the accident causation factors Types Characteristic of Model Model / Theory Authors Accident Causation Models Understand the various accident causation factors Develop tools for better accident prevention programme Domino Theory Henrich (1932) Multiple Causation Model Petersen (1971) Stairstep Model Adams (1976) ARCTM: Construction Model Abdelhamid Everett (2000) Behaviour Models Studies the tendency of humans to make errors under various situation and environment conditions Accidents are mainly a result of human unsafe characteristic only Accident proneness theory Accident (1983) Goals freedom alertness theory Kerr (1957) Motivation reward satisfaction Petersen (1975) Sociological theory of accidents Dwyer and Raftery (1991) Human Factor Models Holds human error the main cause of accidents Unlike the behaviour model, the responsibility not only fall on human unsafe characteristic alone The responsibility also fall on the design of workplace, which does not take into consideration the limitation of human Ferrel theory Ferrel (1977) Human-error causation model Petersen (1982) McClay model McClay (1989) DeJoy model DeJoy (1990) Source: Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) To tailor to the need of the construction industry in identifying the root cause of accidents, Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) had developed an Accident Root Causes Tracing Model (ARCTM) after further development and synthesis from various existing accident causation models. ARCTM proposed that unsafe conditions can occur before or after the start of an activity and they can either be caused by human-related or nonhuman-related factors. Table 2.3 illustrates the different causes of unsafe conditions that might lead to accidents. Similar to that proposed by Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) and Suraji et al. (2001), Toole (2002) has also tried to identify and attribute the basic root causes of construction accidents to factors such as lack of proper training, poor enforcement of safety, use of unsafe equipment, methods or sequencing, unsafe site conditions and a poor attitude towards safety. The aforementioned are just some of the many studies undertaken by researchers in an attempt to identify the root causes of work-related accidents so as to develop better preventive strategies (Hill, 2003). Even though there has been a significant improvement in the safety performance of the construction industry as compared to the past, more has to be done to further reduce the fatalities and work-related injuries frequency rate. Table 2.3 Main causes of unsafe conditions which can lead to accidents Main Causes of Unsafe Conditions Human Factors Management action or inaction Worker or co-workers unsafe acts Fail to provide proper or adequate personal protective equipment Violate workplace standards Insufficient ventilation Poor housekeeping Poor design Sabotaging equipment Unauthorised operation of equipment Insufficient rest while working Removing safety device Source: Abdelhamid and Everett (2000) Construction Safety in Singapore The construction industry in Singapore has been one of the fastest growing industries since Singapore embarked on her various industrialisation programme in the early 1960s. However, the safety situation in the industry then deteriorated so drastically that the government had to introduce the Factories Act in 1973 to regulate occupational safety and health in Singapore. Since then, Singapores statutory OSH regime was governed by the Factories Act. However, due to the high-profile and fatal accident that took place in Nicoll Highway in 2004, this had called attention to the need for a reform of the current legislative approach to OSH (Teh, 2006; Teo, 2009). This has therefore led to the unveiling of a new Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) framework in 2005 and the introduction of the WSH Act in 2006, which will repeal and replace the former Factories Act. The new WSH Act became the key legal instrument for the WSH framework and it aims to cultivate good safety and health practices among all individuals in their workplaces. Additionally, WSH 2015 Strategy was developed concurrently so as to complement with the new framework. This strategy aims to halve the workplace fatality rate from 4.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2004 to 2.5 by 2015. As a result of the dynamic and changing WSH landscape, a full-fledged industry-led WSH Council was established in 2008 and a new national target was developed by identifying enhancements to the previous WSH 2015 Strategy. This new strategy, named WSH 2018 aims to achieve an even more challenging goal, which is to reduce the fatality rate to less than 1.8 fatalities per 100,000 employed workers by 2018 (WSH2018, 2009). With the introduction of WSH Council, WSH Council (Construction Landscape) Committee was formed and Implementing WSH 2018 for Construction Industry was developed specifically to guide the efforts of the construction industry to achieve better WSH performance. Following these efforts to increase the safety performance in the construction industry, it is noted that there is a remarkable improvement in the safety performance in 2011. According to the WSH Report 2011, construction industry was the only one that saw a drop in fatality numbers as the fatality rate decreased from 8.1 per 100,000 employed persons in 2010 to 5.3 in 2011, as shown in the Figure 2.2 (WSH, 2011). This is a significant improvement as the fatality rate of 5.3 in 2011 is the lowest-ever since 2006. Furthermore, the number of work-related injuries has also fallen by 22% as compared to 2010 (channelnewsasia, 2012). Despite the positive progression in the safety performance, it still remains as a serious concern as fatality rate continued to account for the highest among all industries in Singapore as shown in Table 2.4. Thus, in order to achieve the targeted result set aside for the construction industry as seen in Figure 2.3, all stakeholders will have to commit themselves to work towards a safe and healthy workplace with a vibrant WSH culture and zero injury (WSH2018Construction, 2010). In addition, more efforts have to be put to prevent falling from height because it remains as the major contributor to fatal accidents (see Figure 2.4). Till date, many studies have been conducted to look into improving construction safety in Singapore. For example, Ling, Ofori, and Teo (2004) have constructed a model to predict the safety level of a construction project site. Moreover, Ling and Teo (2006) have studied the intrinsic and external incentives on increasing worksite safety and found out that there are many personal factor that can affect site safety. Safety Policies and Legislation Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is the government regulatory body responsible for the enforcement of workplace safety and health legislations. Throughout the years, MOM, in collaboration with other government agencies and stakeholders have put in extensive efforts in achieving significant and sustained improvement in the WSH performance for the construction industry. In this section, various policies and legislations that have been introduced particularly to improve on the safety performance in the construction industry will be discussed. Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Act In the past, Singapores primary legislation in the construction safety regime was governed by Chapter 104 of the Factories Act and Section 68 and 77 of the Building Operations and Work of Engineering Construction (BOWEC) Regulations (Cheah, 2007). However, due to the spate of high-profile accidents in 2004, MOM saw the need for a fundamental reform of the former safety policies and legislations in order to curb the rising numbers of work-related accidents on site. Hence, as part of the new WSH framework that was introduced in 2006, the Factories Act was repealed and replaced by the Workplace Safety and Health Act on 1 March 2006. As a result, the OSH regulation has evolved from a highly prescriptive (rule-based) system to a more descriptive (performance-based) approach. Unlike the former Factories Act where industry players were expected to comply with a fixed set of safety guidelines, the new WSH Act is focused on three guiding principles reduce risk at source, instil greater ownership of safety and health outcome by industry players, and impose higher penalties for poor safety management. This is a paradigm shift from the former Factories Act because it encourages every industry player to be more proactive rather than reactive to safety issues. Workplace Injury Compensation Act (WICA) The former Workmens Compensation Act has been replaced by the Workplace Injury Compensation Act (WICA), which came into effect on the 1st April 2008. Unlike the former Act which only covers manual and non-manual workers earning $1,600 or less per month, WICA is applicable for all employees regardless of their level of earnings. The enactment of WICA is essential because it safeguards the interest of all employees and employers as the former are now able to claim compensations for work-related injuries promptly without having to prove fault whereas the latter are protected against the fraudulent claims of errant employees (MOM WSHC, 2008). At the same time, this new Act enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of the compensation process and indirectly, influences the employers to pay more attention to workplace safety and health issues. In order for WICA to stay updated with the current market situation, amendments have been to WICA and it will take effect from 1st June 2012. The key objectives of the recent changes are to maintain a fair balance between the pay-outs for the injured employees and the responsibilities that fall on the employers and also, to ensure that the WICA framework remains efficient so that injured employees can receive compensation promptly (MOM, 2012). Some of the major changes include increasing the compensation limits, prohibiting compensation due to work-related fights and work-related exclusion clauses and expanding the scope for compensable diseases. Table 2.5 illustrates the recent amendments to the compensation limits. Safety and Health Management System (SHMS) Safety and Health Management System (SHMS) is a systematic process that is mandatory for all workplaces such as worksite, shipyard and factories in Singapore. It provides a platform for goal setting, performance measurement and clear management commitments and direction in order to manage human and organisational risks (MOM, n.d.-b). SHMS guides the efforts for an effective and proactive implementation of risk control measures to reduce work-related injuries, which will subsequently lead to a long-term reduction in operational costs (Baliyan, 2008). To build up an effective SHMS, it has to adhere to the relevant WSH legislation and guidelines set out for the construction industry, such as the SS 506 Part 1: 2009 Occupational safety and health (OSH) management system and CP 79: 1999 Safety management system for construction worksites. In tandem with the SHMS, audits and reviews must also be carried out periodically on SHMS to ensure its continual performance (MOM, n.d.-a). Table 2.6 s hows the requirements for SHMS audit or review depending on the projects contract sum. To make sure that SHMS is effective and relevant in addressing construction safety, Teo et al. (2005) have developed a model to measure the effectiveness of the SHMS of construction sites in Singapore. Summary of Chapter This chapter has looked into the concept of safety before focusing on workplace health and safety especially in the construction industry. It has also reviewed on the construction situation in Singapore and highlighted the various policies and legislations that are in place to improve the safety performance for the construction industry in Singapore. References Abdelhamid, T. S., Everett, J. G. (2000). Identifying root causes of construction accidents. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 126(1), 52-60. Retrieved from http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/CEM/jannadi/Identifying-Root-Causes-Of-Constuction-Accident.pdf Aldrich, M. (2001). History of Workplace Safety in the United States: 1880-1970. EH.net Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/aldrich.safety.workplace.us Alton, G. (n.d.). The history of workplace safety and health. eHow. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_5305608_history-workplace-health-safety.html Azhar, S., Nadeem, A., Mok, Y. N., Leung, H. Y. (2008). 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In Burton J.F., Chelius, J.R (Eds.), Workplace safety and health regulation: rationale and results (pp. 253-347 ). Cornell University Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=Jb9TnhR2l-wCpg=PA181lpg=PA181dq=Government+regulation+of+the+employment+relationship.source=blots=KDlMYbJq1wsig=EwCohN7wU6pVGPmvw9uiscNaoHohl=ensa=Xei=tIBkUObWLoHNrQfrxYGoAwved=0CDwQ6AEwBA#v=onepageq=Government%20regulation%20of%20the%20employment%20relationship.f=false Kiviniemi, M., Sulankivi, K., Kà ¤hkà ¶nen, K., Mà ¤kelà ¤, T., Merivirta, M. L. (2011) BIM-based safety management and communication for building construction. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Retrieved from http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/tiedotteet/2011/T2597.pdf Lai, D. N. C. (2009). Adopting human resource (HR) practices to improve construction safety. (Unpublished undergraduate dissertation). National University of Singapore, Singapore. Lai, D. N. C., Liu, M., Ling, F. Y. Y. (2011). A comparative study on adopting human resource practices for safety management on construction projects in the United States and Singapore. International Journal of Project Management, 29(8), 1018-1032. doi: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.11.004 Ling, F. Y. Y., Ofori, G., Teo, A. L. (2004, 2 7 May 2004). Predicting safety levels of constriction project sites. Paper presented at the Proceedings of CIB world Building Congress: Building for the Future, Toronto, Canada. Ling, F. Y. Y., Teo, A. L. (2006). Increasing worksite safety: intrinsic behavior vs. external incentives. Paper presented at the Proceedings of CIB W99 International Conference in Global Unity for Safety Health in Construction, Beijing, China. Lingard, H., Rowlinson, S. (2005). Occupational health and safety in the construction project management. Taylor Francis Inc. Maurice, P., Lavoie, M., Laflamme, L., Svanstrà ¶m, L., Romer, C., Anderson, R. (2001). Safety and safety promotion: definitions for operational developments. Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 8(4), 237-240. doi: 10.1076/icsp.8.4.237.3331 Ministry of Manpower, MOM. (2012). Changes to Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA). Retrieved from http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/Pages/HighlightsDetails.aspx?listid=88 Ministry of Manpower, MOM. (n.d.-a). Audits and reviews. Retrieved from http://www.mom.gov.sg/workplace-safety-health/safety-health-management-systems/audits-review/Pages/implementation-review.aspx Ministry of Manpower, MOM. (n.d.-b). Safety and health management systems. Retrieved from http://www.mom.gov.sg/workplace-safety-health/safety-health-management-systems/Pages/default.aspx Ministry of Manpower, MOM and Workplace Safety and Health Council, WSHC. (2008). A guide to the work injury compensation benefits and claim process. Retrieved from http://www.mom.gov.sg/Documents/safety-health/WICA%20Guide%20(English).pdf. Nilsen, P., Hudson, D. S., Kullberg, A., Timpka, T., Ekman, R., Lindqvist, K. (2004). Making sense of safety. Injury Prevention, 10(2), 71-73. doi: 10.1136/ip.2004.005322 Pearson, C. (n.d.). The history of work safety. eHow. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_7522903_history-work-safety.html Qi, S. T. H. (2011). Adopting building information modelling (BIM) to improve workers safety. (Unpublished undergraduate dissertation). National University of Singapore, Singapore. Ridley, J. (1976). Safety at work. London: Butterworths. Safe Work Australia (2012). Safe work health and safety statistics, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/SWA/AboutSafeWorkAustralia/WhatWeDo/Publications/Documents/677/Key_Work_Health_and_Safety_Statistics_Australia_2012.pdf Safe Design Australia (2011). Model work health and safety act revised draft 23. 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