Factors Affecting Climate

Factors Affecting Climate There are many different factors that affect climate around the world. The most important factors are:- †¢Distance From The Sea †¢Ocean Currents †¢Direction of Prevailing Winds †¢Relief †¢Proximity To The Equator †¢The El Nino Phenomenon †¢Recently, it has been accepted that human activity is also affecting climate. Distance From The Sea (Continentality) The sea affects the climate of a place. Coastal areas are cooler and wetter than inland areas. Clouds form when warm air from inland areas meets cool air from the sea. The centre of continents are subject to a large range of temperatures.In the summer, temperatures can bevery hot and dry as moisture from the sea evaporates before it reaches the centre of the continent. Ocean Currents The Ocean Currents of the World http://www. itl. net cean currents can increase or reduce temperatures. The diagram to the left shows the ocean currents of the world. The main ocean current tha t affects the UK is the Gulf Stream. Can you see where the gulf stream is? The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current in the North Atlantic flowing from the Gulf of Mexico, northeast along the U. S coast, and from there to the British Isles.The Gulf of Mexico has higher air temperatures than Britain as it's closer to the equator. This means that the air coming from the Gulf of Mexico to Britain is also warm. However, the air is also quite moist as it travels over the Atlantic ocean. This is one reason why Britain often receives wet weather. The Gulf Stream keeps the west coast of Europe free from ice in the winter and, in the summer warmer than other places of a similar latitude. The chart below was the first chart drawn of the Gulf Stream. It was drawn by Benjamin Franklin in 1770.The Gulf Stream – As Drawn By Benjamin Franklin http://www. cnmoc. navy. mil. educate Direction of Prevailing Winds Winds that blow from the sea often bring rain to the coast and dry weather to inland areas. Winds that blow to Britain from warm inland areas such as Africa will be warm and dry. Winds that blow to Britain from inland areas such as the Netherlands will be cold and dry in winter. Britains prevailing winds come from a south westerly direction over the Atlantic. The winds are cool in the summer and mild in the winter. Relief Climate can be affected by mountains.Mountains receive more rainfall than low lying areas because the temperature on top of mountains is lower than the temperature at sea level. That is why you often see snow on the top of mountains all year round. The higher the place is above sea level the colder it will be. This happens because as altitude increases, air becomes thinner and is less able to absorb and retain heat. Proximity To The Equator The proximity to the equator affects the climate of a place. The equator receives the more sunlight than anywhere else on earth. This is due to its position in relation to the sun (see right).The diagram shows that the equator is hotter because the sun has less area to heat. It is cooler at the north and south poles as the sun has more area to heat up. It is cooler as the heat is spread over a wider area. The Earth's Position in Relation to the Sun http://www. itl. net El Nino El Nino, which affects wind and rainfall patterns, has been blamed for droughts and floods in countries around the Pacific Rim. El Nino refers to the irregular warming of surface water in the Pacific. The warmer water pumps energy and moisture into the atmosphere, altering global wind and rainfall patterns.The phenomenon has caused tornadoes in Florida, smog in Indonesia, and forest fires in Brazil (see below) Devastation Caused by a El Nino-generated tornado in Florida http://news. bbc. co. uk Smog In Indonesia http://news. bbc. co. uk El Nino Causes Forest Fires in Brazil http://news. bbc. co. uk Human Influence The factors above affect the climate naturally. However, we cannot forget the influence of humans on ou r climate. We have been affecting the climate since we appeared on this earth millions of years ago. In those times, the affect on the climate was small.Trees were cut down to provide wood for fires. Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. A reduction in trees will therefore have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Industrial Revolution, starting at the end of the 19th Century, has had a huge effect on climate. The invention of the motor engine and the increased burning of fossil fuels have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The number of trees being cut down has also increased, meaning that the extra carbon dioxide produced cannot be changed into oxygen.

Nakata’s Story Essay

He does after all state in an interview on the authors official Murakami website (:http://www. randomhouse. com/features/murakami)) â€Å"Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can’t help but link up with all sorts of Myths. † His works explore how ancient myths can impact the lives of even a normal teenaged boy like Kafka Tamura, and how those myths interweave with Japanese culture even in today’s more Westernized Japan. Kafka’s journey begins in a library which I would interpret as being key to understanding who Kafka is. He loves reading and books and has been taught to value knowledge. In a very real sense this is true for Kafka since knowledge is the one thing that will ensure his survival on his journey of self discovery. There Kafka meets a young trans-gendered librarian named Oshima who suffers from a form of rare hemophilia. Oshima also acts as a guide who leads’s Kafka to the gates to the underworld. This is where Kafka will discover what truly happened to his mother and sister, as well as what kind of man his father really is. The final guide on Kafka’s Journey of self discovery is the Head Librarian of the Komura Library, Miss Saeki. Kafka gets the strangest feeling when he is around her that she might be his long lost mother. This is where the novel starts tying into the Ancient Greek myth of Oedipus. The tale of Oedipus( Sophocles, The Oedipus Trilogy; Project Gutenberg: http//www. gutenberg. org) is from a play by the Greek playwright Sophocles about a King who is told by fortune-teller that if his pregnant wife bears a son that the child will grow up to kill his father, and have sexual relations with his mother. The play is very tragic but Murakami’s story although tragic in some places is filled with a very subtle light. Kafka has some rather severe issues regarding the disappearance of his mother when he was four. As a four year old he was told by his father that much as Oedipus he would end up in an incestuous relationship with his mother. In a way this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for Kafka as he falls in love with Miss Saeki whom he suspects is his mother. He states to his spirit guide Crow â€Å"I am in love with Miss Saeki. † (p. 400 Kafka on the Shore: Vintage Paperbacks, 2005) and from this point on Miss Saeki becomes the focus of his obsession. Kafka feels conflicted over his mother’s abandonment. He never understood why his mother left, and apparently his father never explained to him why she left. Part of this sense of abandonment is what has lead Kafka to run away from home. Shortly after arriving at the library Kafka finds himself unconscious in a pile of brush at the side of the road with no memory of what had happened to him. He is covered in blood yet un-injured, and he calls Sakura for help. After she picks him up they have a sexual encounter at her apartment. After this he heads back to the library and decides he cannot return to the hotel he has been living in. Oshima offers Kafka the option of remaining in a cabin that Oshimas’ family owns in the mountains until Oshima can arrange for Kafka to take up residence in one of the rooms that is available at the library. It is here that Kafka begins to wonder if his experience with Sakura was the right thing to do as he suspects Sakura is his sister. Upon moving into the library Kafka hears from Oshima the tragic story of Mss Saeki’s life. According to Oshima â€Å"Miss Saeki’s basically stopped at twenty, when her lover died. No, maybe not age twenty, maybe much earlier†¦.. I don’t know the details. But, you need to be aware of this. The hands of the Japanese Dreams clock buried inside her soul ground to a halt then. Time outside, of course flows on as always, but she isn’t affected by it. † (p 161; Kafka on The Shore; Vintage Paperbacks, 2005). It is from this point that Kafka begins to develop an almost Oedipal obsession over a woman who may, or may not be his biological mother. It is also around the same time that Kafka discovers that his sculptor father has been murdered in a rather gory fashion in Tokyo. It is from here that Kafka’s tale takes on a truly dreamlike quality when he flees to Oshima’s cabin in the woods fearing that he will be accused of the murder of his father. This is what leads into the tale of the second main character.

Merger, Acquisition, and International Strategies Research Paper - 5

Merger, Acquisition, and International Strategies - Research Paper Example Similarly, mergers and acquisitions guide smaller and newer companies into adapting in the advanced industries that have larger companies often manipulating the market conditions of such industries. Merger and acquisitions is a restructure approach in the management of enterprises within an industry. In successful mergers, the companies involved employ techniques that enable them to reorganize their corporate and internal strategies to suit the value of the operations. Distinctively, the growth of globalization has largely influenced the need for businesses to embrace mergers and acquisition as a way to fit into the competitive international markets. Many companies have inadequate resources that enable them to venture into overseas markets, hence limiting their potential output and income respectively. In this case study, therefore, the paper will explain the role of mergers and acquisitions towards the growth of a brand in international markets. The energy industry is a mainstream contributor to the growth of any economy in the world. Many companies that deal with this lucrative commodity are often engaged in a series of adjustment processes that guarantee the survival of such companies in this competitive industry. Due to the increasing global pressure towards internationalization of various business entities, the merger and acquisition processes came into the picture to provide a stable supply of energy for the expansion of various business units. Therefore, between the year 1998 and the year 2001, major energy mergers were commissioned to oversee the improvement of efficiency in the provision of energy as per the requirements of the internationalized enterprises. The Exxon Mobil is a combination that involved the purchase of Mobil by Exxon in the year 1998. The strategy employed in this merger was the horizontal strategy that involved the acquisition of a foreign oil

Harmful ingredients within protein shakes Essay

Harmful ingredients within protein shakes - Essay Example Protein shake is a mixture of a powdered form of protein with water, juice, or milk. Bodybuilders consume this mixture after or before practice to supplement their diets increase the protein levels in the body. Bodybuilders usually require high levels of protein to achieve maximum muscle growth. The exact amount of protein, that an athlete is uncertain, and usually left for the user to decide the desired amount. The protein powder is, in variety flavors, to suit the different users. Protein shakes are a popular source of protein since it is directly absorbed into the body. However, the levels of nutrients found in it may not be in the amount exactly required. Different people require different levels of nourishment needs. For example in the human structure, women require more iron as compared to men. In studies conducted and reported by independent laboratories in United States, popular brands of protein shakes prove to contain higher than the recommended levels of heavy metals. The law recommends a minimum of fifteen, five, ten, and fifteen micrograms per day of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury levels respectively. This shows that a majority of the brands of powder shakes are a threat to the health of their users (Coleman, 2008). Cadmium is one of the extremely poisonous metals. Thus, even very small traces of cadmium present in the body can cause severe damage in the body. Usually this metal is majorly in industrial work places. Just a small exposure to it may result to symptoms such as fever, chills, and muscle ache. With an increase in cadmium exposure, it causes respiratory damages such as pneumonitis, trachea-bronchitis, and pulmonary edema. Cadmium poisoning too affects other internal organs such as kidney and bones (Avedon, 2007). Another heavy metal present in a majority of the protein shakes is lead. Lead accumulates in the body leading to severe emergency symptoms. Medical experts show that even low levels of lead if present in a child may hinder a child’s mental and body development. In addition, lead is more dangerous to children as compared to adults. Some of the complications because of lead poisoning include; kidney damage, hearing problems, hindering body growth, reduced levels of IQ, and behavior problems. Its symptoms include headaches, anemia, irritability, low appetite, abdominal pain, and cramping (Shamy, 2013). As mentioned above, mostly children are vulnerable to the effects of lead poisoning. Administering protein shakes to children can lead to disaster in children development. In 2005, a study published in pediatrics’ journal found that protein shakes is common to individuals between the ages of twelve and eighteen. This shows a majority of children gain higher protein levels by use of protein shakes (Massie, 2012). High levels of arsenic in the body lead to arsenic poisoning. At early stages of the condition, the victims suffer headaches, drowsiness, confusion, and severe diarrhea. Lungs, skin, l iver, and kidneys are the major internal organs that suffer the wrath of arsenic poisoning. Very high levels usually lead to night blindness. In some cases, the victim slips into a coma and finally dies. High arsenic levels are not good for the body making protein shakes a threat to its user (Sewell, 2013). Mercury is a heavy metal, whose exposure results to hydrargyriasis. Having different symptoms from

Prediction of stall on an aircraft Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Prediction of stall on an aircraft - Essay Example Stall speeds change with angle of bank, configuration and any changes in gross weight. Furthermore, an aircraft will stall at a higher speed with flaps retracted than with them extended. The phenomenon of stall is shown in the figure below:- Stall occur due to a number of reasons and can thus be divided into a number of types1 like power off stalls (also called approach-to-landing stalls, practiced by pilots to simulate normal approach-to-landing conditions and configuration), Power-on stalls (also known as departure stalls, practiced by pilots to simulate takeoff and climb-out conditions) and Accelerated stalls (experienced at higher-than normal airspeeds due to applying abrupt or excessive controls to aircraft and may occur in steep turns, pullups or other abrupt changes in your flight path.). Many aircraft in Flight Sim use a stall indicator to alert you when the airflow over the wing(s) approaches a point that lift cannot be sustained. The stall indicator is part of aircraft for a reason so no one should ignore it. Setup a numerical optimization procedure that can be useful to the aerodynamicist in the rapid design and development of high-lift system configurations and that can also provide derivative information regarding the influence of various design parameters (gap, overlap, slat and flap deflection angles, etc.) on the performance of the system. The variables that describe the relative element positioning can be used as design variables. These variables include flap and slat deflection angles, gaps, overlap, shapes of each of the elements and many more depending on method used2. Like in Continuous Adjoint Method, variables are flow-field variables and the physical location of the boundary. Then the governing equation which expresses the dependence of these variables can be written in flow field domain in form of partial differential equations. After introducing a Lagrange Multiplier and solving adjoint equations and applying boundary

Fingerprint scientific method Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fingerprint scientific method - Coursework Example It comprises 3 steps to compute a fingerprint. No. 1 – an approximation algorithm is used to compute a reduced-fidelity version of the target digital object. No. 2 – this reduced version is put into a normalized serial form, and No. 3 – a hash function is used to compute a unique fingerprint from the resulting serialized object. The UNFs approach is somewhat similar to that of audio & video fingerprinting. However, in contrast to audio and video fingerprints, which entail a long sequence computation, UNFs use a more concise and closely related representation, suitable for use in scholarly citations. Thai, L. & Tam, H. (2010) under ‘Standardized fingerprint model’ states, â€Å"The model includes the following steps: (1) Pre-processing fingerprint image: for each image, we recognize fingerprint area, thinned ridge lines and extract minutiae. (2) Finding and adjusting parameter sets: at first, choose a fingerprint which has largest fingerprint area as mean image.

European union law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

European union law - Essay Example Moreover, the Commission can further rely on the provisions of Article 245 (ex 211) EEC as â€Å"guardians of the Treaty â€Å"and has to ensure proper application of Community law, in line with Article 245 of the TFEU3. However, the White Paper on European Governance published by the Commission in 2001 further highlights that the primary responsibility for the application of Community law lies with national administrations and courts in the Member States4. Therefore, the primary objective of enforcement of actions against Member States is to monitor compliance and respond to non-compliance. As such, the Commission aims to encourage voluntary compliance of the Member State5. Moreover, the underlying sentiment of the Commission’s strategic objectives for 2005-2009 is that vigorous pursuit of infringement actions under Article 258 are â€Å"considered critical to the credibility of European Legislation and the effectiveness of policies†6 Moreover, according to Article 2 58, Member States that fail to fulfil an obligation under the Treaty can be subject to the infringement procedure. The Article 258 procedure is provided to allow the Commission to pursue its task of policing the application and compliance with the Treaties and secondary Community law obligations7. In turn this has raised issues as to the extent of national court obligations to refer questions of Community law to the ECJ. This paper critically evaluates the parameters of the legal obligations of national judicial authorities to refer issues of community law to the ECJ with specific reference to the relevant treaty procedures and case law. Firstly, it is submitted that often the issue of reference is linked with infringement issues8 and in order for the infringement procedure to commence a breach of obligation by a Member State must be suspected by or brought to the attention of the Commission. A breach or failure to act is most often observed in the forms of a Member State failing to implement Community legislation9. Moreover, the Commission has taken several measures to adequately remedy problems encountered in the transposition, implementation and enforcement of directives in particular for example10. These include regular publication of calendar for transposition and annual reports to monitor the application of community law. Borissova further comments that: â€Å"By launching enforcement action against a Member State, the Commission is not asking the ECJ to recognise a Member’s State’s intention to breach the law but to deliver a declaratory judgment not the latter’s failure to comply with its Community obligations11†. However, Article 258 (ex 226) requires administrative procedural steps to be taken before court proceedings can be instituted. Article 258 further provides that â€Å"if the Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under this treaty, it shall deliver a reasoned opinion on the mat ter†. Having informed the Member State of its breach, the Commission gives the state the opportunity to answer the allegation or take corrective action prior to formal proceedings under Article 258, which in turn leaves significant discretion to member states and national courts to address issues of community law12. If the matter is not resolved informally in the first phase, then member state will be formally notified of the alleged infringement by means of a

Why I want to work in the Maritime Industry Essay - 2

Why I want to work in the Maritime Industry - Essay Example Therefore, skilled and experienced professionals are required to handle and operate these vessels. I am fond of travelling, hence want to build my career as a Seaman or a Seafarer in the Maritime industry. I enjoy meeting new people of different cultures. I have an interest in the field of electronics, art and mechanics and want to build a career in electronics. I have the excitement and eagerness to learn various types of trades and incorporate it in career. I have full dedication towards my work and do not fear hard work. The work of a Seafarers is to operate and manage the ships and deliver transportation services from one country to another country. Thus, if any problem arises in electronics and mechanical sections regarding repair and maintenance, I will be able to resolve it through my skills and experience. Therefore, I want to work in the maritime industry and make my presence felt, through my hard work, dedication and knowledge. Furthermore, Seaman is an essential body of maritime industry as well as the Navy. It provides engineering base support towards the seagoing elements. I will feel proud to be an eminent member of this industry as it supports the national security by building and repairing the ships of defense manufacturing base. Well-built maritime infrastructures such as shipyards, suppliers and seafarers are among the crucial aspect for a country to fulfil the requirements of navy with regards to protection. I have a strong working experience, which will assist me in developing my career in maritime industry. I have worked in the field of electronics and warehouse and have adequate knowledge in the given field. I want to utilize my knowledge, zeal and experience in the maritime industry as a seaman. This job will be a boost in my career path and help me in achieving my desired goal. There are career prospects in this industry as it provides training and education support to

Alienation Essay Example for Free

Alienation Essay Metamorphosis is a change in physical form or structure. In The Metamorphosis, there is a literal change in the protagonist, Gregor Samsas, physical form from a man to an insect. This metamorphosis brings to light one of the major themes in the novel; the theme of alienation. Todays society demands conformity to its norms and any individual who refuses to accept these faces alienation. Such is the fate of Gregor in the story. Before Gregors metamorphosis, he is alienated from his job, humanity, his family, and even his body. The metamorphosis, however, takes the alienation to a different plane. In the story, Gregors job precipitates his alienation from society, his family, and himself. Gregors initial alienation is from his physical body and as the story progresses we find that Gregors life as an insect is not much different from his life as a human. From the first few paragraphs we get the impression that Gregors metamorphosis has only transformed him from one body to a less convenient one. He does not seem frazzled by his transformation, but explores his new body and tries to work with it. He observes his numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk (Kafka, 494), he feels a dull ache he had never experienced before (495), and he discovers a place on his body that he cannot itch. Gregor does not seem to have any emotional change due to this transformation. This is evident when he wakes up after his transformation and is annoyed that he cannot go to sleep because he cannot turn onto his right side. He also thinks about how he can no longer attend work.

Kant Moral Law Theory Essay Example for Free

Kant Moral Law Theory Essay â€Å"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. † – Kant (1788), pp, 193, 259 Immanuel Kant introduced and initiated his ‘moral law theory’ in the late 18th century. The doctrine in question sought to establish and constitute a supreme or absolute principle of morality. Kant disputes the existence of an ‘ethical system’, whereby moral obligations are obligations of ‘purpose’ or ‘reason’. The accuracy of actions [i. e. the rightness or wrongness of an individual deed] is determined by its configuration and conformity with regard to ‘moral law’. Evidently, according to Kant, an immoral transaction is invariably contemplated as an illogical or unreasonable occurrence or action. The supreme moral principle is a consistent working criterion that proves to be practically helpful and theoretically enlightening when used by rational agents as a guide for making personal choices (Kant VI). A supreme guiding moral principle must carry with it an absolute necessity and be done out of duty to the moral law in order to be free from corruption. Kant believed in a fair and impartial law. He accredited and affirmed the presence of an objective moral law that we, as humans, were/are able to identify with through the process of reasoning. Kant argued that we are able to recognise and distinguish moral law, without making reference to the possible consequence or outcome. Immanuel Kant declared a differentiation between statements [i.e. posteriori and priori] that he believed to coincide with moral law. A posteriori statement is one that is based on experience of the material world. In opposition, a priori statement requires no such knowledge; it is known independent of the phenomenal world. Furthermore, Kant continued to make additional distinctions with regard to analytic and synthetic statements. An analytic statement, he claims, is one that by its very nature is necessarily true, as the predicate is included within the definition of the subject. Example: – [â€Å"all squares have four sides†]. The previous statement is of an analytic nature, as the predicate, i. e. the square having four sides, is implicit and is part of the definition of the subject – [â€Å"square†]. An analytic statement is necessarily true – true by its own authority, and is purely explicative, as it tells us nothing new about the subject. In contrast, a synthetic statement is one in which the predicate is not included in the definition of the subject, and thus is not necessarily true. A synthetic statement also tells us something new about the subject. Prior to Kant, it was widely accepted that there were only two types of statement: a priori analytic and a posteriori synthetic. Kant accepted these two statements although believed there to be a third: a priori synthetic statement. These are statements that are known independent of experience that may or may not be true. Kant claimed that these priori synthetic principles are inherent within us and therefore subsequently form the basis of all moral decision making. Kant’s theory is based on and is primarily concerned with the aspect of ‘duty’. Kant believed and promoted the notion that to act morally is one’s ‘duty’, and one’s ‘duty’ is to act and proceed in accordance to the principles of moral law. Due to this, Kant’s theory is categorised and distinguished as a ‘deontological argument’. A deontological theory is one that maintains the moral rightness or wrongness of an action and depends on its fundamental qualities, and is independent of the nature of its consequence – â€Å"Duty for duty’s sake†. This perspective can be viewed in contrast to the beliefs and ‘rules’ associated and belonging to teleological arguments, i. e. utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant argued that moral requirements are based on a standard of rationality he dubbed the â€Å"Categorical Imperative. The categorical imperative has derived from the initial belief and notion that humans base their moral judgment on pure reason alone. This view can be viewed in contrast to a ‘morality theory’, which assumed/s that human’s actions are guided by emotions or desires. Example: When deciding what I ought to say to a friend who is distraught. Rationale would dictate that I give sensible advice, whereas my emotions may impulsively tell me to give comfort and sympathy. The categorical imperative declares and differentiates between obligatory and forbidden actions, and places further emphasis on the notion of ‘duty’. This statement can be strengthened through the following quotation – [â€Å"All in imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically†¦ If the action would be good simply as a means to something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; but if the action is represented as a good in itself†¦ then the imperative is categorical. †]. Example: If someone tells me that they will buy me dinner if I give them a lift into town, then this is a conditional action and would fall into the hypothetical imperative category. Conversely, if I think that I should give my friend a lift into town with no other agenda (i. e. she will not buy me dinner because of it), then this is a categorical imperative because it is independent of my interest and could apply to other people as well as myself. There are three principles of the categorical imperative: * Universal law; * Treat humans as ends in themselves; * Act as if you live in a kingdom of ends. 1. The categorical imperative is [â€Å"Do not act on any principle that cannot be universalised†]. In other words, moral laws must be applied in all situations and all rational beings universally, without exception. 2. [â€Å"Act that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other human being, never merely as a means, but always at the time as an end. †] – The previous statement declares that we must never treat people as means to an end. You can never use human beings for another purpose, to exploit or enslave them. Humans are rational and the highest point of creation, and so demand unique treatment. 3. The quotation [â€Å"So act as if you were through your maxim a law-making member of a Kingdom of ends†] states Kant’s belief in the fact that humans should behave as though every other individual was an ‘end’. In conclusion, it is arguable that the categorical imperative possesses a sense of authority with regard to what actions are permitted and forbidden under Kant’s moral law theory.

lawmaking process in the parliament

lawmaking process in the parliament DESCRIBE THE PHASES OF THE LAWMAKING PROCESS IN THE PARLIAMENT. IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES CAN PROPOSED LEGISLATION GO FOR ROYAL ASSENT WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS? The Parliament of England as one of the main pillars of a constitutional democracy plays a vital role in governing the country by lawmaking, the process which divides into number of stages. These stages which comprise the first reading, the second reading, the Committee Stage, the Report stage, the third reading, the approval of the House of Lords and the Royal Assent will be main focus of this essay. In addition, the essay will concern rather exceptional situations when proposed legislation might go for Royal Assent without, otherwise necessary, approval of the House of Lords. The Parliament of England stems from royal council which was established by William the Conqueror in 11th century and had further developed in 13th century with issuance of Magna Carta as a result of struggle for limit of the power of the English monarchy and thus is crucial for separation of powers an important thrust of the constitutional monarchy. Over the centuries, the Parliament has evolved into the highest source of law in the UK. The concept of Parliamentary Supremacy was introduced by English constitutional theorist Albert Dicey at the end of 19th century. The modern Parliament consists of three elements, the House of Commons, the House of Lords; and the monarch each of which has its own function in lawmaking process. Members of the House of Commons debate the issues of the proposals for new laws while members of the House of Lords are responsible for making laws and investigating political issues. The lawmaking process is a complex procedure which starts with pre-parliamentary process by identification of policy objective which included in a Green paper, a document that puts forward the proposals on which the parties give their opinions and views. The Green Paper is followed by a White paper which consists of the reform plans. Further, a Bill must be given tree readings in both in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The procedure can be commenced in either House and it starts with the first reading which is purely a formal procedure when the title of the proposed Bill is prepared, read out and followed by an order to be printed. Next step is the second reading which usually takes place no sooner than two weekends after first reading. It is the main point in the process and during this phase main provisions of the Bill are discussed. At this stage the proposals may be amended and it is up to the members to decide whether the legislation should proceed and they do it by exercising their voting rights. Once second reading is complete, the Bill goes to the Committee Stage which usually starts within a couple of weeks after a Bills second reading. At this stage the detailed examination, clause by clause, takes place. A chairman of standing committee, whose job is to consider the provisions, also has the power to amend it. When the committee stage is finished the Bill returns back to the House of Commons for its report stage where it can be debated and further amendments proposed. At this point, the standing committee reports the Bill back to the House to give the members an opportunity to make proposals for change to a Bill which has been examined during the previous stage. The members can suggest the amendments or the new clauses to the Bill and all the changes are voted upon. The report stage is immediately followed by the third reading which is the last chance to the members to vote on the contents of the Bill. During this stage the it is re-prese nted the House, where short debates may take place and a vote whether to accept or reject the legislation, but the questions relating to the general principles cannot be raised. When a Bill has passed through third reading in both Houses it is returned to the House where it started for the second Houses proposals for change to be considered. Both Houses must agree on the exact wording of the Bill. If one House refuses to make the changes proposed by the other the Bill might be re-introduced, but as Bills should be complete within one particular parliamentary Session, failure to reach the agreement might lead to the loss of the Bill. As legislation needs to be approved by both Houses we can seen that the House of Lords plays a vital role in lawmaking process. However, there are some exceptions when the two Houses cannot reach agreement, the Bill falls and the Commons use the Parliament Acts to pass the Bill without the consent of Lords. The Parliament Act of 1911 removed the House of Lords power to veto a Bill. Act also retained the House of Lords power to block any attempt to prolong the lifetime of a Parliament. The Parliament Act of 1911 limited the power of the Lords to delay the Bill more than for two years. The Parliament Act of 1949 reduced the Lords power to delay to one year, but the Parliament Act 1949 itself was introduced through the use of the Parliament Act of 1911. Though these procedures are used rarely as the House of Lords usually approve the legislature of the House of Commons, four substantive acts have been passed into law without the approval of the House of Lords, for example the controversial Hunting Act 2004, which was introduced to prohibit the hunting of mammals with dogs and was designed to outlaw the fox-hunti ng. It was passed despite the House of Lords opposition relying on the Parliament Act 1949. Another three acts passed without the consent of the Lords are The War Crimes Act 1991, The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000. Since 1949 a Money Bill containing only financial provisions can be enacted without the House of Lords consent after the delay of one month. The last stage in the lawmaking process is the Royal Assent it is required before any Bill becomes a law.

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie Essay -- Reservation Blues, Sherma

In the novel Reservation Blues, most of the characters struggle with their identity at some point. Victor has an especially strong urge to rebel against his Native American heritage, which is apparent in his violent, arrogant demeanor and his obvious problem with alcohol. Victor is tied to his past and has trouble coping with his life as it is, and is in a constant battle with himself, his surroundings, and other people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Early in the book, Victor is portrayed as somewhat of a bully, and he and Junior are even referred to as, "two of the most accomplished bullies of recent Native American history." (page 13) Victor's closest and most meaningful relationship in the book is his friendship with Junior. It's unclear why Junior is best friends with Victor, but both of the men seem to need each other and depend on each other more than they might be willing to admit. Victor never had a real relationship with his father, who moved to Arizona and then died of a heart attack. His mother had met another man and fallen in love with him very soon after Victor?s real father left.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Victor doesn?t seem to be very attached to his Native American culture. When his father left, his mother married a white man, so Victor grew up with a significant figure in his life being white. He seems to follow his mother?s example to some extent, and is frequently attracted to white women. Although Victor doesn?t seem to care about being Native American, in some way, his tendency to t...

South African Diamond Trade: Enforcement and Perpetuation of Apartheid

South African Diamond Trade: Enforcement and Perpetuation of Apartheid, Past and Present I. Introduction South Africa was a rich country with a beautiful landscape and a rich culture. There were tremendous natural resources in South Africa and spectacular beauty. South African society was fluid and accepting, allowing people to move from one tribe to the next, without discrimination. This accepting and truly benevolent moral system, perhaps turned out to be a fatal flaw, manipulated and abused by European colonists who arrived in 1652 and have left an indelible legacy on the nation of South Africa (Thompson, 33). Upon their arrival, the Dutch and then the English systematically exploited black South Africans, taking advantage of their welcoming demeanor. Blacks began to be pushed off their land and natural resources monopolized by whites. Then on a fateful day in 1866, a new discovery by Erasmus Jacobs took the manipulation and exploitation of South Africa to all new heights. On this day, the Eureka diamond was discovered on the banks of the Orange River. The Eureka was 21.25 carats rough and confirmed earlier rumors of diamonds in South Africa and ignited the diamond rush (debeers.com). With this rush came the advent of large mining corporations such as Anglo American Corporation and DeBeers, who created an intricate system that kept the Africans they employed in poverty, while destroying traditional African society, all the while earning tremendous amounts of money. These companies, De Beers in particular, are depicted today as the benevolent liberal foreign company, but in reality they systematically exploited South Africans and their resources. They are applauded throughout the world for their cu... ...ngering presence of the stark inequalities that curse South Africa. However, if this is recognized and acknowledged, perhaps South Africa can take a critical step towards true equality, not just with words, but with economic opportunity. Works Cited De Beers Group. De Beers History. 5 March 2005. www.debeersgroup.com/debeersweb/About+De+Beers/De+Beers+History/. Ferguson, James. â€Å"Introduction to Humanities: Encounters and Identities.† Stanford University. Stanford. 14 February 2005 and 3 March 2005. Mathabane, Mark. Kaffir Boy. Free Press (Simon & Schuster): New York, 1986. Moodie, T. Dunbar. Going for Gold. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, 1994. Summa, John. â€Å"Anglo-American Corporation.† Multinational Monitor. Vol. 9: 9. September 1988. Thompson, Leonard. A History of South Africa. Yale Nota Bene: New Haven, 2001.

Tim Burton Style Analysis

Tim Burton Style Analysis Tim Burton has achieved much fame for his imaginative movies and his quirky remakes of old classics such as Alice, Batman, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is in Edward Scissorhands though, a heartfelt story about an outsider looking in, that Burton shows off his true skills as a director. Using point of view, setting, and motifs his film becomes not just a good movie, but an amazing classic. Burton uses point of view to show the characters perspective and to fill in the missing gaps in the characters history in the form of flashbacks.For example, one of the beginning scenes in the movie show that the devout woman looks out the window and sees the other woman of the neighborhood flocking together, yet not inviting her to join them. It shows that the woman is an outcast, and is not included in things. Another scene shows Edward’s dejected face and then flashes over to a scene of Kim goofing off with her boyfriend. It lets the viewer understand that Edward is interested romantically in Kim, and thus upset that she is involved with someone else. This is a more subtle technique, and makes the scene more memorable to the viewer because they didn’t come right out and say it.As opposed to telling the audience about something, Burton prefers to let them see for themselves. To show Edwards origins, Burton has Edward looking out the window and has a flashback about how he was created. Burton also uses setting to a magical extent. Burton is an admirer of over-exaggeration, and this is evident in his distinction of the neighborhood and Edwards’s castle. Whereas the community is bright a cheery, with houses of alternating color and rather small proportions, the castle is dark and opposing. All the houses in the community don’t have more than four feet between them, and even the backyards are visible from the street.Burton also exaggerates the looming castle’s isolation by putting it on a mountain. Burton purposefully designs the community to be the homey, picturesque American dream while Edward’s castle is the definition of gloom and doom. Yet when Peg first comes to the entrance of the castle, she encounters an amazing garden, much more beautiful than anything thing the people in the community could make, showing us that our perceptions aren’t always right. Burton often uses motifs in his movies and Edward Scissorhands is no different. Among many, one of the motifs Burton uses is conformity vs. ndividuality. Burton’s movies all carry common threads, and like all of Burton’s previous main characters, Edward is an outcast. He is a spark of creativity in an otherwise dull society. The citizens of the community choose to conform and the all have flat personalities. One is either a maneater or a motherly type or some other cliche, and that part seems to encompass the rest of their personality. While Edward, who is so different from the way he looks to the way he acts, seems to be the only human character. His personality possesses many layers.The citizens also dress bright and cheery is a retro-style, while Edward with his uncontrollable hair and pale skin looks like a gritty Goth. In conclusion, Burton’s skill shines throughout the entire movie. Using point of view, setting, motifs, and other style techniques, Burton makes Edward Scissorhands a true hit. Tim Burton’s unorthodox style gives new standards to the movie business, and delivers heartwarming stories about misconceptions and finding yourself. With Tim Burton’s masterful skill and playful humor, it becomes obvious why Edward Scissorhands is such a hit. Gigi Orphali 12-8-11 p. 5-6

Goldelocks Planet

Could ‘Goldilocks' planet be just right for life? [->0][->1] AP Photo/Zina Deretsky, National Science FoundationAn artist rendering by Lynette Cook, National Science Foundation, shows the new planet on the right.  ·Top of Form 1 Buzz up! 865 votes Bottom of Form 1  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://www. facebook. com/sharer. php? u=http://news. yahoo. com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths&t=Could+%27Goldilocks%27+planet+be+just+right+for+life%3F+-+Yahoo%21+News†Share  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://twitter. com/home? status=http://news. yahoo. com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths†retweet  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://mtf. ews. yahoo. com/mailto/? prop=news&locale=us&url=http://news. yahoo. com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths&title=Could+%27Goldilocks%27+planet+be+just+right+for+life%3F+-+Yahoo%21+News&h1=ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths&h2=T&h3=624†³Email  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://news. yahoo. com/s/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths/pr int†Print  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"/nphotos/undated-handout-artist-rendering-provided-Lynette-Cook-National-Science-Foundation/photo//100929/480/urn_publicid_ap_org7e4574a9e56348109f878f3f99936813//s:/ap/20100929/ap_on_sc/us_sci_new_earths†?FPRIVATE â€Å"TYPE=PICT;ALT=This undated handout artist rendering provided by Lynette Cook, National Science Foundation, shows a new planet, right. Astronomers have found a plane†AP – This undated handout artist rendering provided by Lynette Cook, National Science Foundation, shows a †¦  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"/nphotos/Goldilocks-planet/ss/events/sc/093010goldilocplanet†? FPRIVATE â€Å"TYPE=PICT;ALT='Goldilocks' planet†HYPERLINK â€Å"/nphotos/Goldilocks-planet/ss/events/sc/093010goldilocplanet†Slideshow:'Goldilocks' planet  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://us. rd. yahoo. om/dailynews/external/hearst_orlando_wesh/av_hearst_orlan_wesh/884e0bfd9b244f9bb69f244f471dd239/37795187;_ylt=AkmdpzkzfGvlRd_Ow96TXr5xieA A;_ylu=X3oDMTFiMThoYm9oBHBvcwM0BHNlYwN5bl9yXzNzbG90X3ZpZGVvBHNsawN2aWQtZXYtdGh1bWI-/*http://news. yahoo. com/video/politics-15749652/22211228†? FP RIVATE â€Å"TYPE=PICT;ALT=Titusville Teen Campaigns To Save NASA†Play Video HYPERLINK â€Å"http://us. rd. yahoo. com/dailynews/external/hearst_orlando_wesh/av_hearst_orlan_wesh/884e0bfd9b244f9bb69f244f471dd239/37795187;_ylt=AhwlUOUqG. XJT7dMF4fIKZRxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTFhaWFjbWFmBHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl9yXzNzbG90X3ZpZGVvBHNsawN2aWQtZXYtbGluaw–/*http://news. ahoo. com/video/politics-15749652/22211228†³Space Video:Titusville Teen Campaigns To Save NASA HYPERLINK â€Å"/video/local/orlando;_ylt=AvXELmZkdK7w8FyZhXrJ2stxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTFiMTJlb3JuBHBvcwM2BHNlYwN5bl9yXzNzbG90X3ZpZGVvBHNsawN2aWQtZXYtcHJvdmk-â€Å"WESH Orlando  ·HYPERLINK â€Å"http://us. rd. yahoo. com/dailynews/external/reutersav/av_reuters_all/398f239b7ca1ff117e11bfc2a7471a54/37792448;_ylt=AglH. ImWxulddgvz7mWJZWJxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTFiOWVlczFoBHBvcwM3BHNlYwN5 bl9yXzNzbG90X3ZpZGVvBHNsawN2aWQtZXYtdGh1bWI-/*http://news. yahoo. com/video/science-15749654/22207740†?F? FPRIVATE â€Å"TYPE=PICT;ALT=New planet could support life†Play Video HYPERLINK â€Å"http://us. rd. yahoo. com/dailynews/external/reutersav/av_reuters_all/398f239b7ca1ff117e11bfc2a7471a54/37792448;_ylt=Ah1mE3gU9F_SRM8nCpSKJElxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTFhcDNlYmRyBHBvcwM4BHNlYwN5bl9yXzNzbG90X3ZpZGVvBHNsawN2aWQtZXYtbGluaw–/*http://news. yahoo. com/video/science-15749654/22207740†³Space Video:New planet could support lifeMore photos  »HYPERLINK â€Å"http://us. rd. yahoo. com/dailynews/ap/brand/SIG=11f589428/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww. ap. org%2Ftermsandconditions†?FPRIVATE â€Å"TYPE=PICT;ALT=AP†[->2] Reuters By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Wed Sep 29, 7:19 pm ET WASHINGTON – Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone fo r life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right. Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere. It's just right. Just like Earth. This really is the first Goldilocks planet,† said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. [Related: Seven best places to sleep under the stars[->3]] The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars. Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone?Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be n ot quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing. â€Å"This is the first one I'm truly excited about,† said Penn State University's Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a â€Å"pretty prime candidate† for harboring life. Life on other planets doesn't mean E. T. Even a simple single-cell bacteria or the equivalent of shower mold would shake perceptions about the uniqueness of life on Earth.But there are still many unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star — 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It's so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn't rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark. Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be â€Å"shirt-sleeve weather,† said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.It's unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes â€Å"that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. † The astronomers' findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal and were announced by the National Science Foundation on Wednesday. The planet circles a star called Gliese 581.It's about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is â€Å"like right in our face, right next door to us,† Vogt said in an interview. That close proximity and the way it was found so early in astronomers' search for habitable planets hints to scientists that planets like Earth are probably not that rare. Vogt and Butler ran some calculations, with giant

Human Resource Management Essay

1. What do you think is causing some of the problems in the bank’s home office and branches? ANSWER: Attrition or employee turnover was high during past eight years, as a result supervisors tried to find a suitable employee to replace the worker who had quit. We know that employee turnover is very costly especially in lower paying job roles, for which the employee turnover rate is highest. There was no standardization of recruitment process in organization. Absence of effective communication process is also apparent because all branch office hired employees without communicating with their home office. Bank’s local supervisor failed to train their employees properly. They didn’t spend much time for their employees. A rigorous performance evaluation system wasn’t also in place. 2. Do you think setting up an HR unit in the main office would help? ANSWER: Of course I think it would. Since there are HR-related problems both in the home office and in the branches, it is clear that if an HR office were set up, it would help coordinate the HR activities in the branches more effectively. 3. What specific functions HR units carry out? What HR functions would then be carried out by supervisors and other line managers? What role should the internet play in the new HR organization? ANSWER: Core functions of HR unit  should be recruitment, training and development, employee relations, compensation and benefits, performance evaluation etc. Core functions of supervisors and other line managers would consist of: day-to-day people management managing operational efficiency providing technical expertise allocating work monitoring work and checking quality Measuring operational performance. HR may use the Internet to reach candidates and communicate with them, to create and use an up-to-date employee database, measure the employee’ abilities, communicate with them, train them and monitor them

Baby P, Health And Social

Peter Connelly also known as â€Å"Baby p† was killed on the 3rd august 2007 at the age of 1, by his stepdad Steven Barker. Baby P had suffered multiple injuries over the previous 8 months resulting in his death. In this piece of writing I will be investing who I think is to blame for Baby P’s death. The social services are to blame for the death of baby P because they were aware of the situation baby P was in and placed him on the at risk register. He went to live with a family friend because the GP spotted that he had bruises on his face and chest and mentioned it to the social services, and the mother was arrested.Tracey had suffered with post-natal depression and this is when the social services should have taken into account that she suffered from it and should have put it on her file and looked into it more. Haringey council had suspended two social workers for the misconduct in the case of baby peter. Social services had visited the home over 60 times and didnâ⠂¬â„¢t notice anything wrong, and didn’t take anything into account. However after watching panorama I learned that the mother had told the social services about the new man in her life but this was never mentioned to the police. The childminder phoned up the social worker to say that she could no  longer care for peter and the other sibling because of peters scalp infection and their head lice problems.The social worker phones Tracey and expressed their concern and that the infection was taking too long to clear up and that Tracey should take them to the GP as soon as possible. The police are to blame because they didn’t investigate when the GP said about his bruises. The metropolitan police did not do their job properly because they didn’t investigate the injuries and the staff at the schools where baby P’s brothers and sisters attended were not told by the police about the baby P’s circumstances or injuries.Police enquiries knew that at the ti me of peters death, the mum’s boyfriend, the lodger and is 15 year old girlfriend had been staying at her home since July 2007. The strategy meeting was attended by a social worker and a detective constable from the Metropolitan police. There was a clear concern about peters welfare and a decision was made that he could not return to the family home until the police investigation and enquires had been completed. The notes of the meeting showed that parents of peter had separated and that the mother had a ‘friend’ who was never left alone with the children.On the 13th December, both the social worker and police officer made a joint visit to the school to interview the two older children. Neither the school nor the health services had concern about their physical safety. During the visit to the hospital the police officer interview Tracey under caution, she told the officer multiple times that she didn’t know where the bruises were coming from and came up wi th explanations for where the bruises were from and she denied that she or her mother was responsible.Also on the 19th December the police arrested Tracey and peters grandmother, during their interview neither gave any explanations of how the injuries occurred but gave some possible causes previously. The police agreed that peter could go home once his mother had made alternative arrangements for the dogs The GP had failed peter because they didn’t take note of his abuse properly they made a few phone calls there and now but never fully reported it or tried to help peter.Jerome Ikwueke admitted having seen peter on numerous occasions, he disputes the claim he neglected his professional duty to look after the child. However he did complain about the bruising also Tracey spoke to Dr. Ikwueke saying that peter had grab marks on him and once again the GP ignored the warning sign. On 26th of July, the SW phoned Tracey after she visited the GP, according to Tracey the GP was unable to prescribe more antibiotics, and he was not concerned and thought that Peter had an allergic reaction the head lice treatment.The GP recognised the need for concern but did nothing about it because he thought that others would do something, and the child was being seen at the Child Development Centre in a few days. Haringey council failed baby P massively because they didn’t check if the mother had a boyfriend. Maria Ward fully aware he was on the council’s children at-risk list in them 6 months she was supposed to be looking after him there was a 4 month backlog of notes on his case. She was supposed to make announced and unannounced visits at least every two weeks but the general social care council found that she went 22 days without any contact at all.Maria Ward had no actual idea of where peter was for four days, she accepted his mothers excuse that they were in cricklewood caring for a ‘sick uncle’. If Miss. Ward hadn’t missed these unannou nced visits then she could have got a picture of what was happening and nothing crucial could have been missed. All Haringey had to say was sorry, which is not enough and will always carry the guilt of allowing such a vulnerable child to be abused and neglected when they could of done something about it.Also the paediatrician could have saved his life if she would have noticed his broken back, it was her last appointment of the day and instead of checking him thoroughly she just gave him a pass and didn’t bother examining him properly. If she would have taken her time, she could have saved peters life instead once again another service failed him. She stated that she couldn’t examine him properly because he was miserable and cranky and acted like a young child with a cold. She also added that he was sitting unsupported and there was no reason to suspect anything.On the other hand, a total of 19 doctors and health workers examined baby P on a total of 33 occasions in th e eight months before his death. Three of the doctors raised concern to the police that his injuries had been non accidental but the Crown Prosecution Service, which had received a report from Haringey social services supporting the boy's mother, decided there was not enough evidence to charge her. Her opinion was that the injuries were non-accidental in nature.This was very concerning for a nine month old baby; peter was  eventually registered on both physical abuse and neglect list. Tracey Connelly, peters mother was to blame because she knew what was happening and didn’t do anything about it. In 2009 she was charged and imprisoned for 6 years for allowing her son’s death. Tracey was born in 1981. When her parents split in 1984, their relationship was known to be violent, and both her and her brother witnessed domestic violence. Tracey classed her stepdad as her biological dad and when he died unexpectedly her brother had came to live with Tracey and his mum.He had been struggling with ‘challenging’ behaviour and was violent at school and towards his sister and also started offending, at the age of 10 she was placed on the child protection register under neglect. After having one of her children she suffered with post-natal depression and couldn’t cope with small children, when she visited the GP in 2005 and they referred her to the PCMHW, there had been concerns that she would suffer with post-natal depression but was not diagnosed.In September 2006, Tracey took peter to the surgery with a cough and nappy rash. The GP complained that baby P bruised easily, and that she might be accused of hurting him at this time peter was only 6 months old. Peter had visited the surgery and hospital at least 3 times that year on one occasion he went to the surgery with a head swelling and his mother stated that he fell down the stairs and got the swelling from that, the GP told her that he was going to refer peter to hospital.At the Whit tington Hospital a number of bruises were seen on peters body and was then documented on a body map. Peter was discharged from hospital on 15th December to the care of Tracey’s friend. On 5th march, the school nurse had called social works saying that they had observed Tracey and had witnessed her shouting at one of peters siblings and slapping their cheek, she was told she had to attend a parenting programme. However the social worker said that the mother and peter had a very strong relationship.In January 2007 Tracey attended their visit core meeting with peter alongside her and then the next interview happened on the 24th of Jan and agreed that if the injuries were non-accidental, it was not clear who the predator was. The family friend should have said something to police or the social worker when she noticed the abuse instead she kept quite. When peter was staying with her she noticed that he had bruises on his testes and claimed that they were from the hospital staff wh en they were doing a scan.The bruise on his buttocks had vanished. The family friend and peters mother agreed to a contract to find a childminder to assist with the childcare during the day, on June the 5th the family friend and peters mother met the team manager to sign a written agreement to the effect that Tracey and Peter would not be left alone together, there should also be a childminder for Peter and one of the other children on particular days.Jason Owen (the lodger) and his 15 year old girlfriend knew abuse was going on, they were arrested but only the Jason was charged, Jason who is a crack-cocaine addict, and a convicted arsonist who was accused of a raping a girl of 11, should have never been allowed to stay with the family but the social workers didn’t do any background checks on him. Jason was a very sick, twisted and psychotic person, he tortured his grandmother when he was growing up and did it again when she was 82, so she would change her will. The grandma o f Peter could have stopped the abuse from happening; she did take Peter into care for a few weeks.When peter was crying and scared he ran up to her and she just ignored him and walked away. She was scared of Steven and she saw some of the abuse attacks but did nothing about it. She should have known what it was like as she was abused by her dad when she was younger and was raped by a stranger; instead she ignored it and let Peter suffer. Steven Barker was definitely to blame because he was the one who carried the abuse out; he beat Peter constantly and made him petrified. Steven who was devoted to his Rottweiler Kaiser, treated Peter like an animal, teaching him to obey commands on how to sit, lie down, and if not, face the consequences.He took pleasure in regularly using the child as a punch bag and was said to have forced the boy to perform â€Å"Seig Heil† salutes as part of his fixation with the Nazis. He was obsessed with knives, martial arts weapons and kept a cross-bow as well as collection of Swastika memorabilia. He used to stride around his home in combat gear. As a child he enjoyed hurting animals and tortured guinea pigs and frogs – skinning the latter before breaking their legs. He kept two pet snakes at Tracey Connelly's home and fed them dead chicks, mice and rabbits.His fascination with causing pain to animals saw him prosecuted for that very obsession by the RSPCA. The social services never looked into Stevens’s background and if they would have done this procedure then maybe they would of taken peters abuse a lot more into consideration and would of taken him into care for re-homing. In my opinion, I think everyone who was involved with Peter’s death is to blame. If Haringey council would of taken action a lot more sooner this would of never happened, if the social workers looked into everyone’s background and found out the crucial things this would of not happened, that goes for the police as well.If the pa ediatrician would of cared to look Peter over, they would have found more injuries and then action would have been taken. Everyone in this case is to blame even if they didn’t do the abuse. The mother is a poor excuse of a human being; she let her child be beaten to death and all she had to say is I’m sorry, that is not good enough! More action should of be done to prevent this and hopefully in the future we will have more skilled people to run these crucial business and maybe they will stop another child from being abused.

Thailand vs. Indonesia

I enjoy spending my summer vacation traveling. I have visited a lot of countries but here i am going to talk about two beautiful countries,Thailand and Indonesia. They both beautiful. They're very similar but different in some points. For me, the atmosphere in the streets of Thailand and Indonesia is very similar. Both streets are full of life. In Thailand, stalls fill it streets. You can find a lot of things accessories, books, movies and even clothes. Trees shade the roads, the smell of fresh air filling the place. I'd go out strolling by myself and lose sense of time.In Indonesia bazaars and food trucks are everywhere. The tropical rain forests there are just breathtaking . The sight of nature and stalls reminded me of Thailand. In spite of their similarities, Thailand and Indonesia are different in some points. Indonesia is an Islamic country. The number of big mosques there is 100,000 while the small ones are over half a million. There is no transportation other than cars; the t raffic is 24/7 which can waste a lot of time. There is a huge amount of Homeless people begging for food or money which is very sad and heartbreaking fact.On the other hand, there are 3,494 mosques in Thailand even though it's a Buddhist country. There are subways and metros that are very well arranged which saves a lot of time. The citizens there are financially stable, you seldom see people panhandling there. In my point of view I find the similarity and differences in both countries beautiful. Thailand and Indonesia are different in how developed they are, but they're also similar in nature and how energetic they are. I enjoyed both countries and I sure intend to spend my next vacation in one of these two beautiful countries again.

Current Event Article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Current Event Article - Essay Example As of now, Wal-Mart is the biggest retail store chain in the United States and employs nearly 1.4 million workers in various positions. But most of the employed workers are store-assistants, who are not generally well-educated. This is the backdrop for Wal-Mart top management to collaborate with American Public University, which offers online higher education degrees. Workers of Wal-Mart, with reasonable work experience with the company and positive performance reviews from their managers, special college credits will be awarded, which will expedite the process of completing the degree. The author of the article Miguel Bustillo does not critically scrutinize the real intentions behind this program. The article can only be considered a ‘press release’ issued by the Wal-Mart top management on the occasion of the program’s initiation. Hence it is important to place this Wal-Mart initiative in the context of the company’s general reputation with respect to corporate philanthropy. Given the long list of employee grievances against Wal-Mart top management, this initiative should be viewed with skepticism. For example, it is a well-documented fact that Wal-Mart does not provide adequate medical insurance and reasonable wages for its employees. The cheap prices offered to the consumer are as a result of savings made through such means. Moreover, since most of the retail store assistants are employed on a part time basis, they are not eligible to get employer sponsored health insurance and other benefits. Further, a few years back, the exploitative nature of Wal-Mart manufacturing contracts with companies in the Third World came to light. For example, for every $20 shirt sold in a Wal-Mart store, the Bangladeshi worker who tailored it, gets paid only a fraction of that price. The conditions under which they work and the subsistence level wages they get can only be described as exploitative. Similarly, Wal-Mart’s shoddy record with

Flow Chart Week 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Flow Chart Week 1 - Essay Example An incorrect process may lead to waste of considerable amount of time for any organization and hence less profit. This paper will select a process â€Å"Get out of bed and get ready for work† that I do every day except for holiday but would like to spend less time doing and will design a flowchart using an appropriate tool. Further, this paper will list the factors that affect the process design and identify one metric that I will use to measure the process. The flowchart design for the process will help to identify the amount of time consumed for various factors that can be minimized, at the same time making the overall process more efficient. The process selected is â€Å"Get out of bed and get ready for work† that I do every day except for holidays. This entire process consists of many steps (or processes) such as get out of bed, got to bathroom, dress up and take breakfast. A flowchart is a good way to start analyzing a process showing the basic elements of a process (typically tasks, flows, and storage areas). In a flowchart, tasks are shown as rectangles, flows as arrows, and the storage of goods or other items as inverted triangles (Chase et al., 2006). Figure 1 shows the flowchart of the selected process created by EDraw. The one metric that will be used to measure the process is time. Every step of the process takes some amount of time. Entire time for the process can be broken down by each activity to know which activity takes how much time. This will help us to remove some activity in case of hurry. Table 1 shows the time taken for completion of the process for the first

Journaling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Journaling - Essay Example We encountered a case of a staff who entered an isolation room without proper equipment. This case enabled us to carry out reinforcement and re-education for all staff to ensure they understood the importance of complying with the infection compliance policy. At the end of the week, analysis showed that there was reduced isolation in the second week doing rounds and feedback sent to relevant heads. This week’s objective was to ensure that proper plans were implemented to improve care of delivery. We encountered a case of a minor being left in the inpatient units for about half an hour and immediately alerted the parents of the minor and handed them with a print out of the policy that prohibited such minors in the wards. According to Zaccagnini & White (2011), this is to ensure hospital acquired infections are avoided. It was my final week for my practicum experience, two infection control staff that I was working with evaluated me, and the results were impressive. Later in the final day, I also met with my preceptor and showed my appreciation for the assistance throughout the four

Personal Development as a First Line Manager Essay - 2

Personal Development as a First Line Manager - Essay Example Typically, job description for first line managers include but not limited to; employees’ welfare duties, preparation of work schedules, direction of workflows, upward management of employees, and budgeting among others. Below is a personal development plan as a first line manager. Receive academic training on first line management courses, especially on the use of emerging tools and techniques in planning and delegation of duties. Also, receive coaching on development of upward management skills, especially on adherence to organizational values Attend seminars on topics like personal development planning and role assessment exercises. Also, online academic sessions on team dynamics will be beneficial, especially on the use of technology in assessing and maintaining team effectiveness Participate in online discussion forums and assess my proficiency based on technical rating of responses. Also, assess my competence by practically solving team conflicts through skills acquired in the online sessions In first line management, there are situations when multiple duties require relatively similar levels of prioritization. For example, a managing director may direct a first line manager to plan and direct workflows for completion of a batch production within a period of six hours. At the same time, the managing director needs the first line manager to submit a completed work schedule plan within a period of six hours. In addition, some employees require personal attention from the first line manager, which may consume at least two hours of the manager’s busy time schedule. In such a case, the first line manager is faced with multiple situations requiring immediate attention, all stuffed within a restrictive timeframe. Therefore, it is necessary to employ priority determination methods like the ABC Method. ABC Method enables first

Statistical Process Control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Statistical Process Control - Essay Example ld, therefore, ensure that there is use of the most proper management approach, for an effective problem-solving and improvement of the process of production or allowance of service by the company. This ensures that the company runs smoothly without chaos. In this paper, discussion will be made on a U.S based giant company by the name Walmart. This corporation was started in the year 1962, with its first store in Rogers, Arkansas. The corporation started as a small discount retailer but has since expanded internationally. By embracing innovations, the corporation has allowed its customers to shop online. Presently, Walmart operates more than 11,000 retail units in 27 countries and employs 2.2 million associates globally, out of which 1.3 million of the associates come from the U.S alone (Fishman, 2006). Walmart being a large shopping corporation deals in consumer end products ranging from clothing to groceries. Specifically, focus will be given on the entire shopping service that it provides. To increase sales especially in foreign countries, it uses the campaign â€Å"everyday low prices.† This has however not worked in all states. A reference point is what happened in Japan when Walmart bought a share in the Seiyu Company, but the successful strategy of the campaign failed. This is because the shoppers in Japan did not respond like the shoppers in the U.S. The Japanese shoppers associated the low prices with low quality and thus avoiding shopping there. Despite the continued success of Walmart especially in the U.S, there are areas that need to be improved especially in the foreign markets to ensure success globally. The fact that Walmart has failed to replicate its success in some of the foreign markets could be attributed to the lack of the corporation to fine-tune its shopping experience to the local culture. For instance in South Korea, the corporation should have agreed to the needs of the shoppers, who prefer goods in small packages, thereby forcing the

Legal system and method Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Legal system and method - Essay Example Four Judges heard the case as there were two appeals heard together. They were heard together as they both involved interpretation of section 3 of the Homicide Act 1957. 3. Which judge chaired the bench and handed down the judgment? Write a brief biographical note on this judge, including his later career. What controversial statement did he make about Sharia law, in 2008? Name and date three out-of court-speeches made by this judge. How would you summarise his views on human rights? Lord Phillips CJ chaired and delivered the judgment. Nicholas Addison Phillips was born in 1938 and had his education at Bryanston School, Blandofrd, Dorset and Kings College, Cambridge. He served in Royal Navy. He was enrolled into the bar in 1962 and started his judicial service as a Recorder in 1982. After his stint as a High Court judge in 1987 and an appeal court judge in 1995, he became a Lord of appeals in 1999 and Master of the Rolls at the Court of Appeal, Civil division in June 2000. During his tenure, he heard appeals of General Augusto Pincohet, former dictator of Chile and ruled that he was not entitled to immunity from extradition. He presided over well known trials including the appeals from Maxwell brothers and Barlow Clowes, an investment company. He also conducted the BSE enquiry and concluded that a timely action by the government would have prevented the spread of the disease. Known for his simplicity of cycling to court, he is married to Cristylle Marie-Therese Rouffiac and has two children.1,2. During his speech before the London Muslim Council on 3 July 2008, he expressed that he was in favour of Sharia law being introduced in England and Wales provided it did not conflict with the laws of the country or did not result in severe punishments being imposed. Adding that there had been widespread misconception about Sharia law in England, he advocated that it could be used for alternative dispute resolution forms such as mediation and arbitration besides applicat ion of the Sharia law to marriage formalities. He also welcomed introduction of Islamic financial products. 3. Lord Phillip’s three out of court speeches: 1) â€Å"The Supreme Court And Other Constitutional Changes In The UK† before â€Å"Members Of The Royal Court The Jersey Law Society and Members Of The States Of Jersey â€Å" at The Royal Court St Helier Jersey 2nd May 2008. 2) â€Å"Lord Mayor’s Dinner for the Judges† at the Mansion House on 15 July 2008. 3) â€Å"Equality before the Law† at East London Muslim Centre on 3 July 2008. Lord Phillip has said that Human Rights are not hampering the efforts of the government to fight against terrorism. He reminds that Britain has welcomed refugees from all over the world after the World War II to guarantee them protection from violation of their human rights. â€Å"The so called 'war against terrorism' is not so much a military as an ideological battle. Respect for human rights is a key weapon in that ideological battle.†4 4. Who was the second ranking judge in the case? What was his role at the time? What is his job now? Write a brief biographical note on him. What is his special relationship with Kingston University? Name and date three out-of-court speeches made by this judge. What is his reputation on sentencing? Second ranking judge was Justice Poole. Sir David Anthony Poole was born on 8 June 1938 and died on 18 June 2006 shortly

Case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 15

Case study - Essay Example The move by Kevin to uphold his ethical standards by unveiling the medicine theft was a good decision despite the ringleader of the theft being his immediate superior. Despite the repercussions of the decision made by Kevin, it was an honorable ethical step to take. On a legal front, the nursing home can be sued for the theft of patients’ medicine and nurse R together will all others involved will be charged since there is evidence of the video recording. If Kevin had ignored the ethics of psychology and nursing that were required of him, then he would have been part of the legal lawsuit when the incident is discovered later. Nurse R whose theft was caught on recording may lose her license to practice nursing due to ignoring her oath of ethics on non-maleficence thereby exposing the patients to harm (Grace, 2009). Other than the patients and the nursing home employees for example doctors, nurses, psychologists, volunteers among others being directly affected by the drug theft scam, the others affected indirectly include the family members of the patients and employees, shareholders of the nursing home, administrators (board of members), and policy makers among others. CCTV cameras should be installed in the nursing home and all employees subjected to a training emphasizing ethical

SCP model Strategy Essay Example for Free

SCP model Strategy Essay Building on the SCP model, Michael Porter developed the highly influential five forces model. Porter’s model identifies five key competitive forces that managers need to consider when analysing the industry environment and formulating strategy: Porter‘s 5 competitive forces model is starting point for strategic analysis that is used for assessing the attractiveness of an industry (Johnson,et al , 2008) and discovering a desirable strategic innovation that improve the industry and company profitability (Wit and Meyer,2005) The threats to new entrants: The threat from new entrants is very high. Entering the electric automotive industry in 2003, Tesla itself faced the challenges of being the new entrant into the market having numerous financial troubles that required high capital investments, building the brand and distributions channels. However, for established manufacturers with considerable economic power to enter this market is relatively low due to their capabilities and governmental program support for developing electric vehicle (Shirouzu, 2011). There is a relatively low barrier to entry due to the higher demand for environmental friendly vehicles and with other outlets for available technology for lithium-ion batteries, it is a level of playing field where any company can replicate (Shirouzu,2011). This is an external threat that Tesla faces because this technology is easy to imitate by competitors. The bargaining power of Buyers Overall bargaining power of buyers is modest. According to Tesla Annual Report (2014), they rely on their relationship with Daimler and Toyota (Brown, 2013). The partnership is very important for Tesla, because supplying these companies constitutes the high share of their profit and thus, they cannot lose them, making their power considerably high. However, they also sell their cars to individual customers, and many government incentives give potential customers tax credit deduction (Ministry of Transportation, 2010). These programs stimulate the demand of electric cars that makes bargaining power low. Threat of Substitution The threat of substitutes is considerably law in automotive industry, because there are only few choices in the substitution of car. One of the  substitutes can be walking or biking that is very inconvenience for long distances. Moreover, mass transportation such as trains, buses, and subways are substitutes that are suitable for local and distant travelling (Dutch, 2008). However, many people prefer to have their own car that is more convenient. The Bargaining Power of Suppliers The power of suppliers is very high due to the fact that company is highly dependent on these suppliers and any problems with components delivering will result in production disruption that negatively reflects on company image. This is due to purchasing components from over 200 suppliers over the world. Despite of building close relationships with main suppliers such as Panasonic (Tesla Motors, 2014), working together on the development of new battery cell and replacing Lotus supplier ‘s chassis with manufacturing by themselves (Tesla Motors, 2014), many suppliers stay single sources of components used in their cars (Harryson and Keller, 2013) The Intensity of Rivalry in the Industry The rivalry in the whole automotive industry is very competitive. However, within electrical vehicle market in which Tesla position itself, the rivalry is modest because of small number of competitors in the face of 18 different current models, the main of which are Nissan Leaf Ford Focus BEV and Chevrolet Volt (Insideevs.com, 2014). However, this market is very attractive and expanding fast, therefore more companies, including BMW, Audi and Volkswagen, has entered it recently with their plug-in models (White, 2013). In addition, every company is trying to create their niche, developing many alternatives in term of environmentally friendly cars, including hybrids, small performance turbo diesels and biodiesel cars. Thus, in future, the rivalry will be more intensive and companies will need to keep innovative, improving and making better cars. Brown, N. (2013). Daimler Wants Increased Cooperation With Tesla Motors. [online] CleanTechnical. Available at: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/07/daimler-wants-increased-cooperation-tesla-motors/ [Accessed 6 April. 2014 Harryson, S. and Keller, S. (2014). Tesla Motors Case II: From Technology Start up to Commercialization Vehicle.CIEL. [online] Available at: http://ciel-lab.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Case_Tesla-Motors-Part-II.pdf [Accessed 1 April. 2014] Insideevs.com, (2014). February 2014 Plug-In Electric Vehicle Sales Report Card | Inside EVs. [online] Available at: http://insideevs.com/february-2014-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-report-card/ [Accessed 3 April. 2014] Ministry of Transportation, (2010). Newsroom : Ontario Paves The Way For Electric Vehicles. [online] Available at: http://news.ontario.ca/mto/en/2010/06/ontario-paves-the-way-for-electric-vehicles.html [Accessed 4 April. 2014] Tesla Motors, (2014). About Tesla | Tesla Motors. [online] Available at: http://www.teslamotors.com/about [Accessed 20 April. 2014 Wit, B. and Meyer, R. (2005).Strategy synthesis. 3rd ed. London: Thomson Learning.

Recruitment Selection Process | Case Study

Recruitment Selection Process | Case Study How does the organization approach the nature and composition of the workforce? For example, does it emphasize low cost or high performance, and internal or external labour markets? The company I am employed with is a furniture company which tends to do most of the hiring based on the high performance and uses internal and external labour markets. Vacancies arise in our company as employees leave the company such as when they retire or resign or get promoted to other positions within our company. Our company ensures that we have developed an adequate plan to replace employees when needed. We decide what requirements we needs such as personnel requirements which will be supplied by either outside candidates or inside candidates. This decision is all based on need and if we have the qualified staff to step up and replace when needed. The company makes sure to comply with all government policies. We make sure to guarantee our valuable employees have long-term employment opportunities. They do this because it would be unfortunate to lose talent to another company. We are flexible to accommodate to changes in the nature of employees and in the way they do business. T hey are adaptable and cost effective in the hiring process. Our company approaches the nature and composition of the workforce by way of looking for the best employees that will help our company grow and become improved and superior. We want a strong employee community within our company so we work hard to build the relationships with our workforce. How many positions are filled annually? How many applications are received for each vacant position? The organization consists of about 150 people which means about approximately 10 hires a year occur from internal promotions or people seeking other types of employment or from turnovers. We do try to keep our employees with us as long as we can since they are our expertise in the field. When we must make new hires we do ask that current employees take on the training of their replacements because we understand that they know the jobs as well as they can. There are approximately 80 applications received each time there is a vacant opening for hire. This is mainly so high a number of people applying because of the current recession we are all facing. A normal amount of candidates would be about 20 for each position advertised. What methods are used to recruit candidates? Recruitment at our company involves attracting the right standard of candidates to apply for job openings. We tend to advertises jobs in different ways depending on the position available. We first looks at the internal replacement plan to fill a job opening. This is a process that lists all the current employees that are looking for a move which is either at the same level or on a promotion basis. We also advertise the post internally on our intranet. If there are no suitable people in this which are developed from the replacement plan, in the process of development or apply from internally then the company needs to start to look externally. For external recruitment, we advertise opening through our website and the available job boards in the stores. Applications are to be filled out online or in the store for positions. The chosen potential candidates are invited for an interview followed by their attendance at our assessment centre for the final stage of the selection process. We will seek the most cost-effective way of attracting the right candidates. We build up our external pool of qualified candidates by advertising the job through advertising, employment agencies, executive recruiters, college recruiting, the internet, referrals and walk-ins. It can become expensive to search for candidates although this is sometimes very necessary to ensure the right types of people are able to learn about our opening. Our company strives to make it easy for candidates to find out about an available job and we have a very simple application process. By accessing our website, a candidate can find out about our local available jobs, management posts and head office positions. The website has an easy to use online application form for people to submit directly through. We always make sure to never discriminate against any individual with respect to employment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or age. All people are welcome to apply and be given a fair chance to go through the hiring process if they qualify each stage of the way. What is the general approach to selection (i.e., statistical, judgmental, or a combination of the two)? The general selection approach is through a combination of judgmental and statistical evaluations. Judgmental information is used in terms of that we tend to require an assorted amount of source data based from the managers personal judgments of the individual candidate. We also use the previously collected information such as resumes and application forms in our databases to make these judgment calls. We will use statistical information when we have made our judgments on who will be asked to participate in call backs for the next qualifying measures. The common selection approach we use is to find the essential key qualifications for each qualified candidates and the screening out of all the unqualified candidates. We make sure we have a list the characteristics and skills that are required for job performance. These requirements are the predictors of job performance. Selection involves choosing the most suitable people from those that have applied for an opening while at the same t ime keeping to the employment laws and regulations. Screening candidates is a very extremely important part of our selection process. The initial selection screening in our organization begins with an application form. Our manager uses these to obtain some valid background data. It is also a valuable tool to use the application form data to make predictions about the candidates future performance. For example application forms have been used in my company many times to predict the job success, job tenure and employee theft. A human resources manager will be able to tell a lot from an application form if they have trained extensively and have some experience in this field. The important thing to remember is that the personnel planning and recruiting will directly affect employee commitment. This is because commitment depends on the hiring of employees who have the potential to grow and develop. The more qualified candidates that have applied the higher chances of the selection standards are able to be. Selection at my company begins with the most effective testing and interviewing techniques available. This ensures that those selected for an interview will have the best fit with our job requirements. In the first stages of screening, our selectors will look carefully at each candidates resume. This information helps to summarize the candidates education and job history to date. A well-written and positive resume helps us to assess whether a candidate matches the individual skills need for the job specifications for the position. The company also provides a tool that can help to match individuals with careers on our website page. People interested in working for us can see where they might fit into our company before applying that way there will be less disappointment if they are not chosen for an interview. Statistical is used in terms of an individual assessment includes the knowledge, skills, and ability testing, personality assessment, work sample tests and assessment screenings . We usually try to use the predictive validation test developed specifically for the type of job and the industry in which our company operates within. The tests we choose tend to be based ones which will depend on the job we are hiring for at the time such as in the warehouse or in the office. We believe our test conditions should always be consistent. We hold the tests in areas that are reasonably quiet, private, well ventilated and well lit. We also make sure that the entire group of candidates takes the tests under the same evaluation setting. Once completed the test results are to be held in the strictest confidence. They are given only to the individuals who have a valid need for the test results. We use the tests that measure the attributes that are important for each type of job success. This choice is usually based on the experience, previous candidate search and gut instincts of the person performing the tests. We usually use more than one test in a sequence aimed at measuri ng a variety of possible predictors such as companionability, assertiveness, and mathematical ability. For legal reason we always make sure that the tests have accurate measures before they are used in evaluating a candidates potential ability to perform well on the job. The fact that similar tests may have proven successful in the same industry is not sufficient enough for us to use them unless we have done our own validation of these tests. If we are using a new test we tend to check the accuracy of it by testing it on the existing employees on the job. We then compare the candidates test scores with our current employees to confirmation the validation of these new tests. The one disadvantage is that current employees might not be representative of the new candidates. We use tests as one of a variety of the selection techniques as they are used to supplement the interviews and background checks. The process we use to select external candidates has several stages. Candidates who pass the initial screening process of the application form and resume than has the opportunity to attend our assessment screenings. The assessment screenings takes place in our store and is run by our managers. These assessment screenings help to provide consistency in the selection process. Candidates are given various exercises which include team-work activities or problem solving exercises. These involve real life examples of problems they might have to encounter at the workplace. Candidates that have been approved by the assessment screenings then have an opportunity to have an interview. Managers for the job being hired for are offered take part in the interview to make sure that the candidate fits the job requirements. Our company conducts the interview by following the layout of plan the interview, establish the rapport, question the candidate, close the interview and then review the data. Sele ction and testing of prospective employees is of great importance in my workplace. There are very good reasons why the process of selection and testing is crucial. Performance is extremely crucial to have from an employee since selecting an employee with the right level of performance should always be chosen for the job. Employees who do not have the right level of skills or who are cause difficulties or complicate matters will not be able to perform effectively. To have the most cost effective screening is important because it is expensive to recruit and hire employees. It is estimated that for an administrative assistant who earns $30,000 a year the cost of recruitment is around $12,000. This takes into consideration the total cost of the search fees; interviewing time, reference checking or using a company to search on our behalf. The cost of hiring employees could be proportionally high and this is a quite significant reason to make sure we hire the right candidates. We are always reviewing and updating our hiring process and making sure specific industry standards are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that the selection and testing process is fair. Even if a candidate is not able to make it through the hiring process for which ever reason when we chose to not invite them to the next step or they drop out the process we always make sure to keep accurate records. We believe it is extremely important to keep accurate records of why each candidate was rejected during the hiring process. The detailed records of why each candidate was rejected will be held to assist in the research on the trends in recruitment and to evaluate the performance of our recruitment process. We also hold on to them for legal reason should the need ever arise to provide proof of our fair practices. What selection devices or methods are employed? The common selection devices and methods we use include the following: ability tests such as physical, cognitive or psychomotor, knowledge tests, structured interviews, personality tests, the methodical collection of biographical data, and work samples. We must always be evaluating the evidence regarding the degree to which the selection tools predict job performance and the substantiation they put on the validity of the selection tools. Are these selection devices or methods validated? How? The candidate selection devices and methods are usually validated or shown to be job relevant using one or more of the following types of validity. The selection devices are validated through such methods as the validity of subject, concept, or criteria. It is by these means Does the organization attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of its RS system? If so, how? Which model does it apply? After we have established the accuracy of the tests we administer the test and hire the employees based on their test scores. At a later date compare the success candidates with their test scores with their performance on the job. The recruitment and selection methods are important for finding out the shortcoming of our processes. These test scores contribute to an organizations success by improving the performance and well-being of its employees. They help to identify how behaviors and attitudes can be improved through hiring practices, training programs, and feedback systems. Our company does attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of its recruitment and selection system through the job analysis procedures. The Job analysis is illustrated as the foundation of the successful employee selection efforts and the performance management initiatives. A job analysis involves the methodical compilation of information about the specific job that was hired for. Job analysis methods are often do ne through two approaches in our workplace. The first approach being the task oriented job analysis this involves an examination of the responsibilities, obligations or experience required by the job. The second approach is the worker oriented job analysis which involves an assessment of the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) which are essential to successfully perform the work. Job analysis data is often amassed using a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The information gathered from a job analysis is then used to create job related selection procedures, performance evaluations and criteria or training curriculums. The other uses of the job analysis information include job evaluations for the purpose of determining compensation levels and job revamping. It is important to know the Job attitudes such as their job satisfaction, commitment, organizational citizenship and retaliation on the company. The job analyst individual may use qualitative methods such as critical occurrence disc ussions and focal point assemblys to collect data components on the workplace performances. Is the RS system integrated into the organizations strategic management system? If so, how? If not, how would you describe the relationship between the two systems? The recruitment selection process is integrated into the organizations strategic management system by To what extent does RS abide by human rights principles at each stage of the process? Be specific. At each step of the recruitment selection process human rights principles are abided by strictly because it is very important to maintain ethics and local and national legislation. We always make sure that we never exclude anyone before they have had a chance to qualify on their own merits. We are an equal opportunity employer and are open to hiring any individual for any position as long as they qualify for the position. In what other ways could the RS process be evaluated either positively or negatively? The way that the recruitment selection process can be evaluated positively is when there is leadership through the employees that have been with the company a lot longer than the newer employees this provides a means of advancement for all in the company. Happy employees are a sign that the recruitment and selection process is working. Leadership should be a process by where the elder employed employees are positively supporting, influencing and motivating the other workers. These leaders could be members in a position of power such as managers or supervisors or they can be their own fellow workers. This should lead to employees working passionately and efficiently towards achieving the workplace endeavors and purposes. The workplace leaders behave as the ones who identify the potential of a worker and try to put that into actuality. A leader can be a positive leader or a negative leader which could upset the whole of the workplace or bring it to a place of achieving goals. Workers a re performing at high standards and understanding and achieving much in the workplace. The leaders influence within an organization can be derived from two crucial sources which is that persons personal characteristics and their position or power within the given organization. These personality elements such as their knowledge base, their individual personality, their capacity to successfully work with others, and their established level of exertion. Positional power is derivative from the leaders position within our organization and the authority encouraged in their behavior. This is either directly or indirectly by the organizations controlling faction to make available either opportunities or restriction for their personal performance levels. The leaders responsibility is to use their positive influence to persuade and encourage individuals within the workplace to focus themselves regarding the achievement of the organizations objectives. There are differences that should be distinguished between leadership and management. The way that the recruitment selection process can be evaluated negatively is through counterproductive behavior within the workplace. Counterproductive actions can be seen as employee behavior that departs from the objective of our b usiness. These actions can be deliberate or accidental and result from an extensive sequence of fundamental rationales and incentives. The types of common counterproductive behavior with most observed assessments within the workplace are the following: job turnover, accidents, job performance, absenteeism, theft, violence, substance use, and sexual harassment. In light of the above issues, what recommendations would you make to improve the RS process in the organization? The recommendations that the recruitment selection process can be improved in the organization is through better testing methods that could be suited to each type of personality since not all test are accurate for each person. It would be important to make sure when hiring candidates that during the probation period that the new hires are regularly evaluated and let go if they are not reaching the company expectations. It may have been a lot of money to make this new hire but it will be well worth not keep a good employee if they are producing to the standards they should be. Make sure all incidents are reported from the start to management and make sure that management is doing something about these reported issues. If not then maybe management that is condoning these types of workplace behaviors needs to be looked at also. It is never alright to turn a blind eye to unsavory situations in the workplace in hopes of the events that are occurring will go away. It is best to be on top o f each and every event as it happens and that consequences are being given as needed. A happy and productive workplace is the goal of every business but we must all do our part to be successful in having this outcome. Having current employees fill out confidential questionnaires and surveys on how they feel working for our company and what changes they would like see put into place. Freuds Cases of Hysteria: Birth of Psychoanalysis Freuds Cases of Hysteria: Birth of Psychoanalysis Abstract This thesis returns to the original case histories that Freud wrote on the patients he treated for hysteria. Here in these early works, the beginnings of psychoanalytical theory take shape in the acceptance of purely psychological theories of hysteria. Catharsis leads to the first inklings of repression which requires the use of free association, which again leads into Freuds attempt to explain the strange neuroses he sees through seduction theory, which is again transformed as his thinking moves on. Through Anna O, Frau Emmy von N. and Dora, Freud discovered the seeds of what would become his all-encompassing theory of the human psyche. Modern reinterpretations (e.g. Rosenbaum Muroff, 1984) of those early cases that form the basis of modern psychoanalysis have come and gone, but the original texts remain as historical testament to the fermenting of those fundamental ideas. Introduction Hysteria has been a hugely popular subject for research in psychoanalysis and in the history of ideas. Its roots are clearly signalled by the Greek word from which the word comes: uterus. Indeed the uterus was seen by Egyptians as a mobile organism that could move about of its own will when it chose to do so this caused the disturbances only seen (or acknowledged) in women. Treatments for this disease included trying to entice the uterus back into the body with the use of attractive-smelling substances as well as the driving down of the uterus from above by the eating of noxious substances. Just under four thousand years later, the formulation and treatment of hysterics had barely improved. The history of hysteria shows how it has often been seen as a physical disorder, rather than a mental one. Borossa (2001) describes some of the most common symptoms of hysteria as involving paralysis of the limbs, coughing, fainting, the loss of speech and parallel to this the sudden proficiency in another language. The change of viewpoint that lead up to Freuds analysis was slow in coming, and, as Bernheimer (1985) describes, only showed the first signs of changing in the seventeenth century with the first questions being raised that perhaps hysteria had its origins in a mental disturbance of some kind. Antecedent to Freuds interest in hysteria, it was the clinical neurologist, Charcot, who had a great influence on the field and accepted, by his methods, a more psychological explanation. Although sexual factors had long been implicated in the aetiology of hysteria (Ellenberger, 1970), Charcot did not agree that they were a sine qua non although he did maintain that they played an important part. He treated patients using a form of hypnosis and eventually his formulation of how hysteria was produced and treated was closely intertwined with the hypnosis itself. It was this use of hypnosis that interested Freud and it was the implication of sexual factors in hysteria that was eventually to become influential. It seemed that hysteria and hypnosis might offer Freud the chance to investigate the link between mind and body (Schoenwald, 1956). Anna O: The First Psychoanalytical Patient The literature often describes Anna O as the first ever patient of psychoanalysis. As it is notoriously difficult to define precisely what psychoanalysis might mean because of its shifting nature through time, this is a claim that is clearly interpretational. Still, the fact that this claim is made raises the interest into precisely what it was that marked out Anna Os treatment and the theories accompanying it from what had gone before. Although Anna O was not a patient of Freud, but a patient of his close colleague at the time, Joseph Breuer, he took a great interest in her case and its treatment, and from it flowed some of the foundational aspects of psychoanalysis both through the analysis of this case and Freuds reaction and reinterpretation of it. One of the reasons that Freud was interested in Anna O was that she represented an extremely unusual case of hysteria. Anna O had first been taken ill while she had been taking care of her dying father. At first she suffered from a harsh cough which soon expanded into a range of other perplexing symptoms. Freud Breuer (1991) describe these symptoms as going through four separate stages. The first stage, the latent incubation, occurred while she was nursing her dying father she had become weak, was not eating and would spend much of the afternoons sleeping, which was then unexpectedly followed by a period of excited activity in the evenings. The second stage, which had begun around the time Breuer started treating her, contained a strange confluence of symptoms. Her vision was affected by a squint, she could no longer move any of the extremities on the right side of her body. The third stage, which roughly coincided with the death of her father, heralded alternating states of somnam bulism with relative normality. The fourth stage, according to Breuer, is the slow leaking away of these symptoms up until June 1882, almost two years after she had first come to see her physician. The question is, how had these symptoms been interpreted and what had Breuer done in claiming to effect a cure? It is in the case of Anna O that the most basic elements of a new talking cure can be seen. As told by Breuer, it is a treatment that grew organically, as if by its own power, as he continued to see the patient. Often, in the afternoons, when the patient would habitually fall into an auto-hypnotic state, she would utter odd words or phrases, which, when questioned by those around her, would become elaborated into stories, sometimes taking the form of fairytales. These stories told to Breuer, changed in character over the period of Anna Os treatment, moving from those that were light and poetic, through to those that contained dark and frightening imagery. The unusual thing about these stories was that after they were told, it was as though a demon had been released from the patient and she became calmer and open to reason, cheerful even, often for a period of twenty-four hours afterwards. There seemed to be, staring Breuer in the face, some kind of connection between the stories that Anna O told him and the symptoms which she was manifesting. It was here that Freud was to find the roots of a purely psychological explanation of hysteria. Breuer describes numerous examples of this connection. On one occasion Anna O appeared to be suffering from an uncontrollable thirst and was given to demanding water, although when it was brought, she would refuse to touch it. After six weeks of this continuing, one day, again in an auto-hypnotic state, she started to tell a story about a friend who had allowed her dog to drink out of a glass. This had apparently caused the patient considerable distress and seemed to have led to pent-up anger, which was expressed on this occasion to Breuer. Afterwards Breuer was surprised to find that her previous craving and then abhorrence of water had disappeared. Other similar connections between symptoms and a story told by the patient were also s een by Breuer so that eventually he came up with the theory that the patient could be cured systematically by going through the symptoms to find the event that had caused their onset. Once the event had been described, as long as it was with sufficient emotional vigour, the patient would show remission of that symptom. It was by this method that Breuer claimed to have effected a cure of Anna O over the period of the treatment. It is from this case, although not in the immediate reporting by Breuer, that some of the most fundamental principles of psychoanalysis begin to form. An element of the story that has now passed into psychoanalytic legend, with some accepting its truth while others rejecting it, provides a more dramatic ending to the therapeutic relationship than that presented by Breuer. According to Freud (1970) in his letters, he pieced together an alternative account of what had happened at the end of Anna Os therapy. According to Freud, Breuer had been treating Anna O in the way he had discovered, as previously described, and had finally reached the point where her symptoms had been removed. Later that day he was called back to his patient to find her in considerable apparent pain in her abdomen. When she was asked what was wrong she replied that, Dr. Bs child is coming! This immediately sent Breuer away from her at the highest speed as he was not able to cope with this new revelation. He then p assed her onto a colleague for further treatment as he had already realised that his wife was jealous of his treatment of Anna O and this new revelation only compounded the problem. Forrester (1990) draws attention to the fact that Breuer acknowledged the importance of sexuality in the causes of neuroses. But despite this, he backed away from Anna Os case as soon as it came to the surface. As Forrester (1990) points out, Freud sees this as Breuers mistake and sees in it the birth of a psychoanalysis, especially one of its most important aspects: transference, and more specifically: sexual transference. Through the way that Breuer describes Anna Os progress in his new type of therapy, the path which the theory of hysteria and its treatment takes gradually emerges. Although Anna Os case was reported later it was Breuer Freud (1893) that used her case as the basis for their theory of hysteria. Breuer Freud (1893) state that they believe that the symptoms of hysteria have, at their root cause, some kind of causal event, perhaps occurring many years before the symptoms expose themselves. The patient is unlikely to easily reveal what this event is simply because they are not consciously aware of what it is, or that there is a causal connection. They are not worried by the seeming disproportionate nature of the precipitating event and subsequent symptoms. In fact they welcome this disproportionate nature as a defining characteristic of hysteria. Their analysis likens the root cause, or pathogenesis, of hysteria to that caused by a traumatic neurosis    perhaps similar to what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. The patient has, therefore, suffered a psychical trauma that manifests itself in this hysteria. The idea that the psychical trauma simply has a precipitating effect on the symptoms is dismissed by the authors referring to the evidence they have from the case studies of the remarkable progress their patients made after the memory of the psychical trauma has been exorcised through its explication and re-experiencing. Importantly, in defining the problem, Breuer Freud (1893) see the symptoms as a kind of failure of reaction to the original event. The memory of the event can only fade if the reaction to that event has not been suppressed. And it is here that there is a clear precursor to ideas central to later Freudian theory about the nature and causes of repression. In normal reactions to psychical traumas, the authors talk of a cathartic effect resulting in a release of the energy. The reverse of this, the suppression of catharsis (Freeman, 1972), is seen here as the cause of the symptoms adequately evidenced by the new treatment of a kind of delayed catharsis that appears to release the patient from their symptoms. What, then, are the mechanisms by which a psychical trauma of some kind is not reacted to sufficiently? Two answers are provided here, the first that because of the circumstances of the trauma, it was not possible to form a reaction in other words the reactions is suppressed. The second is that a reaction may not have been possible due to the mental state of the person at that time for example during a period of paralysing fear. The circumstances in which the failure of a reaction occurs is also instrumental in the burying of these thoughts and feelings and helps to explain why the patient themselves is not able to access them in the normal ways. Frau Emmy von N. Freuds interest in hysteria and in hypnosis was certainly piqued by both Charcot and Breuer and having collaborated on the latters work with Anna O including the belief that he had found a theory of practical benefit it was only a matter of time before he became further involved in the treatment of hysteria himself. Reported as the second case history in The Studies on Hysteria, (Breuer Freud, 1991) a patient of Freuds, Frau Emmy von N., exhibited symptoms that typified hysteria and Freud resolved to treat her. He reports that the patient was 40 years old, was from a good family and of high education and intelligence. She had been widowed at a young age, leaving her to look after her two children this she ascribed as the cause of her current malady. Freud describes her first meeting as being continually interrupted by the patient breaking off, and suddenly displaying signs of disgust and horror on her face while telling him to, Keep still! and other similar remonstrations. Apart from this the patient also had a series of tics, some facial, but the most pronounced being a clacking sound which littered her utterances. Freuds initial treatment was more physical than mental. She was told to take warm baths and be given massages. This was combined with hypnosis in which Freud simply suggested that she sleep well and that her symptoms would lessen. This was helped by the fact that Freud reports that Frau Emmy von N. was an extremely good hypnotic subject he only had to raise his finger and make a few simple suggestions to put her into a trance. Freud wonders whether this compliance is due to previous exposure to hypnosis and a desire to please. A week later Freud asked his patient why she was so easily frightened. She replied with a story about a traumatic experience that had occurred when she was younger her older brothers and sisters had thrown dead animals at her. As she described these stories to Freud, he reports that she was, panting for breath as well as displaying obvious difficulty with the emotions that she was dealing with. After these emotions have been expressed, she became calmer and more peaceful. Freud also uses touch to reinforce his suggestion that these unnerving images have been removed. Under hypnosis, Freud continued to elicit these stories that demonstrated why she was so often nervous. She explained to Freud that she had once had a maidservant who told her stories of life in an asylum including beatings and patients being tied to chairs. Freud then explained to her that this was not the usual situation in asylums. She had also apparently seen hallucinations at one point, seeing the same person in tw o places and being transfixed by it. While she had been nursing her dying brother, who was taking large quantities of morphine for the pain he was in, he would frequently grab her suddenly. Freud saw this as part of a pattern of her being seized against her will and resolved to investigate it further. It was a few days after this that quite a significant point in the therapy came. Emmy von N. was again explaining about the frightening stories of the asylum and Freud stopped himself from correcting her, intuitively realising that he had to let her give full vent to her fears, without redirecting her course. This is perhaps a turning point in the way in which Freud treated his patient, made clearer by the historical context in which this scene operates. While still seen as authority figures now, physicians were much stronger authority figures then. This combined with the greater imbalance of power between men and women would have meant that the patient would be naturally hesitant about taking any control over their own treatment. Forrester (1990) sees this as a shift in the pattern of authority between the doctor and the patient that originated in Breuers treatment of Anna O a move from the telling the patient what to do, to listening to what the patient has to say. Forrester (1990 ) constructs the relationship that Freud began to build with Emmy von N. as more of a framework of authority within which the patient was able to express her thoughts and feelings to the doctor and in this sense the doctors job is to help the patient keep up this outpouring of stories. At this stage of the development of the therapy, the facilitation of the story-telling is being achieved by hypnosis, although later Freud was to move away from this. How great the shift in the power balance was, it is difficult to tell a this distance, but what is clear from the case report is that Emmy von N.s case provided a much more convoluted series of psychical traumas and symptoms than that presented by Anna O. While Anna Os symptoms seemed to match the traumatic events rather neatly, Emmy von Ns mind was not nearly as well organised. At one point Freud discovers that taking the lift to his office causes his patient a considerable amount of stress. To try and examine where this comes from he explores whether she has had any previous traumatic experiences in lifts a logical first step within the theoretical framework. Coincidentally, it appears, the patient mentions that she is very worried about her daughter in relation to elevators. The next logical step then should be that talking about this fear should release the affect and lead to catharsis, but this is not what Freud finds. The next part of the puzzle is revealed when he finds out t hat she is currently menstruating, then finally the last part falls into place when he finds out that as her daughter has been suffering ovarian problems, she has had to travel in a lift in order to meet with her doctor. After some deliberation Freud realises that there is in fact a false connection between the patients menstruation and the worry at her daughter using a lift. It is this confusion of connections that Freud begins to realise is a form of defence to the traumatic thoughts. Freuds Treatment of Hysteria In the final part of Studies in Hysteria Freud sets out his theory of hysteria and what he has learnt about its treatment. Not only does this part of the book recap some of the themes already discussed but it also highlights some future direction in which Freuds work would travel. Two key signposts are seen: first in his stance on hypnotism, and secondly in his view on what constitutes hysteria. In an attempt to be of benefit to patients with hysteria, who he believed this treatment would help, he tried to treat as many as possible. The problem for him was how to tell the difference between a patient with hysteria and one without. Freud chose an interesting solution to what might have been a protracted problem of diagnosis. He simply treated patients who seemed   to have hysteria and let the results of that treatment speak for themselves. What this immediately did was to widen out the object of his enquiry to neuroses in general. Picking up on the lightly touched theme of sexual tr ansference between Breuer and Anna O mentioned earlier, Freud made his feelings about the roots of neurotic problems quite clear, and in the process set the agenda for psychoanalysis for the next century or more. He believed that one of the primal factors in neuroses lay in sexual matters. In particular Freud came to acknowledge that peoples neuroses rarely came in a pure form, as the early and almost impossibly neat case of Anna O had signposted, and that in fact people were more of a mixed bag. Looking back through the cases reported in Studies on Hysteria Freud explains that he came to see a sexual undercurrent in his notes that had not been at the forefront of his mind when he had treated the patients. Especially in the case of Anna O as already noted Freud felt Breuer had missed a trick. What these ideas seem to be adding up to is almost a rejection of hysteria, if not as a separate diagnosis, certainly as a category of disease practically amenable to treatment. Freud, however, is defensive about rejecting the idea of hysteria as a separate diagnosis, despite the fact that that is the direction in which his thoughts are heading. At this stage he believes it can be treated as a separate part of a patients range of symptoms and the effect of this treatment will be governed by its relative importance overall. Those patients, like Anna O, who have relatively pure cases of hysteria will respond well to the cathartic treatment, while those diluted cases will not. The second key signpost for the future of psychoanalysis was Freuds use of hypnosis. What he found was that many of the patients he saw were simply not hypnotisable Freud claims unwillingness on their part but other writers are of the opinion that he was simply not that good at it (Forrester, 1990). This was a problem for Freud because Breuers formulation of the treatment for hysteria required that events were recollected that were not normally available to a person. Hypnosis had originally proved a good method and indeed in Anna Os case the only method for gaining access to these past events. In response, Freud now turned away from hypnosis to develop his own techniques for eliciting the patients traumatic events. These were quite simple: he insisted that the patient remember what the traumatic event was, and if they still could not, he would ask the patient to lie down and close their eyes nowadays one of the archetypal images of patient and analyst. Freud saw the patients relu ctance of his patients to report their traumatic events as a one of the biggest hurdles in his coalescing form of therapy. He came up with the idea that there was some psychical force within the patient that stopped the memories from being retrieved. From the patients he had treated, he had found that the memories that were being held back were often of an embarrassing or shameful nature. If was for this reason that the patient was activating psychical defence mechanisms. At this stage he hoped to be able to show in the future that it was this defence or repulsion of the traumatic event to the depths of the memory that was causing so much psychical pain to the patient. Overcoming this psychical force, Freud found, was not as simple as insisting, and he developed some further techniques. Patients would easily drift off their point or simply dry up and it needed more powerful persuasion to return them to the traumatic event. One particular technique he found extremely useful and would almost invariably use it when treating patients. This involved placing his hand on the patients head and instructing them that when they feel the pressure they will also see an image of their traumatic event. Having assured the patient that whatever they see, they should not worry that this image is inappropriate or too shameful to discuss, then they are asked to attempt a description of the image. Freud believed that this system worked by distracting the patient, in a similar way as hypnosis, from their conscious searching for the psychical trauma and allowed their mind to float free. Even using the new technique of applying pressure, it did not provide direct access to the psychical trauma. What Freud found was that it tended to signal a jumping off point or a way-station, somewhere on the way to or from the trauma. Sometimes the image produced would provide a new starting point from which the patient could work, sometimes it fitted into the flow of the subject of discussion. Occasionally the new image would bring a long-forgotten idea to the patients mind which would surprise them and initially seem to be unrelated, but later turn out to have a connection. Freud was so pleased with his new pressure technique that, in complex cases, he would often use it continuously on the patient. This procedure would bring to light memories that had been hitherto completely forgotten, as well as new connections between these memories and even, sometimes, thoughts that the patient doesnt even believe to be their own. Freud is careful to point out that although his pressure technique was useful, there were a number of very strong forms of defence that stopped him gaining easy access to the patients psychical trauma. He often found that in the first instance, applying pressure by his hand to the patient would not work, but when he insisted to the patient that it would work the next time, it often would. Still, the patient would sometimes immediately reinterpret or, indeed, begin to edit what was seen, thus making the reporting much less useful. Freud makes it clear that sometimes the most useful observations or memories of the patient are those that they consider to be of least use or relevance. Also, the memories will tend to emerge in a haphazard fashion, only later, and with the skill of the analyst, being fitted together into a coherent picture. Freud refers to this as a kind of censoring of the traumatic events, as though it can only be glimpsed in a mirror or partially occluded around a corne r. Slowly but sure the analyst begins to build up a picture with the accretion of material. There is nothing, Freud believed that is not relevant every piece of information is a link in the chain, another clue to the event that has traumatised the psyche. Another major component of psychoanalysis makes its first appearance in the Studies on Hysteria. Freud describes a final defence or block against the work of treating hysteria in the very relationship between the patient and doctor. Indeed, Freud sees this defence is sure to arise, and perhaps the most difficult defence of all to overcome. The first of the three circumstances in which it may arise is a simple, probably small, breakdown in the relationship between the physician and patient. It might be that the patient is unsure about the physicians techniques or alternatively has felt slighted in the treatment in some way. This can be rectified with a sensitive discussion. The second of the three circumstances occurs when the patient becomes fearful that they will lose their independence because of a reliance on their treating physician. As almost all of Freuds patients who had hysteria were women, this could be conceived as a sexual reliance. The third circumstance is where the pati ent begins to take the problem that they are trying to resolve and transfer it onto the physician, thereby seeing their problem there instead of where it really exists. Freud provides the straightforward example of the sexual transference of a female patient of his who suddenly developed the vision of kissing him. He reports that the patient could not be analysed any further until this block had been addressed. The mechanism by which this transference happens, he posits, is that the patient creates a false connection between the compulsion which is the basis for their treatment and the therapist, rather than its original recipient. In treating these defences Freud makes it clear that the main aim should be to make the patient aware that this problem exists, and then once they are aware of it, the problem is largely dealt with. The challenge, then, is getting the patient to admit to these potentially embarrassing feelings. The Aetiology of Hysteria The development of Freuds theory of the aetiology of hysteria provides one of the most insightful, and sometimes controversial, areas of his work. The formation of the theory, like the work on its treatment, provided another important testing ground for some of the basic elements of what would later become psychoanalysis. Previous authors, including Breuer in the joint work with Freud in Studies on Hysteria, gave great weight to the heredity factors in the causes of hysteria. Freud meanwhile acknowledged these ideas, but in Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses (Freud, 1896b) set out the three factors he believed were important and began to formulate a new theory. The causes of hysteria could be broken down into: (1) Preconditions this would include hereditary factors, (2) concurrent causes which are generalised causes and (3) specific causes, these being specific to the hysteria itself. It is in these specific causes he believed he had found an important contribution to aetiology of the condition. One of the common factors of the patients Freud was seeing, and the one he was coming to see as defining, was in their sexual problems. He reports that while many suffered from a range of different symptoms such as constipation, dyspepsia and fatigue, almost all of them had some kind of sexual problems. These ranged from the inability to achieve orgasm to a more general inability to have a satisfying sexually relationship. Freud saw this as a very significant problem as he maintains that the nervous systems needs to be regularly purged of sexual tension. This pattern across his patients, and the development of his theory of traumatic psychical events, led him to wonder what past events could have caused the sexual dysfunction the patients with hysteria were manifesting. Radically, and expecting no small amount of opposition to the idea, Freud advanced the theory that these neuroses were caused by sexual abuse before the age of sexual maturity. Of the thirteen cases that Freud had tre ated at the time of the paper, all of them had been subject to sexual abuse at an early age. However, Freud does make it clear that the information about their sexual lives is not obtained without some considerable pressure, and it only emerges in a fragmentary way that has later to be pieced together by the therapist. At this early stage of the theory, Freud believed that the sexual abuse left a psychical trace and formed the traumatic experience which was locked away in the depths of the mind. These ideas were much further developed and expanded on in Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence (Freud, 1896a). Earlier Freud had grouped together hysteria with hallucinatory states and obsessions (Freud, 1894) and had begun to formulate the idea that all of these conditions had a common aetiology. In particular, Freud felt these were all part of an area where the ideas of psychological defences and psychological repression were important. Freud had found that patients he had seen had suffered sexual abuse sometimes as early as two years old and up to the age of ten, which he drew as an artificial cut-off point. What other theorists saw as a heredity, Freud saw as the confluence of factors for example if a boy had been sexually abused when he was five then it was likely that his brother would have been abused by the same person. Rather than seeing heredity as a separate factor in hysteria, he saw the sexual abuse as a replacement for heredity, sometimes exclusively, as the root cause in itself. The theory shows an interesting divergence in the analysis of obsessional neuroses. Here, Freud believed that the obsessional neuroses were caused by a sexual activity   in childhood rather than the sexual passivity typical of abuse. These ideas linked in neatly to the greater preponderance of obsessional neuroses in males. A logical division is therefore made with the females, the apparently more passive sex suffering from hysteria, while the apparently more active sex suffering from obsessions. In searching for the aetiology of these two conditions, it is here that Freud prefigures his future thinking on stages of sexual development by introducing the idea that the development of neuroses and/or hysteria is/are dependent on when the sexual abuse occurs in the developmental stages of the child, with sexual maturation providing the cut-off point. In The Aetiology of Hysteria Freud again makes clear his divergence from his mentor, Charcot, in claiming that heredity is not the most important factor in the aetiology of hysteria (Freud 1896c). Freud (1896c) travels back through the life-histories of the patients he has treated looking for the original source of the psychical trauma, discounting all sexual experiences at puberty and later. It is only in pre-pubescent children, when the potential for harm is at its greatest that there lies a sufficient cause. Freuds theory revolves around the idea that at a