Ascertain Cause, Manner, And Time Of Death Essays - Signs Of Death

Ascertain Cause, Manner, And Time Of Death Ascertain cause, Manner, and Time of Death The Presumptive Sings of Death include cessation of respiration, cessation of heartbeat, changes in the eyes, and cooling of the body. Positive signs of death indicate that death has occurred. This includes postmortem lividity, postmortem rigidity, instantaneous rigor, postmortem decomposition, and insect invasion. All of these signs of death can help you determine time, cause, and manor of death. Cessation of respiration is the apparent lack of breathing. In certain types of death like electrocution and drowning, the victim may not be breathing but life may still exist. To determine if breathing is occurring, watch movements of the chest and abdomen. You can also hold a mirror over the mouth or nose too see if the victim is breathing. If breathing is absent, other signs of death should be looked for. Cessation of heartbeat is the absence of the heart beating. A person qualified using a stethoscope can only determine it. The doctor can't always detect a weak heartbeat so feel for the pulse or lay a hand flat over the left side of the chest. If no heartbeat it is likely that death has occurred but it should be confirmed by another person. Cooling of the body does not indicate death because the body may have cooled of medical conditions retarding circulation or by prolonged exposure. If death has occurred the body will become the same temperature of its surroundings. The cooling of the body can be different in the area were the body is. If it were found in the snow the body would cool much faster then if it was found on a hot day. If the body is found in room temperature and it is cool and clammy it is likely that death has occurred at least 12-24 hours before it was found. The temperature of the body is affected by the environmental factors involved. The positive signs of death indicate that death has occurred. Postmortem lividity is livor mortis. This is the result of the blood settling by gravity toward the lowest part of the body. The areas affected take on the appearance of a patchy mottling, apparent within a half hour after death. This is a very good way to determine the time of death. The condition is completely developed and permanent in 8 to 12 hours, by witch time the blood has coagulated. Lividity provides information concerning the position of the body after death, so you can tell if a body was moved after death. Postmortem rigidity or rigor mortis, is the stiffening of the body. The stiffening of the body is caused by chemical changes in the muscle tissue. Rigor mortis normally starts in the head and neck and progresses down the body in an orderly fashion. This helps determine the time of death because at first when the body dies it is still limp it takes some time for rigor mortis to set in. Time of death could be estimated at approximately 29-34 hours previous. Instantaneous rigor is also called cadaveric spasm. This is when the muscles stiffen immediately at the moment of death. This phenomenon has been for the most part, discredited by contemporary forensic pathologists because of lack of documented cases which would tend to substantiate its existence. This is not a good way to determine time of death because it is hared to tell if it was rigor or instantaneous rigor. Postmortem decomposition, there are many ways for a body to decompose but the most common is a process called putrefaction. Putrefaction is when the skin starts to peal off the body; bacteria breaking down the body's tissues cause it. The time that it takes for this process depends on the temperature, clothing, size of the body, ground conditions. The first sing of putrefaction is a greenish discoloration of the skin, appearing in 24-72 hours of death. This process will go much faster is the body is in very hot conditions. Insect invasion is when various insects may eat the flesh and lay eggs in it. The infestation of maggots can occur in a matter of hours. The insects should be collected because a entomologist can estimate the date or season a

How To Perfect Social Listening With Joei Chan From Mention

How To Perfect Social Listening With Joei Chan From Mention Your customers use social media to talk about your industry, competitors, and brand. They provide valuable information that you can use to generate content ideas, understand why they go elsewhere, and prevent PR disasters. That’s why social listening is so important. Today, we’re talking to Joei Chan content marketing manager from Mention. She shares some examples, tips, and advice that will help you capitalize on social listening opportunities. Some of the highlights of the show include: Mention is a Web and social media listening tool for brands to track online conversations and listen to key topics and strategies for brand development. Joei leads content marketing partnerships to generate demands and leads for the sales and marketing team. Social listening is monitoring online conversations to understand what customers are saying and collect feedback about your brand and industry. Part of social listening involves understanding keywords and topics that your audience is talking about. Tracking when your company name or brand is mentioned. Also, track content marketing for keywords used in your industry. Identify keywords and topics that focus on your goals. Social listening is important for marketers to understand and care about because they need to know their target audience. Is what you have in mind when it comes to your audience, reality? Is your perception accurate? Social listening also helps you track campaign effectiveness. How far is the reach? Brand sentiment? Social listening can be used to improve campaigns and content by understanding what platforms your customers are using and what kind of content interests them. Also, utilize content directly from your customers to generate engagement. There are a lot of opportunities that you can discover by listening to what your customers are saying, and then tailor your content based on those conversations. User-Generated Content: For example, you can tie into users who like to show off your product after using it by asking them to use a specific hashtag or encourage them to generate specific types of content. It is a team effort between you and the customers. You can highlight and leverage user-generated content in various ways to promote your brand. Share entertaining and humorous content, even if it is your own expense and you need to welcome humility. Every brand messes up once in awhile. Embrace your failures and be authentic about it. Use social listening to find and build your audience. Understand your audience and give them content that interests and engages them. Listen and react to them in real-time. Competitive Analysis and Monitoring: Gather information on your competition. Your brand and products are never alone and always compared with others. What are your competitors doing that you can learn from? Inbound Marketing and Social Listening: Attract people to your brand through brand awareness and brand perception. What works in your favor? Your social media presence/reputation and positive reviews. If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud,  Stitcher, and Google Play. Quotes by Joei: â€Å"I get to talk to a lot of other awesome marketersand work with a ton of different, great marketing companies and learn from them.† â€Å"Social listening is monitoring online conversations to understand what customers are saying about your brand and your industry.† â€Å"The only thing that defines your brand is what people think, what people are saying. This is why social listening is critical for marketers.† â€Å"There are a lot of opportunities that you can discover by listening closely to what your customers are saying.†

Qualities of a good teacher Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Qualities of a good teacher - Essay Example Effective teachers have the urge to succeed. They remain determined that their students receives utmost educational needs. Their determination brings out the best of their weak students while maintaining and building on the talents and abilities of others. Dedication remains as the fundamental tool to success. An effective teacher have the dedication and commitment to achieve excellence in his work. The effective teacher dedicates most of his or her time solving students’ challenges and providing them with amicable alternative solutions. It is imperative to understand that effective teaching requires creativity skills. Creative skills in teaching would enable a good teacher to design effective concepts and lesson plans that remains unique and dynamic to their students. The teacher recognizes difference in learning capacity of his or her students and design new methods that would best accommodate them (Walker 9). Effective teachers have the personality of being accommodative and cooperative. Cooperation in teaching is essential in building an effective relationship between the teacher and student. Such relationship helps in building the learners’ confidence. Therefore, an effective teacher do not only accommodate his or her students’ thoughts but also cooperate with them and other stakeholders of education sector. In conclusion, effective teaching requires comprehensive training that would ensure that teachers have the urge and passion in their job. It is important that an effective teacher would observe the ethical standards and inherent regulations within education sector. Therefore, effective teaching does not only involve teacher-student relationship, but also effectual relation with other education stakeholders including school administration and

Disaster Relief Plan Evaluation of Effectiveness Essay

Disaster Relief Plan Evaluation of Effectiveness - Essay Example re always some issues that are specific to a particular country, which in our case is Thailand, here transparency of the utilization of the relief funds and corruption are considered to be the major issues by the foreign or domestic donor and relief agencies. Without the proper and adequate evaluation of these issues proper Disaster Management Plan could not be evaluated. The most important element when evaluating any disaster relief plan is the integrity, honesty, coordination and availability of the local administration. Relief work would be very difficult if these elements are not available. After that one should consider the accessibility and logistic support available in the affected areas, because it is necessary to determine to scope of relief work. And it should be followed by the availability of trained and qualified professional, who could coup with any particular emergency or disaster. Gathering the support and trust of the locals administration is also very important, this would ensure the security of the relief team and adds to the capacity building of the relief work. Collection, storing and distribution of supplies is of fundamental importance, a good plan must cover these issues, this could be easily achieved through the participation from corporate or private sector of the country (Jaffin & Bob, 2008) As discussed earlier, the misappropriation and corruption in the relief funds is the main issue which the international community closely monitor when considering any relief effort for Thailand. Lack of transparency would cause a sense of unrest and lack of trust in the Sovereign Government, by the foreign or domestic fund or relief agencies. This issue would be of utmost importance when considering any disaster relief plan for Thailand. Efforts to mitigate and reduce the corruption in the funds received for relief of those affected by a catastrophe must be ensured. The foreign and Non-governmental agencies involved in the relief work must ensure

Efficient Market Essay Example for Free

Efficient Market Essay Q1. Efficient market is one in which stock prices fully reflect the information of a company, either positive or negative. If the information from a company is positive, investor will give a good response and the price of shares of this company will increase. Since the information is reflected in price at once, normal rate of return should only be obtained. Also the price that the firm received from issuing securities is the present value, and valuable financing opportunities are unavailable. There are three conditions that will cause market efficiency, which are the rationality of investors, dependent deviations from rationality and arbitrage. Three forms are divided by researcher according to the availability of information. The first one is Weak Form. The price in this form were just focused the past stock price. This is the cheapest, easiest strategy to find the pattern in stock price. But the future information is random due to random walk hypothesis therefore it is unable to generate any profit. The Semistrong Form will appear when all information is publicly available, including the historical price information. The price should rise at once when the news release and no chance for profit when the investor analysis the information. The Strong Form appears in which the price reflects all information publicly or privately on market. Secret news or insider’s news is useless for investors to earn profit in this form. Arbitrage will generates profit from the rationally purchase and sale of similar stocks in market in order to make the profit riskless. The rationally decision is included estimate the business rationally and methodically. So in Weak Form just need to obtain the historical stock information is enough for knowing the different of price. But financial statement, economic and politic situation is needed to consider in order to obtain the arbitrage in Semistrong Form. And some private information like the purchase of resources or amalgamations of firms are needed for understands in order to obtain arbitrage in Strong Form. Q2. Below are the advantage and disadvantage of different investment rules. Net Present Value is used to calculate the net change in company’s asset with respect to a project after considering the time value of money. So company can base on the result to make the decision, where positive NPV should accept the project. The advantage of NPV is accurate to obtain the best decision since it can fairly rank different projects and classify them by their size and duration. Because NPV consider and apply cash flow and discount rate, difficult to estimate and full of uncertainty of these two elements will be the disadvantage of NPV. Payback period is used to make decision by comparing break-even point that the project can payback within a predetermined cutoff. The advantage of it is simple and directly analysis. Also, it is useful for short-term project that cash management is the first priority since it payback mainly focus on liquidity of the project. The disadvantage is payback ignore time value of money and the cash flow after cutoff period, so some cost may neglected and cause an inaccurate result. Discounted Payback Period will convert the cash flow as the present value and compare the discounted break-even point that the project can discounted cash flows payback within a predetermined cutoff. Since the calculating is similar with Payback so they share their advantage and disadvantage. Since the time value of money is considered so result can be more accurate, but it also specified the discount rate so the analysis will become more complicated. Internal Rate of Return is the discount rate that NPV become zero. It will accept the project that has a greater discount rate compare to IRR. It is usually used because it is easy for manager to find out the rate of return. But it is no accurate when the project have some non-normal cash flow or when evaluating mutually exclusive projects. Finally, Profitability index is used to measure profitability among different projects. It obtains present value by discounting the cash flow. With formula: benefit/cost ratio, profit of all positive NPV project can be ranked properly. Therefore it is useful for manager to rank and select suitable projects through the list. But discount rate is difficult to calculate because it is very uncertain. And profitability index will be broken down by other resource constraints. In conclusion, there are similarities between some investment rules. NPV, IRR and PI consider the time value of money while the left rules do not. Although it is more complicated when computing with discount rate, the more accurate and detailed result can be work out so it is worth to do so, just like the rules discounted payback period and payback period. Moreover, IRR can give the accurate result to manager quickly, but it may affect by the non-normal cash flow. Therefore using NPV may be the right choice of rules to evaluating mutually exclusive projects. As a result, managers should choose different rules for particular situations.

Hispanic Cultural Views And Traditional Values

Hispanic Cultural Views And Traditional Values Hispanics are the largest minority population in the United States. Projections suggest that the estimated 46.9 million Hispanics who currently reside in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau 2009) will grow to over 62 million by 2020 and to more than 133 million by the year 2050 (Bean, 2001). Research is crucial in learning how this population functions, assimilates and understanding the societal trends that have the strongest impact on Hispanics. Hispanics display an exceptional resilience to assimilating into mainstream American cultural patterns while maintaining their traditional cultural norms, beliefs and customs (Acevedo, 2009). Research that examines the underlying factors which facilitate Hispanic assimilation gives insight into understanding Hispanic culture. It can serve as the foundation for developing a guideline in studying cultural assimilation and aiding other cultures in achieving it. An individuals beliefs, motivation, and actions are defined and influenced by conn ections and investments with groups they consider themselves to be a part of. In the realm of behaviors and attitudes, groups are exceedingly significant (Acevedo, 2009). Therefore, studying Hispanics as a group supplies researchers a unique advantage in gaining relevant insight. One of the most prominent values of Hispanic culture is familismo, the emphasis on family relationships, which includes gender roles, childbearing, familial hierarchy, etc (Raffaeilli Ontai, 2004). It is a cultural value that highlights the priority of family connections, participation in larger family networks and harmony within relationships. In traditional Latino families, it is generally believed cultural values reflect traditional hierarchical gender roles. Women are supposed to be virginal until marriage. In essence this means they are expected to remain virgins until they marry and be ignorant in sexual manners because the husband is responsible for educating his wife in this arena (Quadagno, Sly, Harrison, Eberstein Soler, 1998). The womans most important roles are as wife and mother being the caretaker for the children, her husband, and home life in general. Traditional male roles are defined as machismo, in which males maintain dominant and aggressive attitudes and are r esponsible for working to support the family (Saez, Casado Wade, 2009). Men are considered to be the head of the household and possess the most power in making decisions. The traditional definition of these gender roles also implies that women are the more subservient sex and men being not only more powerful but also domineering, macho, and potentially excessively controlling and abusive. The relationship between gender-role socialization and hypermasculinity suggests that the home environment is a powerful source of messages regarding male gender role norms (Saez, Casado Wade, 2009) as well as female gender role norms. Scholarly research has criticized this depiction of traditional gender roles as stereotypical and invalid (Amaro, 1988). In the Latino world, machismo is defined as the expectation that a man will be honorable, responsible and loving towards his family (Parra-Cardona Busby 2006). Hispanic partners are also very likely to be influenced by cultural values that empha size personalismo, which refers to a high level of emotional resonance in interpersonal encounters (Parra-Cardona Busby, 2006). Therefore, communication and connection between partners and within the family carry significant weight, promoting familial harmony, strength and growth. Clinicians are responsible for understanding the familial gender roles as defined by different ethnicities in order to maintain cultural competence to work with those populations. Multicultural competence is generally characterized as involving three main areas: clinicians awareness of the culture they identify with, clinicians knowledge of the clients perception of society, and clinicians knowledge and implementation of culturally appropriate treatment strategies and interventions (Bean, 2001). Since the Hispanic population continues to grow, the demand for therapists who are trained to work with Hispanics will also rise. Therefore, research will supply information that can be applied toward developing and implementing treatment plans that will best serve Hispanics. There exists an overwhelming amount of research concerning gender roles amongst the Hispanic population. However, research concerning roles as defined by the elderly Hispanic population is quite scarce, creating a significant gap in understanding the populace. The population of U.S. Hispanics older than 64 years is one of the fastest growing segments of elderly Americans (Beyene, Becker Mayen, 2002). Respeto, or respect, is a traditional value in the Hispanic culture. All members of the family are expected to be respected and give it in return. Traditionally, Hispanic elderly were highly valued for their role and function as well as their ability to contribute their knowledge and experience to their family. They have served as repositories of history, tradition and values (Beyene, Becker Mayen, 2002). They are addressed as Don or Doà ±a, titles of reverence and respect. Children are socially and morally obligated to support their elderly parents, which typically translates to pare nts moving in with their childrens family once their condition limits their independence and inhibits their ability to care for themselves. However, the Hispanic elderly that have emigrated from their native country live in a different society that possesses values that differ greatly from the society they were raised in. In the modern Hispanic culture it remains common practice to seek out the elderly for advice concerning childrearing and family relations, but young Hispanics who were raised in the United States are more likely to align their values with those based on the U.S. culture, which emphasizes youthfulness and personal independence (Beyene, Becker Mayen, 2002). Research shows a significant connection between emotional well being and family support for the elderly Hispanic population. Elderly Hispanics deem emotional support, understanding, compassion and love from their adult children as the most important form of assistance. Thus emphasis is given to social relationships and emotional connection. An exchange of attention and affection with grandchildren also has a significant influence on the sense of well-being for Hispanic elderly (Beyene, Becker Mayen, 2002). The elderly Hispanic population tends to have a strong connection to religion and religious tradition. This is believed to aid in helping with the stresses of old age. Religious beliefs help people make life bearable, and determine their relationship to the supernatural, to the environment, to time, to activity, and enhance their self-worth (Beyene, Becker Mayen, 2002). Religious beliefs are aligned closely with the conservative sphere, which indicates the possibility that elderly Hispanic whom are less assimilated into American culture and feel a more powerful connection to their culture are more likely to possess conservative views and ideals than young Hispanics or Hispanics who are more assimilated into U.S. culture. Most Hispanics in the United States identify with Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism which are traditions that have a tendency to embrace conservative theological and social values, such as opposing abortion and contraception (Ellison, Echevarrà ­a Smith, 20 05). Ultimately, conservative views call for more traditional gender roles in the family, embracing old-fashioned practices which become scarcer as the United States continues to embrace and incorporate a more modern way of life Methods The literature suggests that within Hispanic cultures, there are strong traditional moral ties connecting younger and older generations, including traditions like adult children caring for elderly parents and women remaining celibate until marriage. However, these relationships may be different from generation to generation, particularly as some generations become more acculturated to American life. The question we will attempt to answer is exploratory in nature and serves to ask whether or not there is a relationship between age and traditional beliefs within the Hispanic population in the United States. In order to test this question, we will utilize data taken from the Pew Hispanic Center in 2002. The Pew Hispanic Center conducted the National Survey of Latinos in 2002 among 2929 Latinos and 1284 non-Latinos. This was a broad survey that asked a number of socially relevant questions related to culture, experience and relationship to the United States. These were telephone surveys conducted in both English and Spanish among a randomly selected sample of adults. The respondents were selected using a four-stage stratification system to identify areas more densely populated with Hispanic people and computer assisted calls were made to random phone numbers within these areas. The data received was proportioned to match expected area population values based on country of origin. We will use the data collected from only the Hispanic population in the sample, as this is the target population relevant to our research question. In order to test our question, we will look at two variables: age and level of agreement with the statement, It is better for children to live in their parents home until they get married (Pew Hispanic Center, 2002). This question is valid for our study due to its relationship to traditional Hispanic family values regarding child and parent roles. The answers were coded in the survey using possible responses of four levels of agreement, from strongly agree to strongly disagree and additionally allowed respondents to state dont know. For our purposes, we will recode the data received from this question to include just the four levels of response and encode the dont know responses as missing data, because these responses give us little insight within our exploratory analysis. We will begin our analysis by conducting descriptive frequencies analysis of our two variables, utilizing the datasets included recoded age data, which grouped age responses into five age groups, and the responses to the survey question. We will then run a crosstabulation of the two variables and conduct a Pearson chi-square test using SPSS software. The chi-square test will allow us to see if there is a significant relationship between the two variables. It will measure the significance of the difference between the expected and observed frequencies when comparing categories of the two responses within a crosstabulation. The crosstabulation will allow us to identify specific frequencies of each response divided by age group. The null hypothesis is that there is no significant relationship between the two variables and that the frequencies of responses will be distributed equally. We will use a two-tailed test in order to be fully able to observe if a relationship exists, either positively or negatively. Based on the literature, our hypothesis is that there is a positive relationship between age and the belief among Hispanics in the U.S. that children should remain at home until marriage. The usefulness of this exploratory analysis is that a relationship between these variables may be indicators of greater trends or differences in beliefs among generations and may serve as a basis for additional exploration. The limitation of this study occurs due to its exploratory nature in that we are looking at only one variable as an indicator for the relationship of tradition and age. Although limited in terms of general relationship, discovering a relationship with these variables specifically may help clinicians to better picture and predict generational belief differences within families regarding child and parent roles. Results By running descriptive frequencies on the recoded age variable, we were able to visualize an unequal distribution among our five age groups. The data (see Table 1) shows that of the 2929 respondents, the largest group were 18-29 years old, representing 32.0% of the total sample. The next two age groups, 30-39 and 40-54, reported in similar numbers, with 748 (26.0%) and 721 (25.1%) respectively. The largest drop then occurred, with only 8.5% reporting each for the next two groups, 55-64 and 65 or older. Descriptive frequencies run on our question variable (see Table 2 and Chart 1) shows heavily skewed responses, with 1779 (61.5%) of the 2929 respondents answering that they agree strongly that children should live in their parents home until they get married. 512 (17.7%) responded agree somewhat. Disagreement comprised of only 20.4% of the respondents, with 11.9% disagreeing somewhat and 8.9% disagreeing strongly. Of the total sample, 38 responses equally 1.3% of the total were counted as missing data. Running a crosstabulation on these two variables found 85 (2.9%) missing cases (see Table 3), which leaves 2844 (97.1%) cases that are valid for comparison. Within the frequency table generated by the crosstabulation (see Table 4,) we can see the degree to which each age group agrees or disagrees with the survey question. Although 61.4% of the total population strongly agrees with the question, the 65+ age group gave this response most frequently, with 78.0% of that age group strongly agreeing and 14.5% agreeing somewhat. The three middle age groups responded similarly in nearly equal numbers when proportioned for their age groups, representing 64.8% to 65.8% of each age group strongly agreeing and 16.7% to 17.8% of each age group agreeing somewhat. Although a lower proportion of the youngest age group responded with strongly agree, it is important to note that 49.4% of this age group still gave this response and 19.8% agreed somewhat. Disagreement with the question displayed fewer responses among the sample population, but skewed toward the younger age group, with 18.0% of that age group disagreeing somewhat and 12.8% disagreeing strongly. The numbers decrease with each age group, with 4.1% of the oldest age group disagreeing somewhat and 3.3% disagreeing strongly. From the crosstabulation results, there appears to be a relationship wherein older respondents respond more frequently in agreement with this question. Although younger respondents strongly agree in large numbers with the question, they also report disagreement more frequently. The results of the Pearson chi-square test (see Table 5) indicate that the relationship between these two variables is significant, with a p-value below the .0005 level, based on a chi-square value of 117.985 with 12 degrees of freedom. The results of our analysis thus reject the null hypothesis that there is an equal distribution of frequencies and no relationship. The results show a higher frequency of general agreement with our study question among the oldest group of respondents and a higher rate of general disagreement among the youngest respondents. The middle three age groups responded slightly more conservatively than the oldest group, however, they still responded more frequently with agreement to the survey question. The results of our analysis show a somewhat positive relationship between age and level of agreement with the survey question, thus confirming our initial hypothesis. Discussion and Conclusion The data collected shows that there is a relationship between age and traditional beliefs of people of Hispanic origin in the United States. The findings, as explained in the results section, indicate that there is a positive correlation between age and the belief that children should remain home until marriage. The older the individual surveyed is, the more likely he/she is to strongly agree with this belief. This finding assists social workers in understanding the importance of familial relationships as well as the effects of assimilation across generations within the Hispanic culture. Understanding the impact of these two factors helps to inform therapeutic work with members of this population by assisting clinicians in becoming culturally competent. Cultural competence is an important quality that all social workers ought to possess when working with individuals from a culture different from ones own. Cultural competence is then aspirational at best and requires the continuous de velopment of practitioners cultural sensitivity, awareness, knowledge, and skills (Furman et al, 2009) learning is an ongoing process and it is imperative that social workers keep this in mind in order to be able to serve clients from different backgrounds. By engaging in cultural competent practices clinicians will be able to better understand and empathize with his/her clients. Through the clinicians personal awareness and cultural sensitivity, client and clinician can build a trusting relationship. Without cultural awareness, social workers contribute to oppression when working with clients from other cultures. This is unethical practice and can cause clients great harm (Sue et al., 1992). This understanding amongst the clinician and client will serve to build a therapeutic rapport between the two, which is the foundation for successful work with a client. The effect of assimilation and acculturation across generations is another important factor that clinicians should be aware of. Though attitudes dont dramatically differ across age groups, it is important to recognize that traditional beliefs within the Hispanic population are slowly changing as many Hispanics assimilate into the American culture. Generally, acculturation has been measured in terms of behavior, cultural identity, knowledge, language, and values. These aspects, then, are critical components in understanding and addressing factors that cause intercultural conflict and distress related to adapting to a new culture (Furman et al, 2009). As social workers, it is important for us to realize the potential effects that this assimilation may have. For example, one noticeable difference between the American culture and the Hispanic culture is our value system. The American culture values independence and individualism while the Hispanic culture values interdependence and colle ctivism. Anderson Sabatelli point out this fact; they explain that, Workers need to recognize that a behavior or coping mechanism is not dysfunctional simply because it does not match dominant culture patterns (1999). This is very important for practitioners to realize when working with cultures that are different from their own. By becoming aware of potential differences in interpretations and problems practitioners will be able to better understand and relate to his/her clinics. Even problem identification itself is a part of this awareness process. What may be interpreted as a problem to the client may not be a viewed as a problem to the clinician and the same is true the other way around. For example, in terms of the survey that was conducted, it was found that older Hispanic people strongly believed that children should remain home until married. If a client came to seek counseling because his/her son/daughter moved out of the home to pursue a single lifestyle, a clinician wit hout cultural competency may shrug this problem off. He/she may attempt to convince the individual that this is not a pressing problem because every day, people move out of their parents homes in order to live on their own. This is an example of the practitioner not placing the clients values high in regard. This blatant disregard may make the client not want to participate in services. Researcher Tina Hancock further describes the interdependence of the Hispanic culture as it relates to family, the family generally is regarded as the survival net for its members, who internalize a strong sense of duty to one another and across generations. The foundation of this cultural orientation is the value of la familia and the principle of familismo (2005). We must look at the effects that such a change in traditionally held beliefs may have on the family unit and culture as a whole. Using a systems perspective to analyze the interactions between an individual and his/her family, social workers can better understand conflict and potential interventions, by acknowledging that the individual, family, and cultural systems all interrelated. Conclusion The Hispanic population in United States is growing faster than all other minority populations combined, The Hispanic, population is projected to swell from 28 million from 1990s to about 100 million in 2050( pewhispanic.org). With this increase in diversity in the population it is necessary for social workers to be able to work with a variety of cultures in their work with the American population. By using the information gathered on the issues of assimilation and familial relationships clinicians can develop better and more effective interventions in their work with this particular population. Developing cultural competency is one way of achieving this task. In this study we were limited by the variety of responses that we were able to obtain, as the questions that were asked were very broad in nature. For future research it would be beneficial for researchers to delve deeper into the topic of assimilation upon cultural attitudes. Additionally, further study the effects of cultural competency as it relates to client-clinician relationships would also be effective in shaping social work practice. By becoming more aware of the different values and traditions, practitioners work with varied populations will become more informed and effective.

Case Analysis of Sutton Health

CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 1 Case Analysis of Sutter Health CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 2 Sutter Health is a non-profit network that is made up by community-based health care providers based in Northern California. This network introduced an interface that was aimed at enhancing revenue collection of the facilities from the self-pay patient.This network identified that traditional payment processing system had limitations that hindered the effective collecting of revenue. What with the recession, healthcare organizations have seen an increase in the inability to collect debt from the self-pay, the uninsured and underinsured patients. This has caused a lot of struggle when it comes to the organizations to meet the operational margins and the profits.I find there are a number of reasons for the new increase in patient’s debts, the most common are, poor accounting practices, lack of patient information and correct demographics. There is new governance that is designed to p rovide more coordinated care to said patients (Gleeson,2010). There are five geographic regions that reflects the health care access to the customers of Northern California. Each of the five regions will have governance structure and it will oversee many of the Sutter affiliated medical facilities and also the hospitals. In its effort to increase point of service collections and improve the overall revenue cycle Sutter health took steps to measure performance using a handful of specific primary benchmarks, empowering PFS staff to assume responsibility for every individual account they handle, ensure each registration is analyzed using a rules engine to identify problems before patients leave the registration desk and ensure PFS staff receive appropriate comprehensive training to excel under the new system† (Souza, McCarty, 2007).Obtaining the correct patient information plays a large part on non-collectable debt because patients are not able to be reached. These limitations we re associated with limited access to accurate information by the account representatives, ineffective performance measures and fragmented centers of the service provision. The Sutter Health program developed a system that was comprised of solutions that were geared towards overcoming these limitations. I will be CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 3 discussing the new system that was created by Sutter Health.The key problems and issues, is that the United States healthcare system is characterized by huge upkeep from collecting revenue from patients. This situation is brought about by a health care insurance system which entails high deductible pay health plans and as well as higher co-payments plan. (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This situation has been made worse through the large proportion of the population not having healthcare coverage. The traditional health care system has had a hard time meeting their target revenue collection.This is due to several problems that attached along with the traditional payment system. Unlike when dealing with the payments through insurance claims but also dealing with the up-front payments that are required by the hospital for payment of services before the patient could even receive the service (Souza, Mccarty, 2007). So this means that the patient services staff (PFS) has to have complete and accurate information about above said client. This presented a problem for the traditional payment system where much of the customer payment system was processed in the back end.This system also required that the PFS staff ask for money from self-pay patients, but the PFS were not accustomed to this under the traditional system. The PFS staff found it hard to wait for the back end section to process customer information and to provide a breakdown of the patients payment details. So this became a tedious task for hospital accounting departments as well as for patients that had to wait a longer period before receiving services. The inefficiency o f the traditional system not only resulted in low quality services, but also in low revenue collections.The system provides such a broad range of health care services, which include acute, sub- acute, home health, long term, outpatient care as well as physician delivery systems. These services are provided through an integrated health care delivery approach that gives the system the ability to deliver a full range of healthcare products and services. CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 4 Sutter also identified that PFS staff could not get ahold of real time information in operational and financial indicators such as cash collections and A/R (Souza, McCarty, 2007).So in the long run this meant that the managers and staff had to wait until the end of the month in order to identify the benchmarks. Sutter also recognized that the traditional system did not provide a means for analyzing selected data nor did it generate required detailed report on demand. This led to more cost as the hospital had to rely on programmers to generate such reports. The front desk staff also lacked real time information which hindered their ability to serve the client without consulting the back end staff.It also meant that the front desk staff could not monitor the patients progress (Souza, McCarty, 2007). Another challenge was that the PFS members were not empowered enough to be held accountable for each patients accounts they dealt with and it reduced the amount of accountability among the staff. These are some of the key challenges that the Sutter system were meant to address. The solutions that were employed by Sutter Health was an attempt to overcome the challenges stated above. Sutter Health implemented certain changes in the fore mentioned system that would make their operation more efficient.The strategies identified by the Sutter program entailed transferring most of the back end tasking to the front desk; providing accurate and complete information to managers and upfront staff; p roviding more effective performance evaluation and integrating all data elements within the system (Souza, McCarty, 2007). Allowing front desk staff to handle much of the payment process was deemed to have an effect on the efficiency of the process. Various solutions were employed to ensure that this is achieved.One of these solutions entailed using benchmarks to measure performance by the Patient Service Staff (PFS). Sutter identified a handful of primary benchmarks which included; Unbilled A/R days, Gross A/R days, Major A/R days, Cash Collection, Billed A/R days, and CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 5 percentage of A/R over 90, 180, 360 days (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This benchmark introduced shorter periods with which staff performances could be evaluated. This move was timely especially when onsidering that the industry has changed and things happen in terms of hours and days but not months. Another solution involved empowering the PFS members to have full responsibility over the a ccounts they are dealing with. This move was meant to increase a sense of responsibility and accountability as each individual members will be responsible for his or her own account (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This also gave the PFS members more autonomy to act as they saw fit and this improved the speed and efficient of service delivery by these staff members.The program also provided the PFS members with tools, that enabled them to automate their accounts, sort out their accounting using various means and seen their performances based on the achievement of the target. PFS and other accountant representatives were presented with individual dashboards that helped in the tracking of their progress in meeting targets. This also helped in enforcing the benchmarks set by this program. Sutter’s health program also introduced a front end collecting system as means of overcoming the mentioned problems.The pint of access collecting system introduced an opportunity for the health care fac ilities to reduce claims and denials. Though this system the patient records are analyzed before the patient leaves the registration desk. This enables the front desk staff to identify problems such as bad debt, patient or invalid patient type early enough and take the necessary corrective action. The Sutter health program also embarked on a comprehensive training program that was designed to support the existing PFS members and the registration staff. This gave staff the necessary competence to deal with the tools provided by this system.The training program also eliminated the need to hire formally educated staff to operate the system that would CASE ANALSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 6 demand more than the $10-$20 an hour paid to current registration and PFS staff. For example, registration staff who were not used to asking patients for money were trained in effective communication skills. The training was also designed to introduce autonomy and effectiveness which acted as a motivator to the employee.The Sutter system allows staff to act with more independence which has made them active in owning the system. Autonomy is a critical element that enables workers to work effectively and deliver the best when it comes to their ability. The efficiency of the system has also made the work of the staff easier, acting as a further motivating factor for the staff. Another solution involved getting patients on board with this program. The POS collection system is not only beneficial to hospitals but also to the health care customers as well. (Souza, McCarty, 2007).This system provides a patient friendly billings which ensures transparency in the way customers are asked to pay for health care services. The payment system that is in force in other parts, bills the patient after he or she has already received the services and has already left the hospital. However, the Sutter program introduced transparency as the patient then gets to know what the services will cost him or her b efore they receive the services. It has become evident that patients would love to know how much the care they receive will cost them and this is what the Sutter program has provided.This system also offers a simplified system of settling hospital bills thereby making things easier for customers using said hospital system, customers are usually compelled to produce a lot of records and documentations in order to have their payment processed which introduces a lot of inconveniences. There is more accounting practices that are used by Sutter in identifying and solving problems, such as Sutter was discontented with the amount of revenue being collected from the self-pay patients (Souza, McCarty, 2007).The management team understood that the self-pay CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 7 patients were capable of meeting their medical expenses and therefore the problem was in their system. Sutter then resorted to evaluate the accountability and transparency in the process involved in the coll ection of revenue. It is through this evaluation that most of the traditional system did encourage responsibility and accountability to the people handling the revenue collection. Another accounting practice that was adopted was cost reduction.Accounting principles dictate that there are two major ways for increasing the margin; increasing profits or reducing costs. After exhausting all the avenues they could use in increasing revenue, Sutter embarked on a campaign that would reduce the cost of operation. This saw the collection process being integrated into a unified system. The methods used were also cost conscious, is why they opted for comprehensive training of their existing PFS and registration staff rather than hiring specially trained professionals, who would have demanded higher pay.Another alternative would be that Sutter’s strategies focused on improving accountability and autonomy of the staff in order to enhance revenue collection. Sutter health relied on solutio ns such as setting benchmarks and the empowering of staff. What they found to work was a full cycle of the amount payable. Amount payable refers to money owed to the institution by other parties while the full cycle refers to the amount of time it takes for the patients to settle their debt. (Rauscher, Wheeler, 2008).Reducing the full cycle may help to reduce the number of bad debts that a health institution suffers from. Traditionally a patient cycle followed procedures such as organizing schedule, registration, treatment, billing and collection (Solomon, 2011). The collection part is why the health institution is able to recover the debt owed to it by the patients. This section comes along after the treatment process is concluded and therefore increases the chances for bad debt. This paper proposes a system where bills are settled on a pre-service basis.The pre-service CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 8 system will be enabled by developing a system that standardized serves to make b illing before the client receives services easier (Trans Union, 2007). A per item standardized billing is advised. This is why a standard is set for each and every hospital procedure and the patient is billed by summing up the cost of all service items he or she has utilized. In my informed opinion the approach used by Sutter Health was effective. This is because their approach was able to address the concerns raised by the network.Sutter health was concerned with the growing number of self-pay payments and the diminishing of the amount of revenue. The need to increase the amount of collecting from this section of market was the primary objective of developing this strategy. The success of every strategy is able to deliver the set goals. When it comes to Sutter Health it is estimated that revenue collection from the self-pay patients increased by an additional $78 million after the implementation of the strategy (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This is a clear indicator of the programâ€℠¢s success. One of the benefits is improved quality of care for the patient.One of the solutions identified by Sutter was bringing the health customer onboard. This system did this by factoring the customer’s needs into the system, making it customer friendly. The customer’s now spend less time processing payment while at the same time, the patient’s get to know of the cost they will incur before receiving the services. The system has also reduced the number of patients being denied treatment as a result of a streamlined inventory system. In conclusion Sutter Health is a non-profit network based in California and is made up of community based health care providers.This case discussed how Sutter developed a system that was able to improve revenue collection from the self-pay patients. Sutter recognized that the number of bad debts was rising along with the rising number of self-pay patients, This network conducted an evaluation on its facilities and identified th at the problem of low revenue collection was linked to a disintegrated system of collection, in adequate accurate information CASE ANALYSIS OF SUTTER HEALTH 9 and poor performance indicators.Sutter Health employed solutions that entailed setting new benchmarks, empowering employees, factoring the customer’s interest and compressive training. References Rauscher, S. & Wheeler, J. (2008). Effective Hospital Revenue Cycle Management. Journal of Healthcare Management Robertson, K. (Oct, 16, 1995). Sacramento Business Journal 12, 30: 3 Solomon, P. (2011). State of Healthcare Reform Revenue Cycle Retrieved from http://philcsolomon. om/2011/04/the-state-of-healthcare-revenue-cycle-an-insi ders- perspective-part-2/ Souza, M. & McCarty, B. (2007). From bottom to top: How one provider retooled collection. Healthcare Financial Management 61 (9). 67-73 Trans Union (2007). Healthcare Collections: How Full Cycle Improvements Reduce Bad Debt. http://www. tranunion. com/docs/healthcare/busin essneeds/healthcarecollectionsWP. pdf

Economic Theory and Application Essay

1. The following graph: (not able to recreate, but in the text), shows a firm with a kinked demand curve a. What assumption lies behind the shape of this demand curve? The kinked demand curve assumes that other firms will follow price decreases and will not follow price increases. For instance, in an oligopoly model, based on two demand curves that assumes that other firms will not match a firm’s price increases, but will match its price increases. The kinked demand curve model of oligopoly implies that oligopoly prices tend to be â€Å"sticky† and do not change as much as they would in other market structures given the assumptions that a firm is making about the behavior of its rival firms. Kinked demand was an initial attempt to explain sticky prices. It is an economic theory regarding oligopoly and monopolistic competition. b. Identify the firm’s profit-maximizing output and price. In Figure 9.1 in the textbook, the firm’s profit-maximizing output and price is when there is an increase in price over the average marginal cost (the difference between p1 and the point vertically down from there that cuts the MC curve) Profit maximization is the process by which a firm determines the price and output level that returns the greatest profit. There are several approaches to this definition. The total revenue total cost method relies on the fact that profit equals revenue minus cost, and the marginal revenue – marginal cost method is based on the fact that total profit in a perfectly competitive market reaches its maximum point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. c. Use the graph to explain why the firm’s price is likely to remain the same, even if marginal costs change. If marginal costs increase or decrease within the discontinuous range of the marginal revenue curve, the point at which marginal revenue equals marginal cost will remain the same. Thus, price and output do not change, even though costs (and profits) are different. Marginal cost is the additional cost of producing an additional unit of output. Marginal cost shows the changes in costs as output changes. Total variable costs change as the level of output varies but total fixed costs are constant regardless the level of output. Therefore, total fixed costs do not influence the marginal costs of production and actually average fixed costs decreases continuously as more output is produced. Because total fixed cost is constant, average fixed cost must decline as output increases ad spreads the total fixed cost is constant over a larger number of units of output. Both average variable cost and average cost first decrease and then increase. 2. Some games of strategy are cooperative. One example is deciding which side of the road to drive on. It doesn’t matter which side it is, as long as everyone chooses the same side. Otherwise, everyone may get hurt.

Describing My Childhood Home Essays

Describing My Childhood Home Essays Describing My Childhood Home Essay Describing My Childhood Home Essay Essay Topic: Fun Home Quincy, Mass is where my childhood home stands Homes are places that people can go to for warmth, memories and comfort. My childhood home resides or stands in Quincy, MA. The home is full of comfort for me and my family. My home is your typical Cape Code style. It’s gray in color with Maroon shutters. There is a 2 car attached garage. Flowers, bushes and other landscape surround the house. The front living room window is a large bay window that allows a lot of sunlight into the home when the curtains are open. The large bay window allows you to see a lot of our neighborhood and people passing by as they are out for their daily stroll. Like all homes, my home contains a kitchen. The kitchen represents fond memories of my mom cooking large family dinners on Sundays and togetherness. One fond memory would be coming home from a ride around the neighborhood on my dirt bike and smelling the aroma of baking ham in the oven with a faint hint of freshly baked bread. Our kitchen was small, with one light on the ceiling. My mom complained a lot over the years about that one light in our kitchen. I’m not sure why, but it was never replaced to add more lighting options. Still to this day, that one light attached to the ceiling exists. The floor was covered by ceramic tile in an off white color and the walls were painted in a chocolate milk type of color. Remember, this is the 1970’s/1980’s when home decor was terrible. A large fork and spoon hung on one of our chocolate milk colored walls, as it did in many homes back then. It took a lot of time and effort to beg and plead my mom to switch out that spoon and fork for some more modern type of decor. Eventually she added some pictures that fit very well into the kitchen. Our kitchen held most of the memories of togetherness, but my room was my sanctuary. My room was upstairs along with 2 other rooms. I had the upstairs to myself since the other rooms were used as storage or for an occasional visitor. The walls in my room were a yellow in color with one wall covered in mock wood paneling. I hated that wall, I was not allowed to attach anything to it nor paint it, and I looked at it as a thorn in my side. When I was young, I spent a lot of time in my room, drawing, painting, playing my guitar and sometimes just day dreaming. As I grew older, the yellow painted walls were lined with child star pictures from magazines such as River Phoenix and Rob Lowe. My bed was a queen size bed with lots of pillows. I had a blue, white and gray comforter with matching sheets. In my world, my bed was the greatest; it was one big security blanket. I spent many days and afternoons daydreaming on my bed, along with an occasional nap or two. I had 2 windows in my room. One window I kept open a lot. I could hear and see my neighborhood street and watch for passing stray cats or even a raccoon or two. Many times I would lie on my bed and listen to the rain hitting the roof outside my window and I could smell that rain, that’s a great smell. Other nights I would fall asleep in my bed as a cool breeze flowed through my bedroom leaving the air a little crisp, but oh so comfortable. On winter days, I usually had the window closed, obvious reasons. I would lie on my bed drawing cartoon characters, listening to music, preferably Jimmy Hendrix’s or The Doors. I should have been born in the 60’s or a hippie in another life. I often fell asleep, just from being so comfortable and at peace in my room. My childhood home didn’t have much of a backyard, it was small. We had a deck that included benches and enough room to grill out and have family and friends over. My mom had lots of flower pots lining the deck and in the summer the flowers were in full bloom and you could smell them throughout the yard and if the windows were open or the patio door, the scents of the flowers would fill our house. On summer nights my friends and I would play basketball on our driveway. Some nights we would just sit around the yard and chat and make fun of each other. Laughing and joking around in the lush grass of our side yard and hoping my mom would bring us a snack. Sometimes we would even fall asleep in the 2 hammocks my dad had hung in our side yard. Swinging in the hammocks in the summer breeze listening to the quiet†¦..

Course work Essay Example

Course work Essay Example Course work Essay Course work Essay After considering other ponds to org at I choose Lily pond as there was little leaf litter compared to the natural ponds which made it easier to identify invertebrates in pond samples. Mayfly Nymphs are the invertebrates I choose to study as there is a generally high abundance in Lily pond therefore the changes in abundance in microcircuit can be seen more easily. Ephemerals nymph has very short life span as an adult that can last for a day or less than 30 minutes Figure 1 show the life cycle of Mayfly Nymphs. The adult Mayfly lays its eggs in the pond; the offspring enter the first stage when they hatch as Nymphs. The sub-imago stage shown in Figure 1 is the first flying stage [2] and the final stage is the adult stage in which Mayflies mate and then die. The Nymph stage last longer than the adult stage from months up to years [3]. This is because the adults do not eat and use the energy absorbed at the Nymph stage. The Mayfly Nymph shape varies according to the type of sub- species. Mayfly Nymphs have gills along their abdominal area which can be seen in Figure 2. They have three tails which can create a wave like movement allowing the Nymph to swim These are structural adaptations that enable he Mayfly Nymph to survive in a pond ecosystem. Mayfly nymph are usually vegetable feeders and many feed on algae [1]. Vegetation and algae are authors that are able to make complex molecules such as glucose through the process of photosynthesis. After loss of energy through respiration the total energy remaining is called net primary productivity. This energy is the available to herbivores such as the Mayfly Nymph. However not all of the energy will be transferred to the Mayfly as some of the plant material may not be digested Mayfly nymph have important role in the food chain which can be seen in Figure 3, as it provides a pathway for energy to be transferred across tropic levels. Figure 3 also shows some of the predators are carnivorous water beetles, Dragonfly Nymph, Water Boatman and Newts. Mayfly Nymphs in the pond live in different microcircuits. Microcircuits are smaller habitats with a larger one [5]. Figure 4 shows the different microcircuits found in a pond. The detritus is a microcircuit at the bottom c the pond where dead plants and animals are found.. Vegetation is a microcircuit that contains both Submergence and Emergent plants. Submergence vegetation is found below the surface of the water and the emergent vegetation is above the surface. Open water microcircuit can be described as an area which does not contain vegetation. The independent variable in my study was the type of microcircuit. My dependent variable was the abundance and size Of Mayfly Nymph. In my investigation will not be observing Mayfly Nymphs in the detritus microcircuit as the dependent variable was easier to compare as there is not as much dead plant material in the other microcircuit. Figure 4 shows areas I looked at during my investigation at Lily pond. Abundance of an organism is affected by both biotic and biotic factors in the ecosystem. Biotic factors are non-living part of an organisms habitat and the biotic factors are the living part [5]. Shelter is an biotic factor that can affect abundance as it may provide safety for an organism from predators; therefore they are more likely to survive and reproduce leading to a higher abundance of the organism. There is more shelter in the vegetation in the leaves of the plants so I may find a higher abundance of Mayfly Nymph there. Another reason the abundance of Mayfly Nymph may be higher in vegetation s because the vegetation provides food for the Mayfly Nymph. However there may not be any difference in abundance in open water and vegetation as Mayfly Nymphs are opportunistic generalists [2] and may eat the plant particles and leaf litter in the open water. Temperature off microcircuit also affects the abundance of Mayfly Nymphs In each microcircuit. This is because the enzyme activities of the body increases as temperature increases resulting in faster metabolic reactions and growth of an organism. The life cycle of the Nymph will be shorter at a higher temperature and they will produce faster therefore the abundance will increase. I will measure the temperature of each microcircuit in order to see if it may have significant effect on the dependent variable. However it may not have a significant effect as water has a high specific heat capacity so increase in heat may not affect the overall temperature of the pond [6]. Mayfly Nymph are sensitive to the amount of oxygen dissolved in water, this is a reason why it is sometimes used as an indicator species to see the amount of pollution of a pond will measure the amount of oxygen dissolved in each microcircuit. Again the abundance of Mayfly Nymph may be greater in the vegetation as plants photosynthesis and release oxygen as a by product therefore the concentration will be higher than in open water. Open water also has leaf litter which may have decomposing bacteria breaking it down however that use of oxygen when they respire. Planning Null hypothesis: There will be no difference In abundance of Mayfly Nymphs in Vegetation than the Open water microcircuit. Working hypothesis: The abundance of Mayfly Nymph will be greater in the Vegetation microcircuit. Risk assessment Key Likelihood score (L) unlikely to occur very rarely but only rarely sometimes Likely to occur often Severity scores (S) 1. Highly 1 . Slight inconvenience 2. May occur but 2. Minor injury requiring first aid 3. Does occur 3. Medicaid attention needed 4. Occurs 4. Major injury leading to hospitalizing 5. 5. Fatal or serious injury leading to disability Hazard and outcome Likelihood (L) severity (S) Risk (LOS) Wet soil- could slip and fall which lead to injury 3 9 Being too close to pond edge- could fall into pond. The water is deep so danger Of drowning 2 6 Water borne diseases- such as wells disease 5 The first hazard on the table can be minimized by being more careful not to spill water on the soil. There are signs around the pond such as the one shown in figure 5, which are reminder to not to be too near to the edge of the pond at all time. This will help reduce the likelihood of falling into the pond. The last hazard has a severity of 5 therefore there should be good measures taken to reduce the chance of getting Water borne disease. I have covered any cuts I had on my hands with plasters. I have also used gloves when handling pond water so that my hands are not in contact with contaminated eater. Method collected data about the abundance using the equipment in Figure 6. Method for measuring abundance of Mayfly Nymphs: I will use a stratified sample in which I will choose the locations in the pond that IS representative of my independent variable. One location will be an open water microcircuit and the other that will be a vegetation microcircuit. For each microcircuit will use the following method: will half fill a tray with pond water; this is for the invertebrates to be placed in. I will also fill two pots with pond water. After I will use a net to sweep the area of the pond to collect he invertebrates. I will ensure that I use a figure 8 movement when am sweeping to ensure that less invertebrates are lost than compared to if I sweep only in one direction. The net will then be upturned onto the tray and I will pour the content of one of the pots on to the net. This is to stop invertebrates remaining on the net. If there is any trapped inside the net will use the plastic spoon to carefully to remove them and put them in the tray. Then will use the plastic spoon to remove the Mayfly Nymphs from the tray into the other filled pot. I will count the Nymphs in the sun in order to see hem more clearly and record the results. Method for measuring control variables: To measure the pH will collect pond water from each microcircuit inside sample containers. Will dip pH strips inside each container and remove it after 5 seconds. I will then leave it for 2 minutes and Compare the results against a reference sheet such as the one shown in figure 7. Oxygen concentration of pond water will be measured using oxygen meter. However the oxygen meter was unavailable therefore resorted to using secondary data for oxygen concentration in open water and vegetation (reference tutor). The temperature of each microcircuit will be measure using a thermometer which will be dipped into the pond and waiting for around 40 seconds to be more certain Of the reading. Record the reading on the thermometer. The magnifying pot and CACM ruler shown in figure 10 will be used to measure to the size of the Mayfly Nymph. I will put some water from the pond into the pot and place one Mayfly Nymph inside. The magnifying pot has a grid on the bottom with MIM squares. The ruler will be used to measure the length of the Mayfly Nymph with aid of the squares on the magnifying pot.

MILITARY SECURITY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

MILITARY SECURITY - Essay Example Both these military engagements are more similar to each other than to conventional warfare; once the bases are established in a foreign nation, a guerrilla war usually ensues much similar to a local insurgency. Military security can further be categorized in respect of its needs in and outside a military base. This categorization is based on the security dynamics of defending a stronghold and escorting a moving vehicle, crowd or even protecting civilian infrastructure. Both are essential for a military force to dominate; having a secure military base is not enough for a military to be considered successful when it is being harassed by a much smaller force in hit and run attacks. Bloody, city wide, offensives often cause millions to displace. Though this helps secure the city, the consequences are not pleasant for the security in the long term. Once the population returns to the war struck region, it is easy for the insurgents to mix up in the civilian population to infiltrate. This is a significant security challenge for the military. Wadhams reports in The Cincinnati Post, in 2004, of an insurgent infiltrating a fully guarded US security base that was protected by barbed wires and blast walls at Mosul and setting of one of the deadliest explosions. Under such circumstances, security measures often keep on changing to meet the dynamic needs. Adaptability is an essential in ‘fluid situations’, 1st Sgt. Steve Valley is reported to have said in the same report. Suicide attacks change the whole nature of security dynamics as the attacker aims to kill himself in the attack. For the conventional and nuclear warfare, the security of the personnel and equipment is foreseeable but for terrorist attacks, knowing what the enemy is capable of is solely dependent upon previous encounters and intelligence. Pappalardo (2004) reports in â€Å"National Defense† about US military as bases being equipped with chemical and biological detectors as a precaution against attacks from weapons of mass destruction. Security of military bases in the current situation is much sophisticated, especially when it comes to the smaller installations; they rely on first responders and outside help unlike the major ones which have coordination with the local authorities, be it in an occupied territory or in the home country. As the requirement puts it, smaller bases are much more in number and raise the need for sufficient security for undisrupted operations so that they can continue to operate in balance with survival and mission success. Kemp (2008) lists a series of security measures used in protecting the bases in his report on base protection in Armada International. With sufficiently trained personnel, the security measures can range from deploying simple sandbags, screens to disrupt direct line of sight, barriers and fortifications to all weather sensors, patrolling systems, anti personnel mines, counter rocket and mortar systems (C-Ram) and a com mand and control system. Intruder alarms and alertness is the key to defusing any grave situations in event of an attack. Dunigan (2011) highlights the peak utilization of private military security contractors in Victory for Hire: Private Security Companies' Impact on Military Effectiveness. This takes off the load of training and recruiting from the military and allows the military to focus

The Role of Knowledge Management and Human Resource Management in Research Paper

The Role of Knowledge Management and Human Resource Management in assisting the employees' replacement process - Research Paper Example Conclusions 22 References Appendices List of Abbreviations HRM: Human Resource Management KM: Knowledge Management IC: Intellectual Capital RBV: Resource-based-view 1. Introduction: Ulrich (1998) asserted that knowledge management through intellectual capital will be the basis for direct and indirect competitive advantage for organisations; and that successful organisations will be the ones that are most adept at attracting, developing and retaining individuals who can drive global organisation that is responsive for both its customers and the burgeoning opportunities of technology. Ulrich’s perspective on knowledge management and human resources management provide a strong foundation to understand contemporary organisations’ providence in sustaining their position in the global market. This paper will discuss the Ulrich perspective in depth and to show the link between the role of both Human Recourse Management and Knowledge Management in sustaining the competitive adv antage of organisations through knowledge workers. 2. What is Intellectual Capital: Ulrich (1998) emphasizes the ability to attract, develop and retain individuals that can run organisations at global levels while exploiting technological advancements for achieving and sustaining success. This is possible by building intellectual capital, which the Business Dictionary explains as the collective knowledge of individuals in an organisation or society, which can be used to produce wealth, multiple output of physical assets, gain competitive advantage, and/or to enhance value of other types of capital including customer capital, human capital, intellectual property, and structural capital (Skiba & Dulong, 2010; p.264). Human capital constitutes the knowledge gained by employees through specific activities that result in learning and innovation (Edvinsson and Malone 1997). Overall, Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998; p.245) regard IC as â€Å"a valuable resource and a capability for action base d in knowledge.† Moreover, they regard IC of greater value compared to other organisational assets. According to them, IC operates in two dimensions, first based on types of knowledge; secondly, levels of analysis in knowledge and knowing. From the types of knowledge perspective, its classification into tacit and explicit knowledge by Polanyi (1967) stands good in organisational contexts. Intellectual capital is the hidden value of the organisation, and closely linked to Knowledge core processes such as acquisition, codification, dissemination, development and application (Davis, 2009). Establishment of this link between Knowledge core processes and IC requires an understanding of knowledge and its management in organisational contexts. 3. Knowledge and its management: Knowledge: Distinguishing from information and data, Lang (2001) identifies knowledge as a human creation that is embodied in mind, and argues that it cannot be delivered by systems or technology. A highly accep ted and notable classification of knowledge is that of Polanyi’s (1967) tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is that which is captured by an individual’s mindset and manifests through their actions. This knowledge can be acquired through interpersonal interaction (Lee & Choi, 2003). Explicit knowledge forms the formal and systematic knowledge which can be shared and communicated by codifying into manuals, procedures, rules etc (Nonaka & Konno, 1998; Stenmark, 2001). Explicit knowledge can be transferred to others in simpler manner than tacit