Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 33

Case Study Example Britt might be compelled by the culture in the company, as informed by Sue, regarding the information provided by George. In the case, George is willing to disclose and use insider information for the company to present a winning bid, probably at a fee. The returns of the act might be big, but the acts of ensuring the tender wins are unethical. In this regard, Britt is entitled to at ethically, and avoid getting involved in the acts. As a matter of fact and responsibility, she is supposed to disclose such information to the management. The hardest part would be such disclosure as the ethical misdemeanor is led by the team leader, whilst the management can compromise such information to get the tender. Notwithstanding, Britt should go ahead and do the right thing, hoping for the best possible response from the company. As an ethics officer, it is vital to discuss the belief of discussing a pending proposal with a decision making team. The issue is hard to tackle, but very vital and relevant to the parties, as it tries to curb future malpractices. Ethical malpractices if discovered may make a company less appealing to the essential stakeholders, making it lose profitability. One way of communicating the issue to the firm is by engaging the workers in a one on one discussion. As an officer, one can approach the employees on a personal basis and enlighten them on the ills on such a behavior. The officer can research for various cases that negatively affected other companies and effects on individuals of such companies. Such information will be vital in ensuring that the employees are conversant with challenges of unethical practices and thus try to refrain from the same. Another practical way of ensuring that the employees of such a firm are addressed on the issue is organizing conferences. Such conferences should be well tailored to handle ethical issues and if necessary other issues on good corporate responsibilities. Such a move, even though initiated by an

Sustainability Principles in Conditions of Contract & NEC &JCT SBC Essay

Sustainability Principles in Conditions of Contract & NEC &JCT SBC Compared - Essay Example an essential aspect of the economy and a fundamental agent for attaining environmental targets and reducing environmental footprints of people and also improving the health of people in the UK. This culminated in the Joint Government and Industry Strategy which was presented in 2008. The Strategy was to present a framework for coherence and convergence in delivering sustainable construction (Construction Products Association, 2013). The scope spans across design, innovation, procurement, people, registration, climate change issues and waste and natural resource matters (Construction Products Association, 2013). The fundamental ends sought to be attained include increasing productivity through the use of more efficient resources, encouraging firms to use sustainable products and enhancing company image and profile (European Commission, 2011). This report undertakes a comparative analysis between the JCT Standard Form of Building Contracts and the Industrys Governments Strategy for Sustainable Construction. To this end, a review of the JCT 11 is conducted alongside the Sustainable Construction Strategy. Also, significant clauses in the NEC 3 EEC is reviewed alongside the JCT 11 on some critical and fundamental issues like defects and testing, compensation events and notifications and negotiation of disputes. The JCT 2011 provides a standard form of contract that must be followed in the creation and implementation of construction contracts between a financier (employer) and a contractor (Wright, 2012). This is to be moderated and monitored by an architect who has to play the role of an independent assessor who evaluates the issues and matters. In terms of the JCT 2011, the main element of the standard form of contracts involves the fact that the contract is to be administered between the employer and the contractor under the oversight of the architect. Therefore, all sustainability issues and matters must be integrated into the contract and the architect, who

Conquerors or Jinas Essay Example for Free

Conquerors or Jinas Essay Jainism originated in ancient East India by the birth and ultimate liberation of twenty four conquerors or Jinas. People of the Jain faith believe that Jinas are human beings who become divine by subduing their sensual desires and overcoming karma, which is the accumulation of good and bad deeds. Good deeds allow living beings to be reincarnated into superior forms, while bad deeds force them to accept inferior forms after death (â€Å"Jainism†). The Jains believe that the first Jina or conqueror was a giant living on earth 8. 4 million years ago. The last Jina was Mahavira or The Great Hero, born in 550 BC. Mahavira is known as the founder of Jainism, seeing that he was able to attract a large number of followers to his faith (â€Å"Jain Dharma†). Like Siddharta Buddha, Mahavira had belonged to the warrior caste and â€Å"renounced the world† at the age of thirty (â€Å"History of Jainism†). Also like the Buddha, Mahavira had sought spiritual reality in the solitude of asceticism. Ultimately he had found enlightenment, although it had taken him thirteen long years to get there. He had converted eleven Brahmans to his faith soon after. By the time of his death, he had founded a community of ascetics with fourteen thousand monks and thirty six thousand nuns. Mahavira is further known to have starved himself to death – a practice referred to as salekhana (â€Å"History of Jainism†). According to the Jains, Mahavira is one of the fortunate ones, as he has â€Å"conquered love and hate, pleasure and pain, attachment and aversion, and has thereby freed ‘his’ soul from the karmas obscuring knowledge, perception, truth, and ability (â€Å"Jain Dharma†). † The first and foremost principle of living taught by Jainism is called Ahimsa or non-violence toward all living beings. Thus, the followers of Jainism have never encountered a problem of violence in their history. The only issue that the people of the Jain faith have had to confront is disunity. Two hundred years after the attainment of nirvana on the part of Mahavira, the Jain faith was divided into two sects: the Digambar and the Svetambar. Both sects hold different views or beliefs about a number of issues. For example, Digambar monks of the Jain faith do not wear anything because of their belief that clothes serve as reminders of the world. Svetambar monks, on the other hand, are known to wear seamless clothes that are usually colored white. Moreover, the Digambars are of the opinion that women are unable to attain liberation while they are living as women on earth. Svetambars, on the contrary, believe that women may indeed achieve liberation seeing that one of the Jinas was a woman. Likewise, the Digambars and Svetambars have varied views about the prayers that are traditionally recited by the Jains (â€Å"Jainism†). The Jains do not believe in a creator of the universe. According to them, the world is without beginning or end. Furthermore, there is no single god of the universe (Sivananda). The following is a prayer of the Jains describing their unique concept of divinity, following by a brief introduction of the same: I bow to the Arahants, the perfected human beings, Godmen. I bow to the Siddhas, liberated bodiless souls, God. I bow to the Acharyas, the masters and heads of congregations. I bow to the Upadhyayas, the spiritual teachers. I bow to the spiritual practitioners in the universe, Sadhus. This fivefold obeisance mantra destroys all sins and obstacles, and of all auspicious repetitions, is the first and foremost (Welcome to Jainism. org). Jains believe that all living beings are the same essential soul, but those human beings that perfect or liberate themselves are turned into gods. These souls – part of the single soul of all living beings, albeit separate – are worshipped by the Jains. Furthermore, these souls are the only ones that do not have to deal with karma any longer. They have achieved salvation through enlightenment, abandonment of worldly attachments, and asceticism. By controlling their selfish desires, they have followed their spiritual teachers to the core. For them, Jainism is the only true religion. Additionally, by attaining the divine status, they have become omnipotent and omnipresent (Sivananda). Before becoming gods, the liberated souls were able to achieve death at will. On the other hand are souls that are so attached to life that they do not wish to end their lives on earth. Such souls die nevertheless. Their death is Akama Marana, the death of helplessness, leading the soul to return to earth in an inferior form (â€Å"Death in Jainism†). There are seventeen kinds of deaths in the Jain faith: â€Å"Avici-marana; Avadhimarana; Atyantika-marana; Vasarta-marana; Valana-marana; Antahsalya-marana; Tadhava-marana; Akama marana; Pandita-marana; Balpandita-marana; Chadmastha-marana; Kevali-marana; Vaihayasa-marana; Guddhapristha-marana; Bhaktapratyakhyana-marana; Inginta-marana; and Padopagamana-marana (â€Å"Death in Jainism†). † Unsurprisingly, all of these separate types of deaths lead to a different kind of life after death. Jains are believers in the reincarnation of all living beings. Thus, the soul that dies the Pandita-marana death is said to have left the earth in peace and with satisfaction (â€Å"Death in Jainism†). The best kind of death is, of course, the very last one, that is, the end that leads to ultimate liberation from the process of rebirth (â€Å"Jainism†). Besides Ahimsa or non-violence, which forbids actions that cause verbal, emotional or physical harm to living beings; the principles of human behavior that the Jains must adhere to include the principle of Satya or the command to speak the truth and avoid falsehood; Asteya, or the command not to steal; Brahmacharya, or the principle demanding all Jains to remain monogamous in their sexual relationships; and Aparigraha, which is the principle of detaching oneself from the world by a reduction of worldly desires and abstinence from hoarding of material wealth (â€Å"Jain Dharma†). The Jains do not convert people to their faith. Hence, anybody who is willing to follow the faith of Jainism must believe in these moral principles and follow them without compulsion (â€Å"Jainism†). Jains additionally believe that every living being has the potential to attain ultimate liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The perfect and liberated souls serve as models on the path of attaining liberation. However, all living beings are responsible for their individual good or bad actions (â€Å"Jainism†). In order to attain ultimate salvation, souls must also believe in the triple jewels, that is, â€Å"[r]ight faith, right knowledge and right conduct (Sivananda). † Right faith constitutes belief in the perfect and liberated souls as real gods, the Jaina Sastras (written by spiritual teachers) as the scriptures of the Jain faith, and the saints of Jainism as the real teachers. Right knowledge provides the follower of Jainism with an eye of certainty that sheds all doubts. Right conduct, of course, constitutes the five moral principles that all Jains must adhere to, including Ahimsa, which compels all Jains to live as vegetarians (Sivananda). Lastly, Jains believe in overcoming all biases and prejudices, and gathering the viewpoints of others, despite the fact that the followers of the faith are divided into sects (â€Å"Jainism†). Works Cited â€Å"Death in Jainism. † Answers. 2007. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. answers. com/death%20in%20jainism. â€Å"History of Jainism. † Religion Facts. 2007. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. religionfacts. com/jainism/history. htm. â€Å"Jain Dharma. † Religious Tolerance. 15 Aug 2005. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. religioustolerance. org/jainism. htm. â€Å"Jainism. † Answers. 2007. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. answers. com/topic/jainism. Sivananda, Sri Swami. Jainism. 17 Oct 2004. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. dlshq. org/religions/jainism. htm. Welcome to Jainism. org. 16 Nov 2007. http://www. jainism. org/.

Reasons For The Merging Of Companies Economics Essay

Reasons For The Merging Of Companies Economics Essay There is no doubt that mergers play a great role in the development of an economy. In this essay, a merger will be defined as a combination of two corporations in which only one corporation survives and the merged corporation goes out existence (Gaughan, 2007, p. 12). After a merger, the newly-established company will hold two merged companies assets. In this way, mergers offer more chances for companies to become bigger and stronger. At the same time, customers may receive better services than those before a merger. However, the topic of mergers motives has long been the subject of debate, as different companies put forward different reasons to merge. Some of them are economically sound, while some of them are not. In fact, from the current studies, it can be seen that there are two big types of motives, one is economic motives and the other is non-economic motives. Although some people argue that motives of mergers lie in some non-economic reasons, such as the political reasons, the managers reasons, and so on, others take a different view and emphasize that because of that the raison dà ªtre of a company is to make profits, most motives of mergers are for sound economic reasons. Thus, this essay is an attempt to argue that the main motives for mergers are economically sound reasons. It also aims to show the importance of different economic motives, even though some people claim that there are many failures that resulted from those motives. In addition, the ineffectiveness of non-economic motives will also be checked to support the main argument. In order to demonstrate this, this essay will first focus on the growth motive of mergers. The case of PO and Stena will also be added into the discussion. Second, different types of synergy will be illustrated to explain how valid this motive is to help companies to become stronger. Third, the electronic giant General Electronic (GE) will be given as a good example to discuss the significance of the diversification motive. Fourth, the example of the Exxon-Mobil Oil Company will be used to show some other economic motives. Finally, there will be discussion about some non-economic motives such as power motives, achievement motives, and political motives and so on, though these are some less common motives for mergers. 2.0 Economic Motives 2.1 Faster Growth If a company seeks to make a merger with other firms, the most popular motive may be growth. As Denzil (2001) points out, one of the most successful types of merger may be a merger with a growth motive, because it is easy and quick to beat competitors and take the lead in markets. When a company wants to expand, there are several choices: internal growth or growth through mergers. Internal growth means companies go to buy land and build more factories, employ new staff, or search for a market to sell products and so on. This is a long way to go. However, if companies use the method of merging, it will save them much time to do other things such as research and development or market promotion. Moreover, through merging, companies may easily occupy the market, enlarge the market share, and beat the competitors (DePamphilis, 2003). If mergers occur in different regions, this means companies are improving its fame and becoming more globalised, this means more customers may know about the company, in other words, more potential benefits will move to the company. Although there are a great number of obvious benefits that companies will face, others disagree with the motive of growth. In their opinion, growth is a difficult goal to achieve and is not a sound economic reason. As Gaughan (2007) indicates, when a company has already accomplished growth in the past, it is difficult for corporate managers to keep growing. However, after achieving growth in the past, managers will look for some other ways to keep growing. Among those ways, Mergers could be the fastest and the most efficient way. Companies do not need to take couples of year to build workshop, and recruit new employees. In addition, with less time to spend, growth via mergers can be gain through the lowest-risk way (DePamphilis, 2003, p. 356). Long time means more uncertainties, which are more risks. How to avoid those risks? It is better to spend less time, and complete mergers quickly. As a good example of growth motive, the case of Johnson Johnson should be introduced. Johnson Johnson is one of the biggest manufacturers of health care industry in the world. It was established by Johnson and his two brothers in 1986 in New Jersey of United States. At that time, it was a company which only had fourteen workers. In the early 1920s, with the development of businesses, Johnson Johnson began to build branches in other places such as America, Europe, Asia and Africa. However, over the period 1995 to 2005, Johnson Johnson took a series of mergers. Through those mergers, Johnson Johnson have gained a greatly fast growth. So far, Johnson Johnson have owned more than 250 subsidiaries in 57 different countries and 115 thousand employees. Its products are available in nearly 175 countries (Stock Johnson Johnson, 2010). The global revenue of Johnson Johnson in 2008 was 63.7 billion US dollars (JNJ Income Statement, 2009). From the example of Johnson Johnson, we can see, with the development of an increasingly globalized world, growth can be one of the most efficient and fundamental motives of mergers. 2.2 Different Types of Synergy As another important motive, synergy is the popular choice for companies to make a merger. Synergy means the extra energy or effectiveness that people or businesses create when they combine their efforts. In mergers, according to DePamphilis (2003), synergy refers to corporate combination will produce more profits than that the sum of their separate status. Therefore, synergy is often used to explain the phenomenon of 1+1=3. In mergers, this means the combination of two companies may generate three companies effect. Just because of this, many companies try their best to seek the opportunities to combine with other corporations. If synergy occurs in mergers, it focuses on two sides to raise the profitable ability of companies: revenue enhancements and cost reductions (Gaughan, 2007, p. 133). For example, if Coca Cola make a merger with a fruit producer, as a result, it will save more spending to buy raw material for its soft drinks. This is called cost reductions. When Coca Cola have gained a lower price of raw material, it can reduce some prices of its drinks. In this way, lower price will make a promotion of its drinks. This is named revenue enhancements. Though the actual fact is more complex than this example, the truth is the related theory would be basically the same. Although synergy has enhanced the profitability from revenues and costs, some people do not agree synergy should be a good economic reason for mergers (Gaughan, 2007). From their point of view, the synergy effect can only be described the mergers of companies in the same industry or seller-buyer relationship, and it is not suitable to other diversified mergers. In order to respond this, economies of scope should be introduced as a concept that is confused with economies of scale. Economies of scope can be defined as the ability of a firm to utilize one of set of inputs to provide a broader range of products and services (Gaughan, 2007, p. 129). If a company is able to utilize its workforce, and facilities, synergy also can be achieved. Most failures of mergers with synergy purpose are because of their leaders inefficient management ability and not the motive of synergy. Several examples of mergers motivated by the pursuit of synergy have achieved the success. After the 1994 merger between Radisson Diamond Cruises and Seven Seas Cruises, the combined cruise lines began to provide cheaper price of beds and itineraries. This is because, as a result of merger, fewer managers will be needed to maintain the relationship with the same districts travel agencies. Hence, costs reductions are gained. Moreover, with the larger size of company, the fame of company is improving. This enables sales force to make a promotion more easily. As a result, more customers will come to enjoy their trips. Therefore, revenue is enhanced by this way (Gaughan, 2007, pp. 127-128). With motive of synergy, companies are not only able to increase its revenue, but also decline its cost. Thus, we may see how valid the synergy motive is. 2.3 Diversification When a company has already been the bellwether of one industry, managers of the company may consider some diversified merger to expand its size and make more profits. Diversification provides conditions of expansion by applying companies goodwill in former industry to other different product field, and it can also provide conditions of forming scale effect (DePamphilis, 2003, p. 20). Through diversification, it is foreseeable that companies may have the chance to gain significant earnings, because a new industry means a new opportunity. Opportunity should be the best thing for companies managers. Another side about diversification, as Gaughan (2007) pointed out, is that companies may obtain continuous competitive advantage. This is because if General Electronic can hardly sell its military products to armies in a peaceful time, but it can also seek profitable opportunities in other field such as insurance, healthcare, plastics, energy, and so on. This is the theory about continuous c ompetitive advantages. As long as a company becomes a diversified one, it will acquire the privilege of enjoying continuous competitive advantage. Compared with its positives, one accusation for diversification as not a valid economic reason is that there are some potential risks when companies expand into another industry. If companies cant handle the risks well, it may bring damages to them. A study carried out by Berger and Ofek (1995), using a large sample of firms over the 1986-1991 sample periods, found that diversification caused an average 13% to 15%s loss of firm value. The study also found that the loss of firm value was less than that of when the diversification occurred, and it was not affected by firm size. However, some evidence suggest diversification do not directly lessen firms value. One finance researcher, Villalonga, believes that the diversification discount is because of incorrect use of data of several researchers (Villalonga, 2004, cited in Gaughan, 2007, p143). As Gaughan (2007) points out: The data used by those researchers were artificially restricted by Financial Accounting Standards Board definition of segments as well as requirements that only segments that constitute 10% or more of a companys business are required to be reported. Using a data source that is not affected by this problem, Villalonga finds a diversification premium, as opposed to a discount (Gaughan, 2007, p143). Although there are many companies that have suffered failures at diversification, others argue that they have achieved great success with mergers at diversification. The most successful example is General Electric (GE). Unlike its name, now GE is no longer an electric company. Through a series of mergers at diversification, GE has become a diversified giant with operations insurance, television stations, plastics, medical equipment, and so on. Especially during the 1980s and 1990s, during the fourth merger wave, GE had made a great number of Mergers with various companies, and it has benefited significantly from those combinations (Gaughan, 2007, p. 137). In short, although mergers with diversification might have potential risks to the newly combined company, more diversified mergers may provide a bigger market for companies to make profits as what GE have gained. 2.4 Other Economic Motives There are two sound other types of economic motives for mergers: horizontal integration and vertical integration. Generally, in horizontal integration, market power and market share are raised through mergers. While in vertical integration, both merged firms have a buyer-seller relationship, hence, the combination may provide a dependable source of supply and lower costs advantage (Gaughan, 2007, pp. 145-155). In horizontal integration, market power stands for the leadership of a market (DePamphilis, 2003, p. 69). Sometimes, market power may gain from market share, and it is well-known that market share may easily gain as a consequence of horizontal integration. Once market power is achieved by one company, all the other rivals in the same market will probably be affected. Their pricing strategy, promotion plan, product research and development and so on will probably all follow with the leader of the market. This is similar to the situation of Nokia in the Mobile Phone industry. However, in a vertical integration, both merged companies will benefit from the integration. One company will not worried about the sales of its products, and the other will not be concerned with the source of its raw materials. However, there has been a debate that both horizontal integration and vertical integration may bring several negatives to the market and consumers. One of the most being criticized is monopoly competition (DePamphilis, 2003, p. 24). After mergers, the power of merged companies will get bigger. Thus, the structure of the industry will tend to monopoly, which means merged companies may beat others using pricing strategy and the public will pay significantly for this. Although, sometimes, when this situation happens, government will release various policies to prevent this situation from continuing. This is the reason why Coca Cola failed to merge with one of Chinas biggest juice companies, Huiyuan Juice Group. In 2009, Coca Cola planed to purchase Huiyuan Juice with 2.4 billion US dollars. This deal was blocked by Chinas ministry of commerce with the reason that Coke might abuse its dominant position in Chinas soft drinks industry (Sundeep Tucker, 2009). However, most of the time, as long as companies will not affect markets and customers by means of some illegal ways, government wont stop these mergers. In fact, the worlds largest Oil Company, Exxon-Mobil Oil Company, comes from a merger. In 1998, there was a megamerger in the Oil industry. Exxon announced its merger with the Mobil Oil Company. At that time, both two companies were the leading companies in the Oil industry. After merging, in order to achieve the synergistic gains, the companies need to successfully integrate its resources. As a result, this merger was extremely successful. Two years later, the combined Exxon-Mobil announced that the merger saved them approximately $4.8 billion which is higher than the estimated $3.8 billion. With successful operation of the following years, in 2006, Exxon-Mobil announced its highest annual profits that the firms annual profits in 2005 were $36 billion and its sales were $371 billion. Exxon-Mobil became the largest company in the world (Gaughan, 2007, p. 146). From the example of Exxon-Mobil and discussion above, we could see that no matter horizontal integration or vertical integration, those economic motives will be beneficial to merged companies. Therefore, these economic motives are the sound motives for mergers. 3.0 Non-economic Motives There are several non-economic motives which exist in mergers such as power motives, achievement motives, and political motives and so on. Most of the time, these motives only exist in the mind of managers of merged companies. Therefore, it is less sound for researchers to pay attention to them as motives for mergers. 3.1 Power Motives and Achievement Motives Power motives refer to the peoples pursuit of control over others by means of increasing source of power, and this is particularly serious in some top managers in merged companies (Schmalt, 1987, cited in Carsten Lausberg and Teresa Stahl, 2008, p.6). With the possibility of a higher position through mergers, it is no wonder that these managers will often support the proposal of mergers. Usually, after mergers, these newly combined companies will have a bigger size. More workers will add into different teams or departments for mangers to supervise. These things are what the managers seek for. Through this way, they have got a continuous increase of power. It is common to see that a person will be judged successful or unsuccessful by various criterions. Hence, achievements become the most vital thing for some managers. Since it may be the fastest and most efficient way to enlarge companies size and improve companies value though mergers, most managers who have the achievement motive will let companies go to merge. Furthermore, merger is a highly complex and energy consuming thing and people will recognize the managers of successful mergers. Therefore, a person with a strong achievement motive will take the risk of pushing companies to merge (Carsten Lausberg and Teresa Stahl, 2008, p.7). However, the reason why these two motives and motives like that are not main reasons for companies mergers is that, in nowadays companies, decisions are made by the whole members of the Board. Any single man could hardly affect the entire Board of directors opinions about decisions except for family firms or totally private companies. In addition, according to Gaughan (2007), mergers often take place in companies that have a good corporate governance structure and a clear responsibilities right of shareholders, board of directors, board of supervisors, managers. Hence, it is less common to see mergers with these personal motives. 3.2 Political Motives It is difficult to find one accurate definition for political motives. In general, however, people regards political motive as a motive which aims to serve for politics. Sometimes, politicians need more economic successes to earn more votes. For instance, in order to enable the Chinese people to enjoy more about the telecom service, in 2008 the Chinese government decided to make several mergers among the six largest state-owned telecom companies including China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Tietong, and China Satcom (Xinhua News Agency, 2008). However, it is hard to see mergers with political motives. This is because, primarily, political motives mergers often occur in the countries which have a similar political system like China. There are less of them in the world. Secondly, even though this situation happens, the core of a merger with a political motive is also the economic success. Hence, the political motive is, actually, an economic motive. Non-economic motives can either be some personal motives or the alias of economic motives, thus, they will not be seen as the sound motives. 4.0 Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has attempted to demonstrate that economic motives are the main reasons for different companies mergers. Despite the fact that some people argue that there are some potential risks among these economic reasons, focusing on negatives, the positives of these economic motives stand out. Furthermore, it is also true that various successful examples have shown the importance of these economic motives that have been discussed above. This is why, in recent years, more and more researchers have put their effort to study the topic of MA. Economic motives are not only the first step of merging, but the root of mergers, although, in the process of a merger, there will a great amount of works to be done in future. Currently, after the global financial crisis, there is another trend for companies seeking for mergers. How to avoid the potential risks of these economic motives and transfer them to the real profits is an issue that is open to question.

Negative Effects of Violent Video Games on Teenagers Essay examples --

Video games have been available to consumers for the last 30 years. They are a unique form of entertainment, because they encourage players to become a part of the game's script. Today's sophisticated video games require players to pay constant attention to the game, rather than passively watching a movie. My working thesis is â€Å" Although there are other factors that can lead to violent behaviors such as inner stress, playing violent video games are one of the main factors that can lead to violent behavior in teens relationships†. For the categorizing exercise, I brainstormed for the charting using some of the examples we hold in class. I found three main classifications to divide my evidence based on. Those categorizes are background of author, for and against, and type of evidence. The most important categorizes for my final paper is the background of the author, and for / against. The authors of both articles have an academic specialty background in the study of violence causes in teenagers. Although the two authors have two opposing opinions. The first one is Craig Anderson, got a PHD in psychology in Iowa state university wrote an article entitled â€Å"The Influence of Media Violence on Youthâ€Å", supported my working thesis about the harming effect of violent video games. He stated that violent video games increase levels of aggression in teenagers. He stated his argument based on his observations which claims that teenagers spend most of their times in front of games. He found out that when reducing the exposure to violent video games, teenagers tend to lessen the violent behavior. When I read more about this point from some other resources, I found out that there is another clear explanation to this claim. The main direction of... ...idn’t give anything. He found that those who played violent video games lack academic skills in reading and math. He concluded through his study that violent video games affects teenagers’ academic life too. I see that violent video game consumes so much time from teens’ lives that it drains their energies to lessen their concentration. As a conclusion, I found the charting exercise very useful to write the evaluating essay. I ended up with four main categories. The most important two are mixed together which are categories by for/against and background of author. Then I introduced the categories by the type of evidence and by effects. I found out that there are many counter argument for all categorizes, which gave me the space to argue for my working thesis. I reached that I have a good start based on the unique significant classification for my final paper.

Hybrid Cars Essay -- Cars Car Hybrids Gas Essays Vehicle Automobile

I have always wondered what Hybrid cars were all about. Especially because over the past couple of years gas prices have been at record highs. I knew that there were such things as electric cars but until this last year or so I have only seen the wealthy be able to afford to drive them. And from what I had heard about Hybrid cars was that they were over priced, small, and not so attractive cars. No wonder nobody owns them. Now I am starting to see them more often and they aren’t as bad as everyone had said. For this exploratory essay I first wanted to figure out what a hybrid car was and how it compared to regular cars. I wanted to find out everything that there is to know about them. I wanted to research the hybrid as if I wanted to buy it, which I do. First off in my search I wanted to figure out what exactly a hybrid car was and how it worked. There are two configurations for hybrid cars. The first configuration uses a gasoline engine to run a generator. The generator supplies electricity to the motor, which drives the wheels, which allows the gasoline engine to run constantly while achieving optimum fuel efficiency. This then minimizes emissions owing to incomplete combustion. A hybrid car with parallel configuration uses both an engine and a motor to drive the wheels depending on driving conditions (1). Hybrid cars use both gas and electric. The gasoline engine is the primary source of power, while the electric motor is used at low speeds. Emissions levels are reduced because the gasoline engine shuts off at low speeds. An additional benefit of the parallel configuration is that no outside source of electric power is required because the engine itself generates the required electricity(How Stuff). As I was searching on the internet; I also had in mind to find out if everything I had been told about hybrid cars was true. Things like they are expensive to repair, you have to replace the battery all the time, or that they aren’t very safe. In my search I came across an article by Don Hamonds, a writer for the post-gazette, which helped clear some things up. As for high repair costs, technical problems, and the lack of technicians to serve the vehicles that is to be expected but as the popularity grows so will the convenience of owning a hybrid car. The automotive career development center trains about 3,000 people each year to ... ...). This was a topic that kinda scared me. Not only is the driver not safe in the car, if the electrical system shuts down, but the rescuers are putting themselves in danger. I guess the car company’s are putting their best efforts forward, but only time and experience will help everyone get past this obstacle. Next I wanted to see how the hybrid car compares to a regular car. I know so far that it gets better gas milage that a regular car dose, but how much better and what else dose it have to offer. I found a very interesting article that was about a guy and girl that worked for the sierra club that went on a road trip to compare a Toyota Prius and a GMC Yukon. They went on a 700 mile trip and compared them to each other. The Prius got 45.5mpg and the Yukon got 16.3mpg, which is a huge difference. On the total trip the Yukon used 43.01 gallons costing $60.24. Whereas the Prius only used 16.3 gallons and it only cost $22.84. To me that is worth buying the Prius. But the most amazing thing was the prius only produced 308 pounds of Co2 in the air but the Yukon produced about 820 pounds. After reading this I was shocked at how much Co2 was put into the air( Hattam 1-4 ).

Psychology & Understanding Human Behavior: the Individual

Psychology & Understanding Human Behavior: The Individual PSYC120-1203B-06 Introduction to Psychology IP5 Psychology & Understanding Human Behavior: The Individual President Barak Obama is who I have chosen to do my research and analysis on for this class as he is one of the most controversial people that I can think of today. With him being the President of the United States he is known all over the world. After being the President for almost four years a lot of what he has done in office has really upset a lot of people by him going against what the Presidents before him had worked so hard to establish.This country was built on Christian principles by our founding fathers and it seems that this country in the last 4 years has strayed very far from where it was and should be. With that being said I chose him because I wanted to delve into his childhood and his upbringing to see what if anything may have caused him to become who is known to be today. Barack Hussein Obama, ll was born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the older of two children. Barack is what you would consider bi-racial individual. His father’s name is Barack Obama, Sr. and he is African American. His mother’s name is Ann Dunham and she is from an English ancestry mixed with Scottish, German, Swiss, and Irish cultural backgrounds. His parents met when they were students at the University of Hawaii in 1960 in a Russian class. Barack’s father was a foreign student who was attending the college on a scholarship. His mother was originally from Wichita, Kansas. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor her father, Stanly enlisted in the service, and her mom got a job on the bomber assembly line.When the war ended her parents bought a house through the Federal Housing Program and finally after many moves the family ended up living in Hawaii. His parents got married on February 2, 1961 however they separated when his father went to Harvard University on scholarship and eventually the couple divorced in 1964 (Main article: Early Life and Career of Barack Obama). His mom later remarried an Indonesian man name Lolo Soetoro who was attending college in Hawaii as well. From the age of six until the age of ten Barack lived in a city called Jakarta where his younger sister Maya Soetoro Ng was born.In 1971 after being scared for her son’s life on several occasions and wanting him to get a good education, Ann decided to send her son to Hawaii to stay with his grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham. He gained a scholarship under his grandparents’ guidance and attended a private preparatory school where he was one of three blacks. He started there in the fifth grade excelling in basketball. It was at that school when he became attentive to racism and what it meant being a black man. However, that did not keep him from graduating with honors in 1979.His mother was there to see his progress until having to leave in 1977 to go back and work in Indon esia as an anthropological field worker. She did however return back to Hawaii in 1994, but in 1995 she passed away from ovarian cancer. He struggled though with the fact of his father being absent from his life who he saw only once after his parents divorced for a short visit. At the age of 22 he learned that his father who had lost his legs in a previous car accident had now lost his life due to a car accident in Nairobi.After finishing high school, Obama took classes at Occidential College in Los Angeles for two years, and then later transferred to Columbia University in New York. Receiving his degree in 1983 from Columbia in political science and working in the business sector for two years, he moved to Chicago. He was involved in the communities, and started working on the South Side as a community organizer for low-income residents in the Roseland and the Altgeld Gardens Community. He also during this time joined the Trinity United Church of Christ even though he admitted that he wasn’t raised in a religious home.He also visited his relatives in Kenya as well as the graves of his father and paternal grandfather. Obama said that during his visits to these graves, â€Å"I saw that my life in America—the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago—all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away. † (2012, Biography. com) Upon his return from Kenya he entered Harvard Law School in 1988. This would be the beginning of a great life for Barack.The very next year, he met Michelle Robinson who was an associate at Sidley & Austin law firm in Chicago. She was assigned to be his adviser during a summer internship at the firm, soon after that they began dating. After he completed law school he decided to return back to Chicago where he joined the law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland as civil rights lawyer. He also during this time taught at the University of Chicago Law School, and he also help organize the voter registration drives form Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.On October 3, 1992 he married Michelle and they moved to Kenwood on Chicago’s South Side. In 1998 their first daughter Malia was born followed by another daughter Sasha who was born in 2001. Obama’s work as an advocate is what actually helped him propel his start in politics. He ran for the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat and won the election in 1996. During his time there he worked with both Democrats and Republicans in putting together a legislature on ethics, as well as expanding health care services and early childhood education for the poor. He also created the state earned-income tax for poor people.In 2000 he had an unsuccessful run for Democratic seat of the U. S. House of Representatives. Though this failure did not stop him from putting together a campaign committee in 2002 to raise funds for the 2004 U. S Senate race which he won by 70% in November 2004. This was the largest electoral victory in Illinois history and made him only the third African American to be elected to the U. S. Senate since its reconstruction. February 2007 he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination which put him in competition with Hilary Clinton who was then the Senator for New York.However, on June 3, 2008 he succeeded her and she gave her full support to his campaign. November 4, 2008 he defeated Republican candidate John McCain for the position of the U. S. President. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States and the first African American to hold this office. The psychological perspective that I chose to discuss about Barack Obama was behavioristic. Reason being is because most people view behavioristic people as being controlled by their environment and think that they are the result of what they have learned from their environment.With that being said, Obama had what some would call a strike against him being that he was multiracial. With his mother being white and his father was being African American he was teased about his race and it was hard for him to fit in at times. Though he was considered a black man, he stayed with his grandparents and mother whom were Caucasian to the eye. Though being teased, he did his research and used it in his advantage. Both parents were smart, so he pretty much inherited their brains. His mother and father attended college, as well as his step-father.Barack excelled in school; he was a teacher, and a leader. Even though his environment was a tough one growing up Obama became a successful man who has accomplished more than most people in his 51 years. The Humanistic Psychology has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths is that it shifts the focus of the behavior to the individual or whole person rather than the unconscious mind, genes and observable behavior etc. It also s atisfied most people’s idea of what being human means because it values personal ideals and self-fulfillment (McLeod, S. A. 2007). Carl Rogers believed that people have one basic motive, and that is the tendency to self-actualization. He believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization that they must be in a state of congruence. In other words he felt that when a person feels that they have become who they want to become and it is congruent with their actual behavior then they have achieved self-actualization (McLeod, S. A. , 2007). Maslow on the other hand felt that most people would never achieve this level which was his 5th level on his hierarchy of needs pyramid.He felt that in order for people to progress from level to level certain things needed to be met. In order to reach that 5th level you would need to fulfill the 1st through the 4th. These levels are the biological and psychological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love need with the 4th level being t he esteem needs (McLeod, S. A. , 2007). This theory’s weakness would be that with the basic concept behind the theory of being free will, it is difficult to both develop a treatment technique and study the effectiveness of this technique.While this theory may work for a simple issue, you wouldn’t use this approach to treat someone for something like schizophrenia. In conclusion what I have learned from psychology is that everyone is unique and we all tend to have our quirks. Will we ever understand everyone completely? Most likely not because being the humans that we are we change constantly. Our environment and the people we associate with play a tremendous part in who we are and in whom we become. Just like in the workplace, people come from all various walks of life working together in a small office like I do may or may not always get along.Can we use psychology to try an understand them? Sure, I believe that is possible, but you can only learn why an individual ac ts the way they do by being able study them from the beginning of their life to now. To be honest I find psychology a little stressful so for me to actually want to pursue it outside of this class and maybe do it at my workplace is kind of out of the question at this present moment. For me I will leave it up to the professionals who have decided that they want to spend their time dissecting people and their strange minds.One thing that psychology has taught me is that never to make a snap judgment on the way someone is behaving because there is always an underlying cause for their behavior. This is one thing that I will do my best not to do anymore at my workplace or life in general. You never know what one has been through or may be going through, so until you have that understanding never make an assumption and categorize them. The following statement, â€Å"you can’t understand others unless you understand yourself† to me does carry a lot of truth.The feedback that I have received from both my peers and my professor in this class has caused me to take a deeper look inside myself as a person. To see what others think of me by what I say or write has definitely been an eye opener. To see myself through another person’s eyes is what all of us should try to do on a daily basis with the people we are surrounded by. I was always told, â€Å"you don’t need to worry about what other people think of you† but sometimes you just can’t help but wonder what goes through someone’s mind when you walk into a room or say something to them.Psychology in itself does allow you to put on different lenses to see things about yourself and others in a different light. It is just like putting on different lenses on camera allows you to adjust how far away or how close you see things, psychology does just the same. One man named Same Gosling states in his article Mixed Signals on psychologytoday. com, â€Å"we think we know ourselves better than others do but yet we are biased when it comes to seeing ourselves in a good light that we become strangers to ourselves. In other words we need to take the time to listen to people when they do give us feedback on ourselves as it will help us in the long run and not just take it as jealous criticism. Honestly, I will never again allow myself to think that someone is criticizing me because they are jealous. Instead I will take what they say and allow myself to re-examine what I have said or done to cause them to think that way about me. We are all human and none of us regardless of what we think are perfect. We make mistakes just like everyone else. We say and do things to cause harm to others just as they do to us.However, if we just take a minute to see our behavior through their eyes then we might can understand ourselves better and in turn understand them as well. There are all kinds of psychology resources that we can utilize to help understand ourselves and the wor ld around us if we will just take the time to search them out. There are numerous self-help books in bookstores today, and there are plenty of resources on the web such as articles, personality tests, and more. We should do all we can to explore these resources to get a better understanding of our world.If you take a look at the world today there are a lot of hurt, angry, and confused people out there who no one seems to notice or care about. We have become a society that is so driven on a me, me, me attitude that the rest of the world seems to have faded away from our view. If we use what psychology has taught us to explore why people are hurt, angry, confused and acting the way they are then we might be able to help them get to the root of their issues and deal with them. Psychology to me is all about getting to the heart of the matter, finding the root cause and dealing with it.I say let’s stop medicating people, or covering things up and pretending it is all okay when it isn’t. Let’s use what psychology has taught us to try to understand people and why they act the way they do. In order to do that though, we have to start with ourselves in this process because how can we effectively help anyone if we can’t even help ourselves? References 1. Edwards, Roberta (2008). Barack Obama: United States President 2. Gosling, Sam (2009). Mixed Signals Retrieved from http://www. psychologytoday. com/articles/200908/mixed-signals 3. McLeod, S. A. (2007).Simple Psychology; Carl Rogers Retrieved from http://www. simplepsychology. org/carl-rogers. html 4. McLeod, S. A. (2007). Simple Psychology; Maslow | Hierarchy of Needs Retrieved from http://www. simplepsychology. org/maslow. html 5. McLeod, S. A. (2007). Simple Psychology; Humanism Retrieved from http://www. simplepsychology. org/humanistic. html 6. Mendell, David (2002). Obama: From Promise to Power. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-085820-6 7. Obama, Barack. (2012). Biography. co m. Retrieved 10:44, May 23, 20122 from http://biograpgy. com/people/baracl-obama-12782369