Impact Of The Brexit Party On Australia s Economy

Executive Summary This Business Report studies the impact of the Brexit vote in Europe on Australia’s economy. It examines the changes of the economic variables consumption expenditure, government spending, investment and net exports due to the arisen uncertainty by the recent events. Furthermore, an outlook is given on how these variables are expected to change over the next six months. Based on the findings that the economic variables are going to decrease, GDP is anticipated to drop to a lower level accordingly. It is therefore proposed that the Senior Management Team lowers the cash rate in order to facilitate the growth of Australia’s economic variables. Introduction The move of the government of the United Kingdom’s (UK) to vote†¦show more content†¦Uncertainty will subsequently reduce consumer confidence, which is a key indicator for personal expenditure (Lecture 2, 2016). Secondly, Koukoulas states that the retail sector is growing at a level below its potential, which affects consumption negatively. Furthermore, he highlights that Australians are reducing their loan balance, instead of spending it. Connecting the low consumption level to the labor market, Koukoulas points out that the low employment and wage level additionally enhance the reluctant spending behavior (Koukoulas, 2016). Lastly, recent data shows that after the announcement of Brexit around $50 billion value in shares had been lost on the Australian stock market (Thuy Ong, 2016). This has had enormous impact on the existing stock of wealth, which is another key indicator for personal expenditure (Lecture 2, 2016). Consumers are therefore going to spend less and, in turn, overall consumption is expected to decline. In summary, it can be stated that consumption spending has been affected negatively by the Brexit vote and will continue to drop in the next six months, as the causing circumstances are not expected to change in this period. Government Expenditure (G) The effect of Brexit will with no doubt cast problems to the already weakened Australian dollar and cause the government to realign its strategies over the short term unsettled conditions (Yahoo Finance, 2016; Farr, 2016). Figure 1 shows theShow MoreRelatedForeign Policy : International Politics And Relations Through Various Variables1645 Words   |  7 Pagespolitical situation given their geographic realities or the environment of the entire continent. The United Kingdom s prospective withdrawal from the European Union is widely known as Brexit. The result of the June 23 referendum in the United Kingdom could lead to the first instance of a member of the European Union leaving the Union’s ranks. Beyond the social and economic impact of such a decision, the move will have serious geopolitical consequences. And let us be clear from the start: the UKRead MoreThe Issues Of The Refugee Crisis2290 Words   |  10 Pagesbeing (Tugendhat, 1995). Liberal assertiveness is challenged by Asylum and immigration. The ministers of British National Party, discuss the overloading of public services, fear weakening of Britishness, and encourage contradictory values. They acknowledge the dependence of public services on immigrants while they adopt policies that disadvantage the same groups (Singer, 2004). Brexit can be seen as one of the shocking examples of the fears of the new EU states about migration where now they no longer

The Effects Of Internet Censorship In China - 1629 Words

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. This can include blocking entire websites, blocking parts of certain websites, prohibiting certain search engine keywords, monitoring individual internet use, and punishing individuals for this use. On a smaller scale, companies censor access to certain websites to increase productivity in workers or decrease chances of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Parents may block certain website on their family computers in an attempt to maintain their child’s innocence. On a much larger scale, entire governments can censor or track the Internet use of its constituents. For a rather extreme example, the Chinese government is known for their†¦show more content†¦They claim that the government has the right to restrict and regulate the Internet any way they choose within Chinese borders. In 2010, Chinese officials released â€Å"the white paper†. This document repeats the sentiment that anyone within Chinese borders must abide by Chinese rules. This includes foreign individuals visiting China. They have access to Chinese Internet but must follow all rules that citizens face. The most common censorship method used by the Chinese government is IP blocking. This means that when a user requests certain IP addresses, access is immediately denied. A Harvard study, discovered that more than 18,000 sites are blocked; many of them top websites in the United States. A government sponsored news organization states that only â€Å"superstitious, pornographic, violence-related, gambling, and other harmful information† are blocked but critics have been quick to point out that many sites that do not fall into these categories are also blocked. Another Harvard study found that 13% of social media posts were blocked. These were posts by political activists that promoted or could conceivably incite collective action (such as riots or protests). Popular American social media sites like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have been completely blocked, as have news organizations such as the New York Times. These websites have been recreated for the Chinese internet with c ensorship restrictions put into place. As withShow MoreRelatedInternet Censorship in China Essay937 Words   |  4 Pagesamong numerous other sites, regularly. The internet is open and uncensored for the most part, other than parental controls. In China, most, if not all of those types of sites are or have been blocked. As in, you could not go to them, unless you found some way around the web filters and firewalls the Chinese government runs in their country. While China defends their practice of internet censorship, based on â€Å"protecting† the people, heavy internet censorship is a block to free speech and impedes economicRead MoreNegative Effects Of Internet Censorship791 Words   |  4 PagesInternet censorship is controlling the content that can be viewed on the internet. It is all around us and you may not even realize that you have encountered it, whether it has been at school or work. In school, you are not allowed to access certain websites and search results may be filtered. Schools do this to keep harmful content from the students, but it also limits research. When you are at work, your employer does not want you looking at inappropriate websites or things that may distract youRead MoreThe American Government s Involvements And Influences On The Internet1619 Words   |  7 Pagesinvolvements and influences in the Internet compare to Chinese government? Thesis: The United States’ government had played the most important role of developing Internet, and did a great contribution certainly. However, Chinese government had a very different attitudes with American government for Internet at last century when Internet started developing because of some domestic factors. Later, Chinese government changed its attitudes and behaviors. The Internet began developing so fast and playedRead MoreThe Invention Of The World Wide Web1674 Words   |  7 Pages there have been many questions that have arisen about the invention and the effects of it. From people trying to figure out how to use it and connect it from one place to another, to wondering if it were safe, there have always and will continue to be questions about the great creation. As time has passed and the web has gotten more sophisticated, more questions are constantly brought up wondering how safe the internet is for the users. Those users ranging from businesses that use the web to g atherRead MoreA Famous Phrase Attributed To Deng Xiaoping Is The Following:1336 Words   |  6 PagesRussia and China have their roots in authoritarian regimes that did not tolerate a single opposing voice; the death count of such people says it all. They strictly limited the entry of any foreign idea. Today, liberal reforms have softened the sharpest edges of these past regimes but the governments still retain enormous power over the people. Russia and China limit popular sovereignty in a variety of ways. Both see political freedom and liberty as threats to government sovereignty. Internet regulationRead MoreHuman Rights Violations in China - Should Western Companies Continue to Do Business with China?1636 Words   |  7 PagesRepublic of China, commonly known as China, is still known as the largest human rights violator in the world. This raises the question whether or not western companies should continue doing business in China despite of the human rights violations. To find a n answer to this question, the human rights violations and the values of the Chinese population will be analysed. Furthermore, the impact of these violations on the business world will be discussed. Human rights violations in China China is one ofRead MoreCensorship in China Essay958 Words   |  4 PagesThe Freedom of Speech is granted to every American citizen and has been since it was founded in 1776; however, not every nation grants that right. China, as a communist nation, retains most individual freedom rights from its citizens. Although in the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) 1982 constitution, people are guaranteed Freedom of Expression and Press; it is often violated by the current corrupt government. The government demands the news to be 80% positive and 20% negative, altering the factsRead MoreCensorship Filters The Media Within The World1574 Words   |  7 PagesDoes censorship filter the media within the world? Censorship has followed the free expressions of men and women like a shadow throughout history. Censorship is a way to filter the media in the world by suppressing unacceptable viewings or hearings by not showing, bleeping out, and covering the distasteful parts. In ancient societi es, China for example, censorship was considered a logical tool for regulating the political and moral life of the population. The term censor can be traced to the officeRead MoreInternet Censorship in China Essay4431 Words   |  18 PagesFYC Ruoxuan (Catherine) Yuan Internet Censorship has negative effects on China Censorship in China has gained much attention recently because of the conflict between Google and the Chinese government’s self-censorship policies. In fact, censorship has been practiced since ancient China and the intensity only increases by the years. Nowadays, the most notable measure of censorship is being done on the Internet. More and more restrictions have been put into actions by the Chinese government, whichRead MoreThe Economic Development Of China1420 Words   |  6 PagesSince initiating market reforms in 1978, China has experienced enormous and rapid economic growth, become one of the world’s largest economies. The seeds of this rapid economic growth were planted in 1978 when the Chinese Communist Party started to introduce capitalist market principles. This was done by moving from a centrally planned to a market based economy. The shift away from traditional Marxist policy created a scarcely concealed capitalist culture in China masked by a communist fac ade. One can

National Hero of Philippines Jose Rizal Free Essays

1. My dad always tells me that behind every great man is a greater family. Maybe what he meant was no one could be great in life without the help of his family or without his family along with him. We will write a custom essay sample on National Hero of Philippines: Jose Rizal or any similar topic only for you Order Now This was concretely shown in Rizal’s life. Being the great man that he is, Rizal was brought up by his parents very well that he became almost excellent and great in all that he did. Way back in my elementary days, we were asked what we would like to be when we grow up. I answered, â€Å"My dad is a great, smart and handsome accountant and I wanna be just like him.† I believed that what we turn out to be is patterned on our parents, how we are brought up by them and how our family supports us in what we do. In Rizal’s case, his abilities, I believe, came from his parents. His skills in literature particularly in poems and his skill in speaking Spanish came from the upbringing he got from his mother, Teodora Alonso and his skills in philosophy came from his father, Francisco Mercado. I admire Rizal’s parents because even if they were part of the principalia, they lived simply and taught their children to live humbly. They exercised their children to be good-mannered, respectful to everyone, disciplined and God-fearing. They were strict to their children and they, just like any other parents, disciplined their children physically because they believed in the saying â€Å"Spare the rod and spoil the child†. They also taught Rizal and his siblings to love God above all. This was concretely shown in their practice of attending mass every day, praying the angelus at home and praying the rosary before going to sleep at night. However, being strict and very religious persons that they are, they let their kids have time for playing. All of that taught Rizal to balance everything in his life, to have time for studying, for God, for him and for his family but still manage to have fun once in a while. Based from my experience, I know a lot of people who have very unsupportive family or came from a broken family and who is now unsuccessful in life. All I’m saying is, Rizal would not be what he became if it were not because of the help of his family, especially, his parents. 2. â€Å"Sandali lang ha, mag-aaral lang ako sa Rizal para maging accountant ako†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This, I always say, to whomever I am talking to before studying for this subject. Most often, I wonder, what does the Rizal course have to do with my chosen college course, accountancy? Rizal was not an accountant. So why study this? As we started our journey through this course, little by little, I began to understand why we have Rizal in our curriculum. For one reason, it is a law to have a Rizal subject in all the courses of all universities. So, just by this reason, we have no way out from studying this course. But talking as a Filipino, I believe that we have to study Rizal because if we reflect, what we really know about Rizal are only the 2 novels he made which were Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, that he died because what he wrote were all against the Spaniards and that he is our national hero. But what we do not know is that Rizal is just an ordinary person like us before all that happen and like what Mr. Ungriano said, I believe that there is always a Rizal in every Filipino and I hope to find that Rizal in me with the help of this course. Rizal’s life, thoughts, ideas, works, principles and convictions are very influential to people’s life. Taking the case of the late Ninoy Aquino into consideration, I believed that he was greatly influenced by Rizal. That’s one example of his influence of his heroism. In this course, we will see how Rizal influenced many Filipinos by his childhood, by how he was brought up by his parents, by how he was as a student, by how well he did in college, etc. My personal reason why I am interested in studying him is to know why, of all our heroes, he became our national hero. I have been insisting all my life that Andres Bonifacio should be our national hero, because in the first place, he was the one who fought the Spaniards sword-to-sword and he was the one who gathered all Filipino to go against the Spaniards. But there was a point in Bonifacio’s life that I missed. He never won any battle and he surrendered to the Spaniards. Even Aguinaldo, our 1st president, surrendered to the Americans. In the other hand, Rizal, who used only his pen, which was said as a weapon mightier than the sword, in fighting for freedom, never surrendered from a fight even in the last moments in his life. Lastly, studying Rizal’s life and works is a way of saying thank you to him for all his sacrifices and deep sense of nationalism that greatly contributed and led to our country’s freedom. Maybe one thing that we should really work on is our love for our country and who knows, someone in our generation might be the next Rizal. As what I have said, Rizal is just an ordinary person, but the most extraordinary of all his kind. How to cite National Hero of Philippines: Jose Rizal, Essay examples

Social Impact Assessment-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and Indigenous Rights on the Aboriginal People in Australia. Answer: The essay focuses on Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and indigenous rights on the Aboriginal people in Australia. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) defined as a structure that involves the procedure of identification, monitoring and analyses of the positive and negative impact on the people of Australia affected intentionally or unintentionally due to the process of development. The primary purpose of SIA however lies in guiding the decision making thereby leading to the creation of economic, socio cultural and biophysical environments. Therefore, SIA is meant for addressing both the rail and the mine components of a project and is prepared as per the Terms of Reference (TOR) for a particular project issues by the co-coordinator general of the state of Queensland. Thus, SIA involved a robust methodology for ensuring clearance in assumptions and tactics, appropriate analysis and data collection and consideration of social equity. However, the methodology followed is in accordance with the principles and guidelines of International are prepared in close consultation of the government of Coordinator General of the government of Queensland. The SIA however outlines the influence of cultural and social aspect, engagement of the community with parties affected thereby helping in display of baseline for a social study, profile for workforce, potential project impacts, strategies and measures strategies in mitigating the project. The study area of SIA refers to the locations where operation, construction and project decommissioning might lead to culturally and socially influencing the people of Australia. However, from the point of view of impact assessment the social impacts occur either in the immediate areas of the projects, in the closer locality or communities or in the regional centre closer to the area of the project. The potential impact of SIA included impacts on existing mining, economic impacts locally, accommodation and demand for housing, roads and traffic, impacts on amenity and landholder, the capacity of infrastructure and social service in dealing with the development, the potential of changing the values of the community. However, at the same time there were certain strategies adopted for responding to these potential impacts that includes landholder agreements, stakeholder engagement, accommodation and housing, management of the workforce, participation plan of the local industry, health an d safety of the community, planning and consultation of the emergency service, initiatives for the development of the community. The essay also discusses about the indigenous land rights of the Aboriginal people of Australia. Present State of Cultural Activities and Values of Aboriginal Over the period of 50, 000 years, the Aboriginal people have inhabited the region surrounding Ranger. The cultural activities and values of the people have undergone changes to the external environment that ranged from changes in the climate to the rise in sea level, European colonization and interest on agricultural, conservation and mining on the traditional lands (De Rijke 2013). These have resulted in a varied range of lifestyles, practices and beliefs with the incorporation of other cultural influence and traditional elements. The Aboriginal population consists of traditional owners, resident of Torres Strait and other portions of Australia. The traditional owners in the region indentified under the Australian Law that helps in acknowledging and establishing rights to the land. This includes knowledge of sites, primary spiritual responsibility for the area and traditional mechanisms (Leonard et.al 2013). These traditional owners possess customary responsibilities and obligations for the impacts and activities taking place on their lands that includes protection of sacred sites and land, management of resources that are traditional, ensuring protection of visitors from any harm and decisions regarding issues that affects land. The obligation however, applies to the future and current generations of the Aboriginal people in the region. The achievements of the obligations and responsibilities put forward reinforcement and active expression of the culture (Selin 2013). The remoteness, limited interaction among st the aboriginal people has helped in enduring the traditional culture as a part of the everyday life though there has been immense social change taking place in the area. The social change is thus a contribution of the changing lifestyles and commencement of modernization. Activities Contributing to Social change The continued development process of Ranger has contributed to its social change and has substantially affected the activities and cultural values of the Aboriginal people (Franks and Vanclay 2013). However, the activities that contributed to the social change of Ranger are the development of the Jabiru town as the service centre of the locality and ensuring establishment of the infrastructure in Ranger that includes processing plant, pits and dams thereby resulting in the changes of qualities of the land environment around the mines and its physical characteristics Social changes also attributed to distribution of various royalties and other benefits that arose in Ranger. This resulted in the contest and division between and within the communities and groups of Aboriginal people. Social change ensured through extensive consultation with Mirrar and other Aboriginal people by using the processes related to not only Ranger but also traditional land interest. However, examples of this i nclude SIAs, negotiations and campaign related to Jabiluka mine and management of royal distributions. Further, the ability of the Aboriginal people in the region to safely use and manage resources such as sacred sites, traditional foods and water also affected the change. Social change depended on the safety of the community or mineworkers on the land of Mirarr or incidents that arose from the extracted resources of the land. Moreover, the actions and decisions of the government, companies dealing with mining and other organization that affected the prospect of the culture and the land also contributed to social change. There were further decisions on the negotiation of the finest response on the opportunities and risk related to mining. Other recent developments have also contributed to the social change in the region. These changes include the finalization of the new agreement on Mining and other related agreements in the month of January 2013(Ghimire 2013).The appointment of Gun djehmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) as a part of the Ranger Minesite Technical Committees also contributed to the change. Further, changes ensured by the formulation and execution of land rights of the Aboriginal and other legislation amendment bill in 2013 enabled arrangements of settlement for the natives of Jabiru. There were changes in the administrative, legislative and government policy that contributed to the social change. Even changes in the structure and nature if the regional employment and industries like the tourism and pastoral industries were responsible in bringing the social change. Proposed Ranger 3 Deeps Development Energy resources of Australia (ERA) operate and own the uranium mine of Ranger and located in the Ranger Project Area (RPA) in river regions of Alligator. The Kakadu National Park (KNP) surrounds the RPA and falls on the aboriginal land. However, the traditional owners of the land are the Mirarr people legally recognized as the traditional landowners (Graetz 2015). Thus, ERA is trying to seek approval for the development of an underground mine for accessing 34,000 tons of Uranium Oxide in the Ranger 3 Deeps. However, the proposal for development is within the Ranger project area and existing mining operation. ERA proceeded with the exploring the ore body of Ranger 3 Deeps in the year 2006 and started constructing the exploration decline in the year 2012 that enabled further underground drilling for defining the resource (Blackwell and Dollery 2014). However, the proposal if approved, the anticipation of ERA is that the activities for mining of Ranger 3 Deeps has begun in the latter half of 2015 and is about to undergo processing by the year 2021. SIA Findings with Focus on Aboriginal Cultural Values and Activities Social Impact Assessment (SIA) that relates to the aboriginal cultural values and activities are however limited to the development process of Ranger 3 Deeps and the activities due to the control and influence of Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) (Jackson et.al 2012). The development of Ranger 3 Deeps has the ability to impact the social environment both in a positive and negative context. These include increased ability of the aboriginal people in using water and the land, the trust of Aboriginal people on the management of water and land and ability of these indigenous people in developing and maintaining the culture. In this context, the SIA have led to the identification of risk and opportunities related to the social factors. These social factors include control over management and use of land, confidence in the ERAs Ranger site management and the endurance and strength of the aboriginal culture. However, the risk identified by SIA for the Ranger 3 Deeps development include loss of relationship and trust amongst the ERA, affected Aboriginal people and traditional owners. This has led to the perception of the Stakeholders who believes that the management decisions related to environment in relation to Ranger 3 Deeps development made purposefully against whims of the traditional owners and the affected Aboriginal (Raymond et.al 2014). In addition, there is a consistent belief that the decisions of Ranger 3 Deeps development in connection with land management has been unknowingly made against Mirrars whims thereby leading to stress in ERA and Mirrar relationship. The SIA findings thus indicate that development of Ranger 3 Deeps influences the ability of the aboriginal people in managing the use of their water and land both in a positive and negative manner. This ensures a balance between the medium and low risk opportunities. However, some of these risks and opportunities hold an indirect relationship with the impact. Thus, for realizing the opportunities and mitigating the risk, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) continues to manage activities like participation of the technical committee of ranger minesite, relationship committee and monitoring initiative of joint water (Hanna et.al 2014). ERA also ensures monitoring practices, environmental management and heritage management practices. Moreover, it engaged GAC and traditional owners by means of existing mechanisms. There were also contractor and management procedures workforce. Further, ERA also ensured initiatives for community relations that included Kakadu West Arnhem Social Trust Boar d participation. In addition, other activities took place in the region that contributed to the ability of the Aboriginal people in managing the use of water and land. This included KNP management practice, communication with the Aboriginal stakeholders in managing the water and land and initiatives that led to influencing the relationship of the Aboriginal people with the country and heritage (Barber and Jackson 2012.). Discussion of Aboriginal Social Impact Assessment (ASIA) The Aboriginal Social Impact Assessment (ASIA) carried out as a component of commonwealth and the strategic assessments of state for a proposed common user of liquefied natural gas precinct (LNG Precinct) for the processing gas from the Browse Basin that is located in the outskirts of the West Coast of Kimberley (Esteves, Franks and Vanclay 2012). However, the proposed location for LNG Precinct identified as the neighborhood area of James Price Point on the coast of Kimberley. Moreover, the ASIA designed for information regarding the negotiations taking place between the traditional owners of the area of James Price Point, the Western Australia state government and the first proponent that included group of companies guided by Woodside Energy Ltd. Further, the ASIA is relevant to the negotiations of the Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) (Owen and Kemp 2013). However, Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) designed for identification of the impacts on the aboriginal people also puts forward a procedure for the traditional owners that allow them in reaching an agreement with the Woodside and State arrangements. Therefore, ASIA and ILUA brought together on the approval for LNG precinct development will not only make the impacts acceptable and manageable to the traditional owners (Franks 2012). However, ASIA adopted an overall strategy for undertaking an motivated program for working of the period ranging from August 2009 to February 2010 and using it in providing the urgently required inputs in negotiations of ILUA and other agreement among traditional owners, the state, the Woodside and the KLC ( Kimerley Land Council). These negotiations are responsible for addressing the key impacts issues related to LNG precinct (Sadler and Dalal-Clayton 2012). Further, ensure meeting the additional initiatives relating to management and monitoring of the social and cultural impacts arising from the LNG precinct. Further, the strategy adopted also provides input for KLC for the Strategic Assessment Report that is related to the indigenous impact. This refers to recommendations drawn in accordance to the conditions of approval of LNG Precinct by the commonwealth and state ministers of environment. This also includes recommendation on approval subjected to the condition where conduction of comprehensive and additional ASIA as well as social impact monitoring takes place. (Beckwith, J.A., 2012). Goals of Aboriginal Social Impact Assessment (ASIA) The objectives of Aboriginal Social Impact Assessment (ASIA) include ensuring the affected aboriginal people and the native groups in playing a vital role in the project approval process and impact assessment for the Gas Precinct. Identification of the social impacts for development related to hydrocarbon with the view of maximizing the positive and minimizing the impacts that are negative on the Precinct included through informing sharing with the claimants of the native title and in the negotiation process of ILUA and other agreements with other proponents, Woodside and state (Vanclay et.al 2017). Additionally, ensure discussions with the common wealth for ensuring that it is able to meet the assigned responsibilities on gas development and thereby provide necessary support to the aboriginal people and other native groups. Providing an input basis into the process of statutory impact assessment by the Aboriginal people concerning the process of strategic assessment undertaken by th e state and the commonwealth in terms of the development related to Kimberley hydrocarbon (Feschet et.al 2017). One of the objectives also includes providing assistance in the development of sustainable and effective approaches for the regional benefit packages and benefit sharing related to the process of gas development. Limitations and Constraints The critical limitation faced by ASIA was the time constraint that restricted the scope of work of the ASIA. There were serious time limitations that raised serious issues regarding the ability and willingness of the Woodside, who was the foundation proponent and the state for accepting the requirement of decision making for appropriate culture and in responding and understanding the concerns and aspiration of the Aboriginal people of Australia. There are also serious concerns raised about the representatives body of the traditional owners. There were also challenges due to the climatic conditions in performing the fieldwork for ASIA due to humidity and high temperatures (Winthrop 2014). Moreover, many people were not in good health therefore wide information regarding the development of gas and discussion of the issues of impact cannot only be challenging intellectually but also emotionally. The other factors however included skepticism and fatigue regarding the thought whether proc ess of ASIA will have an impact on the decision making of the government and oil companies at large. On the other hand, the indigenous communities not only subjected to consultation by numerous public but also by other indigenous and private sector agencies (Udofia, Noble and Poelzer 2017). There were another limitation that focused on the reluctance of some of the organizations in assisting the ASIA to access relevant data and other information. Though there were few organizations that willingly shared information there were a minority that after repeated oral and written requests did not assist ASIA. On the other hand, some of the health organizations that promised to provide assistance failed to do so. Further, there were many government agencies that did not enabled differentiation between the non-indigenous and indigenous staff. There also existed a smaller percentage of agencies that engaged in a refusal with ASIA due to certain personal view of the staffs about the LNG precin ct. Further, there was a fundamental and important constraint on ASIA about access of information regarding LNG precinct. For instance, environmental studies and social studies that were necessary for the Kimberley LNG precinct faced completion before the consultation with ASIA (Baydala, Ruttan and Starkes 2015). Therefore, basic decisions about the environmental impacts was not made for instance the decision for water extraction for the Precinct is from amplifiers located in the Peninsula or through construction of desalination plant. Indigenous Land Rights The year 1976 is marked as the year when the government of commonwealth took the initiative in enacting the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act (ALRA) considered as the strongest land tenure act of the Aboriginals of Australia. The ALRA mentioned the right to veto for mining considered one of the initial forms of informed consent and legislated free prior that existed around the world. However, in cases of Ranger and Mirrar, the legislation of ALRA included a unique provision that excluded Ranger Project Area (RPA) (Garling et.al 2017). The provisions allowed Mirrar to have a lease in the land of Ranger for the Aboriginal although they were excluded them from the mining right or exploration under ALRA. Therefore, this forced the government in enacting legislation of land rights for the benefitting the Aboriginal people of Australia. The government however provided no mechanism for dealing the Aboriginal people who opposed its development. This resulted in a situation where Mirrar, althou gh recognized as the traditional landowners with RPA was unable to proceed with the development. Moreover, left with no option they had to undergo a negotiation of agreement for mining with Peko-Wallsend Limited who owned Ranger during that time (Glaskin and Weiner 2013). The essay is an analysis on the social impact assessment (SIA) and indigenous land right with focus on the aboriginal people of Australia. From the essay, one can get an idea about the present state of cultural values and the activities of aboriginal people of Australia inhabiting the ranger region of Australia. The essay also describes how the aboriginal have undergone a cultural change due to the impact of various external factors. There is also an analysis the activities that attributes to the social change of the Aboriginal people. These activities contributed to various developments of the infrastructure and localities. The essay also gives an overview on the proposed development of Ranger 3. There is also a detailed analysis of the SIA findings on the activities and cultural values of the Aboriginal. The concept of Aboriginal Social Impact Assessment (ASIA) also finds a mention in the essay. There is also a section of the essay focusing on the goals of the Aboriginal Social Imp act Assessment and its limitations and constraints. References Barber, M. and Jackson, S., 2012. Indigenous engagement in Australian mine water management: The alignment of corporate strategies with national water reform objectives.Resources Policy,37(1), pp.48-58. Baydala, L., Ruttan, L. and Starkes, J., 2015. Community-based participatory research with Aboriginal children and their communities: Research principles, practice and the social determinants of health. First Peoples Child Family Review, 10(2), pp.82-94. Beckwith, J.A., 2012. A social impact perspective on the Browse LNG Precinct strategic assessment in Western Australia.Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal,30(3), pp.189-194. Blackwell, B.D. and Dollery, B., 2014. The impact of mining expenditure on remote communities in Australia: The ranger uranium mine and the Tanami gold mine in the Northern Territory.Australasian Journal of Regional Studies,20(1), p.68. De Rijke, K., 2013. Coal seam gas and social impact assessment: an anthropological contribution to current debates and practices.Journal of Economic Social Policy,15(3), p.29. Esteves, A.M., Franks, D. and Vanclay, F., 2012. Social impact assessment: the state of the art.Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal,30(1), pp.34-42. Feschet, P., Macombe, C., Garrab, M., Loeillet, D., Saez, A.R. and Benhmad, F., 2013. Social impact assessment in LCA using the Preston pathway.The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment,18(2), pp.490-503. Franks, D., 2012. Social impact assessment of resource projects. International Mining for Development Centre, 3. Franks, D.M. and Vanclay, F., 2013. Social Impact Management Plans: Innovation in corporate and public policy.Environmental Impact Assessment Review,43, pp.40-48. Garling, S., Hunt, J., Smith, D. and Sanders, W., 2013.Contested governance: culture, power and institutions in Indigenous Australia(p. 351). ANU Press. Ghimire, K.B., 2013. Social change and conservation (Vol. 16). Routledge. Glaskin, K. and Weiner, J., 2013.Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia: Anthropological Perspectives(p. 306). ANU Press. Graetz, G., 2015. Ranger Uranium Mine and the Mirarr (Part 1), 19702000: The risks of riding roughshod.The Extractive Industries and Society,2(1), pp.132-141. Hanna, P., Vanclay, F., Langdon, E.J. and Arts, J., 2014. Improving the effectiveness of impact assessment pertaining to Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian environmental licensing procedure.Environmental Impact Assessment Review,46, pp.58-67.20. Jackson, S., Tan, P.L., Mooney, C., Hoverman, S. and White, I., 2012. Principles and guidelines for good practice in Indigenous engagement in water planning.Journal of Hydrology,474, pp.57-65. Leonard, S., Parsons, M., Olawsky, K. and Kofod, F., 2013. The role of culture and traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation: Insights from East Kimberley, Australia.Global Environmental Change,23(3), pp.623-632. Owen, J.R. and Kemp, D., 2013. Social licence and mining: A critical perspective.Resources Policy,38(1), pp.29-35. Raymond, C.M., Kenter, J.O., Plieninger, T., Turner, N.J. and Alexander, K.A., 2014. Comparing instrumental and deliberative paradigms underpinning the assessment of social values for cultural ecosystem services.Ecological Economics,107, pp.145-156. Sadler, B. and Dalal-Clayton, D.B., 2012.Strategic environmental assessment: a sourcebook and reference guide to international experience. Earthscan. Selin, H. ed., 2013.Nature across cultures: Views of nature and the environment in non-western cultures(Vol. 4). Springer Science Business Media. Udofia, A., Noble, B. and Poelzer, G., 2017. Meaningful and efficient? Enduring challenges to Aboriginal participation in environmental assessment.Environmental Impact Assessment Review,65, pp.164-174. Vanclay, F., Esteves, A.M., Aucamp, I. and Franks, D.M., 2015. Social Impact Assessment: Guidance for assessing and managing the social impacts of projects. Winthrop, R.H., 2014. The strange case of cultural services: limits of the ecosystem services paradigm.Ecological Economics,108, pp.208-214.

Hung Dinh Essays (1860 words) - Literature, Fiction, Arts

Hung Dinh Period 1 05/27/2017 Mr. Jade English class Project of the final Today, we are going to mention about two books that we learned already were Of Mice and Men book of the author John Steinbeck and Brave New World book of the author Aldous Huxley. Two of the books both have very good meaning as well as condemn about the brutal regime of each book that make us to mention about them today. First thing I want to compare the regime between Of Mice and Men book and Brave New World book. In Of Mice and Men book, they have many classes some of them are master class, farmer class as well as lower class. Lower class, they did not have any authorities or right to decide their life, they had to go to work to get money for the living cost and they were so poor, in social, Of Mice and Men women did not have any rights they had to subordinated to their husband or their family. The Book Of Mice and Men of John Steinbeck were written to send a message for reader that the loneliness was made by gender and classes, in Of Mice and Men, the author John Steinbeck used th e character Crooks to show how loneliness came from social divisions by race and of course they could not reach to the America dream that everybody always wish to have. Moving to Brave New World book of Aldous Huxley, everything was opposite. In Brave New World book, the reader learns that everyone in this civilization is a clone, the product of Bokanovsky's Process, this homogenization process has been perfected for the purpose of creating order in the world. Their world motto is "Community, Identity, Stability.". Let's analysis next point, everything was drawn by Aldous Huxley, he drew a wonderful new world not only without the loneliness but also have a lot of awesome thing that people in the old world never have. In Brave New World, there had five classes to maintain that stability, the World Controllers have devised a system wherein different classes of people (Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons) correspond to different levels of power, intellect, and wealth two of the most powerful were upper classes (Alpha and Beta), and three last lower classes were slave, Alpha and Beta dominated lower classes. It is opposite with Of Mice and Men book of John Steinbeck at point although in Of Mice and Men book poor people had the loneliness but they were not dominated by anyone. The second point between Brave New World book and Mice and Men were in Brave New World upper classes were molded have more right but in Mice and Men upper classes have more freedom. The next part that we are going to mention about between Of Mice and Men book and Brave New World is the love of each character's relationship. Through the book Of Mice and Men of the author John Steinbeck, I think you are already know the type of love as well the affection of George with Lennie, they have found companionship. George and Lennie, they watched out for one another. Moreover, they have a dream of finding a fixed place, where they could call home, a farm of their own, they were doing what they can do to against the loneliness. George also knew Lennie very well, they had been friends for a long time as well as they cared about each other and looked after one another. Even though George was mostly looking after Lennie than the other way around. Through this situation, you guy can see their relationship of love were Phileo type and what is Phileo type of love say? It said: "Phileo love is brotherly love. This type of love is most often shown within close friendships. This is a generous and affectionate love that seeks to make the other person happy with no expectation for the acts of kindness to be returned", that is exactly what George did to Lennie, he was never thought to receive something back to him. Thus, everything was so clearly that George and Lennie's love were a phileo type of love, an awesome brotherly love.

Free Essays on Humans Are Sscared

Humans are scared of what they don’t understand, and so in a way to try and understand the world around them, humans made up gods. Gods are a simple way of answering any question, and humans all throughout history have made up gods and/or supreme beings such as the Greeks did. The ancient Greeks developed a religion and beliefs about the world that we now call Greek Mythology. Mythology is a body of myths for a particular culture, and the study and interpretations of such myths. Myths though can be defined as a narrative that through many retellings has become an accepted tradition in a society. By this mythology may include all traditional tales, such as creation of the world and about the gods that rule the world. One such god was Persephone the queen of the under world, married to Hades the god of the under world. Persephone is the daughter of Demeter (god of agriculture) and Zeus (the king God). She is a very beautiful young girl with pale white skin and blond hair. She is so beautiful that many of the gods wished to have her as their wife. She does not smile much though and is very sorrowful when she is in the underworld with her husband, but she is very happy and joyful when she is on earth with her loving mother Demeter. As I mentioned earlier, mythology is all about myth or stories about the gods. One story that involves Persephone is the story about how she became queen of the underworld. Demeter loved Persephone so dearly that she always had her at her side, and whenever Demeter visited the earth Persephone would follow. She would go about the fields dancing and wherever her light feet touched the ground flowers would emerge. Hades, though, soon noticed her and fell in love with her immediately. He knew though that Demeter would never allow it because she would not be able to bare to part with her dear daughter. Hades though found another way to get her as her wife. He planned to abduct her one-day when she was about d... Free Essays on Humans Are Sscared Free Essays on Humans Are Sscared Humans are scared of what they don’t understand, and so in a way to try and understand the world around them, humans made up gods. Gods are a simple way of answering any question, and humans all throughout history have made up gods and/or supreme beings such as the Greeks did. The ancient Greeks developed a religion and beliefs about the world that we now call Greek Mythology. Mythology is a body of myths for a particular culture, and the study and interpretations of such myths. Myths though can be defined as a narrative that through many retellings has become an accepted tradition in a society. By this mythology may include all traditional tales, such as creation of the world and about the gods that rule the world. One such god was Persephone the queen of the under world, married to Hades the god of the under world. Persephone is the daughter of Demeter (god of agriculture) and Zeus (the king God). She is a very beautiful young girl with pale white skin and blond hair. She is so beautiful that many of the gods wished to have her as their wife. She does not smile much though and is very sorrowful when she is in the underworld with her husband, but she is very happy and joyful when she is on earth with her loving mother Demeter. As I mentioned earlier, mythology is all about myth or stories about the gods. One story that involves Persephone is the story about how she became queen of the underworld. Demeter loved Persephone so dearly that she always had her at her side, and whenever Demeter visited the earth Persephone would follow. She would go about the fields dancing and wherever her light feet touched the ground flowers would emerge. Hades, though, soon noticed her and fell in love with her immediately. He knew though that Demeter would never allow it because she would not be able to bare to part with her dear daughter. Hades though found another way to get her as her wife. He planned to abduct her one-day when she was about d...

Why television is bad for society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Why television is bad for society - Essay Example Obesity has also been attributed to television. In most households, the TV is on all the time. The only time that it is turned off is when the family goes to sleep. Therefore, children lack physical exercise from staying indoors. However, parents are also to blame as they at times use television as a babysitter. This creates an opportunity for children to watch any program they wish to regardless of its content (Evans 15). Parents tend not to monitor what their children are watching as they are too busy with work. Nevertheless, parents should take advantage of the parental control button and use it so as to shield their children from the negative influences in the adult rated programs. Children who watch more television end up being aggressive and violent. They are seen to act out what they see in television (Beretta & Smith 48). These has caused some teenagers to take drastic measures as carrying guns to school and end up shooting classmates that they did not like, or one they had a disagreement with. Violence is the biggest vice that has been picked up from watching too much television. The languages picked up from the programs aired are also very vulgar and rude. The solution to this is for parents to reduce the amount of time spent watching television in a day to two hours, preferably in the evening when parents are home from work.

Why do I want to join the Doctorate (Phd) program for Business Personal Statement

Why do I want to join the Doctorate (Phd) program for Business - Personal Statement Example Contemporary universities have offered programs in diverse and multidimensional formats that ensure the holistic development of the students. In this regard, I am most enthusiastic and determined to pursue a Doctorate of Business Administration from Abu Dhabi University, one of the most prestigious universities in the country, deemed to fulfill both personal and professional goals. As I was remunerating on the career paths available for business doctorates, I was initially ambivalent from the following options: a profession that is purely in academics; an endeavor delving into a potentially rewarding career with a global organization; or eyeing a combination of a career that balances requirements between academics and consulting for businesses. After careful soul searching and weighing opportunities in conjunction with personal interests, I have decided on a career that further develops my business acumen in the field I am currently in. I am currently the Group CEO of a prominent Rea l Estate company called "Dubai Properties Group" since 200; and previous to that I worked as the CEO for Tatweer (another Real Estate company in Dubai) from 2006 to 2009. Working in this capacity made me recognize the need to hone my interpersonal, informational and decisional skills. As CEO, I have intermittently assumed the roles of the taskmaster, mediator, motivator and organizational designer. To expand my perspectives on presiding over the total enterprise, I have recognized the need to pursue higher education focusing on marketing and management to address the needs of the company, in response to competitive pressures and of changes in diverse factors of the external environment. In this regard, I would particularly be interested into conducting a research on the future directions open to real estate companies given the recent slum the resulted from the financial crisis that was globally entrenched. A potential research study on the problems that continue to besiege real esta te companies in our country with the aim of providing strategies to address weaknesses and threats would assist in the improvement of the real estate industry, in general. Pursuant to Abu Dhabi University’s mission of producing â€Å"global leaders who understand the challenges of our time and make positive contributions to national and global prosperity†¦ not limited to educating students but also to transforming the UAE into a vibrant, prosperous and strong nation† (Abu Dhabi University: Chancellor Welcome, par. 1), I plan to be an active contributor to the transformation of the real estate industry into a more dynamic and productive sector. My role as a CEO required me to be heavily involved, since 2009, in restructuring the organization, development of a prudent governance framework, corporate governance, development of a strategic 5 year business plan with explicitly defined organizational mission, objectives and values. Through pursuing the doctorate degree in business administration, I would be accorded the perfect opportunity to develop policy making skills and strategic development of plans and prospects that would be deemed significant and crucial in responding to the needs of more sophisticated clientele. As I reviewed the program profile, I was immediately attracted to its goal of supporting â€Å"the ability of candidates to develop their knowledge and provide them with a sound understanding of theories in addition to applying them, while helping centers of higher education, consultants and academics specialized in business admin

Critically Evaluate One Approach to Organisational Culture Change Essay

Critically Evaluate One Approach to Organisational Culture Change - Essay Example ) is one of the major telecom equipment and networking distributors in Russia, started two informational search system called ‘Goods and Services Classifier’ and ‘International Classifier of Inventions’ and these two systems was the foundation for the development of Yandex’s technology. Later, in 1993, Yandex was developed as a Russian language search mechanism by CompTek (Yandex-a, 2011). Finally, in 1997, Yandex.ru website was launched. Gradually, the Russian search engine, Yandex.ru started bringing new developments and advanced services backed with innovative technologies. During 2000, it started running commercial advertisements through its search engine websites sites which turn to be a major source of sales revenues for the company. Currently, Yandex has become a major search engine for Russian speaking people. After the tremendous response from the domestic market, the company also decided to expand its market internationally. Hence, it starte d its new division in California, known as, ‘Yandex Labs’ and Vish Makhijani, the former executive of Yahoo is head of this division with the responsibility of business development in American market. Yandex’s organisational goal revolves around its core operational activities and its mission i.e. to offer high quality services to its customers. In order to meet this objective, Yandex aims to develop an innovative workplace which leads to enhance the labour productivity. In this process, self-management, goal sharing and loyalty form employees’ end are vital criteria. Company Analysis of Yandex In order to indentify Yandex’s internal strengths and weaknesses, internal analysis of the company is very necessary. Yandex is internet solutions and search engine provider in Russia and other international... This paper deals with a case study of Yandex which is a popular and leading search engine provider. Yandex is a Russia-based company and provides internet and other related services. During 1990, the Arcadia Inc is one of the major telecom equipment and networking distributors in Russia, started two informational search system called ‘Goods and Services Classifier’ and ‘International Classifier of Inventions’ and these two systems was the foundation for the development of Yandex’s technology. This paper has focused on the organisation development intervention for the Yandex, a popular Russian search engine providing company. Technology is the base of the company’s strategic framework, organisation and corporate culture. In order to develop a growth oriented organisation, the company focuses on employees’ freedom for motivating and for encouraging their mind to think innovative ideas. However, for incorporating better changes in organisation development, Yandex must needs to follow a comprehensive OD intervention strategy. In this process, it can follow the model given in figure 3 for bringing positives changes in its organisation culture. However, at first, it must identify and determine key objectives. The objectives for Yandex must include improvements of services by increasing the organisational performances and enhancement of customer satisfaction. In order to achieve these objectives, Yandex must follow a set of guiding principles. In other terms, these principles are the tools for incorporating changes.

Rise and Fall of Standard Pricing

Rise and Fall of Standard Pricing The Rise and Fall of Standard Pricing and Its Effect on Everyday Operations For European and American Firms The overall purpose of this paper and study is to investigate cost or lean accounting within the operations management realm and how its unpredictable rise and fall allow organisations to continuously learn and utilize knowledge management as a core value. It was also important to use a larger organisation that has history of outstanding operations and customer centered focus upon services. This investigation will require an in-depth study of work processes, communication and leadership with regard to knowledge management as a value within the team construct while looking at how this reflects leaning accounting principles. What tools are available and what kind of evolution is Nestle undergoing in order to remain competitive in a changing economy? How does this change knowledge management and communication company wide? What this study argues is that accounting practices are changing due to the evolving business plan. This is a movement toward modern accounting and it is important to see the relationships between costing accounting, its fluctuations and how they impact the health of the organisation as a whole with regard to productivity and job satisfaction. How an organisation applies methods of costing into its framework for accounting of expenses and its direct rise and fall over the time period of the product life cycle, directly influences the production, operation, distribution and employee retention of the global company. In fact changes in accounting practices have led to many tried and true business models to no longer exist. Costing and its rise and fall can have a direct relationship with success and competitive advantage in the market place. However the purpose of this study is to explore and reflect upon how accounting practices change operations management and the supply chain management model as a tool of managers and team members alike. Really it is how accounting practices have changed business practices because of new legislation focusing on global companies in Europe and the United States. Accounting costs, expenses and losses reflects the health of the organisation and with change comes confusion. This study argues th at with such changes comes a lack of defining the company’s value within the market but also the value it has for its employees, as they become active participants and investors. GENERAL OVERVIEW How corporate accounting is handled is changing worldwide. How each expense is accounted for within an organisation’s financial sheets has been evolving. Such a proposal for change has received much commentary from not only the financial community and corporate America but also key members of Congress, European union leaders and the public. Such a response results from the uncertainty that such change will benefit businesses and economic growth. It is feared that such change will have the opposite effect and cause world leaders to lose its competitive edge in the global market. Still this has not stopped the fuel of the fire as the American Financial Accounting Standards Board (also referred to as FASB) has struggled for an answer to such a dilemma. The urgency for a solution has only been stressed recently in light of such debacles like Enron and Tyco. It is believed that companies do need to account honestly for expenses but at what price to its employees, the public and the economy? Part of the issue with current legislation to change the practice of accounting for employee stock options is that there is no real way to value their worth. This creates an unsettling feeling among investors and employees struggling to understand this benefit. ACCOUNTING OVERVIEW What this truly means for any corporation functioning globally or even locally this that effective cost accounting because a volatile issue for management to consider. One could argue that such rise and fall of how costing/pricing pays a part in the entire operation has a negative effect upon how the company’s valuation is seen on the open market. Costing at every step of the product life cycle plays a huge part in how this valuation is decided from inventory at the shop floor level, to everyday operations management, to an employee’s value with the company and their net worth personally. Changes within the global economy in the recent years the disappearance of tried and true business models leaves many with a poor taste in their mouths because one must understand how efficiency, affordability and effective leadership come into play. Effective pricing or costing of routine operations and corporate behaviours must be tracked and studied in order to carve the fat. This s tudy aims to look at exactly what the rise and fall of pricing or costing means to a global organisation conducting business on many levels. For the purpose of proving the argument that such changes in accounting practice has a negative effect on the organisation, one will look at examples from the shop floor to the employee’s estimated value with the company in the form of job satisfaction. Accounting for such expensing and pricing correctly is what makes the organisation strong but also accurate in valuation. With this in mind, traditional business models like Wal-Mart and Nestle are discussed because these are globally operating corporations. Debates about whether or not the fair value of the employee and the company stock options should be expensed on the income statement continue to rage among industry representatives, politicians, and pundits. Expense recognition of stock options can have significant impacts on net income and earnings per share, so this is a debate worth having. But many of those who analyze companies consider operating cash flow a better performance metric than income. One reason is that operating cash flow is thought to be free from the infection that makes income grossly weakened. In the case of employee worth and stock values, however, there is proof that this assumption is flawed. Option exercise affects operating cash flows in ways that analysts need to understand. Repurchasing shares to fund option exercise also results in financing cash outflows. The net cash flow impacts of options are often negative, but can be quite volatile from year to year. LITERATURE REVIEW STANDARD PRICING AS ACCOUNTING PRACTICE It can be difficult to assess why a product has a certain cost or price to the consumer. How is it that companies arrive at certain amount for a product or service? What are the factors that play into this amount and do they change over time while in the market? Mish defines clearly, price as being â€Å"the value or worth; the quality of one thing that is exchanged or demanded in barter or sale for another† (2004, p. 985). A mistake that happens to many companies is they allow the market to manage the price of the product and avoid strategic management of pricing in general. What is usually done according to Nagle is â€Å"they list the prices based on their own needs and then adjust transaction prices to based on what customers say they are willing to pay. Only a few companies question why someone is willing to pay no more that a particular amount or how that willingness could be changed† (2002, p. 1). In order to be strategic in pricing, a company must confident and understand that â€Å"pricing involves managing customers’ expectations to induce them to pay for the value they receive† (Nagle 2002, p.1). Fortunately, when it comes to financial products, many customers remain in the dark about product and services. Sometimes a service oriented company such as the Bank of England can take advantage of such undulation but as more information becomes available due to the Internet, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for a company to set the pace this way. More than not, more companies especially financial ones that rely on customer relationships, allow for a value-based price structure that is contingent on the customer paying when value is delivered. This type of pricing system relies heavily on segmentation of the demographic when it comes to offering promotions and incentives to buster customer loyalty. Much of this applies to financial type products that are well defined for the consumer either through education or these pr oducts are a must in life like the credit or loan product. Keeping this in mind, many financial products consist of high quality products and add-ons that when offered by one company allows that company to diversify and establish the price. The table here below aids in illustrating this point. Table 1: Pricing Strategies (Anderson Bailey 1998, p. 2) It is also important for a company to keep in mind demand for the product or service. This is why diversification and globalization are quickly becoming elements of strategy as companies look for new ways to target consumers and enter new areas where their original product has a new life cycle. This is a matter of economics but important for understanding marketing strategy with regards to cost switching or price switching. â€Å"The greater the price elasticity, the closer the company can price products to similar competitive products and vice versa† (Allen 2002). In an industry like the mortgage industry where homeownership is more prevalent in Western nations, elasticity is high and therefore, it is fair to remain competitive with other companies. Also a company like Nestle can bet that charging less may lead to more food products created as customers find they get more service for less money. In this respect elasticity can work either way. It really depends on degree of ri sk one company is willing to take. Still it remains to be found if such a tactic even works when it comes to customer loyalty, as this will be explored in greater detail later. However, it remains to be seen if price loyalty does exist. It seems â€Å"the key to effectively competing for loyalty is ensuring the quality of the customer experience, not the quantity of customer rewards or discount prices† (Compton 2005, p.1). However, the price needs to be adjusted for what the customer expects. It can be a cycle that changing continuously depending on the product or service. Carmona, and et al (2004), writes of the origin of activity based costing method of accounting or ABC that came into vogue in Europe during the 1920s. What ABC does specifically as Carmona, and et al (2004) speak of Vollmers’s work as: Deployed significant efforts to account for distribution and marketing costs, which ‘tend to be ignored today.’ This first event is then taken as record of the origin (both in terms of time and space), from which the new practice mainly spread both temporally and spatially. (p. 36) This is the start of a movement toward the double entry system and this saw delay and many weaknesses because it did not present a clear, complete picture of accounting. Its weaknesses were found in inefficiencies with charges and discharges. As a result, early double-entry systems were seen as unreliable and not useful to big business. It would not be until later that advanced book keeping procedures would take into account advanced operating processes in production. Carmona, and et al (2004) found these systems although not perfected were used in England and the Colonies as early as 1760 (p. 37). It seems this was the trend as no real streamlined, conforming system would be adopted until modern business practices came into place in the United States. Move to a global arena and model of production purposes and a more refined system is needed because a lot more is at stake. Global business is all about the details. It became common practice more investment applied, the more generally accepted accounting practices became as a diffusion of new technology. Accounting practices became more generally accepted behaviours as businesses became bigger and more prominent in communities across the world. Practices are implemented as Abu-Raddaha, and et al (2000) surmises the following: The information provided by accounting should facilitate international trade and capital flows, not hamper them. It should inform, not just report. More importantly the information demands of both domestic and international financing and other commercial relationships, have to be satisfied. (p. 19). Everything must remain in balance or presented as a well-oiled machine. How does an organisation get to this point of transformation with its accounting practices? Modern accounting asks for more participation and optimisation from the start to finish by the corporate accountant. The actions of the corporate accountants must change as the movement toward lean functioning continues to take place. It should not be a painful process but one of creativity, flexibility and growth. There is a concern that lean accounting requires one to turn off creativity and be boxed into one function or thought process. This will be explored late as a post-modern viewpoint of business where each person has a function within the total quality management or TQM perspective. Modern business may use this as a framework but the modern business model has evolved beyond this fixed view. The truth of the matter is that modern accounting practices could not be further from this view of being boxed in but rather goes beyond breaking the box and creating a different mindset where thin king is seen differently than before. Accounting is seen differently as not having finite possibilities but infinite reasoning. Traditional methods are flawed as proposed by Van Der Merwe and Thomson (2007), â€Å"the direct costing approach doesn’t absorb any overhead or even fixed costs†¦resource consumption accounting or RCA makes no arbitrary assignments at all† (p. 29). A lean, effective method allows for a more detailed account of capacity costs and a basic approach to data collection. Modern times call modern values and thought processes with regard to business seamless behaviour across the production floor. The lean method maintains a â€Å"one-touch flow system† (Van Der Merwe Thomson 2007, p. 29) for information diffusion across the life cycle. This one-touch flow system can be integrated with a supply chain easily and reflects this value added element as a method for better, honest accounting. OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT A most important factor for facilities management to recognize is the use of Total Quality Management (TQM) or a variation of TQM. TQM according to David Steingard is â€Å"a set of techniques and procedures used to reduce or eliminate variation from the production process or service delivery system in order to improve efficiency† (Steingard 2002, p. 2). TQM fits with the facilities management way of doing things as many of their functions require repetition or constant monitoring of daily, weekly and monthly items. Because this is a modernist concept and the modernist movement believed in certainty and static methods of looking at the world, there is not much room for the uncertainty that change creates in today’s workplace using strictly TQM. Therefore either change in this environment must be controlled change or a variation of TQM must be used for the process to work and involve new technologies. Otherwise, TQM alone invents a work environment reminiscent of Franz L ang’s Metropolis and dehumanizes the employee. A variation TQM can be used in facilities management to aid defining team member responsibilities as it sees the whole team as a â€Å"machine creates a system of interlocking parts each with clearly defined use, centralized authority and high degrees of worker discipline culminating with the goal of routinised, efficient and predictable system performance† (Steingard 2002, p. 2). Each team member plays a role in the functioning of the machine. Still much like today’s business environment where change is constant, this system requires continued adjustment, modification improvement of function. TQM as way of defining a work process cannot operate entirely in today’s global market because it succeeds at the expense of innovation and the growth of the employee. It also does not leave room to incorporate change and new ways of improving functions. Still a memory of pure TQM feeds the â€Å"modernist machine of c onsumer capitalism which encourages over-consumption, planned obsolescence, ecological damage and depletion of natural resources† (Steingard 2002, p. 4). This memory has also burdened management as the obsession for perfection, control, consistency, productivity and efficiency increases over time. In today’s facilities team, there must be a healthy medium to not only use past methods for increased productivity and efficiency but also to include modern tools and equipment to make the job easier. In order to remain competitive, technology cannot be ignored, the systems it provides must be implemented in order for logistics to remain seamless and keep up with demand and customer expectation. For instance failure to embrace logistics and technology results in inventory costing a company more money to store than it is worth. McCullogh writes, â€Å"Right now sitting around the globe is a bunch of inventory (worth an estimated) United States $1 trillion—United States $1 trillion of boxes of stuff is just sitting around a warehouse† (‘Warning: Don’t Snub Logistics’, p. 1). This has the potential to represent about 60 percent of the average company’s working capital. This is capital in limbo that is not maximizing its investment potential. A sign of successful shop floor operations is reliance on very little warehousing. In other words, warehousing is measured as the amount of days per month a product sits in the warehouse and if logistics is implemented effectively, this number will decrease and stabilize. The retail average storage of inventory is 26 days of investment not being utilized, profit being lost and daily expenses being incurred in an endless holding pattern. In order to reduce the amount of days inventory sits means companies must create tighter relationships with suppliers via the web or perfect a system of communication between resources to cut out warehousing all together. Instead of inventory remaining stored because of wireless communication and data collection, the product can go straight from the supply source to the retailer’s shelves via a distribution centre that acts much like mail sorting centre. This can work because technology enables a retailer to send data immediately to the supplie r of products that are moving off the shelves with a click of a button. From this electronic message, the supplier knows what the retailer needs, what products are popular, how much and sends then instantly to the retailer’s distribution centre. In organisations the size of Nestle or Wal-Mart, logistics strategy requires much forethought and planning, as there are many branches and divisions that are involved in the process. The idea is to reduce expenses and increase value to the organisation by making the company more productive and efficient. This needs to be done as seamlessly as possible to continue brand loyalty and customer relations while maintaining market share and competitive advantage. In many ways, implementation of this strategy creates a delicate balance. In order to have better Business to Business or B2B relationships, one must understand the connection. Robert Thierauf and Hoctor (2003) explain, â€Å"B2B is about connecting shared businesses and information processes of the extended trading networks, planning, shipping and logistics, inventory management and customer retention to name a few† (Thierauf Hoctor, p. 181). In other words, an optimized planning process can save millions dollars and allow a multination corporation to carry out its objective and gain market share. This means applying advanced technology such as i2 used by Dell Computers and typical ERP vendors. In today’s act of doing business, B2B exchanges are based on supply chain management or SCM technologies (Thierauf Hoctor, 2003, p. 182). This will mean considerable investment in such technology but the benefit of market share will prove it to be a valued investment over the long-run (Burn Hachney 2002; Scerbo 1999). Running these centres effectively certainly poses a challenge of management. Manufacturers must develop new skills and confront channel conflicts with dealers, distributors and independent operators. Leaders in these positions must have an understanding of managing the conflicts in these channels. But well-managed distribution centres would more than justify the risks, as it would save the organisation a significant amount of overhead. With operating expenses as the main cost, it is possible to make the distribution venture essentially self-funding. Facilities can be rented on short-term leases and surrendered if the location isnt successful within a year or two. The cost of goods and labour can be managed as volume grows. Companies should remember that a manufacturers original warranty work usually accounts for about half of the labour expenses and for as much as 20 percent of the total value of services rendered, but these costs are typically charged back to the business unit rather than borne by the company’s distribution. In markets poorly served by local dealers or other distributors, for instance, a centre should gear itself to its company’s end users or consumers by choosing a high-traffic retail site. Profits at these locations are generated largely through the sale of accessories and optional services to walk-in or mail order customers; outlets thus need appealing product displays or sales pr esentations. Different kinds of retail distribution centres pursue different economic models. Although gross margins on sales to end-users are higher, orders tend to be smaller. Locations that focus on distributors can achieve scale faster and be just as profitable. The largely similar economics of service centres vary only according to which customer segment is best served at each location. Companies run their own centres and tie management bonuses to profit and growth goals at each site. Either way, some support functions, such as marketing, human resources and information and financial systems, are best managed at the corporate level. Warehouses and distributions centres are caught in a squeeze between customer service demands and cost drivers. The challenge for most organisations is create a network that can deliver on customer demands while keeping costs down. This is the number challenge in supply chain management. Supply chain management presents a huge undertaking when it comes to overhead operating costs. Many of the tools have come down in price because usability has gotten easier. As a result, more and more companies are adopting a supply chain management philosophy for distribution and are re-evaluating its effectiveness every two years as opposed to before at every five years. Management members are interested to see if the efficiency of the centre matches its service level provided. Research has found a direct relationship between the number of distribution points, transportation costs and customer service targets. The network and its design are driven by improvements so that the cost of transportation can be offset. This may include reviewing an organisation’s transportation arrangements. Loading patterns should also be examined to find ways to cube out containers and trailers (Trunick, p. 1). What possibilities can be used to have a cost-effective outcome for the distribution centre? Does this mean consolidating shipments or a move to parcel and less than truckload shipments? Can shipments be combined to make greater use of truck cargo space? Can the organisation hire rail or air as better shipping alternatives to using company trucks over longer distances? In addition to examining loading can the routes used by the trucks be adjusted to be add to cost-efficiency? An organisation would benefit using their state’s transportation management system or a department of transportation, DOT to map out distribution volumes and patterns. This would help in providing dynamic routing options that can be flexible to change distribution needs in the network. This can benefit the fleet by reducing fuel supply needs and help control costs and usage. These efficiencies would result because the routes would decrease in mileage and also wear/tear on the vehicles and insurance costs. Efficiency inside the four walls of the distribution centre can also be improved. Relatively speaking the size of the average distribution centre has grown from 300,000 square feet to one million square feet (Trunick, p. 2). This is simply due to operating space needed to move inventory from point a to point b. But the real reason the distribution centre is larger today is mainly because organisations have seen the need to put all operations under one roof. By putting multiple facilities into one larger distribution centre improves the time it takes to transport inventory. Still the larger centre is made possible because of improved transportation systems but also implementation new technologies that not only enhance a brick and mortar store but also a virtual one. Plus, the organisation has the manpower under one roof. The company only rents one building and keeps the inventory in one place rather than moving it from warehouse to warehouse. This allows the company to provide better service to the consumer. Because of these factors, information systems are critical to the success of the larger distribution centre. Data has the need to travel from one area to another and that is why more and more companies are investing in radio frequency terminals both handheld and vehicle mounted. Investment of these RFID systems is not inexpensive and many retailers such Wal-Mart and Target are looking for ways to enrich the present technology and systems without implementing a whole new infrastructure into the walls of the centre. By being able to enhance present systems proves to be cost effective because not only is an upgrade cheaper but also it is easier to train employees to run. It is a company’s ability to effectively handle investment of new technologies that allows the centre to run better. Still as Trunick writes, the concern is not found in hardware but in data. â€Å"Databases have traditionally been structured to feed a number of different systems, but that’s not a long term architectural solution† (p. 2). Part of the problem a distribution centre faces with data storage is being able to provide the data in real time and allowing the data to remain clean and not crowd. As a result many companies are searching for better solutions than using RFID in supply chain management. It has not proven to be productive in the distribution centre setting not like 8 percent in the warehouse setting (Trunick, p. 2). One new technology that was introduced to the Nestle facilities management team in 2006 was the use of a computerized tracking system for client user orders. This system was implemented to better track the status of job orders among the team members. This system acted to alert a team member of potential deadlines and current job load status. It also allowed management to better track individual and team progress. This resulted in a monthly recognition program to signify when quotas had been met or when a team member received a client user compliment. This system also had the capability to record the negative such as being late to a service call or failing to complete monitoring of weekly items for inspection. The system would then e-mail the team member and the direct supervisor if such conduct occurred (Facilities Training Group 2007, p. 11). This system replaced the old process of â€Å"tracking† client user orders that consisted of logging each order into a spiral notebook. With the advent of the company’s intranet site, management hoped to improve communication between the facilities team and the client user by offering an electronic request system. This would reduce the amount of time the facilities team spent fielding phone called requested and allow for multi-tasking of various jobs. What management had hoped the system implementation would result in, did not happen mainly due to team member lack of communication and resistance to change due to a pre-existing TQM elements within the old process of handling client user orders. Management had hoped as the Business Open Learning Archive details, â€Å"automation would exploit available technology to speed up operations, make them more reliable and to reduce unit costs and their risks and costs. This would bring flexibility to the system already in practice† (Operations Technology 2005, p. 1). This type of new technology or just-in-time or JIT technology requires careful handling and extensive training. What facilities management team leaders had not prepared for was the team member response. Many of them despite being competent, responsible employees did not have knowledge of computer systems. Many of the team members had been with the company over twenty years and had been hired to the division. Many of thes e types, fall into the category of being older but also having a specific specialization in which they were in the field most of the time (Facilities Training Group 2007, p. 24) not requiring any other extensive skills. Another factor management had not anticipated was a considerable language barrier as many team members who had worked together for years, continued working in their native tongue of Spanish. A final aspect of the mixed response for the team had more to do with timing than anything. Management provided a three-day training session and then allowed two weeks for the new system to be adopted. The transitional period was too short and was met with much resistance from many members of the team. Many did not accept the change or completely understand the new system. Many did not check their email or use the tracking component. Finally, despite company wide advertisement of the new online request feature, most client users did not use it and continued to phone in requests. This resulted in not a decrease in time spent on the phone but due to the new system’s lack transition and rejection by some of the team, the group received three times as many calls in one week (Facilities Training Group 2007, p. 33). The team had to hire a temporary employee to aid in taking calls while team leaders provided on the job training and supervised walk-through of the new process. The period of six weeks it took the team to get back up to speed resulted in not only miscommunications among team members but also time lost to better serving the client users. As a result, many of the circulation systems did not receive their weekly maintenance and this negatively affected the climate control performance for the building’s seventh floor northwest corner (Facilities Training Group 2007, p. 39). With time the team members adjusted to the new technology with few still relying on the hand-written method. Still the process of introducing the system was not handled e ffectively and resulted in a period of adjustment where many processes met with negative results. OPERATIONS LIFE CYCLE Wal-Mart became a textbook example of managing rapid growth without losing sight of a companys basic values. In Wal-Marts case, the basic value was, and is, customer service. Still it was Wal-Mart’s ability to focus on multiple values that lends to its current success. As technologies changed, American social needs became more immediate d

The Fundementals of Baseball Essay -- Hitting, Fielding, Throwing, Bas

  Ã‚  Ã‚   A man once stated, "You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals" (â€Å"Fundamentals Quotes†). The greatest and most talented players' in the world still have to learn and know the fundamentals to play the game. Fundamentals are the simple basics of the sport and explain how to play the game. The important fundamentals of baseball include hitting, fielding, throwing, and also base running.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Many people believe that hitting is where to begin, according to an old coach, "The main part of baseball that brings people in to the game is hitting. Some have seen professionals do it on TV and others have seen it in person. But as for hitting, it is the major part of baseball for many players" ("Basic"). Another coach agrees going as far as saying, "A successful player must be able to hit the ball" ("Basic"). Hitting is not just a part of the game; hitting is the game. Hitting is the main and most important part of the game of baseball. During the sport of baseball, hitting is what determines who will win the game and who will lose. A great hitting team can have off days. In baseball everyone has good and bad days. As far as hitting, it is what determines the end results.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hitting the baseball is the time for the batter to shine, time to stand out, and the time when everyone's eyes are on the batter. It is his time to do what he has been working for his whole life. A coach agrees with hitting being the main part of the game saying, "The main part of baseball that brings people into the game is hitting. Some have seen professionals do it on TV and others have seen it in person. But as for hitting, it is the major part of baseball for many players" ("Basic"). It is ti... ...strong.com/article/272178- basic- fundamentals-of-baseball/>. "Fielding Position." Infield Fundamentals Baseball Drills. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. "Fundamentals of Fielding a Ground Ball." Human-kinetics. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. . "Fundamentals Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, Web. 26 Mar. 2014. . "How to Increase Pitching Velocity." How to Increase Pitching Velocity. Web. 04 Apr. 2014. . "Linear and Rotational Hitting  « Baseball Drills from the Ground Up." Baseball Drills from the Ground Up Linear and Rotational Hitting Comments. Web. 04 Apr. 2014. hitting/hitting/>.

Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 4

Poppy was staring without appetite at a dinner tray of chicken nuggets and french fries when Dr. Franklin came in the room. The tests were over. The CAT scan had been all right, if claustrophobic, but the ERCP had been awful. Poppy could still feel the ghost of the tube in her throat every time she swallowed. â€Å"You're leaving all this great hospital food,† Dr. Franklin said with gentle humor. Poppy managed a smile for him. He went on talking about innocuous things. He didn't say anything about the test results, and Poppy had no idea when they were supposed to come in. She was suspicious of Dr. Franklin, though. Something about him, the gentle way he patted her foot under the blanket or the shadows around his eyes . . . When he casually suggested that Poppy's mother might want to â€Å"come for a little walk down the hall,† Poppy's suspicion crystallized. He's going to tell her. He's got the results, but he doesn't want me to know. Her plan was made in the same instant. She yawned and said, â€Å"Go on, Mom; I'm a little bit sleepy.† Then she lay back and shut her eyes. As soon as they were gone, she got off the bed. She watched their retreating backs as they went down the hall into another doorway. Then, in her stocking feet, she quietly followed them. She was delayed for several minutes at the nursing station. â€Å"Just stretching my legs,† she said to a nurse who looked inquiringly at her, and she pretended to be walking at random. When the nurse picked up a clipboard and went into one of the patients' rooms, Poppy hurried on down the corridor. The room at the end was the waiting room – she'd seen it earlier. It had a TV and a complete kitchen setup so relatives could hang out in comfort. The door was ajar and Poppy approached it stealthily. She could hear the low rumble of Dr. Franklin's voice, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. Very cautiously Poppy edged closer. She chanced one look around the door.She saw at once that there was no need for caution. Everyone in that room was completely occupied. Dr. Franklin was sitting on one of the couches. Beside him was an African-American woman with glasses on a chain around her neck. She was wearing the white coat of a doctor. On the other couch was Poppy's stepfather, Cliff. His normally perfect dark hair was slightly mussed, his rock-steady jaw was working. He had his arm around her mother. Dr. Franklin was talking to both of them, his hand on her mother's shoulder. And Poppy's mother was sobbing. Poppy pulled back from the doorway. Oh, my God. I've got it. She'd never seen her mother cry before. Not when Poppy's grandmother had died, not during the divorce from Poppy's father. Her mother's specialty was coping with things; she was the best coper Poppy had ever known. But now . . . I've got it. I've definitely got it. Still, maybe it wasn't so bad. Her mom was shocked, okay, that was natural. But it didn't mean that Poppy was going to die or anything. Poppy had all of modern medicine on her side. She kept telling herself this as she edged away from the waiting room. She didn't edge fast enough, though. Before she got out of earshot, she heard her mother's voice, raised in something like anguish. â€Å"My baby. Oh, my little girl.† Poppy froze. And then Cliff, loud and angry: â€Å"You're trying to tell me there's nothing?† Poppy couldn't feel her own breathing. Against her will, she moved back to the door. â€Å"Dr. Loftus is an oncologist; an expert on this sort of cancer. She can explain better than I can,† Dr. Franklin was saying. Then a new voice came – the other doctor. At first Poppy could only catch scattered phrases that didn't seem to mean anything: adenocarcinoma, splenic venous occlusion, Stage Three. Medical jargon. Then Dr. Loftus said, â€Å"To put it simply, the problem is that the tumor has spread. It's spread to the liver and the lymph nodes around the pancreas. That means it's unresectable – we can't operate.† Cliff said, â€Å"But chemotherapy . . .† â€Å"We might try a combination of radiation and chemotherapy with something called 5-fluorouracil. We've had some results with that. But I won't mislead you. At best it may improve her survival time by a few weeks. At this point, we're looking at palliative measures – ways to reduce her pain and improve the qualityof the time she has left. Do you understand?† Poppy could hear choking sobs from her mother, but she couldn't seem to move. She felt as if she were listening to some play on the radio. As if it had nothing to do with her. Dr. Franklin said, â€Å"There are some research protocols right here in southern California. They're experimenting with immunotherapy and cryogenic surgery. Again, we're talking about palliation rather than a cure – â€Å" â€Å"Damn it!† Cliff's voice was explosive. â€Å"You're talking about a little girl! How did this get to – to Stage Three – without anybody noticing? This kid was dancing all night two days ago.† â€Å"Mr. Hilgard, I'm sorry,† Dr. Loftus said so softly that Poppy could barely pick up the words. â€Å"This kind of cancer is called a silent disease, because there are very few symptoms until it's very far advanced. That's why the survival rate is so low. And I have to tell you that Poppy is only the second teenager I've seen with this kind of tumor. Dr. Franklin made an extremely acute diagnosis when he decided to send her in for testing.† â€Å"I should have known,† Poppy's mother said in a thick voice. â€Å"I should have made her come in sooner. I should have – I should have – â€Å" There was a banging sound. Poppy looked around the door, forgetting to be inconspicuous. Her mother was hitting the Formica table over and over. Cliff was trying to stop her. Poppy reeled back. Oh, God, I've got to get out of here. I can't see this. I can't look at this. She turned and walked back down the hall. Her legs moved. Just like always. Amazing that they still worked. And everything around her was just like always. The nursing station was still decorated for the Fourth of July. Her suitcase was still on the padded window seat in her room. The hardwood floor was still solid underneath her. Everything was the same – but how could it be? How could the walls be still standing? How could the TV be blaring in the next room? I'm going to die, Poppy thought. Strangely enough, she didn't feel frightened. What she felt was vastly surprised. And the surprise kept coming, over and over, with every thought being interrupted by those four words. It's my fault because (I'm going to die) I didn't go to the doctor's sooner. Cliff said â€Å"damn† for me (I'm going to die). I didn't know he liked me enough to swear. Her mind was racing wildly. Something in me, she thought. I'm going to die because of something that's inside me, like that alien in the movie. It's in me right now. Right now. She put both hands to her stomach, then pulled up her T-shirt to stare at her abdomen. The skin was smooth, unblemished. She didn't feel any pain. But it's in there and I'm going to die because of it. Die soon. I wonder how soon? I didn't hear them talk about that. I need James. Poppy reached for the phone with a feeling that her hand was detached from her body. She dialed, thinking, Please be there. But this time it didn't work. The phone rang and rang. When the answering machine came on, Poppy said, â€Å"Call me at the hospital.† Then she hung up and stared at the plastic pitcher of ice water by her bedside. He'll get in later, she thought. And then he'll call me. I just have to hang on until then. Poppy wasn't sure why she thought this, but suddenly it was her goal. To hang on until she could talk to James. She didn't need to think about anything until then; she just had to survive. Once she talked to James, she could figure out what she was supposed to be feeling, what she was supposed to do now. There was a light knock at the door. Startled, Poppy looked up to see her mother and Cliff. For a moment all she could focus on was their faces, which gave her the strange illusion that the faces were floating in midair. Her mother had red and swollen eyes. Cliff was pale, like a piece of crumpled white paper, and his jaw looked stubbly and dark in contrast. Oh, my God, are they going to tell me? They can't; they can't make me listen to it. Poppy had the wild impulse to run. She was on the verge of panic. But her mother said, â€Å"Sweetie, some of your friends are here to see you. Phil called them this afternoon to let them know you were in the hospital, and they just arrived.† James, Poppy thought, something springing free in her chest. But James wasn't part of the group that came crowding through the doorway. It was mostly girls from school. It doesn't matter. He'll call later. I don't have to think now. As a matter of fact, it was impossible to think with so many visitors in the room. And that was good. It was incredible that Poppy could sit there and talk to them when part of her was farther away than Neptune, but she did talk and that kept her brain turned off. None of them had any idea that something serious was wrong with her. Not even Phil, who was at his brotherly best, very kind and considerate. They talked about ordinary things, about parties and Rollerblading and music and books. Things from Poppy's old life, which suddenly seemed to have been a hundred years ago. Cliff talked, too, nicer than he had been since the days when he was courting Poppy's mother. But finally the visitors left, and Poppy's mother stayed. She touched Poppy every so often with hands that shook slightly. If I didn't know, I'd know, Poppy thought. She isn't acting like Mom at all. â€Å"I think I'll stay here tonight,† her mother said. Not quite managing to sound offhand. â€Å"The nurse said I can sleep on the window seat; it's really a couch for parents. I'm just trying to decide whether I should run back to the house and get some things.† â€Å"Yes, go,† Poppy said. There was nothing else she could say and still pretend that she didn't know. Besides, her mom undoubtedly needed some time by herself, away from this. Just as her mother left, a nurse in a flowered blouse and green scrub pants came in to take Poppy's temperature and blood pressure. And then Poppy was alone. It was late. She could still hear a TV, but it was far away. The door was ajar, but the hallway outside was dim. A hush seemed to have fallen over the ward. She felt very alone, and the pain was gnawing deep inside her. Beneath the smooth skin of her abdomen, the tumor was making itself known. Worst of all, James hadn't called. How could he not call? Didn't he know she needed him? She wasn't sure how long she could go on not thinking about It. Maybe the best thing would be to try to sleep. Get unconscious. Then she couldn't think. But as soon as she turned out the light and closed her eyes, phantoms swirled around her. Not images of pretty bald girls; skeletons. Coffins. And worst of all, an endless darkness. If I die, I won't be here. Will I be anywhere? Or will I just Not Be at all? It was the scariest thing she'd ever imagined, Not-Being. And she was definitely thinking now, she couldn't help it. She'd lost control. A galloping fear consumed her, made her shiver under the rough sheet and thin blankets. I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to – â€Å"Poppy.† Her eyes flew open. For a second she couldn't identify the black silhouette in the darkened room. She had a wild idea that it was Death itself coming to get her. Then she said, â€Å"James?† â€Å"I wasn't sure if you were asleep.† Poppy reached for the bedside button that turned on the light, but James said, â€Å"No, leave it off. I had to sneak past the nurses, and I don't want them to throw me out.† Poppy swallowed, her hands clenched on a fold of blanket. â€Å"I'm glad you came,† she said. â€Å"I thought you weren't going to come.† What she really wanted was to throw herself into his arms and sob and scream. But she didn't. It wasn't just that she'd never done anything like that with him before; it was something about him that stopped her. Something she couldn't put her finger on, but that made her feel almost . . . frightened. The way he was standing? The fact that she couldn't see his face? All she knew was that James suddenly seemed like a stranger. He turned around and very slowly closed the heavy door. Darkness. Now the only light came in through the window. Poppy felt curiously isolated from the rest of the hospital, from the rest of the world. And that should have been good, to be alone with James, protected from everything else. If only she weren't having this weird feeling of not recognizing him. â€Å"You know the test results,† he said quietly. It wasn't a question. â€Å"My mom doesn't know I know,† Poppy said. How could she be talking coherently when all she wanted to do was scream? â€Å"I overheard the doctors telling her. . . . James, I've got it. And . . . it's bad; it's a bad kind of cancer. They said it's already spread. They said I'm going to . . .† She couldn't get the last word out, even though it was shrieking through her mind. â€Å"You're going to die,† James said. He still seemed quiet and centered. Detached. â€Å"I read up on it,† James went on, walking over to the window and looking out. â€Å"I know how bad it is. The articles said there was a lot of pain. Serious pain.† â€Å"James,† Poppy gasped. â€Å"Sometimes they have to do surgery just to try to stop the pain. But whatever they do, it won't save you. They can fill you full of chemicals and irradiate you, and you'll still die. Probably before the end of summer.† â€Å"James – â€Å" â€Å"It will be your last summer – â€Å" â€Å"James, for God's sake!† It was almost a scream. Poppy was breathing in great shaking gulps, clinging to the blankets. â€Å"Why are you doing this to me?† He turned and in one movement seized her wrist, his fingers closing over the plastic hospital bracelet. â€Å"I want you to understand that they can't help you,† he said, ragged and intense. â€Å"Do you understand that?† â€Å"Yes, I understand,† Poppy said. She could hear the mounting hysteria in her own voice. â€Å"But is that what you came here to say? Do you want to kill me?† His fingers tightened painfully. â€Å"No! I want to save you.† Then he let out a breath and repeated it more quietly, but with no less intensity. â€Å"I want to save you, Poppy.† Poppy spent a few moments just getting air in and out of her lungs. It was hard to do it without dissolving into sobs. â€Å"Well, you can't,† she said at last. â€Å"Nobody can.† â€Å"That's where you're wrong.† Slowly he released her wrist and gripped the bed rail instead. â€Å"Poppy, there's something I've got to tell you. Something about me.† â€Å"James . . .† Poppy could breathe now, but she didn't know what to say. As far as she could tell, James had gone crazy. In a way, if everything else hadn't been so awful, she might have been flattered. James had lost his consummate cool – over her. He was upset enough about her situation to go completely nonlinear. â€Å"You really do care,† she said softly, with a laugh that was half a sob. She put a hand on his where it rested on the bed rail. He laughed shortly in turn. His hand flipped over to grasp hers roughly; then he pulled away. â€Å"You have no idea,† he said in a terse, strained voice. Looking out the window, he added, â€Å"You think you know everything about me, but you don't. There's something very important that you don't know.† By now Poppy just felt numb. She couldn't understand why James kept harping on himself, when she was the one about to die. But she tried to conjure up some sort of gentleness for him as she said, â€Å"You can tell me anything. You know that.† â€Å"But this is something you won't believe. Not to mention that it's breaking the laws.† â€Å"The law?† â€Å"The laws. I go by different laws than you. Human laws don't mean much to us, but our own are supposed to be unbreakable.† â€Å"James,† Poppy said, with blank terror. He really was losing his mind. â€Å"I don't know the right way to say it. I feel like somebody in a bad horror movie.† He shrugged, and said without turning, â€Å"I know how this sounds, but . . . Poppy, I'm a vampire.† Poppy sat still on the bed for a moment. Then she groped out wildly toward the bedside table. Her fingers closed on a stack of little crescent-shaped plastic basins and she threw the whole stack at him. â€Å"You bastard !† she screamed, and reached for something else to throw.