The Hijacking of Food and Farm Policy

Diet For a Small Planet, that I made my way from Vermont to California to volunteer for her Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. There has been a lot to celebrate since then. In every corner of the country, demand for locally and sustainable grown food is rising, with farmers and ranchers growing more chemical-free, healthier food for our nation's schools, universities, restaurants and supermarkets.Since 2005 the number of farmers markets has doubled, with more than 8000 markets open for business round the country. New local ownership and distribution structures are popping up everywhere, including more than 200 food hubs that are working in innovative ways to get more local, sustainable food to market. More than 180 local food policy councils are transforming food systems from the bottom up. The organic sector, with more and organic acreage has been growing steadily In recent years.More Information on these Impressive trends can be found In the slides that I presented during my keynote speech to the Women Food and Agriculture Network Conference in Iowa earlier this month to a wonderful crowd of mostly women farmers, landowners and loathe food system advocates. As great as these accomplishments are, the tens of thousands of projects and farms that are building a healthier, more sustainable food system around the country cannot grow quickly enough to counteract the tremendous damage to public health and the environment caused by the existing profit-driven Industrial food system.Two key messages In Lap ©'s book remain more relevant today than ever. The first?and the basis for my lifelong commitment to eating low on the food chain— is that it is inefficient and resource-intensive to rely on meat as our primary rotten source. It is clear that we cannot solve our global water, energy, climate change and public health challenges without changing how we produce meat and drastically reducing how much of it we eat.While we still have a long way to go, we are making slow but steady progress in reducing Americans' meat consumption?which is down four years in a row?mostly driven by consumers' concern for health and animal welfare. Yet It's clear that we wont achieve the far-reaching reforms needed to Improve the way produce feed and raise animals?until we fix the bigger problem plaguing our DOD system?a problem that struck me as the second and most important message not caused by scarcity of food but scarcity of democracy.Nearly forty years later, the lack of democracy not only continues to be a fundamental cause of hunger, but also a source of many other serious problems in our food system. Big food and industrial farming interests are hijacking our democracy and public policy at a huge cost to public health and the environment. And sadly, the Obama administration is complicit in this hijacking scheme.On several fronts, the administration is ignoring civil society calls for reform on several fronts and is giv ing rarity to industry financial interests over those of public health, the environment and welfare of animals, workers and consumers. Despite a clear and compelling need, it has failed to ban antibiotic use in well animals, pass effective factory farm regulations, or enact federal labeling and stricter regulation of genetically engineered food. No recent example of the administration's failure to put the public interest ahead corporate interests is clearer than the U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposed poultry rule. This rule would reduce the number of USDA inspectors in poultry acclivities by 75 percent, accelerate assembly lines pace to 175 birds per minute and intensify the use of toxic chemicals to clean the birds being processed. Who profits from this appalling proposal? No surprise there. As Tom Philter reported in Mother Jones magazine, Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, Purdue, and Sanderson, the nation's leading poultry companies, stand to gain more than $1 billion over the next 5 years.As well, Congressional lawmakers are ignoring the public interest as they hash out a farm bill that will continue to give away billions to wealthy, profitable farms and agribusiness while slashing programs that promote nutrition, conservation, healthy food and organic agriculture. Because the good food movement lacks political muscle, there is far too little investment and effective federal policy to support?and help scale up good food projects and organic farming.And because big food and industrial agriculture companies have so much power, the federal government has too many bad policies that are doing far too much to support and enshrine the status quo, making it harder for sustainable agriculture to compete. The proposed farm bill is a perfect case in point. The bill currently being negotiated n conference committee would channel more than $13 billion a year to support and promote chemical-intensive, diversity-destroying monocots that mostly provide feed for animals and v ehicle fuel, with less than $200 million annually going to support local and organic diversified agriculture.The dominance of corporate and large-scale commodity interests in our political system is nothing new?but as the economic power of these industries has become more concentrated, their political clout has grown stronger, and the consequences, Just recently, the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published an in-depth analysis to assess the status of industrial farming five years after the publication of the seminal Pew Commission Report on Industrial Farm Animal Production.It found that the problems have actually gotten a lot worse. When Civil Eats asked Ralph Logics, an author of the Pew Commission report, to explain the lack of progress, he blamed † the overwhelming influence and power of the animal gag industry†¦ Whether it's affecting members of Congress, whether it's denting and nearly breaking the regulatory process, or whether it's too much influence over academics. Everywhere you look there's too much influence by the industry. In order to counteract that influence and put the public interest back into policy- making, the good food movement must channel more of the energy it devotes to building a healthy food system into blunting the power of industrial agriculture and building a healthier democracy. Otherwise, we will fail to make our vision for a healthy, Just and sustainable food system a reality for everyone. Stay tuned for Part 2, in which I explore the steps that are needed to blunt the power of industrial gag and build greater food democracy.

Economics Commentary Essay

The article concerns the price war in the airline business in China. Air companies sell tickets at lower than cost price to drive out competitors. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) wants to prevent this and will set a price floor for seats on 699 flights. In this commentary I will explain the situation and discuss the consequences of this issue. Air companies try to attract the necessary numbers of passengers to stop their routes from being canceled by the CAAC. Offering discounts is one of the ways to attract people to buy air tickets. In this case, discounts of 70 to 80 percents had been offered to consumers over the last few months, while a regulation made by the NDRC and CAAC in 2004 states that airlines should not sell tickets at less than 45 percent of the nominal price. Although this regulation, China Eastern continued the price war by still giving these huge discounts which were meant to provoke counterattacks from other airlines. Firms usually want to determine prices to maximize profits and one option is predatory pricing. Predatory pricing means that firms cut prices below costs to drive out competitors. As soon as firms have driven out competitors, obtained a bigger market share, they raise the prices again. Predatory pricing makes the industry more concentrated, because there a fewer firms in the market. With other words, the market becomes less competitive and more monopolistic. The CAAC tries to prevent this in order to keep the air business competitive. Options are price floors, as will be explained later. However, travelers are against the idea, as price wars are profitable for them in the short run. They can buy relatively cheap tickets now. Though the tickets will be more expensive in future, in the long run. This happens when the firms have driven out their competitors and have raised their prices again. Then producers will charge higher prices than the normal price and the consumers would therefore be worse off. Although this predatory pricing , also rumors about government intervention made consumers already unhappy. Some insiders have implied that China Eastern used funds injected by the government to subsidize its losses on ticket sales. The reaction of the CAAC was that the government had injected several billion yuan into China Eastern to maintain its daily operations, but not so it could cut ticket prices. The reaction from the travelers on the implementation of a price floor was also negative. A price floor means that a government introduce a minimum price that can be charged for a product. With an implementation of a price floor, the demand will decrease from Q0 to Qd and the price will increase from P0 to Pmin. The firms which are still in the industry will now charge higher prices at lower outputs. They pay more and get less. If the CAAC decides to implement this price floor it causes that there will be a excess supply, the area Pmin-(Qd-Qs) . The costs can be higher than the profits and therefore producers will leave the industry. This will lead to a shift in supply and to less excess supply in the long run as shown in figure 2. Secondly there is a problem with unemployment. By implementing a price floor, unemployment will occur. This is because the supply will shift to left in the long run. There are fewer suppliers and therefore people will get unemployed. People who were working in the area Qd-Q0 will lose their jobs. On the other hand, people who are working in the area 0-Qd will keep their jobs and will gain more. Consumers are obviously not happy with this and some people reacted with statements as, ‘We don’t want to pay extra just to fund some senior manager’s salary’, as mentioned in the article. Predatory pricing is a difficult task to prevent, since price floors do not benefit consumers neither in the short run nor in the long run. The CAAC probably needs to find other regulations and restrictions manners to prevent this ‘malicious competition’.

International Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

International Terrorism - Essay Example The essay "International Terrorism" talks about the complex aspects of human experiences based on negative features that are imposed on them - terrorism. This is because terrorism captures emotions based on politics, philosophy, psychology, military strategies, and history to bring about negative experiences to the world. The term international terrorism denotes the use of violence by international or foreign parties against civilian populations of another nation in an attempt to cause panic. Those that perpetrate the acts of terrorism are known as terrorists and they operate in covert means, normally, unless their attacks require attention. In order to draw attention or even gain publicity, terror attacks are done overtly and in public with the knowledge of the elite or even security forces. The security forces, in cases of overt attacks, are usually backed into a corner and are unable to take action either due to lack of information or great risks of intervention. International ter rorism requires the use of cell groups to plan and carry out terrorist attacks in foreign nations, where they even recruit members from the home nation. In addition, international terrorism is taking a new form or face that involves the use of loose organization in conducting and executing attacks. This is through self-financed groups, which are part of an international network that works together in isolated cases. The groups thrive on a different basis such as religion to carry out their attacks or even make their voices known. or heard. Such groups include radical Islamists, who use Islam as their religion and claim to be marginalized on a global scale or even have their rights infringed. For this reason, the Islamists carry out attacks in nations that have strong ties with the host nations that oppress them or even those that infringe their rights directly. This can be seen in the case of the September 11 attacks in the year 2001 in the United States, which is an example of an i nternational terrorist attack in the United States, which was executed through suicide attacks aimed at various installations in the nation. A passenger jetliner that was hijacked en route to Los Angeles from Boston was flown into New York’s World Trade Center into one tower while a second plane was flown into the second tower later. The attack was conducted in the presence of the terrorist who were onboard and with his or her own pilots. This one attack is evidence of international terrorist attacks that are believed to originate from radical Islamists from the Middle East and the perpetrator being a Saudi man who was anti-western, Osama bin Laden (United States Institute of Peace, n.d). One of the reasons that international terrorism has escalated is because of the proliferation of weapons that include weapons of mass destruction. These are especially found in the case of Iran and North Korea that are believed to finance and sponsor international terrorism as they have acce ss and run uranium enrichment; for nuclear weapons. The production of these nuclear weapons has also seen new trends in international terrorism, where international terrorists have been noted to attempt at acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons (Perl, 2007). One such international terror attack that used weapons of mass destruction occurred in Kurdistan; and was executed by Iraqis in an attempt to wipe out all Kurdish people that spoke the Kurdish language. The gas caused the death of roughly 5000 civilians and it was seen as a means of multiplying force, where it killed civilians instead of targeted soldiers

Salsa as a Dance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Salsa as a Dance - Essay Example With room for both partners to strut their stuff, this method of dance is becoming increasingly popular throughout dance institutions and afternoon school programs not only across the United States but also the most of the other parts of the globe like India etc. Salsa dancing works with a kind of music which is basically designed with two bars consisting of four steps. Salsa dance is eventually designed for a world where leg and arm work with mesmerizing body movements give rise to passionate emotions and at the same time tend to be equally romantic. Salsa dance is actually a partner dance which is usually danced to salsa music. "The history of the Latin popular music known worldwide as "salsa" began centuries ago in the islands of the Spanish Caribbean, in a context of slavery and colonialism. Yet, it is inextricably tied to twentieth-century New York City and the growth of a thriving Latino community here. Its distinctive polyrhythm and vocal and instrumental call-and-response identify the Afro-Caribbean roots of Latin music -traditional and contemporary, sacred and secular (Salsaweb.com)". "Over the years, the sounds of salsa and the steps of the dance migrated to the U.S. as early as the 40s, where further cultivation took place in the New York City Latin population during the 1960 and 70s. Cuban and Puerto Rican communities throughout Latin America and the United States are responsible for shaping most of the steps we see today. The culture surrounding salsa also takes cues from the styles of mambo and rumba. The typical instruments accompanying salsa dance includes the thumping of congas, blaring trumpets, cowbells, timbales, and claves (Bachata Crazy.com)". Salsa dance is extremely simple and of course it is equally flexible in movements. Salsa dance is just like walking in any chosen direction and dancing on a particular spot both in straight lines or turning paces. "A step is when you put your foot down and moves your weight onto it, to be specific foot placement with weight transfer and a tap is when you put your foot down but don't move your weight onto it i.e. foot placement without weight. In many Latin countries, couples even choose which beat they would like to dance on, and it need not necessarily be the first beat (Yoe)". Both Salsa dance and music are actually believed to be originated for one another. The main purpose of existence of the renowned Salsa music has always been for dancing. "Its cooperative heritage has engendered a belief, in Latin America at least, that everyone else has an equal right to enjoyment on the dance floor (Yoe)". Both the Salsa music and dance have maintained their vitality by absorbing other influence over the decades. The dance of Salsa has got some similarities with actions like lindy - hop, hustle and swing. It has even proved capable of absorbing elements of ballroom Latin dance and Argentine tango. This fact itself sounds quite astounding to many of the lovers of Salsa. There is a lot of variation with the dancing of Salsa depending on the origin of the person dancing it along with the origin of the place from where the dance has been learnt from. At a basic level, salsa dancers from different origin can actually dance together. "British salsa is primarily anchored around the back basic; turns are executed on the second beat

Brand Extension Marketing Plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Brand Extension Marketing Plan - Research Paper Example The brand extension project aims to secure opportunities in the current market before our competitors identify them. By the end of the first Quarter, Clean-So aims to increase its market share by 40%. This is a stiff rate considering the competitive state of the current market. In order to achieve a successful market takeover, Clean-So will introduce a loyalty program whereby customers will earn redeemable royalty point for every purchase. This will enable Clean-So to penetrate the already saturated market. Although Al-Mara is an established brand name, Clean-So Company will need to re-advertise its Al-Mara Creme and Soap. The adverts will mainly target women since Al-Mara is a female-oriented brand. The adverts will be launched through the social media and billboards in order to reach the target group. The Advertisement will be the basis for a strategic customer acquisition program (Stapleton, & Thomas, 1998). Alternative customer acquisition strategies will involve loyalty points program and free samples. We expect an exponential market growth rate that attains stability in the second quarter. Clean-So Company is three-years old in the cosmetic industry and, therefore it is accustomed with market trends and changes. The company aims to concentrate its interests in a profitable market niche. Demographic factors and social classes define the current market. However, Clean-So hopes to surpass the demographic and lifestyle factors associated with the market. In particular, the company aims to market its products to people from different age groups and income brackets. The target market (Lavington Green Village) has consumers from each of the identified category. Therefore, the company will rely on packaging and product differentiation to capture the target market. Moreover, the company aims to launch Al-Mara soap and cream under various fragrances and colors. This aspect of product presentation will cater for the taste and preferences of the target

Kozyndan as a collaboration of the artwork by two artists Essay

Kozyndan as a collaboration of the artwork by two artists - Essay Example They generally draw Panoramas and insert absurd things, considering them to be the whole western notion and have made this their central theme. Commonly known as mad scientists from Los Angeles who are working on a secret formula for controlled nuclear fusion like to take long and deep breaths and dip their heads in raspberry jelly and lemon curd bowls just for fun. They live indoors and don't paint on the walls. They mainly draw panoramas and bring a distinct Asian flavour in most of their work. Their products are perfect examples of new art and the freshness and newness in their work aggravates the urge to know and understand every stroke of the painting. On being asked to describe their work Kozy said: "We want to make stuff that will make people smile a bit. These pieces so far are not so deep - we have been restraining ourselves, though some of our... frustrations we have with what we see around us peep through from time to time. There is some sort of a theme of conflict between the industrialized world and nature. We prefer animals and the natural world to people any day, yet we are wholly sucked into the modern technological world. This kind of just shows up in our work from time to time - it's not a conscious thing. Typically we just think of something that is funny to us, but then looking back at the completed piece it usually has something to do with man's careless disregard for this hunk of rock we live on." This dynamic duo is having their first LA solo show of the year from May 7th to June 4th. Kozyndan paintings have been able to convey their message quite convincingly. They have also brought to light Kozy's narrow and focused eye on every detail of the aspect of their paintings. Kozy and Dan like to illustrate anything and everything out of the ordinary. They have both majored in Illustration and have specialised in digital artwork. Giant Robot magazine gave kozyndan their first break, setting up their first art show, printing their illustrations, and selling their merchandise at the Giant Robot store. Kozy and Dan offer a wide range of artwork including the illustrations, designs, comics and photography. Their works are available very easily across the globe. There are various museums, websites and shops that provide artwork by Kozyndan. Although, it is still believed that these places can not be compared with the variety of articles offered by the Kozyndan shop in LA. Kozy and Dan are married to each other and share their success together. They work in unison and respect and appreciate each other's works. Kozy does the detailed and the intricate drawings. While she works on the backgrounds Dan figures the roles and other details of the characters involved. Then Kozy redraws the sketches in her own style and adds even her own sketches. It is after this that Dan compiles all the characters into the original background and then they paint the pictures. Both of them are animal and nature freaks. In fact they have

Gene Silencing at the Nuclear Periphery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Gene Silencing at the Nuclear Periphery - Essay Example Some epigenetic abnormalities have been identified in human tumors, offering tremendous scope for epigenetic modulation as part of cancer chemotherapy. (TY Kim, YJ Bang, KD Robertson, 2006) Histones are small, basic proteins which bind to DNA, to form nucleoproteins - this helps the DNA to be packed tightly into coiled coils. Histones are rich in the amino acids arginine and lysine. Unlike most proteins, histones are water soluble. The functions of histones include packing nucleoproteins for compaction, and chromatin regulation. Histones undergo modifications; this set of modifications which are interdependent and responsible for controlling gene activity is called the "Histone code". The histone code theory of gene regulation was articulated by David Allis and colleagues. According to this theory, expression of certain regions of DNA is turned on and off by histone code. Histone proteins are one of the most highly conserved proteins in eukaryotes, emphasizing their importance in cell biology. Heterochromatin is the condensed, dense form of chromatin, which is transcriptionally inactive; hence it is peripherally located. It is abundantly seen in resting or reserve cells. It stains deeply during interphase (resting stage). The heterochromatin part of a chromosome either lacks genes or has repressed genes. Heterochromatin is seen in both pro and eukaryotes. Euchromatin is delicate, thread-like, active form of chromatin. It is abundant in active, transcribing cells. The importance of euchromatin is because the portion of the DNA coil intended for transcription must uncoil, to permit reading of the code. It stains lightly and its gene concentration is high. It is usually under active transcription and hence it is partially or fully uncoiled. Prokaryotes have only euchromatin. NUCLEAR LOCALISATION - ROLE IN GENE EXPRESSION The vital facts about gene silencing are: (Shaklai et al, 2007) 1. Chromosomes rich in genes are centrally located in the nucleus. Conversely, gene poor ones are located in the periphery. 2. Inactive genes are silenced and translocated to the periphery. 3. If chromatin is moved to the periphery, it is silenced and rendered inactive. Gene silencing plays an important role in determining the fate of different cell lines during development and defining their temporal order. (Fischer, Merkenschlager 2002) cDNA MICROARRAY TECHNIQUE cDNA microarray (c -complimentary) is a tool which helps us analyze and measure the activity of genes. This is done using the process of molecular hybridization. Adenine and thymine are complimentary; Guanine and cytosine are complimentary. While studying two pieces of DNA, if they hybridize (bind to one another), then we can conclude they are complimentary strands - opposite strands of a single gene. Conversely, if they do not hybridize, then they are unrelated. Microarray expression technique has many applications - Gene expression profiling (comparing gene expressions in normal and abnormal cells), study of multigenic diseases like Parkinson's disease,detection of

Siebel Forced-Ranking System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Siebel Forced-Ranking System - Essay Example In a sense, force ranking is a more truthful way of implementing performance management. Managers are forced to differentiate talent and the process of forced ranking also forces managers to spot and champion talent. Since the forced-ranking system requires that criteria for ranking need to be set first and foremost, the system also provides information that conventional performance appraisal systems cannot. The deliberations among managers in determining criteria help them define and understand what are important for success of the organization. Subsequently, knowing the criteria that managers use to appraise performance increases the probability that employees will adjust their behavior in order to succeed. A forced-ranking system can also provide an independent verification of performance appraisal data. Significant variations in the talent data provided by the performance appraisal system and the data provided by the forced ranking process should be worth delving into. Better performing employees may be motivated by a forced-ranking system because they feel appreciated and not treated in the same way as underperformers. In terms of teamwork and collaboration, forced-ranking may also have a positive effect, because those who do not want to cooperate with the team or in a collaborative effort are eliminated. Organiz Organizations implementing forced-ranking may be attractive to high-quality job applicants who would see such a system as one where their contributions would be recognized and rewarded and would therefore be eager to work for the organization, thereby improving the overall quality of the applicant pool. Company investors may view a forced ranking system as management's commitment to accountability and to operations efficiency. Cons May be unfair to people performing at an acceptable level, with attendant legal repercussions in terms of human rights. May create an unhealthy star-cult culture. It may not possible to continually improve the overall potential of a workforce by removing the bottom dwellers and replacing them with better employees. As standards are raised, it would be more difficult to find applicants to replace those that have been removed. A job applicant who is aware that an employer uses a forced ranking system may feel that such a culture would be stressful or risky, and not consider the organization, causing the loss of high-potential applicants. Shareholders might not agree with a forced ranking system because of potential lawsuits or other negative consequences. Some companies using forced ranking have become embroiled in discrimination lawsuits brought by employees upset over dismissal or lower pay (Levinson, 2003). The system may create a dysfunctional, hypercompetitive work environment where employees refused to collaborate with one another, such as hoarding knowledge or hoarding customers,

NAFEMS UK conference 2014 that was hold in Oxford, UK 10-11 June 2014 Term Paper

NAFEMS UK conference 2014 that was hold in Oxford, UK 10-11 June 2014 - Term Paper Example Computer-aided engineering is the use of software and tools to enhance the user’s productivity. Computer-aided engineering tools such as the MuSES IR Signature Prediction by ThermoAnalytics and the Solidworks tools by Bassauult Systems as illustrated on the UK conference. The future of computer-aided engineering aims at developing programs that can share data with each other and eradicating manual involvements, cross-checking, and the checking of errors. Manual attributes are regarded as a low-value utilization of an engineer’s time where organizations cannot maximize their resources using the manual approach. The future of computer-aided engineering seeks to automate most non-value tasks to enable engineers complete challenging tasks in the least time possible (Hsieh & Tsai, n.d). According to the presentations by Altair, TranscenData, and Enginesoft among others, the new development of the computer-aided programming seeks to converge most approaches as the computer-aided design by adding a central database to increase automation levels. The presented software and tools such as the ESTECO Enterprise Suite indicate that engineers will be able to load numerous data entries into the database that can hold all recurrent data and insert it where necessary in a keystroke. Engineers are choosing the use of the computer-aided engineering will convert project documentation into various regional standards and languages to facilitate cross-border collaborations. The computer-aided engineering initially included simulation and optimization and was once regarded as a specialty task that required advanced development and research. Today simulation through the finite element analysis has drastically evolved into a relevant part of an engineer’s design. The impact of simulation can be observed in everything from packaging of

The treaty of Versailles Essay Example for Free

The treaty of Versailles Essay The first dispute occurred in January 1919. A meeting was held at Versailles in France by the leaders of each country as to decide how to punish the Germans. The leaders who attended the meeting were Lloyd George, prime minister of England, Georges Clemenceau, prime minister of France, and Woodrow Wilson, president of America. They were also known as The Big Three However they disagreed with each others ideas. They each wanted something, which benefits themselves. Firstly, as the French were probably one of the worst victims of WWI. The prime minister of France wanted the German to be deeply punished. A request to have Germany demilitarized from the border of Germany to France and a restriction which Germans could only have 100000 men on their army. Also they wanted the Germany to pay all the reparations coursed during WWI. As well, he believed that Germany should be blamed for everything of what happened in WWI. Secondly, the British Prime Minister Lloyd George had different opinions to Clemenceaus points. The main reason was because England got everything they wanted from the war. First the German military got destabilized. Second, the German naval threat was gone and the British colonies arent threatened anymore. Englands punishments for Britain arent as harsh as the French. A restriction on Germans army and pay a large amount for reparation was all they wanted. This was mainly due to the fact that Germany was one of their big trading partners. If Germany was bankrupt, England wont benefit at all. Lloyd George declared if the treaty listened to Clemenceau, Germans would revenge in 25 years. Thirdly, the Americans had a total different idea. Woodrow Wilson believed that the factors, which caused WWI, werent all because of Germany. France and England should also be blamed for the cause of the war. Wilson considered that the Europeans diplomatic was too self-determined, they ignores the publics wishes or opinions. He also believed that the problems could only be solved if there is the relations between the countries were improved and a new self determined diplomatic government was being could be created through all the European countries. In conclusions, the main courses of the conflict during the The Big Three meeting were: firstly, the diplomatic relationships between the three countries, where the Americans hated the British, England and France also hated each other, they were only uniting before cause had to face a tough enemy. Secondly, the French wanted Germans to pay for more than what they caused, where England just wanted Germany to pay for a certain amount since they got exactly what wanted. Thirdly America had a totally different opinion to both of the other countries in the treaty, which was probably the major cause of the conflict.

Benefits of Early Intervention Social Work

Benefits of Early Intervention Social Work A definition of Early Intervention can be to engage in childrens and young peoples life at the earliest possible stage, regardless the fact that a problem has already emerged or not, using mainstream/ universal or targeted/ specialist services. In the first place, Early Intervention programmes provide and support children and young people with appropriate equipment (social, emotional, physical) to start or continue their life with the best chances becoming better parents in the future, for example Childrens Centre for Early Years, SEAL and PATH programmes in Primary school, Life Skill Training programmes in Secondary schools. In the second place, Early Intervention programmes provide support as soon as there is evidence that a child is or may be in need, so the situation need to be resolved at the earliest possible preventing more harm. For example, Safer Families Project where domestic abuse and conflicts are present in the family without reaching the social care intervention thresh old, Family Nurse Partnership provided to the first time mothers meeting the criteria, Functional Family Therapy for young people with early symptoms of behaviour disorders. The programmes can be offered to either all children or targeted ones. Early Intervention does not refer only to Early Years as childrens and young peoples needs may occur during several stages in their life, for example during transition or transfer from the primary to secondary settings, after a difficult and life changing situation like a death of a parent or teenage pregnancy. According to the literature, Early Intervention provides beneficial outcomes to children, family and community; maximizes the childs and familys chances for success, provides lasting benefits in childrens life, prevents persistent social problems, social exclusion and damaging parenting and is cost-effective with long term public savings (Allen, 2011, Pithouse 2007, Barnes and Freude-Lagevardi 2002; Early Intervention: Securing good outcomes for all children and young people, 2010). In a sense it is about break in a causal chain (Pithouse, 2007), and we can achieve this by making children ready for school, ready for secondary school and ready for life (Allen, 2011; Allen and Smith 2008). It is, also, mentioned in Support and Aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability (2011) that key aspects for childrens future success are the early identification of a problem and timely engagement and support. Moreover, independent reviews (Munro 2011, Field 2011, Allen 2 011, Tickell 2011) have concluded that it is important to provide support at the earliest possible opportunity so as to improve a childs life. Even if a problem appears later than early years, early intervention means to deal with the problems as soon as possible. Factors for effective Early Intervention According to Doyle et al (2007) quality, dosage (intensity), timing, service orientation, differentiated benefits (able to recognize risks and address childrens multiple problems) and continuity of support (long lasting) are basic factors making Early Intervention programmes effective. Pithouse (2007) adds to this list that Early Intervention programmes need to be preventative, protective, holistic, flexible, no stigmatizing and able to build trust and provide long term beneficial outcomes. Holistic Considering Early Intervention, we need to take into account children and young peoples context that is family and community. For example, in several cases, school attendance and behaviour are connected to issues related to family, school and community factors like parents/ carers out of employment, young carers, looked after children, high rate of community crime or gang activity. There are little chances to reach our outcomes, if we try to resolve attendance and punctuality concerns in one dimension omitting the multidimensional aspect of the problem. According to Taylors recommendation (2012) for improving overall school attendance, we need to focus on and identify vulnerable pupils since primary school years (even nursery and reception), who raise concern and support parents who fail to get their child to school regularly. According to the Government (Gove, 2012), the main concept is to get students into good habits of attendance from an early age; which along with punctuality are important skills for their future professional life and benchmarks to maximise the opportunities to achieve their potential. Long Lasting In Early Intervention: Next Steps (Allen, 2011), a number of programmes are presented which have been evaluated by specific standards and selected by their effectiveness and cost effectiveness. Still there is work to be done to improve, evaluate and apply them to national level. In general, regarding early intervention we need to wait for the long term effects to be present. For example, as Pithouse (2007) mentions the effectiveness of Sure Start pre-school programmes cannot be evaluated as the Government will replace them with Childrens Centre services. It is, though, important support to be provided after the intervention stage is completed to maintain the benefits and positive outcomes (Doyle, 2007). Preventative According to Pithouse (2007), prevention is better than cure. It is well stated in Allen (2011), that English policies have funded millions in later intervention; however early intervention is cost effective with pay offs. It is also summarized in Making Sense of Early Intervention: A Framework for Professionals (Centre of Social Justice, 2011) that there is a need of commitment to prevention. Timing Moreover, intervening early to childrens life provide better benefits in long term. Considering Early Years, early childhood is a key period for cognitive, brain and emotional development and if issues are not resolved during early years then later attempts are less likely to succeed (Allen and Smith, 2008). However, Government may be slightly oriented to Early Years (Her Majestys Treasury et al., 2006) we need to focus and engage early in childrens life and all professionals working with children, young people and families need to be able to notice the early signs of a problem and be adequately trained either to provide support or refer the case. As mention above, within the idea of early intervention, multi-agency working is most of the times needed to address and identify needs, to implement strategies and provide support to child and his family. The strategies of the early intervention implemented in each country, though affecting each other and based on same needs for children (illness, mental health, family, pre-school support, attainment) are part of the welfare system and defined by economic and cultural factors. There are for example the universal systems and the more targeted systems, differing on the physical and ideological nature of provision. The history and culture of the country and the definitions of normality, for example the structure of the childhood, the meaning of a good citizen define the strategies that take place and the targets that need to be met (we intervene in a childs and young persons life to provide support and guide them to a better future according to the societys standards) One of the questions rising is after the recognition of risks and problems how we can evaluate the depth and the immense of the problem identifying the child and the services we need to provide, and how we select the child, according to which selection criteria, is he/she the right person or they are the ones asked for the programmes? For example, in a school environment a child being polite and quite may slip through the net; when there are problems we need to make professional decisions following the standards put by the school, community, government. Following, by the intensity of the provision; it will be a long term or short intervention? Also, we need to take into account the timing of the intervention and whether a proposed intervention is feasible in a communitys context and nature. Another, basic question is about the quality of the programme and how flexible it can be. As we talk about individuals needs, the targeted programmes need to be as personalised as possible to meet the childs needs. From my perspective, it cannot be one programmes fits all. Taking into account, the school community, with a small number of 700 students, and 100 students with attendance concerns; it happened to have 50 different personal attendance plan for each of them as each one had specific needs. How feasible is that to happen nationally (Education and Health plan); however, time and resource consuming it is small units may worth applying identified action and progress plans. Check QUALITY. Regarding the long lasting effect it is hard to have a general yes answer as we have narrow trials, but we can use the example of US Head Start pre-school. Finally, as we have already mention, a programme need to be holistic taking into account the childs needs, physical, emotional, social development, strengths and weaknesses and, also, taking into account family and community aspects. Sometimes people receiving targeted services feel stigmatised and it is better these services to be provided universally, however it may be costly. Now, if we invest in early years then less and less targeted services will be used in the future. We can notice the governments aspiration to support families through projects like Safer Families, Family Focus, Childrens Centres (support to parents), and Family Nurse Partnership etc. Moreover, the new CAF orients to a whole family approach rather than child one. Finally an important factor is trust and good relationship, shared decision making and cultural background so children and families can rely on the professional (see also the paper of the view of young people) According to Pithouse, there is positive evidence for small innovative programmes regarding short and intermediate outcomes for child health, safety and wellbeing and for parent self-esteem, parenting and parent employment. There also the following questions to be asked (1) Who does What, when, where, with whom and how we ensure that it happens (2) how we disperse the available resources and dispose them to have the desired impact (3) are we looking for short term, intermediate or long term benefits (4) decide which of the strategies in what time were effective and successful. As early intervention is a multifaceted approach Finally, we need to take into account the relationship between universal/ mainstream and targeted services and the relationship between information technology and frontline workers. As the pressure on professionals is increasing to meet targets and provide beneficial outcomes, there can be challenges in the relationship between universal and specialist services. For example, universal services claim that due to resources they can provide standardize and brief services however they could provide more if they have the appropriate resources and workforce, which prefer to be employed by the targeted services. At the end, children return to mainstream after the targeted services, however there is need to sustain balance and mutuality between mainstream and targeted services to sustain the gains from the provision. Regulatory framework of assessment procedures, metrics and timelines, electronic monitoring, information sharing claim their capacity to help us react early, swiftly and transparently however is early intervention applied? Can early intervention be delivered in front of a computer rather than by front line workers? Is information reaching the front line practitioners or stays in a loop for managerial aspects? Can complex human problems be identified by computers? Are all practitioners accessing computers to share their information? Who is accessing the information, is family under surveillance? The benefit is that early needs may indeed be identified early and we can monitor if services are responding. We can check if services were timely and commensurate however we cannot check if intervention met a set of human encounters. Emerging Paradigm As we have already mentioned, early intervention needs to consider childrens à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ family community outcomes. For example, we cannot improve a childs attendance when he is a young carer with one parent on drugs without any provision provided form the community; for every action taken we need to take into account this childs context. France and Utting (2005), proposed a more flexible and multi layered approach based on risk and prevention focused intervention. Our aim is to minimize and reduce risks factors and incidents of future problems via strategies that support and protect children. We need to promote resilience to children through strengthening the bonds among children, family, school and community and rewarding positive behaviours. The challenges of this approach are the timing, process and setting of the strategies and also the closeting, duration and intensity. In the UK, work is under progress so this programme has universal and effective aspect as strategies have been taken nationally (ten years plan to improve and promote services à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ Every Child Matters, Department of Health and Department of Education and Skills 2004), regionally (multi-agency joined up working and partnership for childrens services) and locally (community based children services, extended school, family focus and support). From the above initiatives we need to wait to see if there is evidence of benefits reducing children misfortune. For example the initiative for extended child care helps mother to get back to work. However, is that a good benefit or young children miss attachment? Intervention programmes so far are based on UK and US studies, however we need to have clear proof of what work in there will be a new policy. (Allen, 2011). It may be politically and morally uncomfortable to wait but it is better to have assurance rather than assumption of benefits. From a professionals point of view, early intervention is effective and provides benefits, however from a users point of view early intervention can be thought as invasive (justified by all when urgent protection is needed), ineffective and wasteful, for examples when benefits are not immediate, harmful, as users can be stigmatised and expensive, considering this money to be provided in a different urgent service. For example, students feel ashamed when parents come to school to discuss concerns and there are examples of parents refusing to come due to not be stigmatised that there is a problem. Another example, from our Extended School is that parents are reluctant to engage as there are no obvious immediate benefits for their child. A proper campaign and rise national awareness about early intervention and available services need to be on top of governments agenda. Early intervention needs to take into account childrens right, provide participative dialogue, tackle systemic inequalities and build social capital (trust, commitment, and adherence to socially approved and legitimate norm). This can lead to minimizing crime and maximizing social stability. There is a need for an integrated prevention paradigm taking into account the child, the family and the community. Government is in favour of prevention and early intervention (Early Intervention Grant, Early Intervention Foundation) however children are still slipping through the net as our main concerns were reorganisation, network coordination and information sharing and not provide the basics to our children. As it is made obvious from the above, multi-agency working needs to be supported and reinforced to provide effective services. Conclusion We need to support strategies that they can lead to solidarity supporting each other, minimizing social exclusion and dysfunction, investing in the social capital as, especially in the UK, communities are multi-ethnic and multi-racial with fewer and more subtle relationships among its members. The effects of economic and global culturalization had changed the demography, identities, competences and life pathways so we need to learn about the children and their experiences. We cant think the same cases that we thought twenty or even ten years earlier. Early intervention and early years services need to take into account shared identities and solidarity and they need to be mentioned in policy. As we have already mentioned, early intervention programmes need to take into account the wider problems of family instability, community decline and youth disorder. Knowledge of children in need is bigger and better; issues of risks and resilience are more familiar; importance of working together; there is a small but robust evidence for effective early intervention; early intervention needs to engage with children and families in multiple ways and levels; multidisciplinary practice and research should be high on the policy agenda; in the US clear cost benefits from early intervention, now studies are conducting in the UK. Our meta-policy challenge of our era is with what idea, from where and with whom we will co-construct better practice to meet the challenging needs of children. There is need for more comparative policy research, national benchmarking and peer review of initiatives in other countries.

Hamlet Vs. Much Ado About Nothing Essay -- William Shakespeare

Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing While Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing have the same author they both have similarities and differences in themes. Some people live their life looking for love and never finding it, it is often said that you will find love when you least expect it. Both plays have common beliefs of love, marriage, however, death is viewed very differently. Love in Hamlet is often depressing, even though love is wanted by all. What is the point in loving somebody if they are going to die anyway? When Hamlet denies his love to Ophelia she is hurt because she had believed that she had once been loved. She finds that she has never been loved, and may never find someone to love her which hurts her. Hamlet confesses his love at the death of Ophelia. He says â€Å"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/ could not with all their quantity of love/ Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?† (5.1 285-288). He does not want Ophelia to be dead because he wants her love back. Love does not always occur between a guy and girl in an intimate relationship. Love can happen between family members also. Hamlet has a strong love for his parents and is hurt to see them either die, or fall into a scheme of Old Hamlet’s brother in-law. Without love in our lives we would feel almost neglected by the world. After Hamlet’s father dies he desires his father’s love and comfort that he is unable to get. He turns to his mother after his father’s death and is turned away by her because she has other things to focus on rather than the grieving of Hamlet. Hamlet feels hurt by his mother’s actions and is jealous that she appears to love Claudius and not her own son. Love can often be depressing and hurtful, or happy and joyous but no matter wh... ...ghts. Love in Hamlet was depressing, where as love in Much Ado About Nothing is happy and often love at first site. Even though the love comes off in a different matter the love in these plays drives the character to do what they feel. Marriage in Hamlet was used to achieve assets where as in Much Ado About Nothing marriage originated from love. Marriage is desired by all at some point in their life. Death all in all is a very depressing and touchy matter however in Much Ado About Nothing it is often perceived as a joke, or a game. Each play has ideas of love, marriage, and death however, they are both viewed differently. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The New Cambridge Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Philip Edwards. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1985. Shakespeare, William. Much Ado about Nothing. Ed. A.R. Humphreys. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Art Therapy: Helping the Mind and Body :: Health, Treatment

Can art imitate life and healing? The use of art therapy began in the early 20th Century, used by a myriad of education and mental health practitioners, as a means of therapy for children and, eventually, adults (American Art Therapy Association, 2011). Art Therapy is beneficial in treating victims of illness from mental issues, including sexual abuse and schizophrenia, to physical disease like HIV/AIDS and fertility in women. Used in association with group talk therapy, art therapy has been proven to be effective with sexually abused children and with those patients who suffer from more severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. In a study of South African girls, Natascha Pfeifer found that art therapy helped girls who had been victims of sexual abuse to improve self-esteem and with symptoms of anxiety. Pfeifer evaluated 25 sexually abused girls from 8 to 11 years old. The program was based on Gestalt’s client-centered and abuse-focused principles (Pfeifer, 2010). â€Å"The Solomon four-group design was used to investigate the efficacy of the intervention, the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children and Human Figure Drawing were used as measures for assessing symptom change† (Pfeifer, 2010). The girls were asked to explore feelings associated with the abuse they had experienced. In addition, they were asked to draw different feelings and discuss them among the group. â€Å"They were then ask ed to draw or paint a ‘happy box’ and an ‘unhappy box’ in which their feelings could be stored. Hereafter the children drew the person who abused them (as an animal, shape or colour) and their feelings toward the perpetrator. In order to further address any unfinished business regarding the abuser, the girls were given the opportunity to verbally or physically express their feelings, which could then be placed in the happy or unhappy box. This was followed by a discussion on how it felt to express these feelings† (Pfeifer, 2010). The results showed that the girls in the experimental group had lower levels of depression and anxiety than those girls who were in the control groups. Self-esteem seemed flat for all groups, according to Pfeifer. â€Å"The findings of the present study suggest that the programme does not target low self-esteem as successfully as depression and anxiety. Alternatively, the findings may reveal that the HFD is not sensitive to changes in self-esteem symptoms† (Pfeifer, 2010). In targeting s chizophrenia, art therapy has had more promising results in aiding with rehabilitation and socialization. In 2003, Virginia R.

Symbols and Symbolism in Long Days Journey into Night :: Long Days Journey into Night

   Symbolism is used throughout O ¹Neill ¹s Long Day ¹s Journey into Night, a portrayal of the   author ¹s life.   The three prominent symbols, the fog, the foghorn, and Mary ¹s glasses, represent the characters ¹ isolation from reality.   The symbols in  ³Long Day ¹s Journey into   Night ² are used to substitute illusion for reality.   Although Mary is the character directly associated with living in illusion, all characters in the play try to hide from the truth in their own ways. At the beginning of the second act, O'Neill notes a change in setting which has taken place since the play opened.   No sunlight comes into the room now   and there is a faint haziness in the air.   This haziness or fog obscures one ¹s perception   of the world, and it parallels the attempts of each member of the family to obscure or hide reality.   Tyrone, for example, drinks whiskey to escape his son ¹s criticism of how cheap he is.   The reference to fog always has a double meaning in this play,   referring both to the atmosphere and to the family.   Much of the activity carried on by the Tyrone family is under-handed and sneaky, they are always attempting to put something over on somebody   and obscure the truth. This brings us to the second symbol, the foghorn.   Mary says she loves the fog because "it hides you from the world and the world from you," but she hates the foghorns because they warn you and call you back ².   This escape is similiar to the morphine she takes, and the foghorns are the family ¹s warnings against her addictions.   When they discuss the mother, Edmund resents Jamie's hinting that she might have gone back to her old habit; and Jamie is angry with Edmund for not staying with her all morning. Although they both think that she has started using dope again, they don't want to have to admit it. Because the men in the family all try so hard to deny the truth and to blame each other or the mother for her affliction, it appears that they all feel some guilt and some responsibility for what has happened to her , and to themselves.   Even when confronted with the truth (that the mother is using drugs), they all still try to act as if everything were all right, to deny the reality and live in illusion. Mary ¹s glasses symbolize her inability to see things clearly.   She frequently misplaces them, and really doesn ¹t want to find them

Leaders Aren’t Born They Are Made Essay

â€Å"There are many well-educated and motivated people who lack the knowledge of how to lead others. So they don’t assume leadership positions, or if they do, they don’t do very well in them. They and others too, assume that these individuals just weren’t born to be leaders. That’s really a tragedy, because our country and our people need good leaders. Corporations, associations, and athletic teams all need good leaders. Even parents must be good leaders or their families can become dysfunctional. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that our very success as a nation depends upon good leadership. But my research shows conclusively that effectiveness as a leader depends less on some innate trait you are born with, and much more on specific principles that anyone can follow.† There have been a numbers of debates concerning the issue of what makes a great leader. This debate is usually summarized into two schools of thought. The one school proposes that leaders are a select few people who are born with the unique set of skill and have rare leadership abilities. The other school of thought proposes that leaders are made, that is they learn, grow and develop into great leaders through the books they read, the people they associate with and from their personal experiences. My take on this discussion is that I believe that Leaders are made, and I am not the only one with this belief. â€Å"†¦leaders are made, not born, and made more by themselves than by any external means. Second†¦that no leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express himself freely and fully.† – Warren Bennis The truth is the most people have the potential to become leaders. The real issue is that leadership takes time to develop†¦  § People need time to figure out what they’re passionate about  § People need time to understand their personal vision and purpose  § People need time to learn how to express who they  § People need time to learn how to use their unique strengths and skills  § People need time to learn how to express their purpose in their own unique way. As the saying goes†¦. the fighter does not win in the ring†¦ he is only recognized there! You see leadership is not something you’re born with, it cannot be taught, it cannot be copied†¦ it’s learnt! â€Å"Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.† – Harold Geneen Leaders learn through life experience, by making room in our lives for lots of trial and error†¦ â€Å"Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.† – Vince Lombardi Leaders are made when they understanding their purpose, their unique strengths and have a deep passion to make a difference by living out whom they are in the real world. â€Å"Leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices. Leadership is not something mystical and ethereal that cannot be understood by ordinary people. Given the opportunity for feedback and practice, those with the desire and persistence to lead can substantially improve their abilities to do so.†

Jenna’s Kitchen Essay

Low moral/ low productivity. †¢ Didn’t listen to Judi’s recommendation of not listening. Main Problem: †¢ top managements push to save money by moving from there downtown location to a warehouse, lowered status of employees -made job less prestigious -no longer a better company to work for than their competitors. †¢ Low conceptual skills from management -they didn’t see the big picture to foresee how the move would effect the corporate culture of employees/ morale. Solutions: Top management needs to weigh as well as see value of motivation plus jod satisfaction high productivity and attaining loyalty of employee’s/ low turnover. Tried to solve the low moral with pay increase which leads to less money saved from move plus little change in moral: â€Å"pay increase only provides short term change and not true motivation. † (Introduction into Business pg 284 half way down. ) †¢ What does provide motivation: pay increase according to performance not general increase. Effective ways to motivate and increase morale: increased responsibility, recognition, new more prestigious job title, reoccurring meetings to hear what employees need. †¢ Hear issues †¢ involve employees in creating objectives. †¢ Incentives, gift cards to downtown restaurants, weekly monthly lunches, using flex times to make jobs more appealing. †¢ Cons- incentives will cost company in the short term †¢ more time in team equals less time for working. Managers will have to be trained to give more recognition to work with employee’s †¢ might loose employee’s end up saving money from move. Solutions: †¢ higher level of conceptual skills for top management ie. Learn from mistakes. †¢ Self manage work teams, job enrichment, incentives at the new location. †¢ Implement meetings for top management to reevaluate direction company is headed and to understand the consequences of not listening to regional management and cost cutting. †¢ First line manager training to boost moral/motivation of the workers and increase productivity

Explore Shakespeares presentation of Beatrice and Benedick in the play

Much Ado about Nothing is particularly admired for the wit and intelligence of Benedick and Beatrice, the warring couple which are comically tricked into falling love. Benedick is a vain, confident bachelor who holds a very typical view of women: no lady is ever good enough for him and to increase his self-esteem, he never misses an opportunity to mock Beatrice. We can see this from their first conversation which takes place in Act 1. Benedick approaches her by saying â€Å"What my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living? † Through this, Benedick expresses his sarcasm towards Beatrice and his desire for her not to still be alive, mocking her existence in the conversation. Benedick is a character that represents vanity; he tells Beatrice â€Å"but it is certain I am loved of all the ladies†. The use of â€Å"certain† emphasises the confidence that he has within his character and creates an air of arrogance, as he obviously seems to believe that he is irresistible and that no lady would refuse his charm. However, he is contradicting himself – he is loved by all the ladies, yet, he claims that he will â€Å"live a bachelor† because he finds women as not being trustworthy, as he states â€Å"I will do myself the right to trust none†. Therefore, Shakespeare uses Benedick’s vain and witty personality. Despite Benedick’s air of a very confident attitude, Benedick reveals a sensitive side to him. In Act 2, at the dance, Beatrice insults him; she pretends she does not know who is behind the mask, but she takes the opportunity to make Benedick feel miserable. When left alone, he says â€Å"The prince’s fool! Hah, it may be I go under that title because I am merry† – this highlights that he is affected by what Beatrice has said about him, however, despite de insulting name calling that Beatrice has addressed to him, he finds a way to make himself feel better about the situation by saying that being â€Å"merry† is the only reason why he goes under that title. This is ironic of him to say so, because as an audience we are clearly aware that he is hurt by the words she has said and that he is making â€Å"something out of nothing† – he is trying to block his emotional side and let the vanity take over, however it’s evident he cannot stand the assumptions Beatrice has made. Through this, Shakespeare creates comedy using Benedick’s contradictions regarding his self-esteem and ego – he won’t let it show that he has been hurt by a lady, even though inside he is hurting. Penny Gay says that â€Å"Words are often less important than actions† (The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s Comedies 2008). This can be applied to Benedick’s situation – he claims that he is not hurt by what he has heard, but the simple act of just talking about it reveals his pain, constructing comedy as he is not matching his words to his actions. Benedick’s fixated ambition of always remaining a bachelor slowly dies as he hears the others talk about Beatrice’s love for him, creating comedy as his attitudes contradict. Before Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato begin to talk about Beatrice, he says â€Å"One woman shall not come in my grace†¦rich shall she be, that’s certain: wise, or I’ll none: virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her†. This suggests that he is ignorant towards the women and that he is pretentious when it comes to choosing one: unless the perfect woman comes in his way, he will not do himself the wrong to look or search for any. However, after he hears the men talk about how Beatrice is in love with Benedick but won’t tell, Benedick has a sudden change of heart. He says â€Å"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married†. This is comic because his attitudes to love have changed at an unexpected speed, which normally would not happen. Also, comedy is created through the fact that he has, involuntarily admitted that somewhere, deep down he was waiting for this to happen, even though he claimed that he hated Beatrice. Benedick is not the only one that is tricked; Beatrice is deceived by Ursula, Margaret and Hero into falling in love with Benedick. She had a very hostile attitude to marriage and love, mocking Hero and Claudio’s engagement by saying â€Å"I may sit in a corner and cry â€Å"Heigh ho for a husband†, however, despite her hard attitude, her vulnerable side is shown when she finds out that Benedick loves her and says â€Å"Taming my wild heart to my loving hand†¦if thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee†. The powerful phrase â€Å"wild heart† emphasises that she has been holding the love in her for a long time and now it is the perfect opportunity to express it towards Benedick. This is also humorous because throughout the play, she showed hatred and mockery towards Benedick but now she claims that she is in love with him too, solving the problem of hatred between the two lovers. This reflects Alexander Leggatt’s view that â€Å"A comedy, then, is a problem solving story, ending in resolution and order normally symbolised by marriage† (English Stage Comedy 1490-1990 (1998). Once they admit their love for each other, it can be foreshadowed that a marriage will take place between Beatrice and Benedick – it is a comedy element that â€Å"the beginning is troubled, the end tranquil† (Euanthius: On Drama 4th Century). Not only deceived in love, but Beatrice is a witty, sarcastic and superior character. She seems to acquire pleasure out of mocking Benedick, creating humour because she is subverting her role as a woman – they were not usually superior over men, however, Beatrice goes against the norms. Her sarcasm is portrayed in â€Å"But how many hath he killed? – for indeed I promised to eat all of his killings†: here, Beatrice is clearly stating that Benedick is a coward and that he will never be brave enough to be a good soldier. She also mentions that â€Å"he hath an excellent stomach†, mocking his appearance. When confronted by Benedick’s vanity, she claims that â€Å"I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swears he loves me†. This is humorous because she is making comparisons between animals and humans and it is unusual to say that you would prefer an animal barking over someone dedicating their love to you; it gives a sense of coldness in her personality and that she is completely closed to love. However, this is ironic because later on in the play, she falls in love with Benedick. In conclusion, most critics concur that Shakespeare's depiction of the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick far surpasses that of Hero and Claudio in depth and interest. Scholars have often emphasized the fact that Shakespeare deliberately introduces the theme of the sparring mockers Beatrice and Benedick before the theme of the pallid romantics Hero and Claudio; and further, that when all of the principal characters are on stage together, the audience is drawn not to the tame love-at-first-sight relationship that develops between Hero and Claudio, but rather to the â€Å"merry war† between Beatrice and Benedick which later on in the play converts into a love relationship – this creates comedy because the audience is taken through endless wars of insults and mockery until foolishly and involuntarily admitting their love to each other, changing the mood of the relationship through the work of other characters, instead of being lovers from the beginning.

William Glasser

Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist. William Glasser was born in 1925. He was raised in Cleveland, OH. His first profession was a Chemical Engineer but decided to go into psychiatry when it became apparent to him this was his real interest in life. He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland for medical school. At Veterans Administration Hospital he took his psychiatric training also attending UCLA. He became board certified in 1961. He did private practice from 1957 to 1986. Dr. Glasser’s approach is non-traditional.He does not believe in the concept of mental illness unless there is something organically wrong with the brain that can be confirmed by a pathologist. In 1967, he founded The Institute for Reality Therapy. In 1994, The Institute was renamed The Institute for Control Theory, Reality Therapy and Quality Management to reflect the scope of The Institute’s teachings. Two years later it became The William Glasser Institute with Dr. Glasser renaming his theory, choice theory. Initially, The Institute was active only in the United States and Canada but under Dr.Glasser’s direction, his teachings have now spread to many countries (wglasser. com) Glasser is best known for his book Reality Therapy which he wrote in 1965. The idea behind this type of therapy is that people need to meet the basic needs of love both giving and receiving and the need of finding self-worth. A therapy that leads all patients toward reality, toward grappling successfully with the tangible and intangible aspects of the real world, might accurately be simply called Reality Therapy. Glasser 6) Glasser states the in order for us to fulfill our needs we must have one person that we care for and in return cares for us to meet our basic needs. Reality Therapy is based on Choice Theory. Choice theory states that: †¢all we do is behave, †¢that almost all behavior is chosen, and †¢that we are driven by our genes to satisfy fi ve basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. There are ten axioms that go along with this theory as well they are all follows: 1. The only person whose behavior we can control is our own. 2.All we can give another person is information. 3. All long lasting psychological problems are relationship problems. 4. The problem relationship is always part of our present life. 5. What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy or basic needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in the future. 6. We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures in our Quality World. 7. All we do is behave. 8. All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of for components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology. . All Total Behavior is chosen, but we only have direct control over the acting and thinking components. We can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think. 10. Al l Total Behavior is designated by verbs and named by the part that is most recognizable. (wglasser. com) Dr. Glasser is semi-retired, but is still a much sought-after speaker nationally and internationally. Some of his many accomplishments are as follows:†¢listed in Who’s Who in America since the 1970s; 1990 – awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa from the University of San Francisco; †¢2003 – presented with the ACA Professional Development Award recognizing the significant contributions made to the field of counseling; †¢2004 – presented with the â€Å"A Legend in Counseling Award† by the ACA; †¢January – 2005 presented with the prestigious Master Therapist designation by the American Psychotherapy Association; and finally, †¢2005 – presented with the Life Achievement Award by the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology for his enormous influence as a ps ychotherapist and author. wglasser. com) William Glasser’s methods of psychity are very useful. He teaches people to love them self and others. If you have a so called mental illness he tries to get to the under lying cause believing that you only have a mental illness if it can be proven by Drs. Glasser still does speaking about his theories. Works cited 1. William Glasser Institute. Oct. 6, 2009. [www. wglasser. com] 2. Glasser, William. Reality Therapy. New York. Harper& Row 1990.

Melodrama and TV serial in Guiding Light Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Melodrama and TV serial in Guiding Light - Essay Example Jonathan and Cassie are important individuals in the development of the storyline. The multiple lead characters connect the theme of the series and give the viewer the urge to want to watch it to the end. The presence of Jonathan and Cassie brings romance in the drama series. The use of leading characters decreases the attention from the lead characters to other characters in the sequel. The multiple characters allow the use of many storylines at once to provide fluidity in the storyline. The video illustrates that the character does not get an opportunity to resolve their problems. Guiding Light qualifies to be a TV serial. For example, Jonathan is not able to get vengeance for the death of his wife immediately. It is clear that viewers have to wait for the next episode to view the next episode. Resolution is among the components of a TV serial. Guiding Light qualifies to be a TV serial because it ends with a climax. It keeps the viewer with an urge to want to watch the next episode . For example, we see Jonathan planning the revenge for the individuals involved in the death of his wife. The climax plays an important because it produces a new conflict that keeps it interesting to watch. In the end, it is clear that the Cassie does make a choice of the casket to use for her daughter’s death. In conclusion, it is clear that melodrama and TV serials focus on the relationships and family. The main reason to focus on the family relationship is that family is one of the important institutions of the society.

Motivation and motvited Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Motivation and motvited - Essay Example In addition, most of the behaviors that we possess like sleeping and eating are possessed by biology. This is because of the biological need of eating and sleeping that human beings possess. Motivation requires an activity that has to be mental which include actions like planning, organizing, and physical activity that involves persistence and effort. When mentoring other people, I believe it is important for mentors to motivate and encourage individuals (Arrington, 23). For example, I ask individuals to have mini goals within their goals. In addition, short-term goals help people achieve what they want at a short time and may require minimum resources while long-term goals are achievable over a longer period. This helps individuals develop and succeed. In my opinion, as much as people are motivated to do something, there are certain blocks that make people not achieve what they want in life. There is the feeling of fear that people have, for example the fear to fail or fear of success. Fear prevents people from achieving or expressing their full potential. Most successful people take risks and do not fear to start up their goals. They get out of their comfort zones and go for what they want. I normally ask individuals to get out of their comfort zones by trying something new and not fearing that it will fail or succeed. It is vi tal for people to get encouragement and support as they advance to a higher level. Additionally, learned pessimism is another block to expressing motivation. These are habits of thought acquired by people in their childhood. If an individual believes that something bad will happen or something good will happens then it solemnly happens. Individuals should learn to have positive thoughts, to keep on encouraging themselves, and to avoid people who discourage them. I also believe that it is important to accept both positive and negative feedback from people. Positive criticism is also good since people learn from their

Four Stages of Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Four Stages of Life - Essay Example In order for Hindus to opt out of their ordinary life, one must engage in the laws of Manu. Hindus do not require teachings on how to be happy, secure, or win the admiration and respect of their associates and friends. However, they do require instructions on the best way to secure the same. In Hindu, deeper thinking is suggestive of the fact that these stages and the values they represent progress naturally. Therefore, man grows more towards their fundamental interests (Van Voorst 67). The movement towards increasingly satisfying and enduring values is institutionalized in the Ashramas, or the comprehension of the four stages of life. The first stage of human life in accordance with the laws of Manu is the studentship stage. For boy students, they are supposed to habituate with a guru or teacher to learn Sanskrit, ritual, the Vedas and others (Van Voorst 39). The guru in this case is a Brahmin. For the student, the dharma is inclusive of obedience, non-violence, celibacy, and respec tfulness. God is the student’s teacher in this stage. When it comes to girls, this stage of student-hood is coincident with the householder stage; her husband takes up the role of her teacher. In this stage, the student’s norm is discipline, his forte is celibacy, and his duty is devotion to the guru, while his vocation is concentration in the studies. The student learns the renderings and nuances of Sastras, Upanishads, and Vedas. He does this through rote in order for him to realize in real life situations the significance of his studies when he is of age. Therefore, this stage is one of probation and training sans prejudice. The student is expected to add an honorific title before pronouncing the teacher’s name even when out of earshot (Van Voorst 40). The student’s initial lesson is Sandhya Vandanam in the evening, noon, and morning, breath control, Gayatri recitation, ablutions, sprinkling and sipping water, and water libations. The second stage of l ife as stipulated in the laws of Manu is the householder stage. In this stage, after bathing and performing the ritual for going back home, a twice born man is allowed to marry a woman from the same caste endowed with bodily marks of an auspicious nature (Van Voorst 40). Hindus take this stage more seriously as compared to Buddhism and Jainism; it is usually considered to be mandatory just as the first stage of student hood is. Here, the fundamental dharma of the specific individual is carried out whether as a warrior, priest, or otherwise, while for women the role is usually as a mother or wife. On top of the particular duties of the second stage, general duties are carried out with the aim of paying off debt. Marriage and bearing children is considered as discharging the debt to ancestors; sacrifices and household rituals are considered as discharging debt to the gods, and teaching one’s children, wife, and other students in the case of Brahmins is considered as discharging debt to the teacher (Van Voorst 41). These three debts can at times be associated with the three-trinity gods. These are Shiva for debt to the teachers, Brahma for debts to the ancestors, and Vishnu for debt to the gods. The third stage of human life written in the law of Manu is the forest dweller stage. This stage is optional and is entered ideally when a person gets graying hair, has grandchildren who can carry the family name onwards, and gets wrinkled skin. Wives and

Defence Diplomacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Defence Diplomacy - Essay Example Prior to doing so, however, it is necessary to commence with a definition of the terms, such as would frame our understanding of it componential elements and implications: "To provide forces to meet the varied activities undertaken by the MOD to dispel hostility, build and maintain trust and assist in the development of democratically accountable armed forces, thereby making a significant contribution to conflict prevention and resolution."1 In accordance with the above cited definition, the importance of Defence Diplomacy within the context of international and inter-state relations may be affirmed. Quite simply stated, the exigencies of defence diplomacy emanate from the fact that it serves both to solidify inter-state defence relations and, in optimal situations, for the negation of nascent military/security threats. As Aldrich (1994) contends the very nature of the twentieth century as the bloodiest and most violent the world had ever witnessed, led to the evolution of defence diplomacy. World War I, followed just two decades later by World War II, left millions dead, cities and countries destroyed, economies shattered and civilisations in ruin. The horrors of these two wars, not to mention their cost, underscored the importance of diplomacy as a preventative strategy and defence diplomacy as a national security imperative. In other words, defence diplomacy is the by-product of incalculably violent and insupportable, protracted warfare. Within the context of the aforementioned, diplomatic missions proliferated and assumed reciprocal, voluntary form. These mission came to embrace a military, more specifically, a defence purpose and as such, the spread of diplomatic missions implied the parallel proliferation of defence attaches offices. These offices, representing a country's military, its Armed Forces abroad, soon evolved into an integral component, not just of military defence but, of Military Intelligent Services. As such, they did not simply function as the purveyors of defence and military-related information but acted in such a way so as to maintain national security interests and to fortify the represented state's international military alliances. The importance of Defence Diplomacy and, by association, the institution of the Defence Attach, continued to expand from inception onwards. On the international level, the Cold War most certainly established and promoted the importance of the said institution. The value of the said institution directly derived from the importance of national defence and national security interests and, accordingly, within the context of an ever connected and interrelated world, has increased. Within the geographic parameters of the Arab Middle East, Defence Diplomacy assumed unique importance. As recent events, if not those of the past five decades, have illustrated, the region is subject to numerous threats, many of which have the potential to function as regime destabilisers. The implication here is that, just as did other countries and regions, Arab nations recognised the exigencies of Defence Diplomacy and accordingly, ensured the evolution of the institution of the Defence Attach within the context of the Military Intelligence Directorate. In so doing, Arab nations effectively expanded the range of the mechanisms and instruments they deployed for

Tesco Company Pestle Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Tesco Company Pestle Analysis - Essay Example This particular store was operational up to 2010. The brand’s first supermarket was opened in 1956 in Maldon. Tesco underwent organic growth in the 50s and 60s, while also undergoing acquisitions up to its peak ownership of over eight hundred stores. In 1957, the company bought seventy stores off Williamsons, two hundred outlets from Harrow Stores in 1959, two hundred and twelve stores from Irwin’s in 1960, ninety seven from Charles Phillip and in 1968 bought a chain from Victor value. At its inception, it specialized in drinks and food, but diversified into software, internet services, music and movie downloads, telecoms, electronics, and clothing. In 1987, Tesco completed a hostile acquisition of forty supermarkets from the Hillards chain for approximately ?220 million. 2. Pestle Analysis The pestle analysis is a tool that is vital in the comprehension of decline or growth of the market, thus creating better awareness of the direction, potential, and position of the b usiness. The tool is utilized for the measuring business activity in a company. Pest is an acronym for political, Economic, Social, technological, Legislative, and environmental factors (Cadle et al, 2010 p6). These are used for the assessment of the market or unit of organization. The headings used in a Pestle analysis are situational review framework and can be utilized reviewing company ideas, market propositions, direction, position, or strategy. Pestle analysis is an important tool when used in workshop sessions, on top of being quite simple to use. It is also quite useful in sessions that involve brainstorming, as well as for strategic planning, research reports, product development, and market planning. Since this tool is virtually external, it is best completed before the SAWOT analysis, which is more based on internal and quasi external factors (Cadle et al, 2010 p6). The headings in a Pestle analysis give the company a manner in which to examine the external scene surround ing it (Cadle et al, 2010 p6). It is possible to become too involved with internal issues while working in a company that the external issues are relegated in importance. The fact that these issues could have a huge impact on the success of the company makes their status vital. Ignorance of these issues could put the company’s future endeavours in doubt. The headings are as follows: Political This particular section involves the identification of political facets that impact on the organization. These are issues on politics within the company itself, political issues in the organization’s region or base, and political issues on the international and international stage (Williams & Adrian, 2007 p34). In an economy that is increasingly global, political changes affecting a particular country have an effect on legislation and business in other countries as well. The motor industry is one such industry that is affected by political changes in overseas markets. In case moto r car importation restrictions are loosened in a particular country, then countries that deal in motor vehicles will get an opportunity to export more cars into that particular country. It is however essential to realize that these companies will only benefit if they had produced adequate cars for the increase in export orders. Via keeping a close eye on any developments, such companies are able to better anticipate and prepare for these kinds of scenarios. The company can get enormous knock-on effects from these changes, with increased need for more sales team

Management Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Management Communication - Essay Example c. Given your reputation for hiring the coolest cats in town, the big question is why the heck don’t I work there yet? I’m driven, way smarter than average, and would feel right at home in Vegas, baby! d. In addition to being an enthusiastic Zappos’ customer, I am also a customer service professional myself. A brilliant idea came to me last week while I was having yet another satisfying moment with your customer support crew: I want to be part of the team that can create such positive experience for customers. The fourth applicant has the most appealing application message that really attracts attention. The applicant has used words that touch on the current customer service at the company, being a loyal customer, and is already aware of the kind of service required f employees at the company. 2. You like to put applicants at ease right away, so you usually start interviews by asking an offbeat question to break the tension while also prompting the candidate to reveal something about his or her personality and knowledge. Which of these questions would you choose to start an interview? The most appropriate question to start an interview would be the one that aims at determining the level of commitment that an applicant is willing to demonstrate towards the job if selected. For instance, the question (b) suggests a tough task that can either attract negative response, a tactical answer, or completely positive one. 3. Zappos likes employees who can think on their feet, even when faced with outlandish questions and circumstances. Which of these questions would you use to judge a candidate’s ability to grasp a problem and begin developing a solution? a. You are a scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency, specializing in toxic wastes from electronic products. You’re testifying before a congressional committee, and a senator wants to

Project management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words - 1

Project management - Essay Example it is not always the case that these projects are successful and achieve the desired objectives, but usually most of them do fail, either in terms of cost, quality, deliverables or time (Meredith & Mantel, 2012). Any project’s success is inherited in the timely ending of the project, attainment of the required objectives or deliverables are delivered, and within the project limitations or constraints. In order to execute the project successfully, it is imperative for the project team or managers to consider some crucial elements of the project, which may be the project cost, time, or resources (Oisen, 1971; Lock, 1994; Atkinson, 1999). Among these aspects, there are three central issues, such as the time, cost and quality, which are the key intentions of any project and hardly be achieved and make the project a successful one (Iqbal, Azam, & Qureshi, 2011). However, the secret of success can be understood by analyzing the executed projects, where the success factors or failure factors can be identified by a careful analysis. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the two real-life projects related to the adoption of Information Technology in the organization by identifying the success factors of these projects, and also to identify the risk factors with the help of risk map as well as provide suggestions for mitigating or managing the risks. ECourier is a well-known UK based organization, where it provides 24/7 and same day courier services to the customers throughout UK. It was started in 2003 and the main objective of the company was to deliver courier service with accurate delivery information or transparency in this information, along with the highest customer relationships through automation. It collects and delivers the packages from all the areas in London, as per customer’s instructions. In the beginning, it was involved in delivering the packages only in London, but now it has developed a huge customer base across the world, and have built many

Bond and Curve Essay Example for Free

Bond and Curve Essay The first tool that we want to use to look at news, news for fixed income. So what we’ll do is we’ll navigate down to the bottom of the menu, and we’ll click on 14 NBOND for bond news. Clicking that, it’ll load a very familiar page for you. This is the news categories. And you’ll notice on the top left in the toolbar it says bonds. So now we have our top bond news. This isn’t just our top bond news, but also we can choose popular news, and we can also see all news for bonds. You can customize the type of fixed income news by either clicking on customize and choosing from there, or if you click new search you can also type in additional fixed income topics like credit markets, municipal bonds, additional categories that I already have in my particular monitor here. Now for the next screen that we would like to look at is economic calendar. This is another screen that you should be familiar with already from the other videos, but let’s type in ECO for economic calendar. And from here, specifically for fixed income, we can focus on releases within the top left menu. If we click the economic releases and go down to government auctions, this is going to bring up the auctions for the United States in particular. You can change the country. If you want to put in Germany, you can type in Germany. And notice if we go back to the United States, all the current releases are in white and all the future releases are going to be in amber, just like before. If you want to see the results of those, you can again click into that release and you can see that data in there as well the news stories listed below. Now for an overview of the global fixed income markets, we can type WB for world bond markets, and then hit the go key. Notice that we have our countries on the left hand side, and across from those we have columns for information like price, the change in price, yield, change in yield, a charge of the yield. And then on the right side, we have a relative value performance of how do we look – how is the yield now versus the average over a period? In this case, we’re comparing the yield of now in blue versus the average, which is in three months. You can change that easily by clicking one week, for example, and now you can see if the yield is wider or tighter than the average that you specified on the top right. In addition, you can change the maturity of the bonds. If you want to look at five years, change it to five years and that’ll update – that’ll update accordingly. It’ll show you the individual securities here. If you want to see any additional information from those, you can actually click on the name of the country, and that’ll take you into a deeper level menu where now you can see the different tenors of that curve. You can see the curve spreads, butterflies, additional information there that you can explore. Let’s hit the menu key. We also have two additional tabs. If you click on spreads, that’ll give you spreads relative to the country you have selected. If you want to see spreads relative to Italy, we can choose Italy from the list. And now it’s giving you the spread of Italy versus the United States in blue. Additionally, you have the spread chart and the historical comparison available just like in the bonds tab. Lastly, we have the curves tab. And what that’s doing is it’s letting you compare all these countries with a side by side of each point on that curve so you can get a quick and real-time update of those curves and how they’re moving. Now WB is a monitor with real-time information that rates (ph) currently trading in the market. For an overview of bond yield forecasts, we can look at BYFC and hit go. Now BYFC will give you bond yield forecasts for multiple points on the curve, as well as three-month benchmark rates, as well as tenor spreads that you can specify up on the top right. You can narrow down the countries or focus on the countries based on your region on the top. And going back to let’s say the United States, BYFC has six quarters worth of forecasts. And these forecasts are contributed to us by economists and market researchers on a monthly basis by our Bloomberg monthly news surveys. When you click into the particular bond tenor, it’ll mention who forecasts, as well as the statistical information that corresponds with those surveys and when they were received. For a real-time monitor of benchmark rates, you can use BTMM. BTMM is our treasury and money markets monitor. This can be specified by country. You can change your country on the top left and then navigate based on the region and choose the country directly from there. Now we have rates from – deposit rates, all of our benchmark rates. It also includes treasury rates on the left side, as well as even the gold spot rate and equity index futures. This is a great way for market players and for you to get a pulse in real time what the rates are as they change in the market. To conduct curve comparison, to look at a curve for a particular country, to look at their CDS curve, rate curve, we can look at all those by typing CRVFgo for curve finder. Within the curve finder, along the top the tabs will show you what types of curves we have available. Within those, we can navigate by country. We can also look on the far side and see based on those countries what we have available. Now in our example, let’s search for the A US corporate curve. If we go to credit and then we look at industrial, we can then select the A. And we wanted to see this in US dollars, so we can click on US industrials A BVAL curve. Now that we have selected that curve, we can go to the bottom right and click show selected curves. Now we can see the curve for the US industrial A curve where we have the one-year through 30-year rate. These are the yields of the curve, and we also have some additional curves on the far right that I’ve added in the past. But right now we’re only seeing the industrial A curve. We have the yields down here on the bottom, and if we want to see this as of a historical date, then we can see how did that curve look one week ago. If we click on the one W at the top, now we can see the current curve versus the curve of one week ago, and then the spread between those two. If we want to enter a custom date instead, we can enter those dates here by clicking, and then we can put in the dates on the top. Now if we want to specify a custom date, we can go to the more tab. Then once we select, we can drop the custom date and then enter, let’s say, March 9, 2012. When we click update, now our curve will show March 9, 2012, along with the other dates there. If we want to add another curve and see how does this industrial curve compare to, maybe we could use the US swap curve here, we can just check that curve. And now you’ll see the other curve is in a different color and you can see them charted against each other. You can always unselect – you can always remove those curves as you like. If you want to add a curve that’s specific, you can click to browse, and then use that same menu and navigation to go to your next curve. The last thing I want to show you with the curve is to click menu to go back. And we can see these data points numerically in a table if we scroll our mouse or hit the page forward key on our keyboard, which is the green key next to our menu key that you used before. Now you can see for each curve what that historical date was in the table. All the applications we’ve discussed today have all been market monitors and broad-level overview. Now let’s move into actually finding a screen for securities. Then we’ll close with looking at individual security applications. Now, to start, the easiest application that we have to do a security find is to actually use SECF, go. SECF is our security finder. And what that allows you to do is to browse Bloomberg’s universe of securities and statistics. Now the security finder is really in two sections. The top is our control area, which allows you to look at the individual tabs by asset class, as well as the search tool at the very top left. The second half is really the output section, the section that’s going to show you the results in a table, and then it’ll let you search by relevancy. Now let’s say that we have an example where we want to search for a bond from IBM. We can click on 32FI, and then notice that we have always additional buttons across the bottom. Now we have this for corporates, but in addition, if you happen to look for bond futures, interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, loans, those are available there too. For IBM, we’ll stay on corporate. And then in the issuer name, we can type in IBM for International Business Machines. Alternatively, you could also type in IBM as the ticker since that’s the actual corporate ticker for IBM. Here we can actually look through the list and search what coupon we were looking for. We can do that, or we can actually narrow it out and type in 7.5 and – if that’s the coupon we’re looking for – and then it’ll show it right there. It’ll give us brief statistics in that list. And then when you’re ready to actually load that security for analysis, then you can actually click on that security and it’ll launch that for you. Now if you would rather use the search box instead of narrowing it down through these filters, you can clear that from the list. And then in the top where it says search, you can type IBM. We were looking at the 7.5 percent coupon. When we hit go, then again it’ll show us our result here. If you wish to do a more sophisticated search, you can definitely do that within Bloomberg. In order to do that search, you would type SRCH and then hit go. Within SRCH, you can do an advanced search for corporates and government bonds. To do so, start out with clicking on the top red – top right red advanced search button. Now you’ll see your difference choices on the left for your filtering. If you wish to specify an issue date or a maturity date, you can go into issuance information 2, click there, and then you can enter that information here. Additionally, covenants. You can definitely select any one of these check boxes. You can just definitely notice these gray tabs as you scroll across the top. This is where you’re going to get your additional information. You can narrow it down by credit ratings and choose. Let’s say you want to use SP ratings and you want to include only investment grade in your search. Now you can either individually select, or you can click investment grade and then click update. You can also – if you want to specify a particular range of yields or a particular price range, you can click 7, inventory and analytical data. And then down here in the middle you can specify your prices or your yields. We’ll make our search very broad and we’ll put in 1 to 10 percent, and then click update. This is – this is not the exhaustive list. You can click any one of these. And you’ll notice that we also again have additional tabs here if you want to sort by sector. The list goes on. Now let’s click 1 go. The way to see your search results is to click 1, go to search. Notice that we have over 30,000 results. We’ll only see 5,000 of those results in this screen. In addition, if you were to export this to Excel, which you can definitely do, that will also be limited to a maximum of 5,000 results, just as – as a note for that. You can also save this search. If this is a search that you need to run again, then you can go to options, save search, and then you can come back to this search in the future and rerun it. And in the future, you may have – you’ll have the opportunity to have those different results. Now let’s – let’s look at screens that pertain to individual securities. Before we were looking at a bond with a 7.5 percent coupon from IBM. We can type IBM at the top, and then 7.5. Notice that our auto complete helps find that security. So you can use SECF that we discussed before, or you can use auto complete to type in your security if you have the – the information here, like we do. You can that to select your security, or you can also type it in as your CUSIP (ph) or other identifier there and it’ll help find it for you. We’ll click it from that list, and that automatically loads the security for us. You’ll notice that we have this menu of applications that we can run. And we won’t have time to discuss these today, but definitely explore these for your analytics for relative value hedging, things that you can look forward to in the future. The particular screen that we’re looking for right now is the description page. So click on 16 DES on the top right. Now notice on the description page we have the core information, including issuer, the type of issuer it is, the sector that they’re in. We have the coupon – coupon frequency, core information about that security. On the left side, we have navigation. We can look at information such as covenants. We can look at bond ratings. If you want to see historical bond ratings for this issuer, then you can actually click on the expansion tabs to see those right in the screen. In addition to that, you can also see if there’s multiple coupons or if there’s a schedule, if it’s callable or puttable, things like that. You can click into schedules. It’s grayed out if it’s not available. In addition to the information that we have in the bond description, we also have a tab for issuer-level information. Let’s click on 22 issuer description. And particularly, we can look at 4 debt summary to look at their distribution. Now here we have nice charts and breakdowns, but note that in these individual tabs on the left we can also launch the individual applications directly by clicking on them. If we expand this window, now we can see the full application for our debt distribution. And here we can see IBM, and then we can also see the companies that are part of that business where we can see the issuer and subsidiaries. As we scroll down, we can see that entire list. One additional note is that you can also group your debt distribution by whether it’s just the issuer – only obligations of the current issuer. You can narrow down that debt based on its group. Let’s close that. Notice that we have more than just the debt distribution. We also have major creditors who own that bond, credit health as in financial ratios to give you a better perspective on not just that particular issue, but also that issuer. Now, to move from core information – core descriptive information to actual analytics to run yield analysis on this particular security, we can type YA and hit go for yield analysis. On this page, you can see that we have additional tabs, one for yield and spread. We can then move to pricing to see descriptive information. But let’s stay on the yield and spread tab just for a moment. The yield and spread analysis screen will let you price a fixed income security, calculate risk, hedge amounts, and see market data. You can input custom spreads. So in this case it’s the spread to bench, and it’ll reprice your security based on your input. So here we put a spread to bench of 20 basis points and it recalculated our price and yield. In addition, we can change how we calculate our yield if it’s yield to worse (ph), or yield to maturity, or yield to a custom date. We can also enter in historical dates in our historical settle (ph), and you just type that in here. We have our spreads. You won’t need to know – if you’re not familiar with these types of spreads, if you hover your mouse over them, it’ll give you a brief description of what those are. On the right side, we have our risk measures, risk and convexity. We have our risk hedge. These are against the benchmark that you select here. And then also, it calculates our accrued interest and all-in price. We can move across the tabs along the top, and now we can pricing. Pricing based on what’s available on the market from the trace reporting, from our runs messages, things like that, descriptive information or snapshots from what we had on the description page that we looked at just prior to this screen. We have relative value graphs to see not just what it is today, but how that’s changed over time. And then custom gives you full customization of what type of information you want to see on each page. You can click into any one of these tabs to then launch that individual analysis within that section of the screen. If you like this custom tab or any of these tabs, you can change the order by dropping it across, and then it’ll set that way for you going forward. The final screen we’d like to discuss today is a credit monitor that you can type GCDS. Notice again we used auto complete. We can select it here or hit go. And what GCDS does is it shows you credit default swap spreads based on the sectors that you choose.gcds You can set it by region. You can import a portfolio or – based on an equity index, a launch pad monitor. It gives you a very wide range of sources to pull that from, as well as the full customization of what spreads you wish to see. In my setup here, we can look at it by region. We have it set up for the Americas, although we can set it for global. Here I have listed for banks, but we can choose by any sector listed in this drop menu. We can choose to sort out whether we want to see investment grade or high yield. And then we can choose which tenor of the CDS curve we wish to view. And lastly, we can choose which pricing source we want to narrow that down by. We can choose CMA New York, for example, or we can also use a Bloomberg composite price here, which is what we’ll use going forward here. Now, on the right-hand column are all securities or all the issuers where we have CDS pricing based on our selections up here. If we choose to check off the box, then it’ll add that – that name to that chart, and you’ll notice it’s added that in the legend if it’s available. We also can see the average spread for all 35, or we can do – we can click on average of selected ancd then see that charted. So we can say which names are above the average, which names are below the average. To conclude that example, notice that our highest spread on the chart is currently Morgan Stanley. Notice that on the legend it highlights the name. That is currently trading above the average, which is 201. Notice that if I put my cursor on the actual – the average of selected, then it also highlights which line that is. The average is at 201. So GCS is a great tool to not just narrow out the individual names that you want to chart on a graph, but also let’s you easily compare those not just against each other but also against as a group average. And just as a note, if you never get your mouse to the very top right hand corner, you can see that there’s an icon with a green arrow. You can click on this green arrow and drag that into Excel, and that’ll move the information from the screen into Excel for you. This concludes are session on fixed income essentials. If you need any future assistance, please feel free to hit the help key twice for immediate assistance from our 24/7 global help desk.