Thursday, October 31, 2019

Law Course Work - Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Law Course Work - Case Study - Essay Example cedures agreements and other alternative methods of resolving disputes about employment rights; to provide for the adjustment of awards of compensation for unfair dismissal in cases where no use is made of internal procedures for appealing against dismissal; to make provision about cases involving both unfair dismissal and disability discrimination; and for connected purposes,† (Crown Copyright. 1998). In Emily Worth’s case, a meeting was set on 17 July 2006, of which Worth was informed about in July 16, 2006. She was later handed a letter hours prior to the meeting signed by Head Teacher Pat Butcher alleging charges against Emily of â€Å"Abandoning your class, swearing and using abusive language, [and] †refusal to co-operate with the legitimate management decisions of the Head Teacher and behaving in an unreasonable and unprofessional manner.† The letter also stated that the alleged offences were if proven would amount to gross misconduct. In fact, gross misconduct which may merit instant dismissal requires acts such as failure to comply with reasonable and lawful instructions, theft, sale or consumption of alcohol, physical assault, breach of duty of confidentiality, sexual or racial harassment, fighting, and willful damage to an employers property, or attending work under the influence of prohibited drugs. The mentioned acts may not be exclusive but it has always been lawful that a proper investigation must be conducted of which the employees may also appeal. Emily’s case will have to be evaluated based on applicable law, rules and regulations and jurisprudence. In this matter, the disciplinary hearing has to prove that due process has been undertaken prior to dismissal of Emily Worth. There are two ways to show that a dismissal was not unfair, of which the employer or its representative must have a valid reason for dismissing an employee or that they have acted reasonably in the circumstances in that an adequate investigation must have been

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The role and the purpose of the US Special Forces during the Vietnam Era Essay Example for Free

The role and the purpose of the US Special Forces during the Vietnam Era Essay Introduction: What is theory? Theory is other man’s experience. Otto von Bismarck put it this way: â€Å"Fools say they learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.† Vietnam War taught many a new tactics to the US army in counter-guerrilla warfare. But the crusade in the jungles of Vietnam war not a happy experience for the US Army. The guerrilla warfare was not part of the US military culture. Vietnam War taught voluminous lessons to the US military. The Special Forces branch (Special Forces, SF, or Green Berets) is an elite special operations force; a part of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), a component of United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM).Special Forces units given many types of special responsibilities. â€Å"During the Vietnam war, special forces played an important role. Among their number were the US armys 5th Special Forces Group, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) units, the Military Assistance Command—Vietnam—Studies Observation Group (MAC-V-SOG), US navy Sea Air Land (SEAL) teams, US Marine Force Reconnaissance units and USAF Air Commandos, special operations squadrons, and combat control teams of forward air controllers.† (Special Forces..) During the Vietnam War era, some of the assigned duties to these forces were unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, counter terrorism, psychological operations, and proliferation and information operations. Vietnam War was a special type war for America. It was the war in a small country in a big way. The war was not ending even when they wished to terminate it early. It prolonged, went beyond their control, and ultimately Vietcong emerged victorious humbling the mighty USA. Humiliation and defeat were the two words which the US Army found hard to digest, yet they had no other alternative. What were the matchless guerilla warfare skills of the Vietcong, which contributed to the defeat of the mighty military force, including the US Special Forces? The task of fighting a war for a Western country like USA in an Asian country poses the language and communication problems. A wing of the Special Forces is trained in local language skills, familiarizes itself with the local culture and acquires special skills in working with foreign troops. The listing of their duties is fairly long and duties are added depending upon the contingencies. Some of the important duties taken care of by the US Special Forces during the Vietnam Era are peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, de-mining and counter-drug operations, combat search and rescue, coalition warfare and support etc. Many of the operational techniques of the U.S. Special Forces are secret but doctrinal manuals are available for the common man, press and research scholars. Their official motto is De Oppresso Liber (Latin: â€Å"To Liberate the Oppressed† Special Forces are not under the command of the ground commanders, unless otherwise specified. While in theatre, mostly they report directly to the United Sates Central Command. The Special Forces organized Civilian Irregular Defiance Groups (CIDG) during the Vietnam War. For most of the duration of the War, the 5th Special Forces trained and led CIDG mobile strike forces. To create such forces, minority tribes and groups from the border and mountain regions were drafted. Small-unit patrols defended their home bases in the border areas, to deter the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regular units of the army. Initially this plan succeeded and the U. S. Special Forces units encountered success after success. (U .S. Army†¦) â€Å"Whats more, during 1966-67 American field commanders increasingly employed Special Forces-led Mike units in long-range reconnaissance missions or as economy-of-force security elements for regular units. Other CIDG-type forces, called mobile guerrilla forces, raided enemy base areas and employed hit-and-run guerrilla tactics against regular enemy units†Ã‚   (U. S. Army†¦)From recruits amongst the Nung tribes, three units were formed, Dela, Sigma and Omega, which formed part of the Special Forces. They were both reaction forces and put on duty of reconnaissance. Their contribution to the war effort was significant. The 2500 regular soldiers of the U.S Army raised and led an army of 50,000 tribal fighters. Being familiar with the local conditions and geography, they operated successfully in some of the most difficult terrains and areas of Vietnam. â€Å"The CIDG patrolling of border infiltration areas provided reliable tactical intelligence, and the units secured populations in areas that might have been otherwise conceded to the enemy.†Ã‚   (Clarke, pp.196-207) In short, the CIDG, CAP, and CORDS programs encountered success in pursuing the counterinsurgency in Vietnam. They contributed in greater measure to the scope and area of actionable intelligence. They provided valuable experience and lessons to the US army as to how to fight wars in Vietnam-like situations. In war situations and in an ongoing conflict, it is futile to talk about permanent victory or permanent defeat. Only permanent efforts matter. In the initial stages, the US offensive led by the Special forces in many areas and departments of the war were successful. But soon, problems began to surface one after another. The once US solutions became the present US problems. The seeds of hostility between the South Vietnamese and the ethnic minority groups of the CIDG strike forces blocked the US efforts to Republic of Vietnam Special Forces take command of the CIDG program. The second drawback was that the villagers became habituated to the security cover provided by the Special Forces. They proved incapable of defending themselves, due to poor leadership and equipments. Conclusion: In the end, even the well-trained Special Forces of USA, assisted by the Vietnamese, were no match for the grit and determination of the Vietcong. They proved capable to fight a prolonged war in their own territory, and in the unconventional war, they succeeded in conducting surprise ambushes and giving telling blows to the Special Forces. They excelled in every area, guerrilla warfare, subversion, evasion and escape and sabotage. â€Å"Clear and hold† counterinsurgency strategy by the American military including the Special Forces, in the concluding stages of the Vietnam War, doomed the American military might. The policy of General William Westmoreland to seek out every soldier and kill him (â€Å"search and destroy†) proved counter-productive. He was replaced by General Creighton Abrams, who reversed the earlier order by another strategy—controlling and defending patches of territory and population. But even that did not work. The people began to hate Americans intensely. Tiny villages and hamlets were bombed by the American army. The civilian casualties were heavy. In a six-month operation, the US 9th Division, counted 10,000 dead, but only 751 weapons were recovered. This indicates a large number of civilian causalities. Viet Cong did suffer heavy losses from 1968-1972, but soon the US Administration realized that the Special Forces had outlived their role in Vietnam. The debate whether the U.S. political authority   let down the war efforts or was it the   awesome ordeal of fighting the war for two decades, that contributed to the eventual defeat of the American forces   still goes on unabated. To fight a interminable guerrilla and conventional war in the enemy territory for such a long period is no ordinary job. The long run had the telling effect on the morale of the army, which was haunted by corruption and factionalism. The popular support had dwindled. At such a juncture, the Communists took to the offensive and the defeat of the American Army was round the corner.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  .   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚           References: Special Forces: Definition and Much More www.answers.com/topic/special-forces 95k Retrieved on June 14, 2008 U.S. Army Professional Writing For much of the Vietnam War, the 5th Special Forces Group†¦ www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume2/august_2004/08_04_02pf.html 43k Cached – Retrieved on June 14, 2008 Clarke, Jeffrey J:   Advice and Support: The Final Years (Washington: US Army Center of Military History, 1988), pp. 196-207.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Roles of MicroRNAs in the Cell Cycle

Roles of MicroRNAs in the Cell Cycle Evaluate the roles of microRNAs in the cell cycle and explain the consequences of disruption to microRNA activity in named diseases Introduction The presence and activity of various proteins are required in the cell cycle progression.(1) The regulation of these protein levels is vital for the understanding of the cell cycle control and its dysregulation. The dysregulation results genetic mutation related diseases. For instance, overexpression of cyclins or the elimination of CDK inhibitors or pRB due to genetic mutation are common cause in human cancer.(2) Therefore, the proper control of protein levels is crucial for the cell cycle. MicroRNAs are ~22-25 nucleotide non-coding RNAs.(3) It is post- transcriptional repressor of mRNA; control the stability and translation of protein-coding mRNAs. (1, 3). MiRNAs bind the 3’ untranslated region (3’UTR) of target mRNAs. The binding of miRNA- protein complexes to mRNA causes translation inhibition or destabilisation of target transcripts.(1) This is resulting in the downregulation of the protein encoded by mRNA. Figure 1 : microRNA as post-transcription inhibitor in protein encoding (4) MicroRNAs control the levels of numerous cell cycle regulators that controls cell proliferation.(1) The alternation of protein levels of critical oncogenes or tumour suppressor genes, which causes by miRNAs deregulation may also lead to proliferative diseases such as cancer. MiRNAs that linked to human cancers, known as â€Å"oncomirs†. These are divided into two group, those miRNAs that are upregulated in cancer which are likely to be acting as oncogenes and those downregulated in cancer which are likely to be acting as tumour suppressors.(5) Approximately 30-60 % of the human genome, regulated by miRNAs. As a consequence, any modulations of the target transcript expression, miRNAs can affect various signalling pathways and cellular process such as apoptosis, proliferation or differentiation. Therefore, miRNAs could consider as cancer targets. Besides cancer, some miRNAs genes cause or contribute in many inherited and genetic based diseases. For instance, miR-26b upregulated in Alzerimer’s disease, (6) miR 96 causes nonsyndromic progressive hearing loss (7) and miR -184 causes Familial Keratoconus with Cataract.(8) Nevertheless, some miRNAs’ genes are beneficial; display antiproliferative properties.(1) For example, the down-regulation of miR15s and miR – 16 – 1 in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, prostate cancer and pituitary tumours, leading to the inhibition of tumour growth and induce cell cycle arrest at the G1 ­ phase by target cell cycle regulators ( cyclin D1, cyclin E1, cyclin D3 and CDK6). (9) As miRNAs proposed to control the expression up to one third of all genes and possibly utilised as diagnostic and prognostic marker for many genetic based diseases.(10) Therefore, it is important to evaluate its role in the cell cycle and its dysregulation. The different roles of MicroRNAs in the cell cycle The understanding of miRNA has increased over the past 10 years, and particularly the involvement of miRNAs in cancer. Nowadays, cancer is a common disease, which occurs to one third of the population. There are lots of cancer treatments available, however to identify an effective treatment is still challenging.(9) Therefore, it is important to develop a new treatments with less side effect are greatly demanded. A greater understanding of miRNA could possibly lead to better diagnostic and treatment of cancer.(9) Let-7 Let-7 has an essential role in cell cycle and the differentiation of cell cycle terminals. Let-7 is coded by 12 genes; these are produced from the eight genomic loci. These 12 genes are located at a region, which is frequently deleted in cancer. Throughout the lung cancer examination, it has been showed that a low level of let-7 relates to the poor prognosis. The expression of let-7 induces the suppression growth of cell and human tumour cell lines.(12) Over-expression of let-7 in lung cancer causes the lowered cell division and stopped the progression of cell cycle. Ras, Caspase-3 and HMGA2 genes are targeted by let-7 for controlling tumour growth. Furthermore, let-7 represses number of cell cycle regulator gene: cyclin D1, cyclin A, cyclin D3, CDK4 and CCNA2, CDK6, CDC25A and CDK8. (13) MiR-15a/16 Chromosome 13q14 region is frequently deleted in more than 50% of the B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). This region of the chromosome includes the expression of miR-15a/16 cluster. Further studies have identified that miR-15a/16 is located at the 30 kb region of the loss chromosome in CLL. (14) In CCL patients, about 70% of the patients have miR-15a and miR-16 either deleted or down regulated; same applies to gastric cancer and pituitary adenomas cell lines. The miR-15a and miR-16 target cell cycle regulators such as cyclin D1, cyclin D3, cyclin E1 and CDK6, this causes the cell cycle arrest during the G1 phase.(13) miR-15 and miR-16 in colon cancer cell lines presented with a high level of down-regulated transcripts for gene related to cell-cycle progression. Moreover, the high expression of miR16 which leads to increase G0 and G2 phase accumulation through down-regulating the gene expression of cell cycle, CARD10, CDK6 and CDC27. These evidenced the miR15a and miR16 associated with complex gene expression.(12) Figure 2: Cell cycle and proteins that are involved in the cycle. (11) MiR-17/20 The miR-17/20 induces suppression of tumour growth in the breast cancer and human B-cell line; it encodes 6 mature miRs in a 1 kb region. MiR-17/20 target several cell cycle regulators, including E2F, Rb, c-myc and cyclin D1, for the time control of cell cycle. At G1 phase (figure 2) , Cyclin D1 and c-myc are induced and inactivation of E2F1 when bind to Rb. The transition of G1 to S phase of the cell cycle requires the miR-17/20 cluster.(13) The miR-17 family might involve in inhibit or promote cellular proliferation. In a low level of mitogenic stimulation, miR-17 possible involves in the E2F signalling maintenance to be at a level below threshold for proliferation. Furthermore, the missing miR-17-19 cluster has been identified in many malignancies, and disruption of miR-17 expression possible reduces the proliferation of certain breast cancer cell lines. The suppression of irregularly high E2F activation, the apoptosis response might be eliminated by the miR-17-92 cluste r, then this function as an oncogene. Subsequently, in various solid and haematopoietic malignancies are found to have amplificated and over-expressed miR-17 family. These have indicated that miR-17/20 play a essential role in cellular proliferation and progression of malignancies. (12) MiR-221/222 The regulation of cell cycle by miR-221/222, which it targets the CDK inhibitors. The miR-221 and miR-222 ectopic expression initiate CDK2, aiding the transition of G1 to S phase of cell cycle and p27kip2 and p57kip2 are negatively regulated which lead to increase tumour growth. This is frequently identified in human breast cancer tissues.(13) In addition, miR-221 and miR-222 act as a direct regulator of p27. The over-expression of this cluster increases cellular proliferation and allowed anchorage growth independently. The suppression of miR221 and miR-222 initiated G1 phase arrest in breast cancer cell lines. It is found that miR-221/222 is over-expressed in several human tumors. (12) Table 1: miRNA genes and clusters that target cell cycle regulators and its deregulation in cancer. (1) MiRNA related diseases Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) occurs due to the homozygous or heterozygous deletion of the chromosomal region 13q14.3. MiR – 15a and miR -16-1 are located in this region as shown in Calin et al’s study.(9, 15) This provided evidence that miRNAs might be involved in the pathogenesis of CLL and other human cancers.(9) These genes were found to be deleted in 68 % of CLL patients.(15) MiR-15a and miR-16-1 leads to the inhibition of tumour growth by negatively regulate BCL2; anti-apoptotic gene.(9) They also induce cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase by targeting cell cycle regulators ; cyclin D1, cycline D3, cyline E1 abd CDK6.(9) The deletion of miR-15a and miR-16-1 associated with CLL patients’ phenotypes; the loss of these two genes accelerates B- lymphocytes proliferation by modulating genes’ expression controlling cell-cycle progression.(9) As consequences, CLL clinical features occurs. Breast cancer breast cancer is oestrogen hormone dependant disease. Breast cancer occurs when the number of oestrogen receptors (ER) increase abnormally. Alb1 genes are oncogenes in breast cancer. It enhances the transcriptional activity of the ER and E2F1 and other transcription factors. (16) Alb1 is a rate-limiting factor for oestrogen. (16) E2F1 is involving in growth hormone–signalling pathway and mediated breast cancer cells growth. (16) From the Hossain et al’s study, mir-17-5p play a role of tumour suppressor, which controls the cell proliferation of breast cancer cells. (16) In cell culture experiment, AlB1 expression was downregulated by mir-17-5p through translational inhibition. This resulted in decreased ER and cancer cells’proliferation. As mir-17-5p binds to the cyclin D1 3’UTR in the MCF-7 breast cancer cells . It inhibits cyclin D1 expression, resulting in suppressed cell proliferation and cell cycle arrest.(9) Conclusion MicroRNAs are crucial in the cell cycle. The Mitchell et al’s study has shown that miRNAs displayed high stability in tissue from human plasma. (17) It is possible that miRNA might be useful biomarker to indicate disease state. Moreover, the demonstration of miRNA profiles are potential for distinguishing a development of tumour’s origin and miRNA that acts like tumour suppressor in cancer.(18) From Lu et al’s study, they have demonstrated that there are lower miRNA expression in poorly differentiated as compared to highly differentiate tumour; which is very interesting fact and provide evidence to shoe that possibility that miRNA could utilised in disease diagnostics. (19) Therefore, further researches should carry out to gain more understandings and invent more effective treatment. References 1. Bueno J, Marà ­a., Malumbres M. MicroRNAs and the cell cycle. 2011;1812(5):592–601. 2. Malumbres M, Barbacid M. To cycle or not to cycle: a critical decision in cancer. Nat Rev Cancer. 2001;1(3):222-31. 3. Carleton MC, A., Michele. Linsley,S.,Peter. MicroRNAs and Cell Cycle Regulation. Cell cycle. 2007 September 1;6(17):2127-32. 4. The image of microRNA [image on the internet]. 2013 [cited 2014 February 4]. Available from : http://www.fireflybio.com/introduction_to_microRNA. 5. Johnson CD, Esquela-Kerscher A, Stefani G, Byrom M, Kelnar K, Ovcharenko D, et al. The let-7 microRNA represses cell proliferation pathways in human cells. Cancer Res. 2007;67(16):7713-22. 6. Absalon S, Kochanek DM, Raghavan V, Krichevsky AM. MiR-26b, upregulated in Alzheimers disease, activates cell cycle entry, tau-phosphorylation, and apoptosis in postmitotic neurons. J Neurosci. 2013;33(37):14645-59. 7. Mencà ­a à ea. Mutations in the seed region of human miR-96 are responsible for nonsyndromic progressive hearing loss. Nature Genetics. 2009;41(5):609-13. 8. Hughes AE, Bradley DT, Campbell M, Lechner J, Dash DP, Simpson DA, et al. Mutation Altering the miR-184 Seed Region Causes Familial Keratoconus with Cataract. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2011;89(5):628-33. 9. MicroRNA in Cancer: Spinger Science and Business Media Dordrecht; 2013 [cited 2014 February 2]. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/MicroRNA_in_Cancer.html?id=RS8qLrSkdkgC. 10.Yang MM, Joerg. Discovery, biology and therapeutic potential of RNA interference, microRNA and antagomirs. 2008;117(1):94–104. 11. Cohen B. The image of cell cycle [image on the internet]. 2013 [cited 2014 February 4]. Available from : http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/neoplasia-vii-cancer-critical-genes-and-familial-cancer-syndromes/deck/6316935. 12. Chivukula R, Raghu. Mendell,T., Joshua. Circular reasoning: microRNAs and cell-cycle control. October 2008;33(10):474-81. 13. Yu Z, Baserga R, Chen L, Wang C, Lisanti MP, Pestell RG. microRNA, Cell Cycle, and Human Breast Cancer. American Journal of Pathology, The. 2010;176(3):1058-64. 14. Cho WC. OncomiRs: the discovery and progress of microRNAs in cancers. Molecular Cancer [Internet]. 2007 2007-09-25 [cited 2014 Febuary 5]; 6(1):[60 p.]. Available from: http://www.molecular-cancer.com/content/6/1/60. 15. Calin GA, Dumitru CD, Shimizu M, Bichi R, Zupo S, Noch E, et al. Frequent deletions and down-regulation of micro- RNA genes miR15 and miR16 at 13q14 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. 2002;99(24). 16. Hossain A, Kuo MT, Saunders GF. Mir-17-5p Regulates Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation by Inhibiting Translation of AIB1 mRNA. Molecular and Cellular Biology. Novemble 2006;26(20). 17. Mitchell PS, Parkin RK, Kroh EM, Fritz BR, Wyman SK, Pogosova-Agadjanyan EL, et al. Circulating microRNAs as stable blood-based markers for cancer detection. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008;105(30):10513-8. 18. Hydbring PV-B, Gayane. Clinical applications of microRNAs F1000Research. 2014. 19. Lu J, Getz G, Miska EA, Alvarez-Saavedra E, Lamb J, Peck D, et al. MicroRNA expression profiles classify human cancers. Nature. 2005;435(7043):834-8.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Child Development Essay -- Health, Childhood Obesity

There are multiple factors in a child’s development. Parents have a responsibility, as well as a privilege, to contribute to every milestone. Most parents stress over physical and mental stages so much so that play-time is ignored. By making decisions that sacrifice play parents hinder their social development. Parents must take action and encourage their youth to play more, before childhood is lost forever. Play-time is an essential part of early childhood development as well as their most primitive form of expression. In an article titled â€Å"The Importance of Play† by Bruno Bettelheim, he refers to Sigmund Freud’s thoughts that play is a child’s first step in attaining â€Å"cultural and psychological achievements†. (Bettelheim 324) The author also mentions Freud’s notation of how children use play to â€Å"express† themselves. (Bettelheim 324) Play is vital for the maturation of toddlers’ emotional and mental health. Bettelheim, in his article, reflects on Fraud’s understanding of â€Å"how children use play to work through and master quite complex psychological difficulties of the past and present†. (Bettelheim 324) As a mother, I agree with this insight because I can witness the day’s events unfold through my son’s eyes as he holds batman and robin figures. Today’s culture views the media as a necessity. One class of media entertainment is television. Television is often exchanged for play among children. Marie Winn wrote â€Å"The End of Play† commenting on how children have replaced â€Å"fantasy and make-believe games† for television. (Winn 76) A research study in USA Today showed results of a survey indicating â€Å"14% of parents said TV is always on.†(Par 4) Their findings point out â€Å"TV decreased play’s intensity to given toy†. (Par 3... ...thout recess, children are denied elements for social development. Physical education classes, or P.E., are the higher grades’ version of recess. At this level, juveniles engage in a more structured program with specific objectives. In Education Digest, Ann Rosewater from Team Up for Youth reflects on how organized sports are a bridge to adult achievements. Her report on the impact of organized sports exclaims â€Å"participation in physical activities have long term positive effects†. (Par 7) Details assert juveniles â€Å"connect with positive peer groups and provide the experience of failing yet trying again†. (Par 8, 9) As parents we want our children to experience the joys of childhood. One’s child rearing choices are the most dominate factors in adolescents. Parents must control the outside influences interfering with their emotional and physical maturity.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Life of Pi and Religion

In the first part of Life of Pi, Pi Patel tells the reader about important memories from his childhood before the ship accident and his adventure as a castaway at sea. It is from these memories that we see a real development of Pi's character; we come to better understand his thoughts and standings on life, religion, and the knowledge he gained from his family and others. One of his many musings about religion and the integration of it into our lives appears in Chapter 22, where he describes the end of two individuals lives. Both see a white light overtaking them. One person recognizes that it is God, in one form or another, overtaking them and drawing them in from their moral life, and they become believers. The other stays stubborn in his scientific reasoning, and dismisses the white light as a visual phenomenon that is caused by a lack of oxygen to his central nervous system. Pi does not necessarily dismiss either as false, but claims that the scientific person â€Å"lack(ed) imagination and miss(ed) the better part of the story. This is precisely one of the major ideas of Life of Pi, that despite what life throws at you, you can choose how you perceive reality and make a better story out of it, should you choose to do so. Pi sees religion as one of the greatest ways to engage the human imagination and take full advantage of life. It would appear as though Pi is claiming that even if religion isn't true, it is more exciting to live your life as though it were than to live with the mind of an atheist, that there is a â€Å"better story† through a life of religion. And this may well be true, that belief in a higher purpose is more fulfilling than belief in our existence being a natural phenomenon devoid of God. But if you choose religion to be your â€Å"story,† then does it truly become reality? In the case of Pi, he tells us that we can shape our reality. But to truly analyze this statement, we must define reality. Though Pi suggests that reality is a truth based on personal perspective, common sense affirms otherwise. There is reality, in the sense of what truly has taken place, and there is what people believe, they can be unified or separate of one another, but to be both would be a paradox. If there were no reality underlying life, then we would need no judicial systems in the world, for certainly if the accused believes they are innocent, then we should not dare call them false by the convictions of our own reality. No one could lie either, for reality would be relative to perspective and one cannot expect his or her own reality to align with the other party's reality. Furthermore, we could not chastise children for stealing from one another, for they truly believe that they should take what they want, and we must not punish them for simply living out their own reality. There is much â€Å"meat† lacking in Pi's statement, but such is to be expected in his case. It is important to consider one fact in all that he says-the story's setting is during his childhood. For one so young in the world, he speaks rather firmly on some considerable matters, of religion and how to live a fulfilling life. Pi talks as though he had lived a lifetime-worth of social and religious observations that give him qualification to speak so adamantly. Yet he is not stubborn, or narrow-minded, he simply has faith in himself. This mindset of faith in self can be expected from a person of any religion, which includes Pi since, basically, he has created a religion of his own, one that involves the idea of incorporating other religions. More importantly, children also hold this view, a belief in their own perspective. The story with the animals is certainly the more preferable story to read. If the book were made from the second story, it would be quite boring. But this is not to say that the second story is not the better one. Yann Martel simply chose to write the first one with more embellishment and elements that create a good story, a more positive story of steadfast courage and personal triumph. He wrote the second story to sound blockish, horrid, and unpleasantly real. The second story is the reality and the first one is Pi's askew take on reality. I do however think that if you incorporate the first story into the character of Pi in the second story, therefore making the second story more â€Å"story-like† by giving Pi characterization, the second story would be the better one, and the most real. It would be a tale of a castaway, who must endure the mutilation of other castaways, one being his mother, at the hand of a deranged Frenchman, who evidentially dies, leaving the boy alone in the lifeboat. But through all of this, the boy imagines that he is sailing on an incredible journey with animals, and they see many wondrous things, and through his struggles comes to look back on the journey as the one with animals, and not the horrid truth. Ah, but wait-that is the true story of the Life of Pi, the third story, the one that is not told explicitly but is instead derived by the combining of truth and perspective to mold an ultimate reality.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Comparison of two Poe short stories Essay

The â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart† and â€Å"The Black Cat† are two short stories written by the author Edgar Allan Poe respectively in 1843 and 1845. The two short stories which are characterized by a gothic and mysterious atmosphere has a very similar plot setting, but how do you differ the reason for killing an old innocent man(TTH), and a sudden hanging of the cat that you used to love(BC)? Poe gives a unique opportunity to analyze the way of human behavior through his short stories, where you as a reader have to study the minds of insane individuals who claim to be sane. The atmosphere of Poe’s two shorty stories indicates a lot of fear, which makes the tension rise as the timeline develops. This is seen in both stories, even though we have one big difference regarding the order of the events; in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart† our starting point is in a prison or in a mental health center most likely, where the protagonist recounts the preceding actions, which has led him to the place he is now. This means that we know the whole plot of the story. This flashback-like telling technique makes the reader focus more on aspects we normally consider less important; why does the heartbeat get louder and louder? â€Å"[†¦] the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder – louder – louder!†(P. 158 l. 9-10). These dark and odd aspects are quite important in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart†, not only because they make the story more exciting and thrilling by the anaphors for instance, but also because it leads us toward a more â€Å"right† comprehension of the protagonists` behavior; how and why is he driven to his state of mi nd? Poe’s way of writing makes the tension rise a lot towards the end. It almost feels like the text is speeding up for the reader because of the action-packed ending containing all of these repetitions and exclamation marks. Furthermore is the monologue also a central factor in both short stories affecting the atmosphere, because the protagonists enrage themselves more and more. No other individuals tries to calm them down in any way, ask how they are etc. Especially this makes them seem even crazier. In â€Å"The Black Cat† is the atmosphere also dark and frightening, but not exactly in the same way though. In contrast to the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart† are the smaller effects not that important in â€Å"The Black Cat†. The atmosphere is  more affected directly by the protagonist whose mood seems to be changing a lot through the story. The atmosphere appears almost idyllic in the beginning when the narrator tells us about this love for animals: â€Å"I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.† (P. 1 l. 21-23), but as the protagonist starts to go out and drink he gets more and more irritable. It seems like he is aware of the changing, but he finds himself unable to reverse it somehow. The answer for this might very well be the alcohol, which gives the atmosphere a huge twist as the protagonists’ senses are attenuated and he catches the wrong impressions of his formerly loved cat Pluto: â€Å"One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence.† (P. 2 l. 55-56). The negative side effects of the alcohol withdraw a condition influenced by paranoia for the protagonist. Poe has an unusual way of building up a fearful; more likely a disgusting atmosphere around hobbies containing good moral and mutual pleasure; caretaking of an old man and petting a loyal cat – not really the things we would consider evil. He does this deliberately to make the reader focus more on the protagonist’s personalities: Why would anyone hang a sweet cat or a kill an old man? The relationships are turned upside down; your friends become your enemies. If we take a closer look on the spectacular personalities we most likely indirectly make an interpretation of the protagonists who are defending their extreme behavior. This is specifically seen in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart†, wherein the protagonist tries to argue for his actions several times: â€Å"And have I not told you what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?† (P. 156 l. 27-28). The denial of the madness almost appear logic to some individuals perhaps, but you do not call it mitigating circumstances what so ever if an individual can hear the heart pounding of a dead man. This is in fact the biggest difference between the two men – the protagonist in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart† could as well be a woman, but he says: â€Å"You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing.† (P. 155 L. 3). For that reason we  assume the individual is a man; a man who has planned his murder for about a week. In contrast to this has the protagonist in â€Å"The Black Cat† not planned his murderous actions at all, but carries them out in blind rage. Besides this does the two protagonists have a lot in common regarding the narration especially. They both seem unreliable; they cannot be completely accurate with everything that happened in the past, particularly the narrator in â€Å"The Black Cat† since he was intoxicated by alcohol most of the time. Both titles say a lot about the narrators as well. The title in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart† can be put in relation to the narrator and his own heart, because he can’t bare his own actions at last and we think that it is in fact his own heart that pounds so hard in the end of the story due to the feeling of guiltiness. This applies equally in the other short story, wherein the man is suppressed by guiltiness in the end and suddenly kills his lovely wife. Furthermore is the thematic subject almost the same as the title interpretation; the human heart cannot bare such guiltïÆ'  outwardly they both seem very confident when the police searches the house, but the inside is the guilt-feeling increasing, which reveals the protagonist’s evil acts in the end. Poe masters the gothic genre very well by creating this fearful environment; even making the home a frightening place in the â€Å"Tell-Tale Heart†, whereas he makes irrational pets rational and makes the narrators irrational murdersïÆ'  relationship turned upside down again, this time regarding outwardly behavior. He changes the abilities of human nature in the big whole, which makes the stories a bit hard to analyze and therefore we must as reader think like a psychologist to obtain a slightly right comprehension of the unique stories.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Downfall of Affirmative Action essays

Downfall of Affirmative Action essays Affirmative action today, is considered to be one of the most controversial dilemmas facing our equal status of individual rights. As we all know, affirmative action was implemented with the idea and hope that America would finally become truly equal. So far, it has lasted for thirty years and has failed to solve any of our current problems concerning equal rights. Affirmative action was created with the intention of using reverse discrimination to solve the problem of discrimination. In that, in some cases minority groups are being chosen over other fully qualified workers who are not in the minority. This reversal of roles in racial discrimination does nothing but cause arguments and problems for both those for white males and those in the minority. Some arguments for affirmative action may be that for hundreds of years minorities were forced into servitude, and slavery by the white race, and now minorities are simply being repaid for all of those years of torture. In reality though, should men and women that have nothing to do with that oppression be forced to repay the minorities for their forefathers sufferings? Another counter argument to the abolition of affirmative action is that minorities for the most part are brought up in poor neighborhoods and therefore their education is not as good as most of the white people whose income level is higher and subsequently have better schools. Well if that is a reason for affirmative action why not make it to where all children, regardless of race, who are in the poorer communities reap the benefits of affirmative action. Education more than anything decides the potential for success in a persons life, and if most minorities are poor and need help then they should get it but poor whi te families should also receive those benefits. Despite the fact that affirmative action has some positive points that truly do contribute to society. It is still a fla...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Election Administration Reform essays

Election Administration Reform essays The election of 2000 is one that we will all remember, not because the candidates but because of the state of Florida. The chaos of the 2000 election in Florida has shown that our electoral system is in definite need of immediate reform. Not necessarily our voting system but more the means that we cast our votes. Some of the main problems in the 2000 election were the actual machines that we used to cast our votes. Other major issues were confusing ballots, inaccurate voter eligibility lists, lack of access for people with disabilities and the chaos surrounding the absentee ballot. The election of 2000 was a wake up call to the government and to the people of the U.S. that our election methods are long over due for a reform. In Florida, during the 2000 presidential elections one word that the citizens heard over and over for 2 weeks straight every news channel was chads. The word Chads refers the little piece of paper that pops out of the when the voter casts their vote. The problems surrounding the chads are that sometimes they do not fully pop out and are left dangling on the ballot resulting in that persons vote not getting cast. The reason we have this problem is because of the voting machines that we use. The pull lever machine that a majority of our voting polls use is very outdated and needs to be replaced with more advanced equipment. Another major concern with these machines is that many of the oldest, clumsiest ones tend to find their way into the poorest, minority neighborhoods. (League of woman voters) Another problem with the voting system that we have right now is that there is no consideration for people that have a disability of any kind. It is hard enough for them to get to the polling places and then when they do there is not a machine that many of them would be able to use and there is no way for them to have any real privacy. If they can not operate the voting machines by th...

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Case Analysis Of The Health care Systems

The health care systems that have been established in Australia have exerted pressure of the highest degree on the growing population of the country. It must be noted here that Australia has a mixed system of public and private health care provisions that have been regulated at different levels of governmental proceedings. Furthermore, the understanding of the function and structure of the health care system along with the factors that result in the elevation of the related costs is the primary requirement for the establishment of a proper financial management structure (Kaur 2015). The issue that has been presented in this question is that a case study where a nurse manager has been appointed for the purpose of managing a 32 bed general surgical ward that is placed in a metropolitan hospital in a major city. The particular issue in regards to the restructuring of the hospital networks in the local Area Health Service is that the general surgical ward has been asked to be combined with the 12 bed surgical ward that has been specially constructed for the purpose of short stay. The steps that are required for the development of a nursing business service plan can be described in a detailed method. The initial stage involves planning of the business case for the employment of the organizational fund. Here, it can be understood that the establishment of the 12 bed short stay surgical ward will require sufficient funds. Moreover, the planning should be carried out in such a way that the general surgical ward is placed adjacent to the short stay ward without hampering the functioning of both the wards are not hampered by each other (Song, Qiu and Liu 2016). The aims and objectives of the expansion should also be clarified in order to determine the particular service that is being offered to the patients (Song, Qiu and Liu 2016). The required support from the employees and other stakeholders of business should also be derived for the implementation of the expansion of the health care facilities (Dafny, Ho and Lee 2017). Next, the cost that is required for the setting up of the expanded part of the business should be properly calculated and figured (Dafny, Ho and Lee 2017). Lastly, enough initiative should be taken in order to facilitate the successful establishment of the short stay ward along with the general surgical ward (Singh caes et al., 2015). The staff who will be required for attending the patients in the short stay ward have to be trained accordingly (Singh caes et al., 2015). Moreover, the sections in regards to the general surgical ward and the short stay ward should be clearly segregated and the purpose should be explained of the expanded facility should be explained to the nurses and other staff of the hospital (Singh caes et al., 2015) It must be noted here that in case of a health care facility, the data does not flow into the entity in a standardized way. A great deal of challenge has to be faced by the health care systems in terms of collection of data from patients, enrollees and other members. The health care systems deal in a diverse range of documents like the data collection systems, medical records, billing records, health plans and other related documents. The data that is essentially required to develop a service profile are the data in regards to the race and ethnicity of the patients, individual persona health records and electronic data health records and other systems of data. It must be noted here that the till that point is reached when the collected data has been better integrated by the entities, there will be a certain degree of redundancy that will be in the collection of data in regards to the race, ethnicity and other related patient information. Moreover, the methods that would be adopted for the collection of information should be integrated into the data flows that are operating in the current times. The issue in regards to the efficiency and privacy of the patients should also be considered (Parikh 2017). Therefore, the documents that should are needed to be collected for the purpose of analyzing and developing a service profile are the supply market sources document. This document will help in identifying the suggested external sources that will essentially reflect the supply market data that will result in the further development of the effective business strategies. A developing strategic commissioning plans document is also required. Therefore, the documents that will be required are Guidance on Developing Strategic Commissioning Plans, Options Appraisal, External Data Sources Template, Registers, Medication journals, Clinic guidelines, Documents for recording the details of the diseased. The service demand for the new service level would be that the patients who would need treatment for a day or two, could be accommodated in the short stay ward and treated accordingly. However, it must be noted here that the ward has the capacity to accommodate 12 individuals at once. Therefore, the facilities should be arranged in that particular way. The work methodology that should be utilized for the determination of the supply of nurses required to staff the new service level are that the nurses already attending the general surgical ward should be properly trained in order to carry out the attending of the individuals who will be admitted to the short stay ward. It can be easily deduced from the names that the patients who will be attending the general surgical ward would be accommodating those patients that need intense care, as they will be undergoing general and complex surgeries. On the other hand, the short stay surgical ward will be accommodating those patients who can be cured in a lesser degree of time and do not hold such complexities in terms of injuries or other diseases. This means that the nurses who are attending the general surgical ward patients will be readily able to treat the patients of the short surgical ward. The only providence that should be available is a proper training and guideline framework for th e purpose of distinctly making the process clear to the nurses and other staff of the hospital in regards to the nature patients in both the surgical wards and the level of service they need. There is no certain concern in regards to the skill-mix or staff education issues for the purpose of attending to the patients of the short stay surgical ward. This is because the patients of the general surgical ward need due care and attention as they are suffering from injuries or other disease that are complex in nature and need surgery. Therefore, the degree of skill that is needed to attend to the patients of this particular ward will be apparently higher than the skill that is required to attend the patients of the short stay surgical ward. Thus, it can be deduced that the nurses and other staff will not be facing any kind of issues in regards to the staff education. However, it must be noted here that the particular behavior will be different in case of the patients that are for general and complex surgeries and the patients who are to get well soon in a shorter period of time. It is the primary duty of the nurse manager to make this clear among the nurses and other staff so that they can understand the degree of difference in behavior and service between the patients of the general surgical ward and the short stay surgical ward (Parikh 2017). A cost centre budget might be beneficial for the nurse manger to control the expenditures of the wards (Dafny, Ho and Lee 2017). The advantages of the cost centre budget are that the implementation of a cost centre budget will help in the comparison of the performance of the service unit in terms of the short stay surgical ward and the general surgical ward. A cost centre budget will help the nurse manager in identifying the underperforming parts of the hospital or the parts that require excessive un-estimated costs. A cost centre budget will help in the identification of the centers that generate the largest amount of expenditure. The identification of the cost centers will also facilitate the fact that the management of the hospital will be able to target these centers as the primary areas where the cost management strategies could be applied. A cost center budget also helps in improving the reaction speed. This is because the cost center budget will help in the allocation of the m ost skilled and responsible staff that will try to reduce the cost in facilitating such a center, which will in turn improve the reaction, speed. A cost center budget will also enable the staff and the nurses to make decisions on their part, which will increase the degree of motivation and thus enhance productivity. A flexible budget refers to the particular budget that includes the calculation of the different levels of expenditure in regards to the variable costs that depends on the changes in the actual amount of revenue that is incurred. A flexible budget is prepared at the end of each accounting period and this particular budget involves preparation in accordance to the inputs. The flexible budget is next compared to the actual revenue incurred for the purpose of controlling the expenditures. Some of the benefits of the flexible budgets are that a flexible budget is useful for those businesses whose costs are closely related to the level of business activity. This particular method of budgeting also is useful in measuring the effectiveness of the services provided by the employees or the staff. Moreover, a flexible budget can be very easily updated (Barr and McClellan 2018). A particular disadvantage of the flexible budget is that the implementation of such a budget is difficult to administer and formulate. A flexible budget cannot be aligned with any kind of accounting software making the comparison of the financial statements with the budgeted statements impossible. Moreover, a flexible budget cannot facilitate the comparison between the actual revenue and the budgeted revenue due to the fact that the both the numbers are similar (Barr and McClellan 2018). Zero based budgeting refers to the particular method of budgeting in which the expenses that are estimated to be incurred by a particular business entity for a new accounting period is assumed to be zero. This means that the expenses for the new accounting period are calculated on the basis of the actual expenses that are incurred rather than on incremental basis. The advantages of zero based budgeting are that this particular method of budgeting will result in focused operations, lower degree of costs, a controlled and disciplined execution of the business strategies in regards to effective cost management. The disadvantages of zero based budgeting can be listed down to the fact that this particular method of budgeting is resource intensive in nature. Moreover, a zero based budget is exposed to a high degree of manipulation by the managers of the organizations as it involves short term planning(Barr and McClellan 2018). An output based budgeting refers to the particular method of budgeting that is dependent on the performance by the employees or the staff of the organization. It is that method of budgeting that ties the measurement of the individual or the departmental performance with the particular process of budgeting. The advantage of output based budgeting is that the amount that is allocated to a particular department has a direct link with the departmental performance. This inspires the department personnel to increase their all round productivity in order to obtain more monetary benefits that may be allocated via the output based budgeting method. A disadvantage of the output based budgeting is that this particular kind of budget is prepared from the baseline of the organization and construct a request for the budget from each department. However, the ultimate grant of the budgeted amount depends on the high-ranking officials of the management who may manipulate the figures or take decisions that are exposed to political influences (Miller 2018). Among the above mentioned three methods of budgeting, the particular method that would be most suitable for the nurse manager to implement in the hospital is the flexible budget. This is because the flexible budget essentially involves the preparation of the budget on the basis of the level of activities that are performed in the field of work. Therefore, this is the suitable method of budgeting. The three main areas of expenditure that may be considered while developing a cost centre budget are the expenditure related to the different surgeries that might have to be conducted for the patients in the general surgical ward; the expenditures related to the general pharmacy that will be installed within the hospital for the welfare of the patients. Moreover, the third major area that should be considered is that the expenditure in relation to the emergency ward should also be considered as the most critical medical cases are conducted here. Moreover, this is the ward where the most valuable medical equipments and applications are placed, the maintenance of which requires sufficient cost. An example of the cost center budget has been shown below that may be applied in case of the private hospital. The salaries and wage budget that has been prepared above consist of the mandatory remuneration components that should be received by a personnel in the health care sector. The assumptions have been made on the basis of the different salary components that are given by reputed health care institutions in Australia. Moreover, the overtime allowance that has been included in this particular table indicates the extra monetary benefit that will be received by the staff. This is on account of the fact that the nurses might have to do overtime duty on the account of the fact that the work space now has been expanded into an additional unit of short stay surgical ward (Dafny, Ho and Lee 2017). The conclusion that can be arrived at from the discussions in the preceding paragraphs is that setting up or expanding a health care facility in Australia is a rigorous process. Beginning from planning the facility to the preparation of the salaries and wage budget requires skilled analysis and evaluation. However, the service provided by these health care facilities and the hospitals is commendable and should be praised for the welfare carried out by these entities. Barr, M.J. and McClellan, G.S., 2018. Budgets and financial management in higher education. John Wiley & Sons. Dafny, L., Ho, K. and Lee, R.S., 2017. The price effects of cross-market mergers: Theory and evidence from the hospital industry. Kalyani, P., 2015. A study on implementation of community health insurance scheme in the cardiology department of a tertiary care government hospital. Journal Of Evolution Of Medical And Dental Sciences-Jemds, 4(18), pp.3124-3133. Kaur, A., 2015. Computerized Hospital Management Information System-Public And Private Sector. Global Journal of Computer Science Research & Technology, pp.1123-1134. Kumar, V., Patil, R., Patil, M., Mudbi, S., Kaveri, C. and Patil, S., 2014. Pattern of antibiotics usage in bidar institute of medical sciences,(BRIMS) teaching hospital, Bidar. Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences, 3(29), pp.8122-8126. Miller, G., 2018. Performance based budgeting. Routledge. Ó hAlmhain, O., 2015. Medication safety officer in an Irish hospital: a financial cost-benefit appraisal (Doctoral dissertation, The Institute of Public Administration). Poola, D., Garg, S.K., Buyya, R., Yang, Y. and Ramamohanarao, K., 2014, May. Robust scheduling of scientific workflows with deadline and budget constraints in clouds. In Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), 2014 IEEE 28th International Conference on (pp. 858-865). IEEE. Shah, J.N., 2017. Taking Specialist Surgical Services to the Rural District Hospitals at One Forth Cost: A Sustainable ‘Return on Investment’Public Health Initiative of Patan Hospital, Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Nepal. Kathmandu University Medical Journal, 13(2), pp.186-192. Singh, S., Ahalawat, I., Singh, B., Singh, S. and Chauhan, A., 2015. Study of Cost Analysis of in House Dieteary Services in a Tertiary Care Academic Hospital. Song, J., Qiu, Y. and Liu, Z., 2016. Integrating optimal simulation budget allocation and genetic algorithm to find the approximate Pareto patient flow distribution. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 13(1), pp.149-159. Sudheer, G., Prabhu, G.R. and Sridhar, M.S., 2015. A study of prescription writing practices of doctors in geriatric age group patients in a teaching hospital. Jour of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences, 4(3), pp.322-8.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Higher Education in Qatar Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Higher Education in Qatar - Research Paper Example The Sheik is a capable man eager to set the state in continuous motion of self-independence and sustainability in the future should the oil and gas become extinct. In this case, the generation thus created will be able to stand on its feet and enhance innovation through education (Fromherz, 2012). Not only is this the main factor and project, but also the principal transformation through policies geared to motivate research and technology in production sectors. The country being limited by the amount of rainfall cannot thus depend on agriculture, but has come up to be a rich mine of the gas and oil which are the main sources of per capita income and which has now been used to better the education sector in order to raise a generation that can fend for itself in the near future. Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016 was implemented towards the achievement of Qatar National Vision 2030. The Vision aims to create sustainable economic prosperity, promote human development, creati ng a sound social development and sustaining the environment for future generations (Zellman, 2007). The national strategy is one of the key issues that take into consideration the cultural and religious values of the state with an overall mission of providing a balanced and sustainable growth by the year 2030 (Davis, 2012). Among the key elements that the government factored to be used as a tool for sustainable development was education which was to be made available to all citizen and foreigners cheaply (Boys, 2011). To achieve continuous modernization requires the development of the education system and public institutions which aim at providing quality management and services to the general... Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016 was implemented towards the achievement of Qatar National Vision 2030. The Vision aims to create sustainable economic prosperity, promote human development, creating a sound social development and sustaining the environment for future generations (Zellman, 2007). The national strategy is one of the key issues that take into consideration the cultural and religious values of the state with an overall mission of providing a balanced and sustainable growth by the year 2030(Davis, 2012).Among the key elements that the government factored to be used as a tool for sustainable development was education which was to be made available to all citizen and foreigners cheaply(Boys, 2011). To achieve continuous modernization requires the development of the education system and public institutions which aim at providing quality management and services to the general public. The aim of the National Strategy is also to highlight the key areas to address t he position of the state in global economic trends and clearly state the roles to be played to enhance both regional and international levels of production. Chapter four of the strategy provides for the human development and highlights the critical issues with regard to education. The main focus here is to realize Qatar National Vision 2030 for education and training, addressing education issues, improving K-12 general education, enhancing higher education, as well as scientific research.

Discipleship Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Discipleship Program - Essay Example 1. One on One Mentoring. A friend of mine who spent some years of College inside the seminary told us of a system, where a senior seminarian is assigned to guide a neophyte through the process of adjustment; from a life of ease to a more restricted one. The senior seminarian is referred to as the Angel; while the new comer, Tobias. This system provides room for one on one coaching and counseling. In the process, camaraderie is strengthened as the neophyte gains confidence and develops to become an 'angel' himself in about a year's time. "Personal instruction from someone who is well experienced and versed was the best way to learn and develop ministry skills, and it still is," according to Dr. Richard J. Krejcir.ii In other churches, this takes the form of house visitation by an elder to a new or prospective member. This method is particularly effective due to its personalized approach, although it may tend to exhaust resources in terms of manpower, and time. 2. Small Group Sessions. Bible studies are usually conducted in small groups to facilitate a more cohesive sharing of experiences, and generate a lot more insights; so does a Sunday school session separately conducted for children, teens, and adults.

Leadership as Defined by Subcomandante Marcos and Martin Luther King Essay

Leadership as Defined by Subcomandante Marcos and Martin Luther King Jr - Essay Example For others, it may have a much more negative meaning: treating others as though they are you underlings while you bully, boss and take advantage of them; gaining at the expense and through the work and efforts of those who are your "inferiors." The latest definition of "leadership" is fast becoming a clich: the ability to motivate and direct people around you, within a business relationship. Subcomandante Marcos has a very real aura of mystery around him. Although many suspect (with good reason) that his real identity is that of Rafael Sebastin Guilln Vicente, this has not been established as completely true. Marcos purposely obscures his face, at least partially, from public view. During his entire existence as a civil rights leader, he has championed the cause of indigenous people of Mexico. Unbeknownst to many North Americans, the native people of Mexico are treated questionably by their government, with regard to their human rights. Marcos works closely with the Zapatistas, a group that disagrees with and rebels against the official Mexican government. Together, they openly find fault with the way the people of Chiapas, Mexico (an area that borders Guatemala) are treated by the Mexican government. Marcos and the Zapatistas believe that the natives of Chiapas are very repressed in terms of expressing and identifying with the culture and customs of their ancestors. In general, the basic philosophy of Marcos, as well as the Zapatista army, is that equal rights should be extended to all, irrespective of race, nationality, gender, sexual preference, political affiliation or religious beliefs, and that these equal rights entail no special treatment towards anyone concerning economic or educational opportunity, or the freedom to express oneself, provided it does not interfere with the personal liberty of another. This philosophy is what has spurred Marcos to dedicate his time and energy towards both drawing attention to the struggle of the inhabitants of Chiapas, as well as to insist that these people be respected and recognized by the Mexican government. Marcos, who is rumored to possess a university degree centered on philosophy, employs traditional democratic processes (petitioning, garnering public support and attention, political discussion and humor) as well as less orthodox methods (inclusion within the Zapatista military.) Marcos has clearly succeeded as a leader, in one respect; he has obviously persuaded people to trust and follow him, but is his cause worthy of that trust His expressed motives convince us that he is, in fact sincere. He simply wishes to give equality to those who are suffering without it. Martin Luther King, Jr. had many similarities to Marcos; he also believed in equality towards all, while combating racial injustice towards the black people within his country. Likewise, his target group for whom he was fighting were oppressed economically by society and treated like second-class

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Global Marketing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Global Marketing - Assignment Example y than others and this means that for a nation to acquire certain commodities from such nations then they have to pay relatively higher prices (Weithers, 2011:44). The report above shows for a period of four years where the value for U.S Dollar has been steadily increasing. The figures show that more than 80% of the currencies studied have lowered in value as compared to the U.S Dollar. There are several reasons why the U.S Dollar has had an increase in value for the past four years. One of the reasons is the high demand of the dollar in the international market. With increased production and active participation in the international market, the U.S supplied the world with products and services and this increased the ‘attachment’ it has had through trade. To make their commodities valuable, an increase in currency value would occur. Market forces in the international trade are critical in determining the currency value of a country. Looking at those countries that U.S majorly supply, it is obvious that their currency is less valuable compared to the U.S Dollars. However, Britain and Switzerland have currencies that are much higher in value than the U.S dollar because of their control of the market in terms of supply (Towbin and Weber, 2011: 177). Among the things that the U.S government probably did was to regulate the interest rates so as to increase value for its currency. This might have been done through restricting and controlling the money that runs in the international framework. When the currency is not easily found yet it is on great demand, its value normally go up automatically. The U.S government might have also deliberately set certain elastic rates that change with time. For instance, within a period of 48 hours, the currency’s value goes up by some figure. Since the international traders need this currency to help them trade with other partners, they would still buy it at those ‘expensive’ prices making the value to progressively

Politics in the Middle East Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Politics in the Middle East - Essay Example That led to counter reaction and eventually and the current deplorable situation. In Iran on the other hand, the domestic politics remain complex with issues like the contentious nuclear program leads to instability. Furthermore, the president supports the Syrian president against ISS that exposes Iraq to risks of attack from the terrorist group. Black (2014) presents Syria political condition as the worst of all in the nations found in the Middle East region. The declaration of ISS of Syria as an Islamic State led to outbreak of war between the government and forces that backs it from Iran and the militiamen of Shia from Iraq. It is evident that efforts to eliminate the group remain far from bearing fruits. The impact however, proves more devastating with lost lives accounting to over one hundred and fifty civilians while immigrating civilians have led to creation of refugees’ crisis across Europe. Lebanon equally suffers mostly as a result of war in Syria and the existence o f a deeply fractured polity that the nation enjoys. As a result of Lebanon’s president defense to the Syrian president, tension remains high as the Sunni community reacts violently. War in Syria affects Jordan as more than six hundred refugees joined the country. Furthermore, tensions remain high with the political leaders of Jordan wary of Isis appealing to disaffected Sunnis. Turkey on the other hand provides support to anti-Assad rebels, but still worried about Isis as well as the independence of Kurdish (Black, 2014).

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Leadership as Defined by Subcomandante Marcos and Martin Luther King Essay

Leadership as Defined by Subcomandante Marcos and Martin Luther King Jr - Essay Example For others, it may have a much more negative meaning: treating others as though they are you underlings while you bully, boss and take advantage of them; gaining at the expense and through the work and efforts of those who are your "inferiors." The latest definition of "leadership" is fast becoming a clich: the ability to motivate and direct people around you, within a business relationship. Subcomandante Marcos has a very real aura of mystery around him. Although many suspect (with good reason) that his real identity is that of Rafael Sebastin Guilln Vicente, this has not been established as completely true. Marcos purposely obscures his face, at least partially, from public view. During his entire existence as a civil rights leader, he has championed the cause of indigenous people of Mexico. Unbeknownst to many North Americans, the native people of Mexico are treated questionably by their government, with regard to their human rights. Marcos works closely with the Zapatistas, a group that disagrees with and rebels against the official Mexican government. Together, they openly find fault with the way the people of Chiapas, Mexico (an area that borders Guatemala) are treated by the Mexican government. Marcos and the Zapatistas believe that the natives of Chiapas are very repressed in terms of expressing and identifying with the culture and customs of their ancestors. In general, the basic philosophy of Marcos, as well as the Zapatista army, is that equal rights should be extended to all, irrespective of race, nationality, gender, sexual preference, political affiliation or religious beliefs, and that these equal rights entail no special treatment towards anyone concerning economic or educational opportunity, or the freedom to express oneself, provided it does not interfere with the personal liberty of another. This philosophy is what has spurred Marcos to dedicate his time and energy towards both drawing attention to the struggle of the inhabitants of Chiapas, as well as to insist that these people be respected and recognized by the Mexican government. Marcos, who is rumored to possess a university degree centered on philosophy, employs traditional democratic processes (petitioning, garnering public support and attention, political discussion and humor) as well as less orthodox methods (inclusion within the Zapatista military.) Marcos has clearly succeeded as a leader, in one respect; he has obviously persuaded people to trust and follow him, but is his cause worthy of that trust His expressed motives convince us that he is, in fact sincere. He simply wishes to give equality to those who are suffering without it. Martin Luther King, Jr. had many similarities to Marcos; he also believed in equality towards all, while combating racial injustice towards the black people within his country. Likewise, his target group for whom he was fighting were oppressed economically by society and treated like second-class

Politics in the Middle East Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Politics in the Middle East - Essay Example That led to counter reaction and eventually and the current deplorable situation. In Iran on the other hand, the domestic politics remain complex with issues like the contentious nuclear program leads to instability. Furthermore, the president supports the Syrian president against ISS that exposes Iraq to risks of attack from the terrorist group. Black (2014) presents Syria political condition as the worst of all in the nations found in the Middle East region. The declaration of ISS of Syria as an Islamic State led to outbreak of war between the government and forces that backs it from Iran and the militiamen of Shia from Iraq. It is evident that efforts to eliminate the group remain far from bearing fruits. The impact however, proves more devastating with lost lives accounting to over one hundred and fifty civilians while immigrating civilians have led to creation of refugees’ crisis across Europe. Lebanon equally suffers mostly as a result of war in Syria and the existence o f a deeply fractured polity that the nation enjoys. As a result of Lebanon’s president defense to the Syrian president, tension remains high as the Sunni community reacts violently. War in Syria affects Jordan as more than six hundred refugees joined the country. Furthermore, tensions remain high with the political leaders of Jordan wary of Isis appealing to disaffected Sunnis. Turkey on the other hand provides support to anti-Assad rebels, but still worried about Isis as well as the independence of Kurdish (Black, 2014).

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Essay Example for Free

China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Essay The net profit figure of RMB 19,011 reported under PRC GAAP was increased to RMB 21,593 under IFRS. The increase of RMB 2,582 under IFRS was due to the following reasons: Dep. and disposal of oil and gas properties RMB3,044 Acquisition of subsidiaries 443 Capitalization of general borrowing costs 389 Gain from issuance of shares by subsidiary 136 Gain from debt restructuring 82 Revaluation of land use rights 18 4,112 Unrecognized losses of subsidiaries (182) Pre-operating expenditures (169) Effect on taxation (1,179)(1,530) 2,582 The net profit figure of RMB 21,593 reported under IFRS was increased to RMB 25,577 under U. S. GAAP. The increase of RMB 3,984 under U.S. GAAP was due to the following reasons: Dep. of revalued PPE RMB 3,998 Disposal of PPE 1,316 Capitalized interest on invest.in associates 141 Reversal of deficits on revaluation of PPE 86 Foreign exchange gains and losses76 Reversal of impairment of long-lived assets 47 Exchange of assets23 Capitalization of PPE12 5,699 Deferred tax effect of U.S. GAAP adjustments (1,715) 3,984 2.The differences for CPCC between PRC GAAP and IFRS, and between IFRS and U.S. GAAP are given in the case. As mentioned in the case, treatments of the following items under PRC GAAP and IFRS are different: Depreciation and disposal of oil and gas properties Capitalization of general borrowing costs Acquisition of subsidiaries Gains from issuance of shares by a subsidiary Gains from debt restructuring Revaluation of land use rights Unrecognized losses of subsidiaries Pre-operating expenditures Impairment loses on long-lived assets Government grants (Refer pp.5-72 5-75 in the textbook) Treatments of depreciation and disposal of oil and gas properties seem to have a significant impact on reported profit. As mentioned in the case, treatments of the following items under IFRS and U.S. GAAP are different: Foreign exchange gains and losses Capitalization and revaluation of property, plant and equipment Exchange of assets Impairment of long-lived assets Capitalization of interest on investment in associates Goodwill amortization Companies included in consolidation Related party transactions (Refer pp.5-77 – 5-82) Treatments of depreciation of revalued property, plant and equipment, and disposal of property, plant and equipmentseem to have a significant impact on reported profit 3.U.K. readers of the financial statements may not find them very useful, as the information is not reconciled to the U.K. GAAP. There are differences between U.K. GAAP and IFRS, and between U.K. GAAP and U.S. GAAP. With the adoption of IFRS in the EU, this may not be a major problem anymore. However, UK companies use IFRS as adopted by the EU which in some cases differs from the IFRS issued by the IASB. 4.U.S. readers should find the information useful. However, it would be better for them if the information was reconciled directly from PRC GAAP to U.S. GAAP. 5.When a company is listed on a foreign stock exchange, it is always useful to explain the differences, if any, between accounting standards used in  preparing financial statements, and those that are stipulated by the listing requirements. The need for such explanation is reduced if the two sets of standards are comparable. However, differences can still exist due to different interpretations of the requirements. Therefore, the approach taken by CPCC can be recommended to other companies.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Social psychological principles of prejudice and attitudes

Social psychological principles of prejudice and attitudes Many people believe prejudice and discrimination mean the same thing .In fact there is a very important difference between them. Prejudice is an attitude, whereas discrimination refers to the behaviour or action. If someone dislikes a given minority, but does not allow this dislike to effect their behaviour then the person shows prejudice but not discrimination. According to Baron and Byrne (1991) prejudice is an attitude towards the member of some group based solely on their membership in that group. In contrast discrimination involves negative action directed at the member of the group. Allport (1954) argued that there are five different stages of discrimination. Anti-location: Verbal attacks are directed against some other group. Avoidance: the other group is systematically avoided. Discrimination: the other group is deliberately treated less well than other groups in term of civil rights. Physical attack: Membership of the other group are attacked and their property is destroyed. Extermination: there are deliberate attempts to kill all members of the other group. The word prejudice can be broken down in to pre (meaning before) and judice (meaning judgement). Therefore to be prejudice towards an individual or group shows a pre-judge of that individual or group. There are three elements to prejudice. Cognitive element: This involves the beliefs held about the group. These beliefs will be in the form of stereotyping, common but over simple views of what particular groups of people are like. The affective element: This involves the feelings experienced in response to the group. If we are prejudiced against a group we may experience anger, fear, hate or disgust when we encounter a member of that group. The behavioural element: This consists of our actions toward the object of our prejudice. Behaving differently towards people based on their membership of a group is called discrimination. Our actions against members of a group against which we hold a prejudice can rang from avoidance and verbal criticism to mass extermination. Psychological approach to explain prejudice falls in to two broad areas. Social approach centres on the social factors that contribute to prejudice in general. Whereas individual differences approaches centres on what factors make some people more prone to prejudice. Tajel and Turner (1979) proposed the social identity theory. This theory is one of a group of theoryà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s that share the assumption that prejudice can be explained by our tendency to identify ourselves as part of a group and to classify other people as either within or outside that group. Tajfel and Turner carried out a number of laboratory experiment called the minimal group Tajfel (1970) carried out an experiment to look at intergroup discrimination. To test his theory sixty four schoolboys aged between 14 and 15 year old were selected. The participants were initially informed that the experiment was research investigating vision. The boys were shown clusters of dots on a screen and asked to estimate the number of dots on the picture. The participants were then divided in to two groups group A and group B. Group A was classified as boys that had underestimated the amount of dots and group B was those boys who had overestimated the amount of dots. The boys were then given a number of tasks in which they would allocate points to each other. Each boy did not know who they were allocating points to but they did know which group the boy belonged to three conditions were used as part of this experiment condition one the choice was between two boys from group A the second condition was two boys from group B and the last condition used one boy from each group. What Tajfel identified as part of this research was that the boys overwhelmingly chose to allocate points to the boys who had been indentified as in the same group as themselves. Despite the fact that there was no direct competition between the two groups the participants consistently displayed favouritism towards the boys from the same group. Ellis and Fox (2001) also carried out research in to prejudice and discrimination looking effect of self-identification sexual orientation on helping behaviour. This research involves 235 British men and women were telephone at home. The caller explained that they had dialled the wrong number and that they had no more change to make a further call and asked if the participant would relay a message to the callerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s partner. In the experimental condition the callers partner was identified as the same sex as the caller, and in the controlled condition they were identified as the opposite sex. The finding shoed that overall both gay man and lesbians were less likely to receive help than heterosexuals. Women were also more to receive help than men. The final conclusion to the research showed that people were less likely to offer help to a gay men who found themselves in difficulty. This showed prejudice and discrimination towards gay men. When discussing prejudice or discrimination, stereotyping also needs to be examined Stewart et al. (1979) described stereotyping as a process not only used to simplify environmental and social stimuli, but one that also aids the construction of meaning to those stimuli based on attribution expectations. Whereas Taguirs (1969) defined stereotyping as the tendency to place a person in a category according to some easily and quickly identifiable characteristic such as age, sex, ethic membership, nationality or occupation, and then to attribute to them qualities believed to be typical of a member of that category. Stereotypes seem to provide a simple and economical; way of perceiving the world. In the late 1800s male Chinese immigrants were brought to the U.S. to work on the railroads and as agricultural labours on the West Coast many specialized in laundry services. Some came willingly others were basically kidnapped and brought forcibly. After the transcontinental railroad was completed and it occurred to white Americans that the Chinese workers were still around and might compete with them for jobs, a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment swept the U.S. Chinese men were stereotyped as degenerate heroin addicts whose presence encouraged prostitution, gambling, and other immoral activities. Since most Chinese immigrants were brought here specifically as workers, the vast majority were male few at that time were able to bring their wives. A number of cities on the West Coast experienced riots in which whites attacked Asians and destroyed Chinese sections of town. The Seattle riot resulted in practically the entire Chinese population being rounded up and forcibly sent to San Franci sco. Similar situations in other towns encouraged Chinese workers scattered throughout the West to relocate, leading to the growth of Chinatowns in a few larger cities on the West Coast. Ac cording to Buchanan (2007) many researchers have argued that prejudice is part of human nature and that the only by confronting our authentic nature can we gain real insight into the forces that drive group conflict and learn how we might better manage and defuse such urges. Probable the first formal proposal of a set of social psychological principles for reducing prejudice was from Allportà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s (1954) Contact hypothesis. Prejudice may be reduced by equal status contact between majority and the minority groups in the pursuit of common goals. When people are segregated they are more likely to experience autistic hostility, that is ignorance of other which in turn results in a failure to understand the reason for their actions Lack of contact means there is no reality testing against which to checking our own interpretation of others behaviour, and in turn can enforce negative stereotyping.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Auschwitz Essay -- Essays Papers

Auschwitz Auschwitz was one of the most infamous and largest concentration camp known during World War II. It was located in the southwestern part of Poland commanded by Rudolf HÃ ¶ss. Auschwitz was first opened on June 14, 1940, much later than most of the other camps. It was in Auschwitz that the lives of so many were taken by methods of the gas chamber, crematoriums, and even from starvation and disease. These methods took "several hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand" lives a day. The majority of the lives killed were those of Jews although Gypsies, Yugoslavs, Poles, and many others of different ethnic backgrounds as well. The things most known about Auschwitz are the process people went through when entering the camp and throughout their time there, the conditions at the camp, and the experiments performed by Dr. Josef Mengele. In the concentration camp, Auschwitz, there was an elaborate process that the people went through when they arrived. Freight cars filled with people arrived daily in the camp. From that point the people were ordered to unload any of their belongings that they brought with them. At that point they are immediately told to line up to go through the first selection. Those were old or unfit to work, such as children, were automatically sent to the gas chambers. The others were then tattooed with a specific identification numbers, had their hair cut off, and were given prisoner uniforms to work in. These who passed the first selection then were forced to perform excruciating labor jobs. Each morning and afternoon a roll call was held and yet another selection was made. The SS, German soldiers and doctors, would make the prisoner’s strip from their clothes in order to make a full examination of t... ... march out of Auschwitz to different camps. The SS feared that liberation was coming. They told the prisoners that if any fell behind or stopped that they would be killed. Only a small number remained at Auschwitz. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army finally liberated Auschwitz. There were over one million lives that perished at this camp, only sixty-five thousand people survived. Many of these lives died by the gas chambers, crematoriums, effects of experimenting, torture, starvation, and many more reasons. Auschwitz will always be seen as a place that shall be remembered throughout history. Lives were taken but the memories shall prevail. Works Cited 1. Adler, Jerry. "The Last Days of Auschwitz." Newsweek (1995): 46-59. 2. Fischel, Jack R. The Holocaust. London: Greenwood Press, 1998. 3. Swiebocka, Teresa. Auschwitz. Indiana University Press, 1993.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Stopping by the Woods Essay example -- essays research papers

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is by far one of my favorite works of modern poetry. The pensive, unhurried mood of the poem is reflected with a calm rich imagery that creates a vivid mental picture. The simple words and rhyme scheme of the poem give it an easy flow, which adds to the tranquility of the piece. Every aspect of the poem builds off the others to put the mind into the calm of a winter evening. The first stanza of the poem is rather simple and provides the basis for the imagery. It mentions the woods and implies that they are located away from town and civilization "his house is in the village though". It also shows the easy pace that speaker is taking, having plenty of time to simply watch the falling snow. As I think about them, the words of the first stanza are not overtly somber, they do however through their order and the way they were chosen create a rather pensive mood. The second stanza provides a more in depth view of the imagery sketched out in the first; it also provides a more definite time and location. The first two lines of this stanza firmly place the reader rather deep in the woods and away from any dwelling. He is so far out in fact that his horse is puzzled by his actions. The next line gives a better image of the scene "Between the woods and frozen lake"; it seems to be a rather quiet and lonely place. The next line then provides that it is night...

Friday, October 11, 2019

Dostoevsky: Psychiatric Genius?

The book Crime and Punishment and its author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, both came many years before their time. In the book, Dostoevsky clearly describes the medical disorders we now know today as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dissociative identity disorder which is also known as multiple personality disorder. The book was first published in 1866, however, schizophrenia was first described officially in 1887 by Dr.Emile Kraepelin and not given the name â€Å"schizophrenia† until Eugene Bleuler coined the term in 1911 (The History of Schizophrenia). And it was not until the late 19th and early 20th century that Pierre Janet coined the term dissociative identity (Pendergrast). Bipolar Disorder was also a relatively new disorder being that it was officially described in 1854 (â€Å"A Brief History of Bipolar Disorder†).The character of Raskolnikov is a good example of these three disorders because of the way he acts towards others or towards himself and then suddenly has a change of feelings or mindset. Schizophrenia is defined as a common type of psychosis, characterized by abnormalities in perception, content of thought, and thought processes (hallucinations and delusions) and by extensive withdrawal of interest from other people and the outside world, with excessive focusing on one's own mental life (WebMD LLC).In the beginning of the book, the narrator talks about how Raskolnikov has â€Å"become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all† (Dostoevsky 1). This is the first sign of schizophrenia that Dostoevsky shows in Raskolnikov, it is obvious that Raskolnikov has become isolated and does not want to be around any other people. Next, Raskolnikov’s illness is almost completely caused by his hallucinations, delusions, and dreams.This is seen in part two, chapter one after Raskolnikov has committed the murders â€Å"He sat down on the sofa in exh austion and was at once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering†¦he covered himself up with his winter coat and once more sank into drowsiness and delirium. † (92). This is also seen in chapter three after he returns to his room and has a dream about his landlady being beaten, â€Å"He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill; he was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious. † (120).Raskolnikov continues to focus on his own mental state throughout the novel and he does not truly become well until the end of the story when he confesses, suffers, and becomes educated. Raskolnikov also has many symptoms of dissociative identity disorder, which is defined as a severe form of dissociation, a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. Dissociative identity disorder is thought to stem from trauma experienced by the person with the dis order (WebMD LLC).Raskolnikov’s condition has obviously stemmed from the trauma Raskolnikov experienced after having committed the murders which is a major sign of dissociative identity disorder, and there are instances where Raskolnikov will do something and immediately completely regret his decision such as when he gives money to Marmeladov and then wants to go up to the room to take his money back â€Å"Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window.Afterwards, on the stairs he changed his mind and would have gone back† (Dostoevsky 26-27). Rakolnikov also has a form of dissociation because he gets into moods when he is thinking about certain things but disregarding other important details such as closing the door at the pawnbroker’s, locking his own door the night of the murder, and checking his clothes for blood. A third disorder t hat Dostoevsky describes through the character of Raskolnikov is bipolar disorder.Bipolar disorder is a major affective disorder, or mood disorder, characterized by dramatic mood swings. Bipolar disorder is a serious condition, when mania causes sleeplessness, sometimes for days, along with hallucinations, psychosis, grandiose delusions, and/or paranoid rage (WebMD LLC). Raskolnikov has many mood swings throughout the story. One of the first examples is when he is debating whether he should go talk to his friend Razumikhin, he changes his mind several times and then decides not to see him.Raskolnikov also switches moods about his â€Å"act† that he is planning to commit which we come to know is the murder of Alonya Ivanova. He switches his decision several times and finally commits to killing her when he finds out that she will be alone at seven o’ clock, â€Å"he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocable decided† (Dostoevsky 65). We also know that Raskolnikov suffered from hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid rage that he used to kill Alonya.These hallucinations included the dream of the horse getting beaten, the dream that his landlady was being beaten, and the nightmare when Raskolnikov is trying to kill the pawnbroker but she does not die, she only laughs. Dostoevsky helped to pave the way for other doctors and scientists to discover all of the symptoms of these mental illnesses we now know as schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, and bipolar disorder. This shows how much Dostoevsky knew about human nature. He was able to pick out tendencies that many mentally ill people have.Not only did he describe these three, he also described alcoholism very accurately by using the character Marmeladov to show that alcoholism only leads to suffering and the more one continues to drink, the more suffering they endure, â€Å"â€Å"the more I drink, the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink†¦. I drink so that I may suffer twice as much! † And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table† (14). Dostoevsky was a very extraordinary man and he gave mankind many contributions.Psychology was an important part of Crime and Punishment, but it is also clear that Dostoevsky is a very intelligent writer and incorporates many different themes into his works. ? Works Cited â€Å"A Brief History of Bipolar Disorder. † Today’s Caregiver. 2009. http://www. caregiver. com/channels/bipolar/articles/brief_history. htm. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Ed. Bantam Classic Reissue. New York: Bantam Dell, 2003. â€Å"The History of Schizophrenia. † Schizophrenia. com. 2004. http://www. schizophrenia. com/history. htm .Pendergrast, Mark. Victims of Memory. Upper Access Books, 1996. â€Å"Schizophrenia. † Dictionary. com. 2009. http:// dictionary. reference. com/browse/schizophrenia. WebMD LLC. â€Å"Bipolar Disorder. † WebMD. 2009. http://www. webmd. com/depression/guide/bipolar-disorder-manic-depression. WebMD LLC. â€Å"Dissociative Identity Disorder. † WebMD. 2009. http://www. webmd. com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder. WebMD LLC. â€Å"Medical Dictionary: Schizophrenia. † WebMD. 2009. http://dictionary. webmd. com/terms/schizophrenia.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Patient Recording System Essay

The system supplies future data requirements of the Fire Service Emergency Cover (FSEC) project, Fire Control, fundamental research and development. Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) will also be able to use this better quality data for their own purposes. The IRS will provide FRSs with a fully electronic data capture system for all incidents attended. All UK fire services will be using this system by 1 April 2009. Creation of a general-purpose medical record is one of the more difficult problems in database design. In the USA, most medical institutions have much more electronic information on a patient’s financial and insurance history than on the patient’s medical record. Financial information, like orthodox accounting information, is far easier to computerize and maintain, because the information is fairly standardized. Clinical information, by contrast, is extremely diverse. Signal and image data—X-Rays, ECGs, —requires much storage space, and is more challenging to manage. Mainstream relational database engines developed the ability to handle image data less than a decade ago, and the mainframe-style engines that run many medical database systems have lagged technologically. One well-known system has been written in assembly language for an obsolescent class of mainframes that IBM sells only to hospitals that have elected to purchase this system. CPRSs are designed to review clinical information that has been gathered through a variety of mechanisms, and to capture new information. From the perspective of review, which implies retrieval of captured data, CPRSs can retrieve data in two ways. They can show data on a single patient (specified through a patient ID) or they can be used to identify a set of patients (not known in advance) who happen to match particular demographic, diagnostic or clinical parameters. That is, retrieval can either be patient-centric or parameter-centric. Patient-centric retrieval is important for real time clinical decision support. â€Å"Real time† means that the response should be obtained within seconds (or a few minutes at the most), because the availability of current information may mean the difference between life and death. Parameter-centric retrieval, by contrast, involves processing large volumes of data: response time is not particularly critical, however, because the results are us ed for purposes like long-term planning or for research, as in retrospective studies. In general, on a single machine, it is possible to create a database design that performs either patient-centric retrieval or parameter-centric retrieval, but not both. The challenges are partly logistic and partly architectural. From the logistic viewpoint, in a system meant for real-time patient query, a giant parameter-centric query that processed half the records in the database would not be desirable because it would steal machine cycles from critical patient-centric queries. Many database operations, both business and medical, therefore periodically copy data from a â€Å"transaction† (patient-centric) database, which captures primary data, into a parameter-centric â€Å"query† database on a separate machine in order to get the best of both worlds. Some commercial patient record systems, such as the 3M Clinical Data Repository (CDR)[1] are composed of two subsystems, one that is transaction-oriented and one that is query-oriented. Patient-centric query is considered more critical for day-to-day operation, especially in smaller or non-research-oriented institutions. Many vendors therefore offer parameter-centric query facilities as an additional package separate from their base CPRS offering. We now discuss the architectural challenges, and consider why creating an institution-wide patient database poses significantly greater hurdles than creating one for a single department. During a routine check-up, a clinician goes through a standard checklist in terms of history, physical examination and laboratory investigations. When a patient has one or more symptoms suggesting illness, however, a whole series of questions are asked, and investigations performed (by a specialist if necessary), which would not be asked/performed if the patient did not have these symptoms. These are based on the suspected (or apparent) diagnosis/-es. Proformas (protocols) have been devised that simplify the patient’s workup for a general examination as well as many disease categories. The clinical parameters recorded in a given protocol have been worked out by experience over years or decades, though the types of questions asked, and the order in which they are asked, varies with the institution (or vendor package, if data capture is electronically assisted). The level of detail is often left to individual discretion: clinicians with a research interest in a particular condition will record more detail for that condition than clinicians who do not. A certain minimum set of facts must be gathered for a given condition, however, irrespective of personal or institutional preferences. The objective of a protocol is to maximize the likelihood of detection and recording of all significant findings in the limited time available. One records both positive findings as well as significant negatives (e.g., no history of alcoholism in a patient with cirrhosis). New protocols are continually evolving for emergent disease complexes such as AIDS. While protocols are typically printed out (both for the benefit of possibly inexperienced residents, and to form part of the permanent paper record), experienced clinicians often have them committed to memory. However, the difference between an average clinician and a superb one is that the latter knows when to depart from the protocol: if departure never occurred, new syndromes or disease complexes would never be discovered. In any case, the protocol is the starting point when we consider how to store information in a CPRS. This system, however, focuses on the processes by which data is stored and retrieved, rather than the ancillary functions provided by the system. The obvious approach for storing clinical data is to record each type of finding in a separate column in a table. In the simplest example of this, the so-called â€Å"flat-file† design, there is only a single value per parameter for a given patient encounter. Systems that capture standardised data related to a particular specialty (e.g., an obstetric examination, or a colonoscopy) often do this. This approach is simple for non-computer-experts to understand, and also easiest to analyse by statistics programs (which typically require flat files as input). A system that incorporates problem-specific clinical guidelines is easiest to implement with flat files, as the software engineering for data management is relatively minimal. In certain cases, an entire class of related parameters is placed in a group of columns in a separate table, with multiple sets of values. For example, laboratory information systems, which support labs that perform hundreds of kinds of tests, do not use one column for every test that is offered. Instead, for a given patient at a given instant in time, they store pairs of values consisting of a lab test ID and the value of the result for that test. Similarly for pharmacy orders, the values consist of a drug/medication ID, the preparation strength, the route, the frequency of administration, and so on. When one is likely to encounter repeated sets of values, one must generally use a more sophisticated approach to managing data, such as a relational database management system (RDBMS). Simple spreadsheet programs, by contrast, can manage flat files, though RDBMSs are also more than adequate for that purpose. The one-column-per-parameter approach, unfortunately, does not scale up when considering an institutional database that must manage data across dozens of departments, each with numerous protocols. (By contrast, the groups-of-columns approach scales well, as we shall discuss later.) The reasons for this are discussed below. One obvious problem is the sheer number of tables that must be managed. A given patient may, over time, have any combination of ailments that span specialities: cross-departmental referrals are common even for inpatient admission episodes. In most Western European countries where national-level medical records on patients go back over several decades, using such a database to answer the question, â€Å"tell me everything that has happened to this patient in forward/reverse chronological order† involves searching hundreds of protocol-specific tables, even though most patients may not have had more than a few ailments. Some clinical parameters (e.g., serum enzymes and electrolytes) are relevant to multiple specialities, and, with the one-protocol-per-table approach, they tend to be recorded redundantly in multiple tables. This violates a cardinal rule of database design: a single type of fact should be stored in a single place. If the same fact is stored in multiple places, cross-protocol analysis becomes needlessly difficult because all tables where that fact is recorded must be first tracked down. The number of tables keeps growing as new protocols are devised for emergent conditions, and the table structures must be altered if a protocol is modified in the light of medical advances. In a practical application, it is not enough merely to modify or add a table: one must alter the user interface to the tables– that is, the data-entry/browsing screens that present the protocol data. While some system maintenance is always necessary, endless redesign to keep pace with medical advances is tedious and undesirable. A simple alternative to creating hundreds of tables suggests itself. One might attempt to combine all facts applicable to a patient into a single row. Unfortunately, across all medical specialities, the number of possible types of facts runs into the hundreds of thousands. Today’s database engines permit a maximum of 256 to 1024 columns per table, and one would require hundreds of tables to allow for every possible type of fact. Further, medical data is time-stamped, i.e., the start time (and, in some cases, the end time) of patient events is important to record for the purposes of both diagnosis and management. Several facts about a patient may have a common time-stamp, e.g., serum chemistry or haematology panels, where several tests are done at a time by automated equipment, all results being stamped with the time when the patient’s blood was drawn. Even if databases did allow a potentially infinite number of columns, there would be considerable wastage of disk space, because the vast majority of columns would be inapplicable (null) for a single patient event. (Even null values use up a modest amount of space per null fact.) Some columns would be inapplicable to particular types of patients–e.g., gyn/obs facts would not apply to males. The challenges to representing institutional patient data arise from the fact that clinical data is both highly heterogeneous as well as sparse. The design solution that deals with these problems is called the entity-attribute-value (EAV) model. In this design, the parameters (attribute is a synonym of parameter) are treated as data recorded in an attribute definitions table, so that addition of new types of facts does not require database restructuring by addition of columns. Instead, more rows are added to this table. The patient data table (the EAV table) records an entity (a combination of the patient ID, clinical event, and one or more date/time stamps recording when the events recorded actually occurred), the attribute/parameter, and the associated value of that attribute. Each row of such a table stores a single fact about a patient at a particular instant in time. For example, a patient’s laboratory value may be stored as: (, 12/2/96>, serum_potassium, 4.1). Only positive or significant negative findings are recorded; nulls are not stored. Therefore, despite the extra space taken up by repetition of the entity and attribute columns for every row, the space is taken up is actually less than with a â€Å"conventional† design. Attribute-value pairs themselves are used in non-medical areas to manage extremely heterogeneous data, e.g., in Web â€Å"cookies† (text files written by a Web server to a user’s local machine when the site is being browsed), and the Microsoft Windows registries. The first major use of EAV for clinical data was in the pioneering HELP system built at LDS Hospital in Utah starting from the late 70s.[6],[7],[8] HELP originally stored all data – characters, numbers and dates– as ASCII text in a pre-relational database (ASCII, for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is the code used by computer hardware almost universally to represent characters. The range of 256 characters is adequate to represent the character set of most European languages, but not ideographic languages such as Mandarin Chinese.) The modern version of HELP, as well as the 3M CDR, which is a commercialisation of HELP, uses a relational engine. A team at Columbia University was the first to enhance EAV design to use relational database technology. The Columbia-Presbyterian CDR,[9],[10] also separated numbers from text in separate columns. The advantage of storing numeric data as numbers instead of ASCII is that one can create useful indexes on these numbers. (Indexes are a feature of database technology that allow fast search for particular values in a table, e.g., laboratory parameters within or beyond a particular range.). When numbers are stored as ASCII text, an index on such data is useless: the text â€Å"12.5† is greater than â€Å"11000†, because it comes later in alphabetical order.) Some EAV databases therefore segregate data by data type. That is, there are separate EAV tables for short text, long text (e.g., discharge summaries), numbers, dates, and binary data (signal and image data). For every parameter, the system records its data type so that one knows where it is stored. ACT/DB,[11],[12] a sys tem for management of clinical trials data (which shares many features with CDRs) created at Yale University by a team led by this author, uses this approach. From the conceptual viewpoint (i.e., ignoring data type issues), one may therefore think of a single giant EAV table for patient data, containing one row per fact for a patient at a particular date and time. To answer the question â€Å"tell me everything that has happened to patient X†, one simply gathers all rows for this patient ID (this is a fast operation because the patient ID column is indexed), sorts them by the date/time column, and then presents this information after â€Å"joining† to the Attribute definitions table. The last operation ensures that attributes are presented to the user in ordinary language – e.g., â€Å"haemoglobin,† instead of as cryptic numerical IDs. One should mention that EAV database design has been employed primarily in medical databases because of the sheer heterogeneity of patient data. One hardly ever encounters it in â€Å"business† databases, though these will often use a restricted form of EAV termed â€Å"row modelling.† Examples of row modelling are the tables of laboratory test result and pharmacy orders, discussed earlier. Note also that most production â€Å"EAV† databases will always contain components that are designed conventionally. EAV representation is suitable only for data that is sparse and highly variable. Certain kinds of data, such as patient demographics (name, sex, birth date, address, etc.) is standardized and recorded on all patients, and therefore there is no advantage in storing it in EAV form. EAV is primarily a means of simplifying the physical schema of a database, to be used when simplification is beneficial. However, the users conceptualisethe data as being segregated into protocol-specific tables and columns. Further, external programs used for graphical presentation or data analysis always expect to receive data as one column per attribute. The conceptual schema of a database reflects the users’ perception of the data. Because it implicitly captures a significant part of the semantics of the domain being modelled, the conceptual schema is domain-specific. A user-friendly EAV system completely conceals its EAV nature from its end-users: its interface confirms to the conceptual schema and creates the illusion of conventional data organisation. From the software perspective, this implies on-the-fly transformation of EAV data into conventional structure for presentation in forms, reports or data extracts that are passed to an analytic program. Conversely, changes to data by end-users through forms must be translated back into EAV form before they are saved. To achieve this sleight-of-hand, an EAV system records the conceptual schema through metadata – â€Å"dictionary† tables whose contents describe the rest of the system. While metadata is important for any database, it is critical for an EAV system, which can seldom function without it. ACT/DB, for example, uses metadata such as the grouping of parameters into forms, their presentation to the user in a particular order, and validation checks on each parameter during data entry to automatically generate web-based data entry. The metadata architecture and the various data entry features that are supported through automatic generation are described elsewhere.[13] EAV is not a panacea. The simplicity and compactness of EAV representation is offset by a potential performance penalty compared to the equivalent conventional design. For example, the simple AND, OR and NOT operations on conventional data must be translated into the significantly less efficient set operations of Intersection, Union and Difference respectively. For queries that process potentially large amounts of data across thousands of patients, the impact may be felt in terms of increased time taken to process queries. A quantitative benchmarking study performed by the Yale group with microbiology data modelled both conventionally and in EAV form indicated that parameter-centric queries on EAV data ran anywhere from 2-12 times as slow as queries on equivalent conventional data.[14] Patient-centric queries, on the other hand, run at the same speed or even faster with EAV schemas, if the data is highly heterogeneous. We have discussed the reason for the latter. A more practical problem with parameter-centric query is that the standard user-friendly tools (such as Microsoft Access’s Visual Query-by-Example) that are used to query conventional data do not help very much for EAV data, because the physical and conceptual schemas are completely different. Complicating the issue further is that some tables in a production database are conventionally designed. Special query interfaces need to be built for such purposes. The general approach is to use metadata that knows whether a particular attribute has been stored conventionally or in EAV form: a program consults this metadata, and generates the appropriate query code in response to a user’s query. A query interface built with this approach for the ACT/DB system[12]; this is currently being ported to the Web. So far, we have discussed how EAV systems can create the illusion of conventional data organization through the use of protocol-specific forms. However, the problem of how to record information that is not in a protocol–e.g., a clinician’s impressions–has not been addressed. One way to tackle this is to create a â€Å"general-purpose† form that allows the data entry person to pick attributes (by keyword search, etc.) from the thousands of attributes within the system, and then supply the values for each. (Because the user must directly add attribute-value pairs, this form reveals the EAV nature of the system.) In practice, however, this process, which would take several seconds to half a minute to locate an individual attribute, would be far too tedious for use by a clinician. Therefore, clinical patient record systems also allow the storage of â€Å"free text† – narrative in the doctor’s own words. Such text, which is of arbitrary size, may be entered in various ways. In the past, the clinician had to compose a note comprising such text in its entirety. Today, however, â€Å"template† programs can often provide structured data entry for particular domains (such as chest X-ray interpretations). These programs will generate narrative text, including boilerplate for findings that were normal, and can greatly reduce the clinician’s workload. Many of these programs use speech recognition software, thereby improving throughput even further. Once the narrative has been recorded, it is desirable to encode the facts captured in the narrative in terms of the attributes defined within the system. (Among these attributes may be concepts derived from controlled vocabularies such as SNOMED, used by Pathologists, or ICD-9, used for disease classification by epidemiologists as well as for billing records.) The advantage of encoding is that subsequent analysis of the data becomes much simpler, because one can use a single code to record the multiple synonymous forms of a concept as encountered in narrative, e.g., hepatic/liver, kidney/renal, vomiting/emesis and so on. In many medical institutions, there are non-medical personnel who are trained to scan narrative dictated by a clinician, and identify concepts from one or more controlled vocabularies by looking up keywords. This process is extremely human intensive, and there is ongoing informatics research focused on automating part of the process. Currently, it appears that a computer program cannot replace the human component entirely. This is because certain terms can match more than one concept. For example, â€Å"anaesthesia† refers to a procedure ancillary to surgery, or to a clinical finding of loss of sensation. Disambiguation requires some degree of domain knowledge as well as knowledge of the context where the phrase was encountered. The processing of narrative text is a computer-science speciality in its own right, and a preceding article[15] has discussed it in depth. Medical knowledge-based consultation programs (â€Å"expert systems†) have always been an active area of medical informatics research, and a few of these, e.g., QMR[16],[17] have attained production-level status. A drawback of many of these programs is that they are designed to be stand-alone. While useful for assisting diagnosis or management, they have the drawback that information that may already be in the patient’s electronic record must be re-entered through a dialog between the program and the clinician. In the context of a hospital, it is desirable to implement embeddedknowledge-based systems that can act on patient data as it is being recorded or generated, rather than after the fact (when it is often too late). Such a program might, for example, detect potentially dangerous drug interactions based on a particular patient’s prescription that had just been recorded in the pharmacy component of the CPRS. Alternatively, a program might send an alert (by pager) to a clinician if a particular patient’s monitored clinical parameters deteriorated severely. The units of program code that operate on incoming patient data in real-time are called medical logic modules (MLMs), because they are used to express medical decision logic. While one could theoretically use any programming language (combined with a database access language) to express this logic, portability is an important issue: if you have spent much effort creating an MLM, you would like to share it with others. Ideally, others would not have to rewrite your MLM to run on their system, but could install and use it directly. Standardization is therefore desirable. In 1994, several CPRS researchers proposed a standard MLM language called the Arden syntax.[18],[19],[20] Arden resembles BASIC (it is designed to be easy to learn), but has several functions that are useful to express medical logic, such as the concepts of the earliest and the latest patient events. One must first implement an Arden interpreter or compiler for a particular CPRS, and then write Arden modules that will be triggered after certain events. The Arden code is translated into specific database operations on the CPRS that retrieve the appropriate patient data items, and operations implementing the logic and decision based on that data. As with any programming language, interpreter implementation is not a simple task, but it has been done for the Columbia-Presbyterian and HELP CDRs: two of the informaticians responsible for defining Arden, Profs. George Hripcsak and T. Allan Pryor, are also lead developers for these respective systems. To assist Arden implementers, the specification of version 2 of Arden, which is now a standard supported by HL7, is available on-line.[20] Arden-style MLMs, which are essentially â€Å"if-then-else† rules, are not the only way to implement embedded decision logic. In certain situations, there are sometimes more efficient ways of achieving the desired result. For example, to detect drug interactions in a pharmacy order, a program can generate all possible pairs of drugs from the list of prescribed drugs in a particular pharmacy order, and perform database lookups in a table of known interactions, where information is typically stored against a pair of drugs. (The table of interactions is typically obtained from sources such as First Data Bank.) This is a much more efficient (and more maintainable) solution than sequentially evaluating a large list of rules embodied in multiple MLMs. Nonetheless, appropriately designed MLMs can be an important part of the CPRS, and Arden deserves to become more widespread in commercial CPRSs. Its currently limited support in such systems is more due to the significant implementation effort than to any flaw in the concept of MLMs. Patient management software in a hospital is typically acquired from more than one vendor: many vendors specialize in niche markets such as picture archiving systems or laboratory information systems. The patient record is therefore often distributed across several components, and it is essential that these components be able to inter-operate with each other. Also, for various reasons, an institution may choose to switch vendors, and it is desirable that migration of existing data to another system be as painless as possible. Data exchange/migration is facilitated by standardization of data interchange between systems created by different vendors, as well as the metadata that supports system operation. Significant progress has been made on the former front. The standard formats used for the exchange of image data and non-image medical data are DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) and HL-7 (Health Level 7) respectively. For example, all vendors who market digital radiography, CT or MRI devices are supposed to be able to support DICOM, irrespective of what data format their programs use internally. HL-7 is a hierarchical format that is based on a language specification syntax called ASN.1 (ASN=Abstract Syntax Notation), a standard originally created for exchange of data between libraries. HL-7’s specification is quite complex, and HL-7 is intended for computers rather than humans, to whom it can be quite cryptic. There is a move to wrap HL-7 within (or replace it with) an equivalent dialect of the more human-understandable XML (eXtended Markup Language), which has rapidly gained prominence as a data interchange standard in E-commerce and other areas. XML also has the advantage that there are a very large number of third-party XML tools available: for a vendor just entering the medical field, an interchange standard based on XML would be considerably easier to implement. CPRSs pose formidable informatics challenges, all of which have not been fully solved: many solutions devised by researchers are not always successful when implemented in production systems. An issue for further discussion is security and confidentiality of patient records. In countries such as the US where health insurers and employers can arbitrarily reject individuals with particular illnesses as posing too high a risk to be profitably insured or employed, it is important that patient information should not fall in the wrong hands. Much also depends on the code of honour of the individual clinician who is authorised to look at patient data. In their book, â€Å"Freedom at Midnight,† authors Larry Collins and Dominic Lapierre cite the example of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s anonymous physician (supposedly Rustom Jal Vakil) who had discovered that his patient was dying of lung cancer. Had Nehru and others come to know this, they might have prolonged the partition discussions indefinitely. Because Dr. Vakil respected his patient’s confidentiality, however, world history was changed.