The Significance of the Title to the Novel the Pearl

The significance of the title to the novel ‘The Pearl’. The novel ‘The Pearl’ by John Steinbeck is such a novel that really interest me as a reader. What is really appropriate is the title itself which incorporate ‘the pearl’, the essence of the story. The pearl is very significant to the title because without ‘the pearl of the world’, the story just would not exist. The novel could not stand by itself if the pearl is not found. We can also see that any story would not be interesting without conflicts.The pearl has created conflicts among the characters in the novel. Thus, it can be said that it is the pearl that moves the story. The characters are nothing without the pearl. The pearl is the beginning and the end of the novel. As readers, we can see that the pearl appears as something significant when Kino found it. The finding of the pearl is described vividly in the story. Its colour and shape are shown by the writer graphically. The response from Kino who clinched his fist triumphantly and his friends who come in drove show the importance of the pearl.We realized that the story revolves around the pearl. This continues till the end of the story. The disappearance of the pearl when it was thrown by Kino marks the end of the story. Therefore, the pearl is a single entity which is very important to the novel. The pearl is crucial as the title as it differentiate between good and evil and between the poor and the wealthy. It becomes a priceless commodity that turns the character into who they are. Those who wish to be evil use the pearl for evil purposes whereas the good just need it for their normal life.Thus the pearl is very significant to both parties, and to the title of the novel. A novel energy lies in the existence of powerful characters and plot. Although the pearl is not a character, its involvement in nearly all the important happenings is a statement that it is the energy that drives the story forwa rd. Those who touch it become obsess with it and those who haven’t are willing to do anything to get it. Kino becomes obsessed with the pearl promises and the doctor is willing to sacrifice his professional etiquette to obtain the pearl.It seems that the energy of the pearl is uncontrollable. This makes ‘The Pearl’ a remarkable tale that interest readers. A story needs a suitable setting which suit the period. The pearl is a perfect instrument that suits a story that takes place in La Paz, an important pearl producer in American Continent. We can imagine that if the pearl is replaced with other thing, the novel would become dull and the story becomes irrelevant. It is an important tool that require by many people in La Paz, including the natives and the wealthy immigrants.Kino himself said that the pearl is his soul. The pearl that drives the economy of La Paz is also the one that drives the plot of ‘The Pearl’. The points above have shown that the t itle of the novel ‘The Pearl’ which uses the pearl of the world as its main ingredient is rightly chosen. The title ‘The Pearl’ perfectly suits the story plot. It also provides the right ingredient for conflicts and a foundation for a never ending quests for a good life.

Taming the shrew

In a Rom-Com characters and staging can be very important as an audience will usually expect a main and sub plot. In act 5 scene 2 this is shown by the fact that the two main characters Petruichio and Katrina, the two main sub-characters Bianca and Lucientio and two of the sub characters Hortensio and the Widow-who is a new character- and all main characters from both plots are in one room,-which shows the importance of this scene. -talking and celebrating. The women then leave which shows that the men are now the most important characters of the moment. The limelight then shifts to each man in turn. – Petruichio, Hortensio, Lucientio, and Baptista, before moving on to the servants. When the women return, the limelight brings Katrina's character to centre stage, whilst also bringing Bianca's and the Widow's shame to light. The way Shakespeare has structured the play is so that that the focus of the audience is never on one person or persons for any sustained amount of time. This allows the audience t experience the play from multiple characters point of view. This is done to illustrate how different males and female are as social groups; Shakespeare then uses Katrina as a pivotal character to bring the male and female groups together. There are various themes throughout the play; there was however two main themes, being marriage and appearance versus reality, both of which are split into several sub-themes. The sub-themes for marriage include Language-being the frequent use of sexual innuendos such as the common use of the words â€Å"head, horn† and â€Å"butt†-and consummation. shown when Petruichio asks Katrina to bed. The sub-theme for appearance versus reality disguise and deception, the main plot of this theme is disguise of language and appearance- Petruichio disguises his language to tame Katrina, and Lucientio and Tranio use physical disguises so that Lucientio can woo Bianca. The end of the play is quite interesting as Shakespeare sexual innuendos and puns to lighten the mood and to create a merry atmosphere. Read this – Puns in the Importance There is also the mentioning of hunting â€Å"O sir, Lucientio slipped me like his greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master† which is used as an analogy for wooing the women as well as the wager, â€Å"Let's each one send onto his wife, and he whose wife is most obedient to come at first when he doth send for her shall win the wager which we will propose† that ends in the most unexpected outcome; When the wager is resolved Katrina begins her monologue which includes similes twinned with alliteration. â€Å"It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads†-which means frowning can spoil a woman's beauty but also uses alliteration to make the similes effect more profound-as well as lists, repetition, â€Å"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life thy keeper, thy head thy sovereign, one that cares for us† commands, † Come, come, you froward and unable worms â€Å"and rhetorical questions. â€Å"What is she but a foul contending rebel and graceless traitor to her loving lord? † The language of the speech dampens the mood, which is then lifted by light jesting at the end. In conclusion I would say that Taming the Shrew fits with most Rom-Coms but does however differ in many ways; the main discrepancies are the problem of not knowing whether the main couple is happy or not, as well as the introduction of a new character in the final scene and the fact that the final speech which is usually given by a male and is normally inviting and merry not witty, cynical, sarcas tic and critical.

Summary of an article that discusses how microsoft office is being Essay

Summary of an article that discusses how microsoft office is being used in Nursing - Essay Example These devices are larger than a mobile telephone but smaller than a laptop computer. The authors note that there is an increasing tendency for nurses to be required to use microsoft applications for such tasks as making list, accessing clinical reference materials, writing progress notes, and referring to protocols etc. The advantages of mobile devices with this software include a decrease in medical errors, because mobile notes are more reliable than memory, and an increase in self-efficacy for the students. This is important in nursing because even students have a busy working day and deal with heavy demands in terms of holding and using information. It transpired that stundents could quite easily transfer skills from desktop computing, such as word processing and spreadsheets. Knowing Windows and how it works was a big help in giving the students confidence with the new devices. One hindrance in the use of microsoft technology in a clinical setting is that many hostpitals do not p ermit the use of wireless equipment near patients because of the possibility of interference with medical equipment.

Pollutants, their impacts, and mitigation of harmful effects Essay

Pollutants, their impacts, and mitigation of harmful effects - Essay Example Despite all these impacts that acid rains poses to health and the environment, all is not lost because programs and laws have been put in place to mitigate these impacts. Acid rain has two main causes. These include the natural causes and the human causes (Jakubiak, 2012). Volcanic eruptions are the leading natural cause of acid rain. Erupting volcanoes contain different chemicals in the gaseous form of sulfur dioxide that get mixed up with oxygen and water in the atmosphere and dispersed to other large areas by wind pattern. These may then fall down as acid rain. Other natural causes of acid rain include the rotting of vegetation that also leads to the production of sulfur dioxide. Sea sprays can sometimes cause sulfur dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. Lightening and bacterial decomposition are also natural causes of acid rain because they lead to the generation of nitrogen dioxide, which when mixes with water and oxygen, falls back as acidic rain. Apart from the natural cause of acid rain, human activities have contributed a great deal to these rains. Some of these activities include burning of fossil fuels and running of factories and automobiles, which lead to emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The emitted gases then react with oxygen, water, and various chemicals to form acidic compounds such as sulfuric acid, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. Wind will blow these acidic compounds over large areas and they will fall back to the ground as acid or any other form of precipitation such as fog, sleet, mist or snow. Acid rain as Jakubiak, (2012) explains, comes in two main forms that are wet deposition and dry deposition. The wet deposition occurs when wind blows acidic chemicals in the air to areas where the weather is wet causing the acid to fall in the form of rain, fog, sleet, mist or snow. It affects large numbers of plants, animals and aquatic life when it flows through the ground. The acid water flows to rivers

Child Abuse Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Child Abuse - Research Paper Example very reality that all these kinds of violence not only leave indelible destructive imprints upon their innocent minds, but also such kind of obnoxious behavior may put their future in grave jeopardy. The researches reveal the very fact that domestic violence and child abuse not only adversely tell upon the process of cognitive development among children, but also they wide open the avenues towards juvenile delinquent behavior and perversion for the future years to come. Exposure to violence can result in ‘regressive’ symptoms such as increased bedwetting, delayed language development and more anxiety over separation from parents (cited in Margolin & Gordis, 2000). Researches also show that sexual exploitation of the innocent children, at the hands of the adult members of society, destroys their mental capabilities, and remain as the terrifying part of the bitterest memories of their life, which haunt their minds and cause their psychological collapse even during their adulthood and later part of their life. Researches also prove the bitter reality that the individuals, who had become the victim of physical or sexual abuse in their childhood, lead mentally retarded and highly disturbed life in their grown years. They remain prey to some invisible danger hanging like a sword on their head, which takes long time for recovery. Hence, the convalescence procedure of the victims of child abuse is technically very difficult and time-taking one. The psychologists suggest counseling, medicines consumption, therapeutic measures and consoling from family members, teachers and friends for the complete recovery of the victims of child abuse. Hence, child abuse serves as an infamous mar as well as a shameful curse on the very face of society, which may produce perverts, offenders and criminals to challenge the very peace and stability of the social establishment at large. In the nutshell, children become victim of abuse at the hands of family members, teachers, peers,

Historical and legal controversy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Historical and legal controversy - Essay Example In the correct context, it was expected that Thomas becket would have used his appointive position to defend the royal affairs, on the contrary, he began to champion for ecclesiastical rights. Specifically, there was the question of how the clergy who committed crimes were supposed to be dealt with. In the conventional world and sense, one would have expected that all clerics who took minor orders were supposed to be subjected to secular rigour and law when on the wrong. This was due to the fact that the so called minor clerics constituted up to one fifth of the population (Knowles, 9). In principle, it implies that one fifth of the population could have been spared from secular authority and instead be subjected to ecclesiastical hierarchy and judges. As a matter of fact, this situation whereby the clerics were to be tried under the ecclesiastical laws regardless of the nature of their crime is called the benefit of the clergy. According to Thomas Becket, all the clergy were suppose d to enjoy the benefit of the clergy regardless of their position in the hierarchy or hegemony of clerical service King Henry on the other hand believed that the proposition by his former ally turned nemesis that the clerics were to be excused from secular regimes of law was going to undercut his authority. In retrospect, the King opposed the position taken by the archbishop, thus controversy and discomfort did set in as a result. Another dispute arose when Thomas Becket endeavored to recover lost land that did belong to the diocese with a royal writ. In the long end, he made a lot of recoveries of land some of which were done in a high-handed manner. The subjects then took matter up with the king and it also contributed to the long standing dispute (Plucknett, 6). At one point, the archbishop, Thomas Becket tried to install a clerk or a clerical officer in a land

Calculated Versus Observed Underwater Sound Speed Essay

Calculated Versus Observed Underwater Sound Speed - Essay Example The speed of sound in air is approximately figured out by the formula . . . speed of sound (m/s) = 331.5 + 0.60 T(C). The speed or velocity, at which sound travels through water was first researched by Sir Isaac Newton in 1687 when he found that measurements of sound in fluids relied only on the physical properties of the fluid, such as elasticity and density (Funk & Wagnalls). The speed of sound in water is about four times greater than that in air. Although this seems to contradict the physical law that the denser the gas, the slower the speed of sound, the sound speed is actually determined more by the elasticity of the medium (Urick, 1983). In 1822, Daniel Colloden used an underwater bell in an attempt to calculate the speed of sound underwater in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. His attempts resulted in figures remarkably close to today's accepted values (Acoustics . . . 2006). But sound speed cannot be discussed without mention of Jaque Sturm, French mathematician, who made the first accurate measurements of sound velocity in water in 1826. World War I created a great necessity to study the propagation of sound under water, with more progress in World War II and increased understanding from current research (Funk & Wagnalls). ... His attempts resulted in figures remarkably close to today's accepted values (Acoustics . . . 2006). But sound speed cannot be discussed without mention of Jaque Sturm, French mathematician, who made the first accurate measurements of sound velocity in water in 1826. World War I created a great necessity to study the propagation of sound under water, with more progress in World War II and increased understanding from current research (Funk & Wagnalls). The fact that sound moves in a straight line in a medium of equal density (ibid.) led to studies of water variables. Sonar's accuracy depends upon: 1. The reflection of sounds propagated in water. 2. Whether sound is reflecting or refracting. 3. Levels of salinity, while generally constant in the open ocean, greatly changes how sound travels through shallow water. 4. Temperature, a foremost factor in sound speed calculations, usually becomes lower at greater depths of water, decreasing sound speed at about 3 m/sec per degree Celsius. Below 1000m, though, temperature becomes generally constant and pressure is the predominant consideration. But a depth change of about 165m can cause the same change in sound speed as a one-degree temperature drop. Acoustic Tomography (a type of underwater CT scan) and Sofar Floats are examples of technologies and instruments that measure the movement of large scale ocean water mass. A unique feature of the ocean is the Sofar Channel in the upper regions of the deep ocean. In this layer of the ocean, at about 1250 meters below the surface in the northwest Atlantic, the temperature and pressure act to provide a "long range acoustic path or channel"(Acoustic . . . 2006). The SOFAR float is an instrument designed to be neutrally buoyant at a certain depth and

Emergency Plan Analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Emergency Plan Analysis - Assignment Example This came about after the realization of the dangers that face them. This was informed by their unique coastal location that leaves them exposed to natural disasters like floods, tropical cyclones, tornados, and wildfires. It is also vulnerable to freezing temperatures, drought, and biological hazards. Technological hazards include vulnerability to prolonged blackouts, leakage from nuclear reactors, spilling of oil in seas and oceans, poisoning of water reservoirs. The man-made disasters may include terrorist attacks and mass migration events because of the closeness to neighboring countries with political instability. The objective of the plan minimizes the impact of the disaster by ensuring no lives are lost and aids the quick recovery from the disaster. The plan is meant to put in place to ways to enable lives to be preserved when a disaster strikes and prevent injuries that may render people crippled or result to permanent damage to important parts of the body. Damage to infrastructure leads to massive losses and if people are able to prevent such it is very helpful. A lot of money is spent on restoring such things and that money could be put to better use to make the quality of life better for the citizens. It is also important that people fall back to their ordinary lives the soonest possible after a disaster ha struck. This is important for it makes people keep up with the rate of growth they planned for and achieve their goals in life easily.

Discussing why Facebook recently acquired Whatsapp Essay

Discussing why Facebook recently acquired Whatsapp - Essay Example Facebook and whatsapp are among the leading social media platforms we have in the modern world. The two social Medias have significant number of users that each pose a threat to another as far as the social media business is concerned. In comparison to other social Medias that have been in existence before the invention of whatsapp, facebook was dominating the market with the highest number of users. With the coming of whatsapp in the social media market, it intensified the completion to a point where facebook opted to acquire it. Apart from the excessive competition in the social media market brought about by Whatsapp application, there are many other ways to justify the acquisition of Whatsapp by Facebook. Just like in other forms of business, one business my either merge with another or fully acquire it depending on the business environment they both face. According to studies by Ireland, Hoskisson and Hitt (2012 pp.133), one business may acquire another in order to increase its growth, gain market power, manage risks and reduce costs. In relation to such acquisition reasons, Facebook owners made the move to acquire Whatsapp in order to increase its growth in the social media market. Acquiring Whatsapp, which is a strong competitor, would also help Facebook manage the risk of elimination from business and cut costs of operation such as advertising. Management of such factors would subsequently lead to an increase in the market power by Facebook. In studies conducted by Frankel (2011 pp.22), he notes that, among the main reasons why one business may acquire another include customers and market share. One business may want to take over the customers of a competing business and successively take over the market share. In relation to the above studies, Facebook will take over the users of whatsapp and subsequently its market share. This is possible because Whatsapp has the ability to attract many users than facebook. Studies

Texting with shortcut Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Texting with shortcut - Essay Example Young individuals have developed various acronyms or shortcuts for the purpose of text messaging. They have a shortcut for almost even word in the English dictionary in order to use them in their text messages. For example: they use â€Å"143† in order to refer to the phrase â€Å"I love you† and they use the shortcut â€Å"lol† to refer to â€Å"laugh out loud† (Cennamo 258). They assert that the use of shortcuts, alternative words, and symbols is very convenient since it delivers relevant message in a brief and concise manner. Moreover, texting with shortcut enables users to convey their message without having to stop whatever they were doing. This allows the users to address other tasks and emergencies. The mobility of this idea equally enables users to communicate from any location with access to mobile phone signals. Texting with shortcut defines a unique identity adopted by the young generation for socialization purposes (Telegraph Media Group Limite d 1). The availability of technological devices like smartphones has made it possible for the young and old to access and use texting with shortcut. As such, texting with shortcut has become the most prominent mode of communication between friends, colleagues, and family members. The proponents of this idea note claim that it has played an important role in restoring the significance of writing. Subject to its prominence and merits, some companies are using texting with shortcut for advertisements. Texting with shortcuts is a behavior that should be discouraged by teachers, parents as well as students because it disrupts the formal way of writing, it decreases a student’s ability to express themselves and even decreases the quality of communication that takes place between different individuals. However, many people including me are against the idea of texting with shortcut especially among the young generation that are students. Despite the perceived

Emotional Labour Essay Example for Free

Emotional Labour Essay This report investigates the shop manners and training offered to the floor sales staff at Next compared to that of those who work in the stock room. I would like to know how each environment affects the workers emotions. I think its an important question to ask because the people that work on the shop floor are constantly in contact with customers. It could be said that those that work in the stock room are not part of the stage setting and are more like the stage crew who work behind the scenes. I think it is important then to first address what emotion is. Emotion theory is centred on the relationship of the person and its environment (Lazarus, 1991 p40). This has implications on the question that I am posing as the stockroom workers interact in a different environment to their colleagues on the shop floor. There are two fundamental viewpoints to emotion the organismic and interactionalist viewpoint. The organismic model developing from the work of Charles Darwin, William James and early Sigmund Freud, Defines emotion mainly as a biological process. For Freud emotion affect is libidinal discharge, for Darwin its instinct and for James its the perception of a psychological process (Hochschild, 1983 p205) This leads organismic theorists to believe that there is a basic similarity of emotion across categories of people (Hochschild, 1983). The organismic model brings us to an elicitation-expression model (Hochschild, 1983) Interactionists believe emotion always involves a biological component but adds more points to social factors, which are present before, after and during the experience of emotion. For example why does a customer become violent when refused a refund, what in their cultural environment constitutes their response? If we conceptualise emotion as instinctive we will ignore questions about social entry. (Hochschild, 1983) Emotions are experienced by individuals and through intention or inadvertent communication may be deduced by others who are observing. (Lazarus, 1991 p40) Emotions can be a valuable source of information in determining how people are getting along. However, surface acting can disguise true emotion so you must be wary when reading emotions. Society and biological inheritance creates a pattern of behaviour that shape emotion and expressions of the individual (Lazarus, 1991 p40). I believe this statement relates to the way that shop assistants and customers are expected to behave. As you will see the training offered to the sales staff shows members of the work force how to act in a socially excepted way which is common practice in all chain stores. In a shopping environment how other people feel is a huge factor as to whether they buy something or not. Sales staff to some extent can influence this. I believe that for a customer to feel at home in a shop the sales staff need to be friendly and approachable whereby you feel even if you havent bought any thing this time you are welcome back again. I think that this is the key to the success of stores like Next and Marks and Spencers where staffs have the correct shop manners to keep the customers coming back. From interviews undertaken with staff at Next I have uncovered strict guidelines in training which each new member of staff has to go through. (I will discuss this and whether I think it is appropriate later.) Drawing on my own experience, I have worked in what you would call a downmarket clothes store and no training of shop manners was offered to me. It was my first proper job so I did feel as if I was being thrown in at the deep end. However, the shop was very small and my C.V. demonstrated that I had good people skills as I had worked on a market stall at the weekends and holidays. I assume that management didnt feel the need to train me in what they thought should be the obvious way to behave towards customers. After speaking to senior sales staff at next and sponsors, these are longer standing members of staff who train new staff using the guidelines (see Appendix), I have gathered that management wish the customer to feel that they are the most important thing and that their shopping experience is being made easier by the staff. Next seem to have thought out its training program very clearly and assigns specific amounts of time to each activity. This helps to give the impression that training is viewed as an important part of the job. I think that Next places emphasis on its training as it is a chain store and it often directs customers to local stores if the stock isnt available at the branch at which they are visiting, this calls for a sense of conformity between stores. I evaluated the training sessions which, are appropriate to the questions I am asking, by interviewing staff on how appropriate each session is, how achievable are the actions set out and how they affect emotions. The overall reaction that I had from staff was that they felt the training to be very obvious and many sponsors admitted to skipping through the training as quickly as possible because of this fact. Sponsors felt that by training staff with this obvious manner of behaviour was assuming that the trainee was, when prompted by myself, emotionally incapable of selecting the correct emotions for the customer situation. Training session 1 (Appendix Shop Manners). The trainee is told to be aware and not to get tied down in tasks when I asked staff about the reality of this they said they found it very annoying to be approached by customers when doing a job and often resented customers for bothering them. However, this is where surface acting comes into play the employee hides what they feel and pretends what they dont (Hochschild, 1983). The action is in the body language, for example the put on smile and sweet voice as it is for the people observed by Erving Goffman (cited in Hochschild, 1983 p35). The employee has to think back to their training to pick the right body language. A typical scenario: Now interrupted from a task possibly holding a huge pile of stock in their hand the employees are given a strict formula to follow, eye contact, a smile, appropriate greeting and to be friendly and sincere. This is a hard task when obviously it is inappropriate for the customer to target them and often there is another member of staff nearby doing nothing. However, the surface acting must continue as the corporate motto of The customer always comes first is relayed in your mind, plus I dont want to lose my job if they complain to head office. Company control also works along who fears whom. As with flight attendants the fear hierarchy works indirectly through customers complaining, to head office (Hochschild, 1983). This type of scenario links with the question posed by Hochschild (1983 p89) that when feelings are set by management and where workers have weaker rights to courtesy then consumers do, when deep and surface acting are forms of labour to be sold what happens to the way a person relates to her feelings or to her face? Employees said that when they were the customers they were more aware of the shop assistants emotions and tried to be more courteous. However, they may just feel as though they do this because they wish that people would do this for them. I do believe that this statement does have some truth but surely when the stage setting is different, when they are the customer and not the server they assume the actions of the customer. As on the stage as in life the person is the locus of the acting process. But when an institution is involved various acting elements are taken away from the individual and replaced by institutional mechanisms. In this case the fact that the customer comes first. The locus of acting, of emotional management, moves to the level of the institution. (Hochschild 1983 p49) The people are arranged according to institutional custom and the workers surface act in institutionally approved ways. Training Session 2 (Appendix In-Store Security) This training session makes shop assistants conscious of the need to be aware and the need for acknowledgement of the customers. You can use your training of greeting the customer in a functional way, to help reduce the comfort of shoplifters who are always aware of who is watching them. Senior staff said that it gets easier to spot thieves with practice; you get to learn their tricks of diverting your attention. Even though you have to be suspicious of certain customers you must always remember your training and be polite even if you feel that they are up to no good. Training Session 3 (Appendix Stockroom) As you can see none of the training here is connected to personal conduct, it doesnt attempt to tell you how to act where as the shop floor assistants are told to be friendly, sincere, polite, confident and have a smile. They are even told that conversations must be work related. When questioned on the reality of this last statement floor staff said they do have non-work related conversations but they are of a toned down nature to the way they would speak in private. When I asked the stockroom workers about their conversations they said that if they were in a situation to have a conversation it would be more animated then if having it on the shop floor as they are not in public. Training Session 12 (Appendix Till Service) Customer interaction is crucial at the till point. Again the trainee is told how to act, to be sincere and polite. I asked staff how easy it was to do this. A typical scenario: Its a very busy Saturday and all the tills are in operation when greeted by the customer with comments such as I have been waiting ever such a long time, you know and the like, it is difficult to be sincere and polite as there is nothing the staff can do to make the queue go any quicker. The staff member surface acts with her painted on smile and polite apologies. In the training suggestions of possible conversation are complimenting customers on their choice of purchase. Till operators said they tended to deep act in this case, only saying it if they meant it. Deep acting is a natural result of working on feeling expression is spontaneous (Hochschild 1983). As the Russian director Constantin Stanivlaski puts it a real feeling that has been self-induced (cited in Hochschild 1983 p35). The refund and exchange policy is an important part of training because it is the most likely time for customer conflict. The staff member is instructed to treat the customer in the same way as they would if they were making a purchase, this is easy if the customer has a receipt or is a well-known customer. But if the customer doesnt have a receipt it makes it harder in some cases because you have the suspicion that the customer may have stolen the garment. In this situation the staff member is advised that the best thing to do is get a manager. As formal rules that prop up an institution set limits to the emotional possibilities that staff have to feel (Hochschild 1983). The point that demonstrates this is the manager gets paid more then a shop assistant because their pay package covers them for the emotional insults, which they may receive from refusing to give a customer a refund. I asked the managers how they dealt with abusive behaviour from customers. Managers gain the experience for dealing with inconvenient customers and they assured me that it gets easier as time goes on. You have to detach what you are feeling from the situation and not let your own anger, or in some extreme cases fear get in the way. (Appendix Initial Training Requirement Chart) This gives a summary of all the training offered to the different roles at Next. As you can see all staff members that are present on the shop floor, for any point of their shift, the number one training session is shop manners. This is not part of the stockroom workers training. (Appendix Sponsors Guidelines- 6.Performance Assessment Standards) This table demonstrates that all staff working on floor cover, fitting room, till service or replenishment are those that could possibly come into contact with customers. It demonstrates that shop floor staff members are assessed on their ability to smile and make eye contact with the customer and to be aware of shoppers. Stockroom staff members, on the other hand, are assessed solely on their physical, rather then any emotional objectives. Are our feelings really our own? From the research obtained in this report it is clear to see that the staff working on the shop floor are shown how to act where as in the stock room its much more natural emotion. Institutional practice shapes the way in which shop floor workers are expected to behave. What makes some individuals prefer to work in the stock room compared to the shop floor? I asked the stockroom workers why they liked to work in the stockroom. I received comments such as. You can be more yourself as you dont have to work in uniform. I think that management enforce a strict smart dress policy on shop floor workers to help them get into the role, which they have to play; it is part of the act. In the stockroom you dont have to interact with customers. Some of the stockroom staff said the horror stories they have heard about customers puts them off working on the shop floor. As customers seem to be oblivious to the feelings of shop floor workers and assume that they are there just to serve them. The stockroom has quite a different atmosphere to the shop floor it is more relaxed, you often get shop floor sales staff coming in for a break from the hustle and bustle of the shop floor. The stockroom workers said that on many occasions sales staff come in and tell them about incidents with customers that have just happened. This helps the member of staff to calm down, as the stockroom member often is able to bring them to reality and point out that it is only a customer and not to get wound up. In the surroundings of the back office the sales floor worker is able to put the situation in context of life and go back to the act moments later. Does personality have something to do with whether you like working in the stockroom or the shop floor? From observation and asking the floor staff it seems to me that the quieter people work in the stock room. When I questioned staff members on why they enjoyed working in the stock room I deduced they dont feel the need to be on the stage acting, to them it is false they would rather be left to their own devices. I asked the floor staff whether they minded working in the stockroom as sometimes staff shortages calls for this. They said they didnt mind but preferred the interaction and liveliness of the shop floor this corresponds with previous research, which shows emotional labourers like contact with the customer. Even though customers can be very unpleasant. (MG2076 starter pack: The Survey). Sales floor staff said they wished they could work in the stockroom on days when they were feeling under the weather as the need to act in the corporate superficial way was much harder because their true emotions were harder to suppress. On days when everything is going well staff said it was a pleasure to help customers that are appreciative of their service but a customer who feels it is their right to be served can bring an end to that. This suggests that workers feelings are not their own and shop assistants surface act from day to day. I would like to investigate status and gender differences to see whether men or women are better equipped at working in either environment. Is emotion work as important for men as it is for women? (Hochschild, 1983 p 162) Hochschild believes it is not. Due to firstly lacking other resources women make a resource out of feeling. Secondly, each gender is called on to do different kinds of work, which Hochschild believes to be down to different childhood training of the heart that is given to girls and boys (Hochschild, 1983 p163). I think this gender separation at work is becoming less apparent as equal rights laws are being enforced and changing attitudes of society. At Next there is equality in the work place with men and women being treated equally with both being given the same responsibility. Thirdly, the general subordination of women leaves them more open to abuse. For example, a customer was being very rude to the floor manager on childrensware due to the fact that she refused to give the man a refund, because the garment had obviously been worn. The customer became very rude and abusive, which he thought would give him some hold over the woman. The female manager was about to give in to the customer when the shop manager, a man, noticed the disturbance and came over to assist his colleague. He refused to give the man a refund. I believe that as a man the shop manager saw the customer as a mere man and stood by the initial reaction of the female manager. The customer more intimidated by the act of the shop manager gave in very quickly and left the shop threatening I will let head office know about this. The manager was not browbeaten by this comment, as he knew the customer didnt have a leg to stand on. This situation also lends itself to the fact that a different proportion of the managed heart is enlisted for commercial use. (Hochschild, 1983 p163-164) Women make defensive use of their beauty, charm and relational skills, which due to commercial exploitation can lead them to become estranged from these capacities. For male workers it is more their ability to wield anger and make threats that is used by the company and so this the capacity which they are likely to feel estranged from. (Hochschild 1983) Conclusion Each environment has an impact on the workers emotions. The sales floor is where surface acting takes place throughout most of the working day. The stockroom is a place where deep acting is given more of a chance to occur due to the fact that the company dont suppose emotions upon its workers here. I think the training offered by Next is appropriate as it is what is institutionally expected by society. It is achievable by staff to act this way, as this is what they are getting paid to do. I think it does affect workers emotions being trained how to act because it must be hard to switch off at the end of the day. Eventually it must become instinctive to act in a socially expected way and it must become harder for staff members to express their true emotions when not at work. Bibliography * Hochschild, A. R. (1983) The Managed Heart; the commercialisation of human feeling California: University of California Press. * Lazarus, R. S. (1994) Emotion and Adaptation New York: Oxford University Press * MG2076s Starter Pack MG 2076 Louise Goldstein

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels The passage I have chosen to analyze critically is a part of the book The Communist Manifesto authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who are both political theorists. This particular passage has been taken from the second chapter of the book which is named Proletarians and Communists. The Communist Manifesto is considered to be one of the bravest books of all time. Karl Marx, after being banished from Paris for his comments on radical politics, he established a group of working class people from Germany and together they formed The Communist League. The testimonials of the communal principles of the group were written down which later took the form of the book, the Communist Manifesto. The book unwraps with the thought that- The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles. In the book, the authors talk about the drawbacks that have arisen in the society due to the formation of two classes: the bourgeois and the proletariats, and the antagonism between these two classes. In the first chapter of the book Bourgeois and Proletarians, Marx and Engels describe the rise of the bourgeois class, in which he thought the French revolution had played a huge part. He also explains that how tremendously the bourgeois class is harmful to the society and that it will be the cause of its own destruction. In the second chapter of the book Proletarians and Communists, the authors main focus is on the ideologies and features of the Communists and that they aim to work on behalf of the proletariats. He also expresses own thoughts regarding the modern bourgeois property features, wage-labor, capital accumulation and lastly ends his argument by saying, In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in this chapter mostly talks about the determined willpower of the communists towards the formation of proletariat into a class, overthrow the bourgeois supremacy and the power governance/takeover by the proletariat class in this chapter. They discuss many of the reasons why property and capital are at the power of the bourgeois class. In the passage I have chosen they argue that the wage labour creates only capital which in turn creates the property, but only for the bourgeois not the proletariats and this system needs to be changed in the society. In the first paragraph, the author talks about wage labour- the person who comes to work to earn a minimum salary for living. There is a certain aggression in the tone of the writing throughout the whole chapter which reflects their rage regarding the issue. They say that the average salary of a wage-labour is only the least possible amount of money needed for the worker to only come to work every day. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence.- Marx and Engels seem to write this with complete offence and disbelief.ÂÂ   Because the scenario which they are talking about, which in fact still exists now, is that workers put their effort and are exploited constantly by the bourgeois class. The two dollars therefore expresses the relation in which labor-power is exchanged for other commodities, the exchange value of labor-power. The exchange value of a commodity estimated in money is called its price this is an extract from Karl Marxs writing Wage Labour and Capital in which he clearly explains that the wage labourer only receives the money in exchange for his work. This turns to the fact that a proletariat sells its own flesh and meat in exchange of a minuscule amount of money, which is completely undeserved. Moving on to an example from Adam Smiths book The Wealth of Nations. He says that a commodity is only priced at the cost of what it requires for the person to bring the product into the market. He explains the factors that are looked into while pricing a commodity where wage of the labour is only one of the factors; hence it is very distinct that the wage labourer cannot even afford to buy the product he himself has produced in the factory. His salary is just a bare minimum for him to afford some food and clothing so that he can come to work the next day to be exploited again by the bourgeois. The two kinds of societies that are talked about are the bourgeois or todays capitalist society, and the other is the imagined communist society which communists aim to establish. The authors expresses that in the capitalist mode of production, the workers are only seen as the work power or the force that will earn more capital for the bourgeois through their effort. But in the communist society, the whole proletariat class is a way to promote and enrich themselves and their lives too and not only serving the bourgeois. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past- this statement is not very precise or clear, but from the lines written just before and after this statement it appears as if Marx and Engels think of the accumulated labour as the past and living labour as the present. Hence, the motivation and ambition to produce more labours will give rise to exploitation by the bourgeois on the present working lab our. The labourer only exists because it has to work for increasing the capital which brings me to the point that capital is materialistic, an inanimate object whereas the proletariat is a living person with will, wish and needs. Despite this being a fact, in the capitalist society, the bourgeois dominate the proletariats for which they gain no power or anything and are not free willed. Whereas capital, when controlled being a material object, has complete power to run anything or anyone. It is possible for the owner of capital to run his work without any particular labourer amongst the millions, but it is the labourers who are entirely and in a very complexed way dependent upon selling their labour. Also, the labourers do not have the opportunity to choose between a numbers of capitalists. In this way the labourers are destined to cope up with conditions in which they always give more labour power as an input than they get back in reward as the incentive. In the last paragraph from the suggested passage I have chosen, the authors seems to talk about the fact that the destruction of this cycle of manipulation and corruption, which is desired by the communists is thought to be unreasonable by the bourgeois society. The bourgeois society holds the communists accountable for depriving them of their individuality and freedom. By critically analyzing it appears that Marx and Engels critiques the existing capitalist society by saying that By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling, and free buying. In Capitalist mode of production the freedom is the freedom to buy and sell in the market for free, but only for the bourgeois.ÂÂ   Bourgeois desire to earn as much as capital they can earn needed that is crucial to acquire all the social power in the society. Throughout the whole writing it is very evident that Marx and Engels have persistently portrayed that the whole society is about the exchange of the propertied class and the property-less class. But this is only for profitable development of the former class by the help of the latter. The Communist Manifesto, being one of the most influential political theory books has been an inspiration for many also in the contemporary society today. It has very boldly addressed the social relations and structure of power in the society and how it depends on the production process. It has shown that proletariats are only worth to the bourgeois as long as it brings profits. But there are some aspects of the writing which makes us think about the usefulness and consequences of the establishment of a communist society. Marx and Engels point out several times that if the bourgeois possess majority of the property then exploitation will continue but an argument they also make is that the owner of the m eans of production do not work but make others work for them. Therefore, if proletariat forms into a class and earns property for them, they are also bound to become idle. Proletariats will also not work and fall under the bourgeois class and use their cogency to compel others to work for them. This circle of power struggles is bound to continue in different forms probably, which is why Marx and Engels writing is still essential.

Stability of Islamic and Conventional Banks

Stability of Islamic and Conventional Banks 1. Ratio Analysis The performance and the stability of banks can be quantified and measured through the analysis of their financial ratios. We can have several hundreds of ratios at our disposal. However, we will use only those that are common, and of some meaning for the analysis of the banks. Also, it is important to note that we should use only major and comparable ratios in order to fully understand the financial position of these banks as compared to all those ratios that may include some vagueness in the research. Mainly five categories of these financial ratios are used to eliminate the vagueness created by redundant use of the financial heads and items from the financial statements. Hence, the five categories are: (CFA 2009, p498): Profitability Ratios Activity Ratios Liquidity Ratios Solvency Ratios Valuation Ratios However, for the banking industry, which is our main concern, we will use only the first four categories, making an exception of the Valuation category. The financial stability department of the State Bank of Pakistan, which is the central bank of this major economy in the Muslim world, and actively involved in the promotion of Islamic Banking, suggests that the financial ratios fairly reflect the stability, health and the performance of the banks. Hence, these ratios can be used for our purpose. 2. Z-score Instead of just doing the Financial Ratios Analysis, we should also do the analysis of the banks insolvency risk, which is measured by the z-score. This will be done for both the categories of banking systems: Islamic Banks; as well as the Commercial Banks. The statistic based on z-score is calculated with the help of the data on the banks expected profits, the riskiness or the variation in such profits and the capital base of the bank. In other words, the following variables help to calculate the z-score and test it, we need the profit margin, its likelihood of occurrence and the shareholders equity available to compensate in case of the negative margins (losses). A z-score represents the number of standard deviations by which the return on asset have to decrease in order to incur a loss (a negative return). Z-scores can be measured by the following formula: z = (ROA+CAP)/ÏÆ' (ROA) where: ROA (Return on Assets) = Net Income / Total Assets; CAP (Capital to Asset Ratio) = Equity / Total Assets; and ÏÆ' (ROA) = standard deviation of return on assets (proxy for the variation of return). According to the formula, the higher z-score means that the equity base and the return added on it is much higher than the potential risk to the earnings as measured by the standard deviations. Hence, such usage of the z-score testing as the test for measuring risk is recommended by many researches in the field. By the definition of the z-score here, it can be said that it directly relates to the probability of a banks insolvency. It is necessary to evaluate and understand the extent to which Islamic banks are risky as compared to conventional banks. Z-scores will play an integral role in helping us identify the risk profile of Islamic banks. 3. Regression One of the most extensively used statistical measure of conformity is the use of regression and correlation. The extent to which two different datasets match in terms of moving together is evaluated by a regression analysis. This context will look closely at how the dataset we obtained for Islamic and conventional banks will be moving in tandem with the GDP and inflation (CPI) of their respective countries. A pooled regression test will be used to perform the respective tests and statistics generated from the regression such as the R-squared value will be used to make judgments on the relationship between the profitability and growth of Islamic and conventional banks with respect to their national growth and inflation. This test is extremely as it is crucial to understand the synchronization of growth of these banks with their national economies. It would be difficult to make pre-assumptions about either Islamic or conventional banks however, it has generally been seen that while conventional banks were wiped of several billions of dollars, Islamic banks stood their ground and even grew in some countries. Thus, bearing this in mind, a pooled regression test will enable us to identify the polarity of growth of Islamic and conventional banks with their respective economies. Chapter Four: 1.1 Financial Ratio Analysis: Financial statement analysis involves comparing the firms performance with that of other firms in the same industry. In this research, we are comparing banks with banks but having two categories within the banking industry: Islamic banks and the conventional banks. Ratio analysis also involves evaluating trends of the financial position of the firm over a time period. The ratio analysis of the firms financial statements helps the management of the firm to identify problems and deficiencies and then to take actions to try to improve performance. It also helps the decision makers to make operational as well as strategic decisions that would help the firm over a long period of time. Financial statements mainly comprises of the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. The balance sheet and the cash flow statement both report the firms position at a given point of time. It gives the situation in which the company is standing at that point of time. And the income statement tells about the performance of the companys operations over a certain time period, usually a year. In other words, the financial statement analysis is useful to help anticipate the future conditions and as a starting point for planning actions that will improve the firms future performance. But with these lengthy and complicated financial statements, it is really time consuming for the decision makers and other stake holders to confer something. Hence, the financial ratios are used to help evaluate the financial statements. These ratios are taken from the break down elements of the financial statements. These ratios are easy to read and understand rather than the whole financial statements. Profitability Ratios Profitability is what every firm is seeking. The higher the profitability, the better is the performance of a bank. The profitability ratios show the combined effects of the liquidity, the asset management, and debt on the operations of the company as the profit is what comes out in the end of the income statement and this profit is what is mainly desired by the ownership and the management of a firm. One of the most important and most often looked at category of the ratios is the profitability ratios. These ratios are integral in that they help us estimate the degree to which revenues are converted into profits. A bank may be earning extremely high revenues in comparison to its competitors however, its profitability may be low signifying a lower efficiency. On the other extreme, a low earning bank may have a higher profitability signifying a greater efficiency. Thus, it is important to compare the relative profitability of the two bank streams and analyse them over several years data. Return on Assets: The performance of the firm is often and most commonly looked at through the ratio of net income (return) to total assets. In simple words, return on assets shows that what the company is getting out as net profits from its investment in the assets of the business. The assets in a companys statements are valued on the basis of original cost. Furthermore, the total return is usually the sum of the net income and the interest paid if any on the borrowings, as it is assumed that the assets may be financed by the borrowings. Banks also do have assets employed in their business, including the loans they have offered to the customers. The return is usually the spread between the rate of borrowings and deposits, which is net of all expenses incurred. In case of Islamic banks, the net income is the net profit earned from the investments through different financial instruments such as mudarbah, murabaha, musharakah, ijarah, etc. and the assets of the Islamic banks also comprise of the investments in different schemes through Islamic modes of financing. It can be seen from the graph that the conventional banks experienced a rise in the ROAA (Return on Average Assets) during the booming period from 2002 till 2007. However, in 2007, it started to decline and has been declining since. But, during this same period, ROA for the Islamic Banks have been rising on average. Although, the financial crisis in 2007 hit both banking systems, Islamic banks experienced a relatively lesser impact. It has fallen from 2.6 in 2007 to around 2.1 in 2009. The conventional banks on average were at their peak in 2006 at almost 2.5 and since then, its been falling and has reached 1.6 in 2009. The overall decline of the conventional banks is far greater than the decline in ROAA of the Islamic Banks. Return on Equity: Shareholders, the real owners of the company, are mainly concerned about the return on the equity they have invested in the business. They need to know the profitability of their investment in the company. Hence, the net profit of the company is measured as a ratio of the equity the shareholders have invested in this ratio. The main difference in the return on assets and the return on equity is that usually, the assets are financed by both the investors (such as shareholders) and the lenders (such as the banks); and the equity reflects only the investment by the shareholders. Hence, this measure shows the rate at which the company is returning the investment to its shareholder (in absolute terms and not in cash terms, as cash is paid out in form of dividends). In terms of the banks, the equity will be the shareholders money that they have invested in the bank to make it running. This will not include any loans that the banks management has obtained for its operations or assets. If this measure is giving out high results, it means that investing in a bank as a shareholder is a profitable venture. It can be seen from the graph that from our sample of banks, the conventional banks are slightly returning a better amount than the Islamic banks especially after the crisis of 2007. In this regard, we can say that the Islamic banks have taken a bigger impact as their average Return on Average Equity (ROAE) have fallen from 25 in 2006 to around 11 in 2009 as compared to conventional banks having 26 in 2006 and falling to around 16 in 2009. There can be several possible reasons for such results. It could be that after the crisis, the investments in equity for the Islamic banks have risen, or fallen for the conventional banks. It may be possible that the investors have seen Islamic banks as a safe haven and have taken out their money from conventional banks and put it into the Islamic banks as its equity. However, it could also be possible that with so many closures in the conventional banking, the competition is thinned out and the remaining banks are making higher profits than they would have been when there was more competition. There may be one or more explanations for such results however, the most popular of these is that the very basis that caused the credit crunch crisis was not influential in the operations of an Islamic bank and thus left them unscathed to a great extent. Efficiency Ratios: Efficiency of a company can be measured in many different ways. One of the basic indicator of efficiency is that how much of the earnings are used up as expenses. The ratio of expenses to earnings shows how much is the company efficient. If the ratio is low, then it is considered to be very efficient. If its high, then there must be some problem with the company. If it is high for the whole industry, then it can be seen that the industry is not very profitable. If the ratio is near to one, it signifies serious problems for a company, be it a bank or not. This is because if the earnings and expenses are closer to each other, then there is little room for the profits and denotes that the bank is not able to manage its operations efficiently leading to a very small net profit margin. This would definitely put off investors and is highly undesirable. Hence, the lower the ratio, the better it is. It can be seen that this ratio is quite low for the conventional banks as compared to the Islamic banks, especially after 2004. The conventional banks efficiency is being steadied even during the financial crisis. The expenses are hovering to around 40 percent of the earnings, which is reasonably lower than for the Islamic banks. When looking at the Islamic banks, the expenses rose from 40 percent in 2004 to 80 percent in 2005 and slowly falling back to 60 percent during the financial crisis but staying there during 2009 as well. Hence it is also possible to see that the Islamic banks efficiency have improved during this period as this ratio has fallen significantly. However, in this regard, the Islamic banks are not as efficient as the conventional banks. But we will also not ignore the fact that our sample does not represent the whole Islamic banking industry or the conventional banking industry and the results may be completely different for different samples. Assets Turnover (a type of Activity Ratio): The asset turnover ratio indicates how hard and efficiently the firms assets are being put to use. It is also known as the sales-to-assets ratio. It shows that what each dollar of assets has produced in terms of total revenue (or sales). â€Å"Sales† in the banking industry has different names. For conventional banks, the net interest income is used instead of sales. This is the interest earned from lending minus the interest given out on deposits. However, for Islamic banks, the interest-free system, the net profit on investments of different modes of Islamic finance is used as revenue. This is the major differing element of the income statements of the two systems. From the results of this ratio, it can be seen that the Islamic banks and the conventional banks have a very close and similar trend before the financial crisis as the asset turnover keep on rising till 2006. However, this is worth noting that the ratio for Islamic banks remained a bit higher than that of conventional banks. After the 2007 crisis, the conventional banks asset turnover fell sharply from around 0.08 in 2006 to around 0.055 in 2009. Whereas for Islamic banks; this ratio fell from around 0.089 in 2006 to 0.08 in 2009. Hence, the turnover for Islamic banks was not much affected by the crisis. This result may prove worthwhile to note that Islamic banks were having less risk during the financial crisis than the conventional banks. Though insignificant at the moment, this can be an important dimension in future studies involving Islamic banks and conventional as it provides insight into the risk profile of Islamic banks viz-a-viz conventional banking. Financial Leverage: Solvency ratio shows the financial leverage of a firm. When a firm requires money more than the equity it has risen from its shareholders and from within the business, it needs to borrow. This borrowing can be from anyone including the bank. However, usually it is required to give out fixed rate as interest payment regardless of whether that money is properly utilized and gained from or not. Whether the company is in profit or loss, the interest payments on the debt has to be given out. If the profit is high, the shareholders gain as the leftover profit after interest payments goes to them. However, in case of loss, the shareholders bear the burden as well because the interest payment still has to be paid. Because of this debt increasing the profit rate to shareholders in good times and reducing it in bad times, this debt is said to create financial leverage. Debt to Equity Ratio: The debt to equity ratio is a clear measure of the percentage that a company is indebted to the external sources. It gives out the rate at which the debt is as a multiple of the equity. If the debt is less than the shareholders equity, than this ratio would be less than 1. But if there is more external debt than internal equity, than this ratio will exceed 1. And this could be really problematic for a company. However, in todays world, high debt to equity ratio is considered normal. For a bank, whether a conventional bank or an Islamic bank, this ratio just indicates the ratio of the actual owners to the external lenders. However, in case of crisis, it is usually seen that the banks to go out of the business first had a high debt to equity ratio. Islamic banks usually tend to have lower debt indebted to them. As their core principle of interest free banking may not be fulfilled if they take on debt on interest. So all the debt they have is interest free and such type of debt is difficult to obtain. However, according to the result of this ratio here shows that Islamic banks debt to equity ratio rose significantly during 2004-2005 and was nearly equal to conventional banks ratio, but then it steadied around 1.6 during the financial crisis and after it. On the other hand, during this time period this ratio for conventional banks rose to 2.6 in 2007. And then the effect of the crisis took over and it fell to around 2.1 in 2009. It can be realized from this result that the shock of the crisis made the conventional banks realized that they have stretched too far from how they should be financing themselves. Hence, either they started to pay off their debts to reduce the risk of bankruptcy or the lenders started to get strict control over them. On the other hand, the Islamic banks were more relaxed as they did not have high debts to fear from and continued keeping a similar debt to equity ratio. Liquidity Ratios: Liquidity ratios are the indication for the company to know how much current assets there are to deal with the liabilities. In case of the banks, it shows how much loans are there to give out from the deposits available. Total Loans / Total Deposits: Banks give out loans to the customers (borrowers) are assets as they are receivables. Whereas, the deposits taken from the customers (depositors) are liabilities as they are payables to the depositors upon their request. Deposit is the property of the depositors; hence its the liability on the bank to pay the depositors back their money. This ratio for banks is similar to the current ratio used for other firms. It is similar to the ratio of current assets to the current liabilities. Hence, we can see that for Islamic banks, this ratio is lower than that of the conventional banks. This may be because many different financial instruments are used to finance those who want the funding. So many Islamic banks may not show all the investments as current assets or loans in this case. Also, it may be possible that perhaps a higher profit rate is charged by the Islamic banks as compared to the interest rate charged by the conventional banks and people are reluctant to fulfil their financing needs from Islamic banks in order to avoid higher rates to pay back. As the Islamic banks are growing and gaining consumer confidence, it may also be possible that the people are depositing their savings in Islamic banks much more than they are using its money for their financing needs, for a time being. Here, it is worth noting that the financial crisis did not affect this rate significantly for both the banking systems. Total Loans / Total Assets: As discussed above, total loans can be termed as current assets as they are the receivables. Hence, this ratio is about how much part of the total assets is this receivable loan. For the sample on hand, it is worth noting that the loan to total assets ratio for the conventional banks have slowly declined during the years and not affected significantly by the crisis. However, in the same time period, this ratio for Islamic banks has risen slowly. This may show that other assets for Islamic banks have reduced as compared to main current receivable assets. Growth Analysis: Growth analysis is the analysis used to measure and compare the growth rate of a company for different heads of accounts. It could be growth in sales, growth in assets, growth in liabilities, etc. Deposits Growth: First of all, we will look at the growth of the deposits. Although the deposits for banks are the liabilities, it shows the demand for the bank by the customers. If more and more customers start depositing in a bank, the bank is said to be growing in terms of customer base. In other words, the demand for the bank is rising. From the graph taken from the sample, it can clearly be seen that the growth rate of deposits have risen sharply for the Islamic banks. However, there is a major dip after the financial crisis from 35% to 25% in 2008. But after that, it has risen back to around 34% in 2009. In case of the conventional banks, there has been a growth in the deposits, but much slower than the Islamic banks. Also, there is a major dip in growth rate from around 24% in 2006 to around 11% in 2007. And moreover, the recovery that Islamic banks have shown after the crisis was nowhere to be found in our sample of conventional banks. The deposit growth rate rose from around 11% in 2007 to just around 14% in 2009 as compared to 34% for Islamic banks. Equity Growth: The equity growth directly shows the investors (shareholders) confidence as the deposit growth showed the customer confidence in the bank. Hence, it can be said that this ratio directly measures the success of a bank because if the bank is getting success, the shareholders (investors) will be putting in more money as equity to get higher returns in terms of profits. For our sample of the banks from the two systems, we can see that there are ups and downs during the sample time period. Initially, both the conventional banks and the Islamic banks equity growth have risen till 2005. But much before the crisis happened in 2007, there was a fall in investors confidence since 2005 for the conventional banks. This has been shown by the sharp decline in the equity growth from around 49% in 2005 to a mere 12% in 2007 for the conventional banks. But after that there was a sharp increase next year and then it again fell in 2009. But when we see at the Islamic banks, their equity growth was at its highest during 2006 and 2007 at around 55% when this rate was having a free fall for the conventional banks. However, the equity growth rate for Islamic banks also had a major drop in the aftermath of the crisis in 2008 when it dropped to around 22% but then bounced back in 2009. It is worth noting that the growth rate for the last year have increased for the Islamic banks and decreased for the conventional banks, thus setting out a trend for investors confidence in favour of the Islamic banks. From this financial ratio analysis, it can be observed that the Islamic banks were affected lesser than the conventional banks. 1.2 Z-Scores In this case, z-score is the test for financial stability of the two systems. Conven z-score Islamic z-score Overall Avg z-score 2002 7.046525 11.84681784 9.446672 2003 5.77853 4.605240229 5.191885 2004 10.33028 4.238655854 7.284467 2005 8.640415 4.21893723 6.429676 2006 10.80977 9.34741143 10.07859 2007 7.954082 12.91780713 10.43594 2008 6.356607 4.69090727 5.523757 2009 6.103882 5.737315593 5.920599 Avg 7.877512 7.200386572 7.538949 The table above shows the summary of z-scores for both the banking systems and the overall z-score as an average of both. There are some surprising results here. The z-score for Islamic banks is a little less than that of the conventional banks even though the results of the financial ratio analysis showed that the Islamic banks were exposed to less risk as compared to the conventional banks during this period, especially the period of financial crisis. In other words, the conventional banks are a little more financially stable than the Islamic banks. Looking at the trend of the z-scores during our sample time period, the graph shows that on overall, conventional banks z-score was higher thus showing that they were more insolvent as compared to the Islamic banks. However, it can be seen that there was a fall in z-score before and during the crisis in 2006 and 2007 for conventional banks and only during this period, the Islamic banks were less risky. However, the dip in the aftermath of the crisis for the Islamic banks showed that they became riskier especially after the crisis in 2008 and 2009. It is worth noting here that in 2009, the z-score for the conventional banks has a downward trend and for Islamic banks, it is rising. Hence, in the future, it may be predicted when the things get stabled that the Islamic banks would become less risky and more financially stable. Conventional Islamic ROA Equity/Assets Z-Score ROA Equity/Assets Z-Score Average 2.03 0.08 7.88 2.10 0.10 7.20 In the table above, the average results are shown. There is a higher return on assets for the Islamic bank during the period on average, and also a higher share of equity in assets as compared to the conventional banks. However, the z-score on average is lower for Islamic banks as compared to the conventional banks thus telling that even though there is less ROA and equity share in the assets for the conventional banks, they are more stable financially and have lesser risk for solvency. However, as mentioned earlier, there is a rising trend for the Islamic banks at the moment. Hence, once the dust settles down, we can have a clearer picture of the future of the two systems. However, the slight variations in the z-score do not differentiate the financial stability of the two banking systems by very much. Hence, it would be unwise to conclude something here at this point of time. 1.3 Regression Analysis Overall Regression: SUMMARY OUTPUT Regression Statistics Multiple R 0.803713 R Square 0.645954 Adjusted R Square 0.173893 Standard Error 1.94228 Observations 8

Apocalypse Now Review Essay -- essays research papers

Vietnam was a war fought by the unwillingly, for the ungrateful, led by the unqualified. Apocalypse Now is Coppola’s film based on Heart of Darkness, but set in the Vietnam jungle. The major theme in the novel is the examination of America’s involvement, militarily, in Vietnam. However, like Conrad’s novel, it also shows the potential inherent darkness in all human hearts. Coppola retains the basic structure of Conrad’s novel for his film. As Marlow, in Heart of Darkness, travels up the Congo eventually to find Kurtz, similarly, Captain Willard the protagonist in Coppola’s film travels up the Nung River to meet his Kurtz. Both the Company and the Army want their Kurtzes dead. Kurtz exposes his superior’s real motives and methods and the Army does not want the truth to be known. Willard becomes more perceptive to the moral darkness around him: this causes him to question his real purpose, or goal in what he is doing. Eventually, after killing Kurtz, Willard realizes the Darkness that can be brought out in any man, examined through Kurtz, if society allows amoral values to thrive. The message in Apocalypse Now is the same message in Heart of Darkness, which is that any man can succumb to his savage desires, he just needs the right environment to allow his temptations to be nurtured and bloom. Apocalypse Now was based on events that had deep meaning and significance for its director. Coppola had just witnessed his generation and the still younger generation fight this bloody conflict nobody wanted to be apart of. He must have seen the wounded and maimed war vets their physical scars obvious, who came to represent the lost generation. Politics at the time forced the Vietnam War upon the American people: men like Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon were all guilty of this unimaginable crime. The Cold War was in full force and the American government felt it needed to stem the tide of spreading Communism in South East Asia. So, troops were sent to the Democratic Republic of South Vietnam to fight off their northern, Communist enemy. The war was lost before it even started. Am erican politicians were concerned with body counts, kill ratios, and land occupation. Vietnam was about none of these aspects. The Americans dropped napalm, and Agent Orange, they sent B-52 bombers with ten thousand-pound bombs and dropped these on the dense jungles. They deforested entire regions of la... ...ught. The drugs were used as a medicine to ward off this encroaching disease of human savagery. The GIs felt if their mind could be blocked from this approaching horror maybe it would pass and not stay with them. The prime example of this being untrue is Kurtz. He realized his whole being was savage; however, he also was prepared to use the last ounce of humanity he had left to cut away and kill this savagery, represented through the Willard’s clear vision. Apocalyse Now brought to life all the real horrors the Vietnam vets faced, but more importantly it gave them an explanation as to why so many of them faced psychological sickness, upon returning to America. Coppola showed the darkness that came out of this war, expressed through the men who fought it. The movie did a fine job at critiquing the way in which the war was run, with no real objective or purpose being apparent. I think the chose of Coppola to base his outline structure on Conrad’s book, is ingenious. The darkness that was relevant in the 19th century, is still relevant today. Coppola shows this through Kurtz and the Vietnam vets who suffered so many mental problems and the darkness that came out of them in Vietnam.

Key Elements:The story of an hour :: English Literature

Key Elements:The story of an hour  · Plot: Standard plot. A woman who receive the notice of her husband's death, and when she begins to felt freedom her husband appear again and she can't accept it and fall died.  · Characterization: Few characters a. Mrs. Mallard or Louise: Mallard's wife. Was afflicted with hearth trouble. b. Josephine: Mrs.Mallard's sister. She was who told Mrs.Mallard the notice about her husband death. c. Richard: Mr.Mallard's friend. He heard about the notice about his suppose death. d. Brently Mallard: Mrs.Mallard's husband. He was supposed to be dead.  · Setting: The story takes place in Louise's house.  · Theme: I think we can't live in oppression because that doesn't let us be free. We can find themes like the oppression by men, and women rights.  · Point of view: The opinion or purpose of the author is to create inside us a brainstorm, because he doesn't give a direct opinion of the story or situation.  · Diction: It is simple to the reader understanding. The author used an appropriate language for the time the story develop the plot or the action.  · Narrative techniques: He uses narration and dialogue. The author makes use of the irony and the suspense. Also he used auditory for example, the piercing cry. The story of an hour After I read, analyze and find the key elements of this short story I can wrote down a few personal reflections of this great and suspense short story. Firs of all, I like this particular short story because kept me all the way long in suspense. Also because I hate long stories, dramas and poems. I think this story mention a very important point in all marriages of all times. This point or situation is the oppression of men for women

The Lost City Atlantis Essay -- Mythology

Introduction We have all heard about the legend of Atlantis. It’s said that Atlantis was an advanced civilization with highly developed economy and technology. But one day, catastrophe occurred in sudden. Atlantis entirely sank beneath the waves in only one day and one night. In thousands of years, Atlantis has caught the imagination of people from all over the world. Many adventurers, historians and anthropologists spent their whole life trying to open the mysterious veil of Atlantis. But has Atlantis ever existed? Description of Atlantis Plato gave the first and principal written account of Atlantis in his dialogues, â€Å"Critias† and â€Å"Timaeus†. In his description, Atlantis was a huge island located near the Straits of Gibraltar. In this island, there was a great empire which had flourished more than nine thousand years earlier. Atlantean residents had extraordinary intelligence. Their society was far more advanced than any other civilization at that time. The wealth of Atlantis was so unimaginable that even the walls were covered in gold. Furthermore, Atlantis had a huge trading network and a powerful navy. But with the passage of time, the Atlanteans became more and more arrogant, and they even wanted to rule the whole world. They were defeated by brave Athens soldiers. After that, fatal earthquakes and floods occurred in Atlantis; and in a single day and night, the island of Atlantis was swallowed up by the sea. Arguments about existence of Atlantis In 1882, Ignatius L. Donnelly published a book named â€Å"Atlantis: the Antediluvian World†. In this book, Donnelly tried to demonstrate his hypothesis that all known ancient civilizations were descended from a specific civilization, which was Atlantis. He observed that ancie... ....co.uk. 24 Feb. 2012 . Mystery Quest: Lost City of Atlantis. Prod. Ryan Miller. DVD. A&E Home Video, 2010. News, CBC. "Signs of Atlantis found in southern Spain." CBCnews. 14 Mar. 2011. CBC/Radio Canada. 24 Feb. 2012 . Staff, Msnbc.com, and News Service Reports. "Lost city of Atlantis believed found off Spain." Msnbc.com. 14 Mar. 2011. Msnbc Digital Network. 24 Feb. 2012 . Stewart, Iain. "Echoes of Plato's Atlantis." BBC News. 17 Feb. 2011. BBC. 24 Feb. 2012 .

Managerial Competencies Essay

Question 1. List the three managerial competencies that have led to your success so far in your job. List your strength and, for each strength listed, determine how that strength might get you into trouble and why is it so difficult to become and effective middle manager? Answer Managerial competencies is defined as sets of knowledge, skills, behaviours, and attitudes that a manager needs in order to be effective in a wide range of managerial jobs and various organizational setting. There were six core important specific competencies: the communication, planning and administration, teamwork, strategic action, multicultural, and self competencies. Managerial competencies is useful to me, a current manager of business plan and reporting for Retail Product division in Telekom Malaysia Bhd, also would be useful after my promotion to Assistant General Manager of Business Finance for Technology and Innovation division of Telekom Malaysia Bhd. The competencies will help me to excel on designated job, improve self-management and communication within organisation unit, better planning and administration of teamwork and more sensitive about changing of subordinate behaviour and environment surround them. Three managerial competencies that have led to my success in a job are: a)Communication competencies, b)Planning and Administration competencies, and c)Teamwork competencies. 1.Communication Competencies A communication competency is your ability to effectively transfer and exchange information that leads to understanding between yourself and others. It includes: †¢Informal communication, †¢Formal communication, and †¢Negotiation In 2010, I was given responsibility to improvise Telekom Malaysia Group Segmental Reporting through high accuracy identification of cost drivers for Customer Subscriber’s Equipment (CPEs), Revenue Sharing Out payment, Leased Routers and Product Licensing. It requires a new cost transfer process  between Retail Product to respective Line of Business (LOBs) divisions where involves inter-department cooperation and collaboration to achieve this goals. Further, it requires me to build good working relationship with LOBs in order to be successful. I began by initiating informal communication with various divisions such as Information Technology and Network Infrastructure (ITNT), Service Management and Demand Forecast (SPDF), Group Costing, various LOBs and respective product owner within Retail Product to obtain their views and resources capabilities if the implementation takes place. I realized it is not a straightforward process because it requires a lot of effort to identify allocation drivers to each LOBs segments, limited access to the information and data available is not derived from one single place. In order to overcome these issues, together with my team, we have established strong collaboration between all divisions and communicate with them from time to time to understand problems, ways to minimize the difficulties and setting up moving forward plan and process flow. It takes a lot of negotiation with respective division especially in term of cut off time to provide the data and eligible of drivers that will be used for allocation purposes. Some negotiations with information providers do not take long but there few requires continuous negotiation until the processes are fully stable and ready for service. Once a process flow had been completely implemented and applied by all division, I then started to communicate formally with all TM Group and ready to start the process to improvise Group Segmental Reporting. Meantime, I have received a very positive feedback from Group and all divisions that this exercise really helps them to improvise better profitability as well. 2.Planning and Administration competencies Planning and administration competency involves deciding what tasks need to be done, determine how they can be done, allocating resources to enable them to be done, and then monitoring progress to ensure that they are done. This competency includes: †¢Information gathering, analysis and problem solving; †¢Planning and organising projects; †¢Time management; and †¢Budgeting and financial management We were once facing a challenge from top management to execute 100% 2011 Key Performance Indexes (KPI) for asset tagging achievement by taking consideration a full completion of tagging exercise for assets acquired prior 2006, 2007 – 2009 and 2010. The majority of assets were classified as routers which many of them already been deployed at customer’s premises, lost or not at working condition. This is one of the toughest job to be delivered in 2011 due to in complete information for old assets, problem to identify lost assets and require a high support from vendor whom previously perform installation at customers’ premises and from other division such as Customer Service Operation (CSOC) team. By October 2011, we are only managed to achieved 69% out of 1,821 assets that need to be tag and this situation really give us high pressure since we running out of time and got 3 more months only to complete the remaining of the assets. Further, it has potential Net Book Value (NBV) impact of RM4.5 Mil if the activities was not planned and administered properly. This situation also require Retail Product Finance team to gather all necessary information from various unit, analyzing a result, identify ways to solve a problems within a given timeframe. I took immediate action by putting strategic plan with respective assets owner and design the most achievable timeframe for everyone to follow. My team had table out the proposal to Vice President and Head of Department (HOD) during our weekly management meeting and action had been taken immediately soon as everyone agreed. I started to execute a plan together with my team and assets owner by classifying assets group with potentially not found, not working condition, can be found and available at customer’s premises. Each group of the assets was tackled by different kind of approach and we are monitoring a progress from time to time until end of the process. My team will update the status of assets on weekly basis and report was produced to respective HOD for their immediate attention and action. Any unresolved issues were brought up and thorough checking was performing for each of the issues. Meantime, we are also monitoring the financial impact and ensure asset retirement and depreciation was performed timely. Our hard work and tremendous effort was worthwhile for Retail Product where by December 2011 we managed to achieve 100% asset tagging KPI and manage to recognize RM4.5 Mil NBV in a book. 3.Teamwork competencies A teamwork competency is accomplishing tasks through small groups of people who are collectively responsible and whose job requires coordination. Teamwork competency can become more effective by: †¢Designing teams properly; †¢Creating a supportive team environment, and †¢Managing team dynamics appropriately I have realized that in the past 2 years both Retail Product and Global have been using unreliable forecast driver as a mechanism to allocate International Bandwidth cost among each other. By using forecast drivers, I have difficulties to convince LOBs about cost that should be taken up by Retail business and to ascertain the drivers that being used as allocation basis to them are proper or not. I have approached Bandwidth management team and Global Data Management (GDM) team to relook this matter again and find ways to allocate cost at high accuracy and efficiently rather than using forecast as a basis throughout a year. Realized that this implementation requires strong and high commitment team, I have approached my team member and we have started to initiate several discussions with Costing, GDM, and Bandwidth management team including product owners. We also communicated to LOBs and Group Finance to support us on our mission to change the driver process. Initially, we have difficulties to convince Global Finance about the important of using appropriate drivers and cost allocation since they have been performing the same method for several years already. They were afraid the changes may impact a lot in in their Financial book, require additional tasks and resources. In order to overcome this ambiguity, in the past few months, we have been brief about the existence of new system called ABOR resided at network which able to track bandwidth usage up to service offerings and thus, using this opportunity, we managed to convince Global Finance to start making changes. Further, our management have empowered us to take actions based on the best judgement without always seeking approval from them. We were also been promised by management that the successful of this project will add to our KPI. Finally, with a great support and commitment, both RP and Global have come to consensus about methodology and approach to deliver cost allocation with better cost drivers’ analysis and everyone seems able to accept the new way of doing things. Strengths and challenge to achieve affective middle manager Based on the above 3 competencies, I believe that I possess the following strengths that able to help on self development and assist a company towards achieving strategic goal and objectives. a)Relation-oriented and Change-oriented leadership behaviour; b)Value Innovation and Change; and c)Excellence Relationship. 1.Relation-oriented and Change-oriented leadership behaviour I believe that I possess a relation-oriented behaviour especially on providing a support and encourage my team member when perform difficult task, providing coaching and mentoring, finding time to listen to my subordinate and willing to accept suggestion from subordinates and peers. In change-oriented leadership, I have shown to management that I am able to understand the need to adapt the change of environment, implementing a major change in strategies and encourage and facilitate efforts to implement major change. A challenge to practice this strength in current middle manager position is that top managers such as Vice President and Executive Vice President might sometime have difficulties to accept the new strategies and ways of doing things because they are already complacent with current method and not willing to take a risk with the new approach. Thus, even though my subordinates have a very high motivation to perform the new methodologies but without a strong support and encouragement by top managers may sometime lead to frustration. 2.Value Innovation and Change I am always encourages my subordinates and peers to seek opportunities for different and innovative approaches to address problems and opportunities in Telekom Malaysia and facilitates the implementation and acceptance of change within the workplace. I am also able to identify and drives changes needed to adapt strategically to changing of management and internal initiatives, catalyzes new approaches to improve results by changing organizational culture, systems, or products/services. In other occasion, each year we encountered a problem to rationalize our Business Plan number with Information Technology and Network Technology (ITNT) unit because there was  no specific platform being given by TM management that we can discuss and agree among each other during Business Plan exercise period. The outcome is mush worsen when a project start to kick off because somehow part of a project cost neither budgeted at our unit nor ITNT. A lot of staff complaining about this situation and something need to be done to improve the situation. Upon realizing the important of this issues, together with my superior and peers, we started to put up proper plan and drive communication with ITNT during 2011 Business Plan exercise. I have initiated a first discussion with ITNT team where comprehensive rationalization exercises have been carried out several times after that. I have appointed one of my subordinate to compile and execute all information so that both our unit and ITNT can share each other, detail assurance where a cost should be resided was taken into high consideration and the demarcation of project owner was fully identified. No doubt, though we have some problems with a few product owners who resistance to accept this new way of exercise due to time consuming and a lot of pressure was putting back to them, we are constantly persuade them about the important and benefit of the outcome from this newly added exercise. Though Group Finance had provided the platform at a very last minute during BP exercise period, both our unit and ITNT have a very minimal issues and problem to bring up since we have rationalized our number prior to that. At the end of a period, objectives have been fully achieved and ultimately have mutual understanding and co-operate each other with minimum discrepancies. 3.Excellence Relationship I have a capability to initiates and maintains strategic and trusting relationships with stakeholders inside and outside the organization (e.g. TM colleagues, government bodies, regulators, industry players, technology partners, investors, media, customers and alliance partners) to advance business goals. My team members were given responsibility to improvise Group Segmental Reporting through identification of proper cost drivers for Subscriber’s Equipment (CPEs), Revenue Sharing Outpayment, Routers Leasing and Product Licensing. It requires a new cost transfer process and my team felt difficulties to implement due to complication on obtaining the drivers, too manual and limited resources. I have initiated the discussion with various parties like GEMS, IT – Data Warehouse, Service Planning and Demand  Forecast Unit (SPDF) and Retail Product division about possibility to obtain the drivers and identify a method to do it. In order to reduce the difficulties among my team member, I worked with them to identify a methodology to access the information, type of template to extract the data and setting up the deadline to accomplish a job on monthly basis. I always discussed with my team about problems to perform this job and how to overcome such incidents. I told my team members that their effort and contribution towards achieving this goal is very valuable and helps to improvise TM’s reporting. We are started to establish good relationship with data provider parties such as IT, SPDF and product owners so that the analysis can be carried out on monthly basis. My team members successfully implement the new tasks and help to improvise Group Segment Reporting. We have received a positive feedback from various parties in Group Finance and Line of Business (LOBs) since the cost transfer exercise really helps them to establish better profitability Unfortunately, a great challenge that I have to face when putting through this concept in work division is a reluctant from management to accept the changes as every division seems more comfortable to work within their own division rather than to accept changes from outsiders.