Genetically modified food †Allergy Essay

Genetically modified foods are becoming more and more used in our community. But, they are not as safe as people presume them to be. Genetically modified foods can cause a big problem in the world, even if it can produce large quantities of foods, it is found that it can cause an allergy to certain foods, many scientists had voted to ban them and there not always labeled that it’s a GMO. Therefore, they should be abolished within the world. To start off, the fact that there is a chemical that is produced that can cause allergic reactions to some people. The scientist had stated that the chemical is safe to use: â€Å"But the biotech companies and the Environmental Protection Agency–which regulates plant produced pesticides–tell us not to worry. They contend that the pesticide called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is produced naturally from a soil bacterium and has a history of safe use. † (Smith). The counter argument was proof that this chemical is actually not safe to use, it can make a person sicker than presumed. Jeffery Smith stated: â€Å"Repeated exposure via inhalation can result in sensitization and allergic response in hypersensitive individuals. † So much for the contention that Bt does not interact with humans. †(Smith). I have been allergic to onions since I was twelve years old, this could be caused by the chemical Bt. If the Scientists saying that is drug is harmless they’re wrong because it’s been proven that this chemical can cause an increase in allergies. Therefore, maybe if we had all natural food growths than maybe I could eat onions now. That is why GMO’s should be abolished. There are so many GMOs that are not even labeled as that how people ever know what their eating if it’s not labeled. It’s the people have a right to know what’s going in there body. Without sharing that information it’s bad for the people to trust anything that is not farmers. Granted some people don’t care, but there are people who do. In an article by Peter Sand he states: â€Å"Hence, in CCFL sessions since 1997,57 the EU and other food importers such as Norway consistently argued that the declared primary purpose of their GM food labeling regulations is not a health risk warning, but information to enable consumers to exercise their freedom of choice. † (Sand) It’s not that the food is completely unsafe that is the problem of not telling them that it’s genetically modified, the problem is that it’s breaking some freedom laws. If a person doesn’t knows about anything how they can make any decision about it. And my final point is that even scientist in some countries signed a petition to ban GMOs from their country. A letter was presented at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle in 1999. Ed Ayres stated that: â€Å"’The letter expresses â€Å"extreme concern† about the hazards of GMOs to biodiversity, food safety, and human and animal health, and recommends a global moratorium on environmental releases of GMOs â€Å"in accordance with the precautionary principle†Ã¢â‚¬  (Ayres). So even some scientists would like to ban GMOs, How can that make any sense if all GMOs are safe why do scientists want to ban them. When many people whom specialize in that field don’t want it in the country why should any average citizen of any country. It should be abolished if even the people creating it say it should be banned. Not to mention they want to ban it for the safety of people and animals. In conclusion, genetically modified foods cause an increasing problem with the allergy rate increasing, scientist wanting to ban them, and not even telling anyone that they are genetically modified. This could lead to a bigger problem with in the world and it should be stopped now. Genetically modified foods should be abolished within the world.

Adv & Disadvantages of Leadership Development Methods Essay

Professional qualifications that require refreshing will be supported if they are an essential criteria for the post| * Trust induction * Trust Essential Update training * Manual Handling * Professional re-registration training * PRINCE2, MSP, LEAN| * Provides an understanding of how the Trust works * Provides health and safety training * Sends out a clear message that professional registration is recognised, important and is supported| * Trust induction training tends to be very generic and does not necessarily relate to the job role * Training for re-registration is not always timely * Is dependent on funding * Cost implications of ensuring that the training budget can cover training| Elective Learning| Courses that are not part of the essential criteria for the post will be deemed to be elective and will be subject to the trust policy on supported learning| * Courses identified as part of the personal development plan * Influencing skills * Negotiating skills * MS Project/Other IT Skills * Meets specific needs for the individual * Can be delivered by others in the team or by a generic course * Ensures that leaders are given requisite skills| * Some generic courses do not cover specific requirements * Is dependent on funding being available| Work Assignments| Work assignments will be seen as an opportunity to help leaders develop specific competencies or practice key behaviours. * Specific goals will be set as part of personal development plans * Feedback on progress will be done either via formal appraisal or by 1:1 feedback with line managers| * Reiterates the message that lessons can always be learned * Gives leaders the growth opportunities to put theories and models into practice * Learning by doing| * Unless well managed there is a tendency to concentrate on ‘getting the job done’ * Opportunities are not always recognised or used to the full advantage| Special Assignments/Initiatives| Involvement in short-term assignments or initiatives either generated from within the team or as part of a project team| * Attendance at programme or project board meetings * Involvement in assignments/initiatives

Property According to Karl Marx and John Locke Essay

â€Å"Property, any object or right that can be owned. Ownership involves, first and foremost, possession; in simple societies to possess something is to own it† ( Funk & Wagnall’s. 1994). English philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704) believed that the only reason society degenerates to armed conflict and strife is because of a depletion of the essential ingredients of an individual or a community’s self-preservation. Those ingredients, according to the Second Treatise include: the right to private property which is grounded in the exercise of the virtues of rationality and industry; the powers of government must be separated because virtue is always in short supply, but prerogative, which depends on virtue in judgment, must be retained by the executive because of the necessary imperfections of the rule of law; and, the right of resistance to illegitimate government presupposes the exercise of restraint and rational judgment by the people (Locke, 29-34). For Locke, labor’s most valuable function is that it does more than simply define a division between what is private and what is public. He believes that it is labor that creates value and turns something that was fundamentally worthless into something of worth. For example, Locke presents the opinion that land without labor put into it is â€Å"scarcely worth anything. † He also notes that, â€Å"nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless materials as in themselves. † It is labor, and thus the laborer â€Å"that puts the difference of value on everything. † Locke answers the question of whether or not a person has a right to acquire as much as he wants. The answer is a simple â€Å"no;† â€Å"As much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. † For example, he commented that â€Å"it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use (51). Government, Locke believed, is a trust of the individual. The purpose of that trust is the security of the individual’s person and property, and, perhaps most importantly, that individual has the right to withdraw his or her confidence in the ruling government when the government fails in its task. Many of Locke’s political ideas, such as those relating to natural rights, property rights, the duty of the government to protect these rights, and the rule of the majority, were later embodied in the U. S. Constitution. For his time, Locke’s vision of labor as the â€Å"value added† to what is naturally occurring was relatively appropriate. In the 17th century, nothing of â€Å"value† existed without the input of labor. However, as civilization advanced and became more complex, so did issues of value, worth, and compensation. It is difficult to make the necessary translation of his economic philosophy to modern language and meaning. His views on government, though have lasted centuries, remain appropriate and applicable to this day. In significant contrast, the German-born revolutionary, economist, and â€Å"founding father† of communism, Karl Marx (1818-1883) believed private property in capital goods contravened the nature of the human person. He based his rejection of such property upon his understanding of the natural law. This research paper was sold by The Paper Store, Inc. of Jackson, New Jersey. Nor could Marx accept a system in which property was held by every individual, because the human person does not possess the â€Å"spiritual† strength to overcome greed; for Marx that could only come by reorganizing the model of production. Marx’s ultimate goal was to liberate the world from the evil of acquisitive materialism and lead the human race to a new freedom (Peterson 337). In the â€Å"Third Manuscript – Private Property and Labor† by Marx, written during the summer of 1844, he states: â€Å"The subjective essence of private property, private property as activity for itself, as subject, as person, is labor. It, therefore, goes without saying that only that political economy which recognized labor as its principle and which therefore no longer regarded private property as nothing more than a condition external to man, can be regarded as both a product of the real energy and movement of private property (it is the independent movement of private property become conscious of itself, it is modern industry as self), a product of modern industry, and a factor which has accelerated and glorified the energy and development of this industry and transformed it into a power belonging to consciousness† (Marx PG). He further condemns the private ownership of property and the government that supports such a system by saying: â€Å" . . . the supporters of the monetary and mercantile system, who look upon private property as a purely objective being for man, appear as fetish-worshippers, as Catholics, to this enlightened political economy, which has revealed — within the system of private property — the subjective essence of wealth† (Marx PG) He reaches what he considers a â€Å"logical† conclusion: â€Å"for man himself no longer stands in a relation of external tension to the external essence of private property — he himself has become the tense essence of private property. What was formerly being-external-to-oneself, man’s material externalization, has now become the act of alienation. † Marx described true communism, which is the â€Å"restoration of man as a social, that is human being. † Not only are the relations between human beings restored; so is the proper relation between the human being and nature. Communism is naturalism, which banishes alien spiritual beings from existence, and therefore humanism as well. The human being once again finds itself at home in the natural world, as that from which it came, and as the arena of its creativity. Marx viewed communism as the negation of the negation (private property being the negation of human nature). Interestingly, he did not declare it as final. â€Å"Communism is the necessary form and dynamic principle of the immediate future but not as such the goal of human development — the goal of human society. † â€Å"Communism is ultimately the positive expression of private property as overcome,† said Marx from his controversial days as newspaper writer to his death at age 65. It is a painful irony that the system that evolved into modern communism became the true â€Å"negation of human nature. † In its efforts to maintain the collective the individual was lost. Individual human spirit cannot (apparently) remain lost, hidden, or locked away indefinitely. The past twenty years have demonstrated how tentative the hold of communism actually was/is throughout the world. While Marx has often been denigrated for his philosophy, it was the perversion of that philosophy that caused. While the application of Locke’s idea of labor as the added worth of human hands shaping the natural world has changed significantly, it is still the philosophy that has most closely resonated to the way in which the greatest number of humans want to be governed. Works Cited Locke, John (1690) Two Treatises of Government: Chapter 5 – Of Property (http://wiretap. spies. com. /library/classics/ locke2nd. txt) Marx, Karl (April-August, 1844) Third Manuscript: Private Property and Labor (. cmn. edu/marx/1844-ep. mauscripts/1-property. labor. txt) Peterson, G. Paul Karl Marx and His Vision of Salvation: The Natural Law and Private Property, Review of Social Economy; 52(3), Fall 1994, pp. 377-90.

Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 6

Strategy - Essay Example Waterstones’ current market position faces huge challenges from various external and internal elements. Indeed, the way it responds to the adverse market conditions becomes the key enabling factor of the firm to gain competitive advantage. The recent changes in trading environment with increasing popularity of e-commerce and online shopping, Waterstones needs to evolve and compete on new dimensions. Advent of computers and internet has considerably widened the area of business. While it has provided the firms with huge opportunities worldwide, the new cyber platform has also made it hugely competitive. The companies must evolve and develop strategic initiatives to compete on unique capabilities that meet the challenges of time. Waterstones has already introduced online shopping and provide online customers with huge choice of books. At the same time, its various outlets across the globe have facilitating environment that encourages reading. Porter (1996) believes that leadership initiatives are major facilitators that help sustain a firm’s success through hard times. Through strong leadership, Waterstones was quick to embrace technology and make its online presence. The technology has helped it to expand its customer base across wider geographical areas and at the same time, facilitated easier access to books to its customers. Strategic action plans need to be dynamic to encompass micro and macro environment changes to maintain competitive advantage (Montgomery, 2008). They not only encourage speed and flexibility but also ensure that customers’ requirements are met timely and efficiently through evolving process of developing effective linkages. Indeed, on an average, Waterstones bookshops keeps a minimum of 30,000 individual books and help the customer to get his/her preferred product through online search and ensure availability of the same within defined time limit. This is key element of the firm’s value proposition that has enabled it to

How does Amazon.com use their digital channels to achieve success Essay

How does Amazon.com use their digital channels to achieve success - Essay Example This means that amazon.com has learnt so much on how to use digital channels to achieve success. This paper explains the many ways that amazon.com uses their digital channels to achieve success. Improving marketing and advertising Amazon.com has used its digital channels to improve its marketing. To be able to do this, the company uses a number of online marketing channels to direct customers to its websites. These online channels include email campaigns, associates sponsoring, portal advertising, sponsored search among other online initiatives. This has enabled the company to achieve a high growth in its sales rates because these channels allow many people to know about Amazon, its products, pricing and delivery/shipping of goods. In this era of technology and internet, many customers browse through online marketing channels to search for products and compare prices and delivery/shipping services. Amazon therefore is taking advantage of this. Apart from directing customers to its we bsites, Amazon.co has also been using its digital channels to advertise its products. ... It uses these channels to quickly inform the customers about the shipping programs it is running so that they can purpose to take advantage of the programs (Rappa 2006). Influencing the purchase of related products Amazon.com uses advertisement through digital channels to help customers expand their product selection and the result of this is increased sales. For example, they could advertise a product in one of their stores, like a book. Other than catching customer attention towards this book, they also match the same book that the customer has selected with another second book. Rappa (2006) explains that in order to select products that will be matched and also to motivate customers to buy the second product, the company uses correlation of past customers who bought the product being advertised and also bought the second product. This kind of matching selection influences customers purchase by showing them a product they are likely to want to purchase in near future apart from one they are interested in. In order to motivate the customers to buy the two books at once, the company supports the matching selection with discounted prices. The customers will therefore decide to take the two products at once using discounted prices and save some money than take the one they are interested in first and come back later for the second one both without discount. This means that making a correlation of sales of products enables the company to pick out the most selling product and use it to influence the purchase of a related product through its digital channels. This type of a strategy reduces chances that customer will go for the second book from another store. Encourage customers to purchase by giving incentives Advertisement and

What do you stand for Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

What do you stand for - Essay Example n a story, reflect on the perceptions of the author to such topics and compare it on your own so that the message being conveyed by the author will be fully appreciated by the reader. In this paper, specific themes on three essays discussed in class are analyzed and compared with that of my own values. John Edgar Wideman’s â€Å"Our Time† tells a compelling story about his brother Robby and the obscurities and poor choices he had in life which led him to the ultimate consequence of his actions, being locked up forever in prison for murdering his best friend. Using three different points of views namely himself, Robby’s and their mother’s, Wideman was able to convey three distinct events in his brother’s life such as the death of Garth, the change in the family’s choice of neighborhood from Homewood to Shadyside and the time of Robby birth. For instance, Wideman acknowledged Robby’s perception of the world, on why felt nothing but hate and resentment stating, â€Å"The world’s a stone bitch. Nothing true if that’s not true.† (Wideman 694). Because of this approach, he has successfully presented a three-dimensional view of Robby’s personal troubles and difficulties that may have influenced the person his br other became in the present. In addition, Wideman tried to identify with the reasons behind his brother’s struggles and unfortunate pronouncements in life by making himself understand the personal circumstances from Robby’s childhood to the present without subjecting into any prejudice. With the help of the different standpoints on Robbie’s story, I came into realization that the fate of a person does not solely rely on where or how he was raised but a consequence of each choices he decide on life. Though it may be true that one’s upbringing and relationships can shape his values and morals, an individual has always a conscious choice in his every action throughout his life. I believe that free will is a special human ability to select

Methods of Enquiry - Research Proposal - International Ethics

Methods of Enquiry - - International Ethics Conflicts - Research Proposal Example The research can be conducted in a mixed method approach by conducting survey over the employees and their responses helps to determine the organization’s work ethics. The employees are expected to respond on a rating of five points regarding their views about the performance of the organization. The literature review suggests the views of various researches regarding the ethical conflict management. An organization faces a number of challenges and conflicts and it is very important to resolve these conflicts otherwise the company would have to run at a loss and the ultimate option that the company would have is to shut down. Thus it is expected that the organization hires efficient managers who are capable of resolving the conflicts and maintain the company’s reputation in the market. As a result of Globalisation, several countries vary in various aspects. For example, the countries have diverse cultural, economical, social, ethical and linguistic backgrounds that can lead to ethical conflicts among the multinational companies (Hamilton, Knouse and Hill, 2009). Diversity in culture among various employees of different companies can result in conflicts regarding their views that can prove to be risky for the company’s reputation in the market. Cross cultural variations dealing with behaviour, norms, values, etiquette of various employees and workforce may have a huge impact on the company’s growth prospect (Patel, Harrison and McKinnon, 2002). The behavioural ethics determines the company’s management styles and the work culture. In order to achieve success and maintain corporate image, the company should follow its business ethics. It provides various guidelines for maintaining an ethical relationship with other organizations (Patel, Harrison and McKinnon, 2002; Voigt, 2009). The conflicts that may arise are the clashes in business and among the employees who try to dominate within the organization (Reidenberg, 2000). An unethical behaviour

MARKETING OF BODY IMPLANTS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

MARKETING OF BODY IMPLANTS - Essay Example At other times, the process starts with the producer introducing a product or a service to the consumer for which the need for the consumer to have the product or service is conveyed by the producer or a marketer. In either case, it is important the product or service being brought unto the market will meet the needs and expectations of the consumer or buyer (Porter, 1996). Where there are several competitors trading the same product or service, the need for there to be marketing strategies become very relevant and important because these strategies help in the creation of competitive advantage, which eventually becomes a tool for setting more sales (Baines, Fill and Page, 2011). In the present situation where the entrepreneur wants to introduce magnetic implants to a segmented group of people using a series of marketing options, it is important that all options presented be critically analysed in terms of how feasible and competitive they are in relation to the existing market and t he market segmentation in question. The approach of the essay shall therefore be to analyse the options one after the other according to key marketing themes. Definition of Product Product is one of the 4 marketing mix or 4ps in marketing. This means that an understanding of the product that a person aims to introduce to the market is always important in determining the rate of success that will be experienced on the market. The reason an understanding of the product is important is that in marketing, it is actually the product that the marketer goes to introduce to the buyer and so it is important that the marketer has a comprehensive understanding and definition of the product he introduces. For the entrepreneur to be success with the magnetic implants he aims to introduce to the market, there are very key questions that must be asked and important conditions that must be fulfilled. One of the key questions concerns the needs that the product is going to serve to the consumer or buyer (Bode et al, 2011). Commonly, the buyer would want to be convinced that the product can serve a specific need or want before making purchase. With growing concerns of a sixth se nse, the magnetic implant may come in just at the right time to provide this conceptual sixth sense (Levitt, 2000). The magnetic implant may therefore serve the need of developing a sixth sense around an object that gives off electromagnetic waves (Neporent, 2013). Marketing Environment The current case, not much seems to have been considered in terms of the marketing environment in which the product that is to be introduced is going to be introduced. However, an understanding of the marketing environment is very important in the determination of strategies and approaches that can best serve the interest of the product sales (Hillman, Withers and Collins, 2006). Generally, the marketing environment may be identified as a set of factors and forces that generally affect the entrepreneur’s ability to create and maintain successful trade and business relationship with customers (Levitt, 2000). There may generally be three levels of marketing environment but the one that could rea dily affect the entrepreneur in the present situation is the micro market environment, which deals with forces and factors that are very close to the organisation and affects ability to serve customers well. The reason

A Comparative Analysis of the Foreign Policy Process between France Essay

A Comparative Analysis of the Foreign Policy Process between France and Germany - Essay Example As observed by Philip Gordon, â€Å"Franco-German military cooperation in the postwar period seems to have taken place despite important differences in perspective between the two countries, not because of a fundamental rapprochement of views† (Krotz, 2001, p. 3). He added that â€Å"at both public and elite levels, French and German attitudes toward security and defence were highly different† (Krotz, 2001, p. 3). However, as stated, France and Germany, despite of their different approaches to foreign policy were able to build an alliance and become a major force in the European Union (EU). This essay analyses the similarities and differences between the foreign policy process in France and Germany. Comparing and Contrasting French and German Foreign Policy In analysing the specific similarities and differences between the foreign policies of France and Germany, it is important to take into account the historical foundation of the Franco-German relations. The assumption that a strong diplomacy in Europe should be based on compromise between France and Germany is firmly embraced throughout the German political community. The ‘rapprochement’—reconciliation—between Germany and France was established in 1963 through the Elysee Treaty (McCarthy, 2001, p. 118). Nevertheless, contrary to their strong alliance in the economic sector, a strong cooperation has been problematic in the security and defence arena. The Franco-German relationship throughout the Cold War was mainly rooted in the effort of Germany to discreetly take part in security and foreign policy, which allowed France to control the arrangement. The eastward territorial expansion and reunification of Germany thus brought about a level of apprehension in France that Germany would reassess their alliance, specifically when dealing with the objectives and interests

Justification of Humanities Essay Example for Free

Justification of Humanities Essay The humanities have been studied since ancient Grecian times as an academic discipline, examining human condition and including the arts, literature, philosophy, history and some social sciences. In 2008, nationally recognized and respected literary theorist Stanley Fish wrote a New York Times article in response to a New York State Commission on Higher Education report in which people posted complaints that the humanities are always the last to be financially funded. Fish sums up his argument with an insulting conclusive statement: â€Å"To the question ‘of what use are humanities? ’, the only honest answer is none whatsoever†. He backs up this claim by pointing out the lack of tangible evidence that is produced by humanities compared to science and other fields. I assert that Fish underestimates the power of the intangible benefits that the humanities have to offer. His overall argument against the value of humanities presents a point-of-view that is extreme, reductive, and insulting to anyone associated with the humanities and the study of them. An education involving the study of humanities enables readers with skills that are applicable in understanding and comprehending contemporary media and literature. Literature, for that matter, effects people morally and possibly behaviorally and that effect, positive or negative, is ‘of use’. Narrative literature and historical texts also allow readers to build a bridge and connect with the past and its people. The media has become an inevitable part of our society today and, unfortunately, media manipulation has as well. Public relations companies and the government have hidden agendas that the journalists blindly incorporate into their stories and columns. People are paid to make the American public perceive pictures and articles in a deceitful, false way in order to sell a war or downplay a disaster. In 1996 John Rendon, the founder of The Rendon Group, a public relations firm, admitted to U. S. Air Force cadets that the Gulf War in Iraq had been a big project for his company. He even talked about generating deceiving photographs! Looking back in history through other conflicts (i. e. , Vietnam, Iraq), or political issues or even stories of famous individuals, we can observe many situations similar to what Rendon explained that supports a recurring complaint in our culture, whether provable or not, that the press will print stories without evidence if they make more money in the process. Specifically, the media coverage after the 911 attacks were constant and focused on Osama bin Laden as the mastermind behind the attacks and on Iraq having ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as they were told by authorities. Pro-war sources were disproportionately focused on over anti-war sources which helped build misguided public support for our war on terrorism and on Iraq. But we now know WMDs were not in existence there, but this shows the power of media stories, no matter whether based on fact, and its ability to influence society and the power it can take away from us by eliminating fully-informed decision-making. By being exposed to manipulating and deceiving narrators such as Lolita’s Humbert Humbert and Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In the Rye, students gain experience in detecting this fraudulence or bias. Also, through involvement with this type of reading and writing, the ability to sense when they are being propagandized or manipulated. An education that includes humanities provides tools for people to consciously keep from falling for the bias and hidden slander that is involved, especially with politics. This awareness can cause better decision-making (voting especially) and affect a person’s opinion very greatly. Exposure to humanities can cause people to be less egocentric and can arm them with a point-of-view that will help them see through narrow-minded opinions and statements, like Fish’s, and develop their own sound, fact-based and well-rounded opinions. Fish also comments in his article, â€Å"What do they [humanities] do? They don’t do anything, if by ‘do’ is meant bring about effects in the world†. This claim is resting upon the questionable understanding that the ‘do’ is supposed to yield a tangible product, a constant misconception Fish seems to have. I am arguing that an effect on a person, positive or negative, implies that something was ‘done’ to have caused that effect. Fish himself names many examples of literature affecting its readers; he just chooses to discard them and remain skeptical. Countless examples have affected millions of people. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is commonly credited for the launch of the environmental awareness movement. The Bible itself is a form of literature, and I am sure that Stanley Fish cannot argue that The Bible has not affected the world! Dr. Seuss books affect children and adults all over the world with their simple yet effective messages through the creative rhyming. The Food and Drug Administration was founded as a latter result to Sinclair’s The Jungle, and I believe that this would be considered an example of ‘doing’ something, even according to Fish. Books, and all forms of art, can cause people to reflect on the plot, the characters, or the ethical questions being pondered in the story. We can contemplate character attributes we appreciate or reject and watch scenarios unfold in books that can be comparable to situations in our own lives. Fish believes â€Å"it is not the business of the humanities to save us†, but I do believe an education in humanities can help us save us from the â€Å"worst of ourselves† by helping us become more well-rounded citizens with an understanding of the past so we can head effectively and productively into the future. I agree with Kronman who Fish quotes as saying â€Å"a college was above all a place for the training of character†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . This completely supports an intelligent quote by Martin Luther King Jr. King said, â€Å"Intelligence plus character—that is the true goal of education. † Without any humanities incorporated in a person’s education, can this goal be fully achieved? The renowned Spanish-American essayist George Santayana said, â€Å"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it†, and I cannot agree more with this claim. It highlights the importance of an education in history, another branch of the humanities discipline. Having a connection and understanding with the past allows us to gain appreciation for the world today and learn from the mistakes made through history, so those mistakes are not repeated. For example, the very foundation of America’s government was created through utilizing documentations of various governments implemented through history! The founding fathers sifted through accounts of different governments and how successful they were and used them to form the Constitution. For example, they applied the system of checks and balances in order balance power among the braches and stray from the way that Britain’s monarchy was established. Books and the arts used to be man’s sole form of entertainment and it is amazing to read the thoughts and see the creations of a person from so long ago! Narrative literature, especially from the past, allows us to delve into the mindset of someone from a different time, and that is something that no history book can teach. The readings assigned in humanities classes expand students’ knowledge of life and ethics from a different time period and examines why this ethical mindset existed in the historical context. We reflect and compare the morals of those in the past to our own, making connections with the past yet also seeing the development of ethics and moral behavior through time. Teachings in humanities can be directly applied to the commercial culture that is present in our society today, especially with the deceitful and biased influences in the media. Literature has direct effects on us on an emotional, ethical and logical level and the connection that is made through books with the past is undoubtedly one of the most helpful insights of the past. Fish’s argument was immature and was based merely on tangible products, a close-minded viewpoint that overlooks the power of thought and the mind! My contrasting opinion defends the impalpable and in that sense, suggests humanities can contribute to improving a reader personally and potentially benefit the future of society greatly.

Cost Leadership Strategy For Tune Hotels Tourism Essay

Cost Leadership Strategy For Tune Hotels Tourism Essay As a business development manager of Tune hotel, I have been requested to propose and justify the implementation of an overall cost leadership strategy for Tune hotels.com. this proposal is consists of preparing a strategic service vision for Tune hotels.com by taking few aspects as a consideration into account, such as the target market segment, service concept, operating strategy and also the service delivery system as well. Besides that, I have been asked to identify what are the service dimensions in setting the benchmark for service qualifiers, service winners and service losers as well. Hotel overview Air Asia is a low cost carrier (LCC) airline, with the image of making flying feasible for everybody, where it is well known for the largest low fare and no frills airline, and Tune hotel is one of another luminous thought invented by the air Asias Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and also the founder of Air Asia as well, Datuk Tony Fernandes. Tune hotels have open its first no frills hotel branch in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman,Kuala Lumpur on 9th april 2007. Tune Hotel is currently operating in places such as Malaysia, Downtown Penang, Kota Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, KLIA LCCT Airport, Johor, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu, Indonesia and United Kingdom and London as well. Question 1 Target market segment As in the context of a business, target market segment is an essential element which is needed to be considered and it is important in facilitating and directing the business path in the market. Target market segment, which is targeting the audience, is very important to sustain the survival of a business or industry as well. Tune hotel which has been categorized under the service industry and it can be considered as the market leader in the no frills budget hotel in Malaysia and South East Asia. Tune hotel has implemented a creative and innovative concept to be used in Malaysia, and they differ from their competitors since no any hotel or company has claims to be in the same market segment. Tune hotel has used the geographic segmentation dimensions to influence the market opportunity, for instance, tune hotel at Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, which is known as the budget hotel which has the similar concept of no frills Air Asia Airlines,tune hotel also adapt the same concept where it is also the first no frills hotel in Asia as well. Tune hotel Kuala Lumpur are strategically located at the central of Kuala Lumpur in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, whereby it is close to major shopping, food and beverage outlets and entertainment areas. Moreover, the location is also convenient and facilities such as LRT and bused as well. (Anonmous, n.d) Swot analysis of tune hotel Strength Tune hotel has a great strength whereby they have a reward system to those customers who have done an advance booking service through internet with them. By introducing this system, tune hotel will be able to attract more customers and maintain those loyal customers in future as well. Besides that, Tune hotel have a great central location with facilities such as LRT and buses and it is nearby shopping areas, entertainment areas, and food and beverage areas as well. This attracts and encourages those customers, especially foreigners to choose Tune hotel as well. Moreover, Tune hotel are attractive with their pricing strategies as well, in situation where most of the Air Asia customers are those tune hotels loyal customers. Weakness Tune hotel has a very limited number of customers in the region who are conscious of the Tune hotel. This could be one of the weaknesses faced by Tune hotel. Tune hotel should be able to work on their advertising method and emphasis more on their service provided. Opportunity In order to gain the competitive market and be the first market leader in service industry, Tune hotel can be able to attract more customers by improving their marketing strategy effectively to gain the customers satisfaction and their support as well in future. Threat Tune hotel receives a high competition in the service industry since it has been unique in the industry. High Competition among competitors is one the biggest threat to tune hotel to sustain in the market in the future. Outsourcing is also one of the threat to Tune Hotel since other Hotels do provide facilities which tune Hotel doesnt provide, for instance other hotels have basis necessities of customer such as the boiler, drinking water and many more, meanwhile Tune hotel does not provide all this. Service concept Source: http://www.xm-msia.com/xm/tunehotels/facilities.asp Tune hotel is unique in providing their service, compared to their competitors, and they operate a limited service concept, where they only offer single and double room for its customers. They have 5 star beds provided in each rooms feature high quality spring mattress beds with basic needs such as pillows, pillowcase and bed sheets. Each of the room consists of attached private bathrooms together with heated power showers with the minimal room rates. Tune hotel are have a central and convenient and strategic location which is nearby to shopping areas, ATM services to withdrawal purposes, food and beverage such as kopitiam outlets and entertainment as well. Moreover, Tune hotel has 24-hour security facilities as well whereby it is secure and safe to be in the surroundings of the hotel. Operating strategy Tune hotel makes use of the outsourcing as their operating strategy to save the operation cost and to improve and get better output and efficiency of the hotel. For instance, Tune Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, the maintenance, Kopitiam, 7 eleven which is available for 24 hours, money changer kiosk, fast food outlets such as Subway, and CIMB ATM and bureau the change are certainly part of outsourcing. By implementing this operating strategy effectively, Tune Hotel have be able to save a huge amount of their cost and this eventually helped Tune Hotel to improve on better production and productivity effectively and efficiently of their hotel. ( Batcha, 2007). Service delivery system Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4089502/Tune-Hotel The service delivery system in Tune Hotel is overwhelming, and core and supplementary services provided are identified through the flower of service model. The service are divided into 2 main sections, where the information, order taking, billing and payment are categorized under the facilitating services, meanwhile consultation, housekeeping, hospitality and exception are categorized under the second section named as enhancing services. TUNE HOTELS STAKEHOLDERS Source: http://www.xm-msia.com/xm/tunehotels/about_us_3.asp Tune hotels sdn.bhd is 40% owned by Datuk Tony Fernandes, 30% by Dato Kamarudin Meranun, 25% by Dennis Melka and the rest 5% by Tune Strategic Investments Limited. Tune Ventures Sdn Bhd owns 72.19% stake in tune hotels, followed by Dato Kalimullah Hassan which now the chairman of ECM avenue which is one of the listed Malaysian investment bank owns 12.03% stake in tune hotels, Lim Kian Onn the chairman of ECM avenue, also owns the same percentage as Dato Kalimullah Hassan 12.03%, and lastly followed by tune hotels employee holding sdn bhd where the company is formely owned by the key employees of tune hotel owns 3.75% stake in tune hotels as well. Question 2 Service qualifiers Tune hotel is classified to be the service qualifier since it is providing a good service which meets the requirements of a consumer. For instance, tune hotel has a clean environment around, whereby they provide housekeeping services to make sure the consumers feels safe and clean with the surrounding environment. Moreover, Tune hotel are concerned with the safety as well, where they have the 24 hour security system applied, whereby they uses electronic key card to access into rooms, CCTV cameras services, round- the- clock on duty reception staff and no access to the main lobby without a keycard pass midnight.(anonymous, 2007) Moreover, tune hotel also has introduced tune hotel insurance only in Malaysia, and said to be globally soon. Those insurance are not only responsible for the lost of travel documents, but also has take the responsibilities of being cautious of guests personal accident, medical expenses and also delayed check in as well.(anonymous, n.d). Service winners Service winners are those competitive dimensions used to make the final choice among competitors, for instance is the price. The pricing strategy of Tune hotel is from the range of RM 9.90. Tune hotels price will be different during peak seasons, promotion seasons and also a different price range for the advance booking as well. Service loser When tune hotel fails to deliver the needs and wants of the customer, they might entitle to be the service loser. Service loser occurs when there is a failure to meet the expectations of what customer actually wants. Tune hotel should be able to implement new marketing strategy as Tune Hotel is having a high competition among its competitors which is a threat to them. Question 3 Porters generic strategies Source: http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml Tune hotel has adopt the cost leadership strategy overall. This cost leadership strategy mainly emphasis on the low cost producer in the industry. Setting price low sometimes might influence the way of thinking of a customer, where low price may give a negative perception of the quality and the brand image of the company itself. For instance, there are not many out there are aware about Tune hotel and its services, since it is new in the market. This is mainly because the strategy used to representation about Tune hotel is done ineffectively. Tune hotel should come up with an effective strategy to expose their brand name by having advertisement about its service and facilities provided to attract not only the Air Asias customers, but also to the locals and foreigners who travel frequently. Placing Tune hotel in a strategic location with the lower price is valuable, but it should also be a place where customers feel flexible and convenient with the environment as well. Tune hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman where it is a location which is popular with prohibited immigrations and place where they gather together. The place is nearer to the place where most of the time it is famous with prostitution, drugs and offense are indivisible. This might not guarantee the safety at times and it could be one of the main problem customers will have a choice to choose other hotels as their choice. Tune hotel can improve this by making a deep study and research about those place and plan the location as well to avoid those circumstances occur. Moreover, Tune hotel has limited services where they dont provide the basis necessities such as boiler, drinking water and so on. Tune hotel save cost on this, but yet it should not be limited in providing the services since its known as the budget hotel. Tune hotel can improve on their service provided to enhance the satisfaction of the customers and maintain its competitive advantage than its competitors. Conclusion Overall, Tune hotel has been taking the efforts to reach the audience by implementing the no frills concept hotel. Since it is still new in the market, Tune hotel should implement new ideas to expose its brand name and win the local consumers perception as well to adopt their name as well.

Effect of Social Capital on Democracy

Effect of Social Capital on Democracy Critically assess the concept of social capital? What advantages, if any, does it offer the study of democracy? Introduction Since the 2001 general election much academic debate has centred on voter apathy as the lowest turnout, especially among the young, led many to posit a ‘crises in democracy’ (Russell, 2005: 555). Various theories have attempted to explain the problem as either the result of a ‘life-cycle’ argument, whereby ‘the youngest sections of society are always less likely to vote [†¦] but as they age [†¦] own houses and mortgages, and pay taxes they become more concerned with politics and more likely to vote’ (Denver in Russell, 2005: 556) or a ‘generational effect’ whereby there is an overall decline in active citizenship (Park in Russell, 2005: 556). Against this background the work of Robert Putnam appeared to strike a chord. In his influential Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000)[1], and associated articles, Robert Putnam transferred the concept of social capital from sociology into the realm of p olitics, arguing that increasing individualism had resulted in the decline of community ties and political participation (Russell, 2005: 557), undermining good governance. In the first section I provide an outline of social capital as it was originally formulated by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in the second I detail the concepts move from sociology to political science in the work of Putnam. My contention is that in the process of adapting ‘social capital’, Putnam changes the meaning of the term and thus undermines its usefulness to the study of democracy; that whereas for Bourdieu it was a property held by individuals, in Putnam’s account it is held by collectives. Also, that although Bourdieu believed that social capital was exchangeable with economic capital but not reducible to it, Putnam relies on a distinctly economic understanding of the term. Finally, that Putnam’s use of the term is essentially neo-liberal, whereas for Bourdieu social capital is ultimately about power relations. In the conclusion assess the usefulness of the term to political science and the study of democracy in light of this conceptual drift. Pierre Bourdieu and the Forms of Capital Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) originally developed his theory of cultural capital as part of an attempt to explain class-based differentials in educational achievement. His theory has five main features, the different forms of capital; cultural, social and economic, and the concepts of the field and habitus. For Bourdieu capital is best defined as accumulated labour and has the potential to reproduce (Bourdieu, 1986: 241): it is this ability of capital to reproduce that leads Bourdieu to conclude that it is part of the structure of society that shapes individual life chances: it is ‘the set of constraints, inscribed in the very reality of that world [†¦] determining the chances of success for practices’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 242). Social Capital, for Bourdieu, refers to the network of ‘connections’ that an individual enjoys which ‘produce and reproduce lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 249 ): the amount of social capital that an individual can draw upon is thus dependant on the number of people in their social network and the amount of capital cultural, economic or social possessed by those so included. Both cultural and social capitals are therefore rooted in, without being determined by, the possession of economic capital: all three interact to hide the way that social hierarchies are reproduced. Finally, the three forms of capital combine to produce a persons habitus, or set of predispositions whilst the field refers to the arena in which a specific habitus is realised. Thus we can see that for Bourdieu not only was the concept of social capital embedded in relations of power (Burkett, 2004: 236), it was also part of a complex theory that sought to explain the social reproduction of inequality. Bourdieus’ theory has been criticized as being essentialist and deterministic; for John Frow (1995) it is essentialist in that Bourdieu posits ‘a single class â€Å"experience† common to the sociologically quite distinct groups [he] includes in the dominant class’ (Frow, 1995: 62): that an individuals’ class position makes them what they are, he ‘reads off’ both working and middle class culture from their class position, resulting in an essentialist reading of the aesthetic (Frow, 1995: 63). Bourdieus’ theory can also be viewed as deterministic, as individuals’ predispositions are posited as being the direct result of their class position, entailing a denial of individual agency. Further, such a class-based analysis can lead one to minimize the effects of other forms of differentiation, such as gender, ethnicity and age. However, Bourdieu’s use of the term ‘capital’ is both metaphoric and materialistic a nd can be viewed as similar to power: although convertible with economic capital, social capital is not reducible to it (Bourdieu, 1986: 243). Also, Bourdieu argued that the social capital possessed by an individual is a result of their ‘investment strategies’ via ‘a continuing series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 250). Finally, Bourdieu argues that social inequalities become part of the very bodies and predispositions of the individual through his concept of habitus (McNay, 1999: 99), not as a ‘principle of determination’ but as a ‘generative structure’ (McNay, 1999: 100): returning autonomy to the individual his theory is able to transcend determinism; it is an open system which allows for social change (McNay, 1999:101). In summary, for Bourdieu social capital is ultimately about the way that power works through society, and is concerned with the life chances of individu als. Further, the wider theory, especially the concept of the habitus, is useful for theorists who seek to explain patterns of behaviour, including community participation and levels of voting. Robert Putnam: Social Capital and Democracy Robert Putnams’ argument may be summarised as being that the decrease in participation in voluntary organisations has undermined the effectiveness of good governance; ‘that successful and healthy democracies and economies are those possessing dense webs of community participation’ (Walters, 2002: 377). In so arguing, Putnam transferred the concept of social capital from sociology into the realm of political science, arguing that increasing individualism, the anonymity of urban living (Russell, 2002: 557), and the negative effects of television (Putnam, 1995: 75; Walters, 2002: 380), have resulted in the decline of community ties and political participation (Russell, 2002: 557) and thus a decline in social capital. Similar debates were found within the British context, as were calls for a revival of participation and stakeholder values (Walters, 2002: 377). Arguing that a range of issues including ‘drugs, crime, unemployment, development, education and politi cal performance’ (Walters, 2002: 379), and the effectiveness of democracy itself (Putnam, 1995: 66) would benefit from a resurgence of voluntary associations, Putnam therefore calls for a reinvigoration of community participation (Walters, 2002: 377) as ‘members of associations are much more likely than non-members to participate in politics, to spend time with neighbours, to express social trust’ (Putnam, 1995: 73). Defining social capital as ‘features of social organisation such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit (Putnam, 1995: 67), Putnam argued that not only has the post-war period witnessed a decline in participation in voluntary associations, but that such membership is now increasingly ‘tertiary’: that ‘the only act of membership consists in writing a check for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newsletter’ (Ibid. p. 71). Putnam argues that this declining membership, and the increasingly tertiary nature of remaining membership, represents a significant erosion of American social capital (Ibid. p. 73) and, as such, undermines democracy. However, Putnams’ use of the term is markedly different from that of Bourdieu; whereas in Bourdieus’ conception social capital was held by the individual (Walters, 2002: 387), for Putnam social capital is held by collectives (Ibid. p. 379), further, it is difficult to see how there can be a reduction in social capital, rather than a qualitative change in its composition. William Walters (2002) argues that Putnam’s use of the concept differs from Bourdieu’s in another key respect; whereas for Bourdieu social capital, although transferable with economic capital, is not reducible to it (Bourdieu, 1986: 243), Putnam assumes ‘a self-maximising individual for whom associative activity can, under certain circumstances, be an investment’ (Walters, 2002: 379, my emphasis). Rather that discussing the social capital of individuals embedded within relations of power, for Putnam social capital ‘implies a learning mechanism that is more economic that socio-psychological’ (Ibid. p. 387), and as such represents an extension of the economic metaphor in order to convince us that society is ‘self-governing’ (Ibid. p. 391): by using social capital in this way, individuals are made responsible for good governance – now conceived as a ‘horizontal space of multiple communities’ (Ibid. p. 388) – adding the discourse of the ‘civic and uncivic’ to the list of divisions by which normative judgements are naturalised (Ibid. p. 392). Thus for Putnam ‘social capital is simultaneously cause and effect’ (Ibid. p. 380). Further, rather than situating the individual within a web of power relations, Putnam relies on the atomised individual of neo-liberalism (Burkett, 2004: 236). Finally, whilst this author agrees that society benefits when individuals participate in voluntary organisations, Putnam assumes a link between such involvement and an improved performance for democracy, yet this link remains to be clearly, empirically, demonstrated (Freitag, 2006: 124). Such an argument also undermines the role of government in shaping civil society (Walters, 2002: 380) and in shaping social capital (Freitag, 2006:128), and as such can only provide a skewed picture of the link between community participation and the functioning of democracy. In Conclusion In conclusion, we can see that in the process of adapting ‘social capital’ to the realm of political science, Putnam changes the meaning of the term; that whereas for Bourdieu it was a property held by individuals, in Putnam’s account it is held by collectives. Also, that although Bourdieu believed that social capital was exchangeable with economic capital he believed it was not reducible to it, whilst Putnam relies on a distinctly neo-liberal, economic understanding of the term: that whereas for Bourdieu the individual and therefore their social capital resources are ultimately concerned with relations of power, Putnam utilises an atomistic and self-maximising conception of the individual (Walter, 2002: 386) involved in building networks of self-governance (Walters, 2002: 388) and one wonders if such an argument may, in part, justify the ‘rolling back’ of the state. Finally, that the use of the term in political science rests on the assumption of a l ink between membership of voluntary organisations and political participation, but this link remains to be empirically proven. Indeed, Markus Frietag argues that it is political institutions that ‘matter’, that there are in fact three ‘political prerequisites’ for collective social capital: institutional provision for direct democracy, respect for minorities and outsiders as part of consensus building, and a degree of local autonomy (Frietag, 2006: 145). Ben Fine argues that academia has become subject to a ‘social capital fetish’ (in Burkett, 2004: 234); that it’s now weak conceptualisation ‘means that social capital can be virtually anything’ (Burkett, 2004: 238). He is also concerned that, too often, social capital is in fact ‘primarily participation from below imposed from above’ (in Burkett, 2004: 243): perhaps we should be wary that calls for increased social capital are not simply calls for a withdrawal o f state responsibility. Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) ‘The forms of Capital’ in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, London: Greenwood Press, pp. 241-258. Burkett, Paul (2004) ‘Book Review: Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium’ by Fine, Ben (London: Routledge) in Historical Materialism, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 233-246. Freitag, Markus (2006) ‘Bowling the State Back In: Political Institutions and the Creation of Social Capital’ in European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 45, pp. 123-152. Frow, John (1995) ‘Accounting for Tastes: Some Problems in Bourdieus’ Sociology of Culture’ in Cultural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 59-73. McNay, L (1999) ‘Gender, habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity’ in Theory, Culture Society, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 95-117. Putnam, Robert (1995) ‘Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital, An Interview with Robert Putnam’ in Journal of Democracy, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 65-78. Russell, Andrew (2005) ‘Political Parties as Vehicles of Political Engagement’, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 555-569. Walters, William (2002) ‘Social Capital and Political Sociology: Re-imagining Politics?’ Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 377-397. 1 Footnotes [1] New York, N.Y.: Simon Schuster.

Free College Essays - Sea Wolf :: Sea Wolf Essays

Sea Wolf      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wolf Larsen was a character in the book who never made it all the way through the book, but he tried very hard.   He was a very strong, brutal man with almost no respect for human life.   With all the people in the world, one dead person meant nothing to him.   He was a patient man and usually kept himself under control.   He was surprisingly smart and thoughtful for a pirate who lives on the sea.   He loved the sea and knew many things about it, such as how to outwit his brother when he came near Wolf's boat.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Humphrey Van Weydon, or Hump as he was called on the boat, was a landlubber.   He had a very comfortable job, and very soft skin showing how soft his life had been.   He had barely any muscles and lived a very pampered living.   He was a gentleman and very proper.   Being proper, he was very intelligent and had a very extensive vocabulary. He seemed very surprised when he realized Wolf and he both shared some vocabulary words and meanings.   Hump wasn't used to living on a boat, but he soon learned to live on one.   He became accepted on the boat with the crew.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wolf and Hump were very different people with few similarities. Wolf was very strong and bullied everyone around.   He believed everyone was insignificant, while Hump was nice, proper and believed everyone was unique and we all should live and that one person can make a big difference and change in the world.   Wolf also tried to turn Hump into a strong man, since Hump was a wimp in everyone's eye on the boat.   Wolf had one disadvantage though, during his voyages, he read many books, but was never able to say what he read or really talk about anything he read.   When Hump came along, they shared and exchanged knowledge and each learned new things about the books they read.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One scene that stands out the most from the book was when Wolf Larsen was engaged in a battle with his brother.   Wolf played Hide-N- Seek with his brother behind fog on the seas for a long time.

J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace: Post-Apartheid South Africa Essay -- South Afr

You behave as if everything I do is part of the story of your life. You are the main character; I am a minor character who doesn't make an appearance until half way through. Well, contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of my own, just as important to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the decisions (Coetzee 174) This is a poignant statement made by Lucy Lurie to her father David the protagonist and central consciousness of Disgrace. It is her response to his lack of understanding her life choices and his lack of deep regard for anyone but himself. It is his handicap, his inability to understand anything outside of his self-reflections, and his attitude is due to a level of arrogance and sense of privilege, as he continues his attempts at self-elevation. Lucy is protesting his inability to understand her life choices and the root of his lack of any deep regard for anyone but himself. When David loses his position at the University through his own arrogance,--one reading of the â€Å"disgrace† of the title, whether he feels it as such or not,--his partly conscious and partly unconscious search for reconciliation forces him to listen to the voices of formerly silenced persons, feminine, and black represented in the just quoted passage by his daughter. David in his narration bends the scope of his story toward the plight of women, rather than the â€Å"colored† in a post-apartheid South African landscape. Lucy is a convenient representation for David of those really disgraced in post-Apartheid South Africa, while David represents those seemingly disgraced who evade the realities of their actions, those unapologetic un-remorseful masses that excuse ... ...t of vipers. No, Professor Lurie, you may be high and mighty and have all kinds of degrees, but if I was you I’d be very ashamed of myself, so help me God. If I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, now is your chance to say, but I don’t think so, I can see it from your face.’ Lurie whispers in response, ‘excuse me, I have business to attend to and walks away (Coetzee 38) David’s response to Melanie’s father in the passage above only further demonstrates what is echoed throughout the text. His avoidance, self-righteousness and inability to apologize become apparent. In that scene at the beginning of the novel we see David’s ability to evade a clear transgression made by him when confronted, and therefore gives us a glimpse of the person we will be depending on to tell us the story. Works Cited Coetzee, J. M. (2000) Disgrace. London: Vintage.

Having different plots the two stories nevertheless indicate the common concept

Are people part of this world or we really don’t belong to it? Maybe we’re just strangers, the incidental guests, who dropped in for a moment?This idea unites the two stories, which I’m going to analyze – A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and My Singular Irene by Jose Alcantara Alcanzar. Both stories create the impression of hopelessness, as they indicate bitter alienation of a human in a society, which is ready to swallow his identity.Having different plots, the two stories nevertheless indicate the common concept – they allegorically describe a person’s life from birth to death. However, in both stories birth and death change their meaning to the reverse one.The time, when the events start, is said to be the beginning of spring, which is naturally associated with the birth. In Marquez’s story the birth is also marked by the presence of a new-born baby, but it not him, who is symbolically born but a old man with enormous wings. It is suggestive that is born already old, like in the legend about Buddha’s birth.The reverse order of things is also demonstrated in the fact that he is born from the earth, even from mud (analogical to the traditional burial of a human body). That’s the picture Pelayo saw: â€Å"He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impede by his enormous wings† (p.371, paragraph 1).It is opposite to the beautiful concept, when a child, pure and innocent, is sent by the heaven. But in Marquez’s perception, a human is mercilessly thrown into this world, where he has to face loneliness and misunderstanding.The Angel is disempowered and helpless throughout his staying among people, and so is the heroine of Alcanzar’ story. And the reason for the condition is the same   – the wings. Irene is butterfly, which a ce rtain version of angelic image too. Besides, it is interesting to note that for ancient Greeks butterfly sounded exactly like the word, denoting a human soul – psyche.That why in the story My Singular Irene the same way from birth to death- in a conventional meaning – is symbolically described, which is in fact has the opposite direction – from death to life, to renaissance, to magic transformation.For years he’s been kept in her cocoon by her husband who embodies limits of the society. It is noteworthy, that in his narration he uses a lot of   restricting words as ‘allow’, ‘permit’, â€Å"demand†, ‘forgive’ and ‘forbid’. All of them he applies to Irene. He tries to control his wife’s life, leaving her no space for breathing. It would be wrong to say that he doesn’t love her, he does in fact in his own way, as a collector of butterflies.  Indeed, the metaphor of a butterfly acqui res a broader meaning: â€Å"Irene rolled down the window and by accident some butterflies got inside and were trapped† (p.12, paragraph 3) This sentence suggests the concept of human life as seen by Almanzar. It is evident that this view is very similar to the one presented by Marquez.An angel who was thrown into this world and was put by people into a cage reveals the same meaning as butterfly-person, who flew into this world accidentally an was trapped. For both writers, the metaphor for human existence is prison.For Almanzar it is both prison and journey, so that as a result we have a kind of prison on wheels. For Marquez life is a cage in a zoo with thousands of spectators watching and torturing you. I fact, life is a hell for angels.

Assembly Language

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE An assembly language is a low-level programming language for a computer, microcontroller, or other programmable device, in which each statement corresponds to a single machine code instruction. Each assembly language is specific to a particular computer architecture, in contrast to most high-level programming languages, which are generally portable across multiple systems. Assembly language is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an assembler; the conversion process is referred to as assembly, or assembling the code.Assembly language uses a mnemonic to represent each low-level machine operation or opcode. Some opcodes require one or more operands as part of the instruction, and most assemblers can take labels and symbols as operands to represent addresses and constants, instead of hard coding them into the program. Macro assemblers include a macroinstruction facility so that assembly language text can be pre-assigned to a name, and that name can be used to insert the text into other code. Many assemblers offer additional mechanisms to facilitate program development, to control the assembly process, and to aid debugging.HISTORY OF ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE Assembly languages date to the introduction of the stored-program computer. The EDSAC computer (1949) had an assembler called initial orders featuring one-letter mnemonics. Nathaniel Rochester wrote an assembler for an IBM 701 (1954). SOAP (Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program) (1955) was an assembly language for the IBM 650 computer written by Stan Poley. Assembly languages eliminated much of the error-prone and time-consuming first-generation programming needed with the earliest computers, freeing programmers from tedium such as remembering numeric codes and calculating addresses.They were once widely used for all sorts of programming. However, by the 1980s (1990s on microcomputers), their use had largely been supplanted by high-level languages, in the search for improved programming productivity. Today assembly language is still used for direct hardware manipulation, access to specialized processor instructions, or to address critical performance issues. Typical uses are device drivers, low-level embedded systems, and real-time systems. Historically, a large number of programs have been written entirely in assembly language. Operating systems were ntirely written in assembly language until the introduction of the Burroughs MCP (1961), which was written in ESPOL, an Algol dialect. Many commercial applications were written in assembly language as well, including a large amount of the IBM mainframe software written by large corporations. COBOL, FORTRAN and some PL/I eventually displaced much of this work, although a number of large organizations retained assembly-language application infrastructures well into the '90s. Most early microcomputers relied on hand-coded assembly language, including most operating systems and large applications.This was because these systems had severe resource constraints, imposed idiosyncratic memory and display architectures, and provided limited, buggy system services. Perhaps more important was the lack of first-class high-level language compilers suitable for microcomputer use. A psychological factor may have also played a role: the first generation of microcomputer programmers retained a hobbyist, â€Å"wires and pliers† attitude. In a more commercial context, the biggest reasons for using assembly language were minimal bloat (size), minimal overhead, greater speed, and reliability.Typical examples of large assembly language programs from this time are IBM PC DOS operating systems and early applications such as the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3. Even into the 1990s, most console video games were written in assembly, including most games for the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. According to some industry insiders, the assembly language was the best computer language to use to get the best performance out of the Sega Saturn, a console that was notoriously challenging to develop and program games for.The popular arcade game NBA Jam (1993) is another example. Assembly language has long been the primary development language for many popular home computers of the 1980s and 1990s (such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST). This was in large part because BASIC dialects on these systems offered insufficient execution speed, as well as insufficient facilities to take full advantage of the available hardware on these systems.Some systems, most notably the Amiga, even have IDEs with highly advanced debugging and macro facilities, such as the freeware ASM-One assembler, comparable to that of Microsoft Visual Studio facilities (ASM-One predates Microsoft Visual Studio). The Assembler for the VIC-20 was written by Don French and published by French Silk. At 1,639 bytes in length, its author believes it is the smallest symbolic assembler ever written. The assembler supported the usual symbolic addressing and the definition of character strings or hex strings.It also allowed address expressions which could be combined with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, logical AND, logical OR, and exponentiation operators. COMPILER A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.The name â€Å"compiler† is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a lower level language (e. g. , assembly language or machine code). If the compiled program can run on a computer whose CPU or operating system is different from the one on which the compiler r uns, the compiler is known as a cross-compiler. A program that translates from a low level language to a higher level one is a decompiler. A program that translates between high-level languages is usually called a language translator, source to source translator, or language converter.A language rewriter is usually a program that translates the form of expressions without a change of language. A compiler is likely to perform many or all of the following operations: lexical analysis, preprocessing, parsing, semantic analysis (Syntax-directed translation), code generation, and code optimization. Program faults caused by incorrect compiler behavior can be very difficult to track down and work around; therefore, compiler implementors invest significant effort to ensure the correctness of their software.The term compiler-compiler is sometimes used to refer to a parser generator, a tool often used to help create the lexer and parser. INTERPRETER In computer science, an interpreter normall y means a computer program that executes, i. e. performs, instructions written in a programming language. An interpreter may be a program that either 1. executes the source code directly 2. translates source code into some efficient intermediate representation (code) and immediately executes this 3. xplicitly executes stored precompiled code made by a compiler which is part of the interpreter system While interpreting and compiling are the two main means by which programming languages are implemented, these are not fully mutually exclusive categories, one of the reasons being that most interpreting systems also perform some translation work, just like compilers. The terms â€Å"interpreted language† or â€Å"compiled language† merely mean that the canonical implementation of that language is an interpreter or a compiler; a high level language is basically an abstraction which is (ideally) independent of particular implementations.ASSEMBLER Assembler (meaning one that a ssembles) may refer to: It is a computer program that translate between lower-level representations of computer programs; it converts basic computer instructions into a pattern of bits which can be easily understood by a computer and the processor can use it to perform its basic operations Assembly Language Syntax Programs written in assembly language consist of a sequence of source statements. Each source statement consists of a sequence of ASCII characters ending with a carriage return.Each source statement may include up to four fields: a label, an operation (instruction mnemonic or assembler directive), an operand, and a comment. The following are examples of an assembly directive and a regular machine instruction. PORTA equ $0000; Assembly time constant INP ldaa PORTA; Read data from fixed address I/O data port An assembly language statement contains the following fields. Label Field can be used to define a symbol Operation Field defines the operation code or pseudo-op Operand Field specifies either the address or the data.Comment Field allows the programmer to document the software. Sometimes not all four fields are present in an assembly language statement. A line may contain just a comment. The first token in these lines must begin with a star (*) or a semicolon (;). For example, ; This line is a comment * this is a comment too * This line is a comment Instructions with inherent mode addressing do not have an operand field. For example, label clra comment deca comment cli comment inca comment DATA TYPES IN ASSEMBLY LANGUAGEThere is a large degree of diversity in the way the authors of assemblers categorize statements and in the nomenclature that they use. In particular, some describe anything other than a machine mnemonic or extended mnemonic as a pseudo-operation (pseudo-op). A typical assembly language consists of 3 types of instruction statements that are used to define program operations: †¢Opcode mnemonics †¢Data sections †¢Assembly directives Opcode mnemonics and extended mnemonics Instructions (statements) in assembly language are generally very simple, unlike those in high-level language.Generally, a mnemonic is a symbolic name for a single executable machine language instruction (an opcode), and there is at least one opcode mnemonic defined for each machine language instruction. Each instruction typically consists of an operation or opcode plus zero or more operands. Most instructions refer to a single value, or a pair of values. Operands can be immediate (value coded in the instruction itself), registers specified in the instruction or implied, or the addresses of data located elsewhere in storage.This is determined by the underlying processor architecture: the assembler merely reflects how this architecture works. Extended mnemonics are often used to specify a combination of an opcode with a specific operand, e. g. , the System/360 assemblers use B as an extended mnemonic for BC with a mask of 15 and NOP for BC with a mask of 0. Extended mnemonics are often used to support specialized uses of instructions, often for purposes not obvious from the instruction name. For example, many CPU's do not have an explicit NOP instruction, but do have instructions that can be used for the purpose.In 8086 CPUs the instruction xchg ax, ax is used for nop, with nop being a pseudo-opcode to encode the instruction xchg ax, ax. Some disassemblers recognize this and will decode the xchg ax, ax instruction as nop. Similarly, IBM assemblers for System/360 and System/370 use the extended mnemonics NOP and NOPR for BC and BCR with zero masks. For the SPARC architecture, these are known as synthetic instructions Some assemblers also support simple built-in macro-instructions that generate two or more machine instructions.For instance, with some Z80 assemblers the instruction ld hl, bc is recognized to generate ld l, c followed by ld h, b. These are sometimes known as pseudo-opcodes. Data sections There are instructions used to define data elements to hold data and variables. They define the type of data, the length and the alignment of data. These instructions can also define whether the data is available to outside programs (programs assembled separately) or only to the program in which the data section is defined. Some assemblers classify these as pseudo-ops. Assembly directivesAssembly directives, also called pseudo opcodes, pseudo-operations or pseudo-ops, are instructions that are executed by an assembler at assembly time, not by a CPU at run time. They can make the assembly of the program dependent on parameters input by a programmer, so that one program can be assembled different ways, perhaps for different applications. They also can be used to manipulate presentation of a program to make it easier to read and maintain. (For example, directives would be used to reserve storage areas and optionally their initial contents. The names of directives often start with a dot to disti nguish them from machine instructions. Symbolic assemblers let programmers associate arbitrary names (labels or symbols) with memory locations. Usually, every constant and variable is given a name so instructions can reference those locations by name, thus promoting self-documenting code. In executable code, the name of each subroutine is associated with its entry point, so any calls to a subroutine can use its name. Inside subroutines, GOTO destinations are given labels. Some assemblers support local symbols which are lexically distinct from normal symbols (e. . , the use of â€Å"10$† as a GOTO destination). Some assemblers provide flexible symbol management, letting programmers manage different namespaces, automatically calculate offsets within data structures, and assign labels that refer to literal values or the result of simple computations performed by the assembler. Labels can also be used to initialize constants and variables with relocatable addresses. Assembly lang uages, like most other computer languages, allow comments to be added to assembly source code that are ignored by the assembler.Good use of comments is even more important with assembly code than with higher-level languages, as the meaning and purpose of a sequence of instructions is harder to decipher from the code itself. Wise use of these facilities can greatly simplify the problems of coding and maintaining low-level code. Raw assembly source code as generated by compilers or disassemblers—code without any comments, meaningful symbols, or data definitions—is quite difficult to read when changes must be made. MacrosMany assemblers support predefined macros, and others support programmer-defined (and repeatedly re-definable) macros involving sequences of text lines in which variables and constants are embedded. This sequence of text lines may include opcodes or directives. Once a macro has been defined its name may be used in place of a mnemonic. When the assembler p rocesses such a statement, it replaces the statement with the text lines associated with that macro, then processes them as if they existed in the source code file (including, in some assemblers, expansion of any macros existing in the replacement text).Note that this definition of â€Å"macro† is slightly different from the use of the term in other contexts, like the C programming language. C macros created through the #define directive typically are just one line or a few lines at most. Assembler macro instructions can be lengthy â€Å"programs† by themselves, executed by interpretation by the assembler during assembly. Since macros can have ‘short' names but expand to several or indeed many lines of code, they can be used to make assembly language programs appear to be far shorter, requiring fewer lines of source code, as with higher level languages.They can also be used to add higher levels of structure to assembly programs, optionally introduce embedded debu gging code via parameters and other similar features. Macro assemblers often allow macros to take parameters. Some assemblers include quite sophisticated macro languages, incorporating such high-level language elements as optional parameters, symbolic variables, conditionals, string manipulation, and arithmetic operations, all usable during the execution of a given macro, and allowing macros to save context or exchange information.Thus a macro might generate a large number of assembly language instructions or data definitions, based on the macro arguments. This could be used to generate record-style data structures or â€Å"unrolled† loops, for example, or could generate entire algorithms based on complex parameters. An organization using assembly language that has been heavily extended using such a macro suite can be considered to be working in a higher-level language, since such programmers are not working with a computer's lowest-level conceptual elements.Macros were used to customize large scale software systems for specific customers in the mainframe era and were also used by customer personnel to satisfy their employers' needs by making specific versions of manufacturer operating systems. This was done, for example, by systems programmers working with IBM's Conversational Monitor System / Virtual Machine (VM/CMS) and with IBM's â€Å"real time transaction processing† add-ons, Customer Information Control System CICS, and ACP/TPF, the airline/financial system that began in the 1970s and still runs many large computer reservations systems (CRS) and credit card systems today.It was also possible to use solely the macro processing abilities of an assembler to generate code written in completely different languages, for example, to generate a version of a program in COBOL using a pure macro assembler program containing lines of COBOL code inside assembly time operators instructing the assembler to generate arbitrary code. This was because, as wa s realized in the 1960s, the concept of â€Å"macro processing† is independent of the concept of â€Å"assembly†, the former being in modern terms more word processing, text processing, than generating object code.The concept of macro processing appeared, and appears, in the C programming language, which supports â€Å"preprocessor instructions† to set variables, and make conditional tests on their values. Note that unlike certain previous macro processors inside assemblers, the C preprocessor was not Turing-complete because it lacked the ability to either loop or â€Å"go to†, the latter allowing programs to loop.Despite the power of macro processing, it fell into disuse in many high level languages (major exceptions being C/C++ and PL/I) while remaining a perennial for assemblers. Macro parameter substitution is strictly by name: at macro processing time, the value of a parameter is textually substituted for its name. The most famous class of bugs resul ting was the use of a parameter that itself was an expression and not a simple name when the macro writer expected a name.In the macro: foo: macro a load a*b the intention was that the caller would provide the name of a variable, and the â€Å"global† variable or constant b would be used to multiply â€Å"a†. If foo is called with the parameter a-c, the macro expansion of load a-c*b occurs. To avoid any possible ambiguity, users of macro processors can parenthesize formal parameters inside macro definitions, or callers can parenthesize the input parameters.

What Comes with Old Age?

What Comes with Age What comes to mind when you think of life? Do you view life with an ever go lucky viewpoint and are you happy and content? Are you an optimist? Or do you think life is a means to and end with nothing to look forward to but depression and sorrow. In Earnest Hemingway’s story â€Å"A Clean Well-Lighted Place† Hemmingway makes the point that when you get older there is nothing but desperation and sorrow to live for. He does this by showcasing the story between a younger and an older waiter working late at night in a well-lit cafe where the only customer in the cafe is a very old deaf man getting drunk by himself.The story illustrates through characterization and verbal irony what it means to deal with the harsh reality that everything we are and everything we do is empty. Hemmingway presents two kinds of characters, those that are unaware of the emptiness of life and those that are familiar with it. He does this by focusing on three main characters thro ughout the short story; an old man, a younger waiter, and an older waiter where each has a subtly different outlook on life. At the beginning of the story we meet the old man who is sitting at a bar drinking a brandy just watching the branches of a tree outside.The old man is lonely and drinks by himself. He drowns his sorrows in alcohol. The old man attempts to commit suicide because he is in despair. He tried to commit suicide by hanging himself with a rope but his niece who takes care of him cuts him down. He is in despair and feels unwanted because he is old. His old age shows physical imperfections on his body such as his hard of hearing. He has no one to go home to, and finds comfort drinking in lit places, then home by himself. He is very lonely because his wife died and he has no one to go home to and talk to about his problems or just to keep him company.The old man is also in a good financial position, but regardless of money, he has no will to keep on living. The old manà ¢â‚¬â„¢s deafness signifies a physical and mental isolation from the rest of the world. The younger waiter only cares about going home to his wife and going to bed so he can go to sleep. He seems to think his time is more valuable than the old mans which is ignorant to think since who’s time is really better than someone else’s? In the story the two waiters mention that the old man is in despair. When asked what the old man was in despair about the young waiter replies â€Å"Nothing,† because â€Å"He has plenty of money. This is a typical ignorant sentiment shared by youth who believe that money somehow provides happiness thus a meaningful life. The younger waiter does not show any sympathy to the old man or try to understand his feelings. The younger waiter is very insensitive and only thinks about himself. His attitude towards older people is very harsh and he never stops to think that one day he to might be old and lonely. The older waiter works at the cafe along with the younger waiter but seems to be more aware of the old deaf man’s feelings.He doesn’t have anyone to go home to at the end of the night and he doesn’t mind working at all hours of the night. The older waiter identifies with the old man because he himself has nowhere to go after work. The older waiter himself cannot find a clean well-lighted place of his own to pass the night. The older waiter is offended by how the young waiter treats the man when he decides to refuse serving the man another drink. This is demonstrated when the older waiter says â€Å"Why didn’t you let him stay and drink? The older waiter has a realistic understanding of the significance of â€Å"nada,† in this world and it actually keeps him up at night. He comes to the realization that life is emptiness, that a man’s life means nothing and that his existence signifies nothing to himself, nothing to others and nothing to the universe. One of the most importa nt topics of this story has to do with loneliness. The older waiter and the old man are very lonely. They both would like to stay at the cafe to escape from reality. Whereas the younger waiter is in a rush to get home because his life and reality isn’t filled with loneliness.He has a wife to go home to and he has youth, confidence and a job. The older waiter is very much like the old man except he has a job. The old man feels like he has nothing to live for other than getting drunk, however, life is not found in a bottle of alcohol. Life is found in experiences and relationship and alcohol hinders these experiences and relationships. This story also talks about other topics including death, futility, and meaninglessness. Hemingway shows these topics throughout most of the words and actions of the older waiter.Life is inherently meaningless and leads inevitably to death, and the older one gets, the clearer these truths become and the less able one is to impose any kind of orde r on one’s existence or maintain any kind of positivity in one’s outlook. In Ernest Hemmingway’s â€Å"A Clean Well-Lighted† Place one learns that life seems to get worse with age. Young people seem to be happy and content and think that they themselves will never grow old. The older one gets the closer the realization is that life is not worth living since it is filled with emptiness and despair.

Analysis of Customer Service Problem of Best Buy

Introduction Overview of the task The task of this essay is to have a research in person to pay a visit on Best Buy to discover its potential marketing problem, anticipate the consequences and provides potential solution to this problem, which from my perspective, is bad customer service. Purpose and structure of the essay The purpose of this essay is to explore the potential marketing problem of Best Buy to provide solutions to its problem.In order to make the essay more complete, this essay will first start with the brief introduction of the Best Buy, and then a personal experience of visiting the Best Buy shop will be displayed to have an analysis of the potential problem- bad customer service. What to follow is the anticipation and analysis of the potential influence and consequence of the problem. Subsequently, solutions and recommendation will be put out to tackle the problem. Brief Introduction of the Best BuyBest Buy is a giant retailer of entertainment and technology product s and services with operations in the multiple countries- United States, China, Europe, Canada and Mexico. The Best Buy generates more than 45 billion dollars annual revenue through brands family and partnerships such as Magnolia Audio Video; Audiovisions; Best Buy; Future Shop; Geek Squad The Car phone Warehouse; Napster; Jiangsu Five Star; Pacific Sales; The Phone House; and Speakeasy.The company is made up by about 155,000 employees who have applied their capabilities to bring benefit to the company and added value to customers through various means, for example, online communities, call centers, in-home solutions, retail locations, and websites, and product delivery. Problem of the company On March 29, 2012, the earning news released by the Best Buy which is lower than expected has revealed the trouble of this giant electronics retailer. It is said that Best buy is going to fire four hundred employees and ended up to fifty stores.Best buy, the last standing electronics blames it s difficulties on fierce online competition, for example with Amazon. com. It says that Amazon keeps stealing its business with lower price due to its sales tax free (The Crossing of Marketing and IT, 2012). One joke even goes that Best Buy and Wall-mart have became the showroom for the Amazon. What show rooming means? It means that customers walk in to a Best Buy / Wall-mart/ Sears with the only purpose to check out the real product and compare the prices with the online prices so as to buy a product in other places with cheaper price.This is the dilemma and big problem for most of the brick and mortar retailers like Best Buy. The show rooming and price competition with online-stores should take most part of the duty for the declining profit problem of Best Buy. But it is from my perspective that the failure of Best Buy is a self-inflicted woes rather than an external hurt due to its bad customer service. The much-publicized Christmas fault of Best Buy has exposed the customer serv ice problem. Three days before Christmas last year, Best Buy informed 30,000 awaiting customers of cancelled order due to â€Å"a combination of software and process issues† (24kmarketing, 2012).There is no need to say that such kind of fault will kill any types of retailers. To make things worse, it took approximately three weeks for CEO of Best Buy – Brian Dunn to make an apology for this event, which has added the oil on the flame of fury of customers. The consequence is evident with shares of Best Buy falling by 34% to about $30, Since Thanksgiving. On June 14, Best Buy also announced earnings of 35 cents a share which is a penny lower than last year (Alpha, 2012). What’s more, my last experience of visiting the Best Buy shop has given more proof of it customer service problem.Last week, I went to one of the stores of Best Buy, when I was looking for the things I wanted, the salesperson keeps roaming around me and kept fixed eyes on me which made me quite un pleasant. After a while, he asked me about my needs, however, the guy just knew nothing about the things I want and started to sell other electronics products to me. However, what I want is just some blu-ray dics. Bothering by the upsetting and annoying salesperson, I just grabbed one of the blu-ray discs. But after going home, I found that I have already got this disc and returned to ask for changing the disc.The troublesome procedure and bad attitude of staff really made me furious. Apart from the up-selling and cross-selling, what I cannot put up with is the erosion of my privacy, questions like how much is your salary is really impolite. The hawking clumsy salesperson is the tip of the problem iceberg and just scratch the surface of the problem, what should be laid emphasis is the customer service and after-sales service quality. Potential consequence of the problem The company has reported a 1. 7% decline in it total sales and profit margins last year.Consumers come down to the store will have high interaction with the salespersons and in-store staff (Forbes, 2012). The attitude and service quality is the cornerstone of the success. Non-savvy consumers need the help to learn more product and handling before purchase. If Best Buy cannot differentiate itself and make full use of the advantages of its retail stores, Best Buy is destined to follow the way of dinosaur. Below chart illustrates that the consequence will be like in a few years if Best Buy is unable to change customers ‘perception and values towards it.Best Buy cannot forget the lesson of Circuit City which closed its big boxes in 2009 (Alpha, 2012). CNBC Financial Data: Solution to the problem Solutions that can be provided to the Best Buy are as follows. First and foremost, improve customer service quality through systematic plan and training. It is suggested experts in this field should be hired to make a throughout improvement plan for this company, ranging from standard speech and the a fter-sales service standard (Harvard Business Review, 2010). Secondly, make full use of the interaction in the stores with customers to change the perception of customers.In this part, the attitude the promotion is the key to success. Thirdly, with fierce competition, Best Buy should improve its inventory system and internet technologies in this field. The Christmas mistakes cannot happen again. Fourthly, close some big store and change its focus to the online competition. Reference Alpha, S. (2012). Best Buy: the Writing Is on the Wall. Retrieved from http://seekingalpha. com/article/343721-best-buy-the-writing-is-on-the-wall Forbes, S. (2012). Why Best Buy is going out of Business†¦ Gradually. Retrieved from http://www. orbes. com/fdc/welcome_mjx. shtml Harvard Business Review. (2010). Inside Best Buy's Customer-Centric Strategy. Retrieved from http://blogs. hbr. org/hbsfaculty/2010/04/inside-best-buys-customer-cent. html The Crossing of Marketing and IT. (2012). What is Best Buy’s Real Problem. Retrieved from http://www. crossingmarketingandit. com/marketing-2/general-marketing/best-buys-problem/ 24kmarketing. (2012). Best Buy Problems Signal Need for New Retail Formats. Retrieved from http://24kmarketing. com/2012/03/best-buy-problems-signal-need-for-new. html