An Exploration of the causes and effects of obesity Essay

Obesity is excess body fat. It is usually defined by body mass index (BMI) which is individual’s weight (kg) divided by their squares of height (m) (Jebb, 2004; Eagle et al, 2004). At the same time, BMI was classified into four conditions. Firstly, when the BMI less than 18.5 kg/㎠¡is underweight. Secondly, 18.5 kg/㎠¡to less than 25.0 kg/㎠¡ belong to normal weight. Thirdly, overweight is 25.0 kg/㎠¡to less than 30.0 kg/㎠¡. Finally, exceeding 30.0 kg/㎠¡ is totally obese (Eagle et al, 2004). Other papers categorize more detailed in the part of obese, which sections three parts, such as, Grade I obesity (30.0 kg/㎠¡to less than 35.0 kg/㎠¡), Grade II obesity (35.0 kg/㎠¡to less than 40.0 kg/㎠¡) , extreme obesity or Grade III (40.0 kg/㎠¡or more) (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). Obesity has been defined as an epidemic by the International Task Force on Obesity and World Health Organization in the 21st century (Jimà ©nez, 2011). For example, 65 per cent adults and 15 per cent children are overweight in America, and this data has not a decreasing trend (Jimà ©nez, 2011). In recent years, increasing obesity problems have emerged in developed countries and even in some city centers in developing countries (Jimà ©nez, 2011). According to Rosin’s investigation (cited in Tomer, 2011), incidences of obesity in the United States are high and have been dramatically increasing over the past thirty years, although there are some steady trends recently (Rosin in Tomer, 2011). For instance, the percentage of the obese population in America rose twice from about 13.95 per cent (in 1976) to 29.57 per cent (in 2000), and this figure is continuing to grow (ibid). However, rates of obesity are not only in America; it is growing in all of the world; even in Japan which has one of the lowest rates in the world (Bleich et al in Tomer, 2011; Delpeuch et al in Tomer, 2011). This essay consists of four sections, including introduction, effects of obesity, causes of obesity and conclusion. It will focus on the effects and causes of obesity. On the one hand, it analyses that two aspects of negative impacts which are death rate and chronic conditions are caused by obesity. On the other hand, this article discusses the complex reasons of obesity, which are classified as the congenital factors and acquired factors respectively. Effects of obesity Nowadays, increasingly, people have been focused on obesity bringing to serious impacts of health. The effects of obesity can be classified into two parts. One is the relationship of obesity and death rates; another is the relationship of obesity and chronic conditions (Tomer, 2011). It is claimed that the mortality risk and premature deaths are influenced by obesity epidemic amid American adults (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). Some data indicates 300,000 premature deaths per year are connected with obesity in America (Tomer, 2011). Furthermore, there is a school of thought that obesity is a main risk factor for many chronic conditions. There are known as the Western disease; including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), certain types of cancer, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia (Rosin in Tomer, 2011). Let us now discuss two aspects of negative impacts. The relationship of Death Rate and Obesity There is a possibility that obesity will decrease individual’s lifespan by 3 to 13 years on average (Jimà ©nez, 2011). Mortality might be greater and greater when the obesity phenomenon becomes serious in the future. Over the past five decades, obesity has been related to morbidity or all-cause mortality which means death rates caused by diseases, except for taking dugs and suicide, in the United States and elsewhere (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). Firstly, compared with a normal weight individual, obese adults have at least 20 per cent higher rate of dying for all-cause (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). Further, an obese individual who is Grade I obesity will die earlier at least 1.6 years than a normal-weight individual considering all causes (ibid). At the same time, this figure for Grades II and III obesity person are 3.7 years (ibid). Secondly, base on Borrell’s research data, when individual who is overweight and obese (regardless of the grade) get the CVD disease, it can be found out that these individuals’ dying rate will be significantly higher than individuals who have normal weight (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). After studied individuals who were different race and have different education backgrounds, the research acquired it one result that obese individuals might have a shorter life than normal-weight individuals for CVD-specific mortality and the same phenomenon could exist in different ages people  (ibid). In addition, the dangerous situations were the worst in obese adults whose ages are between 45 and 64 for all-cause and CVD-specific mortality (Borrell and Samuel, 2014). It means that Grades II and III obese adults aged 45 to 64 years have significantly higher death rates than people who have normal weight. These higher death rates lead to among Grades II and III obese adults (45 to 64 years old) early death by at least 7 years (ibid). Through a great many prospective studies, it is widely accepted that obesity contributes to premature death. Apart from, obesity has other disadvantages to individuals. The relationship of Chronic Conditions Obesity might raise some diseases’ hazard and the biggest main risk is cardiovascular disease (Jebb, 2004). There are these who maintain that, in public health terms, the largest burden of disease is morbidity which is related with obesity and almost every organ of human body is caused by obesity (Jebb, 2004). Jebb (2004) states that ‘It effects include metabolic syndrome (type 2 diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia), and mechanical disorders (e.g. osteoarthritis, respiratory problems, sleep apnoea) and psychosocial disorders’ (Jebb, 2004). Other scholar has a similar view that it is a significant problem that obesity is not only one of the endocrine-metabolic conditions but also is a beginning of a series of diseases including type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome and some types of cancer in public health (Jimà ©nez, 2011). Let us detail that those relationships between obesity and the following diseases. Firstly, there is an extremely close relationship of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Diabetes belongs to metabolic syndrome, which causes the factors of atherosclerotic disease (Jebb, 2004). Further, the development and severity of this kind of disease is depending on weight increase (ibid), thus obesity is an important element factor. For example, women whose BMI is 25 kg/㎠¡ lead to the probability of diabetes is just five-fold, if the BMI is over 35 kg/㎠¡, the probability will increased to more than 40-fold (Jebb, 2004). Furthermore, the probability of diabetes still depends on different body  shapes, such as, apple-shaped, pear-shaped, if women have a similar BMI. Jebb found apple-shaped women who have a large waist are higher diabetes risk than pear-shaped women who have excess fat on the thighs and hips (Jebb, 2004). Secondly, cardiovascular disease is also linked with obesity or weight increase. The Nurses’ Health Study suggests that BMI is associated with cardiovascular disease (Jebb, 2004). Compared with the risk of CVD at BMI less than 21.5, the risk rose from BMI 22-23 and doubled at 25-28.9 and more than three times higher when the BMI reached at above 29 (ibid). Thirdly, the recent year have a growing recognition which is the relationship between obesity and increased risk of most types of cancer, with the exception of lung cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, colon and kidney cancer (Jebb, 2004). At the same time, it is estimated to ascribe 20 per cent of cancer deaths in women to obesity (ibid). It seems that the link between cancer and obesity is confirmed. To sum up, obesity is a serious global problem. To some extent, it became a killer to make human beings die prematurely. In recent years, people have begun to pay close attention to this topic. But what caused the obesity is the key point, which is worth us to explore: the next section will analyze some important factors that lead to obesity. Causes of obesity The causes of obesity are extremely complex. A huge number of research indicate that the reason of obesity is not a single result. People are obese because of the complex interaction between genes and the unique personal habits (Eagle et al, 2004; Jimà ©nez, 2011; Tomer, 2011). Firstly, genes are not only crucial factor for obesity, but the environment also plays an important role (ibid). At the same time, genes will be changed with parental unique lifestyle and their surrounding (Eagle et al 2004; Jimà ©nez, 2011). Secondly, the unique personal habits involve numerous aspects, such as, diet, choice habit, sedentary lifestyle and other social factors (Tomer, 2011). It seems that the causes of obesity are complex and constantly changing. To sum up, these reasons are divided into two major categories,  congenital and acquired factors. This section will detail how two kinds of factors can make individuals obese. Congenital factors There is no doubt that genes are one of the causes for obesity. Nowadays, ‘sufficiently solid scientific evidence’ provides that genes are involved in the development of obesity (Jimà ©nez, 2011). It is determined that individuals’ metabolism, detoxification and production of hormones could increase their weight and make them obese (Tomer, 2011). For instance, some small parts of obese individuals owes to genes which lead to some clinical syndrome. Obesity’s monogenic reasons include mutations in the leptin gene and its receptor, or the melanocortin system. Other genetic syndromes are a common element of the phenotype. However, these occupy only small parts (Jebb, 2004). At the same time, heritability studies indicate that genetic factor is only influenced approximately a third of the variance of BMI (ibid). Therefore, it is claimed that genes are just potential inducers for obesity (Jimà ©nez, 2011). On the other hand, even some scholars maintain that obesity is the result mixed up with certain genes and the environment. Genetic changes produce a new trend that obesity is a result of the interaction between genes and environment (Jimà ©nez, 2011). It means that the new gene will be decided jointly by the previous generation of genes and environments. Furthermore, a mass of other candidate genes have been associated with obesity. For example, food preferences or exercise habits (Jebb, 2004). Acquired factors Compared with congenital factors, acquired factors are more influenced for obesity. It is reflected in the people’s diet, behavior patterns and many other aspects (Eagle et al, 2004; Jimà ©nez, 2011; Tomer, 2011). Jimà ©nez’s view is that due to a long time energy’s accumulation which is energy intake exceeds people needs, there are some obese people. Two crucial behaviors are food intake and taking exercise resulted in obesity (Jimà ©nez, 2011). Hyman (cited in Tomer, 2011) states that there are three dietary reasons producing obesity, including ‘diet high in refined, processed carbohydrates’, ‘diet high in bad fats’ and ‘diet low in fiber’ (Hyman in Tomer, 2011). However, Brownel (cited in Tomer, 2011) concluded that powerful forces of society and culture are the root of the obesity problem, because it can promote  individuals selecting high energy diet and a sedentary lifestyle (Brownel et al in Tomer, 2011). Over the past three decades, the obesity issue was aggravated by this kind of environment (Brownel et al in Tomer, 2011). It is worth noting, these effects will not make everyone change their eating habits; it depends on different people. Apart from genes, if someone understands nutrition very well, they may escape the effect of environment. Nevertheless, unfortunately a great many people are vulnerable to the toxic environment impact (Brownel et al in Tomer, 2011). This next section will minutely explain the acquired factors of obesity, including eating habits, less activity and watching advertisements on television. Owing to some poor eating habits, there were so many obese people (McLannahan and Clifton, 2008: p28). In the first place, different foods provide different extent energy, so that intake energy more than their need lead to obesity. For example, when individuals eat more than their need in their daily life, they will become fatter (McLannahan and Clifton, 2008: p29-31). It demonstrates that excess food’s intake caused excess body weight (McLannahan and Clifton, 2008: p29). In the second place, energy-dense diet is an important reason for make people obese. Energy-dense diets are high in fat, high in added sugars and low in fruit and vegetables and this kind of diet could enhance the probability of obesity (Jebb, 2004). Fast foods are typical energy dense diets, and these are acknowledged to be a risk factor for obesity (Niemeier et al in Musaiger et al, 2014). Musaiger’s research showed that as a result of the high consumption of fast food, there was an increase trend about obesity (Musaiger et al, 2014). At the same time, a report was carried out by Gortmaker (cited in Musaiger et al, 2014), a high consumption of soft drinks was proved to be a reason for obesity. It is concluded that ‘sugary beverages are less satiating than solid food containing similar calorie values’, therefore it contributes to acquire more energy (Gortmaker et al in Musaiger et al, 2014). In addition, there is a school of thought that eating more fruit and vegetables are beneficial to decrease the probability of obesity (Musaiger et al, 2014). For instance, in the United States, 12-year old boys and 11-year-old girls consumed any fruits and vegetable occupied 56.1 per cent and 65.5 per cent respectively (Eagle et al, 2004). It may be explained that nearly half children do not  eat any fruits and vegetable, and it boosts the number of obese children. Another important reason is lack of activity. Nowadays, modern people living in developed societies do not take more exercise than their ancestor (McLannahan and Clifton, 2008: p28). It is possible lead to obesity. Hyman (cited in Tomer, 2011) provides that a sedentary pattern can make weight gaining, through the lower metabolic rates (Hyman in Tomer, 2011). Moreover, some evidence indicates that the awareness of the innate appetite control system can be strengthened by high levels of physical activity. In the mean time, it is easier to automatically make energy intake and energy needs balance (Jebb, 2004). This is a key issue that ‘increases in obesity can not be simply attributed to over-eating or inadequate activity, rather it represents a failure of the homeostatic mechanisms to precisely match energy intake to the body’s energy needs’ (Jebb, 2004). Furthermore, exercise’s levels are also important. People whether willing to do exercise is a main factor of energy needs (Jebb, 2004). For example, if a person who is a white-collar worker has a sedentary life, driving a car commuting and not seeking leisure activity, their basal metabolic rate may be used just 30 per cent (Jebb, 2004). On the contrary, a generally active adult may expend about 60 per cent and a particular active sportsman can consume double her or him basal energy needs (Jebb, 2004). It can be seen that doing more activity contributes to consume more energy, particularly helping to maintain insulin sensitivity and reduce the risk of obesity. Furthermore, in the recent year, people spend more time on internet and watching television. Therefore, high-tech environment brings some influences to make people obese. The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that adverts on television have effects on childhood obesity levels (Musaiger et al, 2014). At the same time, according to the American Psychological Association’s report, children less than 8 year olds do not distinguish the difference between adverts and reality (Musaiger et al, 2014). Through displaying some advertisements which some stars eating delicious foods makes a condition reflection, so that people who watches advertisements may eat more foods, and it causes an increase of intake energy, especially if people repeatedly watches these advertisements on television (Eagle et al, 2004). Actually, is utilizes the changeless relationship of stimulus and response in human’s brain, according to Classical Conditioning theory (Eagle et al, 2004). When people watches television, it equivalently irritate people’ awareness that need eating snack or meals. Thus watching television is a way to cause intake more energy and make people obesity. Further, advertisements on television not only boost people eating but also have negative impacts on food choices of viewers. To some extent, it caused people preferring to choose higher fat and higher energy foods (Eagle et al, 2004). To sum up, watching television leads to people become obesity. As discussed above, there is a dramatic rise about obesity in many countries nowadays, due to the complex interaction of a variety of reasons, divided to congenital causes and acquired factors (Wright, 2012). Moreover, obesity has many negative impacts on human health. It represents in higher death rate and many chronic conditions. The purpose of this essay is make people understand that these diseases have produced seriously harm to people’s health, and through explaining causes of obesity make people improve obesity problem. To be specific, the causes which lead to obesity are extraordinary complex, divided into congenital and acquired factors. There is no doubt that the congenital factor is genes result in obesity’s development. Furthermore, the acquired factors involved many aspects, including diet, life behavior patterns and high-tech environment. This essay particularly has explained that three factors, such as eating habits, physical activity and watching advertisements on television, resulted in obesity. On the other hand, obesity is not only endocrine-metabolic disease, but also it is many other diseases’ start. For instance, some serious risks which are the premature death and morbidity of chronic conditions are caused by obesity. Firstly, about premature death, this essay used some data which compared different lifespan of different extent obese people and normal weight people, particularly middle aged and elderly people are particularly serious. In addition, in the part of chronic disease, this essay has analysed the type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancer were produced by obesity. To sum up, obesity is a global problem. As a result of many complex reasons, there are increasing people became obesity. At the same time, obesity boosts rate of premature death and  morbidity of chronic con ditions. References: Borrell, L. and Samuel, L. (2014) Body Mass Index Categories and Mortality Risk in US Adults: The Effect of Overweight and Obesity on Advancing Death, American Journal Of Public Health, 104 (3) 512-519, SPORTDiscus with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 August 2014. Eagle, L, Bulmer, S, Kitchen, P. and Hawkins, J. (2004) Complex and controversial causes for the ‘obesity epidemic: The role of marketing communications’, International Journal Of Medical Marketing, 4 (3) 271-287, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 August 2014. Gonzalez Jimenez, E. (2011) Genes and obesity: a cause and effect relationship. Endocrinologà ­a y Nutricià ³n (English Edition), 58 (9) 492-496, Available from http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S2173509311000602 viewed 18 August 2014. Jebb, S. (2004) Obesity: causes and consequences. Women’s Health Medicine, 1 (1) 38-41, Available from http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S1744187006000102 viewed 18 August 2014. McLannahan, H. and Clifton, P. (2008) Challenging obesity. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 28-31, viewed 18 August 2014. Musaiger, A, Al-Roomi, K, and Bader, Z. (2014) Research report: Social, dietary and lifestyle factors associated with obesity among Bahraini adolescents, Appetite, 73, 197-204, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 August 2014. Tomer, J. (2011) What Causes Obesity? And Why Has It Grown So Much? Challenge (05775132), 54 (4) 22-49, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 August 2014. Wright, S. and Aronne, L. (2012) Causes of obesity, Abdominal Imaging, 37 (5) 730-732, Scopus ®, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 August 2014.

The Causes of the Indian Mutiny

Assess the causes of the Indian Mutiny Throughout the Indian mutiny there were numerous factors, mainly due to British imperialism, that caused and had significant impact on the Indian nation. Through the course of the Indian mutiny economic, Cultural, Armies and the Enfield rifle incident caused the Indian Mutiny. These factors bundled together and impacted together which contributed to widespread uprising and the India Mutiny. British Imperialism caused economic and political strain on the Indian Community, which in turn placed the British already on thin ice with the Indians.The Doctrine of the lapse caused many incidences and was the first reason, of many, for the Indian Mutiny to begin. Under British rule the doctrine was introduced which declared that the lands of any Indian Ruler who died without a natural heir it would be forfeited to the Company. This frustrated numerous Indian princes and land owners. Which lead them to join the sepoys in the Indian Mutiny. The taking of Ou dh played a significant role in the contribution of the anger towards the British Rule. Governor Dalhousie annexed 250,000 square miles of land known as Oudh.To consolidate control in his new territory he introduced rail and road systems and postal and telegraph systems. This aggravated the Indians and only added to the frustration and retaliation necessity of the Indians. Along with this, heavy taxes were levied onto the Indian people. The amount taxed was more than the crops were worth on that land. In addition tolls were inflicted for the use of river ferries. The land revenue system introduced by the company ruined many peasant farmers. The anxiety and pressure that these economic and political elements contributed to the British demise.Through the spread of Christianity and the spread of religious customs and traditions heightened the emotions of the Indians. This spread of Christianity was the greatest concern for Indians; with the arrival of missionaries this created much une ase amongst the Indians. Christians disrespected and had little knowledge for the Hindi and Muslim religions. Originally the British promised not to impose their beliefs but it soon was gossiped that the British wish to convert the Indians, and western influences were brought to India. William Bentinck a Christian missionary rought reforms such as the abolition of child marriage and the suppression of Sati (burning of wives after their husband has passed) this convinced many Indians of Christianity being imposed on Hindu or Muslim Indians. This outraged and added to the British problems and ultimately led Indian civilians and sepoys to uprise against them. The Indian sepoys were largely victimised, as they had lack of promotions, low wages and had many threats to their caste made. Most sepoys were high-caste Hindus used to wealth and within the army and civil service it was extremely difficult to achieve promotions and high wages.The major concern within the army was caste. It rumou red through the sepoy regiments that the British were intentionally trying to make them lose their caste. There was talk of magical chapattis (yeast-less bread) that had been poisoned by the company. The Enfield rifle cartridge was also a major caste incident. This was short term factors that lead to the sepoys gathering and revolting against the British. Problems arose when a new Enfield rifle was introduced to replace and old rifle known as the musket.In order to load the Enfield rifle the end of the cartridge has to be bitten off the cartridge and then the cartridge rammed down the muzzle to fire. To make the bullet easier to ram down, the cartridge was heavily greased with animal fat. A rumour circulated that the fat was a mixture of cow and pig fat, cows are sacred to Hindus and pigs regarded unclean as a Muslim, biting this cartridge would break the caste of the Hindu sepoys and defile the Muslims. The British quickly stated that the grease was oil or bee’s wax.However the sepoys still distrusted the Company and the British word meant little to them now. The economic, political, force of religious beliefs and threats to caste added together on top of each other which lead to the British Company topple over and crumble. The British interference with religion and traditions that have been practised for centuries and it was this interference which led to the discontent of Indian sepoys that ultimately lead to the conflict. Britain attempt to conquer India was the cause of the rebellion and the Indian Mutiny.

Gran Torino Film Review

Gran Torino Gran Torino is an American drama film, released in 2008 film directed and produced by and also starring Clint Eastwood. Set in Detroit, Michigan it was the first mainstream U. S. film to feature Hmong Americans. Gran Torino was a critical and commercial success, grossing nearly $270 million worldwide and is also said to be Clint Eastwood’s most successful film, but as like many films Gran Torino received both praise and criticism. Gran Torino† tells the story of Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a grizzled Korean War veteran whose wife recently passed away. Walt lives alone with his dog in a Detroit, the neighborhood he’s lived in for well over 30 years in no longer populated as he would say ‘lower middle class white folks’, but has turned into an Asian neighborhood. A Hmong family lives next door, a grandmother, single mother and her two teenagers Thao (Bee Vang) and Sue (Ahney Her).Thao is quiet and intelligent but very shy, where as Sue i s very outgoing and fearless. The local Asian gang led by Thao’s cousin tries to recruit Thao. Thao does not have a choice because you cannot say no to a gang, they talk him into trying to steal Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino, Walt Stops it from happening but Thao gets away unrecognized. Then Thao is forced by his sister and mother to work for Walt in an effort for the attempted to steal his car.The two become very close as Walt see’s the good and potential in Thao and teaches him how to be a man and steer clear of the gang. Walt vows to protect Thao, setting the stage for a showdown with the gang. Clint Eastwood is really great to watch in this movie, his acting throughout Gran Torino really convinces you that he is a retired old war veteran, who has seen it all and is afraid of nothing. The way he confronts trouble throughout the film is impressive especially in the one scene where he comes up against three men harassing Sue on her walk.From my point of view there ar e a few camera angles portrayed throughout the scenes of the film, but there is hardly and visual effects or anything else, I think what makes this movie a good hit is Clint Eastwood’s attitude showed in his acting and the rest of the actors as well, and yes of course during the film Walt is very racists and says lots of different ethnic comments but the point is, well the point that I noticed was that Walt starts to look past and see the people for who they really are not just look at their race or where they come from.This movie is perfect for Clint Eastwood fans or young adults and older, I wouldn’t really say it is for teenagers because they might not fully understand the film and just think that Walt is a grumpy old man who just gets fired up over nothing. I rate it a 4 out of 5.

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Political Economy of Race, Class and Gender Thesis paper abstract Annotated Bibliography

Political Economy of Race, Class and Gender Thesis paper abstract - Annotated Bibliography Example This paper offers more insight into the mechanisms underlying the persistence of racial inequality in the labor market. This paper utilizes a data set of the structural features of Chicago in assessing the influence of three segregation configurations on the racial wage inequality in Chicago. The demographic, educational and employment features of Chicago City are drawn from the 1980 and 1990 decennial censuses, in addition to data from archives, published reports, and newspapers. The research findings indicate that residential segregation; in conjunction with minority concentration and immigration fully explain the wage gap between whites and blacks. These findings underscore the impact of residential segregation on the racial wage gaps between blacks and whites in the labor market. Blacks in high class do not evade the problems of residential segregation as their children attend same schools, have equal opportunities, and enjoy same dilapidated social amenities as low class blacks. The paper discusses the implications of residential segregation on the low wages of blacks. These results suggest that racial segregation continues to be a significant aspect for stratification in the American

Discuss the impact on Psychology of Descartes' introduction of Essay

Discuss the impact on Psychology of Descartes' introduction of mind-body dualism - Essay Example He has been faced with grave critiques since he tried to describe the two substances separate as well as unified (Grant, pp. 486, 2000). Descartes, quite technically, defends his idea by saying that when a person performs certain action or behaves in a specific kind of way in the absence of his conscious mind, his body is a manifestation of a mechanical working. However, when human psychology or consciousness is in full swing and functions properly, that is the time the person’s rational soul unites with his other entity, which is called the mechanical human body (Grant, pp. 487, 2000). Thus, the separation of the two substances is to the extent when mental attention is not up to the mark; nevertheless, with the union of body and mind, the human psychology plays a vital role with its optimum concentration and inclination. To view the whole notion in psychological perspective, what Descartes points out is that the functions of thinking, reasoning, questioning, analyzing, and ra tionalizing are wholly and exclusively performed by the soul. Yet, this soul does not take any physical space. However, for this soul to think and rationalize, the manifestation occurs in the existence of the body that does not think but takes a physical space. Thus, the identity of a person is made so concerning its distinct soul that rationalizes and not with its distinct body which is visible. In this case, when the soul has the power to think and manipulate, it even has the power to exist without a physical substance vis-a-vis the body and this is how Descartes makes the distinction. To understand it more clearly, Descartes claimed that the two substances can live without each other but a living human being can be made with the union of the two, exclusively and exhaustively. Hence, the impact on human psychology is based on the soul and not the body, which is void of all moral values and behavioral distinctions. Moreover, the impact on the psychology that Descartes’ mind and body idea makes can also be understood with an example given by Descartes himself. Descartes uses the example of phantom limb pain and explains that when a person for whatever reasons gets any of his arms or legs amputated, he might still feel pain in the missing portion of his body even after sometime. Therefore, the body is not just a visible autonomous being but is greatly linked and intermingled with the mind or the soul. Moreover, this interaction is such that in the psychology of the person, that amputated part of the body still exists even if it is apparently not there and that is the cause of the pain (Grant, pp. 488, 2000). Hence, body and mind/soul make a unit, the two might be two distinct objects but there being together has a great impact on psychology as earlier discussed. Descartes’ concepts are more vividly explained in the aspect of pain that a human feels. He says that it is not merely the transmission of neurons to the brain to feel a certain kind of pa in in the body, it is more of a though process that occurs in the mind/soul to feel and encounter a pain. Thus, the feeling of pain as encountered by a human’s mind/soul has a thorough impact on the psychology of the person to feel or not to feel the pain and to what extent he does that (Grant, pp. 496-499, 2000). Thus, all kind of pain or sensation is psychological and not bodily, as a person’s mind has to perceive the pain first for the overall human to perceive it. It was for the first time that the animal life was referred as that of machines. Descartes was of the

Romania Risk Assessment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words - 1

Romania Risk Assessment - Assignment Example Hazards identified at the level if agency and department and also those in the process were assessed in the process of risk assessment. These hazards were categorized into four groups that included Transportation, Civil, Technological and Natural. In the second stage, entails the reflection of the total risks presented by the hazard that is identified. At this point, the group comes together to undertake the process of risk assessment in Romania. During the period of assessment, some of the two issues that are key and need to be considered are; the likelihood assessment and the potential impact examination. The criteria of the likelihood and impact are to be used as the basis for decision making. The system of classification is based on a risk assessment guide in the major management of emergency (DEHLG, 2010). In determining the types of risk that exists it is wise to show the relative lively hood of the risk occurrence against its impact The risk of flooding that is explained by the Romanian Academy Geography Institution extended the distribution site of the sites of Seveso; this provided an opportunity for these areas to be categorized as areas that are prone to Natech event. In Romania, areas that are categorized as flood risk occupy a larger surface hence increasing the probability of the occurrence of Natech with the major cause flooding. The largest area of the site of Seveso that could be affected by the floods is located in the central and western part of Romania. Sites of Seveso can also be found in Mures, Hunedoara and Alba counties. However, other counties in Romania which do not have the Seveso Sites and have a high risk of being affected by the floods are majorly at the west and they include Olt-South, Caransebes-South-West, Giurgiu, and Caras (European Environment Agency, 2010). The year 2003 was exceptional when view from a climatic point. Most of the part of

How jails differ from prisons Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

How jails differ from prisons - Research Paper Example delivery, possible need for accountability to the funders identifies differences in funding stakeholders in the facilities’ organizational structures. Internal organizational structure of jails also identify sheriff, an elected officer, at the top of a hierarchy structure and subordinate law enforcement officers while the Bureau of Prisons administers prisons (Whitehead, Jones, and Braswell, 2010) and the structure identifies administrative differences between the two facilities. It also important to note that sheriffs, who manage jails, are elected officials and voter power may influence their administrative decisions while Bureau of Prisons director are appointed and even though politics may influence the appointment, a level of administrative expertise is expected (Clark and MacCreaigh, 2006). Another difference is the facilities’ target hosts as prisons are also organized to host people who have been sentenced for felony offences and those serving long period senten ces. Jails are however organized to host people who are yet to be tried or those who have been tried but are yet to be transferred to their designated facilities such as juveniles and those with mental illnesses (Gaines and Miller, 2006). Jails and prisons are facilities in the criminal justice system for holding arrested and convicted people but their organizational and administrative scopes are different. Organizational structure, objectives, types of expertise, sources of funds, and types of people that each of the facilities holds identifies the

Foreign language learners and spatial preposition Essay

Foreign language learners and spatial preposition - Essay Example They can also involve possession, like the word 'of' in this phrase 'The books of the school.' When prepositions take on a relational meaning it is common to encounter errors of omission, and errors of commission Errors of omission occur when foreign language learners, or growing children, "fail to use a preposition where one is called for (for example: 'Open keys!' 'Open it with keys!'). Errors like this are due to a lack between the ability to conceive of a certain relation (location, instrument, or direction), and the ability to express it." People learning English as a foreign language often have big problems finding the right English prepositions. These problems can be attributed to the fact that "there are different uses of prepositions in various languages around the world. For example: 'I talked to him.' vs 'Ich redete mit ihm.'// 'He believes in love.' vs 'Er glaubt an die Liebe." (Brala, M.) Most times, lexical items, which fall within prepositional categories are referred to as 'locatives'. This comes from a reflecting on the study of prepositions from two different perspectives: a) the grammatical, and b) the 'local' (semantically driven). "From the grammatical perspective, prepositions have, for a long time, been treated as merely 'an annoying little surface peculiarity' (Jackendoff, 1973 p. 345). This can be attributed to poor interest for the quality of the lexicographic portrayals of prepositional semantics, "which has been dangerously under-examined." (Lindstromberg, 2001) Also, in many languages, the information provided by a preposition is often coded in a noun inflection (an example of this is the ablative in Latin). It is a well known fact that "when it comes to mastering a foreign language one of the most troublesome areas to learn is the (idiomatic) usage of prepositions. Learning how to use prepositions correctly in a foreign language is a colossal task, one that is usually not accomplished way into the learning process, and one that many learners never manage to master thoroughly." (Brala, M. p.1) Examining language differences The Mother language of a foreign learner of English is called first language (L1), while the language to be learnt is called the target language or second language (L2). A shallow learning means relationship between letters and sounds. An English language learner will first be able to generate orthographic parts of more then one letter and then and face the problems in more complex words, because knowledge of just simple words is not sufficient for usage of the English language. In English the learner usually faces the problem with some irregular word that escapes phonemic assembly. In some readings a word might more then one spelling. In a comparative study that was carried out in 2003, to ascertain word differences in different languages, students from different countries were brought together in one class, and analysis showed that the English students exhibited a low lower grade of correct words as compared to

The United States education Essay Example for Free

The United States education Essay I studied in Korea for 14 years. But, now I have been studying in US. Knowledge of the United States education can be helped to understand US culture. There are similarities and differences between Korea and US educations. Korea and US educations have similarities. First, we study almost the same subjects like English, Math, Science, and P. E. So some Korean students who had studied in Korea’s school can understand pretty well in USA College, even though their English skill is not so high. Second, Korea and USA classroom have almost the same equipment (especially college). There are chairs and desks, blackboard, chalks, and backboard for some notices. However, both educations have a lot of differences. First, Korea’s class is bigger than US class. Korea’s class usually has 40~50 students. But US class has just 15~20 students. So US teachers have more attention than Korea teachers to the students. Second, Most Korean students usually studied alone in the classes. But, now we have to discuss with our classmates in US classes. Discussions require to student more activity. So most American students are more activity than Korean students. Finally, the biggest difference between Korea and the United States is teacher’s teaching skills. Most Korean teachers want to memorize the textbook for all students. So, Korean students try to memorize the textbook. But US teachers require summarizing information from textbook. US teaching skill help students to be more creative and active. In conclusion, US education requires to students to be creative and active but, Korea education want to be same for all the students. That makes competition between students. This competition can be helpful, but actually it makes a lot of problem. Korea education has to change more creative and active like US education.

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics Essay

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics Essay Ph.D. Thesis: Abhijit Nath Introduction Introduction The wealth of information in atoms and molecules can be achieved from quantum mechanical studies of their structural as well as various physical and chemical properties. Based on quantum mechanics [1-7], large number of approximation methods has been developed over the years for the complete solutions of atomic and molecular systems. Now-a-days, the availability of the computer hardware and software has been increased enormously. In addition, a large number of suitable computational methodologies and algorithms have been developed over the years for solutions of realistic problems in different branches of physics/chemistry. Making the use of the power of the present generation computers as well as computational methodologies and algorithms, we can perform large scale research just by performing high level quantum mechanical computations as an alternate tool of experiment. These high level computations some time meet the requirement for realistic problems in different branches in phys ics, even in atomic and molecular physics. Many complex molecules like drugs are designed on computer in modern days. Such computational attempts are helpful to the experimentalists because with the help of the theoretical idea achieved form these computer simulations, they can perform the real synthesis of these complex molecules in laboratories without much difficulties. Sometimes, it may not be possible to synthesize certain molecular systems which are very much unstable or poisonous or explosive in nature. But then one can carry out theoretical calculations and computations to explore their structure and various properties without handling them in reality. Because of the availability of the faster and cheaper computer hardware, as well as a variety of suitable algorithms, theoretical investigations of various physical and chemical properties of these molecules are now become less expensive and easier. It is well known to scientific community that modern-day atomic and molecular spectroscopic studies require very expensive spectrometers and other sophisticated instruments for getting results with desired accuracy. But one can carry out theoretical and computation based spectroscopic studies of even complicated atomic and molecular systems with utmost accuracy without taking any help of such kind of sophisticated and expensive instruments. Moreover, the interpretation and understanding of every experimental finding needs the knowledge of theoretical background. It is, therefore, essential to carry out theoretical studies beside each and every experiment, wherever possible, to ensure the validity of the experimental findings. Classical mechanics [8] can explain accurately the dynamical features of the objects of relatively large mass and low velocities. But it is not sufficient to describe the interactions among subatomic particles of colliding galaxies. If the velocity of the object is comparable with that of light, one must use Einsteins relativistic mechanics in which the variation of mass with velocity has been taken into consideration. If the mass of the object is very small, the non relativistic quantum mechanics due to Heisenberg and Schrà ¶dinger is applicable. If the mass is very small but the velocity of the object is comparable with the velocity of light, one should use the relativistic quantum mechanics developed by Dirac [9]. Therefore, depending on the mass and velocity of the object, one should employ the appropriate mechanics for determining its dynamical features. The computations of large systems may, therefore, be carried out by using appropriate mechanics. Because of the advancement of the computer hardware and software technology, one can easily carry out these computations. Sometimes, huge computations may have to be performed in this connection. One has to solve 2nd order differential equations with several million variables. However, suitable techniques are available to reduce the size of the secular equations drastically at the cost of some accuracy and hence large-scale computations can be performed successfully. The electronic structure and spectroscopic properties of atoms, molecules and solids can be determined from quantum mechanical solutions [10-14] of the systems. Atoms and molecules in the electronic structure theory are in stationary states. The time dependence of the wave function can thus be separated so that one needs to work only with time-independent solutions. Born-Oppenheimer approximation, which allows the nuclei to be in fixed co-ordinates during the motion of electrons, is usually employed for the calculation of the electronic structure of molecules. It is, therefore, possible to carry out calculations on specific molecules of physical and chemical interest with the aim of getting structural aspects and spectroscopic properties which otherwise may not be obtain from the experimental work. In many cases, the experimental data may be interpreted from the computational results. The velocity of the interacting particles in lighter atoms and molecules is considered to be negligible compared to the velocity of light. So, one may not include the relativistic effects as they are negligibly small. But for the calculations of the heavier atoms and molecules, the relativistic corrections are needed and hence one must use the relativistic quantum chemistry [15-17]. It requires a modification of the non relativistic Hamiltonian with various relativistic correction terms such as mass-velocity correction, spin-orbit correction, Drawin correction, Breit interaction etc. Actually, after the discovery of the theory of special relativity, relativistic effects on the electronic spectra of atoms and molecules become very much important. The relativistic effects are prominent on the electronic spectra of those molecules / their ions for which the nuclear charges of the constituent atoms are large i.e. when atoms with high Z are present. So, in order to obtain accurate spectro scopic features of heavy or moderately heavy molecules / their ions, one must take the various relativistic effects into account in an efficient way. A number of algorithms have been developed in recent years in these connections along with enormous enhancement in computing power. Therefore, the challenge is to exploit these developments to perform the high level computation based theoretical researches work which becomes an alternative to the experimental physical chemical researches. References [1] L. Pauling, E.M. Wilson, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, McGraw-Hill, 1935. [2] H. Eyring, J. Walter, G. E. Kimball, Quantum Chemistry, Wiley, New York, 1944. [3] J. P. Lowe, Quantum Chemistry , Academic Press, New York, 1978. [4] D. A. Mcquarrie, Quantum Chemistry, University Science, Mill Valley Calif, 1983. [5] P. W. Atkins, Molecular Quantum Mechanics, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983. [6] F. L. Pillar, Elementary Quantum Chemistry, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1990. [7] I. N. Levine, Quantum Chemistry, Printice-Hall, N. J. , 1991. [8] H. Goldstein, Classical Mechanics, Addition-Wesley, Reading, Mass, 1950. [9] P. A. M. Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Oxford University Press, Fourth Edition, Oxford, 1958. [10] R. G. Parr, Quantum Theory of Moleculer Electronic Structure, Benjamin, New York, 1963. [11] J. A. Pople, D. L. Beveridge, Approximate Molecular Orbital Theory, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970. [12] J. N. Murrell, A. J. Harget, Semiempirical Self-Consistent-Field Molecular Orbital Theories of Molecules, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1971. [13] R. S. Mulliken, W. C. Ermler, Diatomic Molecules, Academic Press, New York, 1977. [14] R. S. Mulliken, W. C. Ermler, Polyatomic Molecules, Academic Press, New York, 1981. [15] P. PyykkÓ §, Relativistic Theory of Atoms and Molecules, Springer-Verlag, Berlin and New York, 1986. [16] K. Balasubramanian, Relativistic Effects in Chemistry Part A. Theory and Techniques, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1997. [17] K. Balasubramanian, Relativistic Effects in Chemistry Part B. Applications to molecules and Clusters, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1997.

Swot Analysis Of Company Practices: PayPal

Swot Analysis Of Company Practices: PayPal The online payment systems provider that we have chosen is PayPal. PayPal is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfer to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheque and money orders. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. PayPal is an example of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce. PayPal is an eBay subsidiary company and is made up of three leading online payment services: the PayPal global payment service, the Payflow Gateway and Bill Me Later. The companys open payment platform, PayPal X, that allows developers to build innovative payment applications on multiple platforms and devices. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It charges transaction fee for receiving money. The fees charged depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipients account type. In addition, PayPal is also the preferred way to send secure payments on eBay. With PayPal, customers who have an online account can makes it easy to send money from a variety of sources to a variety of recipients without sharing his or her financial information. Besides that, the recipient never sees their credit card number or their banking information. So, as a buyer, customers can pay for their item online through PayPal. They have the choice of funding their payment with their debit card, credit card, bank account or PayPal balance. Sellers are notified by email of their PayPal payment immediately, and can confidently post the goods to them right away. As a seller, he or she can withdraw those funds to their bank account or use them to send a payment to someone else. If for any reason a refund is required, a seller can quickly and easily send a refund to the buyer directly into their PayPal account. PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com. Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinitys website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots with email payments as a feature and X.coms website primarily featured financial services with email payments as a feature. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBays subsidiary Billpoint, eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 223 million accounts, more than 73 million of them active. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the Australian dollar, Brazilian real, Canadian dollar, Euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, and others. PayPal operates locally 13 countries, residents in 194 markets can use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. SWOT Analysis of company practices Strengths The strengths of a business are positive elements, something they do well and are under their control. The following we will see the main strengths of the PayPal. The first strength we will talk about is the business alliance of PayPal. Because of social website that has users from all over the world- Facebook has brings the PayPal to manage its payment make PayPal increase more revenue. Facebook find out that 70 percent of its 400 million users live outside the United States, so it can be hard for them to transfer money to the company online. While PayPal has more than 81 million active accounts, it can help Facebook to collect money easily. Having alliances with other strong and popular IT businesses is a major plus point for PayPal as it helps bring in new customers and make business more effective. PayPal appear as the only online global payment system in the world. It is a key to success for PayPal to work hard for it boosts reputation, profit and market share. PayPal has an impressive growth from year to year. It has around 70 million active users in 2008 and it is 23% more than 2007. PayPal operates in 190 markets, 17 local languages, and transacts in 19 currencies and it operates with 27 global financial networks and 15,000 local banks around the world. No other companies have this advanced system except the market leader- PayPal. It has a high percentage of the market share, meaning it is ahead of many competitors. Competitive pricing is a vital element of PayPals overall success. With the cost effective payment system online such as the Pay as you go system that allow customers pay only if they are making money online unless they are using more advanced options. Such pricing keep PayPal above its rivals. PayPal need you just simply pay a percentage of the payments received, typically between 1.4 and 3.4% plus a fixed amount of 20p per transaction. And it is totally free to set-up a PayPal account for your business with no hidden start-up costs or yearly subscription fees. It is often the case that a potential customer may not heard of your business, but they certainly have seen or heard of PayPal before. PayPal logo can be easily seen by the users of internet because it appears in almost every auction website and even in many website that provide services as the payment method. They are therefore more likely to consider purchasing from your website as they some more do not have to give their financial details if use PayPal. A strong brand is an essential strength of PayPal as it is recognized and respected. Now the system has 100 million satisfied users worldwide and more websites use PayPal than any other payment gateway. The other strength of PayPal is convenience it brings to the public. PayPal website and payment service is user friendly. It is easy and simple to use, even for those who have no or little experience in selling or buying online. PayPal main focus is on the ease of use for both receivers and senders of cash. It also uses its securing system to help protects consumers personal information, and provides payments to merchants without ever providing your personal financial information. Merchants will not get the credit card information of the consumers, it decreasing the chance of breaching personal information. The ability to accept online payments typically only afforded to larger businesses with traditional credit card services but with the appeal of PayPal, it offers merchants, specifically smaller businesses can afford online payments. In essence, PayPal provide a per-to-peer payment channel by acts as a mediator between consumers and merchants. Weakness The first weakness of PayPal is the weak system of it. Currently, PayPal is not using a database-driven ordering system. For most of the online merchants with 25 to 500,000 products for sale online set up a spreadsheet or database that contains their product information by using specialized software. They make changes to the database on a desktop computer, such as price increases, inventory on hand, adding or deleting a product, altering color choices, initiating special sales, etc. These changes then will replace the older product database and show up the new product database on the website. But the PayPal system stores the order buttons of customers in an online database of sorts, but customers can only access it by using the web interface. It works quite smooth if customers only making one or two changes. But if customers have a lot of products, they forced to make the changes constantly. It will cause customers waste too much time while the time is most conscious for business. The other weakness is the bad communication between PayPal and its customer. The complaining system and the customer service at the PayPal website are too ineffective. Many complaints from time to time claim that PayPal has shut down a customers account arbitrarily and wont listen to any reason. But its not hard to know that PayPal works very hard to keep its system secure and fraud-free. When it finds out customers doing things that skid along the edge of its policies, it may shut them down arbitrarily. As PayPal is act in such way for good reasons, it should try to communicate with customers and let them know more about their action like send e-mail or phone call them so the misunderstand can be decrease. The limited flexibility of the PayPal system is due to its inflexible Hosted Ordering Interface. It provides an inflexible ordering interface that can be confusing to shoppers. PayPal allow customers to customize the interface a bit by adding their logo, selecting background colors, and border styles but customers ability to customize the order page is only in cosmetic ways. PayPal does not have an ordering system with open code that a programmer can manipulate to suit customers particular e-commerce needs. Some of the strongest conversion rate gains can be made by testing and streamlining an order interface in this way. Thats the reason why the PayPals order interface is clunky and can be confusing. Opportunities Acquisition is one of the opportunities for PayPal as it can bring more customers to PayPal especially with company that also run IT business. eBay announce that it will phase out its own competing service to PayPal that is eBay Payments by Billpoint and has acquire online payments company PayPal in a deal valued at $1.5 billion. This is very beneficial to PayPal as bulk of its business comes from eBay auctions. This event sure will result in improving PayPals profit, market share and reputation. Innovation of new technology can be defined as an opportunity to the PayPal. PayPal has reached an agreement with USAA Federal Savings Bank (USAA Bank) that will allow it to start developing a person to person payment solution for USAA members. This payment solution is something that USAA Bank plans to deliver in 2011. In future, USAAs members will be able to pay almost anyone with an e-mail address or mobile phone number, in real-time, and directly from their mobile phone. By keep working hard to provide more innovative product to the public, PayPal can gain more and more potential customer. Another example we can see is by releasing new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), PayPal is challenging the developer community to change the way we pay through innovation and new technologies. As the only open global payment platform, PayPal is unlocking the door to an unparalleled business proposition to developers that is create new, innovative ways to pay and get paid. And, the globa l payments market represents a $30 trillion opportunity according to a recent McKinsey report. Furthermore, the efforts of PayPal on product and services expansion have upgraded its own mainframe system to every corner of the world. To show its efforts in product and services expansion, PayPal has expanded its micropayments pricing, available to any member with a PayPal Business or Premier account. Micropayments fees for US dollar transactions are 5% + 5 cents per transaction. When compared to PayPals standard fees (2.9% + 30 cents), the micropayments rate can save money for merchants whose average selling price is below $12. Although micropayments is not new to PayPal, but this micropayments pricing was previously available only to account holders in select countries. With this expansion, PayPal are making it available to any PayPal Business or Premier account holder worldwide using any of PayPals 19 supported currencies. In addition, this micropayments pricing can be used with any of PayPals payment products including Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro and for e Bay sellers. The massive power of the Web can be recognized in its global effect on commerce. A global commerce for business exchange known as PayPal has been required because this medium is so strong worldwide. PayPal is recognized as an actual commerce with value around the world, and it makes someone in Europe can purchase a product from the United States while the neither party without PayPal has to struggle with the transfer of money options or exchange rates. The creation of a global commerce exchange system at a local consumer level makes this result happen. Threats The actions of a competitor could be a major threat against PayPal, for instance, if they bring in new technology or increase their workforce to meet demand. PayPal has several competitors such as eMoney Mail, Ecount and payMe. eMoney Mail provide delivers payments faster than the competition and its additional security ensures money doesnt end up in the wrong hands. Ecount lets customers specify the day they want money to arrive and provides payees with an online account to spend money on the Web, and it provide 24/7 toll-free customer support too. payMe deposits money in credit card and checking the accounts and it do not limit to the amount you can send overall. Both of the competitors try to give their best services, if PayPal do not work hard and efficient enough, it will lose its market share and reputation. Price wars between competitors that occur due to competitor keep invent new technology could damage profits for PayPal. As in year2006, Google plans to use Checkout, a service released in June that lets users buy items from multiple stores using a single account. Its purpose is to generate commissions and encourage more merchants to buy advertisements. At that time, the PayPal payment unit was EBays fastest-growing business in the third quarter. PayPals revenue climbed 41% to $350 million, outpacing a gain of 22% in auction revenue to $1.02 billion. Google Checkout wants to attract customers and therefore make charges a 2% commission and a 20-cent fee per purchase. While PayPal, which EBay acquired in 2002, charges a 30-cent rate, plus transaction fees of 1.9% to 2.9%, depending on the total value of payments processed each month. But in EBays promotion announced, customers receive as much as $20 in cash-back rebates from PayPal when they make online purchases on EBay.com and certain merchant websites in North America. As we all can see, price wars will cut off the profit of the company. PayPal do not invest in the advertising on the internet causes the brand image of PayPal is not very well. So it also has a need to strengthen its brand through the Web. In the image of the public, PayPals brand is closely associated with smaller merchants, low-cost auctions, and P2P money transfer. As a result, some larger firms might not want their brands associated with PayPal brand image. They may think that by this way public could devalue a corporations stronger brand. The fact remains that consumers associate its brand with less expensive, cheaper items even though PayPal is an enormous corporation. In order to solve this problem, PayPal should look to network with larger companies through the possible branding of a service associated with corporations. Furthermore, PayPal has the ability to introduce and market a new brand, such as CorpXchange or CorpCash by promoting the same services but without the low-cost auctions associated with PayPal. Porters Five forces of company practices The threat of the entry of new competitors Nowadays, barriers to entry of e-commerce business is low because of anything that internet technology eliminates or makes easier to do reduces the barriers to entry such as in the need for a sales force, access to channels and physical assets. Besides that, internet applications are difficult to keep proprietary from new entrants. This lead to a flood of new entrants has come into many industries, and one of the industries is e-commerce business. There are many new companies which provide similar services as PayPal such as Billpoint, Citibanks c2it, whose service was closed in late 2003, Yahoo!s PayDirect, whose service was closed in late 2004, and BidPay, which was shut down in 2006. However, there are still some new and former competitors such as Google Checkout, Wirecard, Moneybookers, The InstantPay (launching Jan 2011), 2Checkout.com, CCNow and Kagi still remain in business. But this does not affects PayPals revenue as it has impressive growth throughout many years. In 2008, it s revenue is US$ 60 billion, which increased 27% compared to the previous year, and US$ 71 billion in 2009, an increase of 19% over the previous year. During the early year of PayPal, there are lesser competitors, which means PayPal has a bigger market shares and this lead to more customers are using PayPal for their services. As time goes on, internet technology has grown more advance and this makes internet applications are very easy and attract more new entrants. New entrants join the market make the market shares of PayPal is getting smaller. This is because customers have more choices when choosing a right online payment service provider to process their payment. Besides that, some of the competitors got better offer than PayPal, such as cheaper charges and safer transaction process. This leads to the decrease of customers loyalty to PayPal and becoming a threat to the company. Google Checkout is one of the new entrant and main competitors with PayPal. It is an online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases on 28 June 2006. Users store their credit or debit card and shipping information in their Google Account, so that they can purchase anything at participating stores at the click of a button. It also offers fraud protection, as well a unified page for tracking purchases and their status. It also provide service with lower cost compared to PayPal. Unlike who only provide fraud protection for sales of more than $50, Google Checkout provide 100% fraud protection and 100% refund, but users must report it within 60 days. All these has make Google Checkout to become a threat to PayPal. Another new entrant is Wirecard AG, a global financial services and technology company founded in 1999. In November 2006, Wirecard has launched an internet payment service called Wirecard. By registering online, consumer can opens an account at Wirecard Bank which he can load by cash, cards, direct debit, wire transfer or various local payment schemes. The service includes a free virtual prepaid MasterCard for consumers that can be used to pay at millions of MasterCard locations worldwide. Apart from standard MasterCard products, the Wirecard system also let users to send each other money in real-time. There is also optional physical MasterCard enables users to pay at 24.7 million MasterCard brickmortar acceptance points and to withdraw cash at nearly 1 million ATMs worldwide. People may consider to use Wirecard because it is operated by a true bank. Unlike PayPal, Wirecard cannot simply freeze or limit customers accounts without a reasonable explanations. It may get suit by customer s. Therefore, PayPal should start to consider not to be just protecting its own interest, but protect its customers interest as well so it would not lose its customers. PayPal has some solutions to overcome the threat of losing customers loyalty to the company. One of the solution is PayPal has acquired a company named Fraud Sciences, which is expert in online risk tools to enhance eBay and PayPals proprietary fraud management systems and accelerate the development of improved fraud detection tools. On the other hand. eBay, as the parent company to PayPal, has added Google Checkout to its banned payment methods list to prevent eBay users from using Google Checkout. With this way, PayPals competitors will become lesser, thus the market share of the company will become bigger and also secure the customers loyalty to PayPal. The intensity of competitive rivalry As internet technology become more advance from time to time, it reduces the differences among competitors as offerings are difficult to keep proprietary. Therefore, PayPal used the alliance strategy to get larger percentage of market shares than other competitors. For example, on 18 Feb 2010, Facebook announced a partnership with PayPal in which users can now pay for their Facebook Credits by using the payment provider. Facebook had test other payment solution before making decision to have a partnership with PayPal, however the ability to pay for the virtual transactions through PayPal is great considering they have more than 81 million accounts. this prove that PayPal is good enough to handle massive amount of online transactions. Thus the company is intensifying pressures to other rivals as this partnership give many benefits to PayPal its market shares are getting bigger. PayPal also intensify pressure on its mobile payment service rivals too. Obopay is the company founded in 2005 that provide mobile payment service in United States. It is a service that allows the transfer of money between mobile phones. After a customer creates an Obopay account, they can add money from a credit card, debit card, or a bank transfer. This make people a lot easier because most of the people will carry a hand phone with them. However, PayPal announced its inclusion in Sprint Nextels MyMoneyManager suite of mobile financial services in 2008. It is the innovation strategy that it used to attract new customers and provide a wider range of services to its former customers too. PayPal and partner mFoundry are on deck to provide banking services for Sprint, making it the first major operator in United States to have mobile money transfers between subscribers. Its fee is also cheaper than Obopay too. By doing this, PayPal has intensified pressure to Obopay and also show its i ntensity of competitive rivalry is very strong. Besides that, internet advance technology also leads to migrates competition to price among competitors. Although PayPal charges and fees for online payment processing are slightly higher than the other competitors, it can still have a lot of loyal customers and new customers using its services. The reason is currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 223 million accounts, and more than 73 million of the accounts are active. PayPal also allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide and it operates with 27 global financial networks and 15,000 local banks around the world. It also operates in 13 countries. The wide range of services provided by PayPal is a better choice than its competitors as none of them can provide such services. Customers with a PayPal accounts can also make payment for many other services and products which make things a lot easier. Customers do not have to open another account for just that particular payment. The threat of substitute products or services This analysis will identify the likelihood that customers to your industry will switch to purchasing an alternative product or use an alternative services from outside your industry. With the advance of internet technology, the proliferation of internet approaches creates new substitutions threat in many industries. There are many alternative apart from online payment providers in the e-commerce market such as, credit card, debit card, checks, money order and e-banking. For local transactions, consumers will use these kinds of traditional methods rather than PayPal. If a person buy a product with credit card, all he need to pay is the price of the product and interest charged by bank. However, if he pay the bank early, he would not be charged with any interest and this method will be cheaper than using PayPal. If a person does not has a credit card, they can use online banking to make their payment as all they need is just a saving account in the particular bank. Besides that, having a saving account at a bank are better than having a PayPal account as there are many complaint from its customers that PayPal freeze its users account arbitrarily and wont listen to any reason. PayPal can freeze its users account easily without giving prior notice because it is not supervise by the bank regulation. Therefore, this will lead to a higher threat to PayPal for its users to change to use other substitute services. There are also many complaint from its users that PayPal security against fraud is not good. Users are easy to get scam or the confidential data are easy to be stolen. To avoid this situation happens, buyers can use money order to make payment as well. money order As for merchants, their substitute service apart from PayPal is merchant account. Merchant account is a type of bank account that allow businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards. A merchant account also serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card and/or debit card transactions. PayPal charges fees by per transaction, while merchant account is charging fees monthly and fix. Therefore, PayPal usually used by small business merchant as payment processor as the cost is cheaper. While for merchant that have massive transaction, most of them use merchant account as their payment processor because it will be cheaper than using PayPal. The bargaining power of buyers The bargaining power of customers is the ability of customers to put the firm under pressure, which also affects the customers sensitivity to price changes. The advanced internet technology has reduced switching costs of buyers and this makes the buyer would not simply switch to use other companies services. Although the fees charges to PayPal users are more expensive than its competitors, it still does not lower down the fees. This is because of PayPal provides to its users better services than its rivals, such as providing customers to hold up to 19 currencies of different countries so they can make their payment easily. It is the only company that can allows users hold that much currencies and requires high fixed costs to maintain this type of services. Customers that wishes to bargain for lower fees are maybe just a small portion among all the PayPal users too. If PayPal lower down its fee just for such small portion of unsatisfied customers, it may bring huge losses to the compa ny. Therefore, even though some users maybe price sensitive and bargain for a lower fees, PayPal will not make any changes as it would not greatly reduce its profit by losing a small portion of its users. The bargaining power of suppliers For PayPal, its suppliers are the banks and companies that provide financial networks in worldwide. The bargaining power of suppliers is low because with the internet, all companies has equal access to suppliers, and gravitate procurements to standardised products that reduce differentiation among competitors. standardised products or services makes the suppliers cannot charged high prices because there are too many similar products that other suppliers can provide. The banks, which are the suppliers to all online payment providers competing to each others with quality of services and low interest rates. Therefore, PayPal has many choices to choose for which suppliers is best suits with it. However, PayPal try to make deals with most of the local banks so it can have a wider range of services that can attract customers to use PayPal. It will not have to worry about the suppliers that charge excessive high price on unique products or service because if they do so, PayPal can just try to find another suppliers that charge reasonable price. Besides that, suppliers concentration to firm concentration ratio for PayPal is high because of its brand equity is high. Brand equity is brands power that derived from the goodwill and name recognition it has earned over time, and which turns into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands. PayPals high brand equity will keep attracts customers use PayPal services and this will lead to more services must be provided by the bank to PayPal. Banks will earn more profit by providing more services to it and indirectly makes the bargaining powers of suppliers become low as they need PayPal to generate more profit. Customer Relationship Management Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It includes one-to-one relationship between a customer and a seller which encourage customer participation in product development. CRM create one simple idea Treat different customers differently, which means that different customers are treat based on their different needs and different value to company. Besides that, CRM using information technology strategy aimed at identifying, acquiring, targeting and retaining the best mix of customers. CRM also describes a company-wide business strategy which including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Furthermore, CRM also helps in understanding customer needs and building relationships with them and by providing the most suitable products with a high level of customer service. It integrates back and front office systems to create a database of customer contracts, purchases, information requested and technical support. This database helps the firm to present a unified face to its customer and improve the quality of the relationship. The primary goal of CRM is to improve long-term growth and profitability through a better understanding of customer behavior. There are 3 phases in which CRM support the relationship between a business and its customers are to acquire, enhance and retain. CRM can help a business acquire new customers through contact management, selling and fulfillment. A web enabled CRM combined with customer service tools offers customers service from a team of sales and service specialists, which offers customers the convenience of one-stop shopping. CRM software and databases enable a business to identify and reward its loyal customers and further develop its targeted marketing and relationship marketing initiatives. For any business to be successful employers need to look into various objectives which are beneficial for the customers. A good customer employee relationship always leads to positive outcomes for the business. CRM is a new introduction in E-commerce and played major rule in the development of e-business specially the CRM stands for customer relationship. It is a strategy used to learn more about customers needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. Good customer relationships are at the heart of business success. A primary objective of CRM is to provide the entire organization with a complete and 360-degree view of the customer, no matter where the information resides. The benefits of adopting CRM processes are develop better communication channels, create detailed profiles of individual customers, increased customer satisfaction, customer service and support and increased revenues of the organization. There are 3 types of CRM which are operational CRM, analytical CRM and collaborative CRM. Operational CRM describes the technology strategy of managing and interacting with customers across channels through client facing applications and integrated channel management. Operational CRM applications are technologies that enable sales force, marketing and customer care automat

Overcoming the Constraints of Society Essay -- literary Analysis, Kate

he focus of this paper will be to examine Kate Chopin’s The Awakening chapter ten, specifically paragraphs five to ten. Throughout The Awakening Edna is constantly fighting with the expectations of society and her desire to be a free woman. As a woman, Edna is expected to be the perfect wife and mother, however she longs to embrace and free her creative self. Because of this battle within herself she shows many of the characteristics of depression. The passage mentioned above is very symbolic of Edna’s fight to overcome her mental illness. The thesis of this paper is that Edna’s yearning to swim is a metaphor for her longing to overcome depression, patriarchal expectations and societal constraints. By taking an in-depth look into the author’s word choice, a parallel can be found between learning to swim and the ability to overcome the depression within. The water mentioned in the passage is symbolic of Edna’s depression, and the fact that she had been trying to learn how to swim shows that she is trying to conquer it. Edna’s inability to swim shows that she was struggling to defeat her depression, however she was actively trying to find help by asking others for assistance. Edna describes that â€Å"A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water† (Chopin 73), this shows her fear of succumbing to the depression but also her anxiety to rise above it. By giving in to the depression Edna would accept society’s expectation of her, she would have to become the perfect mother and wife at any cost. Meanwhile, in order for her to rise out of the depression she would have to give in to her desire to be free of these expectations. Before Edna was able to swim, she describes herself as a â€Å"tottering, stumbling, clutching chi... ... the water in this passage, and her decision on whether or not to conform to the expectations of society. Her inability to swim in the beginning exhibits how Edna has been conforming to the expectations of society by becoming both a wife and mother, and as a result has developed the depression. Edna was able to defeat her depression, represented by her learning how to swim, by choosing the more solitary path. It can also be seen that Edna’s hold on her depression is very unsteady and wavering, which shows that she might not be able to control it. In the end she was â€Å"reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.†(Chopin 74), which shows that she is unable to contain her creative self within and she is looking for an escape from society. It also represents that she cannot keep control of her depression and that she is also looking for an escape from life.

Software Piracy And Its Effects Essay -- essays research papers

Software Piracy and it's Effects Identification and Description of the Issue Copyright law are perhaps those laws which are breached the most by individual on a daily bases. This is because one might not know be informed about these law or because not much is done to enforce these law. Also some countries of the world have no Copyright laws. Software Piracy is a breach of a copyright law as one copies data contained on the medium on to another medium without the consent of the owner of the Software. When one buy a software one buys not the software content and therefore it isn't ones property. Instead one buy the license to use the software with accordance to the licensing agreement. Software companies invest a lot of time and money in creating a Software and the company rely upon the sales of the Software for it's survival. If illegal copies are made of Software the companies earns no money and could therefore be forced into bankruptcy. Software Piracy can be compared to robbing as one is stealing the goods of someone else and using it without paying for it. Up to 13 Billions dollars are lost in computer piracy yearly and in order to overcome these cost the company are force to rise the prices of their product. Brand name are properties of their respected companies and they have the right to protect their properties. Understanding of the IT background of the Issue Software is contained on disc or on a CD-ROM. Pirates copy can easily be made of Software on disc by copying from one disc to another disc. For CD-ROM one needs a CD-ROM burner or one copies the content onto a large hard disc and then on to a floppy disc. There are some underground bulletin boards ( BBS ) that contain pirate software. A user who logs on to one of these BBS can download Full version of Pirate Software provided one too can give something in return. On the Internet there are binary Newsgroup such as alt.binaries.warez, WWW pages and FTP sites that also contain Pirate Software. On the Newsgroup the Files are send upon request from anonymous users. As a result people who have access to the Internet can retrieve these Software Program free of charge. The person posting the Pirate software could be from a countries that has no copyright laws. These methods used in Software Piracy are hard to stop because of the fact it is done on the Internet and between individual form different co... ...e it to unlikely that any new copy protection will not be cracked. To much copy protection could drive away legitimate consumers. Till now politician haven't really looked into the problem of Software piracy and Copyrights very thoroughly as they think that there are bigger problems to solve. Once though legislation are passes and people made aware that Software Piracy is a crime one could see a fall in Software Piracy. In dealing with other country involves a lot of bureaucracy but also a committed government. For anything to occur on the political level could take years for any effects to be seen. It has the greatest chance of solving the problem in the long run. In the technological side one could solve the problem only one a short term but implementation would be fast. Sources Internet Page WWW.pcworld.com/News December 96 Business Software Alliance Information Sheet on Software Piracy Computer Ethics Tom Forester &Perry Morrison Chapter3 "Software Theft" page 51-72 CNN Computer Connection December 96 - January 97 PC Magazine entire 96 Volume Reuters InfoWorld, Vol.19, No.6 Reuters 6 Feb. 97 Media Daily, Jan 30, 1997 Article on FBI crackdown on Software Pirates

What Makes Me a True Filipino

WHAT MAKES ME A TRUE FILIPINO? ORIGIN: According to Sociology, Filipino is a hodgepodge, a mixture of primitive strains ( Negrito, Ita, Aeta); eastern strains (Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese) and western strains ( Spanish, English, American). primitive strains + eastern strains + western strains = A FILIPINO Therefore, we Filipinos are unified from different races. . I may say that I’m a Filipino. VALUES: Some says Filipinos are wonderful people. We are friendly, loving, caring, family oriented, loves adventures, talented, religious, etc. They are also hardworking. We are hospitable, that’s the no. 1 thing most common in our personality. We are also jolly people. . I may say that I’m a Filipino. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: Filipinos are known for flat, small or big nose; medium or tan skin (kayumanggi); black hair and who are small ones etc. I may say that I’m a Filipino because I have those. We are plenty of gorgeous Filipino men and women out there who have unique appearances†¦ But some are ashamed with their beauties. When you disrespect the traits of your ancestors, you are only insulting yourself. MANNERISM AND PERSONALITY TRAITS: Filipinos point with their lips. They eat with their hand and have it down as a technique. They nod their head upwards to greet someone. They put their foot up on their chair and rest their elbows on their knees while you eat. etc I may say that I’m a Filipino. VOCABULARY: Filipinos say ‘Aray' instead of ‘ouch’. They make acronyms for phrases: ‘OA' = overacting, ‘DOM' = dirty old man, and ‘TNT' for†¦ You know. They also pronounce the ff. words: ‘Hippopo-TA-mus', ‘com-FOR-table', ‘Bro-CO-li', and ‘Montgo-marry Ward'. Filipinos say ‘Ay' or â€Å"Uy† instead of ‘oops' etc. I may say that I’m a Filipino. CLOTHING AND APPEARANCE: Filipinos – There's Angelique eyeliner and Johnson's Baby Powder compacts lurking in your makeup drawer. They check labels on clothes to see where it's made. Their ponytail ribbon covers half your head. I may say that I’m a Filipino. These are some ways to know you are Filipino. It is very interesting. It is quite funny but we must admit that we are one of them. And regardless of all this, WE are FILIPINO for life.

Character Transformation in “Salvation” Essay

Langston Hughes, in his short story, â€Å"Salvation†, uses himself as the character in the story.   Langston does undergo a transformation in his life, as a preteen.   Due to his young age, he feels that his profound conclusion about religion is a betrayal to his family and does not feel as an adult might if they came to the same conclusion. He wants to believe what his aunt believes and it hurts him deeply that he cannot see what she sees or believe how she does in terms of accepting in religious figures as factual persons.   It is the irony of his disbelief as the younger Langston has a more mature take on Jesus, who is spoken of more than other figures in the story, because he requires proof of his existence. His aunt believes that Jesus could save Langston from sin and holds other beliefs about God and the Holy Ghost that she could not prove.   Her thought process seemed more erroneous and immature than Langston’s.   Therefore, not only does Langston undergo a transformation in the way he viewed religion, but grew in that he developed a more mature thought process. Langston is a young boy of almost thirteen years old in this story.   At this age, many young boys grow in many developmental areas.   Using the theme of growth, Hughes deals with this premise in the area of religion.   In the first line of the story Hughes says â€Å"I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen†. This is an interesting line to analyze, as he later says that he was not really saved from sin, in a religious sense.   But, it could be that he is saved from the â€Å"sin† of not using rational thought and of being a person, who is heavily influenced from others.   It seems that even though Langston is upset when he believes that he has hurt his aunt by deceiving her in his belief of Jesus, this simply proves that while he was growing into a young man mentally, he was still immature emotionally. Hughes very descriptive language in dealing with the characters and their behavior in church, does make the practice of religion, itself, seem very immature.   Hughes says that â€Å"suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me†.   But Langston is the only calm person in the midst of all of this chaos.   He thinks rationally and wants to see Jesus, when he does not, he comes to the acceptance that there is no Jesus.   While his aunt is proud, he feels badly that he could not tell her the truth about his deduction. Langston, also, has the presence of mind to realize that in the past weeks, the church had brought in many people to be â€Å"saved† and â€Å"the membership of the church had grown by leaps and bounds†.   This is another phase of growth that can be taken from this deduction and this is the growth of moving physically away from family and other institutions to becoming more autonomous. In conclusion, this story is about growth and transformation.   The title, â€Å"Salvation†, may be misleading, as the speaker does not experience salvation in a religious sense.   The salvation that he does achieve is from the freedom of growing into a young man with rational thought and natural questioning of the world around him. Hughes does a wonderful job of describing the mental growth from boy to man that the character experiences.   The emotional aspect of growth is touched upon too, as the boy is still immature in that aspect.   It can be gathered too that physically, Langston is moving away from his aunt and others in the community to be his own person. References Hughes, Langston.   â€Å"Salvation†.   (1940).   Accessible online http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-dwc/hughes.htm.   Last Accessed 18 November, 2008.