What's your point of view Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

What's your point of view - Essay Example As such, can such people put away technology and embark on simple methods of operations? This could be adapted by just a few individuals while the others would like to think of concepts like an ideal thus lack the effort and self sacrifice in making the ideal a reality. However, such individuals console themselves by asserting that vast amounts of land and forests have been kept for people to experience the simplicity with which fishing, hunting, camping can bring. This does not mean that we lack our roots to the earth and world. As long as we have balance that has been kept between advancement in our civilization and the connection to nature, then we have to flourish in the both ways in the society (Wright 98). However, there have been instances when we cannot achieve this balance as some people are overly saturated by one way instead of incorporating the other ways. This rages the debate on. We can neither go back to our advancements, nor can we forget on how to move on without these advances and the connections we have to nature. Therefore, if we embrace both we are bound to succeed, but with one, we will stagnate, become our own means of destruction and falter. In the medical sector, several advancements have been carried out and there is still more advances in our daily lives. People easily access better medical attention and can live for a very long period as opposed to the earlier days. However, due to the long period number of days, people are now exposed to difficulties brought out by the advanced age and diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer and the aged have become a burden to the society as there is no specific place to take care of them (Postman 34). Video games and computers have become very popular among the teens, adults and children after undergoing several advances (Kelly 76). However, there are several debates which have come up in accordance to the appropriateness of

Foreign Relations of the US and China 1958-1960 Essay

Foreign Relations of the US and China 1958-1960 - Essay Example During the period of 1958-1960, there were a number of issues of contention between these two nations. Some of critical issues included the Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Tibetan rebellion, the rift between China and Soviet Union as well as the fluctuations between the relationship between the United States and the Chinese nationalists. Therefore, this period saw some incidents of significant between the relationships of the two countries.   Taiwan Strait Crisis During the period 1958-1960, the most important and critical event that took place was the Taiwan Strait Crisis. In this crisis, the government of the mainland attempted to attack the islands of Quemoy which were held by the nationalists, where as the United States supported the government that they recognized, which is the Chinese Nationalists of Taiwan. This increased the tension between both these countries and efforts were carried out to end this crisis (Bush, 2006). The context and the details of the crisis are mentioned be low. During 1958, the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek began to express his unrest at the restrictions of the United States that blocked his desired intention to return to the mainland. Chiang wanted to exploit the situation of instability in Taiwan. This had created a level of caution among the United States officials. In July 1958, there was a campaign launched to liberate Beijing and along with that, two nationalist planes were shot down. Chiang Kai-shek had already warned of an attack on Taiwan. This led to anxiety among the US policymakers that the control of airspace over the Taiwan Strait by the communist would result in the cutoff of supplies to the islands held by the Nationalists. As speculated, the forces of People's Republic of China began to attack Quemoy in 1958 with artillery (Carpenter, 2006). The President of the United States, Eisenhower got involved in this matter and agreed to help the ROC as per the terms of the U.S-ROC treaty. They reinforced the naval units to p rotect the lines of supplies leading to Quemoy. The Sidewinder air to air missiles were set up in defense.   The attacks continued and caused a causality of over 2500 soldiers in ROC (Tucker, 2005). The attacks resulted in many US allies getting concerned over the issue. Furthermore, the Premier of the Soviet Union Khrushchev wrote a public letter to the President Eisenhower taking a very aggressive stand of support of the Chinese of Taiwan, saying that any action on PRC would be a direct attack on China. Therefore, the crisis took a three dimensional turn. There was a series of communication between the two leaders of the countries. According to the US intelligence, it was found out that the Soviet Union was not prepared for any attacks and hence, the United States rejected the letter or Khrushchev publicly. There was immense international pressure building up to end the crisis and the President as well as the officials made efforts to convince Chiang Kai-Shek. The government of PRC was not at all ready to involve a third party such as the United Nations. Only in October 1958, the PRC agreed for a de facto cease fire, where the PRC Defense Minister P'eng Te-huai stated that they are ready to declare the cease fire and during this period, there should not be any convoy escorts for the supply. Even though Kai-Shek opposed it, the United States relented to it. Thus, the attack was withdrawn on the days of the Ceasefire. Towards the end

Tourist typologies, motivation & decision making Essay

Tourist typologies, motivation & decision making - Essay Example Moreover, this particular industry provides a major source of employment for a large volume of labour force all over the world, further contributing towards the reduction of unemployment rate within the global sector. In the contemporary context, the industry has experienced noteworthy changes, which further depicted a major developmental aspect for the sector (Dann 2002). However, it will be crucial to mention that tourism is entirely dependent on the approaches of the people. Notably, people travel from one place to other with various purposes including education, leisure activities and business purposes among others. All these people are collectively termed as tourists. Specially mentioning, decisions of tourists to visit any particular country are directly influenced by certain key factors including hospitality, attractions and costs among others (Chon, Pizam and Yoel 2012; Pearce 2005). As earlier mentioned, there are various purposes owing to which people travel from one place to other. Contextually, based upon those purposes, nature, characteristics and behaviours, tourists are categorised into various forms. According to Cohen, there are four typologies of tourists that include Organised mass tourist, Individual mass tourist, Explorer and Drifter. While, as per the study of Plog, typologies of tourists include allocentric, mid-centric and psychocentric. These have been described in detail hereunder. These types of tourists are deemed to be least adventurous owing to the aspect that they prefer to remain in their comfort zone or environment. They are highly driven by what they are being supplied by the tourism industry. They consider various aspects such as location of the sites and environment while choosing their destinations to visit (Ryan, 2002). There sorts of tourists are quite organised in nature and their preference of choosing any particular destination directly

The Comparison of Two Top Selling Sales Contact Management Software Essay

The Comparison of Two Top Selling Sales Contact Management Software Company - Essay Example Every company is aiming for results and to be way ahead of its competitors. The company's goal upon buying contact management software is to efficiently manage large number of contact information as well as minimize cost by starting-up with low operations and training costs. Two of the top selling contact management software companies are ACT! by Sage Software Inc., and GoldMine Software UK. Over the years, it has always been an argument as to which company provides better products. These two companies have long been tough rivals in the contact management software world. Sage software has been developing automated support in business management for over 25 years. With a wide range of front office and back office solutions including accounting, human resources, payroll, fixed asset management, customer relationship management, and e-commerce software - Sage Software offers award-winning products and services that have revolutionized the way small and mid-sized companies do business in today's marketplace. (Company overview) Sage software is catering to the small scale business establishments with 25 employees or fewer and medium scale business establishments with over 500 employees in North America. Act! By Sage is the contact management solutions software which the Sage Compa... These are: Act!, which caters to companies with 1-10 users, Act! Premium for Work Groups, which provides for companies with 5-50 users, Act! Premium for Web, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere, ACT! for Palm OS and ACT! Link for Use with QuickBooks. Its latest version for ACT! Contact management is ACT! By Sage Version 8.0 which was launched in Manchester last December 13, 2005 (Onsite Marketing Solution). This version allows the company to use its built-in sales process system or customize its own system to track down, monitor and maintain the customer relationship and communication as well as the accuracy of sales forecasting and trends. With the use of this system, companies can analyze the trends of sale and profile of their customers thus, making it easy for them to plan an effective marketing and sale campaign. Through this system, communications from customers such as mail shots, letters and meetings are easily tracked down. GoldMine Software Corp. GoldMine Software company is a private company founded in 1989 by president Elan Susser and executive vice president Jon V. Ferrara. (Schupbach et al, 1999) The company was first known to be Elan Software but sometime later, the company changed its name to GoldMine Software and then after a merger with Ben Data, which owned the HEAT products, ultimately became FrontRange Solutions. (2003) The first ever designed software for GoldMine was Business Contact Manager. This software is designed for Insurance, Legal Services, Real Estate, Engineering, Government or other leading professions of small scale and medium scale business firms and the mid-market. GoldMine Software assures a fast return on investment and low operational cost but provides a wide range of easy to implement

Entrepreneurship Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 18

Entrepreneurship - Essay Example Choremonsters is striving to eliminate the tension experienced by parents when it comes to coordination of household chores. The innovation helps parents to communicate with the children and direct them on various chores. Children have an application that is linked to the child’s application thus improving coordination or cooperation between the parent and the child. This ostensibly makes it easy for the parent to be acquainted with their children’s performance on various chores when away from home. Moreover, Choremonsters is overcoming the ineffectiveness of chore charts. The application teaches the children how to do various tasks at an increased efficiency as compared to the traditional chore charts which children find hard to understand. Choremonsters also solves the problem of having to put excessive efforts to have the children perform chores. This niche has been in existence as there has been no application that has successful been able to digitally connect the child in such a way that enables the child to easily retrieve programmed

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oral Metoprolol Essay Example for Free

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oral Metoprolol Essay The patient, Roger Smith, is a forty year old man and came to the doctors office yesterday morning presenting a chief complaint of on and off headaches. Every now and then he felt dizzy and would complain about blurred vision. He mentions that he does not have any allergies to food or medicines. He admits that he doesnt do any regular exercise. He favors salty food and eats plentiful of it everyday and prefers to drink alcohol two to three times per week. He was an only child and both his father and mother are deceased. The patients mother had hypertension and so did his mothers father. When he was a child he only had varicella zoster. He also mentioned that he sought medical attention a year ago and was diagnosed with essential hypertension. After that, the patient did not visit his previous doctor for a follow up on his medical health. The patient confesses that he did not follow his previous doctor’s prescription. Dr. Robert Jones, took the patients blood pressure and it read as 140/90 mm Hg. The patient was asked to undergo laboratory test for the patients blood creatinine (National Kidney Function, 2008). On the following day, Dr. Robert Jones, measured the patient’s blood pressure again and it read 140/90 mm Hg. The patient told the doctor that he took note of his blood pressure several days ago and it also had the same reading and it never went down. The doctor asked the patient to present him the laboratory result for the patients glomerular filtration rate. The glomerular filtration rate is the test to measure the patients kidney functions level. It is important to find out what the result is to prevent the progression of a kidney disease due to hypertension (National Kidney Function, 2008). The patients glomerular filtration rate value (GFR) was 72 mL/min/1.73 m2. The doctor interpreted to the patient that his glomerular filtration rate is normal and his kidneys are not affected yet by the hypertension. The GFR is calculated by the serum creatinine of the patient which is 1.4 mg/dL, the age of the patient is forty years old, the patients race is African American and the gender is male. The normal glomerular filtration rate value is 70  ± 14 mL/min/m2 for the male and 60  ± 10 mL/min/m2 for the female (National Kidney Function, 2008). The doctor explained that essential hypertension or primary hypertension is the blood pressure thats consistently higher than the normal value, 120/80 mm Hg, and there is no cause found for the high blood pressure. It can be controlled with normal exercise, a well-balanced diet, proper treatment and constant monitoring of the blood pressure. If it is left untreated, it will lead to heart attack, heart failure, damage to the kidney and it might cause the patient to lose his vision. (PSMHMC, 2006). The patient needs to lower the systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) to treat his hypertension as this is an important cardiovascular risk factor (Koenig, 2001). The doctor educated the patient to maintain his weight level near to the normal and eat a well-balanced diet. He was instructed to limit the salt intake everyday to 2,000mg or even lower. Exercise regularly and avoid drinking too much alcohol and limit the intake of caffeine. All these are needed to be followed to control the blood pressure. The patient was also educated about taking care of his blood pressure because it will cause the kidney to fail. In order to prevent this from happening, his blood pressure must be controlled (DailyMed, 2006). The doctor prescribed the patient to take metoprolol tartrate 100mg for the first four weeks and then increased the dose to 200mg for another four weeks. The patient is instructed to orally take metoprolol once daily (Koenig, 2001). Metoprolol is a beta-adrenergic blocking agent that decreases the heart rate, decreases the contraction force of the heart muscle and it lowers the the blood pressure. Metoprolol targets the sympathetic nervous system by blocking its action in order to stimulate the heart beats pace. (Hildemann, et. al., 2002). The doctor further explained that metoprolol helps relax the blood vessels and will help the heart beat at a more regular rate. In this way, high blood pressure is reduced. Other heart diseases, for example stroke or heart attack will be prevented (Koenig, 2001). The medicine is taken through the mouth and will pass through the digestive tract before it can reach the bloodstream for absorption. The onset of action of metoprolol as an anti-hypertensive if taken orally is 1 1/2 to 4 hours. It will last for ten to twenty hours and will be absorbed at a percentage of 95%. For its metabolism, it is extensively hepatic through CYP2D6; significant first-pass effect. The half-life elimination period is three to four hours (Koenig, 2001). Metoprolol will be excreted through the urine with the percentage of 3% to 10% as an unchanged drug (DailyMed, 2006). According to the explanation of the doctor, metoprolol is metabolized in the liver by the cytochrome P450 2D6. Therefore, metabolization of the drug depends on the genetic polymorph that determines the hepatic hydroxylation rate. Metoprolol is excreted by the kidney as metabolites and is absorbed within seventy-two hours by glomerular filtration. The patient is further informed that while he is taking metoprolol, he is advised not to take in any other medicine. He should follow the correct dosage at the right time, in other words, the patient is not allowed to change the dosage or the time hes supposed to take the medicine. The medicine should not be taken in with an antacid (DailyMed, 2006). The patient will feel fatigue or dizziness. He should inform the doctor any changes like unusual weight gain or muscle fatigue, swellings of any part the extremities, constipation or should he develop a cough. The patient should maintain a blood pressure of less than 140/90mm Hg. He should take his pulse prior to taking metoprolol orally. The patient will be able to keep himself healthy and fit if he continues to follow the doctors prescription. The systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) will be lower when the patient follows the intake of metoprolol as prescribed by the doctor (Koenig, 2001). After eight weeks, the patient came to visit Dr. Robert Jones and had his blood pressure is already 120/80 and his glomerular filtration rate value remains at the normal level. The patient is instructed by the doctor to constantly maintain a healthy diet, regularly exercise and take note of his blood pressure everyday (Koenig, 2001). References: Dailymed (2006). METOPROLOL TARTRATE and HYDROCHLOROTHIAZIDE   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   TABLETS, USP50 mg/25 mg, 100 mg/25 mg and 100 mg/50 mgBeta   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Blocker/Diuretic Antihypertensive. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/fda/fdaDrugXsl.cfm?id=2522type=display Indian Journal of Pharmacology. (2008) Metoprolol Pindolol: A comparative study in   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   essential hypertension. Retrieved February 8, 2008, from http://www.ijp-online.com/article.asp?issn=02537613;year=1990;volume=22;issue=2;spage=85;epage=88;aulast=Gugli;type=0 S.K. Hildemann, H. Fischer, D. Pittrow, V. Bohlscheid (2002). Metoprolol Succinate SR Plus  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hydrochlorothiazide (Beloc-Zok ® Comp) in Patients With Essential Hypertension in   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   General Practice. Medscape Today. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/444414_1 Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center College of Medicine (2006). Essential   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hypertension. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.hmc.psu.edu/healthinfo/e/essentialhypertension.htm National Kidney Function (2008). Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR). Retrieved from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   February 10, 2008, http://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/ckd/knowGFR.cfm Wolfgang Koenig, on behalf of the Multicentre Study Group, Department of Internal   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Medicine II-Cardiology, University of Ulm Medical Center, Ulm, Germany   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (2001). Efficacy and Tolerability of Metoprolol Tartrate in Patients With Mild-to-   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Moderate Essential Hypertension: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Multicentre   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Trial. Retrieved from February 10, 2008, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406240

Benefits of Systems Thinking

Benefits of Systems Thinking INTRODUCTION Systems thinking is a well organised approach of understanding the dynamic relationship between components of a system, so that we can make better choices and avoid unintentional consequences. It’s a conceptual framework for problem-solving which understands and considers the problems in their entirety (Hall, 1999 and Senge 1990). In other words, it can be defined as a view which looks at the ‘system as a whole’ first with its fit and relationship to external environment being a primary concern as compared to the constituent elements that make up the system (Morgan, 2005). It can be used to understand how systems work and how individuals can deal with them, while looking for patterns of interaction and underlying structures which shapes the systems behaviour. As system is a combination of several parts people who understand systems thinking keep one eye on the big picture (i.e. system as a whole) and one on the detail (i.e. constituent’s components), as the y recognise that problem in one part of the system can impact other parts and forces patterns of behaviour in the system that lead to crisis (Morgan 2005). Systems view is a way of positioning and looking into an organisational or systems issue where system boundaries are to be set to determine what parts are contained inside the system and what parts are considered external environment. The environment will certainly influence the problem solving capabilities of the system, but it’s not the part of the whole system (Ackoff, 1971). Outcomes will depend heavily on how a system is defined because system thinking investigates relationships between various parts of the system and its external environment (Montano et. al, 2001). ADOPTION OF SYSTEMS THINKING A number of methods, tools and principles cover the concept of systems thinking with a common goal of understanding relationships within the system, as systems thinking works on the hypothesis that there are certain evolving properties of systems that do not exist when systems are disintegrated into individual parts. For example consider a driver who is constantly hitting red lights on the road. If the driver is only noticing one part of the system i.e. red lights, then he will simply decide to speed up to in-order to make the next light before it turns to red. But, if he considers other parts of the system i.e. his car, condition of the road, driving style and the distance between two lights, he will notice that every time he tries to speedup to make a light, it changes to red. His speed is tripping the lights to force him to drive slower. So if he is observing this pattern, he can simply reduce his speed to drive thorough all green lights. In systems view, the focus spreads in a variety of different directions compared to the conventional linear style of thinking. It focuses on processes, patterns and relationships and their flow and movement and puts much emphasis on understanding the effects of the interactions in the system as opposed to putting efforts to predict the outcomes (Morgan, 2005). It’s argued that the emphasis on systems view should begin when a project is started and should continue till the final lessons have been learnt even after completion (Stewart and Fortune, 1995). Advantages of Systems Thinking Adopting a view of system thinking can complement conventional styles of research in projects in certain ways: It suggests different levels of analysis and synthesis for different kinds of problems, ranging from the simple activity levels to the more complex hierarchical levels. Systems thinking complements reductionism (the principle that everything can be reduced to its individual parts), analytical analysis (breaking down a system to its smallest components), cause and effect thinking (environment-independent, linear but without feedback loops, closed and defined boundaries), complete determinism (illusion of control) with complexity (a sub-system of larger network), blended structure (explaining the whole system in terms of functions and inter-relationship between parts), circular contributing effects (explaining external environmental influences, performance and feedback) and belief in uncertainty which leads to probabilistic thinking (Schiuma et.al, 2012). It provides a conceptual framework which utilizes different theories, tools and techniques like the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), which helps in constructing a holistic, reliant perspective and practise aimed at disclosing the relationships characterizing a system (Joham et al., 2009 and Pourdehnad, 2007). Such approaches use a non-linear model where different elements are connected through cyclical rather linear cause-and-effect chains. This shows how a system is structured and also shows the nature of interactions among components of the system, which helps in understanding the behavioural patterns characterizing the system under investigation (Schiuma et.al, 2012). Having a reductionist thinking tends to push the project towards a closed systems view of the environmental i.e. the different phenomenon could be explained as individual and isolated events, which shows that the system and the context are separate, deterministic and predictable. In addition, the casual relationship between different elements is linear in the sense that A affects B which affects B, so such a approach can be used as a process or procedure to track and access results and performance on a operational level rather than on a broader system level. Project managers can use systems thinking to assist them in the scoping of a project where the project and its relationship to the environment are examined to underline potential risk areas and also to look at the project performance and thus to facilitate organizational learning (Stewart and Fortune, 1995). Disadvantages of Systems Thinking Although adoption of systems thinking/view is beneficial in some aspects while executing consulting projects, there are still certain problems which are associated with this approach. Some of them are as follow: Concept of systems thinking totally ignores or much worse destroys the most important aspects of human systems, for e.g. the interconnections or inter-relationships amongst and between the constituent sub-systems (Morgan, 2005). The project and its sub-tasks are totally ignored. Reductionism is no longer appropriate for dynamic projects which comprises of mostly human activities. It encourages fragmentation and isolation of the project which causes undue concern with the individual project activities or sub-systems. This method is makes us smart in micro-level thinking with regard to projects whereas on the other hand it’s allowing us to be dumb on the macro-level analysis. Under this thinking the project management loses the capability of making sense of how and why things work in a certain patter/manner. Reductionism can’t be implemented in every project. It tries to deal with the issues of the project one at a time, which leads to the problem of backing up which make things much worse. Also it is not helpful in dealing with multiple or delayed causality, as it is leading us to the simplistic way of thinking where individuals instead of focusing on the core problem focus on ‘either-or’ choices and blame mentality (Morgan, 2005). The simple approach to cause and effect can’t be implemented in consulting projects with high level of complexity, as it can’t keep up with the complexity of the project. As systems thinking focus on dealing with symptoms of the problem, interventions aimed at fixing things can end up sometimes making things better in the short run but worse in the long term. The over-reliance on reductionism will create an imaginary environment in which individuals think that prediction and control are the usable approaches to deal with complex projects. Endless varieties of tools and frameworks would be applied to ensure project success and when all such things fail they will try to explain the causes of system failure using the reductionist explanations of personal failure, resistance to change etc. So, the cycle goes on repeating itself and people, organisations get trapped into fixes which are doomed to fail. Having a systems perspective enables the project to exert control over people and its processes. But such a view tends to act against innovation and adaptation which are fundamental qualities for long-term effectiveness. Adopting a systems view can threatens some of the established policies and procedures in managing consulting projects, for e.g. in areas like monitoring and evaluation, performance management and assessment. Most of the practitioners have doubted its operational use, as it has not provided specific answers to the cases when the system has encountered problems. Some of its ideas such as emergence can be unattractive with project management teams, who are constantly under pressure to give results in short run. Systems view can also have a disengaging effect on people and organisations that are used to a structured system where projects are planned and targets are met. So, adopting a system thinking view can increase the effect of uncertainty in project consulting and management rather than reducing it. System thinking can also be demanding in terms of intellectual resources as it requires multi-disciplinary approaches to handle wide range of issues and patterns. It requires a significant investment in terms of skills, organisational structure where people are trained across a series of interrelated issues to make systems thinking work, because if they give up on the practise of systems views they will probably get back to much easier conventional approaches (Morgan, 2005). Conclusion The implications of systems thinking can be far reaching as it’s not clear how it will fit with other methods of analyzing situations. Questions will be asked about its contribution to monitoring and evaluation as the some of the sub-systems may be inadequate in generating data needed for analysis which leads to reluctance in trusting the conclusions (Morgan, 2005). Though it’s best in synthesis, it needs help in terms of practical analysis, so the question arises that can it supplement present methods of doing things or does it have to replace them in some way? In conclusion, adopting a systems view can contribute in planning and controlling the complexity and uncertainty by embedding flexibility in consulting activities. When implemented and aligned properly, systems view can alleviate the flaws present in the existing frameworks to produce a more general framework which includes both prescriptive and descriptive elements (Montano et. al, 2001). Also, it facilitates the links between project management initiatives and the strategic goals and objectives of an organisation helping in maintain a clear vision of what is being done and why it is being done (Ackoff and Emery, 1972).