Business Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Business Economics - Essay Example Wessels however points out that this does not necessarily mean that the citizens of the US have better living standard than their counterparts in the UK. (21). GDP therefore cannot be used as the sole factor in measuring the living standards of the citizens of a country. However chances are that a country with a high GDP has a better standard of living than that with a low GDP. So what encompasses GDP' Well there are a number of components which when added together make up the GDP of a country. According to Sowell, they include Consumption which is denoted by letter C, Investment which is denoted by letter I, spending by government and finally exports and imports denoted by letter X and M respectively. Consumption refers to all the money spent by citizens of a country in buying goods and services which they expect will satisfy their needs. This includes money spent on food, purchase of new clothes as well as entertainment. (50-51) Sowell further notes that spending by the government is another component of the GDP. For example the UK government spends money to buy new military equipment and also pay its workers. (70).This expenditure is also part of the country's GDP. Investments into an economy are also used in calculation of the Gross Domestic Product. ... To get the accurate value of GDP economist add the value of all goods produced in a country and then subtract the value of all goods which are imported. The total components of GDP is expressed mathematically as Y=C+I+G+(X-M). (Sowell 80-81) Wessels notes that measuring GDP is critical if economists are to determine the rate of growth of an economy. "In measuring GDP economists use two major methods, the expenditure method and the income approach". (qtd.in Wessels 71). The expenditure approach involves adding the total amount of money spent on final goods. In this case, GDP equals C+I+G+ (NX) where NX represents gross exports. The income approach involves adding all the income received by citizens of a country either through compensation, income from rental property, and profits of corporate organizations. Mathematically this can be expressed as GDP= Employee Compensation+Rental Income+Corporate Profits+Net Interest+Proprietor profits. UK GDP Figure for the year 2009 The GDP of the UK is estimated to be worth '315.5billion. What does this mean' The figure indicated above means that the total value of all goods produced in the UK in the 2008 to 2009 financial year amounts to '315.5 billion. This makes it the sixth largest economy in the world and third largest in Europe. How well did the GDP grow in 2009' In measuring the GDP of an economy, economists divide a given year into quarters. The growth of the economy in each quarter is measured and then a comparison is made with the previous quarter so as to note the difference which constitutes actual growth.(Wessels 55). For instance in the UK economy, GDP fell by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009. In the second quarter of the same year GDP declined by a value of 0.6%. In

Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 3

Assignment - Essay Example The Domain supports any video input, be it USB 1.0 and 2.0 or Window DirectX (WiredRed 2008). (iii) Strategic current and feasible domain definition: The domain supports enhanced definitions of 720P or higher resolution but lower than HD frame rates. For instance, Logitech Fusion and Ultra Vision are two popular examples that produce surprising high-resolution images wonderfully at fine business-class rates (WiredRed 2008). (i) User perceived values: The User perceived values for the domain include easy installation, best multiparty video and audio quality, real-time PowerPoint sharing, the fastest desktop sharing and proxy friendly remote controls, real-time presenter’s controls, record and playback, secure web conferencing and true web administration and management (WiredRed 2008). (ii) The domain is currently based in countries in Nigeria and Malaysia (Sarawak) with its product range across other locations in the countries. In education, the software has been used in Kent College, where students could cheaply discuss with their off-site teachers (WiredRed 2006). (iii) The products are Windows compatible: this means that the User can use any USB 2.0 web cam. Also, it works well with any S-video as an out cable mated to a Windows compatible video capture card (WiredRed 2008) (iv) The users could move from one product to the other in the domain. This explains interconnectivity among the product range. And this would facilitate multiple functionalities that would be cost-efficient (Gough & Rosenfield 2006). (i) Some of the products in the domain help to facilitate quick and clear video conferencing, but some constraints arise as a result of product’s components, compatibilities and programming context. For example, a product that is Windows compatible has problems working perfectly with non-Windows operating systems. And different programming procedures used in producing the software/solutions constitute a

Final project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 3

Final project - Essay Example The following essay outlines the different programs that the police will lead the youth in the creation of a clean environment as well as the creation of a healthy relationship. The program outlines different goals with their composite objectives and the time frames between every act. The program is set to take a total of seven days. The social; activities will take at least three to four hours a day. In other scenarios, the time, may extend or be shorter depending on the objective of each day. The program is set to take place either in the afternoon or the weekdays and take place in the midmorning hours during the weekends. Extensions of the time frame are dependent on exogenous variables. The variables include the weather conditions; the amount of work constitutes the seven days. In addition, the time frame is subject to additional activities that include recreational activities. The recreational activities may be after the clean up or ion other instances, single and simpler activities may take place after the cleanup activities. The recreational activities will help in the creation of more time for interaction through sports and other mutual activities. The program is set take part in the major social facilities. The facilities include the playing fields that are around the area. The fields will hold the events that constitute the competitions. Other tasks will take place in indoor facilities that are also for social work. If need arises, the police may use their fields to host activities such as the martial arts. The cleanup tasks will take place in the streets in which the community inhabits. However, the cleanup is a tedious work activity and will thus include even the other members of the societies who are not necessarily in the program. The main activity in the particular PAL activity is the cleanup of the streets. However, the program is set tom incorporate more recreational activities. Some of

Breeze of Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Breeze of Change - Essay Example I knew I had to start working towards achieving my dreams. I did not want to be caught up by death before realizing my full potential. I needed to travel the world and learn about other people. I always felt that the future was in the air. Everywhere I went, I would feel the future blowing in the wind of change. I had many things I wanted to change in my life and those of others. I hoped to see a world where people respected each other’s culture. I wanted a world where people appreciated and celebrated their diversity. Even up to today, I have always had the passion to learn other people culture, and I am glad I have partially done so. Because I believe this will enable me, understand and appreciate others. Early years were characterized by numerous trips to different countries. In every trip, I learned something that changed my life. My trips outside the United States helped me understand other people’s culture. I learned to accept other people’s point of views no matter how much they differed they were from my own. When I visited Baha’i Temple in Wilmette in Illinois, I realized the significance of religion. Since I value my own religion and I promised myself to appreciate other people’s culture and religion. This was reinforced when I attended a Catholic-sponsored high school, which made me realize that Catholics are very receptive of other religions. The experience changed my life and I wanted to be receptive to other people’s culture, and opinions. Attending college enabled me to meet people from different places. I learned the dynamics of socialization. A chance to be in the army strengthened me physically and mentally. I realized that every experience was a lesson for me. Death has always scared me in some way. When my 14-year old cousin and my great uncle died on the same day, I realized how death could cut short our ambitions. It was traumatizing to see someone die at such an early age. I decided to live each d ay to the full and always do my best. When I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Art and History, I was excited. Nevertheless, I knew I had to find a job. The job searching process turned out to be tougher than I thought. My parents were there for me, and they taught me the importance of being there for others. However, I ended up deciding on doing volunteer work. It was an opportunity to touch other people’s lives. During my volunteer at Navajo Reservation, I realized of the sufferings that American Indians go through. During my work, I learned that no amount of textbook learning could teach us about new and unknown cultures. Working with people from diverse culture taught me how to deal with others. I was glad I took the opportunity to help them. My international trip to Mexico, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, North, and South Carolina helped me realize how rampant racism and bigotry were. People still judged others in terms of their culture. When I moved to Albuquerque in New Mexico, I was prepared for what lay ahead.  

Final project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 3

Final project - Essay Example The following essay outlines the different programs that the police will lead the youth in the creation of a clean environment as well as the creation of a healthy relationship. The program outlines different goals with their composite objectives and the time frames between every act. The program is set to take a total of seven days. The social; activities will take at least three to four hours a day. In other scenarios, the time, may extend or be shorter depending on the objective of each day. The program is set to take place either in the afternoon or the weekdays and take place in the midmorning hours during the weekends. Extensions of the time frame are dependent on exogenous variables. The variables include the weather conditions; the amount of work constitutes the seven days. In addition, the time frame is subject to additional activities that include recreational activities. The recreational activities may be after the clean up or ion other instances, single and simpler activities may take place after the cleanup activities. The recreational activities will help in the creation of more time for interaction through sports and other mutual activities. The program is set take part in the major social facilities. The facilities include the playing fields that are around the area. The fields will hold the events that constitute the competitions. Other tasks will take place in indoor facilities that are also for social work. If need arises, the police may use their fields to host activities such as the martial arts. The cleanup tasks will take place in the streets in which the community inhabits. However, the cleanup is a tedious work activity and will thus include even the other members of the societies who are not necessarily in the program. The main activity in the particular PAL activity is the cleanup of the streets. However, the program is set tom incorporate more recreational activities. Some of

Health Promotion Plan on Substance Abuse Assignment

Health Promotion Plan on Substance Abuse - Assignment Example The selected population stratum for this teaching program is teenage school students within the age limit of 13-14 years. This segment is particularly selected because researches have shown that substance abuse usually begins in early teenage life due to various factors and not only affects the quality of present life by causing physical and mental distress but also leads to alcoholism and drug addiction later. Literature Review Alcoholism and drug addiction is an increasing problem in adolescents these days. Various researches conducted have shown an increasing trend in the consumption of sentence abuse. Where there are various factors identified for this increased pattern of consumption, one of them was found to be unsupervised teenage life in which substance abuse leads to addiction in later part of life. According to researches conducted by Changalwa et al. (2012), Bahr and Hoffman (2012) and, Peckham and Morgan-Lopez (2007), there is a direct link between parenting styles and su bstance abuse in teenagers and adolescents. Teenagers with unhealthy or strained bonding with their parents and guardians tend to develop inclination towards substance abuse during their teenage life which leads to addiction in future. ... ces of them drinking excessively later in life.† Hence, children with their parents having authoritative parenting style tend to develop healthy personalities since this parenting style is a combination of love, independence and supervision allowing children to make decisions (shunning rebellion resulting substance abuse) but with necessary guidance (which allows teenagers to be aware of what is harmful for them and do not give them over-independence). Therefore, child’s desires are well-respected but with necessary controls imposed. According to American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2011), â€Å"The most commonly used illegal drugs are marijuana (pot), stimulants (cocaine, crack, and speed), LSD, PCP, opiates, heroin, and designer drugs (Ecstasy).   The use of illegal drugs is increasing, especially among young teens.   The average age of first marijuana use is 14, and alcohol use can start before age 12.   The use of marijuana and alcohol in high school has become common†. It is important to note that drugs and alcohol are not easily accessible commodities. Therefore, for teenagers to have access to them means getting involved in criminal activities or being present in an environment which is harmful for their cognitive growth. According to researches of Baumrind (1991) and Njenga (2005), environment and inheritance are the two decisive factors which instigate substance abuse in teenagers. For an environment, current family setup, daily settings including academic setup and playgrounds, cultural forces and peer pressure are the basic elements which have direct impact on the teenagers and adolescents. On the other hand, hereditary traits also play a vital role in inducing substance abuse even if the environment is healthy enough. Various researches

Developing Self-Assessment Skills in Nursing

Developing Self-Assessment Skills in Nursing Self-assessment is the way in which individuals reflect on past experiences and events in order to facilitate learning, and to develop and maintain skills and knowledge, in order to evaluate whether individual competencies are compliant with relevant codes of conduct by profession. Models within the literature on the process of self-assessment also use the term ‘reflection’ to describe such activity, whereby self-assessment / reflection method is seen to involve ‘returning to an experience, describing it and attending to thoughts and feelings.’ (Platzer, Blake Snelling, 1997;193) For nursing and other healthcare professionals (HCPs) in particular, self-assessment is a medium in which theory can be assessed during practice, and to tap into the personal knowledge resource of HCP’s ‘embedded in the practices and know how of expert clinicians. (Brenner, 1984;4) The cognitive processes involved within self-assessment activity are described within the literature as complex, involving high order cognitive capacities; making influences, generalizations; memory, analogies; emotional evaluation and problem solving (Moore, 1998). Analysing ones performance is thus described in terms of a professional development tool, whereby gaps in knowledge as well as areas of expertise may be identified, and form the focus of further training, and/or activities at work in line with Department of Health initiatives for continuing professional development. Self-assessment within clinical practice for nurses thus needs to be taught and coached, and may occur in a number of ways. Models of reflection and self-assessment documented describe the need for use of written records of practice within self-assessment, such as through reflective diaries (Platzer, Blake Snelling, 1997) which can be used as the basis for discussion during group-working projects and in one-to-one coaching sessions between mentors and student nurses for example. The use of reflection through self-assessment has been suggested as particularly relevant to nurses due to the nature of their work – the need to respond to individual requirements and needs of patients, and to avoid rigid routines of caring acts that can lead to performing duties on ‘autopilot’ (Cox, 1994) Self-assessment is thus suggested to prevent complacency or caring through pattern / ritual from occurring, by reflecting on ones practices to allow nurses to provide individualized patient care. Self-assessment practices may be taken by nurses during a number of reflection opportunties; critical incident techniques (Clamp, 1980; Flannagan, 1954) reviews of case studies and personal experiences or practice reviews (Wilshaw Bohannan, 2003) The reflection process thus enables learning for nurses through initiating discussion and thought in regards to comparing actions taken against suggested best practice. Self-assessment is becoming increasingly incorporated learning programmes for nurses, as well as receiving focus throughout careers in order to enable continuing professional development. Self-assessment of ones own competencies are thus predominantly portrayed in a positive light and emphasis given to associated advantages. One of the major benefits of incorporating self-assessment into both education and professional development, is the way in which theory and learning can be translated into more applied methods, and by increasing the relevance of taught theory, help students and new nurses to apply what they have learnt in the classroom into their patient care through evaluating learning in the context of their own experiences. Reflection and self-assessment throughout a career can also allow nurses to develop this initial knowledge base by incorporating future experiences to widen personal knowledge resource to continue to grow professionally. Benefits of the use of self-assessments can also be seen in the way in which they can allow more accurate evaluation of the training programmes used to educate nurses. Research indicates that the commonly used questionnaire technique to investigate students perceptions and evaluations of training can be influenced by a range of external factors that often make such ratings highly unreliable; like / dislike of the tutor, and the aesthetics of the learning environment are two such factors (Hicks Henessey, 2001), and are thus likely to contribute little to analyzing the true efficacy of the training undergone. Considerations should however be taken when using self-assessment for a number of reasons. Firstly the depth of evaluation and use of reflections will depend on the level of importance that an individual will place on their own knowledge and assessment abilities. It has been reported that many HCPs place little value on their own personal knowledge favoring only research based knowledge – thus underutilizing their own resource (Platzer, Blake Snelling, 1997) and so may subsequently place little value or effort into the process of self-assessment meaning learning outcome will be limited. The reliability of the cognitions underlying self-assessment techniques can also put into question the usefulness of the results for learning – memory for recounting events can be affected by anxiety (Newell, 1992), whilst others may feel under scrutiny and look to justify or rationalise actions (Wilshaw Bohannan, 2003) rather than reflect and learn from outcomes. This highlights the w ay in which self-assessment is only truly useable in environments that are not operating within a blame culture where personal evaluation would otherwise be inhibited. Lastly it is also reported that the coaching experience and ability of mentors to teach self-assessment techniques exerts a strong influence on the outcome in ability to complete self-assessment tasks for their students, and therefore the ability of coaches will have a positive or negative impact for students (Arvidsson,2005) The Nursing and Midwifery Council(NMC) openly supports the use of a self-assessment system as a means for nurses to identify ‘shortfalls’ in their skills, by rating their own performance. Self-assessment should be thus used to identify gaps in nurse’s abilities and so highlight key training needs, acting in what the NMC call an ‘early warning system’ capacity against poor standards (Duffin, 2004). Although not compulsory, self-assessment is seen as a way for nurses to contemplate critical areas within their clinical environment (information for clients on treatment, nurse/client relationships professional accountability: Duffin, 2004) that staff shortages and time pressures may otherwise push to the sideline, with the assessment of these factors proposed to help nurses to work within the NMC Code of Professional Conduct, and protect staff against misconduct charges, by providing a practical route of translating codes of contact guidelines into action s and evaluating the effectiveness of these actions. The use of self-assessment procedures with nurses is already covered in some detail within learning and training courses for those new to the profession of nursing. In early training, mentors are used to facilitate the start of a journey of growth from knowledge (Price, 2005), through the ability to reflect on ones own actions, and feelings towards those experiences individually or in group work during nursing education (Platzer, Blake Snelling 1997) Self-assessment as a tool for learning is also actively encouraged within the continuing professional development initiatives set by the Department of Health which now stipulates the need for post-basic education for all HCP’s, and from the NMC’s own code of conduct which places great importance on the identification of skill-shortfalls through self-assessment alongside other identification means, in order to ensure patients are receiving the best care possible, from skilled and well trained nursing professionals. REFERENCES Arvidsson, B (2005) ‘Factors influencing nurse supervisor competence: a critical incident analysis study’ Journal of Nursing Management Vol. 13, 3 Clamp, C (1980) ‘Learning through critical incidents’ Nursing Times 1755-1758 Crawford, M (1998) ‘Development through self-assessment: strategies used during clinical nursing placements’ Journal of Advanced Nursing Vol. 27, 1 Duffin, C (2004) NMC system to give early warning of skills shortfall’ Nursing Standard Vol. 19, 5 p7 Flannagan, (1954) cited in Wilshaw, G Bohannon, N (2003) ‘Reflective practice and team teaching in mental health care.’ Nursing Standard Vol. 17, 50 p33-37 Hek, G ‘Developing self evaluation skills: a pragmatic research-based approach for complex areas of nursing’ Nurse Researcher Vol.11, 2 p73-82 Hicks, C Hennessy, D (2001) ‘An alternative technique for evaluating the effectiveness of continuing professional development courses for healthcare professionals: a pilot study with practice nurses’ Journal of Nursing Management Vol. 9 p39-49 Moore, P (1998) ‘Development of professional practice research training fellowships: occasional papers’ Health Professions Wales Morrison, J (2005) ‘ABC of learning and teaching in medicine’ British Medical Journal 326 (7385) p385-387 Newell (1992) cited in Platzer, H. Blake, D Snelling, J (1997) ‘A review of research into the use of groups and discussion to promote reflective practice in nursing’ Research in compulsory Education Vol. 2, 2 Platzer, H. Blake, D Snelling, J (1997) ‘A review of research into the use of groups and discussion to promote reflective practice in nursing’ Research in compulsory Education Vol. 2, 2 Price, B (2005) ‘Self-assessment and reflection in nurse education’ Nursing Standard Vol. 19, 29 p33-37 Wilshaw, G Bohannon, N (2003) ‘Reflective practice and team teaching in mental health care.’ Nursing Standard Vol. 17, 50 p33-37