Advertisement, Good or Not Essay

Advertisement is news or a message that is made for persuade or influenced people to be interested in the product or service that a company offers. It means that every ad must be persuasive. There are many kinds of ads; based on its nature of advertisement, it is divide into Commerce ads and Non-commerce ads. Commerce ads made for influencing people in order to have, buy and use the product that has been advertised. On the other hand non-commerce ads made to get people’s attention so they will be sympathetic or give a support to the ads. In the daily life people often see an advertisement; in television, in news paper, in internet, in radio and at the road, posted on billboard. The advertisement will influence people’s behavior and physicology, because people’s culture and life style are based on what they have seen and feel then they will implement it in their daily life. In this case, modern people’s life will be influenced by the information that they get in their daily life. By watching and hearing an advertisement, people will get two sides of effect, they are disavantages and advantages. The effect that people get is based on how people respond to the advertisement, and if people dont want to get the disadvantageous side of advertisement, they have to know how to respond to it. The main function of the ads is to promote a product in order to look more interesting and able to get consumer’s attention. There are many ways that company do to get the consumer’s attention through an ads, like in a humorous , strange , controversial way, etc. However many ads do not only want to promote their products but also want to give some moral message to people so that it can useful to people’s life. For example, cigarette advertising â€Å"Gudang Garam†. It show that a scholar who is able to be a motorist taxi only. He is constantly humiliated by the other motorcycle taxi riders because of his bachelor’s degree. His unfortunate fate changes when his only one motorcycyle is stolen. He feels regretful and curses his bad luck. But, because that accident, he has an idea to make an alarm for motorcycle and after that he become a succesful entrepreneur. The moral message that we get is â€Å"Never give up on situation, make a mockery as our motivation, and believe that there must be a good lesson in every difficulty. Another function of ads is to educate people. How could an ads educate people? That’s because every has a story that could be a lesson to people in their life. For example, Tea advertising â€Å"sariwangi †. It tells story about the wife who wants to ask her husband to repair their roof, but she doesn’t want to disturb her husband. Finally she asks her husband softly and she also gives her husband a cup of warm tea in order to warm up the situation. The message conveyed in this ad is â€Å"a wife should know her husband the condition before asking something so that their family will always be harmonious. From both ads, we can see that there are no factors that could ruin children’s moral or the factor that could influence people to do something bad. On the other hand, both ads contain a lot of factors of entertainment and education, and they also give a lot of useful moral message to people’s life. There are some ads that advertise product excessively. That ads can manipulate public taste and public minds. For example, body lotion advertisement. In that ads, the price of the product is not stated clearly. In fact it is only showing the beauty of its white model’s body that shows women will look more beautiful if they have flawless white skin after using this product. Its tagline also influences people to buy something useless and force them to think that such a product is a primary need. The woman who feel pretty with her brown skin, now they feel ugly because they don’t flawless white skin. If the women still cannot get what the color of skin that they want, they will buy the product again and again untill they feel they have the best color of skin thinking about the effect. This ads shows that a bad ads can make someone consumptive and imitate the action from the ads. An ads doesn’t have to be erased or eliminated from human live. As people who consume an ads in almost every activity, people have an obligation to choose and sort some ads which are good or not for themselves, think rationally to every sugesstion from the ads and improve the intrepretation of the ads in which every action in the ads is not always the sama as the real life. In short, any ads showed by some companies can be concluded as a bad ads or good ads based on how to responed to it. The ads can be good to someone but may not to others. Therefore, people have to respond to it wisely. People have to assume that an ads is just a media to promote a product and there is not a ‘MUST’ buy the product. People cannot only the good ads but also can refuse the bad ones.

Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In?uences: Body Image Disturbance

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 33, No. 5, October 2004, pp. 421–429 ( C 2004) Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In? uences: Body Image Disturbance, Self-Worth, and Psychological Functioning in Preadolescent Children Vicky Phares,1 Ari R. Steinberg,2 and J. Kevin Thompson3 Received April 17, 2003; revised January 20, 2004; accepted February 11, 2004 The connections between body image disturbance and psychological functioning have been well established in samples of older adolescent girls and young women. Little is known, however, about body image in younger children. In particular, little is known about possible gender differences in preadolescent children. The current study explored self-reported body image disturbance and psychological functioning in relation to peer and parental in? uences in 141 elementary school-aged girls and boys aged 8–11. Results suggest that girls are more concerned about dieting and are more preoccupied with their weight than are boys. Girls also reported a greater drive for thinness and a higher level of family history of eating concerns than did boys. Correlations suggested that girls’ experiences of body image concerns (body dissatisfaction, bulimia, and drive for thinness) were related to a number of factors (such as family history of eating concerns, peer in? uences, teasing, depression, and global self-worth) whereas boys’ experiences of body image concerns were related to fewer factors. On the basis of these ? ndings, the assessment and treatment of body image concerns in preadolescent children (especially girls) are of great importance. Implications for intervention and prevention programs are discussed. KEY WORDS: body image; peers; parents. The prevalence of weight and body image concerns among preadolescent children is overwhelming. Between 30 and 50% of adolescent girls are either concerned about their weight or are actually dieting (e. g. , Thompson and 1 Vicky Phares, Ph. D. is a Professor and Director of Clinical Training at the University of South Florida. She received her Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont. Her major research interests are fathers and developmental psychopathology. She recently published a textbook, Understanding Abnormal Child Psychology with Wiley and Sons. To whom correspondence should be addressed at University of South Florida, Department of Psychology, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, PCD 4118G, Tampa, Florida 33620; e-mail: [email  protected] cas. usf. edu. 2 Ari R. Steinberg, Ph. D. graduated from the University of South Florida, where she earned her M. A. in Psychology and her Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology. Her major research interests are cognitive and psychosocial correlates to the development of body image; e-mail: [email  protected] cas. usf. edu. 3 J. Kevin Thompson, Ph. D. is a Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Georgia. His major research interests are body image and eating disorders. Smolak, 2001). Such concerns about size and/or appearance have been found to predict onset of eating disturbances prospectively (Cattarin and Thompson, 1994; Stice, 2001). Although most of the previous research on eating disorders has focused on adult women and adolescent girls, it has recently been shown that weight concerns and body image disturbance exist in younger girls and boys (Cusumano and Thompson, 2001; Field et al. 2001; Ricciardelli and McCabe, 2001; Ricciardelli et al. , 2000; VanderWal and Thelen, 2000). Self-esteem concerns appear to be related to body image disturbance in young children, but there does not appear to be a causal link between self-esteem and body image disturbance (Mendelson et al. , 1996). Speci? cally, body image disturbance and poor self-esteem appear to develop concurrently in young boys and girls. Given the se important issues, the current study attempted to examine the psychological, familial, and social correlates of weight concerns and eating disturbances in preadolescent girls and boys. 21 0047-2891/04/1000-0421/0 C 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 422 BODY IMAGE AND DIETING BEHAVIOR IN ADOLESCENTS AND CHILDREN The connections between body image disturbance and psychological maladjustment in adolescence have been well documented. There appears to be pervasive concerns among adolescents with respect to their weight, body image, dieting, and eating behavior (Smolak and Levine, 2001; Thompson et al. , 1999). In fact, averageweight adolescent girls are almost as likely to be dieting as their overweight peers (Rodin et al. , 1985). These patterns are evident in both clinical and nonclinical samples. Bunnell et al. (1992) investigated body shape concerns among 5 samples of female adolescents: anorexia nervosa clients, bulimia nervosa clients, subclinical anorexia, subclinical bulimia, and noneating disordered females. They found that body shape dissatisfaction was a prominent concern for most adolescent girls regardless of their level of eating pathology. Thus, by the time of adolescence, the majority of girls have developed weight and body concerns and many have tried dieting or other strategies to alter their physical appearance. Although these issues have received less research attention in preadolescent children, many of the same patterns have emerged in studies of younger children. Children as young as 6 years old express dissatisfaction with their body and a substantial amount (40%) have attempted to lose weight (Thelen et al. , 1992). There is evidence that children as young as 7 are reliable in their reports of dieting (Kostanski and Gullone, 1999). In a sample of thirdthrough sixth-graders, children were very knowledgeable about weight control methods (Schur et al. , 2000). Body dissatisfaction appears to be related to dietary restraint rather than age. In a study that compared 9-year-olds and 14-year-olds, girls with highly restrained eating patterns in both age groups showed low body esteem, and discontent with their body shape and weight (Hill et al. , 1992). Consistent with research on adolescents and young adults, young girls tend to show this dissatisfaction to a greater extent than boys. In samples of children between the ages of 5 and 11 (Collins, 1991; Cusumano and Thompson, 2001; Williamson and Delin, 2001; Wood et al. 1996), girls reported signi? cantly greater body dissatisfaction than did boys. More girls than boys were dieting in a sample of 10–12 year olds (Sands et al. , 1997). Thus, the â€Å"normative discontent† that is shown in adolescent girls and young women (Rodin et al. , 1985) appears to be present in younger girls as well. FAMILIAL INFLUENCES ON BODY IMAGE A logical question relates to why these body image disturb ances occur in such young children. Theories of Phares, Steinberg, and Thompson body image disturbance include biological, sociocultural, familial, and peer-related in? ences (Smolak and Levine, 2001; Steinberg and Phares, 2001). Recently, a great deal of attention has been focused on familial and peer in? uences in the development of body image. Regarding familial in? uences, 2 primary mechanisms have been proposed: parental modeling of dysfunctional eating attitudes and behavior, and parents’ in? uence over their children by direct transmission of weight-related attitudes and opinions, such as comments or teasing. There has been support for both mechanisms in adolescent samples. When compared with mothers of daughters in a nonclinical control group, mothers of adolescent girls with disordered eating patterns showed greater eating disturbance, had a longer history of dieting, and wanted their daughters to lose more weight (Pike and Rodin, 1991). Rieves and Cash (1996) found that daughters’ eating disturbances were related to their perceptions of maternal concern with appearance and preoccupation with being overweight. These studies suggest that adolescent girls may be modeling dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors from their parents. There is evidence that parents in? ence their adolescents’ eating disturbances and body image through direct transmission of weight-related attitudes and opinions. Thelen and Cormier (1995) found that mothers’ and fathers’ encouragement of weight control were related to daughters’ desire to be thinner, daughters’ weight, and dieting behaviors. When actual body weight was controlled statistically, only the relationship between daughters’ dieting and fathers’ encouragement to diet remained signi? cant. Direct parental comments about children’s weight had a strong relation with children’s body image, especially mothers’ comments about their daughters (Smolak et al. 1999). Thus, it appears that both maternal and paternal in? uences may be relevant to the development of body image concerns and related issues. These ? ndings suggest that parents can in? uence their attitudes and opinions of weight through direct transmission, although the relative salience of mothers versus fathers has yet to be established. Negative verbal commentary within the family, also known as teasing, has received attention recently. Teasing can be considered an indirect transmission of parental attitudes and opinions. In a sample of lder adolescent college students, parental teasing of females, but not of males, was related to body image dissatisfaction ( Schwartz et al. , 1999). In addition, higher levels of teasing and appearance-related feedback predicted higher levels of psychological disturbance. Taken together, these studies all point to the relationships between adolescents’ body image concerns and parental attitudes and behaviors. Few studies, however, have addressed these issues in younger children. Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In? uences PEER INFLUENCES ON BODY IMAGE The same point can be made for peer in? uences on body image. Although signi? cant relationships have been found in samples of adolescents, few studies have explored these issues in younger children. When investigating adolescents, one study found that adolescents’ disturbed eating and weight concerns were related to the dieting and weight control strategies of peers as well as to the amount they reported talking with peers about dieting (Levine et al. , 1994). In addition, adolescent girls reported their peers as one of the primary sources of information on weight control and dieting (Desmond et al. , 1986). Adolescent girls, more so than adolescent boys, worried about their weight, ? ure, and popularity with peers (Wadden et al. , 1991). Negative verbal commentary by peers has been explored in relation to body image disturbance. Teasing by peers seems to have a strong in? uence on the development of eating and weight concerns (Rieves and Cash, 1996; Thompson, 1996; Thompson and Heinberg, 1993). Teasing by peers tends to be common durin g childhood with physical appearance and weight as the primary focus. Cash (1995) reported that 72% of college women recalled being teased as children, usually with respect to their facial features or body weight and shape. In a study of adolescent girls, Cattarin and Thompson (1994) found that teasing was a signi? cant predictor of overall appearance dissatisfaction above and beyond the in? uence of age, maturational status, and level of obesity. In one of the few studies done with children, Oliver and Thelen (1996) found that children’s perceptions of peers’ negative messages and increased likability by being thin in? uenced their body image and weight concerns. Overall, peers’ attitudes and teasing appear to in? uence body image concerns. Taken together, these studies suggest patterns of familial and peer in? ence on the development of body image concerns. Little is known, however, about the associations of these issues within young children. Even less is known about how familial and peer in? uences are related to body image concerns and psychological functioning in young girls versus young boys. THE CURRENT STUDY On the basis of the ? ndings with adolescent and young adult popul ations, the current study extends these research questions to preadolescent girls and boys. Because the majority of previous research was limited to maternal in? ences on body image (Phares, 1996), the current study will also extend this line of research to explore paternal in? uences on body image. It was hypothesized that gender effects would be revealed concerning young chil- 423 dren’s body image concerns, with young girls reporting more body dissatisfaction and weight-appearance-related concerns than young boys. It was expected that both girls and boys who reported higher levels of body image concerns would show more psychological problems as exhibited by higher levels of depression and lower levels of perceived competence. Both familial in? uences and peer in? ences were expected to be related to girls’ and boys’ body image and eating concerns. METHOD Participants A total of 141 children (64 boys and 77 girls) from two public elementary schools in a large urban area in the southeast participated in the study. On the basis of a power analysis (? level = 0. 05, power = 0. 80, and a medium effect size), it was determined that a minimum sample size of 64 boys and 64 girls would be adequate to test the hypotheses (Cohen, 1992). The mean age of the overall sample was 9. 23 years (SD = 1. 08) and did not differ between boys (M = 9. 31; SD = 1. 04) and girls (M = 9. 7; SD = 1. 12; t(139) = 0. 79; p = 0. 434). The sample was ethnically diverse (63. 1% Caucasian, 21. 3% African American, 12. 8% Hispanic/Latino/Latina, 0. 7% Asian American, and 2. 1% other). With respect to grade level, 14. 2% were in the second grade, 44. 0% were in the third grade, 27. 6% were in the fourth grade, and 14. 2% were in the ? fth grade. The distribution of girls and boys did not differ for race/ethnicity or for grade level ( ps > 0. 05). A total of 77 mothers and 48 fathers participated in the study. Measures Family In? uences Two measures were used to assess fun ctioning within the family. The Perceptions of Teasing Scale (POTS) is a revised and extended version of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (Thompson et al. , 1995). The measure has been used with children as young as 10 years old, therefore, the 8- and 9-year-old participants in this study were younger than previous participants who completed the POTS. The Weight Teasing Scale, which consists of 6 questions concerned with the frequency of appearancerelated teasing, was used in the current study. Participants answered these questions for their mother and father separately, and scores were totaled for an overall frequency of parental teasing score. Higher numbers on this 5-point scale re? ect greater frequency of negative verbal commentary. Coef? cient ? s in the current study were adequate for 424 reports of mothers (0. 72) and fathers (0. 84). Note that only 24% of the children in this sample scored above a 0 on this measure. Children, mothers, and fathers completed the Family History of Eating (FHE-Child and FHE-Parent; Moreno and Thelen, 1993). Both versions of the FHE are scored along a 5-point Likert scale and are used to assess attitudes concerning body shape and weight, dieting, and familial eating patterns and behaviors. The parent version assesses parents’ perceptions whereas the child version focuses on the child’s perception of the family. Higher numbers re? ect greater familial concern with body shape and weight. Reliabilities in the current study were adequate based on the coef? cient ? for children (0. 80), mothers (0. 77), and fathers (0. 75). Peer In? uences Children completed the Inventory of Peer In? uence on Eating Concerns (IPIEC; Oliver and Thelen, 1996), which is a 30-item measure of peer in? uence on children’s eating and body shape concerns. The measure consists of 5 factors: Messages, Interactions/Girls, Interactions/Boys, Likability/Girls, and Likability/Boys. The Messages factor re? ects the frequency with which children receive negative messages from peers regarding their body or eating behaviors. The Interactions factors address the frequency with which children interact with peers (boys and girls) about weight and eating habits. The Likability factors measure the degree to which children believe that being thin will increase the degree to which they are liked by their peers (boys and girls). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale, where higher numbers re? ect greater peer in? uence. For the present study, total mean scale scores of all items were used to calculate a total peer in? uence score. The coef? cient ? in the current study (0. 94) was strong. Obesity Level The Quetelet’s Index of Fatness is a body mass index (BMI) that is computed for each child with the following formula: weight/(squared height). The Quetelet’s Index is used routinely as an index of adiposity and is correlated highly with skinfold and other fatness measures. Height and weight were obtained by self-report. Previous research has shown that young adolescents’ self-reports are highly correlated with actual measurements of weight and height (Brooks-Gunn et al. , 1987; Field et al. , 2002). Eating Disturbance and Body Image Children completed the Eating Disorder Inventory for Children (EDI-C; Garner, 1984), which measures self- Phares, Steinberg, and Thompson perceptions of eating disturbances and body image. Items are answered on a 6-point Likert scale and subscales are averaged to produce mean scale scores. Three of the eight subscales were used in the present study: Drive for Thinness (excessive concern with dieting, preoccupation with weight, and extreme fear of weight gain), Body Dissatisfaction (dissatisfaction with overall shape and with the size of those body regions of most concern to individuals with eating disorders), and Bulimia (thinking about and engaging in uncontrollable overeating, or binging behaviors). Coef? cient ? s were adequate in the current sample for the Drive for Thinness subscale (0. 83), the Body Dissatisfaction subscale (0. 63), and the Bulimia subscale (0. 76). On all subscales, higher numbers re? ect higher levels of body image concerns or related behaviors. Psychological Functioning Children completed 2 measures that assess their psychological functioning. The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1992) is a widely used self-report measure of affective, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms of depression in children. Items are scores on a 0- to 2-point scale, with higher scores re? ecting higher levels of depression. The total CDI score, which showed good reliability in the current sample (coef? cient ? = 0. 91) was used. Children also completed the Self-Perception Pro? e for Children (Harter, 1985), which assesses children’s perceptions of themselves across different domains. For the current study, the global self-worth subscale was used. Note that the global self-worth scale consists of questions that are separate from any of the other domains (e. g. , the physical appearance domain is not subsumed under the global se lf-worth rating). Higher scores on the 4-point scale re? ect higher perceptions of global self-worth. Adequate reliability (coef? cient ? = 0. 79) was shown in the current sample. Procedures Active parental consent and child assent were given for involvement in the study. Once consent and assent were obtained and data collection was initiated, no children dropped out of the study nor did any children refuse to take part in the study. Participating children completed questionnaires in small groups at school. Examiners read each question aloud and children put their answers on the questionnaires individually. Parents were mailed their questionnaires (the FHE-P and a brief demographics form) and were asked to return their completed questionnaires to the researchers in a postage-paid envelope. Multiple mail- Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In? uences Table I. Means and t-Tests for Gender Comparisons Variable Body mass index (BMI) Body Dissatisfaction Bulimia Drive for Thinness Family History of Eating—Child Inventory of Peer In? uence on Eating Concerns Perceptions of Teasing—Frequency Depression Global Self-Worth a Statistically 425 Girls (n = 77), mean (SD) 18. 91 (3. 80) 20. 29 (10. 10) 13. 38 (7. 32) 18. 21 (9. 64) 19. 99 (8. 38) 1. 80 (0. 84) 1. 62 (4. 62) 48. 83 (12. 06) 19. 06 (4. 74) Boys (n = 64), mean (SD) 19. 01 (3. 80) 18. 38 (8. 83) 15. 05 (7. 63) 13. 13 (6. 61) 17. 56 (5. 54) 1. 66 (0. 73) 1. 33 (2. 97) 49. 13 (13. 47) 18. 92 (4. 75) t 0. 09 ? 1. 18 1. 32 ? 3. 58 ? 1. 98 ? . 02 ? 0. 44 0. 14 ? 0. 18 p 0. 932 0. 239 0. 188 0. 000a 0. 049a 0. 311 0. 660 0. 892 0. 859 signi? cant. ings were sent in an attempt to obtain maximum parental participation. The ? nal response rate was 54. 6% (n = 77) for mothers and 34. 0% (n = 48) for fathers. RESULTS Gender Comparisons As expected, girls showed somewhat greater concern over weight and body image issues than did boys. Signi? cantly more girls (61. 0%) than boys (35. 9%) wanted to lose weight, ? 2 (2) = 13. 38, p < 0. 001. As can be seen in Table I, there were additional gender differences on body image, restriction, and disturbed eating behaviors measures. When compared with boys, girls reported a higher drive for thinness, t(139) = ? 3. 58; p < 0. 001, and a more troubled family history of eating concerns, t(139) = ? 1. 98; p < 0. 05 (i. e. , girls reported receiving more messages regarding weight and dieting from their parents than did boys). Girls and boys did not differ signi? cantly on body mass index, body dissatisfaction, bulimic behaviors, peers’ eating concerns, or frequency of parental teasing. There were also no gen- der differences in depressive symptoms or global selfworth. Thus, there was some limited support for gender differences. Relations Between Body Image and Psychological Functioning Correlational analyses were computed in order to investigate the relations between body image and psychological functioning. As can be seen in Table II, signi? cant correlations were revealed for all of the measures for girls and most of the measures for boys. Girls’ reports of body dissatisfaction, bulimic tendencies, and drive for thinness were related to higher levels of depression and lower levels of global self-worth. For boys, body dissatisfaction was related to higher levels of depression and lower levels of global self-worth. Bulimic tendencies were not significantly related to either depressive symptoms or global self-worth. Drive for thinness was related to lower levels of global self-worth but was not signi? cantly related to depression. Thus, the expected pattern of results was found for girls consistently, and partial support was found for boys. Table II. Correlations Between Eating Disturbance and Psychological Functioning Variables 1 1. Body Dissatisfaction 2. Bulimia 3. Drive for Thinness 4. Family History of Eating—Child 5. Inventory of Peer In? uences on Eating Concerns 6. Perceptions of Teasing—Frequency 7. Depression 8. Global Self-Worth — 0. 42 0. 42 0. 32? 0. 26? 0. 44 0. 37 ?0. 42 2 0. 47 — 0. 25? 0. 23 0. 10 0. 29? 0. 14 ? 0. 01 3 0. 56 0. 55 — 0. 67 0. 32? 0. 60 0. 19 ? 0. 39? 4 0. 53 0. 56 0. 58 — 0. 12 0. 41 ?0. 03 ? 0. 03 5 0. 49 0. 55 0. 48 0. 53 — 0. 18 0. 29? ?0. 21 6 0. 32 0. 34 0. 27? 0. 44 0. 38 — 0. 29? ?0. 37 7 0. 58 0. 60 0. 55 0. 63 0. 59 0. 45 — ? 0. 58 8 ? 0. 64 ?0. 48 ?0. 49 ?0. 52 ?0. 52 ?0. 35 ?0. 71 — Note. Boys are in the lower left quadrant and girls are in the upper right quadrant. ? p < 0. 5; p < 0. 01; p < 0. 001. 426 Relations Between Parental In? uences, Peer In? uences, and Body Image Disturbance Table II also reports the results of correlations for parental in? uences, peer in? uences, and body image disturbance. For girls, all of the correlations were signi? cant. Speci? cally, girls’ body dissatisfaction, bulimia, and drive for thinness were related to higher levels of family history of eating concern s, peer in? uences on eating concerns, and perceptions of teasing. For boys, 7 of the 9 correlations were signi? cant. Speci? cally, boys’ body dissatisfaction was signi? antly related to higher levels of family history of eating concerns, peer in? uences on eating concerns, and perceptions of teasing. Boys’ tendency toward bulimia was signi? cantly related to perceptions of teasing, but not family history or peer in? uences. Boys’ drive for thinness was related to family history, peer in? uences, and perceptions of teasing. Overall, there was somewhat more support for the connections between parental in? uences, peer in? uences, and body image disturbance for girls, but there was clear evidence of connections for boys when body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness were considered. Phares, Steinberg, and Thompson of family history and children’s reports of eating disturbance and body image concerns. These ? ndings suggest that children’s perceptions of family history and parents’ perceptions of family history are not related strongly. Missing Parental Data To assess whether there were systematic differences between parents who did or did not participate, t tests were conducted to examine any possible differences between children whose parents returned questionnaires and those children whose parents did not return questionnaires. With the exception of family history, t(139) = 2. 33, p < 0. 02, no other signi? cant differences were revealed. Children whose parents returned questionnaires reported signi? cantly higher levels of family emphasis on weight and body shape (M = 20. 15, SD = 7. 90) than children whose parents did not return questionnaires (M = 17. 32, SD = 6. 20). There were no signi? cant differences between children with parental data and children without parental data on the following variables: Body Dissatisfaction (from the EDI-C), Bulimia (from the EDI-C), Drive for Thinness (from the EDI-C), peer in? ences (from the IPIEC), or perceptions to teasing (from the POTS). Thus, the exploratory analyses with parental data are likely to be generalizable for all of the variables other than family history. Parental Data For exploratory purposes, paired t tests were conducted to examine the differences in mothers’ and fathers’ reports of parental in? uence regarding weight and body shape co ncerns. Mothers (M = 18. 57, SD = 5. 32) placed more emphasis on weight and body shape concerns than did fathers (M = 15. 94, SD = 5. 29), t(47) = ? 3. 96, p < 0. 001. Further examination of parental differences revealed that mothers reported placing more importance on weight and body image concerns than did fathers for both their daughters, t(29) = ? 2. 93, p < 0. 006, and sons, t(27) = ? 2. 61, p < 0. 01. These results suggest that, regardless of child gender, mothers tend to place more emphasis on weight and dieting than do fathers. To examine the relationship between children’s selfreports and parental reports, correlations were conducted for parents’ reports of family history of eating concerns and children’s reports of eating disturbance and psychological functioning. A signi? cant correlation was revealed for mothers’ reports of family history and children’s reports of family history, r (77) = 0. 25, p < 0. 05. These results suggest that mothers and children perceived similar familial in? uences regarding weight and body shape. In addition, signi? cant correlations were revealed for maternal report of family history and children’s report of global self-worth, r (77) = ? 0. 27, p < 0. 05. No other signi? cant correlations were revealed for maternal or paternal reports DISCUSSION Overall, the results of this study support and extend previous research suggesting that both parental and peer in? uences are related to the development of body image and weight concerns in preadolescent girls and boys. It is likely that both factors play an integral part in children’s formations of maladaptive beliefs, attitudes, and expectations concerning weight, physical appearance, and body image. Further, there appear to be some differences but some similarities in how girls and boys experience these issues. Similar to previous research, girls in this study exhibited a somewhat greater degree of concern regarding weight and body image issues than did boys. Not only were they more aware of issues surrounding weight and dieting, but girls were more active in attempts to become and/or remain â€Å"thin. † In addition, it appears that girls received more messages within the family setting regarding weight and body image concerns. Although most investigations of body image concerns tend to recruit only female participants (e. g. , Attie and Brooks-Gunn, 1989; Cattarin and Thompson, 1994), the studies of gender differences Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In? uences in body image have used primarily adolescent samples (e. g. , Childress et al. , 1993; reviewed in Cohane and Pope, 2001). The present results support similar ? ndings for preadolescent children, which indicates that these gender differences begin to develop at an earlier age, prior to any pubertal changes (Collins, 1991; Oliver and Thelen, 1996; Shapiro et al. , 1997; Wood et al. , 1996). The results of this study provide support for a relationship between body image concerns and depressive symptoms (Herzog et al. 1992) and self-esteem (Wood et al. , 1996). Overall, children who expressed higher levels of body image disturbance reported higher rates of depressive symptoms and lower levels of global self-worth. Although this pattern was more evident in girls, the same pattern existed for boys when body dissatisfaction was considered. Prior research has revealed support for both parental (Sanftner et al. , 1996; Thelen and Cormier, 19 95) and peer (Cattarin and Thompson, 1994; Oliver and Thelen, 1996) in? uences on children’s eating and body image concerns. This study found support for peer and parental in? ences for girls and to a lesser extent, for boys. Most of the research on peer in? uences has been conducted with adolescent populations of girls (Levine et al. , 1994). In this study, similar patterns emerged for boys and girls when body dissatisfaction (as opposed to bulimic tendencies) were evaluated. It may be that preadolescent boys are struggling with body dissatisfaction, but in such a manner that is not captured by the measurement of bulimic tendencies. The measurement of parental teasing from the POTS measure was particularly useful in helping to understand boys’ experiences. A number of previous studies have documented the connections between negative verbal commentary and body image concerns in girls (Cattarin and Thompson, 1994; Schwartz et al. , 1999). In the current study, boys’ perceptions of parental teasing were related to higher levels of body dissatisfaction, bulimic tendencies, drive for thinness, family history of eating concerns, and depression and lower levels of global self-worth. Thus, further exploration of perceptions of parental teasing in both boys and girls may be fruitful. On the basis of the results of this study, the implications for prevention and intervention are numerous. Given the wealth of support for the existence of body image concerns in preadolescent children (Collins, 1991; Shapiro et al. , 1997; Thelen et al. , 1992; Wood et al. , 1996), it is imperative to address weight and body image concerns with children prior to adolescence. Psychoeducational programs could be helpful to inform children of the parental, peer, and sociocultural in? uences on their attitudes and beliefs concerning weight and physical appearance. Several universal psychoeducational programs 427 have been instituted and evaluated for school-aged children (reviewed in Levine and Smolak, 2001). Although this study found some gender differences in preadolescent children’s experiences of body image disturbance, the common pattern of associations among variables for both boys and girls would suggest that preventive efforts could be targeted to girls and boys together. Intervention programs are also necessary given the connections between familial in? uences and body image concerns in young children and the resultant connections between body image concerns and eating disorders (Cattarin and Thompson, 1994; Steinhausen and Vollrath, 1993; Thompson et al. 1999). Parents need to be educated about the negative consequences of their own weight and body image issues on the development of related problems in their children (Archibald et al. , 1999). Treatment programs should take family functioning into account and should address the strong connections between body image concerns and poor psychological functioning (Steinberg and Phares, 2001). There are several limitations to t he study indicating that these results should be interpreted with caution. First, the ross-sectional nature of the study precludes interpretations related to causality. For example, it could be that higher levels of depression lead to higher rates of body dissatisfaction in both boys and girls. A prospective study of girls and boys from early childhood to adolescence and even adulthood could help answer the direction of causality. In addition, because there was a signi? cant difference in family history of eating concerns (FHE-C) between children with and without completed parental data, the preliminary analyses of parental reports have to be viewed cautiously. Although other studies have found relatively few differences between participating and nonparticipating mothers and fathers (Phares, 1995), the differences in this sample suggest that the parental data may not be representative of the larger population. This study attempted to limit common method variance by including parents rather than just relying on children’s self-reports. This inclusion of parents, however, led to other dif? culties. Future studies in this area could bene? t from more intense efforts to recruit and maintain parents for participation in research. Even with these limitations, this study provided support for parental and peer in? uences on the development of body image disturbance in preadolescent girls and boys. It is likely that both peers and family members contribute to the development of body image disturbance and weight concerns of young children. Although girls appear to be at greater risk for these concerns, this study suggests that attention to both boys’ and girls’ development of body image concerns is warranted. 428 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This study was completed as part of a masters thesis by the ? rst author under the direction of the second and third authors. REFERENCES Archibald, A. B. , Graber, J. A. , and Brooks-Gunn, J. (1999). Associations among parent–adolescent relationships, pubertal growth, dieting, and body image in young adolescent girls: A short-term longitudinal study. J. Res. Adolesc. , 9: 395–415. Attie, I. , and Brooks-Gunn, J. (1989). Development of eating problems in adolescent girls: A longitudinal study. Dev. Psychol. 25: 70– 79. Brooks-Gunn, J. , Warren, M. P. , Rosso, J. , and Gargiulo, J. (1987). Validity of self-report measures of girls’ pubertal status. Child Dev. 58: 829–841. Bunnell, D. W. , Cooper, P. J. , Hertz, S. , and Shenker, I. R. (1992). Body shape concerns among adolescents. Int. J. Eating Disord. 11: 79– 83. Cash, T. F. (1995). Developmental teasing about physical appearance: Retrospective descriptions and relationships with body image. Soc. Behav. Pers. 23: 123–129. Cattarin, J. A. , and Thompson, J. K. (1994). A three-year longitudinal study of body image, eating disturbance, and general psychological functioning in adolescent females. Eating Disord. 2: 114–124. Childress, A. C. , Brewerton, T. D. , Hodges, E. L. , and Jarrell, M. P. (1993). The kids’ eating disorders survey (KEDS): A study of middle school students. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 32: 843–849. Cohane, G. H. , and Pope, H. G. (2001). Body image in boys: A review of the literature. Int. J. Eating Disord. 29: 373–379. Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychol. Bull. 112: 155–159. Collins, M. E. (1991). Body ? gure perceptions and preferences among preadolescent children. Int. J. Eating Disord. 10: 199–208. Cusumano, D. L. , and Thompson, J. K. (2001). Media in? uence and body image in 8–11 year-old boys and girls: A preliminary report on the Multidimensional Media In? uence Scale. Int. J. Eating Disord. 29: 37–44. Desmond, S. M. , Price, J. H. , Gray, N. , and O’Connell, J. K. (1986). The etiology of adolescents’ perceptions of their weight. J. Youth Adolesc. 15: 461–473. Field, A. E. , Austin, S. B. , Frazier, A. L. , Gillman, M. W. , Camargo, C. A. , and Colditz, G. A. (2002). Smoking, getting drunk, and engaging in bulimic behaviors: In which order are the behaviors adopted? J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 41: 846–853. Field, A. E. , Camargo, C. A. , Taylor, C. B. , Berkey, C. S. , Roberts, S. B. , and Colditz, G. A. (2001). Peer, parent, and media in? uences on the development of weight concerns and frequent dieting among preadolescent and adolescent girls and boys. Pediatrics 107: 54–60. Garner, D. M. (1984). Eating Disorder Inventory for Children (EDI-C). Unpublished manuscript. Harter, S. (1985). Manual for the Self-Perception Pro? le for Children. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Colorado. Herzog, D. B. , Keller, M. B. , Sacks, N. R. , Yeh, C. J. , and Lavori, P. W. (1992). Psychiatric comorbidity in treatment-seeking anorexics and bulimics. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 31: 810–818. Hill, A. J. , Oliver, S. , and Rogers, P. J. (1992). Eating in the adult world: The rise of dieting in childhood and adolescence. Br. J. Clin. Psychol. 31: 95–105. Kostanski, M. and Gullone, E. (1999). Dieting and body image in the child’s world: Conceptualization and behavior. J. Genet. Psychol. 160: 488–499. Kovacs, M. (1992). Children’s Depression Inventory: CDI Manual. Multi-Health Systems, North Tonawanda, NY. Inc. Phares, Steinberg, and Thompson Levine, M. P. , and Smolak, L. (2001). Primary prevention of body image dist urbances and disordered eating in childhood and early adolescence. In Thompson, J. K. , and Smolak, L. , (eds. ), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth: Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 37–260. Levine, M. P. , Smolak, L. , Moodey, A. F. , Shuman, M. D. , and Hessen, L. D. (1994). Normative developmental challenges and dieting and eating disturbances in middle school girls. Int. J. Eating Disord. 15: 11–20. Mendelson, B. K. , White, D. R. , and Mendelson, M. J. (1996). Selfesteem and body esteem: Effects of gender, age, and weight. J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 17: 321–346. Moreno, A. , and Thelen, M. H. (1993). Parental factors related to bulimia nervosa. Addictive Behav. 18: 681–689. Oliver, K. K. , and Thelen, M. H. (1996). Children’s perceptions of peer in? uence on eating concerns. Behav. Ther. 7: 25–39. Phares, V. (1995). Fathers’ and mothers’ participatio n in research. Adolescence 30: 593–602. Phares, V. (1996). Fathers and developmental psychopathology. New York: Wiley. Pike, K. M. , and Rodin, J. (1991). Mothers, daughters, and disordered eating. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 100: 198–204. Ricciardelli, L. A. , and McCabe, M. P. (2001). Children’s body image concerns and eating disturbance: A review of the literature. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 21: 325–344. Ricciardelli, L. A. , McCabe, M. P. , and Ban? eld, S. (2000). Body image and body change methods in adolescent boys: Role of parents, friends, and the media. J. Psychosom. Res. 49: 189–197. Rieves, L. , and Cash, T. F. (1996). Social developmental factors and women’s body-image attitudes. J. Soc. Behav. Pers. 11: 63–78. Rodin, J. , Silberstein, L. R. , and Striegel-Moore, R. H. (1985). Women and weight: A normative discontent. In Sonderegger, T. B. (ed. ), Psychology and Gender: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, pp. 267–307. Sands, R. , Tricker, J. , Sherman, C. , and Armatas, C. (1997). Disordered eating patterns, body image, self-esteem, and physical activity in preadolescent school children. Int. J. Eating Disord. 1: 159– 166. Sanftner, J. L. , Crowther, J. H. , Crawford, P. A. , and Watts, D. D. (1996). Maternal in? uences (or lack thereof) on daughters’ eating attitudes and behaviors. Eating Disord. 4: 147–159. Schur, E. A. , Sanders, M. , and Steiner, H. (2000). Body dissatisfaction and dieting in young children. Int. J. Eating Disord. 27: 74â₠¬â€œ82. Schwartz, D. J. , Phares, V. , Tantleff-Dunn, S. , and Thompson, J. K. (1999). Body image, psychological functioning, and parental feedback regarding physical appearance. Int. J. Eating Disord. 25: 339– 343. Shapiro, S. , Newcomb, M. , and Loeb, T. B. (1997). Fear of fat, disregulated-restrained eating, and body esteem: Prevalence and gender differences among eight- to ten-year-old children. J. Clin. Child Psychol. 26: 358–365. Smolak, L. , and Levine, M. P. (2001). Body image in children. In Thompson, J. K. , and Smolak, L. (eds. ), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth: Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 41– 66. Smolak, L. , Levine, M. P. , and Schermer, F. (1999). Parental input and weight concerns among elementary school children. Int. J. Eating Disord. 25: 263–271. Steinberg, A. B. , and Phares, V. (2001). Family functioning, body image, and eating disturbances. In Thompson, J. K. , and Smolak, L. (eds. ), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth: Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 127–147. Steinhausen, H. , and Vollrath, M. (1993). The self-image of adolescent patients with eating Disord. Int. J. Eating Disord. 13: 221–227. Stice, E. (2001). Risk factors for eating pathology: Recent advances and future directions. In R. Striegel-Moore & L. Smolak (Eds. ), Eating Gender Differences in Peer and Parental In? ences disorders: Innovative directions in research and practice (pp. 51– 73). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Thelen, M. H. , and Cormier, J. (1995). Desire to be thinner and weight control among children and their parents. Behav. Ther. 26: 85– 99. Thelen, M. H. , Lawrence, C. , and Powell, A. (1992). Body image, weight control, and eating disorders among children. In Crowther, J. H. , Tennebaum, D. L. , Hobfoll, S. E. , and Stephens, M. A. P. (eds. ), The Etiology of Bulimia Nervosa: The Individual and Familial Context. Hemisphere, Washington, DC, pp. 82–102. Thompson, J. K. (1996). Assessing body image disturbance: Measures, methodology, and implementation. In Thompson, J. K. (ed. ), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity: An Integrative Guide for Assessment and Treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 49–82. Thompson, J. K. , Cattarin, J. , Fowler, B. , and Fisher, E. (1995). The Perception of Teasing Scale (POTS): A revision and extension of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (PARTS). J. Pers. Assess. 65: 146–157. Thompson, J. K. , and Heinberg, L. J. (1993). Preliminary test of two hypotheses of body image disturbance. Int. J. Eating Disord. 14: 59–63. 429 Thompson, J. K. , Heinberg, L. J. , Altabe, M. , and Tantleff-Dunn, S. (1999). Exacting Beauty: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. Thompson, J. K. , and Smolak, L. (2001). Body image, eating disorders, and obesity in youth: The future is now. In Thompson, J. K. , and Smolak, L. (eds. ), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth: Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 1– 39. VanderWal, J. S. , and Thelen, M. H. 2000). Predictors of body image dissatisfaction in elementary-age school girls. Eating Behav. 1: 105–122. Wadden, T. A. , Brown, G. , Foster, G. D. , and Linowitz, J. R. (1991). Salience of weight-related worries in adolescent males and females. Int. J. Eating Disord. 10: 407–414. Williamson, S. , and Delin, C. (2001). Young children’s ? gural selections: Accuracy o f reporting and body size dissatisfaction. Int. J. Eating Disord. 29: 80–84. Wood, K. C. , Becker, J. A. , and Thompson, J. K. (1996). Body image dissatisfaction in preadolescent children. J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 17: 85–100.

IT in Supply Chain Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

IT in Supply Chain Management - Essay Example The traditional supply chain had limitations caused by power structures, limited information processing ability, and limited coordination and communication paths (Christiaanse & Kumar, 2000). Today organizations are facing complex changes to combat which Mutsaers, Zee and Giertz (1998) proposed the Nolan and Crosson six-stage model. it has become essential for organizations to be flexible and deliver a wide and changing variety of products. This requires a shift from â€Å"make and sell† approach to an externally-oriented â€Å"sense and respond† structure. This in turn implies the need for real time information. Real time information can be feasible only with the application of information technology in the different processes and functions. To meet the changing market requirements, companies have decentralized their value-adding activities by outsourcing and developing virtual enterprises (Gunasekaran & Ngai, 2004). All these highlight the importance of integrating IT with supply chain partners in the virtual enterprise or the supply chain. Demand for new information services like query processing, knowledge sharing and data mining led to the extension of information system engineering to support new, flexible software architecture so that the information system could contain new as well as legacy data and software components (Mylopoulos, 1998). IT has been recognized as a critical factor in the supply chain as they have demonstrated positive contribution to the performance of the firm and the supply chain (Jin, 2006). Technology is essential as it provides direction to the procurement, production and supplies strategies. When suppliers are able to meet customer demands compatibility of exchanges has occurred (Halley & Nollet, 2002). Success of incorporating technology depends upon the personnel’s ability to extract information (Lin & Tseng, 2006). Hence firms rely on technology to increases the flow of information across organizational boundaries and

Executive Dilemmas in the Information Age Assignment

Executive Dilemmas in the Information Age - Assignment Example CEOs strive for clarity of their visions for an organization and this clarity influence behavior of employees towards attainment of the goals of their organizations. CEOs also exercise authority in communicating their expectations of employees in order to help them act in line with the desired organization’s culture (Baltzan, 2013). Modeling is an effective way in which CEOs effect desired changes and maintain good patterns of behavior. A CEO, for example, recommends and implements ways of rewarding and encouraging behaviors that are in line with an organization’s culture. Technology enhances the efficiency and productivity of the systems of organizations from all industries and executives from non-technological industries need to be aware of how to capitalize on this advantage. The awareness of technology can help executives from non-technological industries to employ the technology appropriate in helping customers interact better with the organization. Executives from non-technological industries need to worry about technology because of its potential to hasten the pace of organizational change lest they lose control of the direction of change (Tsai, 2003). Technology is highly dynamic and subsequent technological advancements pose new challenges and opportunities to businesses. Continuous learning alerts executives on indications of such challenges and opportunities and helps them device response course of action. Additionally, being dynamic with technological knowledge would help executives make decisions about how much resources should be allocated to technology. Advancement in technology causes changes in the cost of purchasing and maintaining technological equipment and without knowledge of these changes, executives can either overspend or under-spend. Decisions regarding technological sustainability require executives to have current

With reference to your own research, do you think that the ability of Essay

With reference to your own research, do you think that the ability of a business to act successfully in a socially responsible manner is mainly determined by the products it produces - Essay Example The concept of CRS rose in the 1960’s after World War II (Carroll & Shabana 2010, p. 86). The primary cause of increased concern in the CSR concept is due to consumer concern social behavior of firms. The concept of CSR has faced both favors and objection. The main objection of CSR is that the primary concern of a business is to improve the profit of its stakeholders. Social issues are the interest of the government and corporations ought not to be involved. Business is also thought not to be capable of handling social issues. According to Carroll & Shabana (2010, p. 87), business has acquired enough power and the social power should not be entrusted to it. Embracing CSR concept in businesses will reduce the national competitiveness both at local and global level. On the other hand, CSR concept has been accredited as the source of business success in various ways. First, CSR determines business viability that consequently determines its future operations and success. CSR concept is also believed to offer a platform to enable business institutions to shun influence and regulation by the government. According to Carroll & Shabana (2010, p. 88), use of CSR will help business to anticipate and initiate social events. Such pro-action is less costly than reacting to than responding to social problems encountered. The significant influence of a product to business performance lies in customer awareness. Products highly affect customer’s top of mind awareness that, consequently affect their loyalty. Top of mind awareness depends on customer’s perception of the ethical values of a firm’s product and services. In determining the relationship between product and business performance, this paper explains the corporate social organization and its outcome of different companies. However, business success in penetrating the market is mainly affected by its quality, price and convenience (Vogel

A critical analysis of a recent PR, advertising or social media Essay

A critical analysis of a recent PR, advertising or social media campaign - Essay Example Given the decision to do commercial advertising, Nike first ventured in printing advertisements that appeared in major dailies in the United States. The company also invested in magazine advertisements. Before the year 1982, Nike put more focus on sponsorships as well as the trending celebrity endorsements. Since that period, the celebrity advertisement has revolutionized, with many corporate entities embracing the need to collaborate with celebrities in a bid to convince more customers to use their products (Cronin, 2004). It was in the same year that Nike hired the services of Wieden + Kennedy, an advertising agency that has since then had strong ties with this giant sportswear company. It is with the help of the partnership with Wieden that Nike begun airing advertisements across television channels in the United States. Television advertising was a boost for the image of the company, as many of the elite group had access to television. Television advertisements helped the company to emphasize more on the technical superiority of its products, therefore positioning the company as a brand for aspiring and serious athletes across various sporting disciplines. In addition to highlighting their product superiority, Nike ventured into advertising their fashion accessories across the young customers, promoting their merchandise across schools and other sporting institutions (Wernick, 1991). The activities of the Nike Company in advertising played a major role in the internationalization of the company. Over the past three decades, Nike has grown to various overseas sporting leagues, with the company being a major corporate figure that sponsors major athletes in the sporting world. This growth in revenue as well as the involvement in multinational sporting markets defines Nike as a global leader in the sporting market. Soccer is no exception. However, the authority of Nike in the soccer

Unit III Assessment Training and Development Essay

Unit III Assessment Training and Development - Essay Example does not require interaction would be done in a specialized room like a computer room with software support or even at home with a personal computer. The site has to be fit the size of the training group and allow the trainer to create closeness with the trainees. The training rooms themselves would be free of noise, suitably lit with dimmers if required. The acoustics, electrical fittings anti-glare and color of the walls would be considered (Noe, (2010)). The training site would have only the required furniture any items or furniture not required would be cleared. The training site would be clean neat and tidy with minimum distractions. A suitable seating arrangement suitable for the kind of training would be considered. Trainers to be considered would be professionals from within or without the company. The trainers will have mastery of the content. When internal trainers are to be considered they would need to be certified as effective trainers. The trainers must have a good understanding of the business operations and will employ applicable work relatedexamples in training as opposed to abstracts or theory. External trainers are usually expensive this will be a considered too when choosing trainers. Question 2: Explain how practice helps learning. Give examples of how this has helped you. Practice reinforces training it is a method of learning and getting experience, it is the active part of training that allows trainees to explore, experiment and experience the training content. Practice allows the trainee to try out and be comfortable using newly acquiredskills this aids learning by increasing the retention period of the learnt skill or knowledge. Practice affords the trainee an opportunity to make errors and learn from them during training. A well known fact is that humans learn best from their mistakes practice also enhances job performance as errors can be foreseen and avoided. During practice trainees may discover and learn new training content

Service operation management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Service operation management - Assignment Example r Distribution Centre 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Darwin 18 15 15 13 12 12 14 13 13 13 12 10 11 11.8 11.56 11.27 Brisbane 22 25 20 22 21 20 23 20 20 21 23 20 21 21 21.2 21.24 Sydney 48 47 49 52 53 53 55 56 58 61 63 66 68 63.2 64.24 64.89 Adelaide 36 38 39 42 38 41 42 44 45 47 47 51 52 48.4 49.08 49.5 Hobart 18 20 22 18 22 19 18 20 21 19 21 20 18 19.8 19.56 19.67 b. Demand Forecasting using Exponential Smoothing Model is shown below. Table1.3 shows the forecasting model for alpha as .2 while Table 1.4 shows the forecasting model for alpha as .4. ...    Week Number Distribution Centre    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Darwin Actual 18 15 15 13 12 12 14 13 13 13 12 10 11          Forecast 16 16.8 16.08 15.65 14.59 13.55 12.93 13.36 13.22 13.13 13.08 12.65 11.59 11.35 11.21 11.13 Brisbane Actual 22 25 20 22 21 20 23 20 20 21 23 20 21          Forecast 22.33 22.2 23.32 21.99 22 21.6 20.96 21.77 21.06 20.64 20.78 21.67 21 21 21 21 Sydney Actual 48 47 49 52 53 53 55 56 58 61 63 66 68          Forecast 48 48 47.8 48.04 48.83 49.67 50.33 51.27 52.21 53.37 54.9 56.52 58.41 62.25 64.55 65.93 Adelaide Actual 36 38 39 42 38 41 42 44 45 47 47 51 52          Forecast 37.67 37.33 37.47 37.77 38.62 38.49 39 39.6 40.48 41.38 42.51 43.4 44.92 47.75 49.45 50.47 Hobart Actual 18 20 22 18 22 19 18 20 21 19 21 20 18          Forecast 20 19.6 19.68 20.14 19.72 20.17 19.94 19.55 19.64 19.91 19.73 19.98 19.99 19.19 18.72 18.43 c. Exponential smoothing is generally preferred over moving average forecasting method because it takes into account both the actual values and the previous forecasts. Also the mean square error received in the case of exponential smoothing is generally less as compared to moving average method. Between the two moving average methods, the 5 week moving average forecasting generally proves to be more accurate than the 3 period moving average forecasting because it takes into account large historical data. Among the exponential smoothing methods, the optimal value of alpha is generally found out by minimizing the mean square error through excel solver. d. Besides past demand several other factors might come into play in forecasting future demand. These factors could range from local to global. Local factors may include current market share of SB Coffee in each distribution centre, population of each geography,

Christian and Islamic Narratives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Christian and Islamic Narratives - Essay Example It is acknowledged that he has some understanding of his fate, and recognizes the significance and the necessity of his sacrifice. Evidenced in the Last Supper when Jesus explains, "One of you which eateth with me shall betray me" (Mark 14:18). In terms of the narrative this is most clearly seen in the episode of the passion where Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate. Pilate gives him multiple opportunities to exonerate himself, while the high priests of the Sanhedrin hurl accusations, "And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing behold how many things they witness against thee" (Mark 15:4). To which Jesus does not respond, prompting Pilate to marvel. When Pilate claims to have to the power to release or crucify Pilate, Jesus responds, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin" (John 19:11). Recognizing that his fate does not lie in the hands of mortals, Jesus i s cognizant to some degree of the greater plan in store for humanity. This understanding is by no means unequivocal or univocal throughout the Gospels, or even within the Gospels themselves. On the cross, Jesus is said to have said seven things including, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me" The theological explanation here is varied, suggesting that there is something of the human Jesus struggling to bear the sum of the punishment of all the sins in the world offered by Hell. After passing the temple shakes, the curtain is rent, and the dead rise, confirming the status of Jesus as the Christ, according to the various narratives. The Islamic account is radically different. Many of the starkest differences originate from the markedly different stylistic and structural modes of presentation between the Quran and the Bible. The Gospels like most of the Bible is a prose narrative, offering a dialogic mode of presentation, that is, multiple voices interacting in a linear narrative. The Quran is mostly written in what most closely resembles poetic verse, and its style is epigrammatic and monologic, or conversely, one voice describing events and the words of others. Thus many of the character descriptions and narrative details that the Gospel includes are noticeably absent in the Quran in the depiction of the death of Jesus. Also, important is the fundamental theological difference as regards the ontology of Jesus, i.e. in Islam, Jesus or Isa as he called in Quran, is a fully human figure. Theologically is this an essential feature of Islam, as it asserted throughout the Quran and the corresponding Hadith, that God is a unique and singular figure, who has no associates or comparisons. This notion of the unity of God stands as a fundamental pillar of Islam. Moreover, any pretention to question or equivocate on this matter is a grave sin, known as shirk. Thus Jesus must be son of Mary via virginal conception, "And (remember) her who guarded her chastity: We breathed into her of Our spirit, and We made her and her son a sign for all peoples" (Quran 21:19). The Quran does not deny he is Messiah, nor does it deny that at the end times that he will return to do battle with evil in a remarkably similar eschatology to

The novel Frankenstein Essay Example for Free

The novel Frankenstein Essay This is a long sentence that helps to build up tension, which helps create drama and atmosphere. The long sentence makes you, the reader run out of breath physically and this is to feel and give you an idea about his nervousness now that he has created this monster. When Victor wakes up he finds the creature standing over him, he is not threatening, a grin wrinkled his cheeks, but Victor is repulsed by what he sees and runs away. It is here that the reader realises that the creature was not created to be evil but is rejected by Victor when he only wanted to be accepted. The next day brings no hope for Victor. The sky is comfortless and the weather is dismal and wet. Victor is dreading meeting the creature and the weather reflects his despair. Mary Shelly makes the opening paragraph powerful by using commas to separate the words. Victor begins to walk the streets where he feels haunted by a nameless horror and Mary Shelly builds up the suspense I did not dare to return to the apartment, felt impelled to hurry on, and again the weather reflecting the mood, drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky. Mary Shelly also uses a lot of imagery e. g. the white steeple clock and the court as an asylum. The references to black in this section symbolise the gothic connection. To enhance the feeling of pursuit between creator and creation Mary Shelly uses some lines from the Ancient Mariner: Like one who, on a lonely road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. This poem is recited as Victor is walking. It continues to help build suspense and Mary Shelly describes Victors walking as hurried and with irregular steps like a caged animal and suggesting something bad is going to happen. The next event is Clerval, Victors friend arriving. He had come to see his friend and to enrol at the university. This completely changes the mood Victor James Duckworth 10XB Coursework says nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval who brings Victor some happiness and calmness and thoughts of my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my recollection Clerval saves him from his horror and misfortune. It is also during this conversation with Clerval that we find out how ill Victor has become. Clerval says I did not before remark how very ill you appear; so thin and pale This is a good descriptive image of how Victor looks, how ill he has become and how hard he has been working. As soon as Victor begins to think of the events of the previous night and the creature again he begins to tremble excessively showing how his feelings are changing from happiness to dread and anxiety as he begins thinking of the creature again. Henry and Victor return to Victors apartment. Victor is terrified the monster might still be there. The suspense is built by Mary Shellys description of Victor. He walks with a quick pace, the thought of seeing the creature makes him shiver, he dreaded to behold this monster. Worried that Henry would see the monster Victor asks him to wait downstairs while he goes alone to his rooms. The description of Victors feelings building up to opening the door are full of foreboding, he threw the door open and Mary Shelly takes us back to childhood fears by Victor describing his actions as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side. Victor steps fearfully in to find the monster gone. This changes the atmosphere completely; Victor finds the disappearance of his monster a source of joy. He describes himself as unable to contain myself, his flesh tingled with excess sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. He begins jumping over furniture his feelings become manic and falls down in a fit of exhaustion from the release of anxiety over his creation. At first Henry thinks it is happiness at seeing him again and news of the family but he soon sees the wildness in Victors eyes and knows something is not right. My dear Victor, what, for Gods sake, is the matter? Do not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all this? Henry spends the rest of the winter and spring nursing Victor back to health. He does not want to worry Victors father or Elizabeth so he conceals the extent of Victors illness. During his illness Victor raves on about the monster, but Henry believed them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination. But because Victor continually goes back to the monster Henry begins to think that the illness is due to some uncommon and terrible event. It takes until the next spring for Victor to recover. Mary Shelly uses the imagery of spring reflected in Victor he is reborn and the season contributed greatly to his recovery. He begins to feel joy and affection and becomes cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion. Henry can see that Victor is much better and begins to ask Victor if he may speak to you on one subject this immediately agitates Victor, he thinks Henry wants to talk about the monster. Henry sees Victors agitation and comforts Victor by saying I will not mention it. If it agitates you; but a letter had arrived from Victors cousin and because he had not replied for so long they were beginning to worry and would be happy to receive a letter from you in your James Duckworth 10XB Coursework own handwriting. They hardly know how ill you have been, and are uneasy at your long silence. I think the book is still as popular today as it was then because of the issues it deals with are just as important today as they were then e. g. morality. We are still pursuing knowledge to create life and we are even closer today to actually achieving this with cloning techniques, genetic engineering and artificial insemination. We are genetically modifying plants and are beginning to debate if it is moral to do this on animals. Scientists are beginning to manipulate DNA to eradicate genetic diseases. Many people think these developments are wrong and the book makes us question whether we should be playing God like this. There are also many examples in the newspapers of where medical knowledge has been kept from the public that has gone on to cause harm. For example the tobacco industry and smoking, the use of thalidomide all kept secret by the pharmaceutical companies. The book has many messages. The main one is to not play god. The main topics of the book are life and death, religion and science. I think the further we progress in science the more irrelevant religion will become because people will chose to believe science. This is because science proves its theories with facts and in religion you are meant to have beliefs without questioning the word of God.

Essay on Brendan Behan

Essay on Brendan Behan This essay looks at three of Brendan Behans main works which most critics agree are his best. These three main works are; The Quare Fellow (1954), The Hostage (1958) and Borstal Boy (1958).The essay begins with a brief biography of Behans life and reveals some of the reasons how his younger years influenced his later works. The essay also gives a brief synopsis of these three works and explores some of the re-occurring themes within these works. It finally examines some of the ways that he has shaped and influenced the Irish national identity. Brendan Behan was born in Dublin on 9 February 1923 into an educated Dublin working class family. He grew up in Dublins north inner city near Mountjoy Square. Both his parents had a big influence on the literature that he would later come to write. Behans father, Stephen, had been active in the Irish War of Independence; his mother Kathleen remained politically active for all life and his uncle Peadar Kearney composed the Irish national anthem The Soldiers Song(Amhrà ¡n na bhFiann). When Brendan was a child his father would often read classic literature to the children at bedtime and his mother would take them on walks around the city pointing out different houses of noted Irish literary figures, while also showing them where the citys revolutionaries had been born or executed.   When Brendan was a child he would read anything he could find and even at the age of six the head nun in his primary school had informed his mother Kathleen that she was rearing a genius (O Connor, 1 970 p.20). Despite his obvious ability at school he decided at the age of 14 to leave and follow his fathers trade as a painter. Soon after leaving school Brendan joined Fianna Éireann, the youth organisation of the IRA. In 1939, at the age of 16, he went on a bombing mission to England but he was arrested and found to be in possession of explosives. He was sentenced to three years in a borstal institution in England but returned to Ireland in 1941. The following year he was imprisoned in Ireland and released as part of a general amnesty in 1946. He wrote about these years in his autobiography novel Borstal Boy. Upon his release he moved between Dublin, Kerry and Connemara, and spent some time in Paris, where he wrote in both Irish and English. Behan produced his first play The Quare Fellow in 1954 in Dublin. The following year he married Beatrice Ffrench-Salkeld. In 1958 Behan wrote his second play An Giall which was written in the Irish language and performed in the Dublin. That same year The Hostage, which was Behans English language version of An Giall, met with great international success following Jo an Littlewoods production of it in London. Also in 1958 Borstal Boy was published and it became an immediate best seller. Behans international success, along with the financial rewards, brought about an increase in his drinking problems. After years of heavy drinking he had developed diabetes and it was due to this that he died, aged 41, on 20 March 1964 (OConnor, 1970). This part of the essay shall examine, and give a brief synopsis of, Behans three main works; The Quare Fellow (1954), The Hostage (1958) and Borstal Boy (1958). His first play The Quare Fellow is set in a Dublin prison on the eve of the execution of the quare fellow, a colloquial term for someone on death sentence. One of the condemned prisoners, who has murdered his wife, has been recently pardoned; while the other prisoner, the quare fellow who has murdered his brother, has not. Although the quare fellow is the centrepiece of the play, it is not about him and he never appears or utters any words. There is no question of his guilt and he is not a likeable figure. The only sympathy for him is that he is going to be executed the following day. The play does not explore the effect of the execution on the quare fellow but looks at the effect on the prisoners, wardens and the hangman himself. The hero in the play is Warden Regan who is a devoted Catholic while also being a humanist. Alth ough he accepts the system of the Church and Society, the humanity in him can see the hypocrisy in this system. The play ends the following morning with the quare fellow being executed. The play is based on Behans own experiences in Mountjoy prison, and it questions the right of any society to inflict or carry out the barbarous act of capital punishment which was still then in use in Ireland. It also attacks some of the false piety in attitudes in 1950s Ireland to sex, politics and religion (Russell,) The second play Behan wrote was An Gaill which was later translated into English and called The Hostage (1958). The play is set in Dublin guesthouse-cum-brothel during the late 1950s. It portrays the capturing and detention of a young Cockney British soldier by the IRA in response to the planned execution, by the British, of an IRA volunteer in Belfast. The 19 year old British soldier has been kidnapped as he is leaving an Armagh Dance Hall. The IRA declares that it will shoot the hostage Leslie Williams, if their Belfast Boy is executed at Belfast Gaol the following morning. Private Williams is imprisoned in a lower class Dublin guesthouse-cum-brothel owned by a fanatical Gael. During the course of the play Leslie falls in love with the young Irish convent girl, Theresa, and she also falls for him. They have both grown up in similar backgrounds, both are orphans who now find themselves in a city that they are foreign to, and neither of them cares much for any wars or battles that ha ve been fought between Britain and Ireland in the past or the present. The play is made up of a variety of characters such as fallen rebel heroes, homosexual navvies, pimps and whores, convent girls and deteriorating civil servants who are loyal to the nationalist cause. Private Williams is entertained by them with jigs and reels, rock n roll dancing, rebel songs and tales about Irelands glorious past, and all the time the IRA guards await for news from Belfast.It is eventually only by accident that he discovers that he is the hostage and will be executed if the IRA volunteer in Belfast is hung. Towards the end of the play the manager of the place understands the futility of continuing the Old fight but feels powerless to intervene. At the end of the play the news arrives that the IRA volunteer has been hanged and in the ensuing armed Gardaà ­ raid on the brothel the hostage is accidently shot and killed. At the finale of the English version of the play the corpse of the dead hosta ge rises up and sings The bells of hell/ Go ting-a-ling-a-ling. Also in 1958 Behan released his autobiographical novel Borstal Boy. The book is based on the three years that he spent in Hollesley Bay Borstal in Suffolk, England, after being caught with explosives in Liverpool. It is a vivid memoir of the years that being spent there. Story depicts a young Behan, full of Republican fervour and idealism, softening his radicalism and warming to his fellow British inmates and the wardens known as screws. The story is not a venomous attack on Britain but instead it portrays Behans move away from radicalism and violence. The dialogue in the book captures the lively interactions amongst the Borstal inmates along with all their various distinctive accents from around the British Isles. As the story develops Behan skilfully demonstrates that due to their working class, whether they are Irish Catholic or English Protestant, they share a lot more in common than they had realised. Behan realises that any supposed barriers of religion and ethnicity are just s uperficial and are beliefs that have been imposed on him by an anxious middle class. Ultimately he emerges as a young man who is realistic and recognises the truth that violence, especially political violence, is futile. The image at end of the novel is of a young working class man, who has been stunted by crime and prison, coming right and growing into being an independent thinker, writer and playwright (Kearney, 1970). In the three works of Behans that have been looked at in this essay there are a number of re-occurring themes to be found within them. The stories are written from a working class perspective with socialist leanings. In these works Behan writes in his own voice and this is most obvious in the language used in the Borstal Boy. In this book Behan uses an engaging style of writing and incorporates the use of phonetic spelling in an interesting and creative way for an authentic effect. The narrative flow is sometimes condensed and other times heavily unhurried. All these works are based around some form of imprisonment and they are critical of both church and state, religion and the power of authority. In the Quare Fellow we see Warden Regan questioning his society and battling with his conscience over the execution of even a guilty man. The theme of execution is also present in The Hostage with both Private Williams and the IRA volunteer awaiting possible execution. In The Hostage the p rincipal theme is of a young innocents being set against those with political motivations and ambitions. The Hostage questions the futility of patriotic fervour and political violence (Jeffs,1966)   and this theme is also found in the Borstal Boy which was based on Behans own experiences. Both The Hostage and Borstal Boy examining the Anglo-Irish relationship exploring the fact that there is very little difference between working class Irish Catholics or working class English Protestants. In Behans two plays he somewhat questions the Irish identity itself and the new young Irish Free State. The plays look at this new Free State and exposes that it is carrying on the same practices of their old governing colonial power. For a Republican like Behan it must have seemed brutally ironic that the official hangman for the Irish Free State was often an imported Englishman (Kiberd, 1989, p.336). In The Quare Fellow, Behan has the lags Dunlavin put it as the Free State didnt change anything more than the badges in the warders caps. The same olds class prejudices, which were imported from England, are still present and have not been rejected in the new Irish state. The Dublin Gaeilgeoir in the play represents this lack of change (Kiberd, 1989). John Brannigan, the author of the Behan biography Brendan Behan, Cultural Nationalism and the Revisionist Writer, questions some of the stereotypes that hang around the figure of Behan. He situates Behan amidst a generation of Irish writers in the mid-20th century Ireland having to deal with the dull, even gloomy aftermath of the previous, more heroic, age of Irish 20th century history. The promise of the earlier decades of the 20th century was not delivered and their age was of disappointment and anti-climax (Brannigan, 2002). Unfortunately, the success that Behan received for his writing only increased his drinking problem and he played into the drunken Irishman caricature. After translating his work An Gaill into English he allowed Joan Littlewoods production of The Hostage to compromise and dilute the realism of the original Irish version by giving it interludes of music-hall singing and dancing (OConnor, 1970). At the end of The Hostage, when it finishes with the dead British soldiers corpse rising up and singing The bells of hell/ Go ting-a-ling-a-ling, we are left wondering not only about Behans politics but also about his literary integrity. After the Borstal Boy, Behan was unable to produce another classic. His later books like Brendan Behans Island and Brendan Behans New York could not be compared to his former works. Whatever criticism there may be of Behans later works, it does not take away from what he has contributed to imagination of the Irish national identity. His work has been a significant influence to many writers and he has made his way into many Irish and international songs. The Auld Triangle, which is Behans prisoner song from The Quare Fellow, has become something of an Irish folk standard and has been recorded on numerous occasions by groups such as The Dubliners and also The Pogues. Both of his plays, as well as the Borstal Boy which was first made into a play in 1967, have still remained popular with Irish audiences (Murphy, 2014) and Borstal Boy was also made into a film in 2000. Word Count: 2100 Bibliography Brannigan, J., (2002) Brendan Behan, Cultural Nationalism and the Revisionist Writer. Dublin, Four Courts Press. Jeffs, R., (1966) Brendan Behan: Man and Showman. London, Hutchinson Co. Kearney, C.,(1976) Borstal Boy: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Prisoner, Ariel. VII (April, 1976), pp. 47-62. Kiberd, D., (1989) Irish literature and of Irish history. In: Foster, R.F., (1989) (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Murphy, C., (2014) Brendan Behan the borstal boy, boozer and bomb-maker, Irish Independent, 07 September. OConnor, U., (1970) Brendan Behan. London, Granada Publishing Ltd. Russell, R.R., (2002) Brendan Behans Lament for Gaelic Ireland: The Quare Fellow. New Hibernia Review. 6 (1): pp. 73-93

Byronic Hero Essay :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Typical heroes are perfect, they do everything right. However they are unrelateable because of it in the Romantic Era. Byron created a new kind of hero the Byronic Hero, in the movie First Blood, John Rambo is the perfect example of a Byronic Hero. In this movie John Rambo is rebellious, dark natured, hyper-sensitive, and passionate. He is willing to do whatever it takes for his cause.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  John Rambo is an ex-Green Beret, a peacetime misfit haunted by memories of Vietnam. He has no family and no one helped out of his plantation. He was tortured in Vietnam by enemies. He is dark natured through the whole movie. He has no friends; the only person he has left is his Colonel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As Rambo passes through a small town in western Canada an over-zealous sheriff stops him and gives him a hard time. As the cops clean him up at the station he is reminded of how he was tortured in Vietnam. He goes crazy and beats the crap out of five cops and runs off into the mountains. This slows characteristics of the Byronic Hero.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  John Rambo may seem like and evil villain but he is not, just confused and very hard to understand. Rambo is very hyper-sensitive and emotional through the whole movie. Getting upset about his past and having very emotional flash-backs of Vietnam. He has a passion for what he thinks is right. At the end of the movie Rambo gets very emotional talking about his friends at war and how they died and how he drove million dollar machines in the military and in the real world he couldn’t even hold down a job at the car wash. So as he talks about this he is crying and holding his colonels arm. You understand after that part in the movie that he is a Byronic Hero.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In a way you feel sorry for Rambo in the end of the movie because of the way he is, but it is not his fault.

Telecommuting :: Essays Papers

Telecommuting I found this article to be of great interest to myself because my work and life has revolved around telecommuting for the past several years. As the article indicates, â€Å"a telecommuter is anyone who works at least part of the time at home, in their cars, from clients’ offices, and/or in hotel rooms and telephone booths.† Although the article is somewhat dated (1995 to be exact), I feel that what Robert Moskowitz wrote about telecommuting back in 1995 still applies today. When I chose to go to work for ADP-Automatic Data Processing several years ago, I already had some previous work experience as a telecommuter. At the time, I had no idea that my current position would actually transition itself to a telecommuting position or as I would like to call it now, â€Å"a virtual office position.† As a Software Implementation Consultant, I feel that a telecommuting position has been a viable solution for my employer, for my work responsibilities, and for my overall job satisfaction. With the help of hardware devices such as my laptop computer, pager, cellular phone, voicemail, etc., and software applications such as pcANYWHERE, MS-NetMeeting, MS-Project, MS-Internet Explorer, MS-Office, MS-Outlook, etc., I can accomplish everything from home-or anywhere else for that matter-than being in an actual home office. Because I can be reached during the workweek, virtually anyplace at anytime, and I can work pretty much anywhere at anytime, this requires a lot of responsibility, organization, and dedication to my company and it’s clients. Although it appears that I do have this flexibility in my current position, I do tend to be in my home office one or two times a week for meetings, personal contacts, etc. I feel this is still necessary, so that I don’t loose touch with the company and associates I work with at ADP. Finally, telecommuting has allowed me the independence without the direct supervision to become more productive in my position. I feel most people, including myself, would tend to be more productive if they didn’t have someone looking over their shoulder everyday. But I do realize it takes a special person with a good combination of a strong discipline and a strong work ethic to be an effective telecommuter. My Future: I am sure as technology advances, my current position as a telecommuter will become more efficient in the ways of doing business with my company and with my clients.

Essay --

TASK 1 P7 INTRODUCTION I have to describe the Health & Safety and Welfare associated with each of the different types of building surveys. This should include the use of appropriate PPE. Completion of measured surveys: Measured surveys involve taking measurements of sites or buildings in order to produce accurate data represented at a reduced scale. They are usually specified to an agreed level of detail, to acceptable accuracy tolerances, scale, delivery times and costs. Each elevation would be sketched free-hand, dimensions are taken for later reproducing. This can be done manually or with CAD. This process involves simply visiting the proposed property and then drawing a free hand outline and all elevations, dimensions and heights are taken whether by manually or digitally. Condition Survey: A condition survey looks at all parts of a building to assess the condition and state of repair and plan for immediate and future works. This involves many aspects to be looked and noted down which are looking at the average of people living in each house, looking at which type of house it is, how many have central heating, how many have kitchen, which type of fuel is used to heat each house, the age of housing stock, the costs of repair per unit, what the average fitness standard of each house, the health and safety of the houses and what the energy efficiency ratings are. Overall this survey looks at the condition of a building and this can be noted down or organized with photographical evidence and the date (if time) is recorded when taking each photo. This is not like a detailed report neither does it involve any structural nor investigation works. Dilapidation survey: A dilapidation survey which is also called a ‘structural surve... ...lure to complete the work. Similarly, if the surveyor is not paid for doing work, then they in turn can take a client to court for the debt due. This is called getting sued for damages. Reports must be written with care to avoid getting sued. Indemnity Insurance: This is to protect Surveyors against legal proceedings for damages of omission or negligence. Often to be paid for the life of the Surveyor. Nowadays anyone who gives advice or who provides a professional service should consider investing in adequate personal cover. It covers you against compensation sought by a client if they claim you have made a mistake or have been negligent in your professional service. Bankrupt: If the client or surveyor goes bankrupt, then an official receiver would undertake the winding up of the company and establish the liability of the debtors and sums to be paid to creditors.

Pre-Marital Sex & Role of Youth in Building a Nation

PREMARITAL SEX Premarital sex is sexual activity practiced by persons who are unmarried. Is it ok to have premarital sex? † That is a common question among teens and engaged couples. In your mind, you are probably weighing the pros and cons of premarital sex. On the positive side of the scale, there is acceptance from your peers, hope for pleasure, and the fulfillment of sexual desires. The negative side of the scale carries the weights of morals, fear of pregnancy or disease, and guilt. Premarital sex is serious moral issue confronting high school students.This isn’t to say that sexual temptations only existed in youth. But these days, being youth, they are more cut off from familial restrictions and parish supports, confronted with peer pressure that alleges, â€Å"Everyone is doing it,† and perhaps exposed to an irreligious environment. Premarital sexual relationship is an important subject – especially today. Young people are bombarded with the worldâ⠂¬â„¢s standards of morality, or immorality. The values and moral standards, which were endorsed by most Filipinos in years past, are now ridiculed and/or ignored by many.CONCLUSION Premarital sex has no moral grounds, it is against God, and it is unsafe physically and emotionally. Although sex is pleasurable, it is designed by God to be enjoyed by two married people. ROLE OF YOUTH IN BUILDING A NATION Youth† is the critical period in a person’s growth and development from the onset of adolescence towards the peak of mature, self-reliant and responsible adulthood comprising the considerable sector of the population from the age of fifteen (15) to thirty (30) years.Their attitudes, values, mind-set, and priorities will determine the development of the country in the future. As a human we have different kinds of role in the nation and one of this is to become an effective good leader, for us to have a progressive nation, we need to be a responsible person, because we canà ¢â‚¬â„¢t have a progressive nation if we’re not responsible enough, but we must begin to our selves.And in order for us to become a good leader, we must know first how to be a good follower, because we can never be a good leader if we don’t know how to be a good As a member of our community we can help building our nation. We can serve our nation by being united as we having one objections and one goal we may able to attain the works easily. We can do that by participating in any programs in our community. As a youth we can join what they called â€Å"SK† or Sanguniang Kabataan

Discrimination against Ainu in Japan

The Ainu are a group of people in northern Japan whose traditional life was based upon a hunting-fishing and plant-gathering economy. Starting from the eighteenth century the Ainu suffered the systematic encroachment and subsequent colonization by the Japanese. After the Ainu Shinpo (new law) was enacted in 1997, there were some positive changes seen by Ainu people in Hokkaido. However discrimination against the Ainu still is a major social problem in life of indigenes.In this paper we will investigate the conflicting narratives of identity, history and contemporary reality. While broadly tracing the outlines of Ainu history and the colonisation of Hokkaido, the main focus is on the making and remaking of Ainu identity by both the dominant Japanese and the Ainu themselves. By focusing on the dynamics between racialisation and ethnic mobilisation within the context of colonial relations of domination, we will consider Ainu ‘ethnicity’ as a response to racism.Discriminatio n against Ainu in Japan The Ainu, descendants of the early inhabitants of Japan, were slowly driven off the main island over the years and eventually settled in Hokkaido. Accounts of the campaign to conquer the Ainu appear in historical records as early as the eighth century. The office of the shogun was originally established to subdue the â€Å"barbarians,† meaning the Ainu (Nomura, 1996). In the Tokugawa period, for instance, the Tokugawa shogun granted trading rights to one of the northern feudal lords.The feudal domain gradually tightened its economic control over the island, reducing the native Ainu to a condition of semislavery and compelling them to harvest marine products (FRPAC). Although only about eighteen thousand of the Ainu now live in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, this population was much larger in the past and their homeland included at least southern Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, northern parts of Honshu (the main island of Japan), and adjacent areas.Despite outsiders' frequent use of the blanket term â€Å"the Ainu,† Ainu culture was rich in intracultural variations (Seligman & Watanabe, 1963). Not only was their hunting-gathering economy vastly different from that of their agricultural neighbors (the Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese), they spoke a language of their own, and some of their physical characteristics were thought to distinguish them from their neighbors. The question of Ainu identity continues to press today without a definitive answer (FRPAC). The Kurile Ainu were the hardest-hit victims of the Russians and the Japanese; the last of them died in 1941.Sakhalin south of 50 ° N had been the homeland of the Sakhalin Ainu, while the territory north of 50 ° N belonged to the Gilyaks and other peoples. The Sakhalin Ainu, estimated to have been between 1,200 and 2,400 in number during the first half of the twentieth century, most likely moved from Hokkaido, possibly as early as the first millennium A. D. , but definitely by the thirteenth century (Nomura, 1996). They were in close contact with so-called native populations both on Sakhalin and along the Amur, such as the Gilyaks, Oroks, and Nanays.The history of contact with outsiders is equally complicated for the Hokkaido Ainu, whose territory once included north-eastern Honshu. As the Japanese central government was formed and its force expanded toward the northeast, the Ainu were gradually pushed north away from their territory (FRPAC). Systematic contact between the Ainu and the Japanese started at the end of the sixteenth century with the establishment of the Matsumae clan, which claimed as its territory the south-western end of Hokkaido and the adjacent areas.In 1799 the Matsumae territory in Hokkaido came under the direct control of the Tokugawa shogunate for the purpose of protecting Japanese interests against Russian expansion southward. Administrative control changed again in 1821 to the Matsumae and then back to the shogun ate in 1854 (Nomura, 1996). Most drastic and enduring changes took place shortly after the establishment of the Meiji government in 1868. It brought Hokkaido under the central government's direct administration and set out to foster Japanese settlements and develop the island's economy.The Ainu lost their land and their hunting and fishing rights. In order to Japanize the Ainu, the government banned traditional Ainu practices and forced Ainu children to learn Japanese in the school system (Layland, 2000). In 1875 the central and northern Kuriles came under the political control of the Japanese government, which made several attempts to â€Å"protect† the Ainu, but without success and often with adverse effect upon them (Nomura, 1996). The new government abolished the residential restriction for both the Ainu and the Japanese, who could then live anywhere in Hokkaido.It also encouraged the Japanese to immigrate to Hokkaido in order to utilize its natural resources. The Ainu we re enrolled in the Japanese census registers and forced to attend Japanese schools established by the government. Beginning in 1883, the Ainu were uprooted from their settlements, granted plots of land more suited for agriculture, and encouraged to take up agriculture (Layland, 2000). In the post-World War II years, a movement among the Ainu to preserve their culture, language, and way of life emerged.The leadership of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido has requested the Japanese government to guarantee the basic rights of the Ainu people and respect their cultural and ethnic identity (Layland, 2000). Just as the Ainu contacts with the Japanese went through a series of historical changes, so did the Japanese attitude toward them. Since the Ainu homeland is located in what used to be Japan's northern frontier – a hinterland for many Japanese until recently – the Ainu stood outside of the reflexive structure of the Japanese during earlier historical periods.By the eighteen th century, however, the Ainu had clearly become one of the marginalized internal others within Japanese society (Nomura, 1996). Historical agents directly involved in this process were the Japanese governmental officials of different historical periods and the Japanese in the Ainu land. They viewed and represented the Ainu as uncivilized or primitive. But the primitive always have another side — for some Japanese, especially those in parts of Japan distant from the Ainu homeland, the Ainu were and are even today the exotic other.This is especially so with Ainu women, living in â€Å"nature,† whose â€Å"deep-set eyes† had exotic sexuality – a familiar picture in almost every case of colonial-colonized or majority-minority relationship (Nomura, 1996). The Japanese perception and representation of the Ainu are most systematically expressed in a series of Ainu – Japanese artists' portrayals of the Ainu and their lives that appeared during a period of a little more than a century, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the midnineteenth century, that is, at the height of Japanese efforts to colonize Ainu territory.The hallmarks of otherness depicted in these paintings include hunting scenes, the bear ceremony, women's tattoos, men's body hair and beards, and Ainu use of jewellery. In contrast to the Japanese, whose deities are primarily plants, the supreme deity of the Ainu is the bear – a sign of Ainu proximity to animals. The association the Japanese made between the Ainu and animals is also seen in their painstaking representations of the bodies of Ainu.The Japanese, who do not have much body hair, often point to the abundant body hair of the Ainu, as well as of Westerners, and use it as â€Å"evidence† that these people are close to animals (Layland, 2000). The dispossession of the Ainu, which had largely been accomplished by 1890 through the expropriation of Ainu land (and fishing grounds) as the prim ary economic resource on which colonial development was based, was institutionalised by the enactment of the Protection Act of 1899 (Nomura, 1996).With the Law for the Protection of Native Hokkaido Aborigines, a policy of assimilation was forced upon the Ainu. As a consequence, their social structure and living environment went through a number of drastic changes as restrictions were put on their customs, language, and means of livelihood. The 1899 law contained new land policies that violated the Ainu's territorial integrity. It banned traditional subsistence strategies such as deer hunting and salmon fishing, and also forced the Ainu to cultivate rice for the Japanese mainland.The law also prohibited the practice of ancient Ainu customs and Ainu languages; with no writing system of their own, these prohibitions furthered the cultural destruction of Ainu society. There has also been a high rate of marriage between Ainu and Japanese that has contributed further to the erosion of the Ainu language and culture. It is not surprising, then, that traditional Ainu society had been largely destroyed by the beginning of the 20th century. In the last 100 years, Ainu traditional lifestyles have largely disappeared, and their rights have been overlooked within Japanese society.The traditional Ainu settlement – kotan – can no longer be seen, and the traditional grass thatch Ainu huts – chise – are almost non-existent, the exceptions being tourist areas where music and dance performances or handicraft souvenirs are offered (Weiner, 1997). The Protection Act focused on three main areas of Ainu policy: agriculture, education and welfare assistance, notably in the area of medical care. Ainu families engaged, or wishing to engage, in agriculture were to be granted up to five hectares of undeveloped land as an allotment (kyuyochi) without charge (Article One).This did not mean full rights of ownership; various restrictions were placed on the transfer of the allotments which could not be sold or used to secure a mortgage, although they were exempt from land registration fees, local tax and land tax for thirty years (Article Two). Land not developed within fifteen years, however, would be repossessed (Article Three). Agricultural tools and seeds were to be made available for needy families (Article Four). Education was to be provided through the medium of special Native Schools (Kyudojin gakko) to be constructed at national expense in Ainu villages (Article Nine).Financial assistance was available for school fees (Article Seven). For the destitute, sick, and people too old or too young to support themselves, medical fees would be paid. Funeral expenses were also covered (Articles Five and Six). Some of the money for these measures was to come from the profits of Ainu communal property, which was under bureaucratic control, the rest from the national treasury (Articles Eight and Ten). Article Eleven empowered the Governor to issue â€Å"police orders†Ã¢â‚¬â€fines and periods of imprisonment—with regard to protection matters (Weiner, 1997).Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, interest in ethnic tourism and in the Ainu people began to grow. This raised questions about the substance and meaning of Ainu cultural identity in relationship to the culture and identity of the more numerous Japanese. The image of Ainu with their traditional costumes and exotic facial features became increasingly prevalent through the development of tourism. Group photographs taken with Ainu chiefs in traditional costumes reflected the fascination with difference within the Japanese population.Many touristic souvenirs comprised Ainu bear woodcrafts and â€Å"couple dolls† (Kindaiti, 1941). Thus, the increase in post-war tourism, and its focus on the Ainu as commodity and symbols of indigenous Japan, contributed in a positive way to some modest revitalization within the Ainu community, but also raised question about thei r position in the social and political hierarchy of Japan (Weiner, 1997). The existence of the Ainu is virtually ignored elsewhere in the society, most conspicuously in the classroom.A report conducted in 1993 showed that only ten out of twenty high school Japanese history textbooks mentioned the background of contact between the Ainu and mainstream Japanese and the assimilation policies forced upon the Ainu since the nineteenth century; only four mentioned the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act (Weiner, 1997). However indigenous rights are becoming more widely discussed and cultures of indigenous peoples are becoming recognized throughout the world, the Ainu indigenous movement has also been raised to the international level, urging constitutional reforms to expand their leverage, recognition and rights at home.In 1993, the year before the International Year of the World's Indigenous People, Nomura Giiti, the President of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, was invited to part icipate in an international meeting organized by the United Nations (Layland, 2000). In his speech, Nomura shared Ainu concerns with other indigenous groups, including the experience of the Ainu under the Japanese government's policy of assimilation after the late 19th century. He called for the United Nations to set international standards against discrimination and support the Ainu people in negotiating with the Japanese government.The Ainu Shinpo (meaning â€Å"new law†) was drafted and proposed in 1984, and finally passed on 8 May 1997. It states that: The law aims to realize the society in which the ethnic pride of the Ainu people is respected and to contribute to the development of diverse cultures in our country, by the implementation of the measures for the promotion of Ainu culture, referring to the situation of Ainu traditions and culture from which the Ainu people find their ethnic pride †¦ â€Å"Ainu Culture† in this law means the Ainu language; music, dance, rafts and other cultural properties that have been inherited by the Ainu people; as well as other cultural properties developed from these (Weiner, 1997). Thus, the Japanese government had finally given limited formal recognition to the Ainu as the indigenous minority within Japanese territory, at least in Hokkaido. The general reaction from the Ainu at the time of the endorsement of the new law was that it was â€Å"late in coming and did not include enough concrete change†.Yet with this initial step, both Ainu and Japanese people assumed and expected more cultural preservation of language and traditions, as well as legal protection for traditional land use, anti-discrimination policies, and a general improvement in Ainu social status. After the Ainu Shinpo was enacted in 1997, there were some positive changes seen by Ainu people in Hokkaido. They saw an increase in financial support for various kinds of cultural activities; and conference, exhibition, and cultural e xchanges with other indigenous groups in other countries increased.This provided the Ainu with opportunities to enhance their â€Å"indigenous† status in Japan, and to build contacts and share information with indigenous people around the world (Layland, 2000). With the enactment of the Ainu Culture Promotion Law, the Japanese government took a significant step towards officially acknowledging the existence of the Ainu as an ethnic minority. The law is Japan's first legislation to acknowledge the existence of an ethnic minority in the country and, unlike the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act which the new law replaces, the Ainu were involved in the process of its enactment.This preliminary move, however, stopped short of recognising the Ainu as an indigenous people as defined by the United Nations. The Hokkaido Ainu thus remain virtually invisible in a country they have inhabited for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. One venue that plays a vital role in the repres entation of the Ainu in Japan today is ethnic tourism, which centres on tourist villages scattered across Hokkaido (Layland, 2000).The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC) was established in 1997, almost at the same time as the enactment of the Ainu Shinpo. The FRPAC started with an endowment of JPY100 million (of which JPY 90 million is from the Hokkaido government and JPY 10 million is from 62 municipalities in Hokkaido that include Ainu residents) allocated to support diverse activities (FRPAC). With their two offices in Hokkaido and Tokyo, FRPAC operates under the four basic policies in promoting Ainu cultural traditions in Japan and the rest of the world (Weiner, 1997).During the past few years, FRPAC's work has included providing different kinds of publications such as textbooks for primary and junior high schools, a handbook on place names (terminology) in Ainu language with relevant elaboration. Also, exhibition catalogues, monographs on Ainu history and culture (in different languages) for Japanese and foreigners, as well as other related materials, have been published with the support of FRPAC. A number of comprehensive exhibitions were co-sponsored by overseas institutes for the enhancement of public interest in Ainu culture in Japan (Weiner, 1997).According to the 1999 population survey, the percentage of Ainu students who attended high school was 95. 2%, that rose up from 69. 3% in 1979, and the percentage that went on to college was 16. 1%, from 8. 8% in 1979. These figures are lower than the 1999 national average figures of 97. 0 and 34. 5%, respectively (Layland, 2000). Despite some improvement during the last three decades, further reduction of the education gap will be necessary for the improvement of the Ainu's social status.Since the changes that occurred after the 1997, Ainu culture is now facing another critical period. The survival of Ainu culture, whatever form it will take, depends on how the indigenous rights of Ainu are interpreted at both individual and national levels; on how seriously the Japanese government implements the laws protecting indigenous and minority rights and cultural heritage; and on whether Ainu as â€Å"other† remain important to the Japanese in the articulation of their identity (Weiner, 1997).The Ainu Shinpo and institutions such as the Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture, already represent a step in a new direction in Ainu – Japanese relations. The cultural park establishment as well as the reterritorialization of the iwor (traditional hunting ground of the Ainu) (in Hokkaido at least), represents another concrete and progressive measure allowing the Ainu private control of their natural resources, reaffirmation of their identity, and legitimization of their lifestyle and customs.Despite continuing challenges, we are sure to see new cultural forms generated from the interaction between Ainu self-determination and the larger Japanese society (Layland, 2000). Doubtlessly, what has changed most since the 1997 is the awareness among the Ainu that they need to preserve their cultural traditions for their descendants (Weiner, 1997). However, as stated above, there remain so few Ainu who are able to speak Ainu as their mother tongue, and most are no longer practicing their traditional ways.As in the case of other ethnic minority groups around the world, the Ainu in Japan require an environment in society in which they can express how they think and ask for what they expect. I think that exhibitions in Ainu museums, broadcast programs for Ainu language and cultural exchanges in the form of performing arts have to be organised today. Then Ainu culture will be more visible and give people the impetus to think about what it means to be Ainu. The Ainu should adapt to modern ways since it is not easy or feasible to live in the old ways.