Album Review essays

Album Review essays Amazing stories, endless street slang, rugged beats. What do you get when you put all of those three things together? The Big Picture, by Big L. The Big Picture was produced in 2000 shortly after the death of Big L (Lamont Coleman) in 1999. Even though the album was in progress and not complete at the time of his death, Flamboyant Records (Big Ls own label) was able to put together one of the best hip-hop albums in the genres young history. Just a fair warning before you listen to the album: if you are not a big fan of underground hip-hop this is not an album for you. If you are accustomed to hip-pop or radio rap Big L will probably not hit the spot for you. No where in his raps does he attempt to appeal to the general public. This album is what many true fans would call thorough. So if you are ready for a tour of the streets get ready, because L tells it how it is. The CD opens with the self titled track The Big Picture, which is an appropriate opening. Not only by title but for the frame work of the whole album. He proceeds with similes like Whats this rap game without L. Thats like jewels without ice. Thats like China without rice. Or the Holy Bible without Christ. Or the Bulls without Mike. Or crack-heads without pipes. The village without dykes. Or hockey games without fights. Its lyrics like these that make this album one for the books. As if the lyrics of Big L arent enough, he is also complimented by guest appearances by the late Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.. With the company of two of the greatest rappers in history and one of the best DJs around this album was an overall success. Later in the CD he has a song titled Casualties of a Dice Game which tells about him winning money in a game and being followed by the jealous loser. L goes on to explain how he ...

Pasaporte Para Viajar a EEUU en Casos Doble Ciudadanía

Pasaporte Para Viajar a EEUU en Casos Doble Ciudadanà ­a Frecuentemente, las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a se preguntan si pueden ingresar sin visa a Estados Unidos por turismo o negocios utilizando el pasaporte que es de un paà ­s incluido en el listado del Programa de Exencià ³n de Visas, aunque no residen habitualmente en dicho paà ­s. La respuesta es sà ­, aunque deben conocerse las excepciones y cundo pueden surgir los problemas.   Ventajas e inconvenientes de viajar sin visa a Estados Unidos Los ciudadanos de 38 paà ­ses, entre los que se encuentran Chile y Espaà ±a, pueden ingresar a los Estados Unidos sin visa. Si llegan por avià ³n de là ­nea regular o barco deben antes de volar una autorizacià ³n que se conoce como ESTA. Una ventaja evidente de viajar sin visa es que la ESTA es mucho ms econà ³mica. En el momento de escribir este articulo el costo de la ESTA es de $14 frente a $160 de la visa B1/B2, cuyo precio final puede ser incluso superior para algunos paà ­ses, en aplicacià ³n de acuerdos de reciprocidad. Otra ventaja econà ³mica es que en caso de negacià ³n, se recuperan $10 en el caso de la ESTA, por lo cual el coste total es de $4. Por el contrario, si no es aprobada la solicitud de la visa de turista o negocios o la combinada de ambas, el solicitante no recupera nada. En otras palabras, pierde los $160 dà ³lares. Otro de los atractivos de viajar sin visa es que se evita tener que acudir a la entrevista en persona al consulado o Embajada, lo cual ahorra sin duda tiempo y en muchos casos tambià ©n nervios. En cuanto al tiempo, en la actualidad este problema es incluso mayor porque son numerosos los consulados en los que se necesita acudir con anterioridad a la entrevista a un Centro de Apoyo al Solicitante por el asunto de los datos biomà ©tricos, es decir, huellas digitales y fotografà ­a. Pero cuando se compara viajar con visa o sin visa, tambià ©n hay inconvenientes para este à ºltimo caso. Como regla general, si se ingresa a Estados Unidos con visa de turista se recibe una autorizacià ³n de 180 dà ­as, es decir, 6 meses. Ese plazo es el ms comà ºn, aunque puede ser inferior si asà ­ lo decide un oficial de migracià ³n. El plazo autorizado est reflejado en el documento que se conoce como I-94. Por el contrario, si se viaja con visa el tiempo mximo de estancia en Estados Unidos es de 90 dà ­as, ni uno ms. Otra gran diferencia es que si se ingresa con visa es posible solicitar una extensià ³n de la estancia y tambià ©n un cambio de visa, por ejemplo, de turista a estudiante. Sin embargo, si se ingresa a Estados Unidos sin visa no es posible alargar el  plazo de 90 de ninguna de las maneras. En otras palabras, la ley no contempla la peticià ³n de extensià ³n o de cambio a otra visa no inmigrante. Es imposible. Por lo tanto hay que salir del paà ­s antes de cumplir los 90 dà ­as de presencia.  Adems, es recomendable evitar juegos como salir a Mà ©xico, Bahamas o Canad y regresar con la idea de obtener asà ­ otros 90 dà ­as. Lo cierto es que en estos casos se regresa no con un nuevo plazo, sino con los dà ­as que quedasen del anterior. Incluso hay que tener en cuenta que se est jugando con fuego en los casos de salida al paà ­s de origen o cuando se viaja a paà ­ses adyacentes como Mà ©xico y Canad y se fuerza al là ­mite el plazo de los 90 dà ­as antes de salir de tal manera que ya no hay dà ­as restantes en el primer plazo cuando se regresa y se quiere obtener un nuevo trimestre. Puede suceder que el oficial de migracià ³n considere que se est viviendo en Estados Unidos, sospeche que se est trabajando o estudiando sin visa, etc. lo cual llevarà ­a a que se prohà ­ba el ingreso al paà ­s e incluso acabar con el castigo de una expulsià ³n inmediata.  ¿Viajar con un pasaporte o con los dos? Esta es una pregunta muy comà ºn entre las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a que deciden ingresar a Estados Unidos sin visa. La respuesta no es à ºnica y se ilustra mejor con casos especificos. Por ejemplo, en el caso de un argentino que vive en Argentina pero que tiene tambià ©n pasaporte italiano deberà ­a viajar con sus dos pasaportes. Asà ­, saldrà ­a de Argentina con el de ese paà ­s pero mostrarà ­a ya allà ­ el italiano para que le permitan embarcar. Al ingresar y tambià ©n al salir de Estados Unidos. Al llegar a Argentina, mostrarà ­a ese pasaporte para entrar a su paà ­s. Otro ejemplo distinto es el de, por ejemplo, un argentino que reside habitualmente en Italia y tiene tambià ©n pasaporte de ese paà ­s. En este caso, utilizarà ­a solamente el pasaporte italiano. Quà © problemas pueden surgir al llegar al control migratorio de los Estados Unidos En principio, los problemas potenciales son los mismos si se viajan con visa o sin visa. Ninguna de las dos situaciones garantiza el ingreso. Lo que importa es que la persona que quiere ingresar como turista tiene que ser considerada como elegible y admisible para ingresar a Estados Unidos. Si se considera que reà ºne tal cualidad, no hay problema. De hecho, son miles las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a que deciden viajar sin visa y nunca han tenido problemas. En otras palabras, el problema no es la visa o la no visa, sino si se cumplen los requisitos para ingresar o no. En este punto decir que hay noticias que apuntan a que se les ha negado el ingreso en repetidas ocasiones a dominicanos que viajan a Estados Unidos recià ©n adquieren la ciudadanà ­a de un paà ­s incluido en el listado de los Paà ­ses con Exencià ³n de Visado (VWP, por sus siglas en inglà ©s). No es que no puedan viajar, es que por la razà ³n que sea puede haber levantado sospechas de que su intencià ³n es quedarse en los Estados Unidos. Si se tiene duda, la opcià ³n es olvidarse de viajar sin visa y solicitar una B1/B2.   Finalmente decir en relacià ³n a este punto de los posibles problemas que pueden encontrar  los cubanos para embarcar sin visa en un vuelo hacia Estados Unidos. Lo cierto es que miles de cubanos embarcan e ingresan sin ningà ºn problema. Pero no es menos cierto que se les puede impedir incluso embarcar si se sospecha que su intencià ³n es quedarse en Estados Unidos y pedir que se les aplique la Ley de Ajuste Cubano una vez que estn allà ­. Excepciones a viajar sin visa en los casos de doble ciudadanà ­a En determinadas ocasiones no es posible que las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a decidan que prefieren viajar sin visa y deben solicitar la visa si es que quieren viajar como turistas a los Estados Unidos. Entre otras situaciones destacan las siguientes: Cuando previamente le han negado una visa, aunque la solicitaran con otro pasaporte. La visa se le negà ³ a la persona, no al pasaporte y las autoridades migratorias saben que se trata de la misma persona al cotejar las huellas digitales que se dieron al solicitar la visa con las que se toman en el punto de ingreso a Estados Unidos (puerto, aeropuerto o paso terrestre fronterizo). Otra situacià ³n que pide por solicitar la visa es cuando previamente una persona ha tenido una visa americana y à ©sta ha sido cancelada. Otro caso es cuando se ha visitado anteriormente Estados Unidos y el visitante se ha quedado ms tiempo del autorizado.   Finalmente, todos los casos en los que ha habido en el pasado situaciones problemticas, como violaciones migratorias, deportaciones, expulsiones inmediatas, etc. Otras situaciones de doble ciudadanà ­a o nacionalidad Estados Unidos, por regla general, no tiene ningà ºn problema con la doble ciudadanà ­a, tambià ©n conocida como doble nacionalidad. Esto es asà ­ en el caso de extranjeros que pueden utilizar el pasaporte que deseen, como se ha explicado en este artà ­culo, pero tambià ©n en otros como para aplicar por visas limitadas a ciertos paà ­ses como es el caso de la visa de inversià ³n E-2. Asà ­,por ejemplo, un venezolano no puede beneficiarse de esa visa pero si cuenta con otro pasaporte como puede ser el de Colombia, Espaà ±a, Portugal, etc, puede solicitarla. Pero tambià ©n es el caso de sus propios ciudadanos. Estados Unidos admite la doble nacionalidad y casi no impone là ­mites a esta situacià ³n. De interà ©s para turistas en Estados Unidos La mejor forma de evitar problemas migratorios, tanto si se ingresa con visa o con ESTA, es cumplir con la ley, por lo que se recomienda tomar este test para conocer aspectos fundamentales. El caso especial de Canad Como regla general, los ciudadanos de Canad no necesitan ni visa ni ESTA para ingresar a Estados Unidos como turistas y el permiso de estancia es por 6 meses.   Esto aplica a los canadienses que tambià ©n son ciudadanos de otro paà ­s, es decir, a los casos de doble ciudadanà ­a. Sin embargo, no aplica a los extranjeros que tienen residencia en Canad. Este es un artà ­culo informativo. No es asesorà ­a legal.

Innovation and Change - Open Innovation and Strategy Essay

Innovation and Change - Open Innovation and Strategy - Essay Example This creates proper competition in the market as the firms compete on specific value benefits to the customers. The computer industry across the world has greatly been disrupted by new innovations that are always meant to add value to the existing products in the market. Initially, mainframe computers were the only existing form of computers in the market. Such computers had the ability to address all the important needs of people at the time. However, developments in the computer industry led to the introduction of personal computers. These computers were not in any way seen as competitors to the mainframe computers. The personal computers therefore developed effectively without much influence on the mainframe computer market. In any case, these two types of computers had totally different applications in the market. However with time, the personal computers became a great threat to the operations of the mainframe computers which had very great limitations owing to their size and po rtability. This challenge eventually led to the disruption of the mainframe computer industry when the personal computers became much adopted in the market in contrast to the mainframe computers. ... This creates a lot of challenges in the market. The development of personal computers was for a long time totally unrelated to the mainframe computers market. Basically, personal computers were not used for industry applications since they were considered not powerful enough to perform such great tasks. However, with a lot of developments and innovation, much success has really been evidenced. The market for personal computers eventually became much greater than mainframe market. However, much disruption in the market is still expected given the introduction of minicomputers and other smaller computers. The major driving force behind this disruption is actually the need for efficiency and ease of operations. While mainframe computers are still much effective in industry applications, they greatly face a lot of competition from the personal computer market. Fundamentally, it has to be realized that personal computers were actually an innovation and development of the mainframe compute rs. These computers were basically an extension of the technology used in the mainframes which were in much use in the 1970s through to the 1980s. While the personal computers have greatly managed to bridge the gap that always existed in terms of computer applications in the market, some gaps still exist in the market which create the need for more innovation. In this regard, mainframe computers are widely used in industries due to their great speeds and processing ability. In organizational setups, such computers are often used to manage other computers in the organization. While such features are greatly valuable and demanded in the market, most personal computers do not have the ability to provide such

Story on Grant Ensminger Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Story on Grant Ensminger - Essay Example Whether it is traditional painting, frescoes, children’s story books or fashion T-shirts, Ensminger takes the genre and stamps his own individual style onto it. The colors are exuberant, and there is plenty of postmodern irony and quotation from famous twentieth century artists. He mixes pop art Marilyn with Picasso-esque heads in profile, and sets them alongside frescos that look like upmarket graffiti. This is an artist who claims no formal art school education, and seeks out his own role models as he carves out his own quirky journey of artistic discovery. A fascination with sharks when he started out, some three years ago, has given way to a link-up with local indie band Rey Fresco. Ensinger exhibits regularly in the area, and his work is certainly worth a look. If you turn up to see it there is every chance that you will meet the man himself and make contact with the epitome of Ventura

Chili’s Bar Essay Example for Free

Chili’s Bar Essay In the decision making process, it helps to look at all the information. This SWOT is comparing Chili’s restaurant to two of its competitors, Ruby Tuesday’s and Applebee’s. Company History Chili’s restaurants are part of the company, Brinker International Corporation. Chili’s Bar Grill is a casual dining restaurant that was founded in 1975 and has expanded to include 1,200 restaurants located domestically and internationally. There menu consists of fresh and healthy American dishes and limited amount of southwestern style Mexican dishes. In the last 30 years, Chili’s has created an identifiable, recognizable brand name, just think of the commercials. Chili’s Strengths Chili’s is the one of the largest full service restaurant chains with over 1,200 stores, second only to Applebee’s which has about 1,900 stores. Their competitor Ruby Tuesday has less than 900 stores with many of those franchises. Chili’s is part of Brinker Intl. , which is world’s second largest casual dining restaurant operator, the first being Darden restaurants. This allows them to offer affordable prices, because they can negotiate product rates for all of their stores, unlike a smaller company. They have also expanded their company to include Chili’s Too, Small Town Chili’s, and offer catering services. They update their menu one to two times a year, unlike Ruby Tuesday’s which updates their menu every three to four months. Chili’s has a popular menu that keeps people coming back, so they tweak it a bit to keep up with trends, but keep their core items. At this time they serve the same menu in every store, which allows for consistency throughout the company. They have a very broad market with a recognizable brand name and they focus on customer satisfaction. The restaurant business can be very competitive, but they have unusually high management retention and that may be in part to extremely competitive starting salaries and excellent benefit packages. Their competitor, Ruby Tuesday, has franchised many of its stores, creating varied salaries, salary caps, and benefits, when going from a franchise to a corporate store, which can make it difficult to retain managers. When Chili’s is looking for hourly employees, it offers several opportunities to them. They can apply and interview online, receive benefits and have the opportunity to grow with the company. Their hourly employee turnover rate is also lower than the industry average. Chili’s Weaknesses Even though the Chili’s brand is recognizable, it doesn’t appeal to the upper class. The casual dining concept, no matter how different, is still the same. They receive much of their food frozen, unlike Ruby Tuesday which receives all of their meat and produce fresh, making some items not the best of quality. During the busy times, servers are pressured to decrease their table turn time, the time from when a guest sits at the table until they leave and the table is ready for another guest, which can make it difficult to build a rapport with their guests, but at the same time they want their PPA (per person average) to be higher. Many of their restaurants are focused around the bar, which segregates some consumers that do not want to be in that environment. It also makes their seating area than some of their competitors. Chili’s Opportunities There are several things Chili’s can do to remain competitive in the casual dining industry. They can continue to expand internationally, beyond the 20 countries they are already in. Their competitors have yet to exceed that with Ruby Tuesday’s being in about twelve countries and Applebee’s is in almost twenty. They have a very well known brand which will allow them to continue expansion at a rapid rate with the backing of their parent company, Brinker Intl. They are launching a program to try international cuisines at some of their foreign locations. If consumers react positively this could be a great growth opportunity, if it is not taken to, it could be a threat to their international stores if they continue it. They can enlarge their restaurants or configure different models, based on the demographics of the area, to include more seating for guests and not just the bar area. They can continue to expand their brand recognition apparel and glassware. Chili’s Threats The largest threat to the Chili’s brand is the competition of casual dining restaurants, which are easy to duplicate. Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesday’s both had higher 1-year sales growths, with 10% and 17. %, respectively, compared to Chili’s at 6. 1%. Chili’s saturated some U. S. markets and has no where else to expand in those areas. They need to keep up with current trends and eating habits, because they change often, to stay current with the market. Summary Chili’s has managed to saturate the US and foreign markets better than its competitors. Their sales are higher and they retain their employees longer. They need to look at a few things like following eating trends and standing out from the competition a bit more, but they are a highly competitive company that keeps people coming back.

corporate governance Essay examples -- essays research papers

Corporate governance is a very poorly defined concept; it covers so many different economic issues. It is difficult to give a first class definition in one sentence. Corporate governance has succeeded in attracting a great deal of interests of the public because of its obvious importance for the economic health of corporations and society in general. As a result, different people have come up with different definitions that basically mirror their special interest in the field. It is difficult to see that this 'disorder' will be any different in the future so the best way to define the concept is perhaps to list a few of the different definitions rather than just mentioning one definition. "Corporate governance is a field in economics that investigates how to secure/motivate efficient management of corporations by the use of incentive mechanisms, such as contracts, organizational designs and legislation. This is often limited to the question of improving financial performance, for example, how the corporate owners can secure/motivate that the corporate managers will deliver a competitive rate of return.† www.encycogov.com, Mathiesen [2002]. According to Shleifer and Vishny in The Journal of Finance, â€Å"corporate governance deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment.† J. Wolfensohn, president of the Word bank, quoted by an article in Financial Times in June of 1999 that "corporate governance is about promoting corporate fairness, transparency and accountability." â€Å"Corporate Governance looks at the institutional and policy framework for corporations - from their very beginnings, in entrepreneurship, through their governance structures, company law, privatization, to market exit and insolvency. The integrity of corporations, financial institutions and markets is particularly central to the health of our economies and their stability.† (www.oecd.org) What does this all mean and how does it affect the business world today is what may be asked. Criticism of corporate governance is back with a vengeance in the post-Enron era. Is the entire governance system broken down and in need of change, or was it just the wrong actions of a few people that has led to this new case of critisms? E... ...an Administration are leading the way for reform, which is unusual â€Å"given the typical pro-business sympathies of these groups.† Some people feel that the current governance is working as best it can and that greater regulation will not prohibit the unethical and immoral actions of a few people. However, employees want greater protection. They want to be assured that the rules for selling company stock are not different for top managers that they are for employees. Investors also want to be looked after. They want to be certain that the public information available to them is â€Å"an accurate and fair representation of the company’s financial status.† (Business Week 116) www.encycogov.com. Mathiesen 2000 www.oecd.org. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Building Partnerships for Progress Booker, Katrina. â€Å"Trouble in the Boardroom.† Fortune Magazine. May 13, 2002 Luoma, Patrice. â€Å"Enron and Beyond.† Corporate Self-Governance and the Corporate Checks and Balances System. CCH Incorporated. 2002 â€Å"Corporate Governance: The Road Back.† Business Week. May 6, 2002. p. 116

Fast Food or Dine in Debate Essay

The dispute over whether fast food or a Dine-in meal is just more practical, and better in general for our everyday lives is a reoccurring debate in America in a time where health issues are at an all time high. Some people argue the point that fast food maybe the unhealthier of the two choices. Others would make the rebuttal that they can equally be a knock on your health meter. In this paper I would like to explore these debates and find common ground between the two. According to QSR magazine (QSR; Drive-thru performance study, 2009) the average time it takes you to receive your food though take-out is one hundred and thirty-four seconds. If you refer to the same magazine it also tells you that most of the Top dine-in restaurants take anywhere from 12-30 minutes average for a family meal. For this sole reason alone many Americans who have busy lives prefer to make quick stops at fast food joints on lunch breaks. In today’s society we live on the go, and we would like our technology and food to be the same way. Restaurant tycoon McDonalds has made put a substantial margin of space between it and any of its competitions annual income. McDonalds Net worth is fifteen billion dollars, more than double the net worth of the most popular dine-in according to the â€Å"Super size me† documentary (super size me, Sundance films, 2004) . The fact that fast food sales outweigh dine-in sales through out the world does not mean necessarily that this choice and source of food is better for you. Or does it?

Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist Views on Benevolence Essay

Benevolence can be defined as the moral inclination to be kind and compassionate. If people could control their malicious behaviors and focus on participating in acts that are solely beneficial to humanity, the earth would be much more prosperous. Being kind to others gives us a feeling of contentment that is otherwise unattainable. Receiving compassion and kindness provides us with a sense of gratitude and wellness that many cannot help but share with others. No one enjoys being the subject of someone else’s ill will. This is why moral codes such as (but not limited to) Buddhism, Confucianism/Taoism have emerged. If everyone followed any one of the previously stated practices, it would be much easier for humans to grow and develop as a whole because there would be fewer causes of our discontentment. The Buddhists’ ultimate goal is to end suffering by achieving enlightenment, or nirvana (Kessler, pg. 186). Benevolence is indefinitely required to reach this state. Enlightenment can only be obtained by recognizing the Four Noble Truths. This basically states that life is suffering, which is the result of bad karma caused by malevolent actions that are driven by natural human desires. The end of desire will inevitably be the end of suffering. The only way to end suffering is by following in the footsteps of Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment (Kessler, pg. 166). This method of bringing an end to suffering is otherwise known as the Eightfold Path, or the Way of the Buddha. In order to obtain the same enlightenment, Buddhists are required to uphold a strict set of rules regarding the way to behave as a beneficial member of society, including â€Å"right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditati on.† (Kessler, pg. 224). The most devout Buddhist possesses immense self-control and discipline in attempt to live the purest, least harmful existence possible. A good example of the ideal Buddhist is the bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas have reached the ultimate level of moral purity, kindness, and compassion toward the world and therefore live to relieve people from suffering (Kessler, pg. 170). Concerning overall kindness and compassion, the fate and preservation of the entire world should be taken into account before performing any act. No living being should ever be harmed or killed. One should never steal from another, but may receive gifts openly. Buddhists should be chaste, truthful, and fair. They are required to keep peace among people if necessary. A devout Buddhist would never speak to someone in a discourteous manner, including sharing erroneous information (Kessler, pg. 185). This moral code practiced by Bodhisattvas is directly concerned with the wellbeing of the world through good deeds, which leads to the end of eternal suffering, according to the previously stated teachings of the Buddha. Another influential teacher of morality and obtaining widespread human prosperity is Confucianism. The Way, or Tao, is the Confucian concept of human nature. The Mandate of Heaven is dictated by the fact that humans, by nature, want to obtain balance and harmony in the world, which is possible beginning with harmony within the self. Harmony within one’s self leads to harmony among other people, which results in the harmony of natural phenomenon, and thus the world is harmonious. This requires that all human emotional conditions be in balance. Although the notion is truly inconceivable, this can be most closely described as the Confucian concept of heaven. People must be understanding and compassionate towards one another, and make sacrifices for the greater good. When this is achieved, human flourishing is then possible. People are either intelligent enough to possess the sincerity of the way, or they can be instructed to do so. Humans are all capable of making a contribution toward achieving the order of the Way, which results in spiritual salvation (Kessler, pg. 242-243). The most important way this goal is to be achieved by the followers of Confucian teachings is through sacrifice. An honorable person intends to sacrifice in order to spread good will to the earth. This helps emphasize the responsibilities all humans have to maintain peace and harmony in the world for the well being of everyone (Kessler, pg. 240). Humans are born into different ranks, which must be taken into consideration, but the overall goal of Confucian teaching is to uphold the moral obligation of goodness. Elders and authority figures are to be respected in accordance to the Confucian way. For example, a child is respectful to a parent because both are needed to maintain balance in the family. This plays a crucial role in the functionality of the family unit. The same notion can be applied to the citizen and his governing body. The citizen is obedient to the government because defiant behavior would lead to chaos (Kessler, pg. 242). The Buddhist and Confucian doctrines are similar in many ways. The ultimate goal of both sets of teachings is the same: human benevolence leads to moral salvation and the well being of humanity. Renunciation plays a major role in the overall intention of both parties. The crucial difference between the two is the source of the regarded texts. Confucians’ fate is subject to the government no matter what. They pay respect to all people, but understand the necessity to respect the upper class because they play a major part in the well being of the whole. The elders and authority figures â€Å"take care† of the younger or less fortunate. Buddhists focus more on solitude and undergoing suffering for the greater good. They go as far as to give up normal eating habits as to refrain from any selfish behavior that may lead to bad karma. Confucians also undergo suffering, but do not give up basic human desires for the benefit of others. They are undeniably considerate. Any feeling that one would not enjoy feeling would never be bestowed upon someone else. No form of extreme asceticism required of Confucians as it is sometimes in Buddhism. Rather, Confucian success is more important to human flourishing. Although true, both moral concepts have the same intended outcome of benevolence toward everyone. Works Cited Kessler, Gary E. Ways of Being Religious. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 2000. 166+. Print.

Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essays

Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essays Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essay Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essay There are various payoffs or benefits those one could expect from the implementation of care path method in the hospital. Execution of Care Path could help to improve the quality of operating processes of all the departments of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The implementation of care path or critical path method could help to provide standard, modified, and better care to all the patients before and after the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Reduction in operating cost and average length of stay could be also expected to result from the implementation of the care path approach in the hospital. The operating room cost that is determined by the amount of surgery performed could be expected to decline in the future due to the improvement in operating processes. Similarly, it could also help to reduce SICU staff cost per day due to the effective communication of information regarding the patients, current medications, and conceptual information and reduce delay to provide X-ray (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). Some of the other benefits could be expected from this method that includes shorter length of stay, less extensive tests, proper management of permanent medical record of each patient, availability of beds, reduced medical  complications etc. The revenue of MGH could be increased in the form of improvement in the heath care processes and benefits of care path method. Answer 2. Beneficiary Hospital Management 3 Several parties would be the beneficiary of improvements in health care process at MGH that includes stakeholders of the hospital like, management of the hospital, surgeons, physicians, staff members, and all the patients. The implementation of care path method could be helpful to reduce the hospital’s cost that includes operating room cost and SICU cost per day and increase  the hospital’s revenues that would be beneficial for the stakeholders of the hospital. Similarly, this approach could help to reduce the average length of patient stay for the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) area in hospital and medical complaints that would be beneficial for the patients and patient’s family (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The care path method would help nurses to effectively maintain patient’s permanent medical record through the care path check sheet. Such improvements in maintaining the patient’s medical records would be helpful for nurses and other accounting administrative staff to  maintain the record of each patient. The implementation of care path methods would be helpful to improve the communication between the MGH’s management and referring physicians, and smooth process of patients flow. Such improvements would be beneficial for the surgeons and physicians of the hospital, because of effective communication with hospital’s management. Answer 3. Approach, Resources and Timeline Bohmer and Torchiana should select small pilot program to implement the care path method for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital  (MGH) to reduce the overall cost of hospital (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The small pilot program would start in January to quickly implement the care path method by all the surgeons simultaneously at MGH. The implementation of care path surgery method through this approach might help the management to more quickly convert the benefits of care path method in other Hospital Management 4 departments of MGH. Several resources would be used to implement the care path method that includes human resources, hospital funds, machinery equipments etc. The human resources include all surgeons, doctors, nurses, physicians, and other hospital staffs. Bohmer and Torchiana would expect effective performance in all the departments of MGH in terms of quality and standardization of processes. The implementation of care path approach would help to reform the whole system of health care process of hospital through significant changes. Creation of a critical pathway through care path approach would helpful to take initial benefits and build an effective framework for the continuous improvement in the future (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The performance of the hospital would improve in terms reduction in length of patient stay that would be dropped about 20% to 30%. This approach will  help the administration of the hospital to reduce the cost throughout the hospital. The implementation of care path method would help to maintain the cooperative environment in the hospital and develop a better way to treat patients and improve quality. The timeline that is expected to execute this approach in the hospital is as follows Month Procedure January, 2011 Implementation of program March, 2011 Assessment of program June, 2011 Evaluation and control of program Hospital Management 5 References Wheelwright, S Weber, J. (2004). Massachusetts General Hospital: CABG Surgery (A). Harvard Business School, pp. 1-21.

Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET

Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET Casting is the process of converting one data type to another, for example, from an Integer type to a String type. Some operations in VB.NET require specific data types to work. Casting creates the type you need. The first article in this two-part series, Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET, introduces casting. This article describes the three operators you can use to cast in VB.NET - DirectCast, CType and TryCast - and compares their performance. Performance is one of the big differences between the three casting operators according to Microsoft and other articles. For example, Microsoft is usually careful to warn that, DirectCast ... can provide somewhat better performance than CType when converting to and from data type Object. (Emphasis added.) I decided to write some code to check. But first a word of caution. Dan Appleman, one of the founders of the technical book publisher Apress and a reliable technical guru, once told me that benchmarking performance is much harder to do correctly than most people realize. There are factors like machine performance, other processes that might be running in parallel, optimization like memory caching or compiler optimization, and errors in your assumptions about what the code is actually doing. In these benchmarks, I have tried to eliminate apples and oranges comparison errors and all tests have been run with the release build. But there still might be errors in these results. If you notice any, please let me know. The three casting operators are: DirectCastCTypeTryCast In practical fact, you will usually find that the requirements of your application will determine which operator you use. DirectCast and TryCast have very narrow requirements. When you use DirectCast, the type must already be known. Although the code ... theString DirectCast(theObject, String) ... will compile successfully if theObject isnt a string already, then the code will throw a runtime exception. TryCast is even more restrictive because it wont work at all on value types such as Integer. (String is a reference type. For more on value types and reference types, see the first article in this series.) This code ... theInteger TryCast(theObject, Integer) ... wont even compile. TryCast is useful when youre not sure what type of object youre working with. Rather than throwing an error like DirectCast, TryCast just returns Nothing. The normal practice is to test for Nothing after executing TryCast. Only CType (and the other Convert operators like CInt and CBool) will convert types that dont have an inheritance relationship such as an Integer to a String: Dim theString As String 1 Dim theInteger As Integer theInteger CType(theString, Integer) This works because CType uses helper functions that arent part of the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) to perform these conversions. But remember that CType will also throw an exception if theString doesnt contain something that can be converted to an Integer. If theres a possibility that the string isnt an integer like this ... Dim theString As String George ... then no casting operator will work. Even TryCast wont work with Integer because its a value type. In a case like this, you would have to use validity checking, such as the TypeOf operator, to check your data before trying to cast it. Microsofts documentation for DirectCast specifically mentions casting with an Object type so thats what I used in my first performance test. Testing begins on the next page! DirectCast will usually use an Object type, so thats what I used in my first performance test. To include TryCast in the test, I also included an If block since nearly all programs that use TryCast will have one. In this case, however, it will never be executed. Heres the code that compares all three when casting an Object to a String: Dim theTime As New Stopwatch() Dim theString As String Dim theObject As Object An Object Dim theIterations As Integer CInt(Iterations.Text) * 1000000 DirectCast Test theTime.Start() For i 0 To theIterations theString DirectCast(theObject, String) Next theTime.Stop() DirectCastTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString CType Test theTime.Restart() For i As Integer 0 To theIterations theString CType(theObject, String) Next theTime.Stop() CTypeTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString TryCast Test theTime.Restart() For i As Integer 0 To theIterations theString TryCast(theObject, String) If theString Is Nothing Then MsgBox(This should never display) End If Next theTime.Stop() TryCastTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString This initial test seems to show that Microsoft is right on target. Heres the result. (Experiments with larger and smaller numbers of iterations as well as repeated tests under different conditions didnt show any significant differences from this result.) Click Here to display the illustration DirectCast and TryCast were similar at 323 and 356 milliseconds, but CType took over three times as much time at 1018 milliseconds. When casting reference types like this, you pay for the flexibility of CType in performance. But does it always work this way? The Microsoft example in their page for DirectCast is mainly useful for telling you what wont work using DirectCast, not what will. Heres the Microsoft example: Dim q As Object 2.37 Dim i As Integer CType(q, Integer) The following conversion fails at run time Dim j As Integer DirectCast(q, Integer) Dim f As New System.Windows.Forms.Form Dim c As System.Windows.Forms.Control The following conversion succeeds. c DirectCast(f, System.Windows.Forms.Control) In other words, you cant use DirectCast (or TryCast, although they dont mention it here) to cast an Object type to an Integer type, but you can use DirectCast to cast a Form type to a Control type. Lets check the performance of Microsofts example of what will work with DirectCast. Using the same code template shown above, substitute ... c DirectCast(f, System.Windows.Forms.Control) ... into the code along with similar substitutions for CType and TryCast. The results are a little surprising. Click Here to display the illustration DirectCast was actually the slowest of the three choices at 145 milliseconds. CType is just a little quicker at 127 milliseconds but TryCast, including an If block, is the quickest at 77 milliseconds. I also tried writing my own objects: Class ParentClass ... End Class Class ChildClass Inherits ParentClass ... End Class I got similar results. It appears that if youre not casting an Object type, youre better off not using DirectCast.

Third-party behavior Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Third-party behavior - Research Paper Example Sources have revealed that in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), methods applied in the crime prevention and reduction is inefficient. For instance, in the most cases, the CJS acts only when a crime occurs or is discovered by the respective authority. Surprisingly, they take act only if the crime detection procedure and the investigation culminate into the identification of a suspect and a decision to charge them with an offense (Cochran, et al. 77). It is, therefore necessary to implement a well-outlined procedural way of preventing and reducing the occurrence of such crimes. Therefore, I do not believe in criminalizing a third party who fails to react by stopping, reporting or preventing the occurrence of the crime. Since the nature of the crime differs, criminalizing a third party can only occur depending with its intensity. The US constitution, which is the supreme law, allows people some freedom to act provided one fails to meddle with others rights (Harr and Hess 23). Therefore, some actions like prostitution and public-intoxication cannot result to the criminalization of a third party who fails to report or prevent the occurrence of such a crime. In brief, the nature of crime determines whether to criminalize a third party for inaction. In some circumstances, the behavior of the third party calls for criminology. For instance, the third party may give moral, material, or financial support (Gibson and Cavanido 20). In addition to the provision of such a support, the third party may refuse to take actions, after witnessing the suffering of either party. The CJS should thus consider some issues before the initiation of the third party criminalization process. It is thus a duty of the CJS to device a well-outlined procedure to follow for the criminalization of a third party. Since the third party has profound responsibility in most of the crimes committed, it is therefore, a duty of the CJS to conduct its