Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Falsifiabiliyt Paper

Falsifiabiliyt Paper FALSIFIABILITY PAPER PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 1Falsifiability PaperSociological researchers take the data that is accumulated during testing to analyze it in order to study their hypothesis. There are four common techniques used during sociological testing such as the observational study, the case study, the survey, and the experiment. One scientific method, also known as an experiment, is used to compare the facts, data, and information provided after testing, by using either dependent variables in an opened atmosphere or independent variables in a closed atmosphere.The two different styles of experimenting are known as field experimenting and laboratory experimenting. Field experimentation is conducted in an atmosphere that has natural surroundings, while laboratory experimenting is conducted in just that, a laboratory. Experimenting is supported by the people of positivism due to the many advantages it provides. The supporters of positivism support the use of experiment due to its man y advantages.English: aOne supporter of positivism was Karl Popper, Popper understood the method of experimenting to be beneficial because it permitted the type of accuracy in creating and recurring testing of prediction that he supports. Because of its accuracy in creating scientific results, examiners can be more secure because their theories are now able to be scientifically tested.The independent variables, during laboratory experimenting, can be controlled and manipulated however they wish. In research, variables can be added or taken away, this helps to determine how effective the dependent variable is during that study. This permits one to make a guess and create correspondence, fundamental associations and hypothetical laws linking the variables. For example, if researchers are looking for a cure for cancer, he or she may detach the dependent variables and insert outside elements to examine what effect if any, would take place even if in the end the cancer...

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Why Grad Schools Require Your Undergraduate Transcript

Why Grad Schools Require Your Undergraduate Transcript Its easy to get caught up in the graduate admissions process. Applicants to graduate school are often (and rightly) overwhelmed by the most challenging parts of the process, like approaching faculty for recommendation letters and composing admissions essays. However, the little things like college transcripts also matter in your graduate school application. No admissions committee will accept an incomplete graduate application. A late or missing transcript may seem like a dumb reason to receive a rejection letter, but it happens. Unfortunately, students with stellar credentials arent even considered by admission committees at their dream graduate programs because of a  forgotten transcript or one that is lost in snail mail. Request All Transcripts Your application is not complete until the institution receives your official transcript from all of your undergraduate institutions. That means that you must send a transcript from every institution that you have attended, even if you did not earn a degree.   Official Transcripts Are Sent by Colleges Dont even think about sending an unofficial transcript or a print out of your school record in place of a transcript.  An official transcript is sent directly from your undergraduate college or university to the school(s) to which you’re applying and bears the college seal. If you attended more than one institution, you will need to request an official transcript from each institution you attended. Yes, this can get pricey. What Do Admissions Committees Look for in Transcripts? In examining your transcript, admissions committees will consider the following: Your overall GPA and verification of your actual GPA compared to what you reported on your admissions documentsQuality of the undergraduate institutionBreadth of courseworkCoursework in your major: Your grades in your major subject area and especially in the upper division courses and within the past two yearsPatterns of performance and improvement if you did not have a strong start Request Transcripts Early​Prevent mishaps by planning ahead.  Request your transcripts from the registrars office early because most offices take a few days, a week, and sometimes even more time to process your request. Also, understand that if you wait until the end of the Fall semester to request transcripts they may be delayed as most offices close for the holidays (sometimes taking an extended break). Save yourself grief and request transcripts early. Also,  include a copy of your unofficial transcript with your application and a note that the official transcript has been requested so that admissions committees have something to review until the official copy arrives. Only some admissions committees may review an unofficial transcript and wait for the official version (this is especially unlikely in competitive graduate programs), but its worth a shot.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Research Paper Critique and Summaries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Research Paper Critique and Summaries - Essay Example The research study proceeds from the assumption that "countries with a higher score on the collectivism index are more likely to favour the personal selling promotion tool than will countries with a lower score" (248). While this assumption is solidly grounded in the study's literature review, the authors subject it to further empirical examination. Utilizing an experimental design, Fam and Merrilees (1998) distributed a survey questionnaire amongst retail managers in both Australia and Hong Kong. Receiving a 40.2% in Australia and a 16% response in Hong Kong, Fam and Merrillees' (1998) seven-point Likert-scale questionnaire focused on the correlation between collectivist and non-collectivist cultures' marketing approach preferences. The data results validated the assumption, indicating that collectivist cultures betrayed a market preference for personal promotion selling tools. The research exploited both dependant and independent variables. Within the context of this research the independent variable was culture. ... Validity and Reliability Irrespective of the importance of the issue which a research sets out to investigate, the study would be worthless were its unreliable and its validity suspect. A study is valid if it actually investigates and studies the phenomenon which it identified and defined at the outset and reliable if it is replicable. With regards to this study, it does investigate that which it defined and while no mention is made of its being replicated by other researchers, Fam and Merrilees (1998) attempted to establish validity through the re-examination of their data and the replication of the results using a different method. Added to that, the researchers establish a chain of evidence throughout the study, verify the information collected and, accordingly establish construct validity. The study emerged as reliable and valid from that perspective. Evaluation When evaluated in terms of the criterion of utility, this article emerges as highly valuable because, in an era of globalisation and the internationalisation of business, this article provides marketers with the information they need to effectively address cultures. They identify the marketing tools and techniques which specific cultures are most responsive and susceptible to. In terns of the criteria of replication, the article is only partially satisfactory. In brief, even though the researchers make an effort to replicate their study for the purposes of validating their results, they do so to a very limited degree. They re-analyse the data using an alternate method and this does not fully satisfy the criterion of replication. Lastly, with regards to the criterion of

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Logistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Logistics - Essay Example In the management of erection logistics suitability and adaptability of the carriers are very important. Some of the functions relating to logistics, such as chartering arrangement for barges, supply vessels, helicopters, etc., are outsourced through the external agencies for customized sea freight and air freight services. Other important factors that need to be considered include waste disposal, material handling equipments, inventory management and clearance of goods in airports and seaport. Human resources management involves recruitment of qualified, experienced and certified professionals for employment in various levels of the management structure. Strategic planning and coordination is essential for storage and movement of the materials in cost effective management. Based on the risk parameters established for storage and handling of various types of materials and machineries, special arrangements for movement of materials with care should be made. The procedures for this pur pose should be incorporated into the system for effective management. Planning and Coordination Field logistics vary from project to project, consequently, so does the planning process. Somuyiwa, and Adewoye (2010) stated: IT in supply chain has enabled the gathering, storing and analysis of unprecedented amounts of data. It equally facilitates planning at all levels through data analysis and sharing, which enable planning to occur at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Similarly, IT gathers, integrates, and analyzes logistical data to streamline local and global supply chain. (p.43) The distance between the project to the sea and airports and the traffic level are the important factors which govern the planning process. Storage and transshipment of the materials at the port or airport depends upon the frequency in schedules for arrival and departure of the careers. Online location of the careers is important for monitoring status of the shipments in relation to the sch edule of operations. This will enable timely clearance of the goods, making arrangements for storing in offshore supply bases or moving them to the respective offshore platforms. Offshore mooring or establishing floating warehouses near the offshore oilfields should be considered based on the cost factors involved. This should be balanced with the increased efficiency achievable in logistics management in terms of time or deadlines. Cost-benefit analysis will enable the management to firm up the plans in line with the overall strategic logistics management decisions. Advance checking of the documents related to the goods such as pro forma invoice, packing list, inspection certificate, insurance and test certificate is essential to avoid problems in the last minute. Also, the transport documents such as Shipping Order, Bill of Lading and Sea/Air Waybill, other financial documents like letters of credit or insurance documents and the government documents such as licenses and declarati ons should be checked in advance. This will be useful in identifying the inconsistencies. Rectification of the defects on time will avoid delays in clearance. Documentation is very important, especially in the case of port or airport with heavy traffic. Here, officers at various levels may have to be coordinated in case there is any discrepancy in documentation.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Linguistics and Interjections Essay Example for Free

Linguistics and Interjections Essay In Western philosophy and linguistic theory, interjections—that is, words like oof, ouch, and bleah—have traditionally been understood to indicate emotional states. This article offers an account of interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya that illuminates their social and discursive functions. In particular, it discusses the grammatical form of interjections, both in Q’eqchi’ and across languages, and characterizes the indexical objects and pragmatic functions of interjections in Q’eqchi’ in terms of a semiotic framework that may be generalized for other languages. With these grammatical forms, indexical objects, and pragmatic functions in hand, it details the various social and discursive ends that interjections serve in one Q’eqchi’ community, thereby shedding light on local values, norms, ontological classes, and social relations. In short, this article argues against interpretations of interjections that focus on internal emotional states by providing an account of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. p a u l k o c k e l m a n is McKennan Post-Doctoral Fellow in Linguistic Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College (Hanover, N. H. 03755, U. S. A. [paul. [emailprotected] edu]). Born in 1970, he was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (B. A. , 1992) and the University of Chicago (M. S. , 1994; Ph. D. , 2002). His publications include â€Å"The Collection of Copal among the Q’eqchi’-Maya† (Research in Economic Anthropology 20:163–94), â€Å"Factive and Counterfactive Clitics in Q’eqchi’-Maya: Stance, Status, and Subjectivity,† in Papers from the Thirty-eighth Annual Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (Chicago: Linguistics Society, in press), and â€Å"The Interclausal Relations Hierarchy in Q’eqchi’ Maya† (International Journal of American Linguistics 69:25–48). The present paper was submitted 1 vi 01 and accepted 27 xii 02. 1. A longer version of this article was presented at the workshop â€Å"Semiotics: Culture in Context† at the University of Chicago in January 2001. Chris Ball, Anya Bernstein, John Lucy, and Michael Silverstein all provided very helpful commentary. This article also greatly bene? ted from suggestions made by Benjamin S. Orlove and several anonymous referees. Western philosophy and linguistic theory have traditionally considered interjections at the periphery of language and primordially related to emotion. For example, the Latin grammarian Priscian de? ned interjections as â€Å"a part of speech signifying an emotion by means of an unformed word† (Padley 1976:266). Muller (1862) ? thought that interjections were at the limit of what might be called language. Sapir (1921:6–7) said that they were â€Å"the nearest of all language sounds to instinctive utterance. † Bloom? eld (1984[1933]:177) said that they â€Å"occur under a violent stimulus,† and Jakobson (1960: 354) considered them exemplars of the â€Å"purely emotive stratum of language. † While interjections are no longer considered peripheral to linguistics and are now carefully de? ned with respect to their grammatical form, their meanings remain vague and elusive. In particular, although interjections are no longer characterized purely in terms of emotion, they are still characterized in terms of â€Å"mental states. † For example, Wierzbicka (1992:164) characterizes interjections as â€Å"[referring] to the speaker’s current mental state or mental act. † Ameka (1992a:107) says that â€Å"from a pragmatic point of view, interjections may be de?ned as a subset of items that encode speaker attitudes and communicative intentions and are contextbound,† and Montes (1999:1289) notes that many interjections â€Å"[focus] on the internal reaction of affectedness of the speaker with respect to the referent. † Philosophers have offered similar interpretations. For example, Herder thought that interjections were the human equivalent of animal sounds, being both a â€Å"language of feeling† and a â€Å"law of nature† (1966:88), and Rousseau, pursuing the origins of language, theorized that protolanguage was â€Å"entirely interjectional† (1990:71). Indeed, such philosophers have posited a historical transition from interjections to language in which the latter allows us not only to index pain and express passion but also to denote values and exercise reason (D’Atri 1995). 2 Thus interjections have been understood as a semiotic artifact of our natural origins and the most transparent index of our emotions. Such an understanding of interjections is deeply rooted in Western thought. Aristotle (1984), for example, posited a contrastive relationship between voice, proper only to humans as instantiated in language, and sound, shared by humans and animals as instantiated in cries. This contrastive relation was then compared with other analogous contrastive relations, in particular, value and pleasure/pain, polis and household, and bios (the good life, or political life proper to humans) and zoe (pure life, shared by all living things). Such a contrast is so pervasive that modern philosophers such as Agamben (1995) have devoted much of their scholarly work to the thinking out of this tradition and others built on it such as id versus ego in the Freudian paradigm. In short, the folk distinction made between interjections and language 2. D’Atri (1995:124) argues that, for Rousseau, â€Å"interjections . . . are sounds and not voices: they are passive registerings and as such do not presuppose the intervention of will, which is what characterizes human acts of speech. † 467 468 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 proper maps onto a larger set of distinctions in Western thought: emotion and cognition, animality and humanity, nature and culture, female and male, passion and reason, bare life and the good life, pain and value, private and public, and so on (see, e.g. , Lutz 1988, Strathern 1988). In this article I avoid such abstracting and dichotomizing traps by going straight to the heart of interjections: their everyday usage in actual discourse when seen in the context of local culture and grounded in a semiotic framework. I begin by characterizing the linguistic and ethnographic context in which I carried out my research and go on to relate interjections to other linguistic forms, showing how they are both similar to and distinct from other classes of words in natural languages. Next I provide and exemplify a semiotic framework, generalizable across languages, in terms of which the indexical objects and pragmatic functions of interjections can best be characterized. Then I detail the local usage of the 12 most commonly used interjections in Q’eqchi’ and show the way in which they are tied into all things cultural: values, norms, ontological classes, social relations, and so on. I conclude by discussing the relative frequency with which the various forms and functions of interjections are used. In short, I argue against interpretations of interjections that focus on emotional states by providing an account of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. Linguistic and Ethnographic Context While I am attempting to provide as wide a theoretical account of interjections as I can, thereby providing a metalanguage for speaking about similar sign phenomena in other languages, I am also trying to capture the grammatical niceties of Q’eqchi’ Maya and the discursive and social particularities of one Q’eqchi’-speaking village in particular. Before I begin my analysis, then, I want to sketch the linguistic and ethnographic context in which I worked. Q’eqchi’ is a language in the Kichean branch of the Mayan family, spoken by some 360,000 speakers in Guatemala (in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Izabel, and Peten) and Belize (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980). 3 Lin? guistically, Q’eqchi’ is relatively well described: scholars such as Berinstein (1985), Sedat (1955), Stewart (1980), Stoll (1896), and Chen Cao et al. (1997) have discussed its syntax, morphology, phonology, and lexicon, and I have detailed various morphosyntactic forms (encoding grammatical categories such as mood, status, evidentiality, taxis, and inalienable possession) as they intersect with sociocultural values and contextual features and as they illuminate local modes of personhood (Kockelman 3. Typologically, Q’eqchi’ is a morphologically ergative, head-marking language. In Q’eqchi’, vowel length (signaled by doubling letters) is phonemic; /k/ and /q/ are velar and uvular plosives, respectively, and /x/ and /j/ are palato-alveolar and velar fricatives, respectively. All other phonemes have their standard IPA values. 2002, 2003a, b). This article is therefore part of a larger project in which I examine how intentional and evaluative stances are encoded in natural languages and the relations that such stances bear to local modes of subjectivity. Alta Verapaz, the original center of the Q’eqchi’-speaking people who still make up the majority of its population, has had a unusual history even by Guatemalan standards. In 1537, after the Spanish crown had failed to conquer the indigenous peoples living there, the Dominican Friar Bartolome de Las Casas was permitted to ?pacify the area through religious methods. Having succeeded, he changed the name of the area from Tezulutlan (Land of War) to Verapaz (True Peace), and the Dominicans were granted full control over the area—the state banning secular immigration, removing all military colonies, and nullifying previous land grants. In this way, for almost 300 years the area remained an isolated enclave, relatively protected by the paternalism of the church in comparison with other parts of Guatemala (King 1974, Sapper 1985). This ended abruptly in the late 1800s, however, with the advent of coffee growing, liberal reforms, and the in? ux of Europeans (Cambranes 1985, Wagner 1996). Divested of their land and forced to work on coffee plantations, the Q’eqchi’ began migrating north into the unpopulated lowland forests of the Peten ? and Belize (Adams 1965, Carter 1969, Howard 1975, Kockelman 1999, Pedroni 1991, Saa Vidal 1979, Schwartz 1990, Wilk 1991). In the past 40 years this migration has been fueled by a civil war that has ravaged the Guatemalan countryside, with the Q’eqchi’ ? eeing not just scarce resources and labor quotas but also their own nation’s soldiers—often forcibly conscripted speakers of other Mayan languages (Carmack 1988, IWGIA 1978, Wilson 1995). As a consequence, the past century has seen the Q’eqchi’ population spread from Alta Verapaz to the Peten and ? nally to Belize, Mexico, and even the ? United States. Indeed, although only the fourth largest of some 24 Mayan languages, Q’eqchi’ is thought to have the largest percentage of monolinguals, and the ethnic group is Guatemala’s fastest-growing and most geographically extensive (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980). The two key ethnographies of Q’eqchi’-speakers have been written by Wilk (1991) and Wilson (1995), the former treating household ecology in Belize and the latter upheavals in village life and identity at the height of the civil war in highland Guatemala during the 1980s. In addition to these monographs, there are also a number of dissertations and articles on the history (King 1974, Sapper 1985, Wagner 1996), ecology (Carter 1969, Secaira 1992, Wilson 1972), and migration (Adams 1965, Howard 1975, Pedroni 1991) of Q’eqchi’-speaking  people. The data for this article are based on almost two years of ethnographic and linguistic ? eldwork among speakers of Q’eqchi’, most of it in Ch’inahab, a village of some 80 families (around 650 people) in the municipality of San Juan Chamelco, in the department of Alta Verapaz. At an altitude of approximately 2,400 m, Ch’inahab is one of the highest villages in this area, with an annual precipitation of more than 2,000 mm. It is also one of k o c k e l m a n The Meanings of Interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya F 469  the most remote, access to the closest road requiring a three-hour hike down a steep and muddy single-track trail. Its relatively high altitude and remote location provide the perfect setting for cloud forest, and such a cloud forest provides the perfect setting for the resplendent quetzal, being home to what is thought to be the highest density of such birds in the world. Because of the existence of the quetzal and the cloud forest in which it makes its home, Ch’inahab has been the site of a successful eco-tourism project the conditions and consequences of which are detailed in my dissertation (Kockelman 2002). While the majority of villagers in Ch’inahab are monolingual speakers of Q’eqchi’, some men who have served time in the army or worked as itinerant traders speak some Spanish. All the villagers are Catholic. Ch’inahab is divided by a mountain peak with dwellings on both of its sides and in the surrounding valleys. It takes about 45 minutes to hike across the village. At one end there is a biological station kept by the eco-tourism project and used sporadically by European ecologists, and at the other there is a Catholic church and a cemetery. In the center there is a small store, a school for primary and secondary grades, and a soccer ? eld. The surrounding landscape is cloud forest giving way to scattered house sites, agricultural parcels, pasture, and ? elds now fallow. All villagers engage in corn-based, or milpa, agriculture, but very few have enough land to ful? ll all of their subsistence needs. 4 For this reason, many women in the village are dedicated to chicken husbandry, most men in the village engage in seasonal labor on plantations (up to ?ve months a year in some cases), and many families engage in itinerant trade (women weaving baskets and textiles for the men to sell) and eco-tourism (the women hosting tourists and the men guiding them). Dwelling sites often contain a scattering of houses in which reside an older couple and their married sons, all of whom share a water source and a pasture. The individual families themselves often have two houses, a relatively traditional thatched-roof house in which the family cooks and sleeps and a relatively new house with a tin roof in which they host festivals and in which older children and ecotourists may sleep. Because of eco-tourism and the in? ux of money and strangers that it brings, there has been an increase in the construction of such tin-roofed houses, and, as will be seen, many of my examples of interjections come from such construction contexts. My data on the use of interjections among villagers in Ch’inahab comes from 14 months of ? eldwork carried out between 1998 and 2001. The data collection con4. Before 1968, what is now Ch’inahab was owned by the owner of a plantation. Q’eqchi’-speakers who lived in the village of Popobaj (located to the south of and lower than Ch’inahab) were permitted to make their milpa in this area in exchange for two weeks of labor per month on the ? nca (Secaira 1992:20). Only in 1968, when a group of villagers got together to form a land acquisition committee, were some 15 caballer? as (678 ha) of land purchased from the owner ? for 4,200 quetzals (US$4,200). This land, while legally owned by the entire community, was divided among the original 33 villagers as a function of their original contributions.  sisted in part of characterizing tokens of usage when I heard them and in part of tracking tokens of usage through recordings of naturally occurring conversations. 5 In particular, given the fact that many interjections occur in relatively nonconversational, task-engaged situations (house building, planting, playing, cooking, etc. ), trying to record them in such contexts was futile. Luckily, as will be seen, they often occur in modes of disruption (when some goal-directed action goes awry), which makes them relatively easy to notice in real-time context and their contextual regularities relatively easy to stipulate. In addition, I tape-recorded naturally occurring conversations in the households of three families once a week over several months, usually at dinnertime. 6 After I describe the forms and meanings of the interjections I will discuss the relative frequency of the various tokens collected and thereby illuminate which forms and meanings are most often used by whom. The Grammatical Form of Interjections There are four criteria by which interjections may be differentiated from other linguistic forms within a particular language and generalized as a form class across languages (Ameka 1992, Bloom?eld 1984[1933], Jespersen 1965, Wilkins 1992). First, all interjections are conventional lexical forms, or words, that can constitute utterances on their own (Wilkins 1992). They are conventional in that their sign carriers have relatively standardized and arbitrary phonological forms, and they can constitute utterances on their own because their only syntagmatic relation with other linguistic forms is parataxis—in which two forms are â€Å"united by the use of only one sentence pitch† (Bloom? eld 1984[1933]:171). They can therefore stand alone as perfectly sensible stretches of talk before and after which there is silence. Second, with few exceptions, no interjection is simultaneously a member of another word class (Ameka 1992a, Wilkins 1992). Almost all of them are what Ameka (1992a:105), following Bloom? eld (1984[1933]), calls primary interjections: â€Å"little words or non-words which . . . can constitute an utterance by themselves and do not normally enter into constructions with other word classes. † In Q’eqchi’, the main exceptions are interjections built, through lexical extension, from the primary interjection ay. In the case of ay dios, the additional 5. I also include several examples of interjection usage that occurred in the context of ethnographic interviews about topics other than interjections, for these often indicated that an ethnographic question was poorly posed or inappropriate in the local context. I also carried out extensive interviews about the meanings of interjections with native speakers (see Kockelman 2002 for an extended discussion of the relationship between form, usage, and speakers’ re? ections). 6.  Indeed, the best two accounts of interjection-like things— â€Å"response cries† in Goffman (1978) and â€Å"emblematic gestures† in Sherzer (1993)—explicitly take into account social interaction and ethnographic description. Good accounts of the discursive use of interjections are offered by De Bruyn (1998), Ehlich (1986), Gardner (1998), and Meng and Schrabback (1999). 470 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 element, dios, is a loan noun from Spanish, meaning â€Å"god. † In the case of ay dios atinyuwa’, besides the Spanish loanword there is a Q’eqchi’ expression, at-in-yuwa’ (you [are] my father). Interjections of this latter kind, which are or involve forms that belong to other word classes, will be called secondary interjections (again following Ameka and Bloom? eld). Similarly, the English secondary interjections damn and heavens may be used as both interjections and verbs or nouns. Third, with few exceptions, an interjection consists of a single morpheme and undergoes neither in? ectional nor derivational processes (Wilkins 1992). Interjections cannot be in? ectionally marked for grammatical categories such as tense or number, and they cannot be further derived into another form class such as noun or verb. Such forms are often classi? ed as a subclass of â€Å"particles† or discourse markers (see Ameka 1992a, Fraser 1999, Jespersen 1965, Schiffrin 1987, Wilkins 1992, and Zwicky 1985). In Q’eqchi’ there are three exceptions to this characterization. First, uyaluy is what I will call a reduplicative interjection, being composed, through syllabic reduplication, from the interjection uy. Second, ay dios and ay dios atinyuwa’ are what I will call extended interjections, being composed, through lexical extension, from the interjection ay. And lastly, the interjection ay may undergo further derivation into a delocutionary verb (becoming ayaynak, â€Å"to cry or yell continually,† often said of dogs howling), which may then undergo normal verbal in? ection for grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, and number. Lastly, although it is not a criterial feature, many of these forms are phonologically or morphologically anomalous, having features which mark them as odd or unique relative to the standard lexical forms of a language. For example, unlike most Q’eqchi’ words, in which stress falls on the last syllable (Stewart 1980), the interjection uyaluy has syllable-initial stress. Similarly, while reduplication is a common morphological process in Q’eqchi’ (Stewart 1980), the reduplicative interjection uyaluy is derived through a nonstandard morphological form. While many Q’eqchi’ words involve a glottalized alveolar stop, the interjection t’ is also implosive. 7 Whereas the Spanish loanword dios is usually phonetically assimilated in Q’eqchi’ as tiox when used as a noun, in the interjection ay dios there is no devoicing of the initial consonant of this noun (i.e. , /d/ does not become /t/) or palatization of its ? nal consonant (i. e. , /s/ does not become /x/). And the interjection sht differs from ordinary Q’eqchi’ words in using /sh/, rather than a vowel, as a syllabic (see Bloom? eld 1984[1933]:121). In short, it is clear from the number of quali? cations that interjections, like most linguistic forms, are dif? cult to characterize with necessary and suf? cient conditions (see Taylor 1995, Zwicky 1985). Nevertheless, they may simultaneously be differentiated from other form classes within a particular language and generalized as a form class across languages. 7. Often called a â€Å"dental click† (Wilkins 1992) or a â€Å"suction stop† (Jespersen 1965:90). Readers who speak some Spanish may have noticed that many Q’eqchi’ interjections look similar to Spanish interjections—ay (dios), uy, ah, eh, sht—and even to English interjections (sh[t] and t’). While I have no historical data that would attest to such a claim, given the history of sustained linguistic contact between speakers of Spanish and Q’eqchi’ via the colonial encounter and between speakers of Spanish and English this should come as no surprise. The one good account of interjections in Spanish (Montes 1999) discusses only a small range of the discursive functions of interjections and focuses on the internal state of the speaker. As I will show, however, the meanings of some of these interjections in Q’eqchi’ seem to bear a resemblance to their meanings in Spanish, as far as can be discerned from the comparative data. In this way, these â€Å"loan interjections† show that almost any linguistic form may be borrowed (see Brody 1995) with some maintenance of its meaning. The Meanings of Q’eqchi’ Interjections  Although interjections are relatively easy to characterize from the standpoint of grammatical form, there is no framework in terms of which one may order and compare their meanings—that is, the classes of objects and signs that they index (and thereby stand in a relationship of contiguity with) and the types of pragmatic functions they serve (and thereby may be used as a means to achieve). In what follows, I frame their use in terms of situational, discursive, and social context. I will begin with an extended example through which the framework will become clear. The Q’eqchi’ interjection chix indexes loathsome objects in the situational context. For example, when picking up his bowl of food from the ground, a man notices that he has set it in chicken feces. â€Å"Chix,† he says, scraping the bowl on the dirt to wipe off the feces. His wife, herself responsible for the chicken, then takes his bowl for herself and gives him a new one. Similarly, when opening the door to her house early one morning, a woman notices that the dog has vomited right outside the doorway. â€Å"Chix,† she says, and her ? ve-year-old son comes over to look. She tells him to scrape it away with a machete. Like most interjections that have indexical objects in the situational context, this interjection serves to call another’s attention to the object. 8 Relatedly, and as a function of responsibility assessment (husband 1 wife 1 child), it directs another’s attention to what must be cleaned up, avoided, etc. The interjection chix may also be transposed to index a sign denoting or characterizing a loathsome object (see Buhler 1990). In such cases of sign-based transposition, ? the interjection is in a relationship of contiguity with a 8. Montes (1999:1293) notes that most of the Spanish interjections she examined â€Å"seem to be associated with seeing. We ? nd that a large number of the interjections [ah, oh, uh, ay, oy, uy] used in the conversations examined co-occur with directives to ‘see’ or ‘look at’ or as a response to these directives. † k o c k e l m a n The Meanings of Interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya F 471 sign that denotes or characterizes the object or event in question (rather than being in contiguity with the actual object or event, as in the usage of chix just discussed). In other words, it is as if the speaker were inhabiting the frame of the narrated event (Buhler 1990). In this way, ? the interjection chix indexes not just loathsomeness but also signs that refer to or predicate qualities of loathsome objects. Insofar as the denotatum of such a sign has the same qualities and values as the object itself, the modality of contiguity (being able to taste, touch, see, or smell the object in question) is suspended while the ontological class of the object (loathsomeness) is maintained. For example, in telling a story to a group of  men about a friend who was bitten by a poisonous spider while working on a plantation in the lowland area of Guatemala, the speaker describes the pus blisters that rose up on his friend’s arm. â€Å"Chix,† says one of the men listening. The other men laugh, and before continuing his story the speaker adds that the pus blisters took two weeks to heal. Like most interjections that undergo signbased transposition, such usage often serves as a backchannel cue, indicating that the speaker is listening but cannot or does not want to contribute to the topic at hand (Brown and Yule 1983:90–94; Duncan 1973; compare the usage of mmm or jeez in English). Lastly, the interjection chix may be transposed to index an addressee’s relation of contiguity with a loathsome object. In such cases of addressee-based transposition, the situational indexical object is transposed to a person other than the speaker. The speaker’s sign is audible (a relation of contiguity) to the addressee, who is in a relationship of contiguity with the object. In other words, it is as if the speaker were inhabiting the ad? dressee’s current corporal?  eld (see Buhler 1990, Hanks 1990), and, again, the modality of contiguity is suspended while the ontological class is maintained. For example, a mother watching her three-year-old son approach a dog that is defecating wormy stool calls out to him â€Å"Chix. † The child stops his advance and watches from a distance. In this most addressee-focused way, the sign is used by a parent to index that a child is within reach (typically tactile) of a disgusting object and serves as an imperative not to touch the object. Interjections are primarily indexical (see Peirce 1955) in that they stand for their objects by a relationship of contiguity rather than by a relationship of convention (as in the case of symbols) or similarity (as in the case of icons). 9 Although the indexical modality of interjections is emphasized in this article, the symbolic modality is always present in at least two interrelated ways. First, and trivially, the interjection itself has a standard9. If interjections were iconic, then they would be expected to resemble their objects. The problem with this, as exempli?  ed by Kryk-Kastovsky’s (1997) argument that interjections are the most iconic of all linguistic elements expressing surprise, is that one needs to know what â€Å"surprise† looks like when usually our only indication of surprise is the interjection or behavior itself. However, interjections as indexical of situational and discursive objects do in certain cases have iconic modalities of meaning (see, e. g. , the discussion of ay, ay dios, and ay dios atinyuwa’ below). ized but relatively arbitrary form that is conventionally used by members of a given linguistic community. Second, interjections conventionally stand in a relation of contiguity with particular classes of objects. These conventional classes of indexical objects are present in two ways. First, across interjections, one may characterize what semiotic class of objects is being indexed. Second, in the case of any particular interjection, one may characterize what ontological class of objects is being indexed. Besides indexing objects or signs in the immediate context, interjections have pragmatic functions: they serve as a means to achieve certain ends. For example, chix variously serves as an attentative (when nontransposed), a back-channel cue (when undergoing sign-based transposition), and an imperative (when undergoing addressee-based transposition). Both the objects indexed and the pragmatic functions served (see Silverstein 1987) are integral aspects of the meanings of interjections. Finally, interjections may index more than one object at once. In particular, they may index objects, signs, internal states, and social relations. In what follows, I will refer to these distinct types of indexical objects as situational, discursive, expressive, and social, respectively. Situational indexical objects are the objects or events in the immediate context of the speech event. Discursive indexical objects are the signs that occur in the speech event. 10 Together, situational and discursive indexical objects are the most stable co-occurrence regularities that interjections possess and therefore the only ones that are easy to tabulate. Expressive indexical objects are the intentional stances of the speaker—the putative mental states, whether construed as â€Å"cognitive† or â€Å"emotive. †11 Lastly, social indexical objects are the various social roles inhabited by the speaker or addressee (gender, ethnicity, age, etc. ) or the social relations that exist between the two (status, deference, politeness, etc. ). For example, chix may index not only a loathsome object in the situational context but a social relation (parentchild, husband-wife, raconteur–appreciative listener) and, in many cases, an internal state (â€Å"disgust†). And the interjection ay not only indexes a painful object in the situational context or an unexpected answer in the dis10. This is not quite the standard distinction between â€Å"text† and â€Å"context† (Montes 1999 and Wilkins 1992). For example, while it is tempting to put sign-based transposition into the discursive context for the purposes of schematizing the data, sign-based transpositions make sense only in terms of the qualities of the objects referred to by the sign indexed by the interjection. In contrast, an unsolicited response such as a dubitive is directed at the truth of another’s assertion rather than at any particular quality of the state of affairs predicated by that assertion. For this reason, dubitives belong to the discursive context and sign-based transpositions to the situational context. 11. Whereas interjections creatively index expressive indexical objects in that the interjection is often the only sign of the internal state in question, they presupposedly index situational and discursive indexical objects in that both interjection and indexical object are simultaneously present in context (see Silverstein 1976 for this distinction). This difference in semiotic status (presupposing/creative) maps onto a putative difference in ontological status (world/mind). 472 F c u r r e n t a n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Number 4, August–October 2003 cursive context but also an internal state (pain) in the expressive context and a role in the social context (in particular, female gender). Many interjections index signs in the discursive context in that they co-occur with (or serve as) a response to an addressee’s previous utterance or a nonresponse. In the case of a response, the use of an interjection occurs after and makes sense only relative to the addressee’s previous utterance. For example, the interjection ih indexes an addressee’s previous statement and serves as a registerative, indicating that the speaker has heard and understood the statement. In the case of a nonresponse, the interjection may either elicit an addressee’s utterance (and thereby occur before it) or occur in the midst of the speaker.

Friday, November 15, 2019

The Great Sheep Debate :: essays research papers fc

The Great Sheep Debate My high school was relatively small. To put it into perspective, I graduated with eighty-six people. In my class there were the usual cliques. There were the smart kids, the athletes, the cheerleaders, the drug users, and the slackers. But somehow I didn’t fit into all of this. I wasn’t, and still am not, the smartest person in the history of the world. I’m way too clumsy to play any sports. I wasn’t the right size to be a cheerleader. I wouldn’t even consider using drugs, and I certainly am not a slacker. I was just Nikki the girl that no one liked. I just wasn’t like them. I dressed differently, and had my own opinion, and that just didn’t fly with them. Day in and day out, I saw the struggle. It happened most with the incoming freshman every year. I saw people almost killing themselves with dieting so they could fit the cheerleader mold. I saw some of the most intelligent people not apply themselves, just because it’s not â€Å"cool† to be smart. I really think that is sad. These people could really have made something of themselves, but instead they chose being â€Å"cool† over having a future. I was teased and mocked for attempting to be an individual. Even one of my teachers told me one day that I only dressed differently so I could get attention. Her saying that really made me think. Is it really so bad to not want to be a conformist sheep? Has the world really come to either being alike or being miserable? I hope not. I’ll admit to sometimes wishing I could be like them. But I know that I wouldn’t be here now if I had been. As Doris Lessing said, â€Å"It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group† (334). She also said, â€Å"the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one’s group of peers† (334). I don’t exactly find this to be true. High school wasn’t exactly the easiest time for me, but I got by. I would have rather gone through it without friends, than to have changed whom I was just to belong. I was relatively happy just being myself. I liked wearing clothes that had color, and I liked for people to notice me. People who change to fit into a mold aren’t happy as themselves. The Great Sheep Debate :: essays research papers fc The Great Sheep Debate My high school was relatively small. To put it into perspective, I graduated with eighty-six people. In my class there were the usual cliques. There were the smart kids, the athletes, the cheerleaders, the drug users, and the slackers. But somehow I didn’t fit into all of this. I wasn’t, and still am not, the smartest person in the history of the world. I’m way too clumsy to play any sports. I wasn’t the right size to be a cheerleader. I wouldn’t even consider using drugs, and I certainly am not a slacker. I was just Nikki the girl that no one liked. I just wasn’t like them. I dressed differently, and had my own opinion, and that just didn’t fly with them. Day in and day out, I saw the struggle. It happened most with the incoming freshman every year. I saw people almost killing themselves with dieting so they could fit the cheerleader mold. I saw some of the most intelligent people not apply themselves, just because it’s not â€Å"cool† to be smart. I really think that is sad. These people could really have made something of themselves, but instead they chose being â€Å"cool† over having a future. I was teased and mocked for attempting to be an individual. Even one of my teachers told me one day that I only dressed differently so I could get attention. Her saying that really made me think. Is it really so bad to not want to be a conformist sheep? Has the world really come to either being alike or being miserable? I hope not. I’ll admit to sometimes wishing I could be like them. But I know that I wouldn’t be here now if I had been. As Doris Lessing said, â€Å"It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group† (334). She also said, â€Å"the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one’s group of peers† (334). I don’t exactly find this to be true. High school wasn’t exactly the easiest time for me, but I got by. I would have rather gone through it without friends, than to have changed whom I was just to belong. I was relatively happy just being myself. I liked wearing clothes that had color, and I liked for people to notice me. People who change to fit into a mold aren’t happy as themselves.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Emotional Intelligence Essay

The ability to express and control our own emotions is important, but so is our ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of others. Imagine a world where you couldn’t understand when a friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker was angry. Psychologists refer to this ability as emotional intelligence, and some experts even suggest that it can be more important than IQ. Learn more about exactly what emotional intelligence is, how it works, and how it is measured. What is Emotional Intelligence? Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic. Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence. In their influential article â€Å"Emotional Intelligence,† they defined emotional intelligence as, â€Å"the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions† (1990). The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence.  Salovey and Mayer proposed a model that identified four different factors of emotional intelligence: the perception of emotion, the ability reason using emotions, the ability to understand emotion and the ability to manage emotions. 1.Perceiving Emotions: The first step in understanding emotions is to accurately perceive them. In many cases, this might involve understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions. 2.Reasoning with Emotions: The next step involves using emotions to promote thinking and cognitive activity. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention. 3.Understanding Emotions: The emotions that we perceive can carry a wide variety of meanings. If someone is expressing angry emotions, the observer must interpret the cause of their anger and what it might mean. For example, if your boss is acting angry, it might mean that he is dissatisfied with your work; or it could be because he got a speeding ticket on his way to work that morning or that he’s been fighting with his wife. 4.Managing Emotions: The ability to manage emotions effectively is a key part of emotional intelligence. Regulating emotions, responding appropriately and responding to the emotions of others are all important aspect of emotional management. According to Salovey and Mayer, the four branches of their model are, â€Å"arranged from more basic psychological processes to higher, more psychologically integrated processes. For example, the lowest level branch concerns the (relatively) simple abilities of perceiving and expressing emotion. In contrast, the highest level branch concerns the conscious, reflective regulation of emotion† (1997).  What everyone needs to know. Emotional Intelligence Is the Other Kind of Smart.  When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the  pack. Emotional intelligence is the â€Å"something† in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up fewer than two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence. Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behaviour and tendencies. †¢Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen. †¢Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behaviour. Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behaviour, and motives in order to improve the quality of your relationships. †¢Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on. †¢Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully. Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different. Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behaviour that is distinct from your intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it. Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the stable â€Å"style† that defines each of us. Personality is the result of hard-wired preferences, such as the inclination toward introversion or extroversion. However, like IQ, personality can’t be used to  predict emotional intelligence. Also like IQ, personality is stable over a lifetime and doesn’t change. IQ, emotional intelligence, and personality each cover unique ground and help to explain what makes a person tick. Emotional Intelligence Is Linked to Performance. How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short answer is: a lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. Talent Smart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you say and do each day. Emotional intelligence is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence. Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we’ve found that 90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim. Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more money—an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence. The link between emotional intelligence and earnings is so direct that every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary. These findings hold true for people in all industries, at all levels, in every region of the world. We haven’t yet been able to find a job in which performance and pay aren’t tied closely to emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed. The communication between your emotional and rational â€Å"brains† is the physical source of emotional intelligence. The pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain, at the spinal cord. Your primary senses enter here and must travel to the front of your brain before you can think rationally about your experience. However, first they travel through the limbic system, the place where emotions are generated. So, we have an emotional reaction to events before our rational mind is able to engage.  Emotional intelligence requires effective communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain. â€Å"Plasticity† is the term neurologists use to describe the brain’s ability to change. Your brain grows new connections as you learn new skills. The change is gradual, as your brain cells develop new connections to speed the efficiency of new skills acquired. e. Generalization The student learns that Emotional Intelligence? Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic. Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence. In their influential article â€Å"Emotional Intelligence,† they defined emotional intelligence as, â€Å"the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions† (1990). The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence Salovey and Mayer proposed a model that identified four different factors of emotional intelligence: the perception of emotion, the ability reason using emotions, the ability to understand emotion and the ability to manage emotions. 1.Perceiving Emotions 2.Reasoning with Emotions 3.Understanding Emotions 4.Managing Emotions What everyone needs to know. 1. Emotional Intelligence Is the Other Kind of Smart. Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behaviour and tendencies. Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen. Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behaviour. Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behaviour, and motives in order to improve the quality of your relationships. Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on. Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully. 2. Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different. 3. Emotional Intelligence Is Linked to Performance. 4. Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed. â€Å"Plasticity† is the term neurologists use to describe the brain’s ability to change.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Research and development Essay

The Human resource management department of the business is responsible for the hiring and firing of the staff that work in Boots PLC outlet stores and any other jobs that are related to the company. Their main aim to make sure that there is the right amount of workers in the specified place at the right time in order to contribute to the maximum output that the staffing effort can help towards. The hiring and firing is very important as it makes sure that the right people are hired for the job that are in appropriate situations to fulfill vacancies. On the other hand however the firing is just as important. If staff are not pulling their weight or are incapable of carrying out the jobs they are meant to they may be fired. Also if there is no need for all staff then they may be laid off. This is a way of maximizing profits as less go on output of wages which is a great percentage of the businesses output. The HRM is also responsible for the training of staff. It is their responsibility to make sure that all staff is fully trained for the job they are employed for. These increases the customer reliability and satisfaction as when staff are asked questions they will hopefully know they answers and also that they are capable of approaching customers comfortably and in a good fashion. This adds to customer satisfaction and this is important to Boots it is also one of their objectives listed previously in the report. HRM are responsible for forecasting labour amounts and the amount of man power that will be needed at different times of the day week and year. If manpower is low in rush hours or periods such as Christmas then the company may not reach its maximum out put through mistake of their own. Staff receives appraisals when they work for Boots. This lets them know if the business is happy with them and if they are considered a valued member of the work force. The appraisals are again responsibility of the HRM department and they help to maximize business by insuring workers are reaching their full potential within in the business. Boots recently proposed to train up 7000 people to become more knowledgeable about technology so that the business will benefit from this. Boots PLC also employ a further 45% of their workforce on top of their usual numbers to help in outlet stores over Christmas period with tills, stock rotation and demonstrations. This shows the business has been planning the workforce amounts according to potential times of increases in demand. This area of the business can be very economical and save the business money when it comes to hiring and firing staff. This is however also very beneficial to the staff also. When jobs in the business become available instead of employing new staff they promote current staff. This saves money as described in management styles later on. The HRM area of the business works towards the organization and in turn globalization objective of the business. The statement of â€Å"we aim to develop staff and provide them with the right skills and attitude in order to achieve the organizations goals† suggests that it be aimed at all the objectives of the business, which will reflect on the globalization and expansion conclusively. The fact that more staff was hired acts on the objective of improving customer satisfaction as more staff means that there are more hands to deal with the tasks needed which leaves more staff to be available to help customers and aid them with their shopping needs. The Marketing section of the business is responsible for satisfying customers needs at the right prices and once again as in Boots objective consumer satisfaction. To do this the marketing section of Boots PLC is responsible for researching what the target markets want and interpreting what their future needs would be and how they will change. They persuade the customer to buy products by advertising. They either increase awareness by advertising to all on TV or radio, or advertise specifics. These include in store adverts for particular products, which they make the customer, think they need. Free demos of some products also help to draw in custom and Boots does this in its make-up and its perfume range where there is always trained staff available to recommend and advice. The marketing aspect of the business has lead to the birth of the Boots Advantage Card. Boots customer services is an outstanding department as they have been able to established customer loyalty by the use of this Advantage card. Referring back to Boots objectives the wish to increase customer loyalty is proven as the Advantage Card is used by more than 70% of all key customers. Boots objectives on marketing were to increase promotion and stature by globalization. This has been attempted by opening several firms in Taiwan. A strategy that separated them from their competitors and attracted thousands of consumers over the Christmas period was the three for two-mix and match strategy which was introduced after a market research poll into marketing strategies return the mix and match as a popular suggestion. This was reflected by the feedback it returned. It is very important to be able to forecast and predict what will happen to the market. In order for a company to success in the long term it must have an idea of where it is going. One of the best ways to do this, which also show the success of the business, is to look at its accounts. This will show if there is a gradual increase or decrease in profit and it will show what products sell, how they sell and in what quantity are they likely to still be required as the majority of tangible inessential goods reach saturation point and are no longer needed. The finance section of the business is the area that looks after the accounts and the money flow forecasting. The Financial area of the business makes sure all the finances of a business are properly recorded. This involves keeping detailed accounts either manually or on a computer of all the money that comes in, and how it comes in to the business and how and where it goes out. The financial information is used by Boots and published in the yearly reports to show how the business is getting on. Boots PLC uses computer technology to record all the information and trained staff regularly analyzes it to spot correlation in output or product relationships. This is done to try and find out where Boots could benefit from altering the market and changing product ranges or increasing product base. This section of the business is also capable of raising finance when the business needs to raise capital for an investment or expansion. There is only a small aspect of the objective system that it appears the financial function touches on. This is the objective to act towards modernization. Boots keeps its financial records in the form of computer files as apposed to storing them manually. This shows that Boots keeps up with the development of technology, which was a specific objective. This shows that an objective has been worked towards and met which has been beneficial as now the financial function is a lot less time consuming in storing data and retrieving it. Although there is always more problems with modern technology it is likely that in the long run it is less time consuming. Production is another one of the functional areas but as there is little that Boots actually produce due to the fact that they are in the tertiary sector this function does not really affect them. The only way it does affect them is that Boots must keep in touch with the production (secondary industry) business to ensure that they can meet the demands that they need in order to increase customer satisfaction. Coinciding with this the staff at Boots must check produce that is received from the production companies to make sure it is correct. This section does not really affect any objectives that the business has directly. However indirectly it does regard the objective of wishing to increase the proportion of their own brand. There is little evidence I can provide of this objective been carried out but they do have their own cosmetic range that goes by the name of No7. This appears to have been doing very well. The main cogs of the business are the Administration section. This keeps the day to day workings of the business going. Again these are skilled staff trained in their field and Boots pride them selves on the level of training and standards that their staff operates to. The administration maintains the business premises and equipment and if anything goes wrong they are responsible for fixing it of finding someone to do so. Anyone who works for Boots doing photocopying, printing (stationary jobs) catering, computer services, data storage, all these types of jobs come under the job description of Administration. As boots is expanding it is relying less on its own workers to carry out some of these tasks and it calls in people from out side the business, this is called ‘outscoring’, these people are usually found by the administration team. The administrative function as it is a necessity in the business and keeps it flowing hardly relates as a contribution to any objective at all. The only objective I can see that the administrative function applies to id the modernization of the company. This is due to the fact that in order for the administration staff to act efficiently they need to be modernizing as technology such as computers develops. This will benefit all areas of the business. As the target markets demands are forever changing and new fashions are coming in and the months of the years come in and out the products that Boots supply are always changing. It is hard to keep on top of the supply for goods, as there are so many aspects that alter the product demands it is hard to be aware of where they will go next. The research and development of the business is responsible for trying to find out where to go next. They keep the other parts of the business informed about changes as much as they can. This is a main part of the marketing for the business. The research and development sector look at sales figures, accounts, customer trends and spending and try and deduct where the majority of the money goes and also where it doesn’t. They do not look to replace products all the time but also to look for new products that would be beneficial to bring into the product range to increase sales or attract new business. It was the idea of the research and development of Boots to open the optician section of the business, as this was an area that they had not yet spread into and would be beneficial. The people in the research and development part of boots also look at other businesses and see how they operate, what they sell and how much they charge. All this contributes to the smooth running of the business. As Boots main objective is to produce a well-established firm that caters for the consumers needs research and development is a major part of decision making. Diversification is also reliant on this department as in order to diversify research needs to be carried out to find out which areas it would be beneficial to divert into in respects of the customers and the company as a whole. Boots has got a large research and development department. The paragraph below shown what affects the research and development has had on the company’s expansion. â€Å"The first Health and Beauty Experience store opened in Kensington High Street in September this year. It moves Boots into new areas of the expanding health and beauty market. Services include physiotherapy, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbalism, aromatherapy, reflexology and nutrition. These sit alongside beauty services including facials massage, false tan, ear piercing, pedicure, manicure, nail bars, and make-overs, plus lifestyle advice on weight management, smoking, sleep management, relaxation and stress management. All combine to offer a total wellbeing offer. † This paragraph gives list of some of the new products and services that have been introduced. These expansions in the business would not have been the result if research and development had not taken place. This shows that research and development has also contributed to the firm expanding, which was another objective of Boots.

Friday, November 8, 2019

WOW essays

WOW essays Everyones ultimate goal is survival. Nobody wants to surrender their life before they naturally should. Hobbes says that being thrown out of society will cause an early death. Outside of society there is a condition of war wherein every man to every man is an enemy and in this state, no man can ever hope to defend himself without some help. (Hobbes, p. 91) But in the state of nature he will find none, because he which declareth he thinks it is reason to deceive those that help him, can in reason expect no other means of safety than what can be had from his own single power. (Hobbes, p. 91) Everyone outside of society has proved that they cannot be trusted. This will result in the competitive, dishonest, self-serving state that people wanted to be free from. Life will be short and harsh. Although the fool thinks that they will better off killing somebody who they really dislike, it will only lead to his untimely demise. ...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

New Place, Shakespeares Home in Stratford-upon-Avon

New Place, Shakespeares Home in Stratford-upon-Avon ​When Shakespeare retired from London around 1610, he spent the last few years of his life in New Place, one of Stratford-upon-Avon’s largest houses, which he purchased in 1597. Unlike Shakespeare’s birthplace on Henley Street, New Place was pulled down in the 18th century. Today, Shakespeare fans can still visit the site of the house which has now been turned into an Elizabethan garden. Nash’s House, the building next door, still remains and serves as a museum dedicated to Tudor life and New Place. Both sites are cared for by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.​ New Place New Place, once described as a â€Å"pretty house of brick and timber,† was built towards the end of the 15th century and bought by Shakespeare in 1597 although he did not live there until his retirement from London in 1610. On display in the adjoining museum is a sketch of New Place by George Vertue showing the main house (where Shakespeare lived) enclosed by a courtyard. These street-facing buildings would have been the servant’s quarters. Francis Gastrell New Place was demolished and rebuilt in 1702 by the new owner. The house was rebuilt in brick and stone but it only survived another 57 years. In 1759, the new owner, Reverend Francis Gastrell, quarreled with the town authorities over taxation and Gastrell had the house permanently demolished in 1759. New Place was never again rebuilt and only the foundations of the house remain. Shakespeare’s Mulberry Tree Gastrell also caused controversy when he removed Shakespeare’s mulberry tree. It is said that Shakespeare planted a mulberry tree in the gardens of New Place, which posthumously attracted visitors. Gastrell complained that it made the house damp and he had it chopped for firewood or perhaps Gastrell wanted to deter the visitors! Thomas Sharpe, an enterprising local clockmaker and carpenter, bought most of the wood and carved Shakespeare mementos from it. The museum in Nash’s House displays some of the artifacts said to be made from Shakespeare’s mulberry tree.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Phase 2 - International Law and Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Phase 2 - International Law and Business - Essay Example Several legal as well as ethical guidelines have been created for the protection of environment. One such legal guideline is Clean Air Act which was enacted during the period of 1970 (Www2.epa.gov, 2014). Under this act the EPA is required to create (National Ambient Air Quality Standards) NAAQS and its purpose was even to have separate NAAQS in all the states of United States by the period of 1975 (Www2.epa.gov, 2014). The main aim of any organization is to ensure that shareholder value is increased and in order to increase the shareholder’s value, a company needs to ensure that it continues to perform its business in a profitable manner. Keeping the profitability of the company in mind, the company needs to give importance to protection of the environment as if due to their activities environment is damaged then the chances of them facing costly law suits may increase and they may even be disliked by the consumers due to which they may loose customers and experience

Friday, November 1, 2019

Literary Analysis over the short story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Essay

Literary Analysis over the short story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Essay Example The house does not have windows and is generally poorly ventilated. The incidence of the forsaken child in the Utopian City basically indicates a rotten foundation on, which the city rests upon. In addition, the author describes a scenario where the Omelas are informed that their success and general happiness can also be achieved by keeping the unfortunate child in a filthy and isolated room. Despite the fact that they are disgusted by this act, they later accept and their desire to achieve maximum happiness and success supersedes their humility towards the child. This is an incidence that symbolizes the selfishness of a Utopian Society; it symbolizes a scenario where the society is characterized by self-centered people who do not care about other people, rather focus on undertaking activities for their personal gains. Moreover, the writer goes further and indicates that indeed some of the residents of Omela were not pleased with suffering of the child and decided to leave the city never to come back. This is symbolism; it indicates a typical modern society where certain biased decisions are made by a few individuals to satisfy their personal interested, while less powerful people are compelled to adhere to the requirements of such decisions or forever never raise concerns. This is indicated by the elderly people who leave the city and never comes back. The residents of Omela are also not sure whether the child is human or not; some people claim that the child is sub-human and decide to refer to him/her as â€Å"it†. This is an indication that the society may be characterized by individuals who perceive other people as â€Å"less† humans can be subjected to torture as a symbol of sacrifice in order to benefit the society. The fact that some people may be perceived as sub-humans is a great symbol on how some people within the society feel more important than others and are