Giotto Di Bondones Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Essay

Giotto Di Bondones Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints - Essay Example 1305 – 1310 (Olga’s). Rendered with tempera on wood panel, this amply dimensioned painting depicts Giotto’s version of the Virgin with her Holy Infant being surrounded by the angelic entities whose spatial orientation appears to enhance the already magnified theme by the enormous significance which Giotto necessitated for the size of the subject at the center to possess. The contour and definitiveness of the black veil which highly contrasts the mild flesh suit of her child indicates how the Madonna, in the simplicity of her aura and strength in character as a mother, manages to secure the innocent even to beyond a physical warm keeping. The delicate treatment given to the shapes especially of the painting’s chief concerns and the shades cast about the throne seemingly manifest gradual departure from the Byzantine standards so as to entertain a style which takes to greater consideration keen details of human sentiment. This naturalist approach may be obser ved to have been pioneered by Giotto Di Bondone in the way he worked with colors and symbolic arrangement of figures in space which chiefly acquired a linear perspective to serve his purpose of radiating inner human experience. Such modifications in the convention of Western art can be attributed to the essence of marking a transition from the grieving centuries of the Middle Ages to the much sought-after tranquility in the time of Renaissance by which intellectual restoration in arts, sciences, and humanities flourished. Since this period entailed new hopes for the European nations awaiting for enlightenment to be ushered back in full measure, Giotto took the opportunity of getting critical attention in his involvement with artistic reformation which may be perceived in most of his murals and frescoes (Giotto-The Inventor). The undertones of past suffering during the Dark Ages through the chosen mood of shades and the artist’s strokes of varying sharpness or lightness signif y Giotto’s innovative contribution in allowing discernment of certain relevant human emotions flow out of the general impression the enthroned structure makes. It particularly responds to the summon of Renaissance for people to obtain back their religious faith and reverence toward the church and its superior role of resolving medieval lack of spiritual vitality as one further understands the painter’s idea of substantial expansion when Giotto seated the Madonna and child on the throne for which he provided a generous portion of space which likely represents the continuous sensibility of religion and the adherence to the struggling progress of Christianity. The ability to achieve prominence and the desired stimulus in the simplicity of style or in less intricate patterns may have influenced the 15th century contemporaries of Giotto Di Bondone to acquire similar interest of attaining to flexibility of form. As such, the three-dimensional persuasion of Leonardo Da Vinci in ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’, c. 1491-1508, made central the well-lighted faces to locate emphasis upon a sublime moment of holiness and humility in the manner the head of each essential character is bent down. As the painting expresses a dramatic effect which can be emotionally identified as either peace or compassion, Da Vinci rather strayed the audience from the original knowledge of the Virgin’s Immaculate Conception into a new concept (The Virgin) like how Giotto did justice to enthroning the plain situation of the virgin with the child to most probably suggest a sense of vision that must remain in thought and practice of all Italians. With Giotto’s type of profound creativity to follow, Da Vinci apparently fashioned

The Longest Day Essay Example for Free

The Longest Day Essay The primary task of many forms of media, and in this case films, is to entertain an audience. Taking the examples of The Longest Day directed by Darryl F. Zanuck and Saving Private Ryan directed by Steven Spielberg however, it is possible for the audience to look past the story of the D-Day landings at face value and begin to think of the deeper meanings and true purpose of the film. What does the director want to convey with his use of lighting, dialogue or camera movements? How does he or she want the audience to react? Both The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan have been made for entertainment, but although the clips analysed cover the same event and try to be as histrically accurate as possible, they vary in many ways. In summary, The Longest Days purpose is to convey a historically accurate idea of the D-Day landings and inform its audience of the events that took place. It also glorifies the bravery of the soldiers who took part in the landings. The film is what can be expected of a war film made in the 1960s made less than 20 years after the war ended it tries to pay tribute to the men who risked or gave their lives to their country, some of whom would have been very much alive when the film came out. The purpose of Saving Private Ryan is slightly different. It also tries to convey a historically accurate picture of the landings but focuses more on the horrors of war and the attitudes and reactions of individual soldiers. Both films are aimed at the same audience, which is the whole of society. The two clips can both be split into five sections. Both clips begin with the troops arriving in the landing craft, but the shots are very different. In The Longest Day the landing craft are filmed moving quickly through the water with the soldiers sitting quietly and reasonably relaxed inside them. The commmanders are giving their orders to the troops calmly and clearly. This is a huge parallel to the same scene in Saving Private Ryan. The shots are filmed as though from another landing craft, giving the audience a real feeling of moving through the water and discomfort in the small boats. The conditions are much wetter and rainier and the troops seem much less confident. Some are being sick, some are taking drinks from hip flasks and some are saying prayers and kissing crucifix pendants. Historically, the audience is watching the same day played out in front of them but there is a difference in purpose, as Spielberg is focusing on specific characters rather than the D-Day landings a a whole event. The image of the troops given in Saving Private Ryan therefore seems much more disheartening and depressing than that in The Longest Day. Spielberg has focused on individual soldiers, and has used many more close-ups than Zanuck. This has the effect of the audience feeling like they could themselves be one of the soldiers on the craft, and makes the same shot in The Longest Day seem a lot more comfortable for the troops and appears less tense. In this section, Saving Private Ryan succeeds in extracting emotion from the audience and draws us into the story. The next shot is of the troops disembarking from the landing craft. The biggest difference to be seen is when the ramp of the craft is opened. In The Longest Day, the soldiers begin to cheer and shout as they run up the beach, with very few being shot straight away. In contrast, as the ramp is opened in Saving Private Ryan at least half of the soldiers appear to be killed before they even get out of the landing craft. Men that are not killed jump into the water for safety, and here there is a long section which is not included in The Longest Day. The camera appears to escape the craft with the soldiers and the audience is made to feel as thought they are going underwater as well. As the camera becomes submerged, the sound effects change also. The action above the water becomes muffled and distant but we are remoinded that the soldiers are still not safe, as in front of us we are shown soldiers being shot or drowning. The images Spielberg creates are graphic and disturbing but they are part of the historical facts he tries to convey to the audience. One of the ways in which Saving Private Ryan succeeds in its realism is the editing of scenes in real time. All the events that take place are filmed for the amount of time they would take in real life, for example The Longest Day spends about twenty-five seconds showing the troops disembarking from the landing craft whereas in Saving Private Ryan the same scene takes around a minute and a half. Saving Private Ryan is very realistic but, ironically, Spielberg uses unreal techniques to achieve this; slow motion doesnt occur in real life but when it is used in the clip it works because it shows something beneath the surface of the action. Spielbergs audience is being shown the psychology of the scene and slow motion is used to explore workings of Hanks mind. We look around the beach through his eyes, hear what he hears and experience it with him. A lot of emotion is evoked from the audience in this way. Real time gives us a feeling of involvement in the scene and viewers are made to feel more connected with the characters. In the next section of the clips the troops are getting on to the beach and running up towards the land. Both clips show in detail the injuries many soldiers receive and bring home to the audience some of the horrific deaths that were suffered by them. Brutal realism is widely used but especially in Saving Private Ryan; the audience is shown open wounds, dying men and even a soldier picking up his own arm, all in a very graphic way. A big difference to be seen in this section of both the clips is first or third person narration. As with books, scenes in films usually take on the view of either someone involved in the action (in this case a soldier). by using the camera as eyes and showing what a soldier might see, or showing the action from further away and using the camera to give a wider perspective. The Saving Private Ryan clip is shot almost entirely from a first-person viewpoint, which therefore shows the audience a lot more gory injuries and suffering. A first person viewpoint can often give a much more shocking effect can change the audiences emotions more directly. Spielberg uses this type of filming to bring feelings not only of horror at the situation but sympathy and sadness. The Longest Day is mostly shot from a third-person perspective because its main purpose is to inform the audience, and give the viewer an accurate picture of the situations encountered by soldiers and the action that took place. There are almost no close-ups in the clip, and it seems Zanuck has concentrated on showing us the big picture, whereas Spielberg uses close-up shots to initiate a feeling of friendship between the audience and the characters, as we follow the same characters throughout the film. To show troops moving up the beach. The Longest Day uses a continuous shot which lasts approximately thrity seconds. In this shot the camera pans steadily up the beach, slightly raised from the troops. The audience is given a view along the coastline and is shown hundreds of troops cheering and shouting, running up the beach. This shot is used by Zanuck to give an idea of the vastness of the operation, and to show the viewer the number of lives that were lost even on a a small part of the coastline. As a significant part of this films original audience would have been involved in the war and specifically this operation, Zanuck focuses also on a sense of heroism in the characters, the courage and willpower in the most difficult of situations. At the end of each clip, dialogue between two soldiers takes place, but the tones of voice, attitudes, reactions, and expressions of the characters couldnt be more different. This scene in The Longest Day seems staged and unemotive, as a young soldier is told to go back and get his rifle which he has dropped on the beach, because, as the General tells him, hes sure to need it before this day is over. This sentence seems too structured to be realistic; in a war situation it wouldnt be normal to come out with such a complex sentence. However, the General reassures this young, frightened soldier and the short scene illustrates the kind of bonds that were created between troops. A feeling of security and trust is portrayed to the viewers in the father and son relationship we see on screen. The same scene in Saving Private Ryan shows more spontaneity and realism as a young soldier screams to the commander What the hell do we do now, sir?! . He is panicking because he has no idea what he ought to be doing, but when he asks his commander he too has no clue. There is much confusion and the audience feel uncomfortable and unsafe as we do not know the fate of the people we see before us. The characters are presented in different ways but the important thing that links both the scenes is why the director has decided to introduce the characters at all. By the introduction to the characters of the boy and his superior we start to care about their individual fates, and pathos is used over us to so that we become concerned over whether the characters live or die. Both directors use this to evoke sadness and pity among the audience. One of the most important aspects of the clips to analyse is the directors presentation of war. The Longest Day is an epic, giving an accurate, historical account of the D-Day landings. It conveys to the audience the bravery of the soldiers who fought in the war and the situations they had to deal with. A huge proportion of its original audience would have either fought in the war themselves or been closely related to someone who had, so the purpose of the film would have been to pay tribute to those people. The purpose of Saving Private Ryan is different because almost none or even none at all of its audience would have fought in the war. Spielberg shows us the operation not just from a factual view but from an emotional view and shows us tragedies and horrors. Although the two clips cover exactly the same event we can see that they are very different in style, but even though they were made decades apart from each other there are also a similarities. By comparing and analysing these films so closely, we as an audience can begin to see into the directors minds and realise their hidden purposes behind making the film.

Originality Of Philosophy :: essays research papers fc

Originality of Philosophy Feb.25.1997   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What is philosophy? What does a philosopher really do? Questions like these can be answered in a review of Philosophy Now. What can possibly be answered.....questions which have them. And what is it that philosophers study? Generally, most philosophers study questions in which there is no rational or justifiable answer. And the type of articles in the magazine are very interesting because they elighten the reader to question the answers. Some of the articles in this issue are â€Å"Bakunin: Anarchist or Antichrist?†, â€Å" Practical Solipsism†, â€Å"Introduction to Ontology†, â€Å"Orwell and Philosophy†, some other brief articles, an Internet page, and even some classifieds. The overall view of this magazine was very intellectual and professional because it did not contain any advertising throughout the magazine. The articles are more in the manner meant for either philosophers or someone in school studying Philosophy, or even anyone interested in a very different approach to society.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An idea in the article â€Å"Practical Solipsism† reads: â€Å"Solipsism - the idea that only I exist and that you, and all other material things in the world are mere figments of my imagination - is one of those peculiar notions that make everybody realize just how barmy philosophers truly are.† Philosophy is often translated as the love of wisdom or the love of truth. One way to get a vague idea as to what philosophy is about is to dissect the subject and investigate its skeleton. there are many branches in philosophy. Metaphysics is†(after- physics, after Aristotle's book of physics.)†, and has questions about the nature of time, categories of existence, including god. Epistemology asks what is knowledge? what is the difference between knowledge, belief and opinion? Can we really know anything? How could we know that we did? Logic questions the truth and even now employs a sort of algebra which is used to crunch logical problems. There is Philosophy of mind, which asks questions about the human mind, how it thinks, and how is it related to the body. Ethics is like how are we living, what is good and bad, what is unethical, and what is happiness. Aesthetics asks mostly about beauty and how to define it. In particular though, there is political philosophy, and it asks questions like What would Utopia be like? Is Utopia possible? How should social life be organized? In my opinion this philosophy is not one related to our government but is very interesting to me. As I was reading, many questions arose about our society and what I thought should be changed. Another Article that I went over was called â€Å"Ontology for

Grandpas Lap :: essays research papers

Grandpa's Lap She seems to be at ease. Her face was completely consumed by her smile. She was in what felt like a safe place. Grandpa's lap always felt like a safe place. He was her hero. He would protect her from anything and everything that may come her way. He was a brave warrior who would take on the world for her if he had to. He smelled of Old Spice and cheap chaving cream. It was a comfortable smell. It was the kind of smell that made her want to curl up next to him. She would always watch him shave in the morning. She would often wonder why she couldn't shave like Grandpa. Once he shaved half of his beard off. He said, "If you like me with a beard look at this side, and if you like me better without, look at the other side." He was silly like that a lot. He was always humming while he shaved. It was always a silly song she guessed. He only hummed because the words to the songs were too dirty for a little girl's ears. He was in the marines after all. he didn't know any frilly songs. Only the hearty, manly, dirty songs. He would sometimes sing her a nursery rhyme when no one else was around. Grandpa was a special man. He retired from the marines, but never retired from the lifestyle. "One can take a man out of the marines, but you can't take the marine out of a man." This was one of Grandpa's favorite sayings. The marine really does stay in a man. It added to Grandpa's loving personality. It added a feeling of security. It added a lot. Grandpa's lap was her favorite spot. The big chair wasn't the same when Grandpa couldn't sit in it any longer. Once he was gone, no one would really sit there. He used to tickle her if she took his seat.

Human Resource Management in a business is extremely important Essay

Human Resource Management in a business is extremely important. Good Human Resource Management can help make a successful business as it can help keep the employees happy and satisfied. In the leisure and recreation industry high quality human resource management is vital as the service delivered by the organisations are on a â€Å"person to person† basis. S o the business is going to need the right people with the right skills and attitude, and also need the right managers to motivate and train staff to do well in their jobs. Human Resource Management basically means the organisation of people in a company, and can also be defined by the tasks, which managers undertake in the area, such as recruitment, training and communication with the workforce and dealing with any problems that may arise with the employees. The key qualities that the employees should have are that they should be well enough trained and confident enough to communicate with customers. Most large companies organise their staff into teams or separate departments, with a head or manager of section in charge. In large organisations the role of the manager is to be largely responsible for the deployment and development of employees, a duty that can represent a substantial challenge and needs its own type of training. The manager needs to be trained in appraising staff, motivating individuals or teams in applying employment legislation correctly. The roles of the Human Resource Manager in different sized organisations differ a lot. A manager in a large business would be a trained specialist and would know how to motivate his staff a lot more effectively, as he can concentrate solely on his employees. Where as a manager in a smaller business has the equal amount of responsibility, but this will be added to the responsibility for marketing strategies, financial decisions, stock control and many other jobs to do, perhaps for fewer staff but none the less a complex range of roles to perform. Here at ECC we have a very good Human Resource Management department that motivates the staff very well and is extremely organised, we aim to make sure that our employees are happy and that there is a friendly atmosphere evident for the customers to feel welcome. External and Internal Influences that affect Human Resource Planning Many large and medium sized businesses today have a personnel department. Its main role will be to manage the firm’s human resources. These are the employees or personnel in a business that help it to achieve its objectives. They might include production workers, office staff, members of the marketing team, accountants or cleaners. Human Resource Planning is the method by which a business forecasts how many and what type of employees it needs at present and in the future. It also involves matching up the right type of employees to the needs of the business. A business will work out its labour requirements, its demand, and make sure that an appropriate supply is demanded. There are many external and internal influences that can affect the success of the human resource management team and it’s planning for the short and long term. The difference between these influences from the point of view of Human Resource Planning (HRP) is that external is outside the immediate control of organisations, where as internal are more within control of organisations and can be more responsive to good HRP. The external factors can be simplified to the mnemonic PESTLE. These factors affect any leisure and recreation organisation. Each letter influences a business in different ways. Political Economic Social Technological Legal Environmental Political This is concerned with how political developments, regionally, nationally and internationally might affect a leisure and recreation businesses strategy and objectives. A change of government might affect a Leisure and Recreation provider such as our company ECC because they may introduce new policies or taxes that would mean our business may have to have to pay more direct tax and would consequently mean that our company would have less capital to spend on improving the business, or increasing employees wages. Political Instability could also occur in the United Kingdom. This could cause unrest within a country and could reduce the amount of people visiting your organisation. Here at ECC we may be affected, as there is a possibility of war with Iraq, which would mean people wouldn’t visit the UK or the USA as the countries could be destructed by a war. That means we wouldn’t have a business, as we would not get any customers visiting our restaurants so we would end up bust. Economic This incorporates: * Government Policy – Monetary Policy and Interest Rates * Economic Variables – Inflation and Unemployment Levels. The Monetary Policy is used to manage the level of demand in the economy with a particular emphasis on controlling the money supply. Monetary Policy can be used to: * Expand the economy by allowing more money to circulate and increase spending. * Control spending and restricts increases in money flowing around the economy which may lead to price rises. The government has used a variety of methods in the past to control the money supply. One is by changing the Interest Rates. Interest Rates is the rate of which businesses and people have to pay back money on loans and on there credit cards. The Monetary Policy meet to determine how much money they want circulating in the UK economy so that it can affect the money supply and inflation. An increase in Interest Rates can reduce the money supply. If interest rates increases, the rate of borrowing rises. That can affect leisure organisations such as ECC a great deal because if we want to expand and develop more restaurants in the UK then that would cost us more money to take out a loan, as the banks would charge us more interest. So then we may have to up our prices and pass on the increase of interest to our customers, which would then decrease the demand of our products, and may go to competitors such as McDonalds or Burger King. The level of inflation is when prices are rising (the rate of inflation) this also has an effect on consumer spending tending to slow down due to the high prices. Due to the loss of demand it has a knock on effect upon suppliers, who pass the increased fixed costs to companies such as ECC. That means that we would have to pay more for all our raw materials such as our food and cooking and cleaning goods and then that means increased prices. Our Human Resource Management department would be effected as that means we wouldn’t be able to increase the wages of the employees like they may want, as we cant afford the rise in inflation, which could lead to de- motivation in our staff and the possibility of employees leaving. Unemployment levels at a high level, generally means the UK population as a whole has less money to spend on leisure and recreation activities, and instead spend the money on essential goods. When employment levels are high the population feel confident and have more disposable income to spend on luxury goods or on leisure activities. That could influence our HRP in two ways. Either by having a lot of people spending a lot in our restaurant as they have more money, which means we could afford to give our employees pay rise. Which then would make our staff more motivated and then work more efficiently and produce a better service to customers. And the opposite effect being less demand from customers and then less profit, and we would have to reduce prices to increase demand. By doing that the staff would not get any more money and become more de- motivated. Social The factors include Consumer Trends, which are the trends of the UK population. If the economy is experiencing an upturn in demand that means a company such as ourselves that means we would have to employ more staff as the increase in demand needs more staff to cope with the queues and maintain our service standard of fast, quality food to our customers. So we would employ part time staff so they can be flexible and if the demand decreases then we could not use them or pay them as much. Our HRP may need to be modified if there is a sudden demographic change to our customer base. There is an increase in the â€Å"grey market† in the United Kingdom these are the over 50’s so that means we may employ more over 50 staff to appeal to the â€Å"grey market† as they generally have higher disposable incomes and more free time to come to our restaurant. So that could be something for our HRP to decide on, so we can provide a service to a wider market and then increase our profits. Technological We should improve our technology in ECC by maybe having to introduce online booking at our restaurants to keep up with the ongoing advances in technology and make our company have an advantage over our competitors. It would need high levels of investment, and increasing amounts of customers means ECC would have to employ more staff and also have to pay more on training the staff to be suitably equipped to deal with the new technology which would then mean having to pay out more for the wages of the employees. Legal Legal factors could include new health and safety legislation, such as tighter fire precautions, which would mean that our employees would have to go away to an external environment to be trained correctly to make sure ECC cant be sued due to staff not being trained in health and safety. Environmental Here at ECC we make sure there are no reasons why we as a company aren’t being environmentally friendly and then we aren’t subject to pressure groups demonstrating against the business, which then would lead to a loss of profit, as demand would decrease because of protestors against us. There are also internal factors that can affect businesses HRP. Structure and Ownership can lead to good and bad HRP. ECC being a large hierarchical organisation has many staff on many levels need a carefully researched human resource plan, which we have to avoid poor communication between restaurants. We make sure each manager of each restaurant across the world takes into account there employees opinions to make our company better as they are the experts in their job. That is all to increase the profits of the business and make it more efficient. The Size and Location can also affect a company and its HRP. We deliver one type of service, so all staff everywhere can be trained to the same standard across the organisation so we achieve the same results and provide the same great service. The location of the business can also be key, because if it is located in the countryside instead of the town centre where we locate our restaurants then we wouldn’t appeal to such a wide market and then not get as much profit, which would lead to less money being put towards our employees who are vital.

The Importance of the Supply and Demand Model

The Importance of the Supply and Demand Model Forming the basis for introductory concepts of economics, the supply and demand model  refers to the combination of buyers preferences comprising the demand and the sellers preferences comprising the supply, which  together determine the market prices and product quantities in any given market. In a capitalistic society, prices are not determined by a central authority but rather are the result of buyers and sellers interacting in these markets. Unlike a physical market, however, buyers and sellers don’t have to all be in the same place, they just have to be looking to conduct the same economic transaction. It’s important to keep in mind that prices and quantities are the outputs of the supply and demand model, not the inputs. It’s also important to keep in mind that the supply and demand model only applies to competitive markets - markets where there are many buyers and sellers all looking to buy and sell similar products. Markets that don’t satisfy these criteria have different models that apply to them instead. The Law of Supply and The Law of Demand The supply and demand model can be broken into two parts: the law of demand and the law of supply. In the law of demand, the higher a suppliers price, the lower the quantity of demand for that product becomes.  The law itself states, all else being equal, as the price of a product increases, quantity demanded falls; likewise, as the price of a product decreases, quantity demanded increases. This correlates largely to the opportunity cost of buying more expensive items wherein the expectation is that if the buyer must give up consumption of something they value more to buy the more expensive product, they will likely want to buy it less. Similarly, the law of supply correlates to the quantities  that will be sold at certain price points. Essentially the converse of the law of  demand, the supply model demonstrates that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied because of an increase in business revenue hinges upon more sales at higher prices.   The relationship between supply in demand relies heavily on maintaining an equilibrium between the two, wherein there is never more or less supply than demand in a marketplace.   Application in Modern Economics To think of it in modern application, take the example of a new DVD being released for $15. Because market analysis has shown that current consumers will not spend over that price for a movie, the company only releases 100 copies because the opportunity cost of production for suppliers is too high for the demand. However, if the demand rises, the price will also increase resulting in higher quantity supply. Conversely, if 100 copies are released and the demand is only 50 DVDs,  the price will fall to attempt to sell the remaining 50 copies that the market no longer demands.   The concepts inherent in the supply and demand model further provide a backbone for modern economics discussions, especially as it applies to capitalist societies. Without a fundamental understanding of this model, it is almost impossible to understand the complex world of economic theory.

Conversion of Biblical Measurements

Conversion of Biblical Measurements One of comedian Bill Cosbys most hilarious routines features a conversation between God and Noah about building an ark. After getting detailed instructions, a puzzled Noah asks God: Whats a cubit? and God responds that He doesnt know either. Too bad they couldnt get help from archaeologists on how to count their cubits today. Learn the Modern Terms for Biblical Measurements Cubits, fingers, palms, spans, baths, homers, ephahs, and seahs are among ancient forms of biblical measurements. Thanks to decades of archaeological digs, scholars have been able to determine the approximate size of most of these measurements according to contemporary standards. Measure Noahs Ark in Cubits For example, in Genesis 6:14-15, God tells Noah to build the ark 300 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 50 cubits wide. By comparing various ancient artifacts, a cubit has been found to equal about 18 inches, according to National Geographics atlas, The Biblical World. So lets do the math: 300 X 18 5,400 inches, which amounts to 450 feet or a little more than 137 meters in length30 X 18 540 inches, or 37.5 feet or just under 11.5 meters in height50 X 18 900 inches, or 75 feet or slightly less than 23 meters So by converting biblical measurements, we end up with an ark thats 540 feet long, 37.5 feet high and 75 feet wide. Whether thats large enough to carry two of each species is a question for theologians, science fiction writers, or physicists who specialize in quantum state mechanics. Use Body Parts for Biblical Measurements As ancient civilizations progressed to the need for keeping account of things, people used parts of the body as the quickest and easiest way to measure something. After sizing up artifacts according to both ancient and contemporary measurements, theyve discovered that: A finger equals about three-quarters of an inch (roughly the width of an adult human finger)A palm equals about 3 inches or the size across a human handA span equals about 9 inches, or the width of an extended thumb and four fingers Calculate More Difficult, Biblical Measurements for Volume Length, width, and height have been calculated by scholars with some common agreement, but measures of the volume have eluded accuracy for some time. For example, in an essay titled Bible Weights, Measures, and Monetary Values, Tom Edwards writes about how many estimates exist for a dry measure known as a homer: For instance, a Homers liquid capacity (though normally seen as a dry measure) has been estimated at these various amounts: 120 gallons (calculated from footnote in New Jerusalem Bible); 90 gallons (Halley; I.S.B.E.); 84 gallons (Dummelow, One Volume Bible Commentary); 75 gallons (Unger, old edit.); 58.1 gallons (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible); and about 45 gallons (Harpers Bible Dictionary). And we need to also realize that weights, measurements, and monetary values often varied from one place to the next, and from one time period to another. Ezekiel 45:11 describes an ephah as being one-tenth of a homer. But is that one-tenth of 120 gallons, or 90 or 84 or 75 or ...? In some translations of Genesis 18: 1-11, when three angels come to visit, Abraham instructs Sarah to make bread using three seahs of flour, which Edwards describes as one-third of an ephah, or 6.66 dry quarts. How to Use Ancient Pottery to Measure Volume Ancient pottery offers the best clues for archaeologists to determine some of these biblical volume capacities, according to Edwards and other sources. Pottery labeled bath (that was dug up in Tell Beit Mirsim in Jordan) has been found to hold about 5 gallons, comparable to similar containers of the Greco-Roman era with capacities of 5.68 gallons. Since Ezekiel 45:11 equates the bath (liquid measure) with the ephah (dry measure), the best estimate for this volume would be about 5.8 gallons (22 liters). Ergo, a homer equals roughly 58 gallons. So according to these measures, if Sarah mixed up three seahs of flour, she used nearly 5 gallons of flour to make bread for Abrahams three angelic visitors. There must have been plenty of leftovers to feed their family unless angels have literally bottomless appetites. Sources on Biblical Measurements The Biblical World: An Illustrated Atlas (National Geographic 2007).Biblical Weights, Measures, and Monetary Values, by Tom Edwards, Spirit Restoration.com, spiritrestoration.org/Church/Research%20History%20and%20Great%20Links/Biblical%20Weights%20Measure%20and%20Monetary%20System.htm Bible Passages Genesis 6:14-15 Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Ezekiel 45:11 The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, the bath containing one-tenth of a homer, and the ephah one-tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. Source The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version (Oxford University Press). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Longest Day of the Year in Different Cities

Longest Day of the Year in Different Cities In the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year will always be on or around June 21. On this date, the rays of the sun will be perpendicular to the Tropic of Cancer at 23Â °30 North latitude. This day is the summer solstice for all locations north of the equator. On this day, the earths circle of illumination will be from the Arctic Circle on the far side of the earth (in relation to the sun) to the Antarctic Circle on the near side of the earth. The equator receives twelve hours of daylight, there are 24 hours of daylight at the North Pole and areas north of 66Â °30 N, and there are 24 hours of darkness at the South Pole and areas south of 66Â °30 S. June 20 to 21 is the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere but simultaneously the start of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Its also the longest day of sunlight for places in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest day for cities south of the equator. However, June 20 to 21 is not the day when the sun rises earliest in the morning nor when it sets the latest at night. As well see, the date of the earliest sunrise or sunset varies from location to location. Well start our tour of the solstice in the north, with Anchorage, Alaska and head south in the U.S. and then move on to international cities. Its interesting to compare the difference in sunrise and sunset in various locales around the globe. In the information below, the date ranges for the longest day have been rounded to the nearest minute. If we were to round to the second, the solstice on the 20th or 21st would always be the longest day. Anchorage, Alaska Earliest Sunrise: 4:20 a.m. from June 17th through June 19thLatest Sunset: 11:42 p.m. from June 18th to June 25thLongest Days: June 18th to June 22ndHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 19 hours and 21 minutes Seattle, Washington Earliest Sunrise: 5:11 a.m. from June 11th through June 20th.Latest Sunset: 9:11 p.m. from June 19th to June 30thLongest Days: June 16th to June 24thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 15 hours and 59 minutes Portland, Oregon Earliest Sunrise: 5:21 a.m. from June 12th through June 17th.Latest Sunset: 9:04 p.m. from June 23rd to June 27thLongest Days: June 16th to June June 24thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 15 hours and 41 minutes New York City, New York Earliest Sunrise: 5:24 a.m. from June 11th through June 17th.Latest Sunset: 8:31 p.m. from June 20th to July 3rdLongest Days: June 18th to June June 22ndHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 15 hours and 6 minutes Sacramento, California Earliest Sunrise: 5:41 a.m. from June 8th through June 18th.Latest Sunset: 8:34 p.m. from June 20th to July 4thLongest Days: June 17th to June June 23rdHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 14 hours and 52 minutes Los Angeles, California Earliest Sunrise: 5:41 a.m. from June 6th through June 17th.Latest Sunset: 8:08 p.m. from June 20th to July 6thLongest Days: June 19th to June 21stHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 14 hours and 26 minutes Miami, Florida Earliest Sunrise: 6:29 a.m. from May 31st through June 17th.Latest Sunset: 8:16 p.m. from June 23rd to July 6thLongest Days: June 15th to June 25thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 13 hours and 45 minutes Honolulu, Hawaii Earliest Sunrise: 5:49 a.m. from May 28th through June 16th.Latest Sunset: 7:18 p.m. from June 30th to July 7thLongest Days: June 15th to June 25thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 13 hours and 26 minutes Because it is closer to the equator than any of the other U.S. cities profiled here, Honolulu has the shortest length of daylight on the summer solstice. The city also has far less variation in daylight throughout the year, so even winter days have close to 11 hours of sunlight. Next, well learn about international cities and how they are affected by the solstice. Reykjavik, Iceland Earliest Sunrise: 2:55 a.m. from June 18th through June 21stLatest Sunset: 12:04 a.m. from June 21st to June 24thLongest Days: June 18th to June 22ndHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 21 hours and 8 minutes If Reykjavik were just a few degrees further to the north, it would fall within the Arctic Circle and experience 24 hours of daylight on the summer solstice. London, United Kingdom Earliest Sunrise: 4:43 a.m. from June 11th through June 22ndLatest Sunset: 9:22 p.m. from June 21st to June 27thLongest Days: June 17th to June 24thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 16 hours and 38 minutes Tokyo, Japan Earliest Sunrise: 4:25 a.m. from June 6th through June 20th.Latest Sunset: 7:01 p.m. from June 22nd to July 5thLongest Days: June 19th to June 23ndHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 14 hours and 35 minutes Mexico City, Mexico Earliest Sunrise: 6:57 a.m. from June 3rd through June 7th.Latest Sunset: 8:19 p.m. from June 27th to June 12thLongest Days: June 13th to June 28thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 13 hours and 18 minutes Nairobi, Kenya Earliest Sunrise: 6:11 a.m. from November 3rd through November 7th.Latest Sunset: 6:52 p.m. from February 4th to June 14thLongest Days: December 2nd to January 10thHours of Daylight on Longest Day: 12 hours and 12 minutes Nairobi, which is merely 1Â °17 south of the equator, has exactly 12 hours of sunlight on June 21 when the sun rises at 6:33 a.m. and sets at 6:33 p.m. Because the city is in the Southern Hemisphere, it experiences its longest day on December 21. Nairobis shortest days, in mid-June, are just 10 minutes shorter than the longest days in December. The lack of diversity in Nairobis sunrise and sunset throughout the year provides a clear example of why lower latitudes dont need Daylight Saving Time - sunrise and sunset are almost at the same time year-round. Edited by Allen Grove

Positioning View of McDonalds Competitive Advantage Essay

Positioning View of McDonalds Competitive Advantage - Essay Example According to the discussion McDonald’s emerges as a key player in the fast food industry and has worked relentlessly to attain a competitive advantage thereof.   The three major competitive strategies that a firm can follow include differentiation, focus, market segmentation, and low cost. In this sense, completive advantage can be conceived as the relative superiority in skills and resources. There are two major views of achieving competitive advantage, and they include resource-based view (RBV) and positioning view, which is construed as a consequence of RBV. In this discussion, the RBV and the portioning view will be defined with reference to the McDonald’s Company.This paper highlights that  resources and skills of a company are overly important as they are regarded as the major sources of competitive advantage. It is against this backdrop that the RBV is grounded and it proposes that in order to achieve competitive advantage, the assets and capabilities of a co mpany have presently scarce, not easily obtained in the market, non-substitutable and difficult to imitate besides furnishing economic value to the company. Whereas assets refer to the accumulated resource endowments of a company, capabilities are the skills that make it possible for the assets to be deployed in an advantageous manner. In regard to McDonald’s, the RBV of achieving competitive advantage is comprehended from the design and human resource dimension.  

Walmart lawsuite versus TABC Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Walmart lawsuite versus TABC - Article Example They want the violation to end to enjoy their rights. Wal-Mart says that Texas is irrationally banning them from selling hard liquor like they do in other states. The company argues this is so only because it is a publicly traded company. TABC says even if Wal-Mart could sell hard liquor in the state, the law only entitles it to do so in only five of its stores (Kieler 10). Owners of stores that pool permits together with their family members, however, have no limit to the number of permits. Wal-Mart argues that the law creates arbitrary distinctions that are used to separate classes of retailers that have no rational difference in their selling or purpose for selling the commodity. Wal-Mart Company would also like to sell distilled spirits at its stores and Sam’s Club located in Texas for persons who want off-premises consumption (Kieler 6). The lawsuit states that the Texas law forbids public traded companies from owning a permit that one needs to sell alcohol. It is the package store permit. The public corporation class of retailers gets denied the opportunity to compete in the hard liquor department. The other class of retailers i.e. publicly traded hotel corporations and private corporations can compete without having the restrictions they are getting. There is no other state in America that permits private corporations to sell hard liquor (Kieler 8). Some of the publicly traded corporation but not all of them have a prohibition on retail sale of spirits. There is also another issue of limiting the number of stores and outlets that should sell the liquor. Wal-Mart in their lawsuit takes up this as another issue. The company states in its lawsuit that TABC is unfair in letting other companies own the permit. Several small companies that are family owned to take advantage of the loophole that allows close family members have access to

Low frequency of human papillomavirus DNA in breast cancer by Research Paper

Low frequency of human papillomavirus DNA in breast cancer by Mendizabal-Ruiz et al 2009 - Research Paper Example All the samples were taken from patients who have no prior history of breast cancers. This means those who had a family history of breast cancer were intentionally excluded from the group sampling in order to isolate the probable cause of the breast cancer to the presence of the HPV only. Out of the 107 samples taken from the pathology department, 67 of them are diagnosed to have breast cancer present while the remaining 40 samples were non-malignant. The purported rationale for this study was to investigate the possible connection that HPV has to certain types of breast cancers, since HPV is already well known to be a causative agent of most cervical uterine cancers. Since some breast cancers were found to have the HPV variants present in some of these cases, it was worth investigating if there is more to presence of the HPV's DNA in these breast cancer cases to link the two together. The HPV has several variants and types 16, 18 and 33 are quite common among certain populations. Th e authors of this study used the polymerase chain reaction method to try to detect the DNA of these HPVs. The aims of their study were to detect a presence of this DNA in breast cancer tissue samples and establish a possible role or link of this virus in the genesis of breast cancer.

Mercy Killing or Just Killing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 4

Mercy Killing or Just Killing - Essay Example Proponents for euthanasia have passionately defended their position for accepting and adopting its practice. World people are facing ever-growing moral dilemmas. With the advancements in the medical field also come new procedures as well as easier ways to deal with problems. A popular moral dilemma that comes to mind is abortion. Now many people are against abortion for religious reasons. Moreover, just like abortion, many consider assisted suicide as murder. However, it is both ridiculous and irrelevant to argue on whether assisted suicide should be legal. When I was young, my Oma (grandmother) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. For years, she lingered in the home as her mind slowly decayed over time. First, she could not remember how to speak English. She would be talking and resort to her childhood language at random points. Therefore, she would say a 10-word sentence and a half of it would be spoken in English. Next came the hard memory, she would forget simple tasks and could not be left on her own. She would forget the location of the bathroom was in her own home. Next was perhaps the hardest to deal with, she forgot our names. First came distant relatives but finally, she could not remember my mom’s name, her own daughter. Lastly, she forgot how to do pretty much anything; she could not button shirts, she could not even move at all. When she was in the home, she got bedsores from lack of movement. Moreover, she could not get up to go to the bathroom. Now, this is obviously horrible but the worst was the few mom ents where she had a small amount of clarity where 2 seconds here 3 seconds there she would remember how to talk. I recall one such moment when she simply said to my mom who was visiting her in the home, she simply said, â€Å"help me.† I remember how it crushed my mother and crushed me. Now everyone has his or her own religion and personal belief but I will now ask you a very philosophical question.  

Lab Discussion Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion - Lab Report Example Further, when carrying out the consistent, repeatable measurements the slopes of position versus time graph and the average velocity were found to be relatively same as deduced from the ranges of each measurement. In which case, the maximum value for slope coincided with that for average velocity same to the minimum value; hence, we deduced that the ranges are in agreement. This shows that a change in position against time directly affects the average velocity of the object in question. Further, the experiment also showed that the relationship between position versus time and velocity is affected by the direction of motion. This was deduced when the motion detector was rotated thereby giving different curves at each instance of rotation. Further, when the graphs for velocity were recorded for the different curves, aforementioned, the velocity versus time graph effectively changed. The rotation of the car leads to a change from positive slope to a negative slope. Consequently, this shows that just the way rotation affect the position time graph so it does to the

Mercy Killing or Just Killing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 4

Mercy Killing or Just Killing - Essay Example Proponents for euthanasia have passionately defended their position for accepting and adopting its practice. World people are facing ever-growing moral dilemmas. With the advancements in the medical field also come new procedures as well as easier ways to deal with problems. A popular moral dilemma that comes to mind is abortion. Now many people are against abortion for religious reasons. Moreover, just like abortion, many consider assisted suicide as murder. However, it is both ridiculous and irrelevant to argue on whether assisted suicide should be legal. When I was young, my Oma (grandmother) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. For years, she lingered in the home as her mind slowly decayed over time. First, she could not remember how to speak English. She would be talking and resort to her childhood language at random points. Therefore, she would say a 10-word sentence and a half of it would be spoken in English. Next came the hard memory, she would forget simple tasks and could not be left on her own. She would forget the location of the bathroom was in her own home. Next was perhaps the hardest to deal with, she forgot our names. First came distant relatives but finally, she could not remember my mom’s name, her own daughter. Lastly, she forgot how to do pretty much anything; she could not button shirts, she could not even move at all. When she was in the home, she got bedsores from lack of movement. Moreover, she could not get up to go to the bathroom. Now, this is obviously horrible but the worst was the few mom ents where she had a small amount of clarity where 2 seconds here 3 seconds there she would remember how to talk. I recall one such moment when she simply said to my mom who was visiting her in the home, she simply said, â€Å"help me.† I remember how it crushed my mother and crushed me. Now everyone has his or her own religion and personal belief but I will now ask you a very philosophical question.  

Synaesthesia and the Encounter with Other Assignment

Synaesthesia and the Encounter with Other - Assignment Example   What Abram is trying to say in this passage is how humans can speak to innate objects such as trees and rocks. To most people, this just sounds insane and it clearly shows how humans have become alienated with nature. In ancient time, our ancestors used to communicate with nature and this kept them in touch with their inner self. However, due to the advent of alphabets and farming conversations with other species or nature has become outdated. This dependence to nature is evident on all the continents of the world by the varied forms of identification but is usually referred to as totemism. Abram further argues his point by saying, â€Å"the articulate speech of trees or mountains† is due to human engagement with nature via the synaesthetic convergence of two forms of senses, mainly hearing and seeing. The reason why the argument is important to him is that imaginary distortion such as conversations with trees is the very structure of perception. This is because the imagin ative interaction of human senses during their everyday encounters is the only way for them to link ourselves with nature and hence letting nature weave into our experiences. This means that all the inert objects that surround us in life are both powerful and expressive entities. I agree with his point of view since imagination and emotion are an important part of human understanding. This is because that which humans perceive through their senses will invoke further understanding through emotion and imagination.   

Love in Time of Cholera Essay Example for Free

Love in Time of Cholera Essay Time of CholeraLove, as Mickey and Sylvia, in their 1956 hit single, remind us, love is strange. As we grow older it gets stranger, until at some point mortality has come well within the frame of our attention, and there we are, suddenly caught between terminal dates while still talking a game of eternity. Its about then that we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teen-age pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear. At the same time, where would any of us be without all that romantic infrastructure, without, in fact, just that degree of adolescent, premortal hope? Pretty far out on lifes limb, at least. Suppose, then, it were possible, not only to swear love forever, but actually to follow through on it to live a long, full and authentic life based on such a vow, to put ones alloted stake of precious time where ones heart is? This is the extraordinary premise of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs new novel  Love in the Time of Cholera,  one on which he delivers, and triumphantly. In the postromantic ebb of the 70s and 80s, with everybody now so wised up and even growing paranoid about love, once the magical buzzword of a generation, it is a daring step for any writer to decide to work in loves vernacular, to take it, with all its folly, imprecision and lapses in taste, at all seriously that is, as well worth those higher forms of play that we value in fiction. For Garcia Marquez the step may also be revolutionary. I think that a novel about love is as valid as any other, he once remarked in a conversation with his friend, the journalist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (published as El Olor de la Guayaba, 1982). In reality the duty of a writer the revolutionary duty, if you like is that of writing well. And oh boy does he write well. He writes with impassioned control, out of a maniacal serenity: the Garcimarquesian voice we have come to recognize from the other fiction has matured, found and developed new resources, been brought to a level where it can at once b e classical and familiar, opalescent and pure, able to praise and curse, laugh and cry, fabulate and ing and when called upon, take off and soar, as in this description of a turn-of-the-century balloon trip: From the sky they could see, just as God saw them, the ruins of the very old and heroic city of Cartagena de Indias, the most beautiful in the world, abandoned by its inhabitants because of the sieges of the English and the atrocities of the buccaneers. They saw the walls, still intact, the brambles in the streets, the fortifications devoured by heartsease, the marble palaces and the golden altars and the viceroys rotting with plague inside their armor. They flew over the lake dwellings of the Trojas in Cataca, painted in lunatic colors, with pens holding iguanas raised for food and balsam apples and crepe myrtle hanging in the lacustrian gardens. Excited by everyones shouting, hundreds of naked children plunged into the water, jumping out of windows, jumping from the roofs of the houses and from the canoes that they handled with astonishing skill, and diving like shad to recover the bundles of clothing, the bottles of cough syrup, the beneficent food that the beautiful lady with the feathered hat threw to them from the basket of the balloon. This novel is also revolutionary in daring to suggest that vows of love made under a presumption of immortality youthful idiocy, to some may yet be honored, much later in life when we ought to know better, in the face of the undeniable. This is, effectively, to assert the resurrection of the body, today as throughout history an unavoidably revolutionary idea. Through the ever-subversive medium of fiction, Garcia Marquez shows us how it could all plausibly come about, even wild hope for somebody out here, outside a book, even as inevitably beaten at, bought and resold as we all must have become if only through years of simple residence in the injuring and corruptive world. Heres what happens. The story takes place between about 1880 and 1930, in a Caribbean seaport city, unnamed but said to be a composite of Cartagena and Barranquilla as well, perhaps, as cities of the spirit less officially mapped. Three major characters form a triangle whose hypotenuse is Florentino Ariza, a poet dedicated to love both carnal and transcendent, though his secular fate is with the River Company of the Caribbean and its small fleet of paddle-wheel steamboats. As a young apprentice telegrapher he meets and falls forever in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful adolescent with . . . almondsshaped eyes, who walks with a natural haughtiness . . . her does gait making her seem immune to gravity. Though they exchange hardly a hundred words face to face, they carry on a passionate and secret affair entirely by way of letters and telegrams, even after the girls father has sound out and taken her away on an extended journey of forgetting. But when she returns, Fermina rejects the lovesick young man after all, and eventually meets and marries instead Dr. Juvenal Urbino who, like the hero of a I9th-century novel, is well born, a sharp dresser, somewhat stuck on himself but a terrific catch nonetheless. For F lorentino, loves creature, this is an agonizing setback, though nothing fatal. Having sworn to love Fermina Daza forever, he settles in to wait for as long as he has to until shes free again. This turns out to be 51 years, 9 months and 4 days later, when suddenly, absurdly, on a Pentecost Sunday around 1930, Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies, chasing a parrot upon mango tree. After the funeral, when everyone else has left, Florentino steps forward with his hat over his heart Fermina, he declares, I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love. Shocked and furious, Fermina orders him out of the house. And dont show your face again for the years of life that are left to you . . . I hope there are very few of them. The hearts eternal vow has run up against the worlds finite terms. The confrontation occurs near the end of the first chapter, which recounts Dr. Urbinos last day on earth and Ferminas first night as a widow. We then flash back 50 years, into the time of cholera. The m iddle chapters follow the lives of the three characters through the years of the Urbinos marriage and Florentino Arizas rise at the River Company, as one century ticks over into the next. The last chapter takes up again where the first left off, with Florentine now, in the face of what many men would consider major rejection, resolutely setting about courting Fermina Daza all over again, doing what he must to win her love. In their city, throughout a turbulent half-century, death has proliferated everywhere, both as el colera, the fatal disease that sweeps through in terrible intermittent epidemics, and as la colera, defined as choler or anger, which taken to its extreme becomes warfare. Victims of one, in this book, are more than once mistaken for victims of the other. War, always the same war, is presented here not as the continuation by other means of any politics that can possibly matter, but as a negative force, a plague, whose only meaning is death on a massive scale. Against this dark ground, lives, so precarious, are often more and less conscious projects of resistance, even of sworn opposition, to death. Dr. Urbino, like his father before him, becomes a leader in the battle against the cholera, promoting public health measures obsessively, heroically. Fermina, more conventionally but with as much courage, soldiers on in her chosen role of wife, mother and household manager, maintaining a safe perimeter for her family. Florentino embraces Eros, deaths well-known long-time enemy, setting off on a career of seductions that eventually add up to 622 long term liaisons, apart from . . . countless fleeting adventures, while maintaining, impervious to time, his deeper fidelity, his unquenchable hope for a life with Fermina. At the end he can tell her truthfully though she doesnt believe it for a minute that he has remained a virgin for her. So far as this is Florentinos story, in a way his Bildungsroman, we find ourselves, as he earns the suspension of our disbelief, cheering him on, wishing for the success of this stubborn warrior against age and death, and in the name of love. But like the best fictional characters, he insists on his autonomy, refusing to be anything less ambiguous than human. We must take him as he is, pursuing his tomcat destiny out among the streets and lovers refuges of this city with which he lives on terms of such easy intimacy, carrying with him a potential for disasters from which he remains safe, immunized by a comical but dangerous indifference to consequences that often borders on criminal neglect. The widow Nazaret, one of many widows he is fated to make happy, seduces him during a nightlong bombardment from the cannons of an attacking army outside the city. Ausencia Santanders exquisitely furnished home is burgled of every movable item while she and Florentino are frolicking in bed. A girl he picks up at Carnival time turns out to be a homicidal machete-wielding escapee from the local asylum. Olimpia Zuletas husband murders her when he sees a vulgar endearment Florentino has been thoughtless enough to write on her body in red paint. His lovers amorality causes not only individual misfortune but ecological destruction as well: as he learns by the end of the book, his River Companys insatiable appetite for firewood to fuel its steamers has wiped out the great forests that once bordered the Magdalena river system, leaving a wasteland where nothing can ive. With his mind clouded by his passion for Fermina Daza he never took the trouble to think about it, and by the time he realized the truth, there was nothing anyone could do except bring in a new river. In fact, dumb luck has as much to do with getting Florentino through as the intensity or purity of his dream. The authors great affection for this character does not entirely overcome a sly concurrent subversion of the ethic of machismo, of which Garcia Marquez is not especially fond, having described it elsewhere simply as usurpation of the rights of others. Indeed, as weve come to expect from his fiction, its the women in this story who are stronger, more attuned to reality. When Florentino goes crazy with live, developing symptoms like those of cholera, it is his mother Transito Ariza, who pulls him out of it. His innumerable lecheries are rewarded not so much for any traditional masculine selling points as for his obvious and aching need to be loved. Women go for it. He is ugly and sad, Fermina Dazas cousin Hildebranda tells her, but he is all love. And Garcia Marquez, straight-faced teller of tall tales, is his biographer. At the age of 19, as he has reported, the young writer underwent a literary epiphany on reading the famous opening lines of Kafkas  Metamorphosis,  in which a man wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Gosh, exclaimed Garcia Marquez, using in Spanish a word in English we may not, thats just the way my grandmother used to talk! And that, he adds is when novels began to interest him. Much of what come [sic] in his work to be called magical realism was, as he tells it, simply the presence of that grandmotherly voice. Nevertheless, in this novel we have come a meaningful distance from Macondo, the magical village in  One Hundred Years of Solitude  where folks routinely sail through the air and the dead remain in everyday conversation with the living: we have descended, perhaps in some way down the same river, all the way downstream, into war and pestilence and urban confusions to the edge of a Caribbean haunted less by individual dead than by a history which has brought so appallingly many down, without ever having sopoken, or having spoken gone unheard, or having been heard, left unrecorded. As revolutionary as writing well is the duty to redeem these silences, a duty Garcia Marquez has here fulfilled with honor and compassion. It would be presumptuous to speak of moving beyond  One Hundred Years of Solitude  but clearly Garcia Marquez has moved somewhere else, not least into deeper awareness of the ways in which, as Florentino comes to learn, nobody teaches life anything. There are still delightful and stunning moments contrary to fact, still told with the same unblinking humor presences at the foot of the bed, an anonymously delivered doll with a curse on it, the sinister parrot, almost a minor character, whose pursuit ends with the death of Dr. Juvenal Urbino. But the predominant claim on the authors attention and energies comes from what is not so contrary to fact, a human consensus about reality in which love and the possibility of loves extinction are the indispensable driving forces, and varieties of magic have become, if not quite peripheral, then at least more thoughtfully deployed in the service of an expanded vision, matured, darker than before but no less clement. It could be argued that this is the only honest way to write about love, that without the darkness and the finitude there might be romance, erotica, social comedy, soap opera all genres, by the way, that are well represented in this novel but not the Big L. What that seems to require, along with a certain vantage point, a certain level of understanding, is an authors ability to control his own love for his characters, to withhold from the reader the full extent of his caring, in other words not to lapse into drivel. In translating  Love in the Time of Cholera,  Edith Grossman has been attentive to this element of discipline, among many nuances of the authors voice to which she is sensitively, imaginatively attuned. My Spanish isnt perfect, but I can tell that she catches admirably and without apparent labor the swing and translucency of his writing, its slang and its classicism, the lyrical stretches and those end-of-sentence zingers he likes to hit us with. It is a faithful and beautiful piece of work. There comes a moment, early in his career at the River Company of the Caribbean when Florentino Ariza, unable to write even a simple commercial letter without some kind of romantic poetry creeping in, is discussing the problem with his uncle Leo XII, who owns the company. Its no use, the young man protests Love is the only thing that interests me. The trouble, his uncle replies, is that without river navigation, there is no love. For Florentino, this happens to be literally true: the shape of his life is defined by two momentous river voyages, half a century apart. On the first he made his decision to return and live forever in the city of Fermina Daza, to persevere in his love for as long as it might take. On the second, through a desolate landscape, he journeys into love and against time, with Fermina, at last by his side. There is nothing I have read quite like this astonishing final chapter, symphonic, sure in its dynamics and tempo, moving like a riverboat too, its author and pilot, with a lifetimes experience steering us unerringly among hazards of skepticism and mercy, on this river we all know, without whose navigation there is no love and against whose flow the effort to return is never worth a less honorable name than remembrance at the very best it results in works that can even return our worn souls to us, among which most certainly belongs  Love in the Time of Cholera,  this shining and heartbreaking novel.

Two Recent Technological Advances In Endoscopy Nursing Essay

Two Recent Technological Advances In Endoscopy Nursing Essay I am currently working at a day case endoscopy unit, the two advances in endoscopy procedures I will be looking at are, scope guide and minimal sedation. I will be assessing patients at the day case endoscopy unit I currently work at by participating in procedures which use scope guide and minimal sedation. During this period, I will be emphasising at the improvements in the care and safety of patients, to see how these have improved quality of patient care and diagnose problems at ease. Endoscopist, Nurses and Surgeon depend largely on advancement in technology for delivering enhanced patient care and ability to diagnose problems at ease. The application of computer-assisted image guidance technology to the Endoscopic surgical procedures allow creation of new methods to address the challenges by providing the needed 3-D imager that ultimately improves accuracy, efficiency and safety during procedures. (Daniel L Farkas et al 2008). Scope guide 3-D imager, is a non contact form which uses a low intensity magnetic field to display a real time 3 dimension view of the position and orientation of the colon scope with the abdominal cavity by means of detromagnetic transmission coils built into the colonoscope insertion tube. 3 D imager that ultimately improves accuracy, efficiency and safety during procedures (Daniel L. Farkas et al 2008). The scope guide 3 D imager assist in identification of the correct combination of manoeuvres necessary to straighten out the loops o nce formed Olympus 2008. A consultant Endoscopist London UK commented about scope Guide 3 D imager when we started to develop the electromagnetic imaging technology for scope guide. I envisioned a system that would allow colonoscopist to feel as comfortable as a tourist driving through the most unpredictable city with the assistance of a safety navigation system he commented today scope guide does just that i.e. improving colonoscopy by providing a real time 3 dimensional display of colonoscope position and configuration, the endoscopist no longer need to rely on guess and feel to determine the orientation of an inserted scope, scope guide will change the why you see colonoscopy, 3 D imager is an essential part of quality colonoscopy. 3 D imager is able to show shape both from lateral and anterior view direction simultaneously in split screen mode. The use of this scope guide eliminates the hazard of radiation for patients, doctors, this makes the 3 D imager ideal for daily clinical usage and for training purpose. (Yamamate (2008) and Koichin et al, (2008) both stated that is pain free colonoscopy possible? The greatest advantage of this new technology is that when using insufflators air is an enemy. The 3 D imager gives easy visualization and manoeuvres and to orientate the scope along the colon. Easily it avon loops and whenever loops occurs straightening it on and takes less time unlike long time procedures. 3 D imager couple with EVIS EXERA 11 260 series system delivers images in high definition. There are certain scopes that can be used with the 3 D imager which deliver image on the scope guide monitor in three dimensional, which make it possible for the patient watches it on the screen. No sedation sometimes or individual sedation given, patient tolerate the procedure well with aid of the scope guide makes the procedure quicker, safer and comfortable for most patients. The use of this 3 D imager is done by attaching the cord from the guide monitor to the scope, which transmits a current to the scope and shows on the 3 D imager monitor showing where the scope is, if there are loops in the colon, and serves as a guide to the endoscopist. 3 D imager is safe and effective equipment for treatment of making colonoscopy less painful especially in patients with long colon or loopy colon, whereas procedures are abandoned most times when patients cannot tolerate it because its very painful and far fear of perforation. Some of the producing real time 3D imager is that it is capable of producing real time 3D image display of position and orientation of the colonoscopy. The endoscopist no longer needs to rely on guess work or fluoroscopy to determine the configuration of an inserted scope. The Scope Guide 3-D imager uses a low intensity magnetic field to display a real time 3-dimension view of the position and orientation of the colon scope with the abdominal cavity by means of electromagnetic transmission coils built into the colonoscope insertion tube. The scope guide assist the endoscopist in the identification of the correct combination of manoeuvres necessary to straighten out the loops once formed (Olympus, 2008) It shows the correct ways to manoeuvres and straightens complex looping. It is completely safe for daily usage due to the electromagnetic transmission coils within the scope creates a low intensity magnetic field. It generally reduces pain during colonoscopy which enhance advance total cave of patient in today endoscopy procedures. It helps in giving quality care throughout the procedure for the patient, endoscopist and nurses, it eliminates the hazard of radiation from X-ray during colonoscopy, but with the 3 D imager scope guide, X-ray is no longer required. It helps to reduces time during procedure by making complicated procedure easy, hence less lengthy procedure, it helps their ability in pain management of their painful. The scope guide can be dangerous if the cords are not well attached to the scope, which could give a false picture. The nurse plays an important role in the care of the patient before during and after 3 D imager scope guide is used. In my unit all the advantage of scope guide demonstrated at Solna conference for all endoscopists in UK and Ireland can be seen practically every day since the colonoscopist started using the equipment. We have three procedure rooms running and the unit is having only one Scope Guide 3-D Imager. It is now a competitions between the endoscopist, as to who will use the equipment even when the procedure is not too difficult as some might claim but because it give them easy visualisation and manoeuvres and to orientate the scope along the colon. Easily they can avoid loops and whenever loop occurs straightening it on was very easy and takes less time unlike before when we do not have the equipment. All the noise and shout of pains by the patient during colonoscopy procedures has drastically reduced since the introduction of the equipment in the unit, and nurses job in the procedure room has become less stressful unlike before. When a patient requires the use of 3 D imager scope guide due to post hysterotory operation or very difficult previous colonoscopy because of looping, we care for them in the following way. Initially the patient is admitted for an outpatient procedure and checked in, consented, during consenting the doctor will explain to the patient for the need of using the 3 D imager what difficulties involved in manoeuvring the scope and patient during the use of it, repositioning of the patient to get a good view and to minimise the looping if that why, hence the patient will sign the consent form (nursing and midwifery council 2008), British Society of Gastroenterology 1991, 2008) (BSG guidelines) sedation is given via intravenous (IV) route and if to give any emergency injection if need be. A nasal catheter sponge is also attached to the patient for oxygen administration. The patient is given blue knickers for privacy and because of repositioning to prevent unnecessary exposure of patient (privacy and dignity). The patient is firstly positioned on the left lateral with knees bent towards the chest, meanwhile monitory if the oxygen saturation, pulse and blood pressure are checked throughout the procedure. The patient is talked through the procedures, informing the patient when to expect more pain when negotiating the flexures of the colon. The monitor of the scope guide cord is then attached to the scope to be used, and right setting done which brings on the light on monitor of the scope guide. Sedation and if possible muscle relencant i.e. antispasmodic or analgesic is administered through the intravenous route, everyone i.e. the doctor and nurses in the room will wear an apron, gloves and goggles (Health and Safety Executive 1992). The Endoscopist will reconfirm from the nurse whether the constant the procedure, the scope guide must be checked and the cotside on the left hand side is let down and the flexible plate is placed near the patients stomach and to be sure no damage and plate well placed prior to start of procedure. The big movable plate should be put in right position and not on the chest or let (Aorn 2004). During the procedure the scope guide setting is changed as the patient is repositioned which should be visually seen on the monitor to give a right direction of the scope in the colon and monitored. The procedure time, the patient is observed and monitored for abdominal pain and possible sweating or vasovagal reactions. The pain level of the patient is assessed which will determine whether to top up the sedation , pain reliever or antispasmodic injections by the endoscopist, through the nurse in there is there as the patients advocate, the cardiac arrest trolley with the defibrillator should be ac cessible within easy reach (BSG 2003). Post care of the patient should be monitored for severe abdominal pain caused by 3 D imager (Malick 2006). The patient will be wheeled on the trolley to the recovery ward and continuous monitory of the observations and vital signs for any of the complication must be recorded and documented. During the consenting time, the patient must have been provided with verbal and written instructions emphasising on observations for severe pain and bleeding (in case of perforation), if any unexpected symptoms arise, they should go to accident and emergency immediately (Norton et al 2008). In the endoscopy unit where I work, 3 D imager scope guide was implemented late last year, through its a new technology its own. This initially course some problems because some of the medical team I work with, some will say leave the cortside up, some say let it down because of the insufficient training on the use of the imager. Even on repositioning the patient, some medical team do not know where the arrow on the monitor should be which will affect the image. In treating conditions or scoping patients who has had hysterectomy or with lots of looping in the colon, I have observed the differentiation between when the scope guide is used and when not. The colonoscopist find it much comfortable for the patient and each visualisation and manoeuvres, loops avoided easily and easily straightening, loops if it occurs, the scope guide used may delivers images in high definition. The scope guide has gradually wins the heart of most Endoscopists in my unit for less lengthy time on one procedure. The use of the scope guide there is no need of colonoscopy procedure under X-ray i.e. between barium Enemy or CT scan this eliminates the hazard of radiation for patients. My unit is regards as one of the best bowel cancer screening unit due to the use of scope guide 3 D imager. The procedure is quick, safer, painless and comfortable for most patients, this has really encouraged patient to come for the screening process at my unit. 2nd assignment Minimal sedation is given according to patients preferences in procedures (BSG 2008) such as gastroscopy, brochoscopy flexible sigmodoscopy, colonoscopy, stent insertion to my unit, minimal sedation is mandatory for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatograph patients (ERCP). Minimal sedation is a method of sedation which was formally known as conscious sedation. In this case, its a technique in which no pain relievers are used therefore making patient to be awake an aware during unpleasant procedure without too much discomfort experience for successful endoscopy, general anaesthesia and minimal sedation used, but minimal sedation is much a safer method to control pain and anxiety during procedures (Rex 2006). In my unit, minimal sedation is used for most procedures done i.e. both lower and upper gastro intestinal endoscopies, formally in my workplace 6 8 mg midazolam was used which is no more used. The report of the rapid response (2008) the maximum dose of midazolam is 5mg which is now the most recent practice in my unit. Minimal sedation has been used and accepted because it does not require an anaesthetist, which is more economical this technique is very useful for endoscopist in providing a better examination which improves patients comfort and amnesic effect (Regula and Sokol-Kobielska 2008). The drug of choice because of its rapid onset, short duration of action is Midazolam, it provide an amnesic effort and help to relax the patient (Norton et al 2008). The most common benzodiazepines are diazepam and midazolam, majority of Endoscopist prefer to use midazolam because of it fast onset of action and high amnesic effect (National Guidelines Clearing House 2003). During procedures the group called benzo diazepams are used either alone or in combination with an opiate e.g. pethidine or fentanyl, when it is been used alone the occurrence of respiratory complication with either midazolam or fentanyl is fairly low. Contrary, the implications increases when both drugs are given in combination.

Andragogy: All about Learning? Essay -- Andragogy Knowles Education Es

Andragogy: All about Learning? Since the language of andragogy was introduced to North American adult educators by Malcolm Knowles, there have been continual debates about whether it is an adult learning theory, a teaching method, a philosophical statement, or all of the above. It is useful to take the development of andragogy into account when considering this question. When Knowles began writing about andragogy, he was already a well-respected figure in the adult education establishment. He had participated in the creation of the Black Book (Jensen, Liveright, and Hallenbeck 1964), a collection of writing setting out to define adult education as a discipline. Establishing adult education as a discrete area of academic study was an important aim for Knowles and many of his contemporaries (Damer 2000). As early as 1962, Knowles wrote that "the adult educational field is in the process of developing a distinctive curriculum and methodology" (Knowles 1962, p. 255)—a process in which he played a central role. The development of andragogy was an important component of broader efforts to position adult education as a profession and academic field. Knowles (1980) claimed that andragogy was "the art and science of teaching adults," and set out four key assumptions: 1. Teachers have a responsibility to help adults in the normal movement from dependency toward increasing self-directedness. 2. Adults have an ever-increasing reservoir of experience that is a rich resource for learning. 3. People are ready to learn something when it will help them to cope with real-life tasks or problems. 4. Learners see education as a means to develop increased competence. Two additional assumptions were later added (Knowles,... ...itique of the Present and a Proposal for the Future." Adult Education Quarterly 52, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 210-227. Robles, H. J. "Andragogy, the Adult Learner and Faculty as Learners." 1998. (ED 426 740) Tisdell, E. J. "Poststructural Feminist Pedagogies: The Possibilities and Limitations of Feminist Emancipatory Adult Learning Theory and Practice." Adult Education Quarterly 48, no. 3 (Spring 1998): 139-156. Usher, R.; Bryant, I.; and Johnston, R. "Self and Experience in Adult Learning." In Supporting Lifelong Learning, edited by R. Harrison, F. Reeve, A. Hanson, and J. Clarke, pp. 78-90. London: Routledge-Falmer/Open University, 2002. Wenger, E. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Ralf St. Clair is Director of the Texas Center for Adult Literacy and Learning, Texas A&M University.

Women in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay -- Young Goodman Brown

â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and Women  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   What are the attitudes of the young Puritan husband Goodman Brown toward women, of the author toward women, of   other characters in the story toward women? This essay intends to answer that question.    Randall Stewart in â€Å"Hawthorne’s Female Characters† states that there are three types of female characters in Hawthorne’s writings: (1) â€Å"the wholesome New England girl, bright, sensible and self-reliant;† (2) â€Å"the frail, sylph-like creature, easily swayed by a stronger personality;† and (3) â€Å"the woman with an exotic richness in her nature† (98), and that â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† has in Faith â€Å"cheerfulness, prettiness, and a simple-minded domesticity† (99). So this categorizes her under type (1).    In Salem village that fateful night when the young Puritan husband was departing home for the night, he exchanged â€Å"a parting kiss with his young wife.† From this we can conclude that he had a basic respect for her feelings(?) The wind was playing with â€Å"the pink ribbons of her cap.† Literary critic Wagenknecht surveys some of the critical interpretation relative to these ribbons:    Mathews finds the pastel of infancy in pink, but since pink is a color intermediate between red and white, William V. Davis prefers to take it as suggesting â€Å"neither total depravity nor innocence† but â€Å"the tainted innocence, the spiritual imperfection of mankind,† a view shared, up to a point, by Robinson. . . . (62).      So the critics would have us believe that the author is making a statement here: that seemingly good Faith is not all that good, based on the author’s placement of pink ribbons on her cap. She whispered, â€Å"Dearest heart, prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep... ...tially.      BIBLIOGRAPHY    Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc.,1959.    Lang, H.J.. â€Å"How Ambiguous is Hawthorne?† In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.    Leavis, Q.D. â€Å"Hawthorne as Poet.† In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.    Martin, Terence â€Å"Six Tales.† In Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1965.    Stewart, Randall. â€Å"Hawthorne’s Female Characters.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.

Panera Bread Company: Rising Fortunes? Essay

Maxis Berhad, with its consolidated subsidiaries (together, ‘Maxis’), is the leading mobile communications service provider in Malaysia with over 11.4 million mobile subscribers as of 30 June 2009. Maxis was granted licences to operate a nationwide GSM900 mobile network, a domestic fixed network and an international gateway in 1993. It commenced its mobile operations in August 1995 and launched its fixed line and international gateway operations in early 1996. Since its establishment, Maxis has been providing a full suite of services on multiple platforms to fulfil the telecommunications needs of individual consumers, SMEs and large corporations in Malaysia. Maxis’ mobile service is offered on a postpaid basis under the Maxis brand and via a prepaid format under the Hotlink brand. The use of these two distinct brands, underpinned by synergistic values, has enabled Maxis to develop its prepaid business successfully while maintaining growth in its postpaid segment. Maxis has also pioneered and led the Malaysian market in delivering innovative mobile products and services. It was the first to launch 3G services in Malaysia as known as Maxis3G in July 2005, and in September 2006, it became among the world’s first to use HSDPA, a high-speed upgrade of its 3G network, to provide wireless broadband services. It was the first operator to bring the BlackBerryâ„ ¢ and Apple iPhoneâ„ ¢ smart phones to Malaysia. The company in April 2009 unveiled the first commercial NFC-powered service in Malaysia. Maxis provides enhanced postpaid packages to corporate and SME customers, based on its highly successful consumer postpaid plans. These plans are custom-made to meet the needs of enterprises, especially improved communications within and beyond their compound. Maxis’ international gateway services include termination of traffic into Malaysia from international telecommunications companies, supporting Maxis’ own outbound international direct dial (IDD) traffic, collecting international transit traffic and bandwidth leasing services. Mission A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide  decision-making. The mission of this Maxis company are : Today * Malaysia’s leading mobile communications service provider Tomorrow * The nation’s premier integrated communications service provider Vision Defines and describes the future situation that a company wishes to have, the intention of the vision is to guide, to control and to encourage the organization as a whole to reach the desirable state of the organization. The vision of the company is the response to the question of what do we want our organization to be? Corporative values are the answer to the question of what we believe into and how we are. The vission of Maxis Berhad is : To bring the future to our customers’ lives and businesses, in a manner that is simple, personalised and enriching, by efficiently and creatively harnessing leading-edge technology and delivering a brand of service experience that is reliable and enchanting. Objective An end that can be reasonably achieved within an expected timeframe and with available resources. In general, an objective is broader in scope than a goal, and may consist of several individual goals. Objectives are a basic tools that underlying all planning and strategic activities. They serve as the basis for policy and performance appraisals. This is what Maxis stands for : Simple * We aim to keep everything we do as simple as possible. For example, customers understand what it is we are telling them because we do it in a way that is straightforward and easy to understand. We make things simple for everyone, including ourselves. Keeping things simple also means that everything we say is said in a clear direct tone of voice that is friendly and human. Trustworthy * Trust is crucial in every successful relationship and this is true between customers and Maxis, just as it is true between the company and its  employees. All good relationships are built on trust which inspires confidence, and, assurance, conviction and reliance. To be trustworthy is a way of life. Creative * Creativity defines us and therefore differentiates us from our competition. It inspires not only our communication style, but also how we answer the phone, design our stores, and deal with challenges. Creative runs through everything we do and everything we say, it’s in our DNA. Brave * To lead people into new territories we have to be brave. We have the courage to try new things, to take the occasional calculated risk, to go where our competitors have not been. It ensures that we stay at the forefront and that our customers benefit from new and better ways of doing things. It means doing the right thing, rather than the easy thing. It means having the courage of our convictions. Brave is the quality of a true leader. Strategy Given this context within our corporate strategy, in 2011 we reviewed our existing activities and identified new initiatives to create a CR strategy with three pillars. Developing and enriching our community, customers and partners, creating a great place to work and, Advocating environmentally friendly practices. Maxis’ CR initiatives are governed by our CR Philosophies, which prescribe that the initiatives are aligned to our corporate strategy and CR Mission and create value to all our stakeholders. That is, the initiatives must have a positive impact that can be shared across Maxis, our stakeholders and the nation. 1. Developing & Enriching Our Community, Customers & Partners * Being a customer-focused organisation, with a large and complex supply chain, we are uniquely positioned to touch the lives of many people. Our ambition is to make this contact an enriching experience for everyone. Simply by providing telecommunication connectivity to remote and rural communities, we can drastically improve people’s lives. But our reach goes further than that. We can offer better products and services to customers who have a choice of service providers. We can build and develop the communities in which we operate, through our Cyberkids Programme initiatives and scholarships. And,  we take very seriously our responsibility to positively influence our supply chain so that it is healthier, safer and more sustainable. 2. Creating a Great Place To Work * At Maxis, we have always said that our employees are critical to our success. We regard leadership as an essential part of our business, especially to fulfil our goals to be the premier integrated communications service provider in Malaysia. Therefore, we invest significantly in leadership development and training, as well as nurturing the talent of our employees. We value the diversity that colleagues bring, with individuals able to see things with different perspectives and fresh ideas. We have measures in place to ensure that our workplaces embrace this diversity. We think also that it is important to get the fundamentals of employment right: health and safety, and benefits and rights. 3. Advocating Environmentally Friendly Practices * Our sector is evolving rapidly and a significant challenge for us is to keep ahead of the technology curve, whilst understanding and evaluating the sometimes unknown impacts of new products and services. We have to balance the demand for innovation with the responsibility to do no harm. In addition, we are committed to driving efficiencies in our operations in order to reduce our carbon footprint and to manage waste effectively. We also want to advocate this to our partners and customers. GENERAL ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS External Analysis The external analysis is critical for a firm to understand to be able to realize the opportunities and threats that exist in the industry they are competing in to help achieve a strategic competitiveness. The external analysis consists of a general environmental analysis, industry analysis, five forces analysis, industry competitor’s analysis, and the key success factors for the industry. General Environment Analysis In order for a company to effectively compete in an industry, an analysis of its specific industry must be undertaken. This is done to provide the firm with a description of the elements in society that directly effect the industry and the direction managers must take to implement appropriate strategies to survive. This study is commonly referred to as the general environmental analysis. It primarily consists of five primary factors, which are political/legal, economic, socio cultural, ecological, and technological or also known as STEEP Analysis. These five sections describe the external environmental factors a firm must understand to effectively compete in a specific market. 1. Social cultural Forces * The sociocultural dimension is especially important because it determines the goods, services, and standards that society values. The sociocultural force includes the demographics and values of a particular customer base. Age, gender, and income are examples of commonly used demographic characteristics. * Maxis contributions is to the development of Malaysia must also go beyond paying statutory levies and the jobs their provide. Maxis have to address long-term strategic issues affecting the nation’s ability to grow. They are proud that Maxis is taking an active role in stemming the brain drain, which poses a threat to their progress as a society. Maxis scholarships, aimed at their employees’ and customers’children, are designed to encourage young Malaysians to reap experience abroad, then come back to share those experiences and contribute to the future of their nation. * Maxis provide full coverage to markets across Malaysia, including Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak (both in Malaysian Borneo). Together with our subsidiaries, Maxis provides a full suite of communications services on multiple platforms to meet the growing needs of individual subscribers, families, small and medium enterprises, large corporations and the Malaysian Government 2. Techological Forces * Technological forces influence organizations in several ways. A technological innovation can have a sudden and dramatic effect on the environment of a firm. First, technological developments can significantly alter the demand for an organization’s or industry’s products or services.  Technological change can decimate existing businesses and even entire industries, since its shifts demand from one product to another. * Maxis was also the first telecommunication service provider to introduce a range of smartphones to Malaysia including the BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone. In 2010, Maxis set an industry milestone by building the largest 3G network with 76 per cent population coverage and by signing the landmark High Speed Broadband Access (â€Å"HSBA†) agreement with Telekom Malaysia Berhad as well as the infrastructure share agreement with Tenaga Nasional Berhad. As at 30 June 2011, Maxis 3G footprint coverage was at 81 per cent of the country’s populati on. In comparison with global mobile operators, Maxis is a leading provider of non-voice services. 3. Economic Forces * Economic forces refer to the nature and direction of the economy in which business operates. Economic factors have a tremendous impact on business firms. The general state of the economy for an example depression, recession, recovery, or prosperity, interest rate, stage of the economic cycle, balance of payments, monetary policy, fiscal policy, are key variables in corporate investment, employment, and pricing decisions. * In 2010, Maxis invested more than RM80 million in network coverage, widening our footprint over remote areas of Sarawak, enhancing network quality in towns and suburbs in Sabah, and expanding broadband coverage to industrial and commercial areas in north Borneo, which is an underserved frontier. * During 2010, Maxis invested RM1.44 billion to build upon the significant modernisation first begun in 2009, expanding the reach and capacity of ournetworks and support infrastructure. Overall, Maxis capital expenditure was RM482 million in the first half of 2011. 4. Ecological Forces * Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research that aims to address the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems over time and space. It is distinguished from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment, by its treatment of the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem and its emphasis upon preserving natural capital. * Maxis efforts to  reduce our carbon footprint began with modernisation of end-to-end network equipment for better energy efficiency. Additionally, Maxis have adopted more energyefficient DC rectifiers and outdoor shelters which are innovative systems to manage heat in existing shelters and to drive down energy deployment. Maxis have also drawn on renewable energy solutions such as solar to replace diesel powered remote base stations and their have advocated network-sharing, with over 54% of our base station sites shared with other operators. Maxis efforts have been supplemented by tree-planting. 5. Political-Legal Forces * Political and legal forces are two of the three most important aspects for a business, with social forces being the third. Politics is a changing scene, and the rules and laws will change not regularly but often enough. Political forces are governments and unilateral bodies that decree certain rules, regulations, laws or restrictions with regards the way a country is run. * The Group’s Code of Business Practice declaration applies to all officers and employees who are required to affirm on a yearly basis their commitment to observe the Code of Business Practice. It also provides guidelines for the manner in which all employees should conduct themselves in the workplace while performing their daily duties for Maxis and as a Maxis employee. TASK ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS A corporation’s scanning of the environment should include analyses of all relevant elements in the task environment. Managers need to consider the competitive environment, also referred to as the task environment or industry environment. The profitability of the firm and the nature of competition in the industry are more directly influenced by developments in the competitive environment. Industry can be defined as a group of firms producing a similar product or service. The firm interacts with a more specific environment, the industry. Four main components that exert influence on industry are suppliers, competitors and potential substitutes, potential entrants and buyers. Michael Porter’s Approach to Industry Analysis The ‘five forces model’ developed by Michael E. Porter, has been the most commonly utilized analytical tool for examining the competitive environment. It describes the competitive environment in terms of five basic forces such as threat of new entrants, bargaining power of the firm’s suppliers, bargaining power of the firm’s customers, threat of substitute products, and intensity of rivalry among firms. 1. Threat Of New Entrants * New entrants is newcomers to an existing industry. They typically bring new capacity, a desire to gain market share, and substantial resources. Entry barrier is an obstruction that makes it difficult for a company to enter an industry. Economies of scale, product differentiation, capital requirements, switching costs, access to distribution channels, cost disadvantage independent of size, government policy are examples of entry barriers. * New technology as we know communication technology are very fast and various (MMS, Mobile Portal, VAP, and 3G), compete by new entrants for examples Celcom and DIGI. Maxis come with Hotlink club and brand identity for teenagers. Maxis also come with 8 region of same rate calling rate 0.65 cents. 2. Rivalry Among Existing Firms * Rivalry is amount of direct competition in an industry. Intense rivalry is related to the presence of the following factors which are number of competitors, rate of industry growth, product or service characteristics, amount of fixed costs, capacity, height of exit barriers and diversity of rivals. * Competition on price with another company Digi, Celcom, Internet phone.Compete also with the coverage and wide of services offered. IT take placed for Maxis to create a web that manage Hotlinkclub.com. provide customer loyalty by type of free services and activities. Besides that is Merge with TimeCel to come with more wide coverage. 3. Threat Of Substitute Products Or Services * Substitute products which is products that appear different but can satisfy the same need as another product. The existence of products outside of the realm of the common productboundaries increases the propensity of  customers to switch toalternatives. Its includes buyer propensity to substitute, relative price performance of substitute, buyer switching costs, perceived level of product differentiation, substandard product and quality depreciation. * For example reduce demand of Maxis services compete with Digi with new technology (internetTv and 3G). Besides that, internet charting and conferencing free service make Maxis enforced to reduce the service charge. Maxis improve the price by provided some free services like free sms and free football result. 4. Bargaining Power Of Buyers * The bargaining power of customers is also described as the market of outputs and the ability of customers to put the firm under pressure, whichalso affects the customer’s sensitivity to price changes. Buyers can affect industry through their ability to force down prices, bargain for higher quality or more services, and play competitors against each other. * Price of SMS forced down from 0.60 cents to 0.01 cents. In fact, Maxis provide wide coverage in Malaysia by merge withTimecel. Maxis have a high technology server and satellite technology upgrade to capture the wide range of communications services. 5. The Bargaining Power Of Suppliers * Suppliers can affect an industry through their ability to raise prices or reduce the quality of purchased goods and services. The bargaining power of suppliers is also described as the market of inputs. Suppliers of raw materials, components, labor, and services(such as expertise) to the firm can be a source of power over the firm,when there are few substitutes. * Price raised charge for satellite provided by Telekom. Maxis request more variety of services like MMS, 3G, mobile conferencing using more type of server at manyplace from northern Malaysiato the southern. SWOT ANALYSIS A SWOT analysis generates information that is helpful in matching an organization’s or a group’s goals, programs, and capacities to the social environment in which they operate. It is an instrument within strategic planning. SWOT analysis can be understood as the examination of an  organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, and its environments opportunities, and threats. Maxis Berhad started their operations in the year 1995 being the leading mobile communication service provider in Malaysia with more than 11.4 million mobile subscribers up to date. (Maxis Berhad, 2011) SWOT is the acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats where it will be used to assess the business as it is important for companies to analyze SWOT on their companies. It will also be analyze in this report on how the strengths will be used to overcome the weaknesses as well as the opportunities overcoming the threats. Strengths and weaknesses will be analyzing on the company’s internal factors whereas opportunities and threats will be analyzing on the company’s external factors. 1. Strengths There are several main telecommunication in Malaysia comprising Digi, Celcom, U-Mobile and Maxis. As compared to the above competitors, Maxis’ strength is that Maxis had a wider coverage in most towns around Malaysia and also covers north-south highways. Also, compared with other competitors, the customer service quality is better in terms of efficiency. Maxis is one of the pioneer telecommunication companies apart from Celcom and has the latest technology HSDPA(3.5G) or Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) . 2. Weakness Competitors gain market share. Celcom has been rather aggressive over the past one year, and is expected to continue with this momentum. We are cognizant that Maxis’ market share may come under pressure. However, we think Maxis has turned the corners, and is on track to winning back subscribers and revenue market shares, now that it had reverted to the more popular 30-second charging blocks. Besides that, Maxis does not offer triple play of mobile, broadband, and pay TV. Growing enterprise business may entail more capex, and Maxis can only selectively grow its enterprise business. 3. Opportunities Young demographics that is data hungry. 32% of the Malaysian population is under 15 years old, which is a prime target for broadband services over the next 15 years. New mobile devices, for example iPhone (â€Å"4G†) and recently  launched iPad drive demand for broadband services. Under-served broadband population offers great growth opportunities. Selective enterprise opportunities as Maxis build backhaul capacity mainly for wireless broadband it can target some of the lucrative enterprise business using the same backhaul network. Potential for triple play if tie-up with content provider or broadcaster. 4. Threats Digi’s launch of the iPhone last week could put further pressure on Maxis. Aggressive broadband promotions by wireless competitors, including WiMAX players. ARPU under competitive pressures. Adjustments to interconnect rates may pressure Maxis’ earnings as the company is a net receiver of calls.