Mark Twain a Racist? Absolutely not! Essays -- Literary Analysis

Celebrating its 135th anniversary this year, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic of American literature and is read by millions across the nation every year. However, many claim that the book promotes and endorses the heinous act of racism. In their attacks on the classic, many of the book’s critics employ evidence such as the use of the n-word 211 times (Powers, 2010) and the novel’s repeated inferior depiction of African-Americans. Many supporters of the novel, though, hail it for being so controversial. They claim that the dialogue started when discussing the book is a great chance for students to broaden their views on many controversial topics. As Harris puts it (2000), "If it isn't a dangerous book, there really is no reason for anybody to read it or teach it". Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn unquestionably does not promote racism, and actually serves to question the very idea of racism itself, as shown by T wain’s use of realism, the use of a child narrator, and the author’s deliberate intention to criticize the act of slavery and racism. Throughout Huck Finn, Mark Twain employs realism to accurately portray life along the antebellum Mississippi River. Merriam-Webster defines realism as â€Å"the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization.† Throughout the novel, Twain uses realism to show readers how life was and how blacks were treated. Many critics of the book criticize the language used in the book. As Powers puts it (2010), â€Å"The controversy exploded in 1957, when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemned its 211 uses of the n-word, the infamous epithet for African ... ...-old boy show them the true path of equality and fairness. Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn clearly does not promote racism, and actually defames it, and the universal lessons taught in the book can still be applied today. Works Cited Camfield, G. (2005). Race. Retrieved from http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/race.html Harris, E. (2000, September 26). 'huck finn' still pushes buttons, professor says. Retrieved from http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=3637 Powers, M. (2010, May 05). Mark twain’s â€Å"adventures of huckleberry finn†. Retrieved from http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2010/May/20100505151725naneerg0.2608759.html Salwen, P. (Unknown). The quotable mark twain . Retrieved from http://salwen.com/mtquotes.html Twain, M. (1986). The adventues of huckleberry finn. New York, NY: Penguin Books Ltd.

How Does SHRM Influence Organizational Outcomes? Essay

Introduction In modern business environment, †Strategy† is always applied in each business area. As strategic management discipline originated in the 1950s and 1960s, strategic human resource management emerged as following. At the beginning, HR department is not viewed as an important division and in many multinational companies (Vymys.P 2014), only marketing, R&D and finance which are direct associated with the competition and revenue could get enough attention from general manager, stockholders and professors in management area. However, nowadays, strategic human resource management (SHRM) is considered to be a source of competitive advantage for a firm (Wright, Dunford, & Snell, 2001). An increasing number of senior managers or professors have begun to focus on human capital. Actually, the core competition ability of an enterprise is accumulated value of employees. During the process of promoting and implementing all the business in an enterprise, the initiative of the people, the guaranteed skills and the team cooperation is the key factor for it to work effectively; SHRM is, in fact, the management of power development and the core of management behavior includes the acquisition, motivation, organization and development of human resource management. These four parts form a unified whole and none is dispensable. The circulation of the â€Å"unified whole† promotes human resources management and enterprise management constantly, thus enhances the enterprise’s core competitiveness and profitability. In Google, the Human Resource department is called People Operations. They emphasize on the process which employees create value for the company and presents strategic modes in HR management. For example,each employee in Google has material packages in HR department with at least dozens of pages, on which record their abundant personal information,like SAT scores,rankings,GPA,resume, papers published,referees and even message in BBS and blog (Wei,J. 2013). In terms of recruitment,the questions candidates received are various and strange. Google devotes into seeking the smart to compete rivals and indeed,  this strategic recruitment method does work and provides countless value for the enterprise (Poundstone,W. 2012). In total, SHRM plays a crucial role in enterprise management and affects the success and failure in an organization. Strategic Human Resource Management and 8P Model Strategic human resource management (SHRM) is different from the concept â€Å"human resources management†. Put it in detail,SHRM refers that the essence of SHRM is to adopt a flexible but strategic perspective that accurately analyses both the internal and external environments of organizations to assure ’fit’ between HR strategies and practices, and between these and business strategiesï ¼Ë†Redman,T. and Wilkinson, A. 2013,p.50). The main characteristic of SHRM is to emphasize matching up between human resource management and enterprise strategies, to establish relevant human resource management activities and deployment according to organizational strategic objectives and to provide services and support for the implementation of enterprise strategy(Strategic Human Resource Management And 8P Model 2012) . Therefore, if an organization wants to achieve the goals, the first thing is to successfully manage human capital. However, how to motivate human talent to create a network and make the company successful? According to Adam Smithï ¼Ë†1776ï ¼â€°, economic activity was fulled not by workers as a collective mass but by †the acquired and useful ability of all the inhabitants and members of the society†. With the development of strategic human resource management, there is an increasing number of people focusing on capitalize the intangible asset. Many practices and strategies are applied in promoting the †best fit† and encouraging the network. Theodore Schultz(1960), American economist and the creator of human capital theory, in his report †Human Capital Investment and Urban Competitiveness† said, the source of economic growth can not increase only depending on the material input of the Labor force, but the more important is to rely on improved peopl e’s ability. According to the American economists estimates, from 1900 to 1957, the material capital investment increased by 4.5 times, profits increased by 3.55 times,while human capital investment increased by 3.5 times, profits increased by 17.55 times. During the 38 years from 1919 to 1957, 49% of  gross national product is the result of human capital(What Is Strategic Human Resource Management In An Organization 2008). Obviously, the contribution rate of human capital in the era of knowledge economy is far greater than that of material capital. Therefore, paying attention to the importance of human capital on economic growth is particularly urgent. Under the background of modern social economy, the enterprise must carry out strategic management of human capital and strengthen the competition and development of the enterprise. As I mentioned, SHRM is power management and its core function and soul is acquisition,motivation,organization and development. In terms of behavior and responsibilities of strategic human resource management, to conclude, there are eight essential abilities: Table1.Strategic Human Resource Management and 8P model (MBA Lib,2012) These eight abilities are specifiedï ¼Å¡ ——HRM project system based on strategy(Project) Understanding organizational strategic decision and management environment is the precondition of human resource planning. According to the enterprise development strategy, combining with the enterprise human resource current situation and making enterprise human resources plans enable the enterprise’s human resources to support enterprise strategic development needs and to contribute to the realization of enterprise strategy. The main activities of enterprise human resources planning encompass the analysis of supply and demand of human resources, the planning of amount of human resource planning, human resources structure optimization planning and human resource qualification promotion planning, and the concrete measures to realize the objective of human resource planning, namely, the various business plans. ——Job analysis system based on strategy(position) Job analysis is a basic work in an enterprise’s SHRM. Enterprises select the appropriate organization mode according to their own strategic and on the basis of this, set up departments including management processes and business processes and clear the responsibility and authority of the various functional departments. HR department should clear the responsibilities and  content of each department and analyze the necessary knowledge, skills, experience and personal quality as an employee. ——Employee’s qualification analysis system based on strategy and position (personnel) Enterprises should proceed based on strategic objectives and customer demand, on the basis of job analysis, analyze and conclude the staff with high performance and then set up â€Å"Staff Quality Model† in order to optimize human resource and motivate the staff’s potentials. ——recruitment system based on strategy and competence(provide) Recruitment based on strategy is no longer to simply hire people to fill the vacancies and what they acquire is the resource with which an enterprise can survive and win the competition. A company not only care about if the candidate is qualified in the position, but also care about if the candidate could provide support for the company to achieve the enterprise strategic objectives. Therefore, an enterprise should take human resource planning and â€Å"Staff Quality Model† into account, when recruiting. ——training system based on strategy and employee’s career(plant) The training system based on strategy and staff’s career development should encompass training demands assessment, drawing up a training plan and training results transformation. Training needs assessment should consider about strategic requirements, staff qualities and training needs by which employees want to achieve professional development in their career. ——career management based on strategy(profession) Career management based on strategy requires an enterprise to set up job positions and job classification based on the organizational strategies. Enterprises should establish different levels of qualification standards according to different employee’s classification, drive the employees to study and improve professional skills. In addition to this, HR division should set up promotion system by which employees have more motivation to do the work and improve themselves. Besides, an enterprise should build a good environment for employees to grow up and positively provide consultancy for  employees about promotion and skill improvement. By that, realize that the enterprise leads employees to grow up and employees promote the enterprise to develop. ——appraisal performance system based on strategy and key performance indicator (performance) Performance is an effective output in order to achieve strategic objectives including organizational performance, department(team) performance and personal performance. SHRM focuses on organizational overall performance whose goal is to survive and develop in the competition. Appraisal performance system based on strategy and key performance indicator requires an enterprise to develop relying on organizational strategic objectives and to determine the enterprise key results areas and key performance indicators through the analysis of the value chain of enterprises. Organizational performance is based on individual performance and team performance. When the organization performance targets are allocated to every employee and every job, and as long as each employee meets the organizational requirements, the realization of organizational performance is guaranteed. Standard procedure of performance appraisal comprises five links, namely, planing assessment, performance management(e,g, performance coaching, counseling and performance tracking), performance appraisal, performance feedback such as performance interview, and the use of performance appraisal(e.g. reward, promotion, elimination and improving the performance appraisal mode). ——payment management based on ability and achievement(payment) There are three ways measuring the value that employees create for the enterprise. So on the basis of it, there are emerging three compensation modes. The first mode is based on job duties which is determined by the importance of job and relative value of job in the enterprise. The second is based on performance evaluation. In this way, an employee’s salary is related to his performance. Evaluating the salary level by employee personal performance or team performance is a result oriented value distribution way. The third is to pay the employees according to employee’s ability, capacity, professional skills, experience internal quality and so on. Under the framework of strategic human resource management, the enterprise’s salary incentive  system should focus on the short-term performance improvement and long-term development of the enterprise. Therefore, compensation management must link to performance and ability appraisal by which each employee’s income and performance is related to the realization of organizational strategies. Payroll management based on performance and ability not only emphasize the value created by individuals and teamwork but also emphasize potential value that individuals and teams could bring about for the enterprise. Conclusion To conclude, SHRM to a large extent influences the organizational outcome. I have explained each function separately and each one is closely associated to the organizational strategy. Actually, the core management of an enterprise is human management and each department in the enterprise is operated by people. Therefore, what extent to capitalize the human resource and how to match the human resources with the organizational strategies is critical issue. More importantly,this also requires the HR division to understand the organizational strategies on which manage employees effectively and plan and execute SHRM strategies to help the enterprise to survive and win the global competition. To sum up, SHRM is to explore and motivate the value of people. A good HR division knows exactly which division need which talents and understand how to motivate the employee potential. However, to what extent to motive and explore these potentials to be the â€Å"Best Fit† and how to manage the talents from motivating personalities to forming a standard is another important issue. This would be discussed more deeply. References 1. Vymys,p.2014,Introduction to Human Resource Strategy(WORK6017), The university of Sydney,Sydney, 29 July, viewed 10 September 2014, 2. Mayhew,R. and Demand 2014, Chron,Small Business,10 September 2014, 3. Strategic Human Resource Management And 8P Model 2012, MBA Lib, viewed 10 September 2014, 4. Schultz,T. 1960,Human Capital Investment and Urban Competitiveness,social Sciences Academic Press, China. 5.What is Strategic Human Resource Management In An Organization 2008, MBA Lib, viewed 10 September 2014, 6. Redman,T. and Wilkinson,A. 2013, Contemporary Human Resource Management,Pearson,UK 7.Human Resource 2014,MBA Lib, Viewed 10 September 2014, 8.Wei,J. 2013,demystify the recruitment of Google:lengthy and picky five rounds of interviews,Sina ChuangShiJi, viewed 17 September 2014, 9. Manjoo,F. 2013,The Happiness Machine:How Google became such a great place to work, Slate, viewed 17 September 2014, 10. Google,2014,Google Career, viewed 17 September 2014, 11.Pounderstone,W.2012,Are You Smart Enough To Work At Google,Little,Brown and Company Press,United States of America.

Nightingale Community Hospital Essay

Registrar, registered child (3 year old patient), obtained insurance card and entered demographics. She was then taken to pre-op where the nurse told mother that once in the OR the surgery would take about 45 minutes and then she would go to recovery. The mother informed the pre-op nurse that once her daughter went into the O.R. she needed to run a quick errand involving an older sibling and would return in time to pick her up once she got out of recovery. The mother gave the pre-op nurse her cell phone number phone number with instructions to contact her if her daughter got out of surgery sooner than expected. The Pre-op nurse wrote her number down on her note pad that she carries around in her pocket. The daughter was taken into surgery by the O.R. nurse nothing was mentioned about the mothers’ phone number or contact instructions to the O.R. nurse. After surgery the daughter was taken to recovery where the recovery nurse took care of the patient until she was ready to go to the discharge ambulatory care. The recovery nurse paged the patients’ mother when she was coming out of anesthesia, but could not locate her. The recovery nurse kept her until ready to go to the ambulatory care for discharge. Security had called and said the father was at the main reception to come visit the daughter. The discharge nurse also tried to page mother, who still was not available. The patient was crying and wanted to go home. The discharge nurse let the father back to see the daughter. After 30 minutes had passed and mother was still not present, the father offered to take the patient, home with him. Since the patient called him daddy and was excited to see him, discharge nurse thought it was ok to send her home with her father. The discharge nurse had him sign all pertinent paperwork sent her home with him. The mother returned 2  ½ hours later and found that the daughter was discharged 30 minutes earlier. Mother was extremely distraught and security was called and a â€Å"Code Pink†Ã‚  (hospital-wide child abduction alert) was activated. Local law enforcement was also contacted by hospital security. When security officer interviewed mother, she shared with him that she and patients father were divorced and that she had full custody of daughter and her siblings. The Daughter was located within 30 minutes of her mother’s arrival by local law enforcement, in the care of her father. He had taken her to his home to await the arrival of the mother. If the Pre-Op nurse would have passed on the mother’s phone number where she could be reached and noted that she was on an errand with sibling, a lot of the events could have been avoided. Roles of Personnel Present Surgeon Supervises the actions of the surgical team, orchestrating their responsibilities and generally responsible for the outcome of the surgery. Chief Nursing Officer Responsible for overseeing and coordinating an organizations’ nursing department and its daily operations. Works to align the nursing staff with the mission, values and vision of the organization. Pre-Op Nurse Bring patient back, Changes her into hospital gown, confirms hours with post-op nurse, confirms patient has a ride home (name and phone number in chart), Witnesses signing of the O.R. consent, and they have a basic understanding of what the surgeon is going to do. Mark side of surgery will be on, Starts their IV, check surgeons orders or per protocol, put on antibiotics, shave or prep area. Check all paperwork. Check to see if there is the surgeons’ history and physical within 30 days. Is there lab work or EKG’s (if needed)? Recovery Nurse Provides constant care to patients immediately following su rgery; anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours until patient is stable enough to be transported to a hospital room or discharged from the facility. Connects patient to cardiac monitoring equipment, and intravenous therapy for fluids and pain medication. Pain intervention-assesses pain levels, makes complete notes on charts, communicates to the PACU nurse & physician. Completes any forms required by facility. Makes patient observation, Takes patients vital signs (blood pressure, pulse and temperature). Ensures patient is breathing properly, and administers oxygen when needed. Must be able to react to signs of negative change, call for assistance and begin CPR if necessary. Discharge Nurse Review surgeons written discharge instructions. Goes over discharge with  patient. Has patient sign discharge instructions Hospital Security Guard Will ensure the safety of the hospital premises. Helps in evacuation drives in times of fire and threats. Interacts with hospital staff of all departments with special emphasis on drug storage areas, infant care units, and ward for mentally ill patients and trauma care. Personnel Issues The Hospital environment can offer some practical challenges that could be barriers in communications. Many patients have individual needs and this can impede on a nurses time and emotions. Nurses put in long hours and have a high patient/nurse ratio or shortage of healthcare workers. Nurses/personnel have to deal with emergencies in an already challenging and busy hospital setting. Dealing with patients takes mental acuity and emotional support and sensitivity. Hospital guidelines might not have sufficient communication practices among personnel in place. Improving Interactions In order to improve interaction amongst personnel there needs to be a constant. That constant needs to be the patients chart following the patient, where hand offs notes from one staff to the next can be kept updated at all times when medications is administered and also when the patient has been checked in and phone numbers can be quickly accessed after surgery and in an emergency to reach the Responsible party that brought the patient in whether it be a friend or parent. Phone numbers and notes involving a minor child, needs to be highlighted in each handoff so the personnel receiving knows there is notes of importance being handed off and read from one department to the next so they know who to reach, and can be quickly reached without having to search in files. When involving a minor child, custody and phone number needs to be consistent on handoff notes from one personnel to another. Risk Management The quality improvement than need to take place in Nightingale regarding a minor, needs to begin at Admission/Registration. All patients admitted requite a bracelet with name of patient, attending doctor and an ID number. In the case of a minor child, the adult admitting will be given an identical bracelet. Upon discharge, the caregiver must match the Childs’ bracelet with the parent/guardian. Without the identical bracelet, child will not be released to anyone until an investigation has been performed through security that  child is being released to the rightful parent/guardian. A new risk management program will be put in place requiring all relevant personnel to attend the workshop in orders to update security issues. These issues will require all floor personnel to attend. All personnel will also be required to call security, imme diately upon knowledge of a patient missing or child abduction. Quality Improvement The aim is to improve security measures in the hospital.  Ã‚ ·The hospital will improve security by requiring all patients to have a patient I D Bracelet and the parent admitting any minor to also have one. Upon discharge Minor patient and Responsible Adult must have matching ID Bracelet before being released from hospital.  ·Security is to be called immediately on any issues that pertain to the safety and wellbeing of any patient and/or the facility.  ·Hire Hospital Security Consulting Service to consult on present security issues and any additional needed improvements. The System will relate to: Improving Patient Safety Measurement The measurement will be to Plot Data for measures. The new measures will be over time, using a run chart to determine whether changes are leading to Improvement. The change will be implemented by a team, to ensure new safety issues are carried out. That team will consist of:  ·Clinical Leader:- MD , Patient Safety Officer  ·Technical Expert:- Quality Control Expert Consultant  ·Day-to-Day Leadership: RN, Manager, Medical/Surgical Nursing  ·Additional Team Members: Risk Manager, Quality Improvement Specialist, Staff Nurse, Staff Education, and Information Technology.  ·Sponsor: MD, Chief Medical Officer The team includes members familiar with all aspects of the process, from managers, Administration to Physicians and nurses and front-line workers. The Executive Sponsor will be responsible for the success of the project The Clinical Leader: has the authority to test and implement change that has been suggested and deal with any issues that arise. Understands clinical implications and consequences. Technical Expert: Knows the subject intimately. An expert on improvement method. Helps the team in determining  the measurement method, design of interpretation, and display of data. Day-to-Day Leadership: Will be the driver of the project, insuring tests are implemented and data is collected. Project Sponsor/Executive Sponsor: the executive liaison with executive authority who serves as the link to senior management and the strategic aim of the organization. Can provide resources and overcome barriers and provide accountability for the teams progress on a regular basis but not day-to-day. Langley, Nolan, Norman, Provost, The Improvement Guide 2009 Security Issue Resource Nightingale Hospital will hire an expert, Hospital Security Consulting Service to assess the security the hospital has in place and how it can better implement its security issues regarding the recent sentinel event and any other issues needed to keep current for Joint Commission Standards. This consulting firm will also provide the risk management workshop to all employees in regard to patient care personnel security issues, to support the new changes. All employees, hospital-wide, will be updated to all quality improvements and risk management guidelines. References JCI Accreditation Standards for Hospitals, 4th edition (e-book); July 2010 Philip Stahel; Patient Safety Surgery Journal, 2009, 3:14 Langley G.L., Nolan K M, Norman C L, Provost LP The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (2nd edition) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing; 2009

HIPAA, CIA & Safeguards Essay

First enforcement action resulting from HITECH Breach Notification Rule Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $1,500,000 to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules, Leon Rodriguez, Director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), announced today. BCBST has also agreed to a corrective action plan to address gaps in its HIPAA compliance program. The enforcement action is the first resulting from a breach report required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act Breach Notification Rule. The investigation followed a notice submitted by BCBST to HHS reporting that 57 unencrypted computer hard drives were stolen from a leased facility in Tennessee. The drives contained the protected health information (PHI) of over 1 million individuals, including member names, social security num bers, diagnosis codes, dates of birth, and health plan identification numbers. OCR’s investigation indicated BCBST failed to implement appropriate administrative safeguards to adequately protect information remaining at the leased facility by not performing the required security evaluation in response to operational changes. In addition, the investigation showed a failure to implement appropriate physical safeguards by not having adequate facility access controls; both of these safeguards are required by the HIPAA Security Rule. â€Å"This settlement sends an important message that OCR expects health plans and health care providers to have in place a carefully designed, delivered, and monitored HIPAA compliance program,† said OCR Director Leon Rodriguez. â€Å"The HITECH Breach Notification Rule is an important enforcement tool and OCR will continue to vigorously protect patients’ right to private and secure health information.† In addition to the $1,500,000 settlement, the agreement requires BCBST to review, revise, and maintain its Privacy and Security policies and procedures, to conduct regular and robust trainings for all BCBST employees covering employee responsibilities under HIPAA, and to perform monitor reviews to ensure BCBST compliance with the corrective action plan. HHS  Office for Civil Rights enforces the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules. The HIPAA Privacy Rule gives individuals rights over their protected health information and sets rules and limits on who can look at an d receive that health information. The HIPAA Security Rule protects health information in electronic form by requiring entities covered by HIPAA to use physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to ensure that electronic protected health information remains private and secure. The HITECH Breach Notification Rule requires covered entities to report an impermissible use or disclosure of protected health information, or a â€Å"breach,† of 500 individuals or more to HHS and the media. Smaller breaches affecting less than 500 individuals must be reported to the secretary on an annual basis. Individuals who believe that a covered entity has violated their (or someone else’s) health information privacy rights or committed another violation of the HIPAA Privacy or Security Rule may file a complaint with OCR at: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/index.html. The HHS Resolution Agreement can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/examp les/ resolution_agreement_and_cap.pdf. Additional information about OCR’s enforcement activities can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/examples/index.html.

Lowering the Drinking Age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Lowering the Drinking Age - Essay Example "The argument goes like this: Our current drinking age forces young people to drink in private, so binge drinking of serious alcohol is on the rise and can be deadly. Lower the drinking age and kids will choose to drink low-alcohol beer openly--and safely. Teenagers want to drink because it's a 'forbidden fruit.'" (Drinking While Young, 11) According to the proponents of lowering the drinking age, it would not be such a big issue if drinking alcohol were legal at eighteen. On the contrary, to them, it would even help in the reduction of the number of teenage drinkers as those under twenty one would be less likely to drink. Following the debates on the minimum-age laws and policy change in the United States between 1970 and 1973, half of the states in the US lowered the legal age to eighteen. "The legislation was viewed as enlightened and forward-looking. It was believed that if consuming alcohol would lose the symbolic significance of being grown-up, young people might learn to drink moderately and more wisely than their elders. Furthermore, most teenagers had been drinking anyway, despite their inability to purchase alcoholic beverages." (Cohen, 33) Therefore, the arguments in favor of lowering the drinking age are influential and these are further supported by several research evidences. However, it is also important to comprehend that the opponents of such an argument also have crucial research evidences to prove their point. They point out that there has been reported rise in binge drinking as teenagers increasingly turn to hard liquor and prove that minors cannot be allowed to drink. Therefore, this exploratory essay aims at posing the two sides of the argument on the topic 'lowering the drinking age' and attempts to make a logical conclusion on the issue. One of the most thoroughly researched areas of social issues in the modern American society has been the controversial issue of lowering the drinking age and there have been vital researches on the Minimum Legal Drinking Age. "The Minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is the most well-studied alcohol control policy in the United States. The intention of this policy is to lower alcohol use and its associated problems among youth As a result of research evidence indicating that traffic crashes among youth increased following lowering of the legal age, a citizens' effort began urging states to raise the MLDA back to age 21." (Wagenaar and Toomey, 206) It was during the early 1970s that a trend toward lowering the MLDA to age 18, 19 or 20 was most prominent in the United States. However, following a number of research evidences proving the pitfalls of lowering drinking age, all the states established an age-21 MLDA by the year 1988. This act of increasing the drinking age across several stat es provided researchers with different natural experiments to evaluate the effects of these policy changes on alcohol consumption and related problems among youth. However, the debate over the MLDA has become one of the most important discussions of the day and a significant issue in this debate has been if increasing the drinking age can in reality reduce alcohol-related problems in society. In order to determine the overall

Articles Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Articles Review - Essay Example Given these trends in the past (with respect to the transportation of items), the articles raises doubts through the questions of a number of researchers whether a similar trend would influence the working of the super information highway of modern times, which is popularly known as the Internet. The article says that one of the most prominent reasons for the growth of the internet has been the 'openness' and 'uniform' feature of the net that has made no distinction between the type of information being transferred. In order to support this claim, the article cites a paper published by Andrew odlyzko that talks about the willingness of telecom companies towards introducing a pricing system for different types of information that would be transferred through their networks. The article also discusses about how deviations in the earlier pricing and tariff systems were used indiscriminately, which caused an outburst among the people. The government and the regulatory bodies of those times then had to step in so as to bring about the requisite changes that ensured smooth transport of goods thereafter. While the article says that such price discrimination has in the past worked towards reversing the fortunes of some places such as Beverly beck, it also raises questions as to whether changes to the uniform pricing of internet based services would have similar effects. In view of this argument, the article ultimately concludes that the given the enormous size of the Internet, a flat based system would work much better and encourage users to utilize the services in an extended manner. In my opinion, price discrimination has been there all along in the modern times and it has been the trend with telecom companies that happen to be the core providers of the Internet infrastructure. one is not surprised to see the different kinds of services provided and the differing price tags that each one is attached with. Subscribers are charged different tariffs for services such as phone calls, SMS, MMS, email, multimedia etc. moreover; some companies also discriminate on the basis of the subscriber being new or a regular one, wherein the former is charged higher rates than the latter. The reason service providers have not been able to implement such a policy over the internet has been predominantly due to the fact that the providers of such services over the internet are other companies different from these providers and the mode of information transmission is bits in any case. As such, service providers as of now do not have any software or hardware applications in place th at is capable of distinguishing between the types of information by simply examining the bits being transmitted. Therefore, any possible solution towards implementing any tariff based structure on the internet by these service providers can only be possible in the current time by forging alliance with the providers of these internet based services such as chat, VoIP, entertainment etc. given the facts that the number of such software providers runs into millions and that a mighty proportion of such services are for free would make it impossible to implement a service based pricing system in absolute totality. In fact, it can be compared to the marketing strategy of Apple inc.

Powell scholarship Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Powell scholarship - Essay Example After this I work with them on their math problems and give them some pointers. 2) I am also a math manager and member at the Worcester Academy. This role is slightly different from that of a tutor because I compete with some of my fellow peers in nationwide math competitions. Over the years I have attended math competitions such as MML, WOCOMAL, and even the prestigious HMNT, which is a Harvard run math competition. Before my team and I go to competitions, we put in many hours of hard study and practice with questions that are likely to come up in competition. For the latest national competition that we entered, our team came in third place. 3) Another role that I have is with the badminton club, where I have the dual role of co-founder and captain. Although there was already some badminton clubs in the same area, many of them were segregated in terms of race or ethnicity. Before I began the club, I saw that badminton players of different cultures rarely mixed together except when c ompeting against each other, so I wanted to do something about that. My club has a wide mix of international students and Americans who learn to have fun while playing badminton and also develop great friendships off the court. 4) I am also a member of a Destination Imagination team, where students have to use their creative talents to create successful ventures. There are many new challenges each semester, and the students have to learn how to work together to achieve a shared goal. Last year there was a competition where our team had the challenge of creating a movie trailer with limited production costs ($200). Our creative abilities helped stretch this budget through the use of recycled products as props. Although we only had limited resources and funds, as a team we were able to come up with a successful end product. 5) Another great activity of mine is playing on the soccer team at Concord Christian Academy. Although I had only played the sport a little before I joined the tea m, my primary reason for doing so was to become friends with American students and practice my English speaking and listening abilities. Before I was on the team, I did not really get the chance to mix with Americans. As an added bonus, my skill level improved relatively quickly and I became a starter. This helped me to improve my English even further because the rest of the team accepted me as a real player on the team. I put down my knowledge of the English language to being able to get along with native speakers in a fun setting. 6) One of my greatest leadership roles is acting as a proctor. This role entails great responsibility and it has helped me to develop great leadership skills. Part of my responsibilities is to supervise students during studies and make sure that they stay focused on their work. This role has also helped to develop my self-confidence because I have gained respect from many of the students. Further responsibilities include organizing the dorm room that I s leep in, and decorating the wall to make the dorm welcoming for any new student. Organizing dorm championships has helped to build camaraderie among the dorm members and helped them to develop lasting friendships beyond the dorm. 7) I also have volunteering experience working as a dental assistant. The head dentist is my mother’s friend. This role is not a paid position, although the experience that I have gained has been