Against Animal Experimentation Essay -- social issues

Against Animal Experimentation Imagine having a headache and not having aspirin to take, or being diabetic and not being able to take certain types of insulin (Williams 3). It seems impossible that these drugs could be unavailable to humans, but they would not be attainable had scientists not tested these drugs on non-animal subjects. Contrary to what many people believe, testing drugs on animals often give defective results. â€Å"More than 205,000 new drugs are marketed worldwide every year, most undergo the most archaic and unreliable testing methods still in use: animal studies† (PETA 1). Although animals may seem the like ideal specimens for testing new drugs, the experiments are untrustworthy and can cause unknown side effects. Research on animals is deemed necessary to develop vaccines, treatments, and cures for diseases and to ensure that new products are safe for humans to use. â€Å"The development of immunization against such diseases as polio, diphtheria, mumps, measles, rubella, pertussis, and hepatitis all involved research on animals [†¦]† (AMPEF 1). Scientists have found many drugs by means of animal experimentation. To some people, animals are viewed as better test subjects than anything else. Scientists can control many aspects in an animal’s life such as their diet, the temperature, lighting, environment, and more. Animals are biologically similar, but not identical to humans and can form some of the same health problems. When these health problems are injected into an animal it can have the same physical reactions as a human could. Brettner -2- Experimenting on animals, to some, is important if humans want to continue with improving our medical advances (AMPEF 1). Although animals have helped form useful medicines for humans like anesthesia, they have also helped put dangerous drugs on the market (AMPEF 1). Practolol, a drug for heart disorders that passed animal test was pulled off the shelves when the drug caused blindness in people. Also, arsenic, which is toxic and causes cancer in humans, has not caused cancer in any animals that were tested (PETA 1). â€Å"According to the General Accounting Office, more than half of the prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1976 and 1985 caused serious side effects that later caused the drugs to be either relabeled or removed from the market. Drugs app... ... are many other ways to get the same results as humans receive from animal experiments. These methods are viewed as more moral, practical, effective, and less expensive, why wouldn’t we use these methods? By using these methods, scientists were able to invent aspirin and certain types of insulin (Williams 3). Although animals may seem like the ideal specimen for experimenting with, these experiments are untrustworthy and can cause unknown side effects. Works Cited AMPEF. â€Å"Point Counterpoint†. Americans For Medical Progress Education Foundation. 1998. 4 May 2002. Best, Lonnie Lee. â€Å"Are Humans Animals?† The Hardcore Truth. 1998. 1 May 2002. British Anti-Vivisection Association. â€Å"Animal Experimentation: No Lie Can Live Forever†. 2 May 2002. Cohen, Et. Al. â€Å"A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation†. 1998. 3 May 2002. People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. â€Å"Animal Experimentation†. PETA. 2001. 4 May 2002. Thacher, Wendy. â€Å"Chimpanzees: Test Results That Don’t Apply To Humans†. PCRM Animal Experimentation Issues. September 2, 1999. 5 May 2002. Williams, Joy. â€Å"Do Creatures Have The Same Rights That We Do?† Harper’s Magazine. 1997. 6 May 2002.

Appropriateness, Reinforcement, Preferences and Transformation Essay

Question: According to Eunson (2006, p.15) there are four main criteria to be considered when choosing the medium/s of communication to best articulate an argument: Appropriateness, Reinforcement, Preferences and Transformation. Select one of the criteria and discuss its importance to a communication situation. Any successful communication process requires the presence of a message, appropriate medium   and the desired message’s effect on the receiver.   Ã‚  To effect success in communication, it is important to use a suitable medium based on the Preferences criterion. Modern technologies have greatly facilitated human communication. However, as Priestley’s Paradox illustrates, people get to actually communicate less as communication technologies further advance (Eunson 2006, p.4). Hence, for effective communication, it is more important to consider the message and the effect of that message on the receiver (Eunson 2006, p.7). The successful transfer of message and its effect, however, largely depends on the communication mode used or â€Å"preferred†. The medium is crucial to the effect of a message because as emphasized by Marshall McLuhan (Lister 2003), â€Å"societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media† . In other words, the medium is the message. A case in point would be a Human Resource Department in an office where the HR Manager normally ‘prefers’ communicating with his staff through memos and e-mail notifications. But being a smart manager, he or she will not hesitate to utilize other media as needed, according to the importance of the message and the desired effect to the recipients. He or she may ‘prefer’ to personally discuss an individual’s unsatisfactory ‘Performance Assessment Report’, earlier sent as is via individual e-mail, through   one-on-one review. The richness of media (Daft & Lengel 1986, p.557) effected by direct face-to-face discussion is ‘preferred’ to the e-mail channel, which in this case plays a secondary role as preparatory medium of documentation. Herein, interpersonal communication appropriate to a small group (Baker, Barrett & Roberts 2002, p.11), is considered and selected to amplify the Report’s â€Å"warning† content with the goal of effecting the desired change in the staffer’s behaviour. Exploring â€Å"Preferences† in choosing media is vital to effectively convey the message. Since the medium, which helps shape the content, is mostly the message itself and that the message’s effect on the receiver is affected by the medium, selecting the suitable channel from a range of Preferences becomes crucial to any effective communication.    Bibliography Baker, E. Barrett, M. & Roberts, L 2002, Working Communication, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd., Milton Qld. Daft, R. L. and Lengel, R. H. 1986 â€Å"Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design,† Management Sci., Vol. 32, No.5, pp. 554–571. Eunson, B. 2006, Communicating in the 21st Century, John Wiley & Sons, Australia Ltd., Milton Qld. Lister, M 2003, New Media: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, London.

Lost Languages

It is a sad but true fact that out of the more than six thousand languages that existed in the world at one time, one disappears every fortnight! Take the example of Patrick Nudjulu of North Australia, one of the three remaining speakers of the dying language Mati Ke. As tradition forbids him to speak to his sister, he does not have anyone he can speak his own language with, and as a consequence, the language is dying out, and will disappear with the death of Patrick. Some of the other languages that will disappear soon and be lost forever are, according to Duncan Walker, Abenaki, Atures, Welsh, and Manx.   (Walker, Duncan 2005) In any culture, land and its language are closely inter connected, and in Aboriginal Australia, this is especially true because the entire continent is divided by its hills and other geographical distinctions, and also because of its languages. The people of Wadeye, who spoke Mati Ke, were forced to move over and start using the Murrinh-Patta. This meant that Mati Ke was no longer being used, and nobody even realized in the beginning that the language of their ancestors was slipping away into oblivion. Patrick Nudjulu, an old man, and one of the few people left in the world who can actually speak Mati Ke still, says, â€Å"I still dream in Mati Ke. See all in the past.† His own daughter and granddaughter do not know how to speak this language, and they use the Murrinh-Patta that they are more familiar with. It is interesting to note that for Patrick Nudjulu, English is his fourth of fifth strongest language. The author of the book Mark Abley, in a quest to gain knowledge of a few words of Mati Ke, learnt that ‘mi warzu’ is the name for fruit in Mati Ke, ‘a dhan gi’ means salt water prawns, ‘a wayelh’ refers to goanna lizard, although it was sadly true that Patrick Nudjulu himself was forced to use the Murrinh-Patta to communicate with his family. Patrick’s story is indeed a tragic but an all too familiar one; he was forced to leave the town in which he had been living after his parents had given up their difficult life in the bush, but had to go back to life in the bush because he could no longer tolerate the destruction of his town. He has in effect returned to the bark and bough shelters that were familiar to him, as he had lived in them through his childhood. However, despite his best efforts, it was obvious that his language would not be saved; although he spoke to his grandchildren in Mati Ke, they chose to reply to him in Murrinh-Patta, thereby leaving no doubt at all that yet another language, Mati Ke, is on its inexorable way to extinction.   Ã‚  (Abley, Mark 2005) Works cited Abley, Mark â€Å"Spoken here, travels among threatened languages† (2005) Google Book Search retrieved on March 11, 2008 from Walker, Duncan â€Å"In defence of ‘lost’ languages† BBC News (2005) Retrieved on March 11, 2008 from      

Cost Pools and Cost Objects

Topic 6: Management Accounting and Cost Case: Shelter Partnership a. My main learning outcomes from Topic 6 and the Case Study; 1)Firstly, I realize management accounting has much to offer. Somehow I can handle physics but not accounting. Now thanks to this course I can appreciate and make sense of it. The bit that really caught my attention was seeing how management accounting can be really useful for business planning, cost management, budgeting and performance measurement. It offers critical and more objective inputs for decision making. On my part, I would say this is one of my most important learning outcomes as it changed my personal view and outlook of accounting. 2)I have learnt that a good costing system is needed to get a better grip on the â€Å"actual† cost of my products and services. Gaining a better understanding of the Cost Pools (and the types of cost) and how these costs are allocated to the Cost Objects is a good starting point. 3)I realize that it is very important to identify and define the Cost Objects properly from the start. While I may like to define the Cost Objects narrowly, it should only be done to the extent it is economically viable. )I recognize that there are a number of ways to allocate indirect costs (from the Cost Pools) to the Cost Objects and these can cause distortion. It is therefore imperative to establish a meaningful and acceptable way of allocating such cost to better reflect the true cost. This leads to my next learning outcome. 5)Stephen Covey’s â€Å"begin wi th the end in mind† rings true here. If I had wanted to measure and analyze the Cost Objects by products, services and countries(Multinational Company), both the Cost Objects and the way cost is allocated needs to be defined early. In this case, a deeper engagement between my Marketing Department and the Finance Department is necessary to fine tune the costing system. 6)When looking at the cost numbers, it is imperative for me to consider and discern the context and assumptions used in arriving at the numbers since these are not â€Å"standardized†. b. Applying the learning outcomes to my own organization. 1)I work in a large IT company and my portfolio includes Marketing, Consulting and Strategic Account (Client) Management. In the area of Account Management, the company had recently implemented a system to track the profitability of each Client. In the case of revenues, it is a relatively simple process. However, getting a truer picture of the cost of providing professional services to each of our clients is a major challenge. In a sense, our client account is a â€Å"Cost Object†. 2)In a typical project undertaken for our client, professional services are provided by dynamically formed teams made up of Project Managers, Business Consultants, Senior Project Leads, Business Analysts, Programmers and Testers. Presently we are allocating cost to each of our clients according to the numbers of professional man-days consumed by the clients based on a â€Å"blended† man-day rate. The following is a simplified illustration of how cost is allocated. 3)We have room for significant improvements in the way we allocate cost. a. Labor cost which is a direct cost becomes a little complicated due to the project nature of the service. But since our systems captures the actual time-sheet for each employee according to projects, we should be able to eventually allocate labor cost directly to the Client, â€Å"Cost Objects† and give a truer reflection of cost. . Secondly, we should explore for more appropriate ways for allocating indirect cost such as travel & ticketing administrations and office space which is presently added into the blended rate. Since administration for travel and ticketing only applies to overseas projects, In-Country projects should not be â€Å"burdened† with t hese costs. Similarly, office space is only applicable for projects running out of our own premises and should not be loaded to projects undertaken at specific clients’ premises. At any one time around 50% of our staff is based outside of our office. )We found the shortcomings in cost allocation affects our decisions on pricing, discounts, expense provision, use of resources (especially when contending for resources), budgeting and business planning. 5)We have some multi-nationals clients, and I am curious about the effect of establishing overlapping â€Å"Cost Objects† to present a group/enterprise level view in addition to the present individual client level view. In our case, we have local offices in a number of countries and resource sharing is quite extensive, however no cost transfer has been allocated to the individual client account.

Discuss the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the Essay

Discuss the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the isreali-palestinian conflict.What are the core issues that need to be resolved for lasting peace to occur - Essay Example decades in order to bring about lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians but all of these attempts have ended up in failure mainly because of the unwillingness of either side to make concessions that are deemed to be advantageous to their rivals. The result has been that the conflict has remained intense and this to such an extent that it has become common for both sides to level accusations and counter accusations towards each other over their unwillingness to bring about lasting peace. It is essential to note that there are many issues that have to be resolved in order for lasting peace to be brought about in this region, some of which will be discussed in this paper. Among the issues to be resolved are the following; the conflict of identity, socio-psychological barriers, religion, justice and fairness as a barrier, and finally, the strategic decisions taken during the peace process. One of the biggest issues that have to be resolved in order to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end is the conflict of identity. This is a situation which developed as a result of the forced removal of Palestinians from their land during the war of 1947 to 1949 which brought about the Palestinian refugee crisis (Flapan 1987, p.4; Morris 2004, p.48). This crisis has become one of the major issues of contention during the peace process because it has brought about a situation where among the points made by Palestinian authorities is that the refugees have a right to return to their ancestral lands. The argument for return is one which is normally bitterly opposed by Israel because it would essentially mean the invalidation of the Jewish state and recognition that it has settled Palestinian land illegally. This is a concession that Israel is unwilling to make because it would essentially bring its development over the last six decades to a halt. Furthermore, most Israelis b elieve that the land that was occupied starting from 1948 is their ancestral land and that

International Business Alliance case-writing Essay

International Business Alliance case-writing - Essay Example In 1996, TSYS and VISA U.S.A.'s Merchant Bank Services formed the for-profit Vital Processing Services LLC joint venture, combining both companies' merchant processing units, which together processed nearly three billion transactions in 1995. TSYS has also expanded into new areas to combat the increasing maturation of the U.S. credit card industry. In 1995, TSYS, which has long serviced banks in Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, took its first steps to transform itself into an international company. TSYS formed the joint venture Total System Services de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. with Controladora PROSA, an 11-bank partnership representing 75 percent of Mexico's card-issuing banks. The joint venture added four million accounts, giving TSYS de Mexico 40 percent of that country's credit card accounts. TSYS has also expanded beyond traditional credit card markets by winning the processing business of United States Medical Finance Corp.'s USMed Card, a medical credit card. An alliance with Fair , Isaac and Company subsidiary DynaMark, Inc., formed in 1995, has enabled TSYS to extend its services to its clients with dynamic database marketing capabilities. TSYS generates revenues through the volume, rather than the amount, of transactions made on the credit cards it services. In 1995, TSYS revenues neared $250 million, producing a net income of $27.7 million. TSYS is led by Chairman and CEO Richard Ussery, Vice-chairman Kenneth Evans, and President Philip Tomlinson, all three long-time employees of parent company Synovus Financial Corp. That company, formerly known as Columbus Bank & Trust, owns 81 percent of TSYS's stock; TSYS management controls an additional ten percent of the company's shares, with the remainder trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1950s, it was barely possible to speak of a credit card "industry." When tiny Columbus Bank & Trust (CB&T) issued a credit card to its local depositors in 1959, it was only the second bank in Georgia, and among the very first in the country, to do so. A credit processing operation was set up in the bank's basement; processing was done manually, as computers were still rare and software was even rarer. Through the first half of the 1960s, the bank's credit department grew from processing transactions from some 200 local merchants to 3,000. In 1966, CB&T built a separate operations building, and, after attempting to form a joint venture with W.C. Bradley Company to computerize processing, CB&T installed its own computer. Finding trained computer operators was difficult and expensive; instead, the bank trained some of its own personnel, establishing a computer department. By 1969 the company was writing its own software to handle processing of its credit card accounts. Joining the team developing the bank's software programs was Richard Ussery, then in his fourth year with the bank (he joined CB&T as a teller in 1965). As more banks instituted credit cards and struggled to process accounts, they were attracted to CB&T's processing system. Ussery told Georgia Trend of

Visual Literacy in Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 11

Visual Literacy in Business - Essay Example When putting together a communication piece through the use of visuals, there are important steps to follow. The first step is organizing the data to present. There are two fundamental possibilities in the organization of data, and they are charts and tables. Neither of these possibilities is better than the other though each has its specific purposes and strengths. The most crucial point to consider before commencing the process of designing is the main point of the presentation. The second step is highlighting the data. When designing the charts, it is important to recall that the human brain intuitively recognizes the differences in size, shape, color, orientation, and hue and attach particular meanings to them (Apkon, 2013). The visual properties are known as pre-attentive variables since the process of perceiving them is immediate and automatic and does not need the involvement of conscious thought. The designer should use this knowledge for the purpose of intentionally highligh ting the most important information. The third and last step is showing the data. It is important to display only the content that is meaningful and leave the items that are extraneous. It is not advisable to decorate the data since it may hinder and distract the audience from perceiving what is irrelevant and what is important (Apkon, 2013). Failure to follow these steps will lead to distracting the audience who will not understand the main point of presenting the visual communication