Assault Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Assault - Essay Example 774). A sexual battery kit offers evidential value to prove that an assault has occurred; a medical professional can collect evidences of the assault through a head-to-toe exam. The examination takes into account the physical injuries of the victim and during the examination the physician can take the blood, urine, saliva, pubic hair combings, or nail samples so that they can be used as evidences in rape cases. However, it is imperative that the victim seeks sexual battery exam kit soon after the assault has taken place for better results. Another advantage of the sexual battery kit is that the victim can keep his/her rights intact and can ask for confidentiality if he/she wishes to do so. As such, the consent of the victim is a necessary prerequisite in the case of sexual assault examinations and the examination is often accompanied by follow up treatment whereby the victim gets alleviated of the mental and psychological trauma associated with the assault. There is no doubt that the sexual battery examination kit has been instrumental in bringing many of the perpetrators to the courts and the evidences obtained through the sexual assault examinations have been considered as valid evidences by the

Strassfeld Shavuot Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Strassfeld Shavuot - Assignment Example The most concrete expression of this imagery is the Sephardic writing of the ketubah between God and the Jewish people. The promises of the bridegroom are to remain loyal to the bride, and carry them in favor. They were to reciprocate this through his love. Because of the peoples’ eager attitude to receive Torah on the morning of Shavuot, people stayed up late at night. Even those who did not stay up arose early in the morning for the shaharit morning service. The rereading of the Ten Commandments in the morning of revelation to the Torah service over shaharit portrays the interest of the people to hear them. This is different from other events such as the Shabbat or the festival. A custom observed during the Shavuot is the shift from the norm culture of carrying the Torah scroll in procession around the synagogue. On this particular day, the scroll passes from one hand to another. Not until everyone touches the scroll, it cannot rest on the reading table. The depiction of God as the groom and the Israelites as the bride is a form of imagery that shows the actual relationship existing between God and people. The condition of a marriage is for the wife to remain loyal to the husband, who provides her with anything she requires. This in actual sense is what God does to people. His expectations are that people will respect the Ten Commandments, which is a symbol of union in the marriage. After they honor the commands, God then shows unwavering love to His people. Just like a wedding scene, full of romantic moments and events, God held Mount Sinai over the Israelites, thus creating the romantic moment in his wedding with the people of

Intersections Of Gender Maps For Lost Lovers English Literature Essay

Intersections Of Gender Maps For Lost Lovers English Literature Essay This article proposes a reading of Nadeem Aslams Maps for Lost Lovers as a novel of multiple critiques on the situation of Muslim immigrants in Great Britain. Using the solution of the case of the eponymous lost lovers as the starting point for the narration the novel relates how the Pakistani immigrant community deals with the loss of the couple and the challenges the honour killing poses to their religious beliefs. In the narration the two main characters, Kaukab and Shamas, represent two conflicting perspectives on life in the diasporic community and the coping with the tragedy. By focusing on the setting and the created atmosphere in the novel and connecting it to the intersections of gender and religious identities this article aims to point out the ways in which Aslams novel gives the reader insights into the Pakistani immigrant community of the novel and how it, by subversively reconfiguring the patriarchal society, exerts manifold criticism on the Muslim immigrant community a s much as on the failing multicultural British society. Das Ziel dieses Artikel ist es, verschiedene Interpretationsansà ¤tze des Romans Maps for Lost Lovers vorzustellen, die auf der Kritik an der Situation muslimischer Einwanderer in Großbritannien basieren, die Nadeem Aslam eindrucksvoll in seine Erzà ¤hlung einfliessen là ¤sst. Der Roman, der die Auflà ¶sung des Ehrenmordes an den namensgebenden à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾Lost Lovers zum Ausgangspunkt der Erzà ¤hlung wà ¤hlt, erlaubt durch seine Erzà ¤hlstrategien durchaus unterschiedliche Lesarten. Durch die Fokussierung der Erzà ¤hlung auf hauptsà ¤chlich zwei Protagonisten, Kaukab und Shamas, die grundverschiedene Einstellungen zu dem Leben in der diasporischen Gemeinschaft widerspiegeln und ihre persà ¶nlichen Ansichten wiedergeben, erlaubt Aslam dem Leser die Ereignisse in der patriarchalen Gemeinschaft durch ihre Perspektiven wahrzunehmen und zu interpretieren. Die dabei aufeinanderprallenden Wertesysteme geben Einblicke in die verschiedenen teils radikalen Positionen innerha lb der Gemeinschaft, die letztendlich zu der am Anfang stehenden Katastrophe fà ¼hren. Durch eine verbindende Analyse des Handlungsorts und der vorherrschende Atmosphà ¤re des Romans mit der Intersektion von Geschlechts- und Glaubensidentità ¤ten zeigt dieser Artikel die vielfà ¤ltigen Mà ¶glichkeiten zur Interpretation und vollzieht die verschiedenen Kritiken die der Roman an der die Integration verweigernden pakistanischen Gemeinschaft und der versagenden multikulturellen britischen Gesellschaft à ¼bt. Introduction In conjunction with almost daily news-coverage on terrorist attacks by fundamental Islamist groups in the Middle East a growing suspicion against Muslim communities in Europe can be noticed. In the wake of 9/11 and 7/7 the strong foundations of European multiculturalism seem to have been unsettled. Even in Great Britain, which has a long history of immigration from the South Asian subcontinent, racism against Muslim communities is worsening, as has recently been found in the report by the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance on the United Kingdom.  [1]  Stereotypes and prejudices against so-called parallel societies, as some closed immigrant communities have come to be designated, are repeatedly underscored, for example by public discussions about the right of Muslim women to wear the traditional burka or a veil.  [2]  In such a precarious socio-historical context a novel like Nadeem Aslams Maps for Lost Lovers  [3]  seems to be adding fuel to the fire. Maps for Lost Lovers, Aslams second novel and winner of the Pakistan Academy of Letters Patras Bokhari award of the Government of Pakistan, centres on a South Asian immigrant community in an unnamed British town. The narration sets in after the disappearance of the lovers Chanda and Jugnu and the ensuing arrest of Chandas brothers for the alleged murder of the couple. In the year that follows the honour killings of the lovers, who lived in sin according to Islamic law because Chandas husband could not persuaded to divorce her even though he had left her years ago, Maps for Lost Lovers dramatises how the Pakistani inhabitants of the tightly-knit community try to cope with the anguish the disappearance of the lovers and the uncertainty concerning their fate brings over them. Wavering between the unlikely hope that the couple just fled the community to enjoy a peaceful life and the almost certain knowledge of their deaths although their bodies were not found, the characters of the novel also have to deal with the challenges to their religious beliefs posed by the murders and the question how to abide to Islamic laws in exile. Although the narration portrays some of the worst aspects of life in Pakistani communities honour killings, religious obscurantism, gender inequities to name only a few it is however also a book of great humanity and compassion  [4]  . These few aspects of the Pakistani community depicted in Maps for Lost Lovers, which Kamila Shamsie pointed out in an interview with the author, will be the starting point of the following analysis. This paper sets out to examine the immigrant community, which is based on the obedience of the Islamic law, and illustrate how an atmosphere of claustrophobia is narratively created in the patriarchal society. In a second step I will point out intersections of gender and religious identity and gender inequities that are reinforced by the Islamic belief of the communities. Further, I will try to show how the characters, on the one hand, fall victim to the gender roles their belief assigns them, but, on the other hand, also use and subvert these roles to shape the community in traditional and religious ways that reinforces the patriarchal structures of the community and promotes religious obscurantism. By focussing on the atmosphere of the patriarchal society as well as the gender roles presented in the novel I aim to show the diverse levels of criticism Aslam offers for interpretation in Maps for Lost Lovers. It is my main argument that the novel offers at least three ways for reading: first, it can be read as backing up suspicious looks at Muslims in British streets and confirm the stereotypes presented by the media. Second, it can be read as inherent criticism of colonisation in that certain structures of the British Empire are being invoked, reproduced and proven to be leading to catastrophe. And last, the novel can be read as a criticism on immigrant communities in Britain and their desperate wish to avoid integration. An interweaving of these possible readings of the novel will show the potential of the novel to help fix the foundations of European multicultural societies. Dasht-e-Tanhaii, or The Desert of Loneliness The eponymous lost lovers of the novels title are Chanda and Jugnu, who disappear before the narration sets in and whose fate remains unsolved for most part of the story. In the absence of the couple the rest of the community and their reactions function as a foil for the lovers decision to forsake the laws of Islam in order to be together and their readiness to bear the consequences of their choice. In the wake of their disappearance the rest of the community is torn between mourning the loss of members of their community and a sense of righteousness that the lovers have been punished for their indecent behaviour. Especially Jugnus older brother Shamas and his wife Kaukab, who live next door to the house of Sin (MLL 59), move into the centre of the omniscient narrators attention. Through a varying focalization on the two main characters, Shamas and Kaukab, and a further complementation through isolated points of view of other, minor characters such as Shamas and Kaukabs children and Suraya, the woman Shamas has an affair with, a multifaceted narration of the year following the arrest of Chandas brothers for murdering the lovers is presented. The created open perspective structure of the novel, the various individual perspectives within the text and their relation to each other, gives insights into the norms and value systems of the characters and the perspective of the omniscient narrator and thus allows inspection into the workings of the represented society.  [5]   The unspecified English town in which the drama around the lost lover unfolds is renamed Dasht-e-Tanhaii by the diasporic South Asian community. The inhabitants of the town have come to England from all over the South Asian subcontinent, representing the manifold nationalities that had come under the rule of the British Empire. Translating as The Wilderness of Solitude or The Desert of Loneliness (cf. MLL 29), Dasht-e-Tanhaii is a telling-name for the neighbourhood. Although the characters share a similar cultural background and the experience of exile, their religious differences and the fear to have to interact with white people paralyses them. Representatively for the community Kaukab relates that she had made friends with some women in the area but she barely know what lay beyond the neighbourhood and didnt know how to deal with strangers: full of apprehension concerning the white race and uncomfortable with people of another Subcontinental religion or grouping. (MLL 32) The inability to interact with people of a different skin colour or different religious beliefs renders it impossible for the people of Dasht-e-Tanhaii not to be lonely. The neighbourhood is further described as very quite, as it hoards its secrets, unwilling to let on the pain in its breast. Shame, guilt, honour and fear are like padlocks hanging from mouths. No one makes a sound in case it draws attention. No one speaks. No one breathes. (MLL 45) The claustrophobic atmosphere created in the novel forces the characters to spend their lives in solitude, always afraid their neighbours might learn about their secrets. Another interesting aspect of the setting of the novel that further contributes to the claustrophobic atmosphere is the concealment of the name and location of the English town in contrast to the renaming through the immigrants. The appropriation of the metropolitan neighbourhood through the diasporic South Asian community and a setting of strict limits to isolate it from the rest of the town  [6]  , reverses the imperialist colonization of the immigrants home countries. The renaming of streets and landmarks within the neighbourhood further supports this argument and highlights the reverse appropriation of social space. As in Lahore, a road in this town is named after Goethe. There is a Park Street here as in Calcutta, a Malabar Hill as in Bombay, and a Naag Tolla Hill as in Dhaka. Because it was difficult to pronounce the English names, the men who arrived in this town in the 1950s had re-christened everything they saw before them. They had come from across the Subcontinent, lived together ten to a room, and the name that one of them happened to give to a street or landmark was taken up by the others, regardless of where they themselves were from. But over the decades, as more and more people came, the various nationalities of the Subcontinent have changed the names according to the specific country they themselves are from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan. Only one name has been accepted by every group, remaining unchanged. Its the name of the town itself. Dasht-e-Tanhaii. (MLL 29) As Cordula Lemke has pointed out, the process of the multiple renamings according to the various cultural backgrounds of the immigrants transforms the neighbourhood into an enormous palimpsest  [7]  . Taking up the street names the British introduced in their colonies on the Asian subcontinent, naming a road after a German writer, and transplanting them to the immigrant community in Britain can be read as a strategy of decolonization. With the originally British structure of the neighbourhood is left scarcely discernable underneath the different names, this process accentuates the transitional status of all cultures  [8]  . Analysing the map  [9]  and cartographic discourse as a demonstration of the empowering strategies of colonialist rhetoric  [10]  , Huggan argues for the palimpsest to illustrate the deficiencies of the colonialist strategies: The contradictory coherence implied by the maps systematic inscription on a supposedly uninscribed earth reveals it, moreover, as a palimpsest covering over alternative spatial configurations which, once brought to light, indicate both the plurality of possible perspectives on, and the inadequacy of any single model of, the world.  [11]   However, the process of renaming the streets in this novel also significantly resembles the developments of the different countries of the subcontinent under the British rule leading up to the partition of India in 1947. From a peaceful living together the situation of the immigrants changes to a silent coexistence without much interaction just like on the subcontinent itself where the former Indian nation splits up into India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. And exactly as on the subcontinent it is the religious beliefs that now segregate the people where they, before the partition, had belonged together.  [12]  Therefore, in occupying parts of the British town and renaming its streets the neighbourhood, on the one hand, subversively replicates the colonial situation on the subcontinent. On the other hand, however, it also relives the traumatic experience of a society being divided along religious lines.  [13]  In the doubling of post-colonial criticism the narrative in tensity of Aslams writing becomes clear and challenges the reader for an interpretation. The possible interpretations that are invited by the renaming of the British streets, namely the subversive criticism on the Empire and the imitation of the colonial situation to stabilize and promote the rigid religious division of the community, can both be argued for. What the interpretations share, however, are the sense of loss and an essential sadness, which Edward Said ascribes the exile.  [14]   At bottom, exile is a jealous state. With very little to possess, you hold on to what you have with aggressive defensiveness. What you achieve in exile is precisely what you have no wish to share, and it is in the drawing of lines around you and your compatriots that the least attractive aspects of being an exile emerge: an exaggerated sense of group solidarity as well as a passionate hostility towards outsiders, even those who may in fact be in the same predicament as you.  [15]   In this piece, written for Harpers Magazine twenty years prior to the novel, Said describes exactly the situation of the characters in Maps for Lost Lovers. In the blind defensiveness of their traditions and beliefs, the immigrants of Dasht-e-Tanhaii are passionate in their racism against the white inhabitants of the town and condemn their exile in Great Britain for all the evil that has happened to them. Kaukab knows her dissatisfaction with England is a slight to Allah because He is the creator and ruler of the entire earth as the stone carving on Islamabad airport reminds and reassures the heartbroken people who are having to leave Pakistan but she cannot contain her homesickness and constantly asks for courage to face this lonely ordeal that He has chosen for her in His wisdom. (MLL 31) The loss of their home country and the realisation that they will never go back to Pakistan fills the women with a feeling of unbearable loss. Whereas they manage to bring back the colours of their parental homes and rename the streets so that they do not sound so unfamiliar, there are too many things in exile, which they cannot replace. The constant feeling of loss, which makes the immigrants in Dasht-e-Tanhaii refrain from leaving their solitude, is the ubiquitous atmosphere of the narration and as such is already introduced in the opening of the novel by Shamas. Among the innumerable other losses, to come to England was to lose a season, because, in the part of Pakistan that he is from, there are five seasons in a year, not four, the schoolchildren learning their names and sequence through classroom chants: Mausam-e-Sarma, Bahar, Mausam-e-Garma, Barsat, Khizan. Winter, Spring, Summer, Monsoon, Autumn. (MLL 5) The loss of the season, of a structuring part of a year, a part that marks the passing of time, and is as irretrievable as the lost lovers, reflects the stasis of the society of Dasht-e-Tanhaii. In missing a part that marks the passing of time, change and development have become impossible for the inhabitants of the community. In the knowledge of missing a season, the structure of the novel, which is divided into four parts, each named after one of the four seasons in England, seems like a constant remainder that Maps for Lost Lovers is all about encompassing loss. Correspondingly, Said points out: a life of exile moves according to a different calendar, and is less seasonal and settled than life at home.  [16]   The thus created atmosphere is a fertile soil for the kind of religious fundamentalism some of the characters, especially Kaukab, the sister-in-law of the murdered Jugnu, prefer to integration. The immense fact of isolation and displacement, which produces the kind of narcissistic masochism that resists all efforts at amelioration, acculturation, and community  [17]  , which Kaukab claims for herself, leads to what Vijay Mishra has termed the diasporic imaginary  [18]  . Mishra theorizes that, in order to preserve the loss of the diasporic experience communities construct racist fictions of purity as a kind of joy and pleasure around which anti-miscegenation narratives of homelands are constructed against the reality of the homelands themselves.  [19]  The unknown British town is constantly contrasted with Pakistan and depicted as foreign territory, in which the laws of Islam have become the sole source of orientation for most of the inhabitants. Kaukab, as the rest of th e community, therefore exalts the Pakistan of her memory to an idealised nation in which Islam still figures prominently in everyday life. If her children were still living at home, or if Shamas was back from work, Kaukab would have asked the matchmaker to lower her voice to a whisper, not whishing her children to hear anything bad about Pakistan or the Pakistanis, not wishing to provide Shamas with the opportunity to make a disrespectful comment about Islam, or hint through his expression that he harboured contrary views on Allahs inherent greatness; but she is alone in the house, so she lets the woman talk. (MLL 42) This diasporic imaginary, the glorification of Pakistan, serves the immigrants as a role model for their society. As Islam prescribes they recreate the patriarchal social structures in which the women wait at home for their husbands to return and are afraid to be seen talking to men on the street, daughters are being arranged to marry their cousins in Pakistan, lovers of different religions forbidden to marry (cf. MLL 9), husbands agreeing to medical procedures on their wives for fear of immigration authorities (cf. MLL 14) and fathers renouncing their daughters for living in sin after three failed marriages to Pakistani men (cf. MLL 176). In this strict Islamic law-abiding community the gender roles of the characters seem to be as traditional as the rest of the customs the immigrants live by. However, in the following section I will argue that in the patriarchal society with the claustrophobic sentiment it is not only the male characters that drive on the strict Islamic code of beha viour but even more so the women who obstruct any kind of integration. Intersections of Gender and Religion in Maps for Lost Lovers Analysing gender identities in a novel such as Maps for Lost Lovers is, as the previous discussion of the atmosphere of the novel has shown, closely interlinked with religious identities within the community. With the discussion of gender roles and gender identities in relation to power structures has been an established field of research for literary scholars, a terminological distinction between different religious identities within Islam appears to be helpful for the further analysis.  [20]  Therefore I want to draw attention to the difference of the terms Muslim and Islamist, as spelled out by Miriam Cooke  [21]  . Cooke points out that the two terms, which might inadvertently be confused, hint at a significant distinction. To be Muslim, according to Cooke, is an ascribed identity: Those to whom a Muslim identity is ascribed participate in a Muslim culture and community without necessarily accepting all of its norms and values.  [22]  While Muslims can be secular and only occasionally observe some of the rituals, Islamists achieve their sometimes militant identity by devoting their lives to the establishment of an Islamic state.  [23]  This opposition, which arguably attracts criticism of essentialism, in this analysis, however, will serve the purpose of breaking up common stereotypes concerning the intersection of gender and religious identities. It is the aim of the following analysis to show that the intersections of gender identities and religious identities, which would be expected in patriarchal societies as the one depicted in Maps for Lost Lovers to draw the picture of male Islamists and female Muslims, are being subverted to point out the dangers of religious fundamentalism and how it c an lead to religious obscurantism. The arising question of religion and feminism has posed itself as difficult field for research, especially for postcolonial feminists. Ania Loomba has pointed out two significant developments in this field: Many postcolonial regimes have been outrightly repressive of womens rights, using religion as the basis on which to enforce their subordination.  [24]  Especially in Islamic countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran or Afghanistan national identity is based on the Islamicisation of civil society, an alliance between fundamentalism and the State, which entails severe curtailment of freedom for women.  [25]  However, she also sees a development that tries to harness womens political activity and even militancy to right-wing movements and especially to religious fundamentalism. In various parts of the world, women have been active campaigners for the Hindu, Islamic or Christian right-wing movements.  [26]  These two opposing developments, however contradictory they seem, deal with stereotypical assumptions as the figure of the immigrant woman victim  [27]  , as for example jurist Leti Volpp has analysed and debunked. Kaukab and Shamas as well as Suraya, the characters the narrator focalizes upon for the most part of the novel, through their personal perspective give a very interesting insight into their conceptions of the intersections between gender and religious identity.  [28]  They represent different positions on the spectrum between secular Muslims and Islamists and interestingly provide a one sided picture of the gender distribution amongst these religious identities. Shamas, who opens the narration, was brought up as a Muslim yet considers himself a non-believer (MLL 20) and instead of drawing on religion for moral and ethical support as the rest of the community, he turns to communism (cf. MLL 324).  [29]  His secularism makes him a mediator between the different religious groups of Dasht-e-Tanhaii. He uses his outsiders position to move about freely between the mosque and the Hindu temple of the community. Further, his general openness and willingness to interact with people of different religious and cultural backgrounds, which again renders him an outsider to the community, makes him become the only connection to the British society: The director of the Community Relations Council, Shamas is the person the neighbourhood turns to when unable to negotiate the white world on its own, visiting his office in the town centre or bringing the problem to his front door that opens directly into the blue-walled kitchen with the yellow chairs. (MLL 15) This position, as mediator between the immigrant community and the British society, on the one hand makes him a person of respect in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, his secularism arises suspicion, even in his own wife who disapproves of his criticism of Islam and even blames her father for choosing an unbelieving husband who is not even a proper Muslim in her eyes (cf. MLL 34). His worldliness and openness further, in the eyes of his wife, make him a bad father to their three children: Oh your father will be angry, oh your father will be upset: Mah-Jabin had grown up hearing these sentences, Kaukab trying to obtain legitimacy for her own decisions by invoking his name. She wanted him to be angry, she needed him to be angry. She had cast him in the role of the head of the household and he had to act accordingly  Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ã‚ . (MLL 111) Even though Kaukab, in accordance with her own upbringing, expects Shamas to fulfil his role as head of the family his performance does not seem satisfactory to Kaukab, as Mah-Jabins remembrance shows. Shamas thus disappoints the expectations on his character as believing Muslim and head of the family. When Suraya, Shamas secret love affair, comes back to England from Pakistan, where her husband had divorced her in a drunken stupor, her sole aim is to find a man who will marry her for a short period of time and then divorce her again so that she can return to Pakistan to her first husband to remarry him (cf. MLL 149). As the Islamic law states that she has to be married to another man before her first husband can take her back, she is desperate to quickly find somebody before her first husband changes his mind and does not want her back. When Suraya meets Shamas he is immediately drawn to her. Finding her scarf on his way back home from the town centre, where he regularly picks up the newspaper, his paper falls into the river he walks along while bending down to pick up the scarf. Hes suddenly lighter, his muscles relieved, the fingers holding nothing but that scarf which has butterfly blue lozenges along its crenulated edges. (MLL 135) Suraya takes advantage of the physicalness of this first encounter, in which Shamas seems to shift off a burden, maybe the burden Kaukab has put on him with her expectations, and starts an affair with him. While Shamas actually enjoys the tenderness of their encounters, Suraya just wants to trick him into marrying her and is not reluctant to lie about being pregnant. She thus exploits her femininity and her religious beliefs to get Shamas to commit adultery and thus fulfils her own personal needs not caring about the consequences of her actions or Shamas feelings (cf. MLL 254). Suraya just legitimises the affair with the Islamic law and her wish to remarry her first husband. In contrast to the secular Shamas and the moderate Muslim Suraya, Kaukab is a strict Islamist, justifying all her actions and her behaviour with her belief in Islam. With her religious bigotry she puts off her three children who, in the course of the narration visit the house only once. In the course of that visit her estranged children get into a heated discussion with Kaukab about the status of women in Pakistan and in which she has to defend herself against reproaches of her family (cf. MLL 323 ff.). Her misconducts, as for example poisoning her youngest son with bromide because a Muslim cleric told to do so (MLL 303 f.), or marrying her only daughter to a violent man in Pakistan and not seeing where she could have done wrong (cf. MLL 326), which stem from her religious obscurantism come to a climax when Shamas is being attacked by a group of Islamists who Kaukab had once secretly charged with finding her sons. In her blind belief in Islam she finally blames Shamas for her childre ns hatred (MLL 328) and tries to take her own life. Even when it comes to her own physical health she does not deviate from her faith:  Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ã‚  Kaukab has reached that age where her womb is slipping out of her vagina and must be either surgically removed or stitched back to the inner lining of her body  Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ã‚ .  Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ã‚  Her womb the first dress of her daughter, the first address of her sons is a constant source of pain these days and she comes down the stairs carefully. She tells herself that she must bear up patiently, that a person is like a tealeaf: drop it into boiling water if you want to see its true colour. She reads verses from the Koran when the pain looks as though it is about to increase. (MLL 260) In contrast to the imagination of the woman usually cast as mothers or wives  Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚ Ã‚  called upon to literally and figuratively reproduce the nation  

Artificial Insemination :: Pregnancy Reproduction Essays

Artificial Insemination There are different types of responsibility involved in human reproduction. With modern biomedical technology the question of â€Å"who is responsible?† comes up a lot more. Artificial insemination is one of newer forms of technology that involves that question, which includes moral, and social responsibility. In â€Å"Artificial Insemination† Munson raises the question not only of who’s responsible but also what responsibilities and rights the sperm donor has and where fatherhood comes into place in that situation. He argues that the responsibilities of the donor are severed from the child produced but has the responsibility of quality, meaning informing the bank of any diseases and family history. Mainly the topic Munson seems to focus on is the responsibility the sperm donor has to the child. He believes that â€Å"The donor’s actions consist only in donating (selling) his sperm†¦ some responsibility attach to such actions, but the responsibility of being a moral father is not among them†. The moral father of a child does not necessarily mean the biological father, but the man that is involved in planning or actions, such as intercourse, towards the pregnancy. Munson then supports his arguments well with the example of two court cases. The case of People vs. Sorenson shows that Mr. Sorensen, even after divorcing his wife, was still responsible for the child even if he wasn’t the biological father. He was involved with the planning and consented to his wife getting pregnant using artificial insemination, therefore was held liable for child support. Munson then explained that â€Å"the sperm donor was explicitly held to be no differe nt from a blood donor†. The other case used was the case of CM vs. CC. In that case CM, the supplier of the sperm was also implicated in the planning of the pregnancy. Even though CC and CM were dating exclusively during most of the pregnancy, when they separated CC refused to allow CM visit the child. The court found the manner in which CC was impregnated irrelevant and granted him visitation rights and parental obligations. The use of this case shows that even though artificial insemination was used, the man involved in the planning, who also happened to be the donor, is the moral father. Artificial Insemination :: Pregnancy Reproduction Essays Artificial Insemination There are different types of responsibility involved in human reproduction. With modern biomedical technology the question of â€Å"who is responsible?† comes up a lot more. Artificial insemination is one of newer forms of technology that involves that question, which includes moral, and social responsibility. In â€Å"Artificial Insemination† Munson raises the question not only of who’s responsible but also what responsibilities and rights the sperm donor has and where fatherhood comes into place in that situation. He argues that the responsibilities of the donor are severed from the child produced but has the responsibility of quality, meaning informing the bank of any diseases and family history. Mainly the topic Munson seems to focus on is the responsibility the sperm donor has to the child. He believes that â€Å"The donor’s actions consist only in donating (selling) his sperm†¦ some responsibility attach to such actions, but the responsibility of being a moral father is not among them†. The moral father of a child does not necessarily mean the biological father, but the man that is involved in planning or actions, such as intercourse, towards the pregnancy. Munson then supports his arguments well with the example of two court cases. The case of People vs. Sorenson shows that Mr. Sorensen, even after divorcing his wife, was still responsible for the child even if he wasn’t the biological father. He was involved with the planning and consented to his wife getting pregnant using artificial insemination, therefore was held liable for child support. Munson then explained that â€Å"the sperm donor was explicitly held to be no differe nt from a blood donor†. The other case used was the case of CM vs. CC. In that case CM, the supplier of the sperm was also implicated in the planning of the pregnancy. Even though CC and CM were dating exclusively during most of the pregnancy, when they separated CC refused to allow CM visit the child. The court found the manner in which CC was impregnated irrelevant and granted him visitation rights and parental obligations. The use of this case shows that even though artificial insemination was used, the man involved in the planning, who also happened to be the donor, is the moral father.

Effect Of Catalase On Hydrogen Peroxide

My aim is to see how the effect of catalase has on the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. 2H202(aq) 2H20(l) + 02(g) My prediction is as you increase the concentration of hydrogen peroxide the catalase will break it down faster and therefore the time will be quicker The Independent variable is hydrogen peroxide I will use an appropriate range including the concentrations of 0. 1%, 0. 2%, 0. 5%, 1%, and 2% The dependant variable will be the time taken in seconds to measure how long the catalase takes to breakdown the hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen.There were a few controlled variables. The amount of hydrogen peroxide used was kept at a constant 10cm3. This allows for a fair test as the filter paper would have to travel the same distance. I repeated the experiment an extra 3 times, allowed me to calculate a mean time. There is always a need for a repeat as it improves the reliability of the experiment done. It also allows us to remove any anomalies in our res ults which h gives us a good rough estimate of the average. I carried out a suitable control experiment to prove that it was the enzyme in fact breaking down the hydrogen peroxide.In this experiment I boiled the enzyme â€Å"catalase† to denature it so it wouldn’t be able to function properly. I then tested this enzyme by dipping the filter paper in it and then into the concentration of 2% hydrogen peroxide. As the enzyme was denatured it could not break down the hydrogen peroxide and could not get the filter paper to rise from the base of the test tube. There were many hazards with this experiment. Hydrogen peroxide is an irritant that can cause irritation if left on skin.Boiling water is another hazard as that can cause scolding of the skin. There is also the risk of smashed glass on which anyone could cut themselves on. Another danger is the Bunsen burner on which someone could quite easily burn themselves. There are procedures in place to prevent these problems, we aring eye protection and washing hands after the use of hydrogen peroxide. Another prevention is keeping glass wear, boiling water and the Bunsen burner away from the edge of the table to prevent anything being knocked and falling off.ANALYSISMy data shows that what I predicted to be true, as you increased the concentration of hydrogen peroxide the time taken for the filter paper to reach the top of the test tube is smaller. This data is also shown in my graphs. The reliability of my results are good as they are shown to be accurate looking at other data that has been accumulated. The accuracy of my results seem high as they correspond to other results although improvements could be made by making sure that the level of hydrogen peroxide is accurate and more repeats are taken.My aim was to see the how catalase would breakdown hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen and to conclude following my data and results it clearly shows that my aim was very well reached as an appropriate targ et. I could do further work by changing the independent variable changing the pH. The controlled variables would be the level of hydrogen peroxide and level of water used. In this result I would notice that as the pH decreased the enzymes would denature and the breakdown of catalase would slow down.

Impact of christianity Essay

Christian dogmas have always been intertwined with philosophy regardless of the fact that most of the time both philosophers and theologians had polar opinions associated with religion and philosophy respectively. The first mentioning of philosophy in the Bible was encountered in the New Testament: See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8) Nevertheless, one of the earliest Christian representatives Tertullian always disagreed with the combination of ordinary temporal philosophical views and spiritual exalted religious dogmas. To the contrary, another religious thinker St. Augustine of Hippo defended the idea of inter-complementation of abstract science and Christian faith only in case of their mutual compatibility. St. Thomas Aquinas made great contribution to the Christianity’s impact on philosophy, as he was the first to distinguish these two important sectors of human perception of surrounding environment. He claimed that o Owing to philosophy information is being received through basic sensory functions: smell, touch, vision, hearing, and taste. Also, it is possible to prove and check the data according to laws of physics initially based on philosophy as well. o Owing to Christianity, information is not something to be proved or argued. It is to be accepted axiomatically especially when it is closely connected with God and Divine. After the Middle Ages the double nature of Jesus Christ (divine and human) was put in doubt and required explicit evidence regarding the origin and function of God. Philosophy could not succeed in answering this question, as the notions of humanity and divinity do not logically coincide with each other. Therefore, certain attempts were made with the help of Christianity to resolve the issue of imbalance. Thus, we need to mention three major reasons why philosophy was isolated from Christianity. ? First of all, philosophers from English-speaking world were predominantly atheists and rejected all spiritual and divine aspects of human activity. They required strong logical evidence and proof for subjects of their investigation and discussion ? Secondly, rejecting Christian dogmas philosophers were constantly seeking alternative ways to find proof for their arguments and new methods and evidences hidden in other religions.? Thirdly, philosophers believed that the language of religion and theology is too incoherent, irrational, and inconsistent that the meaning, no matter how important or of current importance it may be, loses its significance. Philosophical issues that have become Christianized include: ? Trinity: it was no clear for many thinkers why God consisted of three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In the 7th century the Council of Toledo announced: â€Å"we may say God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; but they are not three Gods, he is one God†. Similar to how a solar system may consist of numerous cosmic bodies. ? Sacrifice and atonement: philosophers believed that one punishment is enough to give birth to another, which is not always fair. However, Christianity responded by proving that punishment has moral nature and it is not something that exceptionally deals with evil. In conclusion, we may add that Christianity had a great impact on philosophy since early times. References Moore, N. B. , & Bruder, K. (2004). Philosophy: The Power of Ideas. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities.

Plans, Plains, and Planes

Plans, Plains, and Planes Plans, Plains, and Planes Plans, Plains, and Planes By Mark Nichol The three words in the headline for this post, and words derived from them- listed and defined below- stem from a common source. Plan, plain, and plane all derive from the Latin adjective planus, meaning â€Å"clear,† â€Å"even,† â€Å"flat, level,† and â€Å"plain.† Plan comes from the French word meaning â€Å"map†; the English word, originally a technical term in perspective drawing, soon came to apply to any diagram or drawing; usage was extended around the same time to refer to any set of details about a project or an event. The word also describes the action of preparing for a project or event. (A planform is the contour of a mass or object as seen from above.) The adjectival use of plain stems from the Old French word meaning â€Å"even,† â€Å"flat,† and â€Å"smooth† and came also to mean â€Å"clear† or â€Å"evident† as well as â€Å"free from obstruction.† Later, additional senses of â€Å"ordinary,† â€Å"undecorated,† and â€Å"unattractive† joined those meanings. Idioms include â€Å"plain dealer,† meaning â€Å"one who is candid or honest,† â€Å"plain Jane,† for a woman of unprepossessing appearance, and â€Å"as plain as the nose on (one’s) face† as an expressive substitution for obvious. Plainclothes refers to a police officer in civilian clothing (plainclothesman was ubiquitous before female undercover police officers were common), someone who is plainspoken is frank, and a plainsong is a religious chant. In Old French, plain also means â€Å"open countryside,† and it developed the sense of â€Å"level terrain† in English, originally in reference to Salisbury Plain. A floodplain is terrain built up by deposits of soil material caused by flooding or flat land susceptible to flooding. To explain (the word, originally explane, literally means â€Å"make level†) is to make clear, but complain and complaint (and plaintive) are all unrelated, deriving from the Latin verb plangere, meaning â€Å"lament.† Plane stems directly from Latin, and its use came about to distinguish what were originally both geometric and geographical senses of plain. Except for those who practice geometry or woodworking, it is best known as a truncation of airplane (originally aeroplane), which technically alludes to the aerodynamic wings of an aircraft rather than the entire structure. Biplane and triplane denote aircraft with two and three wings, respectively (generally stacked), not including smaller stabilizing wing structures. (Other specialized terms include seaplane and warplane.) To board a plane is to enplane (or emplane), exiting a plane is called deplaning. In woodworking, a plane is a tool for smoothing surfaces, and to plane is to make level or smooth. As a verb, the word also denotes gliding or soaring or, in the case of a boat, skimming over the surface of water. (Hydroplane also serves for this meaning, especially in the context of powerboat racing, though the word also applies as a verb to any action of skimming over water.) The name of the plane tree is unrelated, but planar means â€Å"two-dimensional† or â€Å"pertaining to a plane† and planaria is the designation for a genus of freshwater flatworms. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Format a UK Business LetterPrecedent vs. PrecedenceParataxis and Hypotaxis

Tartuffe MOLLIERE essays

Tartuffe MOLLIERE essays Tartuffe is a classic story of deceit by one who is trusted and respected. Tartuffe, the deceitful holy man, is living in the house of Oregon. Oregon has opened his doors to Tartuffe, and he greatly respects him for being the good holy man he was thought to be. The rest of the family believe that Tartuffe is a fake and a con. Oregon and Madam Parcelle are the two which believe in his holy reputation. Tartuffe convinces Oregon that he is an incredible man of great holy stature, and Oregon proceeds to sign over to Tartuffe Outward Appearances can sometimes be deceiving. This is evident in the way Oregon looked at Tartuffe. Tartuffe was thought to be a man of great holy influence. Oregon thought Tartuffe was a high holy figure, who was admirable because of his devotion to God. Tartuffe is actually a two- faced con artist who has no interests but that of his own welfare. Oregon is blinded by these ideals. Tartuffe takes advantage of this blindness and attempts to seduce Oregons wife and con Oregon out of all his Another action by Tartuffe was the first steps of seducing Oregons wife. He uses his rosary to pull her in closer. In this episode, Tartuffe is using a symbol of purity and holiness as a tool of lust and sin. At some points, hed be eloquent and dignified, but at times he would be as if he was going after her. There is another aspect to the seduction by Tartuffe of Oregons wife. Molierre has Oregon hiding under a table when Tartuffe is trying to physically seduce his wife. Oregon had never believed his family that Tartuffe was two faced. Oregon, seeing with his own eyes what Tartuffe was doing, finally believes them. This shows that sometimes people dont believe something until they see it with their own eyes. Moilere succeeded in making Oregon and Madam Parcelle stubborn ...

Best SAT Math Prep Books (2019) Expert Reviews

Best SAT Math Prep Books (2019) Expert Reviews SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips While there are many differentSAT prep books, they all have one thing in common: they allclaim to be the best. How canyou figure outwhich one will actually helpyou succeed on the SAT? This guide will give you myrecommendations for the best prep books for theMath section of the SAT.Some of these books are best for strategies and thinking through the problems, while others are best for practice problems. A few are geared toward top scorers, while somewill help you improve a low score fast. Before delving into the list, I have to make one disclaimer: Disclaimer Everyone's learning styles and motivation levels are unique. Thus, I don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all book out there that will help everyone equally. While these recommendations should help a lot of students, they can't necessarily account for everyone's individual differences. That's why I'm a huge proponent of PrepScholar's online method of test prep. It diagnoses your strengths and weaknesses and customizes the test prep for you and your schedule. Because of this high level of personalization, it's very effective forhelping students study efficiently and make big leaps in their SAT scores. That being said, prep books can be very helpful in reviewing material and giving you practice with hundreds of sample SAT questions. It's great that you're already starting to break your test prep down by section by focusing specifically on math. Since the best representation of SAT questions come from the test makers themselves, I'll start this list with College Board's The Official SAT Study Guide. There are some pros and cons to this book, but perhaps the biggest con is that you can find these same eight practice tests for free online!Read on to decide whether or not this book would be helpful to you. The College Board's Official SAT Study Guide Price:About $19 Pros When it comes to the SAT, the best sample questions come directly from the test makers themselves.College Board's The Official SAT Study Guideincludes eight real practice tests with official answer explanations. Since College Board makes and administers the SAT, thisbook contains the best representation of the real test. However, and this is an important point, College Board has also released PDFs of every chapter and practice test in the book on its website!As part of its efforts toward greater transparency and equalizing access to test prep, College Board has published its practice tests and offered free resources via Khan Academy. The College Boardbook's main strength is its official SAT questions, since they are the very best practice material. Beyond the practice tests, the book's greatest strengths are its review of the overall test structure and format, its presentation of math concepts, and its description of the new essay. Since the SAT is a written test, it's a good idea to have hard copies of practice tests to gain practice in the most authentic way.Whether this means buying this book or printing out the free tests yourself is up to you. College Board's real questions will get you familiar with how questions are worded, how they're arranged, and other patterns of the SAT. You'll gain practice with the new structure, which gives you a 65-minute Reading section, 35-minute Writing section, and two math sections. The eight full-length practice tests add upto 24 hours of prep or 32 hours if you include the essay section. Cons While College Board's official questions are helpful and effective practice, their answer explanations are not as detailed as they could be. They explain the answer choices but don't give you much information about how to approach and think through the question. Since there are a limited number of officialpractice tests, you might choose to stagger each one throughout your prep as a way to measure your progress and evaluate your approach. The tests could be best used as measuring posts; College Board's official material won't help you as much as some other options in terms of learning and test-taking strategies. Overall, you should familiarize yourself with the material in this book, since it contains the most accurate practice questions compared to any other source. Whether you choose to do so with a hard copy of the book or via College Board's website (for free) is a matter of personal preference. Now that you know where and how to locate official College Board practice problems, let's discuss the best math prep books, starting with the best book for content instruction. Best SAT Math Prep Book for Instruction Steve Warner's SAT MathSeries Price:About $30 Pros Steve Warner offers several SAT math books. The best one for content instruction isNew SAT Math Problems, but you can also find workbooks geared towards students in certain scoring levels. New SAT Math Problems is one of the best books out there for content review and instruction. He discusses the new areas emphasized on the test:Problem Solving and Data Analysis, Heart of Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry, and Passport to Advanced Math. The book arranges concepts and their corresponding practice problems in level of difficulty, from Level 1 up to Level 4. This organizationby level, rather than problem type, is useful, as it allows you to integrate skills and ensure you don't leave out any important concepts. It also lets students focus on the difficulty level that will help them most improve their scores, with students scoring around a 600 advised to focus on Levels 2 through 4 and students aiming for 700+ directed to the Level 4 and 5 problems. The lessons are carefully crafted and paired with practice problems to test your understanding. The questions are realistic and come with detailed explanations, which often go overa few different approaches (unlike College Board's single approach explanations). These explanations allow you to carefullyunderstand your mistakes while learning how to approach a similar question the next time. Cons One major con to this book is simply its restricted length. Compared to Steve Warner's multiple-issue series on the math section of the old SAT, his currentbooks don'trepresent the same scope of material that was so useful to students at all different scoring levels. Not only will future additions be helpful, but they will ideally break down the concepts into even smaller components. This book is a good start, but students who want to review concepts would be best served with a detailed and specific breakdown of each and every one. If you're using this book, you may want to consult other resources to ensure that you've filled in every gapin knowledge for the SAT. Finally, the New SAT Math Problemsbook may not contain a sufficient number of practice problems for your prep. Its strength lies in content instruction and review with practice problems interspersed by concept and difficulty level. If you're looking for a large set of practice problems to test your knowledge, then the next book on this list would be a better resource. Best SAT Math Books for Practice Questions Dr. Jang's SAT 800 Math Workbook for the New SAT Price:About $25 Pros If you're looking for math practice problems, you'll find over 1,500 in Dr. Jang's Math Workbook for the New SAT. This book discusses math topics and concepts, but its real strength lies in the sheer number of practice problems. Since timing yourself, answering questions, and analyzing your mistakes is a key part of your preparation, this book could be a very effective study tool. The practice problems throughout the book are arranged by difficulty level, so if you've got a certain question type mastered then you can challenge yourself with harder ones. Additionally, Dr. Jang's Math Workbook has a diagnostic test at the beginning and 10 sample tests that you can take under test-like conditions. Not only are the practice questions abundant, but they are realistic. You'll find the addition of trigonometry, and the questions will be marked as non-calculator and calculator. This book is well customized to the concepts, format, and rules of the SAT. Cons As mentioned above, this book is most useful for its abundance of practice problems. It's less ideal for students looking for thorough content review. It also is not the best source of test-taking strategies, like time management. Furthermore, its answer explanations are not all that varied, so you won't gain a ton of insight into different approaches you could use to solve a problem. Dr. Jang's Math Workbook is useful for students at all levels, but you'd probably want to supplement it with a book that provided more in-depth instruction, strategies, and explanations. While the above books cater to students at various scoring levels, the two books below are best for strong math students aiming for top scores. Barron's Math Workbook Price:About $12 Pros Barron's Math Workbook has hundreds of practice SAT math questions, all with detailed answer explanations. The questions are divided by content area and concept, so you can learn about a specific skill and then drill with relevant problems. In addition to all of the practice questions, there are two full-length practice tests at the end of the book. You'll also get some test-taking tips, but the real strength of the book lies in its abundance of practice questions. Cons Students have noted some typos and spelling errors in Barron's, as if the company rushed to get the book to print without thorough copyediting first. It doesn't seem to have substantial mistakes, but these little typos can be distracting, especially as you're going through the detail-oriented work of SAT prep. As a traditional SAT book, it's written in astraightforward style that can get a bit dry and boring. If you're looking for a more engaging, personable, or funny writing style, you won't find it in Barron's. Of course, since the book is more of a workbook full of practice questions, you should look elsewhere for in-depth lessons and content review. Best SAT Math Books for High Scorers PWN the SAT Math Guide Price:About $29 Pros PWN the SAT is geared towards highly achieving, motivated students aiming for a top score in SAT Math. The book is written in an engaging, irreverent style,which helps students stay engaged with the material. It's divided into five categories: Techniques, Heart of Algebra, Passport to Advanced Math, Problem Solving and Data Analysis, and Additional Topics in Math. The book breaks down each SAT Math category into its component concepts. It has realistic practice problems that are designated as either "Calculator" or "No calculator" to help you get ready for both question types. Each chapter also provides a list of official questions of a certain type to help you drill specific skills. Finally, you can register on the PWN SAT website to get bonus material, as well as watch video answer explanations that walk you through practice problems, step by step. Cons The main con of PWN the SAT Math Guide is that its target audience is limited. It will help top scorers with strong math skills, but it won't be as accessible to students who struggle with math. If you're looking for foundational knowledge, then PWN the SAT isn't the book for you. It won't be the best resource to raise low math scores. Rather, it's better to bring already strong scores into the top percentiles. Dr. John Chung's SAT Math: 60 Perfect Tips and 15 Complete Tests Price:About $39 Pros As compared to College Board's four practice tests, 15 is certainly an improvement! Dr. Chung's SAT Math book is one of the most comprehensive currently out there in terms of content and practice questions in one place. This book is best for strong math students and top scorers. It doesn't go over the fundamentals and assumes its readers have a stable foundation in math concepts. It advertises itself as "designed for students to get a perfect score" and provides useful examples and practice questions to this end. The 60 "perfect tips" are brief descriptions of concepts, like linear function, exponents, transformations, and average speeds, paired with a few examples and practice problems to reinforce your understanding. Cons First, because there aren't a lot of copes available anymore, this book can be quite expensive. Additionally, Dr. Chung does not give you much in the way of review, lessons, or concept reinforcement. The book mostly assumes you have a strong foundation in math.It's a "no-frills" kind of book that essentially looks like a list of practice problems; you won't find much in the way of introduction or narrative. It's not a book you can fully rely on for your test prep, and it's probably not the best one to start out with, either. Some students have also noted some typos in Dr. Chung'svarious editions, as if the books wererushed to publication without proofreading for all the errors. While it's great that this bookhas so many practice questions, it seems like there may besome careless mistakes throughout the material. Finally, this book is not particularly descriptive of the changes to the SAT. It contains relevant practice problems, but it doesn't go into detail about new skills and question types or even the new structure. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the changes, like the addition of trigonometry and non-calculator questions, outside of this book. The 150 Hardest SAT Math Problems Reincarnated for the New SAT Price:About $10 Pros The 150 Hardest SAT Math Problems Reincarnated for the New SATwas designed for the "A+ student who wants to go from 700 to a perfect score" and doesn't want to waste her time on "fodder problems." This book collected the trickiest questions that most students missed over the last ten years of SAT administrations. According to the author, he "reincarnated" these questions in the format of the new SAT. These questions are useful for top scorers who want to make sure they understand fundamental concepts of algebra, geometry, and numbers and how to apply them to the most challenging question types. At the same time, this book has some major weaknesses that you should understand before purchasing a copy. Cons The author maintains that his problems have been "reincarnated" to fit the redesigned test, but he doesn't seem to have changed much beyond reducing the answer choices from five to four. He does include some non-calculator questions, but other than that the author downplays the major changes that were madeto the SAT in early 2016. For instance, he includes numbers, algebra, and geometry, but no trigonometry. He also provides little explanation of the new SAT's focus on real-world word problems and scenarios. Since the math section is the one that changed the least on the SAT, these recycled problems from SATs past will still help you prepare. At the same time, make sure you're aware of the changes that are being made and supplement these questions with ones more specific to the redesigned SAT. Finally, these next two books are useful for the average math student who wants to shore up her foundation in the fundamentals or can only dedicate a limited amount of time to studying. Best SAT Math Books for Low Scorers If you're planning to devote only a few hours to studying for the math SAT, these books should give you a general overview and introduction to the concepts you need to know. However, if you are taking a more active approach to your test prep, then these are the books you should probably avoid. They're not so helpful for trulyin-depth understanding and preparation. Kaplan Price:About $12 Pros Kaplan's SAT Math Prep Bookis a traditional prep book that reviews concepts and provides corresponding practice sets. It includes new concepts, like trigonometry, and has 16 practice sets and over 250 practice problems. Kaplan's book also breaks down the new format and structure of the SAT Math section, while many other books do not. It's a useful tool for learning about the new SAT, reviewing 16 key concepts, and trying out practice problems. Cons Kaplan's practice questions tend not to be the best written. They're not always realistic or phrased in the same way that the SAT is.In the beginning of this guide, I emphasized the importance of taking official College Board tests, since they're the best representation of the questions you'll get on test day. Kaplan's questions usually represent the other end of this spectrum, because they don't always resemble actual SAT questions. Doingwell on the SAT math is not just about understanding the concepts, but also about understanding the SAT and being able to apply those concepts to the SAT's uniquely worded questions. Without this practice, you won't be asprepared as you could be for the SAT's unique phrasing and tricks. Doing well is also about strategy.Kaplan has some strategies, but they're not that helpful for breaking away from a score of around 600. Kaplan gives a basic overview, but it's not the most helpful resources for students looking to make a large score improvements or understand the material in depth. A second book for students who are not planning to do all that muchSAT prep is Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Clueless. Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Clueless: The Easiest and Quickest Way to Prepare for the New SAT Math Section Price:About $6 Pros While I'm not a big fan of the title, Bob Miller's SAT Math for the Cluelessbook delivers what it says it will - an easy and quick way to prepare for the SAT. It provides a mix of material for the current SAT and theredesigned SAT. While Dr. Chung's Math Workbook is spare, Bob Miller's book has funny and accessible introductions. If you find it hard to focus on math without some humor, you might find this book more engaging (a useful characteristic when you're self-studying with books). Cons Bob Miller's SAT Math focuses more on strategies, techniques, and introductory review than on practice questions. It also lacks an in-depth description of changes being made to the SAT, and it doesn't incorporate the more advanced math problems. This book is really just for the self-described "clueless" math students who want a brief, accessible review. Perhaps it will spark your motivation to move onto better study guides with more comprehensive SAT preparation. So there you have it, my recommendations for instruction, practice problems, high scorers, and low scorers. There are pros and cons of each, and hopefully there will be books of ever higher quality published over the next few months. One challenge that all the above booksshare is the self-discipline that required tostudyfrom them.You'll have to set your own schedule, score your own tests, and learn via reading and writing, rather than incorporating visual or auditory approaches. With these considerations in mind, is solely studying for the SAT from books the best option for you as a learner? Is Studying From Books the Best Option for You? While books used to be the main test prep method for the SAT, now there are lots of other approaches. This gives you a lot more choice in finding a method that fits best with your math level, study style, and goals, not to mention how much money you're able and willing to spend on SAT prep. Books can be affordable, but as you can see from the pros and cons mentioned above, you probably want to use more than one book to truly prepare. This can add up to hundreds of dollars. As more and more test prep companies focus their attention online, you might have to go online to find answers, answer explanations, and other supplementary materials. This could divide your attention while still leaving it up to you to spend a long time scoring your own tests. Books can be very comprehensive and informative, but you'll only access all theinformation you need with the self-discipline to take time to study and learn from your mistakes. PrepScholar's method of online test prepfor the new SAT attempts to address and make up for these weaknesses in a number of ways. One, it's an all-in-one program that incorporates the best practices from all these books, while also customizing the test prep based on what you already know and what you need to study further. It addresses the accountability and self-discipline issue by planning our your study schedule for you in the way that's been proven to be most effective. It also takes away the time-waster of self scoring, since it will give you instant feedback on your performance.On a similar note, you can visually see your progress, how far you've gone in the material and how much you have to left to conquer. By incorporating the "pros" of every test prep book - high-quality questions, comprehensive explanations, diagnostic tests, and expert test-taking strategies - and making up for the cons with personalized motivators and progress reports, PrepScholar is an affordable, accessible, and highly effective method of convenient online prep for the new SAT. Just as you should diagnose your strengths and weaknesses to best prepare for the SAT, you'd be smart to reflect on your learning style and what method of test prep, whether through books or online, will best meet your needs and allow you to excel on all sections of the SAT. What's Next? Are you aiming for perfection? This perfect SAT scorer describes all the strategies and techniques he used to achieve a full score on the SAT, and what exactly you need to do to reach that perfect score. Besides studying, planning exactly when you're going to take the SAT is also a key consideration for maximizing your performance. Read all about when you should take the SAT as you design your schedule. Perhaps you've noticed that theSAT is looking a lot like the ACT these days. If you're deciding which test to take, check out our detailed comparison of the SAT and the ACT. Want to learn more about the SAT but tired of reading blog articles? Then you'll love our free, SAT prep livestreams. 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Why do Organizational Change Initiatives Often Fail Research Paper

Why do Organizational Change Initiatives Often Fail - Research Paper Example How to change may differ across organizations but change is essential for progress or as Abrahamson (2004) calls it â€Å"creative destruction†. Without pain no change is possible and the justification for change is â€Å"change or perish†. Change could involve a process, technology or public process. Research indicates that almost 56-70 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve the intended objectives while 90 percent of culture change initiatives fail (Atkinson, 2005). If the change objectives are not achieved, the organization should strive to evaluate the causes of failure. Once the causes can be identified it may be possible to apply change management procedure to achieve the change objectives. Consequences of change failure can be disastrous. Change failures not only result in waste of resources but when changes fail people go cynical and lose motivation to work. Failure in managing change can lead to preconceptions and perceptions that can have a demora lizing effect on employees. The causes of failures that have emerged include shortcomings in change leadership, insufficient attention given to the complexities in the change process, or repetitive change syndrome resulting in initiative overload, change chaos and cynicism. Failures could also occur due to lack of clear compelling statement or vision, or when there is no definite plan or directives, no goals and programs, no methods or deadlines. Speeding up the change process could lead to errors that could be devastating. Management may also fail to recognize that adjustment to change could take time. Various tools have been suggested to manage change effectively the most important suggestion being that change requires effective leadership; it requires more than just managing change. This should be a visionary leadership where the vision is effectively communicated to the people concerned. Empowerment is another effective tool to obtain the intended outcome in the change process a s empowerment helps eliminate the obstacles while it also reduces the alienated feeling that employees develop. However, a practicing manager needs to ensure that the stakeholders are involved in the change process from the very beginning. No sense of urgency should be transmitted as this could end up in change chaos. Communication should be honest and be able to generate trust and confidence. Short-term wins should be created as it is an effective tool in receiving cooperation for furthering the process of change. This research was conducted to synthesize the varied perspectives on change leadership and change models that could help an organization to achieve the change objectives. The research will review the top reasons for change initiative failure and how they can be remedied. Various change models of renowned scholars such as Kotter, Lewin, Bridges and Abrahamson have been reviewed and evaluated. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Causes of failure in the change process 2.1.1 Resistance to change Manifestation of resistance Employee resistance to change can be exhibited or communicated in a number of ways, the employees could express cynicism or they may not be â€Å"open† to change or â€Å"not ready† for change (Peccei, Giangreco & Sebastiano, 2011). The resistance to change manifests itself mainly through low-engagement in pro-change behaviors. There can even be more active anti-change behaviors as when people speak out in public against the change or when they undermine its implementation. Resistance is often displayed passively and covertly, asserts Atkinson. If they were displayed in a forthright manner it would have been possible to deal with them logically. Some times staff may attend a change project and display approval but underneath this external facade they nurture

BUSINESS LAW Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

BUSINESS LAW - Essay Example Sole proprietorship This form of business organization is one that is organized under the management of an individual. The organization only depends on the contribution of the individual. The setting of this particular organization is based on contribution and profit sharing by an individual. However, this form of business setting can have support from family members or sponsors which do not reflect on the formal participation in the creation of the business entity. According to Ray (2001) sole proprietorship is a creation of a decision making process by one person. He further points out that, this form of business organization survival does not depend on contributions from donors or business partners. Additionally, a sole proprietor may use a business name apart from his legal name to represent his business entity. Ray (2001) points out that the sole proprietor owns all the assets in the business. In describing the formation and operation of a sole proprietorship, Pettet (2005) says that it is only more that buying and selling of services and goods. He further points out that the description of the activities in the business is automatically shaped by the owner’s activities. In this business form, taxation is only done on the business as the source of income for the owner. The owner is not further taxed as an individual. Additionally, the location of a sole proprietor business is decided by the owner and it is not dictated by any law. Advantages (Besley & Brigham, 2008) There are few legal formalities that are involved in its creation There is no profit sharing as the entire profit generated is taken by the proprietor The business entity can benefit from contributions by family members and relatives The capital required for the creation of a sole proprietorship is minimum compared to the amount required for the creation of other business entities. Operating challenges are minimized since no complex record keeping systems are required The unlimited liabi lity status of the owner attracts creditors Disadvantages (Besley & Brigham, 2008) The proprietor incurs all the loss that may be generated by the organization The exposure of this form of business to sponsors is minimized The proprietor is the sole contributor of the capital required The continuity of this form of business entity is made unpredictable. For instance, if the proprietor dies the business may be dissolved There is a minimized exposure to talent and expertise General partnerships This form of business is based on skill and resources contribution by two or more people (Pettet, 2005). Partnerships are legally registered as business creation by two or more people. The contribution by each partner should be voluntary and the contribution by each partner is legally recorded. Such business entities are legally bound by rules and regulation created by governments. The contribution of resources and capital may vary in terms of quantity but must be on agreeable terms and compens ation conditions. The contribution by a partner dictates the sharing profit ratio: the highest contributor of capital and resources get a greater share of the profit. Name of partners, loss and profit sharing ratio, name of partnership, capital of the business of the entity and the provisions in settling differences are the constitution of the legal provisions of general partnerships

A-level Writing - Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A-level Writing - Environment - Essay Example We are a long way from Mesopotamia at this point in our history, however. Many of our modern efforts to control or adapt the environment for the benefit of humans have created environmental degradation and damage. We are actually at a point where humans are no longer making the world a better place to live. We are damaging the planet due to excessive use and waste of our natural resources. This is most clearly visible through the global phenomena of climate change, desertification and water pollution. Global climate change is a very contentious topic. Many scientists believe that greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane that are being released into the atmosphere at historic levels by human activity is causing the earth’s atmosphere to heat up. Other scientists believe that the recent warming that has been measured is nothing more than a part of the earth’s natural cycle of warming and cooling (Press, 2004, p.55). Assuming that the science is correct, it is important to understand that much of these greenhouse gasses that are being emitted are a result of conveniences we demand as a part of our modern lifestyles. They are not vital for human existence. Having a car, electricity and high-speed air travel are vital parts of our global culture, but they are not necessary for the sustaining of human life. Our world would be radically different without these modern inventions and services, but there is a chance that our continued use will damage the planet deeply. Entire ecosystems may disappear simply because people are unwilling to pay more for alternative forms of transportation or because they refuse to acknowledge scientific data because of a certain religious or political belief (Letcher, 2009, p.133). This is indeed proof of the danger humans pose to the earth. Even when there is a chance our actions are detrimental to the environment; many of us still refuse to change our ways. Desertification is another way that humans are degradin g the environment. Pasturing animals is an ancient occupation, but the modern demands of six billion inhabitants of earth to eat an animal rather than a plant-based diet is starting to stress many ecosystems. Grazing animals in areas of marginal rainfall can lead to a process known as desertification. The soil dries out and loses its fertility, leading to an encroachment of desert soils or a barren hardpan. Desertification claims many acres of land each year. The real problem with this phenomenon lies in the fact that once soils are degraded in an arid region, they are almost impossible to rehabilitate. A few seasons of over-grazing can result in ruined soils that took millennia to develop. Traditional grazing practices were much gentler on the environment, but modern methods of grazing have proven disastrous in many areas of Africa, Southwest Asia and even North America (Geist, 2006, p. 42). A final way that humans are causing irreparable harm to the environment is through water po llution, specifically through the runoff of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. The green revolution of the 1960’s greatly increased the output of the world’s farms, but we are now reaping the negative consequences of the overuse of agrichemicals. Estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay have entire areas

Air pollution come along with urban development Essay

Air pollution come along with urban development - Essay Example China, like Indonesia and MÃ ©xico, is an emerging economy where air pollution in large cities causes significant health problems and is part of the nation’s priorities. Tackling air pollution not only curbs the degradation of air quality, but also promotes economic growth through the reduction of extra operating costs in public, businesses, households, and industry sectors. However, urban center reshaping results in greater livability regardless of the city’s geographic location. The debate on urban air pollution is far from over with both sides, making all efforts to prove their point. As the debate on air pollution becomes heated, many are left asking: should we stop urban development to protect our atmosphere? Logan, a senior research scientist in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, argues that the adoption of environmental regulation, economic reform, and energy policy controls air pollution even with urban development. Logan completed a study in which he showed that through dramatically reversing local and global air pollution in China, coal consumption lowered as the consumption of oil, natural gas and electricity rose. Consequently, there was a drastic decline in the consumption of air pollution emissions by about 20% and a corresponding decline in carbon dioxide emission by 15%. In his study, Logan (42) investigated the tradeoff between air pollution and economic growth to indicate how breaking away with the coal-based past through adoption of economic reforms, environmental policies and targeted energy reduced sulfur and other air pollutants. The study indicated a positive correlation between fiscal reforms and definite policies on environment and energy and reduced levels of carbon emissions, particulate, and sulfur. A different study conducted by in 2014 (Cunningham) confirmed that China being the world’s largest coal producer and consumer continually

Business Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Business Law - Essay Example The local and state courts are active within their restricted domain. A hierarchal trend is evident in which the bottom courts have restricted domain, and the relatively superior court have increasing number of responsibilities and assignments. The court has certain jurisdictions which are based on the nature and the location of the case (Tinsley, 2000). It is advisable, and is per the discreet of the company to file suit against any party for its failure to abide by the norms and regulations, or violation of any agreed or legal document. In this case, where the company B has betrayed company A, and has tried to defy the accepted deal, the company A is therefore entitled to submit its complain to the court. The issues with reference to the social, family, cultural and religious disputes are handled by the civil courts, whereas the cases related to theft, burglary, murder, violence, corruption and fraud are treated by the criminal courts. The given case in which the company A i.e. employer has been betrayed by another company B i.e. call center has little relevance with the criminal activities; therefore the proceedings of the case are expected to be conducted by the civil courts. The ambiguities and malpractices mostly related to the unethical and immoral values are brought under the domain of the civil court. The civil court are considered perfect judicial resort where the justice can be achieved, the proceedings in other courts are difficult to be materialized mainly due to the reason that either the court itself will rule out the application, or the lawyers of the defendants can prove that the criminal courts are not entitled to conduct the proceedings, thus such a case will stand v oid. Contrary, the civil courts can entitle to conduct the proceedings without any legal barrier, therefore company A is authorized to register a case of manipulation of funds, or detachment from the agreed financial deal against company B in the

Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 4

Human Resource Management - Essay Example Many companies do not have enough resources to invest in the recruitment process. As a matter of fact, for a company to attract the most suitable candidates they need to advertise as much as possible and the most cost effective and efficient way is that of web based recruitment. It is very important to communicate properly and have well written descriptions. To attract the potential candidates it is significant to have a well written description of the position which is neither too long nor too short. It should properly communicate all the important information. Introduction A process of attracting the most suitable candidates and making them apply for that particular job in a company or organization is known as recruitment. It is a process and a way to hire the right type of candidates for the right job. Recruitment is becoming a very critical and significant component of the human resource structure (Alvesson, 2010). It is highly significant to hire people who have more qualities a nd are more talented. For this a very fine and properly tuned up recruitment process is required. This is to ensure that the hired people are the most talented ones and are the best fit for the job. In order to measure the effectiveness of the recruitment process the organization needs to give importance to the feedback from internal customers, its employees and from the external customers. There are several methods of recruitment process. The two broad headings for the recruitment method are that of internal recruitment and external recruitment (Becker, 2007). Job advertisement, recruitment and employment agencies, internal bulletins and the recommendations personally, job centers of government and the new social media are the few most commonly used methods for recruitment. Job advertisement is the most widely used recruitment method. In this method the organization critically and carefully sought out the places it needs to advertise in. A typical job advertisement includes all the important information like job title, the location, description, compensation package and instructions to apply for the job (Thompson & Luthans, 1990). Organizations at times use the agencies like recruitment agencies and employment agencies to attract the most suitable candidates and hire them. The agencies help the organization in the screening of the resumes in the initial phase, the assessment of qualifications and their test, and also the reference checks. Personal recommendations and internal bulletin is also a method of recruitment (Sheridan, 2002). This is done by the organizations to alert the staff for the available positions. The organizations use this method to put up an incentive for the ones who are in search of advancement and also to seek the employee referrals. This method can be an effective one as the employees are already associated with the company and helps in saving the time and money of the company. Another method is job centers of government that usually ad vertise the job for the development of employees in an effort to serve the citizens in search of employment. The new and the latest way of recruitment is that of social media. This is the fastest and the most fruitful resource for recruitment these days. It helps the professionals connect all round the globe. This method is very efficient in attracting the maximum number of candidates in the shortest possible time (Wanous

Business Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Business Law - Essay Example The local and state courts are active within their restricted domain. A hierarchal trend is evident in which the bottom courts have restricted domain, and the relatively superior court have increasing number of responsibilities and assignments. The court has certain jurisdictions which are based on the nature and the location of the case (Tinsley, 2000). It is advisable, and is per the discreet of the company to file suit against any party for its failure to abide by the norms and regulations, or violation of any agreed or legal document. In this case, where the company B has betrayed company A, and has tried to defy the accepted deal, the company A is therefore entitled to submit its complain to the court. The issues with reference to the social, family, cultural and religious disputes are handled by the civil courts, whereas the cases related to theft, burglary, murder, violence, corruption and fraud are treated by the criminal courts. The given case in which the company A i.e. employer has been betrayed by another company B i.e. call center has little relevance with the criminal activities; therefore the proceedings of the case are expected to be conducted by the civil courts. The ambiguities and malpractices mostly related to the unethical and immoral values are brought under the domain of the civil court. The civil court are considered perfect judicial resort where the justice can be achieved, the proceedings in other courts are difficult to be materialized mainly due to the reason that either the court itself will rule out the application, or the lawyers of the defendants can prove that the criminal courts are not entitled to conduct the proceedings, thus such a case will stand v oid. Contrary, the civil courts can entitle to conduct the proceedings without any legal barrier, therefore company A is authorized to register a case of manipulation of funds, or detachment from the agreed financial deal against company B in the

Culture and World Wide Web Essay Example for Free

Culture and World Wide Web Essay Basis ternet has changed our lives, before the internet, Life was completely different. In early times, people sent letters for communication, but now a day, The World Wide Web has changed the world in more than one way. The Internet has suddenly changed politics, business, and culture. Now today, there is no need to sent letters, it is the modern era, the information technology time, in which information can take not more than half second to be sent. ternet has changed our lives, before the internet, Life was completely different. In early times, people sent letters for communication, but now a day, The World Wide Web has changed the world in more than one way. The Internet has suddenly changed politics, business, and culture. Now today, there is no need to sent letters, it is the modern era, the information technology time, in which information can taternet has changed our lives, before the internet, Life was completely different. In early times, people sent letters for communication, but now a day, The World Wide Web has changed the world in more than one way. The Internet has suddenly changed politics, business, and culture. Now today, there is no need to sent letters, it is the modern era, the information technology time, in which information can take not more than half second to be sent. The technologies are growing, developing, but did the culture changed and turned iternet has changed our lives, before the internet, Life was completely different. In early times, people sent letters for communication, but now a day, The World Wide Web has changed the world in more than one way. The Internet has suddenly changed politics, busiternet has changed our lives, before the internet, Life was completely different. In early times, people sent letters for communication, but now a day, The World Wide Web has changed the world in more than one way. The Internet has suddenly changed politics, business, and culture. Now today, there is no need to sent letters, it is the modern era, the information technology time, in which information can take not more than half second to be sent. The technologies are growing, developing, but did the culture changed and turned into a single culture, not at all. Discovery of computers and internet has come like a miracle to mankind. Through this the worldwide communication has increased. People are gaining knowledge about other cultures, but this does not mean that they are fully adopting the other culture and this is because soness, and culture. Now today, there is no need to sent letters, it is the modern era, the information technology time, in which information can take not more than half second to be sent. The technologies are growing, developing, but did the culture changed and turned into a single culture, not at all. Discovery of computers and internet has come like a miracle to mankind. Through this the worldwide communication has increased. People are gaining knowledge about other cultures, but this does not mean that they are fully adopting the other culture and this is because sonto a single culture, not at all. Discovery of computers and internet has come like a miracle to mankind. Through this the worldwide communication has increased. People are gaining knowledge about other cultures, but this does not mean that they are fully adopting the other culture and this is because soke not more than half second to be sent. The technologies are growing, developing, but did the culture changed and turned into a single culture, not at all. Discovery of computers and internet has come like a miracle to mankind. Through this the worldwide communication has increased. People are gaining knowledge about other cultures, but this does not mean that they are fully adopting the other culture and this is because so The technologies are growing, developing, but did the culture changed and turned into a single culture, not at all. Discovery of computers and internet has come like a miracle to mankind. Through this the worldwide communication has increased. People are gaining knowledge about other cultures, but this does not mean that they are fully adopting the other culture and this is because so

Sample Assignment Coca-Cola Global Marketing Strategy

Sample Assignment Coca-Cola Global Marketing Strategy Introduction As domestic markets mature, it is becoming more and more fashionable for organisations to seek growth through opportunities in foreign countries. Faster communication, new technologies and improved transport links are making international markets more accessible and businesses pursuing a global position can experience an upsurge in brand awareness and cost effectiveness. Global marketing is a relatively new concept linked to these developments. In the main, it is concerned with decisions for integrating or standardising marketing actions across a number of geographic markets. This does not rule out any customisation of the marketing mix to individual countries but suggests that organisations should capitalise on similarities between markets to build competitive advantage. Compelling cases can be put forward for both a standardisation or adaptation approach to international marketing practice. These arguments are keenly explored, drawing from examples of Coca-Colas international marketing programme to elucidate key points. Background of Coca-Cola As the worlds largest manufacturer and distributor of non-alcoholic beverages, Coca-Cola is certainly no stranger to global marketing. Established in the US, Coca-Cola initiated its global expansion in 1919 and now markets to more than 200 countries worldwide. It is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet and also owns a large portfolio of other soft drink brands including Schweppes, Oasis, 5 alive, Kea Oar, Fanta, Lilt, Dr Pepper, Sprite and Powerade. Despite this, Coca-Cola often struggles to maintain its market share over its main rival PepsiCo in some overseas markets, particularly Asian countries. Arguments for Standardisation †¢ Converging customer needs and preferences It is proposed by Levitt that the forces of globalisation driven by technology and wider travel are leading to more homogenised customer needs and wants worldwide. This paves the way for the building of global brand identities where companies are able to export their domestic brands to mass markets abroad and consumers will react to them in similar ways. In this sense, standardised marketing with a universal product and message can be an integrating force across national borders. To send out different communication messages across countries could lead to customer confusion and even dilution of the brand. In keeping with this, Coca-Cola sells virtually the same Coke beverage worldwide. The design of Coca-Cola soft drinks has changed little in its history, from the logo to the distinctive glass bottle. These unique and consistent characteristics evoke a strong brand image which has cross-cultural appeal. †¢ Economies of scale/experience In many industries, companies can reap cost advantages by operating on a global scale and ultimately improve their all-round competitiveness. Using a centralised structure, a firm can draw economies from bulk purchase discounts or by sharing functions such as product development, marketing, production and managerial resources among different markets. In Coca-Colas example, economies are gained through the competent running of a large-scale franchising system for its bottling operations. †¢ Technological viability In sectors where technological and production processes are homogeneous, extra weight is placed on standardisation of products as a prerequisite for success. As part of its vision that Coke should taste the same around the world, Coca-Cola has chosen to standardise its product and manufacturing process. The knock on effects of this are more streamlined procedures and greater cost efficiencies. It is worth noting Levitts argument that companies which opt to produce an assortment of products serving different customer segments would be unable to survive globalisation due to inefficiencies in their operation. Arguments for Adaptation †¢ Consumer Diversity Supporters of the adaptation view contend that, regardless of globalisation, consumers in different countries continue to vary dramatically in their geographic, demographic, economic and cultural characteristics. It is sensible to imply that, where there are differences in product preferences, product uses, attitudes, shopping patterns, income levels and education, a business will need to adapt its product offering or communication programme in some shape or form. By carefully singling out the most significant differences, organisations can tailor products to suit local tastes and conditions. Dennis and Harris pronounced that global branding strategy should actually be a local plan for each component market, as to apply a standard approach worldwide without considering local preferences and cultural differences is doomed to failure. Food and beverage organisations in particular, can easily fall prey to obstacles such as regional taste and category development issues. On the other hand, organisations that market internationally have to bear in mind that customising communication and product strategy will increase overall marketing costs. Traditionally, Coca-Cola used a standardised marketing campaign strategy where it would pull advertisements for specific markets from a common pool of adverts designed to have universal appeal. Lately, Coca-Cola has chosen to back away from a full standardisation approach and to instead tweak its efforts to accommodate local culture and nuances. Its former approach was deemed too rigid with some of its campaigns not always successfully transcending national borders. Although the branding and position of Coca-Cola remains consistent worldwide, its execution is based on what is judged to be best for each local market. This is evident in its Live on the Coke Side of Life advertisement campaign launched in 2006 where elements of local culture are included. On the product side, Coke bottles and cans include the target countries native language and are sized to match up to other beverage bottles or cans in that country. The company also offers a varied product line-up to capture different consumer tastes, for example, soy drinks for its Asian markets. †¢ Differences in Infrastructure and Regulations Several multinational companies, including Coca-Cola, have discovered that operating from a completely central and standardised perspective can impede the progress of the company, especially when it comes to understanding and integrating with local conditions. Coca-Cola is well known for its widespread accessibility through a variety of channels such as large supermarkets, petrol stations, restaurants, hospitals, cafes and so on. Having a strong brand gave Coca-Cola the supplier bargaining power it needed to break into the more complex and entrenched distribution systems of lots of countries. Adding the fact that food laws can vary tremendously from one country to another, it is not surprising that Coca-Cola describes itself as multi-local. Despite a standardised product, Coca-Cola is obliged to adopt different approaches to the global marketplace. This goes some way to disproving Levitts idea that one size fits all and emphasises a plan global, act local approach instead. Conclusion In essence, the arguments above reveal that global marketing is not necessarily an all or nothing proposition. Companies have the freedom to choose from many possibilities on the spectrum from total standardisation through to complete customisation. Clearly there are circumstances where multinationals can gain through increased standardisation of products and marketing, especially with respect to keeping costs down and building brand power. On the other hand, in conditions where national market differences are more marked, this strategy would harm the company and its reputation. By making standardisation decisions using target market conditions as its starting point, an organisation can ensure that, in the long-term, customers are being offered what they want. Although Coca-Cola can seemingly gain a great deal from a standardised agenda, its decision to combine global and local resources is ultimately more long-standing in a market where national customer differences are influential.