Anti-Terrorism and Human Rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Anti-Terrorism and Human Rights - Essay Example What human rights commission emphasise upon is to maintain peacekeeping and peacemaking in a political context, this is usually done by military as counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations. Since political nature of such operations have their own demands that deviate from those of human rights, in which every officer, non-commissioned, and soldier involved is well aware that even the most minor action by the military may carry with it major political consequences. What these operations have in difference with human rights is the close political scrutiny and control, and therefore, they require intimate civil, military, and police cooperation at all times. Human rights negate the use of military means i.e., firepower, mass, mobility, speed, which is subjected to the political limitations imposed on the conduct of the campaign. The objection is upon the usage of weapons and tactics employed for they must be proportional to the military response and must be commensurate with the political reality2. Reconciling the demands of the two philosophies of one subject enables ... iracy is difficult to reconcile with that of human rights commission, but Britain's CJTCA4 is trying hard to cope up with unfavourable suppositions on behalf of any police officer's opinion to reconcile with the fair trial provisions of the HRA (Human Rights Act)5. However HRA negates CJTCA to anticipate judges and juries drawing inferences from a suspect's silence while in the custody of police interrogation. Other issues that oppose HRA is the significance of the opinion as an evidence of a senior police officer that a defendant is a member of a terrorist group is also admissible at trial. Since many of the international treaties focusing on 'anti-terrorism' agrees that national courts and conferred supplementary, non-exclusive jurisdiction need not to focus very clearly on any threshold for jurisdiction in terms of the gravity or systematic character of the crimes covered. Such treaties believe that individual acts covered by the suppression treaties could be relatively routine or could be not very different in quality from serious acts of terrorism6. Jurisdiction possess the authority to exercise over them but the acts themselves as considered in isolation are extra ordinary that by contrast are unable to be given international jurisdiction. However terrorism crime is above the most common and most serious problems, at the high end of the spectrum of international crimes, which once were considered as crimes against humanity and war crimes in internal armed conflict. Since anti-terrorism law covers the availability of jurisdiction over genocide and has tended to lead to arguments for a broader interpretation of the definition of genocide, therefore terrorism must not be dealt with a soft corner of human rights as it may pave the way to happen in other crimes.

Try to apply kenneth waltz's three images to the origins of the cold Article

Try to apply kenneth waltz's three images to the origins of the cold war and analyze which image considerations were more important in the development of the cold war - Article Example On the one hand, Stalin as Soviet ruler tried his best to control more territories within the borders of his huge country through the supporting of Communism there. In fact, we know that countries like Poland and Hungary joined Soviet camp after these actions. On another hand, Truman’s doctrine and Marshall’s plan appeared in response to these actions from Soviet people. In particular, these Americans created thinking of Soviet expansion as the threat for USA. As a result of these misunderstandings between Soviet and American leaders, we deal with Cold War. Secondly, Waltz stresses on the differences between states as the background of conflict in the world. In fact, he distinguishes â€Å"good† and â€Å"bad† states, based on their willingness to break the global peace. In context of the Cold War, Truman’s doctrine openly discussed the necessity to involve in domestic affairs of foreign countries. In other words, USA appeared as the â€Å"bad state,† because it wanted the conflict to start. However, Soviet Union had the same intention but did not show it openly. In particular, Soviet leaders considered democratic USA as ideological â€Å"bad state† based on capitalism in contrast to â€Å"good† communism. This ideological struggle led to the appearance of the Cold War. Finally, Waltz concentrates on anarchy within international relations as the source of war. In this part, he considers both individual and state behavior as an outcome of prevailing logic of thinking about the world. Because of this, establishment of any international institutions to manage global conflicts will never be successful. Since states are rational and use their own interest to guide their behavior in international system, the appearance of the Cold War was inevitable. In 1945, both Soviet Union and USA had an interest to become the world leader after

Image To Voice Converter Is Software Computer Science Essay

Image To Voice Converter Is Software Computer Science Essay Image to Voice converter is software or a device to recognize an image and convert it into human voice. The purpose of the conversion is to provide communication aid for blind people to sense what the object in their hand or in front of them. This converter is also suitable for children at the age of three until six years old for early education part. In this project converter, it consists of image processing and sound generation. For an image processing, it is a series of calculation techniques for analyzing, reconstructing, compressing, and enhancing images. When an object is inputting, an image will captured through scanning or webcam; analyze and manipulate of the image, accomplished using various specialized software applications such as MATLAB and output like a printer or a monitor. Image processing has several techniques, including template matching, KNN (K-Nearest Neighbour), thresholding and etc. For the template matching, it is a technique for finding small parts of an image to match with the template image; it is also used to identify printed characters, numbers, and other small, simple objects. KNN (K-Nearest Neighbour) is an algorithm that can work very well in practice and easy to understand. It is also a lazy algorithm that does not use the training data points to do any generalization. Besides, thresholding technique is one of the most important approaches to image segmentation. It is a non-linear operation that can converts a gray-scale image into a binary image. The purpose of image processing in this project is to analysis of a picture using techniques that can identify shades, colours and relationships that cannot be observed by the human eye. Besides that, an image processing is used to solve identification problems, i.e. in forensic medicine or in establishing weather maps from satellite photos. It assigns with images in bitmapped graphics form that have been scanned in or taken with digital cameras. For sound generation is to generate a sound through window sound library or play a wav file from computer. Problem Statement Nowadays, many visually impaired people still using blind mans stick to sense the road of the direction and object in front of them in this society. With just only a plain stick and a pair of covered eye, it is difficult for a human to get sense of their direction. Probably, they would not know what the objects around the people which had been blinded eye. As we can see the economy nowadays is getting worse, most of the people or family members were getting busy on their busy work life; they have no extra time to spend on the handicap people to give them a good care. In this case, for all the handicap people especially blind people, they have to get use to it on their living style. In order than that, this product is also available to help the small kids to improve the ability on distinguishing or differentiate the daily use objects. This is the reason why the product mentioned above was developed. Project Aim and Objective: The aim of this project is to develop an Image to Voice converter which able to recognize an image from the webcam and then convert it into sound by window sound library or wav file with good performance. To achieve the main objective of this project, there are sub-objectives need to be carry through as follows: To develop a unique image recognition algorithms for shapes and colours for real time application using MATLAB. To analyze the performance of the image recognition algorithm in term of accuracy and time processing. To develop an algorithm to convert recognized image to voice using MATLAB. To analyze the performance of image to voice conversion algorithm. Test the performance of the closed loop interface for the image and sound processing converter system. To develop Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the image to voice converter for case of user finding. Project Scope/Limitation The scope of this project is to construct a unique image to voice converter within a period of time at cost not to exceed RM200. Referring to this project, it consists of hardware which is webcam and software which is MATLAB. The system of this project is to capture an image using webcam, then recognize an image and generate a sound using MATLAB with several techniques. This product specially created for visually impaired people or to improve small kids learning capability. There was few limitation of this project which specified as follows: Shape limitation Colour limitation Resolution limitation Distance limitation Literature Review Image processing is a technique to convert an image into digital specification and go through some actions on it, so as to get an enhanced image or to collect some advanced information from it. It is a kind of signal exemption in which input is image, like video frame or photograph and output may be image or features related with that image. Frequently, image processing institution consist of treating images as two dimensional signals while applying already set signal processing techniques to them[1]. For the image recognition process can be divided into several algorithms which are image acquisition, image pre-processing, image segmentation, image representation and image classification. For the image acquisition, it is a digital image that captured by one or a few image sensors, such as various types of light-sensitive cameras, range sensors, tomography devices, radar, ultra-sonic cameras and etc. According to the type of sensor, the outcome of an image data is an generally two dim ensional image, a three dimensional capacity, or an image order. The pixel values usually correspond to strength of light in one or a few spectral bands, but can also be involved many physical measures, such as depth, absorption or reflectance of sonic or electromagnetic waves, or nuclear magnetic resonance. Image pre-processing is one of the algorithms that can increase the dependability of an optical inspection. This algorithm can be categorized into two categories which are image enhancement. Image enhancement requires intensifying the different features of images either for display or analysis targets. The enhancements techniques are edge enhancements, noise filtering, magnifying and sharpening an image. Several filter operations which increase or reduce certain image features allow an easier or faster evaluation. For examples, mean filter, median filter, wiener filter, and etc. With continuous use, an image will becomes degraded and has many errors. Image restoration is the process used to restore the degraded image. This process is also used to correct images read from different sensors that show up murky or out of focus[2]. Next, image segmentation is performed to assemble pixels into salient image areas, for example, areas corresponding to specific surfaces, objects, or inherent sections of objects. Segmentation could be used for object recognition, occlusion boundary estimation within motion or stereo systems, image density, image editing, or image database. The traditional image segmentation method can be divided into several techniques including gray threshold segmentation method, edge extraction method, regional growth method and split consolidation method and etc. Threshold technique was applied in this project. It is a technique that deals with gray-scale images. For the moment of the influence of noise or illumination, it can be assumed that the majority of pixels belonging to the objects will have a relatively low gray-level, whereas the background pixels will have a relatively high gray-level. For example, Black is represented by a gray-level of 0, and White by a gray-level of 255. Based on th is observation, we can divide the pixels in the image into two dominant groups, according to their gray-level. These gray-levels may serve as detectors to distinguish between background and objects in the image. On the other hand, if the image is one of smooth-edged objects, then it will not be a pure black and white image; hence this would not be able to find two distinct gray-levels characterizing the background and the objects. This problem intensifies with the existence of noise[3]. In order to overcome the ill influence of noise and shading, there are two methods that can solve this problem which are Otsu known as Global Threshold and Neighbourhood known as Adaptive Threshold. For the image representation, all information is commonly represented in binary. This is real of images as well as numbers and text. However, an important differentiation needs to be made between how image data is shown and how it is stored. Displaying includes bitmap representation while storing as a file includes many image formats, such as jpeg and png[4]. There are few techniques for image representation which are Roundness ratio known as Circularity, Fourier Descriptors and etc. The intent of the image classification procedure is to sort all pixels in a digital image into one of several land cover categories, or themes. This categorized data may then be used to deliver thematic maps of the land cover present in an image. Ordinarily, multispectral data are used to carry out the classification and truly the spectral pattern present within the data for each pixel is used as the numerical basis for categorization. The purpose of image classification is to determine and describe, as a distinct gray level or colour, the characteristics occurring in an image in terms of the object or kind of land cover these characteristics practically express on the ground[5]. The technique for this algorithm is using template matching and KNN (K-Nearest Neighbour). Table : Comparison of image sensors for image acquisition[6, 7] Types of Image Sensor Strength Weakness 1 Webcam allow face to face interaction low cost easy to use low resolution not portable no optical zoom lenses no auto-focus 2 Digital Camera high resolution portable with batteries has optical zoom lenses has auto-focus high operating speed less durability battery consumption faster high cost many complex function From the Table 1, it can be seen that both image sensors have its own strengths and weaknesses. This research will more focus on webcam due to this image sensor is using for this project. Webcam can be used to connect with computer to capture an image for image recognition. On the other hand, it is easy to use and cheaper compare with digital camera which is more complex and high cost. However, the megapixel of digital camera is higher than webcam. .. Table : Comparison of several types of filter for image pre-processing[2, 8] Types of filter Strength Weakness 1 Median filter more robust more smoothing provide good results memory consuming complex computation 2 Mean filter intuitive simple to use smoothing not good in sharpen images susceptible to negative outliers 3 Wiener filter short computation time controls output error straightforward to design results often too blurred spatially invariant From the Table 2, it can be seen that all filters have its own strengths and weaknesses. This research will focus on two types of filter which are median filter and mean filter. Median filter have been chosen for this project is because median filter is more robust on average than mean filter and so a not representative pixel in a neighbourhood will not influence the median value significantly. Since the median value needs to be the value of one of the pixels in the neighbourhood, the median filter does not establish new unrealistic pixel values when the filter straddles an edge. This is because of the median filter is better at preserving sharp edges than the mean filter. Also, median filter removes the noise level more than mean filter. Table : Comparison of threshold techniques for image segmentation [9, 10] Threshold Techniques Strength Weakness 1 Otsu fast ease of coding easy to use less sensitivity assumption of uniform illumination does not use any object structure or spatial coherence complex computation 2 Neighbourhood produce a good result less computation memory consumption time consumption sensitive From the Table 3, it can be seen that both techniques have its own strengths and weaknesses. Otsus method, named after its inventor Nobuyuki Otsu, is a global threhold that consists of many binarization algorithms[11]. This method involves iterating through all probable threshold values and computing a measure of propagates for the pixel levels each side of the threshold, i.e. the pixels that can be falls in background or foreground. The purpose is to find the threshold value where the total of foreground and background propagate is at its minimum. Neighbourhood which known as adaptive threshold is used to separate desirable foreground image objects from the background based on the difference in pixel intensities of each region. The differences between both methods were Otsu uses a histogram to threshold the image and the Neighbourhood method uses a histogram to threshold the pixels in a small region/neighbourhood around the pixel. In addition, Otsu methods suffer less errors occur t hat are caused by the sensitivity of the local algorithms to image noise compare with the Neighbourhood methods. Table : Comparison of the two techniques for image representation[12] Techniques of Image Representation Strength Weakness 1 Roundness Ratio very fast algorithm scale, position and rotation invariant high accuracy if image shape can be preserved properly after segmentation susceptible to errors if object shape is changed due to improper segmentation 2 Fourier Descriptor medium speed produce a good result low computation cost overcome the weak discrimination ability scale, position and rotation invariant difficult to obtain high order invariant moments cannot deal with disjoint shapes From the Table 4, it can be seen that both techniques have its own strengths and weaknesses. Roundness is defined in term of a surface of revolution like cylinder, cone or sphere where all marks of the surface alternated by any plane vertical to a common axis in case of cylinder and cone are equal in distance from axis. As the axis and centre do not exist, measurements have to be made with consultation to surfaces of the figures of revolution only. The circularity of the outline is to measuring roundness[12]. Fourier Descriptors are used to describe the feature of contour of shape. It was founded in the early sixties last century by Cosgriff and Fritzsche. According to the Fourier analysis theory, Fourier coefficients can be often generated by Fourier transformation. Lower frequency coefficients have the general shape of the signature, and higher frequency coefficients have the more information about the shape. As the harmonic amplitude and the phase angle can represent the Fourier D escriptor, and Fourier coefficients are usually normalized by dividing the first Fourier coefficient separately. Because there are some fast algorithms in computing the coefficient of Fourier series, many recognition systems in machine vision using these coefficients as shape features. Table : Comparison of several techniques for image classification [13-15] Techniques for Image Classification Strength Weakness 1 Template Matching easy to implement high degree of flexibility high accuracy of detection shape limitation computation speed susceptible to scaling and rotation 2 K-Nearest Neighbour easy to implement very effective improve accuracy improve run-time performance poor run-time performance if the training set is large very sensitive outperformed by more exotic techniques 3 Neural Network minimize energy function high accuracy easy to use unstable curse of dimensionality space consumption From the Table 1.5, it can be seen that all techniques have its own strengths and weaknesses. This research will focus on two techniques which are Template Matching and K-Nearest Neighbour. The standard template matching technique is known as simple mechanism, high accuracy of detection, and is used as a general model assessment and error estimation. Hence, it plays a very important role in image processing, and is commonly used in object detection and recognition. But the contradiction between rapidity and accuracy is exceptional. The main factors affecting rapidity are searching calculation, and operations of template matching. Appropriately decreasing positions and similarity computing precision can increase the speed of template matching obviously. That is becoming a focus in this field. Many studies focus on improving the searching algorithm, decreasing the matching times by decreasing the matching points on the template of images, which need to be detected so that rapidity is r ealized. The typical algorithms are pyramid algorithm, genetic algorithm and so on. Each matching operation is based on the template matching, thus it is necessary to pay attention to improving the computation speed of template matching fundamentally[14]. The intuition underlying Nearest Neighbour Classification is quite straightforward, examples are classified based on the class of their nearest neighbours, it is often useful to take more than one neighbour into account so the technique is more commonly referred to as K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) Classification where k-nearest neighbours are used in determining the class. Since the training examples are needed at run-time, i.e. they need to be in memory at run-time; it is sometimes also called Memory-Based Classification. Because induction is delayed to run time, it is considered a Lazy Learning technique[13]. . Analysis on Similar Products and Paper Literatures Oral Image to Voice Converter by Takaaki HASEGAWA and Keiichi OHTANI[16]: In this paper, the authors propose a new speech communication system to convert oral image into voice, Image input Microphone. This system synthesizes the voice from only the oral image. This system provides high security and is not affected by acoustic noise, because actual utterance is not always necessary to input. Moreover, since the voice is synthesized without recognition, this system is independent of languages. Simulations to convert oral image to voice about Japanese five vowels are carried out as basic investigation. A vocal tract area function is estimated from the oral image, and PARCOR synthesis filter is obtained from the vocal tract area function. The PARCOR synthesis filter is driven by a pulse train. The performance of this system is evaluated by hearing tests of the synthesized voice. As a result, audible voice has been synthesized and the mean recognition rate of Japanese five vowels has been 91%. This paper describes a system to convert oral image into voice with considering humans lip-reading ability. In the proposed system, the voice is directly synthesized only from the oral image without recognition, and actual utterance is not always necessary to input. They use both the feature of a tongue and the feature of lips obtained from the oral image. Therefore this system is not affected by the acoustic noise, and simultaneously, it provides high security because of no utterance input capability. The system structure of this product is using a vocal tract area function which is equivalent to the transfer function of the vocal tract as a parameter. Indirect means synthesis via the vocal tract area function. The vocal tract area function is obtained from the PARCOR analysis of speech signals, and speech signals are synthesized by inverse processing of PARCOR analysis. Therefore if the vocal tract area function is estimated from oral image signals, they can convert the oral image to the corresponding voice. Human utters various voice by changing the vocal tract, and each articulator moves not independently but cooperatively in utterance, It is generally known that the information of articulation is obtained from lip-reading. Software Comparison Table below shows that the two comparison of the software between MATLAB and C++. Table : Comparison of software between MATLAB and C++[17] Types of Software Strength Weakness 1 MATLAB easy to learn fast numerical algorithms inexpensive software fast development slow processing complex computation 2 C++ mature standard large community fast complex computation difficult to debug low level programming From the Table 6, it can be seen that both types of software have its own strengths and weaknesses. MATLAB is software that has been widely used in image processing and computer vision community. Multiple image analysis function has been build into this software; it is very useful image analysis tools for end user. C++ is a standard template library (STL), computer graphics, and image processing. Based on C++ template mechanism, the library accepts all C++ build-in types as the image data, although certain functions are only valid to subset of build-in types. MATLAB has been selected due to the project analysis characteristic. MATLAB version R2010b will be used to analyze the image quality and performance in this project. Project Methodology This project has been divided into hardware and software. For the hardware section is the webcam as the input and speaker as the output. For the software section is using MATLAB to recognize image to sound with several image processing techniques. Block Diagram Webcam Image Segmentation (Thresholding) Image Acquisition (Acquire image) Image Preprocessing (Median filtering) MATLAB Image Representation (Roundness Ratio) Sound Generation (WAV file) Image Classification (Template Matching using KNN) Speaker Figure 1: Block diagram of Image to Voice converter. The block diagram shown in Figure 1 is the basic concept on the system interface that needed to be carried out. Base on the block diagram, first prepared a webcam. Then, capture the image in front of the webcam. After that, perform a median filtering in image pre-processing using MATLAB. It will filtered unwanted signal or noise inside the image. Next is image segmentation, referring to the literature review, the most suitable method is using Otsus method in thresholding techniques to convert grayscale image into binary image to do segmentation. Secondly, find the largest object and do the image representation using roundness ratio to calculate the ratio of the largest object to determine which one is the nearest to the template ratio. Next stage is image classification, using template matching with KNN techniques to find the small part of the image to match with the template image. After matching done, it will automatically generate a sound from the computer with WAV file. Flow Chart Start Acquire image from webcam Perform median filtering Colour Space Conversion Thresholding using Otsu Image labelling Find the largest object Image Representation -roundness ratio Template matching using KNN Is the image matched? No Yes Generate Sound Figure 2: Flow chart of Image to Voice converter. Based on Figure 2, before the beginning of image recognition, first, acquire an image in front of the webcam, and then the acquired image will go through image enhancement process to perform median filtering to filter some unwanted noise and sharpening the image. After that, the image will perform a colour space conversion which is convert the image colour space to another colour space, i.e. RGB, HSV, YCbCr and etc. The purpose of converting the colour space is to ensure that the converted image to be as same as the possible to the original image. Next, perform a threshold technique using Otsus method to calculating a measure of spread for the pixel levels each side of the threshold. The reason of doing this is to separate the objects from the background. Once the thresholding technique is done, perform a image labelling by taking the outside lines in the image and label them as occluding the background. After that, find the largest object and do the image representation using roundn ess ratio to calculate which object is similar to the template ratio. Then, perform a template matching techniques to find a match between the template and a portion of the image. The template that most closely matches the object is then found using the KNN method to do a matching system with the database image. If the data is matched, it will generate a sound automatically by using MATLAB to load the wav file from the computer or laptop. After that, it will repeat the procedure starting from the first step. If the data is unmatched, it wont generate a sound and it will go back to the first step and repeat the procedure again until the data is matched. Projects Method Median Filter Median filters are nonlinear rank-order filters based on replacing each element of the source vector with the median value, taken over the fixed neighbourhood of the processed element. These filters are widely used in image and signal processing applications. The purpose of median filtering is to removes impulsive noise, while keeping the signal blurring to the minimum[18]. Otsu Method Otsus method is a widely used method of segmentation, also known as the maximum infra-class variance method or the minimum inter-class variance method. This method involves iterating through all the possible threshold values and calculating a measure of spread for the pixel levels each side of the threshold, i.e. the pixels that either falls in foreground or background. The aim is to find the threshold value where the sum of foreground and background spreads is at its minimum[11]. Roundness Ratio/Circularity Roundness is defined as a condition of a surface of revolution like cylinder, cone or sphere where all points of the surface intersected by any plane perpendicular to a common axis in case of cylinder and cone. Since the axis and centre do not exist physically, measurements have to make with reference to surfaces of the figures of revolution only. For measuring roundness, it is only the circularity of the contour which is determined[12]. Template Matching The classical template matching method is charactered as simple mechanism, high accuracy of detection, and is used as a general model evaluation and error estimation. Therefore, it plays a very important role in image processing, and is widely used in object detection and recognition. It is a technique for finding small parts of an image to match with a database image[14]. K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) is a branch of simple classification and regression algorithms. It can be defined as a lazy method. It does not use the training data points to do any generalization. Although classification remains the primary application of KNN, it can use to do density estimation also. Since KNN is non parametric, it can do calculation for arbitrary assignation[19]. Project Specification This project is divided into 3 main sections which are hardware, software and project estimate cost. Hardware The hardware was using for this project is Logitech HD Webcam C310, below is the basic requirement of the webcam: logitech-hd-webcam-c310.png Figure 3: Logitech HD Webcam C310[20] Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) or Windows 8 1 GHz 512 MB RAM or more 200MB hard drive space Internet connection USB 1.1 port (2.0 recommended) Software The software for this project is using MATLAB for image recognition and sound generation. Project Estimate Cost The estimate cost for this project is RM89 which was the Logitech HD Webcam C310, because this project was basically software based project and the software to be used is MATLAB from college engineering lab. Gantt Chart

Ethics and Accounting :: Finance Business Accountant Accountancy

Ethics and Accounting What's ethics got to do with accounting? Everything! Believe me, everything. When the word ethics is mentioned, what readily comes to mind is the question of deciding between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. But doing what is right versus doing what is wrong within what context? The idealist will say that decisions of ethics should not be conditional. But it is not as simple as it sounds, for what constitutes "right" to one person, may be "wrong" to another person. What bridges the gap, guides, and clearly distinguishes the line between right and wrong in political, economic and social systems are traditions, culture, laws and regulations. Even then, what is unethical may not necessarily be illegal, even though there exists a close relationship between the two. These dynamics apply to almost every legal profession, accounting not exempted. This paper examines the issues of ethics in accounting. It also looks at the differences and similarities between financial accounting to managerial accounting. Introduction According to Marshall et al, (What the numbers mean, 2003) accounting involves "identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information about an organization for the purpose of making decisions and informed judgments." This definition clearly shows that there are stakeholders in the information generated by accountants. These include managers, shareholders, oversight and law enforcement agencies, and the general public. Since these entities rely on the reports generated by accountants for critical decision making, it is important that the information be reliable, objective, and presented in an easy to understand format. Ignoring or circumventing these values renders the information generated unreliable. It can lead to devastating consequences as evidenced by events which led to recent legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which seeks to make top management of organizations accountable for the financial statement produced by their organizations through the internal controls they develop and enhance, and to oversee auditors who hitherto could have business interests other than auditing in the organizations they were responsible for auditing. Financial versus Managerial accounting Managerial accounting refers to the management of company resources while applying management accounting principles in decision making. One important characteristic of management accounting is that, it is internal to the organization even though external information such as financial accounting reports will have some amount of influence. Financial accounting refers to the identification, recording, computation, and reporting of financial information to users who may have a stake in the information reported. An important characteristic of this information is that it is geared towards users external to the company. A financial accountant generates information for external consumption. These products include the income statement, the balance sheet, the statement

Human Communication Process in the Small Group Context Essay

Question #5 How would you rewrite some of Lam’s comments to show how he could have paraphrased what Kelli, Ryan, and Tamika said? â€Å"Tyler has been late to meetings, because he has been caring for his sick parents. Because he his late and missing meetings, we are missing his part of our assignment. Let’s just go ahead and get started and try to finish tonight. If we need another meeting, we can meet at my place to give us more room, instead of meeting in this old stuffy room.† It’s good to paraphrase because, it lets to previous speaker know if you understood what was said. If incorrect, the message can then be delivered in another way, so that the listener understands the message the speaker it trying to make (Galanes & Adams, 2010). This allows for effective communication. Question #6 Which of the eight major categories of nonverbal behaviors are most relevant to this study group? Several of the eight major categories of nonverbal behaviors are expressed in this study group. First of all space and seating play a part because, the group was sitting in a circle, and when Tamika pulled away from the table, it showed that she was upset about Tyler not being present; demonstrating â€Å"kinesics.† In addition, Tamika was using â€Å"time cues† by complaining that Tyler was late and that 20 minutes had gone by. When Kelli began to pack up her things, her movements expressed that she too was unhappy about the situation. â€Å"Paralanguage† was used when the pitch of Tamika’s voice changed as she asked the question â€Å"Man, what time is it.† It is evident that there was no â€Å"transactional process† within the group as a whole. Tamika and Kelli were expressing how they felt about Tyler on being present at the meetings. They were clearly sending a â€Å"message† throughout the group. As Ryan was demonstrating â€Å"paraphrase† by reminding the group the everyone knew that Tyler’s parents was sick and Lam â€Å"action-oriented listening† turned everyone’s attention back to the task of completing the project. It is clear that there was plenty of â€Å"nonverbal behavior† with this group. Nonverbal behaviors can be interpreted by other in ways not intended. Our text states â€Å"nonverbal behaviors can contradict verbal behaviors (Galanes & Adams, 2010).† As we speak to another person or a group, our tone of voice and body language are also speaking for us. It’s important to be aware, so that our actions aren’t taking away from what we are trying to speak. By observing nonverbal ques, we are able to recognize if what we are saying is being taken serious, upsetting someone, confusing or if people are in agreement. Question #7 How might computer-mediated communication been used by our student group? What precautions might they take should they choose to use it to compensate for absences from meetings? Computer mediated communication could have been used in the form of video conference where every member can see and hear their team member, or a chat room where all team members can post their work and respond to other members work. They could attach their assigned work to an email and forward the work to all the members of the group; this would have eliminated Tyler missing meets and Tamika being in that stuffy room. The first precaution is making sure each member has a computer or access to one. If the group is going to use the video conference, then the group need to make sure everyone has the proper equipment and software to participate in the group project. Once the group establishes everyone has a computer or access, they need to understand how to upload their work if they decide to use the chat room as a communication channel. Question #8 Given your understanding of communication principals, including nonverbal messages, what advice would you give to this student group? The group in chapter two should have, communicated differently. Communication is the key to an effective group. You must communicate with your fellow team members, be open about what you are feeling so that way tension does not build and explode making thing much worse than they have to be. Lam could have paraphrased the group feeling when he took control, and decided to start. If lam would have paraphrased, it would have let the other member’s know that he was listening to their concerns. The group should be more mindful of their nonverbal behavior. Lam did do a great job displaying â€Å"action-oriented† listening and getting the team back on track. As a group they should have focused on a solution to get Tyler’s part of the assignment, since they know his pattern with the group. Email and video conferencing are a couple of solutions. References Galanes, G. J., & Adams, K. (2010). Human Communication Process in the Small Group Context. In Effective Group Discussion (pp. 22-47, Chapter 2, pgs. 39 – 46, Chapter 3). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Documentary movie that investigates health care in the United States Essay

Sicko is a documentary movie that investigates health care in the United States which focus on the people who are covered by their health insurance and others who are not covered at all . The film show the difference between the United States health insurance system with the universal health care systems of Canada the United Kingdom, France and Cuba . There are nearly 50 million Americans without health care insurance in the United States alone and 18,000 Americans will die simply because they’re uninsured. Moore talks to one person who lost his two fingers with a power saw and realizes he would need twelve-thousand dollars to save one and sixty-thousand dollars to save the other. Since he had no health insurance to save both of his fingers, he decided to keep paid the twelve thousand dollars for his ring finger. On February 17, 1971, Richard Nixon met with John Ehrlichman to discuss the Vice President’s position on health maintenance organizations and the next day, Nixon called for a â€Å"new national health strategy† that had four points for expanding the proliferation of health maintenance organizations, The United States was ranked number 37 as a health system by the World Health Organization.. Health care in Canada is to, completely free and Canadians live three years longer than Americas . That due to their quick services at the Emergency room and doctors office. Tommy Douglas, who pioneered Canada’s health care system, was heralded as most the nation’s singular most important person to help Canada Health Insurance .Moore follows a young American woman as she crosses north over the U.S.-Canada border and to obtain health insurance by marring a close friend who is Canadian. And one man say that he had to come back to Canada after enduring an pain injury in Florida because in Canada his treatment would be free. The health care system in Great Britain is free was well. After losing 42,000 civilians in eight months during a vicious bombing†¦

Definition and Examples of Paralinguistics

Definition and Examples of Paralinguistics Up to 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. Getting ones message across is made easier through voice inflection, facial expression and body gestures. Paralinguistics is the study of these vocal (and sometimes non-vocal) signals beyond the basic verbal message or speech, also known as vocalics. Paralinguistics, Shirley Weitz explains sets great store on how something is said, not on what is said. What It Is Paralanguage  includes accent, pitch, volume, speech rate, modulation,  and fluency. Some researchers also include  certain non-vocal  phenomena  under the heading of paralanguage:  facial expressions, eye movements,  hand gestures, and the like. The boundaries of paralanguage, says Peter Matthews, are (unavoidably) imprecise. Although paralinguistics was once described as the neglected stepchild in language studies, linguists  and other researchers  have recently demonstrated greater interest in the field.  Ã‚   The rise in recent decades of non-face-to-face communication through email, text messaging, and social media led to the use of emoticons as a substitute for paralanguage. Etymology From Greek and Latin, beside language Cultural Differences Not all cultures interpret these nonverbal cues the same way, which can cause confusion when people of different backgrounds are trying to communicate. In Saudi Arabia, speaking loudly conveys authority and speaking softly conveys submission. Americans, on the other hand, are often perceived as brash for their loudness by Europeans. The Finnish language is spoken more slowly than other European languages, leading to a perception that the Finnish people themselves are slow. Some people have a similar perception of the Southern drawl accent in the United States. Examples and Observations We speak with our vocal organs, but we converse with our entire bodies. ... Paralinguistic phenomena occur alongside spoken language, interact with it, and produce together with it a total system of communication. . . . The study of paralinguistic behavior is part of the study of conversation: the conversational use of spoken language cannot be properly understood unless paralinguistic elements are taken into account.- David Abercrombie Paralinguistics is commonly referred to as that which is left after subtracting the verbal content from speech. The simple cliche, language is what is said, paralanguage is how it is said, can be misleading because frequently how something is said determines the precise meaning of what is said.- Owen Hargie, Christine Saunders, and David Dickson Loudness in Different CulturesA simple example of the adverse effects of paralinguistics is quoted in [Edward T.] Hall concerning the loudness with which one speaks (1976b). In Saudi Arabian cultures, in discussions among equals, the men attain a decibel level that would be considered aggressive, objectionable and obnoxious in the United States. Loudness connotes strength and sincerity among Arabs; a soft tone implies weakness and deviousness. Personal status also modulates voice tone. Lower classes lower their voices. Thus, if a Saudi Arab shows respect to an American he lowers his voice. Americans ask people to talk more loudly by raising their own voices. The Arab then has his status confirmed and thus talks even more quietly. Both are misreading the cues!- Colin Lago Vocal and Nonvocal PhenomenaThe more technical discussion of what is loosely described as tone of voice involves the recognition of a whole set of variations in the features of voice dynamics: loudness, tempo, pitch fluctuation, continuity, etc. . ... It is a matter of everyday observation that a speaker will tend to speak more loudly and at an unusually high pitch when he is excited or angry (or, in certain situations, when he is merely simulating anger and thus, for whatever purpose, deliberately communicating false information). ... Among the most obvious non-vocal phenomena classifiable as paralinguistic, and having a modulating, as well as punctuating, function is the nodding of the head (in certain cultures) with or without an accompanying utterance indicative of assent or agreement. ... One general point that has been continually stressed in the literature is that both the vocal and non-vocal phenomena are to a considerable extent learned rather than instinctive and differ fro m language to language (or, perhaps one should say, from culture to culture).- John Lyons Detecting Sarcasm Based on Paralinguistic CuesThere was nothing very interesting in Katherine Rankins study of sarcasm- at least, nothing worth your important time. All she did was use an M.R.I. to find the place in the brain where the ability to detect sarcasm resides. But then, you probably already knew it was in the right  parahippocampal gyrus. ...Dr. Rankin, a neuropsychologist and assistant professor in the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, used an innovative test developed in 2002, the Awareness of Social Inference Test, or Tasit. It incorporates videotaped examples of exchanges in which a person’s words seem straightforward enough on paper, but are delivered in a sarcastic style so ridiculously obvious to the able-brained that they seem lifted from a sitcom.I was testing people’s ability to detect sarcasm based entirely on paralinguistic cues, the manner of expression, Dr. Rankin said. ...To her surprise, ...  the magnet ic resonance scans revealed that the part of the brain lost among those who failed to perceive sarcasm was not in the left hemisphere of the brain, which specializes in language and social interactions, but in a part of the right hemisphere previously identified as important only to detecting contextual background changes in visual tests.The right parahippocampal gyrus must be involved in detecting more than just  visual context- it perceives social context as well, Dr. Rankin said.- Dan Hurley Sources Khalifa, Elsadig Mohamed, and Faddal, Habib. Impacts of Using Paralanguage on Teaching and Learning English Language to Convey Effective Meaning. Studies in English Language Teaching, 2017. file:///Users/owner/Downloads/934-2124-1-SM.pdfIntra-personal Communication http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/baron/Spring_courses/ITP165_files/paralinguistics.htmEmoticons and Symbols Arent Ruining Language – Theyre Revolutionizing It, Lauren Collister - https://theconversation.com/emoticons-and-symbols-arent-ruining-language-theyre-revolutionizing-it-38408Weitz, Shirley. Nonverbal Communication. Oxford University Press, 1974, Oxford.  Matthews, Peter. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2007, Oxford.Abercrombie, David. Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh University Press,1968, Edinburgh.Hargie, Owen; Saunders, Christine and Dickson, David.  Social Skills in Interpersonal Communication, 3rd ed. Routledge, 1994, London.Lago, Colin.  Race, Culture an d Counselling 2nd ed. Open University Press, 2006, Berkshire, England. Lyons, John. Semantics, Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press, 1977, Cambridge.Hurley, Dan. The Science of Sarcasm (Not That You Care). The New York Times, June 3, 2008.

List of US Presidents With Beards

List of US Presidents With Beards Five  U.S. presidents wore beards, but its been more than a century since anyone with facial hair served  in the White House. The last president to wear a full beard  in office was  Benjamin Harrison, who served from March 1889 to March 1893. Facial hair has all but disappeared from American politics. There are very few bearded politicians in Congress. Being clean-shaven wasnt always the norm, though. There are plenty of presidents with facial hair  in U.S. political history. Where did they all go? What happened to the beard? List of Presidents With Beards At least 11  presidents had facial hair, but only five had beards. 1. Abraham Lincoln was the first bearded president of the United States. But he might have entered office  clean-shaven  in March 1861 were it not from a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell of New York, who didnt like the way he looked on the  1860 campaign trail  without facial hair. Bedell wrote to Lincoln before the election: I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. Lincoln started growing a beard, and by the time he was elected and began his journey from Illinois to Washington in 1861 he had  grown the beard for which he is so remembered. One note, however: Lincolns beard was not actually a full beard. It was a chinstrap, meaning he shaved his upper lip. 2. Ulysses Grant was the second bearded president. Before he was elected, Grant was known to wear his beard in a manner that was described as both wild and shaggy during the Civil War. The style did not suit his wife, however, so he trimmed it back. Purists point out the Grant was the first  president  to wear a full beard compared to Lincolns chinstrap. In 1868, author James Sanks Brisbin described Grants facial hair this way: The whole of the lower part of the face is covered with a closely cropped reddish beard, and on the upper lip he wears a mustache, cut to match the beard. 3. Rutherford B. Hayes was the third bearded president. He reportedly wore the longest beard of the five bearded presidents, what some described as  Walt Whitman-ish. Hayes served as president from March 4, 1877 to March 4, 1881. 4. James Garfield was the fourth bearded president. His beard has been described as being similar to that of Rasputins, black with streaks of gray in it. 5. Benjamin Harrison was the fifth bearded president. He wore a beard the entire four years he was in the White House, from March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893. He was the last president to wear a beard, one of the more notable elements of a relatively unremarkable tenure in office. Author OBrien Cormac wrote this of the president in his 2004 book  Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Men of the White House: Harrison may not be the most memorable chief executive in American history, but he did, in fact, embody the end of an era: He was the last president to have a beard. Several other presidents wore facial hair but not beards. They are: John Quincy Adams, who wore mutton chops.Chester Arthur, who wore a mustache and mutton chops.Martin Van Buren, who wore mutton chops.Grover Cleveland, who wore a mustache.Theodore Roosevelt, who wore a mustache.William Taft, who wore a mustache. Why Modern Day Presidents Don't Wear Facial Hair The last  major-party candidate with a beard to even  run for president  was Republican Charles Evans Hughes in 1916. He lost. The beard, like every fad, fades and re-emerges in popularity. Lincoln, perhaps Americas most famous bearded politician, was the first president to wear a beard in office. But he began his candidacy clean-shaven and only grew his facial hair at the request of an 11-year-old schoolgirl, Grace Bedell. Times have changed, though. Very few people beg political candidates, presidents or members of Congress to grow facial hair since the 1800s. The New Statesman summed up the state of facial hair since then: Bearded men enjoyed all of the privileges of bearded women. Beards, Hippies, and Communists In 1930, three decades after the invention of the safety razor made shaving safe and easy, the author Edwin Valentine Mitchell wrote, In this regimented age the simple possession of a beard is enough to mark as curious any young man who has the courage to grow one. After the 1960s, when beards were popular among hippies, facial hair grew even more unpopular among politicians, many of whom wanted to distance themselves from the counterculture. There were very few bearded politicians in politics because candidates and elected officials did not want to be portrayed as either Communists or hippies, according to Slate.coms Justin Peters. For many years, wearing a full beard marked you as the sort of fellow who had Das Kapital stashed somewhere on his person, Peters wrote in 2012. In the 1960s, the more-or-less concurrent rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and student radicals at home reinforced the stereotype of beard-wearers as America-hating no-goodniks. The stigma persists to this day: No candidate wants to risk alienating elderly voters with a gratuitous resemblance to Wavy Gravy. Author A.D. Perkins, writing in his 2001 book One Thousand Beards: a Cultural History of Facial Hair, notes that modern-day politicians are routinely instructed by their advisers and other handlers to remove all traces of facial hair before launching a campaign for fear of resembling Lenin and Stalin (or Marx for that matter).  Perkins concludes: The beard has been the kiss of death for Western politicians ...   Bearded Politicians in Modern Day The absence of bearded politicians has not gone unnoticed. In 2013 a group called the Bearded Entrepreneurs for the Advancement of a Responsible Democracy launched a political action committee whose aim is to support political candidates with both a full beard, and a savvy mind full of growth-oriented policy positions that will move our great nation towards a more lush and magnificent future. The BEARD PAC claimed that individuals with the dedication to grow and maintain a quality beard are the kinds of individuals that would show dedication to the job of public service. Said BEARD PAC founder Jonathan Sessions: With the resurgence of beards in popular culture and among today’s younger generation, we believe the time is now to bring facial hair back into politics. The BEARD PAC determines whether to offer financial support to a political campaign only after submitting the candidate to its review committee, which investigates the quality and longevity of their beards.

Business Ethics and Hospitality

Under the continual changing environment in petitive business, organisations are always r mended to e up with several advanced avenues to stay ahead in respective sectors. The invention goals are always encouraged for the business organisations, in order to achieve sustainable growth in the petitive markets. The goals of the managers in the hospitality and tourism sector are involved with responding to the collaborative relationships locally. However, many organisations are there to consider environmental values as the keys to their successes in modern era hospitality business. Dubai is mainly in the tropical climate that is predominantly based on desert area. Dubai has been suffering from the carbon footprint and this country uses large natural resources. The process of urbanisation creates environmental issues, however, they face scarcity in water, food and building materials. This study has focused on these issues analytically through the activities of Grandiose Resorts and SPA, a widely acknowledged hospitality centre in UAE. R mendations have been given at the end regarding environmental issues of Grandiose Resorts and SPA and an overall conclusion has been provided in the final section. Grandiose Resorts and SPA is working on hospitality sector and this resort has 250 rooms that contain 1 presidential suite in main building and 2 royal presidential suites that provide bird view and tiger enclosure. This resort includes 50 deluxe rooms and 197 superior rooms. This resort is 20 floors in main building and it is located on Jumeirah beach road, UAE. This resort has the features of 2 restaurants, roof top bar with organic herb garden with a butterfly garden. There is pools and game room in the hotel. This resort has the special facility of hunting which is not real and the people can have experience of private beach. The hospitality industry is largely based on the ethical and cultural resources and the hospitality industry engages interacting with the natural system. The practitioners of hotel industry use to ascertain the importance of implementing the ethics and keep developing them to ensure the improvement goals for the hospitality sector. As per the discussion of Collins (2012), tourism has emerged as one of the top industries in last few years. This industry has driven up the global economic growth radically and increased diverse opportunities for the practitioners. With the development of this industry, countries around the world had been able to take part in it either as the source market or as the tourist destination. However, the entire industry is usually operated within a plex environment. This plex environment is often found endorsing negative environmental and social impacts for the businesses. Grandiose Resorts and SPA is a widely recognised tourist destination in UAE, which is visited by numerous people every year. It has earned major acclamations in the petitive markets of his sector and has flourished globally. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has acknowledged the environmental considerations into their ethical values, which have provided them a r mendable goodwill in the market. The energy saving policies they endorsed at their restaurants, bar roof top or all along the hotel property have let them contribute to society at major scale. People within the society have also acknowledged their contribution widely, which had given them a massive drive in the petitive market. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has enabled an advanced waste management system in their organisation, which have again brought them extensive customer loyalty. They have addressed an advanced technology to extract fertilisers from waste food and also recycle them to produce foods for the fishes, animals or the birds inside the hotel. It has been considered as a major step to save the natural resources. The hospitality industry has also expressed their major concern on the animal and aqua lives as well, which had brought them enormous goodwill from the nature lovers along with the conservators (Talib, Rahman & Qureshi, 2012). These moral issues have led them much ahead in the business in parison to their petitors. According to Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell (2012), Grandiose Resorts and SPA has played a major role in saving the aqua live by installing a grand tank for the fishes in their resort. They have also propagated public awareness on the aqua lives, and other sea animals which had pr ovided them with a massive plight in moral consideration issues. Ethical decision-making approaches are highly prioritised in this modern era of hospitality business. Most of the organisations in this sector have enabled their management to follow the guidelines of ethical considerations in order to sustain in the petitive markets for long-term. Most of the decision-making methodologies in the hospitality sector are based on two fundamental approaches, such as Deontology and Teleology. The approaches in the decision-making methodologies of the managements of the business organisations are liable to lead the loyalty through a large-scale consumer satisfaction (Hartman & DesJardins, 2011). Grandiose Resorts and SPA has enabled both these principles in action while ensuring their decision-making methodologies. This organisation has considered all the needful actions under considerations related to the principles of Deontology and Teleology. However, they are not limited to implicate the service options only, they also have aligned them with the present scenario of the business. They have considered diverse factors under control, such as environment, marketing, and people. These factors had been found liable to address the fundamental needs of this sector from the large groups of consumers. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has addressed another framework to be considered in their ethical decision-making process, which were proved as highly effective for the growth of their business. They have followed a Venn diagram that is liable to consider all the needful factors in action. According to Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, & Jackson (2012), ensuring all these three responsibilities in action provide the opportunities to the hospitality organisations to gain massive loyalty among the consumers in a society. Figure 1: Venn diagram of Corporate Social Responsibility (Source: Hooley, Wellens, & Marriott, 2012) The ethical responsibilities followed by Grandiose Resorts and SPA, under the Venn diagram, had considered several environmental issues. They have planned fruitful designs to save the marine lives and conserve them for the benefits of mankind. They have also encouraged the waste management system that is liable to preserve the natural resources and save them from pletes exhaustion. This has been recognised as a major step from their end, mostly in the context of UAE, where the natural resources are being exhausted rapidly due to the rich lifestyles of their residents. The Legal Responsibilities of Grandiose Resorts and SPA have insisted them to follow all the Government rules and regulations. They have ensured all the Corporate Social Responsibilities in their organisation and kept checking them with care. They always tried to imply them into their decision-making policies (Rettab, Brik & Mellahi, 2009). Organisations in Hospitality sector are always liable to earn the maximum profits from their marketing, as it has already been recognised as the most revenue generating industry across the world. They are also liable to provide the highest levels of services to their guests and maintain them always to achieve sustainability in the market. However, in the argumentative words of Politis et al. (2009), managers from this sector often confront massive issues related to the ethical considerations. As per the discussion of Burchell & Cook (2006), the hospitality industry has been found as the major responsible for the negative impacts of the environment. This industry is believed to have frightening consequences over the environmental issues. However, the recent environmental considerations addressed by most of the organisations have changed the perception radically. In most of the cases, the ethical considerations from these organisations have empowered the environmental sustainability effectively. It not only has encouraged the managements to earn more customer loyalty through this, however, it also has allowed them, to meet their financial expectations as well. In the words of Katsioloudes & Brodtkorb (2007), the successful implications of ethical considerations have allowed the organisations to bring an environmental sustainability issues in forth. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has also approved these considerations as beneficial enough for their financial expectations and cons umer trustworthiness.   Grandiose Resorts and SPA has played a major role for the environmental causes and enabled promising actions in energy saving policies. As per their reviews, the hospitality sectors are mostly responsible for the damages in nature as they ruin the biodiversity massively. They find themselves responsible enough for exhausting the natural resources rapidly along with the water resources. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has coined these issues and grudges from the perspectives of the social people. They have always considered these obligations carefully while planning their policies of corporate social responsibilities. Hotel industry provides or contributes largely impact on the environment and this industry is trying to improve the condition at the regional or local context. Grandiose Resorts And SPA produces daily various hazardous products that are liquid, gas, powder, solid or dust particles. These products are not healthy at all. On the other side, non-hazardous products that are non-toxic es out from resorts. These products mingle with sea water and pollute the water. The waste disposal is increasing day-by-day. Grandiose Resorts and SPA can try to manage this with recycling projects. As stated by (Alonso & Csaba, 2012), these toxic and non-toxic products are harmful to both human and animals. Birds are facing issues from the polluted water. Not only water, air is polluted with the hospitality industry. The waste from the hospitality sector gets higher with the advancement of time and these affect the environment directly or indirectly. In global basins, 920, 000 tonnes of food items are wast ed from which 75% food items can be eaten. In the case of Dubai, the cost of food that is wasted in UAE from the hospitality sector is estimated at a few billion per year. As the researches done in the recent time, it is clearly showed that hospitality sectors create the waste that is mostly from 90% of the UK citizens, 30% Americans citizens and 70% of Australian citizens. Plants, sea and animals of Dubai get affected of this place. Local animals in Dubai are Arabian fox, sand Gazelle, Arabian Tahr, Arabian Leopard, Hare and Spiny tailed lizard. This country has several sea animals like, Pelagic, Demersal Fish, the shallows, Khor Kalba etc. Several marine animals are there like, Sea turtles, sea sharks, whales and Dolphins. Dubai faces the issues undrinkable water and emissions of carbon di-oxide etc. In most of the cases, the fundamental idea of improving the social and environmental practices is involved with sustainability. Thus, they are often enabled in the market segmentation processes as well. This process always indicates at a collective form of services, through which organisations are liable to enhance their loyalty from both people and government perceptions. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has also taken several factors into consideration while designing their environmental practices. They have strategized several goals on the basis of their prof itability. However, most importantly they had succeeded to engage their shareholders and stakeholders in their environmental practices Pearce (2012). This consideration has brought them enormous success in the hospitality sector. Grandiose Resorts and SPA must follow Federal Law NO. (24) Of 1999 that is for the protection and Development of the Environment of UAE. The economic responsibilities have also been followed by Grandiose Resorts and SPA, which included several actions under consideration. They have implicated strategies to involve guests in the environmental practices while strategizing the CSR activities. They have also propagated public awareness policies while promoting their services. In the words of Hooley, Wellens, & Marriott (2012), appointing local people and training them to work under a workforce culture have benefited the local economic structures effectively. Dubai is a country which is clearly based on the energy of oil resources and the water and air of this place are affected of this. Moreover, in Dubai region where the Grandiose Resorts and Spa are located is nearby the sea as it is on Jumeirah beach. As this place is nearby the sea, the saline water is not healthy for a drink. It is very difficult to purify the sea water as the seawater is very saline. The sea water cannot be drunk and Dubai region is full of oil resources. Energy resources are the main economical standpoint for Dubai and financial support es from energy that is oil-resources. Grandiose Resorts and SPA generates a significant amount of waste that is organic and the hospitality centre can follow recycle option. In addition with this, this organisation can follow reducing the waste costs as it helps to develop reusable resources that e from the landfill.   Any sort of diversification within it may change their goals and conclude with a mere failure in the industry. Approaching towards the maximum number of consumers and providing them the best services are considered as the top priorities for them. However, they are also liable to follow their corporate social responsibilities as well. As stated by Fineman (2001), CSR activities are meant to be providing financial supports as well for the organisations through customer reliabilities. (Refer to Appendix) In Hospitality sector, most of the organisations are associated with the shareholders and stakeholders, who always expect value for their money. They are r mended to be learnt it extensively and convinced about the economic success through it. According to Gentile (2010), controlling the food waste and providing donations of food that have been wasted have allowed them to assure food preservations for the munity and poor people. This is a major advantage they have addressed in order to earn a major scale loyalty among the consumers. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has introduced the most effective tools for their energy consumption policies. One of them is known as the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, which is liable to provide the additional information about nature as well. The use of Centralised Room Management System (CRMS) in Grandiose Resorts and SPA has effectively controlled the air conditioning system. It has allowed them to prevent massive carbon emission caused by the uses of air conditions in the organisation. The use of Centralised Room Management System also helps the organisations to control lightning in the guest rooms. The use of occupancy sensor all along the guest rooms has reduced the overall electricity consumption. Using the LED lightning in the rooms has not only reduced the electricity consumptions, it has also reduced their costs up to 50% per month. Management of Grandiose Resorts and SPA has considered their ethical values with active manner. They have led their strategical movements to the ne xt levels from the conservative techniques. Grandiose Resorts can install a reflective roof with energy curtains in freezer rooms with SAS switched to LED lights as the cost of $2,307 and with the savings of the first year would be high. The technique of solar panel can be taken that reduces the cost of electricity with giving natural energy and heating. mercial fuel cell system can give Grandiose Resorts and SPA a domestic hot water that is more efficiently than electricity. They have also focused on saving the water resources and enabled recycling policies to save the other natural resources. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has coined an extensive range of trustworthiness among the global travellers, who are highly concerned about the natural resources.   Recycling the wastage foods for the animals and produce substances from them for the animals along with the aquatic lives has also provided them with a massive success from environmental perception. Reusing the attributes and other materials for the guests along with the employees have also reduced the consumption of natural resources. The organisation can recycle the food scraps with bulk waste that contain intensive liquid fertiliser. Enabling recycle technologies in the organisations have allowed them to enjoy a r mendable position in the hospitality business sector. They have focused on contributing towards the natural resources and conserve them for the future generations. They have found these techni ques fruitful enough in their economic growth as well, which have encouraged them to introduce several other actions, such as wide solar scales, mercial fuel power system, refillable amenity dispenser, megawatt system, soil moisture system, rainwater harvesting systems, and aerators. Grandiose Resorts and SPA can ensure several actions under their ethical considerations, which included energy management policies for the future generations, water management policies for preservation, and waste management policies for recycling. Grandiose Resorts and SPA can use laundry equipment that has microprocessor with the controlling system, they can implement an ozone system with installing waterless urinals in public and employee restrooms and bathrooms. In the roof, Grandiose Resorts and SPA, they can   use rain gauge for watering the organic garden and they can use soil moisture for pouring water to butterfly garden. Harvesting water that has saved in rain and bio-retention basin can be helpful. Reusing the guest linen and their towels saves the energy and water for the organisations. Water is an issue mostly in Dubai, Grandiose Resorts and SPA can use Aerators on all the place in public and hotel places that helps to reduce the use of water consumption by 40%. Grandio se Resorts and SPA need to maintain the pool where water leaks and waste most water. Moreover, Grandiose Resorts and SPA can distribute 2 types of bins for waste management to the local munities to provide support to the government’s reunification policies such as, plastic, waste. They can use green waste bins for recyclable waste and black for non-recyclable products. Tourism biodiversity conservation in hospitality is one of the important aspects of conservation of animals, birds and plants altogether. Conservation and biodiversity are significant for the corporate social responsibility. Nature conservation is important in Dubai and hospitality industry should look into this. Grandiose Resorts and SPA needs to focus on their CSR activities and enabled their workplaces to follow them effectively. They have encouraged several ethical and moral considerations in their workplaces in order to gain the desired reputation from the global tourists. The proper implications of CSR activities have provided them with a massive loyalty in this sector. Besides, they have also succeeded to gain desired trustworthiness from the government officials and nature conservationists. Under the moral and ethical considerations, they have also insisted their shareholders and stakeholders follow all the guidelines of their environmental practices and CSR activities carefu lly. It is really hard for an organisation to convince them to conduct the CSR activities and consider the ethical values in action. Biodiversity is associated with the ecological processes and it is associated with the human needs. The policy that can be taken by Grandiose Resorts and SPA is reducing the cycling, soil management, purification of water and providing pure oxygen. This system can regulate the climate and manage the air. Corporate Social Responsibilities are considered as one of the most popular terms of modern era hospitality business. Organisations in the hospitality sector are always liable to follow them with proper ethical and moral considerations. Grandiose Resorts and SPA evaluate their ethical and moral standpoints that indicated towards conducting operations without harming the others. This study has tried to analyse all the factors that enhance these considerations. This study has also focused on the issues, which are liable to influence the ethical considerations for the organisations in this sector. The financial expectation goals are also addressed in this study with respect to the implication of environmental considerations. Grandiose Resorts and SPA has provided major evidence in regards to their environmental and social considerations, which have allowed the study to r mended further actions to the organisations. Alonso, M. J., & Csaba, N. S.   (2012).  Nanostructured biomaterials for ove ing biological barriers  (No. 22). Royal Society of Chemistry. Blowfield, M., & Murray, A. (2008). Corporate responsibility: A critical introduction. Oxford University Press. Burchell, J. (2008). The Corporate Social Responsibility Reader: Context & Perspectives. London: Routledge. Burchell, J., & Cook, J. (2006). Confronting the â€Å"corporate citizen† Shaping the discourse of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 26(3/4), 121-137. Campbell, T., & Miller, S. (Eds.). (2006). Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations (Vol. 20). Springer Science & Business Media. Carroll, B. A., & Buchholtz, A. K. (2015). Business and society, ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Collins, D. (2012). Business ethics: how to design and manage ethical organisations. NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2010). Business ethics: managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalisation (3rd ed.). UK: Oxford University Press. DesJardins, J. R. (2012). An introduction to business ethics (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P. R. (2012). Management research. Sage. Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2012). Business ethics: ethical decision making and cases (9th ed.). Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning. Fineman, S. (2001). Fashioning the environment. Organization, 8(1), 17-31. Fisher, C. M., & Lovell, A. (2009). Business ethics and values: Individual, corporate and international perspectives. New York: Pearson education. Gentile, M. C. (2010). Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What? s Right. USA: Yale University Press. Grace, D., & Cohen, S. (2010). Business ethics (4th ed.). South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press. Hartman, L. P., & DesJardins, J. R. (2011). Business ethics: decision making for personal integrity and social responsibility (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Hooley, T., Wellens, J., & Marriott, J. (2012). What is Online research?: Using the Internet for social science research. London: A&C Black. Hyde, K. F., Ryan, C., & Woodside, A. G. (Eds.). (2012). Field guide to case study research in tourism, hospitality, and Leisure (Vol. 6). Emerald Group Publishing. Katsioloudes, M. I., & Brodtkorb, T. (2007). Corporate social responsibility: an exploratory study in the United Arab Emirates. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 72(4), 9-11. Pearce, D. G. (2012). Frameworks for tourism research. UK: CABI. Politis, Y., Litos, C., Grigoroudis, E., & Moustakis, V. S. (2009). A business excellence model for the hotel sector: implementation to high-class Greek hotels. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 16(4), 462-483. Rettab, B., Brik, A. B., & Mellahi, K. (2009). A study of management perceptions of the impact of corporate social responsibility on organisational performance in emerging economies: the case of Dubai.Journal of Business Ethics, 89(3), 371-390. Swailes, S. (2013). The ethics of talent management. Business Ethics: A European Review, 22(1), 32-46. Talib, F., Rahman, Z., & Qureshi, M. N. (2012). Total quality management in the service sector: a literature review. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 6(3), 259-301. End your doubt 'should I pay someone to do my dissertation by availing dissertation writing services from

Stem cells is a scientific breakthrough that's revolutionizing Essay

Stem cells is a scientific breakthrough that's revolutionizing the health care industry - Essay Example Major breakthroughs in stem cell research include developing nervous tissue and dealing with spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke. In fact, stem cell research is a scientific breakthrough thats revolutionizing the health care industry. Since they are derived in the embryonic stages, these stem cells are often called as embryonic stem cells or just ES. The role played by ES in health care industry today is solely dependent on their cultures derived in laboratories. It is well known that stem cell cultures can be maintained and proliferated in the presence of bovine serum. The cultures allow blastomeres or ES cells to be subjected to differential treatment such as nuclear disintegration of cells, nuclear injection into de-nucleated blastomeres and so on to derive the desired tissue. It has been observed that by such differential treatments, the blastomeres differentiate into the tissue of the nucleus donor cells. Thus, any damaged organ of the body can be recreated through ES cultures and differentiation. The main applicability of ES cell research is the creation of fresh organ tissue that can be inserted in the damaged area in the human or animal body to replenish the organ and restore its functions. This has been successfully conducted in treating spinal cord injuries, strokes and functional diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Yet there is a long way to go. For starters, the biggest limitation of stem cell therapy is that it is restricted to creation of commonly occurring and specific tissue masses and cannot be used to replace or regenerate an entire organ. Therefore, through systematic stem cell culture, the endoderm, mesoderm or ectoderm can be recreated to be replaced in damaged organs, but in no way can an entire organ like a heart be constructed through regenerated tissue sets. Other

BIOGRAPHY ON THOMAS JEFFERSON, INCLUDE HIS WRITINGS Term Paper

BIOGRAPHY ON THOMAS JEFFERSON, INCLUDE HIS WRITINGS - Term Paper Example He wanted to be remembered for the things people owed to him. His tombstone, which he designed for himself, read,† Here was buried author of declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious Freedom, and father of university of Virginia, Born April 2, 1743 O.S. Died July 4. 1826†, (Irelan,1888). Though, historians wanted to attach other triumphs as well, such as his expertise in linguistics, his distinction as an architect and an environmentalist, but readers of his life are well concurred with his own assessment.(Risjord,1994). MAJOR IDEAS: Thomas Jefferson promoted many philosophical theories such as natural rights, constitutionalism, which automatically leads to justice and democracy. He was a person who believed in equitable distribution of land. One of the major ideas of Jefferson were emphasizing on education’s importance in democracy. He extended the structure of educational system to four stages i.e., elementary school, grammar school, universities and lifelong learning. Jefferson was always known for his huge collection of books throughout the history. When the British burned the Library of Congress during the war in 1812, Jefferson was offered $23,950 for his 6000 volume library, which he agreed upon and sold. His uncountable efforts towards the development of educational sector are commendable. In 1819, he pressurized the Virginia legislature to employ a commission for the need of a university in the state. In 1825, University of Virginia was located in Charlottesville and accepted its first set of students in the year 1826. Thomas Jefferson took great pains for the establishment of University of Virginia. He not only designed the building and the whole campus himself, but also developed the syllabus and hired competent educationist at that time. He also coined the term aristocracy of merit, which signifies the importance of certain group of people who have unique tendencies. According to this, rewards are allocated to the best or those who have talents can rule the world.(Demille, ) Unfortunately, Jefferson’s view of education was limited to the Whites of the society. He also preached about the equality among human beings although he was one of the largest slaveholder, so apparently he excluded blacks or at least his own slaves from the territory of being considered as a human (Massner, 2008) He held an opinion that the states legislature should be the most powerful area due to this he was interested in writing the constitution of the state. EARLY LIFE Albemarle County Virginia, which was then called, Shadwell, was Jefferson’s birth place. He was born on 2nd April in the year of 1743. Thomas was Peter Jefferson and Jane Rudolph’s third child and eldest of the three sons. From Peter he inherited his energetic body and a love of mathematical subjects and a mind to formulate new ways of success and independence. After Peter’s death, Thomas was left with 5 acres of land and an established position and respect in the community (Malone, 1993). Due to his father’s inclination towards education, he had an opportunity of getting an excellent tutoring. He went to boarding schools and thus, excelled in languages. He took classes in William and Mary College at the age of seventeen in Virginia, where his majors were mathematics, science, philosophy, literature, rhetoric. He went to study law when

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Coursework

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Achieves Managements Objectives - Coursework Example Additionally, improvement of the safety and health management systems within the organization will improve productivity of working by reducing fears that are usually impacted on them from severely injured workmates. Therefore, the main purpose of initiating and implementing SHMS to its totality is to reduce costs related to injuries at workplace. Notably, saving a crewed by effective implementation of SHMS will definitely exceed the SHMS workplace costs (American National Standard, 2005). The effective SHMS’s critical elements includes the commitment of the management and the employees’ involvement, prevention and control of hazards, supervisors, managers, and employees’ training, worksite analysis. The culture of the organization can have direct influence on safety and health management system successes within the organization. Therefore, this organization must play vital role in ensuring its success in relation to the SHMS (Czerniak and Ostrander, 2005). The management is the first organ of the organization that will be required to manage SHMS just like it would manage other organizational duties and concerns. In other words, the management must integrate safety and health management systems into all organs or departments of the organization (American National Standard, 2005). Moreover, all the departmental heads must be involved personally in establishing safety and health accountabilities within their departments. â€Å"The workplace must be safe and healthful to every employee. All employees must follow and adhere to safe and healthful work practices and outline in each work practice’s safety and healthy rules and regulations.† It is worth noting that working with each departmental head, SHM rules and regulations will be established for every work practice towards ensuring that all the workplaces are safe and healthy for all workers at all

High Level Customer Satisfation and Competitive Advantage Essay

High Level Customer Satisfation and Competitive Advantage - Essay Example Amazon UK has been in the front line in ensuring that its market is diversified (Chaffey 2012). This paper is going to evaluate how Amazon has continued to achieve high-level customer satisfaction and competitive advantage. Service Operations Concept Amazon UK has been a key player in the electronic commerce. Its vast market has been as a result of application of high levels of management and customer satisfaction (Chaffey 2012). Generally, electronic business has evolved over time to include all aspects of interworked technologies. The company’s stated strategy is to focus on customer experience by offering low prices, convenience and wide selection of merchandise (Chaffey 2012). First established as a pure online book retailer, Amazon decided to expand its products and services offering. As a result of new expansion strategies, new business models were introduced in 1999. When Amazon went online, the book industry was highly fragmented with the largest retailer Barnes & Nobl e only representing 11% of total book sales (Chaffey 2012). Amazon redefined traditional books retailing through a radical different approach: online through the internet. This move can be termed as a strategic one with Amazon analysing traditional book retailing drawbacks and focusing on new approaches that would revolutionalise the market (Hunt 2000). With the traditional book retail market, it is impossible to provide a customerised store for every customer. One of the key issues Amazon considered before venturing into online book retailing was advantages accrued from this approach. For example, internet retailers have advantages of centralized inventory management and low occupancy costs. On the other hand, a large number of global customers can be reached from a single central location (Chaffey 2012). Competitive Objectives Competitive objective is realised by a company that operates more efficiently or in a high quality way as compared to its competitors, which then results to the benefits that the company will realize (Barney and Clark 2007). It can also be defined as the benefit realized by a company and one which can provide the same value as that of its competitors but at a lower price, or setting a higher price and provide greater value by way of differentiation (Barney and Clark 2007). It is a result of the match of core competencies of the organization to its opportunities. An organization can also be said to have competitive advantage over its competitors if it realizes greater profits as compared to the average profits realized in the industry it is in (Grant 2005). Most businesses have the goal of achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In order to achieve this, Amazon can be argued to have utilized the concept of competitive objectives in order to conquer the market (Chaffey 2012). However, the underlying principle is quality and customer satisfaction. One of the most important concepts in achieving high levels of customer satisfaction is through track of customer purchasing patterns and need to evaluate their consumption behavior (Hunt 2000). This helps anticipate demand and to provide personalised services. All these can be achieved through online retailing approach. Amazon offers more than one million titles online, but only stores less in its warehouse. This was a big venture and success Amazon experienced unlike when it could have concentrated

Thomas Lanier Williams III Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thomas Lanier Williams III - Essay Example Thesis religions education and values of his grandfather had a great impact on themes and motifs used by Williams in his plays. The religious dimension is appeared in his early plays and portrayed as an important part of characters life. One of his best early one-act plays, Portrait of a Madonna, is at once a pathetic portrait of a deranged Southern spinster, precursor of Blanche DuBois of Streetcar, and a grotesque parody of the immaculate conception. Miss Collins both believes and denies belief. She has been brought up in the shadow of the Episcopal church but feels she has been abandoned by the church. Her walk in the scorching, merciless sunlight is a kind of passion, punctuated with cries to God, Jesus, and a "merciful Christ in Heaven" who show her no mercy. The recluse who believes herself pregnant wants to educate her imagined child privately, "to make sure that it doesn't grow up in the shadow of the cross and then have to walk along blocks that scorch you with terrible sunlight" (Bigsby 2004). The collapse of her belief turns her life into nightmare, as Williams makes amply clear through the tightl y woven pattern of Christian reference turned into parody and developed through imagery of light and shadow (Bigsby 2004). In Summer and Smoke the rectory is the home of a deranged woman and the angel in the park which dominates the set brings at the end not heavenly mercy or the "Eternity" inscribed at its base but the traveling salesman. The central irony of this struggle of body and soul is that by the time that Dr. John finally recognizes that human beings do have souls, Alma has given up hope and searches for satisfactions of the body alone. God's mercy comes not in the form of spiritual aid but in sleeping pills. As Alma tells the salesman, "Life is full of little mercies like that, not big mercies, but comfortable little mercies. And so we are able to keep on going." In The Rose Tatoo Serafina can shed her loneliness and prolonged grief and find love again only after she has blown out the candle under the Madonna's image. The priest is ineffectual and cannot solace her (Bloom 2003). Only in Mangiacavallo does she find renewed life. The Night ofthe Iguana gives us another ineffectual minister, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon.Locked out of his church for heresy and fornication, Shannon rages romantically against the traditional image of God as a "senile delinquent" and wants to preach "God as Lightning and Thunder," in oblivious majesty before the terrors of the human condition. His own suffering is described by Hannah as a "voluptuous crucifixion," and her final appeal to God at the end of the play is only the last link in a chain of imagery of crucifixion and unsuccessful resurrection, of Christian belief gone awry. . Dr. John in Summer and Smoke will be married on Palm Sunday. Orpheus Descending reaches its wild climax on Easter Sunday and the lynching of Val Xavier becomes as a result a brutal parody Christian imagery becomes a means of denying Christian belief. In its quieter forms the combination produces cosmic irony; in its most violent manifestations, grotesque parody (Bigsby 2004). In the Glass Menagerie , religion is used as a unique theme which helps Williams to unveil false dreams and ideals of the character. On the level of plot, this circle of reference enhances the credibility of the dramatic situation. Given Amanda's sham

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Coursework

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Achieves Managements Objectives - Coursework Example Additionally, improvement of the safety and health management systems within the organization will improve productivity of working by reducing fears that are usually impacted on them from severely injured workmates. Therefore, the main purpose of initiating and implementing SHMS to its totality is to reduce costs related to injuries at workplace. Notably, saving a crewed by effective implementation of SHMS will definitely exceed the SHMS workplace costs (American National Standard, 2005). The effective SHMS’s critical elements includes the commitment of the management and the employees’ involvement, prevention and control of hazards, supervisors, managers, and employees’ training, worksite analysis. The culture of the organization can have direct influence on safety and health management system successes within the organization. Therefore, this organization must play vital role in ensuring its success in relation to the SHMS (Czerniak and Ostrander, 2005). The management is the first organ of the organization that will be required to manage SHMS just like it would manage other organizational duties and concerns. In other words, the management must integrate safety and health management systems into all organs or departments of the organization (American National Standard, 2005). Moreover, all the departmental heads must be involved personally in establishing safety and health accountabilities within their departments. â€Å"The workplace must be safe and healthful to every employee. All employees must follow and adhere to safe and healthful work practices and outline in each work practice’s safety and healthy rules and regulations.† It is worth noting that working with each departmental head, SHM rules and regulations will be established for every work practice towards ensuring that all the workplaces are safe and healthy for all workers at all

Thomas Lanier Williams III Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thomas Lanier Williams III - Essay Example Thesis religions education and values of his grandfather had a great impact on themes and motifs used by Williams in his plays. The religious dimension is appeared in his early plays and portrayed as an important part of characters life. One of his best early one-act plays, Portrait of a Madonna, is at once a pathetic portrait of a deranged Southern spinster, precursor of Blanche DuBois of Streetcar, and a grotesque parody of the immaculate conception. Miss Collins both believes and denies belief. She has been brought up in the shadow of the Episcopal church but feels she has been abandoned by the church. Her walk in the scorching, merciless sunlight is a kind of passion, punctuated with cries to God, Jesus, and a "merciful Christ in Heaven" who show her no mercy. The recluse who believes herself pregnant wants to educate her imagined child privately, "to make sure that it doesn't grow up in the shadow of the cross and then have to walk along blocks that scorch you with terrible sunlight" (Bigsby 2004). The collapse of her belief turns her life into nightmare, as Williams makes amply clear through the tightl y woven pattern of Christian reference turned into parody and developed through imagery of light and shadow (Bigsby 2004). In Summer and Smoke the rectory is the home of a deranged woman and the angel in the park which dominates the set brings at the end not heavenly mercy or the "Eternity" inscribed at its base but the traveling salesman. The central irony of this struggle of body and soul is that by the time that Dr. John finally recognizes that human beings do have souls, Alma has given up hope and searches for satisfactions of the body alone. God's mercy comes not in the form of spiritual aid but in sleeping pills. As Alma tells the salesman, "Life is full of little mercies like that, not big mercies, but comfortable little mercies. And so we are able to keep on going." In The Rose Tatoo Serafina can shed her loneliness and prolonged grief and find love again only after she has blown out the candle under the Madonna's image. The priest is ineffectual and cannot solace her (Bloom 2003). Only in Mangiacavallo does she find renewed life. The Night ofthe Iguana gives us another ineffectual minister, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon.Locked out of his church for heresy and fornication, Shannon rages romantically against the traditional image of God as a "senile delinquent" and wants to preach "God as Lightning and Thunder," in oblivious majesty before the terrors of the human condition. His own suffering is described by Hannah as a "voluptuous crucifixion," and her final appeal to God at the end of the play is only the last link in a chain of imagery of crucifixion and unsuccessful resurrection, of Christian belief gone awry. . Dr. John in Summer and Smoke will be married on Palm Sunday. Orpheus Descending reaches its wild climax on Easter Sunday and the lynching of Val Xavier becomes as a result a brutal parody Christian imagery becomes a means of denying Christian belief. In its quieter forms the combination produces cosmic irony; in its most violent manifestations, grotesque parody (Bigsby 2004). In the Glass Menagerie , religion is used as a unique theme which helps Williams to unveil false dreams and ideals of the character. On the level of plot, this circle of reference enhances the credibility of the dramatic situation. Given Amanda's sham