Political Theory of John Locke Essay - 1189 Words

John Locke: Account of Political Society What would the American government be like today if it was not for the mind and political theory of John Locke? Some historians and philosophers believe that without John Locke our government would only be a shadow of what it is today. Arguably, one of his most important political and philosophical works was his Two Treatises of Government. There he argues that the function of the state is to protect the natural rights of its citizens, primarily to protect the right to property. John Locke, in many eyes, can be viewed as one of the father’s of Democracy. He embraced many of ideas in his theories on the state of nature and the rise of political society today. In Locke’s political society,†¦show more content†¦This in essence means that all members of the society should be equal under the law of justice, and that no man is better than another, since all men are created equal, and all are equal before the laws of nature. â€Å"Everyone as he is bound to p reserve himself, and not quit his station willfully; so by the like reason when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take any, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb or goods of another,† (Locke pg 117, 6). That means that no individual has the right to take away the rights of another. As a result, if a person commits a crime, the people have a right to punish him. For example, if one man kills another mans sheep, then the people have the right to kill one of his sheep without committing a crime. Besides the right to self-preservation, Locke also believed that all individuals had a natural right to property, â€Å"the labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are property his,† (pg. 128, 27). This natural right carried with it two preconditions of natural law. First, si nce God gave the earth to all individuals, people must be sure to leave enough property for others to have, the secondShow MoreRelatedThomas Hobbes And John Locke s Political Theories Essay2061 Words   |  9 PagesAnalyzing Thomas Hobbes and John Locke’s Political Theories and Justifying if these Governmental Officials Have Legitimate Reason To Hold Secrets from the Public Systems of government across the globe are utilized to various extents. Similarly to John Locke’s vision of government, the United States stands by a system of representative democracy. 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He is one of the most outstanding of enlightenment thinkers, who explained many of the ideas that affect human life in today’s society. He is widely known as the father of classical liberalism, because of his emphases on liberty of persons by, restricting the authority of the government Jenkins and John (18). He is also regarded as one the

The Tribe Not Only Kidnapped Mary Rowlandson - 1263 Words

Landcaster was burning, kidnapping was occurring, and men were being gutted, all because of King Phillip’s War. The Native Americans are the ones who set flames to Rowlandson’s life. The tribe not only kidnapped Mary Rowlandson, but her three kids as well. This tragedy is what inspired Rowlandson to start writing and becoming a famous known American author. The beginning of Mary White Rowlandson’s life started in the year of 1637. She was born in Somerset England. A little ways down the road of her life, Rowlandson’s parents brought her to the Massachusetts colonies. In fact, Mary Rowlandson’s father was known to be one of the wealthiest men in the colony. Rowlandson’s Father was named John White, and her mother was named Joan White. Together, this couple had ten children, making Rowlandson six out of her nine other siblings. There was ten of them in total. Later on, Rowlandson got married to man by the name of Joseph Rowlandson. Mr. Rowlands on was priest for puritan thoughts and beliefs. Joseph Rowlandson also had a very good education. He attended Harvard University. Due to Joseph Rowlandson attending such a great school, he helped his wife write and become well educated. (This isn’t actual factual, it’s just a possibility due to there no being actual information on where Mary Rowlandson gained knowledge and education on how to write.) Mr. and Mrs. Rowlandson created four children together. Two of their children were killed in their early stages of life. One ofShow MoreRelated Compare Contrast Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano Essay1667 Words   |  7 Pagesthings that make up a piece of literature. For example: choice of diction, modes of discourse, and figurative language. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were great examples of authors that used these elements of literature. There are similarities and differences in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and From Af rica to America. Though Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano shared similarities in experiences, they had different writing personalities, purposes, attitudesRead MoreCompare/Contrast Writers1706 Words   |  7 Pagesthings that make up a piece of literature. For example: choice of diction, modes of discourse, and figurative language. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were great examples of authors that used these elements of literature. There are similarities and differences in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and From Africa to America. Though Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano shared similarities in experiences, they had different writing personalities, purposes, attitudesRead MoreMary Rowlandsons Story Essay1112 Words   |  5 PagesMary Rowlandson was captured from her home in Lancaster, Massachusetts by Wampanoag Indians during King Phillip’s War. She was held captive for several months. When she was released she penned her story, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. During much of her story she refers to the Indians as savage beasts and heathens but at times seems admire them and appreciate their treatment of her. Mary Rowlandson has a varying view of her Indian captors because she experienced

Data Analysis And The Business Intelligence - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Data Analysis And The Business Intelligence. Answer: Calculation: The analysis is based on the believe of association of types of phone used (Hand-held, Hand-free and Neither) and Driver Gender (Male and Female). To test the theoretical assertion, total 17044 samples were undertaken. The two types of variables are undertaken here, where distribution of both types of variables are unknown. Therefore, we apply chi-square test for testing independence or association between these two non-parametric tests. The researcher decides the test statistic 2 for inferential statistic of non-parametric test. Driver Gender Type of phone used Hand-held Hands-free Neither Total % % % Count Male 1.3 0.4 98.3 10068 Female 0.5 0.4 99.1 6976 We consider the hypotheses at pre-assigned level. Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no association between types of phone used and gender of driver. Alternative Hypothesis (HA): There is an association between types of phone used and gender of driver. Locate the critical region or regions. The chi-square test is a non-parametric test. Hence, it is not based on any parameters such as proportions or averages. We are trying to perform a chi-square test based on the given data. One-tail test would be used here. Compute the statistic. Calculating the row and column totals, we get- Driver Gender Type of phone used Hand-held Hands-free Neither Total % % % Count Male 131 40 9897 10068 Female 35 28 6913 6976 Total 166 68 16810 17044 Calculating Chi-square test statistic: Expected Frequency Table Driver Gender Type of phone used Hand-held Hands-free Neither Total % % % Count Male 98 40 9930 10068 Female 68 28 6880 6976 Total 166 68 16810 17044 O E (O-E) (O-E)^2 (O-E)^2/E 131 98 33 1089 11.11224 40 40 0 0 0 9897 9930 -33 1089 0.109668 35 68 -33 1089 16.01471 28 28 0 0 0 6913 6880 33 1089 0.158285 Sum 27.3949 Deciding the conclusion about acceptance or rejection The sum of chi-square values is 27.3949. The calculated degrees of freedom = (number of columns -1)*(number of rows 1) = (3-1)*(2-1) = 2*1 = 2. According to the chi-square distribution table, the critical value for 2 degrees of freedom at 5% significance level is 5.99. Since, our test statistic (chi-square value) 27.3949 5.99, it lies inside the critical region. Therefore, the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected at 5% significance level (=0.05). Conclusion: There is an association between types of phones used and gender of driver at 5% level of significance. The output is found to be significant. The two factors types of phones used and gender of driver are dependent to each other.

Supply Chain Case Study Zara Essay Example

Supply Chain Case Study: Zara Paper Zaras Supply Chain Case Study Zara Abstract The competition of current clothing industry is very fierce and Zara has many competitive advantages in this competition. This paper will analyze on about how the information technology help Zara to make decisions and make their performance more speed. First, a case review from Harvard Business Review will be covered in the introduction to show an overview of current Zaras business model. Second is the Michael Porters model analysis based on Zara that including three generic strategies and five forces. We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Case Study: Zara specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Case Study: Zara specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Case Study: Zara specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Third, some of IT applications are really help the Zara to make their usiness more efficient, the applications will be applied in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) will emphasize a speed supply chain for Zara, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Finally is about the relationship between Zara and Peter Druckers theory, Zara and Andrew McAfees theory, Zara and Heys theory. The last part will conclude where is Zara today and make brief recommendations. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Zara and Michael Porters Model 5 Generic Competitive Strategies Analysis for Zara 5 Five Forces Analysis for Zara 6 Suppliers Bargaining Power 6 Buyer Bargaining Power 7 Threat of New Entrants 7 Threat of Substitute 8 Industrial Competitors 9 The Value Chain of Zara 10 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) 11 Supply Chain Management (SCM) 11 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 13 Zara and Peter Druckers theory 13 Zara and Andrew McAfees theory 14 Zara and Tony Heys Theory 1 5 Conclusion 16 Recommendations 16 Appendix 18 References 19 Introduction Inditex is a largest fashion ground in Spain and owns 9 brands around the world, such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and so on. Zara is the most successful brand or the Inditex group. The data from Harvard Business Review shows that Zaras sale revenues Is aoout 3 Y/3M Euros (aoout 4 Inditexs sale revenues at the beginning of 2003 (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). The last update of Inditex official website shows that there are 1,603 Zara stores around the worlds in 2011 (Inditex, 2011). Zara became so famous today due to their fast fashion. In other words, Zara can design a new product and deliver it to the store all over the world in only two weeks (Tiplady, 2006). The case Zara: IT for fast fashion which from Harvard Business Review analyzed ore details about the basic model of Zara business, the operation process, and IT development. The first idea came up with Zara business is get the information or request from the customer, and then link with the design center and manufacture, finally link the manufacture to the distribution. The operation processes are operating with a group called commercials and the process as follows. First, the store managers directly order the items from La Coruna. Second, another group is responsible to fulfill the orders that they put these finished goods together and shop it to the stores. The last group is design and manufacturing. Zara has a large design group, which has more then 200 cloth designers and no one is senior cloth designer. Zara has their own factories and other outsourcing factories to do the manufacture requirement. For the IT development, Zara is not due with couple of days, but they experienced many years to research and improve their Information Technology system (Mcafee, Dessain sjoman, 2007). Zara and Michael Porters Model Generic Competitive Strategies Analysis for Zara According to the Michael Porters Model represent that there are three generic ompetitive strategies in the current business world that are overall cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategy and every firm have to select one of these three strategies to apply to their firms as their leading strategy (Porter Millar, 1985). Zara has applied all these three strategies to their business, and each of strategy is actually help Zara to gain the competitive advantage. Zara has many ways to lower their cost such as the raw material and production line. For the raw material, 50% fabric that Zara buy it as original fabric and cut and dye the color by their own factory. Intditex has one subsidiary company that called Comditel and it provide most of fabric to Zara, the volume is more than other 200 suppliers who provide other raw materials for Zara. On the other hands, there are 85% of production processes working in their own factory where in the La Coruna. Compare with other competitors only have 0% 20%. So they can control manufacture cost through their in-house production (Ghemawat Nueno, 2006). Release new product for amazing pace and keep it low inventory is the main differentiation for Zara. Zara spend 30 million dollars to restructure the IT system, nd merger about 1200 manufacture firms as strategic alliance plus a big design group with about 200 designers to keep fast production line for Zara. These designers can call the copy edition members, because every time when the new fashion appeal in the published areas, such as Paris, New York, or Milan and so on, these designers will be able to copy the similar style and release it in only two weeks. I nese are tne OITTerent processes compare wltn otner competltors Based on Zaras differentiation strategy, their target market almost focus on young people who seeking the fresh style and also the relatively low cost. The main idea of Zara is let the ordinary people to enjoy the very new fashion with lower cost than some professional brand. For many consumers, they cannot image that they can wear high-grade brand because of high price, but Zara can give them similar experience (Ghemawat Nueno, 2006). Five Forces Analysis for Zara Suppliers Bargaining Power Zara has relatively superiority within negotiation power of suppliers. Zara has their own machine to cut the material and each computer-controlled machine can cut 1,000 layers at one time. Hence, Zara only need to send these cut materials to the sewing company. There are lots of choices for the current sewing companies, so the negotiation power of suppliers for Zara is very low. On the other hand, Zara always purchase the fabric with no colors, which means they dye the color by they are own, and the data shows they dye about 50% fabric in their own factory. As mentioned before, Intditex also owned a fabric company, which called Comditel. So this also can lower the bargaining power of fabric suppliers, because they can purchase the unprocessed fabric for many fabric companies or purchase it from subsidiary company (Chen, 2011). Buyer Bargaining Power Normally, the shopper always has more negotiation power when they shopping, for example, in the mall, there are so many choices for the most shoppers, but for Zaras customer may have lower bargaining power since Zara update their merchandise very fast. When people walking in the Zaras store, people had better to buy the clothes or other items if they like it at the first seeing, because it might gone in the next time. The Zaras customers also need to visit their stores more often since Zara always has new designs either for the totally new product or existing one (they might change or add new color within existing garment). Zara says they has about 11,000 new designs per year, compare with their competitors only have 2,000 4,000. They change the goods in about three or four weeks, and about 75% goods will be changed. They also has very low inventory and even their clothes will not be designed highly lasting. Fresh fashion always keeps in their mind and the Zaras shoppers also still live by this idea (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). Threat of New Entrants Even though the current apparel industry be in fierce competition and it truly easy to start apparel business, but Zara still has low risk with most new entrants since they as efficient IT support. For any other new apparel companies do not have enough budgets to create or develop an efficient information technology system. The only thing they can that establishes a basic IT system to keep their business on track. On the other hand, even some new company has enough budgets to establishes a more professional IT department to support their daily business, but the point is that they do not have enough experiences to let it working with high efficient. In other words, the new company Just starts with new business and they ao not Know wnat wlll nappen In any processes, sucn as manuTacture department, upply chain management, or the sales in the any stores. Again, Zaras IT department was not created by one or two days, they experienced many situation for many years. Ever time when they found a problem or new function, they will fix it and add it to make their IT system working more efficient. Hence, Zara has more competitive advantage by their IT support and this also are the threat for the new entrants. (Chen, 2011). Threat of Substitute The customers of Zara are more focus on low-cost fashion that means customers will spend less money but enjoy the trendy garment, this point also makes Zara do not eally care about the threat of the substitute because they design and release the merchandise very fast. As Zara mentioned before, they can release new design and distribute to the store in only two weeks, in other words, they will has new items every single week. Therefore, even some of other competitors introduce the similar garment with Zara at the same time, but Zara may Just sold out and replenish by other new designs since they has very less inventory. The stocks of Zara always keep about 10% unsold and they replace the merchandise all the time rather than put the same merchandise in their stocks. In this point, even Zara do not need to care about the substitute from other competitors, but they still need to considering about the inferior goods of the product since the high quantity may not bring the high quality for them (Chen, 2011). Industrial Competitors The top four fashion chain firms in current world are Hennes and Maurizt HM from Sweden, Gap from USA, CA from Holland, Marks and Spencer from United Kingdom, and Inditex Zara from Spain. Compare with these five firms, HM is the major competitor for Zara based on the similar product definition. During 2001 to 2003, HM increase their stores about 40% all over the world, their sales revenue also increased by 60%, and their profit even increased 150% with additional 57 billion Swedish Krona. From the data also shows that there are 945 stores all over the world and there are 123 stores in Sweden and 822 stores in other countries in the beginning of 2004. For the Zaras parent company Inditex has 1,922 stores all over the world and covered by 48 countries. Their net sales revenue is about 4,598. million Euros in 2003 and Zara has about 70% sales revenue of Inditex with 3,219. 6 Euros and has 626 stores in 40 countries (Guercini Runfola, 2011). Hence, there is no big different if only compare with numbers of store between H and Zara. Both of them have wide sale approach, so their turnover and profit are two things that they need to consider with it. Based on their manufacture processes, Zara would like more in-house design and manufacture, these term are all working in the La Cor una. Compare with H, most of production processes of H are outsourcing (almost 99%). H produce their product in many low labor cost countries, such as China, India, or Africa. So the retail price will be lower than Zara (Tiplady, 2006). On the other hands, Zara spend very less budget with their advertising, is about 0. 3% of the revenue and compare with their competitors is about 3%-4% (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). The Value Chain of Zara As mentioned before, a group of people called commercials and the operation process has three parts that are ordering, fulfillment, design and manufacture. Each process related with a main information system, the commercials will send 11,000 items a year to production epartment, and the department will send the finished product to the fulfillment. The fulfillment distributes the product to the stores and the stores also send back the unsold product. The suppliers provide material twice a week to the production department. Zara use PDAs and POS to connect each stores to La Coruna. These processes are all covered in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). An amazing pace of supply chain is the main factor for entire value chain (Mcafee, Dessain sjoman, 2007). Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Zara utilize Enterprise Resource Planning to manage the entire IS work. Each store manager has a handheld device that PDA, this PDA collect all the information from the shoppers performance, and send it to the central database then send it to design group by the internal network. The designers will send the new product back to the IS and also manufacture department. Then the manufacture department will complete manufacture processes and set the price, then they will report it to the IS and fulfillment. The fulfillment distribute the finished products to each stores based on their demand. The distribute information also be collected by IS. The suppliers connect with IS and manufacture department (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). The IS of Zara provide very enough resources for analysis. The stores managers has the most information, because they can directly send the customer feedback to the IS, and another point is stores managers decide the orders directly to the Zara headquarter, so the analysis will based on the different demand from different stores. On the other hand, the distribution center also provides helpful information for Zara because of their better Supply Chain Management (SCM). Therefore, the ERP ystem of Zara not only helps their business work more efficient, but also offers lots of valuable information for analysis. Supply Chain Management (SCM) Zara plays an amazing speed for their entire supply chain. Most of competitors such as HM and Gap, most of production processes of these firms are outsourcing in some low labor cost countries. Unlike these competitors, Zara owns mostly retailers around the world, and investing huge capitals to built their own factories (owns 22 factories so far) and logistics system. Actually, there are 80% of Zaras manufacture are working in the Spain where the headquarters of Zara, and 50% of these anufacture are owned by themselves. As motioned before, Intidex also owned a material supply company that called Comditel and provide 40% fabrics for Zara. Hence, Zara can control most of manufacture processes and make their operations are very flexibility (Venkatramanan, 2010). Two groups of commercials play important roles in the supply chain management, one is the design and manufacture and another is fulfillment. Buy the calculation, Zaras design group has 200 people and design about 1 ,OOO new styles every month, therefore, for one designer will create 60 new styles per year ana It Is 1-2 styles per week. I ne TulTlllment nas to matcn up a huge number of finished good and send to the right stores, so in their DCs have less labor working for match up, instead, more automation or computerization device will help them to finish these Jobs. Their optical reading devices can select and match up 60,000 items per hour, it makes Zaras fulfillment more efficient (Venkatramanan, 2010). After the orders arrived in the store, each of Zaras stores displays the new items at about one or two days. Two Spanish DCs will distribute the orders from stores in the Western Europe by truck. The stores where in the Latin will be distributed by their ocal smaller DCs. Some other stores are far from Spain will be distributed from Spanish DCs by air, such as Asia or North America. Any of Zaras DCs will not keep the product so long because they seek fast. Zara never forecast what is the next fashion, they Just find the ideas from fashion published area, then design it, produce it, and then deliver it to the customers (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Zara release new garment not only based on their big design group find the idea from fashion published areas, but also based on their customer thinking. The most mportant things for Zara are the communications and information technology. They always collect the customers idea and get to know what they need for the fashion product. Each store managers has a handheld device that is PDA. The store manages use PDA not only order the merchandise from headquarters, but they also collect the ideas or feedback from customers and send it to the database of headquarters. This is one of the most important daily Jobs for each stores managers. The huge information from customers make the design groups are able to create new styles based on these customers thinking (Venkatramanan, 2010). Zara and Peter Druckers theory IT is changing the current organizations and the processes of new organizations will be information based, and the new issues and concerns will be generated. Many areas of organization have been changing by IT, such as decision-making processes and communication area. The new structure of organization will has less management, which means one leader only and middle management divide by many groups and each group has more specialist. This is the main statement for Druckers theory (Drucker, 1988). Zara actually is following the Druckers theory and some of areas totally have been changed by IT. The senior manager is not the decision maker for new releasing, instead, the design group making decisions based on new fashion from world and customers thinking. The communication area of Zara is based on two devices that are PDA and POS. Each manager has a PDA to send the orders to headquarters, and the POS has the sales information for each store, and the senior managers of La Coruna are able to check this information at anytime. The whole control is wide because they can share the information. The information system of Zara is very important and has more availability, because the performance of each department is based on the IS. Their 11,000 new designs per year will not exist without IS. Zara and Andrew McAfees theory The article covered two major statement, one is the new IT tools became basic infrastructure for new organizations, but he pointed out the new tools are not the main factor to help the organizations to generate competitive advantages, moreover, the organizations can found innovations from IT development is the key thing. Another point is that each organization needs to know how to transform the right to others, because somebody others may bring an amazing changing or benefit to the organization rather than only senior managers (McAfee BrynJolfsson, 2008). Zara is following this theory from McAfee that the IT support is the heart for them and it helped them has been become more and more successful. For Zara, investing in IT is not means buying any professional software from the market, instead of it, most of applications are written by the IT department. Salgado says that, who is the head of IT for Intitex hought that the commercial packages do not match the company business, because the company has the owe business model. The IT department covered three departments for Zara that are stores, logistics, and administration. There are 50 staffs working with Zaras IT department and only 1 person left (Mcafee, Dessain SJoman, 2007). Zara and Tony Heys Theory The article from Tony Hey says that in the big databases including helpful data, but some of data may not useful, so the people have to know how to select it from a huge number of data. Some of data may not useful right now but it may helpful by ombine with other data. People today are facing many problems that cannot solve with it. However, the solution may already be covered in the very big database. The only thing need to do is found the related data and mix it to found the answer, it also called data mining (Hey, 2010). Zara has a huge information system, and it cover many data either from internal or external. The internal data cover the sales revenue of each store, and the POS reports it from each store. These data can help the headquarters for analysis. The external data include both customers thinking from stores managers and new fashion from he world. The design group could select the valuable information from these two databases to help them to create new styles. Conclusion The fierce competitiveness still exist in the current apparel industry, Zara today actually own many competitive advantages due to high efficient of supply chain and successful marketing plan. Zara todays successful cannot working without the IT support, the entire IT system linking every department and working processes, it likes the heart of the Zara. The perfect IT supports guaranteed every part of Zaras business on track, and the more and more powerful databases help Zara to gain ore benefit in the future development. However, there is no one company can guarantee that the all departments or working processes are working perfectly and Zara also cover some issues. So the following content covered briefly recommendations. Recommendations One of the issues is that Zara has too much different products because Zara has new styles every day. They cannot guarantee that all the products are always popular with the customers. On the other hands, many of inferior goods may exist in the market. Again, high quantity may not bring the high quality, Zara had better to reduce the ew product release and guarantee that each product has a high quality. This will help Zara to lower the cost and maximize the profit. Another issue is about the high cost of the supply chain, because most of production is in-house manufacture for Zara. This results in the logistics more complete and higher cost. In other words, customers need to pay for this extra cost. Therefore, the prices will be very different for different countries. The data from Inditex shows that the price is 51% higher in other European countries such as United Kingdom, 109% higher in Americas, and in Japan even is 131% higher than the original price in Spain (Figure 1 provide more data for other countries) (Ghemawat Nueno, 2006). Hence, Zara should better outsourcing some of production line in other countries such as in the Asia or Americas. That not only can make logistics more efficient, but also can lower the labor cost for the manufacture. The more unique styles for the products can makes the brand more valuable and lower the cost of the supply chain can help them gain more profit. Therefore, Zara need to encourage the design group to create the product combine with the unique ashion styles and high quality. On the other hands, Zara should lower the cost of supply chain by extend the location of production line to other countries all over the world. These will help Zara to gain more market share from apparel industry. Appendix Figure 1: The price ofa T-shirt at Zara Source: Inditex, Adapted by the Author of Zara: Fast Fashion, from Harvard Business Review. December 21, 2006. References Chen, M. (2011). Business Strategy IT. California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI). Retrieved February 19, 2012, from: http://faculty. csuci. edu/minder. chen/MIS310/slide/Strategy. pt Drucker, P. F. (1988). The Coming of the New Organization. Harvard Business Review, 45-53. Ghemawat, P Nueno,J. L. (2006, December 21). Zara: Fast Fashion. Harvard Business Review, Y Guercini, S. Runfola, A. (2011). Sourcing Strategies in Clothing Retail Firms: Product Complexity Versus Overseas Supply Chain. Fashion networks. Retrieved February 20, 2012, from: http://2011. fashion-networks. com/images/article_pdf/4548. pdf Hey, T. (2010, November). Data Mining. Harvard Business Review, 56-63. Inditex, (2011). Store Around the World. Retrieved February 18, 2012, from: http://www. nditex. es/en/ who we are/stores Mbalib, (2011). Introduction of Zara. MBA Library. Retrieved February 23, 2012, from: http://wiki. mbalib. com/wiki/Zara Mcafee, A. , Dessain, V. SJoman, A. (2007, September 6). Zara IT for Fast Fashion. Harvard Business Review, 9-603-081. McAfee, A. Bryn]olfsson, E. (2008, July). Investing in IT that Makes a Competitive Difference. Harvard Business Review, 99-107. Porter, M. E. Millar, V. E. (1985). How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Review, 149-174. Tiplady, R. (2006, April 4). Zara: Taking the Lead in Fast Fashion. Bloomberg Business week. Retrieved February 18, 2012, from http://www. businessweek. com/globalbiz/content/apr2006/gb20060404 167078. ht m? chan=innovation_branding_brand+profiles Venkatramanan, K. (2009, August 31). Supply Chain Practices at Zara. From Institute of Management Technology (MT), Nagpur. Retrieved February 25, 2012, from: http:// www. scribd. com/doc/19488507/Supply-Chain-Practices-at-Zara 123 HelpMe. com. (2012). Zaras Business Model, Information and Communication Technologies, and Competitive Analysis. Retrieved February 23, 2012, from: http://www. 123HelpMe. com/view. asp? id=97642

Rise and Development of Nationalism in East Asia

Rise and Development of Nationalism in East Asia Introduction Nationalism means the identities that people have, which they view as distinguishing them uniquely as belonging to a particular nation. Thus, it covers one of the forms of patriotism. Several theories can be employed to provide an explanation of the origin of nationalism. The main ones are modernism and primordialist views.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Rise and Development of Nationalism in East Asia specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Modernism theory considers nationalism as a recent societal process, which demands societal structuring for it to develop. On the other hand, the primordialist â€Å"describes nationalism as a reflection of the ancient and perceived evolutionary behavior of humans to organize themselves into distinct groupings based on the affinity of birth† (Tamir 13). The paper uses the primordialist view. Based on the theory, nationalism may develop based on cultural artifacts de fining people living within a given nation and political-related experiences in a nation among other things. From this point of view, this paper discuses the rise and development of nationalism in East Asia based on historic political related experiences and cultural elements including religion and clothing. Japan and china are used as the main examples in this quest. Rise and Development of Nationalism in China and Japan Cultural elements may act as mechanisms that can help to instill the perception of nationalism among people living within a common geographical area. Theses artifacts may be depicted through clothing, language, and religion. With the onset of westernization, Chinese people encountered a dilemma whether to abandon their own clothing styles that defined their heritage and hence a sense of belonging as Chinese nationals or to adopt the rising western styles of dressing. This dilemma motivates Finnane to wonder what Chinese women deserve to wear for them to retain the symbol of nationalism (99). Given the history of China that is rich in customs, the question is significant since resistance to the degradation of nationalism depicted by dressing style was evident as from 1949 when Mao Zedong declined from wearing black leather shoes and a suit. According to Finnane, the head of state argued, â€Å"we Chinese have our own customs†¦why should we follow others† (99). This resistance was a replication of over half decade debates questioning the capacity of the western influences to impair the dressing codes of the Chinese people. Over that period, alterations of style were incredibly controversial. They attracted hefty public debates particularly when they involved the question of the women dress. The main interrogatives were whether the women dresses need to be long or short, tight or loose, or cover the arms for them to depict Chinese national women.Advertising Looking for essay on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your fi rst paper with 15% OFF Learn More During the reign of Mao, the question on what Chinese people wore attracted superficial analysis. However, dressing styles and the type of clothes that were won by Chinese people acted as wonderful mechanisms of differentiating between China and the rest of the nations in the world. In this line of thought, Finnane reinforces, â€Å"For politically correct Chinese people, clothing at that time differentiated the socialist elect from the rest†¦for outsiders, it was the single most obvious feature about contemporary Chinese culture† (100). Clothes were depictive of Chinese culture and hence a symbol of Chinese people. Even though much of the concerns about the alteration of the dressing to have the capacity to erode the culture of the Chinese people concerned what women wore in the ninetieth century, the link between nationalism and the clothing was not only a problem of women: men were also equally worried. This argument i s strengthened by the Mao Zedong’s rejection to wear a suit associated with the western culture. Outside the Chinese context, clothing remains an important symbol of nationalism in other nations in the East Asia. For instance, in India, cladding in ‘sari’ represents a sovereign Indian woman because â€Å"the fertile ground for production of future generations both past and future-were embodied in her,† (Finnane 102). On the other hand, in Japan, a woman dressed in ‘kimono’ profiles an ideal sovereign Japanese woman. From these examples, it sounds essential to infer that the perception of nationalism among people cannot be segregated from the cladding codes acceptable as representing the true national of a given nation because cultural artifacts are depictive of cultural differences among people who are often confined within different national boundaries. Apart from the rise and development of nationalism from the context of dressing style, rel igion is yet another crucial cultural artifact that may help to build the perception of nationalism among different people living in different nations. For instance, in Japan, subscription to Shinto is perhaps an essential way of portraying ones strongly grounded spirit of nationalism. Shinto assumed its shape upon the arrival of Buddhism. This was vital in helping to differentiate the new religion to the indigenous religion in Japan that was the representation of the ‘Japanese’.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Rise and Development of Nationalism in East Asia specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Okuyama strengthens this point by further asserting, â€Å"Some 100,000 shrines of jinja served by Shinto priests attest to its physical presence nationwide† (94). Shinto defines the religious practices of the indigenous native Japanese to mean ‘the ways of ‘kami’ as opposed to ‘the w ays of Buddha’. Therefore, since the introduction of Buddhism in the 16th century, Shinto practices became definitive of the true Japanese nationalism. However, it is also crucial to note that Japanese people consider traditional customs as defining nationalism in spite of â€Å"whether they are Shinto or not† (Okuyama 97). The question that emerges is- to what extent do Japanese people perceive Shinto as a true representation of nationalism? The response to the above question is perhaps well answered by considering the significance of Shinto shrines among all citizens of Japan including the nobles. In this regard, Okuyama reckons, â€Å"since he became the prime minister, Koizumi Jun’ichiro visited Yasukuni Shrine four times: 13 August 2001, 21 April 2002, 14 January 2003, and 1 January 2004† (106). Nevertheless, even though this may be anticipated to be acceptable within the understanding of the traditional customs of Japanese people, the visits attract ed opposition. Consequently, about seven lawsuits ensued as a result. Nevertheless, Koizumi remained confident that the visits were necessary for a number of reasons. In the first place, the shrines served to portray his nationalism since they formed the places where he renewed vows never to take part in wars. Secondly, â€Å"he visited Yasukuni shrines to express relevance and gratitude to all the war dead despite the fact that these include class A war criminal† (Okuyama 106). Arguably, from this cited reason of why Koizumi visited the shrine, it is questionable whether the shines are the best places to show ones patriotism. However, it is evident that Japanese people have a strong prescription to traditional religious beliefs as the main ways of portraying sincerity in ones commitments to the Japanese people and the nation as a whole. The analysis of Shintoism as one of the theories of development of nationalism in Japan cannot be accomplished without considering the philo sophers’ attempts to ensure the national beliefs were revived and purified.Advertising Looking for essay on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The idea was to enhance the removal of all foreign ideas that were imported from various nations including China and India. The Shintoism restoration movement began in the 18th century with Motoori Noringa playing proactive roles. This campaign gave rise to the state Shinto with the emperor of Japan then claiming to be of Amaterasu decently. A certain representation that tends to link people together creates the spirit of nationalism. According to Wang, the identification may include â€Å"Chinas neo-neo-tribe and â€Å"Japanese shin shin jinrei† (547). To Wang, such a representation can be used to secure a market for a particular product because it has high likelihoods of securing an immense success when a product is marketed based on its capacity to create a sense of nationalism. For instance, Wang argues that the term bobo has the impact of bringing Chinese people together by creating messages of premium value (535). What this argument means is that the spirit of national ism can also be build by the products produced by nations. Therefore, consumption of such products helps to depict that one is truly a patriot of a given nation. Using the Wang’s analogy, the term bobo is related to being a Chinese and belonging to a bobo class. Subsequently, when a product is sold bearing the tag that it is principally made for the bobos, it means that buying this product will not only mean fitting into the bobo class. Besides, it will also depict one as a sovereign citizen of the nation where the bobos live! From a different dimension, nationalism may be built based on the experiences that people go through as a nation. Recollection of such experiences helps to remind one of the history encountered, which is definitive of why one is a nationalist of a given nation. This kind of nationalism is perhaps well exemplified by Japan through her Hiroshima trauma. Painful experiences are crucial reflections of what it takes to be a nationalist since they provide lin ks between different cultures (Caruth 3). Therefore, while Japan may be segregated based on different cultural affiliations, the Hiroshima experiences make Japanese people develop a sense of nationalism, which is critical in helping the nation to employ all strategies possible to ensure that such an experience would never reoccur. Therefore, the Hiroshima experience is one unifying experience that ensures all Japanese are united together amid their demographic differences (Wood 191). Arguably, this is crucial since nationalism is hard to thrive in an environment that is ruled by segregations. Conclusion Therefore, based on the expositions made in the paper, it is enough to declare nationalism a representation of people’s identities. The identities help in building the spirit of patriotism. Cultural elements show people’s identities and political experiences especially the ones that culminated into painful experiences. In this paper, nationalism has been explored throug h consideration of clothing as one of the ways of presentation of people’s cultural artifacts in the Chinese and Japanese contexts. The Hiroshima experience has also been considered as an example of painful experiences that has helped to shape the Japanese view of nationalism. Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, Baltimore: Johnhopkins University press, 1996. Print. Finnane, Antonia. â€Å"What Should Chinese Women Wear?† Modern China 22.2(1996): 99-131. Print. Okuyama, Michiaki. Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine.  Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2005. Print. Tamir, Yael. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Print. Wang, Jing. â€Å"Bourgeois Bohemians in China? Neo-Tribes and the Urban Imaginary.† The China Quarterly 183.3(2005): 532-548. Print. Wood, Nancy. Vectors of Memory: Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. New Jersey, NJ: Berg Publishers, 1999. Print.

Star Charts and Their Many Uses

Star Charts and Their Many Uses The night sky is a fascinating place to explore. Most backyard skygazers begin by stepping out each night and marveling at whatever appears overhead. In time, however, nearly everybody gets the urge to know about what theyre seeing.  Thats where sky charts come in handy.l Theyre like navigational charts, but for exploring the sky. They help observers identify stars and planets in their local skies. A  star chart  or a  stargazing app is one of the most important tools a skygazer can use.  They form the backbone of specialized astronomy apps, desktop programs, and are found in many astronomy books.   Charting the  Sky To get started with star charts, search out a location on  this handy Your sky page. It  lets observers select their location and get a real-time sky chart. The page can create charts for areas around the world, so its also useful for people planning trips who need to know what the skies will contain at their destination. For example, lets say someone lives in or near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They would scroll down to Fort Lauderdale on the list​ and click on it. It will automatically calculate the sky using the latitude and longitude of Fort Lauderdale as well as its time zone. Then, a sky chart will appear. If the background color is blue, it means the chart is showing the daytime sky.  If its a dark background, then the chart shows the night sky.   The beauty of these charts is that a user can click on any object or area in the chart to get a telescope view, a magnified view of that region. It should show any objects that are in that part of the sky. Labels such as NGC XXXX (where XXXX is a number) or Mx where x is also a number indicate deep-sky objects. Theyre probably galaxies or nebulae or star clusters. M numbers are part of Charles Messiers listing of faint fuzzy objects in the sky, and are worth checking out with a telescope. NGC objects are often galaxies. They may be accessible through a telescope, although many are fairly faint and hard to spot. Astronomers over the ages have collaborated on and created different lists of sky objects. The NGC and Messier lists are the best examples and are the most accessible to casual stargazers as well as advanced amateurs. Unless a stargazer is well-equipped to search out faint, dim, and distant objects, the advanced lists really arent of too much importance to backyard-type skygazers. Its best to stick with the really obvious bright objects for good stargazing results.Some of the better stargazing apps also allow a user to connect to a computerized telescope. The user inputs a target and the charting software directs the telescope to focus on the object. Some users then go on to photograph the object (if theyre so equipped), or simply gaze at it through the eyepiece. There is no limit to what a star chart can help an observer do.   The Ever-Changing Sky Its important to remember that the sky does change night after night. Its a slow change, but eventually, dedicated observers will notice that whats overhead in January is not visible in May or June. Constellations and stars that are high in the sky in the summertime are gone by mid-winter.  This happens throughout the year. Also, the sky seen from the northern hemisphere is not necessarily the same as what is seen from the southern hemisphere. There is some overlap, of course, but in general, stars and constellations visible from the northern parts of the planet arent always going to be seen in the south, and vice-versa.The planets slowly move across the sky as they trace their orbits around the Sun. The more distant planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, stay around the same spot in the sky for a long time. The closer planets such as Venus, Mercury, and Mars, appear to move more quickly.   Star Charts and Learning the Sky A good star chart shows not only the brightest stars visible at a given location and time but also gives constellation names and will often contain some easy-to-find deep-sky objects. These are usually such things as the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades star cluster, the Milky Way galaxy that we see from inside, star clusters, and the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Learning to read a chart enables skygazers to know exactly what theyre looking at, and leads them to explore for more celestial goodies.  Ã‚   Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

What is the current social, economic and political status of women in Research Paper

What is the current social, economic and political status of women in Saudi Arabia What are the obstacles to true reform of womens rights in Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example This essay discusses the social, economic, and political status of women in Saudi Arabia today. Women in Saudi Arabia are seriously underrepresented in important positions in both the private and public sectors. Possibly most evident, women experience discrimination in personal-status laws, which focus on features of family life such as marriage, inheritance, and child custody. Most Saudi laws proclaim that the husband is the head of the family, authorize the husband to control the decision of his wife about getting a paid job, and in certain instances openly instruct the wife to submit to her husband.ii However, major attempts have been initiated to advance women’s status over the recent years. Women have become more involved in business, education, and public life all over Saudi Arabia. The specific issues that have been of utmost concern to women in Saudi Arabia today relate to employment opportunities, access to health care and education, political rights, and legal protection. These issues have been the focus of almost all women and women’s movement in the region.iii For decades Saudi women have fought for equal opportunities. Today, they fight for their right to leave their houses without the supervision of a male kin and their right to work. The authority of the male relative guarantees the lack of freedom of Saudi women. A reform in women’s legal status is certainly the major change concerning women’s status in Saudi Arabia. The status of women is continuously advancing and in numerous universities the population of female students continuously grows. There are still a small number of women involved in paid employment, but those who are part of the labor force occupy very important positions and are willing and prepared to stand up for their careers, a characteristic highly valued by private organizations.iv Women are becoming more visible in new industries wherein they are now permitted to work; yet, poverty, homelessness, and

E-law questions part 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

E-law questions part 1 - Essay Example Moreover, US lawyers use technology in litigation, e-discovery, and e filing in courtrooms (American Bar Association 2012). They also use various hardware and software that include videoconferencing technology to take depositions and testimonies and to deliver professional legal education. On the other hand, videoconferencing technology applies in Australian courts in taking depositions and testimonies from witnesses and is accessible to lawyers in the urban areas. Indeed, there is little evidence of technology use by Australian lawyers in the rural and remote areas. Despite its significant benefits, IT and specifically videoconferencing technology is not popular with Australian lawyers (Kennedy &Winn, n.y). Internationalization has a positive impact on tax revenue charged by governments on businesses. Indeed, an increase in the internationalization indicator leads to a subsequent increase in tax revenue. Additionally, internationalization undermines the government’s potential to tax business income hence leading to more business profits. Moreover, it increases a business urge to relocate abroad and enhances the need for a better location with regard to infrastructure that promotes business activities. Indeed, it has adverse effects where a business finally relocates to another country. Globalization has divergent impact on business. It promotes the movement of goods across borders thus enhancing international trade. It leads to integrated customer service and the emergence of global business brand. It enables businesspersons to purchase products from convenient markets, selling of products in markets with higher profits, and outsourcing of raw materials. Additionally, globalization leads to high profit margins for companies that are able to source cheap raw materials and labor force from other countries. This equally leads to low earning potential for employees. Globalization also affects business management where companies can hire managers

Bond and Curve Essay Example for Free

Bond and Curve Essay The first tool that we want to use to look at news, news for fixed income. So what we’ll do is we’ll navigate down to the bottom of the menu, and we’ll click on 14 NBOND for bond news. Clicking that, it’ll load a very familiar page for you. This is the news categories. And you’ll notice on the top left in the toolbar it says bonds. So now we have our top bond news. This isn’t just our top bond news, but also we can choose popular news, and we can also see all news for bonds. You can customize the type of fixed income news by either clicking on customize and choosing from there, or if you click new search you can also type in additional fixed income topics like credit markets, municipal bonds, additional categories that I already have in my particular monitor here. Now for the next screen that we would like to look at is economic calendar. This is another screen that you should be familiar with already from the other videos, but let’s type in ECO for economic calendar. And from here, specifically for fixed income, we can focus on releases within the top left menu. If we click the economic releases and go down to government auctions, this is going to bring up the auctions for the United States in particular. You can change the country. If you want to put in Germany, you can type in Germany. And notice if we go back to the United States, all the current releases are in white and all the future releases are going to be in amber, just like before. If you want to see the results of those, you can again click into that release and you can see that data in there as well the news stories listed below. Now for an overview of the global fixed income markets, we can type WB for world bond markets, and then hit the go key. Notice that we have our countries on the left hand side, and across from those we have columns for information like price, the change in price, yield, change in yield, a charge of the yield. And then on the right side, we have a relative value performance of how do we look – how is the yield now versus the average over a period? In this case, we’re comparing the yield of now in blue versus the average, which is in three months. You can change that easily by clicking one week, for example, and now you can see if the yield is wider or tighter than the average that you specified on the top right. In addition, you can change the maturity of the bonds. If you want to look at five years, change it to five years and that’ll update – that’ll update accordingly. It’ll show you the individual securities here. If you want to see any additional information from those, you can actually click on the name of the country, and that’ll take you into a deeper level menu where now you can see the different tenors of that curve. You can see the curve spreads, butterflies, additional information there that you can explore. Let’s hit the menu key. We also have two additional tabs. If you click on spreads, that’ll give you spreads relative to the country you have selected. If you want to see spreads relative to Italy, we can choose Italy from the list. And now it’s giving you the spread of Italy versus the United States in blue. Additionally, you have the spread chart and the historical comparison available just like in the bonds tab. Lastly, we have the curves tab. And what that’s doing is it’s letting you compare all these countries with a side by side of each point on that curve so you can get a quick and real-time update of those curves and how they’re moving. Now WB is a monitor with real-time information that rates (ph) currently trading in the market. For an overview of bond yield forecasts, we can look at BYFC and hit go. Now BYFC will give you bond yield forecasts for multiple points on the curve, as well as three-month benchmark rates, as well as tenor spreads that you can specify up on the top right. You can narrow down the countries or focus on the countries based on your region on the top. And going back to let’s say the United States, BYFC has six quarters worth of forecasts. And these forecasts are contributed to us by economists and market researchers on a monthly basis by our Bloomberg monthly news surveys. When you click into the particular bond tenor, it’ll mention who forecasts, as well as the statistical information that corresponds with those surveys and when they were received. For a real-time monitor of benchmark rates, you can use BTMM. BTMM is our treasury and money markets monitor. This can be specified by country. You can change your country on the top left and then navigate based on the region and choose the country directly from there. Now we have rates from – deposit rates, all of our benchmark rates. It also includes treasury rates on the left side, as well as even the gold spot rate and equity index futures. This is a great way for market players and for you to get a pulse in real time what the rates are as they change in the market. To conduct curve comparison, to look at a curve for a particular country, to look at their CDS curve, rate curve, we can look at all those by typing CRVFgo for curve finder. Within the curve finder, along the top the tabs will show you what types of curves we have available. Within those, we can navigate by country. We can also look on the far side and see based on those countries what we have available. Now in our example, let’s search for the A US corporate curve. If we go to credit and then we look at industrial, we can then select the A. And we wanted to see this in US dollars, so we can click on US industrials A BVAL curve. Now that we have selected that curve, we can go to the bottom right and click show selected curves. Now we can see the curve for the US industrial A curve where we have the one-year through 30-year rate. These are the yields of the curve, and we also have some additional curves on the far right that I’ve added in the past. But right now we’re only seeing the industrial A curve. We have the yields down here on the bottom, and if we want to see this as of a historical date, then we can see how did that curve look one week ago. If we click on the one W at the top, now we can see the current curve versus the curve of one week ago, and then the spread between those two. If we want to enter a custom date instead, we can enter those dates here by clicking, and then we can put in the dates on the top. Now if we want to specify a custom date, we can go to the more tab. Then once we select, we can drop the custom date and then enter, let’s say, March 9, 2012. When we click update, now our curve will show March 9, 2012, along with the other dates there. If we want to add another curve and see how does this industrial curve compare to, maybe we could use the US swap curve here, we can just check that curve. And now you’ll see the other curve is in a different color and you can see them charted against each other. You can always unselect – you can always remove those curves as you like. If you want to add a curve that’s specific, you can click to browse, and then use that same menu and navigation to go to your next curve. The last thing I want to show you with the curve is to click menu to go back. And we can see these data points numerically in a table if we scroll our mouse or hit the page forward key on our keyboard, which is the green key next to our menu key that you used before. Now you can see for each curve what that historical date was in the table. All the applications we’ve discussed today have all been market monitors and broad-level overview. Now let’s move into actually finding a screen for securities. Then we’ll close with looking at individual security applications. Now, to start, the easiest application that we have to do a security find is to actually use SECF, go. SECF is our security finder. And what that allows you to do is to browse Bloomberg’s universe of securities and statistics. Now the security finder is really in two sections. The top is our control area, which allows you to look at the individual tabs by asset class, as well as the search tool at the very top left. The second half is really the output section, the section that’s going to show you the results in a table, and then it’ll let you search by relevancy. Now let’s say that we have an example where we want to search for a bond from IBM. We can click on 32FI, and then notice that we have always additional buttons across the bottom. Now we have this for corporates, but in addition, if you happen to look for bond futures, interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, loans, those are available there too. For IBM, we’ll stay on corporate. And then in the issuer name, we can type in IBM for International Business Machines. Alternatively, you could also type in IBM as the ticker since that’s the actual corporate ticker for IBM. Here we can actually look through the list and search what coupon we were looking for. We can do that, or we can actually narrow it out and type in 7.5 and – if that’s the coupon we’re looking for – and then it’ll show it right there. It’ll give us brief statistics in that list. And then when you’re ready to actually load that security for analysis, then you can actually click on that security and it’ll launch that for you. Now if you would rather use the search box instead of narrowing it down through these filters, you can clear that from the list. And then in the top where it says search, you can type IBM. We were looking at the 7.5 percent coupon. When we hit go, then again it’ll show us our result here. If you wish to do a more sophisticated search, you can definitely do that within Bloomberg. In order to do that search, you would type SRCH and then hit go. Within SRCH, you can do an advanced search for corporates and government bonds. To do so, start out with clicking on the top red – top right red advanced search button. Now you’ll see your difference choices on the left for your filtering. If you wish to specify an issue date or a maturity date, you can go into issuance information 2, click there, and then you can enter that information here. Additionally, covenants. You can definitely select any one of these check boxes. You can just definitely notice these gray tabs as you scroll across the top. This is where you’re going to get your additional information. You can narrow it down by credit ratings and choose. Let’s say you want to use SP ratings and you want to include only investment grade in your search. Now you can either individually select, or you can click investment grade and then click update. You can also – if you want to specify a particular range of yields or a particular price range, you can click 7, inventory and analytical data. And then down here in the middle you can specify your prices or your yields. We’ll make our search very broad and we’ll put in 1 to 10 percent, and then click update. This is – this is not the exhaustive list. You can click any one of these. And you’ll notice that we also again have additional tabs here if you want to sort by sector. The list goes on. Now let’s click 1 go. The way to see your search results is to click 1, go to search. Notice that we have over 30,000 results. We’ll only see 5,000 of those results in this screen. In addition, if you were to export this to Excel, which you can definitely do, that will also be limited to a maximum of 5,000 results, just as – as a note for that. You can also save this search. If this is a search that you need to run again, then you can go to options, save search, and then you can come back to this search in the future and rerun it. And in the future, you may have – you’ll have the opportunity to have those different results. Now let’s – let’s look at screens that pertain to individual securities. Before we were looking at a bond with a 7.5 percent coupon from IBM. We can type IBM at the top, and then 7.5. Notice that our auto complete helps find that security. So you can use SECF that we discussed before, or you can use auto complete to type in your security if you have the – the information here, like we do. You can that to select your security, or you can also type it in as your CUSIP (ph) or other identifier there and it’ll help find it for you. We’ll click it from that list, and that automatically loads the security for us. You’ll notice that we have this menu of applications that we can run. And we won’t have time to discuss these today, but definitely explore these for your analytics for relative value hedging, things that you can look forward to in the future. The particular screen that we’re looking for right now is the description page. So click on 16 DES on the top right. Now notice on the description page we have the core information, including issuer, the type of issuer it is, the sector that they’re in. We have the coupon – coupon frequency, core information about that security. On the left side, we have navigation. We can look at information such as covenants. We can look at bond ratings. If you want to see historical bond ratings for this issuer, then you can actually click on the expansion tabs to see those right in the screen. In addition to that, you can also see if there’s multiple coupons or if there’s a schedule, if it’s callable or puttable, things like that. You can click into schedules. It’s grayed out if it’s not available. In addition to the information that we have in the bond description, we also have a tab for issuer-level information. Let’s click on 22 issuer description. And particularly, we can look at 4 debt summary to look at their distribution. Now here we have nice charts and breakdowns, but note that in these individual tabs on the left we can also launch the individual applications directly by clicking on them. If we expand this window, now we can see the full application for our debt distribution. And here we can see IBM, and then we can also see the companies that are part of that business where we can see the issuer and subsidiaries. As we scroll down, we can see that entire list. One additional note is that you can also group your debt distribution by whether it’s just the issuer – only obligations of the current issuer. You can narrow down that debt based on its group. Let’s close that. Notice that we have more than just the debt distribution. We also have major creditors who own that bond, credit health as in financial ratios to give you a better perspective on not just that particular issue, but also that issuer. Now, to move from core information – core descriptive information to actual analytics to run yield analysis on this particular security, we can type YA and hit go for yield analysis. On this page, you can see that we have additional tabs, one for yield and spread. We can then move to pricing to see descriptive information. But let’s stay on the yield and spread tab just for a moment. The yield and spread analysis screen will let you price a fixed income security, calculate risk, hedge amounts, and see market data. You can input custom spreads. So in this case it’s the spread to bench, and it’ll reprice your security based on your input. So here we put a spread to bench of 20 basis points and it recalculated our price and yield. In addition, we can change how we calculate our yield if it’s yield to worse (ph), or yield to maturity, or yield to a custom date. We can also enter in historical dates in our historical settle (ph), and you just type that in here. We have our spreads. You won’t need to know – if you’re not familiar with these types of spreads, if you hover your mouse over them, it’ll give you a brief description of what those are. On the right side, we have our risk measures, risk and convexity. We have our risk hedge. These are against the benchmark that you select here. And then also, it calculates our accrued interest and all-in price. We can move across the tabs along the top, and now we can pricing. Pricing based on what’s available on the market from the trace reporting, from our runs messages, things like that, descriptive information or snapshots from what we had on the description page that we looked at just prior to this screen. We have relative value graphs to see not just what it is today, but how that’s changed over time. And then custom gives you full customization of what type of information you want to see on each page. You can click into any one of these tabs to then launch that individual analysis within that section of the screen. If you like this custom tab or any of these tabs, you can change the order by dropping it across, and then it’ll set that way for you going forward. The final screen we’d like to discuss today is a credit monitor that you can type GCDS. Notice again we used auto complete. We can select it here or hit go. And what GCDS does is it shows you credit default swap spreads based on the sectors that you choose.gcds You can set it by region. You can import a portfolio or – based on an equity index, a launch pad monitor. It gives you a very wide range of sources to pull that from, as well as the full customization of what spreads you wish to see. In my setup here, we can look at it by region. We have it set up for the Americas, although we can set it for global. Here I have listed for banks, but we can choose by any sector listed in this drop menu. We can choose to sort out whether we want to see investment grade or high yield. And then we can choose which tenor of the CDS curve we wish to view. And lastly, we can choose which pricing source we want to narrow that down by. We can choose CMA New York, for example, or we can also use a Bloomberg composite price here, which is what we’ll use going forward here. Now, on the right-hand column are all securities or all the issuers where we have CDS pricing based on our selections up here. If we choose to check off the box, then it’ll add that – that name to that chart, and you’ll notice it’s added that in the legend if it’s available. We also can see the average spread for all 35, or we can do – we can click on average of selected ancd then see that charted. So we can say which names are above the average, which names are below the average. To conclude that example, notice that our highest spread on the chart is currently Morgan Stanley. Notice that on the legend it highlights the name. That is currently trading above the average, which is 201. Notice that if I put my cursor on the actual – the average of selected, then it also highlights which line that is. The average is at 201. So GCS is a great tool to not just narrow out the individual names that you want to chart on a graph, but also let’s you easily compare those not just against each other but also against as a group average. And just as a note, if you never get your mouse to the very top right hand corner, you can see that there’s an icon with a green arrow. You can click on this green arrow and drag that into Excel, and that’ll move the information from the screen into Excel for you. This concludes are session on fixed income essentials. If you need any future assistance, please feel free to hit the help key twice for immediate assistance from our 24/7 global help desk.

What Is An American Essay -- Definition Essys Expository Papers

Since this great country was first established many intuitive minds have tried to answer the question; "What is an American". This country is full of individuals of many backgrounds, and diversities and each person has a different opinion on this question. In my opinion, an American is someone who values freedom and equality and pursues the "American dream." Every American exercises these rights and these are great adjectives to describe our country. Each of the seven readings, and the one image I compiled help mold this broader definition into a more precise description of an American. Robert Creeley, an influential American writer and poet, lived the ideal American dream. He wrote about his struggles early in his life. He lost his father at an early age and went away to school at the age of fourteen. He overcame all adversity to work hard for a living and, in return, live the American dream. He also wrote that the United States is a place where all people want to go because it offers a chance at renewal and making their lives better (Creeley). This, in its essence, is the American Dream; A happy and successful life to which all may aspire. My image represents this through the picture of the big house and the expensive car. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America, in a letter to John Adams, wrote about the benefits of America. He wrote about people coming to America and pursuing any profession they wanted and they were protected by the law (Jefferson). At that time this was the American dream; hard work could lead to a better life. This led to having enough earnings to support a family and it transformed into something totally different. Henry James, a European, around the same time criticized this id... ...ction. Works Cited Adams, John. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Alvarez, Julia. The Woman I Kept to Myself. Algonquin Books, 2004. Creely, Robert. The Collected Essays of Robert Creely. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Vintage, 1995. James, Henry. Works of Henry James. Including The Portrait of a Lady, The Turn of the Screw, The Ambassadors, The Bostonians, The Europeans, The Wings of the Dove. MobileReference, 2009. Mayers, Florence. A Russian ABC: Featuring Masterpieces from the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (Mayers, Florence Cassen. ABC.). ABRAMS, 1992. Nye, Naomi. Fuel: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye. BOA Editions Ltd., 1998.

Rhetorical Analysis of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Essay

Being proud of one’s culture and language is often times lost when immigrating to a new country. Although criticized and attacked for her culture, Gloria Anzaldua describes in â€Å"How to Tame a Wild Tongue† that she refuses to let others force her to reject her culture for the sake of belonging and informs Americans and Latinos attempting to suppress Chicano culture specifically that she will persevere through the hardship to keep her identity alive and thriving. Anzaldua calls her readers to understand that the Chicano language and heritage should be recognized and that they be identified as a distinct people; that they are more than nothing. Anzaldua begins with engaging the reader by providing a personal experience of when she was sent to the corner of the classroom for â€Å"talking back† to her teacher when her intention was just to tell the teacher how to pronounce her name (374). In her second section â€Å"Overcoming the Tradition of Silence† (37 4), Anzaldua adds internal incite on the culture of the Chicano and the barriers of her language, supporting her credibility and supporting ethos with another personal account. She displays these different scenarios from her point of view, showing her audience what it feels like to live through these situations as a Chicano. Switching back and forth from English to Spanish, Anzaldua cleverly uses this form of diction to establish ethos with the reader. She puts the reader somewhat in her shoes when growing up in America, not knowing every English word she was read or heard. It makes the reader feel rather awkward or embarrassed for not knowing what the Spanish words mean. Another form of ethos is present when she states, â€Å"If you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language† (378). Anzaldua uses ethos again to demonstrate that what people value highly, their language, is what she values sincerely, claiming â€Å"I am my language† (378). Anzaldua establishes logos by enlightening us as to why Chicano Spanish is different from Standard Spanish, explaining that the significant differences in the Spanish Chicanos speak developed after 250 years of Spanish/Anglo  colonization (376). She again uses logic in determining that even though by the end of this century Spanish speakers will embody the largest minority group in the U.S, English will be the mother tongue of Chicanos and Latinos due to the fierce influence of the degradation of the use of Spanish (378). Works Cited Anzaldua, Gloria. â€Å"How to Tame a Wild Tongue† From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Stuart Green and April Lidinsky. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2012. 322-36. Print. Documentation Statement: I received no help on this assignment.

James Loewen

To describe this work overall is rather a monumental task because there aren’t many other books out there like this one.   Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen takes on really two tasks.   One is to question and answer the concept of why students dislike history classes.   The second is to prove the idea that much of what students learn in American history classes is wrong and that there are many omissions.   The author can be described as a teacher who challenges the role of revisionist history in American schools. He says that much of American history alienates children of color by ignoring the fact that many of the people who contributed greatly to this country were indeed, non-white.   Because of the nature of textbooks in American high schools, much of college history classes are taken up â€Å"fixing† the subject matter that students have learned in high school history classes. Being a college history professor, he asserts this with confidence.   Loewen does not deny the importance of knowing history for one minute, but he does question what we know.   Loewen is a university professor of history at the University of Vermont, and his study in preparation for writing this book consisted of studying twelve textbooks covering a range in American history.   He set about to â€Å"analyze the process of textbook creation and adoption to explain what causes textbooks to be as bad as they are† and the effects of using them. So, why is history boring according to Loewen?   History is made up of nothing but stories which should not be boring, but textbook companies have left out anything that â€Å"might reflect badly upon our national character† (Loewen).   As Loewen says, there is no sense of drama in history taught in schools, and there is every sense that things will work out in the end.   This alone makes history boring.   It is also boring because â€Å"textbooks almost never use the present to illuminate the past† (Loewen).   Therefore, students have a difficult time understanding the relevance to their daily lives. History is portrayed as a â€Å"morality play,† in which the touchy areas are never taught or discussed.   Publishers tend not to acknowledge problems of today or use the past to shed some light.   They also never speak of the factors that contributed to problems; rather a â€Å"blame the victim† approach is used.   As Loewen says, â€Å"While there is nothing wrong with optimism, it does become something of a burden for students of color, children of working class parents, girls who notice an absence of women who made history, or any group that has not already been outstandingly successful† (Loewen).   This â€Å"burden† turns students off to history because it does not accurately address any of these things nor does it tell the full stories. Textbooks ignore many historical realities for a variety of reasons.   The biggest reason is that publishers believe that students must develop a sense of nationalism or patriotism.   To acknowledge troubling areas in our nation’s history is to run the risk that patriotism will not be developed.   A â€Å"happy† view of history leads Americans to believe that everything is okay, so students are not troubled.   This view of history embraces the American idea of individualism rather than looking at the many factors that affected lack of equal opportunity.   Textbooks make us believe that equal opportunity was and is an option for all. As for other reasons, Loewen does a thorough job pointing these out.   Facts are presented â€Å"as one damn thing after another† (Loewen).   Books â€Å"suppress causation† (Loewen).   In fact, many of the facts included are flat out wrong and many of the books are clones of each other, which means the facts are wrong over and over again.   They rarely include primary source documents, which Loewen compares to students taking a course in poetry without reading a poem.   Plus the books are just so darn big that students hate carrying them and reading them. In his Table of Contents he discusses all the false information or omissions based on his study of textbooks, such as the study of Christopher Columbus, Thanksgiving, Native Americans, the invisibility of racism, the absence of social class, the disappearance of the recent past, and the myth of progress to name a few.   These chapters contain much needed information about the true stories. The results of his study conclude that students are bored with or alienated from history or both.   They are also not able to use the past in order to think about the future.   He proposes this book partly in order to discuss how to assess all the various sources of knowledge about history and to help teachers think about how to learn history more accurately. As he ponders the idea of â€Å"truth† in revisionist history in every chapter, I will use one chapter as an example.   In the chapter entitled hero Making Heroes, examples are given of how textbooks leave important ideas or at least controversial ones out of the books.   For example, Loewen tells us that Helen Keller was a radical socialist.   Books leave out all mention of Woodrow Wilson’s racism and the fact that there was a new surge of racial violence in this country after his presidency. And last but not least, discussion of Christopher Columbus has been totally slanted.   He took land from the Native Americans and engaged in slave trade or forced labor.   He alone destroyed entire nations of Native Americans.   Only six of twelve textbooks even mentioned the idea of forced labor at all.   And yet, most of what is taught does none of these things. Loewen concludes with the statement that â€Å"students will start learning history when they see the point of doing so, when it seems interesting and important to them, and when they believe history might relate to their lives and futures† (Loewen). I believe the author does accomplish his goals.   He absolutely adequately sums up why students hate history.   The study of history seems all about facts and dates that have no relation to each other or to our lives.   History books are chock full of names and dates but not material that challenges the student to really think about and analyze history.   These facts are expected to be taken at face value and not to be questioned.   Any controversy is left out of books.   Students need to be taught history in a more meaningful way so that they can use the past to illuminate the future or even the future to illuminate the past. To me, understanding is the only reason to teach anything, not rote memorization of facts that aren’t even true.   I understand that standardized testing puts a lot of pressure on history teachers, but American schools should at least be able to find a way to present both sides of issues.   Students could truly be more interested in history that way.   Teaching only the wonderful qualities in American history and ignoring the disturbing parts is not a way to push students to become leaders of tomorrow.   If one truly wants to fix problems, one must first identify what the problems are.   For example, in terms of equal opportunity, it is important for students to realize that phrase was always a dream propagated by white people. People of color in this country have never had even a remote chance to thrive the way white people have.   Therefore, current practices like affirmative action might not seem so terrible if they understand the history all the way down the line.   There has always been affirmative action; it was just only for white people.   Now that we give it a name and make it policy to benefit nonwhite people, society is up in arms.   Teaching about the historical laws and rules that made it impossible to receive a fair chance if one was non-white is at least a step in the right direction.   Maybe that would help illuminate the present by using the past.   It would also highlight high level skills like synthesis and critical thinking. I detest the idea of revisionist history.   I understand that there are places where a thorough understanding is just not possible.   For example, teaching about our genocide of the Native Americans to elementary students is not a good idea.   However, we can teach about such things from primary source documents.   Falsities do not have to be taught.   We certainly do not need to reinforce the idea that Indians have all vanished or that they live in teepees still.   If all else fails, leave the study of these people or events out of history classes where students are too young to understand the ramifications. Loewen would not propose this as it would be yet another omission.   Loewen’s book should be required reading for any person planning on teaching anything.   Loewen gives a very thorough account of the many inaccuracies and omissions that are currently taught.   A lot of people have not had enough history after high school to even realize that this is the case or to put all the information together, to synthesize it in such a way that the light bulb finally comes on. And while it is much easier to take the safe route, that one is rarely the best.   In this culture we need more critical thinkers, not more people who can memorize facts.   In this information age, it is more crucial than ever to teach others how to think, not what to think.   Any fact we will ever need is at our fingertips on the Internet.   What we aren’t taught is how to analyze and evaluate or how to come to a conclusion based on thorough understanding of both sides (informed decisions).   In addition, teaching the truth of some of these historical inaccuracies might go a long way in helping racial inequities or other avenues where we â€Å"blame the victim† in our culture.   Certainly we would change our definition of America, but we might be more apt to become part of the solution. Works Cited Loewen, James, Lies My Teacher Told Me, Simon and Schuster, 1995.

WWII and the homefront essays

WWII and the homefront essays Civil Defense and Race Relations in World War Two Civil defense and race relations were two current topics during World War Two. There was a plethora of racism throughout the country at this time. At the same time because of the possible threat of bombings by Hitlers Luftwaffe or his new age V-rockets there was the issue of civil defense. Certain races during the Second World War discriminated against. One of the races that faced this discrimination was the Japanese-Americans. The Japanese-Americans had done nothing wrong, but the biased views of many Americans of European heritage caused this terrible discrimination. Many Americans saw the Japanese-Americans as a threat to their national security. Most of the Japanese-Americans were United States born citizens. Even though the Japanese-Americans were discriminated against over 8,000 young Japanese-Americans were eventually drafted into service by the end of the war. Many Japanese-Americans were put into internment camps. These camps had many striking resemblances to the German concentration camps. There were camps in six states along the west coast. The Japanese-Americans were rounded up, especially along the west coast and put into these camps. These people had already been discriminated against before the war but with the attack on Pearl Harbor bitterness arose in America. The camps were usually old army tents set up in the desert. The people were fed little and held under strict watch. In early 1942 President Roosevelt gave into the military leaders complaints and gave the okay to round up the Japanese Americans and place them in the camps. These Americans were forced to sell there houses in a very short period of time. They usually had to sell their homes a very low price in order to sell them before they were put into the camps. Many Japanese-American business men were also forced to sell their business at very low prices to avoid the being seized by ...

6 Life Tips For Bloggers To Boost Their Personal Productivity

6 Life Tips For Bloggers To Boost Their Personal Productivity According to  s Better Blogger survey, their audiences biggest challenges are: 22% say it’s finding time to create content. 20% say it’s planning content. 16% say it’s creating really good content. 11% say it’s creating consistent content. 6% say it’s meeting blogging goals. 6% say it’s proving blogging success. 4% say it’s using new content formats. 4% say it’s relying on team members to get things done. It is interesting to note here that 7  out of the above  8 primary  challenges are things that can be achieved if consistently high personal productivity is introduced in the mix. Now I know its difficult to be productive all the time. Its not a switch that can wishfully be toggled on or off. As a blogger myself, these are problems that even I face and know how annoying they can get when they regularly stop me from achieving my goals. But I cant afford to give up and neither can you. Fortunately, science and professional experience over the year has done us a solid by coming up with proven productivity tips that can help any person become more efficient and consistent at their work. All it requires is some self control and discipline. With that in mind, here is a countdown to six  of the best life tips that will boost your personal productivity (oh, and Ive included some bonus life tips with each point so check them out, too)! 6 Life Tips That Will Help Every #Blogger Boost Their Personal #Productivity via @SujanDeswal6. Drop That Smartphone, Now It's interesting to know that director Christopher Nolan, who has helmed movies like Inception, Interstellar, and the Dark Knight Trilogy, does not own a smartphone because he feels that it distracts him. And research agrees with him. The smartphone stress emanates from the need to constantly check your phone for any notifications or messages that people might send you. The reason for such behavior is a social phenomena called the fear of missing out (FOMO). We fear that we might lose out on so many important social happenings and events and the company of friends around us. Since a smartphone  is the quickest way to get access to such information, we spend time obsessively checking every â€Å"bleep† or â€Å"tin tin†,  with  social media fueling the angst even more. It takes your mind 64 seconds to return to work after distractions. #bloggingProfessor Larry Rosen, from California State University, talks about a small experiment  he conducted  on this obsessiveness. He asked 100 of his students to install a custom app which would check how many times they unlocked their phones and the usage statistics, during their final exam week. What he found was  quite astonishing. Students unlocked the phone, on an average, 60 times a day for a total of 200 minutes. Which roughly translates to 3.3 minutes usage for three times an hour every day. Just enough time to check their social media (this, when they should be studying for the final exam). In fact, after checking an email, it takes your mind 64 seconds to get back to whatever it is you were doing earlier. Now since we’re all different, I’m not going to share generic pointers to help you not check your phone constantly. Instead I’ll share tactics that have worked for me and it would be swell if you shared some of yours in the comments, too. Here they are: I've uninstalled all social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I now only have WhatsApp (with all notification sounds and popups disabled). I've made it a rule to never use my phone while driving. Luckily, in the last four months, I’ve just received two calls that actually deserved my immediate attention. When I’m working, I keep my phone on vibration mode (I guess we all do). I go on ‘no smartphone check’ marathons where I don’t check my phone for an hour, three to four times a day (this has helped me the most). I don’t keep my phone in my hands or at the desk. It’s always where I can't see it, which is mostly my pocket or my backpack. Takeaway: Your smartphones are making you more stressed and hence, more incompetent at your job. Practice rigorous discipline to beat this addiction. Bonus life tip:  Play more video games because they improve reflexes, reasoning, problem solving, memory, multi-tasking, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and a lot more. 5. Save Time By Automating Routine Tasks Tim Ferris, author of the highly successful blog fourhourworkweek.com  deems automation as one of the pillars of his ground-breaking book The 4-Hour WorkWeek. In it, he describes how his preferred  automation function is fulfilled by outsourcing. He outsources all non-work tasks to his virtual assistants who then get them done while Tim can concentrate on major work-related tasks. Automate or outsource repetitive tasks to improve your #PersonalProductivity.To add to the above- Randall Munroe, mathematician and creator of the webcomic XKCD- drew a cartoon which details how much time would you save if you learned how to automate routine work: So to lend some perspective from a blogger's point of view, find tools and processes that  enable automatic  completion of repetitive tasks so that you can get the time to concentrate on your actual work objectives: Send bulk emails with  GetResponse. Schedule content, blog posts, and social media  with . Automatically share updates and blogs with Buffer  and . Come up with ideas and topics in the beginning of every month with HubSpot Topic Generator  (use this along with 's Headline Analyzer to review and create better  headlines). Use Keyboard shortcuts. Brainscape, a  Web and Mobile  study platform, did an interesting calculation and found that a person  can save almost 8 complete days in an year if they didn't  have to switch one hand between a keyboard and a mouse. Create Google Alerts around topics that you care about  so that you're automatically notified about any new updates related to them. Personally, I  use Google Alerts to keep track of places where I've just been mentioned. I can then immediately head over to that community/comment/post and engage with the audience. Like above, there are hundreds of tools that you can use to automate boring grunt work. Not only will this save time, it will help you stay productive by keeping your mind free of the clutter. In fact, you can even save up to 10+ hours a week if such menial tasks were off your hands. Takeaway: Wherever possible, save time by using applications to automate repetitive tasks. Bonus Life Tip: Listening to music can make boring tasks enjoyable and increase on-task concentration. 4. Visualizing Success Is Actually Counterproductive We’ve all done it because we borrow some of that future "after completion of task satisfaction", for right now. This positive feeling in turn motivates us more to actually get the job done. However, science says otherwise. In their study â€Å"The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies†, researchers Oettingen and Mayer ran a group of tests around four scenarios to examine the effects of fantasizing a positive outcome on participants. They write: As positive expectations reflect past successes, they signal that investment in the future will pay off. Positive fantasies, to the contrary, lead people to mentally enjoy the desired future in the here and now, and thus curb investment and future success. This behavior stems psychologically from self-efficacy which refers to your  trust in yourself  capability to reach your  goal. So what's happening? Basically once you’ve visualized that next blog post or that next profitable venture, your mind experiences some of that satisfaction and then tells your body to cool down. Your mental state becomes lethargic (of the goal having been achieved) as opposed to vigilant (of the goal has yet to be achieved). In fact, sharing your goals with your friends makes it even  likelier that you’re going to give up- a  research study involving college students found that the participants’ commitment to complete goals wavered once they publicly shared it with their colleagues.   This happens because sharing goals triggers a â€Å"premature sense of of completeness†. Do you share your personal #blogging goals? Research says it's time to stop.'So now onwards the name of the game is to just â€Å"zip it†: Takeaway: Keep your goals to yourself. Expect a positive outcome but don’t visualize or fantasize about it. Actually make it happen. Bonus life tip: Eye strain? Flex every muscle in your face and then hold. Relax. Repeat for a few more minutes. This muscle relaxation technique is called ‘Tense and Release’. 3.  Don’t Stress Over 'Originality' The one problem that writers face regularly is how to come up with original hard hitting ideas and topics that will excite or astonish their users. Those who effortlessly get original ideas regularly are considered to be lucky or having a gift, but this could not be further than the truth. Bloggers who get new ideas don’t just get them because they’re lucky but because they are experienced. Ideas and news have surrounded us left and right, and these bloggers  just know how to connect different dots to make a completely new idea. Remember- nothing is original. In his critically acclaimed book ‘Steal Like An Artist’, author Austin Kleon opines that: What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. In fact, Josh shared the following illustration to explain simply good theft versus bad theft: So if you’re not supposed to force yourself to be original all the time, then how do you come up with original ideas in the long run that hook readers to your content and provide new valuable insights in your niche? The answer is, you don’t. Originality is not a result of finding ideas  but connecting dots. Finding ideas stems from your knowledge of the field or subject that you write about. It is a result of theoretical learning but not practical application. Nothing is original. But you can  connect the dots with your own perspective. #bloggingConnecting dots, on the other hand, comes from experience in the field and seeing trends and things happen firsthand. The more you read and experience things, the greater you develop your ability to connect different things and build a new idea out of them (e.g. my comprehensive post on why you  need eye-tracking testing for your website). The core idea might not be original per se,* but how you present it is what makes it original. Blogger extraordinaire Maria Popova of BrainPickings.org sums it up best in her quote: The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles. Takeaway: Read more and read wide. The more you read, talk to new people or experience new things, the better you’ll become at connecting pieces of information together to spawn an original idea. Bonus Life Tip: You can remember lists of things more easily if you create a story or mental palace around them in your environment. 2. Stop Overanalyzing And Commit To A Decision It’s no secret that in any environment that you reside in, there is an information overload. Starting with unrestricted access to the Internet to  the number of same fruit juices, but  different brand options, at the local grocery mart. So many options and decisions eventually immobilize the brain’s capability to take the effort to stick to a single decision as a result of analysis paralysis. Now as a blogger, I can totally relate to this when you’re stuck between deciding which task to be given more importance. Should I finish that blog post due tomorrow evening? Should I send this week's email newsletter first? Should I set up and A/B test on the new landing page?  The questions are countless, and not to mention that I haven’t yet gotten to the domestic and personal decisions that you have to make which, arguably, might affect your life more seriously. To beat this conundrum, you have to practice to think less and do more. In a recent study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found that fast learners don’t overthink. And why does this occur? Lead author of the study Danielle Bassett, replies: Sometimes your brain can actually get in the way when the information is actually already in your motor memory. If you stop thinking so hard, then you actually perform better. This is also the reason why children have a higher and faster learning rate because they don't possess the high level cognitive process that adults have. Which means that a child is incapable to overthink and is instead concentrating on quick information intake and its dissemination. Think less and do more. Analysis paralysis is stopping you from reaching your goals. #productivityIn an interview over at Barking Up The Wrong Tree, James Waters, ex Deputy Director of Scheduling at the White House and former NAVY Seal platoon commander reminisces: Wherever possible avoid paralysis by analysis. I think analysis and data are super important. No matter what organization you’re working in you’ve got to get things right and know the data that backs it up. But too many organizations get paralyzed because they analyze for too long and they haven’t developed the instincts to make decisions. They end up postponing things in favor of more and more analysis. That’s frustrating for everyone in the organization. Being able to make decisions when you know you have imperfect data is so critical. But how do you use this knowledge to commit to decisions? Further into his  post, author Eric Barker contacted Duke professor Dan Ariely, writer of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, to ask for his solution on taking critical decisions instantly. Dan advised that in such situations, the best thing is to look at the decision from an â€Å"outsider’s perspective†, in other words, â€Å"What would you do if you made the recommendation for another person?† This works because you give a recommendation dispassionately, minus your current emotional state. The decision in such a case is almost always a better one because we’re taking it from a distance. So the next time you find yourself taking more than a minute to decide which is a better header image for your new post, just take the plunge and move on to the next thing. Takeaway: Do not waste valuable working memory over analyzing decisions or options. Commit to a decision and then later on optimize, if the need arises. Bonus Life Tip: If you don’t overthink about the future, you will get better at everything. 1. Just Smile (To Yourself) Smile to yourself or even to others. I’m not saying you go out of your way to smile at everyone because people, on an average, can easily spot a fake smile. I’m not asking you to smile for or at someone. Think of it on the lines of a holistic approach. Smile generally when you’re listening to a song, or writing, or even while taking a bath. Radio and television writer Andy Rooney  put it eloquently when he said: If you smile when you are alone, then you really mean it. Speaking from personal experience, smiling is the single most effective and powerful tool in my mental inventory to boost my personal  productivity. Smiling  increases  confidence level and helps generate and maintain positive emotions. These positive emotions then have a trickle down effect on your work given that you’ll become more positive about reaching your goals and not stress so much even when things don’t go your way. Research has also shown that smiling can release endorphins (natural pain reliever) and even serotonin (natural antidepressant). Smiling is scientifically proven to increase your #PersonalProductivity. Here's how.It is interesting to note that doctors have proven and recommend that you should strive for a Duchenne smile rather than a fake â€Å"Say Cheese† smile. The former is controlled by the limbic system (emotional center of the brain, hence the smile is triggered by a genuine emotion) and the latter is controlled by the motor cortex (the smile is asymmetrical and fake). But sometimes, if the need arises, even faking a smile can lead to a better mood, lower your heart rate and facilitate faster cardiovascular stress recovery. Even Will Ferrell nailed it as an adorable elf with his viral quote: But I have trouble forcing a real smile! Well luckily, Marcia Purse from About Health, put together an amazing list just to help you smile. It involves: Jump on the bed Make faces at yourself in the mirror Bake cookies Dance Find a playground and swing on the swingset (I find this one wonderful) Look at your baby pictures Hug someone you love Take a walk in the sun- or the rain Watch cartoons you loved as a kid Imitate a celebrity- with exaggeration Visit a pet store Sing a happy song Blow bubbles and watch them (works for me every time) Watch children playing and laughing Eat a bit of your favorite junk food- slowly, savoring it Takeaway: Smiling is the single most powerful exercise you can do anywhere, anytime, and it will positively affect your mental and biophysical functions and increase your personal productivity. Bonus Life Tip: Exercise. It can uplift your mood for up to 12 hours afterwards. Finally, wrapping up with a tl;dr recap Drop  that smartphone. Now. Save time  by automating routine tasks. Visualizing  success is actually counterproductive. Don’t stress over 'originality'. Stop overanalyzing and commit to a  decision. Just smile (to yourself).