Industrial Revolution Essay -- History, England, Materialism

During the industrial revolution of England, by engaging in monotonous work, humans became disconnected with nature. By the nineteenth century, when William Wordsworth wrote the sonnet The world is too much with us, the process of industrialization had transformed a worker’s life, leaving no time or place to enjoy or take part in nature. In his Petrarchan sonnet, Wordsworth criticizes humans for losing their hearts to materialism and longs for a world where nature is divine. In the first four lines, the poet angrily addresses the theme of the sonnet which is that the modern age has lost its connection to nature and to everything meaningful. The words â€Å"late and soon† (1) are part of a list that continues in the next line with the phrase â€Å"getting and spending† (2). The line break is for the purpose of the structure of the sonnet. Late and soon refer to the fast pace of the industrial age, and they describe how the past and future are included in the poet’s characterization of mankind. â€Å"Too† (1) and â€Å"soon† (1) have a long vowel â€Å"oo† sound since industrialization, and therefore, exploitation of nature, had been occurring for a long time before Wordsworth wrote this sonnet. Wordsworth wanted to express how â€Å"soon† (1) this exploitation would become known to others by placing the sharp consonant â€Å"n† after the long vowel sound. The caesura in line 1 after the word  "us† (1) gives the reader a chance to feel and reflect upon the weight of the world resting on humanity’s shoulders after the poet’s statement that the world is too fragile for humans to handle. Humanity’s â€Å"powers† (2) have gone to â€Å"waste† (2), which in this context means that they have been used inefficiently. However, other connotations for the word â€Å"waste† (2) are things t... ...ch the narrator responds to her death, is connected to nature but dies before she can attain her own distinct consciousness away from nature. Lucy is connected to nature and exists in a state between the spiritual and human. However, she represents a state of consciousness and exists within the poem as part of the narrator's consciousness. Nature is being portrayed as something almost devine, just as the mythical Greek gods from The world is too much with us were Wordsworth’s favorable alternative to human exploitation of nature. Nevertheless, there is a difference between one being too connected to nature, as Lucy was, and one being nearly disconnected from nature, as humanity was portrayed in The world is too much with us. The only way to be in harmony with nature is to accept nature for what it is – to not to be overly connected with it, but not to exploit it. Industrial Revolution Essay -- History, England, Materialism During the industrial revolution of England, by engaging in monotonous work, humans became disconnected with nature. By the nineteenth century, when William Wordsworth wrote the sonnet The world is too much with us, the process of industrialization had transformed a worker’s life, leaving no time or place to enjoy or take part in nature. In his Petrarchan sonnet, Wordsworth criticizes humans for losing their hearts to materialism and longs for a world where nature is divine. In the first four lines, the poet angrily addresses the theme of the sonnet which is that the modern age has lost its connection to nature and to everything meaningful. The words â€Å"late and soon† (1) are part of a list that continues in the next line with the phrase â€Å"getting and spending† (2). The line break is for the purpose of the structure of the sonnet. Late and soon refer to the fast pace of the industrial age, and they describe how the past and future are included in the poet’s characterization of mankind. â€Å"Too† (1) and â€Å"soon† (1) have a long vowel â€Å"oo† sound since industrialization, and therefore, exploitation of nature, had been occurring for a long time before Wordsworth wrote this sonnet. Wordsworth wanted to express how â€Å"soon† (1) this exploitation would become known to others by placing the sharp consonant â€Å"n† after the long vowel sound. The caesura in line 1 after the word  "us† (1) gives the reader a chance to feel and reflect upon the weight of the world resting on humanity’s shoulders after the poet’s statement that the world is too fragile for humans to handle. Humanity’s â€Å"powers† (2) have gone to â€Å"waste† (2), which in this context means that they have been used inefficiently. However, other connotations for the word â€Å"waste† (2) are things t... ...ch the narrator responds to her death, is connected to nature but dies before she can attain her own distinct consciousness away from nature. Lucy is connected to nature and exists in a state between the spiritual and human. However, she represents a state of consciousness and exists within the poem as part of the narrator's consciousness. Nature is being portrayed as something almost devine, just as the mythical Greek gods from The world is too much with us were Wordsworth’s favorable alternative to human exploitation of nature. Nevertheless, there is a difference between one being too connected to nature, as Lucy was, and one being nearly disconnected from nature, as humanity was portrayed in The world is too much with us. The only way to be in harmony with nature is to accept nature for what it is – to not to be overly connected with it, but not to exploit it.

“Discourse on the Method” by Rene Descartes

â€Å"Discourse on the Method† by Rene Descartes is both a historical document and philosophical work. Scientists and historians agree that this book has contributed significantly the history of modern science and psychology. In his book Descartes describe the method which provides solid background for all modern natural sciences. Descartes pays thorough attention to the problem of scepticism in his work continuing the researches made by ancient philosopher Sextus Empiricus and the author Michael de Montaigne. The purpose of the book seems to prove people that truth should be regarded as incontrovertible.Therefore, the author chooses the approach of challenging and doubting everything when assessing the world. In such a way Descartes tend to look at ordinary things from the new perspective which is clear of biased nations. (Descartes 1960) In particular, Descartes discusses the following issues: how to think correctly, the method of science, morals maxims derived from method, proof of human soul and god, experiments, and, finally, connections between physics and heart. When arguing how to think correctly, Descartes offer ‘building metaphor’ meaning that human opinions and thoughts are the grounds which shape further perceptions.The ideas and opinions are claimed to be of sedentary nature and Descartes argues that he â€Å"firmly believed that in this way he should much better succeed in the conduct of his life, than he built only upon old foundations, and leaned upon principles which, in his youth, he had taken upon trust†. (Descartes 1960) Summing up, the core principle of thinking correctly is that humans shouldn’t tend to seek for old foundations; instead, they should seek for new fertile and to build new knowledge on it.In the method of science Descartes distinguishes four precepts which characterise the method. The first precept suggests that people shouldn’t percept anything for granted if they can’t be re-a ssured that it is true. Descartes says it is necessary to avoid prejudice and precipitancy and to believe things which exclude all grounds for any doubts and hesitations. The second precept is â€Å"to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution†.(Descartes 1960)The third principle is that it is necessary to conduct your thoughts and ideas in such a way that it would be possible to go from the simplest to the most complex: â€Å"I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence†. (Descartes 1960) Finally, the fourth precept is that we must be sure that nothing is omitted meaning reviews should general and enumerations should be complete.Further, Descartes analyzes three moral maxims deriv ed from the method. He says that he adopted those maxims to make them effectively function in ‘real world’. Method of radical doubts requires analyzing moral side of such experiments. Descartes’ three maxims is the basis of rudimentary belief system. Its principles are: †¢ To obey country’s religious customs and laws; †¢ To be confident in all actions; †¢ To endeavour and to conquer yourself as well as to change desires instead of trying to change the order of the whole world because we doesn’t have enough power to do that.When proving existence of soul and God, Descartes challenges his thinking and reasoning. Nevertheless, he believes that there are three things which aren’t subjected to being doubted. These things support each other forming stable ground for Descartes’ method. These things are reason as doubting is based on reasoning, and existence of soul and God guaranteeing that the reason is misguided. Descartes pr ovides reasoned argument why God and, moreover, he is the primary contributor to what we now call ontological proof of the God existence. (Descartes 1960)Descartes also pays attention to describing natural laws, the laws of the Sun and the stars, etc. Descartes believes that it is Moon that causes flood and ebb. Further, Descartes examines ideas of fire and light going to examining the motion of blood in arteries and heart. In contrast to generally accepted ideas, Descartes argues that these motions are independent of what it is thought and he draws the conclusion that human soul and human body are separate. Nevertheless, Descartes doesn’t distinguish between human soul, mind and spirit as they are all important constituents of rational thinking.As a consequences, the idea that â€Å"I am thinking, therefore I am† appeared. Finally, when speaking about experiments Descartes writes that â€Å"experiments, that they become always more necessary the more one is advanced in knowledge; for, at the commencement, it is better to make use only of what is spontaneously presented to our senses†. (Descartes 1960) Descartes’ ideas are strongly tied with modern philosophy and science. For example, his â€Å"The Method in Mathematics and the Sciences† has practical application nowadays in all schools.Descartes’ arguments are the basis of Cartesian coordinate systems as well as analytic geometry, the Histogram and mathematical heuristic. The method Descartes uses in his work is extremely valuable because sceptical doubt became a matter of philosophical debates how human can be sure of anything. Modern Western philosophy is influences by his re-conception of the mind – the idea that human mind is separate from human body. Summing up, Rene Descartes set a number of questions which have formed the base of what we call now ‘modern philosophy’. (Descartes 1960)

Financial Management Essay

Part A There are three main areas of decision making for the corporate financial manager: Investment: The choice of projects or assets in which to invest company funds. Competing alternatives have to be assessed using a number of techniques. This type of decision will also be of concern to the private individual when making choices about which shares to buy. Finance: How these investments should be financed. It is necessary to evaluate the possible sources, external and internal, and the effect they will have on the capital structure of the company. Dividend: Whether corporate earnings should be retained or paid out in the form of dividends, and if the latter, when the dividends should be paid. Otherwise, we will cover the risk management as well as the management of a company’s assets and liabilities in its working capital cycle. Assets must be managed effectively so that they generate income and profits, and so that funds are available to pay creditors and take up opportunities for investment. In summary ,therefore, we can say that financial management involves the following areas as investment decisions, funding decisions, including the capital structure of the company, dividend decisions, risk management. This implies that dividend payments and gains made when selling a shareholding are better indicators of shareholder wealth than profits. However, if the dividend payments are not consistent over a period of time, this will not increase confidence in the company shares, and their market price will reflect the variability of dividend payments. When the shareholder sells their investment, they may lose money. The prime objective of the company therefore needs to be adjusted slightly to the maximization of long-term shareholder wealth. This will be indicated by maximisation of dividends over time and reflected in the market value of the ordinary shares. If the share price reflects shareholder wealth, then we can say that any financial decision taken to increase the value of shares will be a decision that maximises shareholder wealth, and will be in keeping with the prime objective of the company, such a decision can involve are using appraisal techniques to assess investment projects and sourcing funding to provide for the company the most appropriate capital structure that can be serviced from available funds and paying dividends that the company can afford, while leaving sufficient retained earnings for investment and managing the risks associated with these decisions. This may leave you with the impression that the managers of a company will carry out its day to day functions efficiently and effectively on behalf of the owners, always asking themselves about the result of the decision maximise shareholder wealth, this is a realistic view because of the tension between ownership and control of company. That is limitations of shareholder wealth maximisation as concern to agency theory. Agency theory is based in the separation of ownership and control that distinguishes the limited liability company from the other two business entities of the sole trader and the partnership. The relationship between shareholders and management is the principal agent relationship, and has given reis to agency theory. Where an agent was defined as a person used to effect a contract between their principal and a third party. The agency problem is that managers may not always act in the best interest of the shareholders, to maximise the latter’s wealth. Offering incentives, such as share options, to managers may reduce this problem. Solving the agency problem When the agency problem exits, therefore, when managers or directors do not act in the best interest of the shareholders to maxmise the latter’s wealth. Management goals could include increasing their rewards. It was suggested in an earlier activity that two ways to ensure that management act in shareholders interests are to vote unacceptable directors off the board, or to offer share options. Shareholder could monitor the actions of managers using independently audited accounts, backed up by additional reporting requirements and external analysts. The managers may not act in the best interest of the shareholders, so they may be offering other such as share options. However, the share options also have some things to consider as the advantages is encourage managers to maximise shareholder wealth since the option may result in their being able to sell shares at a higher price. But the disadvantages is the price of shares is influenced by some factors outside the control of management, so the benefits may accrue despite management actions. Managers may also change accounting polices to improve the performance of the company and influence the share price deliberately. Otherwise, Capital structure refers to the way an entity finances its assets through a combination of equity and debt. An entity’s capital structure is then the composition or structure of its liabilities. Capital structure ratios show an entity’s capital structure and measure its ability to meet its long term obligations. If the entity appears unable to meet its long term obligations, it will be in serious danger of collapse or takeover. Further, long term financial position depends much on an entity’s profitability since, in the long run, the entity will not be able to repay its debts unless it is profitable. The capital gearing ratio is a measure of the financial risk of an entity because of the prior claim that debt capital has on the profits and assets of the entity in the event of liquidation. Also, if the profits are low, the entity may not have sufficient funds available to make dividend payments to the ordinary shareholders. Capital gearing ratio: (preference shares + long term loans) / (shareholder’s funds + long term loans) X 100 The difficulty is the inclusion of preference shares, since they take many different forms. If a company’s preference shares are of the standard type, that is, having no voting rights and conveying nothing but the right to a fixed rate of dividend, they should be included as debt funding. The higher the percentage, the higher the level of gearing. It is advisable to include short term debt such as overdraft if it is used to fund long term investments and is not, therefore, of a temporary nature and bears a financial risk. A highly geared company may also experience difficulties in attracting funds from investors, who are not attracted by the risks involved in a high geared company. In this event, the market price of the company’s shares will fall. The more debt, the more risk for ordinary shareholders and ultimately for everyone, if the company faces liquidation. However, the more debt, the lower the WACC because debt is cheaper than equity. At very high levels of debt, however, the WACC will rise because of the higher levels of risk involved. Reference: Notes of the University of Sunderland APC308 Financial Management Conclusion The areas of corporate financial management are the decisions concerning investment, funding, dividend and working capital. And the company will use the gearing ratio to express the debt funding as a percentage of the total funding, because the high gearing ratio also brings problems associated with the interest rates and the main objective in financial management is the maximisation of long term shareholder wealth that is the market value of the ordinary shares, because it is related to the how many dividends will pay to shareholders. However, the agency problem is a main problem on the managers may not act in the best interest of the shareholders, so they may be offering other such as share options. Part B In Part A, i have explored two of three main areas of decision making for corporate financial managers: the investment decision (NPV) and the finance, or funding, decision. In this part i am concerned with the third area, the dividend decision. The basis for the discussion in this part is the need for dividend policy and the relevance of dividend policies to investors. NPV is a net present value is the present value of the future recipts from a project less any investment made in the project. Modigliani and Miller’s theory: dividends are irrelevant but almost is not quite. MM’s theory of dividend irrelevancy refers not to the payment of the dividends but to the timing of their payment. According to MM, if a company has an investment opportunity giving a positive NPV, it should be taken up using retained earnings rather than paying out a dividend. The company’s value will go up, since share value is a function of the level of earnings, which reflect a company’s investment policy, rather than a function of dividend payments. Similarly, in their theory of dividend irrelevancy they say that shareholders can create their own dividend, if they want to, by selling some of their theory of dividend, if they want to, by selling some of their shares. In a perfect market, shareholders can create a dividend stream to suit themselves, so it works in reverse too: if the company does pay a dividend and the shareholder does not want one, they can reinvest by buying more shares. Otherwise, MM’s view is that it is not the company but the individual shareholder who should decide dividend policy. Therefore, there is no such thing as an optimal dividend policy for a company, only an optimal investment policy. This would be a policy of investing in all projects with a positive NPV. In a perfect capital market, a company with insufficient internal funds could raise the funds required for investment externally. If a company had surplus internal funds, there could be distributed as dividends.

How to Write a Perfect Barista Resume (Examples Included)

How to Write a Perfect Barista Resume (Examples Included) These days, coffee is serious business. If you control someone’s daily caffeine access, you could very well hold their entire day in your hands. Sure, it may not be the level of social responsibility of, say, a brain surgeon, but you’re still providing what many people (myself included) would call a very necessary service. From the trendy euros)How to Write a Perfect Occupational Therapist ResumeHow to Write a Perfect Physician Assistant Resume (Examples Included)How to Write a Perfect Receptionist Resume (Examples Included)How to Create a Perfect Retail ResumeHow to Write a Perfect Sales Associate Resume (Examples Included)How to Write a Perfect Social Worker Resume (Examples Included)How to Write a Perfect Truck Driver Resume (With Examples)

Organizational Culture and Decision Making Example

Organizational Culture and Decision Making Example Organizational Culture and Decision Making – Article Example ï » ¿ Organizational Culture and Decision Making An organisation is often recognised by the culture that is prevalent in the organisation and the mode of working followed. This is not solely a management concept relevant to companies, but also to healthcare units. By organisational culture, we mean, the attitudes, values and ethical perception of the organisation and how it works in different situations. â€Å"Organization culture is the emergent result of the continuing negotiations about values, meanings and proprieties between the members of that organisation and with its environment†. (Organizational Culture: An Introduction, edited by Nasreen Taher, Hyderabad: ICFAI University Press, 2005, pp 82-92.) Organisational culture often characterises the way an organisation functions and how major job requisites are carried out. Let us take the example of a healthcare unit whose culture is characterised by an open door policy, where the doctors and paramedics are approachable. The decision-making strategy in such an organisation would be one that would be open to all and sundry, or would at least involve individuals from all the hierarchal branches, rather than being limited to the top crux. This illustration clearly elucidates the view that an organisation’s culture often impacts decision-making in the organisation. (Website: culturecreation.com.au/) When an organisation makes changes in its strategy, it must take care not to keep the information limited to its top hierarchy and must make sure it penetrates to reach all levels of employees. This is because of the fact that every employee and his work functioning plays a great role in carrying forward a strategy made by the organisation. Change in strategy needs to be a combined effort from all quarters. It also impacts the culture at the organisation, since work processes begin to differ. For instance, if an organisation makes the decision that it shall adopt a more aggressive marketing strategy, it comes up with special treatments and varied infrastructural facilities and involves every paramedics assistance. This is because, only then will the strategy work effectively with each and every employee contributing a more aggressive stance and output, furthering the overall strategy of the organisation. In addition to this, the workplace culture must be global and cosmopolitan in a healthcare unit, since it caters to no specific crowd. The patients could come from varied backdrops of life and it is essential to embrace a cosmopolitan stance, in order to avoid any sort of intimidating scenarios. This would also help bind the staff and paramedics together, and help them counter problems or act in a united manner. Thus, adopting a globally applicable culture is a great way to boost the healthcare unit in terms of its ambience and atmosphere. Thus, it is evident by what has been outlines, that organisational culture is an important parameter in almost every activity of a healthcare unit. A healthcare unit must most certainly work towards developing a more interactive and employee-friendly culture to facilitate better cooperation and coordination amongst employees. REFERENCES Website: culturecreation.com.au/ Organizational Culture: An Introduction, edited by Nasreen Taher, Hyderabad: ICFAI University Press, 2005, pp 82-92. Website: www.ezinearticles.com

Definition and Examples of Information Content

Definition and Examples of Information Content In linguistics and information theory, the term information content refers to the amount of information conveyed by a particular unit of language in a particular context. An example of information content, suggests  Martin H.  Weik, is the meaning assigned to the data in a message (Communications Standard Dictionary, 1996). As Chalker and Weiner point out in the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (1994), The notion of information content is related to statistical probability. If a unit is totally predictable then, according to information theory, it is informationally redundant and its information content is nil. This is actually true of the to particle in most contexts (e.g. What are you going . . . do?). The concept of information content was first systematically examined in Information, Mechanism, and Meaning  (1969)  by British  physicist and information theorist  Donald M. MacKay. Greetings One of the essential functions of language is to enable members of a speech community to maintain social relations with one another, and greetings are a very straightforward way of doing this. Indeed, an appropriate social interchange may well consist entirely of greetings, without any communication of information content. (Bernard Comrie, On Explaining Language Universals. The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structures, ed. by Michael Tomasello. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003) Functionalism Functionalism . . . dates back to the early twentieth century and has its roots in the Prague School of Eastern Europe. [Functional frameworks] differ from the Chomskyan frameworks in emphasizing the information content of utterances, and in considering language primarily as a system of communication. . . . Approaches based on functional frameworks have dominated European study of SLA [Second Language Acquisition] and are widely followed elsewhere in the world. (Muriel Saville-Troike, Introducing Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press, 2006) Propositions For our purposes here, the focus will be on declarative sentences such as (1) Socrates is talkative. Plainly, utterances of sentences of this type are a direct way of conveying information. We shall call such utterances statements and the information-content conveyed by them propositions. The proposition expressed by an utterance of (1) is (2) That Socrates is talkative. Provided the speaker is sincere and competent, her utterance of (1) could also be taken to express a belief with the content that Socrates is talkative. That belief then has exactly the same information content as the speakers statement: it represents Socrates as being in a certain way (namely, talkative). (Names, Descriptions, and Demonstratives. Philosophy of Language: The Central Topics, ed. by Susana Nuccetelli and Gary Seay. Rowman Littlefield, 2008) The Information Content of Childrens Speech [T]he linguistic utterances of very young children are limited in both length and information content (Piaget, 1955). Children whose sentences are limited to one to two words may request food, toys or other objects, attention, and help. They may also spontaneously note or name objects in their environment and ask or answer questions of who, what or where (Brown, 1980). The information content of these communications, however, is sparse and limited to actions experienced by both listener and speaker and to objects known to both. Usually, only one object or action is requested at a time. As linguistic lexicon and sentence length increase, so too does information content (Piaget, 1955). By four to five years, children may request explanations about causality, with the proverbial why questions. They may also describe their own actions verbally, give others brief instructions in sentence format, or describe objects with a series of words. Even at this stage, however, children have difficulty making themselves understood unless the actions, objects, and events are known to both speaker and hearer. . . . Not until the elementary school years of seven to nine can children fully describe events to listeners unfamiliar with them by incorporating large amounts of information in appropriately structured series of sentences. It is also at this time that children become capable of debating and absorbing factual knowledge transmitted by formal education or other non-experiential means. (Kathleen R. Gibson, Tool Use, Language and Social Behavior in Relationship to Information Processing Abilities. Tools, Language, and Cognition in Human Evolution, ed. by Kathleen R. Gibson and Tim Ingold. Cambridge University Press, 1993) Input-Output Models of Information Content Most any empirical belief . . . will be richer in information content than the experience that led to its acquisitionand this on any plausible account of the appropriate information measures. This is a consequence of the philosophical commonplace that the evidence a person has for an empirical belief rarely entails the belief. While we may come to believe that all armadillos are omnivorous by observing the eating habits of a fair sample of armadillos, the generalization is not implied by any number of propositions attributing various tastes to particular armadillos. In the case of mathematical or logical beliefs, it is rather harder to specify the relevant experiential input. But again it seems that on any appropriate measure of information content the information contained within our mathematical and logical beliefs outruns that contained in our total sensory history. (Stephen Stich, The Idea of Innateness. Collected Papers, Volume 1: Mind and Language, 1972-2010. Oxford University Press, 2011) Also  See MeaningCommunication  and  Communication ProcessConversational ImplicatureIllocutionary ForceLanguage Acquisition

Foreign Exchange Market and Forward Exchange Rate Essay

Foreign Exchange Market and Forward Exchange Rate - Essay Example Foreign markets handle large transactions instantaneously at a cheap transaction cost. Rational speculative bubbles cause the exchange rates to differ from its fundamental valuation. Foreign Exchange Markets readjust to cushion the market from the departure of technical efficiency. These departures may be from panicking traders, noise traders, herding instinct, and bandwagon effects. Other factors that may lead to misalignments in the Exchange markets include traders that are caught in liquidity squeeze in other financial markets. They bring volatility to the Exchange Markets. Some forecasters strongly believe that foreign exchange markets are efficient. Similarly, they argue that forward exchange rates are unbiased predictors of future spot rates .To establish validity of efficiency in foreign exchange markets, this paper will explore the international finance theories. It will support the claims through use of appropriate examples. Efficiency in Foreign Exchange Markets Efficiency in foreign exchange market encompasses a reflection of the relevant information regarding exchange rates. Efficiency considers both the forward and spot exchange rates. Testing efficiency requires analysis of two aspects of exchange rates. These are the spot rate and the forward rate. The forward rate should have all available information about future expectations of foreign exchange rate. Analysts argue that the market is efficient when the prices reflect all relevant information. This means that the traders cannot make any alteration in order to get unjustifiable profits. The market efficiency is very beneficial to investors, exchange rate forecasters, and policy makers (Brigham & Huston, 2012: 591). The theory of efficient market demands foreign exchange markets should embrace full information of the prices. This means that traders cannot make profits through malicious old information. In addition, they cannot use the past trends of the