The rising cost of health care in the united states Essay

The rising cost of health care in the united states - Essay Example With this type of healthcare cost the average person whether they are single or within a family will not be able to afford healthcare unless something is done to help them. Ginsberg cites several key factors in the rise of healthcare: This information is significant because of the many healthcare problems that are creating denials from insurance companies for the average American if they have a condition that the insurance company does not want to cover. Merrill Matthews, Executive Director, Council for Affordable Health Insurance, states that there are many reasons why healthcare is expensive. He states that the high cost of technology is one of these reasons. Many doctors upgrade their equipment and the more they do this the more expensive the healthcare is for the individual who needs it. In many cases like LASIK or bariatric surgery patients have to pay out of their pockets to get care. When they pay out of their pocket they expect more but when they are receiving healthcare that someone else pays for they tend to use more of it (par. 6). Reinhardt suggests that the administrative overhead that most hospitals and clinics have is really what is driving the cost of healthcare higher. In his article he quotes The McKinsey Global Institute study that found that administrative cost and health insurance was 21% of this higher cost; this translates in 2008 to $150 billion (par. 4). This report also said that 85% of the higher cost can be attributed to private insurance companies. The New York Times had a different opinion about the high cost saying that it was none of the regular things that people think like the aging of baby boomers or the high cost of drugs to treat disease: it is because the United States is wealthy. This editorial states that Americans use more specialists than other countries and that the specialists overuse some things like CAT scans and M.R.I machines ("The High Cost of Health

Impressions After Reading Jane Eyre Essay Example for Free

Impressions After Reading Jane Eyre Essay Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, was met with great enthusiasm and became one of the best sellers since it was published in October 1847. The story of Jane Eyre takes place in northern England in the early to mid-19th Century. It starts as the ten-year-old Jane, a plain but unyielding child, is excluded by her Aunt Reed from the domestic circle around the hearth and bullied by her handsome but unpleasant cousins. Under the suggestion of Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary that sympathizes Jane, Mrs. Reed sends Jane to Lowood Institution operated by a hypocritical Evangelicalist, Mr.  Brocklehurst, who chastises Jane in front of the class and calls her a liar. At Lowood, Jane befriends a young girl named Helen Burns, whose strong attitude towards the school’s miseries helps Jane a lot. Also, she is taken under the wing of the superintendent, Miss Temple. After spending eight years at Lowood, six as a student and two as a teacher, she accepts a governess position to teach a loverly French girl named Adele at Thornfield, where she falls secretly in love with the garden’s owner, Rochester, a man with a warm heart despite a cold face outside. However, fate decides to play a joke on Jane. On the wedding day , as Jane and Rochester prepare to exchange their vows, Jane is being told that Rochester has a legal wife, Bertha Mason. Knowing that it is impossible for her to be with Rochester, Jane flees Thornfield. Penniless and hungry, Jane is taken by Rivers siblings Mary, Diana and St. John. , who live in a manor called Moor House. Jane happily accepts the offer of teaching at St. Johns school. She later learns that the Rivers siblings are actually her cousins and that she has inherited from her under a vast fortune, which she divides among her new family. At that time, St. John is about to go on missionary work in India and repeatedly asks Jane to accompany him as his wife. One night, when she is about to accept St. John, Jane experiences a mystical connection with Rochester, and she decides to seek him out at Thornfield. She discovers that the estate has been burned down by Bertha, who died in the fire, and that Rochester, who was blinded in the incident, lives nearby. Jane goes to him at once, at there they get married. The development of Jane Eyre’s character is central to the novel. From the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment. An orphan since early childhood, Jane feels exiled and ostracized at the beginning of the novel, and the cruel treatment she receives from her Aunt Reed and her cousins only worsens her feeling of alienation. Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community, Jane feels the need to belong somewhere. Thus Jane says to Helen Burns: â€Å"To gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest†. This desire tempers her equally intense need for autonomy and freedom. Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal of Rochester’s marriage proposal. Jane believes that â€Å"marrying† Rochester while he remains legally tied to Bertha would mean rendering herself a mistress and sacrificing her own integrity for the sake of emotional feelings. On the other hand, her life at Moor House tests her in the opposite manner. There, she enjoys economic independence and engages in worthwhile and useful work, teaching the poor; yet she lacks emotional sustenance. Although St. John proposes marriage, offering her a partnership built around a common purpose, Jane realizes their marriage would remain loveless and that this kind of freedom would constitute a form of imprisonment, because she would be forced to keep her true feelings and her true passions would be always in check. Nonetheless, the events of Jane’s stay at Moor House are necessary tests of Jane’s autonomy. Only after proving her self-sufficiency to herself can she marry Rochester and not be dependent upon him as her â€Å"master. † Edward Rochester, despite his stern manner and not particularly handsome appearance, wins Jane’s heart, because he is the first person in the novel to offer Jane lasting love and a real home. Although Rochester is Jane’s social and economic superior, and although men were widely considered to be naturally superior to women in the Victorian period, Jane is Rochester’s intellectual equal. As Jane says: â€Å"I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result†. Rochester regrets his former libertinism and lustfulness, nevertheless, he has proven himself to be weaker in many ways than Jane. St. John Rivers provides the most typical model of Christian behavior. He is a Christianity of ambition, glory, and extreme self-importance. St.  John urges Jane to sacrifice her emotional deeds for the fulfillment of her moral duty, offering her a way of life that would require her to be disloyal to her own self. But Jane ends up with rejecting to sacrifice passion for principle, which doesn’t mean she abandons a belief in God. Jane ultimately finds a comfortable middle ground. For Jane, religion helps curb immoderate passions, and it spurs one on to worldly efforts and achievements. These achievements include full self-knowledge and complete faith in God. Mr. Brocklehurst, the cruel, hypocritical master of the Lowood School, illustrates the dangers and hypocrisies that Charlotte Bronte perceived in the nineteenth-century Evangelical movement. Mr. Brocklehurst adopts the rhetoric of Evangelicalism when he claims to be purging his students of pride, but his method of subjecting them to various privations and humiliations, like when he orders that the naturally curly hair of one of Jane’s classmates be cut so as to lie straight, is entirely un-Christian. Of course, Brocklehurst’s proscriptions are difficult to follow, and his hypocritical support of his own luxuriously wealthy family at the expense of the Lowood students shows Bronte’s criticism to the Evangelical movement. Helen Burns is Jane’s close friend at the Lowood School. She endures her miserable life there with a passive dignity that Jane cannot understand. she believes that justice will be found in God’s ultimate judgment—God will reward the good and punish the evil. Jane, on the other hand, is unable to have such blind faith. Her quest is for love and happiness in this world. Nevertheless, she counts on God for support and guidance in her search. Throughout the novel, Charlotte Bronte may have created the character of Jane Eyre to voice her then-radical opinions. Much evidence suggests that Bronte, too, struggled to find the right balance between moral duty and earthly pleasure, between obligation to her spirit and attention to her body. She hold the opinion that every spirit is independent, though there are differences in social class, in property and also in appearance. Jane Eyre is critical of Victorian England’s strict social system. Bronte’s exploration of personal equalty is perhaps the novel’s most important theme. I would like to use my favorite words that Jane once said to Rochester to end my article: Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! —I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.

Anthropology and Social Work Essay -- Anthropology Humanity Essays

Anthropology and Social Work Anthropologists like myself try to figure out why present day humans are the way they are. Meredith F. Small Female Choices Who are we? How old is the human species? Where did we come from? What do we believe and why? Is our own culture the epitome of civilization? What is reality? How have we arrived at a position where destroying the earth doesn't bother us very much? These, and many, many more are the questions that drive anthropologists to study human beings and our interactions. In fact, the presence of a driving question is the seed that creates anthropologists, as we will soon see. Anthropology is the study of humanity. As one might suspect, given the scope of the questions in the previous paragraph, anthropology is a broad field with many subfields (or methods) of gathering information. Let's look at some of these areas of study, the methodology for each discipline, and a few of the specialists and their research. ETHNOLOGY/ETHNOGRAPHY According to James Spradley (1979) in The Ethnographic Interview, ethnology is "the study of culture" (pg. iii). On the surface, this would seem the simplest of tasks. However most of us are unaware that we are wearing Kant's irremovable glasses' when it comes to viewing other cultures­our own personal biases and beliefs are fully intact. This ethnocentric viewpoint (defined by John Bodley as "the tendency to evaluate other cultures in reference to one's own presumably superior culture"2) is the biggest stumbling block to understanding other cultures and recognizing their own inherent value. The aim of the good ethnographer is to take off the glasses of ethnocentrism as often as possible and learn from other people what their world is like. In order to ... ...1989). Yuqui: Forest nomads in a changing world. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Public Broadcasting Service (Producer). Millennium series: Inventing reality [Videotape]. Rosenthal,E. (1991, December). The forgotten female. Discover 22­27. RuppelShell,E. (1991, December). Flesh & bone. Discover 37­42. Small, M. F. (1993). Female choices: Sexual behavior of female primates. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Spradley, J.P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. Orlando: Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich. Struever, S. & Holton, F. A. (1979). Koster: Americans in search of their prehistoric past. Garden City: Anchor Press/ Doubleday. Stuart, G. E. & McMananon, F. P. (1996). Archaeology & you. Washington D.C.: National Geographic Society. Zastrow, C. (1996). Introduction to social work and social welfare (6th ed.). Pacific Grove: BrookslCole Publishing.

Preventing Falls in the Elderly

Preventing Falls in the Elderly Natalie StJohn University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville As health care becomes more sophisticated and better, other concerns are starting to surface. Such interests that started as mere nuisances are now becoming the focal point of involvement that aims to correct and improve the welfare of individuals. One such clinical concern is the phenomenon of falls, especially with the older population.Falling in elderly individuals is a significant, yet under-recognized and underestimated public health concern (Woolcott et al. , 2009). About 30% of people over 65 years old and living in their respective communities fall annually, with such figures even higher in health institutions and about a fifth of such incidents requires medical attention (Gillespie, Gillespie, Robertson, Lamb, Cumming, & Rowe, 2009).In a one year follow-up study of persons aged 75 years and above living in the community, about one-third reported at least one incident of fall (Tinetti, Speechley, & Ginter, 1988), with a higher annual fall risk of up to 50%, occurred in the oldest population or with the individuals living in nursing homes, with the consequences of injuries and fractures because of falls (like mortality, hospitalization, disability and institutionalization) rise as with the age (Berdot et al. , 2009).The estimated costs associated with falls and fall-related complications are at billions of dollars worldwide (Scuffham, Chaplin, & Legood, 2003; Lewin Group, 2000; Smartrisk Foundation, 2009). Hence, research regarding the factors why elder people fall becomes all the more necessary (Woolcott et al. , 2009). There are several reasons why people fall. Fall risk is multifactoral in nature, with risk factors being intrinsic and extrinsic (Graafmans et al. , 1996). The most common reasons are uncontrolled hypertension, orthostatic hypotension, and use or inappropriate use of certain medications (Gangavati et al. 2011); Woolcott et al. , 2009; Be rdot et al. , 2009). With regards to hypertension and systolic orthostatic hypertension, older individuals suffering from such conditions are at greater risk for falls within a year (Gangavatti et al. , 2011). The study also noted that older patients with their hypertension controlled have no effect with regards to falls (Gangavatti et al. , 2011). The older populations with an increase use of antidepressants, benzodiazepines, hypnotics, and sedatives have a larger and increase chances of falls with elderly persons (Woolcott et al. 2009). This marked increase is most due to the long-lasting effects of benzodiazepines as well as inappropriate psychotropics, and since these medications have anticholinergic properties (Berdot et al. , 2009). There are several ways to mitigate, lessen, or even prevent the chances of the elder population from falling. Interventions with multidisciplinary properties are proven effective in minimizing fall incidents, as well as muscle strengthening balance retraining prescribed at home and assisted by a trained health professional (Gillespie et al. 2009). Tai Chi is also another effective alternative intervention for mitigating falls (Gillespie et al. , 2009). For those with a history of falling, home hazard assessment and modification by a healthcare professional could also minimize chances of falls (Gillespie et al. , 2009). Cardiac pacing for individuals with high risk of falls due to cardio-inhibitory carotid sinus hypersensitivity also has a high chance of being beneficial, as is the withdrawal of psychotropic medications (Gillespie et al. , 2009).Studies have also shown that individually tailored interventions delivered by healthcare professionals are more effective than standard or group delivered programs (Gillespie et al. , 2009). Falls is a highly preventable, yet still highly prevalent cause of injury and even mortality with the elderly. The abovementioned interventions could help in minimizing its detrimental effects. Ref erence: Berdot, S. , Bertrand, M. , Dartigues, J. F. , Fourrier, A. , Tavernier, B. , Ritchie, K. , & Alperovitch, A. , (2009). Inappropriate Medication Use and Risk of Falls-A Prospective Study in a Large Community-Dwelling Elderly Cohort.BMC Geriatrics, 9(30). doi:10. 1186/1471-2318-9-30. Lewin Group (2000). Estimated savings from falls prevented by targeted home modifications. Washington, DC: AARP Public Policy Institute. Gangavati, A. , Hajjar, I. , Quach, L. , Jones, R. , Kiely, D. , Gagnon, P. , & Lipsitz, L. (2011). Hypertension, Orthostatic Hypotension, and the Risk of Falls in a Community-Dwelling Elderly Population: The Maintenance of Balance, Independent Living, Intellect, and Zest in the Elderly of Boston Study. Journal of American Geriatric Society, 59(3), 383-389. doi:  Ã‚  10. 1111/j. 1532-5415. 2011. 03317. x Gillespie, L. D. , Gillespie, W. J. , Robertson, M.C. , Lamb, S. E. , Cumming, R. G. , & Rowe, B. H. (2009). Interventions for preventing falls in elderly peo ple. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (4). DOI:  10. 1002/14651858. CD000340. Graafmans,  WC. , Ooms,  M. E. , Hofstee, H. M. , Bezemer,  P. D. , Bouter,  L. M. , & Lips, P. (1996). Falls in the elderly: a prospective study of risk factors and risk profiles. American Journal of Epidemiology, 143(11), 1129-  1136. Scuffham P. , Chaplin,  S. , & Legood,  R. (2003). Incidence and costs of unintentional falls in older people in the United Kingdom. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 57(9) 740-  744. Smartrisk Foundation. 2009). The Economic Burden of Unintentional Injury in Canada. Smartrisk Foundation Website. Retrieved from http://www. smartrisk. ca/researchers/economic_burden_studies/canada. html. Accessed October 20, 2012. Tinetti ME, Speechley M, Ginter SF, (1988). Risk Factors for Falls among Elderly Persons Living in the Community. New England Journal of Medicine,  319,1701-1707. Woolcot, J. , Richardson, K. , Wiens, M. , Patel, B. , Marin, J . , Khan, K. , & Marra, C. (2009). Meta-analysis of the impact of 9 Medication Classes on Falls in Elderly Persons. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169(21), 1952-1960. doi:10. 1001/archinternmed. 2009. 357.

Regular education classrooms Essay

All students participate in regular education classrooms except students with the most severe disabilities who would be in normalized and age-appropriate classroom on the same campus. Few students are excluded. Level IV – Despite the degree of disability, all students are fully included in general education classrooms. Specialists and teaching assistants provide support for students with the most severe disabilities within the classroom. The regular education teacher is responsible for structuring social interactions with typical peers. The least inclusive proposal places most students with mild disabilities in regular classes, but excludes those with moderate through severe disabilities, placing them in separate rooms within the regular school building (Lilly, 1986). This proposal is closest to the traditional manner of service delivery and is the easiest to implement in terms of using available special educators as support personnel and providing training in methods for regular education teachers to include these children. More inclusive is the proposal to place students with mild or moderate disabilities in regular education classes (Reynolds & Wang, 1983; Wang, Reynolds & Walburg, 1987). The essence and meaning of inclusion evolved from the historical concepts in early childhood special education, that is, mainstreaming and integration. Bricker (1995) discusses the evolution of these terms, noting that mainstreaming refers to the â€Å"reentry of children with mild disabilities be served totally in these settings eliminating the need for pull-out programs. While students with organically-based learning disabilities or moderately demonstrated behavioral disorders would not have been included in regular education rooms in the Level I proposal, they would be included here. Yet, proponents of both levels agree that there will be students with severe and/or multiple disabilities whose needs will not be served optimally in a mainstream environment. They feel that these students will need to participate full-time in separate settings. Level III includes a more extensive involvement of severely impaired students in regular education. All students are included except those who are unable to be involved in academic or social interactions (Gartner & Lipsky, 1987). However, even these students would participate in nearby classrooms which would be as normalized and age-appropriate as possible. The most extreme view is that of full inclusionists, who propose that all students should participate in general education classes. Claiming that to do otherwise would be to support a â€Å"dual-system† for the most disabled, Level IV proponents propose the integration of even profoundly-impaired students into totally normalized classes (Stainback & Stainback, 1984). This position has prompted the strongest reaction of implausibility from those opposed to the Regular Education Initiative. Yet parents and professionals supporting Level IV inclusion do acknowledge that there are situations in which these students cannot be grouped with other s because of instructional differences. Thus, the Regular Education Initiative gives a sense of inclusion for students. Yet, a number of researchers and educators have opposed the Regular Education Initiative strongly. They cite the historical inability and lack of desire of regular education to meet students’ needs. That is the reason why the IDEA cropped up. They worry about the loss of funding and parental right. They also note that most regular educators are not trained to have students with disabilities in their classes. They say that teachers cannot meet societal demands for excellence if they are expected to have vastly different levels of student academic and behavioral performance in their classes. Supporters of inclusion differ in the extent of disability integrated into regular education classes. Some support placement only of students with mild disabilities in regular education, with students demonstrating more severe impairments participating on the regular education campus, but in separate impairments participating on the regular education campus, but in separate classes. The continuum expands to include students with more severe impairments in regular classrooms on a part-time basis, to the full exclusionists, who would have all students participate full-time despite the degree of disability. The problem is how to incorporate students into classes where teachers and nondisabled peers are welcoming as well as competent in dealing with difference. Thus, the debate continues. This paper looks into these inclusionary practices and explores how these are helpful for all concerned. Enormous amount of research has been made to explore the factors associated with caring for a disabled children and the deleterious effects these factors have on parents’ well-being. Research evidences points out that the family attitude greatly contributes to the prognosis. Risk factors such as lack of services and negative attitudes can have an adverse influence on the prognosis of the mentally-handicapped child. Obtainable studies show that most often parents have a negative attitude towards their child with mental disabilities. Parents are weighed down with feelings of pessimism, hostility, and shame. Denial, grief, withdrawal, rejection, projection of blame and finally, acceptance are the usual parental reactions. (Drew CJ, Logan DR, Hardman ML. )

Dante

The Medieval Church played a far greater role in every person's life than it does today. Medieval people believed that God, Heaven and Hell all existed and from the very earliest of ages, they were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them. Everybody would have been terrified of Hell and the people would have been told of the sheer horrors awaiting for them in Hell in the weekly services they attended. The control the Church had over the people was total. Peasants worked for free on Church land. This proved difficult for peasants as the time they spent working on Church land, could have been better spent working on their own plots of land producing food for their families. They paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church (this tax was called tithes). Tithes could be paid in either money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little money, they almost always had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals etc. This usually caused a peasant a lot of hardship as seeds, for example, would be needed to feed a family the following year. What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns; a lot of the stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. A failure to pay tithes, so the peasants were told by the Church, would lead to their souls going to Hell after they had died. This is one reason why the Church was so wealthy. Henry VIII dissolved the Church to get hold of the Catholic Church's money. People were too scared not to pay tithes despite the difficulties it meant for them. You also had to pay for baptisms (if you were not baptised you could not go to Heaven when you died), marriages (there were no couples living together in Medieval times as the Church taught that this equaled sin) and burials - you had to be buried on holy land if your soul was to get to heaven. Whichever way you looked, ... Dante Free Essays on Medieval Church/Dante The Medieval Church played a far greater role in every person's life than it does today. Medieval people believed that God, Heaven and Hell all existed and from the very earliest of ages, they were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them. Everybody would have been terrified of Hell and the people would have been told of the sheer horrors awaiting for them in Hell in the weekly services they attended. The control the Church had over the people was total. Peasants worked for free on Church land. This proved difficult for peasants as the time they spent working on Church land, could have been better spent working on their own plots of land producing food for their families. They paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church (this tax was called tithes). Tithes could be paid in either money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little money, they almost always had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals etc. This usually caused a peasant a lot of hardship as seeds, for example, would be needed to feed a family the following year. What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns; a lot of the stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. A failure to pay tithes, so the peasants were told by the Church, would lead to their souls going to Hell after they had died. This is one reason why the Church was so wealthy. Henry VIII dissolved the Church to get hold of the Catholic Church's money. People were too scared not to pay tithes despite the difficulties it meant for them. You also had to pay for baptisms (if you were not baptised you could not go to Heaven when you died), marriages (there were no couples living together in Medieval times as the Church taught that this equaled sin) and burials - you had to be buried on holy land if your soul was to get to heaven. Whichever way you looked, ...

An Englishman in New York †The Problem Of UK-US English in Freelance Writing

An Englishman in New York – The Problem Of UK-US English in Freelance Writing An Englishman in New York The Problem Of UK-US English in Freelance Writing An Englishman in New York The Problem Of UK-US English in Freelance Writing By Colin Some people see the differences between American English and British English as a problem. I see them as an interesting challenge. And although the title to this article might indicate that I’m English, I am in fact, a British Scot. I am also fully aware there is more to the United States of America than the wonderful state of New York, but I felt it made a good title, so I went with it. Why Has This Difference Come About? The English language arrived in the Americas with the advent of British colonization in the early 17th century. As the British Empire grew, so too did the language, which by 1921 had incorporated around a quarter of the world’s population (approximately 470–570 million people). Since that time, the form of English used in the Americas (particularly in the USA) and that used in the UK, have diverged in many subtle ways, leading to the individual dialects now more commonly known as American English and British English, or on Microsoft Word, as US English and UK English. What Are The Differences? The main differences that have developed between the two strains of English include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms, and date formatting. A few words have even developed completely different meanings, which can mean something in one dialect, but be a source of embarrassment or insult in the other. Some words may not even be used or are unknown to the other. What Is The Impact? As a freelance writer working from home, I am frequently assigned jobs by companies and individuals, more often than not, from the USA. Telecommuting is an area of freelance writing that I enjoy; working with a local Bed and Breakfast on an advertising leaflet one day, and writing a press release for a US-based dot com client the next. It’s exciting and provides a great way to earn a living. But as this kind of work increases, more often than not I am asked to write articles or essays in the target audience’s own version of the English language. In most cases, this means adapting my work into US English. Is There A Right One Above All Others? No. Clearly it depends on several factors, such as intended readership or editorial preference. A freelance writer should take guidance from both the publication type and the editor when deciding which to use. Where the issue becomes cloudy is when you have a large company with a global audience, or with a company that has separate websites covering different geographical locations. I’ve worked with clients in the past that required two separate articles to be submitted for every one assignment, i.e., one copy of an article in US English for their .com website, and the other in UK English for their .co.uk website. Websites such as our very own Daily Writing Tips, has a global readership, yet the difference in language expectation is highlighted where one readership is of greater number than the other. And so an article written naturally in UK English may stand out against the eye of the US English reader. What Then, For The Freelance Writer? Make a judgment call based on the publication’s intended readership. If there is no information available or it’s too hard to pinpoint, ask the editor. Always remember, though, in the world of freelance writing for the Internet, you won’t be able to please all the people all of the time. But above all, make sure the content is interesting and topical, because if it isn’t relevant, no one will even read it to spot where the differences are. Footnote: Did anyone notice this article was written in US English purely for the benefit of DWT’s US-English speaking readership? Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Freelance Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Types of Narrative ConflictThe Possessive Apostrophe25 Idioms About Bread and Dessert

The Demise of De Luxe

The Demise of De Luxe The Demise of De Luxe The Demise of De Luxe By Maeve Maddox In a conversation about hotels the other evening, I heard a woman say â€Å"the lobby was luxe.† I’d never heard luxe without the de. At least not in English. In the French expression the de is a preposition and the luxe is a noun, literally â€Å"of luxury.† In English wed say luxurious. Following French usage, the OED entry gives de luxe as two words and classifies it as an adjective phrase. Merriam-Webster spells deluxe as one word and defines it as â€Å"notably luxurious or elegant; sumptuous or elaborate.† Booksellers have long offered deluxe editions of popular books and the label has spread to other products: The terms special edition, limited edition and variants such as deluxe edition, collectors edition and others, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints or recorded music and films, but now including cars, fine wine and other products. Wikipedia Apparently just plain luxe enjoys wide popularity. Numerous hotels call themselves Luxe Hotel. Luxe and deluxe bump up against each other in newspaper coverage, for example this story in the San Francisco Business Times uses â€Å"luxe† in the headline and â€Å"deluxe† in the story S.F. tower to become luxe hotel (headline) Partners will likely shell out an additional $500 a square foot to convert it from an empty ATT office to the deluxe downtown destination. I came across a hotel site (Maddens on Gull Lake) that offers luxury accommodations, premium accommodations and deluxe accommodations. The word luxe derives from Latin luxus, â€Å"excess† or â€Å"abundance.† I plan to keep putting a de with my luxe. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals"Latter," not "Ladder"The Difference Between "Un-" and "Dis-"

Security Measures Paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Security Measures Paper - Assignment Example Thesis: With network breaches being inevitable, small, medium, and large organizations must have security plans and standard operation procedures in place to prevent, detect, and respond efficiently to intrusions. A security plan is a blueprint of the realization of safety objectives. This is a requirement for small and medium companies by also for large companies. In this case, security plan comprises of numerous elements including evaluation, situation assessment, testing, security policy, and implementation all of which work towards preventing and minimizing the possibility of harm resulting from electronic and other resources through malicious actions, accident, error, or natural disaster. For this organization, situation assessment will work well in ensuring that the appropriate network areas are well protected, the formulated security strategy and plan are comparative to the probable threat, and offer upgrading plans that comprise countermeasures for novel hazards. The scope of an effective network plan will also result to clearly understood security issues, the required security level, and potential attackers among other factors (Daya, 2009, p. 2). Since the network plan scope is limited by the form of threats it covers, often, IT related threats may have a separate IT plan is prepared using specialized knowledge. With the scope, continuous security assessment will enable the organization to determine its progress in promoting network security through the identification of what is to be defended. Often, network security assessment explores the extent to which the vulnerability of people, equipment, locations, service availability, and confidential information is mi nimized and recommended actions for improvement. With the network components to be defended, the next move is the determination of threats to be defended (Sighn, 2011, p.

Theoretical Underpinning of two International Relations Theories Essay

Theoretical Underpinning of two International Relations Theories - Essay Example On the other hand, in â€Å"After America† Brzezinski looks at the imminent fall of the United States from being the leading power in the world (1). The writer focuses on which states are likely to take over from the United States, although he emphasizes that a unipolar world is no longer possible (1). There is also an analysis of how other states will react to the fall of the United states, for example, stating that most second world countries will seek to form regional blocks. Brzezinski is pessimistic about the future, without the United States at the top, and argues that power struggles will ensue between states, especially over regional politics (1). All the same, there is a correspondence between the two articles in that they both consider the future of international relations in the next ten or so years. In addition, the two articles point out the looming power gap that will be caused by the exit of the United States from the apex of global relations. Personally, Slaugh ter’s argument is more compelling since she gives room for non-biased assessment of international relations, after the end of the united state’s hegemony (1). ... argument, not because it is more liberal and thus more optimistic but because her assessment of international relations seems better researched, and the solutions given to the various problems seem more realistic. Considering Brzezinski’s argument, in comparison with that of Slaughter, it is clear that the theoretical assumptions between these two writers are different (1). While Slaughter views the next ten years using liberalist lenses, Brzezinski seems to be more oriented towards the realist perspective (1). Nevertheless, both articles seem to make valid points about the future of international relations as both concur that a unilateral system is no longer possible. This has helped me understand why there are so many countries on the rise, including China, Japan, and India. This phenomenon already tells of a multipolar international arena in the next 20 years. This is regardless of whether the world is viewed from a realist or liberalist point of view. Admittedly, the Unite d States will cease to be the super power in the next few years. This means that the United States will no longer be able to influence international policies. Therefore, it is important that the United States revises its domestic, regional, and international policies, in order to be able to with stand the impending change. Works cited Brzezinski, Zbigniew. After America, 2012. Web. 18 June 2013. Available at www.foreignpolicy.com. Slaughter, Anne-Marie. Problems Will Be Global -- And Solutions Will Be, Too, 2011. Web. 18 June 2013. Available at

IT Trends Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

IT Trends - Essay Example Various organizations such as Gartner and Juniper have listed some of the top technological trends that are leading in the field of information systems. This section will briefly explain two major trends from the two firms According to Gartner, the arrival of Windows 8 made battles related to mobile devices as one of the top technological trend for the year 2012 and 2013. Gartner claimed that the conflict among the vendors to have full attention from the consumers had forced IT managers to be heterogeneous. It was predicted that by the year 2013, mobile phones would overtake personal computers, mostly among those workers whose jobs required them to do so though a few still require the PCs. The rise of mobile devices signaled the end of PCs as well as Windows as the only corporate platform. This means that by 2015, it is highly likely that Windows 8 will be lagging behind Apple and Android, reducing Microsoft’s share (Miller par.4). The mobile money has attracted immense attention and related services have been diversifying and growing rapidly. According to Juniper, the environment in Asia and Africa has led to an increased uptake of mobile money oriented service, leading to the development of other services such as product tracking (Koetsier par. 3). In successfully adopting mobile devices in organizations, it is important to first understand some of the drawbacks such as loss of data and insecurity. In this case, there is a need to provide a strategy or framework for mobile users to work in a secure manner, including the use of applications with business oriented data at prescribed entries to heighten cost savings. Consequently, this will unleash innovation and easily solve business related problems. Another way of effectively adopting mobile devices in businesses is by heavily investing in IT. If the IT staff does not have the ability to support the devices, it is essential to outsource external support to ensure that users have someone they

Organ Donation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Organ Donation - Assignment Example Apart from this, the assignment will also highlight the Catechism belief and other religious belief regarding organ donation. In accordance with Paul II (2000), Catechism of the Catholic Church assumed that by donating organs human can save the life of other human beings. In this regard, Catholic believers have shown their respect for the human life (Paul II, 2000). It also defines their dignity for each human life. Moreover, as per Catholic believe it has been observed that organ donation is completely acceptable if the donor in this context does not bear any risk regarding his/ her life. On the other hand, it is apparent that organ donation is treated as a noble act in Catholic culture, thus donating organs after death is completely acceptable and legal in case of Catholic culture (Paul II, 2000). As per the observation it has been revealed that organ donation is considered as a gift in case of a Hindu culture. Moreover, it is perceived that Hindu culture usually donate their organs only after the death. Apart from this, it has been evident that thousands of Hindus have saved human life every year by donating or transplanting organs to others (NHS Blood and Transplant, 2012). On the contrary, in case of Islamic culture, it has been observed that in the Islamic religious book there is nothing specifically mentioned about organ transplantation. However, in order to identify the reason behind the issue, it has been recognized that organ donation and transplantation are the modern developments of medicine science, thus it has not been written on the Quran (The Ministry of Health Malaysia, 2011). According to Bresnahan et al., (2010), spiritual values and beliefs are the major barriers, which can pose obligations for families in case of organ donation (Bresnahan et al., 2010). It was observed that the United States and China have developed their medical science in order to reduce the mortality rate of human being by

Competencies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Competencies - Assignment Example d nurse to combine knowledge from an assortment of fields such as humanities, health sciences, genetics, health economics and public health for constant improvement of the quality of care they deliver. They are also more qualified than their baccalaureate prepared counterparts to collect, analyze and interpret statistical data in order come up to identify problems within the health sector and design solutions to these issues. This paper discusses the competencies the masters’ prepared nurses acquire during the program and how they aid in improving the health sector. Nursing as an education and a profession is able to address some of the critical issues that arise in this evolving health care system. A study conducted in the USA showed that the US government could save up to 8.75 US dollars annually if hospitals used advanced practice nurses (APNs) in place of physicians for some medical cases. This way they can also plan for their career (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2007). They also help the consumers because they ensure that the service the patients they receive is of high quality and meets set standards. This paper will examine masters’ level competencies for determining the areas that need improvement and if they are still viable given the health care system. I will hence discuss competencies from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), Quality, and Safety Education for Nursing (QSEN) and National League for Nursing (NLN). The AACN outlines master-level competencies for adult nurse practitioners that add to the core competencies for all nurse practitioners (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2007). The adult nurse is the provider of direct health care services. Within this role, the nurse applies nursing theories, scientific knowledge, and contemporary clinical knowledge to assess and manage the health and illness state of a patient. In the assessment of health, the adult nurse practitioner assesses all aspects

Organ Donation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Organ Donation - Assignment Example Apart from this, the assignment will also highlight the Catechism belief and other religious belief regarding organ donation. In accordance with Paul II (2000), Catechism of the Catholic Church assumed that by donating organs human can save the life of other human beings. In this regard, Catholic believers have shown their respect for the human life (Paul II, 2000). It also defines their dignity for each human life. Moreover, as per Catholic believe it has been observed that organ donation is completely acceptable if the donor in this context does not bear any risk regarding his/ her life. On the other hand, it is apparent that organ donation is treated as a noble act in Catholic culture, thus donating organs after death is completely acceptable and legal in case of Catholic culture (Paul II, 2000). As per the observation it has been revealed that organ donation is considered as a gift in case of a Hindu culture. Moreover, it is perceived that Hindu culture usually donate their organs only after the death. Apart from this, it has been evident that thousands of Hindus have saved human life every year by donating or transplanting organs to others (NHS Blood and Transplant, 2012). On the contrary, in case of Islamic culture, it has been observed that in the Islamic religious book there is nothing specifically mentioned about organ transplantation. However, in order to identify the reason behind the issue, it has been recognized that organ donation and transplantation are the modern developments of medicine science, thus it has not been written on the Quran (The Ministry of Health Malaysia, 2011). According to Bresnahan et al., (2010), spiritual values and beliefs are the major barriers, which can pose obligations for families in case of organ donation (Bresnahan et al., 2010). It was observed that the United States and China have developed their medical science in order to reduce the mortality rate of human being by

What is Federalism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

What is Federalism - Research Paper Example The federal government was left to handle the issue of interstate and international commerce and coining of the currency while the states dealt with and regulating the interstate power and to conduct their own elections as well as to exercises their own powers which had not been defined by the constitution. This type of federalism was however overtaken by state federalism which was also known as cooperative federalism where there was cooperation between the state and national government and this took place between 1939 and 1969. There were no clear boundaries where one type of authority began or ended even in the local level of governance. Between 1969 and the present new federalism prevailed. It insists on devolution where the states are given some power and responsibilities and limiting of powers of the federal government. This was called for on the logic that the locals and states were in a better position to be effective since they are at the people’s level and understands the circumstances at that level better than the federal government would. Federalism has allowed sharing of not only power but responsibilities as well. This has led to a peaceful coexistence and working together between the two types of governance system on social issues but more so political issues (Welch, Gruhl, Rigdon and Thomas, 2011). State legislators aim to bring to their respective houses prospective laws and policies that will not only benefit their state but other state as well which leads to coexistence in politics a thing which was previously not possible in the previous types of federalism or would simply be non-existent. A country having the all the powers being held by only one person leads to dictatorship and political problems. This is what happens in nations that lack federalism or even just devolution of powers which are only held by a few people in the government. With the system of federalism where power is divided between the federal and state,

Chinese Business Culture Essay Example for Free

Chinese Business Culture Essay In accordance with our theories, it is necessary for Western exporters to learn about the Chinese business culture in order to be successful in marketing in China. There is an old Chinese proverb, â€Å"Enter village, follow customs†. The Chinese civilization has a long history and evidence shows that the way to get things done in China is to do it in the Chinese way. Chinese business culture is the key to the Chinese way of doing business and their style of negotiating (Fang 1998, p. 71). In this chapter, we aim to provide a framework to help those Western exporters get a better understanding of Chinese people’s business culture. 1. 0 Influence of Confucianism The Chinese culture encompasses diverse and competing philosophies, of which, Confucianism has been identified as the foundation of China’s great cultural tradition. Confucian values emphasis on interpersonal relationship and has provided Chinese business people with a relationship-based business approach (Bond Wang 1983). An ordinary Chinese person would also agree that business and marketing in China is about relationships to a great extent. The principle of harmony and trust in Confucianism reflects an aspiration toward a conflict-free and group-based system of social relations, and also means that communication in a business negotiation should be harmonious. Further, the principle of hierarchy emphasizes that each individual should be conscious of her or his position in the society, which is also evident in a business negotiation in China, especially in a decision-making process. (Bond Wang 1983) 2. 0 Guan Xi The Chinese term guan xi, rooted from Confucianism and translated into relationships or connections, is one of the most important traits of Chinese business culture, referring to the concept of drawing on connections or networks in order to secure favours in personal or business relations (Davies et al. 1995). It is a set of concentric circles of contacts, typically stretching from close family, to distant, to more distant relatives, to classmates, to friends, to friends’ friends, and so forth. In the Chinese business world, networking of guan xi is a peculiar advantage which can contribute a variety of commercial privileges and a great deal of business potentials for the marketer. This approach contrasts sharply with the deal-focused, task-oriented business cultures of North America and northern Europe (Gesteland Seyk 2002). Therefore, to establish a great guan xi with the Chinese counterpart, partners, customers, even the Chinese authorities and government should be an extremely important marketing strategy of Western exporter that wants to be successful on the Chinese market. 3. 0 Establishing a relationship Being relationship-focused, Chinese prefer to deal with family, friends, and persons who they know well and who they can trust. They are uncomfortable talking business with strangers, especially strangers who also are foreigners (Gesteland Seyk 2002). For this reason, the first step of business negotiation in China takes a lot of time outside of the office for socializing. The Chinese invite foreign guests for dinners, sightseeing, and other activities in order to facilitate the process of getting to know each other. The Chinese will want to know about this foreign company, its reputation and its management, and will be especially interested in the background, rank and personality of the individual foreign executives making the visit. A Western executive may become impatient with this step, both out of pressure to reach a deal quickly and out of the desire to separate business from the private aspect. However, what the Chinese are really doing at this stage is to test the sincerity, intelligence and deference of their prospective business partner before considering doing business with him or her. (Fang 1998) 4. 0 Attitudes to contracts Confucianism’s principles of interpersonal relationship and trust can even make many Chinese business people put relationships before contract (Alston He 1996). Many Chinese believe that risk in the business can be minimized by developing a quality relationship of guan xi with their business partners. They are more likely to see a contract as a basis of relationship rather than a legal document. Most of the Chinese executives involved in international business realize that Western executives require formal documents in which delivery dates, responsibilities and procedures are explicitly stated and will respect the clauses which they have agreed to. While the Chinese tend to think that, once a relationship has been established, future problems can be solved without legal recourse. And the Chinese are inclined to prefer agreements that are less detailed than the Westerner. Because, for them, changes are anticipated and those detailed contracts can become relatively useless. (Alston He 1996) Therefore, for a Western exporter, it would be wise to follow the Chinese model and only enter into business relationships with partners one knows and trusts. 5. 0 Face Another important Chinese cultural trait is the Chinese concept of face. In China, face is one’s good reputation in others’ eyes, one’s self-respect, dignity and prestige. If a Chinese is insulted, embarrassed, shamed or criticized in public, he or she will lose face. People can also give their counterpart face by making compliments and doing small favours. Giving face is an effective way to build a solid relationship (Gesteland Seyk 2002). Face issue is also evident in a Chinese business negotiation context. In the business world, negotiations should be conducted to assure that the Chinese counterparts keep face. Because of face consciousness, a Chinese negotiator would refuse to make any concession. Some of the many delays that Western business negotiators encounter are caused by the Chinese counterpart’s unwillingness to risk losing face. A lot of evidence has shown that a great deal will be gained by helping the Chinese to win face and a great deal will be lost by any slight action which may cause the Chinese losing face. As a result, cognition of the Chinese concept of face plays a critical role in successfully doing business with the Chinese. (Fang 1998) 6. 0 Holistic thinking In general, the Chinese have a deductive cognition, which means reasoning based on theory and logic (Brake et al. 1995). The Chinese are highly deductive in their assessment of opportunities and problems. They usually want to be introduced to a new product, service or other business opportunity by way of a theory. This theory should provide them with a straightforward overview of the opportunity. The meaning and application of the principles of this theory should then be demonstrated with data and facts, although quantitative justification and analysis play a less important role in China than in many inductive Western business environments. Chinese people are likely to be resistant to business proposals which are not presented first in a logical form. (Brake et al. 1995) 7. 0 Speech acts As China has a high-context culture, hinting is an exceedingly common way of communication for the Chinese. Sometimes, Chinese speakers feel that they have been very frank with a clear hint, while the Western listeners still can’t catch the point at all. Elements of â€Å"atmosphere† surrounding the conversation, such as previous experience, hierarchy and many other cultural factors modify the literal meaning of a Chinese speaker’s sentences. For example, â€Å"I agree† might mean â€Å"I agree with 15 percent of what you say†. And â€Å"We might be able to† could mean â€Å"Not a chance†. What is said is often not what the listener is expected to understand. This is one of the biggest culture shocks in many business negotiations between the Westerner and the Chinese (Johnston 1991, p. 209).

Wedding Planning Needs Assessment

Wedding Planning Needs Assessment CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Wedding is once-a-life event in peoples life. For most of families, they are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to ensure the wedding is organized as perfect as possible. According to Howard (2006), wedding today is a $70 billion business in U.S., and the average cost of wedding is $26,000 per couples. As a spinoff the larger discipline of event management, the business of wedding planning will provide business to a broad array of supporting industries, such as hotels, retails, and catering service. Comparing with the other personal events, such as birthday, anniversaries, wedding is more complicated, because it involves friends and families and a range of related service activities covering from catering to entertainments (Shone Parry, 2004). In order to make sure everything goes smoothly in the wedding day, most of the prospective couples would like to plan the wedding in sometimes year in advance. Both brides and grooms put much effort into the wedding preparation including the venue selection, honeymoon booking and dress design etc. However, not all of them have enough time and energy and knowledge in wedding planning to arrange everything themselves. They need someone to assist them in wedding planning, budget preparation, planning detail checklists, venue arrangement as well as onsite supervision and coordination on the wedding day. Wedding planners, the professional dealing with all the details of wedding, provide a one-stop service to potential couples by charging some considerable consultant fee (Wikipedia org, 2009). The role of the wedding planners is to save time, look after details, make couples dream come true, stay on the budget and save money. Wedding planners have become one of the outsourced labours in modern society (Blakely, 2007). With the rapid development of the society in the last decade, more and more couples prefer to go to college and start their own careers after graduation. Marriage is happening later in brides and grooms life (Mayling, 2002). This means couples have more disposable income to afford the wedding expenses; and they are more likely to look for some special unique wedding styles, such as theme wedding, green wedding etc., which probably involves different elements, such as ethic, religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice and individual tastes and preference (Howard, 2006). As a result, wedding planners, who are providing professional advices and assistance to the couples from the moment of distributing the invitations, arranging the style of cake ceremony, table setting, and setting for banquet, are necessarily needed and developed dramatically (Markby, 2006). 1.2 Wedding in China In traditional Chinese culture, marriage was creating alliances between families. Therefore, it was strictly arranged by parents or elder people in families. Wedding should be planned strictly according to the customs. For example, people should choose a good year, a good month, a good day as well as a good time for wedding ceremony; and use â€Å"red† in the declaration for everything with the purpose of auspicious. Wedding is also one of the ways for Chinese families to present their social classes therefore the families are willing to spend a large mount of money on wedding, and much of which were supported by parents or relatives. Because of the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, nowadays, the living standards in China have been dramatically increased. According to the China Statistic Yearbook 2008 (2009), the GDP per capita in Mainland China is increasing steadily and has reached 18,934 RMB in 2007. At the mean time, the social culture is becoming diversified. More and more Chinese people, especially the younger generation who have better education, began to accept the western culture. Most of the prospective couples would like to experience different types of weddings that can make their special day more measurable. For example, some people choose â€Å"white† wedding instead of traditional Chinese â€Å"red† wedding; some may prefer destination wedding instead of having wedding at home, which may require more time and professional planning and organizing throughout the wedding preparation. Therefore, wedding planners, as a new business in China, has developed rapidly during the l ast decade. According to the ministry of commerce of the PRC (2008), wedding service today has become a big business in China covering about 76 industries, such as matchmaking business, wedding planning as well as banquets, tourism industries etc. where the photographer has the highest profit that is above 30% while the wedding planner is 15%. The average expenditure for more than 3.7 million new Chinese couples in 2006 was about 126,600 RMB. Based on the statistics of Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC (2009), about 11 million couples got married in 2008 with the growth of 10.8% than 2007. All the statistics above show that wedding business in China has a huge market and potential. This research will focus on Pearl River Delta, the most economically dynamic region in southern part of China. PRD covers nine prefectures of Guangdong province including Guangzhou, Shenzhe, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing; and has become one of the leading economic regions and a major manufacturing center of China, which accounted for 10.2% of Chinas GDP. People in PRD have more purchasing power than the other region. The per capita GDP in PRD ranges from 35,700 to 79,600 RMB which is much higher than the national per capita GDP (HKTDC, 2008). Because of the advantages of its location and open-door policy, PRD became the first region in China which allowed the foreign investments. Thus, apart from the economic strength, people in PRD were influenced by the western cultures earlier than the other places of China. 1.3 Research problem statements Due to the low entry cost in the wedding planning business, the number of wedding planners has increased rapidly in China in the last decade. Generally, two to three persons having relevant planning experience can establish a wedding planning company with around 100,000 RMB investments in China. They just need an office for meeting with clients and an official blog or website for promotion. Despite of the rapid development of the wedding business, the service/product offered by the wedding planners is similar. Comparing with the wedding photo service business, there is a lack of leading brand in the wedding planning business. With the growth of income level and education level, the couples in China are becoming more and more demanding towards the wedding service/products and face a problem that how to choose a suitable wedding planners who can provide excellent service/product. Thus, from the supply side, identifying and satisfying the important and unfulfilled needs of prospective c ouples is one of the ways for wedding planners to differentiate their products from the competitors, and make success in the competition. However, there is few studies indentifying prospective couples needs or attitudes toward products or service of wedding planner in Pearl River Delta even though in Chinese mainland, nor research about how well the wedding planners in China is meeting the needs of prospective couples. Therefore, this study will focus on the following questions to find out the needs of prospective couples (demand side) towards the wedding planners in PRD 1) Whats the reason for couples hiring wedding planners? 2) Whats the factors affecting the selection of wedding planners? Reputation? Price? Or other? 3) Do the needs of prospective couples toward wedding planners in Pearl River Delta vary according to the different demographical characteristics? 1.4 Research objectives: To find out the needs of prospective couples when hiring the wedding planners in the Pearl River Delta; To investigate the relationship between the needs for prospective couples and the choice of product/service offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta Region; To investigate how the needs of potential couples are influenced by their demographic profiles; To make recommendations to the wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the previous studies related to wedding, wedding planners as well as the consumer purchase behavior will be reviewed. 2.1 Nature of wedding From the view of sociology, Edward (1987) defined that weddings are rites of passage, which belong to the class of rituals that everywhere mark the transition of a person or persons from one status to another. Wedding therefore becomes a private and highly-personalized event in peoples life. Event is held for a purpose that brings people together to share an experience and produce a measurable outcome no matter public or private, commercial or charitable, celebratory or commemorative (Silvers, 2003). Shone and Parry (2004) defined the wedding, together with the other personal events (e.g. birthday or anniversaries), as a type of special events. Their phenomenon arise from leisure, cultural, personal or organizational objectives which are set apart from the normal activity of daily life and their purpose is to enlighten, celebrate, entertain or challenge the experience of a group of people. The characteristics of special events include personal interactions, ritual or ceremony, intang ible, fixed timescale, labor intensive, ambience and service, perishability as well as uniqueness. Getz (2007) also defined wedding as a form of planned events because it is held in venues that cater to individual and small-group clients which may require professionals or be entirely arranged by the participants. From this point of view, Getz (2007) believed that the wedding is a multi-meaning experience in both personal and social aspects, and it is can be considered as celebrations in which a theme and emotional stimulation are essential. Although, wedding is usually defined as a type of small or personal events, it is still an area lack of study and research compared with meeting, exhibition, incentives or other events. There is quite a few academic book or journal devoted to the planning and design of weddings, parties or other private functions. 2.2 Wedding planners 2.21 The nature of wedding planner Arranging an event is complicated as it involves different elements such as the specialist sets, props, customers for participants or guests, and all the range of support requirements from special effects and lighting to music and entertainment. Event management companies are increasingly common in the events business in the last decades, which have specialized in providing of the complete event by careful planning and management. People can enjoy a number of benefits of having an EMC including the expertise, ideas and experience they can draw on (Shone Parry, 2004). Shone and Parry (2004) found that although there are some major companies in the event business, there are a wide range of smaller organizations and individuals that are willing to provide events-related service particular for the personal event market, which include the organization of parties, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and many of similar events. Professional party planners or event organizers are those pr ofessional who deal with the nitty-gritty details of planning, organizing, operating and managing an event to ensure everything goes smoothly. According to Wikipedia (2009), wedding planners are the professionals who deal with all the details of the wedding, which includes planning, organizing, operating and management, to ensure everything goes smoothly and correctly. Ellis-Christensen (2008) defined that wedding planner as an event professional whose responsibility is not only to plan a memorable wedding, but also to give some professional advices to the couples including the venue selection, equipments preparation etc. They usually act as a wedding advisor, coordinator, supervisor, financial planner and mediator during the wedding (Brush Creek Weddings, 2008). Peters (2007) also stated that the range of service offered by wedding planner is widely. Some may prefer to offer consulting service only while some may prefer to provide comprehensive wedding package. At the meantime, Peters (2007) also pointed out that the global trend of the wedding business has been toward offering total coordination of the entire blessed even t from the beginning to the end, which includes identifying the needs of new couples, budget preparation, planning detailed checklist, venue arrangement, identifying the professionals (e.g. florists, photographers etc.) as well as on-site supervision and coordination on the wedding day. The consultant fee varies widely depending on different locations or different packages. The consultant fee may be higher in larger cities where disposable income of couples is higher than the other places. 2.22 The requirements of a wedding planner Having a strong organizational skills as well as an eye for details are necessary and basic requirements for a successful professional meeting planner because meeting process is both comprehensive and meticulous. Moreover, meeting planners must have the ability to work successful under pressure, to react calmly to constant change, and to make quick decisions (OBrien Shaw, 2002). Howard (2006) stressed that wedding planning is highly customer oriented as most of the couples are looking for special, unique and memorable wedding. Ethic and religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice, and individual tastes and preferences certainly all played a role in shaping wedding consumption. Peters (2007) suggested that good communication skills, good organizational skills as well as good interpersonal skills are very essential for being a successful wedding planner, because wedding planners act as a middle person who deals with both clients and suppliers. The appearance of the professional wedding organization was an important benchmark in the rise of wedding planner business, indicating that wedding planning service today are more and more professional. These professional organizations help wedding planners naturalize particular customs and practices on a potentially national scale by sharing etiquette and customs. They provide some training course for wedding planners. Getting a certificate from professional organization has became one of the evidences for professional and made the customer confident with the service quality. Additionally, the organization also centralized and rationalized a consultants business, providing important resources and information regarding the markets as well as the trend (Howard, 2006). 2.23 Demand of wedding planners Wedding is an important event in peoples life that many people are willing to organize by themselves on the small and more intimate scale. However, not all of them have the time and wish to expend the effort on doing so and happier to pay a professional to come along and deal with all the details of planning, organizing, operating and managing to ensure everything goes smoothly (Shone Parry, 2006). According to Blakely (2007), the supply of commercial service increases dramatically along with the growth of demands for family jobs. Wedding planners are a form of outsourced labor in the modern society. These jobs which are transported from home to the public marketplace are responding to the time crunch produced by work-family conflict. From this point of view, Blakely defined wedding planners as commercial substitutes. Besides, Edwards (1987) conducted a research to examine the relationship between the weddings commercial development and its nature as a rite of passage. He found that the reason of the success of the wedding business was the convenience offered by the wedding planners and the demand from consumers for larger and more sumptuous celebrations. Consumers were looking for a wide range of wedding-related service (one-stop service) through a single organization. 2.4 The trend Firstly, the wedding today tends to be more customized than before. According to Hensdill (1996), because of the cultural exchange among the global village, traditional wedding customs are giving way to the trends of Western societies. Some new styles of wedding exist, such as theme wedding, destination wedding and green wedding, because more and more couples are looking for unique wedding. Destination wedding is a new wedding style that a couple decides to hold their wedding in a location where neither one of them resides (Daniels Loveless, 2007). There are several top destinations for wedding in the world, such as Caribbean, Las Vegas, Hawaii as well as Maldives. Generally, some special theme may be adopted into the destination wedding. For example, hotel in Las Vegas has organized Italian-style wedding for wedding couples (Stratton, 2001). Moreover, the destination wedding often merges into the honeymoon (Daniels Loveless, 2007). Secondly, the internet and e-commerce has shaped the modern wedding consumption and gave it a new immediacy and flexibility. As a result, the wedding planners can target different segments of the bridal markets through developing website that advertised their goods and services and allowed consumers to make agreement or shop directly through their online site (Howard, 2006). 2.2 Consumer purchase behaviors toward wedding â€Å"Consumer behavior is defined as the behavior that consumers display in searching form, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. It focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). 2.32 Factors affecting consumer purchases As people are willing to devote time and effort to the ritual occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, some researches regarding the types of purchases associated with ritual occasions have been conducted by researchers in consumer behavior (Lowery, 1994). According to some market analysis, consumer purchase behavior is strongly influenced by social, cultural and individual characteristics. a) Social factors According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), consumer behavior is influenced by two major groups, namely the reference group and families. â€Å"A reference group that is perceived as credible, attractive, or powerful can induce consumer attitude and behavior change† (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007) Based on the traditional family life cycle, the prospective couples belong to the stage II, honeymooners, who have available a combined income that often permits a lifestyle that provides them with the opportunities of more indulgent purchasing of professions, which means that the honeymooners are happy to accept the professional products and service and willing to pay more money for them as they pursuit high quality of life. The reason hidden behind may be because they have more disposable income and more free time for themselves before the born of young children. Additionally, for the newlyweds, the advice and experience of other married couples (e.g. parents or friends) are likely to be important when they start-up their expenses to establish a new home (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). â€Å"For many consumers their family is their primary reference group for many attitudes and behaviors. The members of a family assume specific roles in their everyday functioning; such roles or tasks extend to the realm of consumer purchase decisions. Key consumer-related roles of family members include influencers, gatekeepers, deciders, buyers, preparers, users, maintainers, and disposers. A familys decision-making style is influenced by its lifestyle, roles, and cultural factors.† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). Different social classes have different preferences in clothing, home decoration and leisure activities as well as saving, spending and credit habits. Based on the market study by Brides magazine, 20% of the buyers of the wedding products identified themselves as buyers of Brides magazine who were mainly middle class women employed in white-collar, professional and technical fields and had higher medium annual income, when combined with their future husbands. This means that the bride had more control over future consumer decisions that the couple would make (Howard, 2006). Another research about the division of wedding labor and its meaning for couples by Sniezek (2005) indicated that women complete the a disproportionate amount of wedding work just as women do more of kin-work, housework, childcare and managerial family work. He also pointed out that couples were not likely to label the unequal division of labor as unfair which may potentially put the relationship in a state of conflict. From this point of view, his statement highly support Blakelys study (2007) which stated that the wedding planning businesss targeted market is modern career women. Blakely also used the case study of wedding planning to confirm Hochschilds thesis (2003) that feminism plays and important ideological role in the expansion of the commodity frontier. However, after comparison of the emphases that brides and grooms place on artifacts selected for use in their weddings and reception, Lowery (1994) found out that the brides participating in the focus group had no difficulty describing artifacts that were important to them; while grooms had greater difficulty. They also suggest that the emergence of traditional or modern gender roles in wedding planning is partially determined by the attitudes of the bride and groom toward these roles. This is also proved by Schiffman Kanuk (2007) that wedding purchase is a joint-decision in the family where the couples may play different roles in the decision making procedure. b) Cultural factors â€Å"Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behavior of member of a particular society.† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007) When explaining how culture affects the consumer behavior, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) indicated that all phases of human problem solving are directed and guided by culture, which includes various ritualized experiences and behaviors. For instance, in practice, rituals accompany with people throughout the human life cycle form birth to death, including a host of intermediate events such as confirmation, graduations and marriage. Besides the culture, subculture also plays an important in consumers behavior which includes nationality, religion, geographic, location, race, age and sex. For example, when comparing the husband-wife decision making between United States and China, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) found out that there were substantially fewer â€Å"joint† decisions and more â€Å"husband-dominated† decisions for many household purchases in China. Even in the same country, another research showed that in larger city like Beijing, couples were more likely than rural co uples to share equally in purchase decisions. c) Individual factors Apart from the social and cultural factors which affecting the consumer behavior, individual factors play an important role when people make decision (Dholakia, 1979). Schiffman Kanuk (2005) explained the influences of the individual factors through several categories: motivation, personality, perception, learning as well as attitudes. As a driving force within individuals that force them to take actions, motivation is produced by a state of uncomfortable tension unsatisfied needs. Liking to our topic, hiring the wedding planner may be motivated by the needs of couples, such as lack of time for preparation, looking for professional service etc. Personality determines and reflects how a person responds to his or her environment. Generally, people are looking for the balance between the perceived self-image and their behavior including the purchasing products or service. Some may prefer innovative wedding style (e.g. destination wedding, green wedding) while the other may choose trad itional wedding. Moreover, each individual has its own process when he or she selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. This process is highly subjective and is based on what the consumer expect to see. There are several factors that can influence the perception including physical appearance, stereotypes, halo effects, irrelevant cues, first impressions, and the tendency to jump to conclusions. 2.3 Theoretical foundation- Consumer decision making process This research is based on consumer decision making process, which is one of the theories of consumer behavior. Decisions are about the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices. According to Kotler, Bowen and Makens (2006), consumer decision process consists of five essential stages: 2.31 Need recognition From the moment that the consumer recognizes a problem or need, the consumer buying process starts. The consumers needs can be stimulated by both internal and external factors. Advertisements, word-of-mouth, social cues from families, friends and anyone within the families can influence the customers need recognition. In the case of wedding planner, potential couples, their internal stimuli probably is lacking of time for preparation, looking for some unique and special wedding while the external stimuli may be the advertisement in the internet, the promotional events held by wedding planners, especially by the friends or families who have previous experience. 2.32 Information search Searching information about their needs or problems is the second step of buying process. How much information a consumer looks for will depend on the strength of the drive, and the amount of initial information, the value placed on additional information. Linking to the wedding planners, couples will take some time for information searching. This is a stage that couples can decide if they would like to hire a wedding planners or if the products/service offered by wedding planner can satisfy their needs. 2.33 Evaluation of alternatives After searching the relevant information, customers will use the information to arrive at a set of final brand choices. At this stage, potential couples may set up a personal comparison system through different attributes such as reputation, price, theme etc., in order to identify which would be the most ideal brand. 2.34 Purchase decision Subsequently, consumer will buy the most preferred brand based on their evaluation in the previous stage. This is the stage that potential couples choose which brand, what kind of services and check if the product/service is available. This is also the stage that potential couples decide if they would like to hire a wedding planner or not. 2.35 Post-purchase behavior Based on the performance of the service/products, the final stage determines whether the consumer satisfy the service/products or not. 2.4 Summary After reviewing the previous studies related to wedding and wedding planners, we can find out that most of the studies were conducted in the developed countries such as U.S or United Kingdom, while there is a blank area regarding this field in China. Moreover, there is little study regarding the consumer purchase behavior towards the wedding planners conducted before. This research will based on the theories of consumer behavior to conduct three in-depth interviews to find out the reasons for potential couples hiring wedding planners; and the factors affecting their decision. Then, a quantitative research will be conducted to express the findings in statistical terms. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY This research will be designed as an exploratory, quantitative, cross-sectional investigation of prospective couples needs towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. 3.1 Research Design The advantage of semi-structure interviews is that it can allow issues to be explored deeply while questionnaire survey is that it can collect information from a large number of people and express the findings in statistical terms (Jennings, 2001). As limited study regarding the needs of potential couples towards the wedding service has been conduced in China so far, for this research, the important variables are not clear and still need to be defined. In order to develop a more reliable questionnaire to conduct quantitative research at the second stage, the first stage is to explore the important variables through a qualitative research. In-depth interviews with three potential couples will be conducted, which will facilitate the identifying the different requirements made by potential couples when selecting the wedding planners. These in-depth interviews are critical for the whole research because the finding of these interviews will be used to develop the questionnaire. 3.2 Questionnaire design There will be four main parts in the questionnaire. The first part will be the screening questions with the purpose of screening the invalid sample through some questions. Then, the second part will include some questions regarding the prospective couples attitudes towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. Respondents are required to indicate their personal opinions on each statement on a five-point Likert type scale: 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. In the third part, open-end questions will be included in order to examine the personal experience and intention of hiring a wedding planner. Finally, there will be a set of questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the respondents, which will include gender, age, income level, marriage status, and education level. In order to explain the purpose of the research to the respondents, a covering letter will be attached to the questionnaire. The covering letter will include the information that how the sample was selected, the time will take to complete the survey, contact person for questions and assuring the response would be kept confidential and only used for statistical purposes. 3.3 Sampling method The survey will use a convenience sampling method. Total 200 questionnaires will be distributed in 5 major cities in PRD, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan. Both non-married and married couples will be the target respondents in this survey. In order to ensure that the relevance of information collected can reflect the populations opinion, females under 20-year-old (Minimum age of legal marriage for female in China) or males under 22 (Minimum age of legal marriage for male in China) will not be counted as a valid sample. 3.4 Data Collection The data will be collected from 5 major cities in Pear River Delta including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan, through different ways including face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires. 3.41 Face-to-face interviews In order to have higher response rate, in the first phase, the face-to-face interviews with potential couples will be conducted at the wedding service companies when they are waiting for the service or outside the Marriage Registries in those cities. 3.42 Self-completion questionnaires At the second phase, self-completion questionnaires will be sent out through e-mail or online survey link, which allows the participants to complete the questionnaires at their own space and at a time convenient for them. In order to secure respondent rate, 2 weeks later, a follow-up letter will be sent out. 3.5 Pilot tests Before the distributing the questionnaires to the targeted respondents, a

Compare and contrast the view that ‘An Arrest’ is a tale of nature Essa

Compare and contrast the view that An Arrest is a tale of nature rejecting a human villain with the view that it is concerned only with a vengeful superego ‘An Arrest’ is an ambiguous story. You can look at it in different ways. One way to see it is as a tale of nature rejecting a human villain. This view is put forward right from the beginning. When the narrator uses words such as â€Å"confined† and â€Å"fugitive† to describe the state of Orrin Brower, he creates the image of an animal isolated from human society. This is because ‘confined’ is usually a word to do with animals or mad people who are not allowed to be in contact with humans Further evidence to support the argument of Orrin Brower being portrayed as a savage beast comes when the author writes that he had, â€Å"recovered liberty,† which is like an animal being released into the wild. Orrin Brower does not feel guilty for beating Burton Duff or think of the consequences of his actions, as a human would; he only feels and acknowledges his freedom which is an animal-like thing to do. When he is on the run he decides to escape to the forest which may be as he is treated like an animal he starts to believe that he is one. The fact that the narrator states ‘he had the folly to enter a forest’ suggests that even though he thinks of himself as an animal, Brower is not and therefore does not belong in the forest- this proves that nature will inevitably try to discard him. As he enters the forest, we are told that ‘the night was pretty dark with neither moon nor stars visible’ which could be seen as a nature trying to confuse Brower. We begin to doubt Brower’s animal-like image when Bierce writes, â€Å"Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay ... ...re following him to the prison was not human at all. As I mentioned earlier Brower has committed some serious crimes which are the result of the id part of his brain taking over. The id is the part of our brain which wants all our basic needs- our Inner Desires- such as sleep, food and sex. However our superego stops us from becoming lazy, greedy or rapists. What happened to Brower is that his id took over and his superego was shunned so he committed these crimes without any guilt. At the clearing in the forest, Brower’s superego suddenly starts operating again and conjures up the image to make the guilty conscience, which comes with it, disappear by sending him back to justice. Bierce seems to have dropped many hints to leave both views arguably correct. Personally, I think Bierce has done this deliberately to leave the story as ambiguous as the title.

DBQ: The Enlightenment Essay

The Enlightenment known by many as the Age of Reason was a turning point in history. Man people believe that without the Enlightenment, many of the laws, and rules would exist. For example the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were greatly influenced by the Enlightenment. For example, John Locke, an Enlightenment thinker highly influenced the Declaration of Independence by stating that the natural rights of people include life, liberty and property except the founding fathers changed it by stating life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American Revolution itself has been called the embodiment of Enlightenment ideas. If the founding fathers were not influenced by some of these ideas, maybe the United Sates would not be a democracy; it could have been an absolute monarchy, aristocracy, etc. Some of our human rights would not exist if it were for the Enlightenment. Philosophers such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, and others lead to many great changes. These ideas were used by some to challenge absolute monarchies. An absolute monarchy is a government ruled by one ruler. These ideas also impacted both government and society. Some of the ideas of the Enlightenment were used to challenge absolute monarchy. One example is given in Document # 1, Montesquieu who was a French philosopher during the Enlightenment, states, â€Å"There can be no liberty with the executive, legislative, and judicial powers are united in one person or body it a persons, because such concentration is bound to result in arbitrary despotism. In this statement, Montesquieu is stating that liberty cannot exist where three powers of government are held by one person or body of persons. This is because then the people would not have rights for themselves. The idea was used to challenge an absolute monarchy the people thought that it was unfair that one person was ruling the state where as they wanted that people have a say in the government and everyone should have equal rights. Another idea used to challenge an absolute monarchy was in Document # 2. Voltaire, who was a French author and philosopher, states â€Å"†¦I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it†¦ The best government seems to be that in which all ranks of men are equally protected by the laws†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This statement challenged absolute monarchies because Voltaire believed that freedom of speech should be a right for each person. He believed that people should be able to express their thoughts and feelings. Freedom of speech is a very important right today, and it is used every day by people who express their thoughts. Also in Document # 3 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a French philosopher states â€Å"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. † Rousseau is saying that despite the fact that man is born free, he is still tortures, still abused and has all of those free liberties taken away from him. For example, even though people in France prior to the revolution were all human, only the third estate had to pay taxes. The Enlightenment also had a large impact on both government and society. For example in Document # 5 English philosopher Locke states â€Å"Man being†¦ by nature all free, equal, and independent no one can be†¦ subjected to the political power of another without his own consent†¦ To protect natural rights governments are established†¦ Since man hope to preserve their property by establishing a government, they will not want the government to destroy the objectives. When legislators try to destroy or take away the property of people, or try to reduce them to slavery, they put themselves in to a state of war with the people who can refuse to obey the laws. This idea had a large impact on both government and society because told society that if they wanted to keep their property, they would have to establish a government that protects natural rights. This impacted the society because many people wanted natural rights and this statement influenced the society to establish a new type of government. It impacted the government because this statement told the government that if the people wanted to keep their property and other rights they would have to establish a new government meaning that the current government would have to change, so the government would be concerned. Another example of an impact on both government and society is shown in Document # 6, an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence. It states, â€Å"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. † This excerpt impacts government because it states that certain rights is unalienable, meaning that they cannot be taken away from you; these include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The impact of the Enlightenment had an effect on government because before the Enlightenment governments of Europe were primarily Divine Right Monarchies, meaning a King ruled, who was selected by God. Prior to the Enlightenment people believed that if you disobeyed the King, you disobeyed God. There was no difference between the State and the Church because each State had its own religion. No one had rights; there were no checks and balances or separation of powers because only one person was in control. The upper classes had the rights causing the lower classes to be angry. The impact the Enlightenment had on society was that it gave people curiosity to why they don’t have natural rights. The ideas of the Enlightenment led to the society of France to rebel and that led to the French Revolution, therefore the ideas of the Enlightenment led people to realize that they are not being given rights that they are entitled to. As you can see the Enlightenment I considered a turning point in world history, changing man’s view of government and society. Examples of these ideas are shown in documents 1-6. Many of the ideas created by the philosophers during the Enlightenment led to many revolutions and greatly influenced many countries including the United States of America. Also these ideas led people to question and rebel for rights that they are entitled to. Some of these include freedom of speech, and equality. If the ideas of the Enlightenment were not important, many countries including the United States could have been an absolute monarchy, aristocracy, or another type of government where all citizens are not equal.