Assumptions and Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Assumptions and Design - Essay Example The researcher’s basic beliefs or assumptions guide him/her about research methods, including the researcher’s ontological beliefs (beliefs about the nature of reality), epistemological beliefs (beliefs about what is possible to know), and axiological beliefs (beliefs about what is ethical and the role of values in research). Armour Peterson article employs qualitative design to study post homicide experience of family members of homicide victims (Armour, 2002). Qualitative research design, such as the one employed by Armour, is designed to riposte to questions regarding the intricate nature of occurrences with the aim of explaining, describing, and understanding the phenomena being researched (Creswell, 2003). The author beliefs that the relatives of homicide victims are an ignored lot and their post homicide experiences are molded by the social ambiance and the superiority of the government’s schema for justice. The choice of qualitative method is further supported by the author’s belief that attention to the needs of this population is limited, and hence the need for a qualitative method to generate knowledge and explain various aspects. Since only very few empirical researches exist about post homicide experiences of the family members of the homicide victims, the researcher had to record words and phrases and then look for meaning, concepts or theories. In addition, the post homicide experiences of each family vary greatl y; the researcher had to adopt a qualitative design since full and rich data is scarce and is not obtainable through quantitative studies. Data is best obtained through taking comprehensive notes, recording conversations and writing detailed observations. Mixed methods would combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In applying mixed methods, the philosophical assumption would be that findings about post homicide experiences could be generalized across all the families of the homicide victims. To

Human Resource Definition Essay Example for Free

Human Resource Definition Essay 1. Contingent workers- Someone who is not an employee, but a temporary or part-time worker for a specific period of time and type of work. Employee engagement- The extent to which individuals feel linked to organizational success and how the organization performs positively. Human capital- The collective value of the capabilities, knowledge, skills, life experiences, and motivation of an organizational workforce. Human resource management- Designing management systems to ensure that human talent is used effectively and efficiently to accomplish organizational goals Organizational culture- The shared values and beliefs in an organization. Productivity- Measure of the quantity and quality of work done, considering the cost of the resources used Sustainability-Being able to continue to operate, survive, and adjust to significant changes. - - Essay Questions: Answer the following essay questions based on the book and class discussions. 2. Ethical behavior in an organization is likely to occur when an ethics program includes these four elements: The four elements necessary to quantify an organizations ethics are 1) written code of ethics and standards 2) ethics training to executives, managers, and employees 3) availability for advice on ethical situations (i.e. advice lines or offices) and 4) systems for confidential reporting 3. What challenges face HR managers with regard to workforce availability and quality? What are potential solutions? Future supply of and demand for employees and the nature of workforce issues, including the retention of employees. These factors are used when recruiting applicants for job openings. The selection process is concerned with choosing qualified individuals to fill those jobs. 4. What are the three major roles of HR management? Which is/are the most affected by technology and outsourcing? Which roles are growing in importance? 1) administrative, 2) operational and employee advocate, and 3) strategic. 5. Identify the key competencies needed by all HR professionals, and the additional competencies needed by senior HR leaders. HR professionals need competencies in strategic knowledge and impacts; capabilities in legal, administrative, and operational areas; and technology knowledge abilities. Senior HR leaders need these areas plus others to be effective. - HR Headline: Read the following and then in teams, answer the following questions: HR Headline: The Challenges and Crises Facing HR Management Recent economic downturns, industry crises, bank failures, closing of plants and stores, changes in global operations, and other factors have significantly affected organizations, managers, and Human Resource (HR) management professionals. Some jobs are in high demand while others are being eliminated. According to surveys, some of the biggest problems include the following: 1) Adjusting benefits programs due to increasing costs; 2) Attracting and retaining key employees; 3) Planning for replacement of â€Å"baby boomers† when they retire; 4) Using talent management to train and develop capabilities of employees for future job needs; 5) Dealing with the expanded personal and organizational use of HR technology through blogs, wikis, twitters, text messaging, and other aspects; and 6) Complying with revised and changing federal, state, and local legal requirements affecting discrimination, treatment errors, unionization, and others. Questions for Discussion: 1. What do you think will be the most important change in the economy that will influence HR management operations? Explain. Their media tend to be a big part of it since that how things are function more. There are so many way to communicate and get things done faster and is more time saving. Also attracts different type of people with different types of skills. 2. How do you think technology changes will change the way HR professionals do recruiting and selection of employees? What are the pros and cons of any changes? It helps people have easier way to apply for jobs or to show their talents. Help HR find people with the skills that they are looking for. But it also disqualifies many people for the reason they are in the internet/ profiles. 3. The number of jobs in HR is predicted to increase between now and 2018. Explain why you think that is? They are going to need more people to be able to hire other that are right for the jobs rather than outsourcing. Since many people are baby boomer, there are going retired soon so that means many companies are going to need new heiress there need HR to be able to cover all the new people that are coming. HR Headline: The Challenges and Crises Facing HR Management Recent economic downturns, industry crises, bank failures, closing of plants and stores, changes in global operations, and other factors have significantly affected organizations, managers, and Human Resource (HR) management professionals. Some jobs are in high demand while others are being eliminated. According to surveys, some of the biggest problems include the following: 1) Adjusting benefits programs due to increasing costs; 2) Attracting and retaining key employees; 3) Planning for replacement of â€Å"baby boomers† when they retire; 4) Using talent management to train and develop capabilities of employees for future job needs; 5) Dealing with the expanded personal and organizational use of HR technology through blogs, wikis, twitters, text messaging, and other aspects; and 6) Complying with revised and changing federal, state, and local legal requirements affecting discrimination, treatment errors, unionization, and others. Questions for Discussion: 4. What do you think will be the most important change in the economy that will influence HR management operations? Explain. Their media tend to be a big part of it since that how things are function more. There are so many way to communicate and get things done faster and is more time saving. Also attracts different type of people with different types of skills. 5. How do you think technology changes will change the way HR professionals do recruiting and selection of employees? What are the pros and cons of any changes? It helps people have easier way to apply for jobs or to show their talents. Help HR find people with the skills that they are looking for. But it also disqualifies many people for the reason they are in the internet/ profiles. 6. The number of jobs in HR is predicted to increase between now and 2018. Explain why you think that is? They are going to need more people to be able to hire other that are right for the jobs rather than outsourcing. Since many people are baby boomer, there are going retired soon so that means many companies are going to need new heiress there need HR to be able to cover all the new people that are coming. - - Chapter Video—Fruit Guys: After the video, answer the following questions. 6. What do you think will be the most important challenges for HR at Fruit Guys in the next five years? SUMMARYIZED THE VIDEO: It was showing how people in business think in the way of rewarding people in different positions. People that are in a higher position that are being rewarded for their performance in money show there performance actually got worse compare to the people in lower positions that are getting paid less. The study show that the people that have cram time to do a project are more productive and they show more passion on their job. Also people tend to do thing for free in there space time and are more productive since they are not pressured or force to do something they tend to be more productive. 7. Based on the CEO and other manager in the video, it appears that HR at Fruit Guys is expected to be involved in all three roles of HR. Describe an example of HR activities at Fruit Guys required for each of these roles shown in Figure 1-9 in the text.

Research Issues in Parapsychology Essay -- survival-after-bodily-death

"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." -C.G. Jung (Society for Psychical Research) "Parapsychology is a belief in search of data rather than data in search of an explanation." -C.E.M. Hansel (Alcock ix) For years, ghosts and poltergeists have been a part of our popular lexicon. From stories told around the campfire, to motion pictures like The Haunting, to books like the Scary Story series, everyone has heard a good ghost story or two. Many people claim to have actually been party to a few supernatural experiences themselves. But for as long as we have told these frightful stories, science has been attempting to explain them beyond the typical bump in the dark. This investigation into the paranormal eventually evolved into the field of parapsychology. Current research in parapsychology has three focuses: psychokinesis (PK), extrasensory perception (ESP), and survival-after-bodily-death experiences. Psychokenisis is direct mental interaction with objects animate or inanimate. Extrasensory perception is a general term for obtaining information about events beyond the reach of the normal senses ("Parapsychology FAQ"). Survival-after-bodily-death is the investigation into events and phenomena dealing with life after death. In this paper, I intend to look at parapsychology and the study of survival-after-bodily-death. This area of parapsychology is perhaps the most recognizable, yet also the least investigated. I intend to look at the rise of this field of inquiry as a science, the arguments for it and against it, and why survival-after-bodily-death is not as prominent a field as it once was. History Parapsychology's roots can be traced back to the... ...botree.com/ [Accessed 20 April 1999]. Parapsychological Association (1999, Dec.). Parapsychology FAQ. [Online]. Available: http://www.parapsych.org [Accessed 20 April 1999]. Price, Harry. Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter. Putnam & Company: London, 1936. "Online Research in Parapsychology." Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica. [Online] Available: http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=70964&sctn=1 [Accessed 26 April 1999]. Rhine, Louisa E. The Invisible Picture. McFarland & Company: Jefferson, 1981. Society for Psychical Research. [Online]. Available: http://129.215.50.44/spr.html [Accessed 20 April 1999]. Tyrrell, G. N. M. Apparitions. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.: London, 1953 Weiner, Debra H. and Radin, Dean I., eds. Research in Parapsychology 1985. The Scarecrow Press, Inc.: Metuchen, 1986. Wilson, Colin. Mysteries. New York: G.E. Putnam's Sons, 1978.

Managed Care CBA

In order to better understand the workings of managed care, it is important to understand its history as well as future trends. Please read the required background materials, and then answer the following questions in a 2 page paper: 1. What is managed care? 2. How and when did managed care begin? 3. How will consumer-driven health care impact healthcare delivery? The following resources will help you complete this assignment: Scandlen, G. (2005). Consumer-driven health care: Just a tweak or a revolution? Health Affairs, 24(6), 1554. Tufts Health Care Institute: Brief History of Managed Care http://www.tmci.org/downloads/BriefHist.pdf What is managed care? Managed care is a system of delivering healthcare in such a way that the costs of the service, quality and the utilization of the service is provided and handled by one healthcare organization, and under one roof.   Such an organization is known as the ‘Health Maintenance organization’ or the ‘HMO’.   The patients are provided health plans or health packages that cover their health needs.   According to the condition the patient suffers from, he/she could subscribe to a particular health plan. Managed care has continuously evolved as a system of deliverance of healthcare in the US.   The impact of such a system has not been understood clearly.   Such a system may consume a lot of resources or may be not organized in a proper manner.   Many patients may get under-treated or over-treated for their condition.   The system does not focus on the preventive aspects of medical care.   The physician would be providing his/her services in association with a healthcare team, consisting of professionals belonging to other fields. The patient work may be performed by the professionals belonging to other fields (G. Farfield. 1997).   United Health Group is one of the largest Managed care organizations in the US and was founded in the year 1977.   It provided health packages for its customers in the year 1979.   It began to get listed in the US Stock Markets since the year 1984.   The company began to acquire smaller companies and grow gradually.   The company is constantly adopting it policy to suit the changing needs of its customers in a very competitive market (United Health Group. 2006). How and when did managed care begin? Managed care began in the US in the 19th Century, and was aimed at meeting the healthcare needs of the masses.   At first, selected group of people organized healthcare packages with the physicians.   These included workers, laborers, rural dwellers, railroad workers, etc.   Their employers wanted to meet their healthcare needs and hence organized healthcare plans with local physicians and hospitals.   Societies were also involved in organizing such programs in cities. A nominal amount was paid by the employer to provide healthcare services to the employers for a certain period of time.   Dr. Shahid was one of the first physicians to initiate a healthcare plan for the farmers (in 1929). Dr. Ross and Dr. Loos provided medical care to the employees of LA Water and Power Department for a nominal amount (in 1929).   In some plans, the employers paid a part of the amount and the employees paid another part.   Henry Kaiser provided medical care services in return for a prepaid amount during the World War II time.   He began offering such services to the public, once the war ended. Slowly, the prepaid health service packages began to develop in managed care, and such organizations were known as ‘HMO’s’.   They offered comprehensive medical care services.   The members could select a customized healthcare package according to their healthcare needs.   The AMA initially objected to the development of the HMO’s.   It felt that soon medical care would become a business, and companies would be involved. The Supreme Court’s Decision in 1947 ensured that the AMA would not interfere in the development of the HMO’s.   During the 1960’s and the 1970’s, the politicians began to show greater amount of interest in Managed care.   President Nixon brought out a plan in 1971, to develop HMO’s.   The loans offered to HMO’s for development was increased.   During the 1980’s and the 1990’s, the HMO’s began to grow.   Now people utilize Managed Care to supplement Medical Insurance.   More than 600 HMO’s are present in the US and about 25 % of the population has a managed care package (TMCI. 1998). How will consumer-driven health care impact healthcare delivery? Consumer-driven healthcare may not just provide a mere modification to the present healthcare system.   The manner in which it could be impacted includes: – Providing more health information to the consumers so that an informed decision can be made and they can exercise greater control over their bodies. Cost-effective services. Provision of high-quality services. Providing tax-free benefits to the consumers. Encouragement of medical tourism. Removal of anticompetitive measures that exist in the healthcare delivery market. Use of modern technology and equipment (Greg Scandlen. 2005) References: G. Farfield, D. J. Hunter, D. Mechanic, Et al â€Å"Managed care: origins, principles, and evolution.† BMJ 314 (1997): 1823. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/314/7097/1823 Greg Scandlen. â€Å"Consumer-Driven Health Care: Just A Tweak Or A Revolution?† Health Affairs 24.6 (2005): 1554-1558. Tufts Health Care Institute â€Å"Brief History of Managed Care.† TMCI (1998). http://www.tmci.org/downloads/BriefHist.pdf United Health Group â€Å"Principles of Ethics & Integrity Your Guide to Business Conduct.† United Health Group. 2006. United Health Group. 15 Apr. 2007 http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/global/PrinciplesofEthicsandIntegrity.pdf            

Thus I Refute Beelzy

Group Assessment and Self-Assessment During this project I learned a lot about my group members but even more about myself. I discovered that I am not very detailed oriented and that I really need to work on my communication skills. A lot of the time I assumed that we were all on the same page when we weren’t. If I had to redo this I would have made sure that we started selling our cards earlier and would have worked on getting bigger business on our cards so that more people would want to buy them.Marise: Maurice did a lot for the group. She was the most responsible out of all of us and the most realistic. Though she was quiet she silently took charge. She helped keep the boys focused when they started to go astray. Andrew: Andrew really took leadership during this project. Though he may have slacked at times, all in all he did a lot. He and Max were the two who came up with our idea. He brought a lot of ideas to the table however he didn’t really like listening to oth er people’s ideas. Max: Max worked really hard on this.Though he may have been quiet he organized a lot of the stuff and he also came up with our idea with Andrew. I can’t really say much about Max because he was really quiet but he contributed a lot. He also put a lot of time and effort into the cards. Trenton: Trenton worked really hard on this and was really dedicated. However he was really close-minded and wasn’t very open to new ideas. I feel as though if Trenton would have been more willing to venture we could have done a lot more with the cards. But he really took charge and accomplished a lot. He also has excellent communication skills.

Dangerous Rock Music essays

Dangerous Rock Music essays Rock music and the word dangerous have been known to be used in the same sentence together; is it dangerous because of the lyrics or is it just dangerous to our hearing? Rock music has been around since the fifties, so has the last 40 years created dangerous people causing violence and mayhem or is violence just in our nature? Parents have been trying to fight against the devil music (Rock music) that was corrupting the youth since the fifties and are still trying to rid the world of it. Yet, it is ok to play tackle football, hockey, boxing and be on the wrestling team because those are considered a sport. Parents can only see music associated with pain, sex and violence. There is no proof from either side that music contributes to violence, parents are using just casual observation. Just because of a few committed acts of anger, people point fingers and use music as a sense of reason for horrible active violence. The truth is that rock music is just not dangerous and if we we re to pinpoint where the violence in our society begun, it would be in the quality of our parenting. Parents cannot take away The freedom of speech amendment that are forefathers created for us. Without it the government would censer and take away our rights. Our forefathers could not imagine that one day there would be music so disgusting, violent, loud, sexual, and contain foul language. People of today believe rock music manipulates the mind of young innocent people. The Freedom of Speech amendment is overused and needs to be rewritten by the government. It is not the peoples fault for listening to violent rock music: it is the artists who created the music, peer pressure from friends and family, music television (MTV), fashion, fame and society. Under the guise of free speech merchandisers are aggressively doing violence to our kids. They in turn, are doing violence to each other (527 Cultural Vandals)....

Content Calendar Template Backed By Data - CoSchedule

Content Calendar Template Backed By Data More consistency. Better frequency. Clearer organization. Those are the exact things an overwhelming majority of you told us youd like help with for your blog posting schedule. I can see how those things are at the top of your list  because problems in those areas prevent you from building  the audience you need to convert into customers. And it sounds like a content calendar template is the perfect solution to help you get out of your funk and focus on launching  your blog and business forward. Well. Here ya go. The Real Problem This Content Calendar Template Will Help You Solve To answer your question of how often to blog,  it'd be all too easy for me to just say, "Hey there, just do a blog schedule of one post per week," and call this post complete. But. I'm a nerd. And I don't believe that every blog is created equal, nor does it have the same audience. So there is no one clear way to answer that question other than to use your own data to help you find the perfect frequency and consistency  that will help you grow. And to do that, we're going to use maths. Yes. Maths. Now, I know you're a creative person and if you're anything like me, you probably loathed any class that had anything to do with numbers when you were back in school. So I'm going to walk you through how often to blog by helping you fill out your content calendar template that will translate your raw data into some super cool insights. When you're done reading this post, you'll know: How often you should blog to reach your goals. How to change your blog schedule to publish super consistently and regularly. How to improve the content you're already creating to reach your goals. How to save time by reworking your older content into your upcoming blog schedule. How to be a data-driven marketer who can  prove that your content calendar is driving real business growth. This is the exact process we've used at to grow traffic to new blog posts by 299%. The idea is simple: Replicate the success from your  best-performing content to improve every new post you  publish. And you can do it, too. Get out your calculators because it's about to rain numbers up in here. (See, I can't even make a good math joke.) Are you having trouble #blogging frequently and consistently? Get your #ContentCalendar template...The Data-Driven Method To Find The Best Blog Schedule Frequency For Your Content Calendar You're about to go through a  few steps with your data. To keep you from becoming overwhelmed, just know that the final outcome of this process will be the exact number of blog posts you need to publish to reach your goals. When you follow these steps, you'll  solve the frequency problem which leads directly into solving the consistency problem. 1. Determine the broad  goal behind  your content calendar. Brainstorm the reasons why you're blogging.  It sounds silly because it might feel  obvious, but the practice will help  you hone in on the right ways to measure your success. For example, let's say you use inbound marketing through your blog  to sell a product. That's terrific! While that's your big picture goal,  think about how your blog can actually contribute to that goal through traffic, email subscribers, and trial conversions. For the sake of this post- and to give you an example to follow through this process- let's say you choose to measure your success through increasing traffic. Judging from  the data you gave us in the Better Marketer Survey, that's  why you blog- to introduce your business to lots of people online. So: I am blogging to increase traffic. Answer This: I am blogging to __________ {#1 reason}. 2. Know how you'll specifically measure your goal. Now it's time to understand the exact metric you'll measure and find the tool that will give you that data. A  robust and free tool to start with is Google Analytics.  The tool will help you track  general traffic metrics and also helps you track your conversion steps for goals like email subscriptions and trial signups. In the case for the example you're following, you can use Google Analytics to measure increasing traffic with the metric of page views. So:  For my broad goal to increase traffic, I'm going to measure success with this specific metric: page views. Answer This:  For my broad goal to  __________ {#1 reason}, I'm going to measure success with this specific metric: __________ {metric}. 3.  Figure out the baseline performance of an average month for that metric. Look at the past several months to find the average amount you receive for that metric. You'll use this data to help you understand how  the changes you'll make in frequency and consistency are helping you reach your goal. For example, if you're measuring page views, take a look at  your past three month's individual contribution to that metric. Then average the three numbers to gauge an average month's performance over the past quarter. So: I'm going to look at how many average page views I got per month over the last three months. Answer This:  I'm going to look at how many average __________ {metric}  I got per __________ {time frame} over the last  __________ {# sample size of time frame}. Now all you have to do is gather the data for your metric and find the average. Use this equation to get started:  __________ {sum of all metric  in the sample} / __________ {# of months  in the sample} =  __________ {average month  contribution}. You just did some math. Very nice. 4. Find  an average blog post's contribution toward that metric. You need a baseline  number from an average blog post. That means that you'll need to review the same metric from several blog posts, giving them all the same opportunity to be successful. In other words, you need to find out  the amount each post in a sample contributed to your  metric within a certain period of time. Back to the example you're following- you need to look at a nice sample size of blog posts (10 at least), and review  how many page views each post delivered in the first 30 days after being published. The 30-day period means each post got an equal opportunity (more or less) to contribute to the metric. So: I'm going to look at how many page views 10 blog posts received in the first 30 days after they were published. Answer This:  I'm going to look at  how many __________ {metric} __________ {# sample size} blog posts received in __________ {# days}. Now it's time to gather the data. Grab your content calendar template and enter in all of the URLs of the blog posts you'll include in your sample, then grab the data for your  baseline time period for each of those URLs. Find the average metric number for  all of the blog posts in the sample by using this equation: __________ {sum of metric from all posts in the sample} / __________ {# of posts in the sample} =  __________ {average post contribution}. 5. Set the  aspirational goal for your content calendar through the SMART process. This is where it gets really fun. :) Now you can actually set  real goals based on data so you know they will be realistically achievable while also helping you shoot for growth. If you set goals before this point, you have no data-driven way to understand how each post you publish will contribute to your larger picture. It would be a guess- which will make your content calendar feel a whole lot more stressful. Anyway, SMART goals, as it were, stands for: Specific: Clearly define your goal through the process you've been working through right now. Measurable: Know how you'll measure your goal. This means knowing the tool you'll use, the exact metric, and the number. Aspirational: Know the baseline of how you're performing today, and shoot for 10x growth. You'll learn a lot more about this in a second. Realistic: You need to be able to do this with  the  resources available to you. Time-sensitive: Give yourself a time period in which you'll measure success. How To Set Aspirational Goals For Your #ContentCalendar Based On Your Own DataThe good news is that you've done nearly all of this  already by  walking through this process right now. It's the aspirational side of things that makes a great goal and  pushes you into continued growth. A good goal is at least 10x growth month over month to keep you focused on projects that will help you truly grow. That means, you'll want at least a 10% month-over-month increase with  your metric. Back to your example: Let's say  you get 10,000 page views a month. 10% more than that is 11,000, so that's your aspirational goal for next month. Do this: __________ {average month contribution} Ãâ€"  1.__________ {% aspirational growth} = __________ {new month contribution goal}. 6. Figure out how many blog posts it'll take to  crush your aspirational  goal. By this point, you know your aspirational goal for your content calendar for next month. Luckily for you, you also know how much each blog post contributes to that metric. So now you can simply add up how many blog posts you need to publish next month to reach your goal. Following your example, let's say an average blog post of yours gets 2,500 page views. To exceed  your monthly aspirational goal of 11,000 page views, you'd need to publish five  blog posts next month (and you can realistically predict you'll get 12,500 page views). Just follow this equation: __________ {new month contribution goal} /  __________ {average post contribution} =  __________ {# of posts needed to reach your goal}. Note: This formula completely leaves out long-tail metrics from blog posts you've published in the past. It is, however, a useful  guide  to help you understand how much more frequently you could blog to reach your goals. Use your best judgment to understand how much more you'll need to publish and remember: SMART goals have to be realistically achievable. You'll learn how to plan your calendar for long-term growth in a second, I promise. 7. Build up your tolerance as you blog consistently. Now, this process will always suggest that you need to publish more content- increase your publishing frequency- to reach your aspirational goal. Like doing anything new, there is a learning curve that  suggests adding more new things to your plate takes a bit longer initially than after you master the craft. You know those marathon runners? They don't start out by running 26.2 miles on their first day. They train themselves by running  shorter distances to build up the tolerance to make it all the way through the marathon. They're strict on their running schedules and commit to success. The secret to #blogging success? Commitment.You need to have a similar commitment  with your content calendar if you're going to experience 299% more success than you are today. And that also means you need to schedule time for yourself to build up your publishing endurance. Back to that example: Let's say you normally publish four new blog posts that each earn 2,500 page views a month- one every week that bring in a monthly total of 10,000 page views. To reach your aspirational goal of 11,000 page views, you'd like to publish five  posts next month.  That means you'll publish one extra post next  month  to exceed your aspirational goal of 11,000 monthly page views by actually hitting 12,500. See how that works? Plan  content in your calendar so that you can build up the tolerance to publish much more content: After you  successfully publish your extra content, reflect on the process by asking yourself three simple questions: What went well? What went wrong? What could I improve next time? Constant iteration and improvement will help you build up your publishing endurance to help you increase your blogging frequency while also sharing content regularly and consistently. Replicate The Success From Your Top 10% Content To Reach Your Aspirational Goal But what if you don't want to publish more content, but rather, get more results from every blog post you plan to publish? It's totally possible. You've probably had a post or two hit it out of the park. So wouldn't it be great if every post you wrote from this point forward had the same success? It's a question we asked ourselves at and figured out the process to help us strategically choose content to create that we know you'll dig to help us reach our goals faster and make the effort of writing a blog post pay off that much more. And, it's a process you can do with your content, too. How? You ask. Well,  allow me to show you step by step. 1.  Make a list of every post you published in the last nine months. Whip out your content calendar template and create a list of  every one of your blog posts' URLs from  at least the past nine months. You can go longer if you want- the point is to get a large  sample. 2. Ask yourself four questions to  grade your gut. Critically think about what makes a successful blog post on your site. For this exercise, I scrutinized content and came up with four categories I felt made our content successful.  You can start with these questions for your blog, too; or if you feel there is something else unique about your blog that makes your content successful in a different way, swap  out a question. Keyword: Successful posts target a keyword and are optimized to rank well for that keyword to continue bringing in long-term traffic from an audience who often  doesn't already know you. By optimizing your content from the get-go, you continue getting traffic and building your audience well into the future without additional promotion. Question to ask yourself: Was the keyword well-chosen (for search volume and difficulty) and optimized throughout the post to help me get long-term traffic? Topic:  Next, successful blog posts connect the keyword people use to find your content into the angle or unique value proposition for a problem they'd like to resolve. This shows your audience- even newcomers- that you're deeply in tune with their challenges and you're dedicated to helping them  overcome their hurdles. Question to ask yourself: Was this a topic my readers would be deeply interested in learning more about? Research: Successful content backs up its claims with thorough research that proves why your advice is credible and worth following. Your credibility will  build a following of readers who keep coming back. Question to ask yourself: Was this post deeply researched to share unique and better information than any other source on the Internet? Comprehensiveness: Call it complete, in-depth, or actionable.  Comprehensiveness has nothing to do with word count, but rather, when you decide to tackle a topic that you give it everything you've got to go deep into the detail instead of just publishing catchy blog titles with content that barely scratches the surface of the promise you make in your value proposition. Question to ask yourself: Did the post turn the research into actionable, exhaustive how-to advice  and  end only  when the entire story was complete? Is your content reaching your goals, really? Strategically plan a better #ContentCalendar.At this point, you're basing all of your thoughts on gut instinct: Was this post  successful or not? There's no data involved whatsoever yet. You're just aiming to translate your gut into a grade. Kinda like a teacher grading your homework. For each of the questions, rank every post in your list on  a 1 to 3 scale for each of the four categories  of successful content: keyword, topic, research, comprehensiveness. 1 means the post is  a stinker in that category whereas a 3 means it's totally awesome. Go ahead and use your content calendar template to grade your content in each of the four categories you feel make your content successful. When you're done, add up each blog post's  grade with the highest score a single post can receive being a 12 and the lowest possible being a 4. 3.  Review every post's performance toward your aspirational goal. Now it's time to find the contribution  each blog post delivers to your aspirational goal. In your content calendar template, track the metric for the first 30 days after a blog post publishes. Additionally,  grab the data from the following two months to give you a complete quarter's worth of data. From here,  you can measure the return on investment for every blog post  after its first month's worth of performance to help you predict how your blog posts will contribute to your goals a full two months after they publish. This is where you'll learn more about that part I noted for residual long-term metrics and can add it into play as you improve your content calendar. 4. Compare your posts' actual performance to your gut. Go into your content calendar template and sort  your blog posts according to the grades you ranked them (12 being the highest and should be at the top of your sorted  list). Go ahead and highlight your top five blog posts with red  (#1), orange  (#2), yellow  (#3), green  (#4), and blue  (#5). Now sort  all of your posts again according to the first 30 days they contribute to your metrics with the highest contributing post at the top of your list. You can see from your color coding how your gut actually translates into your most successful content. If your gut translated correctly, your top  five posts should still be  red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. So... Were you right? Were you wrong? Either way, there are lots of lessons you can learn from this process with the two biggest ones being: If your gut translated into real data correctly: You've got it! Stick with your gut and plan more content on your calendar that reflects what you already feel will be successful. If data disproved your gut: Review the top five posts according to their contribution to your metric. What makes those posts really stand out versus what you thought was awesome? Do you see where you're going with this? 5. Plan to create new  content like your top 10% truly knowing what will make a difference and what won't. No more guessing. No more getting close but not quite right. Dissect the top five posts according to their contribution to your  aspirational goal and replicate the success from your top-performing content. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself as you review that content: Where did the referral traffic come from? Was it from the keyword like you thought? What was it that made this topic super popular with my audience? Was it the value proposition or promise? Was this post well researched? Did the post back up the claims it promised in the headline? Was this post complete? Was the bounce rate low? Did it provide actionable content? Who was the author? Did they attract  a following to this post? What type of blog post was it? Was it a list post, step-by-step guide, infographic, etc.? What was the tone of the post? Was it authentic, humorous, or super straightforward? Did the post have additional media in it? Were there images, videos, or bonus content that influenced its success? You get the picture. Figure out all the  reasons why your audience loved those posts and repeat those elements  in the new posts you plan on your content calendar. This process will help you get more out of every blog post you publish so you don't have to publish more content, but rather, improve the quality of the content you publish. Publishing more may not be the answer. Here's a data-driven way to translate your gut into better...Who Said Everything On Your Content Calendar Has To Be Brand New? Well, you've just gone through a lot. You know: How frequently you need to blog every month to hit your aspirational goal. How to build up your endurance to publish consistently and regularly. How to  optimize  each new blog post to contribute even more to your aspirational goal. But here's the thing: You just found  your best-performing blog posts  that you can optimize even further and republish to get even more out of them. This simple republishing process will help you: Fill up your blog schedule while saving a ton of time you would have spent creating new content. Become friends with search engines like Google that  reward content marketers who update their older content. Optimize your best content to contribute even more to your aspirational goal. Yeah, sold you, right? Finally: Something easy to fill up your content calendar. :) 1. Find a top-performing, older blog post. Lucky you! You already found your top-performing blog posts according to your aspirational goal. The only other qualifier for republishing  is to make sure  that the post you choose is at least six month old. The older, the better, since you don't want to accidentally share something that's somewhat new with your audience who may have already seen it. 2. Refresh the old blog post with 5 pieces of new insight. Adding  more relevant content into your older blog post adds tons of value for your readers- even if they saw the original piece in the past. And according to Brian Dean's research on the top 200 ranking factors Google uses in its search algorithm,  Google also likes to see  you refreshing your content. To top it off, when  you add more actionable advice to your content  and  increase  the length of your blog post, you have a higher likelihood of ranking well in search engines. Recommended Reading:  6 Simple Tips For Using Online Research In Your Content Marketing Add new data: There came a point when you had to publish the post originally. There were probably other sources of data that you didn't include in your initial content because you didn't find them  at the time or they didn't even exist because they're so new. That type of research can help keep your advice relevant- or could even help you make a couple new points that you didn't think about before. Replace outdated information: When you continue researching your blog post, you might find new information that disputes your original suggestions. For example, in a post we republished called "25 Growth Hacks That Will Amplify Your Content Marketing", I found out that one of the growth hacks from the original post  wasn't valid anymore because the website we referenced went out of business. I replaced that outdated information with a new growth hack that was similar  but much more timely than the original idea. 5 Ways To Revive And Republish Old Blog Posts  With Your #ContentCalendarAdd more awesome advice: With time comes more experience. Think about how authors re-release their books several years after their original version with new edits and insights they've learned after getting published. Use the same process to add additional advice that builds on your original thought process to add more value. A way we do this at is by analyzing all of the how-to information in an older blog post before we republish. If we give advice on, say, "make an infographic to get more social shares", we'll  back up the claim with new data that proves infographics still get more social shares than any other type of visual content. Then we'll also give the step-by-step guidance on how to create that infographic (or link to a new blog post with lots more detail). See what I did there? You can apply the same process to your blog post before you republish it by analyzing areas you can flesh out with further step-by-step, actionable guidance. Optimize the post for keywords: Yeah, you probably targeted a keyword in your blog post originally. But the keyword game is changing a little bit, and it turns out you can target multiple related keywords in one blog post to get traffic from several different search terms. While I've taken a stab at keyword optimization, I'll let Rand from Moz teach you how to do this because he's wicked smart: Essentially, based on your original keyword, find synonyms or related keywords that will help you rank for a category-type of search. Recommended Reading:  An SEO Driven Approach To Content Marketing: The Complete Guide Optimize for email subscriber conversions: A lot of you are  building your email list to keep your readers coming back for more of your awesome content. That's a terrific idea, so you'll love hearing that adding content upgrades into your blog posts can help you increase the number of email subscribers you receive from any blog post- including the ones you're optimizing and republishing. Let me explain a bit about content upgrades: Since we started including bonus content like infographics, templates, worksheets, guides, and checklists in every blog post we publish here at , we've been able to increase our email subscribers by 552% in one year. Seriously. And you can experience similar  success: Review your top-trafficked blog posts and choose a couple you could easily translate your step-by-step advice into a worksheet, template, checklist, tear sheet, infographic, or tool of some kind. Formats could include Word Templates, Google Sheets Templates, PDFs, images- the sky is the limit. Next, simply open up an Evernote note, pick out the big takeaways from your content, and write the content upgrade. The goal is to help your readers turn your advice into a game plan to experience the success you promise in your blog post. Include areas to write and brainstorm, checkboxes to mark tasks as complete, fill-in-the-blank sections, tables, and other tools to help your readers  literally work through your advice to end with the desired outcome you promised. Either work with your in-house designer to  turn your note into something awesome or  find a freelancer  to design it for you from  a site like Behance  or  Dribbble. Add the content upgrade into your WordPress media library like you would with a normal  blog post image, then grab the URL of the file name. Use a tool like LeadPages' LeadBoxes to embed a signup form right inline in your blog post to trade your content upgrade for  your reader's email address. Here's  how Neil Patel does this exact content upgrade process using LeadPages' LeadBoxes: Neil Patel uses LeadBoxes from LeadPages to add content upgrades into his content to turn traffic into email subscribers. You can do it, too. And it's especially handy for turning your high-trafficked posts into subscriber-generating machines. 3. Republish the blog post as if it were brand new. You can keep the republishing process simple to work through these projects faster than you would when you'd write a brand new post.  This is how to republish a blog post in WordPress: Add a new WordPress  post onto your content calendar on the day you'd like your old blog post to re-launch. Copy your old blog post in its entirety and paste it into your new post. The reason you'd do this is that the old post is still live on your blog and is still generating traffic- you won't want to confuse your readers with edits you're making on the fly, especially if you plan to republish the post later in your editorial schedule. Work through the post adding in all of the advice you just learned: Add new data, replace old  info, add new advice, optimize with more keywords, and add in your content upgrade. When you're done and ready to republish it, change the URL of the new post to match the one that is currently live on your blog. So, if your URL of the live post is http://awesome.com/cool-post, enter your slug for the new post as http://awesome.com/cool-post. WordPress is smart and will auto-magically  change your URL to http://awesome.com/cool-post-2. Don't freak out, because that's exactly what you want to happen. That means WordPress recognizes your original  post and is confirming that it will republish your new content over the old stuff on the specific date and time you have your new post scheduled for. Just leave the new post in draft mode, and when that day and time rolls around, your new content will show up on that old URL. Now, if you'd like to get a little picky about your blog and have that republished  post show up on your home page, you could always go into the original post and change it  to a time in the recent past (like say 30 minutes ago). Just be weary about accidentally  changing the date on your already-published post to republish in the future- it's no good unless you're Michael J. Fox. :) Now You Have A  Data-Driven  Content Calendar Template Listen, I know this sounds like a lot, so hear me out: Why this process is worth every second you spend doing it  even though you're probably  scared of what you read. You're thinking right now: This guy's crazy. I don't have time for this! To which I'm thinking: How will you be able to  improve without knowing  how what you've done- and what you plan to do- has impacted your goal? And my bro Abraham Lincoln is backing me up: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. If you really want to throw efficiency in the mix, consider this: Productivity is only as good as the content you produce and how it  reaches your goal. Using your time to create effective content is far better than being efficient with your time. Using your time to create effective content is far better than being efficient with your time. Heck, Todd Henry sums it up best in his book,  The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant At A Moment's Notice: We must learn to spend our time effectively rather than obsessing about efficiency. Do this, and I guarantee your content calendar will deliver the results you're looking for. #RantOver I wouldn't give you any advice I wouldn't follow myself.  This process is exactly how we plan our content calendar at , and it's  helped us keep our content calendar on track and reach our aspirational goals to grow super fast. Good luck with your content calendar!

Aurignacian Period

Aurignacian Period Definition: The Aurignacian period (40,000 to 28,000 years ago) is an Upper Paleolithic stone tool tradition, usually considered associated with both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals throughout Europe and parts of Africa. The Aurignacians big leap forward is the production of blade tools by flaking pieces of stone off a larger piece of stone, thought to be an indication of more refined tool making. Some Recent Studies Balter, Michael 2006 First Jewelry? Old Shell Beads Suggest Early Use of Symbols. Science 312(1731). Higham, Tom, et al. 2006 Revised direct radiocarbon dating of the Vindija G1 Upper Paleolithic Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10(1073):1-5 (early edition). Bar-Yosef, Ofer. 2002. Defining the Aurignacian. pp 11-18 in Towards a Definition of the Aurignacian, edited by Ofer Bar-Yosef and Joo Zilho. Lisbon: Portuguese Institute of Archaeology. Straus, Lawrence G. 2005 The Upper Paleolithic of Cantabrian Spain. Evolutionary Anthropology 14(4):145-158. Street, Martin, Thomas Terberger, and Joumlrg Orschiedt 2006 A critical review of the German Paleolithic hominin record. Journal of Human Evolution 51:551-579. Verpoorte, A. 2005 The first modern humans in Europe? A closer look at the dating evidence from the Swabian Jura (Germany). Antiquity 79(304):269-279. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Examples: St. CÃ ©saire (France), Chauvet Cave (France), LArbreda Cave (Spain)

Final exam paper for management skill Term Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Final exam for management skill - Term Paper Example Notably, one needs to acquire both theoretical and experiential knowledge to acquire the necessary leadership skills and to make sound decisions when the need arises. From this perspective, one should take every opportunity they have to learn and acquire the rights skills that will prepare them to be leaders not only when engaging in personal decisions but also when service a larger population. The formation of leadership begins with setting goals that one wishes to accomplish. Just like organizations have mission statements, a person requires one to ensure that they have a definite direction that they intend to follow while creating their leadership manifesto. Goal setting allows a person to focus on the direction of their progress and to avoid diverging out of step. Therefore, a goal is a target that one puts and gathers all the momentum to follow it. However, goal setting is a point action that requires the right strategies to be accomplished. Setting a goal without designing the strategies is similar to positioning a vehicle without giving it a start; it will never arrive to its destination. Consequently, goal setting must be followed by development of effective strategies that will lead the person towards these goals. Strategy is the vehicle that drives one towards his predesigned destination. The strategy that one adopts depends on the type of leadership that they en d to achieve. On this end, it is clear that transformational leadership is more crucial in modern organizations. A transformational leader is one who induces the right skills and behaviour within those that he or she guides to ensure that they perform in tandem with organizational goals. The process of developing a leadership manifesto requires that a person does self-evaluation to ensure that they know both their strengths and weaknesses. Personal strengths refer

Wage systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Wage systems - Essay Example Many factors can be identified as wage determinants. They can be selected in the following groups: economic, social, phycological and institutional. In this essay I will stick to the economic determinants: Measuring two-tier system and concession system using the first etalon, a company's ability to pay, I must say that these two systems have different assignation. The concession bargaining system was widely used in 1980s and trade unions often agreed with wage cuts because companies were not able to pay full wage and at the same time wanted to keep their employees, as it is written in the review of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (1997): "The concession bargaining which has occured in several years is an illustration of the recognition by both firms and unions of the link between costs, and thus prices, and output and employment" (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/60/2080431.pdf) . The concession system lost its popularity and influence in 90s when unions understood that company's were again able to pay then they did. The two-tier wage system appeared to reconcile management and employees in a struggle for higher salary, it sacrificed new employees in order to make happy experienced employees. That was done to keep anticipated productivity. "The two-tier structure permits hiring of new workers at significantly lower wages and benefits, compared to those of the regular work force. It will be worth countless millions of dollars to employers in coming years." (http://www.laboreducator.org/twotierpay.pdf) Thus companies' management benefited as wage increase was offset by rising level of productivity and at the same time newcomers didn't receive equal payments. So the concession system and the two-tier system are assigned for different situations. The concession system can help to rise general company's ability to pay", while the two-tier system is primarily designed to meet expectations of experienced employees.The willingness to pay is also an important factor for comparison of the two-tier and concession systems. "Except in the most extraordinary circumstances, there is no acceptable reason for a union to bargain concessions. In t he case of a business that is profitable, there is absolutely no reason for concession bargaining. The results of concession bargaining over the last two decades should stand as proof that concessions do not benefit workers." (http://www.ufcw.net/articles/Toolkit/concession_bargaining-01.html) The concession system doesn't enforce the willingness of a company management to pay as it put restrictions on level of wages.The two-tier system stimulates management to attract experienced employees on the company's side in the bargaining process with new employees, thus this system increases a company's the willingness to pay. Though the willingness is largely a measure of equal distribution and fair competing process in the marketplace. The concession system grants to a company a chance to determine a level of wage that will be considered fair, thus decreasing level of employees' participation in distribution of a company's income. The two-tier system controls fair distribution only for experienced workers while newcomers are treated unfairly.) Although employers have to track wage market in terms

Acetic acid from methanol Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Acetic acid from methanol - Essay Example This piece of art also showed me how hard work pays as the person swinging is enjoying herself due to the luxury presented by the surrounding. Personally, I can suggest that social values have a greater echo than political issues as presented by this art. First, the art portrays how the world should appear in terms of neatness and how things should be arranged in the modern world or society. It also shows the class differences without requiring much explanation as it is easy to interpret. â€Å"This is the most recent piece of art which was created in 2011 to tie in with the screening of the film ‘The Exit to the Gift Shop’† (Kok 19). The scene where the art was created is some distance away from where community members reside. They were trying to raise some money by converting the parking lot into a modern park with a good playground. It is one of the strongest examples of my artistic work that has been nicely decorated to capture almost all aspects of the modern artistic work. This is because of the color used, outward appearance and the shape of the art. Its outward image also gives more than one representation of what the artist was trying to explain unlike his first artistic work that showed only one meaning. The girl swinging and the writings on the wall are features that qualify this piece of art to have more than one meaning explained in the same piece of art. It is worth noting that the space used is small but the meaning is broad and can easily be understood from the first impression by viewing the image. At first as I observed the image, it gave me a different meaning after which it changed completely when I observed it critically. It influenced my way of thinking to give both the inner and outward meaning to any artistic work before drawing a conclusion. This work is therefore modern as compared to other works by other artists. The given work illustrates some technical background skills where the artists was able to balance all his elements.

Healthcare Workers. Workplace Violence Research Paper

Healthcare Workers. Workplace Violence - Research Paper Example Such perpetrators include customers, patients, inmates, and other groups of people who receive regular services from the business. Healthcare facilities such as nursing homes and psychiatric facilities have the highest number of customer violence (Lee et al, 2010). Workplace violence is also perpetrated by fellow workers where an employee threatens or assaults another employee or past employee. Violence can also be perpetrated by individuals without any relationship with the business but have personal relationships with the victims. This includes victims of domestic violence who are attacked or assaulted while at work. The victims of workplace violence are mostly employees in the business. The victims have the responsibility of conducting business activities or providing services (Lee et al, 2010). Nurses and care givers in a nursing home or hospital may be attacked by violent patients. Shop attendants become victims of violent crimes such as robbery. Police officers and prison warde ns are victims of violence from criminals and prisoners. Employees may be subjected to verbal abuses or unwanted touching from their supervisors (Lee et al, 2010). Harassment by senior employees is evident in workplaces such as warehouses. New employees or junior employees become victims of overworking, threats, and abuses from senior employees. Spouses may become victims of workplace violence when domestic violence extends to the workplace. An employee may be attacked or abused by the spouse in the workplace due to unresolved domestic issues (Lee et al, 2010). Risk factors include mental health disorders such as stress, anxiety, and drug intoxication are common among people who commit workplace violence. Employees, customers, or patients with mental disorders have the highest probability of becoming violent. The employees’ inability to deal with a crisis is another risk factor (Lee et al, 2010). Emergency situations in the workplace may increase the stress levels in an emplo yee who loses control of the crisis and may perpetrate verbal violence. The age, years of experience, gender, hours worked, and marital status predispose workers to violence. Women and new employees may experience verbal and physical violence from senior employees. Employees dealing with the public such as police officers are exposed to attacks. Workers handling money such as cashiers are usually victims of criminal violence during robberies (OSHA, 2009). Employees working at night, guarding valuables, working in high crime areas, or transporting passengers have a high probability of being attacked. Workplace violence affects all stakeholders in a business. It has been estimated that organizations lose $202 billion annually due to workplace violence (Bowlers et al, 2007). Employers are affected by the violence due to reduced workdays and low employee morale. Employers also have to restore stolen property, replace damaged property, legal expenses, and compensate victims. Employees ar e also affected by the violence due to high levels of stress, physical injuries, depression, and high healthcare expenses. The personal relationships between employees also change in cases of employee-employee violence (Snyder, Chen and Vacha-Haase, 2007). Demoralization of employees leads to reduced job efficiency. This affects the quality of services delivered to customers and clients. Violence involving customer or clients may lead

Management and Information Systems Individual Portfolio Report Essay

Management and Information Systems Individual Portfolio Report - Essay Example First, the contribution of each project to the achievement of the portfolio is considered to justify the adoption of the portfolio. Secondly, the manager examines the performance effectiveness of each project in the portfolio. Thirdly, the developer of the portfolio reviews the negative impact of the project on the performance of other projects in the company (Fritz and Schiefer, 2009). Finally, the manager contemplates the dependent and independent projects in a specific portfolio. Ginsters Company operates in a demanding market due to the increased competition in the region. In addition, the company’s operation costs tend to increase because of the long distribution chain. Development of a reliable and appropriate management portfolio for the distribution channel is essential in enhancing the performance of the organisation (Mail Online, 2010). Ginsters Company produces and distributes Cornish pastry, which is in the food industry. The food industry is among the most sensitive sectors in various economies. Management of various processes in the industry requires an appropriate approach to the ethics. There are various ethical issues in the food industry (Strbac, 2008). First, the manufacturing process of the food should embrace cleanliness and health of the consumers (Laudon and Laudon, 2002). In addition, various manufacturers of food products in the world should embrace good practices in their distribution channels in order to enhance the value of the food. Second, the marketing, manufacturing and distribution of the food product are major ethical issues. In this case, the manufacturing process adheres to various ethics such as cleanliness in the systems and use of appropriate raw materials (Fritz and Schiefer, 2009). In addition, the distribution channel should uphold the freshness of the food product in order to promot e health among the consumers. Thirdly, the environment is a sensitive ethical issue in the food

Business Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Business Management - Assignment Example An internal customer could be anyone within the organization. For e.g. Jessica and her team is an internal customer for the accounts department of that company because Jessica's team can not serve the suppliers and customers well until they have proper information from accounts and they are dependent on accounts. The suppliers were unhappy because they were given incorrect information at one instance and they rejected the products because some inputs were not of quality. This caused embarrassment and could have been prevented by close internal coordination. Another way of coaching employees, so that they can effectively fulfill customer needs, is to hire external consultant or auditor who periodically monitors their performance and can guide and train them. The customer service department at medical company was not in close communication with top management and their complaints and advice were not given due importance. Thus it will result in low motivation, poor customer service and people may tend to leave as their suggestions were not considered important in the organization. I have selected State library as the service provider organization as I have been interacting with this library for quite some time. The library provides a great environment to study with latest books on all subjects; magazines, periodicals, newspaper plus internet facility. The library is famous because it has taken in to accounts the needs and wants of their target customers who are between age 18 to 50. They conduct surveys to know about the preferences of the subjects of various age groups and keep the books according to it. The customer service policy of the library is attached at the end in appendix. ENSURING QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE The library through feedback process keeps themselves aware of the changing needs of the customer. Their staff go for unofficial visits to other libraries to observe what other best services are being offered there. This helps to improve themselves. Moreover they also take help of the best librarians of the country who guide them as to how they can improve their services. RESPONDING TO FEEDBACK The feedback from the customer is taken through the feedback forms placed at the entrance. Moreover a monthly feedback is taken from the permanent members of the library. Most of the customer's requests are regarding a new book or magazine to be kept in the library. They try to arrange that book and then personally inform the customer about the status of his request. The employee base of the

Management and Information Systems Individual Portfolio Report Essay

Management and Information Systems Individual Portfolio Report - Essay Example First, the contribution of each project to the achievement of the portfolio is considered to justify the adoption of the portfolio. Secondly, the manager examines the performance effectiveness of each project in the portfolio. Thirdly, the developer of the portfolio reviews the negative impact of the project on the performance of other projects in the company (Fritz and Schiefer, 2009). Finally, the manager contemplates the dependent and independent projects in a specific portfolio. Ginsters Company operates in a demanding market due to the increased competition in the region. In addition, the company’s operation costs tend to increase because of the long distribution chain. Development of a reliable and appropriate management portfolio for the distribution channel is essential in enhancing the performance of the organisation (Mail Online, 2010). Ginsters Company produces and distributes Cornish pastry, which is in the food industry. The food industry is among the most sensitive sectors in various economies. Management of various processes in the industry requires an appropriate approach to the ethics. There are various ethical issues in the food industry (Strbac, 2008). First, the manufacturing process of the food should embrace cleanliness and health of the consumers (Laudon and Laudon, 2002). In addition, various manufacturers of food products in the world should embrace good practices in their distribution channels in order to enhance the value of the food. Second, the marketing, manufacturing and distribution of the food product are major ethical issues. In this case, the manufacturing process adheres to various ethics such as cleanliness in the systems and use of appropriate raw materials (Fritz and Schiefer, 2009). In addition, the distribution channel should uphold the freshness of the food product in order to promot e health among the consumers. Thirdly, the environment is a sensitive ethical issue in the food

Peer Profile with Research (Or come up with another topic) Essay

Peer Profile with Research (Or come up with another topic) - Essay Example sformed to a career of her choice which she aspired to undertake since she was in her childhood. Laura was born in Long Beach California, her favorite drink is coffee and dish is Bibimpap, sushi, lasagna and enjoys playing tennis and basketball. Laura’s per profile will be built on various major aspects of life that help develop a being and her take in the whole world of life undertakings. They include: Education, leisure, personal values and skills abilities and uniqueness, future prospects and dream, strengths and weaknesses and her achievements. Laura was born in Long Beach California, her favorite drink is coffee and dish is Bibimpap, sushi, lasagna and enjoys playing tennis and basketball. Laura’s per profile will be built on various major aspects of life that help develop a being and her take in the whole world of life undertakings. They include: Education, leisure, personal values and skills abilities and uniqueness, future prospects and dream, strengths and weak nesses and her achievements. Laura was born in Long Beach California, her favorite drink is coffee and dish is Bibimpap, sushi, lasagna and enjoys playing tennis and basketball. Education Laura is driven by clear defined by clear goals and objectives in her education life .She has been able to clear her high school later went to GRCC pursued her course in two quarters but later dropped prompting her to join college and pursue a Bachelors degree in medical field especially in Psychiatry to help her in future work in a prison and carry out charity work in Developing countries by promoting healthcare. She is also passionate about getting a scholarship in Korea where she would go and streamline her medical field career Leisure and Social life Laura’s social life and leisure is mostly travelling by boat or train so that she can experience more in the world of greatness and diversity of nature. Reading is one of her hobbies, watching TV, playing video games, listening to music such as Jazz and classical and driving around her RAV 4 vehicle. Personal Values She is an optimistic person who believes in her abilities to improve her well being in the society in all areas of her undertakings. She is creative in developing new ideas, compassionate and kind hearted expressed by her passion to help and engage in charity work. Independency in her pursuit remains firm in achieving all her objectives even where she had a savings scheme to purchase her car. Laura is a friendly character especially to her family members expressing love and passionate in her all endeavors about family. She is also purpose driven. She has respect for elders, first family as their family values. Her important value she says â€Å"In Omnia paratus –Latin trans. Prepare or all things in life.† Her uniqueness is derived from her ability to separate emotions from being logical most of the time and she prefers thinking with clear mind. Family and relationships She values her mother s o much as the one who she can entrust with her secrets where she describes her as a favorite person in their family she says â€Å"Mom (can tell her anything without judging, learn a lot from her, she has supported me and loved me unconditionally, she has taught me morals and I have values until now, she is a role model too†. She laments of betrayal from her ex-boyfriend and a best friend but life had to continue. Future prospects and dreams She has a future goal that she wants to achieve on the choice of her ideal place of living in countryside of Korea or Japan. In her bucket list as she

Causes and Consequences of the Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay Example for Free

Causes and Consequences of the Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay The leader of the Bus Boycott was a local preacher called Martin Luther King who formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to orgnaise the boycott and the protest made him the leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement until his assassination. SO no Montgomery Bus Boycott, no non-violent direct action, no I have a Dream speech, no Million-Men march etc. 5. During the Boycott, the Ku Klux Klan attacked the homes of Black leaders this turned public opinion against the Whites. From then on public opinion, specially in the north, PLUS the Federal Government openly supported Black Civil Rights. 6. Rosa Parkes became the mother of the Civil Rights movement: a role model, not only for Blacks, but also for women. In particular, the bus boycott showed ordinary Black men-and-women-in-the-street that little as they could do individually nevetheless, if they stood together and each did their little bit, that we shall overcome one day.

Control Of Sulphur Dioxide Environmental Sciences Essay

Control Of Sulphur Dioxide Environmental Sciences Essay SO2 is an kind of industry air pollution mostly from oil and coal consumption , industry activities and traffics.According to research of EAP(U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) more than 100 million tons sulphur dioxide is discharged into the atmosphere every year all over the world.In the nature,most of the sulphur emissions are in the H2S(hydrogen sulphide),CS2(carbon disulphide),COS(carbonyl sulphide) and some organic compouds.Through burning,these organics which contain sulphur element discharge the sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere,which is able to lead serious environmental problem and harm humans health.SO2 pollution may cause plants dead in a extremely high speed,and is dissolved easily into the wind,which may cause the acid rain that may distroy the outdoor buildings.The most importantly,high concentrated SO2 in the atmosphere is able to kill people or cause serious ills including bronchitis, emphysema and oculoglandular conjunctivitis.Moreover,the sulfuric acid,is a seco ndary pollutant.When sulphur dioxide is involved in additional chemical reactions,it can react with oxygen and water to sulfuric acid which is the constituent of acid rain.(NATHANSON,J.(1986)) Generally,to solve the serious environmental problem,there are two research torwards in removing sulphur dioxide:pretreatment and afterwards absorbing. No matter what methods people use were all included in such two research directions. Pretreatment means separate the sulfur element from the coal mineral before it was burned. Because the main organises of sulfur element in coal are FeS2 and organic sulfur, generally, in industry people often use independent ways to do separation. For the inorganic sulfur including FeS2, the most traditional way is gravitational segregation which means separate the ore containing sulfur element from the coal with the differences in density. Such method is extremely financial and technical simple, however its effects sometimes are limited. Because of the differentia of the coal ore all over the world, the strainaway rate of the sulfur element is highly different. In some area the gravitational segregation can remove approximately 90% of the sulfur element in coal ore, while in some certain coal mines of 40% of the total sulfur content can be wiped off. For the organic sulfur element, it seems that there is not a efffective pretreatment approach to solve it. What people can do is just absorb the SO2 from burning organic sulfocompound. Unfortunately, because of the complicated organization of organic matter, generally, the sulfur contained in the coal ore would be burned in to a series of sulfocompounds including H2S,CS2,SO,SO2 instead of only SO2.So before people assimilate the SO2, people have to transform these compounds into SO2 first. Nowdays the most common way is fluidized bed. Fludized bed is a kind of organization for gasification of coal which is created by Fritz Winkler of Germany on December 16, 1921. Since the early 1960s, Douglas Elliott put forward that the coal should be burned instead of gasifying coal in a bubbling fluidized bed, because the it can generate steam by immersing boiler tubes. In 1982, the first CFB boiler which can burn low-grade coal was built in the Vereingte Aluminum Werke at Luenen, Germany in 1982 which is designed exclusively for the supply of steam and heat. The general gas-solid fluidizetion has 5 major application: Energy conversion, Petro-chemical processing, Mineral processing, Chemical and pharmaceutical and Physical processing, and the basic one is energy conversion. FIGURE 1.2 Schematic of a high temperature fluidized bed gasifier In general coal would be fed into bubbling fludized bed at 950 degree. Steam would be fed into the base of the fluidized bed through a sparge pipe-type of distributor. Then the coal would leave the hot solids in the bed and the cleaned and used gasification products leave the bed from the top. In this process limestone (CaCO3) and dolomite (CaCO3Â ·MgCO3) would be mixed with the coal ores to abstract the SO2 from the burning.The chemical equation is as follow: (1.1) After the fluidized bed step, there is still approximately 20% SO2 left in the offgas. To solve this SO2, people need some technologies including Calcium-Based Reactions and Sodium-Based Reactions, which were called afterburning absorbing. Until now, there is not a cheap and effective approach.The effective methods usually are expensive and lay a heavy burdon on finance,at the same time ,the cheap ones disable to remove the sulphur dioxide satisfactorily. The major information of this paper includes the benefits and defects of the traditional ways controlling the SO2, the rational of the new aspect: magnetic method, the problems may meet and the solutions of this approach..The ultimate purpose of the assignment is to point out a solution both financial and efficient.All the experiments and theories mentioned in this essay are based on theories and logical deductions. Analysis Advantages Nowdays in technology aspect people are able to control the SO2 letting effectively, after all the steps the SO2 discharged into the atmosphere is less then 1%. Materials of these technologies are all hackneved,. Moreover, some certain technologies can produce a series of cost efficient second products such as vitrol and compound fertilizers. Pretreatment is best method to control the sulfur dioxide, personally. Not only because the FeS2 can be separated from the coal ore easily, but also FeS2 can be another useful materials in industry. Because of the characters of coal mines, the associate ore of coal is FeS2 generally. As a result the FeS2 ore occupies a big part of coal mines in anywhere of the world, and the FeS2 ore is the most common material of puddling. So the pretreatment is a both efficient and financial approach. Fluidized bed is the second steps of the whole sulfur dioxide, the absobents of fluidized bed are very cheap and common. So this technology resently is used widly in the countries which are occupying a roomy area such as China and American as a normal skill. And such technology is extraordinary suit for the large-scale factories. Afterburning absorbing is the most efficient way to control the sulfur dioxide discharging regardless of the concentration. The ultimate consistence of SO2 in off gas which is disposed by the afterburning absorbing usually is less than 5%. In summary, the technologys resent used in the SO2 control are highly mature, however there are still some disadvantages can not be ignored. Disadvantages Although pretreatment is the most efficient and financial method to control the sulfur dioxide, it has the deadliest defect: the restriction of area. Because of the difference of the organization of coal ore in different area, such technology disables to be spreaded. For the fluidized bed the problems are secondary products and the processing ratio.When the chalks go into the boiler the active principle, CaCO3 would be resolve into CaO and CO2. The burned CO2 would sepatate out and enlarge the interspace on the CaO to form the lacunose CaO which can response with the SO2 easily. However it is impossible to make all of the CaO be the CaSO4, because the sulphating would make the interspace fullfilled by CaSO4. As a result the most chalks would not response with the SO2 and a great deal of chalks are wasted. Moreover, the secondary products are the mixture of CaSO4, CaO and CaCO3, so that the only way to manage them is dumping which may cause the salinized land. Afterburning absorbing is an efficient approach including wet limestone, wet soda ash/caustic lime spray dryer, circulating lime reactor and sodium bicarbonate/trona injection to control the SO2,however, it also has irrefusable disadvantages: the finance. After the advanced two step there is a lot of SO2 in the offgas, most of which is CO2, so that afterburning absorbing usually is extremely expensive. Moreover such technology has a great deal of problems such as the corrosion on equipments, pipeline blocking and the lack of material use ratio. Discussion Rationale Personally, the basic method to control the sulfur dioxide from the coal, is to separate the sulfur element from the coal ore before burning. In other words, to forbide the shaping of sulfur dioxide is the best way to control it .This kind of ideas is not impossible. If we can make most of the sulfur element separated from the coal before burned into sulfur dioxide, we do not need the afterburn aborbing. Personally people should use another aspect to think about the coal burning. The coal ore is consist of FeS2, ash content and organic organizations. After the pretreatment, almost all of the FeS2 would be remove out of the coal ore, so most of the substance left is organics and ash content. In the fluidized bed, the coal would be transfor into gas, the majority of which is CO2 and sulfide gas. Fortunately the CO2 molecule organizationis nonpolar, and the most of sulfide gas is polar molecule, such as SO2. As we know gaseous phase and solid phase do not have the material difference, nowdays the magnetic force is used widely in the solid waste control. So it is possible that use the magnetic force in separating two kinds of gas which have differences in magnetism. Problems may meet and solution The biggest problem people may meet is the differences between CO2 and sulfur dioxide are too small. This kind of force is only a little bigger than VDW(Van der Waals force), it is impossible to separate all of the CO2 and sulfide gas completely. The method to solve this problem actually is very easy, which is magnify the differences of force suffered. As we know, at the same temperature and pession, the density of SO2 is bigger than that of CO2, that means the climbing velocity of CO2 is bigger than SO2. All the factories need chimneys which are used to let the off gas to upper atmosphere to forbid the impact on daily life. If we add a magnetic field at the bottom of the chimney, it is sure that CO2 would climb up much faster than SO2. That means we can magnify the differences of suffered force between SO2 and CO2. The second problem of this opinion is how to gather the SO2. In my way, it is still to use the magnetic force. The chimney in my plan is not simple one, it should the a concentric tube. There would be a lot of interspace all over the inside tube, which is used to separate the SO2 from the off gas. In the whole chimney, there would be a magnetic field, so that SO2 in the off gas would suffer the magnetic force which is able to make the SO2 run over the inside tube. The outside tube is obfurage, so that SO2 would not be discharged into the atmosphere. The last problem is finance. It seems that the technologies and skills used nowdays play a better role in financial problems than the method mentioned above due to the high cost of basic built and daily power consumption. Although I can not submit the compellent datas about the basic built and daily consumption, I strongly believe that it performs better on the finance than the technologies and skills used now. Most skills of afterburning absorb would consume 15% electronic of the total vield for power plant. That means only 85% power is useful. On the other hand the power consumed in establishing magnetic field is obviously much less. All the power plants in the world would have chimneys, so the basic building cost would not be unacceptable. Furthurmore the secondary product: sulfur dioxide is the resource of manufacturing vitriol. In my opinion, the consumption in power even would be less than the money earned from the secondary product. Advantages and disadvantages In comparison of any other technologies and skills, the ultimate advantage of magnetic force is no secondary pollution. No matter what kind of skills used now have the problem of secondary pollution, such as the mixture of CaCO3 and CaSO4. These substances can not be recycled and do not have financial values, the simple managements such as landfill may cause the salinization and soil erosion. On the other side the secondary products of the magnetic method is the mixture of SO2 and CO2. This mixture is able to react with O2 under the catalysis of V2O5 to produce vitriol which can be the chemical engineering material. Furthurmore, this approach is extremely suitable for the Third World Countries. As we know, because of the financial problems the environmental problems in the Third World Countries usually are usually negelected. Controlling the sulfur dioxide is a heavy burdon on the companies and coutries of the Third World. If they can gain economic benefits from controlling SO2, it i s obvious that there would not be any problems on the popularize in the Third World countries. However, it also has some problems the most evident one is the problem of strainaway rate. Due to the restriction of circumstance, I can not do any experiment until now, so nobody knows how much the strainaway rate is. The most urgent and effective solution is doing experiments. Any valuable and successful technologies and skills are based on doing a mass of experiment to find problems and change the process. Moreover it seems that to reach the target mentioned above, there would be a simple but endless process, that means it is only suitable to the sweeping factories. Conclusion In conclusion, the way that author put forward obviously is a new aspect to regard the control of sulfur dioxide. After more than 100 years research on the traditional methods, they are all extremely ripe and difficult to improve. The magenic approach has the innate superiorities in comparision of the traditional ways. It is a definit physical technology which means there would not be any new extra pllutant to harm the environment. Moreover compared with the other new methods researched now, it is incredible convinient. All the basic building can be remaked from the existing equipments such as chimney and fluidized bed. In developing countries such as China and Africa countries which are not willing to pay attention on the environmenal protection, this technology can improve their enthusiasm, because they can gain a high economical benefits from the secondary products: vitrial with only a little investment. Although there are still some undeniable problems on this magenic way, it mus t be a valuable toward to research. The method mentioned in this paper is based on the 4 years experience in studying environmental subject of the author. Although the perspective and theoretical knowledge are sometimes naive and idealize, I strongly believe that this method must be valuable. Not only because the method itself, but also the aspect to deliberate and research. Environmental science is a wide ranged major which is not restricted in chemistry or biology, but also physics, physical chemistry, manage and biochemistry. The workers of protecting environment should expanse their own field of vision to all the relational knowledge instead of the major itself. In this career, not matter the organizations and physical properties, not matter the fields people consentrate on, as environment protection workers, we can all learn a lot of things and acquire inspiration from the whole science and engineering region.

Black Hawk Down - Summary of the book as written by Mark Bowden :: American America History

Black Hawk Down - Summary of the book as written by Mark Bowden It was mid-afternoon on October 3, 1993. There were approximately 160 men eagerly awaiting the signal to proceed. Matt Eversmann sat waiting in Super Six Seven, a Black Hawk helicopter. He noticed that things were being done differently from the other setups, which had been false. This time they were packing more ammo and the commander had come out to see them off. The troops were being sent in because warlords were allowing their people to starve to death. The world had sent food, and the warlords hoarded it. The world had decided to stop this. Today's mission was to invade the Habr Gidr clan that was in Mogadishu Somalia. The clan was led by Mohamed Farrah Aidid, but that day's targets were two of his lieutenants. They were to be arrested and imprisoned with other clan members that had already been captured. At 3:32 P.M. the armada launched. They flew from the coastal airport into the city of Mogadishu. Above the city the men could see the destructions the city had experienced during civil war. Many buildings were demolished and the streets were crumbling. The Black Hawks were down low over the city, and the Little Birds were closing in on the target. Tires burning on the street near the target set alarm. It was a way Somalis signaled trouble and summoned militia. When the Little Birds came down people and cars began to scatter. Some people were gesturing eagerly. The Black Hawks would move in next. People began poring into the streets with weapons. Others were building barricades or lighting fires. The Rangers captured the two targets along with 22 other Somali men on the first floor of the target house. When the Rangers entered the second floor, shots started coming through a window. Rangers on the ground were shooting at their own men. The young Rangers were poorly trained and dangerous. In the streets fire was rapidly exchanging. The Somali men took advantage of the Americans decency and hid behind women and children. The Somalis moved in groups. The Rangers could not single out the ones with weapons. Things had gone pretty well. It was 3:50 P.M. The force would be one their way in ten minutes. The Humvees and trucks waited outside the main gates for the D-boys to wrap up. About this time

Part Five Chapter I

Privilege 7.32 A person who has made a defamatory statement may claim privilege for it if he can show that he made it without malice and in pursuit of a public duty. Charles Arnold-Baker Local Council Administration, Seventh Edition I Terri Weedon was used to people leaving her. The first and greatest departure had been her mother's, who had never said goodbye, but had simply walked out one day with a suitcase while Terri was at school. There had been lots of social workers and care workers after she ran away at fourteen, and some of them had been nice enough, but they all left at the end of the working day. Every fresh departure added a fine new layer to the crust building over her core. She had had friends in care, but at sixteen they were all on their own, and life had scattered them. She met Ritchie Adams, and she bore him two children. Tiny little pink things, pure and beautiful like nothing in the whole world: and they had come out of her, and for shining hours in the hospital, twice, it had been like her own rebirth. And then they took the children from her, and she never saw them again, either. Banger had left her. Nana Cath had left her. Nearly everybody went, hardly anyone stayed. She ought to be used to it by now. When Mattie, her regular social worker, reappeared, Terri demanded, ‘Where's the other one?' ‘Kay? She was only covering for me while I was ill,' said Mattie. ‘So, where's Liam? No †¦ I mean Robbie, don't I?' Terri did not like Mattie. For one thing, she did not have kids, and how could people who didn't have kids tell you how to raise them, how could they understand? She had not liked Kay, exactly, either †¦ except that Kay gave you a funny feeling, the same feeling that Nana Cath had once given Terri, before she had called her a whore and told her she never wanted to see her again †¦ you felt, with Kay – even though she carried folders, like the rest of them, even though she had instituted the case review – you felt that she wanted things to go right for you, and not only for the forms. You really did feel that. But she was gone, and she probably don't even think about us now, thought Terri furiously. On Friday afternoon, Mattie told Terri that Bellchapel would almost certainly close. ‘It's political,' she said briskly. ‘They want to save money, but methadone treatment's unpopular with the District Council. Plus, Pagford wants them out of the building. It was all in the local paper, maybe you saw it?' Sometimes she spoke to Terri like that, veering into a kind of after-all-we're-in-this-together small-talk that jarred, because it sat alongside enquiries as to whether Terri was remembering to feed her son. But this time it was what she said, rather than how she said it, that upset Terri. ‘They're closin' it?' she repeated. ‘It looks that way,' said Mattie breezily, ‘but it won't make any difference to you. Well, obviously †¦' Three times Terri had embarked upon the programme at Bellchapel. The dusty interior of the converted church with its partition walls and its flyers, the bathroom with its neon-blue light (so you could not find veins and shoot up in there), had become familiar and almost friendly. Lately, she had begun to sense in the workers there a change in the way they spoke to her. They had all expected her to fail again, in the beginning, but they had started talking to her the way Kay had talked: as if they knew a real person lived inside her pockmarked, burned body. ‘ †¦ obviously, it will be different, but you can get your methadone from your GP instead,' said Mattie. She flipped over pages in the distended file that was the state's record of Terri's life. ‘You're registered with Dr Jawanda in Pagford, right? Pagford †¦ why are you going all the way out there?' ‘I smacked a nurse at Cantermill,' said Terri, almost absent-mindedly. After Mattie had left, Terri sat for a long time in her filthy chair in the sitting room, gnawing at her nails until they bled. The moment Krystal came home, bringing Robbie back from nursery, she told her that they were closing Bellchapel. ‘They ain't decided yet,' said Krystal with authority. ‘The fuck do you know?' demanded Terri. ‘They're closin' it, and now they say I've gotta go to fuckin' Pagford to that bitch that killed Nana Cath. Well, I fuckin' ain't.' ‘You gotta,' said Krystal. Krystal had been like this for days; bossing her mother, acting as though she, Krystal, was the grown-up. ‘I ain' gotta do fuckin' anythin',' said Terri furiously. ‘Cheeky little bitch,' she added, for good measure. ‘If you start fuckin' usin' again,' said Krystal, scarlet in the face, ‘they'll take Robbie away.' He was still holding Krystal's hand, and burst into tears. ‘See?' both women shouted at each other. ‘You're fuckin' doin' it to him!' shouted Krystal. ‘An' anyway, that doctor didn' do nuthin' to Nana Cath, that's all jus' Cheryl an' them talking shit!' ‘Fuckin' little know-it-all, ain't yeh?' yelled Terri. ‘You know fuck-all – ‘ Krystal spat at her. ‘Get the fuck out!' screamed Terri, and because Krystal was bigger and heavier she seized a shoe lying on the floor and brandished it. ‘Gerrout!' ‘I fuckin' will!' yelled Krystal. ‘An' I'll take Robbie an' all, an' you can stay here an' fuckin' screw Obbo an' make another one!' She dragged the wailing Robbie out with her before Terri could stop her. Krystal marched him all the way to her usual refuge, forgetting that at this time in the afternoon, Nikki would still be hanging around outside somewhere, not at home. It was Nikki's mum who opened the door, in her Asda uniform. ‘He ain' stayin' ‘ere,' she told Krystal firmly, while Robbie whined and tried to pull his hand from Krystal's tight grip. ‘Where's your mum?' ‘Home,' said Krystal, and everything else she wanted to say evaporated in the older woman's stern gaze. So she returned to Foley Road with Robbie, where Terri, bitterly triumphant, grabbed her son's arm, pulled him inside and blocked Krystal from entering. †Ad enough of him already, ‘ave yeh?' Terri jeered, over Robbie's wails. ‘Fuck off.' And she slammed the door. Terri had Robbie sleep beside her on her own mattress that night. She lay awake and thought about how little she needed Krystal, and ached for her as badly as she had ever craved smack. Krystal had been angry for days. The thing that Krystal had said about Obbo †¦ (‘She said what?' he had laughed, incredulously, when they had met in the street, and Terri had muttered something about Krystal being upset.) †¦ he wouldn't have done it. He couldn't have. Obbo was one of the few people who had hung around. Terri had known him since she was fifteen. They had gone to school together, hung out in Yarvil while she was in care, swigged cider together beneath the trees on the footpath that cut its way through the small patch of remaining farmland beside the Fields. They had shared their first joint. Krystal had never liked him. Jealous, thought Terri, watching Robbie sleep in the street light pouring through the thin curtains. Just jealous. He's done more for me than anyone, thought Terri defiantly, because when she tallied kindnesses she subtracted abandonment. Thus all of Nana Cath's care had been annihilated by her rejection. But Obbo had hidden her, once, from Ritchie, the father of her first two children, when she had fled the house barefoot and bleeding. Sometimes he gave her free bags of smack. She saw them as equivalent kindnesses. His refuges were more reliable than the little house in Hope Street that she had once, for three glorious days, thought was home. Krystal did not return on Saturday morning, but that was nothing new; Terri knew she must be at Nikki's. In a rage, because they were low on food, and she was out of cigarettes, and Robbie was whining for his sister, she stormed into her daughter's room and kicked her clothes around, searching for money or the odd, overlooked fag. Something clattered as she threw aside Krystal's crumpled old rowing kit, and she saw the little plastic jewellery box, upended, with the rowing medal that Krystal had won, and Tessa Wall's watch lying beneath it. Terri picked up the watch and stared at it. She had never seen it before. She wondered where Krystal had got it. Her first assumption was that Krystal had stolen it, but then she wondered whether she might have been given it by Nana Cath, or even left it in Nana Cath's will. That was a much more troubling thought than the idea of the watch being stolen. The idea of the sneaky little bitch hiding it away, treasuring it, never mentioning it †¦ Terri put the watch inside the pocket of her tracksuit bottoms and bellowed for Robbie to come with her to the shops. It took ages to get him into his shoes, and Terri lost her temper and slapped him. She wished she could go to the shop alone, but the social workers did not like you leaving kids behind in the house, even though you could get things done much quicker without them. ‘Where's Krystal?' wailed Robbie, as she manhandled him out of the door. ‘I wan' Krystal!' ‘I dunno where the little tart is,' snapped Terri, dragging him along the road. Obbo was on the corner beside the supermarket, talking to two men. When he saw her he raised a hand in greeting, and his two companions walked away. †Ow's Ter?' he said. ‘N'bad,' she lied. ‘Robbie, leggo.' He was digging his fingers so tightly into her thin leg that it hurt. ‘Listen,' said Obbo, ‘couldja keep a bit more stuff for me fer a bit?' ‘Kinda stuff?' asked Terri, prising Robbie off her leg and holding his hand instead. ‘Coupla bags o' stuff,' said Obbo. ‘Really help me out, Ter.' †Ow long for?' ‘Few days. Bring it round this evenin'. Will yeh?' Terri thought of Krystal, and what she would say if she knew. ‘Yeah, go on then,' said Terri. She remembered something else, and pulled Tessa's watch out of her pocket. ‘Gonna sell this, whaddaya reckon?' ‘Not bad,' said Obbo, weighing it in his hand. ‘I'll give yeh twenty for it. Bring it over tonight?' Terri had thought the watch might be worth more, but she did not like to challenge him. ‘Yeah, all righ' then.' She took a few steps towards the supermarket entrance, hand in hand with Robbie, but then turned abruptly. ‘I ain' usin' though,' she said. ‘So don' bring †¦' ‘Still on the mixture?' he said, grinning at her through his thick glasses. ‘Bellchapel's done for, mind. All in the paper.' ‘Yeah,' she said miserably, and she tugged Robbie towards the entrance of the supermarket. ‘I know.' I ain't going to Pagford, she thought, as she picked biscuits off the shelf. I ain't going there. She was almost inured to constant criticism and assessment, to the sideways glance of passers-by, to abuse from the neighbours, but she was not going to go all the way to that smug little town to get double helpings; to travel back in time, once a week, to the place where Nana Cath had said she would keep her, but let her go. She would have to pass that pretty little school that had sent horrible letters home about Krystal, saying that her clothes were too small and too dirty, that her behaviour was unacceptable. She was afraid of long-forgotten relatives emerging from Hope Street, as they squabbled over Nana Cath's house, and of what Cheryl would say, if she knew that Terri had entered into voluntary dealings with the Paki bitch who had killed Nana Cath. Another mark against her, in the family that despised her. ‘They ain't making me go to fuckin' Pagford,' Terri muttered aloud, pulling Robbie towards the checkout.