Addressing Nursing Shortage Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Addressing Nursing Shortage - Research Paper Example This essay discusses that prior to 1980s healthcare was solely a physician’s concern and certain problems like cardiac malfunctions were not considered problems until after symptoms were developed. This caused a lot of financial stress on the patients when they were treated at late stages of the disease. As a result of research it was suggested that care provided before the advent of symptoms can cost far less than the care provided after symptom development. Since then the trend of â€Å"Preventive Care† that is avoidance of disease or accident before it occurs, evolved. Managed care is the current concept for running a successful healthcare system which is a pre-planned treatment of the patient. In this system patient is considered as a client whose health is continually monitored and evaluated and treated accordingly. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) are examples of managed care system. This concept has entirely changed the healthcare scenario. The role of phy sicians and nurses has been redefined. According to World Health Organization, a commendable health care system is one which provides quality services to people in need. The components of a good health system vary from country to country, however the basic mechanisms like, adequate financing, well-trained physicians and medical staff, reliable information on which policies are made, fully-equipped facilities and delivery of quality medicine and modern technology to the patients should remain the same everywhere. The health care system of United States is one of the best systems in the world in terms of funding and modern technology usage but it is also characterized by a lack of central planning, direction and control. The system is a blend of public sector and private health providers. This system is highly decentralized and complex and on top of that costly services make it quite unaffordable for a certain population. Two major health insurance programs Medicaid and Medicare are f unded by the federal government. Medicaid is funded jointly by federal government and the states and it serves the low income and poor people. While Medicare is a federal government funded two-part program that cover hospital costs and few nursing home services and physician services respectively (Nagelkerk, 2006). Despite these efforts the rising health care costs have proved to be a significant hurdle in the betterment of the system. Many problems are faced by the U.S healthcare system, a major problem being the uninsured public. According to U.S Census Bureau the number of uninsured rose to 49.9 million in 2010 from 49.0 million in 2009. Another problem which we will study is the nursing shortage. The term refers to a situation where the professional nurses’ demand exceeds the supply. The phenomenon is observed both nationally and globally and in the developed and developing countries. The shortage can be measured in terms of nurse-patient population ratio. Nursing: A Brie f overview Caring for the sick and injured has been a centuries old tradition. It has evolved throughout the years from a domestic work to professional arena. Care is practiced in different ways in the world but United States has set an example for the rest of the world. Before we discuss modern care we take a look at the nursing history in the States. Nursing is an integral part of any health care system and it plays a significant part in attaining patient care outcomes. The nurses care for the patients, work in collaboration with the medical team and assess and treat the problems. The nursing work force mainly includes director of nursing (DON), registered nurses (RNs), Licensed practical nurses (LPNs), certified nurse assistant (CNA) and other staff such as aides, orderlies and personal care attendants (Buerhaus, Auerbach, & Steiger, 2009). Following chart shows the percentage breakdown of nursing facility employees in various categories (American Health Care

Censorship is a form of protection Essay Example for Free

Censorship is a form of protection Essay Censorship applies to magazines, videos, films, radio, music, computer games and television. Censorship is a form of protection, instead of stopping you from being robbed like the police force, censorship protects you and your families from pornographic, violent, bloody, rude, vulgar and racist programming. It regulates the broadcasting time of programmes with adult content after the 9oclock-water shed so viewers of a younger age such as small children hopefully will not see the programme. It stops the extreme programmes such as hard core porn violent films where the gore is to extreme. Thats what censorship does now imagine television without censorship you could be flicking through the channels and neighbours could be on one the weakest link on two and f**k fest on three a nice hardcore porn film for the little ones to watch when they get home from school. Without censorship anything would go any time, So lets have a look at whats on without censorship, the Teletubbies could have great big battles with each other or go hunting and shoot the rabbits and on an educational note they could demonstrate how to skin and gut the rabbits for the kids at home. Later on in the day the Weakest Link could become the nude Weakest Link where Anne Robinson could prance about in a PVC catsuite and give a good old SM style spanking to the person voted the Weakest link, and I dont think any body wants to Anne Robinson in the Buff? Later on now comes the news which could broadcast news on a what happened in Afghanistan before the war, they could have show live battles between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance where men get limbs blown off, mutated bodies of captured prisoners and worse not something you would really want to watch real people really dying over tea or any other time for that matter. At about 7:30 say a do it yourself programme presented by Carol Smiley where you dab your hand at DIY torture with expert guidance from Laurence Llewelyn Bowen who shows you how to keep your victim alive for as long as possible while giving the maximum amount of pain, although having a room designed by him would be torture enough. Now at 8:00 we have time for a nice wholesome hardcore porn film before the kids go to bed. People like Osama Bin Ladin could give speeches on television saying how he was going to destroy America the Jews Britain and everyone whose not Muslim. Although this is extreme it what could happen without censorship. Censorship upholds the moral fabric of society. It stops extreme programming being aired on British television. The question is do you want young children being able to view programmes which are unsuitable for them which would scare them give them nightmares having them cry at the sight of a mutilated human body on tv watching porn and asking their parents what does f**k mean and whats a ****. Young childrens minds are impressionable and we should do what we can to protect them from certain things until they are old enough to understand it to be able to sleep well without thinking some psychos at their window waiting to burst in with a chain saw and massacre them. Do you want to watch porn? Then watch Television X or by a porn film, which stops children from watching these types of programmes. Without censorship anything would go and it would be absolutely legal. Without censorship we would allow the decay of our society. Censorship does not hide you from the real world but simply takes the edge off by not allowing certain things to be viewed in their full detail before 9 or on television where most people do not wish to see the extreme programmes such as hardcore porn. But allows the specialist things to be purchased on video where people buy the video knowing full well the type of material it contains.

Negative Effects of Violent Video Games on Teenagers Essay examples --

Video games have been available to consumers for the last 30 years. They are a unique form of entertainment, because they encourage players to become a part of the game's script. Today's sophisticated video games require players to pay constant attention to the game, rather than passively watching a movie. My working thesis is â€Å" Although there are other factors that can lead to violent behaviors such as inner stress, playing violent video games are one of the main factors that can lead to violent behavior in teens relationships†. For the categorizing exercise, I brainstormed for the charting using some of the examples we hold in class. I found three main classifications to divide my evidence based on. Those categorizes are background of author, for and against, and type of evidence. The most important categorizes for my final paper is the background of the author, and for / against. The authors of both articles have an academic specialty background in the study of violence causes in teenagers. Although the two authors have two opposing opinions. The first one is Craig Anderson, got a PHD in psychology in Iowa state university wrote an article entitled â€Å"The Influence of Media Violence on Youthâ€Å", supported my working thesis about the harming effect of violent video games. He stated that violent video games increase levels of aggression in teenagers. He stated his argument based on his observations which claims that teenagers spend most of their times in front of games. He found out that when reducing the exposure to violent video games, teenagers tend to lessen the violent behavior. When I read more about this point from some other resources, I found out that there is another clear explanation to this claim. The main direction of... ...idn’t give anything. He found that those who played violent video games lack academic skills in reading and math. He concluded through his study that violent video games affects teenagers’ academic life too. I see that violent video game consumes so much time from teens’ lives that it drains their energies to lessen their concentration. As a conclusion, I found the charting exercise very useful to write the evaluating essay. I ended up with four main categories. The most important two are mixed together which are categories by for/against and background of author. Then I introduced the categories by the type of evidence and by effects. I found out that there are many counter argument for all categorizes, which gave me the space to argue for my working thesis. I reached that I have a good start based on the unique significant classification for my final paper.

Bmgt 488 Chp 8 Exercise 6

Page 286-287 6. You have prepared the following schedule for a project in which the key resource is a backhoe. This schedule is contingent on having 3 backhoes. You receive a call from your partner, Brooker, who desperately needs 1 of your backhoes. You tell Brooker you would be willing to let him have the backhoe if you are still able to complete your project in 11 months. Develop a resource schedule in the loading chart that follows to see if it is possible to complete the project in 11 months with only 2 backhoes.Be sure to record the order in which you schedule the activities using scheduling heuristics. Activities 5 and 6 require 2 backhoes, while activities 1, 2, 3 and 4 require 1 backhoe. No splitting of activities is possible. Can you say yes to Brooker’s request? Legend |ES |ID |EF | |SL |RES |SL | |LS |DUR |LF | RESOURCE | | |Schedule the resources load chart with ES and Slack updates | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ID |RES |DUR |ES |LF |SL | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |1 | | | | | | | | | | | |1 |1 |1 |0 |5 |4 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |2 |1 |2 |0 |3 |1 |1 |1 | | | | | | | | | | | | |3 |1 |3 |0 |3 |0 |1 |1 |1 | | | | | | | | | | | |4 |1 |2 |2 |7 |3 | | | | | | | |1 |1 | | | | | |5 |2 |4 |3 |7 |0 | | | |2 |2 |2 | | | | | | | | |6 |2 |2 |7 |9 |0 | | | | | | | | | |2 |2 | | | RESOURCES SCHEDULES |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |1 |1 |2 |2 | | | |RESOURCES AVAILABLE |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 |2 | | Yes, you can give Brooker one backhoe, however, you have increased the risk of being late if a delay should occur. List the order in which your activities were scheduled. (3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 6)

Examples of Innovative Products and Services

1. Objective Identify current issues and areas of improvement for small business banking in Canada Recommend innovative banking products 3. Examples of Innovative Products and Services Innovation Country Term Loans New Zealand Financing Products Diversity Loans U. S. Remote Deposit Capture U. S. Customer Customer Feedback Program, New Zealand Experience Online Banking Community Canada, U. S. Employee Benefit Programs U. S. Benefit Programs Priority Banking U. S. Foreign Exchange Order Watch Service Australia Factoring Canada Products Loans/Mortgages for Green Business Canada, UK, U. S. , Greece â€Å"Think Card† UK Green Business Treasurers Reserve Account UK Green Business Advisory Support Canada Category 2. Research Methods and Scope Official websites, professional reports, market surveys, government studies Domestic and international banks and credit unions (Canada, US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand) 4. SWOT Analysis Strength †¢ Advertisement capabilities †¢ Familiarity with innovations †¢ Scales of network allowing piloting †¢ Difficulty with business process changes †¢ Difficulty satisfying small business needs †¢ Promote diversity loans †¢ Promote green products . Gap Analysis Gap analysis reveals potential solutions for the bank to fulfill customer requirements Most of the potential solutions can be categorized as â€Å"Social Responsibility Products† 6. Recommendations Weakness Opportunity Threat A comprehensive social responsibility program includes: Loans to support local economies Loans to support w omen, youth, immigrant and disabled entrepreneurs Banking products to encourage and finance projects that contribute to environmental sustainability 7. References & Acknowledgements A point system to demonstrate recognition and appreciation for small business customers that share social values of the bank â€Å"Green Products for Commercial Banking Customers†, Business Banking Board, †¢ Competitors going for Catalogue Number: BBB17TXCXH. Small Business Financing. [Online]. Canadian Bankers Association. A kick-off marketing campaign to promote the new program and a [2010, Oct. 20] website dedicated to providing information for the program †¢ Losing customers to foreign We thank Prof. J. C. Paradi for providing us this valuable opportunity to work with a real client on an industrial project and Dr. J. Farvolden for guidance and advice Continuous cost/benefit analysis for products in the program and exchange companies along the way. We thank the Client for providing this project and supporting us with relevant information. We thank everyone who put in effort to make this changes as needed to match the social responsibility theme project available for us and wish the best for your future endeavors.

analyse the key points for 4 articles Essay

Critically evaluate/analyse the key points for 4 articles Essay Critically evaluate/analyse the key points for 4 articles – Essay Example Expatriate Management An organization requires an appropriate choice of expatriate personnel to help in achieving its goals. There are various records of expatriate failure where an expatriate on assignment underperforms and is sent back home. The major causes of expatriate failures have been the inability to adapt to the new physical or cultural environment, family problems, inappropriate selection practices, inadequate preparation and training and the challenges inherent in expatriation (Anderson 2007, p3). HR should help in hiring and managing expatriates to reduce on expatriate failure. According to Anderson, management tends always choose se competent candidates. However, attributes that lead the to the domestic candidates’ success may not necessarily make them a success internationally. The social and technical calibers of candidates are usually of significance when candidates are being screened for jobs (Huo, Huang thus, fitting in the organization’s culture (Huo et al. 2002, p.33). Another research conducted at Telebank also proved that selecting individuals to work in call centers also laid emphasis on social competencies. They HRM department s sought people with exemplary communication skills to work in call centers (Callagan 2002, p. 250). The mail survey of 1,713 Western business expatriates in Hong Kong indicated that a spouse accompaniment did not improve expatriate adjustment to new cultural environment or psychological well-being; thus, ruling out the fact that the spouses were responsible for expatriate failure. Research from private and nongovernmental sectors indicate that interpersonal skills and domestic circumstances were put in consideration while assigning expatriates though most of the organizations are known to have used technical competence or merit as a selection criterion (Anderson 2007, p6). Other methods used by organizations in expatriate selection include psychological assessment and residential training programs, interviews, work history and performance in previous and current positions, reference checking and qualifications. Common with international practice, the use of psychological testing is not widespread in the private sector organizations. Several companies have resorted to use technology in Human resource practices such as personnel screening and selection. The good thing with the use of technology is that it saves cost of money and time. Another advantage is globalization of the economy and labor market. In this way, an organization can obtain bright employees regardless of the geographical setting. It also helps reduce biasness in the selection basing on issues such as race, age and weight due to use of standardized HR system. Studies also revealed that fresh graduates from schools had better chances of being employed compared to those who had acquired experience in the industry (Huo et al. 2002, p. 41). In conclusion, a person’s ability to perform technical requirement of the job is mostly used in different countries similarly to a personal interview in hiring expatriates. The human resource manager though ought to be sensitive to the different types of cultures in order to enhance globalization of the organization in terms of expatriate management (Chapman and Webster 2003). Bibliography Barbara, AA 2005, Expatriate selection: good management or good luck? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(4), 567-583 Chapman, DS 1999, Expanding the search for talent: Adopting Technology-based strategies for campus recruiting and selection. Journal of Cooperative Education, 34, 35–41. Callagan, G 2002, We Recruit Atittude: The Selection and Shaping of Routine Call Center Labour. Journal of Management Studies 39(2), 233-254 Huo, YP, Huang, HP & Napier, NK 2002, Divergence or convergence: A cross-national comparison of personnel selection practices. Human Resource 42(1), 31–44. .

Prepare yourself for your upcoming internship

Prepare yourself for your upcoming internship Are you on the cusp of starting a new internship? If so, then congratulations- this can be an amazing opportunity for self-discovery and an important step in your lifelong career journey. Simply put, internships are great ways to explore your professional strengths and weaknesses, and can help you target your interests and passions- hopefully helping to guide you onto the career path that best suits you. That said, not all internships- or interns- are created equal. While some make every effort to put their best self forward and approach the internship as if it were an ultra-important full-time job, others take a less serious approach- and take a guess which type of intern typically fares better? That said, how have you decided to approach your upcoming internship? If you’re smart, you’ll prepare yourself in advance as much as possible in an effort to make a great impression. Who knows- if you really nail it, you just may find yourself weighing a great new job offer at the end of it!Consider using the following plan of attack to help ensure that your internship starts off strong.Do your homeworkBefore your first day at your new internship, make sure you know everything there is to know about the company you’re about to join. Most companies these days have a robust online presence, so take advantage of available information online. Not only will it help you do your job more effectively, it will likely impress the folks you’ll be working around. It may even serve as a springboard for bold new ideas that you can use to wow your new boss- and who knows what can happen from there?Also do your best to be fully aware of what your role in the organization will be, what will be expected of you from day one, and what your team or department does within the broader context of the organization (ideally, you used the interview process to have all of these questions answered). This will help reduce any awkward surprises on day one of your internsh ip, and also set you up to impress your new bosses when you’re able to hit the ground running when you first arrive.Know yourselfAs mentioned before, internships are a great way to learn about your strengths and weaknesses and discover what you’re interested in and good at. That said, you already know a great deal about yourself and can use what you know to your advantage at your new position. Make sure your strengths are on full display while at work. Are you a whiz at spreadsheets? Then do your best to set yourself up to work on any spreadsheets that your department utilizes. Have countless presentations in class made you a PowerPoint pro? Then volunteer to work on any PowerPoints that you discover are being worked on while at your internship. Not only will you come across as a team player who’s willing to go the extra mile, you’ll hopefully impress others with your abilities.In contrast, try to work on building your skills in your week areas subtly whi le at your internship. Take small opportunities to test yourself and confront new challenges- before long you’ll be more well-rounded and capable at work than ever before!Get professionalThis one often gets overlooked by interns, and they wind up paying the price when they arrive at work and aren’t completely ready. Get into a professional mindset before your internship starts and you’ll be setting yourself up for success. This includes getting an appropriate work wardrobe ready, practicing your workplace etiquette (here’s where a parent, mentor, or experienced friend or family member can really help), getting any supplies you might need, and even practicing getting up early for several days beforehand- you’ll be surprised by how a little advance planning to get yourself into professional mode can really benefit you in the long run.If you’re on the cusp of starting a new internship, it can be a really exciting time- as long as you prepare sm artly. Use the strategies and advice presented here to be your best starting on day one. Soak it in- this is the time for you to explore a profession or a company to see if it’s a great match. Use it wisely!

The Right Climate

The Right Climate The Right Climate The Right Climate By Sharon With some words, a single letter can completely change the meaning. Take the letter c and the words climactic and climatic. Theres not much difference in spelling and the words even sound the same, but theres a world of difference in meaning. Climactic Climactic comes from the word climax. This has to do with the progression of events, in which the climactic moment is the moment of greatest intensity. Its that point in a serial killer thriller where it looks like the villain is going to win out against the hero. Its that point when feelings are at their highest. It can also be used to indicate a pivotal moment in history. Example: The climactic moment in the early history of man came when our ancestors left the trees and began to walk on the ground. Climatic Climatic on the other hand is all about the climate. If you can use the word weather, then climatic is the word you want. Example: Severe climatic conditions led to snow storms in July. Putting It All Together Now you know the difference, it is easy to tell that the climatic conditions of the Ice Age represented the climactic period of the age of the dinosaurs. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How to Punctuate References to Dates and TimesCapitalization Rules for Names of Historical Periods and MovementsComment, Suggestion, and Feedback

Narritive about a short story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Narritive about a short story - Essay Example al Scout had come to Farquhar’s house for a drink of water and he informed him that anyone who was found causing problems would be caught and hanged. When Farquhar inquires if there was any force on the other side of the creek, the soldier answers him saying, - â€Å"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the rail road and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.† â€Å"All is fair in love and war† is a very famous saying and unfortunately Farquhar finds himself with a noose around his neck, at the gallows, surrounded by officers with their rifles in hand. Under the plank on which he stood, he could see the water rushing wildly in a frenzy. As the noose was put around his neck, he had a sense of foreboding as his mind raced back to his loving family at home. He felt a sense of helplessness as the noose tightened about his neck and his body dropped into the racing water. As Peyton plummeted to the depths with pulsating speed, he felt he was almost dead. He oscillated like a pendulum between life and death, as he struggled for breath. The light which had grown dimmer as he went down, now seemed brighter as he found himself rising towards the surface and thought, -"To be hanged and drowned, is not so bad; ; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair." What seemed like superhuman strength he managed to relieve himself of the ropes that bound him. Undoing the noose around his neck, he gasped for breath. He was ecstatic to be alive. He reveled in the beauty of his surroundings – the trees the stream, the insects, the dewdrops on the glass and the prismatic colors that floated all around him. Suddenly, all at once, he found bullets whizzing past and hitting the water and saw the sentinels aiming their rifles straight at him from across the bridge. He heard the lieutenant’s dreaded, cruel and aspirated chant ordering, -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Company! . . . Attention! . . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!" he was being hunted

Final Global Media writing task Final Exam 500 words Essay

Final Global Media writing task Final Exam 500 words - Essay Example I learnt that digital media for instance the internet, has played a major role in simplification of worldwide transmission of information. Internet is easily accessible in most parts of the world and therefore provides a platform for easy transmission of information in numerous parts of the world instantaneously. In the course Global Media Trends, I had the chance of acquainting myself with various issues pertaining global media presently. For instance, I realized that despite solving the problem of information transmission, global media continues to face challenges. The project on, â€Å"The growth in the concentration of media ownership around the world: A Case Study of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp†, presented me with a chance to realize one of the current problems facing global media. The problem of media monopoly in the ownership of media leads to unethical practices. Media in a very critical part of the society and any unethical practices would lead to sabotage of societal rights. Through this course, I learned various ways in which developments in global media have simplified ways of sharing information throughout the world. The group assignment about online activism in particular widened my knowledge on how improvements in technology have made a great contribution in global media. Through online activism, it is possible to pass various messages to many people throughout the world. For instance, one is able to create awareness regarding an issue like pollution by publishing information online. The YouTube assignment made me realize how advancements in global media have contributed improvement of the education sector. Through YouTube, students can share education videos with their colleagues. Others get the chance of accessing scholarly videos at no cost. This course made me realize that, advancements in the global media, apart from

Personal Protective Equipment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Personal Protective Equipment - Essay Example For the purpose employers plan and execute a Health, Safety and Environmental (HS&E) Policy for its organization that monitors and assesses process, material, product, working environment, premise for identification, elimination and future prevention of a hazard. This is done through elimination of a potential hazard through substitution or reducing its impact through engineering and administrative controls. Controlling a hazard at the source is the best way to protect the employees. Substitution method involves replacing an ingredient / material use in the process or a machine with a less dangerous one. Engineering control involves building a barrier between the employees and the hazard through enclosure, isolation and ventilation (ILO, n.d.). Administrative control limits the amount of time an employee spends at a hazardous job by changing work schedules, providing longer rest period or shorter work shifts, or shifting hazardous work process where limited people would be exposed. T his measure reduces exposure time and does not eliminate the hazard. If all control measures fail then employer must provide their employees with appropriate PPE, along with training for usage, cleaning & maintenance of (CCOHS, 2011). PPE is worn to minimize exposure to a hazard and does not in any way reduce the hazard itself. Hence they are considered as the last resort / choice in control measures. A very common workplace hazard is noise pollution experienced on account of repair / maintenance being conducted nearby or in the same building on near floors or even on the same floor in an adjacent room. Usually employer provide ear plugs or muffs (PPE) as a common control measure assuming that the discomfort / hazard is temporary and would be eliminated once the repair work is done. Wearing hearing protection reduces the noise and likelihood of hearing damage however does not in any way

Abbey Properties Limited in Recession Dissertation

Abbey Properties Limited in Recession - Dissertation Example Model of Entrepreneurial Strategies used by Abbey Properties Limited The literature review mentioned four possible entrepreneurial approaches that small and medium sized firms in United Kingdom use during a recession. Despite the fact that the case of Abbey properties limited did not appear to be fitting completely in any of these four categories, it was somewhere between the â€Å"Migrating Geese† and Lambs to Slaughter† model with a greater inclination towards the former. Without any doubts, Abbey was far away from being the â€Å"Hibernating Beers† since it did not shut its operations. In fact, the recession hit the United Kingdom in the second quarter of 2007 and the company’s financial statements did not show any signs of a recession for the year 2007. In fact, there was no need for an emergency up until the start of 2010. Even that the company was faced with a period where there were no sales at all for the company, it did not shut its operations or went into the hibernation mode. In fact, there are also no signs that the company had fired any employees, shrank in terms of size, shut down its offices or any others. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the company did not also fit the description of â€Å"Sensible Squirrels†. In fact, it is important here to note is that many small and medium sized organizations in United Kingdom and United States are least likely to fit into the description of â€Å"Sensible Squirrels†. ... In fact, there are also no signs that the company had fired any employees, shrank in terms of size, shut down its offices or any others (Landstrom, pp. 160, 2009). Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the company did not also fit the description of â€Å"Sensible Squirrels†. In fact, it is important here to note is that many small and medium sized organizations in United Kingdom and United States are least likely to fit into the description of â€Å"Sensible Squirrels†. Many of these companies operate on a day-to-day, week-to-week or monthly basis (Buckley, pp. 69-71, 2011; Stokes, Wilson & Mador, pp. 26, 2010). This is exactly what differentiates them from large organizations. Big corporations and companies are more likely to have a vision, mission, clear and well defined strategy with long-term plans. On the other hand, small and medium sized organizations are more likely to look at the short term opportunities and challenges and due to their limited, scope, financ ing, funding, resources and others, they will restrict themselves to the â€Å"wait and watch† zone (Weale, pp. 5, 2009; Stokes, Wilson & Mador, pp. 26, 2010). This explains why every year, thousands of small and medium sized business go bankrupt or they announce closure because of their short-term mentality. Gone are the days when businesses had the chance to have short term or reactive mindset. The macroenvironment is quickly changing that firms, which take more than a while to react, find themselves having outclassed by their competitors in every possible way (Arestis, Sobreira & Oreiro, pp. 201-202, 2011). The interviews with the Director and General Manager of Abbey Properties did indicate that the

Why is implementation so difficult Discuss Essay

Why is implementation so difficult Discuss - Essay Example ills, there is need for cross-functional expertise and efforts, because the management team and strategic thinker may not have cross functional excellence. Instead, the changes should be implemented gradually, starting with the skills that can be learned and mastered easily. For instance a thinking and action system is whereby an organization is made up of interdependent elements, which must be considered. Changing one thing may not be enough and may have a ripple effect which affects other elements, including organizational arrangement, technology, individual behavior and social factors. Because a business needs to be seen as a ‘whole’, implementation should take care of connected elements as a whole (Lazin 86). Additionally, strategic motivation should be implemented to ensure that enthusiastic participation of inspired organization officials. In spite of the strategic motivation, the officials should adapt with times considering that the rapidly changing environment makes past strategic options obsolete. In turn the officials should revise strategy continuously, gain knowledge from feed back and reassess past decisions. However, failure to assess sources of internal resistance occurs because forces of inertia are underestimated. According to Knaap (269), decision makers should therefore conduct broad research to obtain as much knowledge as possible to be used in designing a policy, understanding and identifying best implementation approaches. The alternatives should be tested to identify the cost effective, review the impact of different approaches, learning from testing enabled implementers to launch policies with and time quick time table that will speed up implementation. Consequently, they should develop an implementation plan which will specify the roles, responsibilities and dead line for implementers. In order for the decision makers to manage barriers to change, there is need to identify potential resistance from people responsible for

Discuss with examples the sociolinguistic notions of linguistic Essay

Discuss with examples the sociolinguistic notions of linguistic heterogeneity and linguistic homogeneity in the speech community - Essay Example First of all, let us define sociolinguistic notions of a speech community, linguistic heterogeneity and linguistic homogeneity and then proceed to the examples of linguistic heterogeneity and linguistic homogeneity in a speech community within the context of sociolinguistics. It must be noted that the definition of speech community sparks controversy among notable linguists to date. Early definitions of a speech community proceeded from the basis that a speech community is a group of people residing within the area of compact settlement, which is densely inhabited by those who share the same vernacular language and tend to use the same standardized language for communication. According to the notable American linguist, William Labov, who is regarded to be the father of such discipline as variationist sociolinguistics, a speech community is a group of people who share the same language norms that do not depend on social context changes.1 However, it is important to understand that the dependence of a language on social processes can be manifested in a set of different language subsystems (i.e. forms of existence and functioning of a specific language), bilingualism or diglossia, availability or nonexistence of a written language, language policy, etc. These are important but not exclusive manifestations of the connection between a language and conditions of its functioning. Lexicon, grammatical structure and the evolution of linguistic styles exert a substantial influence upon the use of language within a speech community as well. A speech community tends to share a certain set of norms of the language use, which is manifested in the process of communication within the framework of a certain group of people who are bounded by the same lifestyle, profession, interests or represent the same social stratum, which resulted in a long-term delusion, according to which a speech community is always characterized by linguist ic homogeneity. However,

Why is implementation so difficult Discuss Essay

Why is implementation so difficult Discuss - Essay Example ills, there is need for cross-functional expertise and efforts, because the management team and strategic thinker may not have cross functional excellence. Instead, the changes should be implemented gradually, starting with the skills that can be learned and mastered easily. For instance a thinking and action system is whereby an organization is made up of interdependent elements, which must be considered. Changing one thing may not be enough and may have a ripple effect which affects other elements, including organizational arrangement, technology, individual behavior and social factors. Because a business needs to be seen as a ‘whole’, implementation should take care of connected elements as a whole (Lazin 86). Additionally, strategic motivation should be implemented to ensure that enthusiastic participation of inspired organization officials. In spite of the strategic motivation, the officials should adapt with times considering that the rapidly changing environment makes past strategic options obsolete. In turn the officials should revise strategy continuously, gain knowledge from feed back and reassess past decisions. However, failure to assess sources of internal resistance occurs because forces of inertia are underestimated. According to Knaap (269), decision makers should therefore conduct broad research to obtain as much knowledge as possible to be used in designing a policy, understanding and identifying best implementation approaches. The alternatives should be tested to identify the cost effective, review the impact of different approaches, learning from testing enabled implementers to launch policies with and time quick time table that will speed up implementation. Consequently, they should develop an implementation plan which will specify the roles, responsibilities and dead line for implementers. In order for the decision makers to manage barriers to change, there is need to identify potential resistance from people responsible for

Jewish History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Jewish History - Essay Example These immigrations are similar in their ways of adapting in new countries, but they had differences in reasons of immigration and challenges and experiences in their new countries. Enduring Understanding These two Jewish populations differed in challenges and experiences in their new countries, with the Jews in Babylon faring better than the Ethiopian Jews in Israel, even when they both experienced comparatively equal human rights in their new countries. In Babylon, Jews hated being separated from their homeland, but they flourished as merchants and professionals (Hooker). They enjoyed many of the liberties provided to local Babylonians, such as owning land, freedom to practice Judaism, and acquiring wealth (Hooker). They prospered significantly due to the extensive trade routes that existed in this region (Moss). In Israel, the Ethiopian Jews generally experienced intense poverty, due to poor Hebrew/English language skills and lack of employability skills (â€Å"Ethiopia's Jews: Th e Last Exodus†). These Jews came from agricultural communities and were forced to rapidly assimilate into a cosmopolitan lifestyle and economic structure (Chen). Ethiopian Jews also suffered from discrimination, because some Jews questioned their â€Å"Jewishness† (â€Å"Ethiopia's Jews: The Last Exodus†). ... The situation became more depressing throughout the early 1980's. The state demanded forced conscription at the age of 12, which separated many Jewish boys away from their parents (â€Å"The History of Ethiopian Jews†). Furthermore, Ethiopian Jews feared the threats of war, famine, and unbearable health conditions (â€Å"The History of Ethiopian Jews†). The pull factors of their migration came from Israel and the U.S., which wanted to save them and bring them to Israel. In 1977, Prime Minister Menachem Begin wanted the Ethiopian Jews to immigrate to Israel (â€Å"Ethnic Groups: Ethiopian Jews†). For the Jews who were deported to Babylon, they faced pull factors. The Chaldeans, as they pursued similar Mesopotamian practice, deported the Jews after they subdued Jerusalem in 597 BC. Hence, they suffered exile that led to their Diaspora. Despite feelings of discrimination, both the Ethiopian Jews and Jews in Babylonian exile persevered through learning their new coun try’s language and adapting to their culture. The Ethiopian Jews learned Hebrew and English and adapted practices and skills that enabled them to live and work in the city (Chen). Their children studied in Israelite schools and some successfully finished school and became prominent political and social leaders (Chen). In Babylon, the Jews adopted the Chaldean religion. In both cases, the Ethiopian and Babylonian Jews contributed to the socio-economic and cultural diversity of their new countries, although some feared that Ethiopian Jews never truly fit into Israel’s way of life, because their poverty (Chen). Comparison of the Immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel and

Terrorism and Ordinary People Essay Example for Free

Terrorism and Ordinary People Essay How to Defeat Terrorism Terrorism is a tactic used by a small set of extremists to fight against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent while surrounded by a large population that mostly just wants peace and quiet. Terrorism can be defeated. To do this, ï ¬ rst we need to understand how terrorists are kept away in the best case, then how terrorists can ï ¬ ght against this mechanism, and ï ¬ nally what works and what doesn’t work to foil those aims. The Thin Blue Line Although terrorists are not merely criminals, it is helpful to think about what keeps criminals under control in our society. Ask any police ofï ¬ cer: it is not the police and the courts who keep criminals at bay. It is the society as a whole. It is the ordinary people who call the police when they hear a problem starting. It is the ordinary people who trust the police and cooperate with them to bring criminals to justice. The â€Å"thin blue line† only works when it is backed up by the vast majority of ordinary people. This, by the way, is why police brutality is so damaging to law and order in our society. If ordinary people lose trust in the police, they won’t call and they won’t cooperate. If they fear that calling the police to quiet down a loud party could result in their neighbors’ kids being shot dead, they won’t call. And they also won’t cooperate in more serious cases. Without community backup, the â€Å"thin blue line† starts to feel very thin indeed. And criminals become bolder. Law Enforcement Executive Forum †¢ 2006 †¢ 6(5) 189 Likewise with terrorists. Terrorists are defeated when the large majority of the community feels that they can trust the local authorities to maintain law and order and work for the common good. Then, ordinary people will turn the terrorists in to the authorities when, or even before, they strike. The Unabomber was an insane but highly intelligent man living alone in the woods, writing a manifesto, and killing and maiming people with mail bombs. After his manifesto was published, he was turned in to the FBI by his brother, who recognized the writing and made the correct but agonizing decision to be loyal to society over blood. We can only wish that a relative or neighbor of Timothy McVeigh had been in a position to make a similar decision before he struck in Oklahoma City. In even the best, most civilized, law-abiding society one can imagine, there will be small numbers of extremists tempted by terrorist tactics. Ideally, the vast majority of people will see them as marginal nut-cases and will report them to trusted authorities if they show signs of turning extreme ideas into dangerous action. Terrorist acts can never be totally eliminated, but a cohesive community that trusts its authorities can defeat a continuing terrorist movement. One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s Freedom-Fighter But what if the society is not civilized? What if the authorities are hated and feared rather than trusted? Then, the true terrorist can always ï ¬ nd support and hiding places among sympathizers who are not willing to become terrorists themselves but are not willing to support the authorities either. The terrorists’ best strategy is to drive a wedge between the people and the authorities. Then, the â€Å"thin blue line† becomes thinner and weaker. The ordinary people, or at least some of them, protect and support those they see as ï ¬ ghting for freedom, religious faith, patri otism, or some other deep value, against overwhelming odds. The biggest danger to the terrorist is the trust the people have in the authorities. As that trust is weakened or destroyed, the terrorists gain strength and freedom of action. Their primary goal must be to eliminate the trust between the people and the authorities. How can they act most effectively to eliminate that trust? Here is where the meaning of terrorist violence is often misunderstood. The classic terrorist act is to blow up some innocent victims, but the actual destruction is not the goal, in a military sense. There is a symbolic goal of showing that the more-powerful enemy can be touched and deeply harmed, but even that is not the real goal. The real goal is to provoke massive retaliation. The tiny group of terrorists who actually committed the act may escape entirely, may take casualties, or may even be entirely destroyed, but the larger terrorist movement feeds on the retaliation. The important thing (from the terrorists’ perspective) is for the massive retaliation to harm many people in the general population, even among their own supporters. The point is to incite the authorities to act in a way that erodes the people’s trust in them. The people lose trust; the terrorists are seen as freedom-ï ¬ ghters; and they gain support, cover, strength, and freedom of action. From the terrorists’ perspective, the more horrible the original strike, the better, since it will provoke a more drastic retaliation. And the more horrible the retaliation, the better, since it will destroy the people’s trust in the authorities and strengthen the terrorists. From the terrorists’ perspective, the actual damage to their own people is a beneï ¬ t, not a cost, of terrorist action. Those Who Do Not Learn from History Are Condemned to Repeat It Sadly, case studies of this strange dynamic are easy to come by, once you realize what to look for. Israel-Palestine The Israeli-Palestinian conï ¬â€šict is a textbook case. There is no military beneï ¬ t to a suicide bomber killing people at a cafe, a wedding, or on a bus. The beneï ¬ t to Hamas comes from the massive retaliation, killing the innocent along with the guilty, bulldozing homes and farms, and creating major economic hardship for the large masses of Palestinians who would gladly live in pea ce with Israel. Israel pegs the price of peace to stopping the terrorists, which ordinary Palestinians have no way of doing. And the immediate impact of the retaliation is to solidify hatred against the Israelis. (We’re long past the point of talking about â€Å"trust† here.) So, Hamas has reached the successful point of being able to provoke the Israeli Army to act to build up its strength among the Palestinians. The vicious cycle in that region is that hardliners in Israel use precisely the same method. When Israeli extremists create new settlements in Palestinian territory or commit terrorist acts against ordinary Palestinians, they provoke the strongest retaliation the Palestinians are capable of, which is more suicide bombers to slaughter innocents among the ordinary people of Israel. This eliminates any trust in the Palestinian authorities (small a) and solidiï ¬ es hatred against Palestine. This elegant pair of mutually reinforcing feedback cycles strengthens terrorism on both sides and makes the chances for peace remote. Iraq Now let’s think about Iraq. Terrorists strike U.S. troops, provoking retaliation. The retaliation almost certainly involves collateral damage, eroding trust in Americans and inï ¬â€šaming hatred. By now, this cycle should look familiar. The terrorists’ goal is the erosion of trust in the U.S. authorities and our attempt to rebuild Iraq, even more than physical destruction. It’s hard to imagine Al Qaeda coming up with something more effective than the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison for destroying the trust of the ordinary Iraqi people in the civil authority of the U.S. troops. Because this abuse does such direct strategic damage to our mission in Iraq, the soldiers directly involved must be punished, of course, but so should the entire chain of command. Since our overall mission explicitly requires winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, it is military professional malpractice to fail to anticipate the pressures on the front-line troops and put discipline in place to prevent such abuse. This abuse is due to more than â€Å"a few bad apples,† but even if it were only that, a military commander is responsible for knowing that a few soldiers may be â€Å"bad apples† and having controls in place to prevent them from acting out. The decapitation of Nick Berg was a miscalculation on the terrorists’ part. (They aren’t all geniuses either, of course!) Ordinary Iraqis were revolted and offended by having this crime done in their name. Furthermore, the decapitation took attention away from the Abu Ghraib pictures, which were doing real damage to the U.S. cause. We could still save their cookies by some sort of massive retaliation, but the responsible authorities seem to be handling this in a more controlled way. Finding and prosecuting the speciï ¬ c individuals involved and their accomplices would strengthen the U.S. position signiï ¬ cantly. There are signs that not all the news from Iraq is bad. First, there is measurable progress in restoring the Iraqi infrastructure and providing water, sewers, electricity, oil pipelines, local government, and eventually jobs. [This is where the real war is fought. The soldiers are mostly there to keep the bad guys from interfering with the engineers and t heir work.] Second, the ordinary people of Najf have demonstrated against the religious extremists and in favor of the moderates and of course in favor of peace and quiet. 9/11 This view of terrorists, retaliation, and trust also helps us understand the terrible events of 9/11 and who has proï ¬ ted from the aftermath. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the murder of 3,000 people was a horrifying act that devastated the victims’ families and shook the economy for a while. The symbolic impact on the United States and its effect on our national confidence was massive, but from a military perspective, the blow was not signiï ¬ cant. Compare it with the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, which crippled the Paciï ¬ c ï ¬â€šeet as we entered a war with Japan. Osama bin Laden’s purpose for the 9/11 attack was (and is) to provoke massive retaliation from the United States against Islam. He hoped that our retaliation would ï ¬ nally unite Islam against the United States as a common enemy and that his vision for a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state would sweep away all the more moderate governments in the region, as well as movements toward a pluralistic culture. In the ï ¬ nal chapter of his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke gives an excellent description of the conï ¬â€šict we should have pursued after 9/11 and contrasts it with the wars we actually did pursue. The invasion of Iraq is not only a distraction from more important goals but a provocation that is making Osama bin Laden’s dream come true. The purpose of the original attack was to provoke our retaliation, which would affect primarily the ordinary Islamic people, destroying what trust they had for the United States, and making them more willing to give aid and comfort to the terrorists among them. To a surprising extent, we have fallen right into Osama bin Laden’s trap. The future of the world depends on ï ¬ nding our way out. How to Win the War on Terrorism When terrorists are isolated criminals, viewed with suspicion by the vast majority of the general public, and reported to the authorities when they turn violent, then the war on terrorism has been won. What weapons will it take to win this war? Just as the Maginot Line in France was impotent against Nazi blitzkrieg at the beginning of World War II, purely military tactics and strategy will fail against the terrorists and will even be exploited to their advantage. It appears to me that our current professional military leaders generally understand this point, while our hawkish civilian leaders without military experience generally do not. It’s tempting to think that a war against terrorism can be won by killing all the terrorists. In the real world, this naive plan doesn’t work. A serious attempt to ï ¬ nd and kill all the terrorists also sweeps up many ordinary people, and some of them and their relatives become new terrorists, creating more terrorists than were destroyed. The harder the authorities pursue this strategy, the more it looks like genocide, and the more effectively they recruit new terrorists. The â€Å"weapon† we need is the trust and cooperation of the general population of the country where the terrorists are based. As we have seen, terrorists understand this and use ï ¬ endishly clever strategies for eroding this trust and fomenting resentment and hatred. (Incidentally, most terrorists are not clever enough to invent this. But they read about strategy and tactics in the writings of Mao Tze Tung and Ho Chi Minh, who were. Fortunately, these same sources are required reading for our professional military leaders.) The â€Å"simple† strategy for defeating terrorism is as follows: †¢ Avoid getting killed by them; make clear that overwhelming power is available, but avoid using it. †¢ Gain the trust and cooperation of the general population. †¢ Refute the terrorists’ lies; demonstrate truth and openness to criticism. †¢ Create, publicize, enforce, and obey a simple â€Å"Bill of Rights†; demonstrate evenhandedness in local disputes. †¢ Demonstrate justice, even when treated unjustly; avoid massive retaliation, even when taking casualties. †¢ Visibly work for economic justice for the oppressed. The people will turn the terrorists in for trial and prosecution. Obviously, implementing this strategy is far from simple. There are trade-offs between the actions required to avoid getting killed and the ones needed to gain trust. Since gaining trust is building the â€Å"weapon† that wins the war, however, it takes priority, and one can’t be absolutely safe. Whether you call it nation-building or peace-making, it’s a dangerous line of work, actively opposed by unfriendly people. Avoid Getting Killed Aside from the obvious personal motivation to stay alive, the strategic reason to prevent terrorist attacks is to foil their attempt to provoke massive retaliation. Impotence is the worst-case outcome for a terrorist, not death. We need good enough intelligence to detect and prevent terrorist acts, but this cannot take absolute priority since it trades off against being a free and trustworthy society. Therefore, some attacks will occur, and there will be casualties. It is important for both the terrorists and the general population to understand clearly that terrorist acts cannot possibly defeat our forces militarily. Failing to attend to this point led to disastrous errors by Reagan in Beirut and Clinton in Somalia. Currently in Iraq, terrorists can reasonably conclude that the United States will leave under sufï ¬ cient pressure. They may or may not be correct, but their ability to draw that conclusion is dangerous to us in itself. The hardest part about a war on terrorism comes when a terrorist attack succeeds. The whole point of the attack is to do something horriï ¬ c to provoke massive retaliation. The right response must be measured, deliberate, and appropriate. President Bush’s speech on September 20, 2001, was a brilliant example of the correct response to a successful terrorist attack. (Sadly, he did not stay that particular course, as he and his administration demonstrated their obsession with Iraq.) Gain Trust and Cooperation A measured, deliberate, and appropriate response gains the trust and the cooperation of the people. To do this, we must be trustworthy. It also means that the training of our troops for this kind of war must be very different from past wars. Our soldiers must be more than warriors who kill people and destroy things. They must also serve as community police, and even as social workers and political advisors. News reports from Iraq make it clear that our soldiers are vividly aware of this dual role, and they are vividly aware of the fact that they are well-trained and equipped as warriors but not as community police. Above, I’ve outlined some of the speciï ¬ c methods for building trust and cooperation from the people. †¢ Refute the terrorists’ lies; demonstrate truth and openness to criticism. †¢ Create, publicize, enforce, and obey a simple â€Å"Bill of Rights†; demonstrate evenhandedness in local disputes. †¢ Demonstrate justice, even when treated unjustly; avoid massive retaliation, even when taking casualties. †¢ Visibly work for economic justice for the oppressed. There are surely many other effective methods to be identiï ¬ ed, improved, evaluated, and applied. The People Will Turn in the Terrorists If the people trust the authorities and respect the efforts taken to make their lives secure and safe, they will turn in suspected terrorists, knowing that they will receive fair trials. The Unabomber’s brother turned him in because he was willing to trust the government’s pledge not to seek the death penalty. Terrorists are not merely criminals. Their extremist ideological motivation makes them far more dangerous than even large organized criminal gangs. Even so, to win against terrorism, in the end they must be treated as ordinary criminals. They must be tried and punished, with full legal rights and protections, not for their extremist beliefs, but for their terrorist actions that disrupt the safe conduct of society for ordinary citizens. The Unabomber sits in federal prison for his bombs that killed and maimed. Timothy McVeigh was executed for murder many times over. Their public trials and the public safeguarding of their rights were not out of soft-heartedness or compassion for criminals. They are public ceremonies, reafï ¬ rming the value of law and order in our society. They both represent and cultivate the trust that the people have in their government. That trust is the weapon that defeats terrorism. They cannot stand against it. We must not throw it away. What Should We Do? If we understand which weapons actually work against terrorists and if we understand how terrorists try to destroy our weapons, we can see what we need to do and what we need to avoid doing. We can see why the Abu Ghraib prison photos are so damaging to us. Traditional war is not easy or certain. And the new ways are not easy or certain either. The â€Å"simple† strategy above for defeating terrorism requires great knowledge, cleverness, and wisdom to put into action. War requires discipline. War requires sacriï ¬ ce. War requires restraint at certain times and carefully planned action at others. A war against terrorism is unlike the major wars of the past. If we try to ï ¬ ght like we fought wars in the past, we will lose, and we won’t understand how or why. We need to learn how to ï ¬ ght with new weapons. The alternative is a world of perpetual conï ¬â€šict between opposing groups of extremists, locked in a deadly embrace in which each side conï ¬ rms the beliefs of the other and helps in recruiting more extremists. The ordinary people in the middle, who just want peace and law and order, are repeatedly savaged to cultivate more recruits for one side or the other. This is indeed a â€Å"clash of civilizations† but not between Islam and the West. The clash is between extremists of all kinds on the one side and the forces of pluralism, tolerance, peace, and law and order on the other. Identifying Terrorists as a Diagnosis Problem Consider the problem of identifying terrorists as a problem in diagnosis. Out of a large population, you want to diagnose the very few cases of a rare disease called â€Å"terrorism.† Your diagnostic tests are automated data-mining methods, supervised and checked by humans. (The analogy is sending blood or tissue samples to a laboratory.) This type of diagnostic problem, screening a large population to look for a rare disease, has some very counter-intuitive properties. Suppose the tests are highly accurate and speciï ¬ c: †¢ 99.9% of the time, examining a terrorist, the test says â€Å"terrorist.† †¢ 99.9% of the time, examining an innocent civilian, the test says â€Å"innocent.† Terrorists are rare: let’s say, 250 out of 250 million people in the United States. †¢ When the tests are applied to the terrorists, they will be detected 99.9% of the time, which means that almost certainly 249 will be detected, and with only a 25% chance of missing the last one. Great! †¢ However, out of the remaining 249,999,750 innocent civilians, 99.9% accuracy means 0.1% error, which means that 250,000 of them will be incorrectly labeled â€Å"terrorist.† Uh, oh! (These are called â€Å"false positives.†) The law enforcement problem is now that we have 250,250 people who have been labeled as â€Å"terrorist† by our diagnostic tests. Only about 1 in 1,000 of them is actually a terrorist. If we were mini ng for gold, we would say that the ore has been considerably enriched, since 1 in 1,000 is better than 1 in 1,000,000. There’s still a long way to go, though, before ï ¬ nding a nugget. But we are talking about people’s lives, freedom, and livelihoods here. The consequences to an innocent person of being incorrectly labeled a â€Å"terrorist† (or even â€Å"suspected terrorist†) can be very large. Suppose, out of the innocent people incorrectly labeled â€Å"terrorist,† 1 in 1,000 is sufï ¬ ciently traumatized by the experience so that they, or a relative, actually becomes a terrorist. (This is analogous to catching polio from the polio vaccine: extremely rare, and impossible with killed-virus vaccine, but a real phenomenon.) In this case, even after catching all 250 original terrorists, 250 new ones have been created by the screening process! The numbers I’ve used give a break-even scenario, but 99.9% accuracy and speciï ¬ city is unrealistically high. More realistic numbers make the problem worse. Nobody knows what fraction of people traumatized as innocent victims of a government process are seriously radicalized. One in 1,000 is an uninformed guess, but the number could be signiï ¬ cantly higher. A mass screening process like this is very likely to have costs that are much higher than the beneï ¬ ts, even restricting the costs to â€Å"number of free terrorists† as I have done here. Adding costs in dollars and the suffering of innocents just makes it harder to reach the break-even level. Ask your neighborhood epidemiologist to conï ¬ rm this analysis. It is applied routinely to public health policy and applies no less to seeking out terrorists. There are alternative ways to detect and defend against terrorists. Mass screening for something very rare is seriously questionable in terms of costs and beneï ¬ ts, exactly because the true positives can be completely swamped by the false positives. The Seeds of War (A Parable) I offer a parable to illustrate the seeds of war. The point of this is not to say that the West is somehow responsible for terrorism. Obviously, the terrorists are responsible, and they must be brought to justice; however, we need to understand the mechanisms in place that feed terrorism and that would be invoked by certain types of retaliation. It makes no sense to act without understanding the context. The purpose of this parable is to provide intuition about one such mechanism. Written 10/2/2001 in the aftermath of September 11. Think about the aftermaths of Afghanistan and Iraq, too. To ï ¬ ght terrorism, you must know where it comes from. Imagine that you and your family live in a really bad neighborhood. You struggle every day to make ends meet. You try to keep your children safe from the criminals who live in your area. You work hard to teach your children to be good people, and to live right, even though they are surrounded by examples of people who get rich through immoral ity and crime. You go to church with your neighbors and try to support each other in the same struggle, since the odds against each of you are overwhelming, but together you may have a slightly better chance. You watch TV, and you see rich people in the suburbs who have everything you ever wanted, who worry about crabgrass in the lawn instead of gunï ¬ re in the street. You work two jobs at minimum wage, hating the fact that your children are home alone, while the people on TV complain about the high cost of gas for the SUV to take the kids to soccer games. You and the members of your church tell each other and try to believe that different people have different lots in life, and each follows his or her own path to salvation. Meanwhile, on TV, you hear the people in the suburbs complaining about how all the people in your neighborhood are criminals and lazy and should be run out of town. You try hard to remember that they don’t understand and to forgive them. Then, one day, a really terrible crime is committed by a gang from your neighborhood. A bomb goes off in the suburbs, and many innocent people are killed. You are shocked, and your heart goes out to the families who are suffering. A few of your meaner-hearted neighbors say that they are glad that the suburbs now know what it’s like. You shut them up, telling them to have compassion for anyone who suffers. A few particularly foolish kids dance in the street and show up on the evening news. Your church holds a prayer service for the victims of the bomb. The police barricade the streets around your neighborhood and won’t let any of you out, though a few sneak past. On TV, you hear some of the rich people in the suburbs say they want to bomb your entire neighborhood to kill the whole gang. If that also kills innocent people like you and your family, well, that’s too bad, they say. How do you feel? What do you do? Now, suppose the police actually do bomb your neighborhood. The bombs kill your parents, your wife, your daughters, and your sons. In your family, the only survivors are you and your youngest son. How do you feel? What do you do? Benjamin Kuipers, PhD, holds an endowed professorship in computer sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He investigates the representation of commonsense and expert knowledge with particular emphasis on the effective use of incomplete knowledge. He received his BA from Swarthmore College, and his PhD from MIT. He is a fellow of AAAI and IEEE and has served as department chairman.

Problems in Kuwait :: essays research papers

Major Problems in Kuwait  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Kuwait: 1993 the government found that major health problems were in Kuwait livestock and poultry June 10-12, 1998 in Washington, DC. The environmental damage resulting from invasions and the wars has affected all ecosystems, as well as human health in Kuwait. 1)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The oil contamination of the terrestrial ecosystems has reached levels on an unthinkable scale in the history of the planet. The impacts of war on the environment will take decades to partially disappear and their full effects may never be fully understood. These systems are currently undergoing some natural recovery, but human help is needed in order to restore the environment to pre-war days.. Remediation of the desert is essential to fix the contamination of Kuwait's fresh groundwater reserve and avoid long-term continuing contamination of fresh and brackish groundwater. The oil has continuously seeped into the ground over the years. The amount of contaminated soil that will require treatment increases each day, and will soon reach 50 million m3. In just a few short years, it will be too late to save the desert because the volume of contaminated sand will be too large. The desert may be contaminated forever. In order to avoid this ecological catastrophe in Kuwait, the contaminated sand must be seen as a toxic waste and solutions must be quickly found for its temporary storage until something can be done. 2)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After the ecological stresses due to the war, the marine ecosystems and fisheries have progressively regained their prewar status. Seven years after the war ended, the impacts of oil contamination due to the war on the marine ecosystems and living species such as fish and shrimp are hard to distinguish from the impacts of chronic pollution from the oil industry and coastal development. Currently though, the coral reefs appear to be healthy and the quantity of shrimp harvested each year are similar to the ones recorded before the war. However, these findings do not identify the more long-term impacts of the contamination on the marine ecosystems and living species. In order to prevent future damage, research on the long-term impacts must be increased. 3)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The presence and fear of mines is a major issue of concern.

Brain Transplant: An End to Parkinsonism? :: Biology Essays Research Papers

The Modern Day Brain Transplant:An End to Parkinsonism or the Beginning of a Greater Debate? It sometimes begins with a feeling of lethargy, being "down in the dumps," or shakiness (1). Maybe it begins with a twitch of the pinky finger that was not there before. Speech becomes more difficult and softer to the level of a whisper; this is often accompanied by irritability. Movements become rigid, unsteady and slow (2). A tremor develops, with trembling of the hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face. Later, walking is often only accomplished through short and shuffling steps, intermixed with a loss of balance and instability (3). These symptoms usually progress until the person is incapacitated and unable to do simple tasks such as brushing their teeth, buttoning clothing, or turning newspaper pages (1). This is a description of a person living with Parkinson's disease. According to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, there are one million people living with Parkinson's nationwide (1). Several public figures have also revealed their private struggles with Parkinson's including Michael J. Fox, Muhammad Ali, Janet Reno and Billy Graham (1). As evidenced by the names listed, Parkinson's strikes an array of people, it is generally a late onset disorder, however, in some cases, such as with Michael J. Fox, Parkinson's has a "young onset". Parkinson's disease is a disorder that results from the depletion of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The basal ganglia is the part of the brain responsible for movement. When 80% of the dopamine-secreting cells in a specific part of the basal ganglia, the substantia nigra, are lost Parkinson's symptoms develop (4). The cause for the neuropathology of Parkinson's is still unknown. Two possible causes of Parkinson's that have been researched include environmental factors such as toxins and defective genes (5). Treatments for the disease vary widely. The standard treatment is to prescribe levodopa (L-dopa) (4), the precursor of dopamine to patients. This is given because dopamine itself does not cross the blood-brain barrier. The levodopa is converted to dopamine inside the brain and is effective in improving the severity of symptoms dramatically. Unfortunately, long-term usage of levodopa causes a myriad of side effects, such as head bobbing, grimacing, abnormal movements of the trunk and limbs (2). With time, the side effects of levodopa become more dramatic than the original Parkinson's and the thus outweigh the benefits of giving the drug. Other treatments include a brain "pacemaker," deep brain stimulation with electrodes, and pallidotomy (destroying a portion of the globus pallidus in the brain).

Controversies of Racism Essay

The subject of racism is a continual controversial issue within everyday society. It’s inevitable. Everywhere you go, you’ll come across some sort of discrimination or racism. It’s like we’re programmed to judge instantly, it’s in our human nature. Religion, age and racial discrimination literally surrounds us and we can’t do much to stop it until we change ourselves, and let’s face it that’s probably not going to happen. So the main questions I normally ask myself are: Why are we prejudiced? Is being different that bad? And are we really that different? Hitler definitely seemed to think that we were. So did America back in the 1600’s where the first of racism and black slavery began and half the world’s population in the 21st Century think so too. It was said for many years that Hitler was obsessed with racial â€Å"purity† and spread his beliefs in speeches and writings pronouncing that his race needs to remain pure in order to rule the world. What was his definition of pure? To have blue eyes, fair skin and blonde hair. Who is to say that makes you the perfect being? Absolutely no one. When Hitler and the Nazis came to power, these beliefs became the government motto and were spread publicly in posters, on the radio, in movies, in classrooms and in newspapers. After Hitler took power, Nazi teachers in school classrooms began to apply the principles of racial science. The teachers measured skull size and nose length and recorded the colour of the student’s hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the â€Å"true race†. This constant negative message that was being sent out influenced the younger students to continue with racism. The Nazis also began to put their ideology into practice with the support of German scientists who believed that the human race could be improved by limiting the reproduction of people considered â€Å"inferior† such as Jews, people with disabilities, gypsies, black people, and people with skin diseases, Jehovah’s Witnesses and any other flaws humans are born with. Hitler viewed the Jews not as a religious group, but as a poisonous, disgusting â€Å"race†, which â€Å"lived off† other races and weakened them. And so began the Holocaust. Hitler threw innocent Jewish people into concentration camps letting them starve to death, gassing them, burning them alive and countless other torturous acts because they weren’t what he saw to be the ‘’perfect being’’. That may have been around sixty years ago but why does genocide still happen? After the Jewish Genocide, the cold war genocide, Rwanda genocide and just recently the genocide in Darfur occurred. Slavery is a black eye on the soul of America’s history. There has never been an excuse for one human to own another. We humans as a species should always have been treated equally. Why should people own other people? Are human beings animals? How can you hate someone so much by the colour of their skin? There simply is no answer. Slavery began around the 1600’s when the first black man was used as a servant. The slavery continued on, all the way through to the 1900’s where the servants were used to clean, cook food, babysit and do the dirty work around the house while a racist extremist group called the Ku Klux Klan that believed in Hitler’s message abused them with hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism. Black people were treated like they were the scum of the earth; they were abused, spit on, beaten and in worst case scenario, murdered. They weren’t allowed to go to the same stores, schools, diners, and churches as the white people in America which was a huge disadvantage to the African-American race. When the racial segregation happened, which was a big milestone in history, the African–Americans were allowed to have the same facilities as everyone else, much to Americas disdain. Their freedom was limited; the African-Americans resorted to sitting at the back of the bus, or were only allowed to go to certain public areas. So why it is that racism still exists? What will it take for mankind to realize that despite the colour of a person’s skin, we are all amazing, complex people, who have wonderful characteristics that should be admired and loved? But people also need to realize that some people that were born black didn’t CHOSE to be black. I mean, I’m a black girl but that doesn’t make me hate the whites and love the blacks. Both races are the same to me. I guess equality is such a new concept within everyday American society that many raw emotions still cloud their judgment. Now in the 21st Century, racism still exists and in varying forms. Not only is there racial discrimination, religion is discriminated against also. When you see a Muslim man walking down the street or a woman wearing a burka, do you cower in fear? There is this new phobia called Islamophobia where there is hatred, prejudice or fear of a Muslim person and this term came to use fter the September 11 terrorist attack. But why be scared of only Muslim’s? Everyone is capable of causing great harm to society and just recently the Norway attack occurred and this attack wasn’t done by a Muslim. It was by a Norwegian citizen that no one suspected. This man, Breivik planned the attack to annihilate multiculturalism in Norway and to preserve a Christian Europe. His political views were to conserve his culture and promote Islamoph obia, he also urged Europeans after this attack to restore the â€Å"historic crusades† against Islam as in the Middle Ages. You could say that Islamophobia is the new form of black racism as it is a practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social and public life of everyday society. The new law that was passed down in France of not being able to wear the burka is an example. French police arrested two veiled women just hours after the country’s new ban on wearing the burka in public came into force. This law is the first of its kind to be enforced in Europe, and the French police said they will be extremely cautious as there are fears of Muslim women provoking violence while the burka. The law should not push minorities around. I believe that people should be allowed to wear what they want, free of coercion. The burka is a Muslim practice and I do not see the big deal, it is not a security risk. It is believed that Islam has no values in the Western society and is an inferior and violent religious belief. On the contrary, the violent belief is this new phobia. What do you think? Far too many of us speak of equality and hope, yet secretly have hate. Most people will tell you, that they are not racist individuals. Many of these people though, are either fooling themselves, or just don’t want to make a bad reputation for themselves. Everyone is based on little more than stereotypes and stories of that what happened years ago with Hitler and the black slavery. So we need to put aside all the things that happened generations ago. It happened out of ignorance and right now what we need to be doing is unite as one race, stop the negative attitudes and beliefs that permeate around us and try to make the future brighter. Some people believe that racism is in our human nature. Do you think so?

Global Financial Crisis and Nigerian Stock Market Volatility

GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AND NIGERIAN STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY Abdul ADAMU Department of Business Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi – Nasarawa State. [email  protected] com [email  protected] com Tel. +2348029445391, +2348064851648. Paper presented at the National Conference on â€Å"Managing the challenges of Global Financial Crisis in Developing Economies† organised by the Faculty of Administration, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Nasarawa State – Nigeria held between March 9 – 11, 2010. Abstract The current global financial crisis is no longer news but a reality. Our policy makers in the country have been proven wrong based on their argument that the country was insulated. Some of the sectors that have felt the heat of the crisis are the banking sector and the stock market. In the stock market, investors lost trillions of naira due the downward fall in the prices of stock. Based on this, the study assesses the extent of the stock market volatility in the period preceding the crisis and the period of the crisis. Using the All Share Index, the returns for various months were computed, descriptive statistics of the returns was calculated and the volatility of the market was estimated using the standard deviation. It was found that the stock market is highly volatile in the period of the financial crisis than the period preceding it. The recommendation is that the depth of instruments in the stock market should be varied in terms of fixed securities than equity instruments. Introduction The global economic crisis, which first emerged as a financial crisis in one country, has now fully installed itself with no bottom yet in sight. The world economy is in a deep recession, and the danger of falling into a deflationary trap cannot be dismissed for many important countries (UNCTAD, 2009). The recent global economic crisis was a result of economic and political events in the United States. What started with amended federal policy and poor mortgage lending practices, resulted in a world-wide economic meltdown that spread like a virus (Beck, 2008). The US sub-prime mortgage market triggered the crisis as a result of credit crunch within this market. Most countries around the world have approached this ‘tsunami’ pragmatically with emergency funding support for relevant sectors, so as to mitigate the impact of the crisis on economies as well as avoiding the entire collapse of the international financial system (Ajakaiye & Fakiyesi, 2009). Despite these supports by various governments in the form bailout, it does not stop some countries to go into recession, because of large decline in their wealth, manifesting itself in falling productive capacity, growth, employment and welfare. At first, the direct impact of the financial crisis on the African economies was limited as African countries has weak integration with the global economy and most commercial banks in the region refrained from investing in the troubled assets from the US and other part of the world (Adamu, 2008). This is why most commentators argue that Africa is so far insulated from the direct effects of the financial crisis at least in the short-run. But now, this is not the case as the rate of unemployment and liquidity squeeze is becoming unbearable. In Nigeria, like other African developing countries, the initial response to the crisis was rather meek, as if our policy makers do not understand the gravity of the crisis. While the developed countries were busy trying to bailout their economy in order to mitigate the effects of the crisis, our leaders were hiding under the shadow of insulation. The most visible sector being hit by this crisis in the Nigerian economy is the capital market. The Nigerian Stock Exchange, the flagship of Nigeria’s capital market has witnessed unprecedented turbulence since April, 2008. First, the downward slide of the stocks on the market dominated by the banking sector made experts restive and regulatory authorities jittery. While accusing fingers were being pointed at different directions as the cause of this volatility in the prices of stocks, the market began a free-fall never witnessed in the history of capital market operations in Nigeria. Both local and foreign investors who had taken advantage of the optimal return on investments on the stock exchange began to scamper elsewhere in desperation. Some of the questions that are critical to this trend in the capital market are; what is the extent of the stock price volatility on the Nigerian Stock Exchange? What are the factors that impacted the stock price volatility? To what extent has this volatility in stock price affected investors? What can the regulatory authority do to contain this problem? This paper will address the first question raised above. This part is the introduction and the rest of the paper is arranged as follows; section two discussed the concept of financial crisis, the Nigerian capital market and the crisis, then stock market volatility. In section three, we discuss data and methodology, then results and discussions in section four and finally, summary and conclusions in section five. The concept of financial crisis The term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, currency crises, and sovereign defaults (Kindleberger & Aliber, 2005, Laeven & Valencia, 2008). Some economic theories that explained financial crises includes the World systems theory which explained the dangers and perils, which leading industrial nations will be facing (and are now facing) at the end of the long economic cycle, which began after the oil crisis of 1973. While Coordination games, a mathematical approach to modelling financial crises have emphasized that there is often positive feedback between market participants' decisions (Krugman, 2008). Positive feedback implies that there may be dramatic changes in asset values in response to small changes in economic fundamentals, Minsky’s theorised that financial fragility is a typical feature of any capitalist economy and financial fragility levels move together with the business cycle, but the Herding and Learning models explained that asset purchases by a few agents encourage others to buy too, not because the true value of the asset increases when many buy (which is called â€Å"strategic omplementarity†), but because investors come to believe the true asset value is high when they observe others buying (Avery & Zemsky, 1998, Chari and Kehoe, 2004, Cipriani & Guarino, 2008). The Nigerian Capital Market and the Crisis The All Share Index and the market capitalisation of the 233 listed equities capture activities and performance on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Before the crisis, there has been a consistent growth in these performance indicators over the year (see fig. 1). For instance, the All Share Index according to data from www. cashcraft. com grow from a value of 12,137 in 2002 to 66,371. 2 points on March 5, 2008, with a market capitalisation of about N12. 640 trillion, after which values fell to 20,827. 17 points on December 31, 2009, with a market capitalisation of 4. 989 trillion because of the meltdown. This shows that by the end of the year 2009, the All Share Index had lost a total share of about 69%, while market capitalisation had lost 61% of its value. There are concerns regarding how rapidly the global financial crisis affected the Nigerian Capital Market, especially given that there is virtually no cross-ownership of banks (investment or otherwise) between Nigeria and foreign countries, and there is hardly any domestic mortgage market for there to be a sub-prime problem as found particularly in the UK and the USA (Aluko, 2008; Ajakaiye & Fakiyesi, 2009). The decline of indicators of activities on the NSE before the escalation of the crisis on the global scene in July 2008 became a source of concern for many. It is difficult to attribute this decline to any particular factor, but those factors that may have direct or indirect impact are as follows; i. Foreign portfolio investments withdrawals and reduced foreign direct investment affect investor confidence in Nigeria (Adamu, 2008; Aluko, 2008; and Ajakaiye & Fakiyesi, 2009). This is the case because most foreigners withhold their investments in order to service their financial problems at home. This exposed the country to FDI uncertainties and vagaries, particularly in an era where public-private partnership (PPP) of huge investment plans such as oil and gas – LNG projects, power plants, railways, housing and roads are being encouraged. ii. Another factor which according to Ajakaiye & Fakiyesi (2009) that had serious impact on the stock market is what they called the ‘intensifiers’. These include policy interpretations by the market, which may have been induced by the slow government initial stand on the economy. This also includes interpretation of announcements, proclamations and rumours by the market. Examples include the proposed recapitalisation plan of the stock market players (stock broking firms), as well as rumours on the termination of margin lending by banks. iii. The phenomenon of marginal lending in Nigeria, whereby investors borrow money from banks to invest in other financial instruments like IPOs of banks with the hope of making quick returns. This may also be termed Nigeria's own version of the ‘sub-prime problem’, as it resulted in an exploding domestic stock market and stock prices and astounding returns to both the speculators and providers of the margin funds. This make the banks to feel the heat of the crisis as most margin loans become difficult to repay due to the downward trend in the market. iv. With the currency overdependence on oil revenue, the downward trend in the price of crude oil and prospects for economic recession in the developed world and Europe which are the markets for the oil, also contributed for the fall in the stock market. Because it look as if Nigeria's capital market bear cycle actually began with the decline of oil prices in July, and accelerated with its further decline in September and October (Aluko, 2008; Ajakaiye & Fakaiye, 2009). Stock Market Volatility Stock volatility refers to the potential for a given stock to experience a drastic decrease or increase in value within a predetermined period of time. Investors evaluate the volatility of stock before making a decision to purchase a new stock offering, buy additional shares of a stock already in the portfolio, or sell stock currently in the possession of the investor. In recent months, it has not been unusual to see the value of major stock indexes, such as the S 500, NIKKEI, DOW JONES, KOSPI, FTSE, and our own NSE-ASI change by as much as 3% in a single day. Unfortunately for many investors, the general direction of those changes has been downward. To many, this volatility is driven by the recent global financial crisis. Stock market volatility tends to be persistent; that is, periods of high volatility as well as low volatility tend to last for months. In particular, periods of high volatility tend to occur when stock prices are falling and during recessions. Stock market volatility also is positively related to volatility in economic variables, such as inflation, industrial production, and debt levels in the corporate sector (Schwert, 1989). The persistence in volatility is not surprising: stock market volatility should depend on the overall health of the economy, and real economic variables themselves tend to display persistence. The persistence of stock market return volatility has two interesting implications. First, volatility is a proxy for investment risk. Persistence in volatility implies that the risk and return trade-off changes in a predictable way over the business cycle. Second, the persistence in volatility can be used to predict future economic variables. For example, Campbell, Lettau, Malkiel, and Xu (2001) show that stock market volatility helps to predict GDP growth. Volatility may impair the smooth functioning of the financial system and adversely affect economic performance (Mala & Reddy, 2007). Similarly, stock market volatility also has a number of negative implications. One of the ways in which it affects the economy is through its effect on consumer spending (Campbell, 1996; Starr-McCluer, 1998; Ludvigson & Steindel, 1999; and Poterba, 2000). The impact of stock market volatility on consumer spending is related via the wealth effect. Increased wealth will drive up consumer spending. However, a fall in stock market will weaken consumer confidence and thus drive down consumer spending. Stock market volatility may also affect business investment (Zuliu, 1995) and economic growth directly (Levine & Zervos, 1996; and Arestis, Demetriades, & Luintel, 2001). A rise in stock market volatility can be interpreted as a rise in risk of equity investment and thus a shift of funds to less risky assets. This move could lead to a rise in cost of funds to firms and thus new firms might bear this effect as investors will turn to purchase of stock in larger, well known firms. While there is a general consensus on what constitutes stock market volatility and, to a lesser extent, on how to measure it, there is far less agreement on the causes of changes in stock market volatility. Some economists see the causes of volatility in the arrival of new, unanticipated information that alters expected returns on a stock (Engle, 1982). Thus, changes in market volatility would merely reflect changes in the local or global economic environment. Others claim that volatility is caused mainly by changes in trading volume, practices or patterns, which in turn are driven by factors such as modifications in macroeconomic policies, shifts in investor tolerance of risk and increased uncertainty. The degree of stock market volatility can help forecasters predict the path of an economy’s growth and the structure of volatility can imply that â€Å"investors now need to hold more stocks in their portfolio to achieve diversification†(Krainer, 2002). Data and Methodology This research relies on the daily All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange as reported by the exchange and on Cashcraft database. There are 233 listed companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the ASI is the major index that captures the performance of all the shares of the listed companies. Using the ASI, the monthly returns (%) were calculated using the formula below; Where Vf is the ASI at the end of the month, and Vi is the ASI at the beginning of the month. These returns were calculated for all the 48 months used in this study. We measure volatility using the standard deviation and/or variance. This is done by dividing the period under study into two. The first period comprises of 24 months observation for 2006 and 2007, the period prior to the crisis and the second 24 observations were for 2008 and 2009, the period of the crisis. In examining volatility changes over time, we compare the variances or standard deviations of the different periods and determine if they are statistically significantly different from each other. To estimate volatility, the expected returns or mean for these periods returns were computed using the equation; This implies that is the average of the return values. Using this value for and the variance estimate results in a formula for the volatility is given as; . It follows that the estimation of the volatility constant given by Wilmott, Howison and Dewynne (1995) is: Lastly, the expected returns and the standard deviations will be used in testing the hypothesis whether there is a significant difference between the means of the two observation using t – statistic for testing difference of two means. Results and Discussions Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the monthly returns for the two periods. For the period 2006 – 2007, the average return was 3. 42% with a standard deviation of 5. 37%. This is showing that during this period, stock market returns was less volatile because a less volatile stock will have a price/return that will deviate relatively from the mean little over time. This is the period when investors have consistent positive returns on their investment and there are willing to invest because stock returns are less volatile and their exposure to risk is less. Table 1. Descriptive Statistics RETURNS %2006-072008-09 Mean3. 4233 -4. 3658 Standard Error1. 09552. 5003 Median3. 550-4. 8400 ModeN/AN/A Standard Deviation5. 367012. 2489 Sample Variance28. 8050150. 0365 Kurtosis0. 67236. 3865 Skewness0. 39191. 4372 Range24. 6669. 15 Minimum-7. 44-30. 95 Maximum17. 2238. 2 Sum82. 16-104. 78 Count2424 Source; excel output On the other hand, during the period 2008 – 2009, there was a negative average return of –4. 37% with a standard deviation of 12. 25% showing high volatility in returns. This is as a result of the accelerated downward fall of the stock prices on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as a result of loss of investors’ confidence due to the global financial crisis. This period is characterised by negative returns which results to high volatility, and as we can see, the more volatile that a stock is, the harder it is to isolate where it could be on a future date. Since volatility is associated with risk, the more volatile that a stock is, the more risky it is. Consequently, the more risky a stock is, the harder it is to say with any certainty what the future price of the stock will be. When people invest, they would like to have no risk. The least amount of risk that is involved, the better the investment is. Since almost every investment has some risk, investors have looked for ways to minimize risk, so their best reaction was to avoid the stock market and this affected the market. The other descriptive statistics showed that both distributions are positive or right – skewed, meaning that most of the returns are in the lower portion of the distribution and there are some returns that has extremely large values and this pull the mean return upward to be greater than the median, specifically for the second period. Both has a positive kurtosis value of 0. 6723 and 6. 865 indicates a distribution with a sharper peak than a bell – shaped curves. The result of the test for the hypothesis to determine whether there is a significant difference between the means of the two observations is presented in table 2 below. The hypothesis is; Ho:  µ1 =  µ2 i. e. there is no difference in the means of the two observations H1:  µ1 ?  µ2 i. e. there is difference in the means of the tw o observations. From the result of the t- test, the null hypothesis is rejected at 5% level of significance. This is because t = 2. 85 ; t = 2. 01. the p – value computed is 0. 064 and it indicates that if the means are equal, the probability of observing a difference this large in the sample means is only 0. 0064. Based on this, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the mean returns are different for the two periods, and that returns are lower in the period of the crisis than the period before it. This confirms the reason why there is higher volatility in this period than the other period. Table 2. t – Test for differences in Two means (assumes equal population variances) Data Hypothesized Difference0 Level of Significance0. 05 Population 1 Sample Sample Size24 Sample Mean3. 233 Sample Standard Deviation5. 367 Population 2 Sample Sample Size24 Sample Mean-4. 3658 Sample Standard Deviation12. 2489 Intermediate Calculations Population 1 Sample Degrees of Freedom 23 Population 2 Sample Degrees of Freedom23 Total Degrees of Freedom46 Pooled Variance89. 42012 Difference in Sample Means7. 7891 t Test Statistic2. 853384 Two-Tail Test Lower Critical Value-2. 012896 Upper Critical Value2. 012896 p-Value0. 006463 Reject the null hypothesis Source; Excel output Conclusion and recommendations The paper studied the extent of the stock market volatility in the period of 2006 – 2009. The period is divided into 24 months each to study the volatility of market returns between 2006 – 2007, and between 2008 – 2009. On the basis of the results it was found that the period 2006 – 2007 is less volatile than the period of 2008 – 2009; and this is due to the global financial that have affected investors’ confidence. Since volatility is associated with risk, the more volatile that a stock is, the more risky it is. Consequently, the more risky a stock is, the harder it is to say with any certainty what the future price of the stock will be. When people invest, they would like to have no risk. The least amount of risk that is involved, the better the investment is. Since almost every investment has some risk, investors have looked for ways to minimize risk, so their best reaction was to avoid the stock market and this affected the market. The recommendation is that the stock market instruments need to be diversified away form equity instruments to more of fixed security instruments. References Adamu, A. (2008). The Effects of global financial crisis on Nigerian Economy. International Journal of Investment and Finance Vol. 1. #1&2. Ajakaiye, O. & Fakiyesi, T. (2009). Global financial crisis Discussion paper 8: Nigeria. Oversea Development Institute, London. Aluko, M. (2008). The global financial meltdown: Impact on Nigeria's capital market and foreign reserves. retrieved from www. google. com on 14 January, 2010. Arestis, P. , Demetriades, P. O. & Luintel, K. B. (2001). Financial development and economic growth: The role of stock markets. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 33(2):16-41. Avery, C. , & Zemsky, P. (1998). Multidimensional uncertainty and herd behavior in financial markets. American Economic Review 88, pp. 724-748. Campbell, J. (1996). Consumption and the stock market: Interpreting international experience. NBER Working Paper, 5610. Campbell, J. , Lettau, M. , Malkiel, B. , & Xu, Y. (2001). Have individual stocks become more volatile? An empirical exploration of idiosyncratic risk. Journal of Finance 56, pp. 1–43. Chari, V. , & Kehoe, P. (2004). Financial crises as herds: overturning the critiques. Journal of Economic Theory 119, pp. 128-150. Cipriani, M. , & Guarino, A. (2008). Herd behavior and contagion in financial markets. The B. E. Journal of Theoretical Economics 8(1) (Contributions), Article 24, pp. 1-54. Engle, R. F. (1982). Autoregressive conditional heteroscadasticity with estimates of the variance of the U. K. inflation. Econometrica, 50(3):987-1008. Kinder, C. (2002). Estimating Stock Volatility. retrievd from www. google. com on 19 January, 2010. Kindleberger, C. P. , & Aliber, R. (2005). Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (5th ed). Wiley, ISBN 0471467146. Krainer, J. (2002). Stock market volatility. FRBSF Economic Letter, Western Banking, 2002-32, pp1-4. Krugman, P. (2008, October, 27). The widening gyre. New York Times. Laeven, L. , & Valencia, F. (2008). Systemic banking crises: A new database. International Monetary Fund Working Paper 08/224. Levine, R & S. Zervos (1996). Stock market development and long-run growth. World Bank Economic Review, 10(1):323-339. Ludvigson, S & C. Steindel (1999). How important is the stock market effect on consumption. Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review, 5(1):29-51. Mala, R, & Reddy, M. (2007). Measuring stock market volatility in an emerging economy. International Research Journal of Finance and Economics Issue 8 126-133. Poterba, J. M. (2000). Stock market wealth and consumption†, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(2):99-118. Schwert, W. (1989). Why does stock market volatility change over time? Journal of Finance 44, pp. 1,115–1,153. Starr-McCluer, M. (1998). Stock market wealth and consumer spending. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Finance and Economics Discussion Paper Series, 8/20. UNCTAD (2009). Global economic meltdown. Geneva: United Nation Conference on Trade and development Wilmott, P. , Howison, S. , & Dewynne, J. (1995). The Mathematics of Financial Derivatives. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zuliu, H (1995). Stock market volatility and corporate investment†, IMF Working Paper, 95/102. www. cashcraft. com Appendices 1. Monthly returns computed using the NSE-ASI MONTHS/ YEARSRETURNS %MONTHS/ YEARSRETURNS % Jan-06-1. 69Jan-08-0. 02 Feb-060. 30Feb-08-11. 1 Mar-06-2. 00Mar-08-4. 01 Apr-06-0. 75Apr-08-5. 67 May-065. 45May-08-0. 33 Jun-065. 66Jun-080. 00 Jul-066. 75Jul-08-6. 90 Aug-0617. 22Aug-08-9. 22 Sep-060. 67Sep-08-6. 07 Oct-060. 35Oct-08-20. 96 Nov-06-3. 84Nov-08-9. 08 Dec-064. 92Dec-08-2. 37 Jan-078. 93Jan-09-30. 95 Feb-0710. 62Feb-097. 17 Mar-074. 87Mar-09-12. 60 Apr-078. 44Apr-098. 15 May-075. 9 5May-0938. 20 Jun-072. 44Jun-09-12. 63 Jul-070. 94Jul-09-7. 09 Aug-07-7. 44Aug-09-10. 42 Sep-07-0. 12Sep-09-2. 2 Oct-07-0. 16Oct-09-3. 08 Nov-077. 82Nov-09-3. 64 Dec-076. 83Dec-090. 05 Figure 1. Stock market performance, 2002-2009 Source: Extracted from Ajakaiye and Fakiyesi (2009)