Pearl Essays (330 words) - The Pearl, Pearl, La Perla, Kino

Pearl This book is about a pearl diver named Kino. He and his wife and son are a poor family. When his son becomes ill, Kino takes to the sea on a quest to find some way to save his son. He finds a magnificant pearl. Kino and his wife belive that they will be wealthly and live the rest of their lives in happiness, but when Kino visits the local pearl handlers, he feels the prices which they offer him are ludicrous and refuses to sell. Kino takes his family and together they set out on a trip to Mexico City, where Kino believes he will get a better price for his astounding pearl. Due to the fact that the pearl dealers are so obsessed with Kino's pearl, they send a group of trackers after them. The trackers trap them partway up a rock face and one of the men shoots Kinos son, mortally wounding him. Kino and his wife return to their home on the beach and Kino throws the pearl back into the sea from where it came. Kino, the protagonist, is a strong willed, if stubborn, man. He refuses to sell the underhanded pearl dealers his valuble pearl although he desperately needs the money. He does this because he feels very strongly that what the men are doing to him is wrong, and he refuses to give in to that. The main idea of the story is that good things can have bad effects. While its intentions were good, the pearl brought about the downfall of the protagonist. Due to the greed of the pearl dealers, and partly becasue of Kino's own lust for wealth, his son is killed and he loses almost everything he owns. I beleive that this was a very good book. I enjoyed the variety and color with which Stienbeck portrayed his characters. The story itself was well written and I felt very close to the main characters of the book. English Essays

An Evaluation of Operations Strategy Essay Example

An Evaluation of Operations Strategy Essay Example An Evaluation of Operations Strategy Essay An Evaluation of Operations Strategy Essay What is operations strategy? 3 Operations3 Strategy5 Operations strategy6 The content of the operations strategy8 The process of the operations strategy9 Sustainable alignment9 Substitutes for strategy11 Implementation11 Conclusion13 Bibliography14 Introduction In a world, where humans do their best to survive, a never ending need for goods and services is always in people`s mind. In order to meet with these requirements, raw materials and processes should be organised and managed. In other words, `operations` is needed so that resources can be worked on to obtain products. Operations strategy has become a basic thing for organizations. In order to survive in the business world, strategies must be designed and the objectives of each operations should be indicated. Essential thing that every operations of organizations is produce either goods or services. Sometimes both goods and services should be produced in order to satisfy customers. Every organization regardless of their type has an operation function (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008). What is operations strategy? Operations Operations` can be described as the act of management of inputs such as resources and transformation of these inputs into outputs such as goods and services. During these procedures a strategy should be followed. By doing these sequences of actions, inputs (resources) transforms into outputs (goods and services) and this is called the `input-transformation-output` model of operations (Slack N. and Lewis M. , 2008). In figure 1. 1 an illustration, which is adapted from Meredith a nd Shafer (2010), of production scheme of operations is shown. In this system, three stages must take place in order to obtain outputs from inputs. These stages are, as in the order of its use, strategy, inputs and transformation process. During these, environmental factors have effects on the whole process. Therefore, a control mechanism should be applied on the whole process. Figure 1: The Production System (Meradith, Jack R. and Shafer, Scott M. , 2010) As it can be seen on the figure 1. 1, operations produce two types of outputs at the end of the process which are facilitating goods and services. Carmona and Sieh (2004) state that: `facilitating goods is the material bought or used by the costumer for example food items. Furthermore facilitating goods can be defined the things that provided by the costumers themselves such as medical history. ` On the other hand services considered as benefits. And these benefits may be either tangible or intangible; moreover, they can be escorted with facilitating goods (Meradith, Jack R. and Shafer, Scott M. , 2010). In the figure 1. 2 a visual is shown to demonstrate the differences between products and services (Meradith, Jack R. and Shafer, Scott M. , 2010). Figure 2: The relation between products and services (Meredith, J. R. , 2010) Strategy Although, strategy has a well-known meaning in the military the situation in the business world is not the same. In the business world there are, in fact, many answers to this questions since there is no an actual statement about what it really means. Out of many ideas about the meaning of strategy, Johnson et al. (2005) proposed the widely accepted definition of strategy which is ` Considering the long-term organizations, strategy is the path and choices of organization and through its pattern strategy must have the objective to help its organization to succeed in its markets. The path of a strategy should be planned in general. A strategy must concern about long-term aims and work on the big picture rather than details. While considering and planning the route of an organization, strategy consists of three features and these features have an interaction between them. These three elements are the organization`s objectives, its internal forces and its external forces. The interaction of these elements can be seen in figure 1. 3 which is adapted from (Meradith, Jack R. and Shafer, Scott M. , 2010). Figure 3: Strategy formulation (Meredith, J. R. , 2010) In an organization a strategy may be planned at three levels. As Barnes (2008) points out these levels are corporate level strategy, business level strategy and functional level strategy. Firstly, corporate level strategy deals with the long-term route of organization and its choices. When an organization deals with more than one division within itself, corporate level strategy should be designed to determine what those divisions should be and how resources should be shared between them (Barnes, D. , 2008). Second of the three levels is business level strategy. It mostly works on to find solutions such as how a specific division should compete with its opponents and also determines division`s aims and objective (Barnes, 2008). Lastly, functional level strategy works as the lowest level of strategy. Functional level strategy deals with specific functions such as marketing, manufacturing, finance, etc. It concerns about functions strategic aims and their way of using the resources (Barnes, 2008). Operations strategy Operations strategy is and should be interested in the total picture since that it the entire business. It also should be aware of what kind of changes is happening in its competitive environment. So that required actions can be planned for both present and future challenges. Moreover, there is a necessity of sustainability of operations. Therefore operations strategy must also concerned with the long-term objectives. Considering all of these, different explanations were made about what operations strategy is and what does it include. As Slack and Lewis (2008) points out, there are four important perspectives about operations strategy. These perspectives, as Slack and Lewis (2008) indicates, are; `the top-down perspective, the bottom-up perspective, the market requirements perspective and the operation resources perspective. The figure 1. 4, which is from Slack and Lewis (2008), illustrates these perspectives and their relations with each other in order to achieve a strategy. Figure 4: Four perspectives of operations strategy (Slack N. and Lewis M. , 2008) Creating operations strategy consists of decisions which were taken within the operations functions. Afterwards these decisions are taken, organization`s corporate strategy is affected from these decisions as well as its business strategy. To sum up the operations strategy, as Slack and Lewis (2008, p: 18) state, is; â€Å"Operations strategy is the total pattern of decision which shapes the long-term capabilities of any type of operation and their contribution to overall strategy, through the reconciliation of market requirements with operations resources. † (Slack N. and Lewis M. , 2008, p: 18) The content of the operations strategy Within the operations strategy, long-term objectives should be concerned and in order to design and improve its route strategic decisions should be made. These decisions are also important since they are the building blocks of an operations strategy (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008). The collection of these decisions is named `the content of operations strategy` by Slack and Lewis (2008). In addition, Barnes (2008) points out that these decisions are to be decided in specific and important areas. The mentioned areas concerned with the structure and infrastructure of operations (Barnes, 2008). The structural decisions areas, as they are indicated by Barnes (2008), are: ? Facilities: decisions about facilities should find solutions to questions like what the size of each facility will be and where these facilities should be located. The decisions also emphasise the product range of each facility and their target markets. ?Capacity: the question that how the facilities will be used is answered by the decisions which are taken in this area. Furthermore, due to these decisions, a specific facility of organization will be affected. Additionally its ability to serve in its market will be affected. ?Process technology: the equipment’s technological statuses which are used in operations processes are the main interest of these decisions. ?Supply network: decisions about supply network become important in order to decide which suppliers in which locations should be chosen. These decisions also help organizations to manage their relations with their suppliers (Barnes, 2008). The route of operations which is to last through organizations life is set by these structural decisions. Truly these decisions mostly cause large amounts of money to the organizations. Therefore they should be well thought strategically in order to avoid any unnecessary changes in the future. Issues that are concerned by infrastructure are (Barnes, 2008); ? Quality: In order to achieve quality, some decisions must be made for quality management policies. ?Performance measurement: Decisions about both financial and non-financial management. ?New product development: Decisions which are made in order to design and develop new products. Work organization: The structure and scheme of the organizations in operations. ?Human resources: The decisions about recruitment; training and management style. (Barnes, 2008) The process of the operations strategy The reconciliation which is essential between market requirements and operations resources of operations can be formulated and controlled by using the process of operations strategy. To put it another way the formulation of the process of operat ions strategy deals with the questions like in which way operations strategies should be designed and combined. Regardless of the type of organizations, reconciling operations resources with market requirements is the aim of the process of operations strategy (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008). Slack and Lewis (2008) indicates that the process of operations strategy can be formulated in three steps. First of all, the objectives of formulation should be studied and an alignment between market`s requests and operations capabilities to satisfy these requests must be achieved. Once an alignment is achieved decisions and plans should be made in order to keep it through operations life. In other words a sustainable alignment is needed. For the second part of the process, substitutes are to be used for the strategies. After achieving a sustainable alignment and improving it with substitutes the third part of the process takes place which is implementation (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008). Sustainable alignment Providing a sustainable alignment in operations strategy plays an important role to obtain a settlement between market requirements and operations resources. To make the word `alignment` clear, a figure is shown which is adapted from (Slack , N. nd Lewis, M. , 2008). Figure 5: Alignment of strategy (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008) On this figure, the vertical side of the axis system is to symbolize market requirements. A rise occurring on the scale means market capabilities is also rising along with it. On the other side, the horizontal scale of the system symbolizes operations resources and the processes capabilities. A few points, which are stated below (Slack and Lewis, 2008), can be considered within this factor: ? The consideration of operations success regarding its skills for the achievement of objectives. Operations skills to use its resources effectively. ?The firm’s resources power to support its business processes. With analysing this figure Slack and Lewis (2008) points out that `in order to obtain alignment, a well-designed balance is needed between required market performance and actual operation performance. As a visual proof for this balance, a diagonal line on the axis systems is shown. To sum up, it is stated that an alignment is the point where market requirements and operations resources unites. In order to create an alignment some organizations follow the path which is fitting resources to the requirements of the markets. Alongside this, some other organizations may do vice versa. They can evaluate their capabilities and then apply these into markets. Substitutes for strategy New approaches to operations have been made up and they have become more popular recently. Organizations may think well about these new approaches and there are few common reasons for that. Firstly, as it is pointed out by Slack and Lewis (2008), the new approaches are quite easy to understand and to apply which helps to avoid the complexity of modern operations. Secondly, most operations have tried one of the new approaches and they are likely to work. Furthermore, managers, who learned about these new methods either from a consultant or from a book, think that it might worth a shot since nothing else have helped them to achieve what they ask for. It is indicated by Slack and Lewis (2008) these approaches are: ? Total Quality Management ?Lean Operations ?Business Process Reengineering ?Enterprise Resource Planning ?Six Sigma It must be well-known that these approaches are not strategies and they are general within themselves. However, they are strategic decisions as it is stated by Slack and Nigel (2008). These methods can be part of a strategy and since all of them have different aims and path they should be fully understood before they are being used. Implementation In order to finish the process of operations strategy, a final step must be completed. This final step is the implementation of strategy and it is a quite important part of the process of operations strategy. After planning all the activities in order to create a strategy, the steps have to be organised so that everything goes as smooth as they are planned. This is called implementation. In a general way there are few key points to the formulation of strategy process. (Slack , N. and Lewis, M. , 2008) points out these key points and they are called five Ps. These are as follows: ? Purpose ?Point of entry ?Process ?Project management ?Participation Conclusion In conclusion, operations strategy is an essential thing for every organization. It focuses on the objectives of the operations. While concerning these long-term objectives strategies works on the total picture of the business and its competitive environment rather than details. A process which is called transformation process allows operations to produce goods and services. In order to decide the range of these products different perspectives are studied such as market requirements and operations resources. Through these perspectives a direction can be drawn for operations long-term objectives. Every detail of organizations such as their facilities, locations, capacities, suppliers, the quality of their products and services etc. comprise the content of the operations strategy. Once important decisions are taken strategies must be processed and in order to do this an alignment between operations market requirements and operations resources should be obtain. Afterwards different methods can be used to improve the strategy so that a sustainable alignment is achieved. However, for strategies to become real an implementation must take place otherwise all the decisions would not matter. Bibliography Barnes, D. (2008). Operations Management: An International Perspective. Royal Holloway University of London: Cengage Learning EMEA. Carmona, M. and Sieh, L. (2004). Measuring Quality in Planning: Managing the Performance Process. TaylorFrancis. Johnson, G. , Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2005). Exploring Corporate Strategy (7th ed. ). Harlow: Prentice Hall. Meradith, Jack R. and Shafer, Scott M. (2010). Operations Management for MBAs (4th ed. ). John Wiley Sons. Slack , N. and Lewis, M. (2008). Operations Strategy. Harlow: Financial Time Prentice Hall.

Fast Food Industry should Be Supervised Research Paper

Fast Food Industry should Be Supervised - Research Paper Example Atherosclerosis is one health complication that individuals gain through excessive consumption of fast food products. This is majorly because most fast food products contain a copious level of salt and cholesterol. These two nutrients are the major cause of cardiovascular health problems. Health experts argue that excess consumption of salts may result into negative health conditions of an individual, such as blood pressure. Notably though, most people consume most of their salts from processed restaurant foods, such as fast foods. A simple check on the sodium content in common fast foods such as an egg, a biscuit, and a sausage breakfast sandwich is 1,210 milligrams and 290 milligrams of cholesterol. This is very close to the recommended levels per day of 1500 milligrams of sodium and 300 milligrams of cholesterol for adult consumers. The consumption of too many salty foods leads to attainment of high cholesterol content in the body causing a build-up of plaque in the arteries, bett er known as atherosclerosis. This is a very serious medical condition and can result into a stroke, heart attack, and in a worst-case scenario, death! Diabetes is another lifestyle disease that also results from excessive consumption of fast food products. Most of the fast foods and soft drinks in the market nowadays have high sugar content, such as French toast sticks, fast food coleslaw, as well as cheeseburgers. Obesity is one of the major side effects of fast food consumption because of the high content of calories and fats that they contain.

Employee Assistance Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Employee Assistance - Assignment Example However, fortunately, that has all improved dramatically. Once the company began promoting the EAPs and all the services they had to offer, it resulted in a large number of people who were quick to look into the programs. I noticed in several cases of single parents seeking aid in child care issues. Overall, I would say, approximately, at least 20% have already shown interest and are actively taking advantage of the services the EAPs offer. A recent survey showed a 33% decrease in employees coming in late or being absent due to issues that the EAPs helped them resolve; it also revealed a decrease in overall company healthcare costs in relation to mental health issues. The only problems that I have heard involve employees concerns in regards to whether or not the â€Å"counseling services† are completely safe and confidential. However, the company is already working to alleviate the employees concerns on this issue. In truth, all of the professionals involved with the EAPs are legitimate and licensed, when necessary, and follow all the same healthcare privacy and confidentiality laws that are followed in all U.S. medical professions. Therefore this issue will be easily remedied. I think that the EAPs that we have are already succeeding in overcoming its biggest challenge. Before, its greatest issue was not being properly promoted by the company itself. Once the employees became aware of what was available the programs were being sought after. Now the system operates just fine. Because the EAPs are part of the health insurance that is provided by the company to its employees, new hires must wait 3 months. This is a 90 day probationary period typical of all new employees. After that time frame then all employees are legible to participate in the EAPs, as well as, their healthcare benefits. As of this year they offer, both, telephone and face-to-face interactions, depending on the time of day. Certain call centers, like substance

The loss of humanness for slaves and slaveholders Essay Example for Free

The loss of humanness for slaves and slaveholders Essay The history of slavery cannot and should not be forgotten, because it represents one of the chapters of human history, when humanity was not humane at all. The â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass† depicts an autobiography of an American slave, Frederick Douglass, who has risen from the pits of slavery to the echelon of free men. The first few chapters narrate the harrowing experiences of slaves, under the hands of their white masters and mistresses. This paper focuses on chapter 1 of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. † The main argument of chapter 1 is that slavery dehumanizes slaves, by not allowing them to nurture human bonds or have memories of important aspects of their lives that remind them of their humanness, and slavery also dehumanizes slaveholders, because it allows masters to perform the most inhumane acts to their slaves. Slavery dehumanizes slaves, by not allowing them to nurture human bonds. Douglass recounts the practice of slaveholders of separating infant slaves from their mothers. He reckons that this may be due to the belief of slave masters in the importance of erasing maternal relations, which can impact the work and loyalty of the slaves to their masters. Douglass says that the primary goal of the separation between mothers and their young children is to prevent â€Å"the development of the childs affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child† (Douglass, ch. 1). This practice seems to have been successful, because when Frederick’s mother died, he did not feel anything for her: â€Å"I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger. † Having lack of emotion at this critical point in his life portrays how slavery dehumanizes slaves by eradicating human emotions that would have otherwise been developed in normal life circumstances. Furthermore, slaves are not supposed to develop positive social relationships, and so families and lovers are commonly torn apart. Douglass remembers Aunt Hester, whom her master has been discovered with another black slave, and so his aunt was incessantly whipped, and he also knows slave families that are also broken, by separating parents from their children and siblings from their siblings. Slavery also dehumanizes slaves by not allowing them to have memories of important aspects of their lives that remind them of their humanness. Douglass does not remember his birthday, which the text indicates as a way of stressing how slaves are less human, because they cannot remember the date that they have been born humans. Douglass also asserts the inhumanity of not knowing his birthday, by saying: â€Å"†¦ the larger part of the slaves knows as little of their ages as horses know of theirs. † By saying this, Douglass creates the relationship between slaves and animal treatment, an indication of how slaves were treated as animals. In addition, Douglass also does not even know who his father is. Not knowing one’s real parents also affects one’s idea of humanity, because it is equal to not being aware of one’s origins, which can negatively influence the formation of human identity. Slavery also dehumanizes masters by making them emotionally distant enough to do the most inhumane acts to their slaves. Douglass remembers the atrocious whippings of her aunt: â€Å"The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. † Masters have become hungry for blood. Because of this lust for blood, even the masters have disengaged from being humans, because they have lost their compassion for their fellow human beings. Their violent natures turned them into animals too. Slavery represents the process of turning people into animals. Slaves and masters are both converted into animals, because slavery removed critical aspects of their humanness. Slavery took away social relations and human memories from slaves and ignited bloodlust among slave masters. The outcomes of slavery, as well as its processes, are all inhumane, and so inhumanity was developed. Thus, slavery reverses the gift of humanity to humans and it has provided a way of enslaving the essence of humanity. Work cited Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Web. 17 July 2010 http://sunsite. berkeley. edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/01. html.

Explosion of Interest Essay -- Online Communities Web Cyberspace Essay

Explosion of Interest A community can be defined in many ways. The most basic definition is a group of people sharing common interests, thoughts, beliefs, or values. Today's fastest growing and most diverse communities are those experienced through the Internet. In the article "Everyone's a Critic," Richard Lacayo describes the many communities where people can express their feelings on books, movies, music, and restaurants. His representation of online communities can be shared with that of Amy Bruckman's in her article 'Finding One's Own in Cyberspace." Both articles represent online communities as one of today's fastest and easiest ways of sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world. With shared views about the Net, both Lacayo and Bruckman recognize online communities as a place where everyone's opinion, regardless of what it is, can be appreciated and accepted. As today's most common medium for sharing opinions grows at an immeasurable speed, the effects the Net has made in our society are equal ly as infinite. One outcome has been the growing number of do-it-yourself communities seen throughout the Internet. These communities allow all different kinds of people to share their opinions on almost anything and everything. As a result, "everywhere in cyberspace there are Web pages where do-it-yourself critics hold forth about movies, books, music, and restaurants" (Lacayo 58). The Internet has created a new arena where everyone has an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions with people all over the world. This not only made shopping more convenient for the average consumer to research the fate of their money before a purchase, but communities like these have created a place where people's interests can be shar... ...ing their opinions. The incredible ability of the Internet is one unlike any other. Its capability to connect people so far apart with so many differences and unite them in one common place is most remarkable. Certainly, the Net will continue to grow into something far beyond our imaginations as it has been for years. From a new, skeptical way to communicate to what has united so many all over the world, the Internet has truly become and explosion of interest. Works Cited: Bruckman, Amy. "Finding One's Own in Cyberspace." Composing Cyberspace: Identity, Community, and Knowledge in the Electronic Age. Ed. Richard Holeton. USA: McGraw-Hill, 1998.171-178. Cashel, Jim. "10 Encouraging Signs for Online Communities." 0nline Community Report. 2000. 6 Oct. 2001 http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com Lacayo, Richard. "Everyone's a Critic." Time Aug. 2001: 58-60

Climate Change and Its Consequences

Climate change and its consequences have recently grown in importance on political agendasworldwide. CO2 emissions is one of the gases that has a dramatic impact on the environmentresulting in rising coastal flooding, reduction in water supplies and increase malnutrition(IEA, 2010). In order to protect the environment for future generations, a global reduction inCO2 emissions is required along with reduced consumption of non-renewable energyresources. One major CO2 contributor is the transport sector, which is responsible for arounda quarter of EU greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second biggest greenhouse gasemittingsector after energy. While emissions from other sectors are shrinking, those fromtransport have increased by 36% since 1990. As a consequence, the European Union has setmandatory emission reduction targets for passenger cars of 95g/km by 2020, which is areduction of 40% compared to 2007. Automobile manufacturers that fail to comply facedrastic fines. In order to reach these targets and prevent penalty payments for excessemissions, innovative propulsion systems have gained increasing attention. Vehicles withelectric propulsion are considered as a promising alternative on the pathway towards lowemissionvehicles that could enable the transport sector to reduce emissions significantly.During the last few years, electric vehicles (EV) got more and more attention in national andEuropean policies and public awareness increased significantly. While much effort has beenput in the research and development of e-mobility, less attention has been paid to consumers'acceptance (Yeh, 2007). The majority of consumers still consider EVs as disadvantageouscompared to traditional cars. However, without consumer acceptance there will be notechnological shift and long-term success of sustainable transport systems (Wiedmann et al.,2011). Therefore, it is crucial to gain in-depth insights in consumers' perception towards EVsthat affect preferences for and the adoption of alternative fuelled vehicles.