Project Scope Statement

Scope Statement Section headings listed in gray font appear in both the Project Charter and the Scope Statement. Project Title: Web Site Enhancement Project Project Manager: Xin Tao Project Description (see Project Charter) Business Objectives †¢ A new company web site is proposed to best support the company’s mission to provide a complete recreational experience to the guests, including elegant meals, relaxing living quarters, and extensive recreational options such as golf, tennis, spas, gyms, night clubs, and excursions to local towns and areas of interest. Increase market share by 50% within two years of launch by providing on-line queries and reservations of rooms, on-line booking of guest services. †¢ Increase revenue by 25% within three quarters post-launch by tapping into a larger customer base accessible through internet sales. †¢ Avoid risk that some of the hotels will have to be closed within two to three years as pressured by other larger hotel chain s. †¢ Increase customer satisfaction by 25% among the existing customer base by becoming more technology-oriented, as measured via customer satisfaction surveys taken over the two-year period following the new web site launch.Project Objectives †¢ Allow technology team gain more experience in more sophisticated web technology, which is expected to reduce web site maintenance cost by 20%. †¢ Use effective project management techniques consistent with the company standards. †¢ Integrate the new company web site well with existed systems: the Reservation system and the Guest-Services System. Project Scope Description Q The new web site has a user friendly graphical interface, which shall allow user to do queries, reservations, browsing and booking easily.The new web site is enhanced to interact with existed systems: a Reservation System and a Guest-Services System. It has the capabilities to read data from and save data to those systems. The new web site shall displ ay results according to users’ requests. Requirements †¢ The new web site shall be accessed by popular web browsers, including Microsoft IE, Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape. †¢ The new web site shall run on a Linux based server. †¢ The web server software, which the new web site uses, shall be Apache. The new web site shall be a secure Internet site. †¢ All major credit cards will be accepted by the new web site. †¢ VeriSign will be the credit card processing vendor. Project Boundaries Out-of-Scope features discussed but not implemented at this time:†¢ Users can have additional payment methods besides credit cards, for example, Paypal and Google Checkout. †¢ Users can get invoice in a PDF format. †¢ Users have the capability to cancel a transaction even after it is done. †¢ Users have the capability to remove particular service even after it is booked. Users can ask for refund if booked price is higher than the current price. Project Deliverables (see Project Charter) Project Acceptance Criteria †¢ Delivery of the web site by the end of August, 2006 †¢ The new web site shall provide on-line queries and reservations of rooms, on-line booking of guest services †¢ The new web site shall operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. †¢ Expenditures on the project not exceeding $900,000 †¢ Reduce web site maintenance cost by 20%.†¢ Increase revenue by 25% within three quarters post-launch Increase customer satisfaction by 25% among the existing customer Project Constraints (see Project Charter) Project Assumptions (see Project Charter) Project Roles and Responsibilities (see Project Charter) Initial Defined Risks †¢ Because the management team is still somehow hesitant to embark on the project, the project could be canceled. †¢ Because funds for this project are coming from marketing budget of the marketing team, funds may be reduced if marketing team cannot control its budget wisely . Because the project requires more technical resources to be hired, which are scarce due to the red hot technology market, the new web site may not be launched on time. †¢ Because the project has a cost constraint of $900,000, an inferior web site may be developed, resulting in a poor quality that fails to realize its sales targets. †¢ Because the project has a time constraint of 10 months, the web site may not be tested thoroughly, leading to an unstable web site. †¢ Because the project requires the deployment of new hardware, shipment delay of the new hardware would lead to the project behind schedule.Schedule Milestones (see Project Charter) Cost Estimate (see Project Charter) Project Parameter Ranking |Parameter |Ranking (1,2,3,4) |Comments | |Time |1 |The sponsors hope that the new web site can be up and running, accepting | | | |online reservations and queries within 10 months before the start of the | | | |new peak season.Missing the target launching time mean s that the | | | |strategic objectives can not be meet to increase revenue by booking to | | | |capacity at peak times and by expanding peak seasons by marketing year | | | |round points of interest. | |Cost |2 |The budget for the project is fixed at $900,000. |Scope |4 |The sponsors are willing to sacrifice some of the web site’s features in | | | |order to reach the quality, cost, and time goals. | |Quality |3 |Since the company web site would bring significant revenue opportunity | | | |for the company, a stable site is much needed.A buggy web site leads to | | | |low customer satisfaction, which would adversely impact company’s | | | |revenue. | Approval Requirements Tom Ender and Susan Ryan, Co-presidents Mike Muller, Head of the Marketing Team Helen Hui, Head of the Travel & Tourism Susan Gill, Head of the Technology Team ———————– Query Reserve Browse Book Reservation System Interact New web site Users Inter act Display Results Guest-Services System Project Scope Statement Scope Statement Section headings listed in gray font appear in both the Project Charter and the Scope Statement. Project Title: Web Site Enhancement Project Project Manager: Xin Tao Project Description (see Project Charter) Business Objectives †¢ A new company web site is proposed to best support the company’s mission to provide a complete recreational experience to the guests, including elegant meals, relaxing living quarters, and extensive recreational options such as golf, tennis, spas, gyms, night clubs, and excursions to local towns and areas of interest. Increase market share by 50% within two years of launch by providing on-line queries and reservations of rooms, on-line booking of guest services. †¢ Increase revenue by 25% within three quarters post-launch by tapping into a larger customer base accessible through internet sales. †¢ Avoid risk that some of the hotels will have to be closed within two to three years as pressured by other larger hotel chain s. †¢ Increase customer satisfaction by 25% among the existing customer base by becoming more technology-oriented, as measured via customer satisfaction surveys taken over the two-year period following the new web site launch.Project Objectives †¢ Allow technology team gain more experience in more sophisticated web technology, which is expected to reduce web site maintenance cost by 20%. †¢ Use effective project management techniques consistent with the company standards. †¢ Integrate the new company web site well with existed systems: the Reservation system and the Guest-Services System. Project Scope Description Q The new web site has a user friendly graphical interface, which shall allow user to do queries, reservations, browsing and booking easily.The new web site is enhanced to interact with existed systems: a Reservation System and a Guest-Services System. It has the capabilities to read data from and save data to those systems. The new web site shall displ ay results according to users’ requests. Requirements †¢ The new web site shall be accessed by popular web browsers, including Microsoft IE, Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape. †¢ The new web site shall run on a Linux based server. †¢ The web server software, which the new web site uses, shall be Apache. The new web site shall be a secure Internet site. †¢ All major credit cards will be accepted by the new web site. †¢ VeriSign will be the credit card processing vendor. Project Boundaries Out-of-Scope features discussed but not implemented at this time:†¢ Users can have additional payment methods besides credit cards, for example, Paypal and Google Checkout. †¢ Users can get invoice in a PDF format. †¢ Users have the capability to cancel a transaction even after it is done. †¢ Users have the capability to remove particular service even after it is booked. Users can ask for refund if booked price is higher than the current price. Project Deliverables (see Project Charter) Project Acceptance Criteria †¢ Delivery of the web site by the end of August, 2006 †¢ The new web site shall provide on-line queries and reservations of rooms, on-line booking of guest services †¢ The new web site shall operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. †¢ Expenditures on the project not exceeding $900,000 †¢ Reduce web site maintenance cost by 20%.†¢ Increase revenue by 25% within three quarters post-launch Increase customer satisfaction by 25% among the existing customer Project Constraints (see Project Charter) Project Assumptions (see Project Charter) Project Roles and Responsibilities (see Project Charter) Initial Defined Risks †¢ Because the management team is still somehow hesitant to embark on the project, the project could be canceled. †¢ Because funds for this project are coming from marketing budget of the marketing team, funds may be reduced if marketing team cannot control its budget wisely . Because the project requires more technical resources to be hired, which are scarce due to the red hot technology market, the new web site may not be launched on time. †¢ Because the project has a cost constraint of $900,000, an inferior web site may be developed, resulting in a poor quality that fails to realize its sales targets. †¢ Because the project has a time constraint of 10 months, the web site may not be tested thoroughly, leading to an unstable web site. †¢ Because the project requires the deployment of new hardware, shipment delay of the new hardware would lead to the project behind schedule.Schedule Milestones (see Project Charter) Cost Estimate (see Project Charter) Project Parameter Ranking |Parameter |Ranking (1,2,3,4) |Comments | |Time |1 |The sponsors hope that the new web site can be up and running, accepting | | | |online reservations and queries within 10 months before the start of the | | | |new peak season.Missing the target launching time mean s that the | | | |strategic objectives can not be meet to increase revenue by booking to | | | |capacity at peak times and by expanding peak seasons by marketing year | | | |round points of interest. | |Cost |2 |The budget for the project is fixed at $900,000. |Scope |4 |The sponsors are willing to sacrifice some of the web site’s features in | | | |order to reach the quality, cost, and time goals. | |Quality |3 |Since the company web site would bring significant revenue opportunity | | | |for the company, a stable site is much needed.A buggy web site leads to | | | |low customer satisfaction, which would adversely impact company’s | | | |revenue. | Approval Requirements Tom Ender and Susan Ryan, Co-presidents Mike Muller, Head of the Marketing Team Helen Hui, Head of the Travel & Tourism Susan Gill, Head of the Technology Team ———————– Query Reserve Browse Book Reservation System Interact New web site Users Inter act Display Results Guest-Services System

Hamlet’s Growth Through Soliloquies Essay

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a story of a man searching for his true identity. Shakespeare uses soliloquies to show the readers and audience the true feelings and emotions of Hamlet. All seven soliloquies, each slightly different, proclaim Hamlet’s inner conflicts and reasons for delaying his revenge. Hamlet is a very complex character. He doesn’t really know who he is, but through his soliloquies we can trace Hamlet’s search for his true identity. In Hamlet’s opening soliloquy he reveals how he feels towards Claudius and his mother. He is disgusted with the circumstances of their marriage. â€Å"With such dexterity to incestuous sheets†, he proclaims in rage. He does not understand why his mother married Claudius in such haste, causing such internal torment for himself. While Hamlet hates Claudius, he loved his father very much, and his death has caused him much sorrow. In the beginning lines of this soliloquy Hamlet has already considered suicide, but he decides to do nothing. His decision not to act starts a trend of procrastination, and these decisions of inactivity will continue to be the main source of his problems throughout his speeches and the play. After talking with his father’s ghost, in the third soliloquy Hamlet is angered by the news that Claudius has murdered his father. Hamlet assures himself that he will think of nothing but revenge. However, he delays his plans, because he is uncertain of the King’s guilt. He finally takes some action when he plans to put on a play that will mirror his father’s murder in order to see the King’s reaction. At the end of the third soliloquy he says, â€Å"The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the consicience of the king.† Even after the Murder of Gonzago is performed, he takes no action. He begins to feel guilty and is ashamed that he has not avenged his father’s death despite being quite sure of Claudius’s guilt. In the fourth soliloquy Hamlet begins to show signs of madness. He again contemplates suicide, and again he takes no action, this time because he is unsure of what occurs after death. Hamlet was very upset with his mother, but he shows that he is not inclined to harm when he says, â€Å"speak daggers to her, but use none†. All these soliloquies show Hamlet as a very passive character who would rather think and talk than fight or kill. In his seventh soliloquy, Hamlet finally gains the courage to avenge his father. It occurs just after a meeting with Fortinbra’s soldiers where he finds out they are going to fight over a worthless peice of land. He feels ashamed that he put off avenging his father’s death for so long. With his newfound determination to he vows, â€Å"O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth†. Through Hamlet’s soliloquies we are able to understand his true self, not the false facade he portrays to all that know him. We are able to trace his thoughts and emotions from his first passive act up until he finally avenges his father. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his inability to act which ultimately leads to the deaths of many characters and lastly himself. Without soliloquies many of Hamlet’s actions, and reasons for not acting, would make very little sense. They help show Hamlet’s true feelings and emotions that would otherwise be hidden.

Becoming a Nurse Essay

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the different levels of nursing available to be able to work in the healthcare field, what their job description for each level entails, and determining do they really have what it takes to become a good nurse. INTRODUCTION Attention Getter: First off let me say â€Å"I Love My Job†. I knew from a childhood age that I wanted to be a nurse. There is nothing better than the great feeling that comes over you knowing you are able to comfort, encourage and instruct a stranger in their time of need; Knowing that you have touched their lives, or a family members life, in a way that they will never forget. Audience motivation: A lot of individuals become or think they want to become a nurse because of the pay scale. They believe it is an â€Å"easy† way to make a living. I am here to inform you of the other side of nursing; you know the one no one lets you in on until the first day on the job. Credibility: I have always been a nurturer by nature, even in childhood with friends, siblings and at points in time feeling as if I was the parent and protector of my mother. I find great interest in certain illnesses, their causes and their cures, being able to provide informative information to patients, their family members, and the general public, and to bring awareness of issues, cures and treatments to the forefront. Purpose: I am going to place this question in your thoughts; â€Å"Am I considering a career in nursing due to the prospect of an easy salary, or do I truly have the heart and personality that is required to be a success in this field.† Preview: Today I am going to outline the multiple levels of nursing certificates, licenses and degrees available. I will discuss the job description and care you will be expected to provide to the  patient at each level. Finally I will discuss the bottom line; you know the one factor that influences over half of all individuals to become a nurse. [Transition]: Let us begin with touching on the levels available to work in while employed in the nursing arena of healthcare. BODY I. The field of nursing offers many opportunities for individuals who are considering this as a career move. Keeping in mind no matter what level you choose in nursing it will be a very demanding and rewarding career to participate in. A. There are different levels of nursing starting at the beginning with a CNA, PCT, LPN, RN, and eventually ending with ARNP. Certified Nursing Assistant- referred to a CNA. Working in hospitals, long term facilities, assisted living centers, adult day care centers, home health agencies and other medical, community and residential settings. A Certified Nursing Assistant is authorized to perform specific duties to assist nurses. CNAs work closely with patients to help provide care for their basic physical and emotional needs, and may also perform vital signs and administer medications â€Å"if† licensed to do so. BODY (Continued) Licensed Practical Nurse- referred to as an LPN. helps physicians and registered nurses (RNs) care for patients. They have the teaching and knowledge to perform routine nursing duties. LPNs also schedule appointments, maintain patient records, and perform clerical style duties. Available positions can be found in hospitals, nursing homes, and multiple health care institutions, and private homes. Registered Nurse- referred to as an RN. You treat patients and help in their rehabilitation, provide advice and emotional support to patients’ families. Many registered nurses are general duty nurses who focus on the overall care of the patents. In addition to patient care they are placed in positions of supervising LPNs and CNAs, nursing aides and orderlies. They hold responsibility for scheduling of nurse staffing and patient assignments to other nursing based on that nurse’s experience and abilities. Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner- referred to ARNP practice advanced n ursing in one of four specialized areas, including Certified Nurse Anesthetists, Certified Nurse Midwives, Certified Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Specialists. Nurse Practitioners are licensed to practice independently without direct supervision. Nurse Practitioners work in a variety of settings to include private practice, hospitals, ambulatory care centers, public health departments, school based health clinics and other settings. B. There are multiple work shifts available to all levels of nursing, which makes this field appealing to many people. Eight hour shifts are generally available within the office settings of private practice facilities. This shift generally runs 08:00 am to 5:00 pm. Twelve hour shifts are the general guideline that majority of hospitals schedule by in today’s time. These shifts normally run between 07:00 am until 7:00 pm, or 7:00 pm until 07:00 am. Transition: Now let’s move on to actual descriptions of their individual positions. II. Each level of certificate or degree contains different responsibilities and requirements from job to job, but we will primarily speak of the general standards. CNA- V ital signs assist with or totally perform personal care of each patient, documenting in chart graphs the patient intake and output for a particular time frame, and in some instances performing non-evasive procedures such as Foley catheter insertion, and dressing changes. As a CNA you are more than likely the first point of contact with a patient during your shift, you will spend majority of your time somewhat catering to the patient. You will be supervised by most often an RN and occasionally an LPN depending on the setting. LPN- includes a lot of the above mentioned duties along with medication administration, starting and discontinuing intravenous access, charting full assessments on your patient during beginning of each shift and periodically throughout the shift depending on the status of your patient. Preparing patient for scheduled procedures including ensuring that all proper consent forms are signed and witnessed, administering any type of prep that may have been ordered by the physician. Ensuring that the patient medical record is kept up to date and assisting the physician with any questions or needs he may have in reference to you patient. You will be supervised by an RN. RN- as mentioned in the other two categories you will be responsible for all of the above duties and additional duties. These may include: Mentoring other nurses new to the field or just to your area of specialty, scheduling of your s hift staff, assigning specific patients to specific nurses depending on their level of skill, managing Code situations  in crises and administering certain medication that are governed and cannot be administered by the above mentioned positions. Answering to physicians throughout your shift in reference to patient care, record keeping and scheduling of orders, tests or procedures their patient is in need of. BODY (Continued) ARNP- in this position you are eligible to work independently as well as alongside a physician on a daily basis. You are allowed to write specific orders for tests, medication and procedures for patient with the understanding that a physician will follow behind and co-sign these orders. ARNP’s can and do manage and run independent medical offices while a physician maybe working at the hospital, in the OR, at another clinic. ARNP’s often cover call periods for the physician they work for taking calls throughout the day and night from patients in need. Transition: Keeping in mind that all of the above positions are critical in the overall picture of the healthcare system from a nursing perspective. We have covered the levels of certificates and degrees in nursing now let’s address the bottom line topic. III. This is a topic that causes a lot of individuals to make a decision to become a nurse without truly investigating the duties and responsibilities of someone in the nursing field. It also is a topic that blinds a lot of individuals from assessing their own personality, patience and ability to perform these tasks. CNA- pay scale for the CNA varies depending on the type of facility of which you are employed. Base starting pay is around $8.92 and up to $11.87 according to research posted by www.payscale.com. LPN- pay scale for an LPN varies depending on the type of facility of which you are employed. Base starting pay is $14.09 and up to $20.90 according to research posted by www.payscale.com. RN- pay scale for the RN varies depending on the type of facility of which you are employed. Base starting pay is $20.98 and up to $29.55 according to research posted by www.payscale.com. ARNP- pay scale for the ARNP is based on an annual salary rather than an hourly rate, and again it depends on the type of facility and specialty you practice in. Base starting pay is $65,924 and up to $93,341. CONCLUSION Summary: Taking into account the information I have covered here today,  and considering the salaries I have quoted are all beginning salaries fresh out of school, do you think you have what it takes to make a â€Å"Good† nurse. When I say â€Å"Good† nurse I am speaking of a person who performs their job putting all of the skills they have learned to use, working from their heart and honestly loving their job and the people they care for. An â€Å"OK† nurse is one who is there for the dollar, they are disturbed by the patient complaints, the repetitiveness of their duties and the strenuous demands placed on nursing on a day to day basis. If you are an â€Å"OK† nurse you will be subjected to the term â€Å"BURN OUT† quicker than you will ever begin to enjoy the career path you have invested in. Refocus: In making your decision to become a nurse take into consideration all of the factors that have been presented here today. Truly make this decisio n based on a life time goal and long range plan. It is a demanding, a giving and rewarding profession and there is a need for what we call truly â€Å"Good† nurses. References: Salary Snapshot for Certified Nursing Assistants, update Sept 12, 2010 www.payscale.com/Research/US/Job=Certified_Nurse_Assistant_(CNA)/Hourly_RateSalary Snapshot for Licensed Practical Nurse, updated Sept 19, 2010 www.payscale.com/Research/US/Job=Licensed_Practical_Nurse_(LPN)/Hourly_RateSalary Snapshot for Registered Nurse, updated Sept 15, 2010 www.payscale.com/Research/US/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Hourly_RateSalary Snapshot for Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner, updated Sept 14, 2010 www.payscale.com/Research/US/Degree=ARNP/Salaryâ€Å"Financial Considerations.† Advance For LPNS (November 2010) Vol. 11

Western art music.Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin Essay

Western art music.Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin - Essay Example Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, the world's acclaimed genius: a composer, pianist and teacher, born 1810 March 1 to "French migr father (a schoolteacher working in Poland) and a cultured Polish mother,with three sisters in â€Å"the region of Mazovia, which was part of the Duchy of Warsaw†2. Controversially, Chopin's baptismal certificate revealed that he was born 1810 February 22. Either date does not upset the gifted composer/pianist to conquer international prominence. In the years of "lively domestic music-making"3 Fryderyk was then five, his sister Izabela described her little brother, "'soon began to display a sensitivity to musical impressions by crying'"3 (qtd in Chopin Diary, http://en.chopin.nifc.pl). Chopin's talent was not concealed from public from his early childhood as he was commended the "child prodigy for his keyboard and composition skill"4 (Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin Biography, www.last.fm/music/Fr) which had been closely equated with Mozart as he showcased his gift with "two polonaises (in G minor and B flat major), the first being published in the engraving workshop of Father Cybulski. The prodigy was featured in the Warsaw newspapers",5 as young as seven years old. (Music History, www.nivmusic.com). From this period, "little Chopin" was the adornment of the aristocratic salons in Warsaw. Seven was the age that Chopin made had his first concert. In the next twenty years, Chopin stayed in Warsaw. Chopin's first formal piano lessons after his piano practices with his mother was with Wojciech Zywny and played his first public appearance at a charity concert by Czech composer Adalbert Gyrowetz. After Chopin stopped his piano lessons with Zywny, he started to learn compositions with Jozef Elsner taking organ lessons simultaneously with Wilhelm Wuerfl. Chopin's formal schooling was attended at the Warsaw Lyceum where he spent most of his summer holidays in various parts of the countryside and developed keen interest to folk music and country traditions and "became well acquainted with the folk music of the Polish plains in its authentic form, with its distinct tonality, richness of rhythms and dance vigour"5 thereby, composing his first Mazurka. (Music History, www.nivmusic.com). From his holiday vacations, he wrote to his parents, "'Through God's grace I am well and time always passes most pleasurably. I neither read nor write, but I play, drawn, run, make the most of the fresh air...'"3. This first letter was followed by a series of "amusing 'letters'3, known as the 'Kurier Szafarski' [Szafarnia Courier], parodying the 'Kurier Warszawski' [Warsaw Courier]."3 (qtd in Chopin Diary, http://en.chopin.nifc.pl). At age 15, Chopin was already a published composer with a soft heart to the impoverished ones where he performed charity concerts. The growing Chopin is exposed to political flux which at one time and another influenced his compositions, At Surname 3 Warsaw, young Chopin witnessed "arrests [] made among the members of the Narodowe Towarzystwo Patriotyczne" 3. (qtd in Chopin Diary, http://en.chopin.nifc.pl). At Warsaw School of Music, Chopin started to study the theory of music. However, he showed disinterest in his piano class and did not attend classes by which was leniently tolerated by the school head Elsner in view of understanding the personality and temperament of Chopin being aware of his unmistakable superior talent of which he acclaimed in writing, "Chopin, Fryderyk, third year student, amazing talent, musical genius".6 (qtd. in Academy of Music, www.hrovatmusic.com). Previously, in the first and second year of young Chopin, he was commended "'First-year: Chopin Fryderyk - special ability, second-year: Dobrzyski Ignacy - rare ability...'" 3. In another view of Chopin, Wilhelm Kohlberg recalls the time they were learning English, "[]These lessons

Essay about two related chapters from David Sloan Wilsons Evolution

About two related chapters from David Sloan Wilsons Evolution for Everyone - Essay Example Besides attempting to provide a plausible explanation for the origin of life, evolution also heavily impacts the behavior of species. Evolution holds the key to understanding the behavior of all species including the bizarre infanticide tendencies of particular species. The third chapter of Wilson’s Evolution for Everyone lays foundation for â€Å"the power of natural selection thinking† (Wilson 19). To demonstrate the power of this line of thinking, Wilson dwells on the socially undesirable practice of infanticide. Since the concept of natural selection is driven by the need to have off springs, then killing the off springs is automatically out of question (Wilson 19). However Wilson reveals that there exist certain environmental situations which make infanticide to be desirable. According to Wilson such possibilities like uncertain parentage, poor offspring and lack of sufficient resources create justification for infanticide among some species. In the fourth chapter of the text, Wilson proceeds to justify what he termed as the â€Å"third way of thinking† in the previous chapter. The third way of thinking is just but a simple phrase that Wilson uses to urge the reader to be flexible enough in their thinking to accommodate even the most remote of thoughts that indeed natural selection is responsible for the formation of the world as it currently is through contributing to all the behavioral outcomes of all the species in the universe. While still pursuing possible reasons that make infanticide to be a rational outcome, Wilson eventually derive his proof from the behavior of burying beetles. The Prove It chapter explains the possible reasons behind the actions of infanticide by a species – the burying beetles. Wilson reveals that this specie opts to regulate its brood size purely based on the food resources that are available. The parent beetle opts to kill some of its young ones so as to ensure that the rest c an comfortably thrive. This is one of

Rebellion against an Authoritarian Society Essay

Rebellion against an Authoritarian Society - Essay Example The doctors and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) see McMurphy as a threat to the system, because he promotes free will, freedom, changes, and autonomy through questioning authority and inspiring fellow inmates to express themselves and demand their rights, and so the system deals with him through enforcing rigid rules and regulations and continuously breaking the spirits of their patients through oppression, manipulation, and sometimes, even though electric shocks and lobotomy. McMurphy is a threat to the â€Å"system,† because he questions its norms and assumptions, which instigates debate and discussion on the legitimacy of its power. An authoritarian society will never condone a sane man questioning the system because that questioning can lead to a revolution that will oust those in power. In the same line of reasoning, the hospital management sees McMurphy as a sane person, because he is rational enough to question the irrationality of the system. However, they also see him as insane, because they believe that he cannot change a social institution. McMurphy is a threat to the system because he is a bad example to the rest of the subservient society, or specifically, the inmates of the hospital. The patients are called inmates because they are supposed to be free since they can leave the hospital anytime. However, because of Nurse Ratched’s control over them, they feel helpless and instead of resolving their psychological issues, they becom e more reliant on the system. McMurphy tells his fellow inmates: â€Å"God Almighty, shes got you guys comin’ or going.’ What do you think she is, [sic] some kind of a champ or something [sic]?† He asks others to analyze their situation by criticizing the legitimacy of its control over them. He wants them to open their eyes that their conformity to rules and regulations already stifles their freedoms and free will. He says that Nurse Ratched is not a champ, which means that they are the champ. They are the champ of their sanity and their fates.

MGT599 MoD 2 TD WEEK 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

MGT599 MoD 2 TD WEEK 2 - Essay Example This paper mainly tries to accomplish a brief analysis of the industry of food. However, in order to do so, PEST analysis and Porter’s Five Forces model are used. With the help of these analytical techniques, the recent opportunities and threats are evaluated about the food industry. After analyzing the opportunities and threats, the ways in which, these are effective for the Kraft Food Group is also evaluated within this paper. Moreover, in what ways, the Kraft Food Group might mitigate the risks and threats presented by the political, social or economic factors as well as threat of new entrants are also evaluated, so as to enhance its position and demand in the market among many other rival players. Threat of Entry: the threat of entrance of new players within the industry of food is quite tough due to excess capital requirements. In order to present differentiated products, high technology machineries are required that are generally out of the budget to the new entrants (Enz, 2009). Moreover, if the new entrants fail to offer, high quality products, then the customers may not prefer these products and their market share and profitability may not be increased (Ma, 2014). However, due to presence of these barriers, the rate of new entrance is low and this act as one of the strengths for the Kraft food group that offers a high impact on growing market share of the company. Rivalry: the extent of competitive rivalry among the existing players of food industry is extremely high (Kotler, 2008). However, in order to mitigate such rivalry, most of the existing players such as General Mills and Nestle always try to offer high attention over its research and development department to introduce new products frequently. This might prove effective for the existing players of food industry to amplify its demand and position in the market (Jones & George, 2004). However, because of high attention over research department, both of these organizations

Bsc in Management Studies - Business Environment-Coursework- Coursework

Bsc in Management Studies - Business Environment- - Firstgrade - Coursework Example Report also discussed as to how Intel captured the personal computer processor market and completely revolutionized it. However, the emerging trends on mobile computing suggest that the Intel may be lagging behind in this segment of the business. Extensive competition in the chip business for the smart phones and tablet computers has resulted into the vanishing of Intel’s traditional competitive advantage in the market. Trends suggest that the manufacturing of personal computers- a segment where Intel is market leader despite the fact that it’s getting tough competition from AMD- is shrinking. This reduction into the personal computer manufacturing therefore could result into the loss of market share for Intel. The final section of the report discusses some of the strategic approaches which Intel can take to overcome the challenges posed by external environment. Introduction External business environment plays a key role in shaping the current and future strategies of a firm. Learning organizations therefore always attempt to understand and explore their business environment and subsequently adjust and develop their business strategies in such a manner which can offer them competitive advantage in that business environment. ... (Kew, & Stredwick, 2005, p14). Intel is the leading semiconductor chip maker in the world and is based in California, US. Intel works in an industry where technology rapidly changes and the overall pace of change is quite rapid. Such an environment therefore requires the firms like Intel to continue to develop and invest heavily in research and development. Further, the trends are shifting towards mobile computing and more and more new products are being introduced in the market almost providing the same functionalities like a computer but they are more mobile and light in nature. These trends therefore suggest that the semiconductor chip manufacturing industry may go through a radical shift. How these factors can affect Intel in future and how Intel should respond to them is what will be discussed in this report. This report will focus on identifying key priority issues faced by Intel and how these issues can affect Intel in short term. Intel Corporation Intel Corporation started it s operations in 1968 from California, US as a computer chip manufacturer. It mainly manufacturers the microprocessors used in most of the personal computers however, it also manufactures motherboards for the personal computers, network interfaces, portable flash memory chips, integrated circuits and other technologies which are used in the communication technology. (Argyris, 1999) Intel started to manufacture memory chips initially however; it shifted its focus during 1981 when it started to produce computer microprocessors. Intel is therefore also credited with the invention of silicon based microprocessor which has completely revolutionized the personal computer industry by offering it the speed and accuracy to perform complex tasks at relative ease. Intel’s

SUNRISE SENIOR LIVING (SRZ)....FIRM THAT'S NOT WORTHY INVESTMENT Research Paper

SUNRISE SENIOR LIVING (SRZ)....FIRM THAT'S NOT WORTHY INVESTMENT - Research Paper Example The company operates in a high competitive market in US where Assisted Living Concepts Inc and Brookdale Senior Living Inc are two major competitors of it. Financial ratio analysis has shown that company is not at all profitable in terms of major profitability ratios. Though it has quite good asset turnover but capital structure of the company is very much unstable. Liability holds 90% of the totals assets and 10 times more than equity capital. Therefore, it operates with a huge amount of debt which indicates high possibility of bankruptcy in near future. By projecting key financial parameters for next financial year, it is identified that net profit would remain negative in next financial year. Profitability of the company would also remain very much weak compared to its competitors. The company is also much behind in terms of market share, profitability and operating efficiency than its competitors. From, detailed analysis of the company in financial and non financial perspective, it can be recommend that currently the company is not investment worthy. Introduction This paper deal with detailed analysis of Sunrise Senior Living Corporation, a US based multinational senior care service organization. ... The company operates in healthcare industry and provides senior living services to the aged people. It operates through 300 locations in home country United States and also in Canada and United Kingdom. Sunrise offers independent living, Alzheimer’s care, assisted living and personal carte, short term stays and nursing and rehabilitative care. This healthcare organization specializes in assisted living for the old people along with Alzheimer’s care through skilled nursing. The company is listed in fortune 1000 company. Recently, Sunrise Senior Living Corporation has been acquired by the Health Care REIT. SSL was established in 1981 in Virginia by Paul and Terry at an aims of long term healthcare to look after the senior citizen of the society. This objective of the business was termed as assisted living. Within next few decades the company penetrated throughout the United States and expanded in United Kingdom as first foreign market. In 2001 the company expanded its for eign market into Canada. The company changed its name as Sunrise Senior Living from Sunrise Assisted Living in 2008. It closed down all centers in Germany in 2010. Currently, the company employees near about 31,000 employees to provide senior living services through healthcare centers in more than 300 retirement communities across the world. Industry overview and trend Sunrise Senior Living operates in healthcare sector and long term care industry. This industry has been growing in western countries like United Kingdom, United States and Canada. Increasing life expectancy among the people, falling of birth rate are the key drivers for growth of this industry. According to the

Hillside School New Payment and Billing System Case Study

Hillside School New Payment and Billing System - Case Study Example From this discussion it is clear that the vice principal will certainly have enough space to carry out some more administrative responsibilities. The second benefit associated with this simplified system is that the heaviness of responsibility that the vice principal had to bear every school season are going to be reduced. Unlike it happened before, the vice principal can breath a sign of relieve from tedious work now. She is now sure to channel most of her time and effort into ensuring academic excellence in the school. Considering the fact that Hillside School is still a school with a lot of very young boys and girls, the vice principal’s duty can also be channeled towards ensuring high morals and discipline in the school. This study highlights that the decision table is purposely to look into the discounts available to parents. Generally, there are discounts in place to serve as motivation for parents who show some level of commitment to the school. The discounts are in two major forms and shall be discussed in detail when designing the decision table. Motivation to customers; in this case parents of students has been described as highly important in several ways. In the view of Cherry, â€Å"motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors.† By and large, motivation is needed as reinforcement to spark up a strong urge or desire in getting people put up certain behavior. In a school such as Hillside School which is a relatively new school, motivation in the form of discount to parents is therefore a step in the right direction. Not withstanding the importance of motivation discussed above, it is important that decisions on motivation be run efficiently. It is important that the school has a common system that ensures that there is a level playing field for all parents to benefit from the program.

The Journey by Anne Cameron Essay Example for Free

The Journey by Anne Cameron Essay Canadian writer Anne Cameron (1938- ) was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and raised in Vancouver. She started writing television and theatre scripts and then started publishing novels, including numerous childrens books, stories and poetry. She has published more than thirty books. Among the first novels which she published is â€Å"The Journey† (1982). The main story of this book is the life of two women in the 1800s, under a â€Å"western feminist† standpoint, crossing the Canadian frontier looking for their home. The central characters are Anne, a fourteen year old girl, and Sarah who is a prostitute. Both of them have had hard moments before their runaway; Anne was abused by her drunkard uncle and Sarah was humiliated by a killer sheriff and his group. After Anne escapes she teams up with Sarah and their trip together starts. The novel pictures their journey through the Canadian west, giving detailed information about the landscapes or characters feelings, with particular situations and contrasts like Chinese railroad workers cottages with amazing corridors of Belle’s brothel. They end in the Pacific Coast where they have to finally face with their own past, under optimistic view. The dissimilarity between the two characters is an interesting contrast; Anne was a pure innocent girl and Sarah a prostitute, a rather unusual duo. Cameron approaches the characters’ sexuality in a very particular way. Sarah has a gratifying relationship with a man and then she feels the same with a woman, introducing some doubt about whether she prefers women in general or Anne in particular. The author has said that she thinks of â€Å"pan-sexuality†, preferring not to wonder about a particular person sexual interest. Long before of â€Å"Thelma and Louise† or â€Å"Brokeback Mountain† films, this novel, in a different way, mix up these films topic; in a story about humanity and women in particular, who overcome life’s intricacy, giving significance for their special role in society.

Typs Of Paragraphs Essay Example for Free

Typs Of Paragraphs Essay A Comparison of two athletes   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA), two players who have a lot of similarities are Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. Michael Jordan led the Bulls 3 consecutive championships from 1991 to 1993 and another 3 from 1996 to 1998 while Kobe Bryant steered the Lakers to a similar title reign from 2000 to 2002. However, while the two are both superb basketball players who have a number of accomplishments under their belts, they also differ in a lot of aspects. The most notable difference between the two athletes is their individual awards in the NBA. Jordan was named league Most Valuable Player for 5 seasons while Bryant was never given the award. Moreover, Jordan entered the NBA from college while Bryant came straight from high school. Despite their differences, two athletes are, without a doubt, two players whose names will forever be remembered in the world of basketball. Raise the Punishment for Drunk Driving   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In almost every country, one of the most common causes of car accidents is drunk driving or driving under the influence of alcohol. However, more than just disturbing the flow of traffic and injuring themselves, drunk drivers most of the time also cause accidents that harm and sometimes even kill other people such as other drivers on the road or even bystanders simply walking along the road. People arrested for drunk driving are usually fined and imprisoned for a certain number of days and are then released. The problem with this type of penalty system is that a lot of drunk drivers never learn their lesson unless they cause serious damage, like accidentally claiming the life of another person. Considering the dangers that drunk driving poses to society in general, it is necessary to raise the punishment imposed on drunk drivers. The penalty should include years and not simply days of imprisonment as well as heavy fines similar to those imposed on more severe crimes like murder. This way, people would think twice before even considering driving while under the influence of alcohol. Classification Paragraph on Animals   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Animals can be classified according to the food they eat as herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Herbivores are basically animals that who eat only plants, which are also their main source of energy. Examples of herbivores include cows, sheep, gazelles, antelopes, and goats, among others. On the other hand, carnivores are basically a group of animals that obtain their food from hunting, killing, and eating other animals, hence the name â€Å"meat-eaters.† Examples of carnivores include lions, leopards, wolves, cheetahs, tigers, snakes, panthers, jaguars, and bears, among others. Lastly, omnivores are animals that get their energy from eating either animals or plants. The best examples of omnivores are human beings since we both eat the meat of other animals and plants. In addition, animals such as pigs, raccoons, hedgehogs, badgers, gulls, and piranhas, are also classified as omnivores. Some animals are scavengers that will only eat dead matter while others will eat the eggs of other animals.

Photography Essays Monstrous Imagery

Photography Essays Monstrous Imagery Chasing the Dragon: Capturing the Significance of the Monstrous Chapter One: What is a monster? There are perhaps two kinds of monster: the monster that sprung from our own hands and changed into something uncontrollable, and the monster that is experienced as alien, preternatural, generally an unfathomable creature, and frightening because of its mystery. It is impossible to decide which is more frightening, since both suggest an Other, something resistant to human power, and while the first kind draws attention to man’s mortal limits and potential for self-destruction, the second highlights the extent of human ignorance and insignificance in relation to external forces. Both kinds of monster, however, share an ability to induce extraordinary fear, and both have a solid foundation in mythology, since man has always feared what he could not explain and has translated his fears into metaphorical shapes of fearful creatures since time began. Both man-made and alien monsters, too, share a self-referential semiotic structure in literature, art, psychology and mythology. In t he history of the human subconscious, fears have always preceded monsters. Monsters are representative. They are representative of all the things we are unable to control, and the uncontrollable fear that is generated by these things. They are representative, then, on more than one level, as they are simultaneously our fear and the object of our fear. All (â€Å"bad†) monsters are synonymous with fear – our fearand as such the monstrosity we perceive in even â€Å"external† beasts like aliens, dragons, sea monsters and circus freaks, is something generated by us, the beholder. They are also representative of anything threatening, as Robert Thomas’ definition in â€Å"The Concept of Fear,† explains â€Å"not only what is likely to threaten life, injure our bodies, cause physical pain, which is seen as   ‘dangerous’ or ‘threatening.’ The monster retains an almost unique power to represent, subjectively, something different to whoever beholds it. But its representative power operates on a universal level too: in Judith Halberstam’s book Skin Shows (1995) she seems to suggest that the semiotics of a monster’s meaning should maintain a certain fluidity, as its interpretation is so unstable, and contingent upon social, political and religious climates. Halberstam expounds on the role of literary and cinematic texts in channelling our fear of monsters, since â€Å"the production of fear in a literary text (as opposed to a cinematic text) emanates from a vertiginous excess of meaning† While one might expect to find that cinema multiplies the possibilities for monstrosity, the nature of the visual always, in fact, operates a kind of self censorship, whereby our visual register reaches a limit of visibility surprisingly fast. It is our imaginations that make the invisible nature of monsters, the very essence of their unknown-ness, so enduringly frightening. As Paul Yoder eloquently expresses it, â€Å"What we cannot see frightens us most. Reason competes with   imagination to establish boundaries around the external stimuli and, thus,   clearly establishes a means of remaining separated from that which harms us.   But reason will ultimately prove ineffective without a frame of reference grounded in a context of physical reality to establish a solidified boundary between the real and the unreal, the natural and the supernatural. Without this definitive context, reason is unable to mark the separation between two modes of perception, so as an audience or a reader, we are forced to hesitate, resulting   in a moment of suspense, the first stage in   externalizing the feeling and producing an externally constructed emotion of   fear.† The monster walks the line between life and death, and the most terrifying monsters transform others into fearful beings too, removing their essence, or everything they cherished. Medusa, for example, had no natural animation herself, just wriggling snakes that performed a grotesque impersonation of the natural and winsome effects of wind through hair.   In some ways she epitomises monstrousness, as her fearful power was an extension of her fearful quality – her deathly stillness. Medusa, of course, used petrification to turn others to stone, and inadvertently brought about her own end through the reflection of her enemy’s shield. Thus Medusa is a warning to all monsters: eventually, the supernatural force of the deadly stillness will be turned onto itself by the superior power of animated defences of the natural. My aim in this study is to juxtapose the metaphorical â€Å"monsters† that have permeated our language and mythologies with the visual interpretations of the monstrous, as it has been translated into photography and the assumptions of pop culture. The ultimate goal in this study is to arrive at some definition of â€Å"monster† based on a societal interpretation of the outsider and examine how fear of the â€Å"Other† is internalized. It is the manner that we, as a society, perceive our â€Å"Other†, which will ultimately control the paths our visual representations of monsters take, as mythical archetypes within the horrors of our minds. Chapter Two: Creating and defining the monstrous: the codes of photography Monsters have long been obeisant to a certain visual code, albeit a very difficult one to define. Sometimes they are brightly coloured, sometimes scaled up or down, humanoid, hairy, toothy, slimey, legless, millipedal, whatever they look like, they look exaggerated, surprising, startling, unexpected. If we read about them, the mental image is a perplexingly blurry one; if we see them in horror movies, their most frightening moment is always just before they appear. Monsters vary so wildly in their representation because the visual properties of the monster are actually incidental to its fear-producing power. The monster can look like anything, the more surprising the better – a chair; a beachball; the Prime Minister because the fear is our fear, and the fear created the monster: it was there first, deep inside us. The visual arrangement of the monster is merely a trigger to that primal fear. It seems to me that the writer with the most monstrous pen is Herman Melville, and the photographer with the most monstrous eye is Ansel Adams. Both contrast light and dark incessantly: for Melville with his extraordinary white whale, pallor is something to be afraid or suspicious of, perhaps even suggesting the diabolical. Whiteness is both, â€Å"the most meaningful symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian deity,† and â€Å"the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind†. In a world controlled by Christian orthodoxy, the whiteness of purity, the shroud, and death, lead to life everlasting. On the sea, however, white represents a loss of hope, for it â€Å"shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation.† A photograph remains an abstraction, even in its most primitive state as a sort of document or record and Adams’s skill lies in his ability to conceal his role as contriver, abstracter, imaginist, within the rhetorical apparatus of scientifically objective reality. He shuttles, perpetually, between the reality of texture and the affectation of emphasised texture; his is a statement about the difference between something existing and something being noticed, which partly accounts for his famous privileging of black and white. When unnecessary distractions arise from ranges of colours are removed, the impact of an image can be multiplied. In efforts to define- or perhaps contain it, the practice of photography has been laboriously distinguished from other visual forms and practices, particularly painting and film. Adams is interesting because he refuses the forces of classification, not static enough for photography, too theatrical and contrived for regular representational convention. In the article Looking at Photographs, Victor Burgin writes: â€Å"The signifying system of photography, like that of classical painting, at once depicted a scene and the gaze of the spectator, an object and a viewing subject. Whatever the object depicted, the manner of its depiction accords with laws of geometric projection which imply a unique point of view. It is the position of point-of-view, occupied in fact by the camera, which is bestowed upon the spectator.† Even more emphatically than painting, photography maps an animated, infinitely subjective and ever changing world into a two dimensional, static image of a finite moment.   Classical and highly stylised black and white images, such as those that have made Adams most famous, take the abstraction one step further by removing all colour from our inescapably multicoloured world. What remains is one of two things which really amount to the same: an alien – monstrous landscape, or our own landscape from an Other’s point of view. The use of colour in photography has been shunned repeatedly by many purists working to a realist agenda. Compared to black and white it is considered more superficial, crassly realistic, mundane, less abstract, ultimately less artistic. Altering light and shade in the darkroom enables a degree of artistic dishonesty. The camera may not lie, but the photographer very frequently does, especially the photographer with an artistic agenda. Whenever he dodges shadow detail and fires up highlights, increasing contrast or altering tone, Adams exercises and demonstrates a contrivance that amounts to a sort of visual poetry. Adams is on record confessing to severe manipulationof Moonrise over Hernandez, but more significant still is probably his interest in striking, unusual, dehumanised scenes and subjects which lend themselves so well to monochrome representation. These subjects I would characterise as â€Å"monstrous†: their stillness the only feature protecting us from terror †“ the brink of fear kept just out of reach by the amazing stationary quality of the images. Monsters are frightening when they are animated, but this is also when they are at their weakest, as we have seen. Adams’ works have the frozen, petrified, feel of a final visual imprint of a paralysed, dying beast. The night scene is extraordinarily affecting, partly because, as a genre, it is most famous for high contrast monochrome. It is the only time in our world really does seem black and white, so the image is almost an accurate representation, but not quite. It is the slightly alienating quality of this image, the slight lack of fit between representation and mental expectation, which makes it so beautiful. Many of Adams’s images are arresting because they are tuned to the timing of our mental calculations: they are ready to predict and confound our expectations by subtle acts of artifice and they play constantly, and good-naturedly, on the moment of our realisation. The monochrome of Adams is not a symptom of self-aggrandising pride in his iconic â€Å"artist† status, but a device to play with emphasis and expectation, a way of forcing us to look at the world in different ways. The British scientist and psychology pioneer, Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), was responsible for many studies we might now associate with â€Å"monstrous† photography in a different sense. Galton generated controversy in many ways even in his own time; as an early eugenicist he was the first to study the nature-nurture debate through the use of real pairs of twins. Galton’s Eugenics experiments in the 1870s had the ostensible aim of â€Å"improving† the human race by selecting individuals with desirable traits and encouraging them to breed, while simultaneously to check the birth-rate of the Unfit. Perhaps his most famous means of studying behavioural traits across different social demographics was photography. Galton aimed to surpass individual behavioural idiosyncrasies and arrive at generalisations about human behaviour, through a crudely arranging a number of photographs into a composite. His most famous study of this sort aspired to investigating criminal behaviour – and this was the study which most clearly demonstrated both a fear of and damaging assumptions made about Victorian society’s â€Å"Other†: the monstrous convict. Galton took a number of face-shots of men convicted of murder, manslaughter and other serious crimes, then carefully printed them all to the same dimensions. By photographing a number of them, then carefully aligning the images onto the same photographic plate, a composite photograph was assembled. Rather than Galtons enabling him to produce a clear image of a criminal face, Galton’s results produced pictures that of men with a generic kind of working class look. Galton’s â€Å"monster† seemed to be created from the false confidence of new technologies and that afforded by the new shamanism surrounding his â€Å"science†. His results seemed to show that any member of the lower classes was a potential criminal and advised that selective breeding could be used to replace the lower classes by those from superior stock. An extension of the same reasoning and method, and extraordinary bias towards the visual, could come to the conclusion that some racial groups were inherently superior to others, and indeed this was what happened, as Eugenics, while starting as an attempt to scientifically improve the human condition was of course later used to support Nazi policies of extermination of Jews, gypsies and others. Photography theory has traced something undeniably monstrous integral to the abstract, literary property of the photograph. After his father’s death, Paul Auster was compelled to sort through the house full of the objects left behind. Despite the fact that all his father’s artefacts, everything from an electric razor, to tools and cancelled cheques—bore a kind of ghostly trace of their owner, Auster prefers to focus on the photographs he finds stored in a cupboard in the bedroom. It is as if he hopes they might reveal some information about his father that unusually real, through their power to capture his image. Roland Barthes’s work Camera Lucida affords Auster’s grim quest with some context. After a determined effort to define photography â€Å"in itself,† the second half of his book sees Barthes turning to a kind of personal dialogue with a photograph of his recently deceased mother. While sorting a stack of photographs of his mother, Bar thes notices that â€Å"none of them seemed to me really ‘right’†that is, although he â€Å"recognized a region of her face, a certain relation of her nose and forehead, the movement of her arms, her hands† Barthes can’t â€Å"find† his mother’s essential â€Å"being† in any of her pictures. Barthes’s task then changes from sorting photos to â€Å"looking for the truth of the face I had loved† in the stack of images. There is something intrinsically alien about the meaning of photographs, and to this extent they are monsters to us, and our memories. Auster, too, seems to be seeking â€Å"truth† in the photographs of his lost parent. He writes, â€Å"It seemed that they could tell me things I had never known before, reveal some previously hidden truth† Unlike Barthes, who is looking for something he knows about his mother but can’t find in her images, Auster hopes that his father’s photographs will betray some evidence of a private man, some part of his father that had been carefully concealed from the world. The â€Å"very essence† of photography, according to Barthes, is that it shows what has been. Chapter three: Reacting to monstrous imagery Many spaces are terrifying to us, and soon become populated by â€Å"monsters† of the cosmic psyche. The arctic wasteland is crawling with yetis, every dark corner has a ghost, and every desert is thick with monstrous mirages, terrifying to the extent that they represent a void, a nothingness, at best, the fear of the unknown. They are alien landscapes- mammals struggle to survive, and the plants we do find in deserts barely seem designed to aid our survival. There is a certain security about filling the void with sign-posts, even if, in the ultimate post-modern irony, those signs only point to themselves. In this sense the iconography of the desert shares a metaphorical shape with Barthes’ self-reflexive definition of photography; it is as if the horrors of the desert, the horrors of the self-created metaphor, and the fearful void constructed by the photograph that signifies nothing are all connected and perhaps even the same. Auge’s words explain the problem of imaging the desert, If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity then a space which cannot be defined as relational, historical or concerned with identity is a non place. The spaces which negate are unbearable and must be somehow psychically redeemed. Laura Cinti attempts this by attaching hair to the spineless cactus, for the cactus itself has of course beco me yet another iconographic space of complicated nothingness. Cinti’s work, if it demonstrates or states anything, demonstrates or states the extent to which the desert symbolism has been anxiously harvested from the plant. What looks like nothingness is mere misunderstanding, and what looks like improvement and liberation is naà ¯ve, appalling, abuse. Yet we are all guilty of some of this. None of us can bear the silence of the desert or make sense of the mute perpendicular. Michael Fried’s work in Realism, Writing, Disfiguration makes much of the damaging and paradoxical symmetry that exists between the hand and the eye. That is, the way we see the world is affected by the way we recreate it, but the way we reproduce it damages the way we see it. The whole theory operates on a larger metaphor controlled by vertical/horizontal semiotics. The desert cactus image is always a vertical formation on a horizontal axis: the opposition of life and death is present visually and immediately. But the desert is unique, as a horizontal space. We would normally expect a great expanse of flat ground to be bursting with life and promise, to oppose and define the sky. The desert, however, rejects life. Those who think cacti ugly must perceive them as canker sores, signifiers only of scorched earth. The desert space is an inversion of all th at we, as animals, have come to associate with health   and life. The cacti in the vista, then, can be interpreted in two almost completely opposing ways. Either they are the anti-tree, the anti-life, or they are vegetation and water, albeit in a different form- and consequently just as alienated from the sandy plains as we are. Despite the obvious oppositions, the desert is more like the sea than it appears. While the water reflects light, the desert reflects heat- and the art historian Michael Fried cites reflections as the connection between the inner and the outer. To the extent that they are concerned with reflections, indoor and outdoor scenes are treated as having the same character and affect. I feel sure the notion can equally be applied to a pair of iconographically opposing images. Interior and exterior scenes are, to Fried, clear metaphors for the inside and outside of the body, so perhaps the â€Å"external† hostility of the desert might set alongside the â€Å"internal† of the humane well-vegetated landscape. Perhaps the images represent a horizontality that reflect along a flat axis. The reflection must always be slightly imperfect for the object to be seen at all- and it is interference on the vertical axis that disrupts the reflection and reveals the illusion. In the desert, th is interference is embodied by cacti, which are surely the most authentic part of the landscape. Conclusions We have seen how monsters can be created and destroyed, and discovered that it is more interesting to explore their legacy as metaphorical forces in our language and psyches. In closing, I would like to look briefly at the example of Narcissus, whose monstrous transformation into a flower is richly representative and relevant, and resonates with much of the discourse surrounding art and spectatorship today. Turning to ancient mythology, we often find a wealth of instances where change itself is the terrifying aspect of the monstrous. Ovid’s metamorphoses provide a catalogue of such stories, and, more interestingly, represent the different ways that the metaphors of monstrosity are used to generate fear and alienation. Narcissus and Echo is a particularly rich example, among several in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, of a beautiful youth who died as a result of spurning sex. In Ovids retelling of the myth, Narcissus is the son of Cephissus, the river god and the nymph Liriope. The seer Tiresias foretold that the child would live to an old age if it did not look at itself. While many nymphs and girls fell in love with him, he rejected them all. One such nymphs, Echo, became so distraught that she withdrew to a lonely spot and faded until all that was left was a plaintive whisper. Meanwhile the rejected girls’ prayers for vengeance reached the goddess Nemesis, who caused Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection. He remained transfixed by his reflection until he died. It is possible that the connection between Echo and Narcissus was an invention of Ovid, since there do not seem to be any earlier instances of the Narcissus myth which incorporate Echo. This myth lends itself to extensive and adventurous literary interpretation. When Narcissus eliminated the distance between his image and its reflection by touching the water with his face, the distance disappeared and took the image with it, as the water rippled and broke the reflected into pieces. The desire, however, remained, not disappearing with any distance covered by his attempts to escape it, and his difficulty with his passion for himself was not solved. The story is compelling to artists because it is about the power of sight, its dangers and its rewards. For Narcissus, salvation is possible as extension of distance, not as elimination of it. If he can cease to see his own image he will be saved but is precisely the need to see his face that is compelling and destroying him. As Angel Angelov writes, â€Å"Narcissus’ face is a metonymy of integrity, enraptured by its reflected self. The general paradox upon which the story is built comprises various details – in this case, the simultaneity of shapelessness and fixed contour – Narcissus’ image on the water surface was cut like chiseled Paros marble. Certainly, we can think about Alexandrinian influence (getting petrified because of amazement) but also about the Roman practice of sculpting, creating firm outlines. However, the presence in a definite social environment considered eternal, is a characteristic that is contrary to the out-social transience of Narcissus’ reflection.† In Narcissus: the mirror of the text. Philip Hardie explores various ideas around Narcissus as a post-modern signifier. The surface of water, that fragile barrier, becomes a Lacanian mirror and operates as an interface between Self and Other, dividing reality and illusion, as Narcissus, just like the reader, confronts an image that can never be real, but representative only of the viewer’s unfulfilled desire. Hardie argues that the story of Narcissus and Echo is Ovid’s cautionary treatise on the dangerously deluding, deceptively subjective property of sight and sound. Narcissus as Lucretian fool and Lucretian lover will be the victim of simulacral delusions, a frustrated lover situated ironically in a bountiful, pastoral landscape filled with false promise; inappropriately wistful even after his acknowledgement that the Other can only ever be a hollow reflection of the Self. According to this reading, all hope of something extraneous to the self, something objective, to love and life, is prohibited by this tale’s morality. The story is essentially tragic and ontologically didactic: indeed Ovid’s Theban histories are infused with the theme of empty signifiers and the dangers of useless introspection. Indeed the story’s equation of the bewitching power of sight with the sight of oneself has inspired recent writers to construct a kind of literary psychosis to describe the subjective subject, â€Å"The eye would be about the I, the subject, part of a monocular system perpetuating an illusion of wholeness, an Imaginary dyad, a tradition of the eye/I that would move through Kant, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty, while the ear would be aligned with the other, with a fragmentary existence cut across by the Symbolic, by having subjectivity determined by and through an other,† It has been said that the product of every metamorphosis is an absent presence, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Narcissus/Echo episode, a story irresistible to artists transfixed with the metaphysical paradoxes and word games. One artist well known for his precocious interest in semiotics was Nicholas Poussin. Poussin’s Echo and Narcissus depicts, unusually, a trio of figures in a triangular formation. Narcissus lies prone across the base, limp but muscular, his face a mask of sadness, his eyes empty. Echo behind him resembles a Greek statue, History, perhaps, again posing strangely in a balleric semaphor of sorrow. In fact, for all the story’s appeal Echo and Narcissus poses an obvious challenge to artists: Echo is said to have wasted away until only her voice was left. But a voice is rather difficult to represent in painting. From the outset, then, the story demands that mimetic pictorial realism must be suspended. The story gives artists like Poussin free license to create symbolic, literary pieces, with figures whose bodies are sculpted and whose faces are masks. We have seen how the image lends itself to ontological paradoxes, and it could be argued that the putti, the third figure in th is image, is a kind of representation of the artist’s presence inside his own artificial world. The putti carries a flaming torch, and stands next to a spear, clear indicators, Michael Fried would argue, of the artist’s palette and paintbrush. The art historian Michael Fried’s writing synchronises very well with the Echo and Narcissus myth, as it could well be characterized as the doomed ambition to structure impossible desire. Poussin’s works present a displaced metaphor for the mental and physical effort of painting. Thus Fried’s theory takes the anti-mimetic definition of realism one step further- although painting does not have to relate to what it depicts, it will resist immediacy, but relate in specific indirect ways to the person who depicts it. For Poussin, the impossible, yet desired, merger is one of inscriber and inscribed; for Ovid it is one of reader and listener. An erotics of the word and image is then as inevitable as one of ear and eye, and we find the transformation that characterizes the monster has as much to do with desire as it has to do with fear. This notion is borne out by Kristeva’s definition of the abject. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines abject as Brought low, miserable; craven, degraded, despicable, self abasing, describing abjection as a state of misery or degradation, definitions which can be understood more fully through their expression: religious hatred, incest, womens bodies, human sacrifice, bodily waste, death, cannibalism, murder, decay, and perversion are aspects of humanity that society considers abject. As Barbara Creed sees it, â€Å"The place of the abject is where meaning collapses, the place where I am not. The abject threatens life, it must be radically excluded from the place of the living subject, propelled away from the body and deposited on the other side of an imaginary border which separates the self from that which threatens the self.† Hence the abject is something we deliberately exclude to preserve our illusion of a meaningful world. In Powers Of Horror:An Essay On Abjection, Kristeva identifies that we first experience abjection at the point of separation from the mother. This idea is drawn from Lacans psychoanalytical theory as she identifies abjection as symptomatic of a revolt against that which gave us our own existence. As Samantha Pentony explains it, â€Å"At this point the child enters the symbolic realm, or law of the father. Thus, when we as adults confront the abject we simultaneously fear and identify with it. It provokes us into recalling a state of being prior to signification (or the law of the father) where we feel a sense of helplessness. The self is threatened by something that is not part of us in terms of identity and non-identity, human and non-human.† Kristeva definition of the abject aligns it to what I have described as the â€Å"Other†,   The abject has only one quality of the object and that is being opposed to I. There will always be a connection between the abject and the subject: they define one another. When we find ourselves flailing in the world of the abject, we lose our sense of subjectivity, our imaginary borders disintegrate, and the abject becomes a real threat because there is no alterior – no sense of reality or self – to neutralise the threat or remind us of its illusory nature. So Kristevas theory of abjection is concerned with those suspended realms, changing forms, states of transition or transformation, â€Å"The abject is located in a liminal state that is on the margins of two positions. This state is particularly interesting to Kristeva because of the link between psychoanalysis and the subconscious mind.† Like Narcissus facing his reflection, or Medusa facing hers, we are attracted and repelled simultaneously by the abject. It induces nausea in our bodies and fear in our hearts. For Kristeva, these feelings arise from memories, specifically the first memory of separation from our mother. There is a thrill about horror and the macabre, and monsters represent ourselves in a state of change – when Kristeva describes one aspect of the abject as jouissance she suggests that through exciting in the abject, One thus understands why so many victims of the abject are its fascinated victims if not its submissive and willing ones. And furthermore, The abject is perverse because it neither gives up nor assumes a prohibition, a rule, or law; but turns them aside, misleads, corrupts; uses them, takes advantage of them, the better to deny them,† The abject, then, the monstrous, is metaphorically powerful as a force of manipulation, even more sinister in its unknowable nature, because we suspect it is up to no good. Yet for all its subversion, perversion and fear, we are excited by the abject, drawn to the monstrous, and we always will be because it comes from inside us. Bibliography Angelov, Angel Images Transformation/Disappearance online here: http://www3.unibo.it/parol/articles/angelov.htmThe Original/The Print/The Copy: Installations Of Nadezhda Lyahova Auge, Marc, â€Å"From Places to Non-Places† in Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity UK: Verso Books, 1995. Auster, The Invention of Solitude, UK: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1989. Bann, Stephen (ed) Frankenstein, Creation and Monstrosity US:Reaktion Books Ltd, 1994. Barthes, Camera LucidaReflections on Photography UK: Vintage (Vintage Classics), 1993. Creed, Barbara The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Popular Fiction S.) UK: Routledge,an imprint of Taylor Francis Books Ltd, 1993. Creed, B. Horror And The Monstrous Feminine : An Imaginary Abjection . London Routledge, 1993. Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. Hardie, Philip Ovids Poetics of Illusion Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press, 2002.   Pp. viii, 365 Hargreaves and Hamilton The Beautiful and t

The Comanche Helicopter Program Essay -- The Armed Forces

In 1983 the United States began a program to upgrade the aging fleet of U.S. Army helicopters. What was initially known as the Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX), in April 1991 the LHX program would become the Reconnaissance Attack Helicopter (RAH-66). The program was initially designed to replace all light helicopters in the Army fleet, however, this was reduced to a more attainable goal of replacing the AH-1, OH-58, and OH-6 helicopters. This program greatly enhanced the capabilities of the commander on the battlefield of the future.1 The helicopter of the future would far outclass any helicopter on the planet; boasting capabilities like fly by wire controls, stealth, greater maneuverability, greater speed, and far reaching technological capabilities making it the â€Å"quarterback of the digital battlefield†-. What the Comanche program quickly turned into was an over budget, behind schedule, government project that was being built to combat an enemy that no longer existed. Technological advances found through the 6.9 billion dollars spent on the Comanche have yielded some improvements to the current fleet of Army helicopters (block III Apache), however, it could be argued that the Comanche project simply drained the military and held back the advancement of the current fleet. 2 Twenty years after the birth of the LHX, the United States had invested 6.9 Billion dollars and had two RAH-66 helicopters to show for it. In 2003, with the war on terrorism kicking off, President George W. Bush cancelled the Co manche program to better equip the U.S. Military for the fight that was ongoing. History U.S. strategy in 1983 toward the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. was to simply out spend the Soviet Union in the military sector. The... ...ng†, Defense Media Network, December 16, 2010, www.defensemedianetwork.com 3. NATO’s Nations and Partners for Peace, Comanche Terminated, Air Power, 2004 4. Pelletier, A.J. â€Å"Bell Model 406/OH-58D Kiowa Warrior†, Avia Star, www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bell_warrior.php, 1992 5. U.S. Department of Defense News Transcript. Briefing on the Restructure and Revitalization of Army Aviation, February 23, 2004 6. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General. Financial Management of the RAH 66 Comanche Helicopter Program, August 6, 1998 7. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General, Acquisition Management of the RAH-66 Comanche, May 12, 2003 8. Wayne, Leslie. Pentagon Says it Plans to Kill Copter Program, The New York Times, February 24, 2004 9. Werthman, Robert W, Col.. The Comanche Helicopter Program: A Strategic Policy Failure, March 30, 2007

In chapter 5 a lot of different ideas come out about the beast. :: English Literature

In chapter 5 a lot of different ideas come out about the beast. Lord of the Flies In the lord of the flies there where a lot of things happening on the island but one thing that was mentioned through out the story was the beast, there where a lot of different sightings and mentioning of it. The firs time the beast is mentioned is in chapter 2 when a younger child asks Ralph what he is going to do about the beast, he asks Ralph through piggy as the child is to scared to say it in front of everybody. Piggy says to Ralph â€Å"He wants to know what you are going to do about the snake-thing† he the n goes on to say â€Å" the beastie thing came in the dark†,† in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches†. The child seems anxious to know whether it will return. Although all this information is coming from a small child and he might just be making up there is always a possibility that its true so they cant afford to just laugh it off. Although all this is at the back of Ralph’s mind he tries to put confidence into the group by saying â€Å"but there isn’t a beastie† the group seems to take Ralph’s word for it. Then as things start to settle jack jumps up ands says â€Å"Ralph’s right of course but if there was a snake we would hunt and kill it† this is the best thing to say because it is leaving the minds open to think that there is a beast and it puts everybody’s minds un easy again. In chapter 3 they decide that they need homes for shelter and security. They all say its in case it rains just to give them some shelter if need be, and give them somewhere to sleep. At the back of all there minds is still the beastie so they are doing it for protection, it will be like there home because everybody feels safe at home so they are trying to get some security between them selves like that. In chapter 5 a lot of different ideas come out about the beast. The first person to bring it up is jack he says there isn’t no beast and fear cant hurt you, and all everybody is doing is fearing fear so you are all a bunch of babies, jack is partly correct in what he says but he isn’t think like it really is he is just trying to prove that he

Comparing The Grapes of Wrath and The Power of One Essay -- comparison

Comparing The Grapes of Wrath and The Power of One "Two heads are better than one," it's always been said. But is another person always valuable, or can extra baggage keep an individual from achieving his goals? Both sides can be argued effectively, and both may be true depending on the circumstances. Two historical novels, The Grapes of Wrath and The Power of One, show how two sets of characters took different routes to achieve their goals and how they fared along the way. In The Grapes of Wrath, The Joads, a family of penniless migrant workers, travel to California to look for work, depending on the help of assorted strangers along the way, while The Power of One tells the story of Peekay, a young South African boy growing up alone in a hostile world bent on destroying his chances of success. The books portray very different views on life that are equally valid and convincing; while The Grapes of Wrath is a tale that emphasizes the power that can be achieved in numbers and the consequences of trying to survive alone, Th e Power of One is a testimony to the things one person can achieve when he is forced to depend on and trust in himself only.   Ã‚  Ã‚   The Joads, after they are forced to vacate their farm in Oklahoma, decide to pack all of their belongings and make the voyage to California, where there is supposedly so much work that everyone can make a living. But along the way, they quickly run into trouble. They have little money, an unreliable vehicle, a truckload of people to feed, and miles to go before they reach their destination. The Joads quickly discover something that becomes a major theme throughout the book: cooperating with others to achieve a common goal is sometimes necessary for surviva... ...ss birds banished, their rocky nests turned to river stones"(513;Ch. 24)   Ã‚  Ã‚   Each of these novels, although powerful and influential in its own right, contrasts the other greatly in terms of theme. The Joads in The Grapes of Wrath had to rely on others to obtain their goal, while Peekay in The Power of One struggled to find his way in life completely alone. Though each book is very different from the other, each is an emotional story of life's obstacles and the tremendous human spirit, whether combined or individual, that it takes to overcome them.    Sources Courtenay, Bryce. The Power of One. New York: Random House, 1989 Levant, Howard. "The Fully Matured Art: The Grapes of Wrath." John Steinbeck, Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 35-62. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books, 1978.

Collaborative Working †Case Study Essay

The aim of this essay is to examine the significance of collaborative working to achieve positive outcomes for service users. â€Å"Collaboration is a dynamic inter-professional process which two or more professionals make a commitment to solve problems and to learn from each other in order to accomplish identified goals, purposes or outcomes† (Hamric, Spross and Hanson, 2000, p.318). Since the publication of Every Child Matters (2004), social care, health, voluntary sectors and other children’s services have been joining forces to work more collaboratively around an early intervention and preventative agenda (Department for Education and Skills, 2004). This essay will focus on the National Childhood Measurement Programme (NCMP) and by drawing on the author’s experiences as a Nursery Nurse in the School Nursing team it will demonstrate the skills and knowledge required for successful implementation of this service and how to promote seamless working. The NCMP was established in 2005 and involves weighing and measuring all eligible children aged 4-5 years and 10-11 years. Research shows that it is difficult to visually tell if a child is overweight, which is why an objective measure if essential (Department of Health, 2012). The data gathered provides a picture about how children are growing nationally, therefore this information is used by the NHS to plan and provide better health services for children (NHS Choices, 2012). According to the NHS Information Centre (2010) one in four, 4-5 year olds, are overweight or obese; furthermore, these rates are higher among some black and minority ethnic communities and lower socio-econo mic groups. Although the Primary Care Trust (PCT) oversee the delivery of the programme effective partnership working is essential, therefore this essay will explore what partnerships are required and the factors that facilitate or hinder collaborative working in this area of work. Finally, this report will provide evidence from literature and published papers to support the identified barriers and benefits of collaborative working throughout this process. Setting The School Nursing team comprises of a range of skill mix which consists of a Head of Service, one team leader, seven School Nurses, five of which have obtained the Specialist Community Public Health Nurse qualification (Degree or Masters Degree) and three Nursery Nurses evenly spread in three different localities around the City. The team covers fifty two Primary Schools and ten Secondary Schools, mainly in the inner City but also in the rural surrounding areas, therefore an extremely diverse region with varying socio-economic backgrounds. This City has a very large Asian population, however recently there has been an increase in Eastern European, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese and travellers all presenting a multitude of cultures, values and beliefs. Measuring the children takes place in the school setting. Each individual school will be contacted to arrange a suitable date and time as well as organising a private area with adequate space for the ease of measuring and comfort for the children. Every school in this district has its individuality, not only do they vary in size but numerous schools have a large proportion of pupils with English as an additional language (EAL). There three special needs schools, furthermore schools with varying socio-economic backgrounds such as families experiencing poverty within the inner city and in contrast more affluent areas where the school attainment is generally higher. Knowledge and Skills of the Health Professional in the Setting The Knowledge and skills discussed in this section relate to the author’s role as a Nursery Nurse within the School Nursing Team and the planning, implementation and follow-up work required for the growth measurements of all eligible Reception and Yr 6 children as required by the Governments National Childhood Measurement Programme (NCMP). The skills required for successful delivery of this program not only depend on accurate weighing and measuring children but several other elements such as engaging with various professionals, inputting data, maximising the effective delivery of the program which is dependent on excellent communication skills, administration management, IT skills and clinical knowledge. These skills are required from the very beginning at the planning stage; high-quality organisational skills are essential when planning and booking in the measurement sessions with the schools. The Nursery Nurse requires good organisational skills as it is her responsibility to organise the logistics of these sessions; by liaising with the School Nurses a timetable is generated to complete the programme over the year, ensuring there is sufficient staff available for each school. Following this, the Nursery Nurse will contact all the Primary Schools to book in the sessions, good communication skills are necessary to request a suitable room to maintain the privacy and dignity of the children and ensure the session creates as little disruption as possible to the educatio n of the children. Generally, the booking is made with either the School Secretary or the Head Teacher who then cascades this information to the relevant teachers and staff. It is crucial to acquire the knowledge and understanding of the NCMP protocol regarding consent and confidentiality. Parents and children are issued with information prior to the session, subsequently the NCMP operate an opt-out basis, and therefore the parents are given the opportunity to withdraw (Department of Health, 2011). The refusal notification is sent to the Child Health Department who then records this on the specific child’s medical record; therefore communication and information sharing skills are essential for this to be implemented successfully. It is paramount to respect the parent’s choice to refuse and ensure that no pressure is placed on the family to participate (Schwab and Gelfman, 2001), by possessing the knowledge of the ethical considerations of children will assist situations where a child decides they would not like to be measured. According to Lord Scarman, children have the right to make their own decisions when they reach sufficient understan ding and intelligence to be capable of making up their own mind (Children’s Legal Centre, 1985). Annual training is mandatory which ensures competency in the accurate measurement of children to obtain reliable results. It is the Nursery Nurses responsibility to supply the relevant equipment to the sessions ensuring that the height measure is complete, clean and in good working order, furthermore the scales are required to be calibrated as required by the trusts policy therefore good time management and organisational skills are beneficial. Upon arrival, the school will direct the team to a suitable area to perform the growth checks and notify the relevant staff members of our arrival. The team normally consists of a School Nurse and two Nursery Nurses, however if the School Nurse has been requested to attend a Safeguarding issue then the Nursery Nurses will complete the task, so having the ability to adapt to different situations is fundamental. Being able to work as part of a team as well as work independently is a major requirement not only to this particular task but working within the School Nursing team in general. Normally the School Nurse will discuss the process with the class teacher and then talk to the children, explaining what will happen and that the measurements will be confidential and not shared with teachers or other children, furthermore any concerns they have will be addressed. However, if the School Nurse is not in attendance the Nursery Nurse will complete this task, therefore excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skills (Philippot, Feldman and Coats, 2003), empathy and an understanding on how to reduce anxiety is imperative to ease any worries or concerns. Knowledge of the health implications from being overweight or obese would be beneficial, furthermore a general knowledge of how to achieve a healthy lifestyle by eating a balanced diet and regular exercise would be necessary to provide advice if requested. Accurate recording of the measurements is paramount and knowledge of the correct procedure for information sharing is imperative. The trust adheres to the Data Protection Act (1998) furthermore to keep up to date with this information and gain the relevant knowledge, Information Governance training is completed annually. Normally the School Nurse will input the information onto each child’s medical record and send the records off to the Child Health Department via secure internal mail, however according to the trusts policy it is compulsory for the information to be inputted within 24 hours after the measurements have been taken. As School Nurses have more medical responsibilities they might ask the Nursery Nurse to complete this task therefore good IT skills to input accurate and concise information is essential as well as the ability to prioritise workload according to the needs of the project are essential. The final component of this process is responding to calls from parents after they have received the results letters from the NCMP department. Excellent communication skills and being able to calm a conversation if the parent gets upset, angry or has taken offense to the information in the letter is vital (Whitaker and Fiore, 2001). Additionally, it is important to understand the implications of different cultures and the impact they may have on diet and size of children. Knowledge of the programs of support available will enable the Nursery Nurse to advise the parents so they can seek the relevant help and support not only for their child but for the whole family. Obtaining this extensive knowledge is fundamental to ensuring that parent’s receives the correct information, help and support to contribute to understanding the necessity of healthy lifestyles for the long-term well-being of their child. Finally, it is important for the Nursery Nurse to refer any concerns or compla ints to the named School Nurse who will then either contact the parent or report the situation to the specific organisation (Lynn, 2010). There is a plethora of professional’s whom the Nursery Nurse may collaborate with throughout the NCMP process, several of which will be liaised with on a regular basis, such as the one’s named above. HHHnnjjjnjnjnslfjfljjjfieiedddeeergggggeeee333e3e3owever, further interagency working may be required to meet the needs of the children and families, these may include Dietician, Paediatrician, Social Workers, Leisure Centre Staff and MoreLife Weight Management staff. Legislation Legislation has the impetus for collaborative working, transformation in the structure and delivery of services for children and young people initiated new alliances between statutory, public and voluntary agencies (Children Act, 2004). There are numerous Government and Local policies stating the importance of implementing interagency, partnership or collaborative working and that practitioners are required to work more closely together and form integrated teams around children and families (Department for Children, School and Families, 2007). The Governments green paper, Every Child Matters (2004) emphasised that for each child to fulfil their potential there must be a greater deal of co-operation, not only between government agencies but schools, GP’s, sports organisations and voluntary sectors. To help meet the Government strategy of multi-agency collaboration, the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge (HM Government, 2006) was introduced to work alongside the Every Child Mat ters agenda. This emphasised six areas of expertise that are expected to be put into practice by all practitioners who work with children and families. Factors that facilitate or hinder collaborative working Collaborative working is a complex and multi-faceted concept, the Latin translation â€Å"together in Labour† signifies that to meet the individual needs of children and families, successful joint working between services in a more streamlined way is required. However, although collaborative working is regarded as desirable, nevertheless, it is difficult to attain. When the NCMP was established in 2005 the PCT set up a NCMP agency to oversee the programme with joint working with the School Nursing service, therefore clarity of the aims and objectives were to be recognised and understood by all parties for this programme to be successful (Denman, 2002). Lack of formal structure and agreed outcomes may cause confusion and can result in blaming others for inaction and lack of progress (Cameron et al, 2009), therefore clarity of roles and expectation were defined by producing a clear and comprehensive policy based upon the shared vision of all organisations (Rushmer and Pallis, 2002). The Children Act (2004) gives all statutory partners wide powers to pool their budgets in pursuit of improved outcomes for children, furthermore sharing resources reduces cost and prevents unnecessary duplication of work (Atwal and Caldwell, 2005). However, time constraints due to other work commitments by the School Nursing team make it difficult to achieve the 85% participation rate (NMCP, 2012) particularly when children are absent and parents or children refuse. This may cause conflict due to NCMP’s ignorance of the School Nursing complex role and other significant priorities such a safeguarding (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2010). Working in partnership with Schools is essential for the successful delivery of the programme, maintaining high participation rates by pupils and robustness of data (NCMP, 2012). A good system of communication and information sharing is required to book a convenient date and time to complete the measurements which will enable smooth running of the program with little interruption to the teachers or pupils (Integrated Care Network, 2003). Howeve r, when office staff fails to relay this information to the relevant teachers disruption to class activities, failure to provide suitable facilities and time constraints may occur which impact on the quality of service provided to the children. Factors that aid multi-agency working between schools and health services are willingness to work together, acknowledgement of professional differences, mutual respect and sharing a common purpose. Overall, the collaboration between the schools and School Nursing team is extremely good. However, occasionally conflict of interest may occur when teachers see the measurement programme as an interruption to education rather than acknowledging that children’s health status is related to their ability to learn and that children with unmet health needs have difficulties in engaging in the education process (Board et al, 2011). Therefore, creating a common purpose and employing a whole system approach (Miles and Trott, 2011) will facilitate ea rly intervention for childhood obesity will reduce health implications such as diabetes and heart disease, improve self-esteem and enhance well-being which contributes to better educational achievement. Therefore, mutual respect for each profession is paramount for successful collaboration and better outcomes for children. The Child Health Department works closely with the NCMP, School Nursing team, schools, parents and other professional bodies. Their main responsibility during the NCMP process is distribution of information to parents to explain the purpose of the programme and give parents the opportunity to withdraw. This information is recorded onto each child’s medical record and then highlighted on the lists issued to the School Nurses prior to the sessions. If the withdrawal of consent is not forwarded to the School Nurse in time for the session, then errors may occur, leading to legal and ethical issues, therefore to facilitate collaborative working improved communication and improved information sharing is vital for co-ordinating safe provision of care (Samuel, 2011). It is also the responsibility of Child Health to input the data onto each of the children’s medical record, however due to the NCMP agency possessing a different IT systems this task is duplicated therefore integrated services are hindered (Atwal and Caldwell, 2005). Within the School Nursing team roles and responsibilities are established, the School Nurse takes the lead role in the programme, however the Nursery Nurse will ensure that all the necessary equipment and paper work is present, both will perform the accurate weighing and measuring and recording of the data. According to Rushmer and Pallis (2002) positive joint working relies upon the merging of skills, knowledge and expertise from different professional hierarchies and reliance on team members can contribute to positive attitudes to other professionals. Dilemmas arise when there is a shortage of staff due to staff turnover, lack of trained staff to perform the task or competing priorities which may result in poor staff morale and impact on the accuracy of the task (Maguire and Trustcott, 2006). Furthermore, challenges may occur when there are status issues and blurring of professional boundaries, according to Wall (1998) when staff operates outside their area of expertise there will be loss of efficiency. The author recognises her role in the NCMP process; therefore any queries will be referred to the named School Nurse to respond to. Health and Clinical Excellence, NICE (2006) and Cochrane Collaboration (Summerbell et al, 2005) state there is an urgent need for evidence of effective strategies for reducing childhood obesity, therefore annual weighing and measuring data collected can be shared at National and Local levels to analyse the efficacy of the regional weight management programmes to receive continued funding to sustain the initiative to provide better health services for children (NHS Choices, 2012). Parents will be provided with feedback of their child’s weight status from the NCMP, effective information sharing raise awareness of potential associated health risks and provides parents with the opportunity to seek advice and support if they choose to (NCMP, 2012). However, complications arise when policies and guidelines differ; the School Nursing team employ a different guideline to the NCMP resulting in complex telephone conversations regarding the letter sent by the NCMP stating their child is overweight. Subsequently, for competent collaboration to exist, clarity of referral criteria’s is needed to be standardised across boundaries (NICE, 2013). The Laming Report (2009) stated a need for significant shifts in working relationships between schools, health services and parents and engaging with parents to enabling them to feel valued and encourage decision making will engage parent participation which is essential for positive outcomes to be achieved (Every Child Matters, 2004). Parents are important influences on children’s eating and physical activity behaviour (Golan, 2006) therefore collaboration with parents is vital (Whitaker et al, 1997). School based interventions such as MoreLife are effective when the whole family participate, furthermore NICE Clinical guideline 43 (2006) states that school based interventions engage families regardless of socio-economic status, cultural background and ethnicity, this is evident with the number of participants for this weight management programme in this diverse region. In contrast, barriers may occur with the lack of partnership working, power struggles, lack of commitment an d lack of equal representation, these will decrease opportunities for working together, therefore creating a shared responsibility to reduce obesity will increase the health outcomes for children. Multi disciplinary team work will identify children at risk from obesity and promote quicker and easy access to services (ECM, 2004). Additionally, the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) can be shared between practitioners to refer children to appropriate services, promote information sharing and reduce duplication of and streamline assessments (CAF, 2012). However, collaboration with other professionals can be hampered when there are variations in working conditions, such as the School Nursing team and Schools working on term time only contracts. Furthermore many GP’s and Paediatricians have a professional hierarchy and delegate work to other agencies which in turn may have an effect on job satisfaction. Conversely, working with other professionals can be rewarding, stimulating, improve working relationships and increase knowledge and understanding of specialist practitioners.