Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Leadership Traits in Europe, Russia, and Japan Essay -- Cross-cultural

Leadership has meaning only in an organizational context, and only in the sense of managing within a system of inequalities. Superior-subordinate relationships help to define leadership behavior, and the culture in any particular society influences the nature of these relationships. Two leadership roles are common to all societies, however. The first is the Charismatic role, or the capability to provide vision and inspiration. This is emphasized by transformational leadership concepts. The second is the instrumental role, or the capability to design effective organizational processes, control activities, and meet organizational objectives. This describes the functional expectations of someone is a leadership role. However, each society determines the relative importance of each role and therefore what makes a good leader. Cross-cultural research has identified a pattern of characteristics common to effective leaders in these two roles, but these commonalities do not constitute shared traits. They include:  · Conscientiousness Dependability, achievement orientation, and perseverance within the scope of one’s responsibilities  · Extroversion Open, accessible attitude, as opposed to remaining insulated from group activities  · Dominance Appropriate use of authority in a system of inequalities  · Self-confidence Comfort in one’s own skills and abilities for managing Recent research has also suggested that regardless of cultural contingencies, effective leaders tend to display intelligence, energy, emotional stability, and openness to experience. In the international context, this last characteristic encourages cultural sensitivity without ethnocentric imposition. Each society assigns unique meanings for most of these characteristics, and consequently their importance varies in all societies. For example, Mainland Chinese people agree with those in the United States that perseverance is an essential attribute of a conscientious manager, but the two societies do not interpret achievement in the same way; unlike Americans the Chinese ascribe little value to individual success. Other terms, such a dominance, carry value-loaded and controversial meanings, but the root meaning of accepting the mantle of leadership is worldwide. In confronting such shared attitudes, researchers have focused on how leadership roles vary across cultures a... ...ions and a growing number of foreign enterprises do business in Japan. As a consequence, observers, believe that Japan is on the brink of major changes in its management systems. They emphasize that traditions of insular relationships and company solidarity worked extremely well in a rapidly expanding economy, but today’s slower growth requires the country’s businesses to adjust to international management practices to retain their competitive strength. Consequently, industry leaders are beginning to realize the need to abandon practices that depend on homogenous companies and culture-bound commitments to the organization. A growing group of observers expects that Japanese companies will relinquish centralized control of overseas posts, and that firms will scale down large headquarters staff. Some companies have begun to adapt U.S. management techniques that reward individuals on merit; some also accept the idea of employee mobility and hire outside talent. In effec t, some evidence indicates reconciliation of Western management practices, but change is likely to be slow, and it is unlikely to affect enterprises in Japan as much as Japanese firms` activities in foreign countries.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Mental Health Counseling Essay -- essays research papers

Mental health counselors work with individuals, families, and groups to address and treat mental and emotional disorders and to promote mental health. They are trained to address a wide range of issues, including depression, addiction and substance abuse, suicidal impulses, stress management, problems with self-esteem, issues associated with aging, job and career concerns, educational decisions, issues related to mental and emotional health, and family, parenting, and marital or other relationship problems. Mental health counselors often work closely with other mental health specialists, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, and school counselors. (US Department of Labor)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To be a licensed mental health counselor a person must have a Masters Degree in counseling or other related field. The program must consist of 60 semester hours and 1000 hours of university sponsored clinical or internship experience. The degree program should be certified by CACREP. A CACREP certified program insures that the program meets examination requirements for licensure. Once completed, one must have two years of supervision and pass national or state examinations to obtain licensure.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Licensed mental health counselors have many ethical and legal issues dealing with interacting with clients in a way that leaves them in a better place. It is crucial that counselors act within the b...

Organizing and Controlling are Related Essay

Functions of management consist of organizing, planning, controlling, staffing, delegation and leading. (Koontz & Weihrich, 2000). These functions work together simultaneously as one can assist in the functioning of the other hence all managerial functions are important for the function. By this the opinion is that the function of organizing and controlling are related. These functions are implemented in the same direction. In order to show the relation between organizing and controlling, it is important to look into the functions of both of them. Organizing function comes into play when people work together in groups to achieve goals. They must have roles that they play. These roles are developed by people, are defined and structured by the organization to make sure what is contributed is a group effort. What workers do has a definite purpose and they know how their job objective fits into group effort hence the organization gives their authority, tools, information to accomplish the task. Organizing is that part of managing that involves establishing a structure of roles for people to fill in an organization. The purpose of an organization structure is to help in creating an environment for human performance. (Gareth, 2003). A structure will define the tasks to be done, the role established looking at abilities and motivation of the people available. The organization structure make it easy for managers to organize workers’ activities hence it will be easy to control them as each one know the role they should play, which makes supervision of work less, which saves time as well as resources of the organization. By organizing, the organizations must identity and clarify required activities, group activities necessary to attain objective, assign each group to a manager with authority necessary to supervise it and provision for coordination on the same level and among departments in the organization structure, which make controlling of activities manageable. Organization structure should clearly state who is to do what tasks and who is responsible for what results to eliminate difficulties while exercising control function because difficulties can be caused by confusions and uncertainty of assignment. The structure must reflect objectives and plans because activities come from them. It must also reflect the authority available to an enterprise management. It must be designed to work to permit contributions by members of a group and to assist people gain objectives effectively in the future, which is changing. An organization is staffed with people, the groupings of activities and the authority relationships of an organization structure must take into account people’s limitations and customs to be able to control their roles so as to know if the organization goals are being achieved. The organization process consists of establishing enterprise objectives, formulating supporting objectives, policies and plans, which are of planning. Also identifying and classifying the activities necessary to accomplish these, grouping activities in the light of the human and material resources available and the best way, under the circumstances, of using them, delegating to the head of each group the authority necessary to perform the activities and tying the groups together horizontally and vertically through authority relationships and information flows. Koontz & Weihrich, 2000). The span of management is influenced in two ways, narrow span where a great deal of time is spent with subordinates, which is related to little training, inadequate authority delegation, unclear plan of non-repetitive operations, fast changes in external and internal environment, complex task, use of poor communication techniques, ineffective meeting. (Black & Porter, 2000). The wide span is where little time is spent with subordinates and is related to thorough subordinate training, clear delegation to undertake well-defined tasks, well defined plans for repetitive operations and slow changes in external and internal environment, simple task and effective meetings. If the organization wants to use the controlling function effectively, it can use the wide span management. Delegation of authority, if it is poor, it will affect the span of management due to unclear authority hence organizing can be difficult, which can make the controlling function difficult as they function simultaneously. If a manager delegates authority clearly for a task to be undertaken, a well trained subordinate can get it done with the manager little supervision, but if the task is not clearly defined, then the subordinate does not have the authority to undertake it, which can lead to the staff not doing it and hence the manager spending a lot of time supervising it. Staffing is done by identifying workforce requirements, getting the required people who are available and recruiting them, selecting, placing, appraising, compensation, planning the careers and training. (Preble, 1992). If staffing is done effectively, the candidates will be developed as the current jobholders to be able to accomplish their tasks effectively and efficiently. If the candidates are given the right roles hence it will be through controlling that managers compare actual performance against goals, identify any significant deviations and take necessary corrective action. Leading assists in influencing people so that they contribute to organization and group goals. Managers can say that their problems arise from people, their desire, attitude, and behavior. (Robbins & Coulter, 2002). Since leadership implies followers hip and people tend to follow those who offer a mean of satisfying their own needs, wishes and desires. Leading involves motivation, leadership styles and communication. With no effective leading in an organization it can be very difficult to organize the employees and this will affect the controlling function as reports, statement produced to access control might have mistakes. Planning involves selecting mission and objectives and the actions to achieve them. It requires decision-making that is, choosing future causes of action from among alternatives. Jones & George, 2003). Plans range from plans of overall purposes and objectives to the most detailed action to be taken. Before a decision is made, only what exists is a plan study or a proposal not a real plan. Controlling activity relate to the measurement of achievement. Some mean of controlling like the budget, inspection records, each measure and show whether plans are working out making organizing easy. Compelling events to confirm to plans means locating the persons who are responsible for results to differ from planned action and taking necessary step to improve performance. These results are controlled by what people do. Control is where performance is measured and corrective action is taken to ensure the accomplishment of organization goals. Control also coordinates various activities, decision-making related to planning and organizing activities and information from directing and evaluating each worker’s performance. Control is concerned with records, reports, organizational progress toward aims as well as effective use of resources. Control uses evaluation and regulation. These reports are what assist in assigning roles to employees. Control uses evaluation and regulation. It can be separated into mechanical and sociological elements. There are three stages of control. The mechanical elements are predetermined definition of standards for a level of performance; measurement of current performance against the standards and corrective action when indicated is the sociological element. If an organization uses the three stages of control, it will have a flexible organization structure. The best approach of control will contain time, a high degree of mutual support, open and authentic communication, clear understanding of objective, utilization of resources and a supportive environment. These approaches will lead to conflict resolution, charged beliefs and attitudes, genuine innovation, commitment, strong management and prevention of consequence of control, which were unintended. A good control system has the following characteristics; it must reflect the nature of the activity, should report errors promptly, should be forward looking, it should point out exceptions at critical points, should be objective, flexible, reflect the organization pattern, economical, understanding and should indicate corrective action. With these conditions adhered to, it will be fast to organize people in the organization so as to meet the organization goals. Controlling mechanisms include procedures, evaluating devices, reports, inspection, audits, which all require planning and organizing hence the function must be performed simultaneously. For controlling to occur, there must be directing. All functions of management go together as if one of the functions lacks or does not follow the proper channel then the organization goals can fail to be achieved. Control can be used as a management tool to measure the degree to which predetermined goals are achieved and of applying necessary corrective actions to improve performance, policies, and procedure as standards. Among the controls are rules that are needed to let employees know what is expected of them and how functions are coordinated. Self-control includes being up to date in knowledge, giving clear orders, being flexible, helping others improve increasing problem solving skill, being able to handle pressure and planning ahead. Delegation is often viewed as a major means of influence and therefore, it can be grouped as an activity in leading rather than controlling. Delegation include assigning responsibility to an employee to complete a task granting the employee sufficient authority to gain the resource to do the task and letting the employee decide how that task will be carried out. This will make the organization decide which goals to pursue and course of action to adopt so as to attain the organization goals and how to allocate organization resources to attain those goals. Once the organization has established goals and associated strategies, funds are set aside for the resources and labor to the accomplishment of goals and tasks. As the money is spent, how it was spent and what it obtained. Review of financial statements is one of the more common methods to monitor the progress of programs and plans. In the organizing process, the key issue in accomplishing the goals identified in the planning process is structuring the work of the organization. The purpose of the organizing function is to make the best use of the organization’s resources to achieve organizational goals. Organizational structure is the formal decision-making framework by which job tasks are grouped and coordinated. The organizing function deals with all those activities that result in the formal assignment of tasks and authority and a coordination of effort. The supervisor staffs the work units, trains employees, secures resources and empowers the work group into a productive team. The first step in the organizing process is departmentalization. Once jobs have been classified through work specialization, they are grouped into manageable units and can be controlled. An organization chart displays the organization structure and shows job titles, lines of authority and relationships between departments. The nature and scope of the work needed to accomplish the organization goals needed to determine work classification and work unit design, so as to have control. Work process requirements and employee skill level determine the degree of specialization. Placing capable people in each job ties directly with productivity improvement. In order to maximize productivity, the organization must have the required resources and be able to control its expenditure by auditing its reports. Supervisors must match employee skill levels with task requirement to achieve organization goals. Teamwork is achievable if people can work together cooperatively and effective if they know the part they are to play in the team activity and the way their roles relate to each other hence making the control function attainable. By designing and maintaining these systems of roles is organizing. Koontz, 1958). The effort spent on improving predictions and forecasts are spent on increasing control, learning not only will the need for predicting and forecast be reduced, but managers’ ability to get what they want to increase. By organizing managers can design and create an organization structure, which is flexible to enable the function of control to be handled properly. Control aspects are emphasized on the basis of observation of the control process in terms of feedback or adaptive control. (Hitt & Mathis, 1986). Feedback is always introduced as one of the controlling functions, hence managers encourage that the feedback system be used a lot in the organization so as to know which organization goals have been achieved. Feedback is a type of control that takes place after a work activity is done. Managers can implement controls before an activity begins and after the activity has been completed. In order to measure whether plans of the organizations are being followed it is necessary for managers to compare planned performance with actual performance. (Ishikawa & Smith, 1972). Feedback can be used to give information in this area, as it is the forward and backward flow of information hence the supervisor will be able to know how the performance of a certain employee is. This will enable the supervisor check on the targets he sets for the employees if they have all been achieved or if they have been partly achieved and see the gap created. (Dixon, 2003). The actual performance and the planned performance show the gap. This will make it easy for the organization to determine which employees require training so as to get more skills and by this the organization will eliminate the gap. Plans cannot be effective unless managers monitor how well planned actions are matching actual achievements as implementation processes. Therefore, plans should not be just laid aside while being on the process or even after being decided on. Managers are responsible not only for making plans for the organizational goal but also for watching the plans to the end. Hence, to make sure that plans are organized the control function has to be effective to make sure that organization goals are achieved. If managers do not control, they would have no way of knowing whether their goals and plans were on target and what future actions to take. The plan can be meaningless if it did not help to accomplish the organizational goals. This can be avoided by controlling because the manager organizes and compares the actual performance against the goals, identify any significant deviations and take any necessary corrective action. Controlling provides the answers to whether or not the current performance of the organization should be continued or what corrections might be needed to make the performance satisfactory. Controlling cannot be implemented unless there is some resource hence the organization should have a structure, which takes this into consideration. There must be some organization and control on how resources will be allocated. Without an organization goal, no management functions can be put into practice. If the manager does not know which direction the company is going, they cannot choose what course of action to take hence controlling will be difficult. It seems that controlling is regarded as looking back considering the main role of controlling, which are feedback and monitoring. Managers can put controls when an activity begins. If the actual performance of employees in an organization is not as expected then plans and goals have to be set so that they are put in the right way. For control to work if the plans put in place by the organization are going in the wrong directions the manager needs to indicate the problem and also suggest how to solve it. The manager should also explain how the plan should be proceeded and guide toward the right direction. This will make it easy for the person organizing activities of the workers as workers will be given the roles they are able to achieve hence making organization goals attainable. The main role of planning is choosing appropriate goals and courses of action and controlling is monitoring systems to evaluate how well the organization has achieved its goal. Planning process steps include deciding which goals the organization will pursue, deciding what courses of actions to adopt to attain these goals and deciding how to allocate organization resources to attain these goals. Considering that organizing process looks at accomplishing goals identified in the planning process it will be good for an organization to evaluate the performance of employees so as to check if the goals are being attainable and if they do not look attainable performance assessment should be carried out as well as regulation of other activities, which can be time consumed due to lack of skills by the employees should be eliminated. In conclusion if managers are keen on the organization structure that the organization adopts be it flat, tall, product, geographical to make sure that the one implemented caters for the organization goals as well as objectives. The control function can be used to generate reports and audits will be done effectively in less time. This shows that control and organizing function has to work parallel for the effective achievement of organization goals.

Monday, September 30, 2019

Our Identity Is Shaped by Our Relationships Essay

Good morning/afternoon everyone, my name is Jessica Holmes and I’m coming from the VCAA education department. I’m here today to talk to you about how, â€Å"our identity is shaped by our relationships†. When I say relationships, I don’t just mean boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, I’m also talking about family, friends and other relationships. I’m talking about identity since it’s your context writing theme for year 12. Our family is huge in determining who we are and what we are all about. They tell us from day one what is good about us and what we can or cannot do and we absorb it all as children letting it shape us. Our family in most cases dictate our political beliefs, our economic beliefs, our religion, and our social beliefs and frame our overall view of the world. Think of the beliefs you developed outside of the family and you won’t find many. Now the problem these days is that the family as we know is falling apart. There are too many single parent families; a young man does not have a role model for a male because the dad is not there. This is a problem as that young man now gets his idea of being a man from bad influences, such as local thugs or a character from a movie. Even with the families fragmenting these days, the role of the family in our lives is huge beyond anything we can ever understand. Your friends shape your identity just as much as your family, if not more. You learn different things from every person you meet. Your friends are someone who you are with most of the time, so you would pick up many things from them. You gather the traits from those around you and your mind will tell you which are good and bad. Mean Girls is a perfect example of how friends shape you. Cady changes herself to fit in with her new posh friends, her friends shaped her as a mean girl, but it wasn’t long till she found who her real friends were and what her identity was. Your identity is shaped by your real friends, who you hang out with the most. Our other relationships that shape our identity would be our teachers. They teach us what is good and bad and they educate us and help us. Our employers are another source that shapes our identity; they shape out who we are and what our profession is. Our society and neighbours also shape our identity. In the novel â€Å"Growing up Asian in Australia†, Tom Cho wrote a short story called â€Å"Learning English†. He had to learn English to mingle with this neighbours and the society he lived in. When he first arrived in Australia, he didn’t know English, so he found it difficult to communicate with everyone. He learned English for the society, so the society shaped him. I would like to finish up by saying; every relationship shapes your identity. You would not know about it, but if you think about it, all relationships play their own roles and shape your identity in their own way.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Noise pollution: Physical effects of noise pollution and governmental restrictions on it Essay

Running head: NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 1 Noise pollution: Physical effects of noise pollution and governmental restrictions on it NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 2 Physical effects of noise pollution and governmental restrictions on it. â€Å"Pollution being the most dangerous problem Likes cancer in which death is sure but slow.† Deepak Miglani. Who would think that moving to the one of the nicest areas of central Prague could make your life a waking and a sleeping nightmare? Concerts, combined with the sounds of rock drills, chain saws, helicopters, cars and horses, tourists and loud music could drive everyone crazy. Could loud noise lead not only to mental, but also physical, health problems? Does the government do anything to protect citizens? To answer this question, I decided to go deeper into this problem and describe it in my research paper. Noise, a prototypical environmental stressor, has clear health effects in causing hearing problems, ringing in the ears, sleep disturbance and poor work performance. But physical health effects are less evident and much more dangerous. (Health Hearing, 2010) Disastrously, these undesirable sounds can seriously damage one’s health in a number of ways including hard illnesses, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, breathing difficulties, deafness, ulcers needless, neurosensory and motor impairment. (Agarwal, 2009) Many governments are now trying to control noise through passing noise pollution laws and regulations. For example, to protect citizens from motorcycle noise, Canadian government adopt special noise regulation according to which â€Å"anyone with a two-wheeler that emits more than 92 dB while idling and 96 dB while running can get a $250 fine.† (Health Hearing, 2010) But let’s look at the noise pollution problem in more detail. According to The Oxford English Dictionary (1989), noise is derived from the Latin word â€Å"nausea† meaning unwanted sound or sound that is loud, unpleasant or unexpected. Noise pollution refers to sounds in the environment that are produced by human activities and which disturbs the human being and cause an adverse effect on mental and psychological wellbeing. Decibel is the NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 3 standard unit for measurement of sound. (Pollution articles, 2009) Usually 80 db is the level at which sound becomes physically painful. (Health Hearing, 2010) In order to better understand noise pollution, it is first important to understand where it comes from. Sources of noise are almost everywhere around us. Basically, there are two types of sources: stationary and mobile. Stationary sources could be festivals, elections, mining operations and household equipment. Mobile sources can be divided in 4 major categories, such as traffic noise, industrial noise, noise from constriction work and neighborhood noise. (Kakada, 2010) Traffic noise is one of the major problems, which is difficult to avoid. In fact, noise from cars, buses, and motorcycles impacts more people than any other environmental noise source. It is the main source of noise (73%), according to survey conducted several years ago. (Health Hearing, 2010) In addition, aircraft noise is really unbearable for human ears. Supersonic jet planes produce noise which can shake buildings, crack plaster or break windows, so we can imagine what would be the effects of such noise on human body. Noise from railroads comes not only from locomotive engines, but also horns and whistles, switching and shunting operation in rail yards. (Agarwal, 2009) Industries also cause a lot of noise with their fans, motors and compressors. In result among industrial workers deafness is unfortunately a common consequence. (Boateng, C.A., & Amedofu, G.K., 2004) Another source of undesirable sound is from the construction of buildings, city streets and highways, which include pneumatic hammers, air compressors, bulldozers, loaders and dump trucks. (Barton, 1970) Sometimes even noises in your building can be very irritable. If house is not well constructed and walls and ceilings improperly insulated, dwellers are often annoyed noise from  plumbing, boilers, generators, air conditioners, fans and voices, footfalls and noisy activities from neighbors. In addition, noisemakers of the house could be household equipment, such as vacuum cleaners, mixers and some kitchen appliances. Though they do not cause too much problem, their effect cannot be neglected, but it is still have influence on health. (eSchooltoday, 2010) Noise pollution can affect human health in the long run. What is health, anyway? According NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 4 to Robert Alex Barton, Health is â€Å"freedom from disease†. (Barton, 1970, p. 53) It will not become visible immediately, but could appear later. Research has proved the fact that human efficiency in working decreases with noise and increases with noise reduction. Due to lack of concentration and sleep disturbance, people need to spend more time to complete their task, which leads to tiredness, stress and problems with cognitive function. (Lifestyle Lounge, 2013) But much more dangerous are physical responses to noise exposure. Sometimes, being surrounded by too much noise, people can be victims of certain diseases like blood pressure, heart problems, temporary or permanent deafness. (Stansfeld & Matheson, 2003) Temporary or permanent hearing loss is the most immediate and acute effect of noise. When exposed to very loud and sudden noise, acute damage occurs to t he eardrum and can damage some part of auditory system. (Macalester College, 2012) According to the U.S. Public Health Service in year 1991, 10 million from 21 million Americans have hearing impairments and the main reason for that is noise exposure (Suter, 1991). In 2010 there were already 28 million Americans with hearing impairments from noise. (Kakada, 2010) Besides, our noisy environments are one of the main sources for cardiovascular problems, especially high blood pressure. (Suter, 1991) Researchers have revealed that high level of sounds can give a dramatic raise to the blood pressure. It also increases the heart beat rate. Dr. Samuel Rosen of CQC warns, â€Å"We now have millions with heart disease, high blood pressure†¦ who need protection from additional stress of noise.† (Barton, 1970, p. 55) Researchers found that even during the night time noise can increase a person’s blood pressure without waking him up. The louder the noise, the higher the rise in blood pressure. (Song,  2008) Basically, this process of body’s reaction to noise can make a circle: noise rise the blood pressure, on its turn, blood pressure contribute to heart disease, and that is a cause of high blood pressure. (Barton, 1970) It has b een said, â€Å"You may forgive noise, but your arteries never will† (Agarwal, 2009, p. 104). Investigators discovered that noise can cause complex hormonal changes such as increase of adrenal hormones and decrease of ovarian hormones, which can actually influence fertility, growth and other essential NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 5 functions of body. When the noise is too loud, the defense reaction turns to be harmful, and can lead to bleeding uncles in stomach and intestines, shrink of lymph tissues and enlargement of glands. (Barton, 1970) Another health issue caused by noise pollution is problems with cognitive function. A person, constantly surrounded by some loud noise, can lose his ability to read, solve, understand and learn. In addition, this person can suffer from short term memory loss and poor productivity, together with high level of errors. (Stansfeld & Matheson, 2003) Another effect of noise is Fatigue, caused by lack of concentration and higher amount of time people spending to complete their task. (Lifestyle Lounge, 2013) To reduce level of noise, governments are creating noise pollution laws, regulations or ordinance. (Health Hearing, 2010) According to Kinetics Noise Control, noise ordinance is a special laws developed by state governments to limit noise level at different arias and different time of the days. During the daytime, the maximum available noise level is higher than during the night time. Some small cites still don’t have noise ordinance, but in a big cities this already becomes an â€Å"important part of the community’s health.† (Kinetics Noise Control, 2013) The question, which I will now is how to recognize noise disturbance? According to my own research, many people don’t complain about noise because they are not sure what is the level of noise which you have a right to contact a law enforcement agency. Gainesville Police Department defines noise ordinance as follows: 1. Disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities 2. Exceeds the sound level limit set forth in the ordinance, as measured by a  sound level meter 3. Is plainly audible, which is defined as noise that can be heard a minimum of 200 feet from the property line of the source of the noise – This type of noise includes amplified music, musical instruments, televisions, radios and non-amplified human voices (â€Å"yelling, shouting, whistling, hooting or generally creating a racket†) ( Gainesville Police Department, 2013) The most common urban noise disturbance nowadays are loud parties, barking dogs, construction works, domestic power tools, apartments’ noise and loud car stereos. (Gainesville Police Department, 2013) If you want to report noise disturbance, you NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 6 should call communication center and provide them with information about location of the source of the noise disturbance or an address, description of type of the noise and how long it has been going on. You may stay anonymous, but your name, address and phone number will be really helpful for successful enforcement based on disturbing reasonable person of normal sensibilities. (Gainesville Police Department, 2013) In case if noise ordinance is violated, you can also report it to the police or to law enforcement agency. After that, police officer will visit and record noise level at the place of the complaint and, according to result, the agency may force owner to take corrective actions or to pay fines. (Kinetics Noise Control, 2013) According to the Florida legal system, if an officer found that there is noise disturbance and if it is the first incident, the person who is responsible for it will receive warning remains in effect for 365 days,. If there is more noise during this 365 days, the violator is issued a Civil Citation, which will be recorded at the Police Department. In this case the violator will have to pay a $250 fine. If there is another noise complaint, he will be pun ished by $500 and if it happens again, he will receive Civil Citation with a mandatory court appearance and fine up to $500. (Gainesville Police Department, 2013) In Hong Kong rules are stricter. For neighborhood noise you can get maximum $10,000 penalty; noise from construction sites, industrial type of noise and noise from products could lead you to $100,000 fine on first conviction, $200,000 penalty on second conviction, plus $20,000 a day; noise from intruder alarm system installed in any vehicle will cost you maximum $10,000 and the same amount for an intruder alarm system installed in any premises, plus possible imprisonment for three months. (Environmental Protection Environment, 2013) In New York  City fines started from $70 for such noise sources as radio, noise from animals, etc and it goes up to $16,000 for music from commercial establishment on second conviction. (NYCDEP, 1998) In Europe the adoption of noise ordinance, such as determining exposure to environmental noise through noise mapping and action planning is still developing. On 25 June 2002, Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parlia ment and the Council, relating to the assessment and management of environment noise (hereinafter Environmental Noise Directive, NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 7 END), was adopted. First implementation brought good results, but there are still some difficulties such as need for indicators and strengthened enforcement mechanisms and there are still some areas which need improvement. (EUR -Lex, 2011) Besides governmental protection, each person should take some simple steps to protect himself or herself from noise pollution. You should keep the volume of your musical player at a comfortable noise level and take breaks from listening. If you are involved in loud work, don’t forget to wear earplugs, earmuffs or any other hearing protective devices, which are required by law to protect you from hearing loss. (Health Hearing, 2010) Be alert to loud noise in your environment and inform your friends and family about harm of noise pollution. Nowadays, when noise pollution becomes an overall global problem and is taken as seriously as other forms of pollution, as it is similarly damaging to human health, governments are taking steps to protect their population against noise disturbance by creating federal standards and state laws. But citizens should also take individual steps to reducing noise pollution for themselves and for others. I agree with Robert Alex Barton: â€Å"A quieter world is possible, if †¦ we don’t take noise for an answer.† (Barton, 1970, p. 276) NOISE POLLUTION PAGE 8 Selected Bibliography 1. Health Hearing.(2010). Reasons for Hearing Loss: Noise Pollution Levels. Retrieved from http://www.healthyhearing.com/content/articles/Hearing-loss/Causes/47496-Nois

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Macro & Microeconomics Questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Macro & Microeconomics Questions - Assignment Example In nominal terms, the projected gross domestic product would either be above the projected value or below the value. This where an output gap exists in the difference between projected gross domestic and the actual gross domestic product or actual output. If all calculations and estimations were right, then output gaps that produce positive or negative values should be of great concern to economists and be the basis for decision making. They should also give a source of concern to economists and predict the trend of macro and micro economic growth. On the whole, an inflationary gap, which is a representation of positive output gap measure, is an indication of growing demand over supply and subsequently an indication of inflation (Lipsey and Chrystal, 2007, p. 423). A recessionary gap, which is on the other hand a representation of negative output gap, indicates deflation in the economy (Lipsey and Chrystal, 2007, p. 423). For the year 2011 and 2012 therefore, the output gap cannot be brushed over easily without concern for worry. This is especially because in most jurisdictions of global economic giants such as the United States and United Kingdom, the output gap was said to be negative, indicating a recessionary gap (Thoma, 2012). In fact apart from deflation, there is the concern over unemployment when a recessionary gap is experienced. Unemployment should be a major cause for concern for a number of reasons. In the first place, the recessionary gap is an indication that because a lot of people were not in employable positions, the State could not make good of their input into the economy and so their part of the ratio of input in gross domestic product to balance the output gap was missing. The government is denied fiscal inputs from unemployed citizens because due to their lack of jobs, the government is denied important tax revenue from them. So apart from the fact that unemployment affects the lives of the unemployed by making his living conditions extrem ely difficult; the government also has a resulting effect. One other cause of concern is for government to be forced to repackage future budgets in such a way that aims at attracting and creating more jobs. What this means is that other government expenditure are always affect by output gap values when they create negations. A major justification in the relationship between recessionary gap and unemployment is given in the Okun’s Law, which states that â€Å"It states that for every one percent increase in unemployment above a "natural" level, that GDP will decrease by anywhere from two to four percent from its potential† (Hill, 2012). REFERENCE LIST Hill A, 2012, What is Okun’s Law? Wise Geeks. [Online] http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-okuns-law.htm [May 17, 2012] Thoma B, 2012 The Zero Lower Bound and Output Gap Uncertainty [Online] http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/05/the-zero-lower-bound-and-output-gap-uncertainty.html [May 18, 2012] Richa rd G. Lipsey and Alec Chrystal. Economics. Oxford University Press. 11th edition. January 2007. 2. Examine whether the allure of the developing world to multinational enterprises has been affected events over the period 2011/12? In recent times, economic statistics show that there has been a developing situation whereby most developing nations are aligning themselves to international enterprises in terms of economic trade (quote). Generally, when there is such an enterprise, we have the formation of a multinational ent

Friday, September 27, 2019

Nursing Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Nursing Project - Essay Example The evidence definitely supports the use of this program and s presented in this paper. Continuous quality problems and spiraling costs in healthcare have lead to widespread interest in solutions that are effective and well supported. Evidence based practice has taken hold as an answer to the problem that makes sense (Coleman, 2003) EBP is sometimes viewed as an ideology, however, as far as practice goes it's goal is to supplement professional decision making with the latest research. It is sometimes argued today that to treat someone with a practice that the efficacy has not been shown is not ethical (Kind,2007). That would leave many healthcare treatments today as unethical. This paper will discuss nursing transition to evidence based practice in the realm of patients and transitioning. The question would be, "What are the most effective interventions for improving care coordination" Many Medicare dollars are spent on a small percentage of beneficiaries with chronic conditions and those people are in and out of the hospital many times, many within short periods of time. The causes of this are numerable but some of them are inadequate care, poor communication among primary caregivers, specialists, and patients, weak adherence by patients, and failure to catch problems early. There are three types of intervention being looked at closely at this time to try to solve these problems. Transitional Care, self managed education intervention, and coordinated care interventions are being considered as effective but requiring further study (Coleman, 2003). Transitional care is first engaged in the hospital, followed intensely post-discharge and receives comprehensive post discharge instructions on medications, self care and symptom recognition. Reminder calls are made to assure that the patients follow up with primary care providers as required. Effective transitional care is targeted for patients with specific diseases such as CHF. This is guided by APN's and is usually a twelve week intervention that is highly structured with protocols (ncga.gov.) It requires a one year post discharge follow-up. Statistically it has shown to reduce hospitalizations by 34% and lower overall costs by 39%. APN's in this case are the transitional coaches and there are tools given for cross site communication. Self management education is a term used for collaboration with patients and families to identify patient goals, improve self management, expand sense of self efficacy, and assess mastery of skills (ncga.gov). Much of this is done in group sessions of limited duration. The targeted patients are usually forty or older and have heart disease, lung disease, stroke or arthritis. There are usually seven weekly group sessions on exercise, symptom management, techniques, nutrition, fatigue and sleep management, use of medications, dealing with emotions, communication and problem solving. Statistics show that these patients have 1/3rd fewer hospital stays. Coordinated care on the other hand is considered teaching patients about self care, medications, how to communicate with problems, monitor patients symptoms, well-being, and adherence between office visits and advise patient on when to see their physician. A full report is given to the patient's physician (ncga.gov). This would also include arranging for social support