History Paper 1877 – 1900

Over the years of 1877 to the 1900’s many changes were occurring. The Southern cities were changing faster than anyone could’ve imagined with new transportation, growing industries, and the end of slavery. Not to mention, the changing role of women. In the New South by the year 1880, steel and iron mills were progressing across the North. Railroad construction was fast paced in the 1880s. Comparing 1880 to 1890 the tracks had doubled with Texas and Georgia having the biggest growth. In 1886, an agreement was made to have a standardized width on the railroad tracks.This would help create a national transportation system. By creating this, the increasing demand of buying and selling goods would be fulfilled at a faster pace. Also, with this new transportation came new land for families to move into for work. The textile industry was growing significantly also because more people were traveling to the South. With immigrants and Southerners needing a steady form of income e ntrepreneurs took on the textile business not only to build good relationships with the people of the South but also to be less dependent on capital and manufactured products from the North.Tobacco was also a growing business with Virginia leading in the sales of chewing tobacco across the nation. When the discovery of bright-leaf tobacco was made, tobacco habits were changed into the form of cigarettes by James B. Duke. He had the first cigarette-making machine installed in his plant and by the year 1900, Duke’s tobacco company was controlling eighty percent of tobacco manufacturing in the United States. With these booming industries came low wages. The South experienced a downfall with the rise they were experiencing.Since the workers of the South were poorly paid they could not afford to buy much so the market in the South for manufactured goods was kept low as was the consumer demand. Low wages only brought in immigrants that were low-skilled so skilled laborers were more likely to go north and work complicated machinery to produce high-quality goods. The South had close to no capital reserves to expand leaving Northern financers to purchase the five major rail lines serving the South at a bargain after failing during a depression in the 1870s.Since the South was such a risk to invest in the textile industry stayed small-scale. On the other hand, the South’s largest industry, the lumber industry grew. Since it required little capital and provided unskilled laborers with a job, these raw materials were quickly produced. The tobacco industry unlike the textile industry avoided some turmoil. James B. Duke’s tobacco company was profitable enough to become its own bank. With enough capital to have the latest technologies on his plants, he was fortunate enough to buy out his competitors.In the late nineteenth century women began fighting to improve the status of women, sometimes by joining with men. Because women in the South were left with providing for their families when the South lost the war, some never wanting to depend on men again and others who dealt with Southern men who were shaken by defeat, they were not as motivated to campaign reform and threaten gender role changes. Despite such battles, southern women found opportunities in schools, and stores for example that expanded their social role twenty years after 1880.Women of the South, both black and white of the middle class, played important roles in civic work and reform. These middle class women began performing in activities ranging from lobbying for various causes, taking leadership on plenty of important issues and organizing clubs. Some of the first women’s clubs starting in the 1880s were self-improvement societies that did not care for reform. Women’s clubs grew and by 1890, most towns and cities had several women’s clubs. Some of the club’s and its members even began taking part in political issues.While both black and white women had their clubs, the activities of black women’s clubs were slightly different in comparison to the white women’s clubs. Black women’s clubs looked out for the women and children in their cities, supporting daycare facilities for working mothers and settlement houses in poor black neighborhoods. They also established homes for single black women so that they would not be an easy victim to sexual exploitation. Atlanta’s Neighborhood Union founded playgrounds, a health center and also received a grant to improve black education.These women also worked for woman suffrage. While both groups of women had strong beliefs and motives to speak their minds they rarely communicated with each other. Some white women would even use racial solidarity as a weapon to promote white women’s right to vote. They did this to prove the point that with white men and women’s votes combined they could further white interests. The black generation that ca me of age in this environment where blacks and whites could maintain cordial relations expected many privileges in society like the right to vote, work and attend school.Among these, they also wanted self-respect, dignity and to be considered equal to the white men and women. White southerners who came of age in this same environment saw blacks as the enemy. They wanted to preserve white purity and dominance. Because the tensions between blacks and whites continued to grow, not only on the view of equality but in jobs as well, violence against black people boomed in the 1890s. Some of these violent crimes included lynching. After two of the unspoken rules had been violated the lynchings started.White men began to see themselves as protectors of the weak, but it more importantly reinforced white solidarity and reminded the blacks that white supremacy ruled the South. When the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed freedmen the right to vote, poll taxes, literacy test, understanding clause an d grandfather clause were all some of the disfranchising legislation that began to prevent blacks from voting. Blacks began moving to cities in the South where they could be somewhat free from white surveillance after feeling like American democracy had hung a â€Å"whites only† sign.Blacks began to create their own rich communities and the businesses and institutions they built during Reconstruction began to grow and some even flourish. By the year 1900, black southerners had less political power than they had before and were far more isolated from white southerners. Despite every obstacle, they were successful in building a comfortable community life and a rising middle class, all while being in a restricted environment.The changes brought over the time frame of 1877 to the 1900’s were the framework for some of the opportunities we have today. The South had plenty going on over the years, from building and trying to keep industries, to men and women moving into the S outhern cities with new opportunity that their ancestors did not have and Blacks fighting for their rights when white solidarity was having such a heavy effect on their lifestyles. The South was fast growing but holding itself back with segregation, and black disfranchisement.

Business Policy Essay

Produce a high quality products * Diversity and variety in products offered * Large market share (16% of global footwear market) * Major sponsor for a number of global sporting events * Purchasing of Reebok * Adidas has a Global Presence with over 2400 stores worldwide in a variety of regions. These alone account for nearly â‚ ¬2. 8bil. * Famous sports stars advertising products – Adidas has a series of football superstars who wear and advertise their products, including David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Stephen Gerrard etc. Weaknesses High prices in some products * Online customer service not â€Å"helpful† or easy to find * Not utilizing Reebok * Stiff competition and similar big brands means customers have high brand switching * The products can sometimes be costly due to innovative technology or production method * E-commerce is limited to USA Opportunities * Entering the Asian market, China is the fastest growing economy in the world. * Entering the female market * Social trend and popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, allowing Adidas to interact directly and build relationships with potential and current customers. Sponsorship of global sports events which improves the company’s global brand. These include an 11 year sponsorship on the NBA, the 2012 GB Olympic Games and the continued sponsorship of the FIFA WC. * Tie-up with emerging sports teams/clubs/players internationally * Collaborate with other online retailers to offer Adidas products Threats * Nike competition. Nike has strong reputation in the footwear and apparel industry * Global economic downturn. * Increase in the Price of Raw materials * Competition from designers such as Hugo Boss and Lacoste. * fake imitations affect brand image

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

In â€Å"Black Like Me† by John Howard Griffin identifies how conflict management greatly changes after he undergoes a drastic lifestyle change to discover the truth of how people are categorized by their skin color and not their own character. Griffin undergoes an experiment in order to allow him to study and elaborate on racial boundaries that still exist during the 1950†³s. Griffin, almost immediately realizes segregation and low self-esteem caused by the feeling of being hated due to the color of your skin. The conflict management in the book changes drastically after his pigment is changed and he is no longer part of a privileged white American society, and now he his part of a hated society due to physical differences that make them seem inferior to the dominate race. Griffin†s conflict management style greatly changes after he undergoes his experiment. At the beginning of his journey, he was very aggressive, and took things for granite such as eating in restaurants and using public facilities. After he changes his pigmentation it changes his conflict management due to what he is succumbed to because of the change in the variation of his skin color. The only conflict management skills he had were the ones he learned by watching others who were adapted to the Society. For instance, â€Å"blacks see themselves as inferior to whites because of the society they live in†. For example, † on the bus ride to Mississippi, Griffin encounters a man who black on the outside, and tries to think of himself as part of the white culture and hopes when he dies, the white part of his soul shall go to heaven†. Griffin conflict management is passive in the end only because he is observing and he doesn†t want to draw attention to himself, which might get him into trouble. Griffin†s conflict management is arbitrary because he is no longer what he was before the experiment and knows he is going to have to live like a black male for the rest of his natural life.

Cloud Computing Now and the Future Essay

The use of cloud computing creates a growing interdependence among both public and private sector entities and the individuals served by these entities. This paper provides a snapshot of the advantages of cloud computing and the risk areas specific to cloud services which clients of cloud services should be aware of. The future of cloud computing is certainly exciting, but moving more of our lives online means we will inevitably have to consider the consequences. Cloud computing means dependence on others and that could limit our privacy because of policies to access our information, security could be a big issue and large companies like Amazon and Google could monopolize the market. The cloud is a metaphor for the space on the internet that can store your data, as well as applications to manipulate data. It is not clear when the term cloud computing was first coined. For example, Bartholomew (2009), Bogatin (2006) and several others suggested that ‘cloud computing’ term inology was perhaps first coined by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in 2006. Kaufman (2009: 61) suggests that cloud computing terminology ‘originates from the telecommunications world of the 1990s, when providers began using virtual private network (VPN) services for data communication’. There is however, agreement on the definition of cloud computing. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction (Mell 2009: 9). A computer’s operating system, data and applications are typically installed and stored in the ‘traditional’ computer environment. In a cloud computing environment, individuals and businesses work with applications and data stored and/or maintained on shared machines in a web-based environment rather than physically located in the home of a user or a corporate environment. Lew Tucker, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cloud Computing at Sun Microsystems, explained that cloud computing is ‘the movement of application services onto the internet and the increased use of the internet to access a wide variety of services traditionally originating from within a company’s data center’ (Creeger 2009: 52). For example, web-based applications such as Google’s Gmailâ„ ¢ can be accessed in real time from an Internet-connected machine anywhere in the world. Cloud computing provides an online environment that is scalable which facilitates the ability to handle an increased volume of work without impacting on the performance of the system. The Cloud also offers significant computing capability and economy of scale that might not otherwise be affordable to businesses, especially small and medium size companies that may not have the financial and human resources to invest in IT infrastructure. Advantages include capital costs and running costs. Companies can leverage the use of large scale resources from cloud service providers and ‘add or remove capacity from their IT infrastructure to meet peak or fluctuating service demands while paying only for the actual capacity used’ (Sotomayor et. Al. 2009: 14) on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ economic model. It can also be significantly cheaper to rent added server space for a few hours at a time rather than maintain your own servers. Rental prices for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), for example, are between US$0.020 and $2.970 per hour in Oregon as an example. Pay only for what you use. There is no minimum fee. On-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour with no long-term commitments. As you can see in the above example the selected usage is 100 hours per month of On-Demand Instances, 10 reserved instances and 1000 GB of storage for 50 IOPS and 100 Snapshot storages. The monthly cost for this company would be $1449.41 per month. This could be much more cost affective for a company than buying the hardware and storing the information themselves. The only question is, how safe is this information that is being stored? The risk of cloud computing could be the security of the information being stored by a large company like Amazon. It is still unclear how safe out-sourced data is and when using these services ownership of data is not always clear. In a study done in 2009, a team of computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego and Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined the widely-used Amazon EC2 services. They found that ‘it is possible to map the internal cloud infrastructure, identify where a particular target VM is likely to reside, and then instantiate new VMs until one is placed co-resident with the target’ (Ristenpart et al. 2009: 199). This demonstrated that the research team was able to load their eavesdropping software onto the same servers hosting targeted websites (Hardesty 2009). By identifying the target VMs, attackers can potentially monitor the cache (a small allotment of high-speed memory used to store frequently-used information) in order to steal data hosted on the same physical machine (Hardesty 2009). Such an attack is also known as side-channel attack. The findings of this research may only be a proof-of-concept at this stage, but it raises concerns about the possibility of cloud computing servers being a central point of vulnerability that can be criminally exploited. The cloud service providers establish the privacy policies to the companies that do business with them. The businesses are faced with their own privacy and confidentiality being determined by the terms of the cloud service providers. Failure to comply with data protection legislation may lead to administrative, civil and criminal sanctions. Data confidentiality and privacy ‘risks may be magnified when the cloud provider has reserved the right to change its terms at will’ (Gellman 2009: 6). Some cloud service providers argue that such juridical issues may be capable of resolution contractually via SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and the like. Clients using cloud services could include clauses in their SLAs that indicate the law governing the SLA, the choice of the competent court in case of disputes arising from the interpretation and the execution of the contract. The Cloud Security Alliance (2009: 28) also suggested that clients of cloud services should require their providers ‘to deliver a comprehensive list of the regulations and statutes that govern the site and associated services and how compliance with these items is executed’. Businesses should ensure that SLAs and other legally-binding contractual arrangements with cloud service providers comply with the applicable regulatory obligations (eg privacy laws) and industry standards, as the may be liable for breaching these regulations even when the data being breached is held or processed by the cloud service provider. Determining the law of the jurisdiction in which the SLA is held is an important issue. It may not, however, be as simple as examining the contractual laws that govern the operations of cloud service providers to determine which jurisdiction’s laws apply in any particular case. Gellman (2009: 19) pointed out that ‘[t]he user may be unaware of the existence of a second-degree provider or the actual location of the user’s data†¦[and] it may be impossible for a casual user to know in advance or with certainty which jurisdiction’s law actually applies to information entrusted to a cloud provider’. Businesses should continue to conduct due diligence on cloud service providers, have a comprehensive compliance framework and ensure that protocols are in place to continuously monitor and manage cloud service providers, offshore vendors and their associated outsourcing relationships. This would ensure businesses have a detailed understanding of the data storage information to maintain some degree of oversight and ensure that an acceptable authentication and access mechanism is in place to meet their privacy and confidentiality needs. This would also ensure a higher consumer confidence level in the entire cloud computing industry. The future looks bright for cloud computing. Last summer Google made a very large investment in bringing Google Fiber to Kansas City, broadband internet that is 100 times faster than what we currently have today. Faster internet speeds means larger files can be stored and downloaded from the cloud. Netflix says, ‘It’s the most consistently fast ISP in America.’ Analysts from BTIG Research visited Kansas City last month and were â€Å"blown away,† by the service (Jeff Saginor 2012: 1). But at it’s heart, ‘Google’s attempt at being its own ISP is much more about forcing the entrenched service providers –the Verizon’s and Time Warner’s and AT&T’s of this world – to step up their games than it is about making this particular business a raving financial success’. Saginor goes on to say, ‘When I asked the Google spokeswoman what the ultimate goal of all this was, she replied that Google wants â€Å"to make the web better and faster for all users.† The implication is that they don’t want to just do it all themselves’. Cloud computing means dependence on others and that could limit our privacy because of policies to access our information, security could be a big issue an d large companies like Amazon and Google could monopolize the market. The Cloud provides an online environment that is scalable which facilitates the ability to handle an increased volume of work without impacting on the performance of the system. The risk of the cloud could be the security of the information being stored by a large company. It is still unclear how safe out-sourced data is and when using these services ownership of data is not always clear. Businesses should continue to conduct due diligence on cloud service providers, have a comprehensive compliance framework and ensure that protocols are in place to continuously monitor and manage cloud service providers, offshore vendors and their associated outsourcing relationships. The future of cloud computing is certainly exciting, but moving more of our lives online means we will inevitably have to consider privacy, security and ownership of the information. References Amazon Web Services http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/ Creeger M 2009. CTO roundtable: Cloud computing. Communications of the ACM 52(8): Bartholomew D 2009. Cloud rains opportunities for software developers. Dice 29 May. http://career-resources.dice.com/articles/content/entry/cloud_rains_opportunities_for_software Bogatin D 2006. Google CEO’s new paradigm: ‘Cloud computing and advertising go hand-inhand’ Zdnet 23 April. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/micro-markets/google-ceos-new-paradigmcloud-computing-and-advertising-go-hand-inhand/ Cloud Security Alliance 2009. Security guidance for critical areas of focus in cloud computing V2.1. http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/csaguide.pdf Gellman R 2009. Privacy in the clouds: Risks to privacy and confidentiality from cloud computing. http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/pdf/WPF_Cloud_Privacy_Report.pdf Hardesty L 2009. Secure computers aren’t so secure MIT press release 30 October. http://www.physorg.com/news176197396.html Jeff Saginor 2012. What does Google get from supercharging Kansas City’s Internet? http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion-wh-google-will-never-take-its-fiber-national/ Kaufman LM 2009. Data security in the world of cloud computing. IEEE Security & Privacy July/August: 61-64 Mell P 2009. Effectively and securely using the cloud computing paradigm. http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloudcomputing- Ristenpart T, Tromer E, Shacham H & Savage S 2009. Hey, you, get off my cloud: Exploring information leakage in third-party compute clouds, in proceedings of the 16th ACM conference on Computer and communications security, 07. New Your, NY: ACM Press: 199-212 Sotomayor B, Montero RS, Llorente IM & Foster I 2009. Virtual infrastructure management in private and hybrid clouds. IEEE Internet Computing 13(5): 14-22 Mark D. Bowles (2010). Introduction to Computer Literacy. Retrieved from chapter’s six and seven. (Awl, 2009, p. 52)

The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it by Paul Collier Oxford University Press (2007)

â€Å"I have a little boy who is six. I do not want him to grow up in a world with a vast running sore- a billion people stuck in desperate conditions alongside unprecedented prosperity. † (176. Paul Collier). It is a global nightmare and â€Å"a ghetto of misery and discontent† (collier) that would affect, not only Africa, but the world in general, â€Å"unless† the G8 (a group of 8 industrialized countries) and mass of informed ordinary citizens act seriously and responsibly to help these countries overcome the poverty trap they have been stuck in for decades; enable them to converge with the rest of the world and live up to the 21st century standards. Paul Collier is a professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, and former director of Development Research at the World Bank. In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy Magazine to its list of top global thinkers. Collier holds a distinction award from Oxford University. Among his books The Plundered Planet published in May 2010, Wars, Guns, and Votes published in March 2009, and the Bottom Billion published in 2007. In the â€Å"Bottom Billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it† Collier seeks to find out factors that are causing one billion of people to live in extreme poverty and have unproductive life. In the meanwhile he wants to shift the thinking of the industrialized countries from â€Å"alleviating [their] poverty† to â€Å"economic convergence†. Collier approaches his arguments through an empirical studies where he analyses statistically the correlation between factors he considers to be responsible to cause the sad reality which one billion of people live in – the â€Å"fourteenth century [characteristics of]: civil war, plague, ignorance. † He uses data from University of Michigan, his own resources and experiences as an Africa expert, and his colleagues’ resources. Collier gradually argues that there are four traps which are responsible to trap bottom billion countries and place them at the bottom of the global economic system. However Collier does also include solutions that are needed to be taken seriously and responsibly by both the G8 and the bottom billion government officials for any change to happen and to save the world from â€Å"sleepwalking into unnecessary catastrophe† in the future. What is the â€Å"bottom billion†? According to Collier, they are fifty-eight small countries Characterized by civil war, plague, and ignorance. Their population combined is fewer than China or India. Per capita income is very low, so the income of the typical country is negligible, less than that of most of the rich world cities. They are countries that do not form a geographic label, so Collier label them as â€Å"Africa+† as 70% of the people of the bottom billion are in Africa. The + sign refers to places such as Haiti, Bolivia, the Central Asian countries, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen, Burma, and North Korea. The average life expectancy is 50 yrs, the infant mortality is 14%, and proportion of children with symptoms of long-term mal nutrition is 36%. The misfortune one billion still is living in extreme poverty in a country affected by recurrent conflicts, resource curse, geographic isolation or bad governance. ) The conflict trap: according to Collier, 73% of people in the societies of the bottom billion have recently been in civil war or still in one. 50% of conflicts in the bottom billion are post conflict relapses. The low income, slow growth, and dependency upon primary commodity exports (oil, diamonds, or gold) are leading causes that increases the risk of civil war. Civil war destroys the economic of the society during war and post conflict war as collier calculates the average cost to be $ 64 billion. Examples of countries fail into conflicts are Cote d’Hivoir, Democratic Republic of the Congo- formerly Zaire, and Sierra Leone. The typical civil war last for a long time â€Å"something around a decade, more than 10 times as long as typical international war. † (Collier). It is very hard to stop it, when it does, possibility for another civil war, repeated civil war. Collier argues that political injustice is not what makes the society prone to a civil war, as Zimbabwe faces the injustice of political rights but there is no war, no rebellion civil war. Instead, Collier statistical analyses show that poverty, stagnation, and availability of valuable natural resources are the causes that seem to produce civil war rather than political injustice. ) Natural Resource Curse: Natural resource rich countries in Africa have ended up poor as a result of resource wealth that only the few (government officials and foreign extract agencies) to benefit from but not the majority (the citizen). The elites in these countries detach themselves from the interest and concerns of the majority of their population; they con trol and steal the revenues of primary commodities exports. All these revenues go to private pockets or foreign banks. According to Collier, it is estimated to be 38% of Africa’s wealth has fled the continent. Economists explain resource curse as a â€Å"Dutch disease†, because â€Å"the resource exports cause the country’s currency to rise in value against other currencies. This make the country’s other export activities uncompetitive. † Nigeria for example in 1970s, its oil revenues built up. Yet, the country’s other exports such as peanuts and cocoa became unprofitable. As Nigeria’s currency rise in value, the peanut and cocoa prices become higher for importers who might find another peanut and cocoa supplier cheaper from that of Nigeria. Therefore, Nigeria’s peanuts and Cocoa became unprofitable, and production rapidly collapsed. Failure to diversify the export products, the resource rich countries can’t break free from the dependency of exporting the primary commodities as they are source of big revenues. The government accountability is not transparent for its citizens as the latter are not taxed by their governments. Consequently, the citizenry are less likely to demand financial accountability. However, the natural resource is good source of wealth for the whole society when their governments have managed to use the resource wealth very well such as Canada, Norway, and Australia. ) Landlocked countries with bad neighbors: Countries that lack coastline are forced to sell to their neighboring countries’ markets. Example of Uganda and Switzerland, both are landlocked but the first one is poor and the second one is rich (respectively). Collier explains that neighbor matters for development, he continues explaining the fact that Switzerland is a rich country, despite the fact is a landlocked, bec ause it depends on its neighbors the Germany and Italian infrastructure. Whereas Uganda’s poor neighbors with their weak infrastructure make it hard for Uganda to access to the sea and integrate into global markets. Kenyan’s infrastructure is so important to Uganda’s access to the sea. Moreover, sometimes the neighbors not only are the transport corridor, they are also the markets themselves, like Germany, Italy, and France were the Switzerland market. While Uganda neighbors are Kenya, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania. All of Uganda’s neighboring countries are poor, and have been through genocide like Rwanda, stagnation of nearly three decade like in Kenya, Somalia that is completely ollapsed, and Democratic Republic of the Congo that has catastrophic for it to change its name from Zaire. Therefore, Switzerland has been for a period of three decades in the better neighborhood. While Uganda’s neighbors are economically poor countries with weak infrastructure, which is absolutely don’t form good neighbor for Uganda. â€Å"Landlocked countries with poor infrastructure connections to their neighbors have limited market for their goods. † (Collier) 4- Bad Governance in a small country: bad policies adopted by bad government can destroy the economy of a country. The type of democracy practiced in these countries is dysfunctional democracy lack the check and balance system. Thus, the government officials seize each opportunity they have to build up a fortune from the natural resource revenues that are supposed to benefit the majority of the society not only the few in the government. The instability and lack of accountability especially in these small countries of the bottom billion discourage potential investors, who usually feel better when opt for better known countries such as china and India than unfamiliar countries with instability and risks. Chad is a landlocked country with aid and oil. Chad’s only option is their government to provide public services from the aid and oil revenues. However, 2004 survey tracked money released by the ministry of Finance â€Å"intended† for rural health clinics. Survey showed that â€Å"only1% of it reached the clinics and 99% failed to reach its destination. † In part 3 Chapter 6, Collier argues that globalization works for India and China but not the bottom billion that may have â€Å"missed the boat†. Globalization seem to work against the bottom billion, because of â€Å"economies of agglomeration† as Asia used labor-intensive manufacturing strategy to break into the global markets and makes competitive for â€Å"later comers† to compete with their products that seem to control the international markets. Bottom billion, in turn, become supplier of primary commodities, which just reinforce the natural resource trap. In the final section, Collier suggests in helping the poorest, there is a need to â€Å"narrow the target and broaden the instruments†. To focus only on the one billion that live below poverty line and experience no type of growth compared to the rest of the world; and to shift thinking from aid to an array of policy instruments such as aid delivery, military intervention, charter and laws, and trade policy, which are the instruments he proposes to help the bottom billion escape from the traps mentioned above. 1- Aid Policy: Aid causes intense political disagreements between the left and right. Left sees it as a part of solution they regard it to be as a reparations for colonialism, while the right sees it a part of problem when the feckless get rewarded. Collier believes that aid does â€Å"tend to speed up the growth process†. He reminds readers to the fact that United States was also that poor, and took it to get to where it is today about two hundred years. He believes in â€Å"aid for development† neither in â€Å"aid for reparations† nor â€Å"aid for the feckless†. However Collier insists to change the way the aid is provided, keeping in mind that statistical evidence generally suggests that aid is â€Å"subject to what is called â€Å"diminishing returns. † When aid reaches about 16 percent of GDP it is not anymore effective. In addition aid can be an inducement to rebellion and to coups, it is sometimes called â€Å"rents to sovereignty†. So to make it more effective, there is a need to form agencies just to supervise the aid money and to make sure it reaches its potentials for which is given. Aid money needs to be watched more closely so does not leak to military spending or be taken by coups. 2- Military intervention: it is the most controversial one in the list of instruments; however, the bottom billion countries â€Å"cannot provide their own security to an adequate fashion. That is the same strategy used 40 years ago, when North America provided supplies security to Europe after World War II. Collier mentions the tragedy of Rowanda when 800,000 died unnecessary due to rejection of military intervention. Yet the British military intervention in Sierra Leone end brutal long lasting civil war. Both the Sierra Leone government officials and its citizens welcome the military action that helped them to be in peace from the rebellion that recruit addicted teenagers and train them to hack the hands and the feet of villagers including women and children. -Laws and Charters: giving the fact these countries are very corrupt and far from the transparent to adopt laws that will benefit their citizens, Collier suggests in this case a voluntary of international standards that would put pressure within these societies to adopt them. Example of such law â€Å"the extract industry transparency† requires governments in the bottom billion to report to its own citizens what revenues are getting from natural resource extraction. Nigeria eformers adopted it and a lot other governments ha ve adopted it because of the pressure from below. It is that pressure on governments from within their own society that would lead some other governments to adopt them. 4- Trade Policies: also it is debated about especially the bottom billion countries are poor with zero tolerance; however, Collier believes that opening the west markets to bottom billion countries in much generous way, would absolute help their economy to succeed and to diversify to light manufactures and into a wide range of agricultural goods. As matter of fact, would enable them to break free from their dependency on exporting that narrow range of primary commodities. â€Å"The west countries have done it in the past- when rich countries opened its markets to each other, or when North America opens its markets to Europe so the latter could recover. The whole modern wealth of Europe, America, and Japan grew through that process of opening and sharing markets†. Trading policy that Collier proposes in the bottom billion would help the rich countries to be safer and more prosperous. Collier, I think he achieves his goals of building a mass of informed citizens as he thinks that it is a step forward for changes to happen and for better future for the bottom billion countries. About 50,000 copies of the bottom billion book were sold in just few months by different age groups. Also, the new paperback edition was being translated into Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, and Norwegian. Politicians may find it hard to get away with the classic political gestures of â€Å"flying in, kissing couple of babies, announcing some sort of Aid program, and then forgetting about it. † Now the well informed citizens are just a pressure on politicians’ decisions toward this part of the world. Collier also generates an astonishing political interest that the bottom billion countries now are benefiting from and their economic growth is being recognized by leaders such as Ban-Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the Unite Nations announced â€Å"let 2008 be the Year of the Bottom Billion. Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, announced in his first Annual Meeting address that â€Å"a stronger focus on the bottom billion would now be a priority†, Douglas Alexander, British Secretary of State for Development â€Å"announced the creation of a massive international Growth Center for the poorest countries†¦etc. Bottom Billion is a must read book for whoever is interested

Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 34

Personal Statement Example Furthermore, during my years in high school, I passed very well in my major subjects and more specifically, anything related to the philosophy of law. On the contrary, I would watch television programmes that were based on the application of law and how the courts of law work. Additionally, I spent a couple of two days a week in my father’s friend’s office who is a solicitor to learn more about law. This was very advantageous to me because I was granted chances to attend magistrate’s courts on numerous occasion. Therefore, apart from my academic prosperity, I believe I am the best candidate to pursue law because I have field experience of the application of the same. In high school, I was the class representative and highly participated in co-curricular activities such as games and sports. I was a basketball player and I enjoyed every bit of the game. During practice sessions, I was given a mandate of being a referee by our school coach because I was quick to administer judgement very fairly. My critical thinking techniques and conflict resolution skills enabled me to be given such responsibilities. I also helped my former classmates to study and improve their GPA in the subjects they were weak at because I saw it as my duty to help them overcome their obstacles. On the other hand, my oral skills are outstanding because I participated in drama and acting, which enabled me to construct accurate and fluent sentences. I was also good at written text and thus my high school career was marvellous. My dream career is being a judge. It is my sincere prayer and hope that given an opportunity to undertake a course in law at the university will mold me into achieving my dreams. I am sure that given the correct guidance and hard work will see me through to achieving all my future plans because I am very gifted at law. It is my belief that my calling was in pursue of law and a great

Locke teaching on the individuals right to private property Essay - 1

Locke teaching on the individuals right to private property - Essay Example In this book he discusses how humans have a right to property and how and to what extent this affects the God. He advocated that although humans resided in a socially set system but all could not be treated the same way. He believed, â€Å"... a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places, which it only does by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking† (Ariew & Watkins 370). The capability to think, analyze, reason and evaluate separates us from animals. Reasoning and reflection is because of what one experiences on its own and every individual has a different experience. He concluded that humans speak patriarchal with time .all men are blessed with certain traits and presents by the sovereign. In short, every person is responsible for his own self. Hence, man would do his best to explore and benefit from his potentials. It is not obligatory to benefit from th ese gifts. It's on the person himself. . Every person has the choice of benefiting from his capabilities thus he's responsible for his own self. This theory can be explained by numbering and quantifying the labor involved. Labor either physical or mental bears fruits for the person and his property. He believed that decision was on our own not the sovereign as we choose the best for you

Theater of war Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Theater of war - Essay Example Today, there is war in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of American soldiers are constantly being sent in this war zones. When you think about the families of these soldiers, they are anxiously waiting for their children to return (Buruma 6). Wars have always resulted to death and sorrow in families and leave many people worry. In the movie, we see the mother worried sick about her son who has gone to war. It is a very moving since every mother understands the value of having a son. Wars have always been in place and resulted to too many disasters as innocent people die. In relation to the movie, the mother mentioned in the book is a representation of love. Mothers are usually lovely and soothing to their children and always want good things. In the movie, mothers are likened to real mothers in life. In life, most mothers are caring and love seeing good things happening to their families. My mother for example can be likened to the mother in the story since she is loving an d caring to me. Whenever any person in the family gets sick or gets involved in an accident, she is always concerned (Buruma 6). From the star of time, mothers have always cared for the young ones. Soldiers in this movie are expressed as heartless on carrying out some of their duties. Living in these times, such can be correlated to mass murders carried out by certain leaders. A good example could be Muamar Gaddafi, ex-president of Libya, who after being evicted from power, revolted widely and resulted to mass murder of people. The storyline depicts heartless people to be existent in the war area, but such people still exist in these current times. I would also like to recommend this movie to be viewed at our local theater since it has a good message to the viewers. To me, I think it would be an eye opener to the people concerning the reality of wars. In addition, certain virtues could be learnt from them movie and even borrowed by other people (Buruma 6). The movie can be viewed by all groups of people since it does not contain explicit details. The English of the narrator is good and employs good narration skills of the events ensuring that the documentary is understood clearly. Furthermore, by it being played in the local theater, it would encourage community cohesion. I would like this play to be viewed by our community because I believe it is beneficial and inspiring as the truth about wars is unveiled. In addition, different characters express characteristics of people in the society and some people might learn from it. From my own perspective, the movie is good and should be watched by as much people as possible since they will be able to learn about the evils of war and try never to indulge in it (Buruma 6). War like people in the community could learn the repercussions of war and calm down. In addition, the movie would help to strengthen familial ties since people would appreciate the importance of family in times of crisis. In addition, a lot of grue some scenes which the writer talks about are not shown hence becoming a good movie for all ages to see. Furthermore, the community members would be fascinated by viewing the movie as it has good teachings. In summary, this movie is a good documentary movie on wars and a great eye opener on real issues that occur and surround wars. Many life lessons are also learnt from the movie as

Power, Privilege, Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Power, Privilege, Security - Essay Example Privacy does not include the opportunity to cause harm. What the employee does on his personal time that does not present a danger to others in the workplace, e.g., smoking or having unprotected sex, is not the concern of the employer, not directly under the employer's rightful control, and not subject to scrutiny through any means; much less through a device as inconsistent as a polygraph. It is not the responsibility of an employer to supervise its workers on such a microcosmic level. Even Kant, in his most moralistic application of a categorical imperative would find no duty on the part of the employer to police the employees in such an intrusive manner. Employees are not children and employers are certainly not empowered to treat them as such. As far as the use of a pre-screening process whereby an employer determines what is and what is not acceptable activity in the private lives of its employees, a more arbitrary and capricious means of discrimination could hardly be imagined. Even the libertarian-especially the libertarian-would see such discriminatory practice as rife with the potential for abuse. My Position: I am for the Patriot Act in general because I feel that increasing police powers for the purposes of protecting the American public can be done reasonably and without violating anyone's constitutional rights. Amendments to section... First, it clarifies the level of detail necessary to obtain a section 206 order, particularly where the target is identified by a description rather than by name. Second, it imposes a "return" requirement on investigators, meaning that in most circumstances the government is required to provide notice to the court within 10 days that surveillance has been directed at a new facility or place. Statement in Support of Section 206. As quoted above, Section 206 provides for the issuance of "an electronic surveillance order that attaches to a particular target rather than a particular phone or computer" (DOJ 1). This section of the Patriot Act assists federal authorities in focusing their efforts on a suspect individual and monitor communication across all possible areas of communication rather than having to get court authority for each different mode. In the case of Mr. X, who intended to plant a bomb in the main terminal of Grand Central Station in New York, authorities were severely limited in their surveillance abilities. Having sufficient information from a reliable informer, authorities obtained a warrant to tap the home telephone of Mr. X. The terrorist was technologically astute, and discovered the monitoring of his conversations with the co-conspirators. He immediately began to use a series of cell phones and private chat rooms on the Internet to prevent authorities from stopping his intended attack. Section 206 allows investigative agencies to obtain a warrant for any electronic device that Mr. X might use, and thereby provide a timely response to stop him and his associates from carrying out their plans. Counter Argument. It has been asserted that

Behavioural Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Behavioural Studies - Essay Example The definition highlights that organisational stakeholders will have similar overall goals and objectives but there will be some key differences not only in the importance placed on each but also how the organisation achieves them. An organisation's stakeholders can include an almost endless list of employee's, suppliers, customers, shareholders etc that can be broken down and sorted into various groups with independent goals and objectives designed to meet their own view of effective organisational behaviour. An example of stakeholder conflict can be seen at The Countryside Agency, a government body with the aim of 'improving the quality of the Countryside for those who use it and the quality of life for people in rural communities'. Simply by dissecting the aim of the body it is possible to see that there are clearly conflicting interests at an organisational level because it is trying to satisfy two major external groups at the outset by balancing the needs of those who live in Th e Countryside with those who visit it. Internal stakeholders such as the finance department view their role as ensuring that any public money that has been spent was justifiable and recorded and stored accurately. This is often to the annoyance of the Policy work areas who feel stronger about improving the countryside than the bureaucratic process of justifying and recording public spending often seeing the financial procedures as a time consuming hindrance. This conflict means that each stakeholder will have a different view of whether the organisation is successful or not and will have different solutions to what they individually see as being the key obstacles to success. When looking at how the management of people can contribute to effective organisational behaviour, development and good health through leadership it is important to establish the differences between management and leadership. Some theorists hold the opinion that leadership is one area of the management role and in order to be a successful manager they must possess some leadership skills by default. The argument for differentiating between leaders and managers was started by Zaleznik (1977, 2004) in 'Manager and Leaders: Are they different' where he argued "the difference between managers and leaders lies in the conceptions they hold, deep in their psyches, of chaos and order". A more recent argument suggests that "a manager can be regarded as someone who by definition is assigned a position of leadership in an organisation" (Buchanan and Huczynski, 1985). This definition suggests that managers are in positions of leadership but may not necessarily be leaders. The definition therefore suggests that leadership is in some way an extension of the management function. In 'what leaders really do' Kotter (1990, 2001) argues that "Leadership is not necessarily better than management. Rather leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities". In the article Kotter identifies what he sees as the key functions of leadership and management. Management roles are concerned with "bringing a degree of order and consistency to key dimensions like the quality and profitability of products" (Kotter, 1990, 2001). Key aspects of the management

Finance and Management Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Finance and Management - Personal Statement Example Throughout my life I have always been a very hard worker. I am a professional athlete currently working as a UFC fighter. My career requires a lot dedication and self discipline. These attributes can help me in my studies because being a student also requires a lot of sacrifice and self control. Universities such as the City University London are offering its students a learning experience bringing into the classroom the latest technologies to enhance the learning atmosphere. As an aspiring business student I realize that in order to succeed at graduate school I will have to dedicate myself more than ever. I already have an educational background in business. I studied my undergraduate degree at Ezerbaijan State Economic University graduating with a major in finance and credit. My prior exposure to business school will facilitate my transition better than other candidates that studied other fields. During the last of couple of years I have gained valuable experience in the business w orld working as a business development manager for a courier company. Working for this company was one of the factors that inspired me to study graduate school. In this job I learned a lot, but I realized that my skill sets and capabilities in business were not sufficient for me to continue a path towards ascension in the business world. I like being a manager a lot. ... The starting salary of a person with a master’s degree is about 20% higher than people with a bachelor’s degree. It is estimated that a person with a masters degree will earn over ?1.63 million over a lifetime. Continuing my education in business is very important for me. I like the fact that a masters’ degree opens up opportunities and increases your income capacity, but the real reason I want to attend City University London is to expand my business knowledge. I want to apply that knowledge at work in order to improve my performance. I also have aspirations beyond working for the private sector. One of my goals in life is to open up my own business. The business world has changed a lot since the start of the 21st century. Globalization has become more influential and technologies such as broadband internet have expanded the reach of ecommerce. Foreign markets such as the US marketplace have a growing customer base of online customers with ecommerce sales reachi ng ?93 billion in 2010. Due to the changing dynamics of business I have to be able to keep up with changes. The only way that I will be prepared for running my own business in today’s marketplace is by first completing a master’s degree in finance and management. One of my hobbies is reading books. When a person reads a lot they gain endurance at reading. This skill will help me lot in this new stage of my life. Graduate students often have to read hundreds of pages in textbooks, cases, and journals on a weekly basis. For me reading and learning about business is going to be a very gratifying experience. Some of the topics in business that I need to improve to become better at my career are international finance, foreign exchange markets, diplomacy, and negotiations. For me

Motivating Arab Americans to Participate in Politics Article

Motivating Arab Americans to Participate in Politics - Article Example Susana Dabaja was the first Arab American to be elected as the president of the City Council of Dearborn City in Michigan. It was in January 2014 that Susana Dabaja and her other fellow Arab Americans i.e. David Bazzy, Robert Abraham and Mike Sareini made the majority of the 7 seat city Council of Dearborn (Elian). In the year 2013, the highest volume of Arab American candidates was seen running the local offices which were never ever seen before in the history of America, thereby breaking ground in their own respective cities in the struggle to win the right to the â€Å"chair†. Currently, Arab Americans who are running offices in Dearborn City Council include Susan Dabaja - who is the president of the Council, Rose Hykel - who holds the position of the tax collector since the year 1997, Robert Alex Abraham who is also serving at the Council from year 2002 and Mike Sareini who is a Councilman. According to the statistics, it can be seen that the number of Arab Americans involved in politics and running offices has drastically increased over the years. If we look through the number of Arab American running offices we can observe that they are quite less in number than the other ethnic groups present in America. The ratio of Arab Americans in American politics is less than many of the other ethnic group’s interests in the American politics. Although the number of Arab Americans has drastically increased after the Iraq War still it is less than many other groups. Therefore there is a need of motivating the Arab Americans to actively take part in politics or at least learn the importance of their vote so that their respective ethnic group is not deprived of their rights.

Rhetorical Analysis of a Language Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Rhetorical Analysis of a Language - Essay Example Yet it seems manipulative to make an emotional appeal in areas like politics or religion, even if it is done often, to get votes or converts. In these cases, it only seems fair to make an appeal to one's good sense in order to make decisions based on facts rather than how one feels at the moment. Baldwin states that "black English is rooted in American history" created by blacks during the time of slavery and designed to communicate with each other without their white masters understanding. It was designed as a method of survival. "What joins all languages.is the necessity to confront life,to outwit death" (Baldwin). He gives an example of one member of a family warning another of possible danger by speaking black English even in the presence of the white man because the white man could not understand it. Baldwin writes that "Language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity" and is a means with which to deal with life. Tan also acknowledges there are different types of "Englishes" that she uses and also proposes that English when speaking with her mother and another when at work or giving speeches. The English she uses with her mother is what she describes as simple or "broken". From the example given of how her mother speaks, it is easy to see where others may not understand her. But Tan understands, and to her, what her mother says is perfectly clear. She also realized that she used the same broken English when speaking with her husband and Tan refers to this language as a "language of intimacy" between them. Whereas Baldwin tries to make us see his point based on historical evidence, something factual and therefore credible, Tan gets her message across by appealing to a sense of family and unity and by using a personal relationship with which everyone can relate. She tells the story where she pretended to be her mother on a phone conversation and uses humor to generate a sense well-being and openness to further the point she wanted to make. Tan writes, "I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing. "This is Mrs. Tan." And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, "Why he don't send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money." And then I said in perfect English, "Yes, I'm getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived." Using examples of Ireland and the parts of France that adhere to their own languages even if the mother tongue of the mainland is different, Baldwin states that language "is a proof of power". The Irish have suffered because England had "contempt for their language" and wanted to dominate them. Baldwin uses the non-emotional ethos appeal by referring to events in history to show that the countries that dominate spread their language to the conquered land. Drawing on examples of other countries that have suffered similar fates as the blacks, he makes his argument (Last Name) 3 more objective and less likely to come across as a "poor blacks, bad white" sympathy play for support. Tan also alludes to language being a proof

A direct government action related to Amtrak Research Paper

A direct government action related to Amtrak - Research Paper Example government owned corporation started its operation from 1971. It provides passenger train service in 46 states of U.S.A. and three provinces of Canada. Before 1971 the rail service was provided by several private corporations. Because of the declining financial condition Amtrak was established by U.S. congress. The board of directors’ members is appointed by the U.S. president and the senate of U.S. Most of the track of Amtrak is owned by the freight railroads which is a major source of earning. Amtrak has also its revenue from the ticket sales. In spite of these earning Amtrak needs government subsidies. There were many controversies has taken place about the direct government action. From the inauguration of Amtrak the financial condition was never stable. Despite of several financial aid given by the U.S. government Amtrak has never became self sufficient. This is the main cause of the controversies about Amtrak. But from the year 2007-08 the number of riders increased cont inuously which is a boost for the organization. This paper is an attempt to analyze that whether the government should continue to play a direct role in the operation of Amtrak. Description of Stakeholders The stakeholders of Amtrak are the U.S. government, the employees of Amtrak and the board of directors, the passengers, the taxpayers and the companies who are partners of Amtrak. The government owns all the stock of Amtrak and thus they would get the profit generated by Amtrak, but it is a fact that Amtrak has never been able to generate profit from 1971. The government has to provide subsidies for continuing the operation as it is an important medium of communication. The employees and the board of directors are the major stakeholders of the company. Approximately 19000 employees employee is working with Amtrak till date. They are responsible to provide quality service to its passengers and take steps necessary to improve it and inform the U.S. congress about the operations of A mtrak (duty of inspector general) (Amtrak Office of Inspector General, â€Å"About Amtrak OIG†). The taxpayers are providing tax and funding a major part of the needed capital of Amtrak. Some private companies or other government companies are work as the partner of Amtrak like Access America, AAA, eBags, Continental Airlines, iSeatz, Greyhound. They are the stakeholders of Amtrak as they have certain interest that how Amtrak will perform in the future and it is sensitive decision to continue partnership with them. The passengers are the major stakeholders as they are paying the price of the tickets and receiving the service. They would take the decision whether to continue travelling in the railroad or take some other medium. Arguments in support of Government’s Direct Role According to some critics if Amtrak get privatized then the company would become self sufficient and would generate profit. The private companies would divest the operations which is not so profita ble. But there are also lots of demerits of this decision. These are described as follows. If the transport medium gets privatized there is a high chance that the cost of transport would increase and the common people get affected, as this would cost more. There would be less money in people’s hand and this could be a reason of economic crisis. Though the organization is generating a loss every year the government is providing subsidies to them. The recent increase of riders results in decrease the net loss of the company. If the private sector would be there they would take measures for cost cutting or steps to increase the revenue. They can generate more revenue by increasing the costs of tickets or the cost of advertising and cut down the costs by decrease the budget which may lead to some lower

Lab dispersal time Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dispersal time - Lab Report Example Animal activity is one of the primary agents bringing seeds to the surface of the soil and burying them. It is, therefore, a profound factor that affects the seed bank contribution to plant recruitment. Also, Earthworms, among animal species are recognized as crucial predators and dispersers of seeds. Seed dispersal is the motion of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants rely on a variety of vectors (living or nonliving) for dispersal (Murray, 2011). The type of the vector responsible for the dispersal of a particular seed is suited to by the general seed characteristics. Common modes of dispersal include gravity, wind, animal, water and ballistic. A particular seed may be acted upon by more than one vector, depending on the conditions and seed type. Exposed seeds on surfaces of soils are vulnerable to extreme contents of moisture and temperature, thus compromising the viability of seeds. In addition, they are easily detected by predators (Hirsch, 2012) Researchers have established that secondary dispersal is a critical characteristic that influences seed survival (Lal, 2002). Secondary dispersal can be defined as the movement of seeds across, and into, the soil (Forget, 2005). When seeds are placed on soil columns, some will penetrate to deeper levels than others, and some will disperse throughout the soil column. In addition to morphology, the role a facilitator species plays affects dispersal. In this case, an earthworm is the facilitator species. The facilitator species activity has a substantial impact on the soil seed bank dynamics and hence on the possibility of plant recruitment in an ecosystem at large (Allessio, Thomas, & Simpson, 2012). Milkweed, buckthorn, sumac and burdock seeds have different morphological features; Milkweed (Asclepias spp.) seeds are shiny, silky seeds which have snow- white fluffs. They are contained in con-shaped seedpods which crack open when dry to disperse the

Refraction of Light Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Refraction of Light - Research Paper Example Refraction refers to the property by which light bends when it travels from rarer to a denser or from a denser to a rarer medium. If a ray of light is travelling from a denser to a rarer medium, say from glass to air it bends away from the normal. If the ray of light travels from a rarer to a denser medium, it bends towards the normal. The phenomenon of refraction of light is governed by laws known as Laws of Refraction. When a ray of light traverses from one medium to another, the direction and the angle by which it bends is determined by these laws. The first law of refraction states that the incident ray, the refracted ray and the normal all lie in the same plane (Walker et al, 2010) The second law is prime factor for determining the direction of the refracted ray. This law is popularly known as Snell’s law. According the this law the direction of the refracted ray depends on the ratio of speed of light in the two mediums. Light travels with different speeds in different mediums. Most materials have refractive indices of their own which primarily depends on the wavelength of light. The refractive index of any material is given by the ratio of the speed of light travelling of light in that medium by the speed of light travelling in vacuum. Optically dense medium are those that have a high refractive index while those materials whose refractive indices are almost near to 1 are known as optically rare media (Haynes, 2014) When light travels from a medium of higher refractive index to a medium of lower refractive index, the path taken by the light rays is dependent on the angle of incidence. If the angle of incidence exceeds beyond a certain value the refracted ray does not travel to another medium but in fact returns back into the same medium. This phenomenon is known as total internal reflection and the angle of incidence is known as the critical angle. Critical angle is also known as the limit angle and is defined as the angle

Content of Tabloids and Sensationalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Content of Tabloids and Sensationalism - Essay Example Stereotyping is very common in several communities especially towards women, minorities, physically or mentally challenged. As expressed in many tabloids, there are issues concerning attitudes towards persons and groups ‘cultures, the way of life, and their capabilities. Some myths and misconceptions about the minorities and the mentally or physically challenged persons are simply stereotypes (Deal, 2007). People tend to place people with disabilities, women, and the minorities in categories that undermine their natural capacities. For instance, notions such as people with disabilities are different from other human beings are issues of stereotyping. Some communities simply categorize such persons as ‘others’ and that any successful handicapped person or woman is superhuman. Other people consider people with disabilities as a source of sorrow to the family members and the community and think that the disability is kind of an illness. According to other forms of ste reotypes, people with disability are a menace to others and the society especially those with mental disability. The pictures of disability portray the minority and people with disability as social and cultural misfits who should not feature in the public. The other attitudes that are expressed in the tabloids concerning the minority groups, women, and the physically or the mentally challenged persons is discrimination. Discrimination is in several forms such the stigmatization of and negative attitudes towards the minority, women, and physically or mentally handicapped. Some depictions of people with mental illnesses in drama and entertainment give them a picture of persons without a normal life. Stigma is a mark of shame or degradation that can affect the psychological well-being of an individual. Stigma and discrimination may bring shame and distress to individuals and make them have low self-esteem. In fact, stigma is one of the greatest

Luxury Good and Gucci Essay Example for Free

Luxury Good and Gucci Essay Gucci‘s overall strategy was to vertically integrate to strengthen its overall brand image. After vertically integrating they acquired other luxury retailers to continue to grow horizontally and to increase economies of scope. The economics of the luxury goods industry changed forcing Gucci to modify its strategy. Consumers demand shifted from classic style buyers to style conscious buyers. Gucci not only had to change due to the economics of the industry but they also had several problems with their existing structure. Hence Gucci made the following moves to reposition it to compete in the new economics of the luxury goods industry. Gucci The partnership between DeSole and Ford addresses the company’s inability to have streamlined decision making and consistent branding throughout the company. By partnering product design and strategy, Gucci can now make product and business decisions that deliver a consistent message externally. All products and communications will support the brand image of a luxury goods retailer that Gucci wants to deliver to the marketplace. The cost cutting and targeted layoffs address Gucci’s poor cost structure. While profit margins were healthy, the extravagant spending by the former CEO was reducing profitability. The company had excess headcount in some areas and less in others. The layoffs improved Gucci’s cost structure and streamline the organization. Secondly, Gucci lacked the management talent to run a high end luxury company. By laying off underperforming managers and hiring experienced business executives, Gucci significantly improved the quality of its management team. The cash investment by PPR protects Gucci from hostile takeovers by competitors. The improvement in Gucci’s capital structure enables Gucci to move from an acquisition target to a potential acquirer of substitutes and new entrants. This is critical because in the fashion industry, new brands are always emerging in the market. The $3 billion dollar cash investment enables Gucci to protect its core market better. Additionally, the acquisition of YSL through the merger diversifies Gucci’s product portfolio and creates high barriers to entry. Buyers Due to changing consumer demands, Gucci started to focus on fashion in particular the â€Å"glamorous edge. † Since switching cost for consumers are low and consumers are now demanding new fashions every season focusing on seasonal trends competitively positioned Gucci against its rivals and impeded consumers from finding substitutes. Gucci changed its target consumer from an older more conservative buyer to a modern, youthful, fashion conscious one. Since all of Gucci’s competitors had the same target (30-50 year affluent women) going after a modern, youthful spirited consumer allows Gucci to focus on a different segment of the luxury market, capturing a different slice of the pie. To create loyalty, give consumers options, and to prevent consumers from switching and buying a substitute product Gucci decided to revolutionize their product assortments to correspond with the seasonal trends. In addition they increased the quality of their products comparable to Hermes and offered these products at a value to meet the consumer’s needs. Furthermore, Gucci tailored their product assortment in each DOS to local customers to attract more consumers in the local markets. To better forecast product demand for seasonal goods and to keep inventory costs down Gucci added customer intelligence to the decision making process to better understanding consumers buying behavior. In order to obtain higher profit margins and offer a comprehensive line of products it was necessary for Gucci to diversify its portfolio. Hence Gucci introduced items from scarves to fur coats. To remain focused and maintain its â€Å"luxury status†, Gucci did not introduce diffusion product lines. Gucci had initially set its prices too high hence reducing their retail prices by 30% was necessary to attract and maintain customer loyalty. In order to generate demand for the product Gucci doubled their advertising and turned Tom Ford into a celebrity hoping to attract media and attention from around the world. To restore Gucci’s image as a high end luxury goods retailer they renovated all of their stores to support this new image. In addition all internal and external communications had the same look and feel to convey a consistent brand identity. Furthermore, they reduced distribution through retail stores that didn’t support the new brand image regardless of sales. Gucci launched an official web site to create awareness and exhibit new product lines and to position themselves against their competitors. Suppliers Suppliers are a key driver of profitability—a key competitive force. Suppliers are responsible for delivering a premium product that satisfies the company’s standards in quality and that reflects Tom Ford’s creative vision. Without fast turnover to meet fashion forward trend demands and a quality product, the repositioning of the Gucci brand could not have taken place. To fulfill this vision Gucci created an incentive program to keep suppliers loyal to ensure a quality product was manufactured, on time delivery, and it would prevent the suppliers from forging relationships with Gucci’s competitors. In addition, Gucci made suppliers more efficient through technology and logistics investments, provided training for suppliers and built an EDI network allowing Gucci to efficiently communicate with partner suppliers through the production process. As more fashion products will be produced every season along with the classic products, delivery and meeting demand could become an issue if production processes are not efficient. Investing in suppliers ensures that supplier threat, which is high, is controlled and suppliers have incentives to stay with Gucci. Supplier threat is high because of there is an absence of substitutes suppliers. Switching costs are high for Gucci other suppliers may be producing for their rivals. Other suppliers may not deliver the quality and craftsmanship Gucci is expecting. In addition, other suppliers do not have experience in producing Gucci products (current suppliers have been with Gucci for long time). Hence they will have a longer learning curve slowing down the production process. There are few suppliers in specific regions: Gucci suppliers had production capacity to meet Gucci’s growth (20-30% a year). However, finding new suppliers would be going into Prada’s territory. With more growth, suppliers gained bargaining power with sub-suppliers and with Gucci. Initially, Gucci had power because suppliers worried that Gucci would go overseas for suppliers. Complementors Complementors are a not a high threat to Gucci because there only a few of them, media and advertising. Competition There are many firms in this industry because profit margins are high. However with the number and volume of MA activity on the rise, consolidation is imminent with a few big players left in the market. Consolidation among competition has given competitors lower cost structure resulting in a competitive advantage such as ad purchasing discounts and supplier negotiating power. The competitors have a diversified product portfolio to target multiple segments of the market. They dominate in particular segments, for example Hermes and leather bags. Since there is slow industry growth precipitating fights for market share is certain to occur. This may result in a high threat from competitors such as LVMH and Prada. Threat of Entry The threat of entry is low because brand identity and product differentiation has been well established in this industry. In addition, access to distribution channels is limited and the new entrant would be competing with already established channels of distribution for Gucci and others firms. Gucci and other competitors have substantial resources to fight back because they of their monetary resources and could obstruct the new entrant or buy them out.

The case of Webster v Doe Essay Example for Free

The case of Webster v Doe Essay The case of Webster v Doe deals with a case that ruled upon the balance between national security and the individual rights of an employee. It also rules on the issue of unlawful termination as a result of sexual discrimination. FACTS: Under the National Security Act of 1947, the Director of the CIA is empowered to terminate the employment of any employee of the CIA. The law provides that when the Director, in his discretion, perceives that an employee may pose a threat to the security interests of the United States he may unilaterally terminate the service of the former. In the case at hand, a former CIA employee was fired after he had openly admitted to another CIA employee that he was a homosexual. This termination was despite the fact that such CIA employee had received excellent and outstanding employee performance ratings. In justifying the termination, the CIA Director stated that the homosexuality of the former employee was deemed sufficient threat to the security interests of the United States. The dismissed employee soon filed suit alleging that the termination constituted a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act as well as his Constitutional Right to Property, Liberty and Privacy. The CIA Director, on the other hand, cites that decisions made under the provisions of Section 102 of the NSA grant him such power. ISSUES: 1. ) Do the provisions of the APA supersede the provisions of NSA with regard to the termination of employees? 2. ) Is the act of terminating the employment of a government employee based on sexual preferences in violation of the United States Constitution, particularly the First, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments? HELD: The Supreme Court ruled that the NSA law precludes any form of judicial review for acts that are not repugnant to the protection of a person’s Constitutional Rights. In an effort to uphold the law and the purpose for which it was enacted, Protection of National Security, care must be taken in construing the grant of power that is provided. The CIA Director is granted considerable discretion in terminating the employment of individuals. As far as the laws on procedure are concerned, the CIA Director is allowed, by law, to terminate the services of anyone deemed to be a threat to the security interests without complying with the requisites of the APA law. Matters of procedure, according to the Supreme Court, cannot be taken to more important than matters of public policy and national security. However, when the acts constitute violations of the Constitution and infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed rights of individuals, the Constitution must be understood to prevail.

Effective Treatment for Drug Addiction Essay Example for Free

Effective Treatment for Drug Addiction Essay â€Å"Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans undergo treatment for substance use disorder, also called addiction† (Hart Ksir, 2013, p. 409). Drug addiction is a complex brain disease because the abuse of drugs leads to changes in the structure and function of the brain. It is a condition characterized by an overwhelming and uncontrollable desire or craving to continue taking a drug to which one has become habituated through repeated consumption. It also produces a particular effect, usually an alteration of mental status. Drug addiction is usually accompanied by a compulsion to obtain the drug, a tendency to increase the dose, a psychological or physical dependence, and detrimental consequences for the individual and society. For many people, drug addiction becomes chronic, with possible relapses even after long periods of abstinence. Hart Ksir (2013), for example, state: â€Å"Substance dependence is often a chronic illness that shares many characteristics with other chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma† (p. 22). The pathway to drug addiction initiates with the act of taking drugs, and over a period of time, an individual’s ability to choose not to do so becomes compromised, and as a result, seeking and consuming the drug becomes compulsive. This behavior results mainly from the effects of persistent drug exposure on brain functioning. â€Å"Addiction affects multiple brain circuits, including those involved in reward and motivation, learning and memory, and inhibitory control over behavior† (Huffman, 2010, p. 201). Some individuals are more vulnerable than others to becoming addicted, depending on genetic makeup, age of exposure to drugs, other environmental influences, and the interplay of all these factors. Huffman (2010) argues that â€Å"Psychoactive drugs influence the nervous system (and our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) in a variety of ways† (p. 186). Treatment for drug abuse or addiction is not simple or easy because drug abuse or addiction has so many dimensions. Effective treatment programs typically incorporate many components. Green (2010) notes that: Each component must be directed to a particular aspect of the illness and its consequences. For example, addicted treatment must help the individual stop using drugs, maintain a drug-free lifestyle, and achieve productive functioning in the family, at work, and in society (p. 148). Because addiction is a disease, addicted people cannot simply stop using drugs for a few days, months, or even years to be cured. The most part of the patients require long-term or repeated episodes of care to achieve the ultimate goal of sustained abstinence and recovery of their lives. Indeed, scientific research and clinical practice have demonstrated the value of continuing care in treating addiction, with a variety of approaches having been tested and integrated in residential and community settings such as inpatient and outpatient community programs. The use of 13-step principles is crucial for addiction treatment to be effective and/or fruitful. 13 Principles for Effective Treatment 1) Family and the drug addict must recognize and understand that drug addiction is a complex but treatable illness that affects brain functioning and behavior. They need to be aware that the abuse of any drug alters the brain’s structure and function. The alterations will result in changes which will continue for a long time even after the drug use is stopped. It also will make the family and the drug addict to understand why drug abusers could relapse at any time even if s/he still in treatment, has experienced potentially devastating consequences, and/or has had long periods of abstinence. Hart Ksir (2013) note: Drugs work on the body to cause a mood-altering effect by the chemical impact they have on the brain. Through the blood supply, the drug is carried to the brain. Once the drug is released to the brain, the drug’s effect begins because the brain concentrates on the drug (p. 88). 2) Family and the drug addict must understand that no single treatment is sufficient, adequate, or appropriate for everyone. Each treatment differs depending on the characteristics of the patient. For example, the type of drug being used, the period of time that the drug has been used, the age and race of the individual, environmental conditions, genetic influences, behavior, the wiliness and ability to react to the treatment, life style, and the broader health of the individual, etc. The National Institute of Drug Abuse notes that: Drug addiction shares many features with other chronic illnesses, including a tendency to run in families (heritability), an onset and course that is influenced by environmental conditions and behavior, and the ability to respond to appropriate treatment, which may include long-term lifestyle modification. Human studies of addictive behaviors have clearly implicated both environmental and genetic influences, as well as interactions between the two. While genetics play a major role in defining who we are, the environment in which we are raised is just as influential (NIDA, n. d. ). The good match treatment setting, such as interventions, therapies, and others services designed only to the individual’s particular problems and needs, is crucial for that person to success to return to his or her normal and productive life. 3) Treatment must be easily available. Many drug-addicted individuals struggle even when they decide to entering treatment. This step is critical for them, so the program should be readily available for them in order to take full advantage of the available services. When the treatment program is not easily accessible, potential patients will be lost, and the likelihood of positive outcome for those patients will diminish because as with other chronic diseases, when the treatment is offered earlier in the disease process, the probability of positive outcomes will be greater. If the treatment is easily available, â€Å"Overall, it will be considered to be effective because it will help many people to abstain often for many years†¦ The benefits far exceed the cost of providing the programs† (Hart Ksir, 2013, p. 423). 4) An effective treatment shouldn’t include only the issue of drug abuse, but the diverse needs of the individuals as well. Hart Ksir (2013) assert that â€Å"Substance dependence is often a chronic illness that shares many characteristics with other chronic illness such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma† (p. 422). A treatment to be considered effective, it must address the individual’s drug abuse issue and all the related issues surrounding the addiction, for example, medical, psychological, physical, environmental, biological, social, vocational, and legal problems, among others. Also, age, gender, ethnicity, social status, and culture should be taken into account. 5) Staying in treatment for a reasonable period of time is crucial. â€Å"Long-term treatment of more than three months tends to create more concrete habits, as well as allows the client more time to develop etter methods to prevent relapse† (Shewood, 2013). A long-term treatment is especially good for those individuals recovering from using drugs for a very long period of time. The appropriate length for a specific individual will depend on the type of drug used and the degree of his or her problems and necessities. Many studies have demonstrated that most addicted individuals will need at least three months in treat ment to greatly reduce or stop using drugs. In addition, the studies have showed that the best results take place with longer durations of treatments. Recovering from any type of drug addiction is not an easy task to do, but with a long-term process and sometimes the requirement of multiple episodes of treatment, the recovery is possible. Sometimes relapses could occur. To prevent this, individuals should not leave the treatment prematurely. A treatment program should include a set of strategies to engage, motivate, and keep its patients in treatment. 6) Behavior therapies should be included. Behavior therapies such as counseling (individual, peer, and/or group) are very effective forms of treatment for drug abusers. These therapies may include: motivating the patient to change, providing incentives for abstinence, building skills or abilities to resist drug use, substituting drug-using activities for positive, helpful, and rewarding activities, developing or improving problem-solving skills, and facilitating better social relationships. The participation in those therapy programs (individual, peer, or group) during the treatment will greatly help drug addicted individuals to maintain drug free. 7) Medication is a fundamental part for the treatment of numerous patients. To obtain better result, they may be combined with behavioral therapies. Hart Ksir (2013) state the following: An intense amount of research efforts have focused on developing medications to treat substance abuse and dependence†¦ Some medications that have been used to help substance abusers deal with withdrawal symptoms and maintain abstinence from alcohol, nicotine, opioids, cocaine, and cannabis are: Benzodiazepines, Disulfiram, Naltrexone, Acamprosate, Bupropion, Varenicline, Methadone, Buprenorphine, Naltrexone, Modafinil, and Dronabinol† (pp. 414-415). As with all complex diseases, the environment plays a vital role in the life of the individual to determine the course and outcome of the disease. 8) The individual’s plan such as his or her treatment, resources, and services must be evaluated constantly. The constant evaluation of the treatment plan is a very important thing that should be done to ensure the program is meeting his or her present or changing needs, if not, it should be modified right away. The modification could include a combination of services and treatments during the process of treatment and recovery. Those changes can be counseling, medication, psychotherapy, medical services, social skills, parenting education, vocational training, and legal services, etc. The continue evaluation and changes during the treatment will provide very positive outcomes to the patient. 9) Drug-addicted individuals should be treated for other mental disorders too. Because many drug abusers beside their drug addiction suffer from other mental illness, they must be evaluated and treated for the specific mental illness as well. The treatment should focus on both the addiction and the mental disease with the inclusion of medications if they are needed. The National Institute of Drug Abuse note that: When two disorders or illnesses occur simultaneously in the same person, they are called comorbid. Surveys show that drug abuse and other mental illnesses are often comorbid. Six out of ten people with a substance use disorder also suffer from another form of mental illness. But the high prevalence of these comorbidities does not mean that one condition caused the other, even if one appeared first. Patients with mood or anxiety disorders are about twice as likely to also suffer from a drug disorder. In addition, patients with drug disorders are roughly twice as likely to be diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders. The rates of specific comorbidities also vary by gender. Among men and women in drug treatment, antisocial personality disorder is more common in men, while women have higher rates of major depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other anxiety disorders. 10) Detoxification medically assisted should be just the first phase of drug addiction treatment. Detoxification can be viewed as an initial and immediate goal during which medications are administered to alleviate unpleasant withdrawal symptoms that may appear following abrupt cessation of drug use† (Hart Ksir, 2013, p. 415). Medically assisted detoxification can securely manage the acute physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal. 11) Any type of drug use during the whole treatment should be monitored constantly to prevent relapses. For many patients, the alertness that their drug use is monitored all the time is a powerful incentive, and many times it also helps them to stay away from drugs. Moreover, monitoring is helpful to prevent possible returning to drug use. If the continuously monitoring shows that the client is using drugs again, the treatment plan for that specific individual should be adjusted to better meet his or her needs. 12. Treatment programs must assess its patients for sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, AIDS, chlamydia, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases as well. Counseling to help drug-addicted patients to modify or change their behaviors which place them at risk of contracting or spreading any infectious disease is a very important piece of the treatment. If the counseling is focused specifically on how to reduce sexually transmitted diseases that put the patients at risk, it could help those patients to reduce or avoid substance-related and other high-risk behaviors. If a patient is already infected, s/he will manage with more responsibility his or her disease, and also it will facilitate adherence to other medical treatments. 13) The addiction treatment plan should be hundred percent ethical. Counselors, as mental authorities, have a lot of power, so they never should use this power for personal reasons or beliefs (such as bias) or to reject a patient. Counselors always must follow the NAADAC set of ethical codes when working with patients. According to the NAADAC, â€Å"counselors have the power to do great, good, or great harm. Counselors always must remember: Today, let me remember my power and take care to use it wisely. † In addition, the counselor should accept the fact that the patient has the right to accept or refuse any treatment plan when s/he is aware of the pros and cons of the treatment. The counselor is not supposed to go against the patient’s will. Conclusion Drugs have been a part of our society for many years now. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans receive treatment for substance abuse. Drug addiction is a complex illness that is considered a brain disease. Many drug-addicted individuals in order to become drug free, they must undergo an effective treatment program that typically incorporate many components. Each component must be directed to a particular aspect of the illness and its consequences. The use of 13-step principles is crucial for any addiction treatment to be effective and/or fruitful. They are: (1) Family and the drug addict must recognize and understand that drug addiction is a complex but treatable illness that affects brain functioning and behavior; (2) Family and the drug addict must understand that no single treatment is sufficient, adequate, or appropriate for everyone; (3) Treatment must be easily available; (4) An effective treatment should include the issue of drug abuse, and also the diverse needs of the individuals; (5) Staying in treatment for a reasonable period of time is crucial; (6) Behavior therapies should be included; (7) Medication is a fundamental part for the treatment of many patients. 8) The individual’s plan such as his or her treatment, resources, and services must be evaluated constantly; (9) Drug-addicted individuals should be treated for other mental disorders too; (10) Detoxification medically assisted should be just the first phase of drug addiction treatment; (11) Any type of drug use during the whole treatment should be moni tored constantly to prevent relapses; (12) Treatment programs must assess its patients for sexually transmitted diseases; and (13) The addiction treatment plan should be hundred percent ethical.

Multilevel Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy Treatment

Multilevel Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy Treatment Comparison between anterior approaches and posterior approaches for the treatment of multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy: a meta analysis Abstract Objective: Both anterior and posterior approaches are used in the treatment of multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy (MCSM) due to spinal stenosis or ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL). However, the optimal strategy remains controversial. To compare the clinical results between the two approaches, a meta-analysis was conducted. Methods: PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane library were searched up to July 2014 without language restriction. The reference lists of selected searches comparing anterior and posterior approaches were screened manually. Subgroup analysis was conducted according to the cause of MCSM. A fixed effect model was used for pool data, and a random effects model for heterogeneous data. Mean difference (MD) and odds ratio (OR) was used for continuous and dichotomous outcomes, respectively. Results: Seventeen articles were selected in this study, all of which were non-randomized controlled trials. There were significant difference between two approaches for post-Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) score (MD=1.13, 95% CI=0.41, 1.86), operation time (MD=67.43, 95% CI=16.94, 117.91), post-range of motion (ROM) (MD=1.86, 95% CI=0.61, 3.12), length of stay (MD=-1.54, 95% CI=-2.25, -0.5)and complication rate (OR=2.28, 95% CI=1.52, 3.41). Meanwhile, there were no significant difference for pre-JOA, blood loss, neurological recovery rate, pre-ROM, pre- and post-Nurick grade. Conclusions: Based on this meta-analysis, post-JOA and length of stay are significantly better in the anterior group, but high complication rate and no apparent difference for neurological recovery rate made it necessary to conclude more trials with high quality to further confirm the conclusion. Keywords: multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy; clinical outcomes; meta-analysis Introduction Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is caused by compression of the spinal cord due to degeneration. Spinal stenosis and ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) have been considered as the two common causes of CSM. CSM can be treated by a variety of anterior, posterior, or combined anterior and posterior surgical approaches. The decision to use an anterior or a posterior approach depends on many factors, such as the reason of spinal cord compression, the number of vertebral segments, cervical alignment, and the surgeon’s familiarity with the techniques1. Anterior approaches usually include anterior cervical corpectomy with fusion (ACCF) and cervical discectomy with fusion (ACDF), whereas the typical posterior approaches involve laminectomy and laminoplasty2. Anterior decompression and fusion has been successfully used for CSM involving one or two levels3, 4. But failures will be observed when three or more levels are involved (multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy, MCSM) with anterior approaches5, 6. Compared with anterior approaches, posterior strategies provide an indirect canal decompression by allowing the spinal cord to float away from ventral compression. The disadvantages of posterior approach were also noted, for example, neck pain, loss of lordotic curvature, segmental instability, and late neurologic deterioration7. Although many studies comparing the two approaches have been done, the optimal approach providing satisfactory decompression remains to be determined. No systematic analysis of the two approaches in the treatment of MCSM has been published yet. In order to provide a basis for selecting, a meta-analysis of clinical results of anterior approaches compared with posterior approaches for patients with MCSM was performed. Materials and methods Literature search The authors searched multiple databases, includingPubMed, Embase and The Cochrane library up to June 11, 2014 without language restriction. Additionally, the reference lists of selected searches and related articles that not yet included in the electronic database were screened manually. The searching strings were (1) myelopathy or cervical spondylosis or cervical vertebrae or cervical stenosis; (2) Corpectomy or anterior cervical discectomy or anterior decompression or ventral; (3) laminoplasty or laminectomy or posterior decompression or dorsal, with the operator â€Å"AND†. Literature screening Articles were reviewed according to the following criteria: (1) The researches were designed as randomized controlled trials, case-control studies or cohort studies; (2) Patients with multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy (MCSM) due to spinal stenosis or ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL); (3) The anterior approaches group was treated by anterior cervical canal decompression; (4) The posterior approaches group was treated by posterior cervical canal decompression; (5) The outcomes was clinical endpoint, like neurological recovery rates, Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) score, range of motion (ROM), Nurick grade, complication rate, operation time, blood loss, and length of stay in hospital. Also, there are five exclusion criteria for literature screening. These were: (1) The cases followed up less than one year; (2) Patients with MSCM were caused by tumors, trauma, soft disk herniation, or previous surgery; (3) Patients without MSCM; (4) Researches without control; (5) non-nature literatures, such as reviews, letters and comments. Data extraction and studies quality assessment Two investigators respectively assessed each potentially eligible study and then extracted data from the included studies. Disagreements were resolved through discussion. The information extracted including the author, publication year, area, ages, sex, number of patients, follow-up period, surgical methods and outcomes. Furthermore, We used the Cochrane8 for assessing the quality of randomized studies, and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS)9 for nonrandomised sudies or cohort studies. respectively. Statistical analysis The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the divergence of all outcomes, and all analyses were performed by RevMan5.2 software. Weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for Continuous variables, while Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CI were calculated for dichotomous data. Statistic heterogeneity was identified using chi-square test and I2 test. If P2 >50%, which indicated heterogeneity exists among all results, random effects model was applied. If P≠¥0.05 or I2 ≠¤50%, which indicated heterogeneity, the fixed effects model was selected10. The publication bias was tested by constructing a funnel plot. Results Search results A flow diagram of the literature search and study selection was shown in fig.1. Basing on the aforementioned criteria, we searched 1216, 1710, and 13 articles from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane library respectively. A total of 2234 articles were remained after excluding duplicate publications. And a total of 2191 articles that mismatched the included criteria were excluded after screening titles and abstracts. Therefore, a total of 43 articles were identified. Of these, sixteen articles were excluded after reading the abstracts: ten articles did not compare the effects between anterior approaches and posterior approaches and six articles were reviews. Ten articles were excluded for the following reasons: two articles were not about multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy, one was self-controlled study, four were about MCSM due to soft disc herniation, and three articles did not have statistic data. Manual search of references did not find any additional articles. As a result, a total of 17 articles1, 6, 11-25 were identified for the Meta analysis. Baseline characteristics As shown in Table 1, seventeen studies were included for our meta analysis. Patients with MSCM in 10 studies1, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19-21, 24, 25 were caused by spinal stenosis, and 5 studies6, 13, 14, 18, 23 were caused by ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL), two studies16, 22 caused by both types above. The articles were published from 1992 to 2013. The mean ages ranged from 51.8 to 66.8 years old. The sample size, gender ratio, follow-up period, and surgical methods of each study are listed in Table 1. All studies included were non-randomized controlled trails. The qualities of all studies were assessed using Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOQAS). The scale for non-randomized controlled trails and cohort studies was used to allocate a maximum of 9 points for the quality of selection (4), comparability (1), and exposure (3) or outcomes (3). As shown in supplement table 1, five studies scored 7 points and twelve scored 8 points. Hence, all studies were of a relatively high quality. Clinical outcomes The main outcomes in this Meta analysis were preoperative JOA score, postoperative JOA score, operation time, blood loss, complication rate and neurological recovery rates. According to patients type, studies were divided into three subgroups: subgroup spinal stenosis, subgroup OPLL, subgroup spinal stenosis and OPLL. The results of heterogeneity for preoperative JOA score was P=0.21, I2=22%, indicating no heterogeneity. So the fixed-effects model was selected and MD was 0.39 (95% CI =0.09, 0.69, P=0.01) (Fig. 2). However, except subgroup spinal stenosis and OPLL had significantly differences, the other two subgroups had no significantly differences in the preoperative JOA. By contrast, there has a statistically significance in the postoperative JOA score (MD=1.13, 95% CI =0.41, 1.86) among the three subgroups. But both subgroup spinal stenosis and subgroup OPLL showed apparent heterogeneity (Fig. 3). We also analyzed operation time, blood loss, complication rate for subgroup OPLL and subgroup spinal stenosis, respectively. Comparison of operation time and blood loss of the two subgroups showed that subgroup spinal stenosis had heterogeneity but not for subgroup OPLL. The operation time for both subgroups had statistically significance (MD=67.43; 95% CI =16.94, 117.91), while blood loss did not (MD=52.43; 95% CI =-79.8, 184.66) (Fig. 4, Fig. 5). Furthermore, when we compared the two subgroups we found the following results. The complication rate of subgroup spinal stenosis was significantly higher in the anterior approaches than in posterior approaches (OR=2.60; 95% CI =1.63, 4.15; P2=38%), while subgroup OPLL was not significant (Fig. 6). The neurological recovery rates compared among three subgroups showed no significantly difference (MD=11.85, 95% CI=0.86, 22.84) (Fig. 7). Since few studies was reported, secondary outcomes like pre- and postoperative range of motion (ROM) , pre- and postoperative Nurick grade and length of stay are listed in table 2. Only postoperative ROM (MD=1.86, 95% CI=0.61, 3.12) and length of stay (MD=-1.54, 95% CI= -2.59, -0.50) showed significant difference (P=0.04). there were no statistical difference in pre-ROM, pre- and postoperative Nurick grade between anterior and posterior approaches. Publication bias A variety of clinical outcomes had been calculated, funnel plots only for preoperative JOA score and postoperative JOA score were displayed. As shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, all studies were within the confidential intervals and the shape of the funnel plots revealed symmetric distribution, which suggested there were no significant publication bias. Discussion The surgical treatment for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) has been studied for a long time. Anterior approaches have been widely accepted as an effective and reliable method for the treatment of CSM. but which surgical strategy should be selected for the treatment of multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy (MCSM) remains controversial and challenge. Therefore, we had compared the clinical outcomes of anterior and posterior approaches in the treatment of MCSM due to spinal stenosis or OPLL. In this study, we searched the PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane library and found 17 articles comparing anterior and posterior approaches for treatment of MCSM. According to NOQAS, all included studies had high quality. And a meta-analysis was performed to determine which surgical treatment is more effective. Based on the cause of MCSM, the studies were divided into three subgroups: subgroup spinal stenosis, subgroup OPLL, subgroup spinal stenosis and OPLL. For the clinical results, there was significant difference in preoperative JOA scores in subgroup spinal stenosis and subgroup OPLL. Postoperative JOA scores was better in the anterior group compared with posterior group. This results show that the groups had similar baseline neural function, and the postoperative neural function condition was better in anterior group. Authors selected operation time and blood loss for meta analysis to estimate surgical trauma. In our study, the operation time was significant difference between the two groups, while blood loss had no statistically significance. This suggests that surgical trauma in anterior group was higher than that inposterior group in the treatment of MCSM. In addition, the post-ROM was better in posterior group while length of stay was shorter in anterior group. The preoperative ROM, pre- and post-Nurick grad did not differ significantly between the two groups. In the meta-analysis of neurological recovery rate, significant heterogeneity was found between the studies. Subsequent subgroup analysis was similar for the three subgroups. Complication rate was selected to evaluate complication-related outcomes by some authors. And they found a significantly higher incidence of complications in anterior group compared with the posterior group. Our analysis showed the same results. Subsequent subgroup analysis showed the complication rate of anterior group was higher in subgroup spinal stenosis. This suggests that the anterior approaches were associated with a higher incidence of complications for the treatment of MCSM. There are limitations in our study. First, all studies included in the meta-analysis were non-randomized controlled trails. Second, only few studies were included to evaluate pre- and post-ROM either in subgroup OPLL or subgroup spinal stenosis and OPLL. Therefore, it is necessary to include more prospective and randomized controlled trials with high quality to provide more data on the clinical results of both procedures. Hence, though anterior approaches seems have better clinical outcomes compared with posterior approaches in our study, we could not draw a strong conclusion about which strategy is preferred to the treatment of MCSM due to spinal stenosis or OPLL. Conclusions On the basis of the meta-analysis of anterior approaches and posterior approaches for the treatment of MCSM, we can conclude that the clinical outcomes of anterior approaches are superior to posterior approaches for post-JOA, length of stay, the outcomes blood loss, neurological recovery rate are equivalent between two groups. Because of the existing limitations of the study, future studies with high quality are needed for update meta-analysis in order to evaluate the strategy for MCSM treatment.