Essay on Belief and Trans Verb

Essay on Belief and Trans Verb Essay on Belief and Trans Verb bolster: TRANS VERB to encourage or lend support to. Syn: block, undermine Her words bolstered me in those dark times. bountiful: ADJ liberal in giving; generous. Ant: niggardly, stingy Matt's bountiful compliments to his teachers on a daily basis made him a favorite on the team disclose: TRANS VERB to make known; reveal Ant: conceal, hide, suppress The reporter was unwilling to disclose the name of her source. dogmatic: ADJ asserting beliefs and opinions as though they were proven facts. Matt's dogmatic speech, although opinion-based, was very convincing enterprising: ADJ bold, energetic, and full of initiative. Ant: lazy, unenterprising, unimaginative As a result of her enterprising attitude, Mary was chosen by her teachers as Student of the Month. illuminate: TRANS VERB to make clear or understandable; clarify; explain. Ant: confuse, darken, obscure The footnotes help to illuminate the text. to give knowledge to; enlighten Will you illuminate us as to your intentions? integrity: NOUN a strong sense of honesty and morality; firmness of moral and ethical character. Ant: dishonesty He showed great integrity when he refused to lie for his employer. muster: TRANS VERB to gather up or call forth (often followed by up). He mustered up all his strength and pushed the truck over. pivotal: ADJ critically important or crucial; on which something is contingent It is pivotal to your academic success to stay on top of your homework assignments.

Natural Language - Definition and Examples

Natural Language s A natural language is a human language, such as English or Standard Mandarin, as opposed to a  constructed language, an artificial language, a machine language, or the language of formal logic. Also called  ordinary language. The theory of universal grammar proposes that all natural languages have certain underlying rules that shape and limit the structure of the specific grammar for any given language.Natural language processing (also known as computational linguistics) is the scientific study of language from a computational perspective, with a focus on the interactions between natural (human) languages and computers. Observations The term natural language is used in opposition to the terms formal language and artificial language, but the important difference is that natural languages are not actually constructed as artificial languages and they do not actually appear as formal languages. But they are considered and studied as though they were formal languages in principle. Behind the complex and the seemingly chaotic surface of natural languages there areaccording to this way of thinkingrules and principles that determine their constitution and functions. . . .(Sà ¶ren Stenlund, Language and Philosophical Problems. Routledge, 1990)Essential Concepts- All languages are systematic. They are governed by a set of interrelated systems that include phonology, graphics (usually), morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics.- All natural languages are conventional and arbitrary. They obey rules, such as assigning a particular word to a particular thing or concept. But there is no reason that this particular word was originally assigned to this particular thing or concept.- All natural languages are redundant, meaning that the information in a sentence is signaled in more than one way.- All natural languages change. There are various ways a language can change and various reasons for this change.(C. M. Millward and Mary Hayes, A Biography of the English Language, 3rd ed. Wadsworth, 2011) Creativity and EfficiencyThe apparent fact that the number of utterances in  a natural language is  unbounded is one of its more widely remarked upon properties and a core tenet of modern linguistic theory. The classic argument for creativity uses the idea that one can continually add further adjuncts to sentences to establish that there can be no longest sentence and therefore no finite number of sentences (see Chomsky, 1957). . . .This conventional argument for the creativity of natural language is overly strained: who has actually heard a 500-word sentence? In contrast, anyone who studies [natural language] generation has available a far more reasonable and commonsense account of creativity, namely that one continually uses new utterances because one is continually faced with new situations . . .. The counterbalance to creativity is the efficiency of language (Barwise Perry, 1983): the fact that many utterances do reoccur countless times (e.g., Where did you go for dinner las t night?).(David D. McDonald, et al., Factors Contributing to Efficiency in Natural Language Generation.  Natural Language Generation, ed. by  Gerard Kempen. Kluwer, 1987) Natural ImprecisionNatural language is the embodiment of human cognition and human intelligence. It is very evident that natural language includes an abundance of vague and indefinite phrases and statements that correspond to imprecision in the underlying cognitive concepts. Terms such as tall, short, hot, and well are extremely difficult to translate into knowledge representation, as required for the reasoning systems under discussion. Without such precision, symbolic manipulation within the computer is bleak, to say the least. However, without the richness of meaning inherent in such phrases, human communication would be severely limited, and it is therefore incumbent on us (to attempt) to include such facility within reasoning systems . . ..(Jay Friedenberg and Gordon Silverman, Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind. SAGE, 2006) See also CommunicationWhat Is Language?

Six Cultural Intelligence Profiles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Six Cultural Intelligence Profiles - Essay Example Such people simply feel others. After interacting with a representative of a foreign culture for several minutes they intuitively know the right pattern of behavior. However, this ability develops with time and experience and sometimes it may let you down. Certainly, intuition is a good advisor in business, yet it is necessary to use your head and body as well, basing your work on systematic learning. The ambassador style is the most widely used one. A person, following this behavioral pattern, â€Å"convincingly communicates his certainty† of belonging to a new culture even if he knows nothing of it yet. Confidence is found to be a very powerful instrument of cultural intelligence. However, this style is often based on analytical observations and systematic learning, just as it happens in the analyst profile. Besides, the authors emphasize the necessity of having the humility to know what you don’t know. It is very dangerous to avoid underestimating cultural difference s and it is important to be able to accept one’s ignorance. The mimic style is based on body control. The mimic has â€Å"insight into the significance of the cultural cues he picks up†. Mirroring foreign partners’ gestures, speech, and mimicry, the mimic makes his guest feel at ease, facilitating communication and building trust. The style has obvious advantages and to my mind should be mastered (at least to a certain degree) by all the managers. The representatives of NLP explain how this works. The NLP technologies, permitting to acquire the necessary skills, are widely used in the world of business. Finally, chameleon style is characterized by high levels of all three CQ components.

Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Case Study Example Corporate accountants have always maintained a degree of confidentiality about companies’ finances. Confidentiality principle of accounting requires accountants not to disclose information acquired during their practise to third parties. It clearly stipulates that information acquired from professional or business relationship be kept confidential unless there is legal or professional right or duty to do so. Such information belongs to the company and should not be put into any personal use. Therefore, an accountant must take the necessary measures to mitigate any threats that might occur in the course of practising. However, each engagement and work assignment differs in threats it presents, which means that it is the work of an accountant to identify, evaluate, and deal with the threat to confidentiality. Professional competence and due care is another principle applicable to this scenario. Accounting profession keeps changing to incorporate new skills and information. It is the duty of an accountant to ensure that they keep themselves updated. They must maintain professional knowledge and skill to ensure that the clients receive competent services. Any developments in the profession or in the legal system must be included in the practise. An accountant who acts in due care is one who follows all the technical and professional standards in their practise. Objectivity is another principle applicable to the scenario that requires accountants to act independently. He should not allow undue influence from thirds parties. Corporate accountants should not allow bias in their work and should relinquish their personal interests to accommodate professional judgements. Additionally, a professional accountant must act with the highest level of integrity because of they are entrusted with preparing financial accounts of organisations. Although the principles of loyalty and confidentiality should

The Modern Era Essay Example for Free

The Modern Era Essay Early Modern World Historians sometimes refer to the era between the premodern (or medieval) and late modern eras as the â€Å"early modern world.† The world during this era was increasingly united by the projection of European power abroad, especially in the Americas. Although early modern Europeans still had little knowledge of, let alone hegemony (influence) over, the inland regions of Africa and Asia, the links created and dominated by Europeans made the entire world a stage for fundamental historical processes. Historians debate, or pass over in silence, the problem of determining the precise starting and ending dates of the early modern world and have produced only the vaguest consensus. Roughly, the era of the early modern world began during the fifteenth century with the Timurid (relating to the Turkic conqueror Timur) and Italian cultural renaissances. The year 1405 serves as a convenient starting date because it marks not only the death of Timur, the last great central Asian conqueror to join farmers and nomads into a single empire, but also the first of the Chinese admiral Zheng He’s (c. 1371–1435) naval expeditions to the â€Å"Western Oceans.† The era might be taken to end in the late eighteenth century with the French and Industrial revolutions, both European events of global consequence in the late modern world. The uncertainty of this periodization derives in part from the concept of an early modern Europe, with its own uncertain chronological boundaries, and in part from the unconsidered way in which both phrases entered historical scholarship. Origins of the Concept Although conceptually the phrase early modern world is an extension of the phrase early modern Europe, the initial histories of both phrases have some surprises. The earliest known appearance of the phrase early modern world occurs in Willard Fisher’s â€Å"Money and Credit Paper in the Modern Market†Ã‚  from The Journal of Political Economy (1895). Although Fisher writes, â€Å"We all know that the system of bank credits and bank money, which was introduced into the great commercial centers of the early modern world, has now attained a quite marvelous development† (1895, 391), the geographical sense of his statement is strictly, if implicitly, European. On the other hand, the phrase early modern Europe first shows up twenty years later, in Dixon Ryan Fox’s â€Å"Foundations of West India Policy† in Political Science Quarterly (1915). Fox remarks, â€Å"It was now realized by students of colonial history that in the Caribbean [the â€Å"West India† of the article’s title] might best be traced the application of those principles which formed the working basis for the old empires of early modern Europe† (1915, 663). Ironically, the phrase early modern Europe first appeared in the Caribbean, in the global context of colonialism, in an article advocating trans-Atlantic history. In their debu ts each phrase bore something of the other’s sense. Fox’s usage was an anomaly, and when the phrase early modern Europe arrived in Europe, it had come to stay. The phrase early modern world, however, for decades would imply world to mean, in an indefinite way, immediate rather than global surroundings; because this historical scholarship dealt with European subjects, the â€Å"early modern world† was in fact â€Å"early modern Europe.† The early modern world became global only with C. F. Strong’s grammar school textbook The Early Modern World (1955) and S. Harrison Thomson’s 1964 review of J. H. Parry’s The Age of Reconnaissance, in which Thomson uses the phrase to describe the â€Å"story of the successive expansion of European venture, from Africa to the reaches of the Indian Ocean by Arabs and Portuguese by sea, the movement westward to the Americas and the early transition from discovery to fishing, trading, and exploitation†(1964, 188). The first considered analysis of the early mo dern world came after the posthumous publication of Joseph Fletcher’s article â€Å"Integrative History† in 1985. Such analysis has tended to adopt either a deductive or an inductive approach. Deductive Approach A deductive approach to the early modern world compares premodernity and late modernity, devises the characteristics necessary to bridge the two stages, and only then seeks confirmation in the historical record. This approach assumes the existence of a modernizing trajectory, which the early modern world shared with (and perhaps inherited from) early modern Europe. Informed by a Marxist perspective, the essentials of the early modern world would highlight transitions from feudal to bourgeois, from serfdom to wage-earning proletariat, and from local subsistence to regional market economies. A functionalist understanding of modernity, of the sort theorized by the German sociologist Max Weber, the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons, or the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, explains social phenomena in terms of their ability to fulfill social needs and broadens this base beyond the mode of production. Here the critical shifts would be from belief in miracles to belief in science, from household-based craft production powered by muscle, dung, water, and wood to factory-based mass production powered by electricity and fossil fuels, and from government justified by tradition to government consciously invented. Even in the context of early modern Europe critics challenge the effectiveness of a deductive approach by condemning its implication of an inevitable progress from premodernity to modernity. A deductive approach takes little cognizance of the possibilities of various starting points, different destinations, and particular paths. In some twentieth-century cases the transition to modernity was less a progression than a violently dramatic change. When expanded to a global context this approach becomes not only teleological (assuming a design or purpose in history), but also artificially Eurocentric. Inductive Approach Rather than specify theoretical factors to be sought in the time period, an inductive approach examines what happened in different places and extracts from what happened a set of common features. Although such an approach removes the theoretical obstacle of a modernizing trajectory, the historian is left with the Herculean task of specifying processes that united all,  most, or many of the world’s peoples. Such an approach need not focus on Europe, nor need it measure the success of various regions in terms of their progress along Europe’s path. How closely do the rough chronological parameters suggested here match the conventional historiographies (the writings of history) of the various regions outside Europe?  Traditional periodizations in African and American history are directly linked to European expansion. Marked by a European presence that could not yet dominate the continent, an early modern Africa might last from the Portuguese capture of Ceuta, a port on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar (1415), until the development of quinine and steamships in the nineteenth century. The first Niger steamship expedition returned without casualties in 1854. An early modern America might stretch from the encounters of 1492 until the period of independence movements, from 1776 to the independence of Brazil in 1822. An early modern India might begin with the fifth generation descendant of Timur, Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur, whose ancestry inspired him to conquer northern India. The Mughal dynasty he founded (1526) would rule effectively for two centuries; the British would take charge of its Delhi nucleus in 1803. An early modern Japan stretches from the unification efforts of Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate (the dictatorship of a Japanese military governor) in 1867. Other regional historiographies fit less naturally. Although the Ottomans’ 1453 conquest of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) was timely, the Chinese Ming dynasty began too early (1368) and ended inconveniently in the middle of our early modern period (1644). Worse, key modernizing revolutions came late relative to the western European timetable the Chinese Revolution in 1911, the Russian Bolshevik revolution in 1917, and the Kemalist (relating to the Turkish soldier and statesman Kemal Ataturk) revolution in Turkey in 1923. The actual use of the phrase early modern in the periodization of regional histories varies. Outside of Europe, it is most commonly used in Asia, especially in works on China, Japan, and, to a lesser extent, India. Historians of China sometimes extend the period into the twentieth century. Far fewer historians write of an â€Å"early modern Africa† or an â€Å"early modern Brazil.† This fact is due in part to the power of the word colonial to identify these time periods. Latin American periodization is so consistently divided into pre-Columbian, colonial, and national periods that there is no need for the phrase early  modern, which should correspond to the middle, colonial period. In fact, the phrase early modern Mexico sometimes refers to the period immediately after independence. The divergence of these traditional periodizations of regional histories, so often linked to high-level political history, should not surprise. The global historian in search of an early modern world can look beyond these periodizations to seek processes that enveloped wide swaths of the planet. Development of Global Sea Passages Nothing is more characteristic of the early modern world than the creation of truly global sea passages. Before 1492 the Americas remained essentially isolated from Eurasia. In 1788 the last key sea passage was completed by the first permanent settlement of Europeans in Australia. This passage also concluded the integration of the Pacific Ocean as a geographical concept, a process that began when the Spanish explorer Vasco Nuà ±ez de Balboa became the first European to see the Pacific from America in 1513. During the early fifteenth century the Europeans were unlikely candidates to fill the key role in this process of exploration. Portuguese exploration of the African coast was declining, and mariners were reluctant to sail out of sight of land. Even the overland excursions undertaken by Europeans had become more modest. Muslims still controlled southern Iberia, and in 1453 the Ottomans conquered Constantinople. Smart money would have looked rather at the Chinese admiral Zheng He, whose seven expeditions between 1405 and 1433  reached even the shores of eastern Africa. A change in Chinese imperial policy halted these expeditions, and the voyages that finally connected the world were directed by Europeans. In 1522 the survivors of the expedition of the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. During the following centuries a skilled captain and crew could navigate a ship from any port to any port and reasonably expect to arrive. In 1570 the Flemish cartographer Ortelius published what has been described as the first modern atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum (Theater of the World); this comprehensive yet handy and inexpensive work enjoyed immediate success. By the end of the period the best mapped region of the world would be China. Global Demographic Interconnections The world’s population doubled during the early modern period, from approximately 374 million (1400) to 968 million people (1800). Although demographic data are limited, some patterns emerge. Rapid growth was punctuated by a seventeenthcentury decline in Europe, Russia, Iran, Central Asia, China, and Korea and recovery from this decline occurred globally, even in the Americas. The more populous regions tended to grow more rapidly. The new global sea passages set the stage for a transatlantic â€Å"Columbian exchange† (the biological and cultural exchange between the New World and the Old World that began with the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus) and for a transpacific â€Å"Magellan exchange† of crops and disease pathogens that put the peoples of the world in a more direct demographic relationship than ever before. The arrival of American maize and potatoes in Eurasia, and later in Africa, facilitated an intensive agricultural, and thus demographic, growth, and the appearance of tomatoes in Italy and chili peppers in India had important dietary and culinary consequences. Disease also became a global phenomenon. First appearing in Europe in 1494, venereal syphilis reached India four years later, and by 1505 it had  outraced the Portuguese to China. The New World’s isolation and limited biodiversity (biological diversity as indicated by numbers of species of plants and animals) did not afford its indigenous peoples the same immunities enjoyed by Europeans, who as children were exposed to a multiplicity of infections. Measles, smallpox, and other diseases brought by Europeans triggered a long-term demographic catastrophe. The indigenous population of central Mexico declined from 30 million in 1518 to 1.6 million in 1620 a genocide unintended, misunderstood, and undesired by the Spanish who sought souls for salvation and laborers for their mines. Contact with the wider world wrought similar demographic calamities on other isolated peoples, including Pacific Islanders, Siberian tribes, and the Khoikhoi of southern Africa. Increased contacts distributed pathogens more evenly throughout the world and generally reduced susceptibility to epidemic disease. Development of a Global Economy The development of global sea passages integrated America into a truly global economy. Rapidly growing long distance commerce linked expanding economies on every continent. Dutch merchants in Amsterdam could purchase commodities anywhere in the world, bring them to Amsterdam, store them safely, add value through processing and packaging, and sell them for profit. Intensive production fueled by the commercialism of an increasingly global market gave new importance to cash crops and sparked an unprecedented expansion in the slave trade. The movement of manufactured goods from eastern Asia toward Europe and America created a chain of balance-of-trade deficits, which funneled silver from American mines to China. Regular transpacific trade developed during the decades after the founding of Manila in the Philippines in 1571 and followed the same pattern: Exports of porcelain and silks from China created a trade imbalance that sucked silver from the Americas and from Japan. Through military-commercial giants such as the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1602), European merchants disrupted traditional trading  conditions in Africa and Asia to muscle into regional â€Å"country trade.† The expansion of settled populations, as well as the new ocean trade route alternatives to the Silk Road that linked China to the West, contributed to the decline of nomadism. The agriculture of settled peoples supported large populations and tax bases that an efficient state could translate into permanent military strength. Development of Large and Efficient States The global trade in firearms and similar weapons contributed to the growth of large and efficient states, known as â€Å"gunpowder empires.† Expensive and complex, the most advanced weapons became a monopoly of centralized states, which employed them to weaken local opposition. During the mid-fifteenth century the king of France used artillery to reduce some sixty castles annually. Administrative procedures also became increasingly routinized and efficient. Ever more abstract notions of state authority accompanied the evolution of new  sources of legitimacy. From the Irrawaddy River in Asia to the Seine River in Europe, religious uniformity served to reinforce and confirm centralized rule. The ideal of universal empire was native to America, Africa, and Eurasia. The early modern unification of England with Scotland and Ireland was paralleled throughout Europe. If in 1450 Europe contained six hundred independent political units (or more, depending on the criteria), in the nineteenth century it contained around twentyfive. About thirty independent city-states, khanates (state governed by a ruler with the Mongol title â€Å"khan†), and princedoms were absorbed into the Russian empire. By 1600 the Tokugawa shogunate had unified Japan. Fourteenth century southeastern Asia had two dozen independent states that evolved into Vietnam, Siam (Thailand), and Burma (Myanmar) by 1825. The Mughals unified India north of the Deccan Plateau for the first time since the Mauryan empire (c. 321–185 BCE). Unification was also an overture to expansion. In addition to an increasing European presence worldwide, Qing China (1644–1912) invaded Xinjiang,  Mongolia, Nepal, Burma, and Formosa, and during the seventeenth century Romanov Russia stretched out to the Pacific. The new unities led relentlessly to new fragmentations and hierarchies, and resistance to such centralizing political forces was equally universal. During the century between 1575 and 1675, for example, uprisings occurred in China, Japan, India, Armenia, Georgia, Kurdistan, Ukraine, the Balkans, the German lands, Switzerland, France, Catalonia, Portugal, England, Ireland, and Mexico. At the end of the period, the French Revolution (1789) would enjoy global influence as the first revolution modern in its progressive, absolute, and sudden nature. Intensification of Land Use The concurrence of population growth, global markets, and aggressive states led to wider and more intensive use of land. Displacing or subordinating indigenous peoples, pioneers backed by aggressive states drained wetlands and cleared forests to create new lands for intensive commercial, agricultural, and pastoral regimes. (Similarly, commercial hunters pursued various species of flora and fauna to extinction for sale on a global market.) Oblivious to any land claims held by indigenous peoples, states would offer pioneers low taxes in exchange for settlement and land rights. For example, the Mughal Empire provided land grants, Hindu merchants provided capital, and Sufi (Muslim mystic) brotherhoods provided leadership for the communities of Muslim pioneers who transformed the Bengal wetlands into a key rice-producing region. These efforts compensated for the extended disobliging weather patterns that plagued temperate zones throughout the Northern Hemisphere a â€Å"little ice age† affecting climate throughout the early modern world. Religious Revival The most distinctive religious characteristic of this era was the global  expansion of Christianity. Indeed, the impetus driving the creation of global sea passages was religious as well as commercial. The efforts of Catholic religious orders predominated the great Protestant missionary societies would be founded only in the 1790s. Sufi brotherhoods such as the Naqshibandiyah expanded Islam in Africa, India, China, and southeastern Asia.Tibetan Buddhism pushed into northwestern China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Buryatia, and to Kalmikya, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, which remains today the only Buddhist republic in Europe. The increased emphasis on orthodox and textual conventions of Latin Christendom’s Reformation had a parallel in the Raskol schism of the Russian Orthodox Church during the 1650s. Elsewhere, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792) founded the Wahabbi movement to reform Sunni Islam under strict Quranic interpretation. Many people believed that the era that historians call â€Å"early modern† would be the last. Franciscan apocalyptic thought inspired Columbus, and the belief that the god Quetzalcoatl would return from the East in a One Reed year led the Aztec sovereign Montezuma II to regard the Spanish conqueror Hernà ¡n Cortà ©s and his comrades as divine envoys. A Jesuit at the court of Akbar in 1581 found the Mughal ruler open to the idea of the imminent end because that year was eleven years from the thousandth anniversary of the Hijra, which was the journey the Prophet Muhammad took from Mecca to Medina in  622 CE. The Jewish Sabbatian movement expected the end of the world in 1666. In late eighteenth-century central China the White Lotus Society awaited the return of the Buddha to put an end to suffering. All these developments might best be understood in the context of notions of history in which significant change was either absent or sudden and awesome. Outlook Neither a deductive nor an inductive approach to the early modern world is  entirely satisfactory. A deductive approach expects to see the entire world following a Eurocentric roadmap to modernization (one that Europe itself might not have followed). An inductive approach respects the diversity of historical experience, but this diversity itself can frustrate attempts to delineate a discrete list of unifying features. If historians can tolerate the inconveniences of regional exceptions to every â€Å"global† process, the idea of an early modern world has its attractions. Although a perspective that twists the world around a European center is unproductive, the regions of the early modern world were increasingly named (in America) and mapped (as in China) by Europeans. Nevertheless, in its application beyond Europe the idea of an early modern world redresses the distortions of the Orientalist assumption of parochial, timeless, and conservative inertias unaltered by European expansion. It recognizes that peoples of the early modern era in some ways had more in common with each other than with their own ancestors and descendents that time unites just as powerfully as place. It facilitates comparative analysis and abets inquiry that trespasses across national boundaries. It sees the entire world as a stage, not only for comparative study, but also for the broadest possible analysis for a historian’s scrutiny. Further Reading Benton, L. (2002). Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400– 1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Black, J. (Ed.). (1999).War in The Early Modern World, 1450–1815. London: UCL Press. Fisher,W. (1895). Money and Credit Paper in the Modern Market. The Journal of Political Economy, 3, 391–413. Fletcher, J. (1985). Integrative History: Parallels and Interconnections in the Early Modern Period, 1500–1800. Journal of Turkish Studies, 9, 37–57. Flynn, D. O., Giraldez, A. (1995). Born with a Silver Spoon: World Trade’s Origins in 1571. Journal of World History, 6(2), 201–221. Fox, D. R. (1915). Foundations of West India Policy. Political Science Quarterly, 30, 661–672. Frank, A. G. (1998). ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Goldstone, J. A. (1991). Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Goldstone, J. A. (1998). The Problem of the â€Å"Early Modern† World. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 41, 249–284. Huff,T. E. (1993). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lieberman,V. (1997). Transcending East-West Dichotomies: State and Culture Formation in Six Ostensibly Disparate Areas. Modern Asian Studies, 31(3), 463–546. Mousnier, R. (1970). Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France, Russia, and China (B. Pearce,Trans.). New York: Harper and Row. Parker,G. (1996). The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pomeranz, K.(2001).The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Richards, J. F. (1997). Early Modern India and World History. Journal of World History, 8, 197–209. Richards, J. F. (2003). The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Starn, R. (2002). The Early Modern Muddle. Journal of Early Modern History, 6(3), 296–307. Strong, C. F. (1955). The Early Modern World. London: University of London Press. Subrahmanyam, S. (1997). Connected Histories: Notes Towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia. Modern Asian Studies, 31(3), 735– 762. Thomson, S. H. (1964). The Age of Reconnaissance, by J. H. Parry. The Journal of Modern History, 36(2), 187–188. Wallerstein, I. (1974). The Modern World-System. New York: Academic. Wiesner-Hanks, M. (2000). Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating desire, reforming practice. London: Routledge. Wills, J. E., Jr. (2001). 1688: A Global History. New York: Norton. The Modern Era The modern era is the briefest and most turbulent of the three main eras of human history. Whereas the era of foragers lasted more than 200,000 years and the agrarian era about 10,000 years, the modern era has lasted just 250 years. Yet, during this brief era change has been more rapid and more fundamental than ever before; indeed, populations have grown so fast that 20 percent of all humans may have lived during these two and a half centuries. The modern era is also the most interconnected of the three eras. Whereas new ideas and technologies once took thousands of years to circle the globe, today people from different continents can converse as easily as if they lived in a single global village. History has become world history in the most literal sense. For our purposes the modern era is assumed to begin about 1750.Yet, its roots lay deep in the agrarian era, and we could make a good case for a starting date of 1500 or even earlier. Determining the end date of the modern era is even trickier. Some scholars have argued that it ended during the twentieth century and that we now live in a postmodern era. Yet, many features of the modern era persist today and will persist for some time into the future; thus, it makes more sense to see our contemporary period as part of the modern era. This fact means that we do not know when the modern era will end, nor can we see its overall shape as clearly as we might wish. The fact that we cannot see the modern era as a whole makes it difficult to specify its main features, and justifies using the deliberately vague label â€Å"modern.† At present the diagnostic feature of the modern era seems to be a sharp increase in rates of innovation. New technologies enhanced human control over natural resources and stimulated rapid population growth. In their turn, technological and demographic changes transformed lifeways, cultural and religious traditions, patterns of  health and aging, and social and political relationships. For world historians the modern era poses distinctive challenges. We are too close to see it clearly and objectively; we have so much information that we have difficulty distinguishing trends from details; and change has occurred faster than ever before and embraced all parts of the world. What follows is one attempt to construct a coherent overview, based on generalizations that have achieved broad acceptance among world historians. Major Features and Trends of the Modern Era The modern era is the first to have generated a large body of statistical evidence; thus, it is also the first in which we can quantify many of the larger changes. Increases in Population and Productivity Human populations have increased faster than ever before during the modern era, although growth rates slowed during the late twentieth century. Between 1750 and 2000 the number of men and women in the world rose from approximately 770 million to almost 6 billion, close to an eightfold increase in just 250 years. This increase is the equivalent of a growth rate of about 0.8 percent per annum and represents a doubling  time of about eighty-five years. (Compare this with estimated doubling times of fourteen hundred years during the agrarian era and eight thousand to nine thousand years during the era of foragers.) An eightfold increase in human numbers was possible only because productivity rose even faster. The estimates of the economist Angus Maddison suggest that global gross domestic product rose more than ninety fold during three hundred years, whereas production per person rose nine fold. These astonishing increases in productivity lie behind all the most significant changes of the modern era. Productivity rose in part because new technologies were introduced. In agriculture, for example, food production  kept pace with population growth because of improved crop rotations, increased use of irrigation, widespread application of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, and the use of genetically modified crops. However, productivity also rose because humans learned to exploit new sources of energy. During the agrarian era each human controlled, on average, 12,000 kilocalories a day (about four times the energy needed to sustain a human body), and the most powerful prime movers available were domestic animals or wind-driven ships. During the modern era humans have learned to harvest the huge reserves of energy stored in fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas and even to exploit the power lurking within atomic nuclei. Today each person controls, on average, 230,000 kilocalories a day—twenty times as much as during the agrarian era. A world of planes, rockets, and nuclear power has replaced a world of horses, oxen, and wood fires. City Sprawl As populations have increased, so has the average size of human communities. In 1500 about fifty cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants, and none had more than a million. By 2000 several thousand cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants, about 411 had more than a million, and 41 had more than 5 million. During the agrarian era most people lived and worked in villages; by the end of the twentieth century almost 50 percent of the world’s population lived in communities of at least five thousand people. The rapid decline of villages marked a fundamental transformation in the lives of most people on Earth. As during the agrarian era, the increasing size of communities  transformed lifeways, beginning with patterns of employment: Whereas most people during the agrarian world were small farmers, today most people support themselves by wage work in a huge variety of occupations. Innovations in transportation and communications have transformed relations between communities and regions. Before the nineteenth century no one  traveled faster than the pace of a horse (or a fast sailing ship), and the fastest way to transmit written messages was by state-sponsored courier systems that used relays of horses. Today messages can cross the world instantaneously, and even perishable goods can be transported from one end of the world to another in just a few hours or days. Increasingly Complex and Powerful Governments As populations have grown and people’s lives have become more intertwined, more complex forms of regulation have become necessary, which is why the business of government has been revolutionized. Most premodern governments were content to manage war and taxes, leaving their subjects to get on with their livelihoods more or less unhindered, but the managerial tasks facing modern states are much more complex, and they have to spend more effort in mobilizing and regulating the lives of those they rule. The huge bureaucracies of modern states are one of the most important byproducts of the modern revolution. So, too, are the structures of democracy, which allow governments to align their policies more closely with the needs and capabilities of the large and varied populations they rule. Nationalism—the close emotional and intellectual identification of citizens with their governments—is another by-product of these new relationships between governments and those they rule. The presence of democracy and nationalism may suggest that modern governments are more reluctant to impose their will by force, but, in fact, they have much more administrative and coercive power than did rulers of the agrarian era. No government of the agrarian era tried to track the births, deaths, and incomes of all the people it ruled or to impose compulsory schooling; yet, many modern governments handle these colossal tasks routinely. Modern states can also inflict violence more effectively and on a larger scale than even the greatest empires of the agrarian era. Whereas an eighteenth century cannon could destroy a house or kill a closely packed group of soldiers, modern nuclear weapons can destroy entire cities  and millions of people, and the concerted launch of many nuclear weapons could end human history within just a few hours. A subtler change in the nature of power is the increased dependence of modern states on commercial success rather than raw coercion. Their power depends so much on the economic productivity of the societies they rule that modern governments have to be effective economic managers. The creation of more democratic systems of government, the declining importance of slavery, the ending of European imperial power during the twentieth century, the collapse of the Soviet command economy in 1991, and the ending of apartheid (racial segregation) in South Africa in 1990 and 1991 all reflected a growing awareness that successful economic management is more effective than crudely coercive forms of rule.

Comparing Washington Irvings Rip Van Winkle and Americas War of Indep

Parallels in Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and America's War of Independence The story of Rip Van Winkle is well known throughout American culture. As one of America's most popular short stories, few school children have not heard of Rip Van Winkle's twenty-year slumber or imagined his long, gray beard. In the telling and re-telling of this mysterious tale, the original context of the story itself has, for the most part, been forgotten. Few Americans are aware of how the story originated, and in what context it was first presented to the public. "Rip Van Winkle" first appeared as a part of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book. This was a collection of various short works, ideas, thoughts, and pictures. "Rip van Winkle" was only a part of this collection, but eventually gained a great deal of popularity in its own right. When considering this story, it is important to keep in mind the original context and its relation to other works within The Sketch Book. However, as "Rip Van Winkle" has stood on its own in American culture, there is also a place for examining the story apart from The Sketch Book. When doing this, certain symbolism becomes apparent. Washington Irving uses symbolism in "Rip Van Winkle" to relate Rip's life and experiences to the situation of the American colonies in relation to Great Britain and the War of Independence. In this interpretation of the symbolism in "Rip Van Winkle", the marriage between Rip Van Winkle and Dame Van Winkle represents the union between the American colonies and Great Britain. The characters themselves possess certain attributes which symbolize the perceived characteristics of the two entities. Dame Van Winkle is usually unhappy with Rip. She has cer... ...respectively. Rip's experience in the Kaatskill Mountains ultimately sheds light on the changes of the American public, and Washington Irving accomplishes his purpose of establishing a tradition for the American short story. Works Cited Barbarese, JT. "Landscapes of the American Psyche." Sewanee Review. 100 (1992): 599-603. Dawsone, Hugh J. "Recovering 'Rip Van Winkle': A Corrective Reading." Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey. "The Value of Storytelling: 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' in the Context of The Sketch Book". Modern Philology. 82:4 (1985): 393-406. Shear, Walter. "Cultural Fate and Social Freedom in Three American Short Stories." Studies in Short Fiction. 25:3 (1988): 249-259.

The Coca-Cola Company Essay

The Coca-Cola Company (KO) is a beverage company that manufacturer and distribute coke, diet coke and other soft drinks worldwide. The company primarily offers nonalcoholic beverages, including sparkling beverages and still beverages. Its sparkling beverages include nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages with carbonation, such as carbonated energy drinks, and carbonated waters and flavored waters. The company’s still beverages comprise nonalcoholic beverages without carbonation, including noncarbonated waters, flavored and enhanced waters, noncarbonated energy drinks, juices and juice drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and sports drinks. It also provides flavoring ingredients, sweeteners, beverage ingredients, and fountain syrups, as well as powders for purified water products. In addition, the company licenses its technologies to suppliers and third parties. The company is currently employing 130,600 full time employees and is considered being the world leader in the bev erage industry. Financial Review of the company: A. Market value of equity & Book value of equity – Market value of the equity of the company is the current market capitalization rate and it measured through by multiplying current market value of the share into the total number of shares outstanding and he market capitalization of the company as on 2nd October, 2014 is $187.10 billion (source: finance.yahoo=KO=key statistics). While the book value of the equity is the current book value of the company share and it is determined as under: Book value of equity = Total value of the equity / shares outstanding Book value = $7.77 (source: finance.yahoo=KO=key statistics). It is important to note that the book value of the shares of the company has increased from $3.29 per share in 2004 to $7.77 per share uptill now (it was $7.54 per share in the year 2013) B. Market performance – Total Return C. Financial performance review – The financial performance review of the company is as under: Gross profit margin – The gross profit margin of the company was 65.2% as at year 2004 but it has decreased to 60.7% in the year 2013 indicating a decline of 5.5% over this review period. The decrease in the gross profit is due to the increase in the cost of goods sold ratio as  of revenue from 34.78% in the year 2004 to 39.32% in the year 2013. Operating profit margin – The same trend of the decrease in the profitability is noted in the operating profit margin of the company as it has decreased from 25.9% in the year 2004 to 21.8% in the year 2013. This decrease in profitability is an alarming sign for the company as despite the increase in the revenue, the company was not able to generate profitability in the same proportion as that of the increase in the revenue of the company. Payout ratio – The dividend payout has increased from 50% in the year 2004 to 58.8% in the year 2013 indicating higher proportion of income is being paid out to the shareholders of the company Asset turnover – The relative increase in the assets of the company has resulted in decrease of asset turnover as it has decreased from 0.75 times in the year 2004 to 0.53 times in the year 2013 indicating the poor management of assets with respect to revenue generation Return on assets – ROA has also decreased from 16.52% in the year 2004 to 9.74% in the year 2013 due to the decrease in the profitability and increase in the asset base of the company Return on equity (ROE) – ROE of the company has also decreased from 32.29% in the year 2004 to 26.03% in the year 2013 due to the decrease in the profitability of the company Interest coverage ratio – The company first interest coverage ratio was determined in the year 2008 and it was 17.98 times. It has increased to 25.79 times in the year 2013 indicating an improvement in the overall interest coverage of the company. Liquidity of the company – The liquidity of the company as being measured through current and quick ratios is indicating a positive trend as current ratio was 1.10 in the year 2004 and it has increased to 1.13 in the year 2013. On the other hand, quick ratio has increased from 0.81 in the year 2004 to 0.90 in the year 2013. Efficiency of the company – Days Sales Outstanding of the company has increased from 35.42 days in the year 2004 to 37.52 days in the year 2013. Also, the Days Inventory has also increased from 63.84 days in the year 2004 to 64.8 days in the year 2013. Payables Period has decreased tremendously as it has decreased from 199.3 days in the year 2004 to 38.66 days in the year 2013. Cash Conversion Cycle of the company has improved as it has increased from -100.04 days in the year 2004 to 63.66 days in the year 2013. D. References: finance.yahoo. (2nd October). Key Statistics. Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=KO+Key+Statistics Morning Star. (2nd October). Coca-Cola Co KO (Key Ratios & company performance). Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=KO ®ion=usa&culture=en-US

A Class Without A Teacher Essay

One of the most awaited moment in school life- Absence of a teacher in class. This is the time when a classroom can change into a parliament, jungle, market or even a mix of everything! Gossip, food, naughtiness, laughter and craziness overrule books, law, discipline and silence. The most perfect time to relax and enjoy and exercise our right to freedom of everything we can think of. Beings students, our prime motive is to break rules, have fun and cherish the good memories rather than crying over bad times, abiding school rules, stay numb and work like robots. Once a teacher enters the classroom, we find silence at its perfectness and everyone is busy with their assigned work. But after all, students are students and once the teacher leaves, shall their true identities be revealed. Teaching by video conferencing makes a classroom without physical presence of teacher. This kind of advancement in teaching slowly minimizes the personal care and interactive nature of teacher. Now, we’re focused on giving teachers the support they need to excel in the classroom. That support should come in many forms, including individualized professional development, cutting-edge educational technology and state-of-the-art lesson plans. One of the things I hear most often when I talk to teachers is that they’re eager for more chances to work together, to learn from each other. New teachers want regular access to colleagues with experience who can help them grow into the profession. Experienced teachers, likewise, want to become leaders in their schools by mentoring new teachers. I was recently talking to teachers in Denver, an innovative school district that is trying some new approaches. They told me one of the best changes is a new emphasis to work in groups. They said the spirit of the collaboration reminds them of why they became teachers in the first place. Perhaps most importantly, teachers must have a voice in creating the future of teaching. They have a unique understanding of where their profession needs to go and what they need to do their best work for students. We have an obligation to benefit from their wisdom. That is why all the work we do at the foundation is in partnership with teachers.

Your Online Reputation †inspired by the Harvard Business Review

Your Online Reputation – inspired by the Harvard Business Review Last week I covered the issue of Facebook privacy in my article Facebook Privacy? What’s that?   While Facebook raises many privacy issues, your online footprint as a job seeker extends far beyond your Facebook profile. Even if you have avoided Facebook altogether, chances are you have not completely avoided the internet; and this means that you have an online reputation that can be explored- and exploited- by potential employers. The Harvard Business Review published an article on April 3, 2012 by Michael Fertik entitled, â€Å"Your Future Employer is Watching You Online. You Should be Too.†Ã‚   Before I read this article, I had not fully considered all the different ways employers might be researching candidates. I had seen statistics, which   Fertik also shares, that more than 75% of employers actively research candidates online (note this was a December 2009 statistic from Microsoft and is probably higher now), and that more than 70% of employers have decided not to hire a candidate based on what they have found online. I assumed that recruiters were looking at major social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn; but according to this HBS article, recruiters dig much more deeply, looking through â€Å"shopping profiles, online gaming sites, classifieds and auction sites (think eBay and craigslist) – and even in virtual worlds like SecondLife!† You are always a shopper – and you are always the shopped Are you as amazed as I am at the extent of targeted advertising on the web? I get Facebook ads put in front of me for services relating to yoga, healthy diet and personal growth, probably because of the yoga videos, green drinks and books I search for and/or purchase on Amazon. Google has made it spookily easy for advertisers to discover my personal preferences. Clearly, if advertisers can do it, employers can too. There is basically nothing to stop employers from profiling their ideal candidate based on qualities like political inclinations, preferred leisure activities, diet, languages, etc. Of course job history and skills are still the primary considerations, but to narrow down the field, screening for other traits seems a natural extension of what advertisers do every day. Employers can search for you almost like they would for a pair of shoes. What Fertik drives home is that in today’s world, you are really always a job seeker whether you want to be or not. You *are* being researched. Whether you are found is another story. But if you are, you’ll want to look good when the right company finds you. Steps to take In addition to shopping only for items that do not cast doubt on your character, and of course ensuring that your Facebook and LinkedIn profile are professionally presented, there are additional steps you can take to manage your online reputation. Here are three important ones mentioned by Fertik: Check your own Google results. The first five results should make you look good. If they don’t, it’s time for an overhaul of your online reputation. Maybe it’s even time to create a website with the URL firstnamelastname.com or as close as you can get. Does an unsavory character share your first and last name? In that case, address it up front with employers whenever possible so they know to look beyond those initial results. Establish yourself as a skilled professional online. Participate in reputable forums, LinkedIn groups, and anywhere else where you can establish thought leadership online. Don’t assume anything is private. There is always a chance that emails, e-photos, etc. will somehow be discovered or appropriated by a spammer. Privacy settings do not protect you the way you might like. Have you Googled yourself lately? What did you find? Are you active in online forums? Do you think you would be chosen by an employer for the job you want? Please share your thoughts below.

Henry Ford and the Auto Assembly Line

Henry Ford and the Auto Assembly Line Cars changed the way people lived, worked, and enjoyed leisure time; however, what most people don’t realize is that the process of manufacturing automobiles had an equally significant impact on the industry. The creation of the assembly line by Henry Ford at his Highland Park plant, introduced on December 1, 1913, revolutionized the automobile industry and the concept of manufacturing worldwide. The Ford Motor Company Henry Ford was not a newcomer to the business of automobile manufacturing. He built his first car, which he christened the â€Å"Quadricycle,† in 1896. In 1903, he officially opened the Ford Motor Company and five years later released the first Model T. Although the Model T was the ninth automobile model Ford created, it would be the first model which would achieve wide popularity. Even today, the Model T remains an icon for the still-existing Ford Motor Company. Making the Model T Cheaply Henry Ford had a goal of making automobiles for the multitudes. The Model T was his answer to that dream; he wanted them to be both sturdy and cheap. In an effort to make Model T’s cheaply at first, Ford cut out extravagances and options. Buyers couldn’t even choose a paint color; they were all black. By the end of production, however, the cars would be available in a wide variety of colors and with a wide variety of custom bodies. The cost of the first Model T was set at $850, which would be approximately $21,000 in today’s currency. That was cheap, but still not cheap enough for the masses. Ford needed to find a way to cut down the price even further. Highland Park Plant In 1910, with the aim of increasing manufacturing capacity for the Model T, Ford built a new plant in Highland Park, Michigan. He created a building that would be easily expanded as new methods of production were incorporated. Ford consulted with Frederick Taylor, creator of scientific management, to examine the most efficient modes of production. Ford had previously observed the assembly line concept in slaughterhouses in the Midwest and was also inspired by the conveyor belt system that was common in many grain warehouses in that region. He wished to incorporate these ideas into the information Taylor suggested to implement a new system in his own factory. One of the first innovations in production that Ford implemented was the installation of gravity slides that facilitated the movement of parts from one work area to the next. Within the next three years, additional innovative techniques were incorporated and, on December 1, 1913, the first large-scale assembly line was officially in working order. Assembly Line Function The moving assembly line appeared to the onlooker to be an endless contraption of chains and links that allowed Model T parts to swim through the sea of the assembly process. In total, the manufacturing of the car could be broken down into 84 steps. The key to the process, however, was having interchangeable parts. Unlike other cars of the time, every Model T produced on Fords line used the exact same valves, gas tanks, tires, etc. so that they could be assembled in a speedy and organized fashion. Parts were created in mass quantities and then brought directly to the workers who were trained to work at that specific assembly station. The chassis of the car was pulled down the 150-foot line by a chain conveyor and then 140 workers applied their assigned parts to the chassis. Other workers brought additional parts to the assemblers to keep them stocked; this reduced the amount of time workers spent away from their stations to retrieve parts. The assembly line significantly decreased the assembly time per vehicle and increased the profit margin. Assembly Line Customization As time passed, Ford used assembly lines more flexibly than he is generally given credit for. He used multiple parallel lines in a start-stop mode to adjust output to large demand fluctuations. He also used sub-systems which optimized extraction, transportation, production, assembly, distribution, and sales supply chain systems.   Perhaps his most useful and neglected innovation was the development of a way to mechanize production and yet customize the configuration of each Model T as it rolled off the block. Model T production had a core platform, a chassis consisting of engine, pedals, switches, suspensions, wheels, transmission, gas tank, steering wheel, lights, etc. This platform was continually being improved. But the body of the car could be any one of several types of vehicles: auto, truck, racer, woody wagon, snowmobile, milk wagon, police wagon, ambulance, etc.  At peak, there were eleven basic model bodies, with 5,000 custom gadgets that were manufactured by external companies that could be selected by the customers. Impact of the Assembly Line on Production The immediate impact of the assembly line was revolutionary. The use of interchangeable parts allowed for continuous workflow and more time on task by laborers. Worker specialization resulted in less waste and a higher quality of the end product. Sheer production of the Model T dramatically increased. The production time for a single car dropped from over 12 hours to just 93 minutes due to the introduction of the assembly line. Ford’s 1914 production rate of 308,162 eclipsed the number of cars produced by all other automobile manufacturers combined. These concepts allowed Ford to increase his profit margin and lower the cost of the vehicle to consumers. The cost of the Model T would eventually drop to $260 in 1924, the equivalent of approximately $3,500 today. Impact of the Assembly Line on Workers The assembly line also drastically altered the lives of those in Ford’s employ. The workday was cut from nine hours to eight hours so that the concept of the three-shift workday could be implemented with greater ease. Although hours were cut, workers did not suffer from lower wages; instead, Ford nearly doubled the existing industry-standard wage and began paying his workers $5 a day. Ford’s gamble paid off- his workers soon used some of their pay increases to purchase their own Model Ts. By the end of the decade, the Model T had truly become the automobile for the masses that Ford had envisioned. The Assembly Line Today The assembly line is the primary mode of manufacturing in the industry today. Automobiles, food, toys, furniture, and many more items pass down assembly lines worldwide before landing in our homes and on our tables. While the average consumer does not think of this fact often, this 100-year-old innovation by a car manufacturer in Michigan changed the way we live and work forever. Sources and Further Reading Alizon, Fabrice, Steven B. Shooter, and Timothy W. Simpson. Henry Ford and the Model T: Lessons for Product Platforming and Mass Customization. Design Studies 30.5 (2009): 588–605. Print.Upward, Geoffrey C. A Home for Our Heritage: The Building and Growth of Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum. Dearborn, Michigan: The Henry Ford Museum Press, 1979. Print.Wilson, James M. Henry Ford Vs. Assembly Line Balancing. International Journal of Production Research 52.3 (2014): 757–65. Print.

E-Banking and the Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

E-Banking and the Leadership - Essay Example Leadership and management are closely related but it can be easily said that leadership ability is an essential part of managing effectively. The differences between management and leadership lie in their motivation styles. For leaders, the leadership styles tend to be transformational or transactional whereas mangers tend to be more authoritative. Leaders have a vision and they are oriented towards driving a change. As for managers they are more focused on adapting to changes and implementation and achievement of goals. There is also a difference between the personality types of leaders and managers. While managers tend to try to achieve stability leaders are more inclined towards risks from changes. (Brown, 2009) Thus it may seem that management and leadership emerge from different ends of the spectrum but in reality the qualities of a good leader and manager compliment and enhance each other. Thus though these are two different approaches they tend to work well with each other bri nging about the best in the organization and from its people. Leadership and management has been a focus of many studies which have traced the roots of leadership characteristics as well as studied the different kinds and dimensions of leadership. A brief overview of these studies done over a long period of time is taken to draw conclusions about leadership and the basic differences between management and leadership.... There are multiple theories of leadership which explain whether leaders are born or evolved. They also describe the kinds and the qualities of effective leaders. There are also studies which identify different types of leaders. As compared to this the basic management functions consist of Planning, organizing, leading, controlling, decision making and problem solving. The University of Iowa studies The University of Iowa studies in the 1930's identifies 3 broad styles of leadership. They were labeled authoritarian, democratic and Laissez fair. The authoritarian leader was directive I his style and did not encourage participation from his followers. The democratic leader encouraged discussion and participation and tried to be objective. Nevertheless he was the one who made the decisions. In contrast the laissez fair leader allowed complete freedom to the followers to make and follow their own decisions. (Martin, 2005, p. 351) Trait theory These traditional theories of leadership inclu de the Trait theory of leadership which distinguishes leaders from non-leaders. It says that there are personal qualities and characteristics which define a leader and that leaders are born and cannot be made. Leaders are described as courageous, enthusiastic and charismatic and examples include Mahatama Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Research later validated that all leadership traits can be broadly categorized under the Big Five traits of leadership which were extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness and emotional stability. Recent studies have also found that emotional intelligence is strongly linked to effective leadership. (Robbins, 2010, p. 174) Behavioural theories The behavioural theories of leadership focused on observable behaviours

Assignment in medicine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Assignment in medicine - Essay Example The article is under social & administrative pharmacy. The research topic is â€Å"A Pharmacy-Based Coaching Program to Improve Adherence to Antidepressant Treatment among Primary Care Patients.† this article is under the â€Å"social & administrative pharmacy† pharmacy discipline because of the coaching program and its inclusion of antidepressant care to primary care patients exclusively. A social aspect arises from the study being published in the journal â€Å"Psychiatric Services† (Brook, Hout, Stalman, Nieuwenhuyse, Bakker, Heerdink, and Haan 487). This publisher means the study focused less on the effectiveness or lack thereof of drugs, and more on the coaching program. The study is important because training patients to identify their drugs and telling depressed patients what to expect can enhance their adherence to antidepressant medication. The article’s objective is to enhance adherence to nontricyclic antidepressant regimens amongst depressed patients via a pharmacist involvement. Yes, the researchers used a statement of hypothesis, which was that â€Å"positive expectations and a belief in the benefits and efficacy of treatment [are] essential to adherence† (Brook, Hout, Stalman, Nieuwenhuyse, Bakker, Heerdink, and Haan 488). Independent variables involved in this study are patients with and without depression, pharmacists, an ethical committee, symptoms, and coaches. Dependent variables were the community clinic, pharmacy, randomized regimens, themes, computerized prescriptions, and protocol analyses. The population of the study was a sum of 147 primary care patients diagnosed with depression. The sample included a new prescription of antidepressant medicine for each of these patients, coaching pharmacists, and different prescribing pharmacists. The sampling procedure entailed prescribing new antidepressant medication to each of the patients and measuring their adherence by use of an electronic tablet