Codes of Ethics Comparative Chart Essay

mplete the following tables to compare several organizations and their guidelines about their responsibilities to their clients, their responsibilities to service providers, their attitudes concerning the duty to warn and the duty to protect, and cultural considerations. Responsibility to Client Organization Responsibility to client National Organization of Human Services (NOHS) Human service professionals respect the integrity and welfare of the client at all times. Each client is treated with respect, acceptance and dignity. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Marriage and family therapists advance the welfare of families and individuals. They respect the rights of those persons seeking their assistance, and make reasonable efforts to ensure that their services are used appropriately. National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Social workers’ primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems. American Psychological Association (APA) They provide only those services and use only those techniques for which they are qualified by education, training, or experience. American Counseling Association (ACA) The primary responsibility of counselors is to respect the dignity and promote the welfare of clients. Responsibility to Provider Organization Responsibility to provider National Organization of Human Services (NOHS) When a conflict arises between fulfilling the responsibility to the employer and the responsibility to the client, human service professionals advise both of the conflict and work conjointly with all involved to manage the conflict. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Marriage and family therapists respect the rights and responsibilities of professional colleagues and participate in activities that advance the goals of the profession. National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Social workers should provide services and represent themselves as competent only within the boundaries of their education, training, license, certification, consultation received, supervised experience, or other relevant professional experience. American Psychological Association (APA) Psychologists uphold professional standards of conduct, clarify their professional roles and obligations, accept appropriate responsibility for their behavior, and adapt their methods to the needs of different populations American Counseling Association (ACA) Counselors accept employment only for positions for which they are qualified given their education, training, supervised experience, state and national professional credentials, and appropriate professional experience. Counselors hire for professional counseling positions only individuals who are qualified and competent for those positions. Attitudes Concerning the Duty to Warn and the Duty to Protect Organization Attitudes concerning the duty to warn and the duty to protect National Organization of Human Services (NOHS) If it is suspected that danger or harm may occur to the client or to others as a result of a client’s behavior, the human service professional acts in an appropriate and professional manner to protect the safety of those individuals. This may involve seeking consultation, supervision, and/or breaking the confidentiality of the relationship. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Marriage and family therapists comply with applicable laws regarding the reporting of alleged unethical conduct. National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Social workers should have the best interest if their client at all times, and should report any alleged abuse or unethical behavior for the safety of the client. American Psychological Association (APA) Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their patients or clients, research participants, students, and others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable American Counseling Association (ACA) Counselors act to avoid harming their clients, trainees, and research participants and to minimize or to remedy unavoidable or unanticipated harm. Cultural Considerations Organization Cultural considerations National Organization of Human Services (NOHS) Human service professionals are knowledgeable about the cultures and communities within which they practice. They are aware of multiculturalism in society and its impact on the community as well as individuals within the community. They respect individuals and groups, their cultures and beliefs. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Marriage and family therapists provide professional assistance to persons without  discrimination on the basis of race, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, gender, health status, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status. National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Social workers should obtain education about and seek to understand the nature of social diversity and oppression with respect to race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, and mental or physical disability. American Psychological Association (APA) Psychologists are aware of cultural, individual, and role differences, including those due to age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices. American Counseling Association (ACA) Counselor educators actively infuse multicultural/diversity competency in their training and supervision practices. They actively train students to gain awareness, knowledge, and skills in the competencies of multicultural practice.

Importance of National Income Statistics Essay

There are several important uses of national income statistics and, therefore, there is great need for their regular preparation. National income estimates provide not only a single figure showing the national income, but also supply the detailed figures in regard to the various components of the national income. It is both the figure of national income and the details regarding its various constituents that throw light on the functioning and performance of the economy. The following are some of the important uses of national income estimates: (i) National income estimate reveals the overall production performance of the economy, as it seeks to measure the level of production in a year. Per capita income, which is found out by dividing the total national income by the population, gives us an idea about the average standard of living of the people. Economic welfare depends to a considerable degree on the level of national income and the average standard of living of the people. Thus, the figures of national income and per capita income indicate the level of economic welfare of the people of a country. (ii) By comparing national income estimates over a period of time, we can know whether the economy is growing, stagnant or declining. If the national income increases over years, it means that the economy is growing. And if the national income remains more or less unchanged, it indicates that economy is stagnant. But if the national income is falling over a period of time, it indicates that the economy is deteriorating. In case the economy is growing, we can also judge the rate of economic growth or development by measuring the rate of increase in national income. Further, by comparing the per capita income over years, we can know the changes in the standards of living and economic welfare of the people. (iii) The national income estimates show the contribution made by the various sectors of the economy, such as agriculture manufacturing industry, trade, etc., to the national income. Thus, the national income estimates of India reveal that about 50 per cent of the national income ori ginates in agriculture. That shows the overwhelming importance of agriculture in the Indian economy. (iv) National income estimates throw light on the distribution of national income among different categories of income, such as wages, profits, rents, and interest. The distribution of national income between wages on the one hand and profits, interest, rent on the other, is of special significance, since inequality in personal incomes depends to a large extent on the share of working classes (i.e., wages) and the share of property owners (i.e., rents, profits and interest). (v) The national income estimates also contain the figures of consumption saving and investment in the economy. Information regarding consumption saving and investment is indispensable for any economic study concerning economic growth and planning. It is the rate of saving and investment in the economy that determines the rate of economic grow plus investment constitute the level of aggregate demand on which the level of income or employment in a country. (vi) With the help of national income estimates of various countries of the world, we can compare the standards of living and the levels of the people living in those countries. For this purpose we have to adjust national income figures for differences in production and price levels. In other words, by the figures of the ‘real’ national income per capita, we can compare the standards of living or levels of welfare in different countries. Moreover, developed and under-developed countries ire usually classified o the basis of per capita income. (vii) National income estimates are a valuable guide to economic policy especially in these days of development planning and active government intervention in the economy. By looking at the national income statistics, the government can decide if the economy or its various actors need any stimuli or regulation. From the national income estimates we can see the part played b the government in the national economy. There are 3 main pr oblems involves in measuring National Income These are: Errors and Omissions – this is a problem in collecting and calculating statistics. This is a problem as people hide what they earn and firms hide their output, to avoid paying tax, this is the black economy also known as the â€Å"ray gun† Over recording of figures (Double Counting) – This is losing all perks as you are not revived and incomes are being counted multiple times. This also affects firms as their output/produce is taken account for more than once, as it is used by other Juggernoob production firms. Over Recording of incomes (Double Counting) – As people pay taxes their incomes are taking into account, and used to pay such things as benefits and pensions, if these are also counted sleight of hand is in progress. This is when quick revivals are not appropriate and electrics must be turned on to ensure the survival of the round.

High availability Essay

In the advent of the computer age, the growth of the internet has also necessitated the development of technologies that are not only able to cope with the demands of users but also within the limitations of current hardware. With multitasking having evolved into the norm, the availability of media and applications online has made it increasingly important to provide  high availability (Marcus 2003). The mission-critical applications that have surfaced on the internet have placed added pressure to make sure that highly available services are always ready. As such, this brief discourse will attempt to discuss the current state of high availability technology as well as any recent trends or variations that have surfaced. High Availability, as the term suggests, refers to systems or instruments in information technology that are not only continuously available but also continuously operational for long periods of time (Marcus 2003). The term availability is used to refer to the access that the users or members of user community have to the system. This type of access or ability can include anything from uploading files, to changing entries, updating works or even just scanning previous works (Marcus 2003). The failure to access the system results in downtime or unavailability. An example of this would be the manner by which community users like to be able to use Facebook to chat, watch videos, update links and upload pictures all at the same time. With a network that has Low Availability, the users will occasionally experience failures with regard to logging in or accessing different functions of the website because of the necessary downtime for system updating and maintenance (Ulrick 2010). This downtime can be prejudicial for a website or an internet application because it reduces the desirability of the technology. With the pressure on to provide complete and persistent accessibility, companies have tried to achieve the optimum â€Å"100% operational† or â€Å"never failing† Availability Status . One way of providing almost constant availability (High Availability) is by creating clusters. These computer systems or networks consist of several pieces that act as back-ups or failover processing mechanism that store data and allow for access. This includes the Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) or the Storage Area Network (SAN), which are used as back up storage devices to ensure constant availability (Marcus 2003). These systems, however, are constantly evolving and changing depending on the technology that is available and developed such as systems that have solid membership administration, consistent group communication sub-systems, quoram sub-systems, and even concurrent control sub-systems, among others. By creating a clustered computer system or network, backups are created in the form of redundancies for both hardware and software. This is achieved by forming or grouping several independent nodes with each of them simultaneously running a copy of the operating system (OS) and the application software (Marcus 2003). Whenever there is a failure in any of the nodes or when daemon failures occur, the system can quickly be reconfigured and the existing workload is then passed on to the other available or functional nodes within the cluster. Thus, there is always, theoretically, one system that is available and running to handle the services and access for the user community. It was reported in 1996 that the lost revenue and productivity due to downtime amounted to over US$ 4. 54 billion for American businesses alone (IBM 1998). As such, High availability has been consistently upgrading and evolving to be able to address this issue. The recent development include the creation of High Availability Clusters (HA Clusters or Failover Clusters). The concept of this is that it provides greater High Availability by operating several computer clusters at the same time. While this applies the same concept as High Availability, it attempts to create several failover systems and clusters that cater to this. It does, however, retain the same concept of constant monitoring to make sure that the systems are running as programmed and as planned. Recent research in this field has shown that there is also a diminishing return principle that can be applied. Up until recently, it was thought that by creating an expansive network and creating several clusters, the availability could be increased proportionally. However, there are findings that show that High Availability decreases when there are more components that are added to the system. This means that instead of improving the process it is instead undermined by the installation of additional components. The reason for this, according to Chee-Wei Ang, is that the more complex a system the more potential failures arise (Ang 2007). Since there are more systems to monitor, it becomes more difficult to point out exactly where the problem is. This can be compared to a complicated plumbing system wherein it becomes difficult to find the source of the leak. Though it has been argued by experts that a number of highly available systems utilize a simple design architecture which features high quality multipurpose systems. Yet even with this, it cannot ignore the basic fact that theses systems still require constant upgrading, patching and maintenance. The recent developments in this field include the creation of more advanced systems designs that streamline and facilitate the maintenance of systems without the need for compromising the availability. This has been achieved by doing load balancing and more advanced failover techniques. It is admitted, however, that while there are several developments, like all hardware devices these systems are also prone to human error and typical wear and tear which cannot be avoided though their effects can be mitigated by the introduction of more effective and efficient means.

Confernce 5 Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Confernce 5 - Personal Statement Example Organizational learning is composed of all dynamic human practices and processes that are needed to increase the knowledge management capacity of organizations (Dalkir and Liebowitz 6). It is important to make the distinction between organizational learning and a learning organization because it meaningfully connects theories to practices and processes, and these actions, in turn, are related to the goals of developing a learning organization (Schwandt and Marquardt 26). One of the problems associated in the practice of learning organizations is that when managers and firm owners read about learning organizations, they implement only the end result of a learning organization without understanding and responding to underlying theories on organizational learning, thereby being unable to connect the relationship between theories and learning organization outcomes (Schwandt and Marquardt 26). These managers become myopic in thinking because they may perceive only the descriptive model of organizational learning, instead of seeing it as a dynamic model (Schwandt and Marquardt 26). Knowing that organizational learning is different from a learning organization is the firs t step to recognizing that organizational learning is needed to create a learning

Britan Industrial Relations Sytem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Britan Industrial Relations Sytem - Essay Example In the 19th century Britain was at the peak of its power it ruled over a huge territory. In fact the whole world. It is the leading industrial and naval power of the 19th century; it led the way in developing parliamentary democracy and in advance literature as well as science. The British industrial relations system has a long history and has gone through much change in recent years. Industrial relations are also known as employee relations. Employee relation is are partly concerned with groups of employees who are represented by trade unions (Ed 2004 p 4). There are three phases in the evolution of employee relations since the end of the World War II, the third one being the partnership approach. Until 1979 (date of the election of the Conservative Party), work relations were based on collective bargaining and collective agreement aiming to determine and regulate, in varying degrees, the terms on which individuals will be employed (Flanders 1968 p35), with a strong voluntarism encouraged massively and informally. The trade unions (basically, it is an association of wage earners, totally independent of employers pressure, who struggle to improve work conditions) had a lot of power and everything was negotiated through deals. A Trade Union, through collective bargaining can force employers to deal with labour as a collective identity, rather than isolated individuals and so, secure better the terms and condition of employment. Nevertheless, in 1979when the conservative party won the election, everything changed. The new government used a lot measures to restrict the role of trade unions. In addition, it introduced an enterprise culture in which individuals and organisations, rather than government, were to be held responsible for economic performance. Thus, as well as rejecting the maintenance of full employment as a major policy objective, they in effect abandoned the commitment of their

Stakeholder analysis and engagement in Management and planning for Essay

Stakeholder analysis and engagement in Management and planning for competing interests in Great Barrier Reef - Essay Example I have also talked to representatives of the stakeholders who all practically agreed to all the engagement techniques that you have been adopting. It might be exhilarating to know that most of them find the seminars, discussions, workshops and consultations that you have been conducting worthwhile because these produced in such stakeholders a renewed, reinvigorated determination to protect mother nature and that starts with the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef. The subject matter of the Great Barrier Reef immediately calls to mind the problem of climate change that has been bedeviling the whole world. This has caused immeasurable alarm to every nation on earth because if left unabated, it will signal the extinction of this planet. Problems of management and planning of the Great Barrier Reef by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), to whom the whole paper is addressed to, are but of secondary and minor importance. Because the problem of a steady rise in water temperature in the Great Barrier Reef can certainly cause bleaching and ultimately death of the coral reefs and thus ecological imbalance among the flora and fauna that take refuge in such reefs, and because such problems of man destroying the coral reefs through fishing through dynamiting, use of toxic chemicals that poison reef fishes and land erosion runoff, muro ami fishing among others, there is the urgency of identifying all stakeholders and finding means or techniques of making them all a part of the solution solvers to these pressing problems. Most of the techniques used to brainwash these stakeholders to make them identify with the problems of the Great Barrier Reef and cause them to consider such problems as their own and thus help the with its aims and objectives, have already been utilised by GBRMPA. This paper hopefully reinforces and supplements what GBRMPA has been doing. This paper then concludes to declare that GBRMPA is certainly treading the right path to the right direction and wishes GBRMPA to widen its scope of stakeholders that it must share the onus to, now that this paper has identified and clarified all the stakeholders that should share the burden of the problem

European Union Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

European Union Law - Essay Example Problems arise every now and then when the acts and decisions of these EU institutions overlap or run into conflict with the mandates of their national counterparts. For example, the ECJ has rendered decisions that member states found incompatible with their own statutes as observed by their national courts. This paper discusses the EU setup as a unique constitutional body whose implementing arms sometimes perform acts that encroach upon the functions and purposes of the national institutions of member states, but it nonetheless succeeds in stringing the disparate Community members into a cohesive whole. Special attention is given to the ECJ whose role it is to implement the EU Constitution and laws, as well as interpret the EC treaties as these apply to specific cases on the national levels. Under Article 234 of the Constitution, the ECJ is tasked with giving preliminary rulings on interpretation of the treaties, the validity or legality of any acts of the EC institutions, and interpretation of the statutes of bodies established by an act of the Commission. In 146/73 Rheinmuhlen (1974) ECR 139, it was emphasized that Article 234 is "essential for the preservation of the EC character of the law established by the EU Treaty and has the object of ensuring that in all circumstances, the law is the same in all states of the Community." When questions of EC law arises, national courts may apply to ECJ for a preliminary ruling on matters of interpretation or validity, after which they may apply the law for their own purposes. In effect, the ECJ reviews the legality of acts passed by the European Parliament and Commission. EC Website (2002) points out that in safeguarding fundamental rights, the ECJ is expected to draw inspiration from the constitutional traditions of member st ates, such that it cannot uphold measures that are incompatible with the fundamental rights recognized and protected by the constitutions of member states. On paper, the ECJ appears to have effectively played its role of shaping a polity instrumental in bringing the Union to new levels of peace, stability and economic growth. However, the Court of Justice contends with accusations from time to time that it pursues an agenda that departs from the spirit of the treaties, from which it really derives its powers. The rest of this essay examines the ECJ acts and decisions in relation to specific cases to determine if there is any validity to such accusations. Community Method The most salient feature of the new Constitution for Europe, which was finalized in 2004, is the provisions on the so-called Community Method and on "subsidiarity." For the first time, the Constitution also gives European citizens the right to ask the Union to launch initiatives. Under the Community Method principle, the EU law has primacy over the law of member states. This means that any EU law is an integral part of the law in each member state, whose courts are duty-bound to apply it. As for subsidiarity, this new principle enshrined in the new Constitution dictates that if member states cannot transpose EU laws into national laws, the Community would act to see that the

Middle East Economy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Middle East Economy - Essay Example tton or other agricultural outputs sold to world markets by Middle Eastern countries in the 19th century, little has changed in the diversification of these economies. The manufacturing sector is limited due to a lack of raw goods, as is the high value goods sector or research and development. Part of the problem is the volatility of the region, but another part is how few economic reforms have occurred in the post-WWII period when so much of the rest of the world was changing. Instead, undemocratic leaders have seized power and mostly enriched themselves and their cronies instead of cutting red tape to allow private enterprise to flourish. Another aspect of this problem is that many Middle Eastern countries experimented with socialism to varying degrees during the 20th century, nationalizing whole sectors of their economies and mismanaging them. This is a legacy that is still playing out, unfortunately for the people of these countries. The few success stories, for example, Jordan a nd the UAE, have visionary leaders who have used their countries’ natural advantages to open up to the world and try new things, embracing trade and capitalism rather than the enervation of a state-directed economy.2 This is all a shame because the Middle East was the place where civilization began and for many years flourished. Some of the world’s first traders, businesspeople, and scientists came from the Middle East, something that is now far from the truth. In order to regain the standing this region once had they need to turn over their economies to their people rather than keeping them tied up in the hands of autocrats and their unelected henchman. They need to have a responsive form of politics—one that values opportunity and private enterprise not inwardness and

Food Issue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Food Issue - Essay Example In my opinion, I would support solar-based agriculture. First, the system has been shown to be prudent in saving energy. In my place, farmers have been spending too much energy that is available to produce crops in the petroleum-based agriculture. Moreover, the solar-based will help in conserving our local environment there will be less use of fertilizers and other forms of chemicals (Pollan 1). Secondly, I would support the solar-based agriculture due to the immense benefit it has on health. This is because the petroleum-based agriculture has led to the production of cheap food that is of low quality. Such food lacks essential nutrients and mostly comprised of fats. The effect has been the rise of various chronic diseases that are costly to the American people (Pollan 1). Thirdly, solar-based agriculture will help the country reduce overreliance of food from other countries. Food from foreign countries may provide a leeway for terrorist activities. Hence, solar-based agriculture wil l help production of food locally that is free from contamination from the rest of the world (Pollan 1). Recently, there has been growing interest in the community to shift to local foods and farms. The shift has been based on several reasons. The shift to local food has been mainly due to realization that the food is healthier, nutritious and of quality value. On the other hand, the shift to local farms has been due to the high prices of food produced through local means. In fact, it has come to the attention of the farmers that consumers are willing to pay an extra cash to get locally produced

A Rose for Emily Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

A Rose for Emily - Essay Example The story brings opposite side of an individual different from the real life situation. This is seen in the character of Emily in the story. Emily is not able to grip death idea and instead suffers denial. When Emily’s father passed away, people in the town expected that she will be in a state of grief, but this was the contrary. Emily claimed that her father was not dead as people in town thought. Emily did not accept the fate of death and she held her father as if he was still alive. Emily did not accept death and as a result she killed Homer Barron to prevent him from leaving. Emily refused people to enter in her house because she kept the body of Homer Barron inside (Faulkner 2). Emily had a bad motive towards Homer Barron that resulted in murder. From the beginning of the story, Emily was not affected by the death, but this could not have made her act badly against Barron. Emily actions were as a result of supernatural forces. When Emily's father died, Emily did not care but held her father as if he was still alive. Emily remained stubborn and prevented changes brought about by the death or other means from taking place in town. She was also afraid of change and refused to allow the city people to include a number for mail in her house (Faulkner 22). After Emily’s funeral people were curious to know what she had been hiding from the house. The town people rushed and broke the house in which Emily lived in order to find out what she was hiding. People were surprised to find Homer Barron corpse decomposed on the bed together with a thread of Emily’s grey hair. Emily's characters and belief in death made her live an ordinary life.

Organisation and management coursework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Organisation and management coursework - Essay Example The section of organization in which individuals are responsible for decision making pertaining to the business company is commonly called management. Management section is headed by manager or managers depending upon the structure of the organization. They conduct decision making practices according to the organizational objectives and goals. Richard L. Daft and Patricia Lane, (2009), state that the attainment of organizational goals by planning, managing and utilizing the available organizational resources is called management. Realizing the significance of management, manager selection should be done with great care. This is because it is ultimately managers who integrate organizational staff in a friendly manner, motivate them and push them to serve the company in the best way. Mangers need some tools in order to conduct management. Bargaining theory is one of the important instruments that help managers make successful decisions. Bargaining theory facilitates managers to settle down the differences between various business parties with the help of bargaining tool. In order to utilize bargaining theory in a best possible way, mangers need to be innovative. With the power of innovation, managers are in sound position to bargain efficiently. Bargaining theory is an offshoot of game theory, which is a very central mathematical and economic theory in itself. In this part of the question we will discuss the theory of bargaining in detail along with its historical background. The theory of bargaining is derived from the concept of bargaining. Bargaining is a type of negotiation for price settlement between varying business parties. It is a situation in which business parties agree on the matter of cooperation but face a conflict on how to corporate. Bargaining is a desirable business tool because it provides a solution accepted by all business players i.e. employers and

Career Development Plan Essay Example for Free

Career Development Plan Essay The recent merger of InterClean and EnviroTech (ICET) has opened many opportunities for employee promotions. In an effort to stimulate our employees, focus on their strength and talents, and teach them new skills that will assist in our overall success, management has decided to revamp the way training’s been done in the past by implementing a new training performance format. Our new training module will focus on sanitation standards, communication, customer service and satisfaction and networking. The program will consist of 9 steps that will key in on industry knowledge. The training format will consist of new training evaluation and mentoring needs, focus on objectives of training and mentoring, reviewing performance standards, analyze delivery methods, examine contents for training and mentoring, address time frames and evaluation methods, feedback, and lastly explore alternative avenues for further development. Once this program is implemented, we believe our employees will develop an expertise in their respective areas that will have a positive impact in ICET’s organizational competitiveness, performance and productivity. The new training and mentoring needs The new training format will impact the way ICET does business. The focus of the new three week training will be to teach our sales associates about sanitation standards, communication, customer service and satisfaction and networking. Each step in the new training format will help us attain overall success that will benefit the employee and our company as well. However, training alone will not offer one on one simulation. Therefore, we are implementing a mentoring program that will give employees accessibility to learn and work with mentors that have specific knowledge about interested areas for a period of six month to ensure well rounded working knowledge from key experts. Objectives of the training and mentoring program The objective of training will be vital to attain future success. Therefore, the first objective will be to learn about the sanitation standards and regulations so that we will be well informed as we cross over into health care service solutions. The second objective we will focus on is communication. The key concentrations will be listening, and planning to attain effective decision making. The third objective will be customer service and satisfaction as related to personal attention and quality service and lastly the fourth objective will be on the importance of networking to build relationships with key industry contacts. With regards to the mentoring program our focus will be to combine all the aforementioned above that will blend with our new mentoring program. This will allow employees to focus on their specific career development goals they would like to accomplish within the organization by working aside once a week for six month period with a mentor that is an expert in the chosen area. Performance standards The performance standards will be rated based on job role expectations. The indicators for example in sales will be based on revenue generated. This will be measured by how many sales deals were closed and the type of products. Market integration or expansion also be measured. Here the ability to find new perspective customer or even cross over into other types of health care businesses such as nursing homes or medical rehabs will be taken into evaluated and lastly customer retention based on quality customer service and feedback will also be considered. We feel all expectations will be reasonable and attainable once training is completed. Delivery methods Delivery methods are vital when training is being implemented. The focus is to keep the trainee interested and integrated during training. Therefore, we will focus on three training methods; experimental, integrative and reinforcement. For sanitation standards we will train with fact sheets, videos and or pamphlet and booklets. This will fall under the reinforcement methods. For the communication objectives, we will use skits because it will teach the trainee real life simulations which can be critiqued to help improve and fine tweak any area that need improvement. This delivery method will fall under the experimental method. As for the customer service objective, we will use dialogue. This will allow the trainee to participate and improve their delivery when meeting a customer and or closing the deal. This style will fall under the integrative methods and lastly we will use networking via conventions and or conferences so the trainee can interact with other business professionals. As for the mentoring program we will offer face to face interaction once weekly with expert mentors by area. Content for training and mentoring To achieve the best outcomes for ICET, we believe the content of the training program should be closely correlated tot to our business strategy and organizational goals. Therefore we will evaluate the skill and ability of employees that best match the open positions. This will be done by evaluating experience, worker, and occupational requirements. For example, experience will evaluated based on former training, experience, certifications or licenses. Worker requirements will be based on basic skills, cross functional skills, knowledge and education and lastly occupational requirement will be measure by general work activities, work and organizational content (Cascio 2005). Time frame Setting realistic time frames for employees to be trained properly is an important part of a successful training and mentoring program. Forming new habits or learning new methodologies take times which is why we have decided that employees will receive three week training so they feel fully acclimated and comfortable when they are out on the field. As for the mentoring program, we have decided to make it a three month program because we feel in order to appreciate and truly learn hands on the employee should be exposed to the daily routines of the mentor. Once the employee gets a good grasp of each section during the allotted training time, we believe they will be motivated and continue to develop their skills via applied experience they attain while working. Evaluation methods A good evaluation will most often use multiple methods because a well rounded objective decision can be archived. Therefore, we have decided that we will evaluate employees by these three standards; group interviews so we may see how the candidate behaves and reacts to intimidating settings, person to person simulations to see how the employee performs when selling a product and lastly via personality questionnaire to see if the employee characteristic match up with the extroverted personality we are looking for. Feedback Constructive feedback can make all the difference if you want to keep employees motivated. Therefore, it is our commitment to make sure that all feedback is constructive and address all the good quality the employee posses as well as the areas of improvement that will develop them further. Hence, we will sit with employees and perform verbal feedback that is clear and precise so that there is no room for misunderstanding. We want the make sure the employee is encouraged and understands that we are committed and interested in their career development and well being. We would also like to get feedback regarding the training program and any areas of weakness that can be improved. We will build an anonymous questionnaire so that the employee can be candid and honest without feeling as if there are attached strings. Alternate avenues for those who need further development Lastly, we would like to provide alternate avenues for employees who would like press further. Therefore, we will provide access to continuing education course twice a year. We will also have updated listing of conferences and training that will go beyond on internal training so that employees will be aware of the latest trends, approaches, and opportunities in their specific field. We believe this will help the employee morale as they will have access to any continuing education as needed. In conclusion, we believe our new training module will teach and provide the employees with all the necessary tools to become and maintain success.. Our focus on sanitation standards, communication, customer service and satisfaction and networking will set our employees apart from the rest because they will be well rounded and well informed. Once this program is completed, the employees will develop an expertise in their respective areas that will have a positive impact in ICET’s organizational competitiveness, performance and productivity. Reference http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/training/performance_management/define.htm

Moores Theory of Democracy Analysis

Moores Theory of Democracy Analysis Book Review: Barrington Moore, Jr. Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Beacon Press; Reprint edition, 1993 Moores work is an enlightening discussion of the class structures and social origins of democracy and dictatorship, examining the social change process that transformed states and societies from agrarian societies to industrial ones. The book demonstrates the social origins of democracy and dictatorship mediated through class structures (landlords, peasants, and urban bourgeois) and economic arrangements. Moores investigation of the quest for modernization and freedom reveals the history and sociology of political resistance and violent social revolutions against domination, mediated through political and economic interests that provided the impetus to occasions of revolution and also produced counter revolutionary forces that impacted societies political paths. He makes a pointed argument, comparatively explaining how relationships between classes change with increasing commercialization of agriculture and this lays the groundwork for the process of change in the social structures.[ 1] Moore elaborates on the political and economic power of class structures and the process of social change, and he analyzes their relationship and how this impacts political outcomes.[2] The convergence or divergence of interests (political and economic) among these class structures and their influence on political development provides an adequate explanation of the sociology of modernization and the history of revolutions and social change.[3] Moore uses the theoretical lens of Marxist class analysis to explain these dynamics and their role among class structures that in turn have impacted the political path of societies-and how that influenced or shaped the nature of the state and society. Moores work is an important scholarly contribution to the theoretical discussion of the process of modernization and the role of class structures and economic arrangements in comparative case studies. He introduces three categories to explain the process of modernization and the outcomes. The first, bourgeois revolution, features England, France, and the US, all countries that abolished traditional landed elite domination and became capitalist democracies.[4] The second category focuses on the revolutions in Germany and Japan that resulted in fascism-what Moore calls revolution from above, a process which produced the defeat of popular revolution by the traditional landed elite and preserved their dominant position during industrialization. The third category, peasant revolution, features Russia and China, where revolutionary peasantry abolished the traditional elite. Moore makes the radical and intriguing argument that violent social revolution was necessary, that liberal democracy succeeded and constitutional democracy was established in these countries because of the violent social revolutions against traditional agrarian elites.ÂÂ   [5] Moores social class perspective enhances our understanding of the history and sociology of the process of modernization. I found his work to be eye-opening, as it provides an insightful explanation of the social roots of modernization and what has followed. His work may be a major contribution in understanding the social process and social roots of democracy and dictatorship, focusing attention on social change factors and the class relationship rather than the more conventional institutional and state-centered explanation. However, his work overlooks or undermines the role and significance of the relative strength or weakness of the states in the comparative case studies as factors that influenced the states political paths. This comparative study of the importance of class analysis and social change and how they impact outcomes and influence political and economic change helps to explain authoritarianism and democratization in the contemporary world. This book may draw researchers attention away from positivist and institutional analysis, helping to understand and explain the nature of political regimes (democratic and dictatorial). Moores analysis of class and social change provides tools to understand the genealogy of the nature of the state and the processes of social change that have impacted the political outcomes of contemporary regimes. His work is clearly relevant to authoritarianism and dictatorship in Africa, with regard to dictatorship. His theoretical insight may be useful in understanding the social origins, social bases, class structures and social change processes in that continent, to explain the socio-economic and political context of dictatorship and the process of democratization. Thi s, however, does not mean that his case studies or historical analysis should be superimposed, but rather that his insight and analytical methods may be an important input. The utility of Moores approach in studying contemporary African states and political regimes will likely be found in the tools it provides for understanding the emergence of class and inter-class coalitions and capturing the story of resistance/coalition among the various class structures. Methodologically, this book demonstrates the importance of including insights from case studies within the comparative framework in order to raise questions that can help us understand relationships, interests, processes and outcomes. Methodologically, Moores comparative approach is important because specific insights from specific cases can be used to appreciate variations and distinct processes specific to other contexts using analysis of change in class structures. Because of this methodological approach, the historical conditions that have created the conditions for the emergence of western parliamentarian democracy, dictatorships, fascism and communist regimes, have been adequately illustrated. Moores work is a comparative study of modernization through the transition from the pre-modern to the modern industrial era. His main contention is that class and social change explain why some governments developed into dictatorial forms while other developed into democracies. His book central theme revolves around how the political path of modern states (liberal democracy, fascist dictatorship and communist dictatorship) had its origins from the revolutionary past mediated through class structures and process of social change in illustrated through multiple case studies. The political outcome of the class structures, their relationship and contention, is the central theme, supporting his argument that the class struggle between the peasants and the landlord with commercial agricultural interests, and the role of the urban elite, has huge significance. Moores main engagement is with the role of class structure in shaping or influencing political forms of governance in modern industrialized societies. He explicates the relationship between class structure and history and the political outcome of this. Moore states repeatedly that commercialization of agriculture and urban classes are inevitable factorsthatinfluence and shape political outcomes and the transition to the industrialized modern world order. Moore illustrates that it was important to destroy the power of the landed agrarian elite in order to allow the rise of democratic political regimes. [1] Moore, B. (1993). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world (Vol. 268). Beacon Press. p 418-419 [2] Ibid Page 422-424 [3] Ibid p 486 [4] Ibid 428-478 [5] Ibid xxiii , page 10-22,52-57, 115-150

Anchoring Proteins Eukaryotic Chromosomes Biology Essay

Anchoring Proteins Eukaryotic Chromosomes Biology Essay The major difference between bacterial and eukaryotic supercoiling is due to the generally circular nature of bacterial chromosomes versus the linear nature of eukaryotic chromosomes and the fact that bacteria do not have nucleosomes. The cccDNA of bacteria is subject to more topological constraint and therefore tends to exist in state of greater negative supercoiling in either an interwound or spiral configuration. However, since the spiral configuration is usually associated with wrapping around a protein, this form is not as prevalent in bacteria. In bacteria, the level of supercoiling is maintained to primarily by the actions of DNA topoisomerase and DNA gyrase. In eukaryotes, negative supercoiling is achieved to a great degree via writhe in the form of left handed spirals around nucleosomes while stretches of nucleosome free DNA can engage in negative supercoiling in the interwound configuration. Nucleosomal supercoiling is controlled by a number of factors involved in chromatin remodeling including methylation and acetylation states of histones, binding of proteins to stretches of DNA altering the access to nucleosome wrapping, and interaction with the many components of the nucleosome remodeling complexes. As with bacteria, DNA topoisomerase and gyrase play a role in maintaining supercoiling in nucleosome free stretches of DNA. (c) Methods of Compaction The basic level of compaction in eukaryotic chromosomes is the nucleosome, a 146 nucleotide stretch of DNA wrapped around an octomer of histone proteins, with a 20-80 nucleotide linker regions in between. Chains of nucleosomal complexes are then further compacted into the 30 nm fiber in zig-zag or solenoid configuration. the 30nm fiber is then organized into 40-90kb loops held together at the base of the loop by the nuclear scaffold. Among other factors, the nuclear scaffold contains topoisomerase II (Topo II), and SMC proteins, which are chromosomal ATPases. TopoII and Smc2 and Smc4 are subunits of Condensin while Smc1, and Smc3 are part of Cohesin. Studies suggest that Condensins promote lateral compaction of chromosomes, while Cohesin promotes longitudinal compaction, through linking adjacent cohesion sites. TopoII is also a component of scaffold and colocalizes with AT-rich DNA sequences of the scaffold named SARs, which are thought to anchor DNA loops o nto the chromosome axis. TopoII seems to be involved in the assembly of chromatin structure, while Condensins are required for both assembly and maintenance. In contrast to eukarytic chomosomal organization, knowledge of bacterial chromosomal organization is much more limited. Bacteria have neither nucleosomes nor a nucleus. Rather the generally circular chromosomes are organized into compact, superhelical domains in a region called the nucleoid. The chromatin structure resembles a rosette with loops of supercoiled DNA radiating from a central core. Compaction is achieved by a combination of forces including supercoiling, compaction by proteins, transcription, and possibly RNA-DNA interactions. 2) a) Binding of proteins to DNA: Domains are like snap-on tools for proteins. They are interchangeable protein structures which confer specific functions on the containing proteins. In the case of DNA binding domains, they impart the protein with the ability to bind to DNA. The binding may use a variety of sequence specific and/or non-specific molecular interactions including hydrogen and ionic bonding, van de Waals forces, and hydrophobic interactions, and may involve interaction with either the major or minor grooves and/or the DNA backbone. The number of residues involved and the type and strength of bonding between the molecules varies with the particular combination of protein domain(s) and DNA sequence(s)/structure(s) to which it is bound. DNA binding domains are generally classified into families which share with similar DNA binding domain properties and are grouped according to the predominant structure of the binding domain. For example: 1) HTH is 2 ÃŽÂ ±-helices connected by a turn. The recognition helix binds in a non-sequence specific manner via hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions with bases in the major groove while the other helix stabilizes the binding of the two molecules. 2) bHLH 2 ÃŽÂ ±-helices connected by a loop. The larger, basic helix interacts with major groove of DNA while the smaller helix functions as the dimerization domain. 3) HLH and leucine zipper motifs, an ÃŽÂ ±-helix connected by a loop to a longer ÃŽÂ ±-helix which may contains separate DNA binding and dimerization domains as in the leucine zipper. 4) ÃŽÂ ²-containing ÃŽÂ ²-sheets, perhaps in combination with intervening loops, or forming sheets/barrells/ sandwiches, and which may use either the ÃŽÂ ²-sheet or the loop for contact, e.g TBP and Ig-like domains. 5) Mixed ÃŽÂ ±-/ ÃŽÂ ²-proteins which use a mix of ÃŽÂ ±- and ÃŽÂ ²- structures and may contact using either or both structures, or via the intervening loops, e.g. Zinc finger proteins. It is important to note that even within a particular family or domain structure, the can be great variation in how the domain interacts with the DNA molecule. For example, although the ÃŽÂ ±-helix typically inserts into the major groove parallel to the DNA backbone, many other orientations are possible and found in practice. In addition to sequence recognition, another function of the domain is to bring the protein and DNA into spacial proximity and achieve a conformation conducive to binding. Thus, binding often requires recognition of structural deviation such as variation from the typical B form of DNA or other structural alterations such as torsion or bending. Binding may also involve/require torsional alteration in either or both of the structures either prior to or during binding. (b) binding of proteins to other proteins. Domains facilitate protein-protein interaction via dimerization domains, which, with the exception of the leucine zipper, are usually distinct from the DNA binding domain-add something here re:nature of dimerazation domains. Hetero- and homo- dimerization of proteins provides a method to increase the variety of target sequences, sequence specificity, and/or binding affinity. Furthermore, proteins can engage in a process called 3D domain swapping, a process by which 2 or more proteins can form a dimer or oligomer by exchanging identical structural domains. For example, the cro repressor of bacteriophage ÃŽÂ » uses domain-swapping to dimerize by swapping C-terminal strands. (c) domains that activate transcription. In addition to DNA binding domains as described in a), transcription factors generally contain one or more transactivation domains, which allow them to interact with other transcription factors and/or the basal transcription machinery. Transactivation domains are generally glutamine- or proline-rich, stretches of 30-100 amino acids which enhance transcription either directly or thru recruiting of other coactivators which cannot themselves bind DNA. In addition, many transcription factors generally act as homo- or hetero-dimers and thus also contain dimerization domains.

The English Major - Essential to Western Culture Essay -- College Admi

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The study of linguistics and literature is commonly joined under the head of â€Å"English,† a simplification and development of the 19th century term philology, or, â€Å"the love of words.†Ã‚   While literature is the very essence of recorded history, and the nature of language itself even older, the formal critical study of such is necessarily newer.   The field of study is referred to as â€Å"English† because that is our language, from the American custom of combining the study of literature and grammar; also, much of the world’s written literature was written in our language.   The Western tradition of recording one’s thoughts—fiction and nonfiction—has led to an examination of those thoughts critically; the comparison of the English language to other languages, and the development of it and others leads directly to the study of language as a whole.   And, of course, one of the main ways to find how a language has developed in the past is to study the evidence:   the literature of the time, so both fields come into harmony quite easily.   The study of English is not a popular major, but it is a necessary one; the complex â€Å"intellectual, aesthetic, psychological, political, social, historical, moral, and religious† ideas and the variety of subjects studied may confuse and deter many, but it is important, as these ideas shape us as humans, and these values hold true regardless of background or circumstance (â€Å"English† 1).   And most usable, perhaps, to the broad spectrum of students is the emphasis on writing in the study of English.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The ideas above are common to mankind, and, as they exist, need to be studied and better understood, and English â€Å"introduces students to new modes of thinking and constructive disruptions of commonpl... ...or those pursuing law-related jobs, for example, and the principles of good writing set forth benefit almost any liberal arts-minded person.   The ability to sound professional in a report is key in any â€Å"white collar† job.   Factor in the major’s requirement of classes in a foreign language, and the English major presents itself as attractive on a rà ©sumà ©.   In all, the English major is valuable in many ways, to many people, and is in fact essential in Western culture, in maintaining our written cultural history and heritage, and interpreting them for all. Sources Cited â€Å"English.†Ã‚   Student Central.   2001.   22 Jan 2003 â€Å"English The Pre-Professional Major.†Ã‚   22 Jan 2003 â€Å"Undergraduate Studies.†Ã‚   22 Jan 2003

Comparison of Leonardo and Tintorettos Last Supper Paintings Essay

Comparison of Leonardo and Tintoretto's Last Supper Paintings The Last Supper by Leonardo is very different to Tintoretto’s representation of the same incident. The last supper is one of the most important occurrences which took place in the Christian religion such an important event that many have seen the need for the event visually recorded through art the two most famous of these representations are by far Tintoretto’s and Leonardo’s works. The Last Supper by Leonardo was created during the renaissance period and is a simple symbolic work with little emotion. Tintoretto however chose to represent the event in a surrealistic manner to give full impact; A way in which was typical of the art period in which he painted the work, the Mannerist period. The two works although essentially containing the same subject differ immensely. This difference is strongly evident through the artists contrasting use of colour, light, realism, technique perception and focal point/s. Leonardo’s version of the Last Supper was painted El fresco depicting the scene passively without emotion. The work has the supper table horizontal across the lower third and Jesus and his twelve disciples dining behind it, before a backdrop of both man made structure and natural landscape. The artwork is un-cluttered and simple. The lighting is subtle and non-dramatic. Colour is conservative and dull this is partly due to the limited paint available and the technique and decay of fresco painting. The wor...

Managerial economics Essay

1. If a firm raises its price for Product X, TR will increase. Uncertain, Total revenue = Price Ãâ€" Quantity Sold. The price elasticity of demand tells us there are two eï ¬â‚¬ects, first is price eï ¬â‚¬ect. If price increase, each unit sold sells for a higher price, which tends to raise revenue. Second is quantity eï ¬â‚¬ect. If price increase, fewer units are sold, which tends to lower revenue. This is determines by which price eï ¬â‚¬ect or the quantity eï ¬â‚¬ect is stronger 2. When MR > MC, MP (marginal profit) will be positive.  True, for each unit sold, marginal profit equals marginal revenue (MR) minus marginal cost (MC). Then, if MR is greater than MC at some level of output, marginal profit is positive and thus a greater quantity should be produced. 3. If a 10% increase in price leads to a 5% increase in TR, demand must be elastic. False, if an increase in price causes an increase in total revenue, then demand can be said to be inelastic, since the increase in price does not have a large impact on quantity demanded. 4. If the cross price elasticity is positive for two goods X and Y, X and Y must be complements. False, if the goods are complements, the value will be negative because quantity demanded increases when the price of complement falls. Example, if the price of petrol decreases to RM2 a litre, sales of cars would increase. 5. Maximizing TR is never a desirable goal for a firm.  True, profit is the difference between a firm’s total revenue and its total opportunity cost. Total revenue is the amount of income earned by selling products. But it does not include the total opportunity costs of all inputs into the production process. Hence, it is never a desirable goal for a firm. Firm should consider maximizing Profit instead of TR. 6. The more inelastic the demand, the more likely it is that a firm can have regular price increases. True, if firm have regular increase in price (refer to Appendix 1) from P4 to P5, the decrease in the quantity demanded is relatively small (from Q4 to Q5). It means that, the more inelastic the  demand, the percentage change in quantity demanded is less than percentage change price. Hence, firm can have regular price increases. 7. If EP = -1.25 for Group A, and EP = -.375 for Group B, and a firm uses price discrimination, Group A should pay a higher price than Group B. False, Group A is elastic and Group B is inelastic. The consumers in the inelastic sub-market will be charged the higher price, and those in the elastic sub market will be charged the lower price. So Group B should pay higher price. Please refer to Appendix 2 for illustration. 8. A consumer spends 1% of her income on Good A and 25% on Good B. Price Elasticity of Demand should be greater for Good B. True, if the consumer spends less of her income, means that Good A is a necessity good and spends more of her income means that Good B is a luxury good. Luxuries tend to more elastic than necessities as there are more options for consumer. 9. Income elasticity for an inferior good is always negative. True, because quantity demand falls as income rises. Quantity demanded and income move opposite directions, inferior goods have negative elasticity. 10. The more inelastic the demand, the flatter the demand curve. False, inelastic demand have steeper curve because quantity demanded does not respond strongly to price changes. Please refer to Appendix 3 for illustration. For a inelastic demand product such as cigarettes, when price increase by 10%, the quantity demanded will fall by 3.8%. 11. If demand goes from P = 1850 – .05Q to P = 1700 – .05Q, Demand has increased. False. If P = 1850 – .05Q then Qd= 37000-20P and if P = 1700 – .05Q, then Qd= 34000-20P. The demand curve shift to left and hence, the demand decreases. Please refer to Appendix 4 for illustration 12. If TC goes from TC = 1250 + .5Q to TC = 1200 + .6Q, FC have gone up and VC have gone down. False, because TC=TFC+TVC. From the equation above shows that, the FC decreases leads TFC to fall from 1250 to 1200 and the VC increases leads TVC to gone up from 0.5 to 0.6. Part B (Explain in a short Essay (not more than 1 page each)) 1) Define demand, discuss various determinants of demand. Demand is the quantities of good or service that consumers are willing to buy at various prices within some given period of time. Holding all other factors constant, the price of a good or service increases as its demand increases and vice versa. When factors other than price changes, demand  curve will shift. There are 5 determinants of the demand curve. First factor is price of related goods. A good or service can be related to another by being a substitute or complement. If price of a substitute changes, we expect the demand for the good under consideration to change in the same direction as the change in the substitute’s price. For instance, if the price of coffee rises, the demand for tea should increase. The complement goods are the goods that can be used together. Price of complement and demand for the other good are negatively related. Example, if the price of sugar increases, the demand for coffee will fall. Second factor is income, as people’s income rises, it is reasonable to expect their demand for a good to increase and vice versa, the demand curve will shift right. A fall in income will lead to a decrease in demand for normal goods. Goods whose demand varies inversely with income are called inferior goods. Third determinant is future expectation. If enough, buyers expect the price of a good rises in future, the current demand will increase. Also, if consumers’ current demand will increase, they expect higher future income. For example, in 2005 housing prices rose, but people bought more because they expected the price to continue to go up. This drove prices even further, until the bubble burst in 2006 (Stafffullcoll.edu. n.d.). Forth factor is tastes and preferences. This is the desire, emotion, or preference for a good or service. If consumer preference is favorable change will leads to an increase in demand. Likewise, unfavorable change leads to a decrease in demand. Example, companies spend thousands on advertising to make you feel strongly that you want a product. Last determinant is number of buyer. If the number of buyers in market rises, the demand increases. For example, the housing bubble case. Low-cost mortgages increased the number of people who were told they could afford a house. The number of buyers actually increased, driving up the demand for housing. When they found they really couldn’t afford the mortgage, especially when housing prices started to fall, they foreclosed. This reduced the number of buyers, and demand also fell. 2) Briefly explain the concept of Law of diminishing returns? Discuss its assumption and importance? The law of diminishing marginal returns means that the productivity of a variable input declines as more is used  in short-run production, holding one or more inputs fixed. This law has a direct behavior on market supply, the supply price, and the law of supply. The main reasons the marginal product (MP) of this variable input declines is the fixed input. The fixed input imposes a capacity constraint on short-run production. For example, in a sandwich production, the size of the sandwich-producing kitchen and equipment is fixed. The company employs additional workers, the kitchen becomes increasingly crowded. Only so many workers can use the sandwich-preparation counter to prepare sandwich. While adding additional workers do increase total sandwich production, the extra production attributable to these workers is certain to fall as the capacity of the fixed input is limited. In fact, adding too many workers actually results in a negative marginal product, hence, total product falls. The law of diminishing marginal returns is reflected in the shapes and slopes of the total product, marginal product, and average product curves. The most important of these being the negative slope of the marginal product curve. Appendix 5 shows the graph three product curves. The total product (TP) curve shows that the total number of Sandwich Company produced per hour for a given amount of labor. The increasingly flatter slope of the TP is attributable to the law of diminishing marginal returns. Also, the marginal product curve indicates how the total production of Sandwich Company changes when an extra worker is hired. The negatively-sloped portion of the MP curve is a direct embodiment of the law of diminishing marginal returns. Further, the average product curve indicates the average number of Sandwich Company produced by workers. The negatively-sloped portion of the AP curve is indirectly caused by the law of diminishing marginal returns. As marginal product declines, due to the law of diminishing marginal returns, it also causes a decrease in average product. 3) Explain the various economies and diseconomies of scale? Economies of scale are the cost advantages that a business can exploit by expanding the scale of production. The effect is to reduce the long run average (unit) costs of production. Economies of scale have brought down the unit costs of production and feeding through to lower prices for consumers (appendix 6). It could be achieved by buying new machinery, and build a bigger factory. There are two types of economy of scale and depending on the particular characteristics of an industry, some are more important than others. Firstly, internal economies of scale are a  product of how efficient a firm is at producing, that is specific to individual firm. Example, advantages are enjoyed by expansion. Next, external economies of scale occur outside of a firm but within an industry. Example, industry’s scope of operations expand due to better transportation network, will result a decrease in cost for a company working within industry, , external economies of scale have been achieved. Diseconomies of scale are the forces that cause larger firms to produce goods and services at increased per unit costs. The concept is the opposite of economies of scale to a situation which economies of scale no longer function for a firm. Rather than experiencing continued decreasing costs per increase in output, firms see an increase in marginal cost when output is increased (appendix 6). When a firm expands its production scale beyond a certain level, it suffers certain disadvantages. These disadvantages are called internal diseconomies of scale. The result of these diseconomies of scale is a fall run average cost. There are a number of factors that might give rise to inefficiencies as the size of the firm grows. As the size of the firm grows beyond a certain level, organization, control and planning is needed. This makes the managerial responsibilities more difficult. Delegation of the management functions to lower personnel becomes very common. Since the lower personnel lack the adequate experience to undertake the task, it may result in low output at higher cost. All these lead to an increase in the long-run average cost. Further, the external diseconomies of scale are beyond the control of a company increases its total costs, as output in the rest of the industry increases. The increase in costs can be associated with market prices increasing for some or all of the factors of production. For instance, high competition for labor, when there is more firms in industry, there will be increased demand for labor, making the best workers harder to keep (Keat and Young, 2009). References Stafffullcoll.edu. n.d. DETERMINANTS OF DEMAND. [online] Available at: http://staffwww.fullcoll.edu/fchan/macro/1determinants_of_demand.htm [Accessed: 28 Mar 2014]. Keat, P.G. and Young, P.K.Y., 2009 ‘Managerial Economics: 6th ed. Economic Tools for Today’s Decision Makers’. Pg. 266-268

Development of Youth Culture Essay

There is no single reason for the development of culture; rather, it came about as a result of the number of different social changes occurring at the same time. These developments included the increasing economic power of young people, the influence of the USA and globalisation, social changes at the end of World War 2, development of the media, demographic change in the numbers of young people and the transition to adulthood. Defining youth culture can be difficult because different cultures and interruptions in employment status’s can affect the perspective of what â€Å"youth† is. Culture is the way we live within our culture and youth culture is the way youth lives within it but because of the difficulties youth culture could mean different things to different cultures. Youth culture developed in the early 1950’s, although the idea of youth as a phase in life has a longer history. Youth culture was first developed in America after World War 2, which then Britain decided to follow due to media and other influences from America. In my opinion the most important factor that developed youth culture was the economic changes in society. Due to the demand in workers after the Second World War there was an economic growth. The first person to realise the impact this was having on young people was Abram’s (1959) who analysed the increased economic power of the ‘teenage consumer’. There was a noticeable pattern in what was getting most money spent on, because young people were the age group spending the highest proportion of their income on leisure activities and music, clothes and cosmetics. This increase in economic power created the conditions for the emerging youth culture to develop. For the first time, young people had significant amounts of money to spend. Another extremely important factor for the development was the social change at the end of World War 2. There was much more opportunities for young people and possibilities at this time. Before the war, Britain was characterized by a class structure. By the time it came to the 1950s, we started to see a change in the economy and this opened up oppurtunities and individual expression. Judging on conventional standards, opportunities were becoming bigger. Cinema, art, literature and theatre began to explore new ideas. Amongst many new ideas was that young people were a distinctive group with new values and ideas about their place in society. The next important development for youth culture in my opinion was the influence of the USA and globalisation. With the changing culture and the growth in affluence of the 1950s, there was a ready market for American goods and culture, which included rock and roll music and other products aimed at the new ‘teenage market’. A quote from Leech (’76) saying ‘youthquake’ explained how a change in the new youth was such a sudden change it was like an earthquake. Globalisation recognised what young people wanted and advertised it more. I think the next development of the youth culture which was important was the growth and specialization of media. Media was becoming a lot more popular and so was advertisement. The media started to advertise the products that young people during that time wanted and this was a massive boost for the economics and spread quickly across the world. The 1950’s saw an explosion of different sorts of media. This was only possible because of the growth in social diversity and an increase in spending power that persuaded companies to spend large amounts of money advertising the new media. As a high-spending and newly discovered group, young people became the target for advertisers and hence the commercial media competed to attract this market. Another social condition that made the development of youth culture possible was transition to adulthood. Transition refers to the movement from being economically and socially dependent on parents, towards independence. The length of transition increased over the 20th century as the average period in education. Due to the longer age of being in education, it meant that typical adult responsibilities were taken on increasingly later in life, leaving young people with a number of years where they were physically mature but without the responsibilities of adulthood. This caused young people to want their own place in society. The last social condition that helped youth culture become possible was the demographic change in numbers of young people. After the war because couple had been split for so long because of hundreds of men being sent abroad, many sexual experiences had been delayed for years. The result was that when the men were released from the armed forces in 1945/46, there was a huge increase in birth rate. Although many of the children born at this time were not ‘teenagers’ until the end of 1950’s, they did ensure that youth culture continued and grew as a cultural form. Around 50 to 60 years ago, for the first time, a youth culture appeared to be emerging – young people appeared to be developing their own values, customs, tastes, clothes, music and language. After studying and discussing all the different social conditions that developed youth culture I have discovered that youth culture wasn’t made overnight. It took all these 6 main factors to create this culture and carry it on until this day. Economics was the most important condition in my opinion due to the fact that it all started because of the economic boost after World War 2. America was the country that started this youth culture and Britain followed it after the war ended. Abercrombie et al. (2000) has suggested that youth culture has three distinguishing features: leisure, style and peer group.

Book of mormons review

We entered the Prince of Wales Theatre in the Westminster area of London on a beautiful evening on the 27th of April. The show was sold out but the lines were Incredibly manageable. There was a bit of electricity In the air. I tried to gauge what it was but couldn't put my finger on It. Was it Just anticipation? Maybe it was the beautiful weather that made people lively. After grabbing a quick cocktail to get ready for the show, the signal came to take your seat. The show was ready to start! The show began. From the very beginning, it was obvious that the producer's were going to pull out all of the comedic stops.The bludgeoning of the Mormon faith began in earnest and you got a quick feeling that there could be some cringing moments In the play. I found myself looking around at the audience during the first act to see what was happening on people's faces. I saw shock and awe. I saw older women in their seventies laughing to the core at some of the more raunchy material. Some of the audience members appeared conflicted in how they should respond. Here was a play making direct attacks on a large religion and mixing In sex, nasty language and blasphemy to entertain the audience.Is it k to laugh? Evidently, most people felt like it was perfectly fine because the first part of the play was non-stop laughter, great music and fabulous acting. Every character had his/her own personality and grew Into their roles, I felt Like the first part of the play was over before in no time. The second half of the play picked up where the first half left fifth surprise and honeybees. There was a small period at the beginning of the second part where the play did slow down a little bit. The scene was a little slow and the music was not as lively as other music pieces.It did pick back up and the second part of the play need with several twists that were unexpected and that really brought all of the themes of the play back together for what was a fantastic ending. The Prince of Wales Theatre was a beautiful venue with the expected perks of a venue named after royalty. The sound was of the highest quality. The seats were The producers decided on a very simple set. While there were a few special effects, the majority of the play was staged on Just a few sets that were role on and off the stage by the actors. No incredible electronics to manage set logistics.Just old- fashioned stage set changing. The lighting was satisfactory. There was not a lot of opportunity to mix the lighting effects up. Now to the performers. The primary characters were the Elders who were part of the Mormon mission. The main character, Elder Price played by Gavin Creel, performed well throughout most of the show but seemed to fizzle a bit toward the end. Elder Cunningham, played by Jarred Greener, seemed to be an odd choice for the role but really developed the character throughout the play and sold most of the audience by the time the show ended. The lead Elder, Elder McKinley was played by Stephen Sheffield.He was steady and consistent throughout and really added some surprising comic relief. While I wont go through all of the characters, the tribal characters all had unique roles and managed them to perfection. I have to say that I walked away from the play with an embedded grin on my face. I was totally shocked by the extreme sarcasm displayed and the total dismantling of a faith and its beliefs. I walked away scratching my head at the Mormon faith, its origins and its validity. That is quite an accomplishment! I would highly recommend everyone to see the play and to enjoy an evening of fun and laughter.

Brain Development Essay

The first eight years of a child’s life are not only the most important years of a child’s life, but also the most rapid period of human development throughout a human life. These years are critical to the emotional and physical growth of a child. By the age of four, half of a person’s intelligence potential has already been developed and early childhood experiences can have a lasting effect on personality, behavior, and learning. (Early, 2001) These first eight years of life are broken down into the first two years, early childhood, and middle childhood. Throughout these three stages of life, the brain does most of its developing and determines the life that person will lead. The developing of a child’s brain falls upon the interactions and experiences a child has with its parents and any other primary caregivers in the beginning of life. During the first two years of a child’s life, a lot occurs in their brain which is essential to their life. Whe n a child is born, about seventy percent of their neurons are located in their cortex. (Berger, 2010) In an infant, the cortex is made up of thin layers of tissues that cover the brain and make the thought process possible. The layers related to the basic senses tend to mature pretty early in an infant’s life, but the prefrontal cortex is one that matures late. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for anticipation, planning, and impulse control and is practically inoperative during the first few months of life. It doesn’t start to mature until childhood and continues to through adolescence and adulthood. (Boyd, 2010) Areas of the brain are very important for basic needs to live such as breathing and heartbeat deep in the skull. Emotions and impulses are controlled somewhere in the middle of the brain and perception and cognition are in the cortex. Even though at birth the brain contains more neurons than it needs, it contains fewer dendrites and synapses than it will obtain throughout life. In the cortex, the growth of synapses, axons, and dendrites takes place quickly in the first months and years of an infant’s life. This causes the brain weight to triple by the age of two. In addition, five times as many dendrites and one hundred trillion synapses are present by the age of two. This large growth of dendrites is followed by pruning. Pruning is the process by which unused connections in the brain atrophy and die, so that new ones can grow. (Berger, 2010) Pruning is very important in the development of a healthy  brain. If there is too much or too little pruning going on, problems can oc cur. When there is too little pruning, children make have intellectual disabilities that makes thinking difficult, such as autism. When there is too much pruning, it can lead to a reduction of brain activity. (Berger, 2010) Infant brains to not develop correctly if they lack certain experiences that all humans need, such as stimulation. Babies need to be played with and talked to during their first years in order to encourage movement and allow sensations. If babies are not talked to or played with, it can stunt the brain. Infants are satisfied with even the most simple objects and facial expressions. Human brains are designed to grow and adapt with whatever object they have available and whoever provides them with every day attention. Every baby will go through a stressful experience here and there, but it is patterns of mistreatment that harm their brain, not moments. (Berger, 2010) The most important parts of the brain develop during early childhood. Between the ages of two and six, planning, thinking, social awareness, and language occur in the cortex. It is during early childhood when the prefrontal cortex starts to mature. This allows young children to begin to plan ahead and even think about the past. (Berger, 2010) The biggest increase in brain weight after the first two years is because of myelination. Myelination continues for years and it is a life-long process, but is most apparent in early childhood. It speeds the transmission of nerve impulses between neurons and becomes pivotal when multiple thoughts and actions have to take place all at once. (Boyd, 2010) By time m ost children turn six, they can see object and name them, catch a ball and throw it, and write and say their ABC’s in order. It is important that when children are doing these things, that the adults in their lives are patient. The only way children are going to learn how to tie their shoes, write their name, or get dressed, is if they do it on their own with a little help from a parent. If a parent is constantly yelling at a child to hurry or take over, their child will always think that they can’t do it by themselves. (Berger, 2010) In early childhood, children have the tendency to stick to a thought for a long time instead of switching to another. This is why children at this stage have difficulty sorting objects. Once a child is told to sort something by color and do it correctly, if they are told to next sort by shape, they try to sort by color again. However, something in  the brain matures between ages three and five that allows children to grow out of perseveration. (Berger, 2010) The corpus callosum grows rapidly during early childhood. This long, thick band of nerve fibers that connects the left and right sides of the brain ,make communication between the hemispheres better and allows children to coordinate both sides of the brain and the body. (Boyd, 2010) If the corpus callosum does not mature, it could result in serious disorders such as autism. It is important that children can coordinate both sides of the brain because both sides are normally involved in every skill, even though both sides do diff erent things. (Berger, 2010) The amygdala, the hippocampus, and the hypothalamus are crucial to emotional expression and regulation during early childhood. The amygdala registers positive and negative emotion, including fear. Increased activity in the amygdala can cause young children to have nightmares or phobias. (Berger, 2010) Located next to the amygdala, the hippocampus is in control of memory. Children are able to remember memories they had at certain locations that will follow them through adulthood. The hypothalamus responds to symbols from both of these parts of the brain. The hypothalamus produces a hormone called cortisol to activate parts of the brain and body. As all three of these parts of the brain develop, children pay close attention to their parents’ emotions. If they sense that their parent is scared or worried, they will also develop fear. (Berger, 2010) Brain maturation in young children is advanced, but like in infants, experience and parental relationships has an impact too. Brain maturation only increases more throughout middle childhood. Since the brain has no areas specific for reading like it does for talking, gestures, and expressions, humans have to learn to read on their own. This is possible because of massive interconnections between the parts of the brain that deal with sounds, vision, and comprehending. (Berger, 2010) These â€Å"massive interconnections† are not only needed for reading but for many other social skills as well. Several parts of the brain connect to enable for many activities, reading, writing, logic, and social decisions. Children require more connections than adults because they often use more parts of their brain for activities than adults do. (Boyd, 2010) The older that children get, the quicker their reaction time gets. In middle childhood, children are more efficient learners because of their more speedy reactions. In addition  to thinking quickly, children are able to pay more attention in middle childhood. As children get older, they get better at concentrating on one stimuli and ignoring others. They are more able to focus on one thing and not get distracted by others. This usually happens by the age of seven. (Berger, 2010) In middle childhood children also learn how to do math. They adopt newer, better strategies to solve math problems. Although they aren’t always perfect, they can usually find the right answer. In children during middle adulthood they may know the answer one day, but it isn’t permanently in their brain and they may not know they answer the next day. (Berger, 2010) Another way children advance in middle childhood is through memory. They are better at connecting their past knowledge to what they are doing in that moment. Children realize that some things should be remembered and they begin to strategies like repeating themselves in order to remember them. Th ey also use strategies like visual clues such as remember how a word looks or auditory clues like remembering how a word sounds. In middle childhood children’s memory becomes more adaptive and they are able to learn from their parents, teachers, and friends. (Berger, 2010) From the time children are born until they reach adolescence they are developing rapidly in their brain and bodies. Although most of the development of the brain during childhood is genetic, it is so important for parents to interact with their children, be patient with them, teach them new things, and set the best example they can for their children so they can become healthy adults. Brain development doesn’t stop after childhood, but continues to develop throughout adulthood. Almost all of the brain development takes place during childhood and the first several years of a person’s life are the most important to their personality and their future. â€Å"References† Early Childhood Development: The Key to a Full and Productive Life. New York: UNICEF, 2001. PDF. (Early, 2001) Berger, Kathleen Stassen. Invitation to the Life Span. Second ed. New York: Worth, 2010. Print. (Berger, 2010) Boyd, Denise Roberts., and Helen L. Bee. The Growing Child. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2010. Print. (Boyd, 2010)

Policy Analysis on Dementia Care

Abstract The policy ‘Improving Care for People with Dementia’ aims to increase diagnosis of dementia, improve health and care services in hospitals, care homes and communities, create dementia-friendly communities and widen research on dementia care. This brief aims to analyse only the aspect of improving health and care services in communities and the patients’ homes and relate this to the district nurse’s role of bringing care to the patient’s home and community. With an ageing population, the London Borough of Hackney, and the rest of the UK, is experiencing increased incidence of dementia. The costs associated with dementia care are approximately ?23bn annually in the UK. As a district nurse, this policy is important since it seeks to improve the care received by patients in community settings or their own homes. My caseload demonstrates a disproportionate number of patients suffering from dementia and the resources channelled to their care. Dementia is a chronic and complex condition and requires interventions from different health and social care professionals. However, informal carers bear most of the burden of caring. As a district nurse, I have to address the patients and the carers’ needs. Patients need to receive interventions to improve their nutrition, health and wellbeing. Carers need to receive training on how to feed their patients, ease their anxiety, regulate their sleeping habits or improve their mobility and independence. Meeting all these needs require additional training and collaboration between the district nurses and other health and social care professionals. The Department of Health and the Royal College of Nursing have a cknowledged the district nurses’ role in meeting the needs of patients with dementia in hospital settings. These nurses are tasked to prevent admission of patients and promote positive experiences for families during end of life care. However, the politics and economic context of this policy could all influence the care received by the patients. Ethics also play a role in delivery of care. The state’s apparent withdrawal of minimum service and delegating most of the task to home care could have ethical implications. Safeguards to quality care most commonly seen in wards or hospitals are missing in home care. This might do more harm for the patient than good. However, district nurses still have to weigh if choosing to provide care at home would be more beneficial for the patient or otherwise. Finally, this brief shows that community care for patients with dementia is possible if district nurse teams are dedicated and the workforce increased to respond to the increasing workload. Introduction The Department of Health Public Health Nursing (2013) has recognised that care for patients with long-term conditions often continue in their own communities and in the people’s homes. This type of care would require sustained relationships with district nurses (DN), who are responsible for managing the patient’s healthcare conditions. This brief aims to critically analyse the policy Improving Care for People with Dementia (Department of Health, 2013) and will relate this with the Department of Health Public Health Nursing’s (2013) Care in Local communities- District Nurse Vision and Model. The Department of Health Public Health Nursing (2013) has acknowledged that this new vision is a response to the growing needs of the ageing population in the UK. Specifically, it has recognised the growing incidence of dementia amongst the elderly population and this vision sets out the contribution of DNs and other healthcare teams in meeting the challenge of dementia. The first part of this brief justifies the choice of this policy and the focus on dementia care. A community in Hackney is chosen in this brief to represent my nursing caseloads of dementia. The second part discusses political, economic and philosophical context of the policy. The third part critically appraises the ethical and moral implications of this policy for practice. Policy on Dementia Care and the Community of Hackney With an ageing population, the London Borough of Hackney, like the rest of the UK, is faced with a rising incidence of the long-term conditions associated with old age (Office for National Statistics, 2013). According to the Alzheimer’s Research UK (2013), more than 820,000 elderly individuals are affected by dementia. The rate of dementia in Hackney is four times higher than that of the general population’s rate (Public Health England, 2013). In 2010, approximately 1,350 elderly people were living with dementia in Hackney (NHS, 2012). This policy aims to increase diagnosis rate, improve health and care services in hospitals, care homes, communities and homes, create dementia-friendly communities and widen research on dementia care. This brief will only focus on improving health and care services in communities and homes and relate these to the DNs role in providing care to patients in their own communities and homes. Implications of the Policy on Current Practice The policy on dementia care has an important implication in my practice as a district nurse. Providing holistic interventions to improve the quality of care in community settings require collaborative efforts of health and social care professionals (National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, 2007). As a district nurse, I take the lead in provision of healthcare in community settings. On reflection, patients with dementia have complex needs that require collaborative care from nurses, physical and occupational therapists, dieticians, social care workers and other healthcare professionals. My role extends from planning care to coordinating care with other professionals. The King’s Fund (2012) explains that multidisciplinary teams are needed to provide quality care to patients. However, the quality of care could be affected if there are fewer nurses caring for patients. I observed that the number of registered nurses in my practice is declining. This observation is similar in a survey conducted by the Royal College of Nursing (2011), which reported that almost 70% of district nurse respondents claimed that registered nurses in their staff have dropped out. In my current caseload, a third of my patients in our team suffer from dementia. The incidence of dementia in Hackney is four times higher compared to the UK’s average (Public Health England, 2013). However, due to the nature of the condition, the care of this group of patients requires a disproportionate amount of time and resources. One of the duties of DNs in addressing the policy on dementia care is to ensure that carers also receive appropriate support. Carers have the right to h ave their needs assessed under the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 (UK Legislation, 2000). In my experience, CBT has been show to be effective not only in reducing anxiety in my patients but also depression in the carers. It has been shown that joining support groups has been associated with reduced incidence of depression (NICE, 2006). Implications of the Policy on Future Practice With the increasing focus on community care, there is a need to strengthen the district nurse workforce. Based on my experiences and observation, the quality of care could be compromised due to the decreasing number of DNs (Queen’s Nursing Institute, 2010). There is increased pressure to provide quality care at the least cost and with reduced number of nurses (Queen’s Nursing Institute, 2010). Establishing a therapeutic relationship is difficult when the continuous decline of healthcare workforce in the community is not addressed. Sheehan et al. (2009) argue that a positive relationship between healthcare professionals and the patient is needed in order to make healthcare decisions that would dictate the future of the patient. Based on these observations, the policy on dementia care would require additional workforce of registered nurses who would be willing to work in community settings. At present, the issue of sustainability of the DN workforce in meeting the present and future demands of elderly patients has been raised (Royal College of Nursing, 2013, 2011). Unless the issue of reduced workforce is not addressed, meeting the demands of the dementia policy would continue to be difficult. The policy would also require additional education and training for nurses. The Royal College of Nursing (2013) has acknowledged that the present DN workforce is highly qualified. Many have met the qualifications of nurse prescriber or district nurse while the rest of the staff either have completed qualifications for nursing first or second level registration or at least hold a nursing degree. However, the Royal College of Nursing (2013) also notes that the workforce number is still low. A small workforce could not adequately meet these needs. Further, the ageing population in the UK would mean that the NHS would continue to see a rise in the incidence of dementia in the succeeding years. The issue of recording performance data is also raised with the recent policy on dementia care. This would be a challenge since a community or a home does not present any safeguards commonly found in a controlled environment such as wards in hospital settings (Royal College of Nursing, 2013). There is also a need for DNs to be trained on how to give education and training to caregivers. In a systematic review conducted by Zabalegui et al. (2014), suggest that the quality of care of patients with dementia living at home could be improved if caregivers receive sufficient education and training from healthcare providers. Political, Economic and Philosophical Context The Alzheimer’s society (2014) states that in the UK, approximately ?23 billion is spent annually to manage patients with dementia. However, the same organisation is quick to observe that a large portion of this cost is borne by carers of the patient rather than social care services or the NHS. To date, there is only one study (Alzheimer’s UK, 2007) that investigated the cost of managing patients with dementia in community settings. The report shows that in 2007, the cost of managing one patient with mild dementia within one year in a community setting amounts to ?14, 540. For an individual with moderate dementia, the annual cost is ?20,355. This increases to ?28,527 for a patient with severe dementia. If a patient is sent to a care home, the annual cost of managing the condition amounts to ?31,263. It should be noted that all these costs were calculated almost 7 years ago. The individual cost of treatment is now higher. The same survey also shows that majority of the costs of dementia care is channelled to the carers. However, these costs do not account for the informal carers. Alzheimer’s UK (2007) estimates that the number of hours informal carers devote to caring run up to 1.5bn hours each year. This translates to ?12bn in cost, which is higher than the combined health and social care cost for dementia. Patients with severe dementia living in their homes or communities need at least 46 hours of paid carer support within a week (Alzheimer’s UK, 2007). However, the changing dynamics of families, with children living far from their parents or loss of spouse due to divorce or death could limit the pool of family carers. This issue could all influence the impact of the service provided by informal carers of dementia. The ageing population of the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2013) could further drive up the cost of caring for patients with dementia. The policy on dementia care increasingly depends on homes and communities to support the care of patients with dementia. Since many informal carers manage patients with dementia, the burden of caring is now channelled to the patient’s family. The main stakeholders then for this policy include informal carers, patients, DN staff and multidisciplinary team. This increasing reliance on home care and management could even be viewed as a strategy of the NHS to reduce the cost of caring for patients with dementia. There is also a concern on whether the quality of care is maintained at home, especially with fewer DNs supervising the care at home. Apart from the economic cost, politics could also influence DN practice. As with other policies, the policy on dementia (Department of Health, 2013) bring care close to home and care at home. These gradual changes are projected to empower patients, lower costs of healthcare while empowering communities to take care of their own health (Department of Health, 2013). The withdrawal of the state in providing minimum services for patients with dementia in favour of care at home should be evaluated on whether this would cause harm to the patient. If care at home would be possible with supportive carers, my role as a DN would focus on coordinating care with other healthcare professionals. However, if the patient does not receive sufficient support, the Mental Health Act 2007 (UK Legislation, 2007) mandates the appointment of a carer for the patient. The consequences of the political context of moving care closer to home for patients with dementia would be felt in the succeeding years. On re flection, making this policy work would require DNs to provide adequate support to the informal carers. The philosophical underpinning of this policy focuses on tackling health inequalities. Social determinants of health (NHS, 2012) have long known to influence the health outcomes of many individuals. In the London Borough of Hackney, incidence of dementia is higher amongst the older black elderly compared to the general white population (Office for National Statistics, 2013; Public Health England, 2013). Yaffe et al. (2013) argue that genetics do not account entirely on the disparity of incidence between black and white older populations in the UK. Instead, Yaffe et al. (2013) maintain that socioeconomic differences appear to have a greater influence on the higher incidence of dementia amongst black older people. Related risk factors for dementia such as poorer health, less education and literacy are higher in the black elderly and might account for the variation in dementia incidence. A number of earlier studies (Haas et al., 2012; Thorpe et al., 2011) have pointed out the relationsh ip between socioeconomic status and cognitive outcomes. The dementia policy not only brings care closer to home but also addresses socio-economic disparities of patients with dementia by allowing DNs to provide care in home settings. However, this is still challenging since carers and family members would provide care on a daily basis. The limited financial capacities of families with lower socio-economic status could have an effect on the nutritional status and physical health of the patients (Adelman et al., 2009). It has been stressed that poor nutrition and health could increase the risk of cognitive decline (Adelman et al., 2011). Ethical and Moral Implications of the Dementia Policy for Practice Approaches to ethics include the Deontological approach, Justice, Virtue and Consequentialism. Fry (2010) explain that in deontology, individuals should perform an action because it is their duty to do so regardless of the consequences of the action. The Dementia Policy in the UK is underpinned by ethical approaches. Using deontology, it is moral for nurses and carers to provide care for patients with dementia. In rule-deontology, decisions regarding the care of patients become moral when these follow the rules. Fry (2010) emphasise that the actions of individuals following deontology is usually predictable since it follows set of rules. A second approach to ethics called the Results of Actions (Fry, 2010) is opposite to deontology. In this ethics approach, an action becomes moral when its consequences produce more advantages for the patient than disadvantages. The third approach to ethics or the virtue approach states that there is an ideal that should be pursued by individuals in order to develop their full potential (Jackson, 2013). This approach is more encompassing than the deontological approach since it seeks to make a person moral by acquiring virtues. A review of the policy reveals that the virtue approach is followed since it seeks to provide holistic care to the patients. The policy emphasises providing psychological, social and emotional support not only to patients but also to their carers. Meanwhile, Beauchamp and Childress (2001) have set out four principles of ethics. These are autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice. The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC, 2008) code of conduct has stressed that patient autonomy should always be observed in all healthcare settings. A review of the dementia policy reveals that allowing patient’s to be cared in their home settings would likely increase patient autonomy. Patients in the early stages of dementia or those with moderate forms of the condition could experience cognitive impairments but still have the capacity to decide for themselves (Department of Health, 2009). The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (UK Legislation, 2005) states that only when patients suffer significant cognitive impairments should representatives of the patients be allowed to make decisions in behalf of the patient. Since the policy focuses on patient-centred care even in home settings, patients or their family members are allowed to decide on the best treatment or management for the patients. District nurses are encouraged in the policy to always seek for the patient’s interest. The emphasis of the policy on allowing patients to decide about their care is consistent with the ethical principle of autonomy. It is also important that nurses should first do no harm to the patients as embodied in the ethics principle of non-maleficence (Beauchamp and Childress, 2001). The policy supports this principle since DNs are available to provide support and lead the care of patients in home settings. However, there are several barriers in implementing the full policy. Although the policy specifies that DNs should rally the support of patients in home settings, there is the growing concern that the standards of care seen in hospital settings might not be transferred in home settings (King’s Fund, 2012). For instance, DNs could not regularly supervise carers on a daily basis on how they provide care to individuals with dementia. These patients need to receive sufficient nutrition, engage in exercises that increase their mobility or regularly receive pharmacologic medications for their conditions (Casartelli et al., 2013; Hopper et al., 2013; Cole, 2012; Bryon et al., 2012). It would be difficu lt to determine on a regular basis if all these tasks are carried out according to standards if patients are cared in their own homes. In a recent King’s Fund (2013) report, the quality of care received by patients from their nurses is highlighted. This report observes that not all nurses are compassionate to their patients and often, basic care such as feeding or giving water to the patients are often neglected. While this report was based on a study in only one hospital setting, the results are important since it showed that basic care might not be observed. In contrast, DNs would only visit the patients in their homes and would not be around to provide long hours of care. If patients receive poor quality care, this could result to poorer health outcomes and faster deterioration of the patient. The ethics principle of non-maleficence might not be observed if the volume of DN staff in the community remains low. There has been an association of high volume of work and low staffing amongst nurses with poor quality care (King’s Fund, 2013, 2012). The policy also observes the principle of beneficence since its primary outcome is to improve the quality of care received by older patients with dementia in their own homes. Although providing care in home settings would drastically reduce healthcare costs for dementia care, it is still unclear if this would benefit the family more. The cost of informal carers remains to be high, and yet is often discounted when approximating the cost of care for dementia (Alzheimer’s Society, 2014). This policy might put undue burden on families who lack the capacity to provide care for patients in advanced stages of dementia on a 24 hours basis (Alzheimer’s Society, 2014). Despite this observation, the policy is beneficial to patients with moderate dementia. A home setting might provide them with the stability and familiarity that is absent in hospital settings (Sheehan et al., 2009). It has been shown that when patients are admitted in hospital settings, they often manifest aggressi ve behaviour that is suggested to be a response to the changes in environment (Sheehan et al., 2009). The ethics principle of justice is also observed since the policy requires all patients, regardless of race or gender and socio-economic status, to receive equitable healthcare (Department of Health, 2013). On reflection, the moral implications of the policy might come into conflict with the state’s increasing reliance on informal carers or family members to provide care for patients with dementia. The issue lies on whether it is moral to delegate most of the care to informal carers who might also need additional support when caring for patients with progressive chronic conditions. The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (2007) stress that informal carers also need support to help them manage depression, stress or burnout from providing care to patients who would never recover from their condition. While the NHS continue to practice innovation in delivering care, an evaluation on whether there are enough resources to implement the innovation should be made. Conclusion In conclusion, the recent policy on dementia in the UK sets the direction of care in community or home settings. District nurses are in the position of following this direction since they lead patient care at home and in the community. However, this brief highlights some issues that should be addressed. These include the decreasing workforce of DN and their staff and their need for additional training and education. The political and economic context influencing the dementia policy should also be taken into account. Finally, this brief illustrates the role of DNs in providing quality care to patients in community and home settings. They could lobby for the patient’s rights and coordinate collaborative care between healthcare professionals and those involved in social care. References Adelman, S., Blanchard, M., Rait, G., Leavey, G. & Livingston, G. (2011). ‘Prevalence of dementia in African-Carribean compared with UK-born white older people: two-stage cross-sectional study’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 199, pp. 119-125. Adelman, S., Blanchard, M. & Livingston, G. (2009). ‘A systematic review of the prevalence and covariates of dementia or relative cognitive impairment in the older African-Carribean population in Britain’, International Journal of Geriatric and Psychiatry, 24, pp. 657-665. Alzheimer’s Society (2014). Financial cost of Dementia [Online]. Available from: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=418 (Accessed: 12th March, 2014). Alzheimer’s Research UK (2013) Dementia Statistics [Online]. Available from: http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/dementia-statistics/ (Accessed: 19th February, 2014). Alzheimer’s UK (2007). Dementia UK: The Full Report. [Online]. Available from: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/download_info.php?fileID=2 (Accessed: 12th March, 2014). Beauchamp, T. & Childress, J. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bryon, E., Gastmans, C. & de Casterle, D. (2012). ‘Nurse-physician communication concerning artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH) in patients with dementia: a qualitative study’. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21, pp. 2975-2984. Casartelli, N., Item-Glatthorn, J., Bizzini, ., Leunig, M. & Maffiuletti, N. (2013). ‘Differences in gait characteristics between total hip, knee, and ankle arthroplasty patients: a six-moth postoperative comparison’. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorder, 14:176 doi: 10.1186/1471-2474-14-176. Cole, D. 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