Thursday, December 26, 2019

Free Will And It s Compatibility Towards Determinism

In order to weigh that the idea of free will is compatible with Determinism, it is first required to evaluate the other possibilities and beliefs of free will and examine whether we in fact, posses free will. Free will has been a topic discussed for over two millennia philosophers by the names of Rene Descartes, David Hume and many others. Throughout this essay I will argue the act of free will and it s compatibility towards Determinism, and briefly reviewing the counter arguments from a libertarian perspective, proceeding on by discussing my beliefs on why I believe free will is compatible with Determinism. I will also be providing supporting arguments by implementing renowned philosophers who share similar beliefs. David Hume once stated that power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will: that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may.†¦ This hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains( qtd. In Kevin Timpe). This suggest that the act of free will depends on the ability of the user or individuals to elect their own individual actions and that the individual is considered free if he or she is not being prevented from an external obstacle from completing that course( qtd. In Kevin Timpe). David Hume methods of thinking can be linked to a philosopher by the name of Daniel Dennett who shared similar beliefs and was a known Compatibilist. In CasualShow MoreRelatedDeterminism And Its Effects On Society957 Words   |  4 PagesDeterminism claims that all events are inevitable to have certain results at the end, since conditions are met and nothing else would occur. And it could apply to everything in the universe with causal laws. With the discovering laws, we could make predictions. Over the years, there are more than one determinism been developed over time. Hard determinism claims all the actions of human beings or consequences of events are determined by external conditions, with such conditions satisfied there willRead MoreDeterminism, Soft Determinism And Libertarianism982 Words   |  4 PagesDeterminism supporters claim that all consequences are inevitable since conditions are met and nothing else would occur by any chances. And determinism could influence and controlling everything in the universe with causal laws. According to determinism, we could make predictions about the occurrences of certain events or actions of human beings. There three types of determinism that I will discuss in the following, the Hard determinism, Soft determinism and Libertarianism. Hard determinism claimsRead MoreNaturalism Literary Period2601 Words   |  11 Pagesdeveloped into a literary style consisting of determinism, objectivity, and pessimism, all in efforts to portray the humanistic perspective in themes and characters. Naturalism and realism are tremendously similar in literary style but their slight difference in details, such as environment and instincts, commence a dramatic effect in the author’s portrayal of the underlying themes. Realist literature developed in mid-19th century France in effort to progress toward literature not consisting of neoclassicRead MoreGender Differences Between Women And The Society1895 Words   |  8 Pagesanalyzed considering specific historical and sociocultural aspects (McEwen Willis, 2014). Buehring and Waring (2001) state that it is difficult to define Feminist Theory, but it is possible to identify main elements of this model: focuses on women s experience as a basis for research; notion of the researcher as accountable to the wider feminist constituency; a reflexive perspective on research as part of a knowledge validation process which reflects the concerns of dominant groups; and the argumentRead MoreThe Dsm And The Systems Of Psychotherapy2633 Words   |  11 Pagescentury modern medicine decreased medical illnesses. Instead of mental health decreasing because of the pharmological advances, mental health has increased to the current endemic of individuals being classified disabled (Whitaker, 2010). In the 1970’s psychiatry confronted a crisis (Whitaker, 2010). There was negative public attitude of psychiatry because of negative media from unethical practices. Also, both the social work and psychology fields were growing due to the lower cost and same meth odsRead MoreEssay on Digital Media and Society5371 Words   |  22 PagesTechnological and Social change â€Å"Orientating† to digital media New media and change in different spheres of our lives * School * Family * Country * Religion * Government * Work Determinism * Casual * Technological * Media * Video-game Technological determinism * A view or argument * Social and cultural phenomena are determined (caused) by technological development * Espoused by many theorists who conclude that digital media change everything else Read MoreWireless Network Method Using Smart Grid Communications2752 Words   |  12 PagesNetworking Technologies used in Smart Grid LAN HAN Ethernet (LAN technology) Zigbee Wireless Ethernet (WiFi) 6LoWPAN GbE/10GbE HomePlug OpenHAN Ethernet Ethernet is a LAN technology which has lots of advantages including higher versatility, speed and compatibility which make it a decent choice for substation networking system. A trend to create LANs in substations appears due to the increased number of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). [1] Short-Range Wireless Choices A designer of wireless applicationsRead MoreTheory of Social Marketing5832 Words   |  24 Pagesthe additional construct of self-efficacy – one’s perceived control over performance of the behavior. In TRA, the most important predictor of subsequent behavior is one’s intention to act. This behavioral intention is influenced by one’s attitude toward engaging in the behavior and the subjective norm one has about the behavior. Attitude, in turn, is determined by one’s beliefs about both the outcomes and attributes associated with the behavior. Subjective norms are based on one’s normative beliefsRead MoreOrganisational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pagesmanaging, organizing and reflecting on both formal and informal structures, and in this respect you will find this book timely, interesting and valuable. Peter Holdt Christensen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark McAuley et al.’s book is thought-provoking, witty a nd highly relevant for understanding contemporary organizational dilemmas. The book engages in an imaginative way with a wealth of organizational concepts and theories as well as provides insightful examples from theRead MoreDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 Pagesbuilt-in pretests and posttests, focus on what you need to learn and to review in order to succeed. Visit www.mymanagementlab.com to learn more. DEVELOPING MANAGEMENT SKILLS EIGHTH EDITION David A. Whetten BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY Kim S. Cameron UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Prentice Hall Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Elisabeth Condon’s Nocturne vs. Vincent van Gogh’s The...

Similarity in theme and color first drew me to select Elisabeth Condon’s Nocturne (Bob Rauschenberg Gallery) and Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (Frank 348) for this research paper. Initially I wanted to pick two pieces that were different enough in order to form a decent comparison and yet alike enough to connect them in some way. In the art gallery, Nocturne gave me a feeling similar to the one I experienced when I first saw The Starry Night; there was something otherworldly and mystical about it. It made you look at a greater expanse then the bit of landscape that was shown in an unexpected way. Though each work was made in over a hundred year gap from the other, both works use a brilliant use of color and a view of the sky†¦show more content†¦The artist of Nocturne, Elisabeth Condon, was heavily influenced by the places she has visited. Her own craft of improvisational paint pouring combined with the influence of Eastern art, specifically Chinese scrolls, helps to create the unique presence that each painting holds. â€Å"Her paintings, collages and drawings use improvisational pours of paint, sketchbook drawings and digital projections to establish idiosyncratic compositions. Heeding the Tang Dynasty dictum of landscape as a fusion of observation and memory, they interweave external and internal perceptions of particular locations† (ABOUT: Biography). The Starry Night is an oil painting that depicts a small, nestled town under an almost magical sky. This piece, much like Elisabeth’s Nocturne, possesses a dominance of cool hues. While both paintings depict a night sky, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night actually leads the observer’s eyes through the painting due to it’s brush strokes and fluidity. Although the work is very fluid and almost kinetic, it is not overwhelming or busy. Its rhythm is purposeful, not noisy. In fact, the painting almost gives off a calming, spiritual feeling to the viewer. The sky over the nestled town is a swirl of blue, yellow, and orange tints and shades that demonstrates an almost ethereal influence as if something greater is meant to be shown than what is simply before the observer. Radial

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Tourism Industry in Australia Samples for Students Myassignment

Question: Choose any Industry and Discuss the Reforms done or needed in that Industry. Answer: Introduction: The tourism industry in Australia makes up one of the most influential part of the economy. Only in the year 2014 to 2015 the industry accounted for about 3 percent of the GDP of the country and is calculated to have contributed around 47.5 billion dollars towards the GDP of the nation. Tourism that is domestic makes up an important part of this. As a matter of fact this accounts for about 73 percent of the total direct GDP made from tourism. In the sam eyar there were around 7.4 million people who arrived in Australia as visitors (Tourism.australia.com, n.d.) It also employs upwards of five hndred thousand people and constututes 5 percent of the total labour force. About 40 percent of those employed however are part time workers. Tourism has also been one of the main things contributing to the export earnings of the country with it singlehandedly contributing 8 percent in the 2010-2011. Australia has sprawling metropolis which are always a popular destination such as Melbournbe, Sydney and Brisbane. The worlds largest reef which is the Great Barrier Reef s also located here and attracts an enormous number of visitors each year (Managing our coastal zone in a changing climate, 2009). There is also the Australian outback and the wildlife and culture in these rural places which also has been a favourite for many years. Reforms taken: There has been a program called Tourism 2020 which aims to improve the Australian torurism industry. It is a national strategy which has been taken so as to help government in working with the industry so that they might be able to have twice the overnight expendutire of international as well as domestic tourists to somehwere between 115 billions dollars and 140 billions dolaars by 2020. To be able to acheieve there are certain things that are required. One of them is effective and high impact advertising campaigns run both locally and globally so as to increase the footfall in Australia. They also want around a five bundred thousand more people employed in the labour force by 2020 and hope that this would be needed to meet demand (Austrade.gov.au, n.d.). They also have plans for the increase in the aviation sector and how this could help with getting more travellers to Australia. The government of the Australia, state and the territory governments along with the key stakeholders in the tourism industry have been working so as to introduce reforms to better the industry. The key areas they have been seeking to reform include the case of visitor visas such that they are quicker easier and way more competitive. They also aim to develop a workforce skilled precisely at what they are doing in the tourism industry to further improve it. They also want to improve transport and reap the benefits in such that it would increase the number of tourists. The aviation industry particularly has been talked about along with improvements in the customer service industry in a bid to improve the flexibility to meet the demand generated in the tourism sector and to also increase the access that is required for the development of the industry. They also recommend increased cross portfolio collaboration within all levels of Australian Governments to plan and drive the reform of the visitor economy. They also hope to integrate national and state tourism plans into regional developme nt and local government planning to generate effective infrastructure to service regional communities, services to the visitors and encourage private investment in tourism infrastructure. This list of reforms have been made final under the Tourism 2020 Implementation Plan which is to be carried out between 2015 to 2020 and it was finalised in the August of 2015 and the carrying out of these activities as determined is to be done by the Australian Tourism minister. Except this there are some urgent changes which also need to be made in the infrastructure of the industry so as to retain goodwill. Firstly there is shortage of luxury accommodation in most of the major business cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth etc. It is seen that the occupancy rates for the luxury hotels tend to reach at around 90% while the occupancy rates for most other hotels is around 65% in peak season (Beirman, 2017). This has in turn lent it self to the stagnation of the business travel market in the country which is in strong contrast to how well the holiday market has grown. Another is that the cruise services are now a major source of income in the tourism industry but along with this there is requirement of ports where these cruises can dick. There is dearth of such docking ports most importantly in Sydney which is one of the places people want to visit the most. If the Sydney port is not able to offer ports that are exclusively for the use of these cruises t hen there might be problems with growth in this sector. There is also the issue of the railroad between Melbourne and Brisbane via Canberra and Sydney which is making glacial progress. The high speed ralways could take some of the pressure off the airports which is supposed to come under pressure with the increase in visitors. Till now the airports in Australia have been able to handle the pressure that is being given to them and is also equipped to handle increase in passengers. But having railways as a just as worthy alternative couldnt hurt. One of the most best ways to grow would be to focus on the Chinese tourist market which is starting to grow in Australia (Zarich, 2017). Conclusion: Even though tourism is poised to be one of the main contributors to the GDP there is some hesitance to take it seriously as a sector. It fails to factor in that it is a labour intensive industry and is thus able to provide employment to even low skilled workers. It is also a major contributor to the fall in the unemployment of the country when the economic performance on the whole of the country has been subpar (Pascoe, 2016). A large number of growths in retail products in touristy areas can also be attributed to this growth in tourism in the country. Thus it can be said that the holidays are very serious business. References Austrade.gov.au. (n.d.).Policy and Strategy - For Australian tourism providers - Austrade. [online] Available at: https://www.austrade.gov.au/Australian/Tourism/Policy-and-Strategy [Accessed 25 Apr. 2017]. Beirman, D. (2017).Australia needs to invest if it wants the tourism boom to continue. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-to-invest-if-it-wants-the-tourism-boom-to-continue-71407 [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Managing our coastal zone in a changing climate. (2009). Canberra: The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. Pascoe, M. (2016).Tourism is seriously good business for Australia. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/tourism-is-seriously-good-business-for-australia-20160203-gml8iz.html [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Tourism.australia.com. (n.d.).Tourism Statistics - Research - Tourism Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.tourism.australia.com/statistics.aspx [Accessed 25 Apr. 2017]. Zarich, K. (2017).Australia cashing in on Lunar New Year tourism. [online] www.sbs.com.au. Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/01/27/australia-cashing-lunar-new-year-tourism [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017].

Monday, December 2, 2019

Rana Essays - Rana, Lithobates, Amphibians, Northern Leopard Frog

Rana Pipiens Leopard Frog - Rana Pipiens Distribution: Found throughout Ontario but more abundant in southern and central Americas. Range: Adults maintain small home ranges (up to 500 m2) in fields or open forest during the summer. Where terrestrial habitats are quite dry, home ranges include some shoreline. A minimum of 4 ha of terrestrial habitat is recommended for the vicinity of breeding sites, however, individual adults may move several kilometres away. Most recently metamorphosed froglets stay within 20 m of shoreline although some froglets begin dispersal before metamorphosis is entirely complete. Diet: Larvae eat algae, phytoplankton, periphyton and detritus. Adults eat mainly invertebrates but will also take tadpoles or very small froglets. Reproduction: Successful breeding sites are permanent ponds, marshes, or pools or backwaters of streams. Eggs and tadpoles require warm (prefer 18o - 28o C), shallow, sunny areas. Breeding occurs from mid-March to mid-May in southern Ontario, and a few weeks later further north. Metamorphosis occurs in 2-3 months. Tadpoles require minimum oxygen concentrations of 3 ppm. Habitat: Relative to bullfrogs and green frogs, leopard frogs use open fields more and prefer denser terrestrial vegetation. In aquatic habitats, submerged vegetation, detritus and soft mud are used for cover. Lookout/Sunning Froglets require muddy shorelines, lily pads, rocks, logs or beaver dams with clear access to deeper water. Adults prefer unmowed fields (15 - 30 cm high, no more than 1 m high vegetation) or open forest in the vicinity of shallow open marshes. Connectivity/Corridors Corridors may be required among breeding, hibernation and summeringhabitats, within 2 km. These may be either aquatic (streams or rivers) or terrestrial (field or forest, usually not cropland except during periods of irrigation). Hibernation Hibernate in deep or running water that will not freeze solid or become anoxic. Are found hibernating on muddy substrate or under rocks, sunken logs, leaf litter or vegetation. Oxygen levels at one known successful hibernation site were 7 ppm. Tadpoles metamorphose in the year of hatching. Hydrology Permanent wetlands with fishless areas or near fishless (temporary) wetlands. Breeding requires sufficient water for metamorphosis to be completed (mid-late August). Soils/Substrate In water prefer muddy bottom. On land prefer moist soil, leaf litter or moss. Design Criteria Vegetation Prefer egg-laying sites with emergent vegetation on about 2/3 of edge and submergent vegetation in 1/2 of surface area in May. Structures Rocks, logs, floating vegetation or dams to sun on, with access to deep water. Submerged vegetation, logs or rocks to hide in. Soils, Slope, & Substrate Prefer wetlands with gradual slope at edge. Hydrology Hibernate in streams with minimum depth 90 cm, moderate mid-depth water velocity, minimal sedimentation, and rocks with average diameter of 20 cm. Critical Periods Breed April-June, metamorphose July-September Other Considerations Froglets are used as bait for fishing. Has declined in much of its western range and apparently in northern Ontario. Tadpoles and froglets are vulnerable to predation by large Bullfrogs and fish. Bibliography References Cook, F. R. 1966. Amphibians and reptiles of Saskatchewan. Regina: Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History, Department of Natural Resources. . 1984. Introduction to Canadian Amphibians and Reptiles. Ottawa: National Museum of Natural Sciences. Corn, P. S., and J. C. Fogleman. 1984. Extinction of Montane Populations of the Northern Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens) in Colorado. Journal of Herpetology 18: 147152. Cunjak, R. A. 1986. Winter Habitat of Northern Leopard Frogs, Rana pipiens, in a Southern Ontario Stream. Canadian Journal of Zoology 64: 255257. Emery, A. R., A. H. Berst, and K. Lodaira. 1972. Underice Observations of Wintering Sites of Leopard Frogs. Copeia 1972 (1): 123126. Hammerson Geoffrey A. 1982. Bullfrog Eliminating Leopard Frogs in Colorado? Herp Review 13 (4): 115116. Hine, R. L., B. L. Les, and B. F. Hellmich. 1981. Leopard Frog Populations and Mortality in Wisconsin, 197476. Department of Natural Resources, Madison, Wisconsin. McAlpine, D. F., and T. G. Dilworth. 1989. Microhabitat and Prey Size among Three Species of Rana (Anura: Ranidae) sympatric in eastern Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 67: 22442252. Merrell, D. J. 1977. Life History of the Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens, in Minnesota. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota. Niven, B. S., J. C. Moore, and M. G. Stewart. 1982. The Precise Environment of Some WellKnown Animals X. The Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens). Brisbane, Australia: School of Environmental Studies. AES Paper 6/82. 32 p. Roberts, W. E. 1981. What Happened to the Leopard Frogs? Alberta Naturalist 11: 14. Seburn, C. N. L., Seburn David C., and C. A. Paszkowski. in press. Northern Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens) Dispersal in Relation to Habitat. Amphibians in Decline: The Report of the Canadian Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force. Wassersug, R.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Poems paper Essay Example

Poems paper Essay Example Poems paper Essay Poems paper Essay In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames of rebellion. .The greased cartridge what was it all about? The army so far had been quipped with the smooth-barrelled musket, which had a protracted loading procedure and was not accurate over long ranges. The new Enfield rifles, which were now being issued, had grooved or rifled barrels. This made them more accurate and gave them a longer range. The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge.To load the rifle, the end of the cartridge containing the powder had to be bitten off so that the charge would ignite. The cartridge was then rammed down the muzzle of the rifle.. The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. To the cow reverencing Hindu and the pig paranoid Muslims having to bite this was repellent, defiling and deadly to their religious prospects. The Revolt of 1857-58 was the biggest and bloodiest conflict against any European colonial power during the nineteenth century.This book is essentially about the heroes Tatya Tope, Nana Saheb, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur and not to forget, a few villains. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. It was a source of inspiration for the national liberation movement, which later achieved what the revolt could not. ***************************************************************************************************** You have been stranded on a desert island. Describe your first 24 hours alone on the island. The first thing that hit me was the smell.Even before I opened my eyes, I knew where I was. The tantalizing scent of washed-up waves and bananas all rolled into one. I felt the millions of grains of sand, hot against my fingers and the cool breeze against my face, a relief from the sweltering sun. I heard the sea crawling onto the sand and, further away, the same monster dashing against the rocks. As I opened my mouth to take in a gulp of air, I tasted salt in my throat. Not the same taste as on Brighton Pier, when you look over into the sea, but a fresh, clean one, as if taking in pure oxygen.Only then, when my four other senses had taken in their share of my surroundings, did I allow myself to open my eyes. I was amazed at how easily fantasy and reality intertwined at that moment. It was like continuing a dream after waking up. As I lifted my eyelids, as the Nowadays, people are well equipped with many technology gadgets and items, so do I. If I was stranded on a deserted island, there would be unlimited things I would like to bring with me. However, since I can only bring three things, I would carry a knife, box of matches and a big jar.I believe those three things would help me surviving in such difficult living condition. First, a knife could be utilized in many ways. On such island, there could exist lots of wild and dangerous animals or species, from which the knife could protect me. Besides the tent, I could make hunting tools, such as: javelin, arrows and bow or set traps to hunt for food. Moreover, a knife can be used for cutting fruits from trees, and skinning the hunted animals. Not only I have food, but I also have variety of choices. Animals can be hunted and killed, but that does not mean they are ready for eating.That explains the reason I brought box of matches, to make fire. Actually, the main purpose of the fire is to keep me warm at night on this deserted island. However, it can be used for many others reasons. Cooking the food, boiling water, chasing away the dangerous animals, creating smoke to attract other human, if any, are only a few examples of utilizing the fire. Wasnt the fire one of the greatest discovery of human and also the key of developing society? That is why I brought a box of matches. Human can survive without food for a long time, but only three days without water would kill a person.Therefore, my big jar will be used for catching rain, which would be boiled and used for water. As mentioned earlier, in ordet to live through this terrible condition, I need water. In conclusion, those three things might seems simple and boring, but they are necessary for the survival of myself on a deserted island. [continues] If I were alone on a deserted island, the first thing I would wish I had brought with me would be my two boys because they would give me the strength to get through each day. Although, my children are not things without them I wouldn’t want or need anything else nor would I have the strength to fight for survival.Having my boys would prevent me from becoming lonely they would offer me a lifetime of entertainment (considering how comical they both are), and also help prevent me from losing my sanity. My boys and I would not be able to maintain healthy diets if we ate only fish, therefore, the second thing I wish I would have brought are seeds. We would plant the seeds to grow our favorite fruits and vegetables. We would be able to enjoy eating healthy, as well as, heighten our survival rate. The third thing I wish I would have brought, if I am able to count it as one item, would be a full size, solar powered house boat.My house boat would be fully equipped with furniture, appliances, linens, and a water purification system. It would also be stocked with our daily living essentials: to maintain our hygiene and stay in good health we would have anti-bacterial soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and clothing; to help us hunt, prepare, cook, and eat our food we would have pots and pans, eating and cooking utensils, plants and bowls, a set of sharp knifes, etc. ; to keep ourselves and each other entertained we would have our favorite board games, books to read, sketch paper, and pencils.If I had my boys, seeds to plant, and my wonderful over exaggerating houseboat I would live comfortably on a deserted island for a long time. Boys Discovered on Desert Island Continental 118 was heading from London to Sydney when it was reported missing almost a month ago. The crash site was discovered last night by a British naval patrol ship and thirty-six young boys were rescued safely. The plane lost communication twenty minutes into the flight and authorities say there was no way of knowing where the plane could have gone down. The search was widespread, but with no general co-ordinates the search was not looking good.Search planes and helicopters were sent out, but after three weeks of searching with no leads or results the search was called off. The plane departed London with fifty-two passengers; all of whom were young boys searching for refuge in Australia. The only adults on board were the airline staff and pilot. All eleven staff members died in the crash leaving the boys to fend for themselves. The plane’s black box was recently recovered and after careful inspection the information was released. A heavy storm threw the planes stabilizers and

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Ghost on The Stage essays

Ghost on The Stage essays Sometimes when asked to write an essay on an important person in your life, most people automatically gear towards a best friend or sometimes, a family member. Someone whos left an impact on my life isnt necessarily a best friend, or a family member. I discovered Davey about 2 years ago, and Ive loved and respected him wholly ever since. The first time I heard Davey was in the song But Home Is Nowhere... back in November of 2002, because a friend of mine wanted me to listen to it. After hearing the range Davey got with his voice, and the way he could transition beautifully from screaming to singing, I was in awe. After hearing Daveys amazing voice and reading his lyrics, I felt that he really understood me. Including how nice he acts towards his fans. From that day, I decided to do research on Davey and his band and from what I learned about him made me appreciate him even more. Besides being a very talented musician, he is also very nice, sweet, and caring. He has a compassion for animals and a desire to live as healthy as possible which is what compelled him to become vegan in 1998 after being a vegetarian for 2 years. I find drug use disrespectful, self destructive and weak. I want no part of it. I believe in complete respect for myself and others. Which is the reason why he lives a straight-edge lifestyle. Th at means he stays away from drugs, alcohol, and will not be having sex until hes married. 'I've never been drunk, I've never done any drugs. I've never found it appealing. I didn't like the way other people acted when they were on drugs and I didn't like the way they treated each other when they were on drugs. For most bands I don't think drugs are a creative aid at all. He has inspired me to take up a straight-edge lifestyle of my own, because of his reasons. He also helped to inspire me on making my decision about whether or ...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Event Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Event Proposal - Essay Example ns inherent in the days of the yore, either because they do not get the time or chance to engage in historical research or studies or because they find the entire process to be boring and drab. However, if an era is presented to an audience in a movie format, accompanied by a commensurate opportunity for fun and pleasure, it could safely be assumed that a majority of the people will prefer to vouch for such an event. Herein, lays the conception of an event by the name 1920s NIGHT. The idea is to organize a 1920s movie night followed by any after show party. The movie to be presented will be The Gatsby that is not only typically representative of the 1920s society, but the themes inherent in it also have a contemporary appeal. A survey was conducted to gauge the people interest in such an event. Forty Five of the 60 participants voted in favour of such an event and the same number agreed to participate in both the sections that is the movie and the after movie party. Thirty three of t he participants agreed to participate in both the sections, besides, twenty eight participants agreed to pay for the movie and the party, 7 agreed to pay only for the movie and 28 agreed to pay only for the party. Also, surprisingly, 50 of the 60 participants agreed to dress up in consonance with the theme of the proposed event that is 1920s. To begin with, the location of the event has been selected while taking into consideration the convenience of the target audience (Watt 2003, p. 190). The primary objective is to enhance participation and to dilute the dropout rate (Watt 2003, p. 190). All the participants will be contacted in a personalized way and the marketing and communications activities will be designed while focusing on a pragmatic segmentation of the target audience (Varey 2002). The pricing of the event has also been so designed to offer the apt pre registration incentives, thereby encouraging the participants for both the movie and the after movie party. A continual

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Joseph Kony Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Joseph Kony - Term Paper Example This paper therefore presents a qualitative research using both primary and secondary data to examine the opinions of the public to the issue. The Primary data is gathered from 5 students using questionnaires. Secondary data is gathered from various internet websites and journals that analyze opinions on this issue. The opinions gathered in this research showed that has expressed mixed reactions to the issue, with some supporting it and others do not. Various arguments are advanced in support of the different perspectives of the public. Joseph Kony is the head of a Ugandan Guerilla group known as Lord Resistant Army (LRA). This group was formed in 1987 with an agenda of overthrowing the government of Uganda. According to Ksilvers (2012), this group enjoyed massive public support initially. However, this changed after the group turned against its own supporters in the process of trying to turn Uganda into a theocracy. Kony is a superstitious leader who claims that he is a spirit medium and a spokesman of God. He believes that if he succeeds in overthrowing Ugandan government, he can create a more suitable government based on theocracy and guided by the biblical Ten Commandments. His soldiers have crosses painted on their chests and believe that this will protect them from bullets. Unfortunately, the actions of this group directly contrast the requirements of biblical principles. However, though as the survey portrays most people did not know Kony before his indictment by the ICC, Kony remains as the biggest threat t o peace and stability in Norhtern Uganda, having carried out massive abductions and killings in his guerrilla tactics. As noted earlier, LRA, originally called United Holy Salvation Army (UHSA) was established in 1987. Its agenda was political and the ruling party, the National Resistant Army led by Ugandan President did not perceive it as a threat

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Infosys Case Analysis Essay Example for Free

Infosys Case Analysis Essay ? Case analysis infosys document structure We have approached the case by first analyzing the identified issues, and then associate root causes to those issues. Further to it we have used two frameworks, â€Å"Web of Change† and â€Å"Hewitt Best Employer Characteristics†, to theoretically assess the weaknesses in Infosys Human Resource and Change Management policies. These frameworks can be used by organizations to better plan their change management and human resource management initiatives. We have used â€Å"Hewitt’s Best Employer Survey†, to identify the key initiatives which Infosys should undertake to enable it to reach its target of â€Å"Best Employer† by 2011. Further to it we believe that â€Å"Best Employer† and â€Å"Best Performer† are complementary goals, and it’s difficult to achieve one without the other, and hence we have identified the key initiatives which can help Infosys to achieve â€Å"Best Performer† target without compromising on its â€Å"Best Employer† objective. about infosys Infosys is the second largest Indian IT software services company. Infosys has reached pinnacles of success in short span of 20 years, through innovative business strategies and human resource practices. Currently it is facing challenges around balancing between business growth and employee satisfaction. About its business Model Infosys delivers IT services to its clients globally in a model called GDM (Global Delivery Model). The main characteristic of this model is that it decouples client location and project execution. Project is executed in locations which provide best combination of cost and talent. Project teams are spread across client site and offshore development centers in countries like India, China, and Mexico etc which provide rich availability of talent at competitive cost. Usually teams at client site document requirements and manage client relationship and offshore team manages delivery. This is a human resource intensive industry and the challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most of the resources are highly skilled professionals (engineers, MBAs, computer scientists etc). Being an industry where human resource is your only asset and your only competitive advantage, managing, ssues and Root Cause analysis In this section we’ll analyze the issues identified in the case and will attempt to identify root causes which led to employee dissatisfaction. After our analysis we believe that issues mentioned in the case is symptomatic of gaps in general principles of leadership, change management and HRM. Policies are not written in blood and stone, and they change ov er the lifetime of organizations. What should not change are basic organizations principles around human resource management. Our assessment is that policy changes in Infosys were reflective of external environment and business imperatives. However, diverging from the basic principles of Change management, leadership, communication and employee development in implementing new policies is what led to its fall in Best Employer ratings. â€Å"Stock Options started lacking luster to the new employees and created equity imbalance among employees† Stakeholders involved New Employees Discontentment Impact Inequity of income/wealth effect in the company which created tension between employees. New employees who had seen Infosys from outside as an organization committed to fairness, equity, and employee wealth creation got disenchanted. Root Cause Failure to Manage Expectations This issue primarily arose because of incorrect expectation setting of new employees. Infosys kept on using stock options and the millionaires’ stories as branding activity, even when stock options were no more an incentive to new recruits. Company should have made it very clear about its new compensation philosophy when it discontinued ESOPS. 1. Managing scale and attrition risk Stakeholders involved Employees Managers Discontentment Impact Infosys was growing at a speed where it was doubling its organizational strength every 1-2 years. However organization was plagued by high attrition rate. Employees felt lack of motivation, due to repetitive process tasks, which the business model demanded. Due to high growth, a lot of employees moved up the managerial ladder, but lacked proper training and orientation and hence couldn’t connect to employees Root Cause Lack of Employee fulfillment ( from the job ) Detached Lleaderships To stress on the need for the above two, we’ll give two examples from Indian public sector. Indian Railways Indian railways has recently transformed itself into a highly profitable organization, and according to the officer on special with Railways, single most critical factor which contributed to this success is involvement and commitment of employees of railways despite having a poor compensation structure. Employees of Indian railways take great pride in their work, since they believe they are contributing to the running of the country’s biggest infrastructure and are responsible for transporting of 2 crore customers every days. This association with organizational goal and pride in your organization is what makes an organization for perpetuity. Due to changing business needs, Iinfosys couldn’t connect to its employees in motivating them. Indian Army A unit commander in the army is able to inspire its soldiers to give up their life, compensation etc notwithstanding. The only reasons soldiers are so committed, is their immediate leader. It depends on the unit commander’s ability to connect to his soldiers, motivate them and show a genuine concern for their wellbeing, is what motivates the soldiers to do the unthinkable for their leader. According to research in human resources field, people leave managers and not companies. The leadership skills of managers are the greatest source of employee fulfillment at work. Lack of engagement and commitment of managers towards their subordinates, was probably the single biggest reason for high attrition rate at Infosys. 2. Strong formalization and process orientation, which came as part of growth, took away bandwidth to innovate from employees. Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Employees who were used to getting the thrill and satisfaction from using their skill on technical challenges were feeling cocooned because of new process driven and re-use methodology. Similar impact was observed in people policy issues. All personal policies were getting more and more formalized. Root Cause Lack of employee Motivation Resistance to change One of the basic principles of organization design is that you don’t use strong formalization from highly skilled agents (employees). Formalization is for low skilled repeatable tasks. Infosys should have come up with business models aimed at high end, value added services much earlier. This would have kept its inherent talent not only motivated but better utilized for higher margins. In 1990s moving away from body shopping to GDM provide this opportunity, but in early to middle 2000s, Iinfosys couldn’t reinvent itself. Formalization in organizational policies when it grows out from entrepreneurial stage is inevitable. It’s actually needed to ensure consistent implementation of policies and create a sense of equity and fairness among employee. Dissatisfaction on this front could be attributed to resistance to change, and hence effective change management principles should be employed for disruptive changes. 3. Introduction of variable pay Stakeholders involved Employees Senior Management HR Department Discontentment Impact Variable pay was received with a lot of skepticism by the employees, fearing that it was introduced to reduce their compensation Root Cause/s Change Management Failure Lack of Leadership engagement Communication Failure This was probably one of the most disruptive changes introduced by Infosys. The amount of skepticism and distrust displayed by employees was a first in Infosys. Immediate reaction of employees was that this policy has been introduced to cut employee costs to satisfy shareholders demand for higher and higher profitability. The fact that a vast majority of senior management were shareholders in the company added to employee distrust. There was no clarity among employees how this policy will pan out. A lot of employees were not comfortable in linking their performance to factors outside their control (market conditions, decision taken by management etc). Also since the amount of variable component was high (more than 50% for project managers and above), employees could not understand how much their monthly take home were. This is a classic case of failure in change management and involvement of leadership at every level. Infosys data on variable payout shows that most of the time company has delivered 100% payout and even higher percentage to high performers. So employee skepticism bore from lack of clarity and communication on this policy. Lack of clarity, communication and involvement of employees was to such an extent that even middle management was taken by surprise by this policy. Many managers, who couldn’t appreciate the policy implementation, were reluctant in communicating the changes to the employees. For an employee first point of contact for clarification is his/her immediate line manager, hence it’s important to fully equip leadership at every level with information. To understand the role what leadership plays in motivating, retaining employees, we should look at armed forces. Unit commanders are able to motivate their employees to give their life, despite the fact that compensation package of soldiers is one of the lowest. This commitment in subordinates comes because of total commitment of their leader in engaging with them and motivating with them. Immediate line managers are the biggest reason employees leave an organization and are also the main reason employees go beyond their capabilities to outperform. 4. Retaining Organizational Culture with fast track growth Stakeholders involved HR Department Employees Discontentment Impact Due to business growth imperatives, and its business model, Infosys was doubling its employee strength every 1-2 years. To accommodate this type of growth, it had to lower its hiring standards and quality and culture was a victim of this. Root Cause/s Lack of Employee on boarding ( orientation) planning This issue had an impact on multiple facets. It led to a feeling disenchantment in existing employees, as they felt their brand equity in the market was getting diluted. New employees, who were not able to appreciate infosys inherent culture, didn’t felt comfortable and had a feeling that the organization is biased toward old employees. Root cause of this issue was that although organization had changed its selection criteria, it didn’t change its employee orientation strategy, or training methodology. Infosys should have changed its orientation program to be more customized offering for similar group of employees and using existing employees as mentor to help develop organizational culture and values in new employees. Similarly if you are hiring for quantity and not quality, it should have modified its training plan to be more exhaustive. 5. Broad Banding and promotions Stakeholders involved Employees Discontentment Impact Lack of faith in the organization Chaos and confusion in employees minds Root Cause/s Change Management Communication Leadership This policy again created a lot of employee discomfort since they didn’t knew the details of change. It’s again a classic change management failure. Although the policy was designed to bring more clarity in role structure and bring equity amongst similar roles, across the organization, poor communications created fear and scientism in minds of people. We can observe from the reinvention of Indian Railways, one of the reasons organization could progress on the growth trajectory, was employee commitment to the cause of Indian Railways, despite of low compensation. Employees felt proud to be part of the world’s biggest railways and were motivated to excel. Some of the senior managers lacked clarity about policies, hence they were apprehensive of clarifying the policy. This shows a major organizational failure in terms of change management and engagement of leadership with people. Similarly as discussed above, since employee appraisal parameters were not clearly defined, an employee could not appreciate how his/her appraisal going to impact promotions? Web Of Change – Change Management Framework To do substantiate our above understanding of issues at Iinfosys, we used â€Å"Web of Change†, a change management framework to understand the change management issues at Infosys. â€Å"Web of change: is the framework proposed by Stephen Thomas. This model defines 8 change elements as shown below and the web of change helps us to see how the values of each element changed during the Organization Change process in Infosys. The baseline score is the value of the Change elements in Infosys during the glory years of 1990’s and the re-assessment scores the value of the same change elements in the 2000’s when Infosys was going through the â€Å"Growth pangs†.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Essay example --

Shakespeare’s play ‘Taming of the Shrew’ was written between the years 1590 and 1592 and is categorized as a comedy, mainly for its comedic elements of playfulness and disguises. It has been criticised for its elements of misogyny that have caused controversy; distracting many from its comedic nature. Hodgdon maintains that the play has sparked remarkable angst from its Elizabethan patriarchal power structure which seamlessly no longer ties with modern cultural gender ideology. Elizabethan women were made to be obedient to their husbands and never intervene with the outside world known as the man’s world. Knox quoted â€Å"To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature† suggesting the limitation of women in society. Katherina challenges these values by appearing the exact opposite of a traditional 16th century woman as she is hot-tempered, sharp-tongued and rebellious until she meets her match. Audiences observe an excessive amount of dramatic comedy in the form of farce in Act 2. Kate and Petruchio can be argued to be devised as extreme characters to perform comedic functions, hence shouldn't be taken sincerely. It is possible to execute this comedy in a way that brings out its farcical construction. Katherina and Petruchio engage in a lengthy battle of wit. Katherina refers to Petruchio as ‘a joint stool’, in which Petruchio retaliates with ‘come sit on me’. Their remarks are exaggerated thus only continuing to build sexual tension, as Petruchio counters Katharina with sexual innuendos. Shrewish women were often described as crabs. In using the term: 'I see a crab', Katherina positions Petruchio on a corresponding level with herself. A crab apple is a sour... ...ates'. These two lines portray Petruchio's scheme: he seeks 'one rich enough to be' his wife, and is convinced he will make Kate conform with his standards for a wife. Petruchio emphasis through the repetitiveness of Kate's name within the structure, endorses his authority: he has the ability to conform Kate. There is demonstration of male superiority throughout the rest of the play, portraying injustice in equality. During Act 2 Kate is shrewish but soon as she marries; her character traits begin to wither away, making her fit the role of women in Shakespearean time. Shakespeare could have intended to show the injustice of the role of women in Shakespearean times, implying that even the strong fall weak. He uses the play to mock society's norms but does have to come to a conclusion to show Katherina as vulnerable like any other women were portrayed at that the time

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Challenges in HRM Essay

The main purpose of this article is to define the five major challenges in HRM. With the constant employee demands and constant negative consequences for employees, there has always been a need to satisfy them and provide them with benefits. HRM or human resource management is what looks into these types of issues and it focus on managing them efficiently and appropriately. The goal of this process addresses the most beneficial way to support employees while achieving results. Due to that reason, specific things need to be thought about thoroughly and plans must be made to asses those things. With this always comes challenges and in an article posted on Forbes, five of these challenges are put into perspective and they are explained with an enough detail to understand the reasons for focusing on theses specific issues. The key question that the author (s) is addressing is What it takes to be a good Leader and what are the top challenges for HRM to develop those leaders. Leadership skills are very important in today’s society and in every business. Being a leader is in itself a challenge. The most important information in this article is: Developing and retaining the best leaders is going to be one of the most important roles for Human Resources. The HR department has a clear role in this process and what it takes to determine the success of the organization. The main point(s) of view presented in this article are the challenges in HRM. The first two challenges are the investment in leadership development and to create a culture of collaboration. The reason for investing in leadership development is because it helps the best employees attain those necessary attributes to become a good leader. Some of these training includes something like a worthy education program through universities. Although this type of training might end up being expensive, the results of this investment are more beneficial than anything else. Helping the employees achieve their potential has a leader creates more leaders with improved skills and capabilities. Next challenge that is addressed is the need for a culture within the workplace that is based on collaboration. Individual improvement is not sufficient enough to have a successful group of employees. Building a need for collaboration will help  those leaders work with other employees in a more efficient man ner. Collaboration can help a group of workers to do things as a unit and preferably reap better results. These are just two of the challenges in human resource managing that should be focused on in a business that will eventually lead to a better functioning staff. Managing these matters in the best way for the company is necessary and a significant part of HRM. The next two challenges presented in HRM are developing communicating skills and accountability. Having leaders and employees with good communication skills is a must and training should be given to those who lack in the skill. Without proper communication a team bond is harder to form and trust will also be hard to achieve. Leaders that have good communicating skills are able to build this type of unity in a group of workers which may help improve productivity from everyone. It is also a good thing to make sure that the standard for this type of skill is high. Employees, especially leaders, should always be looking for constant ways to improve how they communicate with other co-workers. The key concept we need to understand in this article is that: Leadership constantly presents challenges both to the leader’s abilities and to a person. Things change, change brings challenge, and no matter how good a leader, they can’t stop that from happening. How leaders handles those challenges will define them as a leader and have a great deal to do with how effective they can be. Some challenges come in the form of people or problems that present obstacles to reaching a goal. Far more come from within the leader itself, or from the situation of simply being a leader. Every leader must face many of those challenges and learn to deal with them in some way. The main conclusion in the article is: Leaders and HRM personnel need to raise awareness of the challenges that they are facing and the responsibilities that they have to develop the future leaders. References 5 Great Challenges Ahead For HR And Leaders – Forbes. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/2012/11/11/5-greatest-challenges-ahead

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Case Study on Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Essay

Being successful in change implementation, the change strategist should understanding the need to change, able to develop a direction that lead the crowd to move forward, obtain support from implementers and recipients and set up plans and structure that facilitate change and encourage continuously improvement. ! Able to understanding the need to changes Charlotte Beer as the change strategist successful understood the challenges facing by O&M externally and internally. Advertising industry was going globalized and customers demand â€Å"better service at lower cost†. Strong competitions in the market threatened O&M business by taking away their important clients. Internally, O&M was unable adapt to the changing demand. Operating cost and agency fee was high while quality of work diminished and cooperation was limited among staffs. Therefore, Charlotte Beer adopted â€Å"Re-creation†, change the Company values and strategy to tackle threats. ! Successfully set up a common vision and encourage moving forward Beers worked out a vision with a group of change leaders and set up a clear direction focusing on brand stewardship. The vision â€Å"To be the agency most valued by those who most value brands† imbed the belief of brand stewardship and visualize how excellent O&M should be in future. It is encouraging, easily remembered and it leads employees’ direction to brand-orientated. However, there should be more elaboration and it was good that Beers provided some ideas on how to achieve it as well as the culture and behavior the company appreciated. This made a good start for the change program. ! Implementation plan can hit the objective and remove O&M from urgent threats. Beers had set some objectives which help to tackle the most urgent problems. Besides setting up a new direction, she needed to gain back the clients by improving the output emphasizing value of brand as well as made better use of resources. No doubt, Beers and her appointed implementers had successfully worked out brand stewardship and gained back the support from multinational clients which not only secured O&M business but also brought encouragement to the Company. By setting up WCS, hoping centralization leads to better use of resources and provide better and standardize service. Structure and system hinder the practice of Brand Stewardship Beers’s plan able to release O&M from immediate threat, but in long-run the change was not fully implemented and substantive. Beers should urgently addressed the tensions between WCS and local agencies due to job allocation, resources distribution and reward system as it discouraged the change recipients to practice brand stewardship and perform well in their job. This would affect the efficiency, waste of resources as well as affect the clients. Beers should refine the structure and redesign the work process to encourage cooperation by better define of duties, enhance flexibility, and impose a compensation system that reward contribution on brand stewardship. Limited support from implementers and recipients One person cannot make the change happen. During vision set up stage, Beers  successfully created a change team and appointed some implementers to carry out her plan. However, Beers needed to go further in communicating and enhancing commitment of the change team so that they could fully understand brand stewardship and to cultivate this culture in O&M. Furthermore, brand stewardship was not fully translated to employees, as they don’t have a structure and policy to guide them and not enough role models they can look up to as executives are not fully committed in brand stewardship either. More training or promotion campaign should be organized. Reinforce brand stewardship To walk the talk is important. Beers could continuously reward and recognize the behaviors that demonstrated brand stewardship so that people mindset would change gradually. To conclude, Beer’s change implementation was successful in short-run but to sustain the change and correct the defect, she needed to institutionalize the change continuously. Reference Todd D. Jick & Maury A. Peiperl. (2011). Managing Change Cases and Concepts (3rd ed.).New York: McGraw-Hill Education

Friday, November 8, 2019

geronimo essays

geronimo essays Summary: Geronimo and the Apache Resistance The Myth about Geronimo portrays him as an implacable savage, but in reality he is a man that risked everything including his family, his land, his home, and his way of life to fight for his beliefs. He is said to have magical powers. He can see into the future, walk without leaving any footprints, and he can even hold off the dawn to protect his own. Geronimo is a Cheewakawa Apache, and for twenty-five years this warrior has defied federal authority with his band of thirty-seven followers. The Cheewakawa are nomadic hunters, gatherers, and warriors that call themselves the people. It is believed that there is a single Apache Nation, but there are, rather, many single groups spread across the Southwest. One of these groups is the Cheewakawa Apache. They fight only to survive and defend the rights of their land, they never want war. The Apache do not permit any challenges to the rights of their land. Geronimo is also falsely believed to be a warrior chief, when in fact, he is a Medicine Man and the influential mentor of Nichee the true hereditary leader of their people. Geronimo is a holy man with access to the supernatural power in the land. The Apache are inseparable to the natural world which is beauty, harmony, and the power infested with life. The dominant society (settlers) label them as raiders, thieves, savages, and warring people. But these means are necessary in order to survive, and that is what the whites do not understand. The year is 1800, and the Mexican border is as far north as the Apache camps. However, Mexico does not recognize the rights of the Apache and their land, and as a result, there is constant conflict between the inhabitants. In 1840, the Apache are facing near extermination because they will not surrender their land or their way of life. And now, bounty hunters now earn $100 for male Apache scalps, $50 for female Apache scalps, a ...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

How to Get Book Reviews on Amazon Our Method for Free Book Reviews

How to Get Book Reviews on Amazon Our Method for Free Book Reviews How to Get Book Reviews on Amazon: Our Method for Free Book Reviews Book reviews are what make or break you as an author and since Amazon is the leader in book retailers, getting reviews on Amazon is even more important.As scary as it can be to leave your own fate in the hands of others, its true especially if you publish through Amazon.As a self-published author, having a portfolio of authentic positive Amazon reviews, right from the beginning, can skyrocket your book launch and make your book stand out in your market. And yet it is one of the hardest things to get.For any Amazon product, positive or negative product reviews can be the difference between success and failure.Heres how to get amazon book reviews:Learn Amazon book review guidelinesBuild a launch team for book reviewsContact Amazon top reviewersApply to book review sitesInclude a reminder in your bookRelaunch your bookDeal with negative reviewsGo through the Amazon book review checklistTheres nothing more painful after going through the blood, sweat, and tears of writing, publishing, a nd launching your book, to get very few to no sales because of your lack of reviews.But where do we start to get Amazon reviews? Who do we ask? How do we get reviews that our audience will respect? How many people should we have on our launch team to guarantee a certain number of reviews for setting up promotional sites?How many reviews is enough?We will look at the ways to get legitimate Amazon reviews for your book so that you can reap the benefits of turning your book into a thriving long-term business.NOTE: We cover everything in this blog post and much more about the writing, marketing, and publishing process in our VIP Self-Publishing Program. Learn more about it hereHow to Get Amazon Reviews and the Review ProcessWhen you publish a book, there are essentially 6 things that score at making your book a bestseller. They are:A great book cover design.An irresistible book title.An amazing book description.Stealthy keywords.Targeted book categories.And†¦ Book Reviews.When Amaz on ranks your book, the ranking is based on the volume of downloads your book gets and, the amount of reviews stacked on the book’s review page.Amazon’s system is designed to take notice of books that are getting steady traction when reviews get posted.This is why it is critical that when you launch your book you set everything up to get as many reviews as possible to get momentum going, increase organic traffic, and drive your rankings in the search engines. This means a higher percentage of people writing reviews for your book, not just at launch, but for months (and years) down the road.The bottom line is, reviews carry big weight in the form of social proof that can drive your book to a bestseller and continue to bring in healthy passive income every month.Why do book reviews matter?Because of Amazons algorithm, maintaining a steady income of new book reviews is vital for your book to rise in the rankings. Meaning that if you want your book to continue to sell, you need to obtain real and fresh book reviews.This is a breakdown of why book reviews matter:The more reviews you get, the more visibility your book gets. This means more sales and potential organic reviews.You create a stronger relationship with your readersA boatload of reviews adds credibility to your book and brand.Book reviews for your book on Amazon are one of the defining factors that determine if a potential reader will click the BUY NOW button or not. In fact, if your book has less than 10 reviews, there is a strong chance that your book will get passed over.People want validation before purchasing, and the best way to make that decision is on the front of the product page: reviews. Amazon Reviewer GuidelinesYou can find everything you need to know about posting reviews on Amazon right here under the Community Guidelines.Amazon has tightened the ropes on reviews and as an author, you have to be aware of the tactics that are prohibited.Here is what not to do when it comes to g etting book reviews on Amazon:Pay someone to leave a review. This not only goes against Amazons terms, but it could get your book removed from the shelf and your account banned.Offer a free ‘gift’ in exchange for a review. No gifts allowed. This is still considered payment for a review.Join Facebook groups offering book review swaps. These sites are bad news. Amazon prohibits review swapping and is considered gaming the system. The Amazon algorithm can easily trace reviews back to these sources.Offer an Amazon gift card after a review has been published. It works like this: â€Å"You download the book and leave a review, and I will send you a gift card.† Again, this is against policy and is considered paying for a review.Leave a review for an author, then contact that person requesting they leave a review in return. This would be a form blackmail or trapping the other author into guilt. But this doesn’t work and if you receive any such email, inform the ot her author that you don’t work that way. I did this once and they just removed their review.Most of these fall under the label of incentivized reviews, as there is a form of compensation in exchange for a review by Amazon sellers. Amazon has made it their mission to crack down on these on their platform.Whats the Difference Between Verified and Unverified Book Reviews?According to Amazon,an â€Å"Amazon Verified Purchase† review means theyve verified that the person writing the review purchased the product at Amazon and didn’t receive the product at a deep discountProduct reviews that are not marked â€Å"Amazon Verified Purchase† are valuable as well, but we either can’t confirm that the product was purchased at Amazon or the customer did not pay a price available to most Amazon shoppers.Verified reviews are favorable and are social proof that the reader did in fact buy the book and has potentially read through it before posting a review. A verifi ed review shows up as a yellow banner that says â€Å"Verified Purchase, as seen in the example below:For unverified reviews, in most cases, the reviewer received an advance copy of the book and was possibly on a launch team to support the book’s release.While this is still a legit practice for garnering reviews for your book, if the majority of reviews are non-verified, this could affect your potential customer’s decision to buy or not.HowtoGetMoreAmazonBookReviewsThere are many ways to get reviews but searching for reviewers to review your book is a time-consuming process. You could waste precious time chasing bad leads and end up with nothing for your effort.So where do you get reviews without spending hordes of time?No matter how you do it, remember that it isn’t just about quantity but quality as well. While we can’t control what reviewers will say about our work, we can stay focused on writing great content that adds value in order to increase our chances of getting positive reviews.To get Amazon reviews for your next book launch, or to add reviews to an existing book, consider taking action on these following strategies:#1 Build a launch teamThere are many ways to hunt down reviewers for your book. As we have seen, you can contact the top reviewers, target free book review sites, or reach out to book bloggers.These methods, while they may get you a handful of reviews, is time intensive and a lot of work. I have found, after running over two dozen book launches, that the most effective way to get reviews fast on launch is through setting up a launch team.Your launch team is a group of people who have agreed to read your book in advance and follow up with a review immediately after the book is live.When it comes to building a launch team, it is about building relationships over the long term. This is why, in order to run an effective launch team, you should focus on the relationship with your early-bird reviewers.Here is a st ep-by-step process for organizing your team:How to Set Up a Launch Team1. Start building your relationships early. Launch teams don’t just happen. They take work, months of outreaching, and asking the right people if they want to help launch your book when the time is right. You can generate interest by posting snippets of the book on Social media, sharing chapters of your work with your list, and promoting your cover to people.Share your content and advertise your brand. Communicate with people in person and through online channels about your writing. Keep in mind the purpose for this is to make genuine relationships with people and not to just add them to your launch. And most importantly, to make friends with people who read in your niche, so that your book gets recommended alongside the other books they’re reading.2. Create your list of potential reviewers. As you build these relationships with your fanbase, start making a list of people who express interest in joi ning your launch. If you have multiple books and have been through the publishing process already, take note of the readers who have left reviews already.Contact them closer to the launch of your next book to get them on board. Set up an excel spreadsheet and keep track of the names of people who sign up.Action Step:Contact people directly and invite them to the launch team. Keep track of early-bird reviewers in excel.3. Set up an email template through your email server. Add everyone to the list. If you aren’t using an email server yet you can check out Mailchimp, Convert Kit or Mailerlite. Make it as easy as possible so you aren’t wasting time searching for contact information.Send out a welcome email with a link to your book in PDF or/and Mobi form. You can create a folder in Dropbox and just include the link to a shared folder. Make it easy for them to access the material.Action Step: Import your list of emails onto an email server list.4. Send out the Welcome emai l. Ideally you want to send out your book at least two weeks before launch. This gives people enough time to read it through. In the welcome email I include details for the launch date and any other expectations. At this stage the book isn’t live yet so you will send another email on that day with the link.For the book delivery, you can upload a PDF version as well as a Mobi version of the book. To create a MOBI, PDF or EPUB file you can check out the Calibre ebook management software.Heres the difference between EPUB vs MOBI vs PDF so you can choose which to use.After you have all the files ready, you can create a shared folder in Dropbox and share the link with your team.If any top reviewers agreed to leave a review, you absolutely want to message them to follow up.Action Step:Create a welcome email template. Send out your welcome message to the team. Include a link to your book content.5. Send out your ‘Take Action’ email on launch day. Your book is live and i t is time for people to step up. Contact the team on launch day as soon as the book is live. After publishing a book it should take 12-24 hours for Amazon to get it posted. In the email, include a link to your book. More specifically, a link to the review page so that team members can go straight to the page with one click.6. Day 3: Reminder email. I wait 3 days and send out a reminder email. In this email I thank everyone who has left a review and thank people in advance who are still working on the book and haven’t posted yet.7. Final Call: This is the last email I will send out. Similar to the previous email, reminding people the book is live and is ready for a review whenever you are. You can remind your team that book is at a special discounted price if you are launching it at 0.99 or it’s free.8. Contact Your List: If you have a list, this is gold for getting paid downloads and possible reviews. You should contact your list on the first day the book is live and l et people know that the book has just launched. Then, several days later, email them again asking if they had a chance to get into the material. You could add something of value here just to show subscribers how much you value their support. This is the email where I include a ‘leave a review’ invite.These are the steps I use to communicate with my launch team. Generally speaking, if you want 100 reviews for your book, you should aim for at least 200 people.That is a lot of emails but, what I have experienced is that, on average, you are batting a 50% success rate. What happens to those other 50% who don’t review?Heres why some people wont review your book:They didn’t like the book.They forgot to review altogether.They didn’t read the book.They couldn’t be bothered to review.If you can get 20+ reviews on launch after one week you are looking very good. This is enough to get momentum moving and the Amazon algorithm will see that your book is d oing well.#2 Contact Amazon Top ReviewersThere is a list of top 1000 reviewers on Amazon. These people review everything via the Amazon vine program, although certain reviewers target books specifically. If you can get an Amazon Top Reviewer to look at your book, this is well worth it.Check out the Amazon Top Customer Reviewers list. This is a time-consuming process but, if you can get 2-3 reviewers to agree to a book review, you’re all set.Heres how to get more reviews on Amazon with top reviewers:Go into the reviewer’s profile and check the books they have reviewed. To be specific, you want to check for books in your genre. If you wrote a book on weight loss and the reviewer has written most of their reviews for romance novels, it’s a good indication of what they favor. Target the reviewers interested in your topic.Check for contact information. Due to the large volume of spam and requests for reviews, most top reviewers have removed their personal email. If they have a website set up, you can send a direct email to request a review.Wait for a reply. Most reviewers, from my own experience, did not reply. I would recommend targeting 20 reviewers and wait one week. You can then resend the request again.This is a time-consuming process but, if you get a top reviewer to agree to a review, keep that person’s contact information in an excel file. Then, when you launch your next book, you can reach out to them again and again.#3 Book Review SitesThere are a number of sites out there that will find reviewers for your book. This is not the same as buying reviews for your book which, I’ll restate again, goes against Amazon’s review policy and should be avoided.In fact, Amazon has taken action against over 1000 sites on Fiverr that were selling incentivized reviews and fake review services. Yes, avoid.Review services, however, can speed up the process and find reviewers for your book. One of my favorites is BookRazor. It is a paid site but they promote a system of honest reviewers for your book by providing a contact list of potential readers.There are many other sites you can check out as well, and many of them are free while some are paid:Kindle Book ReviewRainbow Book ReviewsKO’s Stuffed ShelfThe Kindle Book Review#4 Include a reminder in your bookHere is a tactic that works well. Did you know that you can include insert a request in your book for readers to leave a review? It’s a great way to invite people to review your book.I have a page at the back of my books that looks like this:What Did You Think of [Your Book Title Here]?First of all, thank you for purchasing this book [Your Book Title Here]. I know you could have picked any number of books to read, but you picked this book and for that I am extremely grateful.I hope that it added at value and quality to your everyday life. If so, it would be really nice if you could share this book with your friends and family by posting to Fa cebook and Twitter.If you enjoyed this book and found some benefit in reading this, I’d like to hear from you and hope that you could take some time to post a review on Amazon. Your feedback and support will help this author to greatly improve his writing craft for future projects and make this book even better.You can follow this link to [Book link here] now.I want you, the reader, to know that your review is very important and so, if you’d like to leave a review, all you have to do is click here and away you go. I wish you all the best in your future success!When you do this, you want to have a link directing customers right back to the review page on Amazon. Make it so easy for them that it requires as little effort as possible.Many authors will include a cute ‘cat photo’ or even pictures of their kids begging asking for a review. This strategy can work well if you sell a large volume of books during the initial launch phase.But remember it takes reader s time to go through your book and so, if you don’t see the reviews appear in the first week, you might get them trickling in weeks or even months later.#5 Relaunch Your BookYou can relaunch your book if book sales drop and the reviews stop coming in. When you relaunch your book, you can put together a new launch team, and even add a new chapter to the book to generate a renewed interest in your book.I have tried this strategy several times in the past year and, by relaunching the book, adding new value to the content, I put together another small launch team of 30-40 people. This brought in another 20+ reviews for a book that was suffering from lack of sales and poor rankings.It happens, so we have to stay on top of keeping the book active.How to Deal with Negative ReviewsGetting positive reviews on your book is a great feeling. In a perfect world, we all want to have just the good stuff when it comes to our review platform. But alas, there will always be that dissatisfied reader that was expecting something much different than what your book was offering.Readers will leave a negative review for various reasons, and in most cases, there is nothing we can do.But first of all, receiving a negative review isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it can lend to a book’s credibility. Look at it from a reader’s perspective. If a book has 100 positive 5-star reviews, although the reviews may be legitimate, we know that not every book is perfect.Having a load of good reviews and nothing that is under three stars could create doubt for the browser, just as having a book with only a handful of reviews turns browsers the other way.While negative reviews aren’t all bad, there are steps we can take to reduce the amount.So how can we prevent our book from getting a lot of negative reviews and turning away potential book sales?Here are four areas to pay attention to:Book quality: the single biggest reason a book will get panned by negative re views is poor quality. This is credited to sloppy editing. A book that is not up to the quality expected by readers will get hit with a high amount of bad reviews. Then, it could get pulled off the shelf by Amazon until the author upgrades to better quality. Make sure your book is up the high standards people expect. Always respect your readers. The book business is like any other business, make good products, and your customers will love you.Inaccurate description of the book: make sure that your book description, title and cover all point towards the theme of the book. If your book is titled, â€Å"How to become rich in 21 days† and, after reading through the book the reader isn’t rich, well, they bought the book because of the promise you made. So, if reading a book delivers a negative outcome for your audience, someone is going to shout about it in a review.Your book is a sales pitch for your other products. If there is one thing that readers don’t like, it is being hit up with offers and the push to check out other services or products in the book. This could come across as spammy and devalues the content that the readers paid for. While your goal may be to use the book to attract customers for your online business, you want to avoid any sales pitches in the book.How to Write and Submit a ReviewWriting a review for a book you like is a great way to drive potential readers to the title. If you read a great book recently and you want to tell people about it, you can take a few minutes to write up a positive review.Writing a review is easy. Just go to the book’s front page and, under the heading Customer Reviews, you will see a button for write a customer review. Click on that and you will be taken to a page set up for ‘Your Reviews’ where you can write reviews for your purchases.What you do is:Select the rating of the book from 1-5 stars, with 5 being the best score.Write your book description in the box provided. Ke ep in mind that if you leave this page before submitting your review, you’ll have to start over again. I would recommend writing the review first in Word or Evernote and then copy and paste.Create a headline for the review.Hit submit. Your review will go live within a couple of hours, although it could take up to 24 hours.One point to note here is that, with Amazon’s policy for posting reviews, you have to have an account that has made a purchase of at least $50 using a valid credit or debit card.Checklist for Getting Amazon Book ReviewsIf you follow these steps, youll be able to get more book reviews and in turn, sell more books.Set up a launch team for your book. Send your team a PDF/MOBI/EPUB file and follow up with email right up until launch. Follow up with several reminders after the launch.Include a ‘Review Request’ page at the back of your book. Insert the link taking customers directly to the review page. Make it so easy they don’t have to search around for the book on Amazon.Contact Amazon Top Reviewers. Send a personalized email to each, targeting the people who review books similar to your genre. Wait at least two weeks before following up.Contact people in your business. This doesn’t include friends and family. Contact professionals in your field who would be willing to read the book with the possibility of leaving an honest review.Hire a site that specializes in finding honest reviewers for your book. I recommend BookRazor.Relaunch your book. Add more content, a new book cover, or make it appealing for people to join your relaunch of an existing book. You can relaunch a book as many times as you want.There are a lot of strategies out there to get reviews for your books, most are legit, and some are not. As an author, make sure you are aware of what Amazon considers to be authentic reviews when it comes to gathering reviews for your next book, and steer clear of anything it considers to be incentivized revi ews.If a site promises to get you positive reviews in return for cash, stay away. It isnt worth it, trust me. Keep hunting and adding reviews to your book.Book reviews are the secret sauce to adding value and credibility to your work, boosting sales and making your book stick on the bestseller lists. Dont skimp out on them.Its Time for Your FREE TrainingOne of the easiest and most natural ways to get good book reviews is to write a book worthy of them.Heres how you can learn to do that.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

HEALTHCARE ETHICS AND END OF LIFE DECISIONS Essay - 4

HEALTHCARE ETHICS AND END OF LIFE DECISIONS - Essay Example Given a situation where the patient prefers death, the physician has a responsibility to provide valid information on the patient’s health, avail options of handling the illness and providing final options. In cases where the doctor decides to help with death, they assume the final responsibility of administering the lethal injection. This seems a rather controversial issue faced with a need to establish direction, so the legal fraternity has joined the debate. The aim is to establish a legal framework that guides physicians in decisions regarding assisted suicide. The mandate of establishing these laws has largely fallen under the state governments. At the moment, almost every state has a legal guideline on assisted deaths, though there is lack of the specific connection to physicians. It is quite obvious that they are also addressed under the very laws. The law under the States outlines that anyone who deliberately permits, aids, advises, coerces or encourages another to terminate their life commits manslaughter. Some laws go further to specific legal repercussions such as imprisonment. Given the position of the law and the need for compassion, especially for terminally ill patients, controversy arises. This has required court’s interpretation. Several of these cases, touching on physician-assisted suicide, have been heard across American Courts. An example is Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al. argued in Supreme Court of the United States. The case involved physicians who had sought the indulgence of the court to declare unconstitutional the existent ban on assisted suicide. The Court, though specific to Washington, upheld the law noting assisted suicide as a crime under law (Washington et al. v. Glucksberg et al). Looking through these presentations it is clear that the law, as indicated and interpreted by the Court, is against assisted suicide. Under these circumstances, it is proper

Friday, November 1, 2019

Explain what the current situation is, what problems are in evidence Essay

Explain what the current situation is, what problems are in evidence and how those problems should be addressed - Essay Example There are different inventory models and policies for single supplier and multiple suppliers and allied benefits as well as drawbacks for each of them which would be evaluated in the report. Certain recommendations related to purchasing and inventory functions would also be rendered so that the existing difficulties can be alleviated by a considerable extent. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction Inventory is defined as the stock of materials or any other item that is being used by an organisation. It is further defined as the idle resource of any kind that has a considerable economic value. It has been observed that inventories are supervised in order to meet the future demands of the process of production. The term ‘inventory management’ is regarded as the process of maintaining the finished goods, and the semi-finished raw materials of companies or any other business. It has been learnt that efficiently managed i nventory would result in an increase in the revenue by cutting down the cost of the company. The process of inventory management commences as soon as the company starts its production and orders the required raw materials for the same. In case of a retailer, the process commences as soon as it places an order to the wholesaler. ... faces certain difficulties in purchasing and managing inventories for the parts and materials of diverse brands for providing services to the customers. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company is concerned about the future requirements of vehicles parts and materials to meet the ever-increasing needs and demands of the customers. Based on the understanding of the case study, the report intends to illustrate the differences in inventory policies when there are multiple suppliers involved. The report would further discuss about the weaknesses in the current inventory management practices of Lancaster Motor Group and recommend appropriate measures to tackle the difficulties particularly related to purchasing and inventory function. Q.1. How Might Purchasing And Inventory Management Policies And Procedures Differ Because The Dealerships Purchase Different Types Of Service Parts And Materials (E.G. Lubricants Versus Genuine Parts) From Different Types Of Suppliers? Galena Markovi c was quite concerned about the future prospect of the company. She did not want the company to face the problem that other companies are facing with regard to managing the purchase of varied parts of automobiles in future. As it has been noticed that the company had a good reputation in terms of the deliverance of services, she became more concerned about its operations. For these reasons, she began thinking regarding supply chain and inventory management to resolve a bit of her concerns and pressures. However, as she is selling the product of four companies, she would have to buy the parts from various suppliers (i.e. multiple suppliers). In this regard, she would need to follow inventory policies different from that of the usual inventory management policy of single supplier. When a

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Geopolitics and the role of energy security in the global level and Thesis Proposal

Geopolitics and the role of energy security in the global level and its impacts and challenges withen middle east and gulf cooperation council - Thesis Proposal Example There has been a change in the world order since the break-up of the Soviet bloc: America now is the only superpower in the world and this gives the West the ability to dominate by a combination of military and economic strength (Nye, 2011). One result of this is that the term â€Å"global security† is increasingly defined by America and its allies, at least until China reaches its full economic potential (Calabrese, 1998). There is a danger that GCC countries, who hold the key to future energy supplies will be caught up in any eventual rivalry between these two great powers. Military strength cannot solve problems on its own – other forms of power such as soft power or smart power draw in political and economic negociations as well (Smith, 2006). American foreign policy directed towards aligning countries like Saudi Arabia with American objectives, in order to secure stable supply of oil and gas (Brown and Hawthorne, 2010). The very term â€Å"energy security† is defined as â€Å"the provision of reasonably priced, reliable and environmentally friendly energy† (Mà ¼ller-Kraenner, 2008) but this is from the perspective of western states who generally lack substantial energy deposits, and have renewable technology which does not meet all their needs. Economic objectives in GCC countries are increasingly towards diversification from oil, gas and other natural resources, in order to avoid the so-called â€Å"resource curse† of over-dependence on a few products. There are major implications for all GCC countries because membership of the WTO involves signing up to GATT agreements which â€Å"involves dramatic and profound changes in the way trade was conducted in these countries† (Michalopoulos, 1998). These changes include measures like the removal of export subsidies and the introduction of Western-style laws, institutions and methods of governance. Most

Monday, October 28, 2019

The Supply and Demand of Oil Essay Example for Free

The Supply and Demand of Oil Essay Most people, especially the anti-American regime, blame George Bush as the main reason why oil prices in the international market has been increasing in the recent years. According to them, George Bush serves as an avenue for Iraq and its allies in the Middle East to cut their supply of oil in the world market as a â€Å"payback† for attacking Iraq. Back in the early 2000’s, George Bush commence a war against Iraq for the reasons that he want to end terrorist groups that houses in the said country as well as to spread democracy in the middle east. Iraq, one of the top oil producers in the world market, in response to the action of the United States, Iraq, together with other Islamic countries, cut their oil supply in the world market for United States to suffer from rising oil prices since it is the main consumer of oil in the world market.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Little this people know, George Bush is not liable for the rising of oil prices in the international market. Iraq as well as other oil producing countries around the globe is a member of OPEC – an organization of oil producing countries operating as a cartel. Cartel, just like OPEC, manipulates the supply of a certain good in order to influence the market price in the market for the benefit of its members and/or depends on the capacity of oil that its member countries can provide to the world market. The said cutting of oil supply of Iraq and other Islamic countries was just a move initiated largely by OPEC and was not because of the war commenced by George Bush. Even if the said attack in Iraq of the United States influenced the decision of Iraqi government and other Islamic countries to cut their oil supply in the world market, but its level of significance was not enough in order to say that George Bush was liable for the rising of oil prices in the market. Price Gouging   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another fallacy that most people believed to be one of the factors that triggered the rising of oil prices in the market would be the price gouging of domestic oil firms in the market that unreasonably increases the prices of gasoline in the market. People that believes in this factor claims that domestic oil firms only wants to further increase their profitability and only uses the condition of world market for oil as a leeway in order to justify its indiscriminate and unjustifiable price increase on gasoline and other petroleum products in the domestic market. Moreover, say that price of oil in the world market indeed increase due to shortage of oil, domestic oil firms charges more than the amount that they should charge to their customers just to maintain their profitability. In other words, ignorant people about the real score on the rising of oil prices accuse domestic oil firms from cheating on them. Even if it is possible, the government would not allow such even to happen. There is a more logical reason why oil prices and other petroleum products are increasing robustly in the market in the recent years. In some countries, like for the case of the Philippines, they have the Department of Energy that monitors and approves the price increase of their domestic oil firms.   In short, domestic oil firms cannot just unreasonably raise their prices since the government keeps eye on them. Moreover, the value judgment of people claiming this factor as one of the factors that triggers the rising of oil prices in the market is based on emotions and on what they see on their immediate environment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Just like the case of the first fallacy discussed above, these types of people hastily makes conclusion without conducting thoroughly research and study. At the end of the day, the association of price gouging and oil price hike is not but a fallacy, a fallacy of hasty conclusion.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Price Fixing of OPEC   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Few decades after the establishment of OPEC, it mainly has the power to influence and manipulate prices of oil in the international market by either raising or cutting the volume of oil that they supply in the international market. But in the recent years, due to the depleting oil reserves of many oil producing countries, especially oil producing countries in the Middle East, OPEC has been increasing the prices of their oil in the market robustly in the recent years not because they want to but because they are forced to. But many people still are skeptical on the real score on the rising of OPEC’s oil in the international market. Those statements of many people claiming that OPEC manipulates the prices of oil in the world market are making a foregone conclusion (Peopledaily.com.cn 2004). Before this claim seems to fit, but now, amidst to the problem on depleting oil reserves of many oil producing countries, this claim does not hold anymore.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   At the end of the day, people, especially consumers that are not well-informed about the current situation of oil reserves of various oil producing countries in the world market, are insisting that OPEC, as a cartel, takes advantage of its market power and indiscriminately charges higher prices that what is should be optimally charging to its customers. Again, these claims of above mentioned people are nothing but a mere fallacy for they do not have the strong argumentation about the true roots of oil price increase in the international market. The Real Issue – Supply and Demand   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The main and acceptable reason behind the pricing of oil prices in the world market would be the level of supply and demand in the market. These economic factors are the determinants of â€Å"right† and â€Å"justifiable† market price of oil in the market. There are no other factors that can influence the price of oil justifiably other than the demand-supply relationship since these factors are market driven and being controlled by all of the sectors in the economy. Demand, as a one of the economic factors that influences the spiking of oil prices in the market, accounts to all of the industries’ degree of importance of oil in the market. It also accounts all of the political and social factors of the market and incorporates these factors to the consumption behavior of the consumers in the market. In other words, demand is a good determinant of â€Å"true† value of market prices of goods and services in the economy. It is the market forces that influence the level of demand of goods and services in the market, and this market forces always provides benefits to the society as a whole. At the end of the day, demand reflects degree of importance of oil in various sectors as well as accounts all the social and political factors that affect such degree of importance of oil. On the other hand, the supply is also another important economic factor that greatly influences the price increase of oil in the international market. Supply provides the willingness to accept of producers in the market. Like for the case of oil industry, the oil prices that is triggered by supply factor is mainly reflects how much price the oil producing countries are willing to accept in order for them to produce oil in the market. In other words, supply reveals the prices that oil producing countries are willing to receive in order for them to continue their production of oil in the market. Given that oil reserves of oil of most oil producing countries are starting to deplete creating an avenue for them to supply oil less in the international market, it creates enough market pressure for oil prices in the world market to increase robustly. Since the oil reserves of oil producing countries are depleting, the willingness to accept of oil producing countries increases as a move to protect their profitability (Schoen, 2004). But increasing their willingness to accept would give them enough room to raise their profit since they can haggle for higher prices of oil in the market to the consumers. This scenario is the one that is happening at present times – oil producing countries and OPEC are forced to raise their prices, or willingness to accept, due to their depleting oil reserves and not primarily because of the high demand in the market, while consumers shoulders all of the burden (Newscientist.com 2007). The Supply and Demand of Oil In the recent years, the prices of oil in the international market has been increasing due to the depletion of oil reserves of many oil producing countries and member countries of OPEC. This issue has already been discussed in the previous part of this paper. It was identified that the price of oil in the world market already breaks its previous records. The price of oil in the world market per barrel as one the previous month is averaging to $140/barrel which only suggest how severe the shortage of oil in the world market is. Given a high demand for oil in the market, assuming a constant supply of oil in the market, prices would surely increase significantly since the willingness to accept and willingness to pay of producers and consumers respectively will increase. Since oil is one of the major commodity of most industries nowadays, the demand for oil is overwhelming for most oil exporting countries, and so with OPEC (Muhanna, 2004). But this overwhelming feeling of OPEC and other oil exporting countries won’t last long considering that they do not have enough oil reserves to supply the large demand of consumers in the market. As a result, in order to maintain their present profitability, OPEC and other oil exporting countries are forced to raise the prices of their oil in the market, regardless of the level of demand of consumers for oil. In this regard, if is therefore clear that demand and supply relationship of oil is the one that currently influences the spiking of oil prices in the world market. In this regard, it is therefore clear that demand and supply of oil in the world market is the main factor why oil price has been spiking in the recent years and not because of the above mentioned fallacies about the rising of oil prices raised by â€Å"emotional† based judgment of consumers and ignorant people. References Muhanna, I. (2004). Oil Price Hike. Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6section=0article=51086d=6m=9y=2004 Newscientist.com (2007). Depleting Oil Supplies Threaten â€Å"Meltdown in Society†. Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19626273.900-depleting-oil-supplies-threaten-meltdown-in-society.html Peopledaily.com.cn (2004). Ten Specious Fallacies on Current World’s High Oil Prices. Retrieved 26, 2008, from http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200409/07/eng20040907_156168.html Schoen, J. W. (2004). How Long will the Word’s Oil Last? Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5945678/