Politics around the world.comparative assignment

Politics around the world.comparative - Assignment Example There has been a lot of debate in the United States recently on the issue of offering public health care. How does U.S. spending on health care actually compare to other countries? The following will explore data available from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which maintains a statistical database on all of its member states: http://www.oecd.org Under the topics menu, select â€Å"Health.† Then follow the link for â€Å"OECD Health Data 2014: Key indicators.† Click on the link that reads: â€Å"DOWNLOAD this selection of key indicators from OECD Health Statistics 2014 in Excel† Use this excel file to answer the following questions. In all cases, please report the data for 2012. every citizen to have health insurance. The rich are in Germany are allowed to pay for their own insurance from the insurer of their choice while the poor get social assistance from the government. The Japanese get their insurance from their employers or from a nonprofit insurance organization. In Switzerland the healthcare system is also similar to that of Japan and Germany whereby citizens get social insurance and the poor are assisted by the government which does not happen in the U.S as the poor are left to struggle on their own to find medical assistance. The Taiwan citizens also enjoy a national health insurance system like the most of other developed countries which means that the poor can afford to get decent health care unlike in the U.S where that is impossible (Frontline,

Arabic Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Arabic Culture - Essay Example he gender division of roles, responsibilities and resources within the household play an important role in shaping what men and women are able to do beyond the household. Islamic texts and traditions lie at the heart of Arab cultural conventions. Critics have seized upon the way that the exact interpretation of religious doctrines varies from state to state, and stress that it is important to reflect on who is making the rules for gender roles and activities, namely men, and how little real choice women have. The definition of what is a matter of culture and religion, and what is a matter of human rights is contentious. Handrahan, for example, compares the human rights offences which occurred in apartheid South Africa with the treatment of women in Arabian culture and describes the Arabian situation as â€Å"gender apartheid† (Handrahan 9) The absence of equal voting rights for women is quite obviously matter of serious discrimination and it attracts condemnation from critics both inside and outside Arabia. A woman’s identity in Arabian culture and society is constructed, in the very first place, on the basis of men’s superiority. Such discriminated gender growth is justified on both cultural and religious basis. In a rigidly religious society, men’s superiority and women’s dependency on men are ratified by the following verse of the Holy Quran: â€Å"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husbands) absence what Allah would have them guard† (Quran  4:34). Indeed this verse is one of many from the Holy Quran that the clerics of the society manipulate to enact rules, regulations and laws that slaughter women’s equality to men. Some of these rules and regulations are male guardianships, Namus, Purdah, Dress codes, sexual segregation, etc. One of the common aftermaths

Research Papers in Computer Science Essay Example for Free

Research Papers in Computer Science Essay Since we recently announced our $10001 Binary Battle to promote applications built on the Mendeley API (now including PLoS as well), I decided to take a look at the data to see what people have to work with. My analysis focused on our second largest discipline, Computer Science. Biological Sciences (my discipline) is the largest, but I started with this one so that I could look at the data with fresh eyes, and also because it’s got some really cool papers to talk about. Here’s what I found: What I found was a fascinating list of topics, with many of the expected fundamental papers like Shannon’s Theory of Information and the Google paper, a strong showing from Mapreduce and machine learning, but also some interesting hints that augmented reality may be becoming more of an actual reality soon. The top graph summarizes the overall results of the analysis. This graph shows the Top 10 papers among those who have listed computer science as their discipline and chosen a subdiscipline. The bars are colored according to subdiscipline and the number of readers is shown on the x-axis. The bar graphs for each paper show the distribution of readership levels among subdisciplines. 17 of the 21 CS subdisciplines are represented and the axis scales and color schemes remain constant throughout. Click on any graph to explore it in more detail or to grab the raw data.(NB: A minority of Computer Scientists have listed a subdiscipline. I would encourage everyone to do so.) 1. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (available full-text) LDA is a means of classifying objects, such as documents, based on their underlying topics. I was surprised to see this paper as number one instead of Shannon’s information theory paper (#7) or the paper describing the concept that became Google (#3). It turns out that interest in this paper is very strong among those who list artificial intelligence as their subdiscipline. In fact, AI researchers contributed the majority of readership to 6 out of the top 10 papers. Presumably, those interested in popular topics such as machine learning list themselves under AI, which explains the strength of this subdiscipline, whereas papers like the Mapreduce one or the Google paper appeal to a broad range of subdisciplines, giving those papers a smaller numbers spread across more subdisciplines. Professor Blei is also a bit of a superstar, so that didn’t hurt. (the irony of a manually-categorized list with an LDA paper at the top has not escaped us) 2. MapReduce : Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters (available full-text) It’s no surprise to see this in the Top 10 either, given the huge appeal of this parallelization technique for breaking down huge computations into easily executable and recombinable chunks. The importance of the monolithic â€Å"Big Iron† supercomputer has been on the wane for decades. The interesting thing about this paper is that had some of the lowest readership scores of the top papers within a subdiscipline, but folks from across the entire spectrum of computer science are reading it. This is perhaps expected for such a general purpose technique, but given the above it’s strange that there are no AI readers of this paper at all. 3. The Anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual search engine (available full-text) In this paper, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page discuss how Google was created and how it initially worked. This is another paper that has high readership across a broad swath of disciplines, including AI, but wasn’t dominated by any one discipline. I would expect that the largest share of readers have it in their library mostly out of curiosity rather than direct relevance to their research. It’s a fascinating piece of history related to something that has now become part of our every day lives. 4. Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints This paper was new to me, although I’m sure it’s not new to many of you. This paper describes how to identify objects in a video stream without regard to how near or far away they are or how they’re oriented with respect to the camera. AI again drove the popularity of this paper in large part and to understand why, think â€Å"Augmented Realityâ€Å". AR is the futuristic idea most familiar to the average sci-fi enthusiast as Terminator-vision. Given the strong interest in the topic, AR could be closer than we think, but we’ll probably use it to layer Groupon deals over shops we pass by instead of building unstoppable fighting machines. 5. Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (available full-text) This is another machine learning paper and its presence in the top 10 is primarily due to AI, with a small contribution from folks listing neural networks as their discipline, most likely due to the paper being published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks. Reinforcement learning is essentially a technique that borrows from biology, where the behavior of an intelligent agent is is controlled by the amount of positive stimuli, or reinforcement, it receives in an environment where there are many different interacting positive and negative stimuli. This is how we’ll teach the robots behaviors in a human fashion, before they rise up and destroy us. 6. Toward the next generation of recommender systems: a survey of the state-of-the-art and possible extensions (available full-text) Popular among AI and information retrieval researchers, this paper discusses recommendation algorithms and classifies them into collaborative, content-based, or hybrid. While I wouldn’t call this paper a groundbreaking event of the caliber of the Shannon paper above, I can certainly understand why it makes such a strong showing here. If you’re using Mendeley, you’re using both collaborative and content-based discovery methods! 7. A Mathematical Theory of Communication (available full-text) Now we’re back to more fundamental papers. I would really have expected this to be at least number 3 or 4, but the strong showing by the AI discipline for the machine learning papers in spots 1, 4, and 5 pushed it down. This paper discusses the theory of sending communications down a noisy channel and demonstrates a few key engineering parameters, such as entropy, which is the range of states of a given communication. It’s one of the more fundamental papers of computer science, founding the field of information theory and enabling the development of the very tubes through which you received this web page you’re reading now. It’s also the first place the word â€Å"bit†, short for binary digit, is found in the published literature. 8. The Semantic Web (available full-text) In The Semantic Web, Tim Berners-Lee, Sir Tim, the inventor of the World Wide Web, describes his vision for the web of the future. Now, 10 years later, it’s fascinating to look back though it and see on which points the web has delivered on its promise and how far away we still remain in so many others. This is different from the other papers above in that it’s a descriptive piece, not primary research as above, but still deserves it’s place in the list and readership will only grow as we get ever closer to his vision. 9. Convex Optimization (available full-text) This is a very popular book on a widely used optimization technique in signal processing. Convex optimization tries to find the provably optimal solution to an optimization problem, as opposed to a nearby maximum or minimum. While this seems like a highly specialized niche area, it’s of importance to machine learning and AI researchers, so it was able to pull in a nice readership on Mendeley. Professor Boyd has a very popular set of video classes at Stanford on the subject, which probably gave this a little boost, as well. The point here is that print publications aren’t the only way of communicating your ideas. Videos of techniques at SciVee or JoVE or recorded lectures (previously) can really help spread awareness of your research. 10. Object recognition from local scale-invariant features (available in full-text) This is another paper on the same topic as paper #4, and it’s by the same author. Looking across subdisciplines as we did here, it’s not surprising to see two related papers, of interest to the main driving discipline, appear twice. Adding the readers from this paper to the #4 paper would be enough to put it in the #2 spot, just below the LDA paper. Conclusions So what’s the moral of the story? Well, there are a few things to note. First of all, it shows that Mendeley readership data is good enough to reveal both papers of long-standing importance as well as interesting upcoming trends. Fun stuff can be done with this! How about a Mendeley leaderboard? You could grab the number of readers for each paper published by members of your group, and have some friendly competition to see who can get the most readers, month-over-month. Comparing yourself against others in terms of readers per paper could put a big smile on your face, or it could be a gentle nudge to get out to more conferences or maybe record a video of your technique for JoVE or Khan Academy or just Youtube. Another thing to note is that these results don’t necessarily mean that AI researchers are the most influential researchers or the most numerous, just the best at being accounted for. To make sure you’re counted properly, be sure you list your subdiscipline on your profile, or if you can’t find your exact one, pick the closest one, like the machine learning folks did with the AI subdiscipline. We recognize that almost everyone does interdisciplinary work these days. We’re working on a more flexible discipline assignment system, but for now, just pick your favorite one. These stats were derived from the entire readership history, so they do reflect a founder effect to some degree. Limiting the analysis to the past 3 months would probably reveal different trends and comparing month-to-month changes could reveal rising stars.

McDonalds top five critical success factors

McDonalds top five critical success factors Executive Summary This report will lay out the importance of McDonalds top five critical success factors which has made the company this successful. Firstly, the history and background of the company will be established to get the mood and feel of the restaurant, this will include the positioning of the company within the market as well. Secondly, the critical success factors of the company will be elaborated in this section. Thirdly, the report would give examples of the downfalls of McDonalds as well, as every product and company has its declining stage, and how it overcame the situation. And lastly, insights and conclusions will be stated to give a broader sense of the importance to why it is important to discuss about such company. Introduction to McDonalds McDonalds has become a wide spreaded company in the world today. It would be interesting to look into the factors to what made the company so successful. However, before going into details of any insights and findings, we must first establish understanding from the background and histories of the company first. McDonalds Background It is probably safe to say that McDonalds existence and expansions has been one of the prominent events in revolutionizing the eating habits and lifestyles of people globally. Located in 119 countries world-wide, it is estimated that more than 46 million people dine at one of the 31,000 outlets everyday. (xxx) While 9,000 of the venues are owned and operated by the corporation itself, others are managed by franchisees or affiliates. (xxx) McDonalds History Originally, the McDonalds business was started by two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonalds in 1940. At that time, the restaurant in California was using eight of Ray Krocs Multimixer milkshake machines. Curious about the learnings to his great sales success of his Multimixers to the McDonalds company, Ray Kroc decided to find out more details of the restaurant. During the time of Krocs visit, he witnessed the restaurant at its peek. Families were much attracted to the concept of the restaurant, for it was a simple self-served, streamlined operation that had a simple menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, shakes, soft drinks, and apple pie. (xxx) The most attractive aspect of the restaurant had to do with the workers efficiency level, because each workers steps were formatted in such a way that resembled the assembly line, it allowed the savings in preparation time which directly related with the increasing in volume, ultimately resulting the restaurant to lower the price of a hamburger from 30 cents to 15 cents. (xxx) A clear price competitive advantage over its competitors at that time. With the success of McDonalds in 1954, Ray Kroc foresaw bigger and better potential growths for the company by means of franchising the name out. Indifferent and unbothered by the plan, the brothers allowed Kroc to get on the mission by himself using their restaurants name. (xxx) McDonalds first advertising campaign Look for the Golden Arches, made its way in 1960 with great achievement. In that year, McDonalds became larger and larger, which could be linked to the vast growth of U.S. automobile industry that came with suburbanization. (xxx) The following year, Kroc decided to embark the journey alone with the McDonald brothers, he bought out the restaurant for $2.7 million USD and made it a mission to make McDonalds the number one fast-food chain in the country. (xxx) McDonalds amazing growth continued in 1970. Fast service was always preferred by the Americans and McDonalds was fastest at its service. By 1972 it crossed the profit margin of 1 billion in annual sales and by 1976 McDonalds sold as much as 20 billion hamburgers for which the sales exceeded $3 billion. It broke new ground in breakfast by introducing Egg Muffin in 1973 when market research point out that quick breakfast would be preferred. And 5 years later it introduced a full breakfast menu and by 1987 maximum breakfasts of USA were ordered from McDonalds By 1970, McDonalds had restaurants in all fifty states and a few in Canada and the Caribbean. Foreign operations exploded during the 70s and 80s, as the company expanded into Asia, Australia, South America and Europe. Kroc counted on the expertise of local companies to help them adapt McDonalds food and service to other lands. Only within the first 30 years after the establishment of the company, McDonalds dominated the domestic market with more than 10,000 restaurants throughout the states of USA. In 1980, about 28% of new McDonalds restaurants were opened outside the United States market borders, this number increased to 40% in 1986 and went up to nearly 60% in 1990. In 2000, McDonalds collected about 21 billion dollars from 28,707 restaurants located in the external market, made up for 53% of total revenue of 40 billion. According to statistics in 2000, with each 25,000 American, there was a McDonalds restaurant, this rate made the competitors in the fast-food industry admire and envy. By 1992 almost 40 percent of the companys sales came from overseas. Today, McDonalds has more than 31,000 chains across 119 countries around the globe. In 2007, McDonalds served more than 16 billion customers, equivalent to one lunch and one dinner for everyone on the world. With revenues of 4 billion worldwide, McDonalds became the largest provider company of food worldwide. (DAVID) McDonalds Position in the Market The simple yet profound concept in which is still being used today was established in the early developmental stages of the new franchised outlets of McDonalds, under Ray Krocs supervision, which is: Quality, Service, Cleaning and Value. This standard procedure was enforced in order to obtain maximum quality and standards. (xxx) Unsurprisingly, their vision and mission statements of the company followed such statement. The Vision: McDonalds vision is to be the worlds best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile. (xxx) The Mission: Be the best employer for our people in each community around the world Deliver operational excellence to our customers in each of our restaurants; and Achieve enduring profitable growth by expanding the brand and leveraging. (xxx) Even though the earlier stages of McDonalds attracted more families than it did other categories, nowadays, McDonalds has made it clear that it positions itself to target and cater people of all backgrounds. Suitable for people of various needs and wants; from families to young children, to people who love to enjoy life to people who are on the go, and meat lovers to vegetarians, virtually anybody and everybody can find something on the menu for themselves. Critical Success Factors for McDonalds Aggressive Business Goal Hello, Im the new McDonalds supervisor . . .Were going to run you out of business was infamously said by Ralph Lanphar to a competitor near by. Although this saying might come out as aggressive and rude, looking at it from a different perspective, it could very much be a manifestation of pride and the eagerness to grow bigger and stronger. From this statement, it is evident that McDonalds was committed to build the strongest superior operation firm. This pride and eagerness has been carried on until today. All staff, employees and top management have been engrained in their early stages of training to love the company, to understand that there are benefits for them and that together McDonalds and they can grow together. They should take pride in the success. Even to this day and age, the mission to instill loyalty to the company could be seen today. Charlie Bell, McDonalds CEO in 2004, used to say that the people at McDonalds people must be proud of where we work, proud of what we do, proud to wear the McDonalds pin, proud of our food offerings, proud to eat our food offerings and proud to be part of McDonalds. Going back to the point where McDonalds has a strong and aggressive business plan, McDonalds plans to make everybody in the world know McDonalds (from the video) Uncompromising Standards One of the most influential factors that made the initial set of McDonalds possible would have to be credited to the restaurants extreme commitment to their aimed standards of consistency and their motto of Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value. In which both were created by Kroc himself. Even customers knew that no matter where they travelled, they could rely on those qualities at every McDonalds they visted. Tom Peters said keeping it simple in amdist of the growing complexity. Uniformity. (from the video) Consistency In 1955, Kroc incorporated his company as McDonalds corporation and opened his first very own restaurant in Illinois. Placing his concern over the consistency and uniformity from store to store, he decided to establish strong restaurants first before franchising them out. (xxx) Wants McDonalds to be a multi local and not a multi national corporation. (from the video) QSCV For example, cleanliness is one feature of the McDonalds corporate system that needs no explanation; clean toilets are universally appreciated. McDonalds is widely credited with starting a revolution of rising expectations among East Asian consumers who had never experienced high standards of public hygiene in the catering trade. In Taipei, Beijing, Seoul, and Hong Kong, local restaurateurs had to match this new standard or watch their customers go elsewhere. Young people began to draw an equation between the condition of a restaurants toilet and the state of its kitchen. Willingness to Adapt McDonalds success is dependant on adapting to its consumers needs and demands McDonalds franchise business has not only survived but thrived through boom times and recessions and has successfully reacted to consumer trends. It was one of th first franchise restaurants to post nutritional information about its menu, and now offers salads and other healthy options in recent years. Also, the key to McDonalds worldwide success is that people everywhere know what to expect when they pass through the golden arches. This does not, however, mean that the corporation has resisted change or refused to adapt when local customs require flexibility. In Israel, after initial protests, Big Macs are now served without cheese in several outlets, thereby permitting the separation of meat and dairy products required of Kosher restaurants. Similarly, McDonalds restaurants in India serve vegetable McNuggets and a mutton based Maharaja Mac. Innovations that are necessary in a country where Hindus do not eat beef, muslims do not eat pork. In Malaysia and Singapore, McDonalds underwent rigorous inspections by muslim clerics to ensure ritual cleanliness; the chain was rewarded with a Halal certificate, indicating the total absence of pork products (Watson, 1997) This also includes the fact that McDonalds needs to take the environmental factors and the changing world into consideration as well. McDonalds continually seeks for innovation and they need to adapt to new market conditions according the fast paced globalize world. For example, in 1963, McDonalds introduced the Filet-of-Fish sandwich in the Cincinnati area for Catholics who were restricted not to consume meat on Fridays. This new offering was later on implemented to the standard menu, then to the national menu and lastly world wide. In 2005, another adaptation to the times and consumer demand was the provision of WiFi with Nintendo in select locations; and delivery service in Singapore, where customers can phone in their order and have it delivered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company has also departed from its standard free-standing units, and installed quick service kiosks in busy places, like malls and airports. Valuing People Approach The real secret to successful operation system is not found in its regimen but in the way it enforces uniform procedures without stifling the entrepreneurship of franchises. For example, in Japan, without the freedom of franchisees and suppliers to exercise their entrepreneurial instincts, to test their own ideas. . . it would lose touch with the market place. (from the video) think of people. Everybody from below to top. Also, McDonalds views people, including the maintenance people, partners, corporate managers, hostess in the restaurant, suppliers etc. what to see our associates grow. If one example of a family succeeds, we all succeed. Franchisees/ Associates/ Partners His idea was to start the franchisee without paying the franchisee charges. This was the start of Mc Donalds success. First, make your partners rich. Though Kroc focused more closely on the burger than others, his real innovation was to turn the business of franchising on its head. Typically, franchising deals were struck by firms that wanted to get rich quick by being paid up front for licensing their brand name and menu and supplying products. They were not confident in their long term survival, so they wanted to pocket money now Kroc burst with confidence in McDonalds future and thats why he was willing to get rich at a slower pace, if it meant that his franchisees would prosper. Kroc felt that his competitors cared only about jamming profitable stuff down the throats of their partners, rather than long term growth. He noticed how casually and negligently the companies supervised their stores. Kroc felt passionately that his job was to make his franchisees rich by cutting thir cos ts and improving their products. (Buchholz, 2007) Krocs business model required an extra helping of patience. Kroc trusted a bunch of novice franchisees. Kroc may have been confident, but not completely naà ¯ve. He slowly distributed the stroes, testing and training the franchisees and requiring them to meet his excruciating standards for QSCV. Because other companies were eager to collect big bucks fast, they sold off vast statewide territories to rich speculators. Kroc sold just one at a time and refused to sell a second franchise to an operator unless his performance was stellar. Wanted the corporation to have control over its franchisees, the local business people who paid the corporation to run its restaurants. Other chains let franchisees buy the right to open as many stores in a region as they could. Kroc sold his franchisees just one store, so he could make sure they kjnew how to run a McDonalds the way he wanted it run. He made sure his franchisees did well, their success served his interests, since the corporation earned money on their restaurants sales. Also, from his background knowledge of being a successful salesman, he understood that he would not be a supplier to his franchisees, for it would jeopardize the relationships between the two because of profits. You cannot be a partner and a supplier at the same time says Kroc. Because it creates beaucracy. Do it another way and it builds trust.Kroc was adamant in helping out his franchisees as much as possible, as he knew that McDonalds growth was highly dependant on their success. He trained franchisees in McDonalds methods at the companys hamburger university. As John Love writes in McDonalds behind the arches, In the end, the genius of Ray Kroc was that he treated franchisees as equal partners. Suppliers Kroc wanted to tame his suppliers by making them rich. He wanted better prices and better quality. . Ray Krocs plan to do business with outside suppliers was giving many small but new companies a chance to make a profit on high volume orders. Kroc negotiated better deals with small suppliers who were hungry for his emerging business. Kraft had the McDonalds cheese account early on, but when Kroc requested a sharper- tasting cheddar for the burgers, Kraft was too busy or too comfortable to develop a new recipe. When Kroc went looking for good-quality beef, major players like Armour and Swift refused to extend credit. So Kroc made mulitimillionaires of the quick and hungry suppliers. When Kraft failed him, Kroc turned to a cheesehead in Green Bay, Wisconsin, named L.D. Schreiber. Today the Schreiber company is a multibillionaire dollar firm. Kroc could not negotiate great deals with Wesson oil and Procter Gamble. Instead he turned an upstart named Harry Smargon into a very rich man. Staff McDonalds saw the importance of doing an internal marketing plan. Explaining that external plans and programs will not be as successful if you put the outside world before your own people. Employees come first (xxx) When im loving it was first globally launched, McDonalds launched it internally first before a single consumer saw the advertising and experienced the marketing. This demonstrated that the people were the most important elements for making the revitalization of the McDonalds brand work. They wanted im loving it to become an internal rallying cry, and not just an external slogan. Charlie Bell recognized that proud employees provided greater service, which can make an incredible impression that will have an impact on a customers loyalty. Also, they initiate staff to go out and be creative, contribute to the company. Fred Turner, I want you to go out there and make mistakes. Better than doing nothing and being concern free. Learn but dont do the same mistakes twice. (from the video) Currently, approximately 1.6 billion people all over the world are employed or own a franchise at McDonalds. Though much of the success could be contributed from the sharp eyes of Ray Kroc and his management team, we cannot deny that one of the contributers to the success lies within the employees inside the organization. Since employees play such an essential role in the main activities of the company, There have been surveys conducted concerning employees and staff of the growing popularity of this chain of restaurants and employees contribution to it. One of the most important points is that employees are motivated in their work and duties. Company provides with a set of benefits for their internal staff, such as: Employees are allowed to eat for free; Employees have a month of paid holidays; Employees have an access for private health care; Employees have discount card; Employees are awarded for servicing for 3, 5, 10, 15 and more years; Employees have an opportunity to get sponsorship program, etc. Moreover, training sessions are provided for the internal new coming staff. These training sessions are properly structured and highlight the main values and principles of the company Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSCV). Newcomers and freshmen are trained how to provide the better service to customers and clients. What is more important is that the training sessions are constantly updated, to become more modern and realistic. McDonalds has went further and established its own education center for learning and training classes, called Hamburger University, in which is now opened in many parts of the world . In this university there is a centralized system of education, which teaches new staff about the importance of people in marketing management, the sense of employee training and so on. That is why even every day new technologies appears, McDonalds remain the number one in the fast food providers. The career ladder is very attainable for everyone who wishes it in McDonalds. Approximately 20% of the top management staff passed through the very beginning position in the kitchen. For example, If the person really has a willing to be promoted further, he always can reach it. Everything in the hiring and promotion people in McDonalds depends on ability and hardworking skills of a particular person. For a new coming employee there is a set of stages he/she should take in order to have a desired position within the company. People taking high positions within the company and willing to know all internal processes need to pass through them by themselves. They should clearly understand all the details their subordinates report to them so that they do not only rely on their results, but can estimate what has been made incorrectly or in improper way. McDonalds exactly gives such an opportunity for people to start from the early steps and grow till the desired point of destination. Nowadays, more and more students come to interviews trying to get the job in McDonalds. It becomes popular among the youth to have a part time job and the companies like McDonalds also benefits it as they offer a little bit higher the industrys average minimum salaries. Students have several benefits working for McDonalds; they have free meal and have the opportunity to earn their own pocket money. McDonalds, on the other hand, should have trained employees, whom they need to teach immediately, and accurately introducing to the existing process and paying them less. To reach the goal of fast training and not disturbing other employees from their routine work, managers of McDonalds decided to implement the E-learning system for freshmen, consisting of videos, role plays, newspapers and so on. Employees are the most essential part in every organization. McDonalds wholly understands the importance and contribution of every one person within the organization; that is why there is well known principle: The result is done by a man. In order to fulfill the requirements of the company Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSCV) McDonalds considers each employee as the vital part for success in achieving the above mentioned characteristics. In the desire to fit the reputation of brand as number one fast-food restaurant, McDonalds tries to follow four simple rules to help their employees to improve, such as: The company has to maintain different kind of motivation to different departments within the organization; Every member of the staff has to have one goal, which will be reachable and clearly viewed; As a particular employee grow in his positions, his goals should also be changed, so that every position up will spread his goals broader; An increase in salary should be attractive for an employee. This will be a good motivation technique. McDonalds uses different aspects of motivation tools, which include financial, non financial and social ones. Variety of motivation methods were chosen for implementation because the research conducted internally in the company showed that people need not only monetary refunds, but social recognition too. They should not be separated, but rather combined for serving as the strong motivation technique. The results of conducting the survey clearly underlines that although the motivation tools were based on the theory of Maslows hierarchy of needs, in the reality employees need the mix of all aspects of motivation, not excluding some of them, in order to improve the performance of people and as the result increase the productivity of the whole activities of McDonalds. (NADIYA) Giving Back to the Community Kroc became extremely wealthy following McDonalds enlisting in the stock market in 1965. . Kroc believed in giving something back to the community where you do your business This extreme wealth did not stay with him alone, he decided that he would like to share his wealth amongst others too. The Kroc foundation, which supports researches on diabetes, arthritis and multiple sclerosis, is a testimonial of that. Other wealth sharing opportunities known was that he gave 8 million USD to some of his top employees. Over the years, the corporation also donated food and money to many charities, and the company encouraged local franchisees to get involved in their communities. The best known charitable effort is the Ronald McDonald house, which is located near hospitals where families can stay for free while their children receive medical treatment. . In 1974 McDonalds first opened the Ronald McDonalds house in Philadelphia thus following Krocs philosophy to provide the home away from home for the families of children in nearby hospital followed by 100 similar McDonald houses all over US after 12 yrs Kroc makes it a mission to give back to the people, as it reflects on the consideration and serves as a thank you to those who have always been supporting McDonalds. Facing Hardships and Overcoming Them In Feb 2006, McDonalds stock traded at 27 times earning. However, only one year afterwards, McDonalds second quarter profit growth was just 4% with a 2% decline in earnings from the US businesses. In 2002, after McDonalds stocks have been declining for three years, the board of directors replaced Jack Greenburg with Jim Cantalupo as CEO. Mcdonalds sales were in decline, market share was shrinking, franchisees were frustrated, employee morale was low, and customer satisfaction was even lower. On the plus side, McDonalds had one great asset: People recalled their happy experiences at McDonalds as a child. The problem was that the majority of consumers did not have recent fond experiences. Now, looking back into the unfortunate event, we can see that there were three areas to where McDonalds has neglected. Which were, the restaurant lacked, renovation, innovation and marketing (xxx) When the image of the brand was declining, instead of investing in brand experience renovations and innovations, McDonalds focused merely on monthly promotions. Completely neglecting the means of brand building. The aforementioned three basics guidelines to profitable growth were mistakenly seen as to place focus on more cost reduction methods, instead of properly managing quality growth of the top line. For example, the teeny beanie baby promotion in the US had kidss dragging parents in for the toys while tossing the food into trash bins. But, this had the unintended consequence of reinforcing the image of happy meals as a toy with food as an incidental attachment rather than as a great tasting food with a toy promotion attached. With a decline in food quality, poor service, etc. It was not surprising that opportunitic monthly promotions became the dominant marketing focus. Happy meals had become a promotion of a desirable toy, rather than a promotion for desirable food. This is not a way to build an enduring brand. Overemphasis on the deal rather than the brand results in customers becoming deal loyal rather than brand loyal. For brands to live forever, they must be loved forever. McDonalds leadership fell out of love with the McDonalds brand, and consumers franchisees, employees and the financial community also fell out of love with the McDonalds brand. However, fortunately, Denis Hennequin has brought modifications and redesigned interiors for McDonald are giving it a warmer, more eco-friendly look. This brought in more customers, as the new look generated a fresher image to McDonalds in Europe. Also, Charlie Bells idea of McCafe to offer quality coffee, tea and pastries in a quieter, more attractive atmostphere also made McDonalds competitive with the other fastfood joints, as it offered more than just burgers and fries, it offered coffee in which many restaurants were not able to give the customers such variety. Insights to Other Critical Success Factors Now that McDonalds critical success factors and how it dealt with hardships is established, we can now clearly see that there are some essential parts that must always be intact in order to sustain a business. In contrary to many beliefs, although McDonalds is regarded as a fast food restaurant, the profit made from the goods sold within the restaurant is not actually what keeps McDonalds rich. It is actually the real estate business that is doing it. Even in Fortune Magazine they said that McDonalds is considered as the largest estate in the world (from the video) . It earns revenues as investor in properties, a franchiser of restaurants and an operator of restaurants. Most of the income was coming from 1.9% of service tax from the franchisee. Initially the franchisee fee was only $950 which is currently approx $45000. McDonalds started averaging an annual sale of $200000 in the early 1950 only which shows how people started liking the food and service of it. $1000 went as a royalty to the McDonalds brother and thus the average franchisee was making an operating profit of $40000.Its now making a profit of 1 billion on system wide sales. It was the real estate business which converted McDonalds into a real money machine. The real estate investment strategy is the most important reason why McDonalds boasts a plan that is not close to being equalled in the food service business. Mr Sonnerborn the top financial officer never tried to follow the Kroc-Turner operating system which is the reason why McDonalds is what now. He came up with an idea of money making on real estate that Mc Donalds would lease to its franchisees. He started implementing this plan of making McDonalds a separate real estate company which would locate and lease restaurants sites from land owners which would also be leased to the company. He also had this idea which helped for its major success is that it sold food equipment and food supplies to licensees charging a minimum of $840 per month with interest. In addition to franchisee fees and marketing fees McDonalds collect rent calculated as a percentage of sales. The joint has made a good profit percentage even in the recession making a profit of 23million dollar after tax. Also, the huge size of McDonalds could be factored into one of the biggest critical success factors of all. Because of the humougous size of the corporation, it allowed it to do many things which other franchisees or small businesses could not do on a large scale. Along side its philosophy, vision and mission statements, McDonalds has definitely managed to beat the mediocre standards during the earlier stages, allowing it to take off and penetrate quicker into the fast food market than its rivals. This is mainly by its Attributes of speed: Initially, this was the main factor to McDonalds success. Even from the earlier days, McDonalds has earned a reputation for serving meals efficiently fast. In comparison to other similar fast food competitors, such as Hardees and Rex Burger joints, McDonalds was always developing its method behind the counters to speed up their process of delivering the goods. Types of products offered: A variety of goods catered to all types of people in every region of the world. In India, for example, McVeggie has become a popular delight among the locals, as the majority of the population is vegetarians. Prices of products: Affordable to everybody. This was hugely contributed by the speedy process of the food preparation time. Since it took less time to cook, assemble and serve the burgers and fries, this only meant that McDonalds was able to sell more products in a shorter time as well. Hence, the economy of scale, prices were able to fall lower than its main competitors. Level of service: Consistency of the services. Ray Kroc understood that the uniformity and precision was key to a successful franchise. He made sure that there were rules set and abided, by carefully creating a manu

Shylock in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare Essay

Shylock in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice contains an array of interesting and complex characters. From the alternately generous and grasping Antonio to the alternately love stricken and exploitative Bassanio to the vulnerable and manipulative Portia, this play has an abundance of multi-layered personalities. However, one of the most intriguing characters is also the most oft-vilified and minimized in the work. This character, Shylock, is certainly just as compelling as any of the aforementioned—if not more so, because he acts as the catalyst for the majority of the interesting sections of the play (i.e. The flesh pact, the court scene etcetera). It is certainly undemanding to simply label Shylock a stereotypical stock character: the greedy, vindictive and bloodthirsty villain. Surely, there are more than enough instances available to label him as such (1.3.38-49, 3.1.59-62), 3.1.372-375). However, there also exists another possible, yet neglected, description of Shylock's character: the aggrieved, marginalized and putupon minority. As the text repeatedly reminds us, Shylock is Jew; moreover, a Jew in a predominantly Christian Venice. He is an individual that is consistently attacked at every opportunity by supposedly goodly Christian characters (1.3.103-105, 108-110 , 2.8.15-17). It is to be expected that someone living in those peculiar circumstances would lash out when the chance eventually arises—in this case, Antonio is the target of the wrath. So, to those who would argue that Shylock is a mean-spirited, unforgiving and avaricious character, I would respond: of course he is. But he can also be seen as a distressed, violated and desperate ... ...ts to the inherent contradictions in the practices of Christians: that they prize their â€Å"humility†--that is, until they have a chance to revenge themselves on a Jew that has wronged them. These words have the color of a man well acquainted with the unfairness and unbalance of the system; that a Christian can pursue retribution against a Jew without consequence but when a Jew does exactly the same, he or she is further demonized. He then concludes that he will follow and then exceed the precedents set by his Christian counterparts by seeking revenge: â€Å"The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction† (66-67). Here, it is visible that Shylock has finally recognized his chance for a didactic display of revenge against his tormentors; he will finally show them how it feels to be powerless, to be fearful...to be victims.

Underprotective and Overactive Pain Perception: Problems and Possible Solutions :: Biology Biological Pain Papers

Underprotective and Overactive Pain Perception: Problems and Possible Solutions Pain is probably one of the most universal perceptions that humans, or indeed any animal, can experience. From stress headaches to stubbing one's toe, we come into contact with pain on a daily basis. This is normal data about the experience of pain. However, there are several groups of people that do not feel pain in a common way. Either they don't feel enough pain to tell them that something is wrong, as in the cases of lepers and some diabetics, or they have too much pain, as in the cases of some diabetics, people with phantom limb pain, cancer victims, stroke victims, and other diseases of the brain or spinal cord (Casey, 1996). The effects of pain on these people is in many cases debilitating; their normal lives are likely gone or, at best, on hiatus. These reasons are incentive enough for scientists trying to discover more ways to eradicate wanton pain (or the absence of pain) because there is a threat that many of us, at some point, will be subject to these same problems. The first case of underprotective pain perception that will be discussed is that of leprosy. Leprosy is a bacterial pathogen (M. leprae) that attacks the peripherial nervous system in humans and is the leading cause of peripheral nerve disease in the world. The bacteria attack the Scwann cells that form the myelin sheath around nerve fibers. Without the protection and insulation of the myelin sheath, nerve cells fire inefficiently. The net results of this bacterial infection are skin lesions and damage to the nerves, mainly in the extremities and facial area (Henderson, 1998) . The result of the nerve damage that is pertinant to this topic is the loss of sensation. This lack of feeling complicates normal living: the person with leprosy is not able to identify cuts or burns on his or her skin. Without the protection of normal pain responses, this person could conceivably fail to notice for quite some time that he has been injured and therefore not take further conscious protective measures such as cleaning the cut with alcohol or treating the burn with salve. The effects of this lack of protective sensation are grim: lesions and eventual deformities result from the lack of care given to the body. Although luckily the bacteria can be killed with a month-long course of several drugs, unfortunately the nerve damage is permanent (Henderson, 1998).

Bell Curve

The Bell Curve is a controversial, best-selling 1994 book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray exploring the role of intelligence in American life. The book became widely read and debated due to its discussion of race and intelligence in Chapters 13 and 14. Named for the bell-shaped normal distribution of IQ scores, the book claims there to have been the rise of a â€Å"cognitive elite† having a significantly higher than average chance of succeeding in life. Within both the mainstream media and the scientific community, large numbers of people rallied to both support and criticize the book.The Bell Curve is fairly large for a book of its popularity, having 845 pages in the first printing and 879 in the revised paperback form. Much of its material is technical and academic, but the book's statistical explanations are styled to appeal to a general audience. The Bell Curve is divided into four sections. First, argues that social stratification on the basis of intelligence has been increasing since the beginning of the twentieth century. Second, presents original research showing significant correlations between intelligence and various social and economic outcomes.For instance, based on data as of 1989 this section shows that among Whites intelligence level (cognitive class) is a better predictor of poverty than parents' socioeconomic class. Third, by far the most controversial, examines what role IQ plays in contributing to social and economic differences between ethnic groups in America. Finally, discusses the implications of the findings for education and social policy in the United States. Of course, Bell curve is scientific. Both the American Psychological Association and the Human Genome Project have denounced the science behind The Bell Curve.Its authors were unqualified to speak on either genetics or intelligence, since their expertise lay in other fields. Their project did not rise through the usual system of academic publishing, and in fact the authors ducked the process of peer review. The Bell Curve was ultimately funded by the wealthy, far-right Bradley Foundation, which used its media connections to launch a massive national publicity campaign. And The Bell Curve relies heavily on studies that were financed by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that promotes eugenicist research.The persons that are responsible in bell curve were Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. Charles Alan Murray (born 1943) is an influential conservative American policy writer and researcher. He is most widely known for Losing Ground, his influential work on welfare reform, Human Accomplishment, a quantification and ranking of well-known scientists and artists and as co-author (with Richard J. Herrnstein) of The Bell Curve in 1994, exploring the role of intelligence in American life.He's written several other books on modern social issues and politics, and has sometimes written on libertarian perspectives. Richard J. Herrnstein (May 20, 1930—September 13, 1994) was a prominent researcher in comparative psychology who did pioneering work on pigeon intelligence employing the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and formulated the â€Å"Matching Law† in the 1960s, a breakthrough in understanding how reinforcement and behavior are linked. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of psychology at Harvard University and worked with B. F.Skinner in the Harvard pigeon lab, where he did research on choice and other topics in behavioral psychology. Herrnstein became more broadly known for his work on the correlation between race and intelligence, first in the 1970s, then with Charles Murray, discussed in their controversial best-selling 1994 book, The Bell Curve. Herrnstein died shortly before the book was released. The row over school vouchers, whose advocates endlessly take it for granted that poor performance by students reflects only inadequacies by the teaching profession inadequacies among the learners being a huge unmentionable.The President's astounding proposal that all American youngsters, including those with IQs at the left tail, should have at least two years of college. The expressions of surprise and rage when it turned out that, in the absence of affirmative action, prestigious law schools would be admitting hardly any black students. Eugenics is a social philosophy, which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society's resources, and lessen human suffering.Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-s ponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior.In the social aspect of bell curve, the publication of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve enraged readers with its controversial racial and intellectual agenda, which suggested that certain groups of children are genetically unable to learn because of their race and, therefore, unworthy of the educational attention and financial resources that flow from federal and state governments Gottfredson, Linda S. â€Å"Mainstream Science on Intelligence†. Published in The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1994, and also in Intelligence, January-February 1997. http:www. //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve.