Discussion Post 2 - Comparative Advantage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Discussion Post 2 - Comparative Advantage - Essay Example However, if the research is based on structural advantages and trends in data, then, Los Angeles will emerge as the next Silicon Valley (Redmond, 2012). According to various sources, Los Angeles has built momentum over the last three years. In fact, Los Angeles has established a tough foundation for emerging as the next hub for technology entrepreneurship. On the other hand, states like New England and Southern California, also pose a powerful probability of becoming the next Silicon Valley. In 1995, Southern California attracted up to $1.3 million while Silicon Valley and New England attracted $1.8 million and $0.8 million of business enterprise capital investment (Redmond, 2012). Later on, in 1999, the internet had attracted other entrepreneurs in the regions hence, increasing the investments. In this period, New England also managed to grow rapidly as compared to South California. In the past five years, New York and Southern California have substantially increased their investments. These locations have boosted three crucial structural merits. These structural advantages include significant technical talent, capital availability and entrepreneurship culture. Los Angeles has developed in terms of technical talent that is attributed by the heritage of engineering and technical innovation. Most of the tertiary institutions in Los Angeles are producing more graduates in the technical field. Furthermore, the country is also attracting more learners across the world to join the technical studies (Redmond, 2012). In fact, most of the government funds are directed to invest in entertainment and media facilities. The most exemplary example in this case is the presence of Google in the country, which has a substantial focus on the technical sector. Los Angeles has also been influenced by strong investors who are partnering with the entrepreneurs in the country in order to build technology companies. The entrepreneurs in Los Angeles have a

Comments and response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Comments and response - Essay Example Your strategy seems very effective from the start, which I much welcome to ensure my child is focused from the first day in school to his/her completion. The communication plan you have established is quite commendable and am willing to partner with your efforts to see that my child progress is tracked in a collaborative way both at home and at school. I will be much honored to provide you with al my child’s cultural, social, and linguistic background to ensure the e/she is included effectively in your learning environment. I would like you to clarify to me on ways to ensure that I participate in my child’s education. Thank you for the teamwork you reveal to ensure that all child’s needs are met. I am very much aware that I know more of my child’s information more than anyone else does, and I will ensure that I will give all details to the administration. I would like to seek more information on what programs you have to ensure that my child does not face discrimination and is included in your environment because he is a black American and has a language proficiency disability. Thank you for an extensive emphasizes on communication matters between e as a parent and the teachers, which I also believe that is the backbone to an effective partnership and parental involvement in a learning environment. Your IEP program comforts me that my child’s needs will be met accordingly. However, your school has rules and procedures; hence, I would like you to clarify on considerations for children with disabilities. Thank you for your full support of collaborative strategies with my colleagues to ensure your child thrive to the top in terms of academic as social aspects. Regarding your query on the rules and procedures in my class, note that most of them are made through my inclusive plan whereby the students decide among themselves which rules to set for optimal learning environment focused on minimal

Summarize the Positive and Negative Aspects of Offshoring Essay Example for Free

Summarize the Positive and Negative Aspects of Offshoring Essay Offspring means is moving the production to other countries. Currently this is happening in most of the countries where they find other countries are cheaper to produce their products. Weighing advantages and disadvantages of off shoring is always debate. I want to summarize the advantages and disadvantages off shoring in point of view and then I will put my strategy on this. Advantages Off shoring helps in reduce the total costs of a product by getting cheaper labor and core stuff for the product. This way company can focus on its administration operations like sales and marketing. It definitely reduces overhead costs like resource management. Many companies hire to do non technical recourses to do their work. This is the main reason that India has set up so many call centers to help their customers for USA companies. Off shoring helps companies when their operations come operationally uncontrollable. IT can increase the company efficiency and productivity so that it can be successful and better for marketing of its products in highly competitive market. Off shoring also makes an organization free from investments in technology, infrastructure to reduce the capital expenditure. It gives the business flexibility to increase the new skills that can be used as competitive advantage. Disadvantages Off shoring does not suit for all companies and if company does estimate its necessity, the company would unsuccessful. One of the risks it has is losing sensitive data and the loss of confidentiality. Off shoring may lose management control of business and it may no longer be able to control operations and deliverables. In Off shoring, if that foreign country does not have proper product processes, the quality may be bad and it might affect the company business in market. Source Company will lose jobs as it does not require many numbers of resources as they hire in other countries. It will lead to local unemployment and political pressure. We recently have seen lots of places these kinds of issues where local people fight for their jobs and demand for cutting offshore processes. In some firms, there are so many legal issues in off shoring process and there are so many hidden costs that may lead to company loss in long run. There is another issue about communication when off shoring relationship is with completely different culture nations. Support of off shoring Off shoring can be acknowledged that its success comes with some pain, though it may have job cuts but, organizations that take a planned approach to off shoring succeed in managing this situation. The greatest advantage of off shoring is the cost advantage, which affects the companys success. Any savings in operating costs will help toward the companys financial status and growth. Companies in recession may sustain themselves and grow through innovation. By lowering its operating costs they will have more money to invest in innovation and technology which results in a domestic workforce. Success Story of off shoring The best example of a company that has cost savings by off shoring to India is General Electric (GE). After off shoring its business process operations to India, it found a reduction of 25% percent on its labor cost. This decision made them to gain 150% in the earnings. There is a big difference in the labor costs in US/Europe and India in the IT industry as well. A software professional with 1-2 years of experience in the US and Europe charges USD 60,000 to 80,000 per year. On the other hand, a professional with same experience level costs about USD 10,000 per year in India, about 11 to 16 percent of that in the US and Europe.

The Strengths And Limitations Of Personalisation Social Work Essay

The Strengths And Limitations Of Personalisation Social Work Essay With the continuously growing number of older population in the country and the life expectancy that keeps on increasing, the demand for the elderly care is also equally on the increase. Consequently the government are also putting in effort in order to continue improving the service provided for the elderly care such as the introduction of personalisation into the care service in the government policy in December 2007, when the Putting People First concordat was published. This is the reason why this assignment will be looking into this concept of personalisation in further depth along by looking at the strengths and limitations of implementing it into the social care. CONTENT The term personalisation as picked up by the Department of Health and is being used as a term to describe the series of reforms drawn out in the 2007 concordat Putting People First. In its formulations the policies have been set within the following framework of improving access to universal services, the prevention and early intervention, the increase of choice and control by the users and also growing social capital for the care (Department of Health, 2009). In addition to this, personalisation is about giving people more choice and control over their lives in all social care settings. It also means to recognise the user as a person with strengths and preferences and it starts with the user instead of the service (Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2012). The reasons why personalisation is introduced in social care is because the government is against the one size fits all concept in terms of providing care as it has been found to have not met most of the needs of the user especially with the fact that all users are different. The second reason is to finish up the The 1988 Griffiths Report on Community Care in which it advises that social services should become brokers to a range of care and support providers. It also proposed that social workers should take on a care management role.Thirdly is to combat the McDonaldisation in social care. This McDonaldisation thesis consists of five primary components of efficiency (minimising time in delivering care), calculability (trying to get user to believe that they are getting quality care for lesser money spent), predictability (where the care provided are highly routine and predictable), control (standardised and uniform care provider) and also, culture (as part of the standardised control) . Finally, personalisation is implemented due to the convergence of disability movement and also the increasing neo-liberal marketisation. The disability movement as a part of service user movement and the social model of disability have been a really powerful driving forces in lobbying for government reforms. An evidence for this is the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act, 1996 where the direct payments have been made available to the disabled adults of working age in England and have since been extended to other groups (Carr, 2010). The popularity and success has stimulated much of the personalisation around service users and also the development of personal budgets (Glasby and Littlechild, 2009). In November 2010, A vision for adult social care: capable communities and active citizens document was published, with personal budgets and personalisation, put central along with prevention, health and social care integration and the development of a plural and creative social care market to enable choice forming central aspects of the continuing social care reform. In this document too, it was made clear that personal budget alone does not in itself mean that services are automatically personalised. People should get personal choice and control over their services rather than the inflexible block contracts from supported housing to personal care (Department of Health 2010). Glasby (2012) explained that the concept of personal budgets is rather than assessing the users needs and selecting services from fairly limited menu of options, personal budgets start by placing each individual into a cost band and being up front about the resources available. By knowing how much of money is a vailable for them to spend on their needs then allows them and their circle of support to make decisions about how the money could best be spent (by direct services, direct payments, public services, the independent sector, paying family and friend or any of the combination). Some of the strengths of using personalisation concept are the users outcomes can be improved and at the same time, costs can be reduced as people who control their own budgets are able to find smarter solutions for meeting their needs and can reduce their need for paid support. This is possible because the person is empowered to make the better, right kind of decisions, seize new opportunities and respond more quickly to their own problems. In the old welfare system the government pushes resources into those services that it believes people need. Users can only receive little benefit from these resources because it is unlikely that the services are perfectly tailored to meet their needs and there is no opportunity for the user to mobilise those resources to pull in in other resources. However, when someone has a Personal Budget they are able to make quality, efficient use of those resources. Such as rather than paying  £10,000 per year at the day centre and the user will simply ha ve to put up with whatever services offered there that they do not value. Instead, if the user is given a  £10,000 Personal Budget they then can actually spend some of their budget on those particular services they value, e.g. only coming into the centre on the good days. This process explains why people can get better lives with less money as the money that can be controlled works better with the new found freedom than the money that cannot be controlled (Duffy, 2010). Other than offering better quality choices and empowering the service user, personalisation also is shown to be consistently cost effective of the public finance as found by Glasby and Littlechild (2002) that direct payments support are on average 30-40 per cent cheaper than the equivalent directly provided services. In addition to this, it was discovered that carers feel the relationship between them and the service user has improved due to them or their relatives being able to access the direct payments (Rethink Mental Illness, 2011). Finlayson (2002) also suggested that this positive relationship between the carer and service user is central to carers job motivation and satisfaction as in turn it will increase the quality of care provided. Another advantage of this concept as suggested by Zarb and Nadash (1994) is that the flexibility of the service is enhanced. The service provided is fitted around the users time on top of their different needs rather than fitted around the carer s timetable. Although according to the findings discussed earlier that expressed the positive outcomes of personalisation, there are few limitations associated into practicing it. The first one is that it is inappropriate to some users especially those who are mentally incapable and the elderly. It is found to be a daunting experience as they are suppose to manage their own financial arrangements directly which will also add extra burden and unwanted stress for them. On top of this, most of service users are also anxious by becoming employers and having to deal with responsibility particularly when they are unwell. This is especially with regard to assistance with the direct payments managing of the service user, either by family member, friend or support agency on the users behalf. In addition to this issue, the potential problem that could possibly happen regarding the vulnerable user is being exploited and potential for their money to be fraud (Leece and Bornat, 2006). On the other hand, as su ggested by Glasby and Littlechild (2009) the local authorities have a key role in making their systems as simple as possible and also proportionate to the risk, along with the availability of independent support (such as peer support and support agency) and the advent of self-directed support to reduce potential hassle from this concept should any problem arise. Another limitation of this concept is the community care assessments that are carried out sometimes underestimated the needs of user, especially those with mental illness as their needs are subjective (for instance, not so obvious on a good day) and therefore failed to be met. To make matter worse, these assessments are often not person-centred as it lacks of users involvement in decision making thus, they tend to be passive recipients and disempowered. This highlights the need of a better person-centred assessment by the professionals involved as the central element in the direct payments is good assessment. Hence, a better, different kind of relationship needs to be developed between the professional and the users as well as other approach to allocate the community care resources for this particular service user (Leece and Bornat, 2006). Another problem is direct payments and personal budgets are identified as a threat to the professional expertise of the social workers, as well as the longer hours due to the flexibility needed. It was also suggested that at one critical point, services will not be able to be managed properly as more users are becoming employers thus, changing the balance of the services'(Leece and Bornat, 2006). In contrast, direct payments and personal budgets are able to free social workers up to focus on people who are in greater need of support and thus, reconnect their value base and principles of profession (Glasby and Littlechild, 2009). Furthermore, the monopoly of market with the increasing choice through the direct payments is seen to be a problem. This will someway force the existing providers to make more effort to be more appealing to the service users in order to avoid of going bust. Additionally the real goals of these providers are often doubted as whether they will put quality care over profit-making (Leece and Bornat, 2006). The argument against this is that with the presence of competition, the providers will struggle to increase their quality of care along with a better value in order to keep up with the other providers. The strengths of the concept of personalisation as per discussed have found to be outweighed by the limitations that are associated to it. This is also proved to be the case as nearly all users is found to be satisfied with their experiences of using the direct payment as they found it to be more convenient and secure in the research carried out for the Department for Work and Pensions (2004). Out of the total participants, 75% reported to have found no disadvantages when using the direct payment. CONCLUSION The concept of personalisation has had a long history on why the government want to put it into practice as a way of reforming the social care particularly in the last few years when the direct payments and personal budgets were introduced. This was proved to be a huge success with majority of the users are extremely satisfied with how it has changed their lives in terms of empowering and giving them better quality of choices. Moreover, it was also found to be cost-effective and thus, able to save large amount of the public fund. However, as this concept was also subjected to few arguments against it, such as it not being able to cater certain types of user, there is also backup plan, support and effort made by the local authorities to minimise this. Moreover, the arguments that it threatens the social workers profession and the market balance are found to be ungrounded. Thus, the benefit of implementing personalisation in social care was found to overshadow the limitations as discus sed earlier.

Anime Essay -- essays papers

Anime Anime is the Japanese take on the word "animation". It represents the Japanese style of animating cartoons. However, not all anime is for children. Majority imported to America is aimed at an adult audience- containing deep storylines, graphic violence, gore, as well as nudity and adult situations. This cinematic genre is a fast growing trend in the west and can now possibly be considered the most popular phenomenon among children, considering the success of the much-in-demand anime series "Pokà ©mon". Anime art is known for it's characters' big round eyes, abnormal shaped hair, and it's unique exaggeration of physical reality. Since anime is basically movies translated into animation, it contains as many subgenres as there are actual genres. However, the majority of anime contains some type of action or martial arts, so I chose to discuss the action/horror subgenre and will be using Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Ninja Scroll to aid in describing its basic elements. Action anime contains titles such as: Street Fighter II, Tekken, and Battle Royal High School. Some titles I've come across that would fit horror anime are: Shutendoji- the Star Hand Kid, Devilman, Biohunter and Vampire Hunter D. I chose Ninja Scroll as my model not only because its animation is "top-notch" and its storyline, in my opinion, is excellent, but it fits both the action and horror subgenre. Action/horror anime has three main character types: "the hero", the "damsel-indistress", and "the enemy". The protagonist of the story, usually male, is nothing short of a "superhero". He's smart, strong, brave, and extraordinary, usually having some type of supernatural or uncanny power or is extremely mastered in some type of martial art. He's a mysterious, isolated character, a lot of the time a wanderer, and is different from all other characters in the story. We start off knowing little or nothing about him, and as the story progresses, we learn more about his history and powe rs. In Ninja Scroll, the hero of the story is Jubei, a mercenary ninja hired for money. He proves in many confrontations to be extremely skilled in using a sword, and through combining skills, brains, and the help from his trusty blade usually comes out on top, no matter the number or strength of his adversaries. The characters of the story are familiar with his skills and he is known as a master sw... ...e capture Kagero several times, and in the end, Gemma takes her life. The hero then must find and rescue the damsel. Jubei saves Kagero every time she's captured. After, the hero journeys to confront the main antagonist. On the way, he defeats the last of the henchmen and lower division enemies. When it comes time for the climax, the hero usually has a score to settle with the enemy. Here, Jubei not only tries to stop Gemma's reign of evil, but also seeks vengeance for the death of Kagero. There's a long and brutal confrontation, favoring the almost invincible enemy. Jubei is beaten close to death, but in the very end manages to find a weakness and kill Gemma. This scenario is similar in most action/horror anime. Finally, the resolution shows the direction each character is headed- Jubei continues wandering the earth with his memory of Kagero and his experiences with Gemma and the Eight Devils of Kimon.Although there is an extremely large selection of anime, even within the action/horror subgenre, they share similar qualities and patterns in the plot and characters. The genre keeps its diversity through differences in its animation and storyline of each individual movie.

Organizational Behavior Essay -- Organization Group Business

Organizational Behavior, by definition, is the study of human behavior, attitudes, individual differences, and performance in organizational settings. Understanding the internal and external forces within an organization is important to the success of any business. The internal and external forces that are to be understood are restructuring, economy, competition, fiscal policies, organizational mission and globalization and economy. Economic factors for an educational institution are greater than is generally thought. Internal and external economic issues affect continued success and profitability of the organization. Receiving no tax monies, private educational institutions depend solely on students for their income stream. Economic forces affecting educational forces usually work in reverse of the current economic conditions present in the private sector. As the economy worsens on a national level more people consider returning to school. As a general rule enrollment standards during periods of economic slumps tend to increase as schools tighten admission requirements to admit only the most qualified students. Although outside economic forces on private educational institutions are minimal, internal forces on the University of Phoenix prove to be of greater impact on the profitability of the parent organization. Private organizations respond to internal economic forces by limiting expenses due to the fact that limited funds and controllable expenditures are the most easily manipulated items in any budget. Many organizations feel that salaries are the greatest controllable cost for the organization. However, â€Å"Colleges are faced with 3 types of costs: 1. uncontrollable costs, which include utilities, books, supplies, and equipment, 2. controllable costs, which include wages, salaries, and contracted services, and 3. mixed costs, which include employee benefits and employment taxes.† (Bernard & Beaven, 1985, 78) The University of Phoenix feels that reducing staff and therefore reducing salaries is counterproductive. Reducing staff levels inhibits the universities ability to service students and lessens the likelihood that students will complete the educational goals and graduate with the degree they desired. The University of Phoenix and the parent company The Apollo Group approach the subject of economic forces as opportunities. By increasing staff... ...es transcontinental interactions and global networks of activity, which increases the diffusion of ideas, goods, information and people. In conclusion, the internal and external factors of Organizational Behavior thrive in each of our team member’s workplaces. Each of these factors goes hand in hand, and can produce both positive and negative impacts on any organization. Understanding the factors of Restructuring, Economy, Competition, Fiscal Policies, Organizational Mission and Globalization and how they relate to an individual’s specific workplace is necessary to the success of any organization. References Global Transformations. (1999, March). Retrieved July 31, 2005, from http://www.polity.co.uk/global/executiv.htm#whatis Schermerhorn, J.R., Osborn, R.N. & Hunt, J.G. (2005). Change, innovation and stress. Organizational Behavior, 16, pp. 6, 21 & 34. Retrieved July 28, 2005 from UOP Online, 9th Edition, rEsource. Copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Schermerhorn, J. R., Hunt, J. G., & Osborn, R. N. (2005). Introducing Organizational Behavior. In Organizational Behavior (p. 25). John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Effective Study Essay

Effective learning depends upon good study skills, but â€Å"Many students – – both traditional and nontraditional – – entering college have few, if any practical study skills.† ( Huber, 1994, 29) Good study skills do not simply occur; they must first be learned and then applied consistently. Efficient study strategies include a preset time, a desirable place, and a well-designed plan for study. A Time for Study Many of us think we have more to do than we have time to do, and studying gets shortchanged. It is important to prepare a schedule of daily activities that include time slots for doing the studying you have to do. Within each study slot, write the specific study activity; for example, â€Å" Red Unit 6 In Modern Writing, answer Questions 1-10.† Keep the schedule flexible so that it can be modified if you meet your study goals early- – or late. A Place to Study Choose the best place to study and use the same each time each day. Doing so will help to put you in a study mood when you enter that place. Choose a place that has the fewest distractions: people traffic, conversation, telephone, TV, and outside noises. Usually study is the best done alone in the absence of sights and sounds that distract the eye and ear. Force the mind to focus intently on the study task. (Silver, 1992, 26) A Plan for Study Research on the effects of specific study skills on student performance suggests that the following study tactics help to improve academic performance. (Dansereau, 1985, 39) 1. Skim a unit or a chapter, nothing headings, topic sentences, keys words, and definitions to clue you to what you are going to study. 2. As you need the material, convert the headings into questions; then seek answers to those questions as you need 3. If you own the book, use color marked to highlight important ideas: heading, topic sentences, special terms, definitions and supporting facts. Otherwise, make notes of these ideas. 4. After reading the material, review the highlighted items( on your notes that contain them) 5. Using the heading stated as questions, see if you can answer those questions based on your reading. 6. Test yourself to see if you recall definitions of important terms and list of supporting fact on ideas. A high correction exists between good study habits and good grades for courses taken in high school. REFERENCES Dansereau, D.J. â€Å"Learning Strategy Research.† Thinking and Learning Skills. Vol. 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erllaum, 1985 Huber, Rose. â€Å" Teaching Students How to Study.† Eastside Weekend. September 1-7, 1994 Silver, Theodore. Study Smart. New York: Villard Books, 1992