Global Systems Development Corporation Essay Example for Free

Global Systems Development Corporation Essay GSDC is a software development firm with sales, marketing, and project offices in major cities of North America. We provide a global project management services, on-site personnel as needed for design, and testing and liaison with teams of developers in India and Eastern Europe. GSDC is known to have extensive experience in website development and have completed several successful websites implementation for institutions of higher education. Background and analysis STI has been working with GSDC to implement the new website, and GSDC views STI as a premier customer. As the project has unfolded, however, cost overruns and delays have occurred. STI claims that GSDC underbid the project and was too optimistic in its bid and project plan. Time has been lost and the project has cost overruns to date of $200,000. Given todays  date and the need to have the site in place, STI management has clearly articulated that the new website must be up and running within 60 days of the beginning of these negotiations. Proposed goals, objectives, target population and implementation plan Considering the state of the project we are about 75% complete and we can finish the project under tight constraints. GSDC is the most knowledgeable and with only 25% left of the project left to complete we believe that the completion of the project by GSDC would benefit both parties. Both sides can take a â€Å"lessons† learned. Considering the work completed there is not much left of the project to scope and our confident that we can finish out the final pieces and components of the website. The value in continuing the relationships shows that both companies have a level of professionalism and a can do attitude that is admirable in the business world. The most important consideration for GSDC is that we meet our clients’ needs and that the customer is satisfied with the finished product. The must complete the website for the negation to be considered successful. Annual project budget Organization HISTORY, MISSION, Vision and Structures STI Institute is located in the Midwest offering wide ranges of programs in arts and sciences, business, and education programs. The school includes a variety of Master’s Degree programs, and continuing education for the community. The institute Attracts over 6,000 students annually, 5,000 undergraduates, 1,000 graduate students, as well as part-time students in the Midwestern region including local and state. We have been working with GSDC to implement the new website, and we both agree that the project costs are over budget. There has been too much time delay, and we need to come to an agreement to finish within 60 days of beginning negotiations. Proposed goals, objectives, target population and implementation plan Project is almost at completion but with the communications between both parties not being clear on requirements. After reviewing the complaints from GSDC the overall solution will agree upon STI select few to work closely with GSDC personnel to exchange ideas and come to a resolution. We will clarify requirements, support the on-site and remote development teams, and perform timely testing. In order to be 100 % complete within the 60 day period. The value in continuing the relationships shows that both companies have a level of professionalism and a can do attitude that is admirable in the  business world. Once everything is agreed upon we suggest we have are selected personnel to video conference with GSDC on an agreed time to make sure the progress is underway. Therefore if there’s any changes to be made it in constant overview and finished in time.

Age and Gender Differences on Fear of Crime

Age and Gender Differences on Fear of Crime The current study aimed to investigate age and gender effects on fear of crime and their relationships with attitude towards prisoner and crime, life satisfaction, living arrangement and religion in a Chinese sample. 170 undergraduate and postgraduate students, with a mean age of 21.9 years, participated in this study. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on fear of crime. In general, women reported significantly greater fear of crime than men. A factor analysis was performed and two factors were extracted: fear of being cheated and fear of physical harm. An age-gender interaction effect was found after controlling the variable of attitude towards prisoner. Results indicated that older females had higher levels of fear of being cheated than males. Yet, gender and age differences in fear of fraud victimizations are a largely unexplored area. Additional research is needed to examine how womens fear of being cheated varies with age. Introduction Fear of crime has received considerable attention in the criminological studies. Over the last few decades, research has been carried out to explore how fear of crime is explained and handled by society. Information about fear of crime not only help us to understand and interpret what fear of crime meant for individuals and societies, but also facilitate government to develop active plans to tackle publics fear. Anxieties about crime may lead to behavioral adaptation, e.g. taking precautions against crime and avoiding certain places. Nonetheless, public anxieties about crime may also have negative consequences for the individual and for society. For example, they may exacerbate the impact of crime by damaging an individuals quality of life or may affect the community by deteriorating a shared sense of trust, cohesion, and social control (Jackson, 2006). The concept of fear of crime and its causation is widely examined in the criminological field, but there is a lack of agreement on the definition of fear of crime. Fear of crime may involve two different concepts: an evaluative component and an emotional component (Skogen, 1984). For instance, Hollway and Jefferson (1997) referred crime fear as irrational response in which the rational, calculating individuals who routinely miscalculate their true risk of crime; whereas Ferraro (1995) suggested that fear of crime is an emotional reaction of dread or anxiety to crime or symbols that a person associates with crime. Past research has identified a number of factors which appear to make a contribution to fear, such as age, gender, race, vulnerability, neighbourhood cohesion, personal knowledge of crime and victimization, confidence in police and criminal justice systems, perception of risk, and assessment of offence seriousness (Box, Hale and Andrews, 1988). However, the current study wil l focus mainly on age and gender effects on fear of crime. Gender and Age Effects It is well-documented that women are more fearful of becoming a victim of crime than men despite the fact that they are less often victimized by serious violent crime (Pain, 2001; Fetchenhauer and Buunk, 2005). Over the past decades, researchers have proposed different approaches to resolve the fear victimization paradox: (1) hidden victimization of women; (2) gender tendencies of women to recall victimization experience, and to generalize fear from one context to another; (3) vulnerability of women; and (4) male discount of fear. Most crime surveys have shown that the levels of violence against women (e.g. domestic violence) are far higher than men; therefore it has been argued that women are not irrationally fearful of crime. It is because women and elderly under-report their actual victimization, and thus they appear to be less victimized (Pain, 2001). However, some have suggested that women tend to generalize the actual experience of victimization across spatial contexts than men (Pain, 1995; Farraro, 1995). Warr (1984) found that fear of sexual assault operated as a master offense among women and their fear of sexual assault influenced fear of nonpersonal crimes, such as burglary. Yet, still others reported that males often discount their fear of crime (Smith and Torstensson, 1997). Previous literature has demonstrated that males are suppressed by the perception that it is not socially acceptable to express ones fear; and when men are being perfectly honest, they may actually be more afraid of crime than women (Sutton and Farrall, 2005). On the other hand, the vulnerability hypothesis suggested that women are physically weaker than men and therefore they are less able to defend themselves against (typically male) perpetrators. A considerable amount of studies have also shown that that gender difference in fear of crime often reflects gender difference in physical vulnerability (e.g. Smith and Torstensson, 1997). Apart from gender, age is another important factor that predicts fear of crime. However, the definition of elderly varies across different studies (Chadee and Ditton, 2003). For example, Sundeen and Mathieu (1976) defined elderly as 52 years or above, whereas Warr (1984) suggested 66 years and over. Yet the most common definition of old is aged 65 or above. Since there has been no agreement on the definition of what constitutes old, mixed results were found on age. Some researchers argued that older people report higher level of fear than young people (e.g. On and Kim, 2009). In contrast, others suggested that elderly people are less likely to be victimized and thus they have the lowest level of fear (e.g. LaGrange and Ferraro, 1989; Chadee and Ditton, 2003). On and Kim (2009) explained that older people (aged 65 and over) often experience a drop in social networks (e.g. withdrawal from work, loss of close family members, increasing physical and psychological fragility), and their so cial isolation or feeling of loneliness intensifies fear of crime. Recently, it has been proposed that the relationship between fear of crime and age is non-linear and varies with crime type (Moore and Shephred, 2007). Past research has shown two different inverted U-shaped patterns in fear of property loss and fear of personal harm. Fear of property crime peaked at some time during middle-age, whereas fear of personal harm decreased with age (Chadee and Ditton, 2003; Moore and Shepherd, 2007). The oldest age group (75 or above) exhibited the lowest levels of fear for both property crime and personal crime (Chadee and Ditton, 2003). Prior research has shown that gender and age often interact with one another in producing the fear of crime differences (Ortega and Myles, 1987; Haynie, 1998; Pain, 2001). Significant gender differences in fear are observed among younger people. Nonetheless, this gender-fear gap has narrowed as mens reported fear of crime has gradually increased over tim e while womens has remained stable (Haynie, 1998). Attitude towards prisoner and crime and life satisfaction Much research on fear of crime has been focused on the perceived risk of crime; little is known about how peoples attitude towards prisoners and quality of life link to their fear of crime. Informal social control, trust, and social cohesion are important factors that contributed to the feelings of security; hence, one might argue that fear of crime often reflects individuals life satisfaction and their perceptions of social control. Jackson (2006) puts forward the view that public attitudes toward crime raise fundamental sociological problems but with a twist: public perceptions of deviance, social order and social control (p.253) and he claimed that public perceptions of crime reveal how people conceive social order (including the norms, values, and morals that bind communities and constitute social glue) and what they see as hostile to that social (maybe specific groups or wider social changes regarding values and morals, ethnicity diversity, and transformations in the political a nd economic arenas) (p.261). Therefore, it has been suggested that high levels of community efficacy, social cohesion, and a tight social structure (with low levels of anonymity and distrust) might inhibit fear of crime (Farrall, Gray and Jackson, 2007). In the last decades, researchers have questioned the validity of previous studies on fear of crime. LaGrange and Ferraro (1989) criticized that the experimental designs of previous studies were problematic. First, it has been suggested that measures of crime risk are often mistaken for measures of crime fear. Second, several widely used crime survey do not measure fear of crime, in which implicit questions are used in crime survey to measure fear (e.g. how safe do you feel or would you feel being out alone in your neighborhood at night?) instead of explicit questions. Hence, LaGrange and Ferraro (1989) have developed an 11-itemed crime fear survey to overcome the above shortcomings. The current study aims to use LaGrange and Ferraro (1989) crime fear questionnaires to examine gender and age effects on fear of crime in a Chinese sample. Method Sample A total of 170 participants (77 males, 92 females and 1 without specifying gender) were recruited in this study. The sample consisted of both undergraduates and postgraduates. Participants aged from 18 to 48 year-old (M = 21.94; SD = 4.07). Descriptive statistics of the sample were presented in table 1.They joined this study on a voluntary basis. Instrument Attitudes towards Prisoners Scale (Melvin, Gramling, Gardner, 1985) This scale contains 36 items. Participants were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert Scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The scale had a satisfactory reliability level, with overall alpha = .91. Life Satisfaction Scale. Life Satisfaction Scale, a five-item-scale developed by Diener and his associates measured general satisfaction towards life (Diener et al., 1985; Larsen, Diener, Emmons, 1985; Pavot Diener, 1993). It was validated locally (Wang, Yuen, Slaney, 2009). Participants were asked to rate the items on a 7-point Likert Scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The overall alpha is satisfactory at .88. Fear of Crime Scale (Ferraro, 1996) The ten items of this scale were rated on a 10-point Likert scale, raning from 1 (not afraid at all ) to 10 (very afraid). Unlike the Attitude towards Prisoners Scale, the Fear of Crime Scale had not been validated locally, thus prior to any analysis, a set of validation procedures was performed. First, two items that could not match the current research purpose were removed: while the item being raped or sexually assaulted was removed due to its gender nonequivalence, the item having your car stolen was also removed because not many college students in Hong Kong owned their own cars. After removing the two items, the Kasier-Meyer-Oklin (KMO) and the Bartletts Test of Sphericity were performed to see if the originally factor structure could be employed in this study. The KMO value of the eight items was 0.80 and the Bartletts Test of Sphericity was significant (p Results Checking for Covariates Based on previous studies, life satisfaction, religion, and living arrangement are all possible covariates. In order to be classified as a covariate, these variables should correlate with a) any of the independent variables (age and gender) and b) any of the dependent variables (total fear of crime, fear of physical harm and fear of being cheated). Preliminary analyses indicated none of these variables satisfied the above conditions, so they would be excluded in subsequent analysis. Testing of Hypothesis Prior to analysis, all variables excluding gender were mean-centred. This was done to reduce any multicollinearity and to facilitate model estimation when main effects and interactive effects were both present (Aiken West, 1991). To compare the relative influences of age and gender on total fear of crime, fear of physical harm and fear of being cheated, three sets of hierarchical regression were performed. Attitude towards prisoners was first entered into the equation as a covariate, followed by age and gender; the Age X Gender interaction term was entered afterwards. Gender Difference in Fear of Crime: There was a main effect that gender had on all three types of crime fear, where female was always significantly more fearful than male (see Table 2). See table 3 for the mean and standard deviation of the three dependent variables in each gender group. Age Effect on Fear of Crime: While age positively correlated with fear of being cheated, no significant correlation was found between age and the other fear of crime constructs (see Table 4). Yet after controlling for attitude towards prisoner as the covariate, the predictive power of age on fear of being cheated disappeared (see Table 2). Age X Gender Interaction Effect on Fear of Crime: Significant Age X Gender interaction effects on total fear of crime and fear of being cheated were found. However, such interaction effect did not happen for fear of physical harm (see Table 2). To further investigate these significant interaction effects, two sets of hierarchical regression on total fear of crime and fear of being cheated were performed after splitting the sample into male and female subgroups. Attitude towards prisoners was first entered into the equation as a covariate, followed by age. After controlling for the covariate, age was no longer a predictor of total fear of crime for both gender groups. Yet for fear of being cheated, while it could be predicted by age for female (ÃŽÂ ² = .14, p Discussion The present study aimed to look at age and gender effects on fear of crime and their relationships with attitude towards prisoner and crime, life satisfaction, living arrangement and religion in a Chinese sample. In general, women reported higher average scores on fear than men among all aspects of crime, indicating that women were always more afraid of crime than men regardless of how fear of crime was measured. Women in our sample also reported that they were most afraid of being raped or sexually assaulted, followed by fear of being murder and fear of being attacked by someone with a weapon. This pattern of results were in line with previous findings that women were more fearful than men because they were particularly vulnerable to crime and were less able than men to defend themselves physically; therefore, women perceived themselves to be at greater risk of crimes than men (LaGrange and Ferraro, 1989; Smith and Torstensson, 1997). The results were also consistent with previous s tudies that fear of sexual assault operated as a master offense among women, which in turn heightened their fear of other victimizations, e.g. murder, attacks, or burglary (Ferraro, 1995). On the other hand, fear of being murder was most common among males, followed by fear of being attacked by someone with a weapon and fear of being raped or sexually assaulted. Interestingly, the current results replicated the findings of LaGrange and Ferraro (1989) in which men reported that they were afraid of being sexually assaulted (presumably by other men). In the second part of the study, a factor analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between gender and age of participants and their various crime perceptions. Results of the present study showed a gender effect on fear of crime, in which women had significantly higher score on total fear of crime, fear of being cheated and fear of physical harm than men. These findings were consistent with previous research in which females might have lower threshold for fear than males. An evolutionary approach has been put forward by researchers to explain this gender difference in fear of crime (e.g. Campbell, Muncer and Bibel, 2001; Fetchenhauer and Buunk, 2005; Sidebottom and Tilley, 2008). In a Dutch study, Fetchenhauer and Buunk (2005) showed that females were significantly more fearful than males when presented with scenarios (both criminal and non-criminal events) that resulted in physical injury, and they proposed that gender differences in fear of all kinds of events that inv olved physical injury may be the result of sexual selection that favoured risk-taking and status fights among males, and being cautious and protecting ones offspring among females (p.111). The current study also found a significant positive correlation between age and fear of being cheated, suggesting that older people were more afraid of being cheated than younger people. The result reflects the varying importance attached to material wealth with age: the costs of property loss might have greater impact on middle-aged group since they are more likely to have accumulated property and have dependent children compared to younger age group (Moore and Shepherd, 2007). Based on data derived from the 2001 British Crime Survey, Moore and Shepherd (2007) concluded that fear of property loss was greatest at around 40-60 years, peaked at around 45 years, whereas a lower level of fear was observed at about 16-25 years. Another possibility for the age differences in fear might be due to socialization. Past research has shown that socialization may increase the amount of contacts with others, and thus people who socialize more often may increase their likelihood of fraud victimizat ion (Van Wyk and Manson, 2001). In a recent study, Schoepfer and Piquero (2009) demonstrated that risky behaviour and age were important factors that predicted the likelihood of fraud victimization: individuals who were open to financial risk-taking and engaged in more risky behaviours were more likely to be a victim of fraud (e.g. free prize fraud, credit or bank account fraud and being billed for more than what the product is worth). It should also be noted that older people in our sample are postgraduate students who might have higher income and socialize more often and thus they have greater opportunities to be victimized than younger people. Results in this study also showed that the relationship between age and fear of being cheated was influenced by individuals attitude towards prisoner. Since not much research has been done on fear of being cheated, more studies are needed to look at the relationship between age and fear of deception. Nonetheless, no significant correlation was found between age and fear of physical harm, indicating that that age was not associated with levels of fear of being physical harm. Further analysis was performed in the next section to look at gender and age effects on various constructs of fear. Significant gender-age interaction effects were found on total fear of crime and fear of being cheated. After controlling the variable attitude towards prisoner, age was a significant predictor of fear of being cheated in females, but not in males. There was a positive correlation between age and fear of being cheated among females, suggesting that older females were more fearful of being victimized than males. This may be due in part to the fact that personal victimization can have more serious consequences for women than men. Past research has indicated that crime fear involve both emotional and evaluative components and it is shaped by the vividness of the image of crime and perceptions of the severity of the consequences of crimes, together with feelings of personal control and perceptions of victimization likelihood (Jackson, 2006). It has been found that some vict ims of fraud may experience more harmful long-term effects than those victimized by conventional crimes, and many of them continued to suffer from lasting problems with finances, self-esteem, embarrassment, and self-blaming even ten years after the incidents (Shover, Fox and Mills, 1994). Recently, Schoepfer and Piquero (2009, p.210) argued that some fraud victimizations have even been equated to those of rape since both crime are rarely reported by victims and both involved victim facilitation, and questions of guilt and responsibility are the burden of the victims; hence, this makes females more fearful of being cheated than males. However, the current results did not support some of the past findings on fear of fraud victimization. Mixed results were found in previous studies concerning gender difference on fear of property loss. For instance, LaGrange and Ferraro (1989) found no gender different on fear of being conned or swindled out of money and fear of being approach by a beg gar; whereas Moore and Shepherd (2007) showed that men were more fearful than women of property loss. One of the possibilities for the discrepancy in these findings might be due to the cultural difference in crime rates. Since fear of crime also reflects actual crime rate in society, results in the present study might also suggest that older women are more vulnerable to minor crimes, e.g. street or telephone deception, than men in the local area. Yet, no interaction effect on fear of physical harm was found in this study. Additional study might be needed to investigate how womens fear of being cheated varies with age. There are two possible limitations in the current study that should be taken into account. The first one relates to variables that were not included in the questionnaire, namely the mass media effect, crime prevalence and previous victimization experience. Due to the limitations of the standard questionnaire used in the present study, these factors were not included. It is well-established that the mass media plays an important role in shaping individuals attitude towards prisoner and the perception of crime and fear. According to the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF), people may attend to information about criminal activities from a series of amplified stations (e.g. mass media and interpersonal communication), and the risk signals may interact with a wide range of psychological, social and cultural processes in ways that intensity their actual risks (Kasperson et al. 2003). Researchers have demonstrated that tabloid readers who have an extensive level of crime media exp osure are about twice more likely to be worried than those who have limited exposure to crime source (Smolej and Kivivuori, 2006). Previous literature on media consumption and public attitude toward crime has also shown that offenders are often portrayed as different from the general population and viewed as psychopaths that prey on weak and vulnerable victims (Dowler, 2003). Recently, Reiner (2008) argued that crime stories often exaggerate the crime risks faced by higher-status people and always disproportionately representing women, children, or older people as victims, and this might heighten publics fear of crime. Over the past decade, researchers have attempted to integrate fear of crime into macro and micro levels of analysis (Ferraro, 1995; Jackson, 2004). At the macro-level, publics fear of crime is related to crime prevalence in society and local communities; whereas, at the micro-level, neighbourhood characteristics and personal characteristics (e.g. previous victimization experience, anxiety and everyday worry) may interact to produce differential perception of risk which, in turn, produces either fearful or adaptive reactions to crime (or both) (Farrall, Gray and Jackson, 2007). In future research it might be interesting to examine how these factors interact with age and gender to produce different levels of fear of being cheated. The second possible limitation is that the current findings could not be generalized into diverse cultures with different age groups. In this study, subjects were undergraduates or postgraduates recruited from a local university and they might have similar ag e, background, living situation, and ethnicity; therefore, their crime experience will be alike. In the future study, participants from various age groups and cultures are needed in order to generalize the results outside the Chinese society.

The Anchoress of England: Julian of Norwichs Portrait of Christ as Mot

The Anchoress of England: Julian of Norwich's Portrait of Christ as Mother      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When speaking of medieval literature, Chaucer, Gower and Langland are quite often the most noted. However, recent studies have provided modern scholars with a wide variety of medieval women writers from all over Europe and a few in England. The most widely anthologized English female writer is Julian of Norwich. Julian was an anchoress, and as Marcelle Thiebaux notes, "The anchorite movement was widespread in England from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Both men and women chose this extreme form of asceticism, which was favored and encouraged by the crown, the church, and the laity. Anchorholds were small, narrow cells attached to churches or friaries" (442). 1[1] The process of becoming an anchoress was difficult and complicated, but suffice it to say that after the process was completed "the anchoress was sealed up, never to re-emerge into the world. Penance, meditation, reading, and in some cases writing were the anchorite's sole activities" (Thiebaux 442).   This was the case for Julian of Norwich. She was "well read in Scripture, dwelling especially on the Psalms, the gospels, and the epistles of Paul and John, ...and was the first English woman to write a book" (Thiebaux 443-44). Her Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich 2[2]   possesses literary and religious value, and the work lends itself quite naturally to a feminist reading. In her clear, lucid, prose style, combined with the images of the medieval mystic, Julian establishes herself as an independent, female religious authority and she gives a staunch affirmation of the divinity of God with this unique view point: the motherhood of God.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In her fi... ...7. All biblical references come from the Geneva Bible (which is based on the Jerome Bible) but were checked and crossed referenced with the Jerome Bible with help of Professor Behunin as the Jerome Bible is in Latin. 7[7] It is interesting to note that there might be a biblical correlation to the hazelnut. The name Hazel appears in the Bible, and in Jewish the name Hazel is a feminine name and means "one who sees God." ( Harrison, R.K. Biblical Hebrew England: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986.) 8[8] Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Marie Borroff. Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1, New York: WW Norton, 1993. 9[9] The "five fives" as they are known in medieval literature and religion can be found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Marie Borroff. Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1, New York: WW Norton, 1993, lines 640-654.   

All Quiet on the Western Front :: essays research papers

Foreign Policy Book Review   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  World War I took place in the early 1900's. The United States entered the war late, trying not to get involved with foreign affairs. In Erich Maria Remarque's WWI novel All Quiet on the Western Front, we see the war through the German point of view of a 19 year-old Paul Baumer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As more and more young German nationalists are brain-washed into battle, more and more lives are altered forever. Once in the war, the young soldiers realize that war isn't at all as glorious as they had believed. They continuously live in fear and unfathomable doubt.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One thing I liked about this book was that the heroin dies in the end; not because of animosity towards the main character but because it didn't end in an archetypal happy ending. It felt more real than same old story we've seen over and over again where the main character sees all his friends die yet somehow survives every battle.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One thing I learned from was that it really was terrifying to be at war during a militaristic industrial revolution. New weapons were constantly being brought into the war, and no one knew how to defend themselves against them. In modern day we have plans and defense systems for anything and everything, but they hadn't yet seen tanks or machine guns. Conditions were horrible in the trenches and people went mad every other day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The thing I liked most about the book, however, was that it was written from the point of view of a German soldier. In America we hardly ever see any war through anyone else's eyes other than those of another patriotic American. I thought this feature did well in showing that, no matter what country, each soldier differs little from any other. It is the nation that has the problem, and the soldiers are sent in to settle the dispute sometimes not knowing what that may be. They asked the same questions of their government that we asked of ours.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The only thing I didn't like was it was a little confusing at times because of his writing style. I often confused characters and events, but that can be said of any story.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I would definitely recommend this book in the future because it's different than other novels we read in the same ways I explained that I like it. It brought a new twist tot he average war novel.

Delisting the Grey Wolf Essay -- Nature Animals Extinction Essays

Delisting the Grey Wolf The United States Fish and Wildlife Service are considering removing the gray wolf from the endangered species list once Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have enough wolves to be deemed sufficient to continue to expand the wolf population, requiring only that each of these three states have a management plan in effect to prevent the gray wolf from becoming endangered again. With the current attitude of the governments in these states, the wolf should not lose their federal support under the Endangered Species Act as it would merely serve to cause the wolves to become endangered once again, or at best, held to the absolute minimum population that the states can pass off as â€Å"viable, self-sustaining populations† (â€Å"bill†, par. 4). Idaho’s legislature makes little attempt to hide their wish to be rid of the wolves completely. Within the very text of the senate concurrent resolution that seeks the delisting of the wolves, it is stated that â€Å"The State of Idaho is on the record asking the federal government to remove wolves from the state by the adoption in 2001 of House Joint Memorial No. 5. The position reflected in House Joint Memorial No. 5 continues to be the official position of the State of Idaho† (State, 1). The grudging condensation of the legislature to put up with the wolves follows this, declaring in the war-weary voice of an unjustly put-upon that â€Å"in order to use every available option to mitigate the severe impacts on the residents of the State of Idaho, the state will seek delisting and manage wolves at recovery levels that will ensure viable, self-sustaining populations† (State, 1) which is later defined as 15 packs, with as few as 10 packs being acceptable to the st ate before control would reve... ... â€Å"Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery 2001 Annual Report.† U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2001 . State Affairs Wolf Conservation/Management Plan. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 134 15 Mar. 2002 . â€Å"Wolf foes see delisting as opportunity.† The Idaho Statesman 22 Dec. 2002 . â€Å"Wolf management bill sent to House floor.† The Idaho Statesman 14 Mar. 2002 . â€Å"Wyoming draft plan for gray wolves criticized.† The Idaho Statesman 9 Nov. 2002 . â€Å"Wyoming plan for wolves gets heat.† The Idaho Statesman 26 Nov. 2002 .

Bureaucracy is No Longer Appropriate Today

Bureaucracy, first proposed by Weber, was once considered as the best form of administration, coordination and control (Stazyk and Goerdel 2011). It was generally adopted by many large social organizations and gradually became their mode of administration (Adler 1999). During the initial period of bureaucracy, it made great contribution to the proper organizing of large social or corporate system through specialization of roles, standardization of procedures and coordination of employees (Balle 1999). However, with time going by, the shortages and problems inside bureaucracy were exposed.It was revised and improved by many people. A model called post-bureaucracy was proposed to avoid and revise the disadvantage of bureaucracy (Johnson et al. 2009). The aim of this essay is to discuss the major advantages and disadvantages of bureaucratic systems in the past and the present. This essay argues that bureaucracies are definitely not appropriate in workplaces today for effective and effic ient management. At first, this essay will give an appropriate definition of bureaucracy and illuminate who has contributed to its development by referring Dwyer (2005) and Hodgson (2004).After that, based on the research of Balle (1999), Adler (1999), Hodgson (2004),Walton (2005), Sorensen (2007), Dwyer (2005) , Hales (2002), Stazyk and Goerdel (2011), this essay will critically analyze the advantages and disadvantages of bureaucracy in the past and present, and in particular, impacts on managers and employees. Following that, this easy will analyze how bureaucratic management may be viewed differently today from the past by referring Johnson et al. (2009). What’s more, this easy will explore the context of management situations.It will also critically analyze whether bureaucracies are appropriate for today’s management based on the research of Walton (2005) and Hales (2002). At last this essay will sum up the core arguments this essay presents. Definition of bureaucr acy and its development Bureaucracy is a kind of rational organization of management, which is centralized and hierarchically organized. It is characterized by a rigid division of labor, layers of authority, impersonal relationships and formalistic rules and procedures (Dwyer 2005).The historical process of bureaucracy theory, from proposal to evolution, was integrated with the contribution of numerous theorists and practitioners. In the early 20th century, Weber first proposed his ideal type of bureaucracy (Adler 1999). His idea laid the foundation of organization theory. The ideal type of bureaucracy had a profound effect on the way large social organizations organized. It helped large-scale organizations avoid chaos and assure efficiency.However, as an ideal model, many scholars criticized, revised and improved Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy and made their own contribution to the development of it (Dwyer 2005; Hodgson 2004). For example, Taylor founded the Scientific Ma nagement School and it emphasizes maximum productivity and compact division of labor (Dwyer 2005). Mayo began and developed human relations school and it emphasizes the free of constraints of bureaucracy (Dwyer 2005). Heckscher proposed post-bureaucracy and postulated specific difference between the traditional bureaucracy and the post-bureaucratic model (Hodgson 2004).All these schools above, as well as many other advanced theories and approaches, have contributed to the development of bureaucracy. The inherent advantages and disadvantages of bureaucratic system in the past and the present will be discussed as follows. Advantages of bureaucracy Bureaucracy provides a good way to deal with large organizations. In the past, organizations were lack of theoretical guidelines of management. Balle (1999) claims that duplication of labor, low level of resources utilization and inefficiency of work existed in large-scale organizations before the proposal of bureaucratic management.At prese nt, many large organizations still organize their management in the form of bureaucracy to avoid chaos (Adler 1999). Bureaucracy provides a series of documents that describe the working procedures as well as rigid rules and regulations to make organizations run properly (Hodgson 2004). Even in today’s organization, documents and manuals are provided to make employees know exactly their roles. Organizations operate as a machine. Managers give orders while employees act as components and parts of the machine with the guidance of bureaucratic management.They work cooperatively, concertedly and thus effectively. According to the guidance, employees know exactly what they should do and managers would have a chance of supervising everyone in the company. For example, the long-lasting feudal model has proved the advantage of bureaucratic system to manage such a large whale (Balle 1999). The effective control of organizations and efficient use of resources make large-scale production possible. Specialization is another feature of bureaucratic organizations as every employee is allocated to a particular task to perform.In the past, it was human resources not machines that constructed the basic productive force in organizations. So it is of great importance to deploy the human resources (Johnson et al. 2009). Even today, employees in the large organizations have clear assignment of work and responsibility. Bureaucratic management emphasizes the clear division of work and specific boundaries to responsibilities. So employees can concentrate more on his or her specialized trade and learn more about it (Balle 1999). The result is more, better and cheaper productions.For example, like a flow production, employees just focus on their own part of work and need not take care of others. A production is completed when all the work of employee is combined. The coordination of employees and explicit division of work will increase the speed of production and save more time ( Adler 1999). The result is the improvement of the efficiency of the production system. What’s more, with the clear awareness of the role of employees, managers can properly manage employees and allocate resources. Then the effectiveness of management can be improved.Bureaucratic system needs fewer individuals to make strategic decisions based on its hierarchical structure and decision-making time can be shorter. Nowadays, quick response to the market and rapid decision-making are possible because of the hierarchical structure of bureaucratic system. The hierarchical structure is like a pyramid with employees on its bottom and managers on its top (Hales 2002). In the past, in traditional organizations many relevant individuals took part in the decision-making meeting. The meeting might be held one round and another to reach a common agreement.It is a waste of time and may be inefficient. In contrast, fewer individuals from the top of pyramid are involved in making strategic de cision with the bureaucratic management (Stazyk and Goerdel 2011). This will shorten the decision-making time and free the organizations of the risk of missing opportunities. As a consequence, the response time to the market is reduced and the timeliness of production is improved (Adler 1999). In this way the efficiency of production can be improved. However, as an ideal type of mode, bureaucracy also has some inherent disadvantages. Disadvantages of bureaucracyBureaucratic organizations are generally found to be rigid and inflexible because employees should strictly abide by the formalized rules, regulations and documents. Nowadays, the society is changing with the time and bureaucratic systems are viewed as red tape and rule proliferation (Stazyk and Goerdel 2011). With the changing conditions in the marketplace or industry, organizations constrained by rigid and inflexible rules and regulations can find themselves less able to fit the rapid changing environment (Walton 2005). The change of rules and regulations may be much slower than the variation of marketing or industrial environment.Much of the urgencies may fail to be dealt with because of the constraint of rigid and inflexible rules and regulations. The result is an inefficient management. In the past, to make the large-scale organization operate normally, the human side of things is ignored and rules and regulations are emphasized. But nowadays, people-oriented management emphasizes the empowerment and autonomy instead of rules and regulations (Dwyer 2005). Bureaucratic organizations may discourage creativity and innovation because employees must perform the task according to a set of rigid procedures.As the key factors to compete with various counterparts, creativity and innovation are emphasized more today than the past in organizations (Hales 2002). But to bureaucratic organizations, rigid or even outdated rules and regulations place so many unnecessary limits on employees (Adler 1999). They can h ardly think and act of their own. When employees confront problems that need a new solution, their new ideas may be prevented by the restrictiveness of bureaucracy. What’s more, in bureaucratic systems employees are lack of initiative, passion and sharing of ideas. This will lead to a lack of creativity and innovation.These two factors are of significant importance for organizations to survive and keep the core competitiveness in such a rapid changing environment (Sorensen 2007). Without creativity and innovation, organizations can no longer achieve the quality goals and enhance the ability to survive and complete effectively in the changing business environment. The result is the ineffectiveness of management. Impersonality is the feature of bureaucracy and it emphasizes a mechanical way of performing task. In the past, organizations needed management based on rational and impersonal rules and regulations.The rules and regulations have been legally established to minimize co st and maximize control (Hales 2002). The result was that employees worked like robots according to the impersonal rules and regulations. They had no emotions and belongingness of organizations. Thus their attitudes and mental dispositions may be influenced by bureaucracy (Sorensen 2007). Nowadays, organizations emphasize more on employee’s needs and emotions, rather than impersonal rules and regulations. Organizations that stick to impersonality may lead to dehumanization, what’s more, the friction between employees and manages (Dwyer 2005).The result is the depression of employee’s personality and weak belongingness to their workplace. They may do their job without full of passion or even conflict with the order of managers. This will lead to an effectiveness of management. After the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of bureaucratic management in the past and present, discussion below will analyze the differences of bureaucratic management toda y from the past. Difference of bureaucracy nowadays and in the past Bureaucratic management is different today from the past.Firstly, Organizations emphasize more on quick response and less hierarchical structure than a set of rigid procedures. To keep up with the changing business environment, much of the unnecessary rigid and inflexible rules and regulations must be changed or removed (Hodgson 2004). Empowerment and responsible autonomy of employees are needed rather than the rigid procedures (Johnson et al. 2009). The result is a remarkable improvement of efficiency in management.Secondly, creativity and innovation are the core competitiveness for organizations to compete with their counterparts and  therefore those limits of bureaucratic systems on employees should be eliminated (Hales 2002). Employees are encouraged to propose or experiment their new ideas regardless of the constraint of rigid procedures because rigid procedures may bring effectiveness to organizations (Stazy k and Goerdel 2011). Last but not least, human-based management has been widely accepted in organizations and the impersonality of bureaucracy is no longer encouraged. Employees can feel the care and warmth of human-based management and improve their belongingness and the well-being of the organization.The result is more hard-working employees and the improvement of effective management. After discussing the differences of bureaucratic management today from the past, an analysis of bureaucracy’s inappropriateness for today’s management will be given as follows. Bureaucracy’s appropriateness for today’s management The context of management situations is different from past and bureaucracy is definitely no longer appropriate today. It is true that bureaucracy made great contribution to the progress of management when it was first proposed by Weber (Walton 2005).But with the development of society, the disadvantages of bureaucracy gradually appeared. Nowaday s organizations call for flexible and humanized rules and regulations, quick response to the changing environment and employees, creativity and innovation and belongingness of employees (Hales 2002). In other words, organizations need the effective and efficient management that can make them survive and compete in this rapidly changing world. All of these above are conflicted with bureaucracy. So bureaucracy is no longer appropriate for today’s management. However, there are still a lot of places can be learnt from bureaucratic system.Conclusion In conclusion, bureaucracies are definitely not appropriate in workplaces today for effective and efficient management. The following statements sum up the finding of this essay to support the conclusion. Firstly, the rigid and inflexible rules and regulations of bureaucratic system often result in a failure of quick response to the changing environment. It may lead to an inefficient management especially for large-scale organizations . Secondly, creativity and innovation may be discouraged by a set of rigid procedures of bureaucratic system and therefore lead to an ineffective management.Thirdly, employees perform task in a mechanical way according to the impersonal rules of bureaucratic system. The result is that employees can hardly feel the belongingness to their workplace. This may lead to a failure of work and an ineffective management. All of these above demonstrate that bureaucracy is not appropriate for today’s management. However, there are still shining points that can be learnt from bureaucratic management. When dealing with the management of large-scale organizations, bureaucracy and modern management methods can be mixed to insure a better control of organization and an effective and efficient management.

Juan De Sepulveda Belittes the Indians

Juan Sepulveda was a man who strongly felt he could define a person or group as â€Å"civilized or â€Å"barbarians.† Sepulveda’s purpose in his article/primary source analysis was mainly to inform the Spanish about the Native Americans â€Å"barbaric† society and how could either try and convert them to Christianity or destroy them. His audience is mainly the Spanish royalty, and also the Christian community. Sepulveda explains what the government and activity of the Natives are like, and degrades who they are so his audience could have a feeling whether they should be enslaved or converted.During Sepulveda’s article/primary source, he mentions how he saw the government with â€Å"†¦ [No] written laws, but barbarian institutions and customs †¦ what temperance or mercy can you expect from men who are committed to all types of intemperance and base frivolity, and eat human flesh? (lines 17-20).† So far Sepulveda has had nothing positive to say about the Natives, and feels that they are far from civilized. Personally, this doesn’t seem too barbarous because everyone has a custom to something Sepulveda writes in a way that persuades that the natives are basically cavemen who know no better, compared to the Spanish norms.Although he is not lying since the natives eat human flesh, which would be barbarous, but its only safe to say that the natives are far from modern day society and the roles. Another piece of evidence that Sepulveda shares is that the natives would â€Å"wage continual and ferocious war upon one another with such fierceness that they did not consider a victory worthwhile unless they sated their monstrous hunger with the flesh of their enemies. (lines 22-24).† This time he proves a point that they would be barbarous, stating that the only reason Natives fight other Natives would be for food. As true as this may be, Sepulveda fails to tell the whole story.Indians would not fight daily for th e flesh of other humans, or else they would be extinct. And hidden to Sepulveda mind, he didn’t think about the diversity of the Natives and their different groups, so it becomes more clear that his Goal is to make them seem like savages so the Spanish would feel more bias on enslaving them rather than them being converted first. On one positive note, it is clear Sepulveda wanted to say something positive about the Natives, saying â€Å"†¦ Although some of them show a certain ingenuity  for various works of artisanship, this is no proof of human cleverness. (lines 28-29).†If all Sepulveda has been saying was negative things, and have one positive note, then it must have really caught is attention that the Natives have a thing for artisanship. This may be a key point in Sepulveda’s persuasion to converting the Natives to slavery. To say they are crafty would show that they are of use to something. This sentence he writes can be easily summarized that they have a talent, but the Spaniards will always be the superior to the Natives, as said in line 33, â€Å" [New Spain] †¦ are considered the most civilized of all.† To break down my analysis of Sepulveda’s article would be easily described in lines 57 and 58 that the â€Å"[Natives] have stated quite clearly that they have been born into slavery and not to civic and liberal life.†All that Sepulveda wants is a group of slaves that would later be converted to Christianity for the use and the good of the Spanish goals. It was clear s day Sepulveda wanted to make the Natives look bad (and good enough) to make the Spanish ruler feel they would come good use to slavery. Broken down into a nutshell, if the Indians look useless enough, but they have â€Å"artisanship,† then what better place to be than slaves. And the goals of the Spaniards are to spread their Christianity, so why not make them Christians as well.