Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintoism

The three of the most common religions in Asia are Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism. In many ways, these religions share a number of common traits although they do possess a certain number of distinct differences as well. As such, a clear examination of the similarities and differences will be provided herein. Buddhism originated in India where it later traveled to China and to Japan. The Chinese version of Zen Buddhism is probably the most prevalently practiced form of the religion in the world.Mainly, this is because this form of Buddhism is mostly concerned with philosophical and practical approaches to Buddhist theory and study, Mainly, Buddhism is concerned no with an afterlife or a heaven as much as it is concerned with achieving enlightenment on earth. A simple definition of enlightenment would be a free and clear mind that does not prescribe to any attachments or suffering. This is clearly not an easy state of mind to attain. However, by following Buddhism’s 8 Fol d Path and 4 Noble Truths throughout one’s life, it may be possible to attain enlightenment.Both the 8 Fold Path and the 4 Noble Truths are designed as a means of approaching life is a safe and sane manner that leads to eventual enlightenment. As the name would imply, Confucianism derives from the life, philosophy, and teaching of Confucius. Although Confucius and Confucianism originated in China, the religion has universal appeal. That is why it spread throughout East Asia and, to a certain, degree, into the western world. The basic premise of Confucianism seems more akin to traditional logic than any type of spiritual religion.(This is where it possesses many Page – 2 similarities to Buddhism) The central tenants of Confucianism stress the importance of educating the populace in order to create a moral order. From this moral order, a government will emerge that prescribes to logical, moral tenants. As a result, the government will seek to serve its people as opposed to ruling over them with an iron fist. This connects to the notion that a moral order breeds compassion. This ties into Confucius’ belief that relationships and ritual behavior were critical to maintaining societal order.Shintoism is quite removed from Confucianism and Buddhism in a number of ways. Shintoism is far more localized to Japan that the other two religions. Additionally, it is a religion that places great emphasis on the worship of spirits. This is far removed from the more secular approach of the other two religions. Shintoism seeks to create a harmony between humans and the natural world. So, in a way, it combines secular logic with the natural world and the corporal world of the spirits.Ultimately, the goal of Shinto is to follow the path of the Four Affirmations. These Four Affirmations involve combining adherence to tradition and family; the natural world; physical cleanliness; and the spirit. Through this, an attainment similar to Buddhist enlightenment might be acquired. Again, there are similarities and differences between all three religions. The main similarity would be the desire to attain a more perfect and moral life. That is a common thread that is quite valuable.

Confucianism in Korea Essay

Korea is located on the eastern tip of the Asian continent, in the small peninsula that faces the Pacific Ocean. This small country has lasted over four thousand years, withstanding its powerful neighbors and developed a unique culture of its own. One of its main unique features comes from the fact that it pursued Confucianism as its core ideology. Therefore, even though Confucianism started in China, the application of it can be traced also distinctly in Korea. The Dynasty of Joseon brought the principals of Confucianism, and indigenized it to fit its existing values. However, today Confucianism is not taught anymore, and the values of Confucianism are considered old and out of style. It has become of an old ideology that does not fit in with the values that the modern Koreans have today. Moreover, the development of Confucianism was the major constraint that limited Korea to grow and prosper in the Early Modern and Modern period. and gender equality. The ancient Chinese Warring States Era was one of the most chaotic periods in the history of China. It was the time when people of all classes were desperate for stability and peace. Because of this instability, they established something called the Hundred Schools, which were philosophers who came up with many ideas to unite the people from the time of confusion to a desirable human lifestyle and peaceful, stable state. These Sages, who were given â€Å"Zi† at the end of their names, went around the kingdoms, explaining to the ruler what they thought the best solution was for uniting China. The most prominent ideas were usually any of the three sects, Daoist, Confucianist or Legalist. Daoism was based on the ideas of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Confucianism on those of Confucius (Kongzi) and Mencius (Mengzi), and Legalism on those of Han Feizi. Confucianism was not adopted in Confucius’ life time. It developed later, during the Song Dynasty and was further advanced to Neo-Confucianism by Zhu Xi. Unlike the Chinese dynasties that fully committed their state ideology to Confucianism, the Koreans in the corresponding period, from 60BCE to 900CE, used Confucianism as part of their source of moral training and their social mandate for their officials. This period was called the Three Kingdom Period (GoGooRyeo, Shilla, and BaekJae). The educational form of Confucianism for princes and ruling class continued through the Goryeo Dynasty (900 CE-1300CE) for about four hundred years and finally became the national religion of Joseon Dynasty (1392CE-1910CE). The reason why Joseon chose Confucianism instead of Buddhism was that the elites that founded Joseon thought that Buddhism was the reason for the corruption and lack of morals between the nobles and the ruling class. The Joseon leaders sought Confucianism as a solution to their problems, and were attracted to Confucianism-oriented concepts that could complement the politics of the ideal state. The situation much resembled the period in 5th century BCE when Confucius and Mencius came up with their idea of ideal and peaceful world under the tyrant king and constant wars.

Macroeconomics Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Macroeconomics - Case Study Example Due to this fact among others, there has been a suggestion that the unemployment rate that has been released by the government are not exactly accurate and may actually be higher than the numbers stated (Nutting). However, taking this mode of argument means that one has to consider a number of factors before they are in agreement with the authors of these articles. For instance, the fact that one may be hindered from looking for a job by circumstances such as other duties and responsibilities like childcare and homecare does not mean that given the chance these individuals would actively search for employment opportunities. One has to factor in the issue of willingness as well as determination especially in a time where one can easily search for jobs online without having to leave the comfort of their homes. There are also various jobs that one can perform from their homes and thus if these individuals have not tried to get these kind of employment opportunities it can be established that they would look for the more traditional forms of work had they had an opportunity. The issue of being discouraged by the current economic situation and perhaps their failure in the past can also not be seen as a serious hindrance as this is a factor that can be overcome by willpower and determination. It can thus be correct to come to the conclusion that the real unemployment rate is not as accurate as one would think (Nutting). The issue of long term unemployment is also another subject that should be considered in matters of unemployment in relation to the available job opportunities that currently exist in the market. It has been seen that those who experience longer periods of time without employment have a lesser chance of getting a job as time goes on. This is because many employers tend to favor individuals who have a smaller gap between their status of unemployment and their last job (Coy). Long term

Medicinal Marijuana Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Medicinal Marijuana - Essay Example What if a number of patients have concrete evidences on the medicinal effects of marijuana? Should the government allow them to use it legally to save their life or continue its prohibition? Dr. Andrea Barthwell representing the White House National Drug Control Policy pointed at Dr. Oz’s show that state legalization of medical marijuana will only increase abuse incidences especially with the youth as the most vulnerable sector. On June 29, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington sent a memo nationwide stating that the state laws do not spare the patient or other users from federal prosecution when found guilty of abuse (Laitner and Bell, 2011). This memo was sent after Michigan reported a large scale law breaking incidents related to medical marijuana. Arguments against legalization of medical marijuana is sustained by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and by other similar studies of crusaders against marijuana with report stating the adverse effects of smoking marijuana includes disorientation of some brain functions, cardiac vulnerabilities, lung diseases, and addiction (2010). The federal government believes that legalizing medical marijuana will only provide more opportunity for abuse like in the state of California where restrictions on the use of drugs is loose a person can acquire medical marijuana card when a physician recommends it for treatment just for any kind of ailment. As presented at The Dr. Oz Show, medical marijuana across the states where it is legal can be prescribed for a bundle of diseases ranging from life threatening such as HIV, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain due to cancer, and non-life threatening such as headache, anxiety, stress, and insomnia among others (2011). On the contrary, notable medical marijuana advocates present at the Dr. Oz show like Dr. Donald Abrams, Director of the Integrative Oncology Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco, believes on the potential of marijuana to be used as medicine for critically ill patients because of its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant characteristic. Another guest Montel Williams, famous host and author who is a multiple sclerosis patient, revealed that since he used medical marijuana no brain plaque growth has been observed in his brain . Williams shared that the University of Southern California, San Diego published its 2010 study which revealed medical marijuana as one of the top choices of physicians in treating patients suffering from multiple sclerosis and that there are no evidence suggesting smoking of marijuana as dangerous to lungs. Both sides taken considerably, the conflict is two tiers, at the government level and at the physician-patient level. The federal government declares that it illegal to use and distribute marijuana, and the Food and Drug Administration has not approved use of marijuana for medical purposes but many states are legalizing medical marijuana with varying and mostly loose regulations. T he studies done to prove and disprove the medical efficacy and effectiveness of marijuana are done separately by different physicians and patients looking into its different aspects. Such that oncologists like Dr. Abrams looked into how medical marijuana can help alleviate sufferings of terminally ill patients while psychologist and other

Public Information Officers Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Public Information Officers Report - Essay Example CSR is not a new concept in the corporate world. The business organizations across the globe, both small and big have realized the significance of being socially responsible from the past experiences of many socially unsuccessful companies such as Enron. It has been well acknowledged by the corporate community that companies that seriously take care of CSR are more likely to sustain than those who do not. In fact, it takes into account the interest of all stakeholders. The benefits of being socially responsible are manifold. Some of the main include: Conforming to the social and ethical corporate practices results in not only corporate citizenship but it offers a numerous benefits as well. Consumers always prefer to buy products of those who are at the helm of CSR. In an article from Practical advice for Business, the relevance of being CSR conscious is illustrated as, "sales of environmentally friendly" products continue to grow - and these products often sell at a premium price. Ben & Jerry's ice cream became as famous for its approach to responsible business as for its products" (Business Link, n.d.). The benefits of CSR companies as an entity of society are manifold. They include economic, social, and ecological benefits. Besides, company's overall performance including financial performance can have a multiplier effect Corporate Financial Performance and CSR The closeness of corporate economic performance and CSR has been a topic of debate among the scholars and practitioners for years. Many studies have been conducted across the globe since the inception of the concept CSR to find whether any relationship exists between financial performance and CSR. Perhaps, all might have come out with positive results, though a very few responded in the negative. Majority of the studies argue that there is a positive correlation between corporate financial performance and CSR (Doran, 1994; Berkhout, 2005). When companies become CSR conscious, they are offered a plenty of benefits (reported above) that eventually contribute to augmented profit. Apart from this, many Studies have been done to analyze whether there is any relationship between the stock price and the economic performance. Recovery after a crisis is typically easier One of the challenges faced by a company that wants to operate under the principles of CSR is that how to balance its social and environmental responsibilities with its more clearly defined economic responsibility to earn a profit. It is important for promoters of CSR to acknowledge that at some point the cost of being socially and environmentally responsible outweighs the benefits. When this happens, most firms will cease to engage in new initiatives. In

Ideas of Adam Smith, Niccolo Machiavelli, Karl Polanyi, Jean-Jacques Essay

Ideas of Adam Smith, Niccolo Machiavelli, Karl Polanyi, Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Essay Example Machiavelli reiterates that crimes may win an empire but they can never win glory moreover he believed necessary wars were just wars and that the arms of a nation are hallowed when it lacks other resources apart from fight. In addition, concerning the markets, Machiavelli considers increase of land and things to be core (Machiavelli 13-14). Rousseau believes in a monarchy that guarantees the needs and the universal will of its people are executed. He believes the pressing interest of a ruler is his most indispensible duty is observing the laws of which the individual is the minister and on which the whole authority is founded. Moreover, he considers social actions to be reciprocal in nature thus impracticable for anyone to position himself beyond the law without relinquishing the advances of the law in a sovereign country. Rousseau believes that the government is not the master of the law but it is much of guarantor of the law and posses many means of inspiring love of it, which makes the talent of reigning. Rousseau believes that people are born amoral however, when people enter society they acquire the capacity for vice as well as the capability for virtue. Rousseau’s analysis regarding vice is comprehensible and well developed which exemplifies that vice results from competition. According to Rousseau, human beings are born free but in many political societies they are subjected to a form of dependence that amounts to slavery. Moreover, Rousseau considers two kinds of inequality that include natural and contrived inequalities but only natural inequalities are acceptable. As well, Rousseau believes justice is impossible to achieve in a world that is stark of social inequality in addition he believes that concentrations of wealth increases inequality (Rousseau 8). In wealth of nations, Smith closely ties liberation of the desire for wealth to commerce and free market, which he considered the most effective way of satisfying that desire, which is synonymous with Rousseau’s view on governance. Thus in Smith’s view, life is ceaselessly driven by desire, anxiety and fear hence life is eternally filled with disturbance and disquiet (Fitzgibbons 3). Smith considers people by nature to have a tendency for improving their circumstances through buildup of goods of affluence, status a nd power. Smith considers the accumulation of wealth as means that jeopardizes tranquility as opposed to producing it, which is also synonymous with Rousseau regarding personal interest. Therefore, both perspectives of Smith and Rousseau consider the pursuits of wealth to be deeply misleading; for instance, Smith argues on the condition of the material world (Gudz 2). Polanyi in The Great Transformation clarified precincts of self-regulating markets and currently there is no reputable, intellectual hold for the proposition that markets by themselves result in competent, let alone equitable outcomes. This view is also synonymous with Rousseau model which considered the concentration of wealth to be the cause of increase in inequality. Polanyi addresses a certain defect in self-regulating economy which involves the relationship between the economy and society in how economic systems affect the way people relate to one another. This view is also considered by Rousseau who believed accu mulation of w

Research paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 14

Research Paper Example The real GDP growth of china again reduced to 7.8% and GDP hits approximately 8.23 million US dollars in 2012. According to International Monetary Fund China’s PPP in 2012 was 12,382.559 billion US dollar. According to World Bank’s report China’s PPP in 2011 was 11,290 billion US dollar. The country’s PPP in 2010 was 10085.71 billion US dollars. According to the IMF report it was estimated that Greece would achieve a GDP of 254,978 billion US dollar but finally had achieved a growth of -5.70%. According to the report of UN Greece had achieved a GDP of 299,001 billion US dollar at a growth rate of -6.7%. In 2010 the GDP of Greece was 271.112 billion at a growth rate of -3.5%. Since last few years Greece is going through several economical problems. On the other hand China is becoming one of the strongest leading economies globally. China is the second largest and strongest economy in the world (Deshpande & Nurse, 2012). The higher GDP growth rate, increasing GNP and increasing PPP is the evidence of China’s economical development. On the other hand, decreasing GDP growth rate, decrease in per capita income of people which has identified in this study clearly states the Greece is undergoing several economical problems. Greek government debt-crisis and European Sovereign-debt crisis is the key reason behind the economical problems of Greece. The Greek government debt crisis is a part of European sovereign-debt crisis. It is a structural weakness of the economy of Greece that coupled with banking and tax unification of the monetary union of Europe. Due to these kinds of problems Greece is going through several challenges. In terms of China, the Nation is experiencing a higher average growth rate of 10% over the last 30 years. Higher GDP growth, increasing per capita income, high disposable income of people and Higher GNP states that the country is becoming one of the strongest economies. According to reports of

Advanced Persistent Threats Against RSA Tokens Case Study

Advanced Persistent Threats Against RSA Tokens - Case Study Example Likewise, in the entire hoax, there was a requirement of evaluating homeland security that also pertains to Information technology infrastructure. The Information technology infrastructure was not the only consideration, as these attacks affect vulnerabilities pertaining to federal information systems and any organization that acquires information systems. However, there were several laws that were passed in the congress after September 11 terrorist attacks. In the process, a series of homeland security presidential directives were issued for sustaining domestic security. However, on the other hand, despite an economic turmoil from September 11 attacks, the aviation industry continues to grow at a rapid pace and is considered as a fundamental transformation. Moreover, there is also a significant change for managing air traffic via net-centric approach. The acquisition of this change will replace the traditional approach for controlling air traffic that is constructed on Information t echnology solutions. By focusing on security, there is a significant increase in utilizing computerized systems onboard of an air carrier. Likewise, these systems facilitate high airborne and internally located system connectivity, operational and maintenance requirements. Moreover, the net-centric ATM connectivity raises concerns for cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. Propagation threats are critical because it is capable of rapidly broadcasting traffic on the Internet along with bypassing intrusion detection systems. Likewise, for augmenting the primary phase of work propagation, it uses a ‘hit list’ comprising of overflowed users i.e. users consuming heavy bandwidth. By identifying users, worm spreads itself at a rapid pace when compared to traditional spreading worms. Moreover, this type of attack saves a considerable amount of scanning time by only attacking a visible target. In the context of any cyber threat to an airport, the airport cannot be the prima ry target, as the Spanair flight JK5022 crash was successful by one of the contributions from a Malware. Vulnerabilities Existed in the System / Attack Methods Computer network intrusions are becoming very sophisticated and advanced and they have enforced a challenge for modern computer network based organizations. Likewise, a new class of challengers called now as ‘Advanced Persistent Threats’ (APT) demonstrates a well-planned and sponsored, highly skilled hackers targeting highly classified data for gaining competitive edge specifically in corporate businesses, law firms, military networks, national or international politics (Cole, 2012). Likewise, these highly skilled cyber criminals utilize sophisticated tools and methods that are constructed to disrupt computer network defense semantics without being detected. As per Mr. Mike Cloppert, is a Co-Chair of the cyber threat intelligent summit says that the cyber threat intelligence can facilitate organizations to mainta in an information classification and protection mechanism based on the priorities of these cyber criminals. As a result, the likelihood of success for these hackers will become low. Moreover, organizations can than plan accordingly for the targeted information and can counter these complex advanced persistent threats. Information security management team requires authentic and on time information for constantly monitoring new and potential threats and techniques. Likewise, exploiting the received information will improve a resilient defense posture of an organization. The number of RSA tokens implemented up till now exceeds 40 million and another 250 million are mobile software, as that leads the market for enabling

Retail atmospherics are quite well studied but are poorly explained Essay

Retail atmospherics are quite well studied but are poorly explained - Essay Example Before examining the claim that retail atmospherics are thoroughly studied but not stated well, we need to define what is meant by retail atmospherics. According to Kotler (1974), it is the effort to design buying environments to produce specific emotional effects in the buyer that enhances his purchase probability. A renewed interest was created in retail atmospherics through the caricature reporting by the Wall Street Journal showing a bank manager asking a customer’s opinion on the background music, which the manager has boasted of selecting himself. Such complex decisions as presenting background music are made irrationally in retail ambience. It gives the impression that no serious thought is given on creating retail atmospherics to provide a memorable experience to customers in the retail industry. Such decisions if taken rationally and thoughtfully can create a positive impact on customer perceptions of service quality, purchase, and consumption behaviour (Chebat & Dube , 2000). Developing of a customer experience has become very crucial with the importance given to the purchase of commodities. Expectations from retail managers have increased to create an environment of understanding in creating the atmospheric resources for providing the desired customer experience. Challenges in the retail atmospheric research lie in understanding the psychology of consumer reactions on the one hand and the functional requirements and planning at the firm level to provide that experience to the customers on the other hand (Chebat & Dube, 2000). Babin and Attaway (2000) have specifically worked on developing a reliable mechanism tool to innovatively measure the customers’ behavioural outcomes. Customer spending is directly impressed by a store’s capacity to create value that benefits the customer. It was found that environmentally inspired emotions affect relative spending by the customer. Their research indicates that customer behaviour can be induc ed by developing the right retail atmosphere. The value of shopping through the relationship of the customer behaviour with the retail environment provided by the retailer is justified. Research has been done on the relation between shopping behaviour and environmental factors via transformations in emotional feelings. Shoppers’ behaviour was examined through fixed time and changing time during a simulated shopping test. It included listening experience of different but familiar music provided to the shoppers. Later on shoppers’ outlook on shopping time, their mental state and product appraisal were recorded, which indicated that shoppers spent long hours while listening to favourite music, which was their perception but actually they spent long hours shopping when listening to not-popular music. Limited actual shopping times in the known music scenario were associated with increased awareness. Longer assumed shopping hours by the shoppers in popular music listening ex perience were associated to unmeasured cognitive factors. Mental states of the shoppers played a part in taking a purchase decision on a product but these impressions were not directly associated to the playing of music (Yalch and Spangenberg, 2000). Research by Turley and Milliman (2000)) also shows that impact of music is not positive and good always. Their review shows weakness of the theoretical base. Majority of customer emotion measures depend on store type. Functional and job-oriented environments are related with lower levels of pleasure and arousal-related emotions, which provides an alternative to Mehrabian and Russel (1974)) model on environmental psychology. By changing the store design and settings, emotional shopping results can be

Operationalize Sustainability Essay Example for Free

Operationalize Sustainability Essay â€Å"We must strive to become systems thinkers if we are to benefit from the interrelationships of the triple bottom line of sustainability: mission, environment, and community† (sustainability. army. mil). Welcome to the Army strategy for the environment. As one of the largest organizations in America, the Army has joined the movement towards sustainability. With 4 available resources, 5 functional areas and 7 programs and implementation tools, the Army is surging forward with applying sustainability practices. The purpose of this work is to divulge into the Army’s P2, or Pollution Prevention program, as well as giving alternate suggestions on preventing waste. Pollution Prevention (P2) is defined as the systematic effort to minimize, or eliminate altogether, process waste and other pollutants before that are generated (army. mil). P2 is a program that is just one tool to help achieve sustainability. This program can be applied to almost every aspect from field training, housing, family life, installation operations and munitions productions. To operationalize the P2 program, the Army has applied the basic principles of pollution prevention as well as developed the P2 hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle and dispose in an environmentally safe manner. The first priority in the hierarchy is reduction. The Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) defines this as â€Å"Any practice which 1) reduces the amount of any hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment (including fugitive emissions) prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal; and 2) reduces the hazards to public ealth and the environment associated with the release of such substances, pollutants, or contaminants. The term includes equipment or technology modifications, process or procedure modifications, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials, and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance, training, or inventory control† (army. mil) In the P2 program, this definition is applied to the broad goal of reducing or eliminating the environmental impacts of consuming resources and the waste that is generated from it. This waste can come from Army vehicle maintenance such as oil changes or leaving computers and lights on at the end of the work day. Reuse and recycle in hierarchy are meant for pollution that cannot be prevented. In this case, pollution should be treated in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible. â€Å"The resources of a nation must be constantly managed: expanded then gathered, gathered then distributed each person or group sometimes gaining, sometimes losing, but always treated fairly and with respect. (O’Toole, 1993, p. 108) For example, Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina has built an entire village out of materials recycled or diverted from the Fort Bragg landfill. This recycled â€Å"trash† village is used in training and preparing troops for deployment. If the first three actions cannot be taken, the last step in the P2 hierarchy is to disposal, removal and discharge of pollution into the environment should be employed only as a last resort and should be conducted in an environmentally safe manner. We will look at how these problems have arisen, and how they are all symptoms of a way of living that we have taken for granted, which has produced great progress but also growing side effects† (Senge, 2008, p. 10) While this program and many others are giving the Army advances in the right direction toward sustainability, there are other efforts that can be made to help prevent waste. In sustainability, waste is not reserved to trash alone. Waste can be the unnecessary use of, or degradation, of resources. For the Army, a suggestion for prevention can be monitoring the use of electronics. Each office in the military has several computers since the military communicates largely with emails, share drives and electronic training and personnel records. These computers are continuously on throughout the day, even after personnel go home. â€Å"U. S. organizations squander $2. 8 billion a year to power unused machines, emitting about 20 million tons of carbon dioxide†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Swartz, 2009) In some cases, such as hospitals with shift workers, there may be a need for active computers. In other cases, the Army can implement a timer, programmed for the end of a shift, to turn off all computers. The exception may be to leave one on for additional use of people working late, but the others would automatically shut off, saving the energy use instead of having computers in sleep mode throughout the night. â€Å"Simply shutting down PCs at night can save a company with 10,000 PCs over $260,000 a year and 1,871 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the report says. (Swartz, 2009) The same goes for radios, printers, faxes, unnecessary machinery and all other excessive electronics. Another suggestion would be to create self-sustaining gyms. Exercise and the military go hand in hand. Exercise is directed and required to have a successful military career. Many people go to the gym, not just active duty but also dependent spouses, veterans, civil service workers and civilians with base access. The treadmill, elliptical, bikes and stair climbers are the most used equipment in the gym due to the diversity of patrons. Eco-friendly gyms have been popping up worldwide. † (Huey, 2008) This can be used to the Army’s advantage by using the energy output from the machines in use to generate the electricity for the lighting in the gym and operation of TVs. Instead of having TVs on and available at all times, have TVs operational only on the machine while it is in use, being powered by the operator. â€Å"A unique and key feature of green gyms is that they can actually use the energy generated from people exercising and use that to power their facilities. (Huey, 2008) Obviously this may not sustain an entire gym, considering air conditioning, heating and the size of the gym to include playing courts, but this can help to drastically lower energy usage. The Army also wastes equipment, which can produce pollution upon disposal. This equipment is the boots, jackets, uniforms, camel packs, Gerber tools, etc. that is issued to troops. When a troop completes basic training, or boot camp, the required initial equipment items are issued. When a troop deploys to an overseas location, new equipment is issued, even if the troop recently completed boot camp. This results in a double issue of equipment to the same troops, with no requirement to turn in unused or unneeded equipment. â€Å"While Soldiers have embraced the RFI process, they recently identified one noteworthy problem area in the RFI process: Their clothing records having duplicate items that were previously issued. † (Maj. Wright, 2009) Military members are also issued a clothing allowance every year for new uniforms. This results in money lost and equipment waste and abuse. Troops can throw away unused equipment without properly recycling the materials. To help put a check on equipment, the Army can implement a â€Å"turn in, tag out† system. This means troops will have to turn in old, worn out equipment, such as boots, to be issued new pairs. A â€Å"tag out† on issued items will be kept electronically in a database to ensure individuals are not being issued double items. Supply personnel can look up by name and determine if the troop has already received an item. With old equipment being turned into supply, the right people can properly and environmentally safely dispose or recycle used equipment. Also, by documenting equipment that is issued out and what equipment is being turned in, supply personnel will be better equipped in ordering new items efficiently rather than ordering excessive products and wasting money. Although the Army has taken many positive steps toward operationalizing sustainability, there are many more that can be taken. The Army may never be fully sustainable due to numerous training missions that use fuel, energy and natural resources, but every effort counts toward reducing, recycling and disposing of pollution properly. These advances can be applied toward other military branches as well. For instance, the Navy dumps thousands of gallons of fuel into our atmosphere to make the planes lighter and able to land on carriers at sea. While this maneuver is done for safety, the amount of gas put into the plane initially is known to be too much upon landing. This is an obvious area to improve on. Sustainability can be operationalized by every business, organization and company in the world. â€Å"What weve discovered on our journey is that implementing sustainability is a lot like implementing any other corporate change initiative. (Hitchcock, 2006, p. 167) The military is always changing and always adapting. In conclusion, the Army has many programs and tools that are operationalizing sustainability practices. The P2 program is a great start to handling systems that produce waste and pollution. The hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle and dispose of in an environmentally safe manner is the right mindset for sustainability. The Army also has areas that can be improved upon, as with any company. The Army is making progress towards sustainability, which is progress in the right direction for a better future. Bibliography http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Gyms-Get-Sustainable.html www.gdrc.org/sustdev/concepts/19-n-step.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-03-25-pc-power-company-costs_N.htm http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/pdf/sustainability_Report_2009.pdf

Understanding Emotions through Parent-Child Talk

Understanding Emotions through Parent-Child Talk Introduction Although there is a large body of literature focused on childrens understanding of emotions and another body focused on parent-child conversation about emotions, little research has examined parent-child talk about complex emotions. The majority of research is dedicated to simple emotions and their functions in childrens life. However, the studies which are dedicated to simple emotions admit the sufficient importance of parent-child interaction for better emotional understanding. The emerging of complex emotions become a disputable process, moreover these emotions are functionally more complicated than simple. The following research has argued the importance of parent-child conversation in terms of understanding complex emotions by children. To account for this gap in the literature, the present study focuses on parent child talk about complex emotions. To understand this topic, a review of the literature on complex emotions is needed. Much past research has looked at ambivalent emotions. However, researchers use different names such as ambivalent emotions (Donaldson Westerman, 1986), mixed emotions (Harris, 1989a, 1989b; Harter Buddin, 1987; Kestenbaum Gelman, 1995), conflicting emotions (Bennet Hiscock, 1993) and multiple emotions (Meerum Terworgt, Koops, Oosterhoff, Olthof, 1986; Wintre Vallance, 1994). There are many definitions that these authors use, but in spite of this fact, these authors express the similar idea about this kind of emotion: when an individual has two contradictory feelings at the same time. For instance, we may be happy to receive a present, but disappointed at the same time, as a present is not what we have expected to receive. Childrens understanding of emotions is a gradual process that develops from simple types of emotions to more complex ones (Tenenbaum, Visscher, Pons, Harris, 2004). According to Pons, Harris, de Rosnay. (2004) and Tenenbaum et al. (2004) the understanding of emotions has three broad categories which develop gradually: external, mentalistic, and reflective. The external component consists of recognizing faces, the ability to realise emotions when they are affected by different external circumstances and understanding the fact that past emotions might affect present ones. Recognizing faces means that children start identifying emotions according to a facial expression. Then, they understand how external cases can cause different feelings and the last component is when they realize that some subjects from the past might cause emotions in the present. This type of emotion understanding usually develops among children between the ages three to five. The second component, mentalistic emot ions, contains of realizing beliefs and desires, also identifying the difference between real and apparent emotions. Children start assuming the idea that people may have different emotional reactions due to the fact that they have dissimilar desires. The same situation occurs with beliefs, as children start understanding that peoples beliefs will influence their emotions to a situation. The last element is when children can understand the link between memory and emotions, for example, the strength of emotions might reduce with time. The authors claim that this process usually occurs between the ages five to seven. Finally, the third component consists of reflective emotions which include moral, regulated and ambivalent emotions. Children start experiencing several moral emotions such as guilt, shame or embarrassment when their actions did not correlate with generally accepted rules. They also start realizing the way they can control their emotions, using either behavioural or psych ological strategies. The last stage is an understanding that people might have two different emotions at the same time. Overall, the third component usually emerges at ages seven to nine. That classification is widely used in terms of defining emotions. Consequently, ambivalent emotions, which are one of the primary aims of the following work, are situated at the third level and presented to be one of the most complicated emotional categories to understand. Some authors (Donaldson Westerman, 1986; Harter Buddin, 1987) created a model of ambivalent emotions which consists of four different stages. This model was invented after clinical observations of play therapy. Children used to experience problems in understanding two emotions at the same time. Consequently, a question about developing of understanding of mixed emotions arouses. The following model consists of four stages including such factors as valence (positive or negative emotions) and a target (one or several targets). The stages are presented gradually from the least to the most advanced. The first level, which usually arises at seven years old, is presented the same valence and target, where two positive or two negative emotions are expressed towards one object (e.g., A boy was happy and excited because of his birthday). The second level, which might emerge around eight years old, is represented as same valence, but different targets (e.g., A girl was happy about her birthd ay and excited that so many guests had came). The third combination, usually develops at ten years old, is shown as different valence and targets (e.g., A boy was sad he could not go for a walk, but happy because he could watch TV). Finally, the fourth combination, arises approximately at 11 years old and consists of different valence and same target, a child has different feelings towards one object or situation (e.g., A girl was happy to go for holiday with parents, but sad to leave her friends). Though, authors give an explanation that understanding and experience may not be contemporary, as it is possible that a child might experience two emotions at the same time, but not be able to realize it yet. Though, there is a contradictory view about the levels of emotional development. Wintre and Vallance (1994) present their theory where alongside with multiple emotions and valence, they also depicted the intensity of emotions. Based on several previous studies, they offered the theory of development of understanding mixed emotions, which include such components as intensity and valence and multiplicity. For example, at level A that emerges usually at 4 years, there might be observed only intensity directed to one situation, though valence and multiplicity have not arouse yet. At level B which develop around 5 years old, children may recognize several mixed emotion of the same valence, but they do not use different intensity. Next level C, usually arise at 6 years old, where intensity is combined with mixed emotions, but there is only the same valence involved yet. At the last level D, which might emerge at 8, where children show the ability to use all three components together. Besid es they differentiate not only stages and the main components of emotional understanding of ambivalent emotions, but the age of emerging as well. Thus, for Harter and Budden (1987) the last stage might be reached children approximately by ages 10 and 11, whereas for Wintre and Vallence (1994) the period for the last component is age 8. However, there is another arguable point is the age period at which complex emotions arise. For example, several studies (Donaldson Westerman, 1986; Meerum Terwogt et al., 1986; Harter Buddin, 1987; Harris, 1989a, 1989b; Pons et al., 2004; Tenenbaum, 2008) pointed to the approximate period of developing complex emotions from seven to eight years old until eleven to twelve. To illustrate this point, there are several examples based on the studies. According to Harter Buddin (as cited in Donaldson Westerman, 1986) understanding of ambivalent emotions is quite a late cognitive process. She found that children were not able to distinguish emotions that occur simultaneously toward the same person until ten and a half years old. Taking into consideration her study, Donaldson and Westerman (1986) replicated the findings, showing that though few characteristics of understanding ambivalence appeared at seven to eight years old, only older children of ten to eleven showed this ability enti rely. A study conducted by Harter and Buddin (1987) supported the fact of gradual development of understanding ambivalent emotions. Thus, children four to five ages cannot believe that two feelings could be together, six to eight years old placed feelings in temporal order as when a child did not see the object which had caused his emotions, he simply forgot about it. However, children from eight to twelve usually can describe the appearance of two emotions at the same time. Meerum Terwogt (1986) argued that ten year old child understood the fact of having both emotions equally strong, but younger children had always chosen one to be stronger than another. They present an example of two groups of children: six and ten years old. Undoubtedly, ten years old children understand ambivalent emotions more often than six years old children, especially if the situation consists of opposite valence emotions. To sum up these studies, the most widespread period of time when mixed emotions deve lop is from seven to twelve years old. Though, there are some authors (Gnepp and Klayman, 1992; Wintre and Vallance, 1994) whose studies admit the arising of understanding two simultaneous emotions at the age of 8. They gave some explanations for this, where not only cognitive factor plays a crucial role, but social experience also becomes an important factor. Consequently, these authors did not share either late or early emerging of mixed emotions. However in spite of all these findings, there are other studies, which contradict the idea of such a late arising of ambivalent emotions. For instance, Kestenbaum and Gelman (1995) pointed that the development of mixed emotions appeared between ages four and six. Children of four and five years old can recognize ambivalent emotions when they are presented in a facial expression, even if they were on the same face (sad eyes and happy mouth), as well as on a picture with two-headed alien who expressed different emotions. Moreover, the results confirm that five year old children might understand mixed emotions within a simple story. Furthermore, it was offered two levels of understanding emotions at the preschool ages. The first one is recognition of ambivalent emotions showing on the face. The second level is an ability to match a face that expressed mixed emotions with a situation. All in all authors claim that this is a gradual process which starts early and increases with age. Their findings contradict the other researches which admit that a development of mixed emotions is a process starting much later. Likewise, Brown Dunn (1996) mentioned that even six years old children might show an understanding of mixed emotions when they are given a slight prompt about feelings of characters in stories. Similarly, Harris, P. L., Johnson, C. N., Hutton, D., Andrews, G., Cooke, T. (1989 a) consider the fact that even young children may predict about different emotions in a more advanced way. Even children between the ages of three to seven are very sensitive to other peoples desires, emotions and beliefs. Moreover, they do not merely take into account a situation by itself, but modify their reaction due to different situational changes. That in case might show childrens advanced ability to understand second mentalistic component: beliefs and desires. Considering this fact, they suggest that understanding of the second level arouse at three, but set up only between the ages five to six years. Consequently, the next level to develop will be the third, which contains moral, ambivalent and regulated emotions. The possible explanation of this phenomena could be found in Harriss (1989 b) study, he pointed that even in a behaviour of one-year-olds might be seen the ambivalence, whereas conscious realization does not arise before seven or eight years old. He stressed that children start expressing ambivalence quite earlier, but understanding it emerges only from eight to ten, young children can merely express ambivalence without understanding of this fact. To sum up all the previous research made according to this topic, it can be clearly seen that these studies implied a large range of age when complex emotions appear in the childhood. Though, it might be criticised the period of appearance of mixed emotions. As if to consider all researchers, described earlier, there are some who consider the emergence of ambivalent emotions as a very early process (between ages 4 to 6 years old). Some consider it to be the late process (between 9 to 12 years old). Besides, there are some who support the idea of appearance of multiple emotions at age 8. However, the researchers who offered the late period of appearance ambivalent emotions might be criticised for a big age gap between groups. For example, in the research of Meerum Terwogt et al. (1986), they conducted their study with two groups of children by ages 6 and 10. What may be considered not exactly relevant, as during these 4 years undoubtedly children will have a great step forward in term s of understanding ambivalent emotions. In present study the age group of seven, eight and nine were chosen in order to observe the difference between the age group according to rather contradictory fact of arising the understanding of mixed emotions. However, there are some findings that admit the fact of emerging mixed emotions quite early (Harris et al., 1989a; Kestenbaum Gelman, 1995; Brown Dunn, 1996), the excessive amount of research claim the period from seven to twelve years old. Taking into consideration both contradicting findings together, it was decided to concentrate the research on the following groups of children due to some reasons. For instance, such ages as seven, eight and nine present an ideal age group where ambivalent emotions might just have started and developed at the late stage. Besides, it appeared to be not enough amounts of studies to support the idea of early development of mixed emotions, hence, children of younger ages were not considered. Moreover, according to Harriss (1989 b) study, whe re his notable remark cannot be ignored, children might notice the ambivalence, but not understand it. As the major aim of this work is to find out when mixed emotions are understood by children, these period of ages were chosen. Parent-child conversation One way in which children understand emotions may be through the family via interaction with parents (Dunn et al., 1991; Harris, 2004; Racine et al., 2007). Different researchers have examined different types of conversations that may support childrens understanding. For example, Engel (as cited in Fivush Fromhoff, 1988) described two maternal styles, which are called: conversation-eliciting and directive. The first one is characterized by asking many questions, rare interruption of children, and a regular tendency to integrate a childs answer what in turn leads to more equal and productive conversation. The second type is characterized by different types of commands, frequent interaction in childs actions, as well as the high parental control during the conversation. Another classification was offered by Reese Fivush (1993) and Reese, E., Haden, C.A. Fivush, R (1993) and it claimed that childrens understanding emotions correlates with the parental conversational style. They offered two parental styles: high – elaborative and low- elaborative. For instance parents with high-elaborative style, which consists of a lot of details, explanations, always try to arouse childrens interest. On the contrary there is other kind of style called low-elaborative where parents ask simple questions during their interaction with children and give them little new information and quite often change topics of conversation. Similar types of maternal styles were offered by Fivush and Fromhoff (1988) where the styles are called: elaborative and repetitive. Elaborative mothers are likely to provide a lot of details during the discussion and tend to ask many open-ended and complex questions during the interaction. On the contrary, mothers who have repetitive conv ersational style tend to ask yes/no questions; do not provide so much detailed information during the discussion. Besides, the authors depict that elaborative style is significantly better for children to remember past events during the conversation. Overall, all previous research concerning maternal style of conversation was summarized (Reese et al., 1993) The mothers who are more engaged in a conversation with their children – elaborative, high-elaborative, reminiscing or topic-extending and mothers who are less involved in a communication process – repetitive, low elaborative, practical remembers or topic-switching (p. 404). There are many studies that support the link between parent-child conversation and childrens emotional understanding (Dunn, Bretherton Munn, 1987; Fivush Fromhoff, 1988; Dunn, J., Brown, J., Slomkowski, C., Tesla, C., Youngblade, L., 1991; Dunn Brown, 1994; Brown Dunn, 1996; Steele et al., 1999; Pons et al., 2003; Laible Song, 2006). Some of the authors connect emotional understanding with maternal attachment (Brown Dunn, 1996; Steele et al., 1999; Pons et al., 2003), the other with the quality of maternal speech (Dunn et. al., 1987; Dunn Brown, 1994). To begin with, there is as well a link between quality of parent-child attachment and the quality of family talk about emotions with childrens emotional understanding (Pons et al., 2003). Brown and Dunn (1996) also consider a possibility that childrens development of ambivalent emotions can depend upon the family where a child grows. Moreover the findings, presented by Steele et al. (1999) suggested that the development of secure mother-child attachment at one year helps to shape a good understanding of mixed emotions later at six years. Much past work has argues that when mothers talk a lot about emotions, children consequently start using more emotional words in conversation (Dunn et. al., 1987). However, , children in families in which the use of negative emotions is greater than positive emotions may have some difficulties expressing and recognizing emotions (Dunn Brown, 1994). Studies conducted by Dunn et al. (1991) showed a significant link between the parent-child conversation and childrens emotional understanding. Thus children whose parents spoke with them a lot about emotions at the age of 3 demonstrated better understanding about the emotions of unfamiliar adults at the age of 6 in comparison with the children who did not experience feeling- state talk so frequently. Laible (2004) and Thompson et al. (as cited in Laible and Song, 2006) argue that style is more influential than content. Parent- child conversation helps children realise different situations of everyday life, especially if these situations are not so obvious to see. That usually includes emotions, motives and intentions. Besides, when mothers involved with children into conversation about past experience, they not only give their children an emotional understanding of the past, but also bring extra knowledge for future experience. The other findings of Laible Song (2006) indicated that parent-child discourse was a crucial predictor of the childs socio-emotional development. For example, during the given task if mother used more elaborative style rather than repetitive, children had higher scores on emotional understanding. The similar results were presented by Steele et al. (1999) where children and parents language abilities did not affect childrens understanding of ambivalent emotions, what in turn depicted the fact about the major influence of socio-emotional rather than cognitive elements. Considering all previous research conducted on this topic, it is without doubt the effect that parent-child conversation plays in terms of childrens emotional understanding. However, some studies use different core point to correlate this connection, the influence is still might be observed. Particularly, the more elaborative and positive discourse parents and children have, better emotional understanding children express in comparison with children whose parents use low-elaborative style, and consequently these results show the great impact of parental conversation with children on childrens emotional understanding. The same situation is presented with an attachment, the more secure attachment is observed between mother and child, and the better emotional understanding will be expressed by a child later. Hence, the parent-child conversation was chosen in order to correlate it with childrens understanding of mixed emotions. Parent child discourse may however vary with child gender. That is the importance of gender difference in terms of parent-child interaction, which cannot be denied, although the studies are rather controversial, thus some researches refute it (Racine et al., 2007; Dunn et al., 1991) and some support (Dunn et al., 1987; Fivush, 1991;Kuebli Fivush, 1992; Reese Fivush, 1993; Cervantes Callanan, 1998). To begin with, there are examples of several studies which support the gender difference in parent-child interaction. The findings of Dunn et al. (1987) claimed that mothers had more communication with girls rather than boys and later girls referred to emotional states more often than boys. Moreover, mothers expressed more emotional words to daughters rather than to sons. Consequently, girls used more feelings words during the discourse in comparison with boys. Though authors pointed one of the limitations to be a small sample of children who took part in the research, the studies made afterwards can support these results. Namely, Reese Fivush (1993) argued that parents of daughters expressed more elaborative style than parents of boys and the authors believed that due to more prolonged conversation with daughters, they can grow up to produce more elaborative narrative style in comparison with sons. The authors admit that in the majority of cases parent-daughter pairs involved in more detailed conversation and as well as this style required more involvement of childrens memory, daughters may develop more elaborative style in comparison with sons. Similar results are presented by Kuebli Fivush (1992) where they admit parents of daughters use quite more emotional words in comparison with parents of sons. Their study shows that parents speak more about sadness with girls rather than with boys. Besides, the study conducted by Cervantes Callanan (1998) also showed the gender difference for children at the age of 2 but not at the age 3 and 4 in terms of childrens tal k, there were also gender-related differences in mothers talk for using more explanations for boys and more labels for girls. In the light of this evidence, it is obvious that if there is a gender difference during parent-child conversation, parents usually pay more attention to interaction with girls rather than with boys, that is why the aspect of gender difference seemed to be quite significant in the present study. One good point might summarize the gender difference idea. Though, mothers tend to socialize with a child in different ways according to the gender. Besides, it may be that boys and girls are experiencing and discussing emotions in different ways and consequently, their mothers simply respond to this difference (Fivush, 1991). All things considered, in the following study, there is an aim to find out whether parent-child discourse about mixed emotions plays a significant role in childrens understanding of these emotions. Based on a substantial literature (ref), the first hypothesis predicted that the more parents explain complex emotions, the better children will understand emotions. A second related hypothesis is that the more emotion words parents use, the better the childs emotional understanding will be. The third hypothesis is that parents will use more emotion words with girls than boys and consequently, girls will use more emotion words in comparison to boys. Method Participants. The participants were 16 parent–child pairs. Children were dived for three groups according to their age: the younger group was 7 years (M = 7.5, ranging from 7 years, 4 months to 7 years, 10 months), 8 years (M = 8.48, ranging from 8 years, 1 month to 8 years, 9 months) and 9 years (M = 9.42, ranging from 9 years, 1 month to 9 years, 8 months). There were both 5 children at the group of 7 and 9 years old and 6 children at the age group 8 years old. Overall there were nine boys and seven girls. Participants and their parents were recruited from one primary school in Dunstable. All participants were white British. It is notable that all parents that took part in this study were mothers; no fathers participated in the research. The majority of mothers (12 people) were employed, 1 mother was employed, but worked at home and 3 mothers were homemakers. All mothers have educational background ranging from primary school to university. Materials The session with each pair will be held only once. To begin with, it is notable to mention that the books were chosen for this research as a discussion in general seems to be a quite crucial for children in order to reach better emotional understanding. Therefore, in the joint activity, such as reconstruction of events, adults give an idea for children what emotions are appropriate and inappropriate for different situations (Fivush, 1991). A created story book which contains 6 vignettes about 3 complex, 2 regulated and 1 moral emotions. The book was created by the researcher and was particularly organised for boys and girls separately. The story was about two children: a boy – Peter and a girl – Anna, who took part in several activities, such as: passing an exam, having a birthday, going to amusement park, home interaction, his/her friend leaving. There was one question concerning emotions for every situation to which a child was involved in. The second book is called F rog goes to dinner by Mercer Mayer (1974). This book contains several vignettes, presenting a story about a boy who has a frog. Accidentally, a frog goes to dinner with a boy and his parents without being noticed by anybody. A frog spoiled the dinner and the parents were very angry with a boy. The important fact is that this book is wordless; obviously the task was to create a story together. This particular method was chosen because Kestenbaum and Gelman (1995) pointed the importance of presenting information to children during the research not only verbally, but giving photographs or drawings as stimuli. To justify their point, there were two reasons presented in their study. The first reason is that a facial expression helps children understand emotions significantly better. The second reason is that the absence of pictures might cause some difficulties as children might not know how two different emotions can be expressed at the same time. After reading two books with the parent s, children were tested by the Test of Emotional Comprehension which was created by Pons, Harris and de Rosnay (2004). The TEC presents vignettes in which a gender-matched protagonist encounters simple to complex situations that elicit different emotional responses. After each vignette, the child is asked how the protagonist is feeling, by choosing from four illustrations of faces representing different emotional states (Tenenbaum et al., 2004). The TEC consists of nine sections which included several pictures and a question about emotional condition of protagonist. Though, the first section requires naming emotions that the faces show. The second includes the situation where a book character expresses the influence from external factors. The third one consists of desires that a protagonist expresses. The fourth factor involves understanding of false beliefs and the way they influence on emotions. The fifth section expresses the situation with reminders that might influence on childrens present condition. The sixth one asks children to control their emotions. The seventh section includes hidden emotions that a child should define. The eighth factor presents the situations with mixed emotions, particularly on what this study focuses. The last component involves understanding of moral emotions. Parents were offered to fill in a Parent Questionnaire which contains several questions about background information and social economic status. Procedure. Parents with children read two books: one is created by the researcher and another is Frog goes to dinner by Mercer Mayer. The first book was created by the researcher and concluded six situations including such emotions as mixed, moral and regulated. A task required to read the stories and a child should have answered an offered question. It was not specially defined who suppose to read a book. Consequently, mothers could read it as well as children, or they could do it in an order. The vignettes, which were presented in a book, concerned several situations at school, at home, at an amusement park, on holidays. For example, a situation for girls that involved mixed emotions: Annas birthday is during summer holiday, so she can do everything shed like to do- ride a bicycle, play with friends and eat ice-cream! Her parents decided to arrange a birthday party for Anna. She likes parties very much and a lot of guests will bring gifts to her. But her best friend, Lola, is unwell and now s he cant go to Annas birthday party. Anna wants Lola to come so much. How does Anna feel now? After reading a created book together, they were offered to make up a story together. A book Frog goes to dinner by Mercer Mayer (1974) was used as a good example of wordless story. These two tasks were chosen in order to give parents and children enough time to interact with each other. Moreover, they both contain different emotional situations describing which should promote an excessive usage of emotions. After making up a story a child was tested with the Test of Emotional Comprehension, which was created by Pons, Harris and de Rosnay (2004) in order to measure the period of time when children start understanding different emotions. The model of Pons, Harris and de Rosnay (2004) was accepted as the main one in a theoretical description of emotional understanding of complex emotions. Besides, the test consists of pictures, and the questions are always asked by a researcher. It is also very convenient for children to conduct this test due to the absence of necessity to read. Consequently, their test was assumed to be relevant to use during the research. Besides, it is worth mentioning that the researcher was trained before to conduct this test, as the requirements were to conduct it with neutral voice, do not give any prompts to children which emotions a protagonist might express. During conducting the TEC with children, parents were offered to fill in the Parent Questionnaire which contains of such sections as child and parents names, childs age, date of birth and birth order, also social economical situation of parents (ethnicity, occupation, level of education, marital status). Besides, parents signed a consent form which stated that they and their children agreed to take part in the present research and they did not object to be video taped. Moreover, this form included all information about research, it was also mention that parents were free to withdraw at any time they want from the study and contact details of researchers were provided. Children were asked oral permission if they agreed to help a researcher to conduct the study and neither parents nor children refused. Parents were given a choice to stay or leave during a conducting the TEC with children, but it is worth mentioning that all parents were present during childrens testing. Coding A created book that was basically consisted of 6 vignettes was scoring in the following way. It is notable that in terms of this book the amount of using em

What Is a Gold-Collar Worker? :: Workforce Work Papers

What Is a Gold-Collar Worker? A Higher Level of Knowledge Work. Kelley (1990) described an old distinction that divided the work force into blue-collar and white-collar workers. Blue-collar workers typically did manual labor in a factory for hourly pay, whereas white-collar workers did knowledge work in an office on salary. However, changes in the nature of work and the workplace have led to large growth in the numbers of a particular kind of knowledge worker—the gold-collar worker, whose most valuable assets are problem-solving abilities, creativity, talent, and intelligence; who performs nonrepetitive and complex work that is difficult to evaluate; and who prefers self-management. The gold-collar worker is, for example, the computer engineer as opposed to a lower-level knowledge worker such as an input operator. Kelley pointed out that even though the name is new, there have always been gold-collar workers like designers, researchers, analysts, engineers, and lawyers. Learning, Teams, and Strategic Thinking. Wood (2001) characterized gold-collar workers in information technology (IT) similarly by focusing on qualitative matters. Gold-collar IT workers learn continually from experience. They recognize the synergy of teams and can demonstrate leadership; they are strategic thinkers who see the big picture and can change strategic directions when necessary. They have a portable, flexible skill base relevant to a variety of work environments and maintain that skill base through their own personal development, with well-connected networks of contacts at the leading edge. Interdisciplinary Knowledge. Where business and science intersect, the basic focus of the gold-collar worker is interdisciplinary knowledge and experience (Bartlett 1998; Todaro 2001; Van Nierop and Bow 1997). This interdisciplinary focus combines scientific or other technical knowledge and skills with business literacy to result in a gold-collar worker with expertise across several areas. Gold-collar engineers, chemists, biologists, physicists, or geoscientists understand the relationship between their scientific discipline and business, have the management and financial knowledge needed for a business environment, and can "marry" science and entrepreneurship. Other Characterizations. Roe (2001) called the gold-collar worker "a highly skilled multidisciplinarian who combines the mind of the white-collar worker with the hands of the blue-collar employee" (p. 32); examples include aircraft systems maintenance technicians, network administrators, and advanced manufacturing technicians. A similar case would be online customer service representatives (CSRs), for whom managing customer relationships now involves not only oral communication but also text-based Internet chat and e-mail about tough questions not answered in frequently asked questions or canned e-mail responses (Dicksteen 2001).

The Progressive Era?s influence on the New Deal Essay example -- essay

The accomplishments taken place upon the onset of the many New Deal legislations owe much to the seeds implanted and unknowingly disseminated by the pre-WWI Progressive movement. Sparked by the new image as a world power, industrialization, and immigration at the dawn of the new century, a new found reform movement gripped the nation. With the new found image of the nation and world as a whole, the reforms advanced the position of the previously ignored people of the nation, as did its reincarnation and rebirth apparent in the New Deal. Although the first signs of this pristine Progressive movement shone since the mid-1800s, no one had cleared the way for its momentous effect upon the nation in the same degree as Theodore Roosevelt. Although at times hot-tempered and brash, his charismatic attitude pushed forward many of the original progressive legislations. For example, his Sherman Anti-Trust Act proposed the life of a trust should be based on its history and actions, since he believed â€Å"good† trusts existed along with â€Å"bad† ones. Next, the Elkins Act proposed railroads and shippers to offer rebates illegal. They also had to have fixed rates, and couldn’t change without notice. Also, the Hepburn Act gave ICC the power to set maximum railroad rates. Next, of course because of the impetus for reform provided by the many socialist writers, such as Upton Sinclair, was the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, protecting the health and safety of consumable products a nd establishing the Food and Drug Administration. He also wished to preserve the untainted countryside, and established the National Forest Service and also strengthened the Forest Bureau. He also passed the Newlands Act which helped to create subsidies for irrigation in 16 western states. The actions taken by Theodore Roosevelt proved to throw the Progressive movement into the mainstream of the nation, showing its true, ingenuous face. When Theodore Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, failed to continue Roosevelt’s ongoing charismatic progressivism, both were bested by the newcomer, Woodrow Wilson. Although not receiving a majority in the vote, he, nonetheless, knew the country still ached for the progressivism it jubilantly basked in for so many years, which he called his "New Freedom." Immediately, Wilson went to work on what ... ...r labor issues of all ages, all fronts were attacked with full pride and confidence. Abandoned or diverted projects in the Progressive movement included many other reform issues that were reinstated during the New Deal. During the New Deal, legislations passed greatly improved the stature of many people who suffered great injustice prior to the Depression and especially during. The Progressive movement, at one time led by Woodrow Wilson and his crusade â€Å"triple wall of privilege,† compares directly to Roosevelt and his â€Å"three R’s,† both crusading for justice against the ignorance and deception taking place against the ordinary man. These everlasting accomplishments to improve the nation were all completed by the determination and perseverance of the reform groups of the Progressive era, which lay the groundwork for the New Deal, and Franklin Roosevelt, providing a resurgence for what the Progressive movement couldn’t accomplish. Resources: 1. http://www.geocities.com/dave_enrich/ctd/3p.roosevelt.html 2. http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/USRA_Progressive_Presidents.htm 3. American Pageant text

Applying the Background and Methodology of the Research Process

Jonathan HoffsuemmerA serious problem seen by nurse practitioners that work in rural areas is teen pregnancy. A peer-reviewed research paper published by The Journal for Nurse Practitioners entitled â€Å"Who Will Listen? Rural Teen Pregnancy Reflections.† There are both medical and social concerns that occur with teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy statistic shows that teen mothers give birth to premature babies with low birth weight. The social aspect is teen mothers do not complete high school and lives in poverty. These situations rank high in abuse and neglect with teen parents.Definition of the ProblemRural areas show the highest rate of teen pregnancy compared to state rates, which produces a problem that researchers are questioning why this rate is higher in the rural areas. The Theory of Adolescent Sexual Decision Making (TASDM) is the basis this research was conducted to resolve. This theory has two main objectives that include the risk-promoting environments teens experi ence and exposure to risky situation that create the situations teens use to justify sexual behavior (Weiss, 2012).The problem with teen pregnancy produces premature birth and low birth weight in the babies. A medical problem with teen pregnancy is the medical expenses incurred with both teenager and infant. These statistics indicate that teen pregnancy result from family with no insurance and no means to pay the medical expenses teen pregnancy incurs. The social problem teen pregnancy presents are that teen mothers tend not finish high school. Teen pregnancy results in low income rates, the need for higher public assistance, poor educational, behavioral, and health problem in children.Study PurposeThe purpose of the study is to understand the decision-making of teens and why teen pregnancy is higher in the rural areas of the country. The TASDM theory indicates that environment promotes the situation of peer influences, substance use, and media influences (Weiss, 2012). The study wi ll focus on the thought process of teens as to why teens make the choice become sexually activity and risk the consequence of becoming pregnant.Research QuestionThe researchers are studying the question of why teen pregnancy is higher in rural areas. Teen pregnancy occurs because of the lack of prevention that teens do not use and why teens make these types of decisions. The essay directions were for students to indicating if the teens thought there was a teen pregnancy problem in the community (Weiss, 2012). The researchers’ directions were only one question to determine the thought processes of both male and female teens regarding teen pregnancy.HypothesisThe study does not state a hypothesis, but strives to understand why there is a higher rate of teen pregnancies in rural areas. The study will evaluate the difference between boys and girls views about teen pregnancy. The study only has one main focus, but the study derives different variables of the hypothesis. The study reviews the thoughts as to how teens perceive sex as good, bad, or ambivalent.Study VariablesThe two variables in the study are independent and dependent variables. The independent variables in the study are the essays that the students wrote defining their views about teen pregnancy in rural areas. The dependent variables are the reasons teen pregnancies occur, which include the idea of  whether sexual activity is good or bad. The study reviews the conception teens have of sexual activities, which studies the prevalence regarding beliefs, consequences to actions, and consequences to others (Weiss, 2012).Conceptual Model or Theoretical FrameworkThis study uses the theoretical framework for the study. The theoretical perspective of study analyzes the answers obtained from participates against the Theory of Adolescent Sexual Decision Making theories. These theories measure the decision-making teens use in determining the risk of teen pregnancy. The theoretical framework weights the consequences associated with the risks and how teenage boys and girls perceive teen pregnancy. These perceptions that teens are reporting in the study are weighted against the two ground theories of risk-promoting environments and risky sexual behavior. â€Å"Using constant comparative methods, the data were analyzed using the MAX Qualitative Data Analysis © software† (Weiss, 2012, p. 805).Review of LiteratureThe literature review of the article addresses the issues of low parental guidance as a significant factor to teen making risky behavior decisions. The fact that rural areas indicate that teens view there is nothing much to do is a contributing factor to teen pregnancy. The education regarding sexual behavior and prevention methods were noted to be lacking in the rural areas. This factor indicates that financial support to provide for after school programs contributes to the notation that there is nothing to do for teens. This is a contributing factor to the higher rat e of teen pregnancy in rural communities.Study DesignThe study design was conducted in Florida involving 125 10th grade students. These students consisted of both male and female from age 15 to 17. The students were from an English class and were asked to write an essay on if they thought teen pregnancy was a problem in their community. The teens  wrote the essay during an English class in high school. This study was conducted with the approval of the institutional review board, teacher, and administrator.

Marriage relationships are increasingly more equal

It is true that marriage relationships are becoming increasingly equal, but to an extent. Since the early 1900's the stereotypical ‘housewife' role has changed, dramatically. This allowed men to try out, on what would have been seen as ‘Women jobs' such as childcare, cooking and cleaning, and also women to do some ‘Men jobs' which were mainly ‘behind the computer' jobs and more leisure time, women also had a say in purchases and money matters, something which would have not been possible without this experience in change of gender roles. Young and Wilmott were functionalist sociologists who came up with a theory that; ‘Marriage roles are becoming more equal.' They called this the Symmetrical family, this is when the husband and wife have similar roles and share tasks and work equally. They claimed to have proven this theory by interviewing 1700 or more women and only asking them one question which was â€Å"Did you're husband contribute to housework at all this week?† Ann Oakley criticised Young & Wilmot's methodology as her personal views were extremely diverse to theirs. She concluded it could vary from a miniscule to a large amount, making it unfair. The people who get interviewed are only allowed to answer ‘Yes Or No' this makes it really hard to know as no additional details are included such as; when did they do this, how often do they do this and how they contribute to the change in stereotypical gender roles. After Ann Oakley Criticised Young & Wilmot's theory, she made her own theory. She divided her questionnaires into four groups, which consisted of; Housework, Childcare, Decision making and leisure. Ann Oakley states that women are increasingly becoming more equal to their husband, but they are unfortunately still doing 70% of all housework. This portrays that, women are more equal in decision making, work and the outside life but still in their stereotypical gender role at home, with housework and child care. She also states that men only contribute to nice, easy, clean and enjoyable things within the household and childcare; such as playing with the children, purchasing them toys or gifts, sending them to parks, washing one plate once in a whilst and may also cook occasionally. However, they never seem to be cleaning up the house, changing dirty nappies or even cleaning up the children's sick or mess. These are all unfortunately left for the ‘housewife' to do. Overall, Ann Oakley has successfully proved that Young and Wilmott are incorrect in their conclusions on ‘marriages becoming more equal within the household,' because of their imprecise interviewing techniques on collecting data. However, research shows that marriages are increasingly becoming more equal in the household, even though it is increasing slowly.

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbour in 1941? Essay

In December 1941, the Japanese struck. A well-coordinated series of attacks across the Pacific, most notably the American naval base of Hawaii, bringing about Japanese dominance in South East Asia; sending a direct message to the ‘oppressive’ west. Japan for a significant period of time had been viewed by the US and its western allies as a major threat in the Pacific, and as a direct consequence of a series of the events tensions boiling point was reached and the climax of nearly 1/2 a century of rivalry exploded. â€Å"The Great War destroyed the multilateral balance of power in East Asia and left Japan and the United States directly confronting each other across the Pacific†; Japan’s continued growth as the leading industrial giant in Asia, allowed an increase in global power but to the Japanese they were never recognised in the manner in which they believed they deserved. Americas realization that this growth could threaten their superiority led to a num ber of subjective decisions but where they left too late, so late in fact that it was a point of no return, the imperialistic mindset of the Japanese was too full of honor to back down in the face of what seemed uncertainty. In the years succeeding the Great War, Japan had embarked on a meteoric rise in its industrial power, and rising concurrently was their global power; this was all achieved under the control of Emperor Hirohito, a man determined to meet Japans goals on the Asian mainland. Nevertheless, this industrial growth would not have been possible without the importation of a number of vital commodities such as oil and aviation fuel. These commodities were imported primarily from the US and if not directly from the Americans from a country allied to the isolationist giant. Yet the US was not blind to the progress of the small island of Japan, the sudden increase had not gone unnoticed and at the Washington Conference of 1921 a report was released that described â€Å"Japans naval armament as a ‘silent power’ with which is used to deter the United States†, in response to this the Americans ensured that the Japanese naval power was restricted to a position weaker than that of t heir own. Within Japan this was met with a feeling of aggravation with her status not being observed as that of a major global power; and not for the first time, Japan had been in a similar position following the Treaty of Versailles with land they had captured in the war being returned and her foreign ambitions once again quelled. Japan was becoming cognizant that â€Å"at some date, the US would interfere and disrupt Japanese goals† and having been used to foreign involvement the Emperor was not going to allow for the Americans to once again change Japan’s ambition: â€Å"the political, commercial and military dominance of the Western Pacific†. This aggressive policy towards its rivals in the Pacific has been attributed to a collection of reasons that led to the attacks in December 1941. To the Japanese they believed that they were entitled to expand their territory and with this being restricted it pushed the ruling elite into a position that, despite experts claiming there were alternative solutions Japan only saw one; and â€Å"war became the most viable option† to render them useless in preventing the objectives of Japan being met. Japan then expanded into Manchuria a military move that left the country isolated internationally. This coincided with the US government banning the export of oil and scrap metals to Japan if not from a licensed company, the first steps towards a complete embargo. Once Roosevelt had given the green light for the complete embargo things began to change internally in Japan as the ultranationalist’s consolidation of power continued ensuring expansion was not held back. This consolidation of power by the ultranationalists was crucial in the decision to attack Pearl Harbor, they felt Japan needed to use what it had learned from WW1 and ensure a ‘quick showdown’. With no oil coming into the country they were left with no choice but to go on the military offensive to keep their booming industry alive. This embargo had put the leading figures in Japan in a position of serious decision making, they could no longer allow being ‘disrespected’ on the internationa l stage; and â€Å"Japan now defined the United States as its foremost enemy in terms of both capabilities and intentions†. Coinciding with the embargo President Roosevelt moved the US fleet to Hawaii in order to discourage Japans expansive ambitions in the Pacific, and with the army officers of Japan being of a militaristic nature it led to a push for action and this action was to be the first strike in what was to become the Pacific War. It can be therefore suggested that the reasoning behind the attack on Pearl Harbour came as a consequence of the humiliation Japan felt it had endured on an international level at the hands of the United States. The United States was a country that â€Å"from the perspective of the Japanese government, was unnecessarily intervening in affairs in which it had little specific, concrete interest†. Despite the continued interference of the Americans in preventing Japans expansive actions, civilians paid little attention to Japan despite the strong racist feelings between the two countries, a feeling that was highlighted by the San Francisco School incident; further increasing tensions between the two feuding powers. The incident was one of five key provocations that the Japanese used to justify their surprise attack; yet despite the increasingly hostile foreign policy aimed in the direction of Japan, little was done to increase military support by the Americans; allowing the Japanese to feel confident enough to attack Pearl Harbour with the hope of undermining American morale, such that the US government would drop its demands contrary to Japanese interests. However, there is no hiding the pivotal reason behind the attacks and this was the defilement of the economy. The destruction of the Naval fleet was a direct â€Å"retaliation for America’s existential attacks on Japans economy†. Coupled together with naval limitation, the unequal treaties and the continued dishonor on the international stage, Japan felt it best to strike swiftly rendering the US military presence in the Pacific non-existent. The elite of Japan was not prepared for the catastrophic consequences of their attack on Pearl Harbor, at the time what was such a successful foreign attack, it turned out to be the defining moment in not only the War but in Japan’s history. Some argue that the attacked doomed Japan by waking a sleeping giant, a giant that up until the point of attack was happy to find a compromise with Japan over the issues in the Asian region. Moreover, the awakening of this giant gave a reason for the whole US military machine to be set in motion; Clay Blair and Mark Parillo â€Å"believed that Japanese trade protection was so incompetent that the US submarines alone would have strangled them to defeat.† Had the Japanese put more time into planning out the response of the US they would have seen to enter the military conflict directly was not the way to go. However they did not highlight this as an issue and the awakening of the Americans ultimately led to the most devastating of con sequences, this was the subsequent dropping of the 2 atomic bombs on Japanese soil, killing 100,000 instantly with the death toll rising for decades thereafter. Despite this Japan did enjoy some positive consequences, the attack allowed a significant area of the Pacific to be conquered and held for a period of time. By conquering these lands, as a direct result of Pearl Harbour, Japans economy continued with a positive trajectory, and the populace continued its â€Å"strong support for the Japanese attack†. Japan had met its goals, the Navy of the US had been removed as a threat for the time being and Japan won every major battle until Midway in June of 1942. However had the military officials of the rising power in Asia targeted the crucial shore facilities that housed the oil reserves, the damage inflicted could have been existential. Consequently, the attacks had the opposite impact on the Americans themselves, â€Å"American attitudes about the war change radically†. This consequence allowed the full force of the US military machine to be put into action, a consequence that conclusively led to the defeat of Japan. Pain and rage swept across the states, a strong feeling of nationalism returned. The surprise attack was seen as ‘unjust and malevolent’ and the racism that had been rife prior to the attack in 1941 was now at the point of Japanese immigrants within America being sent to detention camps for the duration of the war. A reaction that the militaristic government of Japan had not foreseen. And although attempts had been made to prepare the country for war through the publication and use of anti-US propaganda, many were still ‘apprehensive and dismayed’ at the news Japan was now at war with the Americans. With this as a direct result of the Pearl Harbor attack, it did no favors for the morale amongst Japanese citizens who were aroused with both alarm and anger subsequent to the attack. In the long term, Pearl Habor bored more sententious ramifications that struck a blow to the honor and integrity of a once feared nation. Following the decimation of Japan with the dropping of the atomic bombs it was thought that the consequences to the attacks on Pearl Harbor had come to their end, yet this was not the case; American occupation was to follow. It is easy from here to trace back the source of this occupation, had the torpedoes not been dropped on the US naval fleet then it is highly unlikely that the ‘giant’ would have entered the war in the Pacific and engrossed itself in the dealings of Japan.

Apple Case Study 1

Apple Table of Contents: I. Introduction II. Opening Case III. Competitor Analysis IV. Sales Analysis V. Profitability Analysis VI. Cross Elasticity of Demand: Competitors v/s iPhone VII. Demand, Cost and Pricing VIII. Pure competition, Monopolistic Competition & Oligopoly IX. Conclusion X. References I. Introduction Apple Inc. (Apple) designs, manufactures and markets a range of personal computers, mobile communication and media devices, and portable digital music players, and sells a range of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. It's products and services include Macintosh (Mac) computers, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Xserve, a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems, third-party digital content and applications through the iTunes Store, and a range of accessory, service and support offerings. The Company sells its products globally through its retail stores, online stores, and direct sales force and third-party cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers, and value-added resellers. As of September 25, 2010, the Company had opened a total of 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally. II. Opening Case: Apple reveals the iPhone MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO—January 9, 2007—Apple ® today introduced iPhone, combining three products—a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod ® with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, searching and maps—into one small and lightweight handheld device. Phone introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting users control iPhone with just their fingers. iPhone also ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, which completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones. â€Å"iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobi le phone,† said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. We are all born with the ultimate pointing device—our fingers—and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse. † iPhone is a Revolutionary Mobile Phone iPhone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows users to make calls by simply pointing at a name or number. iPhone syncs all of your contacts from your PC, Mac ® or Internet service such as Yahoo! , so that you always have your full list of up-to-date contacts with you. In addition, you can easily construct a favorites list for your most frequently made calls, and easily merge calls together to create conference calls. iPhone’s pioneering Visual Voicemail, an industry first, lets users look at a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without listening to the prior messages. Just like email, iPhone’s Visual Voicemail enables users to immediately randomly access those messages that interest them most. Phone includes an SMS application with a full QWERTY soft keyboard to easily send and receive SMS messages in multiple sessions. When users need to type, iPhone presents them with an elegant touch keyboard which is predictive to prevent and correct mistakes, making it much easier and more efficient to use than the small plastic keyboards on many smartphones. iPhone also includes a calendar application that allows calendars to be automatically synced with your PC or Mac. iPhone fea tures a 2 megapixel camera and a photo management application that is far beyond anything on a phone today. Users can browse their photo library, which can be easily synced from their PC or Mac, with just a flick of a finger and easily choose a photo for their wallpaper or to include in an email. iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone which also features EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless technologies for data networking. Apple has chosen Cingular, the best and most popular carrier in the US with over 58 million subscribers, to be Apple’s exclusive carrier partner for iPhone in the US. iPhone is a Widescreen iPod Phone is a widescreen iPod with touch controls that lets music lovers â€Å"touch† their music by easily scrolling through entire lists of songs, artists, albums and playlists with just a flick of a finger. Album artwork is stunningly presented on iPhone’s large and vibrant display. iPhone also features Cover Flow, Apple’s amazing way to browse your music library by album cover artwork, for the first time on an iPod. When navigating your music library on iPhone, you are automatically switched into Cover Flow by simply rotating iPhone into its landscape position. Phone’s stunning 3. 5-inch widescreen display offers the ultimate way to watch TV shows and movies on a pocketable device, with touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume. iPhone plays the same videos purchased from the online iTunes ® Store that users enjoy watching on their computers and iPods, and will soon enjoy watching on their widescreen televisions using the new Apple TVâ„ ¢. The iTunes Store now offers over 350 television shows, over 250 feature films and over 5,000 music videos. Phone lets users enjoy all their iPod content, including music, audiobooks, audio podcasts, video podcasts, music videos, television shows and movies. iPhone syncs content from a user’s iTunes library on their PC or Mac, and can play any music or video content they have purchased from the online iTunes store. iPhone is a Breakthrough Internet Communications Device iPhone features a rich HTML email client which fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics right along with the text. Phone is fully multi-tasking, so you can be reading a web page while downloading your email in the background. Yahoo! Mail, the world’s largest email service with over 250 million users, is offering a new free â€Å"push† IMAP email service to all iPhone users that automatically pushes new email to a user’s iPhone, and can be set up by simply entering your Yahoo! name and password. iPhone will also work with most industry standard IMAP and POP based email services, such as Microsoft Exchange, Apple . Mac Mail, AOL Mail, Google Gmail and most ISP mail services. iPhone also features the most advanced and fun-to-use web browser on a portable device with a version of its award-winning Safariâ„ ¢ web browser for iPhone. Users can see any web page the way it was designed to be seen, and then easily zoom in to expand any section by simply tapping on iPhone’s multi-touch display with their finger. Users can surf the web from just about anywhere over Wi-Fi or EDGE, and can automatically sync their bookmarks from their PC or Mac. Phone’s Safari web browser also includes built-in Google Search and Yahoo! Search so users can instantly search for information on their iPhone just like they do on their computer. iPhone also includes Google Maps, featuring Google’s groundbreaking maps service and iPhone’s amazing maps application, offering the best maps experience by far on any pocket device. Users can view maps, satellite images, traffic information and get direct ions, all from iPhone’s remarkable and easy-to-use touch interface. iPhone’s Advanced Sensors Phone employs advanced built-in sensors—an accelerometer, a proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor—that automatically enhance the user experience and extend battery life. iPhone’s built-in accelerometer detects when the user has rotated the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display accordingly, with users immediately seeing the entire width of a web page, or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio. iPhone’s built-in proximity sensor detects when you lift iPhone to your ear and immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches until iPhone is moved away. Phone’s built-in ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light, thereby enhancing the user experience and saving power at the same time. Pricing ; Availability iPhone will be available in the US in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model for $499 (US) and an 8GB model for $599 (US), and will work with either a PC or Mac. iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores, and through Cingular’s retail and online stores. Several iPhone accessories will also be available in June, including Apple’s new remarkably compact Bluetooth headset. iPhone includes support for quad-band GSM, EDGE, 802. 11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2. 0 EDR wireless technologies. iPhone requires a Mac with a USB 2. 0 port, Mac OS ® X v10. 4. 8 or later and iTunes 7; or a Windows PC with a USB 2. 0 port and Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4), Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2). Internet access is required and a broadband connection is recommended. Apple and Cingular will announce service plans for iPhone before it begins shipping in June. III. Competitor Analysis Market Share by OS Nokia still has a third of the overall mobile phone market. The average selling price of a Nokia Smartphone fell by 21% from 2009. Nokia is selling plenty of devices, but they are at the cheap end of the market. They lost what some in the industry refer to as â€Å"mindshare† to Apple's iPhone and the Google Android mobile software platform. Nokia wants to sell services – music, maps, and applications – as well as hardware but high-end phone users are looking elsewhere. The company says a new family of Smartphone’s, led by the N8 released in 2010, will revive its fortunes at the top end of the market. Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop was forced to abandon the mobile phone giant's in September 2010. The news that the Finnish firm might only break even in the second quarter of this year slashed 25 per cent off its value in 24 hours. Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has announced it will shed 7,000 jobs from next year as part of a plan to refocus the company on Smartphone. The Finnish firm is moving from Symbian to Microsoft's Smartphone technology. The firm recently confirmed the deal with Microsoft last week to jointly develop Smartphone technology, which will cut costs by about 1bn Euros a year. Under the terms of that deal, Nokia agreed to start using the Microsoft's operating system on its Smartphone instead of its own Symbian platform. Nokia's response to the Smartphone threat from competitors such as Apple's iPhone and phones using Google's Android system has been long been a key investor concern. Prior to the iPhone, Nokia was the king of mobile handsets. Now its share of the Smartphone market has plunged from 47 per cent to 27 per cent. It has also lost its ranking as the largest handset maker in terms of revenue to Apple. Android When Google decided to get into the Smartphone business it decided that Android devices would be everything that the iPhone was not. Apple one or two handsets, Google on the other hand was laying out a great number of handsets. Manufacturers such as HTC, LG and Motorola could use the new operating system for free. It enabled Google to have phones for every section of the market – high powered and pricey, cheap and practical. Android's real selling point would be the apps. Here too, the policy was one of openness. Apple controlled its App store controlling every submission and rejecting those that contravened its rules. For Android anyone who had written an app could upload it. At first, users and app developers welcomed the free-and-easy approach. However, some have begun to question if Google's policy for the apps is the best way to manage the Market. Three years after its launch, hardware sales are booming. Yet sales of Android apps remain relatively poor. Estimates of Apple’s App store in 2010 were ? 1. billion. Android Market managed just ? 62 million. The figure was lower than both Blackberry App World (? 100m) and Nokia's Ovi store (? 64m). Research predicts massive improvements for Android by this time 2012 but it is still expected to lag far behind iOS. Finally Android's market share grew to surpass the Symbian platform used by Nokia making it the most sold Smartphone Microsoft Microsoft market share is declining in the Smartphone platf orm market. Windows Phone 7 lacks a number of features despite the innovation of its user interface. Microsoft hopes to gain market share once Nokia Windows Phones and its wide-ranging â€Å"Mango† software update get released later in 2011. Microsoft has unveiled the first major update to its Windows Phone 7 operating system it launched in 2010. The update, codenamed Mango, intdoduces more than 500 changes. Microsoft’s attempts to break into the Smartphone race have been mediocre at best. Currently, the company controls less than 4% of the market. Despite this, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform is forecasted to beat Android in 2013. Microsoft introduced Pocket PC in 2000, followed by Windows Mobile in 2003, prior to Apple and Android's release. However it still failed to compete in the market, or rival Symbian who controlled nearly 90% of the market share. Microsoft lacked the features and compatibility that Symbian was featuring at the time, and as a result, consumers refused to recognize its product or give Microsoft the opportunity to be a contender in the Smartphone industry. The platform was notoriously sluggish and the most difficult of any platform to use. Microsoft tried to solve some of these issues with minor tweaks and software updates over the years to little or no avail. As Windows Mobile market shares continued to decline, Microsoft had no other option than to overhaul the Microsoft platform and launch Windows Phone 7 in 2010. Windows Phone 7 was much improved. But Microsoft still failed to take control of the market, or garner any real significant attention from consumers. RIM Research In Motion has given up more ground to Apple and Google in the hypercompetitive Smartphone market, a report shows, while two brokerages cut their price targets for the BlackBerry maker on concerns it can no longer keep pace. The latest figures dropped RIM from second to third place. The Canadian company's struggle to compete is unlikely to get any easier, with Apple's upcoming iCloud service expected to hurt RIM. IV. Sales Analysis Apple  produced some stellar results: revenues up 48% year-on-year to $13. 5bn, and profits up. The process is confused because  Apple has begun restating its year-ago earnings, to take into account the fact that it now recognizes income and revenue from subscription-based products such as the  iPhone(which may be sold on an 18-month contract) as soon as it gets it, rather than deferring it over the life of the device/contract as it used to. It began doing that in the most recent quarter, covering Christmas, which – confusingly – is the first quarter of its financial year. So previously, the second-quarter revenues were $8. 16bn, not the newly-restated $9. 08bn; the profits were $1. 21bn, not the now-given figure of $1. 62bn. The numbers also don't include the iPad, because the quarter ended on March 31 – the iPad was launched three days later. According to MacJournals, which chewed over the numbers, â€Å"At $5. 445 billion, iPhone sales accounted for 40% of Apple's revenue. All Mac sales were 28%, all  iPod/Music sales were 24%. Mac sales are 2. 943m units, generating revenue of $3. 76bn – which Apple says was 33% year-on-year growth, compared to market growth of 24%. The company's market share of mobile subscribers has also taken a deep plunge. Market research firm comScore says that between October and January, Microsoft's share of the market fell from 19. 7% to 15. 7%. RIM, the maker o f the BlackBerry, remained the leader, growing from 41. 3% to 43%. Apple ‘s iPhone increased slightly, from 24. 8% to 25. 1%, and Google's Android grew by more than 250%, going from 2. 8% to 7. An interesting analysis comes from Tomi Ahonen, a former Nokia executive. â€Å"I am writing the first history of the once-iconic iPhone, written now in early April 2010, before Apple has released its first quarter earnings for 2010. This is literally the peak of the short reign that Apple's iPhone had as the most emulated Smartphone. [†¦] And mark my words, the numbers are now very clear, Apple's market share peak among smartphones, and among all handsets, on an annual basis, is being witnessed now. † V. Profitability Analysis Apple reported in the second quarter of 2011 that net income rose 95 percent, to $5. 9 billion, or $6. 40 a share, from $3. 07 billion, or $3. 33 a share, in 2010. Revenue climbed 83 percent, to $24. 67 billion, from $13. 5 billion. The profit margin in 2011 is 22. 36% of the sales which is an improvement over the level the company achieved in 2010. The company’s return of equity is 38. 78% while in 2010 it was 26. 2% which means that there is a 12. 58% increase on the return of equity. The gross margin is 39. 07% which is slightly better than the company achieved in 2010. VI. Cross Elasticity of Demand: Competitors V/s iPhone When the iphone 3GS was released on July 11, 2008 it cost $199 with the AT;T two year contract. In January 2011 Apple cut the iphone 3GS price to $50. cross-price elasticity of demand = % ? in demand for product A% ? in price for product B %? in price for iphone: Price of Iphone 3GS, 2010 + Price of Iphone 3GS, 2011? Price of Iphone = 199 + 5050-199 = -1. 671% With the Market share OS table above we can compute the % ? I demand for prodct competing with the iphone. %? in demand for Symbian = Symbian market share of Q1 2011 – Symbian market share of 2010 = 27. 4% – 37. 6% = -8. % Symbian-iphone cross-price elasticity of demand = % ? in demand for Symbian% ? in price for Iphone = -8. 6%-1. 671% = 5. 146 %? in demand for Android = Android market share of Q1 2011 – Android market share of 2010 = 36% – 22. 7% = 13. 3% Android -iphone cross-price elasticity of demand = % ? in demand for Android% ? in price for Iphone = 13. 3%-1. 671% = -7. 959 %? in demand for R IM = RIM market share of Q1 2011 – RIM market share of 2010 = 12. 9% – 16. 0% = -3. 1% RIM -iphone cross-price elasticity of demand = % ? in demand for RIM% ? in price for Iphone = -3. 1%-1. 671% = 1. 855 ? in demand for Microsoft = Microsoft market share of Q1 2011 – Microsoft market share of 2010 = 3. 6% – 4. 2% = -0. 6% Microsoft -iphone cross-price elasticity of demand = % ? in demand for Microsoft % ? in price for Iphone = -0. 6%-1. 671% = 0. 359 The price elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of quantity demanded by a change of 1 percent in price. It is calculated by dividing the percentage change in the demanded quantity by the corresponding percentage change in price. The iPhone was launched in the US roughly at the beginning of the second Quarter 2008, at a price of $599. In mid September Apple reduced the price for the iPhone by 33% from $599 to $434. According to the quarterly reports, Apple sold 270 000 iPhones in the second quarter and 1,119 000 iPhones in the third quarter. If calculated according to the equation for price elasticity of demand, the iPhone would have a price elasticity of 4. 7, which means that Apple would lose almost 4. 7 percent of iPhone sales for each corresponding 1 percent increase in price. Since elasticity is greater than 1 the price is inelastic so the iPhone is a luxury commodity. Many consumers wait until increased competition forces Apple to decrease prices. VII. Demand, Cost ; Pricing Demand Apple’s iPhone Supply and Demand Concept of Supply and Demand There is a general rule in economics that if the price of a certain good or service rises, then the demand for such good or service declines. If the price decreases, then potential demand also increases (inverse relationship). On the supply side, if the price of a good or service increases, then firms will be willing to supply the market with higher volume of such good or service. If the price decreases, then firms will cut their supply of the good or service (positive relationship. The market then adjusts the price of the good or service in order to satisfy both the consumers and the suppliers. This is called market equilibrium. Apple iPhone Demand Last July, Apple iPhone was able to outsell all smart phones in the United States. It almost equaled the sales of the most popular feature phone (LG chocolate), giving it a relatively stable position in the market. New Apple handset models accounted for almost 1 . of all phone handset sales in the US for about a month. It was estimated that the demand for Apple iPhone was rising at7 . 2 a month, equivalent to about 5 million units of quantity demanded. The market research firm iSuppli noted â€Å"This is a remarkable accomplishment for Apple, considering that July marked the first full month of sales for the iPhone. While iSuppli has not collected historical information on this topic, it’s likely that the s peed of the iPhone ‘s rise to competitive dominance in its segment is unprecedented in the history of the mobile-handset market (Marsal ,2007 . In short , almost unexpected rise in demand of Apple iPhone was unaccounted by many experts , including of which are some of its competitors . The same research firm also noted that survey revealed that almost 57 of iPhones (bought in July ) were purchased by US consumers . Most of the consumers are aged 17-35. Almost 52 of the consumers of this product are male, and about 48 are female, revealing an almost equal propensity to consume for the product among the sexes. Added to that, iSuppli noted that 62 of the consumers of the product are actually college graduates or those with graduate courses . Nonetheless , the same research firm noted that â€Å"some of the iPhone ‘s success in July can be attributed to pent-up demand following months of hype (stagnant demand). Real proof of success will come in the coming months as demand patterns stabilize (Marsal, 2007). This prediction was almost accurate when the demand for iPhone was almost rising at 8 per month (month of June). Cost Apple's Iphone 4 smartphone, for which it's charging at least $500 at retail, is built of parts that cost $187. 51, according to market research firm Isuppli. According to the tear-down the most expensive part of the Iphone 4 is the 3. 5-inch LCD screen which costs $28. 50. Isuppli thinks that the Iphone 4 screen must be identical to one made by LG. It seems that Apple has managed to keep its parts cost at about $170 to $180 per unit. Isuppli's cost estimate doesn't include labour, shipping, advertising, software development or patent licensing. The cost is based on a 16GB version of the Iphone 4 but the low costs of each componant are fairly staggering. The Apple A4 processor reportedly is made by Samsung Electronics for $10. 75 per chip. Isuppli thinks that Geneva-based STMicroelectronics supplied the gyroscope chip at an estimated cost of $2. 60, as well as an accelerometer chip used in previous Iphone versions, which has an estimated cost of 65 cents. Other component suppliers named by Isuppli include Skyworks, a wireless chipmaker and TriQuint Semiconductor. In 2009, Isuppli estimated that the components and materials used in the iPhone 3GS cost about $179. Since then Isuppli thinks that the materials costs for that model have fallen to $134. Thus the Iphone 4 costs a bit more to make than the earlier model. Of course this means that Apple's gross margin on the hardware in Iphones is extremely high. The actual price margin gets obscured by the fact that AT&T heavily subsidises the phone in the US for about what it costs to manufacture. However the real winner is Apple, which does not have to pay for the cost of manufacture and still takes home about three times Iphone 4 production costs, on average. Pricing Because the iPhone price is entirely set by Apple, it makes an interesting case study on how much the price of technology drops over time. The official price of the iPhone periodically drops, as shown in the table below. But, there are no sales and a new iPhone is never sold for less than the official price. (There are occasionally sales on the refurbished iPhones for example on black Friday the refurbished 3GS was sold for $50. 00 instead of the usual $150. 00. )   Finding historical street price data is harder than historical MSRP data. For the iPhone both prices are the same. The table showing the historical price is included below. 1st Gen 4GB| 1st Gen 8GB| 3G| 3GS 16GB| 3GS 32GB| 29 June 2007| $499. 0*| $599*| N/A| N/A| N/A| 5 Sept 2007| Discontinued| $399| N/A| N/A| N/A| June 2008| N/A| N/A| $199| N/A| N/A| June 2009| N/A| N/A| $99| $199| $299| VIII. Pure competition, Monopolistic Competition & Oligopoly Apple Inc. planned to begin producing this year a new iPhone that could allow U. S. phone carriers other than AT&T Inc. to sell the iconic gadget, said people briefed by the company. The new iPhone would work on a type of wireless network called CDMA, these people said. CDMA is used by Verizon Wireless, AT&T's main competitor, as well as Sprint Nextel Corp. nd a handful of cellular operators in countries including South Korea and Japan. The vast majority of carriers world-wide, including AT;T, use another technology called GSM. With Apple developing a phone with CDMA capability, its exclusive U. S. arrangement with AT;T dating to 2007 appears set to end. Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, declined to comment. An AT;T spokesman said: â€Å"There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven't seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur. † Apple declined to comment. For AT;T, the Apple relationship has been crucial, helping to make the carrier the U. S. leader in lucrative smart-phone market share. According to comScore Inc. , AT;T has over 43% of all U. S. smart-phone customers, compared with 23% for Verizon. These customers are especially attractive because they generally pay higher monthly rates for data plans. For several quarters, AT;T's growth has come almost single-handedly from the iPhone. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the carrier said it activated 3. 1 million new iPhones. In comparison, it counted only a net total of 2. million new subscribers as some customers moved from other phones to iPhones. Now that a new Verizon-compatible iPhone appears to be on the horizon, Digits looks at what Apple can do to win over mobile business users, particularly from RIMM's BlackBerry market. The people briefed on the matter said the upgraded GSM iPhone is being made by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. , which produced A pple's previous iPhones. The CDMA iPhone model is being made by Pegatron Technology Corp. , the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan's ASUSTeK Computer Inc. said these people. One person familiar with the situation said Pegatron is scheduled to start mass producing CDMA iPhones in September. Other people said, however, that the schedule could change and the phone may not be available to consumers immediately after production begins. Representatives of Pegatron and Hon Hai declined to comment. Verizon has publicly stated its interest in the iPhone, but people familiar with the situation said Apple originally decided against developing a phone for Verizon to keep its development process simple, since the technologies are incompatible. Verizon also is upgrading its network to a higher-speed technology, so Apple has said it believed CDMA was a short-term technology. Apple later changed its mind as it realized Verizon's upgrade would take longer than expected, said people familiar with the situation. Making the iPhone available through Verizon, which has over 91 million customers, as well as potentially other CDMA carriers could open up a significant new market. In 2009, iPhone sales globally rose 83% to 25. million, far outpacing the 20% to 25% growth in smart phones sales overall, according to Bernstein. But since Apple already dominates smart-phone sales through existing partners, â€Å"sooner rather than later, Apple is going to have to look to find incremental distribution,† which implies a monopolistic competition between all smart phone sellers, said Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. He estimates Verizon could help Apple nearly double the number of iPhone users in the U. S. Some advantages that iPhone has comparing to other smart phones are: 1. Pod: iPhone is a not just a phone it is widescreen iPod with touch controls that lets you enjoy all your content — including music, audiobooks, videos, TV shows, and movies — on a beautiful 3. 5-inch widescreen display (Nokia N95 only has a 2. 6 inch screen). The N95 does have a good media player, however with all the iPod features and 4 GB / 8 GB space, it makes the iPhone the best music phone. 2. Advanced Safari browser: iPhone lets you see any web page the way it was designed to be seen, then easily zoom in by simply tapping on the multi-touch display with your finger which will change mobile browsing for the good. . OS X: All the power and sophistication of an advanced operating system that gives you access to true desktop-class applications and software, including rich HTML email, applications such as widgets, Safari, calendar, text messaging, Notes, and Address Book etc. iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while downloading your email in the background. This software completely redefines what you can do with a mobile phone. 4. User Interface: iPhone features the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse. It’s an entirely new interface based on a large multi-touch display and innovative new software that lets you control everything using only your fingers. 5. Visual Voicemail: The iPhone lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want — just like email using a revolutionary new feature called the visual voicemail. IX. Conclusion Analyzing as managerial economics students, we can conclude that although the current methods and techniques are serving us well in analyzing the current market situation, there will be new techniques emerging in the future with global changes occurring at leaping speeds. What is essential is for us to grasp is that the theory is flexible with these changes and that it can be shaped or rounded to be applied to any market situation analysis. The content and subjects we learned in this course are nothing but the bedrock tools that any manager needs to know and use in his daily life in order to forecast revenues and demand, analyze current markets and evaluate his company’s stance regarding his competitors. X. References ttp://theblogpaper. co. uk/article/business/31may09/price-elasticity-demand-iphone http://news. cnet. com/8301-13506_3-20064223-17. html http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/business-10725887 http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/uk-13284156 http://m. ibtimes. com/microsoft-windows-phone7-google-android-apple-157595. html http://www. reuters. com/article/2011/06/03/us-rim-research-ubs-idUSTRE7523PP20110603 www. newyorktimes. com www. wallstreetjournal. com