Saturday, August 31, 2019

Accounts Receivable and Straight-line Depreciation Method

1. The company uses the straight-line depreciation method. The rental equipment is estimated to have a useful life of eight years. Thus, the monthly depreciation of the rental equipment is 240,000/96, or $2,500 per month.2. The note payable to Rent-It is good for one year. $100,000 and the accumulated interest are due on November 30, 2012. The account payable for office supplies is due in thirty days, or January 2, 2012. The account payable to Universal Utilities is due in thirty days, or January 30, 2012. The company declared a dividend of 10 cents per share, payable on January 15, 2012. Income taxes are payable in 2012.3. Susquehanna Equipment Rentals was named as a co-defendant in a $25,000 lawsuit filed on behalf of Kevin Davenport. The extent of the company’s legal and financial responsibility for this accident cannot be determined at this time.f) It does appear that the company is headed for insolvency. It has $100,000 is notes payable that are due January 2, 2012, and i t only has $65,000 cash. The company is expecting $9,900 in accounts receivable, but that is still not enough to cover the notes payable. A majority of the company’s assets are tied up in rental equipment, which is not a liquid asset. Thus, the company will not be able to meet its financial obligations to its lenders.g) It would be unethical for Patty Driver to maintain the accounting records for this company since she is one of the owners of the corporation. The accounting records must be maintained by someone independent of the organization in order for the reports to be fair and ethical.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Congress’ Failure to Exercise Oversight of Federal Bureaucracy Essay

Debate sees few swings at Romney – Mitt Romney’s opponents thought criticizing him during the debate would affect his chances at winning. Heading into primary, GOP finds itself stuck – GOP has mixed feelings about the front-runner and unable to decide on an alternative. A Strong defense for Obama – President Barack Obama speaks about the Defense Strategic Review, outlining Defense budget priorities and cuts. Critics of Va. supermax prison doubt isolation is the solution – A lot of critics think isolation has no solution yet worse affects. Iran calls U. S. rescue of fishermen humanitarian- Iran asks U. S. Navy to help rescue Iranian fisherman who were held captive by pirates Obamas Pivot on Defense- Obama has a pivot to take away ward in Iraq and Afghanistan and move them to 21st century priority china and the Pacific First lady is formidable presence, new book asserts- â€Å"Michelle Obama’s tough personal criticism of her husband and protectiveness of his public image have routinely irritated, and at times outraged, President Obama’s top advisers. The fallacy of investment equaling innovation- Overspending ultimately encourages medical innovations of incalculable value. Sharp cuts to health-care spending could lead us to lose out on those innovations. PlanB advocates take their case to Obama’s science chief- Advocates took PlanB pill to Obama’s science chief to make a controversial decision last month to continue requiring that young teens get the drug only by prescription. Researchers in L. A. craft survey to gauge strength of gang ties-Researchers in Los Angeles think they have a test to measure how likely a gang member is to leave the gang.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Managing Processes Through Lean Six Sigma Term Paper

Managing Processes Through Lean Six Sigma - Term Paper Example The Six Sigma strategy is to integrate â€Å"business operations, statistical measurements and product development, and it is now being applied to business areas as diverse as human resources, purchasing and customer service. Companies that have adopted these principles have reported dramatic increases in customer satisfaction, productivity and shareholder value. They have also shown significant savings, often without capital expense.† Sigma is a Greek alphabet and a mathematical symbol representing standard deviation, which Motorola engineers have adopted to their process. While many organizations have had difficulty putting Six Sigma theory to practice, understanding the subtleties will enable them to grasp the cause and effect relationships that are applied in Six Sigma. It represents â€Å"a structured thought process that begins with first thoroughly understanding the requirements before proceeding or taking any action. Those requirements define the deliverables to be produced and the tasks to produce those deliverables which in turn illustrate the tools to be used to complete the tasks and produce the deliverables.†... It is here that mutual trust and cooperation between all parties are established. One party of stakeholders is the project team whose members are metaphorically designated as Champion, Master Black Belt, Black Belt, Green Belt and Team Members. In this stage, team members are selected and assigned different roles. The problem statement is developed and goals, benefits and milestones are set. The high level process map is also drawn. Process flowchart is a key tool used during this stage. There are four flowchart options to choose from: top-down, detailed, work flow diagram and deployment. For example, â€Å"this tool shows how various steps in a process work together to achieve the ultimate goal. Because it is a pictorial view, a flow chart can be applied to fit practically any need. The process map allows the user to gain an understanding of the process and where potential waste or bottlenecks could occur. It also could be used to design the future or desired process.† (Drake , et.al, 2008, p.30) The second step is ‘Measure’, where the firm uses statistical methods to quantify the problem. The endeavor here is to understand the current performance levels and also to collect requisite data to improve all CTQs. Key activities encompassing this step include â€Å"defining the defect, opportunity, unit and cost metrics, collecting the data, determining the process capability.† (Smith, et.al, 2002, p.45) An important tool used during this phase is the SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs and Customers) Diagram. One could cite numerous examples of successful Six Sigma implementation in the last three decades of corporate history. A prominent example is that of General Electric under the leadership of Jack Welch. Welch employed Six Sigma principles for the

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Taxonomy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Taxonomy - Essay Example A solution to this dilemma lies in the introduction of the PhyloCode way of naming, which could name and organize living beings on the basis of phytogeny, the evolutionary history of a species or group. With advances in modern science, it has become easier to perfectly determine the evolutionary history of a species, and species and clades can be accurately organized according to phytogeny. In this type of nomenclature, change in one part of the naming organization would not involve any widespread changes. This, coupled with its evolutionary accuracy, is being touted as the major advantages of PhyloCode by its proponents. Changing to PhyloCode from the deeply entrenched Linnean system would mean the re-definition of millions of species, something that the PhyloCode workers have not yet worked out conclusively. Global diversity catalogs will be the first to be affected by any changes that take place: while the Linnean system has the advantage in history and numbers, PhyloCode could soon be throwing the gauntlet, and the catalogs remain flexible to both.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Introduction to Financial Markets - Forecasting interest rates Essay

Introduction to Financial Markets - Forecasting interest rates - Essay Example Interest rates, according to the Financial Times , have fallen back to the historic lows, permitting companies, individuals, and some countries to borrow loans at a price lower than before. Contrary to this, households and the extensive economy still fight back in the wake of credit stagnation. The relationship between these two forces, that is the stimulating impact on economic operations of low borrowing prices and the damping impact of a liability squeeze has adverse repercussions for investors globally, from those individuals who save on their own to the world’s largest insurance companies (Aline, Mackenzie, & Milne, 2010). For the past couple of years, following the 2008 collapse in equity markets as well as in a hysterical serach for â€Å"secure† investments, more cash has been poured into bonds as compared to earlier times. Bonds from the U.S Treasury debt to upcoming market corporate bonds have been performing amazingly well, being ranked among the possessions around the world that have generated the largest returns in 2009 and 2010. On the other hand, if the descending trend in rates were to come to an end, then there may be an abrupt halt to the rally in bonds. In the same way that falling interest rates raise the bond prices paying flat rates of interest, increasing rates eat into their value and push costs lower. It is noted that when the interest rates rises, bond holders and bonds funds are likely to undergo losses. In fact, in the near future, it is expected that borrowing rates may fall even lower. At the time when the article was written, the Federal Reserve was planning to buy government bonds with the only aim of pushing interest rates lesser (Aline, Mackenzie, & Milne, 2010). The issue to focus on in this section is that, even after extra two years of close to zero official rates and large quantities of stimulus spending, big economies like the United States have not grown as strongly as they expected. This is the reason why t he Fed is planning to start its â€Å"quantitative easing† despite the fact that there are many investors and economists who doubt that it will have a powerful impact on economic growth. The Fed is making interest rates low, which means inflation and decreased bond yield, seeming like a bubble. The factors likely to have an impact on future interest rate movements An interest rate can be defined as the quantity of money received in connection to a loan, generally stated as a ratio of dollars obtained for each hundred dollars lent. From the credit markets review in the section above, there are factors that may affect future interest rate movements.   First, the U.S economy is an important player in this section. When it grows, consumers get employment and thus get some investments to lend through banks, though they must also borrow to purchase big items like cars or homes, or to fund other properties by using credit cards. For instance, Lieb, in the article claims that he ha s never experienced such inexpensive borrowing rates on housing loans. This means that when the funds’ demands drop, interest falls. In contrast, when funds’ demand increases, there is a rise in interest rates, acting as a

Monday, August 26, 2019

Social Costs of Ethanol Production Research Proposal

Social Costs of Ethanol Production - Research Proposal Example Experiments prove that ethanol results in lesser pollution risk to potable water. (Ethanol As A transportation Fuel, n.d.) However, in spite of so many advantages, ethanol production has some global implications, too. The shift towards biofuels is a threat to forests and biodiversity, the increase in food prices, along with the competition for water resources as a negative impact of the use of biofuels. Therefore, a research can be designed that can assess the consumer awareness in USA and the people's attitude towards the social cost of ethanol production. In order to do any research, one needs to develop research methods. It comprises a variety of planned and scientific techniques that are value neutral. It is designed to maximise the accuracy of results. First and foremost thing required for an effective research is a proper representative of the researched population through effective sampling, in order to ensure that it is the proper representation of the population under study. (What Are Research Methods, April 2008) Methodology also involves what type of information and data to gather, and the choice of information along with other methodological choices. The proposed research is an inductive one, where generalisation can be made based on the response of the sample. It is also going to be a cross sectional survey, where the response of population would be made on a single time frame. (What is Methodology, n.d.) The proposed research is based on questionnaire and interview that will help in the proper response. The research is intended to measure awareness amongst a group of people from varying educational background, age, income, household location, gender, etc. Before commencing on the final research, a pilot study is intended to eradicate any flaws in the questionnaire, interview techniques or variable selection. Sampling The population being Unites States of America, sample should be designed such that there is proper representation from all regions. So, it is better to stratify the population so that every region is represented through the sample. However, it is not feasible to represent each and every state in the sampling frame, therefore, it is better to choose thousand people from the most populated states of USA. The respondents will be chosen from the registered voters, according to the variables used in the research. The type of sampling that will be effective is area random sampling or cluster sampling. First the population will be divided into clusters representing each geographical boundary. Then, the randomly clusters will be selected accordingly, in order to measure all the units within the sampled clusters. Once this is selected, the sample will be interviewed on the basis of the questionnaire, and if it is not possible to interview, they will me mailed the questionnaire, which they will fill up and data will be analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, based on the answers. (Probability Sampling, October 2006) Variables For sample selection, a number of variables will be used. The first variable for data analysis is the gender, whether male or female, age and travel patterns. Age will categorised as 18-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80 and above 80 years of age. The traveling pattern

Sunday, August 25, 2019

SS310 Final Project Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

SS310 Final Project - Research Paper Example Assassination To begin with, some of the events that took place during this era were the assassination of many leaders in the U.S. For example, it was during this period that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by two gunmen who short him several times (Anson, 1975). Findings upon investigation revealed that Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 due to political rivalry. Investigations regarding his murder revealed that senior people in government including the Vice president at the time and the former Cuban president conspired with the CIA, KBG, and the FBI to kill Kennedy (Maga, 2009). We discovered that the murder was a conspiracy when after digging several meters underground, we came across a report book by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) detailing the identities of those who conspired to assassinate Kennedy in a cold blood shooting. At the same time, we discovered an item detailing how Malcolm X, a religious leader, and American nationalist was assassin ated on stage by a rival Black Muslims group. The item reveals that, on 21 February 1965 while Malcolm X was addressing his Afro-American Unity organization at Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, three men drawn from the Nation of Islam entered the room and immediately shot him while he was just about to start addressing the gathering (Breitman, Porter & Smith, 1991). He was pronounced dead on arrival to the nearby Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. In addition, the capsule reveals that the assassinations of Malcolm soon triggered revenge attacks from his followers against the Black Muslims that saw several Mosques belonging to the Black Muslims torched in San Francisco and Harlem (Maga, 2009). In fact, one of the items discovered and resembled are the remains of a Dome of a Mosque thought to have been buried underground after the incident. Another item found in relation to assassinations during the 1960s relates to how Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the evening of April 4, 1968. King was a vocal civil rights activist and leader. He was very vocal in fighting for equality for the black Americans and other races that were being discriminated against in the U.S. (Maga, 2009). Because of his stand, he was assassinated by a stray bullet. Archeologists’ findings of his skull reveal that the bullet hit him on the right cheek before traveling through his neck and finally rested on this shoulder. Analysis of the bullet casket found buried underground reveals that it was a 0.30-caliber rifle bullet. Significance of Assassinations in Defining the 1960s The assassinations witnessed during this era are of great significance because it reminds many of the struggles that leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior, John F. Kennedy and Malcolm went through in an attempt to ensure that America becomes a good country to live in - one without discrimination based on color, race, nationality, religion or language. As a result, the assassinations of these le aders signify how insecure America was during the 1960. People risked their lives by voicing out their concerns. It also shows the extent to which impunity and racism was the order of the day during this period (Maga, 2009). Feminist Movement History tells us that American women in the 1960s were limited in almost everything. As such, they were only

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Marketing planning sos analysis for tesco Essay

Marketing planning sos analysis for tesco - Essay Example Marketing has grown by leaps and bounds today. It is a creative industry that has expanded down to various genres such as advertising, distribution and selling. Customer base is figured out, their needs and aspirations realized and the relevant product developed accordingly. In today’s international arena, Marketing is an important tool since it contributes greatly to the success of the business and its products. Productivity and sales are largely dependent on companies’ marketing strategies. On the other hand, engineering is also an important aspect as it allows innovation in an organization which aims to bring positive change to boost customer or producer value. Most often, innovation is conducted as a private activity within an organization in a series of narrowly managed steps. Keeping in mind the importance of marketing and innovation, companies must understand their product to be able to market them. According to Bill Campbell in an interview, only engineers know the information that they should get and deliver about the product they have produced and only effectively communicating that information to the customers would yield desired results. Now, this effective communication is done by our super-creative marketers. Therefore, it is important that marketers and engineers work hand in hand to effectively deliver what customers want. Marketers know their customers and their goal is to create customer value whereas engineers know their product and their goal is to create producer value. Therefore, when marketers and engineers work together, they yield innovative products that are customer-oriented. In an investigation, it was found that those firms are more successful at innovative product development in which the employees are well equipped with the required skills to strategize marketing as a whole. Recently, a product-development process called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been adopted by U.S. and Japanese firms who promotes commun ication within the core team (marketing, engineering and manufacturing) and changes communication patterns from â€Å"top-to-bottom† management to focus more on horizontal routes where core team members communicate directly with each other and come up with better results. One of the greatest examples of integrating innovation with marketing is of Apple Inc., a multinational corporation which is ranked as the world’s most innovative company and who markets its designs and products as the customer’s need. Tesco is one of UK’s most successful super markets today. Its total market share stands at 38% and it continues to ride high. It is speculated to become the biggest super market chain of UK very soon. It is currently at number 8 amongst the top 10 grocery retailers of the world. Tesco is known for its huge variety of goods ranging across the board from groceries to fresh food to clothes to compact discs. It’s success has been a result of numerous fa ctors. It is claimed that it’s leading edge in areas like price, customer service, distribution, ecommerce, loyalty cards and own label products have been key to it’s phenomenal success. Their deputy Chairman, Mr David Reid, asserts that Tesco focuses on customer needs and delves a lot of time in understanding the customer needs and wants before translating them into plans aimed at adding value for the

Business Taxation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Taxation - Essay Example However, before understanding this type of relief, it is needed to understand what exactly double taxation is. Double taxation is defined as a situation in which a company may need to pay two or more taxes for the same asset, financial transaction or its income. Generally the situation of double taxation arises due to the overlapping of tax laws and jurisdiction between different countries when there is a company or individual residing in one country while doing business in another country. The double taxation relief helps in allowing a company or the individual to get the tax reduction from any one of its linked country, may be it is the residing country or the profit gaining country. A group loss relief helps in allowing one company to surrender its current trading losses, excess management charges, and excess income charges to another company in the group. Here, the profits of the recipient company are set against the tax loss so that the surrendering company can get a payment on the basis of the tax saved. Again, it is common practice that a company or an individual residing in one country might want to make a taxable gain in terms or earnings and profits in another country. However, there is possibility that he need to pay tax on that gain locally as an obligation to the domestic, while at the same time, me may again need to pay tax in the country where he has made the gain. To provide companies and individuals relief from such types of bindings, many countries involved in bilateral double taxation agreements among themselves. These agreements are mainly of two types. In the first type, tax is needed to be paid by the individual or the company in its resident country only while exempting tax in the country where the gain arises. In the second case, the country in which the business gains receives the tax from the company, while the company in turn, receives a compensating tax credit in the residing country

Friday, August 23, 2019

Human Resource Management suggestions for National Lewis and Clark Personal Statement

Human Resource Management suggestions for National Lewis and Clark Corporation - Personal Statement Example Let me begin by mentioning something about human capital investment. I wish to suggest that for the purposes of increasing productivity all management members should undergo a two hour per day month-long management training. I feel this is necessary to bring an overhaul in the various departments of this corporation. By the same token the recruits who will have to undergo a full time month long trained this, I feel will prepare them fully for the challenges ahead. In connection with that, the recruitment should be done twice a year at the head office to cut on the costs that incurred in intermittent recruitments in various branches of our corporation. It is also my wish to point out that matters of remunerations are of high importance. A workplace staffed by well paid employees is a productive workplace; and that brings a competitive advantage to the firm. We should therefore review the package we offer to each category of our worker to bring it up to the national standards. This wil l motivate our labour force to deliver better services hence more productivity.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

If I Were A Bird Essay Example for Free

If I Were A Bird Essay If I were a bird! As a little bird-maybe a nightingale or an innocent dove-if I were born on this earth, I would have been very happy. As a nightingale, I would be adored by the people for my sweet songs. I would have built my tiny nest on the top branch of a tree. My nest would give shelter to me and my brethren. From the top of the tree, I could see the greenery of the fields, the flowing rivers and the far horizon. In a storm, my nest would be swung to and fro, without being detached from the tree. I would pass my life, living in that nest in summer, monsoon, or winter. A free bird I would have been, without any burden of thought or tension like that of the human beings. I would fly to any part of the world, and watch various lands and people and their way of life, their joys and sorrows, their failures and successes. From high in the sky, I would watch the broad river flowing like a thin stream, and a stream like a line of white thread, and on the railway lines the wagons and compartments like match-boxes, and also the trees and fields jinn reduced sizes, as are drawn on the pages of a picture book. After landing on the ground, I would settle on a tree pear a park in order to watch downward the innocent children playing gaily on the green lawn. A bird with two strong wings, some day I could fly to a fairy land and see many strange things that I cannot even imagine now. As an aero plane flies to distant lands, or as the migratory birds cross the oceans and mountains every year to reach distant lands to settle their temporarily, I would have also travelled to an unknown land and migrate there for a Couple of months along with other species of birds which are rare in my native land. That would have been, no doubt, a strange experience for me. As a human being in this birth, I have very little scope to visit distant lands and meet new people and know how do they live and behave. But as a bird, it could be my sweet will to fly easily to any place I liked. My wings would carry me any where that my mind would desire. As a nightingale, I would sing happily, when at night there was the full moon in the cloudless sky, and cool breeze blew creating soft waves on the faces of the paddy plants. I would sing to my hearts content the song of life and joy in praise of this beautiful earth and of God. If I were a bird, I would like to be one of the small species, cute and beautiful. I would love to be a tiny mania that is beautiful, tiny and above all, it is a bird that man can keep as a pet. I would love to stay with men, study their ways and enjoy their company. This I would be able to do with men as, God have given the mania a power of speech just like men. It talks like a human being, has a sweet voice and, above all also has a great capacity to learn whatever it is taught. If I were to be a bird, I would like my life to be a beautiful blend of freedom of flying in the high skies and the love and care given by man. I see advantages in both and find it difficult to make a choice. My ambition as a bird would be able to fly high as high can be, like any other bird. This would give me an insight into what all exists in the atmosphere. I would also be able to assess first hand, the life of birds as a community, the advantages and the disadvantages they live with. I would share my experiences with my kin and understand the difficult ways of life. I would attain knowledge of lives of birds big and small as I would move with them and conversing with them while flying high in the air, or sitting on trees with my other colleagues. Though I would love all this, at the same time I would love to become a pet in a nice family. This family would keep me closed in a cage lest I fly off. Here, in the family I would learn to be controlled and restricted. It would be no doubt a punishment of sorts to be tied down in a cage but I feel so happy imagining the love and care I would get from each member of the family that would adopt me. Here, at home, I would be served food in a platter, water in a dish in a right royal style. Aha! What a life that could be for me. Hunting for food and being frightened of bigger birds attacking me would not be a care for me. I would be a loved one of many – what a wonderful feeling it gives. While living with a family I would also be able to learn about the ways of men. How many lives, how he behaves, and what his attitude is towards birds I would be able to understand first hand, being so close to man. I would thus also get an insight into all this. Together with all these advantages, living with human beings, my art of talking like a human would get encouraged and I would get several chances to talk to the family. I understand man keeps manias and parrots just for this art of these birds, of talking like men. My master, mistress and some small children of the family would teach me how to speak and what to speak. Once I would get the training to speak, I would be able to chat with each of the family members and guests. This would earn for me heaps of praises by all who heard me. This I say because I hear a mania has a very clear and sweet voice, and a capacity to talk like a human. If I were a bird, I would like to get the blessing of this combination to be set into my life. It would give me a healthy and relaxed sojourn in a family, together with free visits to the sky, trying out my skills of taking high flights. The two together would give me as if, the best of both the worlds, of birds and humans. Oh! God, please grant me this life, that is, if I am not asking for too much.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Lesson Plan Assignment Example

Lesson Plan Assignment Example Each student will create a lesson plan for his/her area of interest (i.e., primary, elementary, secondary, etc.) between kindergarten and grade 12, in a chosen content area, using https://planbook.com. The lesson is to last approximately 60 minutes. Lessons must include the following elements:   title, grade level, materials, Common Core or Maryland standard (depending on the content area), objective, anticipatory set/warm-up, instructional input, guided practice, independent practice, closure, and assessment. Make sure your lesson plan aligns. Does your assessment test what it is setting out to assess which are your objectives? Your lesson plan is to be written for a forty-five minute class. Effective teachers employ a number of instructional strategies in their classrooms. These strategies are prescriptive approaches to teaching, designed to help students acquire a deep understanding of specific forms of knowledge.   Direct Instruction, Constructivism, Discovery Learning, and Cooperative Learning strategies are discussed in our textbook and it is expected that one of these strategies will be detailed in the instructional input portion of your lesson. You will need to do some additional research on the strategy you choose to showcase before writing your procedure, as the lesson must align with the strategy. When writing your lesson provide a lot of detail. The goal is that you could hand your lesson plan to a substitute and have it taught exactly as you envision it. Also, it is very important that you integrate activities that engage all the learning styles in your classroom. Therefore, I will be looking for activities that engage the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. You can include childrens books, reference books, pictures, web resources, any poems, songs, learning centers or games, manipulates, and/or motivational theme related ideas. Title/Grade: The title of lesson and the grade level that the plan is designed to teach. Subject: discipline being taught Materials: items/supplies needed to implement the lesson. Consider: What items and supplies will be needed by both the instructor and the students in order to accomplish the stated learning objectives? What equipment will I need in order to utilize as many learning modalities as possible? (visual, audio, tactile, kinesthetic, etc.) How can I use materials creatively? What can I borrow from other teachers? Common Core/Maryland Standard: Define what students should understand and be able to accomplish. Common Core standards focus on reading, writing, language, and math skills, while all other content areas are MD standards. Objective: Precise goals for what you want your students to be able to accomplish after the lesson is completed. These must align with common core and/or state standards. SWBAT (Students will be able to) is the acronym that we use when stating an objective. For the lessons in this unit, you will be focusing on only one objective per lesson. Anticipatory Set: What would be said and/or presented to your students before the direct instruction of the lesson begins. Purpose of Anticipatory Set Provide continuity from previous lessons, if applicable Allude to familiar concepts and vocabulary as a reminder and refresher Tell the students briefly what the lesson will be about- this is not the actual lesson Gauge the students level of collective background knowledge of the subject to help inform your instruction Activate the students existing knowledge base Whet the classs appetite for the subject at hand Briefly expose the students to the lessons objectives and how you will get them to the end result Instructional Input: (What knowledge will you communicate to the studenttell, lecture, stand up and deliver so that the student will understand the objective.) This portion of the lesson is the main part if the instruction and where you will include information about the instructional strategy that the lesson focuses on. Use your textbook and research on your own to explain the use of this strategy. How will new information be disseminated and what activities are employed to achieve the stated objectives? Guided Practice: Precise goals for what you want your students to be able to accomplish after the lesson is completed. These must align with common core and/or state standards. SWBAT (Students will be able to) is the acronym that we use when stating an objective. For the lessons in this unit, you will be focusing on only one objective per lesson. Examples of Guided Practice in Your Lesson Plan Students will split into pairs to work together on drawing. On a piece of paper, students will draw a picture of plants, incorporating characteristics they learned about in this lesson (listed on board). On the other side of the paper, students will draw a picture of animals, incorporating characteristics they learned about in this lesson (listed on board). Students complete a book review that corresponds to what they are reading. Independent Practice: Through Independent Practice, students have a chance to reinforce skills and synthesize their new knowledge by completing a task on their own and away from the teachers guidance. It is the part of the lesson where students are given the opportunity to practice what they have just learned. In writing the Independence Practice section, consider the following questions: Based on observations during Guided Practice, what activities will students be able to complete on their own? How can I provide a new and different context in which the students can practice their new skills? How can I offer Independent Practice on a repeating schedule so that the learning is not forgotten? How can I integrate the learning objectives from this particular lesson into future projects? Closure: The closure is the time when you wrap up a lesson plan and help students organize the information in a meaningful context in their minds. Examples of Closure in a Lesson Plan Discuss new things that the students learned about plants and animals. Summarize the characteristics of plants and animals and how they compare and contrast. Ask what information from the lesson the students will find important three years from now and why. Ask the students to summarize the lesson to explain to someone who missed the class. Give them a couple of minutes and then either have them turn them in for you to read or have a few presented to the class. Assessment: Standards and objectives must be assessed in every lesson and every child must have documentation to prove their performance as it relates to the mastery of that standard and objective. This can be done through many means, but a few ways to assess are quizzes, tests, independently performed worksheets, cooperative learning activities with independently scored rubrics, hands-on experiments with specific documentation, oral discussion in which anecdotal notes or another method of recording is used, question-and-answer sessions, or other concrete means.   Most importantly, ensure that the Assessment activity is directly and explicitly tied to the stated learning objective. In the learning objective section, you specified what students would accomplish and how well they would have to be able to perform a task in order to consider the lesson satisfactorily accomplished.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Ethosomal Formulation as a Carrier for Transdermal Delivery

Ethosomal Formulation as a Carrier for Transdermal Delivery ABSTRACT: The aim of present work was to develop, characterisation, of stable ethosomal formulation as a carrier for transdermal delivery of paroxetine hydrochloride. To prepare this ethosome different concentration of soya lecithin and ethanol was taken. Vesicular size, polydispersity index, zeta potential, entrapment effiency were determined by photon correlation spectroscopy and ultracentrifugation techniques. The intro permeation study across human cadaver skin was done. Stability study was done on optimised F2 formulation. Vesicle size decrease as increase in the concentration of ethanol. Entrapment efficiency increase with increase in concentration of soya lecithin. The ethosome exhibit entrapment effiency of 40-64%. Invitro permeation study across human skin ethosome F2formulation showed higher transdermal flux 26.39% µg/cm2/hr. Release mechanism of Invitro permeation shows zero order drug release from formulation. In vivo pharmacodyanamic study F2 formulation showed significant immob ility as compare to controlled group. Stability study result revealed no significant change found in size distribution was found for 90days. Our result indicates that the developed ethosomal system may be potential and safe to delivery paroxetine hydrochloride through transdermal deliverys. INTRODUCTION: In recent years the attraction of lipid vesicle use in delivery system for skin treatment is increasing (1, 2). Paroxetine hydrochloride (PXH) is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Commonly available in tablets and capsule dosage form, but oral administration have numbers of side effects as well as it undergoes extensive hepatic metabolism. Variation in plasma concentration and long term therapy leads to severe side effects (3). To overcome these difficulties such as extensive hepatic first pass metabolism transdermal delivery is beneficial (4). The useful of transdermal delivery has been proved for some antidepressants (5,6). It is previously reported that significant increase delivery of drugs across the skin would be done by using an ethosomes as novel permeation enhancing carrier (7-10). Composition of ethosomes system mainly contains phospholipids, ethanol and water (12). Solubility and high encapsulation efficiency values for large range of lipophilic drugs can be obtain due to presence of ethanol. Ethanol may provide vesicles with soft flexible characteristics, which allow them to penetrate more simply into the deeper layers of the skin (13). The present aim focuses on the preparation and characterization of ethosomal formulation for PXH transdermal delivery. The aim of present study was to develop stable ethosomes carrier for transdermal delivery of PXH. The effect of ethanol and soya lecithin on the permeation of PXH through the human skin was evaluated. Material and method: Material: Soya lecithin was purchased from Research Lab Mumbai. Ethanol was purchased from Loba chemical Mumbai. Cholesterol was purchased from Research Lab Fine Chem Industries, Mumbai. PEG-400 was purchased from Dipa Laboratory Chemicals. All materials and solvents used in this study are of analytical grade. Preparation of ethosomes: Soya lecithin and PXH, were dissolved in ethanol. Double distilled water was added slowly with a fine stream in above ethanol dispersion with constant mixing at 700 rpm on magnetic stirrer, in a well-sealed glass container. Mixing was continued for an additional 5 min. The system was kept at 300C throughout the preparation and was then left to cool at room temperature. (7, 8) PHYSICAL CHARACTERISATION OF ETHOSOME: Vesicles size distribution, polydispersity index and zeta potential The vesicle size distribution, polydispersity index and zeta potential of vesicles was determined using photon correlation spectroscopy (Beckmann counter, Delsa Nano, USA). Formulation were diluted by 1/4th distilled water before measurement and measured three times at scattering angle of 900. The polydispersity index (PI) was used as a measurement of the width of the size distribution. PI less than 0.4 indicates a homogenous and monodisperse population. Zeta potential was measured as the particle electrophoretic mobility means of laser microelectrophoresis in a thermostated cell. Entrapment efficiency (EE) The entrapment capacity of PXH by ethosomal vesicles was determined by ultracentrifugation. Formulations were kept overnight at 4 micro-centrifuge (Tarsons) 12000 rpm for 30 min. The supernatant was removed and drug amount was determined in both the sediment and the supernatant. The entrapment capacity was calculated as follows, [(T2C) /T] 100, where T is the total amount of drug that is detected both in the supernatant and sediment, and C is the amount of drug detected only in the supernatant. In vitro permeation study Preparation of cadaver skin Skin samples provided from Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad. Obtain from breast reduction operation and subcutaneous fat was carefully trimmed and then rinse with normal saline, prepared skin was warped in aluminium foil and stored at -200c until use. (15) Procedure Invitro skin permeation studies were performed on a Franz diffusion cell with an effective diffusional area 0.785 cm2 and having receptor compartment volume of 15ml. The skin was brought to room temp and mounted with the donor compartment dry and open to the atmosphere. Initially, the donor compartment was empty and receiver compartment was filled with phosphate buffer ph 7.4. The receiver fluid was stirred with magnetic bead with the speed of 100rpm and the temperature was maintained at 371. The phosphate buffer pH 7.4 was replaced with the fresh one at every 30 min to stabilize the skin. It was found that the receiver solution should a negligible peak area after 3hr and beyond indicating complete stabilisation of skin. 5ml ethosomes formulation was placed into the donor compartment and sealed with paraffin film to provide occlusive condition. The sample where withdraw at regular interval for 10 hrs filtered through 0.45 . membrane filter and analysed for drug amount by UV-Visible s pectrophotometer at 294 nm. Permeation data analysis The cumulative amount of penetrant, Q (g/cm2), which permeated the skin per unit surface area was plotted against time. The linear portion of the plot was taken as being the steady-state flux, (Js). The permeability coefficient (Kp) was calculated as: Kp = Js/Cv Where Cv is the concentration of penetrant in the donor solution. Vesicle stability evaluation: Stability of optimised ethosomes formulation was kept at room temp for 4 weeks. The measurement where conducted on of ethosomes that. Vesicle size, polydispersity index and zeta potential was measured at 1, 2, 3, 7, 14 and 21 days mean value where used for the analysed of the data. 2.5. In vivo Pharmacodynamic study Approval to carry out pharmacodynamics studies was obtained (Institutional Animals Ethical Committee, approved the protocol). Forced Swim test (FST) and Locomotor Activity test (LAT) was used to evaluate antidepressant effect of the optimized F2 formulation. Rats of either sex weighing 250–300 g were kept under standard laboratory conditions (temperature 23-30oc).The rats were kept with free access to standard laboratory diet. Approximately 14 cm2 of abdominal side of rats skin was shaved on the in each group except group treated with marketed tablet formulation. Rats were divided randomly into three groups each containing six animals. Group -1 was considered as a control. Group-2 was treated with oral tablet of PXH containing 1.40 mg/day and administered without anaesthesia by using simple poly-ethylene tube. Group-3 was treated with optimized F2 formulation applied transdermally containing 2 mg/day (equivalent to 0.60 mg/day) drug. 2.5.1. Force swim test Rats were forced to swim in cylindrical glass tank (60 cm height X 30 cm in diameter) containing water after the administration of doses. Water was filled up to 40 cm height so they were swim without touching their hind limb or tail to bottom of the tank. On the 1st day of experiments, rats were forced to swim for 10 min. After 24 h, rats were re-exposed to forced swim for 5 min and animals were judged for immobility, climbing, and swimming. After a 5-min swim test, the rat was removed from the cylinder, dried and then returned to its home cage [29]. Porsolt, R.D., Bertin, A., Jalfre M. (1977). Behavioral despair in mice: a primary screening test for antidepressants. Arch Int Pharmacodyn Ther. 229, 327–336. 2.5.2. Locomotor activity Hyperactivity, functional roles of specific neurobiological and drugs potential psycho activity were discriminate by the locomotor activity study [30]. Locomotor activity was measured in the open-field test. The apparatus consisted of a square arena (200Ãâ€"200 cm), with a 50 cm height. The floor was divided into 30 equal squares. Animals were individually positioned in the centre of the arena and the activity was measured over 5 min. The open field was cleaned with isopropyl alcohol solution before behavioural testing to avoid possible bias due to odours and/or residues left by rats tested earlier. Also after each 3 animals apparatus was cleaned [31]. Result and discussion Vesicle size, polydispersity index and zeta potential: The vesicle mean diameters for all formulation are shown in Table 2. The result of photon correlation spectroscopy shows narrow peak for all formulation, which indicating that size of vesicle population is comparatively uniform in size. In accordance with other researcher, this decrease in the mean diameter of vesicle is due to the presence of ethanol (touitou et al., 2000). Higher concentration of ethanol produced lower vesicle size. Probably the ethanol causes the modification of the net charge of the system and confer it some degree of stearic stabilization that may finally lead to decrease in mean particle size (lasic et al., 1998). In the formulation the concentration of ethanol increases from 30-35% the significant decrease in vesicle size. On the other hand, it was observed that the increase in soya lecithin concentration resulted in increase in mean particle size. Small vesicle size is formed with the F2 formulation having a 1% of soya lecithin and 35% ethanol. Twice fold inc rease in soya lecithin concentration (1%-2%) resulted in two fold increase in ethosomes size (from 500nm- ). The charge of vesicles is important parameter that can influence both stability and skin vesicle interaction. Zeta potential value of all formulations shown in Table 2. The concentration of ethanol increase from 30-35% v/v resulting in increase in zeta potential values. Polydispersity index was determined as measure of homogeneity in formulation. Polydispersity index ≠¤ 0.3 indicate homogeneous population of ethosome vesicle in formulation. Polydispersity of all formulation shown in Table 2. Compare to all formulation F2 formulation showed less polydispersity index is 0.23 indicates homogeneous population of ethosome vesicles. Entrapment efficiency Entrapment efficiency of all formulation shown in Table 2. Entrapment efficiency of formulation containing of 1% soya lecithin and 30% (F1) ethanol was found to be 60%, which significantly increased to 64% when the amount of ethanol increases to 35% (F2) keeping the concentration of soya lecithin constant. Ethosomes formulation prepared with 1.5% soya lecithin and 30% ethanol (F3) exhibited 40% entrapment efficiency, which was increased to 45% (F4) respectively; keep the amount of soya lecithin constant. Formulation prepared with 2% soya lecithin and 30% ethanol (F5) showed 42% entrapment efficiency, which was increased to 61% when the concentration of ethanol increased to 35%(F6) respectively. These data supported by previous finding that solubility and high encapsulation efficiency values for large range of lipophilic drugs can be obtain due to presence of ethanol (13).From these results entrapment efficiency of formulation was observed due to increase in ethanol concentration. Invitro permeation study In vitro skin permeation experiment was performed using human cadaver skin showed that permeation was highest in F2 formulation as shown in Fig 1. Flux value of F2 formulation was significantly different when compared with other formulation (P≠¤0.05) as shown in Table 3. Highest flux value (-) of F2 as compared to other formulation. These may be due to small vesicle size and high entrapment efficiency alone with high concentration of ethanol. These data supported by previous finding that ethanol interact with a lipid molecules of stratum corneum, resulting in reduction in the Tm of stratum corneum, increase in there fluidity. The intercalation of ethanol due to polar head group environment can result in increase in membrane permeability (16). It can also suggest that mixing of phospholipids with the stratum corneum lipid of the intercellular layers enhances the permeability of the skin (17). F2 formulation was selected as a optimized formulation from the vesicle size distributio n, polydispersity index, zeta potential, drug entrapment efficiency, and in vitro permeation study results and considered for further study. In vivo Pharmacodynamic study Pharmacodynamic activity of ethosomes F2 formulation was compared with orally administered dose. Pharmacodynamic activity involved two tests. One was force swim test and other was locomotor activity. Force swim test is most widely used model for assessing the antidepressant activity. Total immobility period would decrease if high concentration of paroxetine hydrochloride reached target site. Force swim test Results of FST confirmed that there was significant reduction in total immobility period in seconds by treating the rats by transdermal ethosomal F2 formulation. There was significant (p Table 3. Results of forced swim test. Conclusion: Ethosomal vesicles with appropriate size and maximum drug entrapment efficiency can be prepared. F2 formulation showed highest transdermal flux across human skin was composed of 1% soya lecithin, 35% ethanol and 2% cholesterol. In vivo pharmacodyanamic study of optimised formulation showed significant values compared to controlled group. Therefore, it can be concluded from the result of the study that ethosome formulation is potentially useful carrier for transdermal delivery of paroxetine hydrochloride REFERANCES O. Braun-Falco, H.C. Kortung, H.I. Maibach (Eds.), Grieswith bach Conference: Liposome Dermatics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1992. E. Touitou, H.E. Junginger, N.D. Weiner, M. Mezei, Lipo somes as carriers for topical and transdermal delivery, J.Pharm. Sci. 9 (1992) 1189–1203. Hollister L E. Norwalk, Connecticut: Appleton Lange; 1995. A Lange Medical Book: Basic and Clinical Pharmacology. 448–59. Kilts CD. Potential New Drug Delivery Systems for Antidepressants: An overview. J Clin Psychiatry. 2003; 64:31–3. Frampton JE and Plosker GL. Selegiline transdermal system: in the treatment of major depressive disorder: Profile report. CNS Drugs. 2007; 21:521–24. Singh G, Ghosh B, Kaushalkumar D and Somsekhar V. Screening of venlafaxine hydrochloride for transdermal delivery: passive diffusion and iontophoresis. AAPS Pharm Sci Tech. 2008; 9:791–797. Touitou E. Compositions for applying active substances to or through the skin. US Patent 5 540 934, 1996. Touitou E, Composition for applying active substances to or through the skin. US Patent 5 716 638, 1998. Touitou E, Alkabes M, Dayan N, Eliaz M. Ethosomes: novel vesicular carriers for enhanced skin delivery. Pharm Res 1997; 14: S-305. Touitou E, Dayan N, Bergelson L, Godin B, EliazM.Ethosomes*novel vesicular carriers for enhanced delivery: characterizationand skin penetration properties. J Control Rel 2000; 65:403}18. Touitou E, Dayan N, Bergelson L, Godin B, Eliaz M. Ethosomes *novel vesicular carriers for enhanced delivery: characterization and skin penetration properties. J Control Rel 2000;65: 403}18. M.M.A. Elsayed, O.Y. Abdallah, V.F. Naggar, N.M. Khalafallah, Deformable liposomes and ethosomes as carriers for skin delivery of ketotifen, Pharmazie 62 (2007) 133–137. Heeremans JLM, Gerristen HR, Meusen SP, Mijuheer FW, Panday GRS, Prevost R, Kluft C, Crommelin DJA. The preparation of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) containing liposomes: entrapment effciency and ultracentrifugation damage. J Drug Target 1995; 3:301-310. Fang, J,V., Sung, K.C., Lin, H. H., Fang, C.L.(1999) transdermal iontophoretic Delivery of diclofenac sodium from various polymer formulation: Invitro and Invivo studies. Int. J. Pharm. 19 178; 83-92. Nava Dayan., Elka Touitou. (2000) Carrier for skin delivery of trihexphenidyl HCL:ethosomes vs. Liposomes: biomatererials 21( 2000) 1879-1885. A. Blume, M. Jansen, M. Ghyczy, J. Gareis, Interaction of phospholipid liposomes with lipid model mixtures forstratum corneum lipids, Int. J. Pharm. 99 (1993) 219–220. Formulation of ethosome: Table- 1 Evaluation of ethosome:

Monday, August 19, 2019

nations of dreams :: essays research papers

I have a dream. These are the infamous words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the day that he voiced his vision of America. It was his dream that was deferred for so many generations that finally exploded in the Civil Rights Movement of the 50’s and 60’s. The beginning of this nation was started as a dream and on dreams it has grown. For without a vision, the people shall parish. Nevertheless, there have been dreams that have fallen to the wayside of other dreams. These dreams may be left behind, but they have not been forgotten. To defer a dream, is to cause an explosion of mass proprieties. The American dream was first put on paper in what is call today the ‘Declaration of Independence.’ The dream was that all men are created equal. Before this dream America was ruled by a hierarchy system, that constables, dukes and kings ruled not by choice of the people, but because they were born into it. It was the dream that men had the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness that at first festered like a sore and finally exploded in the Revolutionary War. In Russia the dream of the turfs was to have food, clothing, and shelter while the czars lived in castles wearing ermine cloaks and velvet dress clothing, eating feasts of swan, sweets and caviar. In their Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels printed the dream of a socialist system. It was a dream that exploded 70 years later. On March 8 of 1917 a severe food shortage cause riots in Petrograd. The crowds demanded food and the step down of Tsar. When the troops were called in to disperse the crowds, they refused to fire their weapons and joined in the rioting. From the smallest child to the oldest man, dreams are an integral part of us.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Assembly :: Essays Papers

Assembly When programming in assembly language, we have to specify operations in a much greater level of detail than we would have to do in a high level language. Furthermore, we get relatively little help from the assembler in finding errors. Assemblers can only check the syntax of each line, and check that every symbol or label used is defined somewhere. We are much less constrained by the structure of the assembly language than we are by the structure of a high level language. This lack of constraint makes the job much harder, not easier. It is much easier to write an incorrect program in assembly language that in C++ or Pascal. It is much more likely that mistakes, will not be found by the assembler, so that we get runtime errors, which are harder to find, rather than compile time errors which are easier to find. For these reasons, we need to be even more careful when programming in assembly language than we are when programming in a high level language. We need to apply all of t he skills we have learned in relation to high level language programming to assembly language programming. Planning our work carefully is equally important, building a design package, by following appropriate style conventions when writing the program, and by providing good documentation with appropriate commenting of the program text. After building the design, it is wise to write a high level language program, to help check out the program logic and to serve as a model for the assembly language program. The high level language program can then be translated little by little into assembly language, perhaps a procedure at a time, and can be used to document the logic of the assembly language program. Clearly, we should use a compiler to translate a high level language program into machine code if we have a compiler at hand. There are circumstances, however; when it is necessary to do the translation on our own. It is nevertheless wise to write out the high level language program, even if you cannot compile it for the machine in question. It is not necessary or desirable for the programming of embedded microprocessors to be done in assembly language. Indeed, assembly language should be regarded as a last resort, to be used when compilers are not available, or in very special circumstances. Assembly :: Essays Papers Assembly When programming in assembly language, we have to specify operations in a much greater level of detail than we would have to do in a high level language. Furthermore, we get relatively little help from the assembler in finding errors. Assemblers can only check the syntax of each line, and check that every symbol or label used is defined somewhere. We are much less constrained by the structure of the assembly language than we are by the structure of a high level language. This lack of constraint makes the job much harder, not easier. It is much easier to write an incorrect program in assembly language that in C++ or Pascal. It is much more likely that mistakes, will not be found by the assembler, so that we get runtime errors, which are harder to find, rather than compile time errors which are easier to find. For these reasons, we need to be even more careful when programming in assembly language than we are when programming in a high level language. We need to apply all of t he skills we have learned in relation to high level language programming to assembly language programming. Planning our work carefully is equally important, building a design package, by following appropriate style conventions when writing the program, and by providing good documentation with appropriate commenting of the program text. After building the design, it is wise to write a high level language program, to help check out the program logic and to serve as a model for the assembly language program. The high level language program can then be translated little by little into assembly language, perhaps a procedure at a time, and can be used to document the logic of the assembly language program. Clearly, we should use a compiler to translate a high level language program into machine code if we have a compiler at hand. There are circumstances, however; when it is necessary to do the translation on our own. It is nevertheless wise to write out the high level language program, even if you cannot compile it for the machine in question. It is not necessary or desirable for the programming of embedded microprocessors to be done in assembly language. Indeed, assembly language should be regarded as a last resort, to be used when compilers are not available, or in very special circumstances.

alcohol Essay -- essays research papers

Alcoholism, chronic and usually progressive illness involving the excessive inappropriate ingestion of ethyl alcohol, whether in the form of familiar alcoholic beverages or as a constituent of other substances. Alcoholism is thought to arise from a combination of a wide range of physiological, psychological, social, and genetic factors. It is characterized by an emotional and often physical dependence on alcohol, and it frequently leads to brain damage or early death. Some 10 percent of the adult drinkers in the United States are considered alcoholics or at least they experience drinking problems to some degree. More males than females are affected, but drinking among the young and among women is increasing. Consumption of alcohol is apparently on the rise in the United States, countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and many European nations. This is paralleled by growing evidence of increasing numbers of alcohol-related problems in other nations, including the Third World. Development Alcoholism, as opposed to merely excessive or irresponsible drinking, has been variously thought of as a symptom of psychological or social stress or as a learned, maladaptive coping behavior. More recently, and probably more accurately, it has come to be viewed as a complex disease entity in its own right. Alcoholism usually develops over a period of years. Early and subtle symptoms include placing excessive importance on the availability of alcohol. Ensuring this avai...

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Contingency Plan Essay

This amount is significant to impact the authorities, public and media when major incidents or scandals occur. The consequences of any academic or natural incidents are required to be dealt with immediately according to the circumstances. This plan includes a list of potential incidents that may possibly develop into crises in case the management disregards them. These Incidents are divided into three categories: natural, human-induced and combined, base on the nature of education institution. We concentrate specifically on the circumstances of fabricating the academic credentials of teaching staffs. The purpose of this plan is to establish proper guidelines for relevant departments in order to communicate the facts that may lead to potential crises. We intend to prompt an honest and positive image of HKBU that may affect the accuracy and wholeness of the information we announce. Yet we insist that over reaction is better than no reaction. An opportunity for the public and media’s to spread a second-guessing and unreliable report that will result in detriment of the university. This plan is to protect and even promote the entire interest of HKBU on the basis of being transparent and effective. Under any circumstances that may damage the interest of HKBU, we should identify the stakeholders and arrange proper responses to them. Internally, we have the officers of HKBU, nominated as members of Crisis Management Team (CMT). They represent the interest of HKBU and devote themselves to protect the image and profit of the university. Academic staffs should be informed timely when CMT decides to trigger the contingency plan. Externally, the Education Bureau of the HKSAR Government, students and parents are the investors and consumers of HKBU, who should be informed accordingly in terms of the circumstances. The three categories of risks will be identified and classified as: natural, human-induced and combined, based on the nature of education institution. Natural: Disasters: Fire, blizzards, wind storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, lightning strikes and earthquakes†¦ Technological: Equipment failure: for example; drainage system,  digital system†¦ Human-induced: In addition, this may reduce the number of new students’ enrollment and the credibility of the HKBU degree. In this point of view, a contingency plan must be prepared in advance to deal with the incident or crisis. 5. 2 Threshold of the Crisis The scenario we set in this incident is that, many news media had created a lot of negative reports regarding the fabrication of academic credentials on teaching staff. Students and their guardians suspect the teaching quality, and were displeased with the teaching staffs. The public also doubt the high valuation of HKBU. The image and credibility had been damaged by this crisis. However, the university just knew them on the reports and not made sure the authenticity of this professor’s academic credential. This crisis is not the kind of crisis, which has a single clear-cut signal. In another words, the threshold of this crisis is not a very clearly event or signal which can be notice and identified easily like fire, suicide, earthquake, and so on. So it is needed to set a series of signals as the threshold of the crisis, which in order to tell the officer that is responsible for the alarming system: the crisis is coming. We treat these assume following signals as the threshold of the crisis: the assume situation we put in this contingency plan is that, many news media had made a lot of negative reports on the fabricating academic credentials of teaching staff of The Hong Kong Baptist University already. And the influence of these media is huge, like the Apple Daily, the Ming Pao News, and the TVB. The students and their parents already had suspect on the teaching quality of HKBU, and dissatisfied with the teaching staffs. And the public also doubt the prior highly valuation of HKBU. The image and credibility had been huge damaged by this crisis. However the university just knew them on the reports and not made sure the authenticity of this professor’s academic credential. 5. 3 Specific Responsibilities of Crisis Management Team (CMT) The CMT is formed by six members and is headed by the President & Vice-Chancellor, the top level manager and final decision maker in the whole process. Each member has his/her specific responsibilities and shares the team responsibilities. Furthermore, the ultimate goal for CMT is to respond and handle crisis effectively and protect the interest of HKBU. 1. Composition of CMT Consequently, he/she must take the responsibility to activate the contingency plan. Also, he is necessary to be responsible for informing all team members together immediately and take charge of the team meetings, list and prioritize the publics that must be informed. Besides, the duty of president and vice-chancellor in the crisis is to monitor and approve PR activities and news releases. Due to the seriousness of fabricating academic credentials and the authority of the president and vice-chancellor, in this plan, he is appointed as the spokesperson to deal with news media and publics. Thus, another responsibility for president and vice-chancellor is to get media training. Vice-President(Academic) The vice-president(academic) of HKBU is in charge of the faculties and schools in academic aspects, thus the prior responsibility for him is to contact the dean of the school/faculty that is relevant to this crisis, arrange meetings with the dean, verify and understand the situation from the dean. They also need to cooperate in facts gathering. After the meeting, the responsibility for vice-president(academic) is to share the information with team members timely. Another important role for vice-president(academic) is to contact the Education Bureau of the HKSAR Government, for reports and updates the crisis. Vice-President(Administration) and Secretary The vice-president(administration) and secretary is the direct leader of Personnel Office in HKBU, while this crisis is caused by the neglection of Personnel Office, thus the main responsibility of vice-president(administration) and secretary is to coordinate with the staff in Personnel Office immediately, to ensure the effectiveness of activities in solving the crisis. Furthermore, another crucial responsibility for vice-president(administration) and secretary is to supervise and cooperate with Personnel Office in finding out the loopholes of the existing employment system, re-examining this system and amend it into a better verifying system. Vice-president(administration) and secretary need to be responsible for connecting and inviting the third party — Hong Kong Educational Level & Degree Profession Qualification Attesthion Union to verify the degree. Director of Personnel Office The principal responsibility for the director of Personnel Office is to ensure the first-hand messages are collected accurately and immediately to the Communications and Public Relations Office. Specifically, the director of Personnel Office should be responsible for leading the Personnel Office to investigate completely about the professor who are suspected in fabricate academic credentials. Director of Communications and Public Relations Office As a member of CMT, main duty for the director of Communications and Public Relations Office is to divide staffs into two groups that concentrate on internal communication and external public relations activities respectively. For the internal communication group, the director of Communications and Public Relations Office need to ensure this group can provide effective media training to spokesperson. Furthermore, this group takes charge of serving as a channel in delivering the latest news from the Personnel Office to the whole CMT. Also, they need to update new progress of the crisis to students in HKBU. For the external public relations group, the responsibility for the director of Communications and Public Relations Office is to lead this group in to preparing the media kits, sending updated information to students’ parents and contacting the media. 5. 4 Action to Be Taken 5. 4. 1Process Diagram 5. 4. 2 Specific instructions to the relevant departments 5. 4. 2. 1 Emergency arrangements within 24 hours 1) Communication and public relations office must verify the accuracy of information and current situation.

Friday, August 16, 2019

A Paper on Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is phenomenal societal problems that are plaguing human society at the present times which victims are mostly women and children.   They are usually victims of physical or sexual assault.Because women are prone to be victims of domestic violence, Feminist expressed concern about the widespread problem plaguing the present generation and struggle towards getting protection for women from the court.Although, most of the offenses were hidden under family affairs, Carol Bolimer, Jennyfer Brandth, Denise Bronson, and Helen Hartnett, in their article, Domestic Violence Law Reforms: Reaction from the Trenches, say that, Feminists are gaining success in their efforts, as criminal justice personnel are now getting   more objective investigative in handling domestic violence cases.But despite of this hundreds of thousands of American women and children suffer domestic violence each year, studies have shown that sixty percent up to seventy-five percent of families fall vic tims to domestic violence every year; and this problem has already taken thousands of women’s lives.What is domestic violence? How can one determine that he or she is standing on that very dangerous ground?   And what are the solutions to the problem, are some of the contents that this paper attempts to present.Definitions of Domestic ViolenceDomestic violence is defined as a continuum of behavior ranging from verbal abuse, physical and sexual assault, to rape and even homicide.   Most of the cases of domestic violence are perpetuated by â€Å"men against women and their children† In C.J. Newton’s article, domestic violence â€Å"an overview,† he presented a United States Department of Justice report published in May 2000 through the National Crime Victimization Survey and the FBI data, defining domestic violence as â€Å"violent crimes by current or former spouses, boyfriend and girlfriend.   In their definition of violent, it includes lethal (hom icide) and non lethal which they enumerated as rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.   The report mentions more than one million crimes committed against persons by the current or former spouses.Deborah Lockton, LLB, MPhil and Professor Richard Ward LLB, identified domestic violence as an act of physical and mental cruelty progressing from a slap or shore, to punch or kick, and to the more extreme manifestation of violence, in suffocation, strangulation, attempted murder and murder.†Causes of Domestic ViolenceDifferent group of people explained the causes of domestic violence, however, as one analyze the causes of the problem, they are similar in terms of gender roles which is fact has something to do with the cultural and historical origin of family.   It is also noted that, changes in terms of roles contributed a lot in the existence of this particular problem.According to feminism, one of the causes of domestic violence is the legal syst em which in their view is patriarchal on several levels. They argue that the law is â€Å"sexist in that it generally treats men better than women.†Ã‚   They emphasized that the criminal justice personnel prior to their effort to gain equal rights with men, treats domestic violence as a family matter and out of the reach of the legal system.They also reveal that police would simply â€Å"take perpetrator for a walk to discuss keeping the little woman in line† and then return her home without further action.†Ã‚   Kristin L. Anderson says Feminist emphasized that domestic violence is â€Å"rooted in gender and power and represents men’s active attempts to maintain dominance and control† (Anderson, 1997).   Feminist sociologist maintains that the main cause of domestic violence is the issue of gender and power.Anderson pointed out that Feminist contend that this is a system of which men â€Å"maintain societal dominance over women.†Ã‚   Lockto n and Ward say, domestic violence continues for years, before the victims take action which sometimes results to the death of either the victim or the perpetrator.But sociologist finds other causes of domestic violence.   They suggested that cohabiting status, unemployment and socio-economic status rank as one of the causes of domestic violence (UNICEF).They agreed that main causes of domestic violence pertain to unequal power relations.   Family institution, where traditional control lies with husband as the head of the family, is seen as breeding ground for domestic violence too.   Beliefs in male traditional superiority and other sanctions that do not recognize women’s and children’s legal rights in the society are also seen as causes of domestic violence plaguing human society worldwide.Nowadays, domestic violence includes physical aggression in which the perpetrator controls the victim by using fear and force.   It occurs usually in traditional marriages o r same-sex relationship especially when relationship is in the verge of collapse.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Historic Perspective of Organizational Theory Essay

Theories pertaining to concepts of management were developed by Max Weber, Henri Fayol, and Elton Mayo. Management is the central component to an organized view on what each theory encompasses, the contributions and how the theories differ and even complementary factors. Individual contributions to management theories impact organizational power as well as the society and state which the ideas are focused. The legacy of theses theories will continue to shape business in the present and future. Organizational theory is designed to understand the nature of the organization. By which organizations can evaluate its overall business by putting the right structure and operate in different ways. Organizational theory also helps us understand how processes such as change and decision making can be managed. It deals with different structures and cultures such as large organizations have different structures and cultures than small ones, and the manufacturing organizations operate in a differe nt way than those in the service sector. (Burton & Obel, 1984) Frederick Taylor composed the principles of scientific management in the early nineteenth century, which marked the beginning of modern management theory (Robbins, 2000). The theory influenced management and has the greatest impact because of the insistence on application of scientific method. Furthermore, managers relied upon instinct and intuition as the source of constructive ides and information but the scientific method provided a formulation for conscious analysis. Max Weber contributed to management theory that within a bureaucratic system the organization was continuous bond of rules and the hierarchical arrangement is where one level was subject to control by the  level above. Bureaucracy lends to the notion of society becoming more integrated and more complex. Organizations have become more dependent on specialists and experts for advice and for influence. In the managerial perspective, democracy is seen as a consequence of elite competition (Alford and Friedland1985,). Henri Fayol, an industrialist divided the management structure into six basic groups, technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting and managerial activities. The six categories or groups are not absolute but can be manipulated according to purpose and need. Fourteen general principles of management were developed such as organize, delegate, staff, control, co- ordinate, lead and budget, your organization will prosper with efficiency and effectiveness therefore br inging great productivity. An administrative principle is a major contribution because this creates a narrower process of developing and maintaining procedures. The principle gives clear structure and rules and takes into consideration the changing environment and it applies to the organization, powers, duties and information that sets each organization apart and the basis for which all employees can be trained. A rigid form of rules and power being still govern any organizations so that uniformity can be established. Bureaucratic organizations have become more of a necessary function to the advancement of the economy and society at large because some cities and towns are dependant upon the economic benefits. The advance of large scale corporations with more coordination within markets forces our government to become more bureaucratic because businesses have become informal controllers and dictators. The inevitability of bureaucracies handle increased industrialization reflects the functional emphasis within the concept of management. Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol are both considered classical contributors to management theory. Developers of an expressionist viewpoint during a period when the aim was elevating the standards of management within the industry that was veiled but instead created a balance and established equity (Brodie, 1967). The two theorists provided the few publications and theories on management. Both theories were developed under the same influencing factors such as war, social struggles and industrial revolution (Urwick. 1951, p7), however each developed different management theories and instructions and vantage points. Scientific management and he developed scientific principles of management, focusing on the individual,  rather than the team and aimed to improve efficiency through production-line time studies, breaking each job down into its components and designing the quickest and best methods of performing each component. Fayol provided insight on the human reaction and identified needs of the individually and that work can be tailored based on intelligence, background and abilities. Taylor focused on the total organization rather than the individual worker, outlining the management functions of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. The theories proposed by Fayol and Mayo differ greatly in all areas. Fayol concentrated on management functions and attempted to generate a boarder perspective and on principles that would serve as guidelines for the rationalization of organizational activities and looked at an organization as a whole (Scott, 1992). Mayo focused on motivation techniques and individual satisfaction. Fayol directed attention on areas such as the production process and adjusted humans to this process, versus Mayo’s human relations approach emphasized the coordination of human and social elements in an organization by following concept such as * Consultation, * Participation * Communication and leadership. The employee of an organization is seen as a machine in Fayol’s theory rather than an important part of the organization. Employee’s needs according to Mayo are based on the idea that workers are happy they will be more productive. Theories proposed by Fayol and Mayo differ greatly in all areas. Fayol emphasized management functions and attempted to generate broad administrative principles that would serve as guidelines for the rationalization of organizational activities (Scott, 1992) and looked at an organization as a whole. Mayo focused on motivation techniques and individual satisfaction. Fayol emphasized the production process and adjusted humans to this process that included relational approach emphasized the coordination of human and social element. Characteristics of bureaucracy Weber believed that all large organizations would over time assume more bureaucratic characteristics. These characteristics were one a high degree of division of labor, two a hierarchy of authority, three the  use of formal written documents and files, 4 the expert training of organizational members, five decisions guided by written rules and procedures, and 6 an impersonality in human relationships. Division of Labor: The organization, according to Weber, was broken down into separate units with their areas of responsibility officially established by organizational policy. Similar to Administrative Management’s concept of departmentalization, Weber proposed that such specialization by organizational units led to greater efficiency. The people involved would only need to be trained in a limited area of knowledge. They could learn their jobs faster and thus perform more efficiently. 2. Hierarchy of Authority. Like Fayol, Weber noted that when the organization was divided into separate units, their activities needed to be coordinated by a hierarchy of graded levels of authorit y. This authority, according to Weber, was rational-legal, resting on a belief by the members of the organization that those people occupying higher positions had a right to issue commands to those occupying lower levels. The authority resided in the legally established and impersonal â€Å"offices† (job positions), not in the people themselves. Weber contrasted this rational form of authority with the non-bureaucratic traditional authority based upon loyalty to the person of the chief or monarch. In order for an organization to continue operating for many years, it must become somewhat independent not only of the people who founded it, but also of the people who managed its activities. The extensive use of formal, written documents in everyday activity and a sophisticated filing system was the characteristic giving the bureaucratic organization certain immortality. People could come and go in specific jobs over time but the bureaucratic organization continued to function efficiently with minimal problems. The knowledge of past events, along with the power that it conveyed, belonged to the specific position (in the filing cabinet) and was only temporarily used by the person holding the position . Anyone new to a particular position could learn what actions had been taken and decisions made by the previous person in the job by going to the relevant files. Expert Training: Weber envisioned that the specialization of positions would enable people to be trained more thoroughly in a narrow range of activities. Employees would be hired and promoted based upon merit and expertise. Decisions and Operations Guided By  Written Rules and Procedures. A key characteristic of bureaucracy was the idea that an organization’s employees followed written rules, which were assumed to be generally stable. The use of rules and procedures made the organization more efficient because they made people’s behavior more predictable and reliable. Rules served not only to make the organization independent of any one individual over time, but also to ensure that actions and decisions made in different parts of the organization were consistent at any given time. Human variability was reduced. In any given set of circumstances, anywhere or anytime in the organization, the same decision would be made and the same actions taken as long as the rules wer e followed. Impersonality from Weber’s point of view, the very impersonality of bureaucracy was a significant improvement over earlier forms of organization. By applying rules and controls impersonally, involvement with personalities and personal preferences was avoided. Employees and customers of a bureaucracy were not considered as individuals but as members of categories. This helped to ensure fair and unbiased treatment according to law — the policies and standard procedures of the organization. Managers were constrained by the same impersonal network of rules as were their subordinates. Actions and decisions could no longer be justified on the basis of personal opinion or on tradition. Bureaucratic Management based on Weber’s description of bureaucracy has been criticized by a number of scholars in the area; there is agreement that he made a significant impact on the field of management and the study of organizations. Unlike Fayol, however, Weber did not recommend a new system of management for others to follow and imitate. Merely described what he saw as the inevitable movement by organizations to become increasingly bureaucratic over time. An over developed bureaucratic mechanism in comparison with other organizations conflicts with the non-mechanical modes of production and allows dominance and could cause a monopoly. Legacy of Traditional Management Traditional Management, as it is now known, was formed out of Scientific Management, Administrative Management, and Bureaucratic Management. By the mid-twentieth century, the use of Scientific Management techniques and Administrative Management principles within a rationally structured bureaucratic organization became the accepted way of managing large organizations. Based upon some key assumptions from classical economics regarding economic man, division of labor, and profit maximization, the concepts, techniques, and prescriptions of Traditional Management succeeded in producing a large number of standardized products and serving a large number of customers with similar needs. Traditional Management seemed incapable of dealing effectively with changing conditions. The best of traditional management found themselves, in the second half of the twentieth century, floundering in the face of more flexible competition with different ideas of managing. The use of traditional management’s prescriptions and techniques resulted in dysfunctional as well as functional consequences for organizational performance. The functional consequences outweighed the dysfunctional consequences; organizations following the traditional approach were very successful. In the early 1900s in North America and Europe, for example, business corporations operated very efficiently and made huge profits selling valued products and services. The dysfunctional consequences present at that time were too few in number and too small in size to overwhelm the vast amount of functional consequences. For example, the epitome of Scientific Management, Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, created jobs in the 1920s for thousands of unskilled workers at double ($5/day) the current wage for similar work. It produced the first automobile affordable by the average person. The jobs may have been monotonous, but worker boredom did not keep the Model T and the Ford Motor Company from becoming a great success story. As time passed, however, and Traditional Management became more institutionalized in large organizations, the dysfu nctional consequences began to increase in number and in size. Organizational performance and productivity increased at a fast rate from 1900 to 1950. After 1950, however, the rate of performance improvement began to slow. An increasing use of Scientific Management assembly lines and bureaucratic procedures appeared to result in less and less of a performance increase. Like heroin, increasing the use of Traditional Management practices seemed to result in a smaller amount of desirable outcomes. It is suggested here that the continued and even increasing use of Traditional Management practices without significant modification in the face of a fast-changing world contributed to the decline in organizational performance. The  dysfunctional consequences of Traditional Management began to accumulate to such an extent that they finally outweighed the functional consequences. Organizational effectiveness and efficiency stopped improving and profits began to decline in the face of aggressive Japanese competition The concept that has the greatest utility by Traditional Management on standardization of the production process as well as the product meant that there could be no room for human variability. The emphasis on rules, principles, and the â€Å"one best way† meant that the behavior of employees must be uniform and predictable if maximum efficiency was to be attained. The basic assumption underlying Traditional Management about the motivation of people stemmed from the concept of economic man. People were expected to behave rationally. Rational people were supposedly motivated by their own economic self-interest. Weber and Fayol did not directly emphasize economic incentives, traditional management generally assumed that employees wanted to earn the most money for the least work. Traditional Management expected employees to be motivated to do very specialized standardized jobs simply because of the workers’ strong need for money. Bibliography Brodie, M. (1967) Fayol on Administration. Mowbray & Co, Oxford. Burton, R. M. & Obel, B. (1984) Designing Efficient Organizations: Modeling and Experimentation, North Holland, Amsterdam Robbins, S.P., Bergman. Stagg, I & Coulter, M. (2000), Management, (2nd Edn) Prentice Hall Scott, W. R. (1992). Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs. Australia Pry Ltd Taylor, F. (1947) scientific management: comprising Shop management. The principles of scientific management and Testimony before the special House committee. Harper, New York. Urwick, L., Brech, E. (1951) The Making of Scientific Management. Pitman & Sons, London.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Duplox Copiers Canada Limited Essay

Duplox Copiers Canada Limited is experiencing several severe issues that are affecting the profitability of the firm. The main issues at DCCL are: employee turnover is increasing, employee morale is low, and customer satisfaction has dropped while customer complaints have increased, and ultimately the biggest issue is revenue and profits have both decreased. From analyzing DCCL, it was determined that several strategic issues, including the current reward and compensation system, are having negative effects on employees, management, and the organization as a whole. The first major issue that DCCL is facing is an increase in employee turnover, particularly with the TSS’s. Turnover rates are high and DCCL is finding it difficult to keep their TSS’s in particular. This, in turn, is affecting the company’s ability to train and have TSS’s gain a required level of experience. The success of Duplox depends highly on the motivation and quality of work that the TSSs do. Because the TSS’s are the face of the company and involved in both the install of equipment as well as the servicing up equipment, it is imperative that customers have good experiences with the TSS’s. This is currently not occurring for as displayed in several instances. To begin, the TSS’s are experiencing a decline in  attitudes toward both their work and the company. Another major issue related to the TSS’s is that they seem to be struggling the most with maintaining a positive morale. TSS’s have little to no autonomy or ability to make any decisions on their own; everything is monitored and controlled by their supervisors. This is creating tension as they are being told what to do, even when company standards, such as safety, are not being met. When the machines are installed but do not meet safety standards, the equipment is suffering and is leading to more required maintenance and service calls. Customers are dissatisfied with having unreliable machines and the downtime associated with waiting for the TSS’s to make their service calls and this is causing an increase in complaints. Due to the fact that the TSS’s are constantly the ones who are dealing with customers face to face, they are taking the majority of the complaints and are being blamed for the constant need of maintenance on equipment. This is one major reason why the TSS’s are dealing with low morale. However, the TSS’s are not at fault in terms of installations that are not meeting safety standards; this issue is originating with the sales people. The sales people have a salary that only contributes to 50 % of their income, while the other 50 % is coming from how commission of sales. This is leading to the sales people forcing the closure of sales and not informing clients of safety standards that need to be changed prior to an installation. Compensation for TSS’s is also a factor that has become an issue for the organization. TSS’s are being given bonuses based on their productivity and their expense standards. Being given bonuses based on how efficient they are being in terms of their expense budget does not seem directly relatable to their job. Therefore, this is also causing tension and frustration for the TSS’s. Evaluation of their performance needs to be objective and relatable to what they are doing out in the field in terms of installations and service calls. Most of these issues can be related to the managerial style that is being conducted at DCCL. There is very little opportunity for employees to be able to make their own decisions. The structure is set up in a classical managerial style which is very controlling. Many of the issues the organization is experiencing can be attributed to the style of management which is not facilitating a healthy work environment for employees. Section B We feel that the structure of the company is fine, but feel that the solutions lay in redefining the job descriptions and also reworking the compensation strategy to better reflect the goals of the company and how they expect to be successful. However, eliminating the FSM position will occur, because it creates many redundancies in how the TSS’s operate. Changing the compensation strategy of the sales reps is of the utmost importance, because as it stands, they are just pushing as many new installations as possible, since they are rewarded per number of installation. This means that some of the installations are occurring in places that do not conform to company standards on space, ventilation, and wiring. This is causing more and more breakdowns, which in turn leads to many more service calls for the TSSs. Another major issue that needs to change is the managerial style. Currently, DCCL is operating in a classical managerial style. This has caused problems from poor communication, lack of motivation, low job satisfaction, and increased employee turnover rates. In order for DCCL to change their managerial style, they need to re-evaluate which style would work best. We believe that DCCL will excel with a shift to a human relations managerial style; this will allow for more autonomy and individual responsibility from employees, while still allowing managers to retain a level of control. Currently, managers are having to make every decisions and also supervise employees, such as the TSS’s, to an extreme degree. In order to have managers adopt a new managerial style focused more on human relations, a company meeting must be held. In this meeting, the issues that have come from the current managerial style would be outlined and this would be followed by a proposition for change. With a new managerial style, employees such as the TSS’s may become more motivated as they will have more responsibility and autonomy to operate on their own. In order to allow the TSS’s to operate more efficiently and with more autonomy, eliminating the position of FSM seems the best choice. The FSM often just acts as a middleman, whether it be relaying on the message to order a part, or relaying on information from the Training/Support Specialist. As a result, job descriptions for Training/Support Specialist and also Branch Service Manager will be redesigned. Both revisions are as below: Training/Support Specialist Under the direction of the Director of Technical Training and Support, develops and conducts technical training programs for Technical Support Specialists for a given Model series. Provides direct support to Technical Service Specialists via telephone or email to deal with complex problems for this model series. Assists Sales Training Specialists in the Marketing Department with preparation of training materials and programs for sales representatives. Branch Service Manager Under the general supervision of the Regional Service Manager, manages the installation and servicing of company products at that branch. Supervises field service managers and ensures that budgeted service revenue and cost targets are achieved for the branch. Monitors TSS expense reports to ensure efficient travel and repair costs. Evaluates current policies, procedures, and practices for achieving regional objectives and implements improved policies, procedures, and practices. Responsible for selection, training, evaluation, coaching, promotion, transfer, or discharge of field service managers, technical service specialists, and service clerks. Supervises service clerks and, in conjunction with the Manager of Branch Inventories, the Branch Inventory Clerk. In conjunction with the Branch Sales Manager, oversees the administration of the branch. The TSS’s are another point of concern, as many of the issues that are plaguing DCCL originate from these employees. However, it is not the fault of the TSS’s, but rather the structural system, combined with the job description and tasks given to the TSS’s. Having little to no ability to make their own decisions, the TSS’s have experienced a difficulty in staying motivated. Constant need to report to their supervisors makes it difficult for work to flow easily. Customers also focus their frustrations towards the TSS’s, as they are the ones who the customers see on a consistent basis. When new parts are needed to be ordered, the TSS’s must inform their supervisor so that they can order a new part, rather than just being able to place the order for the part themselves. The job description of the TSS’s will be revised as follows: TSS 1 TSS 1 will perform routine product installations and product servicing for all products within the Model series (1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000). Assists TSS 2 and 3 in complex product installations, breakdowns and overhauls. Orders new parts for installations when required directly from the main warehouse. Effectively manage expenses regarding repairs and travel in accordance with company policies. TSS 2 TSS 2 will perform complex product installations, repair of product breakdowns and malfunctions, and adjustment problems for all products in their model series (1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000). Supervises and trains TSS 1 in these functions and performs the initial on-the-job training for TSS 1 as required. Assists TSS 3 in major malfunctions and with major product overhauls. Effectively manage expenses regarding repairs and travel in accordance with company policies. TSS 3 TSS 3 will perform complex product installations, repair of major product breakdowns and malfunctions, adjustment of complex quality problems, and complex overhauls for all products in their model series (1000, 2000, 3000, or 4000). Supervises and trains TSS 2 in these functions. With collaboration from the Field Services Manager, may assist sales representatives in identification of the technical configuration of equipment that best suits customer needs. Effectively manage expenses regarding repairs and travel in accordance with company policies. Section C In order to account for different desired behaviours for different positions, it is necessary to group different jobs in job families. When grouping the jobs, we assessed job descriptions to group jobs that have similar descriptions and tasks, require similar knowledge, and are at similar levels in the company.  The following section outlines the Compensation Strategy Formulation Process. For each step in the process (required behaviour, role of compensation, compensation mix, and compensation level) we will outline how it will relate to each job family. Define the required Behaviour The number one behavior that will help DCCL is task behavior, which is when employees perform the tasks that have been assigned to them. One of the main  issues now is the disconnect between the sales people and the TSS’s. The sales people leave out important information, such as how crucial ventilation is to the machine, and as a result, the TSS’s are slammed with preventable service calls. The failure and breakdown rate caused by customers not being informed about what may be required to have the machine fit in their office. As a result, the breakdown and failure rate is higher than it should be, and is giving a bad reputation to the company. So by having more task behavior, the theories and rules, such as TSS’s refusing to do installs that do not meet specifications, or sales reps telling customers what alterations are necessary to have their machine perform optimally, even if it is a costly alteration. Compensation strategy will also influence a change in t he Director’s and manager’s behaviour. By changing their behaviour to citizen behaviour, more cooperation will occur between them and those working beneath them. Facilitating communication between positions will help DCCL become more productive. One way this will occur is that managers will work with the TSS’s, rather than commanding them on what they need to do. This will allow for opportunity to talk with one another on a more equal level and allow the TSS’s to voice concerns and communicate any ideas that they may have. Facilitators in the organization need to have membership behaviour and the compensation strategy will reflect this. Membership behaviour leads an employee to have a commitment to the organization allowing them to grow and prosper within that company. Having employees with membership behaviour also helps reduce turnover rates. Define the role of Compensation The role of compensation for DCCL will be to encourage employees to remain with the company, thus lowering the turnover. DCCL needs a compensation strategy that encourages employees to remain with the company, as turnover rates have been rising. It is expensive to replace employees, especially ones that require a great deal of training, like the TSS’s. Any facilitators as well need to be able to remain with the company, and may look for higher compensation. The employees, who have the ability to be trained and are hired with little required skill, can allow an organization to pay a lower compensation. However, the required behaviour of a certain position can affect the level of compensation that an employee may be seeking, as  motivational factors vary dependent on position. The salespeople are currently motived by a large compensation strategy that pays 50% of the salary and the rest is commissioned based. This is proving to be detrimental to the organization and must be adjusted so that these employees rely less on pure number of sales, this in turn allow them to make the proper sales to customers with environments that meet company specifications. Determine the compensation mix As behaviours and compensation are identified, a compensation mix of components will determine how effective the organization will be in eliciting behaviours in the most effective and efficient way. For the directors and managers, they will be compensated primarily on base pay. Performance pay will come from how well they are managing those beneath them, but will make up a smaller portion of their overall salary. The foundation for their base pay will be based on job evaluation as they are ones who have to ensure the organization is operating in an efficient manner. Director and managers will have the opportunity to receive benefits such as having a profit sharing incentive. Managers and other employees that are motivated by membership behaviour will have this option to have a share of the organization as their membership behaviour promotes commitment to the organization. The sales department are given a base pay based on job evaluation. Since their duty is to increase sales for the organization, those who sell more should receive pay based on their performance. Also, their commission for each sale should be less than what it currently is as it is proving to be a point of concern as they are selling without regard to whether the sale is being done correctly. Any performance pay should be linked as a group because this will eliminate any sort of unhealthy competition and promote the sales team to work together and accomplish sales. Facilitator and Tech are all based on pay for knowledge. Their base pay will be compensated based on their expanse of knowledge and their ability to diagnose problems that others are unable to do. As mentioned, these employees need to have membership behaviour because it is difficult to hire a specialist with the required knowledge. The longer they are with the organization, the more valuable they become because they spend time learning and gaining experience. This allows them to have indiv idual performance pay. Determine the compensation level Lagging, leading, or matching the market is the last step in determining compensation levels. For each job position there can be variation in terms of whether that position will lead, lag, or match the market. The directors and managers will be compensated at a level that is slightly above the market. In order to attract qualified and successful managers, offering above the market may attract those who feel they have an advantage in terms of their qualifications and are seeking something that compensates above average. Although it may cost the company more money, having a qualified and successful manager can improve an organization’s productivity which can be priceless. The sales department will match the market at base pay, but they will have the opportunity to earn group performance pay that would be higher than the market. As for the Facilitators and Techs, they will be compensated above the market. Since the market that DCCL is operating in is very competitive, it is important to attract qualified and effective Facilitators to give the organization an advantage over competitors. By having a compensation level that pays above the market, Facilitators will want to work for DCCL and remain with DCCL, which helps in promoting the required membership behaviour. From analyzing DCCL, we have concluded that the directors, managers, and the sales department all fall under the job evaluation system. For directors, there are a few compensable factors; education, experience, knowledge, mental effort, decision making, consequences of mistakes, supervisory responsibility, and employee relations. For education, a degree and business with a specialization of leadership and management or equivalent is desired as well as four years’ experience in a managerial or director role. They must have adequate knowledge of the industry from a previous position within the company or competitor is desired. The ability to make difficult decisions and not get stressed from the mental effort required. Able to handle the consequences and fix any mistakes made from a poor decision. Lastly, able to relate to employees while maintaining adequate supervisory responsibilities to ensure productivity, efficiency, and any safety issues as well. Managers have similar compensable factors to that of directors. These factors are as follows: education, experience, mental effort, decision making, supervisory responsibility, employee relations, and knowledge. For education, a degree and business with a specialization of leadership and management or equivalent is desired as well as two years’ experience in a managerial or director role. Education must be a postsecondary degree with a specialization in management or human relations. Experience of two years in a managerial context is required as well. The ability to make decisions is essential and to make them with confidence. Must be able to manage and supervise employees with respect to garner cooperation and productivity. Salespeople also fall under the job evaluation plan and their compensable factors are: human relations, friendliness, trustworthiness, interpersonal skills, communication skills, education, experience, and contact with  customers and clients. Salespeople must have postsecondary education along with two years’ experience in sales of some sort. Being able to relate to customers and clients while maintaining a friendly outlook and to be seen as trustworthy is essential. Also, must have the ability to communicate fluently and clearly as well as have knowledge of a second language is desired.