Tuesday, February 25, 2020

An analysis of the policies introduced by the Office of the Mayor of Essay

An analysis of the policies introduced by the Office of the Mayor of London - Essay Example The GLA has power deliberated to perform duties in various parts of the city (Greater London Authority 2012). It has four bodies that range from the London Development agency, The Metropolitan police authority, which is in charge of security in the city, The Emergency planning authority that deals with the disaster, and the London fire brigade. The role of the mayor of London The mayor of London`s job basically ranges from developing policies, setting budgets, as well as ensuring that London is well marketed globally. The mayor has powers and duties to ensure that there is absolute promotion of both the economic social and environmental improvement (Greater London Authority 2012). That is perhaps what may be termed as â€Å"improving London for all†. Before putting any of his powers into action, the mayor has to first consult the city dwellers. Consequently, he must ensure that equality for all citizens is achieved. Being a mayor in London, means one is also in charge of all p olicies and plans for city. This covers all aspects ranging from panning, development, housing, health injustices, culture and other environmental issues including climate changes, noise pollution and health quality too. On improving London, the mayor has to set up budgets that must project the visions that improve London; this makes him to come up with the annual budget for the Greater London Authority and the entire GLA group, this includes the metropolitan police, fire brigade, transportation in London and the London Development agency (Great Britain: Parliament House of Commons: Justice Committee 2009). In addition to his duties, he holds executive positions, as well as non-executive ones, in different organizations. The need for reforms in housing policy The mayor argues that London has got the need to have better and quality housing delivered to the citizens. Due to long term housing pressure in London, it is evident that many have failed to meet the increasing demand of the r esidents in London. With this in mind, it is clear that the quality of life for London citizens have been clearly undermined especially for those who cannot afford the high rents for home in the open market. Despite the number of households registering as homeless decreasing over the years, the number of temporary accommodations has been increasing too. This leads to recording of two thirds of the total households in London. Over 150,000 household in London are overcrowded, this is more than half the total number nationwide. This means that overcrowding rates are now higher as compared to the private rented tenancies. The policies put in place would only do more harm than good because the estimated growth of the population would only increase to 80,000 by 2016 thus creating demand for over 300,000 households. Although the current new housing output is around 270000 new homes every year, only half of them can be affordable. Perhaps, that is why the London housing requirement study ha s identified a need to have 35000 increments of new homes yearly so as to meet the needs as per the projected growth (Greater London Authority 2012). According to the London Housing Capacity, there is enough land that can accommodate more than 31000 new homes every year. However, the significant increase in housing investments over the years means

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Virtual Business Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Virtual Business Design - Assignment Example Problem Definition Since the Eurozone debt crisis that affected Portugal since 2010, the pharmaceutical industry in general and Olive Pharmaceuticals have been experiencing reduced profitability. As a result, it has become difficult to stay within the annual operating budgets. As part of the 2011 IMF bailout package, the Portuguese government has instituted heavy reductions in public expenditure which includes the public health care system. Olive Pharmaceuticals has been affected because of the growing public debt of hospitals and the cuts in pharmaceutical expenditure by the government. In 2012, public hospitals owed â‚ ¬1.5 billion to international pharmaceutical companies. In 2013, the public pharmaceutical expenditure was further reduced by â‚ ¬333 million, which makes pharmaceutical expenditure just 1 percent of GDP (Feria, 2012). As a result, sales to state hospital pharmacies have declined by 10% over the past two years (Feria, 2012). At the same time, operational costs have not reduced proportionally because of increase in energy costs and imported raw materials. The business mission of Olive Pharmaceuticals is to provide high quality oncology pharmaceutical products at affordable prices to consumers through efficient operations and continuous research. This is achieved through goals of keeping operating costs low and maintaining supply chain efficiency. The situation has implications for planning and organizing decisions for Olive Pharmaceuticals as it influences the decision about investing in research or selling generic products. Secondly, the supply chain may have to be reorganized for greater operational efficiency. Situation Analysis Impact of the Situation on Planning Planning is defined as the management function related to the determination of organizational goals and objectives and identifying tasks and resources to achieve those goals (Hill and McShane, 2006). The goal of Olive Pharmaceuticals is to grow its market share and profitabili ty by investing in research and efficient operations. Planning is conducted at different levels such as strategic planning, tactical planning and operational planning. The present situation has implications for planning at all levels. Strategic planning is concerned with decisions about which products to produce and which markets to serve (Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2009). In the current situation, where the government is reducing expenditure on pharmaceutical products, the sales of oncology products will become expensive due to high costs. Rationing will further reduce profits while keeping costs the same. On the other hand, sales of generic drugs will increase due to lower prices to the consumer. The planning decisions to be made in this situation include the selection of whether to continue investment in researching new products or market generic drugs to reduce costs and increase sales. This would require careful analysis of the organizational mission and goals. Tactical plann ing is concerned with decisions made at the divisional level. These goals and plans are developed with a view to help the achievement of strategic level goals and plans (Daft, 2013). The challenge of reducing operational costs can be achieved through effective planning at the tactical level with the divisional managers assuming responsibility for staying within the operating budgets for their divisions. Finally, operational level planning is also relevant in the current situ

Thursday, January 30, 2020

The Chesapeake and New England Colonies Essay Example for Free

The Chesapeake and New England Colonies Essay Although New England and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by the people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. These two colonies divided based on their values and goals for their future, New England believed in unity, religion, and family, while the Chesapeake region believed in success, working alone, and entrepreneurship. Their lives really centered around what they believed in and was the determining factor on why these societies are very different. New England came over with a sense of unity and equality for their people. They wanted what was best for everyone. Massachusetts wanted to have the poor and the rich in their town as well as everyone having a share of the meadow or planting ground. They wanted people to have equal portions and opportunities. They sought comfort and strength in each other to reach goals and worked together to get the job done. John Winthrop who was an English Puritan speaks of knitting together and working as one man. He preaches about looking over one anothers flaws and pushing forward and supplying people with the necessities they need. He sees they should be the city upon the hill, a model for everyone to follow, and learning and experience with and form each other, together as one. He wants a tight knit community where everyone helps out and believes in one another. This region is more interested in building a strong sense of community and bond with one another. The New England region relied strongly on their religious beliefs and the church had a strong influence over the people. They turn to God in time of need and despair as well as in happiness. The people will preach the Lords words and be his servants. They vow to walk in the ways of Christ with the church and the other people. They unify and work together for the church and for the Lord. They overlook each others flaws and help each other day by day because thats what being apart of the church is. They want a perfect and united society and God to walk with them through it. This region wants to be able to have the religious freedom they deserve and believes God will take them where they need to go in life. Family was just as important to the New England region as religion and unity. Family ties all these values together into one. They wanted a certain amount of families in their towns. The ship full of emigrants bound for New England are full of families and marriages that have lasted a while. All these families make the community a whole, without them there wouldnt be the values to unify them or bring them together through the church. Basing their life off of these values and putting them into effect made their lives successful. They built such a strong community for themselves because they were in the right mindset and had the right tools to walk them through it. People and families are the backbone that need to be there in order for the town to survive and no one giving up. They were wealthy aspiring leaders and people throughout the region. Virginia and the Chesapeake region had different views on their lifestyle. They believed in success no matter how they got there, they just wanted the profit from it. Only the wealthy made their way through with their riches such as gold. John Smith a leader in Virginia tells that the people with money, spare clothes, credit to give bills of payment, gold rings, fur, or anything of that sort were welcome to purchase supplies. The dug for gold and other riches in the ground. They were not about equality or giving equal opportunities to the rich and poor. More men came to Virginia, it wasnt really family oriented either. There was only eleven out of many men coming to Virginia. The reason people came was for the profit and hope to gain riches. The people of Virginia worked alone and believed in entrepreneurship. They didnt care how they got to the top, as long as they were there. They didnt believe in working together to accomplish something, they wanted all the credit to themselves. They were self employed and wanted to make new businesses being their own boss selling valuables. The only people who helped them out was the many servants protecting them. They had no sense of community or compassion for other people. They thought about themselves before anything. Their motivation was the profit they would consume from it, not worrying about what it may have caused for others to reach that. These people wore more messy and dirty clothing than Virginia because they were working and some people were poor, and they had a lot of servants. These regions were completely opposites in the way they chose to live. The New England region believed in a strong community with families and religion supporting them, while the Chesapeake region wanted profit and riches, preferred working alone to get the necessities they needed. The New England ways gave us a sense of democracy and working together as a whole.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Lee Silverman Voice Treatment Essay -- Health, Parkinson’s Disease

Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) is primary utilized as a voice treatment for individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD), it’s main focus is that it attempts to increase vocal loudness and improve vocal function (Countryman S, Hoehn M, O’Brien C, Pawlas A, Ramig L, and Sapir S, 2001)(Ramig L, Sapir S, Fox C, and Countryman S, 2001). There has also been success in utilizing this treatment protocol for clients with dysarthria associated with stroke, and traumatic brain injury as well as children who have cerebral palsy and Down syndrome (Marchant, J., McAuliffe, M., & Huckabee, M. January 2008)(Spielman, J Ramig L Mahler L Halpern A Gavin W., 2007,)(Wenke, R., Theodoros, D., & Cornwell, P., January 2008)). LSVT was conceived in 1987 and has been extensively studied around the world since then (Countryman et. al., 2001). LSVT is a very unique form of voice therapy in that it focuses on several very simple tasks that are designed to maximize the client’s phonation and respiratory functions. (Countrymen et al., 2001). Spielman et al., 2007 indicated that the standard course o...

Monday, January 13, 2020

Our Buttocks Are Different Essay

I have chosen Arthur Rimbaud’s poem entitled â€Å"Our Assholes Are Different†. The poem was originally written in French and has been translated in many different versions. Interestingly, the poem is also known as â€Å"Our Buttocks Are Not Theirs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and carries a significant reference to the poet’s personal life as he was an unabashed homosexual. The poem is also a reflection on Rimbaud’s tongue-in-cheek and witty sense of humor that is his unique trademark in all his writings. In this paper, I will discuss his usage of tone, imagery and symbolism. First I am going to analyze tone. The poem is spoken in a direct, straight-forward manner with feelings of animation, pleasure and amusement. The poet is clearly thrilled with the idea of peeping into other’s private moment of relief but instead of looking at them with disgust, the view provides him with romantic, happy, idle thoughts that remind him of freedom. The act of relieving oneself is actually a form of release and that the pleasure is both mutual, for the reliever as well as the watcher, â€Å"And in those happy floods that youth set free I watched the architecture of our crotch†. To the poet, seeing the buttocks is a way of appraising nature as it occurs upon him that not one buttock is similar to the other. It is interesting how he describes the buttock similar to our faces, with â€Å"a dimple indent’ and characteristic from one another, â€Å"Its forms to muscles, and a wickerwork/ Of hairs; for girls, the most enchanting lurk/ In a dark crack where tufted satin grows†. The smooth roundness and blushing cheeks of our buttocks reminds him of the â€Å"painted cherub on a Baroque shrine† known for their adorable exposed buttocks that are as chubby as the cheeks on their innocent, angelic faces. The touch and appearance of its softness from afar excites the poet as it inspires him the meaning of liberation, â€Å"If only we were naked now, and free†. And at the end of the poem the poet even sounds aroused when he declares, ‘to watch our protruding parts align;/ To whisper – both of us – in ecstasy! †. Next I will analyze imagery. Rimbaud uses simple language to describe his emotions and responses to something we often keep private. As he begins with describing his habit of watching people urinating in private, he describes them as how he sees them with a touch of romanticism. The poet is descriptive in the physical attributes of the buttocks similar to if he were looking and describing a building, â€Å"I watched the architecture of our crotch/ Quite firm, in many cases, it owes its form to muscles, and a wickerwork/Of hairs†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . While others would feel embarrassed to look, let alone illustrate, the sight of another’s private parts, Rimbaud is unabashed, telling them as God’s enchanting work of art as he sees them as ‘touching and wonderful innocence†. It is interesting how Rimbaud uses a small reference for relief (urinating) and transforms them into a bigger and more profound imagery such as freedom of the soul. And as one openly exposes oneself with his buttock, we might as well go completely naked to experience the ultimate form of relief – spiritual liberation. Next I will discuss symbolism. On the surface level, Rimbaud’s buttock is extremely physical: one sees another urinating and the buttock is exposed for all to see, perhaps unintentionally. However, on a closer inspection, the buttock signifies an opportunity to be free, not just for the observed but also the observer. From just the mere sight of a person’s buttock, the poet is saying we are hiding something so marvelous and beautiful to behold, thus, let alone an entire body that would be even more marvelous to be shared, â€Å"Oh! If only we were naked now, and free/ To watch our protruding parts align†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . The buttock is an attribute we have behind us and that is constantly covered, like a best-kept secret. Yet it plays a crucial role for humans as it releases toxins from the body. And because it is always kept hidden, it becomes a wonder. And how we keep it â€Å"quite firm† or â€Å"a wickerwork of hairs†, is a reflection of who we are and our personality, much like a thumbprint. And thus, seeing glimpses of one’s crack is much like having a preview into one’s personality before you even get to know that person, and that creates another significant excitement for the poet. â€Å"Our assholes are different from theirs† reverberate a connotation of distinction. It is as if the poet is saying, â€Å"theirs† are different to mine. He describes the buttocks he sees and those of â€Å"young men† depicting them as filled with youth and â€Å"innocence†. And if he could stand naked among them, his bottom would be â€Å"whispering† to theirs – as if in humility – the joys and pleasure to be firm, carefree and adolescent again. There are no worries and no hassles in life, just liberation. This poem has an odd topic for discussion, yet it makes a lot of sense about wanting, needing, and appreciating freedom. And what is unique about its symbolism, is that the poet uses a simple concept to teach us about freedom from the simple act of urinating and relieving oneself. The problems we bottle inside us are similar to the urine we accumulate throughout the day. And as we operate in a cycle from drinking to urinating, we need to do employ the same method in other aspects of our lives. Yet we do not. Imagine if we had the same discipline with our problems and our life’s choices. We have the ability to purge out unnecessary â€Å"toxins† in our body such as hate, anger, tension, stress, frustration and sadness on a daily basis, we would be leading healthy lives and cancer would not exist. Silly as it sounds, the poem about our buttocks is a good reminder of the little pleasures in life we often take for granted. And poems such as this are a reminder of why Rimbaud was hailed a brilliant poet. He succeeds in bringing to life imagery and symbolism that would otherwise make no sense to us.

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Understand the Economic Concept of a Budget Line

The term budget line has several related meanings, including a couple that are self-evident and a third that is not. The Budget Line as an Informal Consumer Understanding   The budget line is an elementary concept that most consumers understand intuitively without a need for graphs and equations -- its the household budget, for example. Taken informally, the budget line describes the boundary of affordability for a given budget and specific goods. Given a limited amount of money, a consumer can only spend that same amount buying goods. If the consumer has X amount of money and wants to buy two goods A and B, she can only purchase goods totaling X. If the consumer needs an amount of A costing 0.75 X, she can then spend only .25 X, the amount remaining, on her purchase of B.   This seems almost too obvious to bother writing or reading about. As it turns out, however, this same concept -- one that most consumers make many times each day with reflecting on it -- is the basis of the more formal budget line concept in economics, which is explained below.   Lines in a Budget Before turning to the economics definition of budget line, consider another concept: the line-item budget. This is effectively a map of future expenditures, with all the constituent expenditures individually noted and quantified. Theres nothing very complicated about this; in this usage, a budget line is one of the lines in the budget, with the service or good to be purchased named and the cost quantified. The Budget Line as an Economics Concept   One of the interesting ways the study of economics relates to human behavior generally is that a lot of economic theory is the formalization of the kind of simple concept outlined above -- a consumers informal understanding of the amount she has to spend and what that amount will buy. In the process of formalization, the concept can be expressed as a mathematical equation that can be applied generally. A Simple Budget Line Graph To understand this, think of a graph where the vertical lines quantify how many movie tickets you can buy and where the horizontal lines do the same for crime novels. You like going to the movies and reading crime novels and you have $150 to spend. In the example below, assume that each movie costs $10 and each crime novel costs $15. The more formal economics term for these two items is budget set. If movies cost $10 each, then the maximum number of movies you can see with the money available is 15. To note this you make a dot at the number 15 (for total movie tickets) at the extreme left-hand side of the chart. This same dot appears at the extreme left above 0 on the horizontal axis because you have no money left for books -- the number of books available in this example is 0. You can also graph the other extreme -- all crime novels and no movies. Since crime novels in the example cost $15 and you have $150 available, if you spend all the available money crime novels, you can buy 10. So you put a dot on the horizontal axis at the number 10. Youll place the dot at the bottom of the vertical axis because in this instance you have $0 available for movie tickets. If you now draw a line from the highest, leftmost dot to the lowest, rightmost dot youll have created a budget line. Any combination of movies and crime novels that falls below the budget line is affordable. Any combination above it is not.

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Racism In The Movies Essay - 621 Words

Spike Lee’s, Do The Right Thing is a comtemporary look at racism in a ordinary city urban neighborhood. The movie is seen through the eyes of the main character, Mookey, we are shown the multiple relationships and often typical stereotypes of racial groups. This movies is filled with symbolism and imagery that feeds to the story’s plot. Throughout the movie, the scorching heat is always being refereed to. As the movie goes on , the heat rises. I think this is done to represent the increasing racial tension within the neighborhood. The movie uses many situations to paint a picture of the racial tension and inequality. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The main plot of the movie involves the relationship that a black neighborhood has with an†¦show more content†¦They are all blacks. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Yet a third conflict occurs between residents of the neighborhood and the Korean owners of convenience. Here there is a small language barrier that leads to some of the frustration. Another, larger part of the problem is that residents see the majority of the business in their (black) neighborhood as being owned by non blacks. This serves to create anger toward the owners of these business. The residents think that unfair that things are this way. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;A fourth incident occurs when a white male is walking his bike across the street and accidentally scuffs the kicks of one of the neighborhood blacks. The black guy get very upset because the white man did not apologize,and begins to chase after him. The black guy catches the white guy and starts to reprimand him and threatened him. The white man then responds by saying that the neighborhood is his. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The movie ends in a final confrotation at Sal’s in which the police are called and a local black resident of the neighborhood is killed by the police while they are trying to restrain him. This actoin by the police sets the other black residents off. 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