Stalin's Effects on Society and Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Stalin's Effects on Society and Politics - Essay Example Further, by forging a communist bloc from Asia to Europe, Stalin helped to form the basic framework of international politics in the second half of the twentieth century (Kopstein & Lichbach: 212-213). The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was a convinced communist as well as a staunch supporter of Lenin’s ideas about party organization. He was able to gain unprecedented political power, rising to the highest position in the Leninist party based on his better institutional supports, organizational skills, ideological concepts, his implacable loyalty to the party as well as faith in its eventual triumph. Stalin did his best to enforce Leninist principles of â€Å"democratic centralism†, of strict party discipline and control over a hostile society (Kopstein & Lichbach: 214). Several issues confronted Marxists in the Soviet Union, following their revolutionary victory, such as, how to build â€Å"socialism† in a predominantly peasant country without the support of proletarian revolutions in more advanced capitalist countries. The policies that were formulated and implemented by Stalin, ultimately destroyed millions of people and left a heavy burden of economic conditions as a legacy for post-Soviet Russia. Yet, Stalinism was the most consistent ideological position that could successfully be adopted after Lenin’s death, as compared to the three opposing positions adopted by Stalin’s opponents belonging to the Left, the Right and the Orthodox Center. The Left was headed by the famous revolutionary Leon Trotsky who incited Soviet workers to redouble their efforts to rapidly build a strong industrial infrastructure, and argued that the Bolsheviks should stive to foment revolutions throughout western Europe. However, Trotsky’s pow er and influence declined rapidly by 1924, with party members and ordinary workers tiring of revolutionary appeals after three years of world war, a year of revolution and three years of

Tom Regan and Animal Rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tom Regan and Animal Rights - Essay Example There was a time when it was commonly accepted by â€Å"civilized† people that those of non-European descent deserved to be chattel. There was a time when women could be viewed as property. In general, it seems that humanity has over time increased its level of moral sophistication and expanded its moral universe. In particular, there has been a focus on rights-based analysis: People have intrinsic rights, inalienable, and it is always wrong to eclipse them. In the modern era, there are many, such as Regan, who submit that perhaps the next logical evolution in our expanding moral universe is animal rights, treating animals with certain inalienable levels of treatment Regan makes clear that animal rights generally mean just that: Rights that animals have to certain levels of treatment. Like all rights analyses, these arguments are deontological rather than utilitarian or consequentialist. Even if you can get a â€Å"good† outcome for killing a cow or experimenting on a rabbit, it is wrong because it violates some norm that, if the violation were universalized, would cease to exist. Society as a whole might benefit from animal testing, but it is still tortured. A key assumption to this argument is some kind of parallelism between animal and humanity. Virtually no one sheds a tear for the destruction of a rock. If a rock needs to be destroyed for society's good, there is no hand-wringing. The consequentialist analysis is assumed when we are speaking of the purely material world. Thus, animal rights debate center not just on the classic deontological-consequentialist debate, but also on the issues: What is life? If we view life as divine, is that divinity only confined to man? What matters in our moral universe? Is it sentience? If so, how much sentience? Is it the ability to feel pain? If so, to what degree of sensitivity? There are some who argue that animal rights are absolute, that just as a human's free speech can never be violated so can an animal's rights against pain or death never be undermined. Regan contrasts these people with those who view animal rights as something more contingent and fluid (70).

Electronic Health Records Essay Example for Free

Electronic Health Records Essay Introduction Electronic health records (also known as ‘e-notes’) have commonly replaced the conventional paper records used in medical facilities. This discussion describes how electronic health records have provided a solution to a range of health care procedures, have offered cost savings and benefits, and still have greater potential for improvement through future efforts. Overall, this discussion documents the progress and demands for further convenience in regards to electronic health records, presenting concepts, statistics, and recent analyses published by authorities on the topic. Through this, it is evident that electronic health notes still have shortcomings that are commonly noted and targeted, but as they have solved many more problems inherent in previous systems, they are the ideal path for development and improvement in this area. Electronic Health Records Since the development of electronic health records, healthcare managers have been able to reach numerous solutions to previous problems in their systems; this has included improved capacities to record and store the clinical and demographic information patients, the capacity to observe or manage the results of laboratory tests, the capacity to give prescriptions, improved ease of managing billing data, and improved facilitation of analysis for clinical decisions. These improvements reveal the nature of challenges and demands relevant to operations using the previous form of records (paper), with electronic health records being substantially more organized, convenient, and manageable. According to Al-Ubaydli (70), the use of paper records â€Å"had several implications. On the one hand, writing on paper fast and easy, so it fits well with clinical workflow. On the other hand, notes are only useful to the person who reads them, no to the one who writes them. When writing, speed and brevity are essential as there are always more patients to visit and care for. But for the reader, speed means illegible handwriting and brevity means incomplete notes. This leads clinicians to ask patients questions to which the answers already exist in the notes† (Al-Ubaydli 70). Moreover, as the author pointed out, paper is more difficult to transfer or copy, leading to it ultimately becoming easiest to keep the records confined to one central place. With this, they cannot move as easily as the patient, and the chore of copying tended to result in the patients being without a complete set of easily accessible records. Meanwhile, there are substantial space and cost requirements associated with storing paper records. The development of computer hardware, software, and improved data storage techniques eventually led to the development of efficient and effective software capable of storing patient data in secure databases, further allowing all data to be stored in a size-efficient manner that could also be easily transmitted. With the development of the internet, patient files could even be stored and transmitted online, providing an ideal backup for databases while improving the capacity for patients to have complete record sets sent to a range of facilities. The general motivation for creating these electronic health records was to address the problems inherent in the paper records, with the most convenient aspect being the cost-effective nature of storage and transmission; the nature of this being a virtually free cost and nearly instantaneous transmission made the desire and changes especially significant. Moreover, electronic health records would allow users to improve the capacity for users to index, sort, and search through records faster than the time demanded to sort through the paper files manually (Al-Ubaydli 70). An additional benefit is the reduced potential for illegible notes, as the nature of the systems means that all data is entered in using clear computerized text characters. As mentioned, similar to the nature of demands and problems evident in the paper records, there are now demands for improving aspects of the electronic records. However, these problems can be addressed through improved organization, software, and other means that does not demand a drastic change in mediums, as was required to address the problems of the paper records. Al-Ubaydli (71) reported that electronic health records â€Å"must include checks and balances to audit and control access. Second, the user interfaces for adding to the records must become easier to that they fit better into clinical workflow and allow clinicians to do more in less time. Speech recognition continues to improve, and the designers of templates continue to innovate.† The author further points out that similar to the improved search engines of the internet (first challenging and then drastically improved with developments like Google), electronic health records can be similarly improved without restructuring comparable to restructuring paper records. Other researchers have analyzed the nature of electronic health records, further elaborating on the nature of solutions and remaining demands. DeVoe et al. (351) pointed out that the clear and detailed recording of all received and recommended services should be considered the most vital aspect of health records, which is most effectively addressed through electronic records rather than paper records. This further assists with insurance aspects, as the detailed and accurate aspects of recording services can improve coordination with claims and related demands. DeVoe et al. (352) further asserted that electronic health records have the potential to assist researchers and policy makers with overcoming prior restrictions in examining services provided in CHCs. Meanwhile, Hoffman and Podgurski (425) reported on the growth of health care and pharmaceutical costs, frequency of unnecessary medical procedures, evoked healthcare reforms, and critical roles of records in all of these processes. With this, comparative effectiveness research (CER) has commonly been coupled with electronic health records to show that many expensive procedures have had less desirable outcomes for comparable conditions that less expensive ones, pointing out the nature of some health care facilities and physicians. Meanwhile, however, some have argued that CER is likely to lead to limited patient choices, improper rationing of health care, homogenized care, and potentially refusal of needed treatments (Hoffman and Podgurski 425). Congress allocated $1.1 billion to CER through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, which included other aspects of improving and restructuring facilities. Soon it became evident that a unique application of CER could allow physicians to improve their decisions regarding treatment, as when coupled with electronic health records, physicians could conduct computer inquiries across a large database of patient records. Naturally, this would provide a valuable supplement to the patient’s history and literature. Hoffman and Podgurski (425) recommended that software be designed to summarize findings of queries by presenting the most relevant outcomes of patients with the most comparable conditions, while records be developed and stored in a manner which facilitates this. Thus, personalized comparison of treatment effectiveness or PCTE could become a phrase more common than CER in the future. Conclusion Electronic health care records have solved many of the problems that could not be effectively addressed through developments in the paper systems, with major improvements in the capacity to copy and transfer records, cost of storage, and clarity of information. Although this has led to implications for security and excessive copying, databases have been developed to improve the concerns in these areas. Moreover, researchers have proposed additional improvements in development as well as use, with records having the potential to serve as an informal accessible databank, thereby improving understanding and decision making. Works Cited Al-Ubaydli, Mohammad. Personal Health Records: A Guide for Clinicians. John Wiley Sons: New York, NY, 2011. DeVoe, Jennifer, Rachel Gold, Patti McIntire, Jon Puro, and Susan Chauvie. â€Å"Electronic Health Records vs Medicaid Claims: Completeness of Diabetes Preventive Care Data in Community Health Centers.† Annals of Family Medicine 9.4 (2011): 351-358. Hoffman, Sharona and Andy Podgurski. â€Å"Improving Health Care Outcomes through Personalized Comparisons of Treatment Effectiveness Based on Electronic Health Records.† Journal of Law, Medicine Ethics 39.3 (2011): 425-436.

Case Study Tapal Tea (Private) Limited

Case Study Tapal Tea (Private) Limited Pakistan was the second largest tea importer of the world after England. Almost all the tea consumed in Pakistan is imported. Tea is popular beverage in both Urban and rural areas of Pakistan. The total retail market of black tea was estimated at 140,000 tons i.e. Rs. 35 billion in 2001. The retail market of tea is growing at rate of 2.6 % annually. 95 % of tea imported from Kenya comprised of leaf tea and dust tea. In Pakistan consumption of tea in urban areas is 40% while 60% contributed by rural area . Tea is sold in two categories of branded and unbranded packages. Branded tea constituted 55% and unbranded has 45% market share. Industry Competition: In Pakistan, Unilever is market leader with 60% share while Tapal has 26% share and the remaining 14% includes small players such as Kohinoor,vital,isphaani. UNILEVER-The Market Leader: Unilever is major competitor of Tapal, under taken several marketing mix activities to enhance their product sales of Lipton Yellow Label Brooke Bond Supreme brands. Unilever introduced 500-grams packaging to cater demand from tea stalls. They also made changes in Lipton logo. From pricing point of view Unilever revised prices from time to time to time due to various changes in micro and macro environment. For distribution Unilever has 6 regions with 526 distributors nationwide. They also support some of the weak distributors by giving them three-wheeler by investing Rs 5 millions to improve their performance. Introduction of Tapal tea Tapal was the largest Pakistani owned tea company in the country founded by AdamAli Tapal as a family concern in 1947 at Jodia bazaar in Karachi. Initially they started from an unbranded tea to cater tea stall and restaurant in Karachi. This unique brand named as FAMILY MIXTURE soon becomes the largest selling brand in the tea market. Tapal is supposed to be pioneer in number of development in tea industry of Pakistan which includes new category of DENEDAR tea ,introduction of high quality tea from Kenya, ISO 9002 quality certification, soft tea packs and metal free bags in Pakistan. Brands owned by Tapal: Tapal Chai Family Mixture Danedar Leaf Blend Chenak Dust Mezban Super Dust Gulbahar Green Tea Tapal Special Teabags Safari PF Marketing Sales promotion Activities by Tapal: In order to increase and retain the market share of Tapal in tea industry, Tapal applied number of marketing mix strategies to improve their sales in period 0f 1998-2001. Tapal changed packaging of its leading brand, Tapal DENEDAR to revamp the brand image and to fight with other counterfeit brands , they also launched the sachet packs. Tapal revised prices about four to five times in the given period of time to stay competitive with other brands. During the period of 1998-2001 Tapal spent 1.75% of its annual retail sales on advertising promotion. They also took over some ATL and BTL activities .with the help of print and electronic media Tapal promotes new logo Tapal- Makes Tea Time Terrific. Sales Management: Tapal sales territories were divided on the geographical basis. The whole market is divided into two regions Northand South both are independent of each other. Northern region included Punjab and Khyber Pukhtonkha while the southern region consisted of Sindh and Baluchistan. Northern town has 6 zones which are further divided into 23 territories. Southern region has 6 zone having 17 territories. A territory executive assigned to each territory. Total distributors in Pakistan are 400, 203 in northern region and 197 in southern region. SELECTION CRITERIA The territory executive needed to be a permanent resident of the area assigned and should have 2-3 yrs of selling experience along a minimum graduation degree. Hiring of territory executives was done at regional level with the final approval from the Head Office (Karachi). ÂÂ   SETTING SALES QUOTA/TARGET The market gap was analyzed at the first hand for setting sales target for the territory. Then the actual sales of Tapal, Unilever and others in the previous year were added up to determine the market size. The competitor sales were estimated through market intelligence from competitor`s distributors. The sales forecast is given by the distributors which are then assessed by the territory executives who submit the revised estimates to Zonal Managers. It is then approved at the final level by the Regional Managers. The annual quota is communicated to the territory executives and distributors by the second week of July each year. Problems Issues faced by Northern Region of TAPAL: Declining sales Negative variations in sales quotas assigned to territories. Rising selling expense Number of distributors are not appropriate with population size and no of outlets Unbranded tea suppliers are not considered by Tapal Zonal Managers. Zonal managers had set too optimistic targets for territory managers that are not realistic. Zonal mangers were unable to assess and improve the performance of territory managers. Zonal managers had not appropriately planned sales territories. Zonal managers were unable to add no. of distributors to cover the wider area they are just working with current distributors and increasing the no. of retail outlets. From exhibit 9, we can sort out that out of 23territory executives just 1 is showing excellent performance, however 8 executives are showing poor performance and 8 are just fairly performing their jobs. From exhibit 10 we can see that the company was too optimistic and it set its target sales too high as compared to previous year in all territories specially in Rawalpindi II (of about 354% increase in sales target), Sarghoda 260% increase Faisalabad 59.2% increase Recommendations to Overcome Problems: Zonal manager should consider unbranded tea products while focusing on MARKET Gap. When distributors give their sales forecast to territory executive, they must also concern with the problems faced by the distributors and try to solve them as Lipton helps their weak distributors by three wheelers. Clearly define the territory boundaries to Eliminate cross area sales problems. And take strict action on it. Company should cut-down unnecessary distributors to reduce selling expense, and increase new distributors where there is a market gap. Reduced the basic salary structure and Increase the incentive system so as the sales force motivate to achieve targets. Sales Quotas must be realistic and attainable in consideration with market potential. Zonal manager make teams of territory executives having good and excellent performance with executive showing poor performance so as poor one can learn the tactics to be successful.

Michelangelo Buonarroti Essay -- essays research papers

Michelangelo Buonarroti   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, was a very influential man of his time and of all time. Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, in a small village a part of the Florentine territory known as Caprese. His father originally did not support his artistic ability, but just a while after Michelangelo’s 13th birthday, his father allowed him to be an apprentice for a famous painter, Domenico Ghirlandaio. Unfortunately there was some conflict between Michelangelo and Ghirlandaio so after a year Michelangelo was no longer his apprentice and he denies Ghirlandaio influenced his works.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Later he stayed with the very powerful Medici family for two years. Lorenzo de’ Medici was a great patron of the arts who gave Michelangelo a chance to expand his artistic talents. He learned his sculpting skills from Bertoldo di Giovanni, who was trained by the great Donatello. He also expanded his education and gained knowledge of poetry and philosophy. Medici also had Michelangelo study the Classic Ancient Roman and Greek arts. Michelangelo became so excellent in Classic Roman arts that his works passed as Roman originals. Due to his talents in the ancient art Michelangelo was present at the excavation of the giant sculpture of Laocoà ¶n.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Michelangelo was a very religious man which is shown in many of his paintings. Later in his career he portrayed a bit more of his own idea of ...

Essay --

Gerard Manley Hopkins, born in 1844 and who is an optimist, is also one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era (Academy of American Poets). There's also William Wordsworth born in 1770 is another optimist and another great poet, but of the Romantic Era (Harriet Monroe). Both of these poets from two separate time periods have the same idea of society and the human population in general. Materialism is a trait that can torment both the rich and the poor and is described as both culturally destructive and very much self destructive (George Monbiot). In both poem of â€Å"God's Grandeur† by Gerard Manley Hopkins and â€Å"The World is too Much with Us† by William Wordsworth, both of these poems have similar ideas of expressing their opinions of the advancement of technology and the growth of complexed architecture. In Hopkins' piece of work, he puts together a lyrical poem that's filled with alliteration in order to make his phrases more memorable and melodious (Skylar H. Burris). An example may be â€Å"It will flame out, like shining from shook foil† (Hopkins line 2). The diction of the words â€Å"flame,† â€Å"shining,† and â€Å"shook foil† creates the imagery of warmth and liveliness. On the other hand, â€Å"grandeur† is a word used to describe magnificent and impressive (Brian Wasko), but in Hopkins' poem, he describes the â€Å"grandeur† as wearing out or is becoming thin. Hopkins message to his readers is that by people rejecting the power of God, people are also attracting negative situations into their lives. ... ...stent when it comes to the topic of God. In other words, Hopkins tends to shove religion down people's throats while Wordsworth only mentions God once in line 9, while the rest is about the departure of human and nature. In conclusion, Hopkins and Wordsworth both consider that people are beginning to get too caught up in material matters to admire nature because without nature, people wouldn't have any of the objects they would have. As a matter of fact, their would be no life, but only darkness just as Hopkins described. Hopkins and Wordsworth would both agree on the matter that humanity was and is loosing touch with nature. If they were both upset with how their society was back in their time, then they would have been terror-stricken.

Love at First Sight Essay

Love at first sight is a common trope in Western literature, in which a person, character, or speaker feels romantic attraction for a stranger on the first sight of them. Described by poets and critics from the Greek world on, it has become one of the most powerful tropes in Western fiction. In the classical world, the phenomenon of â€Å"love at first sight† was understood within the context of a more general conception of passionate love, a kind of madness or, as the Greeks put it, theia mania (â€Å"madness from the gods†).[1] This love passion was described through an elaborate metaphoric and mythological psychological schema involving â€Å"love’s arrows† or â€Å"love darts,† the source of which was often given as the mythological Eros or Cupid,[2] sometimes by other mythological deities (such as Rumor[3]). At times, the source of the arrows was said to be the image of the beautiful love object itself. If these arrows arrived at the lover’s eyes, they would then travel to and ‘pierce’ his or her heart, overwhelming them with desire and longing (love sickness). The image of the â€Å"arrow’s wound† was sometimes used to create oxymorons and rhetorical antithesis. â€Å"Love at first sight† was explained as a sudden and immediate beguiling of the lover through the action of these processes, and is illustrated in numerous Greek and Roman works. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Narcissus becomes immediately spellbound and charmed by his own (unbeknownst to him) image. In Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon, the lover Clitophon thus describes his own experience of the phenomenon: â€Å"As soon as I had seen her, I was lost. For Beauty’s wound is sharper than any weapon’s, and it runs through the eyes down to the soul. It is through the eye that love’s wound passes, and I now became a prey to a host of emotions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ [4]†Love at first sight† was not, however, the only mode of entering into passionate love in classical texts; at times the passion could occur after the initial meeting or could precede the first glimpse. Another classical interpretation of the phenomenon of â€Å"love at first sight† is found in Plato’s Symposium in Aristophanes’ description of the separation of primitive double-creatures into modern men and women and their subsequent search for their missing half: â€Å"†¦ when [a lover] †¦ is fortunate enough to meet his other half, they are both so intoxicated with affection, with friendship, and with love, that they cannot bear to let each other out of sight for a single instant.†[5]