The Dismantling of White Supremacy in the United States Essay - 1

The Dismantling of White Supremacy in the United States - Essay Example The awakening of the African-American community enhanced in the 1930s due to the economic crisis of 1929, which gave the opportunity for blacks to join whites inviting social reforms. During the 1930s, the NAACP organized a fierce legal battle against discrimination including segregation in public education. The Second World War was the occasion of major changes in the national and racial politics as whites were made ​​more aware of the danger of racist ideas. At the beginning of the war, the threat of a march in Washington by blacks, forced President Roosevelt to issue an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in defense industries and government. The first step was taken against segregation in the northern states after the Second World War (considering the war effort of African Americans in the military).Racial segregation was fought by peace and non- peace activists for the civil rights of African Americans from the end of the Second World War until the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. The initiation was done by a lady named â€Å"Rosa Parks†. She became famous when on 1 December 1955, in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to obey bus driver who asked her to leave her seat to a white and go sit in the back of the bus. She was arrested by the police, convicted but appealed the judgment (this is the famous case of the bus). She just gave a decisive impetus to the civil rights movement that will reveal a new leader. Martin Luther, while unknown, was launching a campaign of protest and boycott against the bus company would last more than one year. Federal courts finally declared segregation in transport as illegal: this victory was gained through non-violence activism and support of white liberals. Martin Luther King was one of the greatest orators and politicians and became the spokesman of the African-American community in the U.S. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, United

Cash Rate and Bank funding Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cash Rate and Bank funding - Essay Example Long term debt funding is a relatively expensive source of funding than equity finding. This resulted in the rise in funding costs for major banks and consequently they were forced to increase their housing loan interest rates relatively more than the rise in cash. RBA have also accepted this fact and considers the existing spread as new normal standard spread. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Cash Rate – An Overview 4 Major Banks’ Funding and Costs of Funding 5 Pricing for Risk and Variable Housing Loan Rates set by Banks 6 Standard Variable Housing Lending Rates and Spreads 8 Conclusion 10 References 11 Bibliography 12 Cash Rate – An Overview Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) uses cash rate as a tool to control the pressure of inflation in Australia. RBA targets to keep the inflation rate in and around 2% to 3%. This refers to the monetary policy followed by RBA. RBA’s monetary policy also includes curbing unemployment rate and assuring a stable econo mic growth of the country as its other objectives. When the inflation rate goes beyond the target of RBA, the cash rate is enhanced. Otherwise RBA tries to reduce the cash rate when it feels that inflation is not posing a great threat and Australia can have a faster economic growth. Since 2007, there has been a steady growth or hike in cash rate till the beginning of Global Financial Crisis (GFC) during mid 2008, when the cash rate was 7.25%. Starting from September 2008 to September 2009, in one year the cash rate fell drastically to 3% figure. This was done by RBA to help Australian economy recover from the effects of GFC. Next from October 2009 onwards, the cash rate shows a steady increasing trend (Graph 1). Present cash rate is 4.25%, which is constant for the last 5 months (Reserve Bank of Australia, n.d.). Graph 1 Source: (RBA, 2012, p.18) Major Banks’ Funding and Costs of Funding The funding bases of Australian banks are diverse. The primary sources of funding for the major banks in Australia are: a) Deposits, b) Short term wholesale debt, c) Long term debt and d) securitization. Prior to GFC, the major banks had a stable funding mix. However, GFC had an adverse effect on the costs of funding of the banks derived from different sources. Since 2007, the major banks have shifted their focus away from short term debt and securitization. The funding mix now is composed of greater percentage of deposits and long term debt (Graph 2). It is so because they are considered to be relatively safer sources of funds. However, these being relatively expensive sources of funds, the cost of funding have increased considerably relative to the cash rate and money market rates relevant to it (Brown, et al., 2010). Graph 2 Source: (RBA, 2012, p.30) Pricing for Risk and Variable Housing Loan Rates set by Banks Risks involved in lending housing loans to the borrowers are an important consideration for banks in determining the variable housing loan rate. Since 2007, t he spread of banks’ lending rates on all the loan products offered by them relative to the cash rate have increased (Graph 3). The increase in these interest rates varied across different types of loans depending on the banks’ perception about the credit risk of the borrowers and the pace with which each type of loan can be re-priced

The Use Of Information Technology In Airline Industry Management Essay

The Use Of Information Technology In Airline Industry Management Essay As the airline industry has become more competitive, carriers have looked to improve performance and competitiveness. MartÄ ±n-Consuegra (2007) In previous chapters we investigate Time Series analysis of airlines industry and estimated the service separately and jointly. Aksoy(2003) argue that in service industries such as airlines, a major requirement for success is understanding and satisfying customer needs and expectations, creating, communicating and delivering customer value. Thus in this Chapter we check our SITA data includes evolution of self-service, along with the rise of mobile technology, which will increase workforce efficiency and enhance passenger processing. IT implementation research in airlines structure. The reinforcement of e-business activity in airlines has resulted in an increase of sales volume for airlines websites and a decrease for the traditional distribution channels. Moon (2006) In this segment we analyze SITA data includes evolution of self-service, along with the rise of mobile technology, which increases workforce efficiency and enhance passenger processing. Airline Business(2009) The data describes IT implementation between 2001 till 2009 alike our IATA research time investigation. IT and Telecommunication Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA) data base enables us to investigate the policy and IT trends of Airlines. We use SITA data bank provides a benchmark against which individual airlines and the industry as a whole can measure success in meeting the challenges presented by IT and internet revolution. SITA is multinational information Technology Company specializing in providing IT and telecommunication services to the Aviation Industry, and it is most comprehensive research of its kind. Table 5.1 Airlines IT and telecommunication spend  [1]   Year Average Weighted average 2009 1.75% 1.74% 2008 2.20% 2.18% 2007 1.95% 2.07% 2006 1.85% 2.19% 2005 1.92% 2.27% 2004 2.13% 2.47% 2003 2.36% 2.85% 2002 2.25% 2.59% 2001 2.82% 3.44% Above Table 5.1 indicates IT and telecommunication spend as a percentage of 116 airlines revenue. We presume that much of the first nine years of 21st century spent on IT trends to decrease revenue percent assign for new technology investment. In 2001 the weighted average spent for IT was almost two times bigger than in 2009. The reason for this are: rising fuel prices, financial crisis, terrorist attacks and other important factors often caused changes in forecast of industry financial performance. Instead of the expected profit, Air Transport Association of America (ATA), an organization connected with the largest airlines in the U.S., announced that in March 2009 due to financial crisis passenger traffic was 10% lower than a year before. Thus, our main research questions goal is to investigate the problems faced by the airline industry, and try to find optimal solutions on how international air transportation system can cope with 21century watershed. Nowadays, IT technology deals mainly with passenger transportation support, and goods transportation is somewhat neglected. To reveal strong connection between IT technology investment and development of airline companies we expose Figure 5.1 indicates Average of Passenger transportation of main 160 airlines for the same period as in table 5.1 between January 2001 and April 2009. Between Feb2001 and Feb2002 during terrorist attack effect compared with the Average Passenger Transportation issue perspective, RPK shrunk by 180000 (A ). At the same time Airlines IT and telecommunication spend diminished by o.85%. Moreover, during 12 months of Financial A B Figure 5.1 Terrorist attack and Financial Crisis effect for Average Passenger Transportation of 160 major airlines Source: IATA 2009 airlines data reported by carriers at the time of publication. (SAS)  [2]   Crisis between Feb2008 and Feb2009 Average Passenger Transportation decreased by B=80000 RPK. Similarly, in 2009 airlines IT and telecommunication spend 0.44% les of weighted Average than in 2008. That implies that annual revenue Passenger kilometers significantly impacts Airlines IT and telecommunication expenditure. After FC and another budget inconstancy main managers of air transportation companies are more reluctant to invest in Information Technology systems. The main obstacle to improve IT structure and solutions is lack of investment caused by financial instability. Nevertheless we argue that New Technology outlay is going to bring a profit for air companies and makes them more rival at the market. Pagiavlas et al. (2005) in his paper analyzes mobile business in the context of the airline industry as a strategic tool to create a sustainable competitive advantage through the implementation of an effective mobile business model. Nowadays, after reaching around 4.6 billion mobil e cellular subscriptions by the end of 2009, International Telecommunication Union expects the number of mobile cellular subscriptions globally to reach five billion in 2010, driven by advanced services and handsets in developed countries and increased take-up of mobile health services and mobile banking in the developing world. ITU (2010) New technology of mobile phone check-in, e-ticketing, online or wireless connectivity on-board of the aircraft is becoming popular and common offering to airlines passengers self service. Wei (2005) argues that through the expanded use of the internet-based ticketing, airlines are able to reduce labor costs and in some cases eliminate commissions altogether so as to improve profit margins. Hence, main international organizations involve in business programs to lover industry costs and improve Passenger mobile based services. Figure 5.2 Mobile based services to passengers own mobile phones  [3]   Compared with other mobile services issue perspectives in the Figure 5.1 the best developed system already exists in third airlines inform passengers about flight status and delay. Furthermore, optimised webside for mobile phones and payments via mobile phone systems are implemented by every 6th Passenger Transportation company. In contrast, 73% of Airlines has not sent baggage receipts to mobile phones yet, and 71% has not track/direct passengers at the airports with mobile phones. Nevertheless, plans for next two years position majority of responding airlines in the utilization mobile based service area close to the level of 50%. Nothwithstanding, in 2004 International Air Transport Associations set up Simplifying the Business program (StB). Thus, Bar Coded Boarding Passes (BCBP), IATA e-freight, Baggage Improvement and other programs and facilities are available. In the future Fast Travel Program which consists of four projects that the association says will save the airline indus try over US$14 billion each year. IATA(2009) Therefore, in this segment we conclude our analysis of airlines performance and investigate IT investment effects on the profitability, their growth and survival. Since the tragedy in September 2001, the network or legacy carriers have sought ways to improve business values and minimize losses by cutting jobs, eliminating routes, decreasing infrastructure, streamlining production costs, improving customer services, and creating Figure 5.2 Major IT successes in 2009. Source: SITA (2009) a profitable market Will(2004). One of the most effective solutions for increasing business values attracting more customers, and increasing customer satisfaction is to provide Internet-based low-fare air travel tickets Marks (2004), i.e. to sell low-fare air travel tickets and expedite boarding processes through company web sites. Figure 5.2 indicates 2009 IT implementation success of upgrading virtual infrastructure, self service implementation, and on/offline distributions upgrade. Currently, many airlines are utilizing Enterprise Resources Planning systems (ERP) and their own web sites to market and sell their products to current and potential customers. Some airlines also offer discounts to customers who purchase their tickets online Hanke (2003). The main IT success in 2009 was 11% level of E-ticketing implementation, and 9% upgrading of Reservation Inventory System but across the world, 38% of airlines do not provide any mobile services yet, mainly via cellular phones. Hence, as a reason they claim that there is no clear business case yet, although 20 percent currently offer mobile phone check-in. SITA(2009) In Asia current number of issued boarding passes is sent directly to mobile phones as barcoded boarding passes (BCBP) to every third passenger, and it is the best result before Europe (23%) and North America (22%). Figure 5.2 major IT failures of the last 12 months. Source: SITA (2009) Through the expanded use of the internet-based ticketing, airlines are able to reduce labor costs and in some cases eliminate commissions altogether so as to improve profit margins. Wei (2005) Nevertheless, from the perspective of major failures of the last 12 months Figure 5.3 has identified a number of factors that determine adoption problems for IT implementation. Above figure reveals that biggest failure in the last year was implementation delay. Additionally, IT technology infrastructure and virtualization was unable to be upgraded with significant failure value of 9%. Compared regulation compliance, self service implementation and Sourcing of IT providers achieved the same 1% level. Conclusions Airlines representatives due to last financial crisis are much less optimistic in 2009 about their future IT spend. Thus, managers of air transportation companies look for savings in decreasing expenditure and developing passenger self service processes. The main obstacle to improve IT structure and solutions is lack of investment caused by financial instability. In general, as a result airlines market seen of most potential to reduce costs as via own website in through adding additional products. Mobile based services most likely already implemented to passengers own mobile devices are most likely to be notifications of flight status and delays. SITA (2009) argue that around 5% in their sample respondents currently send BCBP to mobile phones (although three quarters do not offers this facility) with 13%anticipating checking in 2012 (with 18% not offering this facility). Eventually, services most likely to be implemented currently to support on board aircraft are to enable to exchang e data and authorized credit card transactions in real time. Eventually, IATA Simplifying the Business (STB) passenger process project accomplished its e-ticket program on June 1, 2008. STB rebuilt the airline industry to 100% e-ticketing during four years. Finally, air transportation companies industry saved the US$3 billion, according to the association. The Economist (2010). Sprawdz to! http://www.iata.org/html_email/NS1001812/NS1001812-full.html

Moving Away at a Young Age Essay -- Personal Narrative Moving Essays

Moving Away at a Young Age Moving far away from family and friends can be tough on a child at a young age. It has its pros and cons. One learns how to deal with moving away from the people they love and also learn how to deal with adjusting to new ways of life. Everything seems so different and at a young age one feels like they have just left the whole world behind them. That was an experience that changed my life as a person. It taught me how to deal with change and how to adjust. It developed me from a young boy into a mature young man.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The day I moved away, a lot of things were going through my young mind. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my family and friends through out my life. Now I was moving 800 miles away from all of that with no insight on what lied ahead for me. As my family and I drove away from our Michigan home, I looked out the window wondering what Virginia would be, and what my friends were doing. A lot of things were going through my mind at the time. At the time my main worry was if I would make any friends, and how I would adjust to everything. During the whole drive down, my mother would often let me know that everything would be all right and I would like it. Trying to be strong and hold back my tears, I just shook my head no, wondering why we had to move so far away. Life would be different for me and I knew it would. Adjusting to an atmosphere and new people had its ups and downs. Everybody ta...

Case Analysis on Hilton

The Hilton family started its first hotel in the year 1919 by the name of Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas under Conrad Hilton. The firm launched its IPO under the name Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1946 to make its presence felt in the hospitality business. With time the firm expanded to compete and serve at the global level. In the highly competitive Global Lodging Business the challenges mainly faced by the firms included difficulty in achieving a standardized service of operation all throughout.With economies of scale and to focus on consistency as well as superior service delivery across the Hilton brand of Hotels, the importance of CRM was realized and the firm came up with the strategy of Customers Really Matter (CRM) in 2002. To build customer equity it is important to embrace technology and Hilton implemented this using its infrastructure called OnQ which acted as an enabling agent helping employees to deliver great customized customer experiences. Hilton introduced the Customers Really Matter with the objective to provide outstanding services to the customer.CRM enabled Hilton Corporation to focus more on building and managing its relationships with its customers. With CRM it was possible to acknowledge customers and provide personalized attention to each of them. It helped to store personal records of a person to access information for knowing the customer better. It helped maintaining people’s preferences, which directly reduced time spent on websites assistance or call center’s phone call costs and it also helped providing offers suited according to an individual and even helped promoting cross-selling and improving conversion rates.With CRM, the hotels front desk could have a comprehensive report each day of the guest list in an easy to scan format. The pre-assigning of rooms, the classification/segmentation of membership and exclusive benefits for privileged customers could all be done using CRM. However, there were few problems involved with pre-assigning of rooms and changing priorities of the customer. By adopting CRM and adapting with the technology it all became easier for Hilton, the guest profile managing, online profile maintenance, building more relationship, andhave more information (emails, phone no. ) of the customers and record complaints and feedbacks. All of these could be integrated by Hilton to bring more consistency as well as standardization to its services across its diversified business. The existence of the SALT (Satisfaction And Loyalty Training) survey, which helped significantly to improve the services by monitoring customer experiences and better measure the important factors that could help the business, added great value to the CRM initiative.On the other hand, OnQ also assisted property level operations and could enable the corporation to open more hotels for the customers and expand the brand image. Although CRM had its own benefits, the success boiled down to execution. OnQ incorporat ed huge costs and maintenance expenses. Apart from them, the CRM technology also required many other organizational factors to be addressed. The focus required on measurement, executive championship, training of the employees to use the technology, the feedback incorporation, etc. all had to be taken in account which couldn’t be overlooked.Taking in consideration the presence across 78 countries, the technology helped maintaining central database accessible from all the service points. Having variety of products across different price points throughout the organization, CRM also assisted segmentation of customers into modules such as Diamond, Gold, 4+ for improving services. A difficult task was to deduce the Return on Investment for the CRM. To conclude, CRM did help Hilton in its goal to enhance its competitive advantage, and to become the one of the premier choices of the world’s traveler in the global hospitality business.

Durex Marketing Plan Essay

The Durex brand is well known and well trusted. So was the company’s marketing strategy. Condoms are most used by the 16 to 35 age group – a group most at risk in terms of sexual behaviour. For an older target group, the relevancy of Durex products wanes. This group is in a different life phase and has different sexual needs. Most people over 35 are married or in long-term relationships and therefore use other protection. While brand name recognition in this group is still very high, the product is no longer considered as relevant. The traditional and ongoing challenge, according to Durex global marketing head Mark Critchley, is to constantly attract new customers to the company’s primary age group, 16 to 35, to compensate the natural drop on the upper side, 35 plus. â€Å"We call it youth recruitment, we have to keep attracting young consumers to the brand as older consumers use Durex less because the condom is less relevant to them. † Critchley said Rather than just replenishing the existing consumer base, over the past few years Durex has taken the decision to expand its business concerns into other areas of sexual well-being. Durex wanted to expand its product base; to stretch the market by introducing products that would be relevant to the lives of its older consumers. The company started by researching potential consumers. In the past five years Durex has polled more than a million of them, focusing on different themes: concept level, users’ research (every time a new product is launched the product is always tested with consumers before launching), online research and also a comprehensive worldwide sexual wellbeing survey, led by an independent research company. The results showed that there was an opportunity for Durex to expand into new product categories, by shifting its brand positioning from safer sex to better sex. The goal for the company’s marketing team was therefore to expand Durex’s market and map out various products which consumers want to use to improve their sex life. The company also wanted to change the perception of these products. â€Å"whilst the traditional sex toy in many cases is effective, they look awful. We wanted to ensure our products are well designed, effective and don’t look pink and phallic. Critchley said â€Å"The goal for Durex in stretching the brand is to appeal to both males and female consumers, all our products therefore need to be well thought through and relevant. † survey, led by an independent research company. The results showed that there was an opportunity for Durex to expand into new product categories, by shifting its brand positioning from safer sex to better sex. The goal for the company’s marketing team was therefore to expand Durex’s market and map out various products which consumers want to use to improve their sex life. The company also wanted to change the perception of these products. â€Å"whilst the traditional sex toy in many cases is effective, they look awful. We wanted to ensure our products are well designed, effective and don’t look pink and phallic. † Critchley said â€Å"The goal for Durex in stretching the brand is to appeal to both males and female consumers, all our products therefore need to be well thought through and relevant. † Communication for Durex Play has also taken a different track. Durex has long used the internet to communicate with young adults across the globe and provide them with safer sex information in their own language. With Durex Play, however, the company moved to use above-the-line communication such as TV ads, a method not much used for these products before which again helped to change consumer perceptions about these goods. For the younger target group, Durex’s communication focuses on education, prevention and encouraging condom-use. Durex Play focuses more on the slightly older audience, emphasizing the fun and experimental values. Product Definition Durex is the world’s best-selling brand of condoms, and with a large variety of condoms, lubricants, vibrating rings, and other types of sex toys, it’s no wonder that they’re so widely used. The standard Durex condom is the Durex Natural Feeling Condom, which comes with water-based lubricant inside and reservoir tip to help provide a natural feeling during sex. An alternative to this classic is the Durex Enhanced Pleasure, which has a special contoured shape that creates both more sensitivity and a better fit to help enhance the experience. Looking for something a little more exciting? Try Durex High Sensation condoms, which differ from other ribbed condoms by having large ribs towards the open end, leading in an increase in sensation for your partner. Another condom in that same vein is the Durex Her Sensation condom, which with its specifically positioned ribs and berry scent will certainly please your partner, if not you as well. Don’t think that’s exciting enough? Then try the Durex Intense Sensation with its raised stud texture, which is sure to lead to a unique and memorable experience. And for those who love both ribbing and studs, there’s the Durex Pleasuremax, the ultimate in pleasure from Durex. Looking for something in particular with your condom? Want to extend the experience for as long as humanly possible? Durex’s new Durex Performax condoms are for you then, as they contain a special climax control lubricant inside to help extend your experience long into the night. Interested in sensitivity and thinness? Durex Extra Sensitive Condoms are 20% thinner than the standard condom and have a fitted shape which greatly enhances the sensation while reassuring that you stay protected. Another similar condom is the Durex Maximum Love Condom, which, besides being thinner, comes with an extra-smooth silky lubricant inside to help increase sensation during sex. However, if you’re more interested in the safe part of safe sex, try Durex Extra Strength Condoms instead, which use premium latex to ensure that the right combination of pleasure and protection occurs. And for those of you who want some fun with your sexual experience (and who doesn’t want that? ), Durex Colors & Scents Condoms and Durex Rainbow Colored Condoms come in a wide variety of colors and scents to help add that special touch. There’s also Durex Natural Feeling Non-Lubricated Condoms for those who are sensitive to lubricant, and Durex Avanti Polyurethane Condoms for those who are sensitive to latex, so no one has to miss out. And if you’re unable to decide on just one type of condom, Durex offers a Sampler Pack where you can choose up to four different types to try out. It’s no surprise then that Durex condoms are considered some of the best in the world! And with condoms being fairly inexpensive, buying them wholesale and trying out lots of different types has never been so easy! Durex also offers a number of excellent lubricants as well. One is Durex Play More, which is designed to help enhance intimacy and is a long-lasting lubricant. Another is Durex Play Longer, which helps delay climax in order to extend the experience even longer. Then there’s Durex Play Warmer, which provides a warming sensation on contact, which is sure to be a real pleaser. Finally, there’s Durex Play Tingling, which with its minty scent and tingling sensation makes an excellent type of massage lotion. And of course, all of these lubricants can be used on condoms.

Right Wing Europe essays

Right Wing Europe essays Short Term Trend or Long Term Turmoil? In the mist of a disgruntled working class, one Austrian born man rose to power, playing on their fears of immigrants, unemployment and globalization. By mixing social populism, xenophobia, German nationalism with personal charisma, he was able to make his political party one of the strongest in his nation. Many would believe that this would be a description of the infamous dictator Adolph Hitler. Rather, it is a description of Jorg Haider, recent governor of the Austrian state of Carinthia and former leader of the Austrian Freedom Party. Austrias freedom party has increased its power significantly in the last few years. No other party in Austria has more workers among its voters. Also the Austrian Freedom party is the strongest party among male voters. In the Austrian Parliament, the party currently occupies 53 of the 183 seats in the Nationalrat, and 14 of the 64 seats in the Bundesrat (Stas). In Carinthia, the Freedom Party won a majority with 42 percent of the vote, causing the Israel to recall its ambassador to Austria. The European Union threatened to cut off ties as well (The Economist). Traditionally, radical right wing parties in Europe have not been seen as serious competitors in European elections. However, recently a new resurgence in the radical right has been spreading across Europe. In some European nations like Austria and Switzerland, these right wing parties have become key players in government. While in other countries like France and Italy, right wing parties are essentially powerless and divided among factions. Whatever the case may be, the popularity of ultra conservatism is growing and becoming more visible throughout Europe. While there are radical right wing political parties in almost every country in Europe, none have achieved more political power than the Freedom Party of Austria, and the Swiss Peoples Party of Switzerla...

The Impact of Raising Taxes on essays

The Impact of Raising Taxes on essays The Advantages and Disadvantages of Increasing Cigarette Tax Rate 1 The Effect of Increasing Tax on US Cigarette 2 - Demand 3 - Supply 4 Government and Cigarette Tax 5 Own price elastic of Tobacco 7 Cigarette advertising and promotion 9 What is the right level of tax? 12 Cigarette industry and Oligopoly 12 References 14 The Impact of Raising Taxes on Cigarette This paper is primarily focused on the impact of price increases on cigarette that have a positive effect on the U.S. economics. According to Federation of Tax Administrators (FTD) 2002, there is an increasing excise tax on US cigarette in many states, which affect directly to consumers behavior and supplier. Many critics believe that the U.S. government may address the effectiveness of the excise taxes as a regulatory instrument. On the other hand, the government may use excise taxation by increasing tax rate of US cigarette as a tool for gaining more revenues and saving cost of financial part of medicates and national health care. A significant impact of proposed cigarette price increases is a big economic issue that will impact on every side: consumers, suppliers, and the government. One of economists name, Eric Lindblom, from the National Center for Tobacco indicated that an increases cigarette tax, it would directly affect to the price of cigarette. In other words, the price of cigarette will increase causing the impact in the supply and demand of cigarette in the market. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Increasing Cigarette Tax Rate State governments generate revenues. (www.nytimes.com/2002) Every state that has significantly increased its cigarette tax has ...

Adn vs. Bsn

Mehul Sanghavi Grand Canyon University NUR 430V-(237) Dana Martyn, RN, MSN May 5, 2013 INTRODUCTION Nursing comprises the largest health care workforce in the United States. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration survey, there are more than 3 million registered nurses (RN) nationwide. The survey also shows that 50. 0% of the workforce holds a baccalaureate (BSN) or graduate degree while 36. 1% earned an associate degree (ADN) and 13. % a diploma in nursing (AACN, 2013). There are multiple pathways available for one to become a nurse. Today, the ADN and BSN degrees are the most common pathway selected by future nurses. This paper’s primary focus will be to comprehend the competency differences of a nurse with an Associate’s degree in Nursing (ADN) vs. Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing (BSN). ADN OVERVIEW The Associates degree of nursing was developed during the World War II around the 1950s to aid in the nursing shortage. Mildred Montage, is credited with the creation of the ADN program (Clainberg, M. (2013). It was in her doctoral dissertation, Dr. Montag who studied at Adelphi University proposed educating a technical nurse for two years to assist the professional nurse, whom she envisioned as having a baccalaureate degree (Clainberg, M. (2013). The ADN program provides core nursing curriculum with emphasizes on clinical skills. The ADN program, with its limited credit hours vs. BSN focused only the basics of leadership and management in terms of ancillary staff supervision. The ADN programs do not focus on nor does it prepare nurses for graduate study. It does allow entry into registered nursing after successfully clearing the NCLEX-RN board exam. BSN OVERVIEW The first baccalaureate nursing (BSN) program was established in the United States at the University of Minnesota. The school opened in March 1909, offering a three-year program in which four students were enrolled (University of Minnesota, 2013). The baccalaureate phenomenon caught on slowly and did not gain much momentum until after World War II primarily due to its length. Most baccalaureate programs are now 4 academic years in length, and the nursing major is typically concentrated at the upper division level. Baccalaureate nursing programs includes all of the course material covered in associate degree and diploma programs plus a more in-depth coverage of the physical and social sciences, nursing research, public and community health, nursing management, and the humanities. The additional course work enhances the student’s professional development, prepares the new nurse for a broader scope of practice, and provides the nurse with a better understanding of the cultural, political, economic, and social issues that affect patients and influence health care delivery. To prepare nurses for this multifaceted role, several components are essential for all baccalaureate programs. These components are liberal education, quality and patient safety, evidence-based practice, information management, health care policy and finance, communication/collaboration, clinical prevention/population health, and professional values (AACN, 2008). CASE SCENARIO The following patient scenario will describe how nursing care or approaches to decision-making may differ based upon the educational preparation of the nurse (BSN versus a diploma or ADN degree) Case study: Patient is a 40 year old Native American male with past medical history significant of Type II Diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. Patient is non compliant with medications and presents to the hospital with a complex foot ulcer. He’s now status post incision and debridement and will be discharged home with a wound vac, prescriptions and follow-up appointments and referrals. RNs with all educational pathways are qualified competent to provide acute care for this client. An ADN nurse will educate the patient on the disease process, wound care, the impact diet, activity and medication compliancy will have on clinical outcome. A BSN nurse with additional education employs evidence based practice and critical thinking skills will collaborate with the interdisciplinary team and involve additional consults: Diabetic Educator, Dietitian, Wound Care Nurse, Social worker and Case Manager to evaluate the need for additional resources available to the patient in the hospital and the patients community setting such as setting up referrals for home health nurse and wound care clinic and resources to discounted prescriptions plans. CONCLUSION Graduates of entry-level nursing programs (BSN, ADN and diploma) sit for the NCLEX-RNÂ © licensing examination. The fact that new nurses pass the licensing exam at the same rate does not mean that all entry-level nurses are equally prepared for practice (AACN, 2012) The NCLEX tests for minimum technical competency for safe entry into basic nursing practice. Quality patient care hinges on having a well educated nursing workforce. Research has shown that lower mortality rates, fewer medication errors, and positive outcomes are all linked to nurses prepared at the BSN and graduate degree levels. The nation’s Magnet hospitals, which are recognized for nursing excellence and superior patient outcomes, have moved to require all nurse managers and nurse leaders to hold a baccalaureate or graduate degree in nursing by 2013 (Rosseter, 2012) . BSN provides additional education which will allows nurses to enter in various other specialties such as education, leadership, research and development, interdisciplinary collaboration, community and public health, and graduate studies, advance nursing practice and nurse anesthesia. REFERENCES American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Creating aHighly Qualified Nursing Workforce (2012). Retrieved from http://www. aacn. nche. edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-workforce Clainberg, M. (2013). History: school of nursing:adelphi university. Retrieved from http://nursing. adelphi. edu/about/history. php Creasia, J and Friberg, E (2011). Conceptual Foundations: The Bridge to Professional Nursing Practice, 5th edition, Elsevier Mosby Rosseter, R. (2012, 10 24). The impact of education on nursing practice. Retrieved from http://www. aacn. nche. edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/impact-of-education Univeristy of Minnesota (2012, 02 12) History: School of nursing. Retrieved from http://www. nursing. umn. edu/about/history/index. htm

Love Compare State of The Union Address with poems Essay

Love Compare State of The Union Address with poems - Essay Example A direct parallel can be made to these expressions of patriotism and the patriotic service of the armed forces with the third stanza in Bates’ (1993) America the Beautiful. The third stanza reads as follows: The parallel between Obama’s (2012) State of the Union Address and the third Stanza of America the Beautiful is more profoundly made when Obama (2012) informs Americans that the troops returning from Iraq are a â€Å"generation of heroes† that have â€Å"made the United States safer†. Thus the reference to the heroics of the armed forces and their efforts in making America safer are vastly similar to Bates’ (1993) reference to the â€Å"heroes proved in liberating strife† how much they loved the United States. Obama (2012) conveys the same message more profoundly in his State of the Union Address when he states that the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are manifestations of the armed forces’ love for the United States as they demonstrated â€Å"courage, selflessness and teamwork† and were not driven by self-serving aspirations. The emphasis on the patriotic contributions toward Americans’ liberations are questioned in Baker’s (1997) poem Patriotics and can thus be seen as a direct contradiction of the President’s (2012) State of the Union address. Baker (1997) points out that America’s freedom is celebrated on July 4th by the symbolic launching of military firepower: the launching of fireworks. Yet at the same time Americans are suffering everywhere, making these military conquests for freedom virtually inconsequential. Baker (1997) goes on to describe how despite the obvious suffering among Americans, they gather to celebrate the achievement of the military on the 4th July â€Å"our country’s perfect holiday, so direct a metaphor for war† (2nd Stanza). Obama (2012) touched on the irony only slightly, and in a way that promised hope for the

English Law Equity and Trust Coursework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

English Law Equity and Trust Coursework - Essay Example tion behind the creation of trust is that the devisee or grantee shall convey it, or dispose of the profits, at the will, or for the benefit, of another; an estate held for the use of another; a confidence respecting property reposed in one person, who is termed the trustee, for the benefit of another, who is called the cestui que trust. Generally the beneficiary gets interest and dividends on the trust assets for a set number of years. Law of equity and trust confers the provision regarding the trust. It laid down several duties and responsibilities for the trustees. Trust can be raised from either trust deed/covenant as said before or by the Will, i.e. a testamentary trust is a trust created by a Will or a codicil to a Will. A testament is a Will. Here the trust instrument is the Will/Codicil. A testamentary trust can not be by inter vivos i.e it can not be exist between living persons. Generally there can be two types of disputes raised from this type of the trust established by the law. a) Dispute concerning property left in Wills which are over the capacity of a testator b) dispute regarding whether the testator made the Will under undue influence. Here there is a rule that he/she must dispose of that property personally and may not delegate that power of disposition to another. Tatham v Huxtable(1950) 81 CLR 639 where the Court insisted to keep up the rule â€Å"Will directed the executor to distribute the residuary property â€Å"to others not otherwise provided for who, , have rendered service In our case, Brain has appointed Tony and Nathan as executors and trustees under his Will (testament) over the trust deed which he (the testator) had made earlier where his children Pat and Richard are the trustees. Before we render the service of tackled conclusions to Tony and Nathan, it is inevitable to have a look upon the rules, provisions, scope of trustees of trust deed and trustees of testamentary trust. There will always be some testators who draft their own

What Have I Learned This Semester Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

What Have I Learned This Semester - Essay Example In this essay I will try to condense all the things that I learned from studying these three books with emphasis on the last two in the essay. The book, â€Å"Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments† by Lester FaigleyAnd Jack Selzer, is one of the most informative books I have read in a long time. The book in essence teaches you how to argue with authority. Here I found out that argumentation is a very powerful and effective tool not only to getting your point across but also a getting what you want in general. It talks about why people argue and when they do why do some win and some do not. Before I read this book I had a very haphazard method to argumentation. Basically I just said what I want to get across and hoped that people would agree with me. But with this book I found out that arguing actually is a science and that there is a method to all this argumentation. I learned that there are two goals of an argument, these are position and proposal. In a position, one has to take a stand and make an argument about it. In a proposal, one proposes to solve a certain problem and proposes a solution to the problem. I learned about the tool called rhetoric; pathos, ethos and logos. I also learned about how understand an argument. This helps in weeding out a weak argument. This is very useful for me because with I would be able to spot a weak argument and avoid it. It also taught me to recognize arguments, and that they are present even in every day conversations. This book has taught me to appreciate a good argument and to formulate an even better one on my own. The book A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is the true story of a boy who is forced to become a soldier in the war. In the process he becomes cold and bloodthirsty; the struggle here is his desire to escape his situation and his long and harrowing journey to becoming a child again. The book at first was not easy to read, for some like me who never exper ienced war and has lived a comfortable life the beginning of the book is a bit hard to digest. I could feel the horror and the fear that Ishmael felt, it was almost like watching a very gruesome war movie. The thing stuck to me was that in the war movies and stories that I know of the soldiers are usually young men or grizzled veterans. In this story the soldier is more of a schoolboy than a soldier. Eventually the book begins to pick up when Ishmael realizes that he must leave Sierra Leone if he ever wants to become a normal human being again. The mood of story begins to change when he sets of to find the peace he has been longing for. The book has interesting characters that and themes. There are important lessons I picked up from this book. The one that stuck with me is that in life no matter what happens there is always hope. No matter how hard the road that Ishmael had to travel he still persevered and in the end he found what he was looking for. This proves that no matter what happens in life if we strive for something better we will most likely receive it. The journey that Ishmael undertook is proof of this. The book Sizwe's Test: A Young Man’s Journey through Africa’s AIDS Epidemic by Jonny Steinberg, is another book that I picked up valuable lessons from. This book tackles a very sensitive yet widespread topic; it is about the AIDS epidemic in

Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 35

Strategic Management - Essay Example Marketing, customer service and customer relationship management, human resource management, and operations are the largest competencies of the firm associated with the value chain that allows Apple to make such a positive impression with desired customer target segments across the world. This report conducts a critical evaluation of Apple using three distinct models: Porter’s Generic Strategies, the McKinsey 7-S Framework and Johnson’s Culture Web as a means of understanding what drives considerable market success from the perspective of strategic management competency and the achievement of competitive advantage. The Generic Strategies model is illustrative of how a firm is able to attain competitive advantages in its established markets. As shown by the model, there are three strategies available to firms, including cost leadership, differentiation, or a focus strategy. When a company is pursuing the most viable method to achieve competitive advantage, the firm selects which strategy is achievable and feasible based on tangible resources, internal human capital, market conditions, procurement capabilities and operational capacity (Allen, Helms, Takeda and White 2007; Miller 1992). A business can significantly improve its performance by selecting one of these generic strategies which will underpin the corporate level strategy development and its business-level strategies that will better serve the business for competitive advantage. If a firm is unable to decide on one of these three generic strategies, it poses a risk of being stuck in the middle, which succeeds in confusing important custo mer segments and creates an uncertain market-based identity for the company (Bordean, Borza, Nistor and Mitra 2010). Apple, in its pursuit of achieving competitive advantage, has adopted a differentiation strategy that emphasises product uniqueness when targeting a broader mass market internationally. Apple has worked diligently in positioning its business

Volatile Organic Compounds in School Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Volatile Organic Compounds in School - Essay Example VOCs, as the name suggests are carbon compounds that lend themselves to becoming gases or vapors with relative ease. As such they are emitted in the surrounding environment. VOCs contain not just carbon, but a host of other common elements present in such compounds, including the following: sulfur, oxygen, hydrogen, bromine, nitrogen, fluorine (US National Library of Medicine). The relative ease with which they are released into the atmosphere is attributed to the low boiling points of VOCs, pegged at below 100 degrees Celsius, lending them to be easily released into the atmosphere as gases. Many of the VOCs in the environment are said to be manufactured by man, as chemicals that are in use in manufacturing. Paints, refrigerants, pharmaceutical chemicals, adhesives, products derived from petroleum, and several other products require VOCs for their manufacture. Most often they are located in urban areas, making up the constituents of agents for dry cleaning, thinners for paint, solven ts, and different kinds of fuels (US Geological Survey) The literature further notes that in urban places, VOCs are of greater concentration, and within that urban setting, VOC concentrations are almost always of greater magnitude in enclosed indoor environments as compared to outside environments, where VOCs tend to disperse into the greater atmosphere (United States Environmental Protection Agency). Meanwhile, the adverse health effects of short-run and long-run exposure to VOCs are well documented in the literature. They include asthma symptoms being aggravated, dizziness, skin, nose, eyes and throat irritation, vomiting, cancer, impairment of the nervous system, and damage to internal organs, notably the liver and the kidney. Differing VOC types also have other specific adverse effects on human health. Benzene, a common VOC, is of special focus among health experts, for their prevalence, and for their known highly carcinogenic properties (Minnesota Department of Health; US Natio nal Library of Medicine). II. Volatile Organic Compounds - Prevalence VOCs are more prevalent than is sometimes acknowledged, owing to their presence in a wide variety of manufactured products, and the wide use of such manufactured products in urban environments. This puts an increased risk of toxic harm to human beings living in urban areas. The list in the Introduction is non-exhaustive, and to it can be added a large number of products that people may or may not already associate with VOCs: furnishings for buildings, materials for buildings, printers and copiers present in the office, copy paper not containing carbon, correction fluid, adhesives, glues, markers, solutions used in photography, pesticides, materials used for cleaning, strippers of paint, lacquers and other paints (United States Environmental Protection Agency). In the home, meanwhile, it is hard to avoid VOCs as well, largely because they are incorporated into many of the products that are vital to the maintenance of households. As already mentioned above, materials that are used to make houses contain VOCs, which later escape into the air, both indoors and into the greater outside environment. Cosmetic products of all kinds, materials used by hobbyists of all kinds, waxes, paints, and the varnishings commonly applied to home furniture all contain volatile organic compounds. Of course all sorts of fuels vital to maintaining homes all contain volat

What Have I Learned This Semester Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

What Have I Learned This Semester - Essay Example In this essay I will try to condense all the things that I learned from studying these three books with emphasis on the last two in the essay. The book, â€Å"Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments† by Lester FaigleyAnd Jack Selzer, is one of the most informative books I have read in a long time. The book in essence teaches you how to argue with authority. Here I found out that argumentation is a very powerful and effective tool not only to getting your point across but also a getting what you want in general. It talks about why people argue and when they do why do some win and some do not. Before I read this book I had a very haphazard method to argumentation. Basically I just said what I want to get across and hoped that people would agree with me. But with this book I found out that arguing actually is a science and that there is a method to all this argumentation. I learned that there are two goals of an argument, these are position and proposal. In a position, one has to take a stand and make an argument about it. In a proposal, one proposes to solve a certain problem and proposes a solution to the problem. I learned about the tool called rhetoric; pathos, ethos and logos. I also learned about how understand an argument. This helps in weeding out a weak argument. This is very useful for me because with I would be able to spot a weak argument and avoid it. It also taught me to recognize arguments, and that they are present even in every day conversations. This book has taught me to appreciate a good argument and to formulate an even better one on my own. The book A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is the true story of a boy who is forced to become a soldier in the war. In the process he becomes cold and bloodthirsty; the struggle here is his desire to escape his situation and his long and harrowing journey to becoming a child again. The book at first was not easy to read, for some like me who never exper ienced war and has lived a comfortable life the beginning of the book is a bit hard to digest. I could feel the horror and the fear that Ishmael felt, it was almost like watching a very gruesome war movie. The thing stuck to me was that in the war movies and stories that I know of the soldiers are usually young men or grizzled veterans. In this story the soldier is more of a schoolboy than a soldier. Eventually the book begins to pick up when Ishmael realizes that he must leave Sierra Leone if he ever wants to become a normal human being again. The mood of story begins to change when he sets of to find the peace he has been longing for. The book has interesting characters that and themes. There are important lessons I picked up from this book. The one that stuck with me is that in life no matter what happens there is always hope. No matter how hard the road that Ishmael had to travel he still persevered and in the end he found what he was looking for. This proves that no matter what happens in life if we strive for something better we will most likely receive it. The journey that Ishmael undertook is proof of this. The book Sizwe's Test: A Young Man’s Journey through Africa’s AIDS Epidemic by Jonny Steinberg, is another book that I picked up valuable lessons from. This book tackles a very sensitive yet widespread topic; it is about the AIDS epidemic in

Volatile Organic Compounds in School Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Volatile Organic Compounds in School - Essay Example VOCs, as the name suggests are carbon compounds that lend themselves to becoming gases or vapors with relative ease. As such they are emitted in the surrounding environment. VOCs contain not just carbon, but a host of other common elements present in such compounds, including the following: sulfur, oxygen, hydrogen, bromine, nitrogen, fluorine (US National Library of Medicine). The relative ease with which they are released into the atmosphere is attributed to the low boiling points of VOCs, pegged at below 100 degrees Celsius, lending them to be easily released into the atmosphere as gases. Many of the VOCs in the environment are said to be manufactured by man, as chemicals that are in use in manufacturing. Paints, refrigerants, pharmaceutical chemicals, adhesives, products derived from petroleum, and several other products require VOCs for their manufacture. Most often they are located in urban areas, making up the constituents of agents for dry cleaning, thinners for paint, solven ts, and different kinds of fuels (US Geological Survey) The literature further notes that in urban places, VOCs are of greater concentration, and within that urban setting, VOC concentrations are almost always of greater magnitude in enclosed indoor environments as compared to outside environments, where VOCs tend to disperse into the greater atmosphere (United States Environmental Protection Agency). Meanwhile, the adverse health effects of short-run and long-run exposure to VOCs are well documented in the literature. They include asthma symptoms being aggravated, dizziness, skin, nose, eyes and throat irritation, vomiting, cancer, impairment of the nervous system, and damage to internal organs, notably the liver and the kidney. Differing VOC types also have other specific adverse effects on human health. Benzene, a common VOC, is of special focus among health experts, for their prevalence, and for their known highly carcinogenic properties (Minnesota Department of Health; US Natio nal Library of Medicine). II. Volatile Organic Compounds - Prevalence VOCs are more prevalent than is sometimes acknowledged, owing to their presence in a wide variety of manufactured products, and the wide use of such manufactured products in urban environments. This puts an increased risk of toxic harm to human beings living in urban areas. The list in the Introduction is non-exhaustive, and to it can be added a large number of products that people may or may not already associate with VOCs: furnishings for buildings, materials for buildings, printers and copiers present in the office, copy paper not containing carbon, correction fluid, adhesives, glues, markers, solutions used in photography, pesticides, materials used for cleaning, strippers of paint, lacquers and other paints (United States Environmental Protection Agency). In the home, meanwhile, it is hard to avoid VOCs as well, largely because they are incorporated into many of the products that are vital to the maintenance of households. As already mentioned above, materials that are used to make houses contain VOCs, which later escape into the air, both indoors and into the greater outside environment. Cosmetic products of all kinds, materials used by hobbyists of all kinds, waxes, paints, and the varnishings commonly applied to home furniture all contain volatile organic compounds. Of course all sorts of fuels vital to maintaining homes all contain volat

Four Views of Hell Essay Example for Free

Four Views of Hell Essay These four professors argue the following views of hell: literal, metaphorical, purgatorial and conditional interpretations. This book peers inside the different theories of hell, each of their relation to the Bible and the evolution throughout time. Each chapter begins with that particular scholar’s view, followed by the rebuttal by his colleagues. Brief Summary The first chapter is written by, John Walvoord, and he begins by providing the foundation for the literal view of hell. The author expends the greater part of this section of the book describing these fundamental principles. He argues that hell is a position of perpetual punishment for those who are sinners in the Earth. He derives this view from native translations of the Bible using both the Old and New Testaments. Walvoord exactly takes the words from the Bible’s predictions and the absolute inerrancy of the Bible to suggest that this is the only way to view hell and eternal punishment. The chapter concludes with the author using the literal view to encourage the reader to help people avoid hell and the painfulness, by preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The second chapter is written by William V. Crockett and he has taken the metaphorical view of hell, as read in the Bible and studied by scholars. His view of hell is comparable to the preceding author’s view; it only differs in how the punishment will be administered to the lost. The author has strong Calvinsitic ties, in that he believes that the fortellings of the punishment of hell is not to be taken literally, but as a metaphor. Crockett further states that the reality of hell is indescribable with words and the words that are contained in the Bible are only a breakdown that the human mind can absorb. The chapter concludes with the author stating his disdain for the conditional view. In the third chapter, Zachary J. Hayes takes on the subject of purgatory in the hell discussion. Purgatory in this book is a place where the dead will go, when they don’t quite make it to heaven, but are not bad enough for hell. Notably the author cannot find any Biblical references for purgatory, however he does state that the idea of purgatory evolved from a personal tradition that the Catholic Church adopted. Hayes does also note that he agrees with the metaphorical view of hell. In fourth chapter of the book is written by Dr. Clark Pinnock on the conditional view of hell. The conditional view is also referred to as annihilation, which means that hell will be a punishment of fire and lead to utter destruction of sinners. The actual destruction is the punishment, not the fire itself. Pinnock, uses diverse scriptures that support his claim of everlasting death and God’s moral values. Critical interaction with the author’s work The authors’ goal of this book is to give an educated as well as Biblical look at the different versions of hell. Although the word is talked about many times, but the authors’ aim is to give people all the information available on the subject. After which the reader can make personal decision about their own personal truth. The authors do achieve his goal of factually representing the literal, metaphorical, purgatorial and conditional interpretations of hell. Each author has not imposed his personal opinion or view of hell, but however stated the facts from Biblical and theological sources. Also, having each author evaluate the other authors’ arguments shows potential fallacies in each and gives the reader information to further reflect, evaluate and draw personal conclusions. The strengths of this book would be first, the book was written by students of the word who supported the majority of their arguments with scripture first and with theology second. In the literal view of hell the author comes directly from scriptures and uses those scriptures to plainly paint a picture that we have already been taught since childhood. In the metaphorical argument of hell the author uses scriptures that show support the claim that the descriptions of hell are only be used as metaphors and not to be interpreted literally. The chapter on the conditional view of hell is well written and covers the punishment and destruction parts of hell thoroughly. The first weakness that we encounter in this book is the fact that in the literal view of hell the author does not address the issue of why the scriptures must be taken literally, instead of figuratively. In the metaphorical view of hell the author never addresses the issue of what will actually be, nor does he attempt to answer questions that seem to violate the traits of God. The author in the conditional view of hell uses much of his writing to appeal to the human senses and not to justify those emotions or feelings with scriptures. In the view on purgatory the author spends very little to no time talking about hell, but the time that is between heaven and hell. Although purgatory is the median between heaven and hell the author seems to focus on how the soul can make it to heaven and not the latter. In my opinion I feel that this book would not be suitable for all lay persons to read. I feel that this book would be of best use in the hands of all persons who teach in the church. This book would not only give them basis for what they believe in, but it would also give them the opportunity to understand the contradictions in various beliefs. I feel that this book could be a useful tool to teach about sin. Although the authors have different views on what hell will actually be like, but it does hold one idea in agreement. Hell is a real place it, and sinners will be there. After some research there seem to be many other books that are written about hell. Those other books, after reading summaries, take a similar approach and try to inform the reader what hell is going to be like and what it is not going to be. Many of those books not only deal with hell, but they also address heaven as well with the same level of concern. Conclusion In conclusion the book â€Å"The four views of hell,† the author does achieve his goal. However I feel that the chapter on purgatory did not fit in the book, because the argument was not supported by scriptures and does not necessary classify itself as hell. The book does make thing a little bit about heaven, but more about sin. This book points the finger back to the place where we need not only teach about heaven, but teach also about hell. Many people get lost in the mind frame that there is only heaven or life on earth.

VDEC Based Data Extraction and Clustering Approach

VDEC Based Data Extraction and Clustering Approach This chapter describes in details the proposed VDEC Approach. It discusses the two phases of the VDEC process for Data Extraction and clustering. Experimental performance evaluation results are shown in the last section in comparing the GDS and SDS datasets. INTRODUCTION Extracting data records on the response pages returned from web databases or search engines is a challenge posed in information retrieval. Traditional web crawlers focus only on the surface web while the deep web keeps expanding behind the scene. Vision based data extraction provides a solution to extract information from dynamic web pages through page segmentation for creating a data region and data record and item extraction. A vision based web information extraction systems become more complex and time-consuming. Detection of data region is a significant problem for information extraction from the web page. This chapter discusses an approach to vision-based deep web data extraction and web document clustering. The proposed approach comprises of two phases, (1) Vision-based web data extraction, and (2) web document clustering. In phase 1, the web page information is segmented into various chunks. From which, surplus noise and duplicate chunks are removed using three parameters, such as hyperlink percentage, noise score and cosine similarity. Finally, the extracted keywords are subjected to web document clustering using Fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM). VDEC APPROACH VDEC approach is designed to extract visual data automatically from deep web pages as shown in the block diagram in figure 5.1. Figure 5.1 – VDEC Approach Block diagram In most of web pages, there will be more than one data object tied together in data region, makes difficult to search attributes for each page. Unprocessed source of web page for representing the objects is non-contiguous one, the problem becomes more complicated. In existent applications, the users necessitate from complex web pages is the description of individual data object derived from the partitioning of the data region. VDEC achieve the data capturing from the deep web pages using two phases as discussed in the following sections. Phase-1 Vision Based Web Data Extraction In Phase-1 VDEC approach performs data extraction and a measure is introduced to evaluate the importance of each leaf chunk in the tree, which in turn helps us to eliminate noise in a deep web page. In this measure, remove the surplus noise and duplicate chunk using three parameters such as hyperlink percentage, Noise score and cosine similarity. Finally, obtain the main chunk extraction process using three parameters such as Title word Relevancy, Keyword frequency based chunk selection, Position features and a set of keywords are extracted from those main chunks. Phase-2 Web Document Clustering In Phase-2 VDEC perform web document clustering using Fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM), the set of keywords were clustered for all deep web pages. Both the phases of the VDEC helps to extract the visual features of the web pages and supports on web page clustering for improvising information retrieval. The process activities are briefly described in the following section. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED IN VDEC APPROACH Definition (chunk): Consider a deep web page is segmented by blocks. These each block are known as chunk. For example the web page is represented as, , where the main chunk, . Definition (Hyperlink): A hyperlink has an anchor, which is the location within a document from which the hyperlink can be followed; the document having a hyperlink is called as its source document to web pages. Hyperlink percentage Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Keywords in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Link Keywords in a chunk Definition (Noise score): Noise score is defined as the ratio of the number of images in total number of chunks. Noise score, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of images in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Total number of images Definition (Cosine similarity): Cosine similarity means calculating the similarity of two chunks. The inner product of the two vectors, i.e., the sum of the pairwise multiplied elements, is divided by the product of their vector lengths. Cosine Similarity, Where, , à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  Weight of keywords in, Definition (Position feature): Position features (PFs) that indicate the location of the data region on a deep web page. To compute the position feature score, the ratio is computed and then, the following equation is used to find the score for the chunk. (4) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Position features Definition (Title word relevancy): A web page title is the name or heading of a Web site or a Web page. If there is more number of title words in a certain block, then it means that the corresponding block is of more importance. Title word relevancy, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Title Keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of the title keyword in a chunk Definition (Keyword frequency): Keyword frequency is the number of times the keyword phrase appears on a deep Web page chunk relative to the total number of words on the deep web page. Keyword frequency based chunk selection, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of top ten keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Top-K Keywords PHASE-1 – VISION BASED DEEP WEB DATA EXTRACTION In a web page, there are numerous immaterial components related to the descriptions of data objects. These items comprise an advertisement bar, product category, search panel, navigator bar, and copyright statement, etc. Generally, a web page is specified by a triple. is a finite set of objects or sub-web pages. All these objects are not overlapped. Each web page can be recursively viewed as a sub-web-page and has a subsidiary content structure. is a finite set of visual separators, such as horizontal separators and vertical separators. Every separator has a weight representing its visibility, and all the separators in the same have the same weight. is the relationship of every two blocks in , which is represented as:. In several web pages, there are normally more than one data object entwined together in a data region, which makes it complex to find the attributes for each page. Deep Web Page Extraction The Deep web is usually defined as the content on the Web not accessible through a search on general search engines. This content is sometimes also referred to as the hidden or invisible web. The Web is a complex entity that contains information from a variety of source types and includes an evolving mix of different file types and media. It is much more than static, self-contained Web pages. In our work, the deep web pages are collected from Complete Planet (www.completeplanet.com), which is currently the largest deep web repository with more than 70,000 entries of web databases. Chunk Segmentation Web pages are constructed not only main contents information like product information in shopping domain, job information in a job domain, but also advertisements bar, static content like navigation panels, copyright sections, etc. In many web pages, the main content information exists in the middle chunk and the rest of the page contains advertisements, navigation links, and privacy statements as noisy data. Removing these noises will help in improving the mining of the web and it’s called Chunk Segmenting Operation as shown in figure.5.2. Figure 5.2 Chunk Segmenting Operation To assign importance to a region in a web page (), we first need to segment a web page into a set of chunks. It extracts main content information and deep web clustering that is both fast and accurate. The two stages and its sub-steps are given as follows. Stage 1: Vision-based deep web data identification Deep web page extraction Chunk segmentation Noisy chunk Removal Extraction of main chunk using chunk weightage Stage 2: Web document clustering Clustering process using FCM Normally, a tag separated by many sub tags based on the content of the deep web page. If there is no tag in the sub tag, the last tag is consider as leaf node. The Chunk Splitting Process aims at cleaning the local noises by considering only the main content of a web page enclosed in div tag. The main contents are segmented into various chunks. The result of this process can be represented as follows: , Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   A set of chunks in the deep web page à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of chunks in a deep web page In Figure 5.1, we have taken an example of a tree sample which consists of main chunks and sub chunks. The main chunks are segmented into chunks C1, C2 and C3 using Chunk Splitting Operation and sub-chunks are segmented into . Noisy Chunk Removal A deep web page usually contains main content chunks and noise chunks. Only the main content chunks represent the informative part that most users are interested in. Although other chunks are helpful in enriching functionality and guiding browsing, they negatively affect such web mining tasks as web page clustering and classification by reducing the accuracy of mined results as well as speed of processing. Thus, these chunks are called noise chunks. Removing these chunks in our research work, we have concentrated on two parameters; they are Hyperlink Percentage and Noise score which is very significant. The main objective of removing noise from a Web Page is to improve the performance of the search engine. The representation of each parameter is as follows: Hyperlink Keyword – A hyperlink has an anchor, which is the location within a document from which the hyperlink can be followed; the document containing a hyperlink is known as its source document to web pages. Hyperlink Keywords are the keywords which are present in a chunk such that it directs to another page. If there are more links in a particular chunk then it means the corresponding chunk has less importance. The parameter Hyperlink Keyword Retrieval calculates the percentage of all the hyperlink keywords present in a chunk and is computed using the following equation. Hyperlink word Percentage, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Keywords in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Link Keywords in a chunk Noise score – The information on Web page consists of both text and images (static pictures, flash, video, etc.). Many Internet sites draw income from third-party advertisements, usually in the form of images sprinkled throughout the site’s pages. In our work, the parameter Noise score calculates the percentage of all the images present in a chunk and is computed using the following equation. Noise score, Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of images in a chunk à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Total number of images Duplicate Chunk Removal Using Cosine Similarity: Cosine Similarity Cosine similarity is one of the most popular similarity measure applied to text documents, such as in numerous information retrieval applications [7] and clustering too [8]. Here, duplication detection among the chunk is done with the help of cosine similarity. Given two chunks and, their cosine similarity is Cosine Similarity Where, , à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  Weight of keywords in, Extraction of Main Block Chunk Weightage for Sub-Chunk: In the previous step, we obtained a set of chunks after removing the noise chunks, and duplicate chunks present in a deep web page. Web page designers tend to organize their content in a reasonable way: giving prominence to important things and deemphasizing the unimportant parts with proper features such as position, size, color, word, image, link, etc. A chunk importance model is a function to map from features to importance for each chunk, and can be formalized as : . The preprocessing for computation is to extract essential keywords for the calculation of Chunk Importance. Many researchers have given importance to different information inside a webpage for instance location, position, occupied area, content, etc. In this research work, we have concentrated on the three parameters Title word relevancy, keyword frequency based chunk selection, and position features which are very significant. Each parameter has its own significance for calculating sub-chunk weightage. The following equation computes the sub-chunk weightage of all noiseless chunks. (1) Where à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Constants For each noiseless chunk, we have to calculate these unknown parameters, and. The representation of each parameter is as follows: Title Keyword – Primarily, a web page title is the name or title of a Web site or a Web page. If there is more number of title words in a particular block then it means the corresponding block is of more importance. This parameter Title Keyword calculates the percentage of all the title keywords present in a block. It is computed using the following equation. Title word Relevancy; (2) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Title Keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Title word relevancy, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of the title keyword in a chunk. Keyword Frequency based chunk selection: Basically, Keyword frequency is the number of times the keyword phrase appears on a deep Web page chunk relative to the total number of words on the deep web page. In our work, the top-K keywords of each and every chunk were selected and then their frequencies were calculated. The parameter keyword frequency based chunk selection calculates for all sub-chunks and is computed using the following equation. Keyword Frequency based chunk selection (3) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Frequency of top ten keywords à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Keyword Frequency based chunk selection à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Number of Top-K Keywords Position features (PFs): Generally, these data regions are always centered horizontally and for calculating, we need the ratio of the size of the data region to the size of the whole deep Web page instead of the actual size. In our experiments, the threshold of the ratio is set at 0.7, that is, if the ratio of the horizontally centered region is greater than or equal to 0.7, then the region is recognized as the data region. The parameter position features calculate the important sub chunk from all sub chunks and is computed using the following equation. (4) Where, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Position features Thus, we have obtained the values of, and by substituting the above mentioned equation. By substituting the values of , and in eq.1, we obtain the sub-chunk weightage. Chunk Weightage for Main Chunk: We have obtained sub-chunk weightage of all noiseless chunks from the above process. Then, the main chunks weightage are selected from the following equation (5) Where,à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Sub-chunk weightage of Main-chunk. à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Constant, à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Main chunk weightage. Thus, finally we obtain a set of important chunks and we extract the keywords from the above obtained important chunks for effective web document clustering mining. Algorithm-1 : Clustering Approach PHASE-2 – DEEP WEB DOCUMENT CLUSTERING USING FCM Let DB be a dataset of web documents, where the set of keywords is denoted by . Let X={x1, x2, †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦, xN} is the set of N web documents, where, xi={ xi1,xi2,†¦.,xin}. Each xij(i=1,†¦.,N;j=1,†¦.,n) corresponds to the frequency of keyword xi on web document. Fuzzy c-means [29] partitions set of web documents indimensional space into fuzzy clusters with cluster centers or centroids. The fuzzy clustering of keywords is described by a fuzzy matrix with n rows and c columns in which n is the number of keywords and c is the number of clusters. , the element in the row and column in, indicates the degree of association or membership function of the object with the cluster. The characters of are as follows: (6) (7) (8) The objective function of FCM algorithm is to minimize the Eq. (9): (9) Where (10) in which, m(m >1) is a scalar termed the weighting exponent and controls the fuzziness of the resulting clusters and dij is the Euclidian distance from key to the cluster center zip. The zj, centroid of the jth cluster, is obtained using Eq. (11) (11) The FCM algorithm is iterative and can be stated as in Algorithm-2. Algorithm-2 : Fuzzy c-means Approach Experimental Setup The experimental results of the proposed method for vision-based deep web data extraction for web document clustering are presented in this section. The proposed approach has been implemented in Java (jdk 1.6) and the experimentation is performed on a 3.0 GHz Pentium PC machine with 2 GB main memory. For experimentation, we have taken many deep web pages which contained all the noises such as Navigation bars, Panels and Frames, Page Headers and Footers, Copyright and Privacy Notices, Advertisements and Other Uninteresting Data. These pages are then applied to the proposed method for removing the different noises. The removal of noise blocks and extracting of useful content chunks are explained in this sub-section. Finally, extracting the useful con

Mitch Alboms Tuesdays with Morrie :: Essays Papers

Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie Tuesdays with Morrie, written by Mitch Albom is a story of the love between a man and his college professor, Morrie Schwartz. This true story captures the compassion and wisdom of a man who only knew good in his heart. A man who lived his life to the fullest up until the very last breath of his happily fulfilled life. It is a story of a special bond of friendship that was lost for many years, but never forgotten and simply picked up again at a crucial time of both Morrie’s and Mitch’s lives. When Morrie learned that he had only a few months to live with the deadly disease of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Morrie began the last class of his life with Mitch – life’s greatest lesson. Throughout the last fourteen weeks of Morrie’s life, Mitch met with him every Tuesday to learn and understand all of the wisdom and lessons of life that were within Morrie. The weekly routine consisted of lunch and lecture. These meetings included discussions on everything from the world when you enter it to the world when you say goodbye. From the relationship that these men had with each, a love is revealed like no other love resembles. This is a love of friendship and of respect. Such a bond between people is difficult to achieve. Their relationship consists of an â€Å"unembarrassed love† that is constantly present. Morrie Schwartz was a man of great wisdom who loved and enjoyed to see and experience a simplicity of life, something beyond life’s most challenging and unanswered mysteries. From Morrie, we learn that life is most happily experienced when enjoyed and fulfilled to its highest ability. Morrie shares this with Mitch in the last days of his life and these great lessons will be carried and practiced throughout Mitch’s life. After reading Tuesdays with Morrie I felt a sense of discovery. Morrie Schwartz was a man that touched the lives of many. He will always be remembered for his sincerity and his compassion for life and for love. The lessons that Morrie loved to teach were of his own experience with life. These great lessons were full of wisdom and love and they came deep from within Morrie. I enjoyed reading this book by

Essay --

Jessica's paper rough draft (Into) Some pain can't always be seen, what if a patient complains of sharp stabbing pains and describes it as being stung by a thousand bees all at once, and at the same time feels like their foot is on fire. Maybe the foot is swollen or discolored. Pain is not always visable. Sounds like classic nerve pain and we would be sypathic and prescribe pain control medications. Would you be less sympathetic and unwilling to give pain medications if you knew this patient had a history of substance abuse? Its time to break the stigma that patients with a history of substance abuse will abuse perscription opioids for pain control or are Dr. shopping. All patients should be treated equaly and have the oppertunity to live a pain free life. Often nurses are on the front lines helping these patients manage pain. This paper will show that non Judgmental attitudes together with problem solving approaches and routine drug screenings a patient with prior abuse can be treated for chronic pain successfully. (Relevance and applicability) Most patients do take their medications as directed, but there has been more attention in the media of the abuse of perscription medications. This is in part of the ageing population and opioids being widely accepted and used more often these days for the chronic non cancer pain paitent (1pg1) Although Studies show that the rate abuse of opioid patients with chronic pain is only 3% to 17% which is fairly low compared to the population. (Art1 pg32) The reason some paitents abuse opioids or turn to the illicit use of street drugs is t... ... vigilance in monitoring and may need to be treated for opioid abuse and or pshycatric help. (Conclusion) As opioids are becoming more acceptable as an on going treatment for chronic pain patients, the risks also rises for abuse of prescription drugs. For these reasons it's not only just limited to those patients with substance abuse issues, but also to patients without prior abuse histories. A cancer patient who has no prior substance abuse history should not be treated any more humanly or shown more compassion then a cancer patient with a prior substance abuse issue. It's important to achieve a therapeutic balance with all patients and specially those who live with chronic pain. With all the readily available studies, tests and assessments no one should have to live a half life with chronic pain Regardless of their history.

Banquets and Confrenceing

1. 1 THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF CONFERENCE AND BANQUETING INDUSTRY IN THE UK Conference and banqueting is normally organizing an event, complete with main courses and desserts. It usually serves a purpose, such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration, small meetings, corporate gatherings, seminars, family occasions or weddings As of now, conferences are considered as one of the most essential and significant aspects in globalization as it bridge the gaps of various industries from one nation to another and it is helping many economies of various nations to be recognized all over the world.Accordingly, one of the most essential international conferences such as world expos is the World Expo conferences which are regarded as a large scale, non-commercial international expo. Since it is an essential and significant international conference such as world expo, the hosting for this must be applied for by a nation and approved by the international committee. The main goal of thi s event is to promote transfer and exchange of ideas as well as development of the global economy, science and technology, customs and culture and to allow exhibitors to promote as well as show off their achievements and enhance international relationship.A banquet (/? b k. w? t/; French: [b. k? ]) is a large meal or feast, complete with main courses and desserts. It usually serves a purpose such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration, and is often preceded or followed by speeches in honour of someone The idea of banqueting in the UK is ancient. In the 16th century, a banquet was very different from our modern perception and stems from the medieval ‘ceremony of the void'. After dinner, the guests would stand and drink sweet wine and spices while the table was cleared, or ‘voided’ (Later in the 17th century ‘void’ would be replaced with the French ‘dessert’).During the 16th century, guests would no longer stand in the grea t chamber whilst the table was cleared and the room prepared for entertainment, but would retire to the parlour or banqueting room. 1. 2 FACTORS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONFERENCE AND BANQUETING INDUSTRY IN THE UK As the idea of conferencing and banqueting developed, it could take place at any time during the day and have much more in common with the later practice of taking tea. Banqueting rooms varied greatly from house to house, but were generally on an intimate scale either in a garden oom or inside such as the small banqueting turrets in Longleat House. Modern banqueting has its roots in the traditions of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks introduced the hors d’oeuvre course, to which the Romans added up to20 courses as they furthered the development of the banquet feast. From this elaborate format evolved the three-course medieval menu, which presented as many as 25 menu items with each course. The menu format revisions of the late-eighteenth and nineteen th centuries transformed the three primary courses with multiple dishes into a series of nine courses, each featuring an individual menu item.These revisions were incorporate-rated into menus throughout Europe and America in a variety of formats. The history of American banqueting begins with the feasts of the Native Americans. The menu formats of early colonial American banquets were primarily influenced by England. French cuisine and menu formats initially threaded their way to the colonies via English recipes and customs. The emigration of French royalists during the French Revolution accelerated the assimilation of both French cuisine and menus with American banqueting customs.Thomas Jefferson greatly aided the development of American banqueting during his years in the White House. His simplification of the menu and emphasis on wines were major elements in the development of a style of banqueting that prevailed over the next 165 years of White House functions. During the preside ncy of John Kennedy, banquets were enhanced by the contributions of Jacqueline Kennedy. Like Jefferson, Mrs Kennedy preferred menus of simple elegance that concentrated on a high quality of food and service.The records tracing the development of the banquet menu throughout the centuries provide a rich and exciting chronicle of food items, recipes, and traditions. Many of these food items and recipes endure in our contemporary food customs. Today in the UK, banquets serve many purposes from training sessions, to formal business dinners. Business banquets are a popular way to strengthen bonds between businessmen and their partners. It is common that a banquet is organized at the end of an academic conference.A luau is one variety of banquets originally used in Hawaii. The Nei Mongol provincial government in China levies a tax on banquets. 1. 3 THREE FACTORS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONFRENCE AND BANQUETING IN THE UK The banqueting and conference industry is also subject to many influences and factors The banqueting and conference businesses must take these influences and factors into account when planning their operations and delivering their services. The influences and factors on the industry can be categorised as: †¢Economy / commerce Technology †¢Legislation Let’s consider examples of each of these factors. ?Economic / Commerce- factors can influence demand for hospitality services. During a recession or periods of low economic growth, people don’t have as much disposable income as in times of an economic boom. People become more interested in value for money. Pubs and restaurants need to offer money-off vouchers and discounts to encourage people to eat out more. ?Technology- plays a role in how people access hospitality services.Customers can now book restaurant tables, hotel rooms or spa days 24/7 from their computers or phones. Most hospitality businesses need an online presence. ?Legislation- All industries must be concerned for the health and safety of their employees and customers, and must meet their legal obligations. Hospitality is no exception. Businesses are bound by the law. There is often a cost to the business in meeting its legal requirements, but this can save thousands of pounds in damages that might result from a negligence claim.

Memo Week

We have more than fifteen years of experience In the Puerco Rican market helping successful entrepreneurs establish or expand their operations in the Island. Our expert team has made a thorough analysis based of the information you gave us and is ready to present you the knowledge needed to make an informed decision. I am sure this data will be of great value to you and your partners. Puerco Rice is ranked 40 by the World Bank Group in the list of â€Å"Ease of Doing Business† out of 1 89 in 2014. The same organization ranked the Island number 18 In the starting a business category.There are SIX procedures that need to be fulfilled in order to establish a new enterprise in Puerco Rice as a Corporation: 1 . Check online the uniqueness of the company name and register online at the PR Department of State to obtain a business certificate. 2. Apply for an employer identification number (NINE) with the US Internal Revenue Service and the PR Department of Treasury (Department De Hac ienda). 3. Apply for a municipal business license. 4. Request unemployment and disability account numbers from the PR Department of Labor and Human Resources. 5.Subscribe to a workmen's insurance policy (Fond del Secure del Estate). 6. File an application with the Treasury Department to get the Merchant certificate. These six basic steps will help you begin the process of establishing your operation in Puerco Rice lawfully. There are several other processes you must take care of to ensure that the business will run smoothly. In Puerco Rice all companies are required to provide a yearly financial statement. If the company Is incorporated outside of the Island or if It has a turnover of more than Sum must also include an audited balance sheet.Also, companies must present CPA certified accounting report and a financial statement. Like the United States, companies unction as Spa's that provide public attestation services must be registered with the Public Accounting Oversight Board. Ent ities registered in Puerco Rice are required to prepare and file several statutory reports with different governmental agencies. There are four basic returns that apply to almost every entity: 1 . Income tax return – Entities doing business in Puerco Rice are subject to income taxes that range from 20% to 30%.A return must be filed with the Secretary of Treasury by corporations on or before the 15th day of the month following the end of the taxable year. A foreign entity is subject to Puerco Rice income taxes on its Puerco Rice sourced income and on its Income effectively connected with the Puerco Rice operations. They are allowed to deduct expenses related to the Puerco RICE operations, such as depreciation, also allowed. 2. Estimated income tax payments – Payment of the tax must be done in four installments on or before the 1 5th day of the fourth, sixth, ninth, and twelfth month of the taxable year. . Personal property tax return – All personal property is su bject to a tax that ranges from 5. 80% to 8. 83% depending of the municipality in which is located. This return and payment is due on or before May 15 with the Municipal Revenue Collection Center (CRIME). 4. Volume of business declaration – All businesses are required to pay a license tax based on gross revenues generated. The tax rate varies depending on the municipality but ranges from . 002 to . 005 in the case of non-financial businesses.Also, all corporations registered with the Department of State of Puerco Rice must file an annual corporation on or before April 15 of every year. Puerco Rice has a developed banking industry with 19 commercial banks, most of them local corporations. The FIDE a federal agency that oversees Nanking operations regulates all local commercial banks. Locally the COIF (Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerco Rice) regulate, supervise and oversee the financial institutions operating in Puerco Rice.This gives your operation the assurance that all your banking transactions will be made safely in the Island. Credit transactions are held by banks and most of them offer opportunities to entrepreneurs that are establishing business in Puerco Rice. In MEG'S specific area of business, which is mental counseling, Puerco Rice has local laws that apply to foreign counselors who want to establish offices. Being your company originally from Massachusetts, you must present evidence that you passed the NBC national exam.Also you must present evidence that your curriculum complies with certain specific competences in counseling. After all your accreditations have been evaluated by the Professional Counselors Review Board of PR Mount Regenerator De Consenters Professionals De PR) they will issue a provisional license that will allow you to make business as a professional counselor. After that license is provided, you will have three years to comply with 500 mentoring hours given by a board certified mentor hat will award your perm anent license.The license must be renewed every three years and comply with 45 hours of continuing education. We are confident that the information provided in this communication will be useful in the decision of you and your partners. It is very important that MEG Inc. Complies with all local laws and avoids problems that can slow the expansion process. LIMP recommends that MEG Inc. Continue with the expansion plans in Puerco Rice as soon as possible. We look forward to meet with your executive team and continue forward with the plans. It will be a pleasure doing business together.