Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Information Systems and Software Applications Essay - 1
Information Systems and Software Applications - Essay Example Utilizing information systems and software applications in human resource, however, assists in management and effective data collection that will contribute towards developing creative business decisions. Information systems and software applications are used in human resource departments to manage employees working in a company. Human resource makes use of different software applications in its operations, for instance, employee turnover can be monitored using one application while a different application is used to screen job applicants. Use of software applications in operations within human resource department makes work easier and this will improve productivity and effectiveness of the entire company. These applications will enable human resource to employ qualified candidates and they will also be able to manage company information in an effective manner (Cashman, et.al, 2009). Management department uses information systems and software applications to analyze and facilitate organizational activities. Companies are able to design, evaluate and implement information through the use of information systems and software applications to generate information as well as to improve effectiveness and efficiency of making organizational decisions (Cashman, et.al, 2009). Software applications provide large hardware storage capacities therefore making it possible for managers to store and link large volumes of data. Information systems applications also provided managers with useful data about inventories, sales and other information that would be used in management of a company. Successful applications enable a business to achieve its long-term objectives as the company can highlight its weaknesses and strengths due to the availability of records regarding employee performance as well as revenue reports. These aspects will assist a company to improve its business
Monday, October 28, 2019
West in Civil War Essay Example for Free
West in Civil War Essay The contribution of the Western states in Civil War outcome are argued to be significant and crucial as Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland has done their best to make the country free from slavery. Delaware supported the Confederacy, Kentucky and Missouri also pro-Union and pro-Confederate government fractions. Historians argue that the Western states with their favorable social, political connections were critical to the war outcome and slavery abolishment. Most of the Western states adopted Jim Crow law and worked towards slavery abolishment. During the Civil War the General Assembly of Delaware rejected secession, as well as Maryland. The year of 1863 appeared to play important role for Maryland as the state adopted new constitution that prohibited slavery, slavery. Thus, slaves were emancipated in the state. After Missouri rejected secession, the newly elected government called for authorization of a state constitutional convention. Missouri approved convention and voted for remaining within the Union, but it opposed coercion of the Southern States. (Monaghan, 1955) Further, Kentucky is argued to contribute to strategic victory in the Civil War, and Lincoln once announced that to loose Kentucky was the same as to be defeated in the Civil War. The importance of Kentucky laid in the fact that the state hold Maryland and Missouri committed to the West. In the beginning Kentucky tended to remain neutral and in 1861 the state asked for keeping out the war. However, the neutrality was broken when General Polk made an attempt to occupy Kentucky openly enlisting troops. Kentucky had to respond and state’s government passed resolution to demand evacuation of Confederate forces from state’s territory. (Coulter, 1926) Summing up, the contribution of the West was significant for the Civil War outcome as the state supported war against the slavery and slave discrimination. Despite initial attempts to remain neutral, Western states realized that only victory would bring relative peace. Thus, Western states have done their best to abolish slavery and to ensure them emancipation in the country. References Merton, Coulter E.. (1926). The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. Monaghan, Jay. (1955). Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865. New York: New York Press.
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Christopher Columbus Essay -- Christopher Columbus Essays
Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen-hundred-ninty-two. He came over from Spain in three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and discovered America, or at least that was what I was taught in elementary school. Since then there has been much controversy going on over the issue of weather or not Christopher Columbus really â€Å"discovered†America because when he landed in San Salvador he was not alone. Native Americans already inhabited the land and they had been there long before Columbus, but this doesn’t mean that he should be atacked stripped of his dignity.      Reed Irvine, chariman, and Joe Goulden, director of the media analysis for Accuracy in Media, state in the acticle History Should Continue to Acknoledge Columbus as a Discoverer:      The â€Å"presence†of the North American Continent had been known to the persons living           there for centuries before arrival. But Columbus, and those who followed him, recognized           the significance of the New World; in this sense they certainly deserve credit for having           â€Å"discovered†America.      Over five hundred years ago he landed in the Americas and now we are starting to question weather or not he should be given credit for discovering America. This doesn’t seem fare. After so many years without controversy it’s just been recently that we have started to question the lagitamitity of his discovery. What brought on this sudden change? Perhaps is was the coming of the five hundred year celebration of our country that brought this on, or maybe now some of the Native Americans are finally starting to speak out, but no matter what the reason may be it shouldn’t be taking place. Columbus should still be given the credit for discovering America. It was the first time that anyone was recognized for landing on a new continent and he still deserves respect.      Irvine and Goulden feel bad for Columbus, too. â€Å"Poor Christopher Columbus. Five hundred years after the fact, the explorer is beng stripped of recognition as the man who ‘discovered’ America and the New World.†     There are many people who bel... ...;     quest for new frontiers continues today as earthlings burst terrestrial bonds and begin the           endless voyage beyond planet and galaxy into the illimitable dark.      That desire to go where no one has ever been before is inside of all of us. All of us enjoy exploring new teritory that we have never been on before. It’s that thrill and excitement that fills our heart and soles.      When Columbus landed on the new land he put a flag in the ground claiming it for Spain. Then he met the Native Americans and was very friendly to them. â€Å"I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know that they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love thwn by force,†Columbus wrote in his journal.      From everything that we know thus far there isn’t a big enough reason as to why we should all of the sudden stop recognizing Columbus as the founder of our nation. Therefore, he should be given recignition of his accompishments and still be known as the one who discovered America.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Discuss the Satire of Pride and Prejudice Essay
The explanation of satire in the Oxford English dictionary is â€Å"using humour or exaggeration to show what is bad about a person or thing†¦Ã¢â‚¬ In Pride and Prejudice this notion is almost played upon, with Jane Austen using satire throughout the novel in different ways. It is an entertaining way of subtly â€Å"poking fun†at a person, or group of people, which they are perhaps unaware of. Pride and Prejudice is a light-hearted novel, which although it picks out particular faults in society which existed then, and as Jane Austen sees them, it is a different type of satire to the type of satire that George Orwell uses in â€Å"animal farm†. Whilst Orwell is poking fun at a political system, Austen is poking fun at the social circles that surround her in everyday life. In my own personal view, both successfully ridicule the groups that they intend to. Both authors play on the faults, and enlarge and exaggerate them. Although Austen uses satire in her novel, it is concealed to all but the intelligent; who see the real purpose and not just the comical factor of it all. Austen uses it lightly, and subtly, it is not blatant. She uses it benignly, and never means to be harsh, and offensive. She shows what she has observed, and picks people’s traits; it is the people around her who are the inspiration for the characters in her novels. Using satire she showed the social snobbery between the classes. She showed how the wealthy upper class abused their rank and class and considered himself or herself higher than anyone else. They used people to gain social status in society, and for example, Mr. Collin’s used to name drop to gain respect from others, when frequently it would backfire on him, and the people would either end up laughing at him or disliking him entirely. Quite often when a person was being rude to them, they would not notice, as it was subtle, this is satire. It is a way of stirring, but it is only ever-affected people if they could interpret it properly. In the text itself, it is very effective. On the surface the novel seems like a complicated love-story, but underneath it shows the true traits of society in the time of Jane Austen. Austen uses characters from the novel to depict the different types of people that there were in those times. In the novel there are several characters that are continually made fun of satirically. The novel starts with a strong statement, â€Å"It is truth universally known that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in need of a wife.†This is as if it is set in stone, and believed by a lot of the characters, such as Mrs. Bennet, Lydia and Charlotte Lucas. By saying this, it is showing the woman to be shallow, and only really caring about the material things in life, such as how much money a man has. The more money he has, the more appealing he is to marry. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is another example of a character that has been satirised. She is a lady who comes from the Upper Crust of society, and has a very high opinion of her. She thinks herself to be highly intelligent and superior to everyone else. She overprotects her daughter, and has an immense amount of control over those who are of her acquaintance. Austen shows Lady Catherine’s true character using dialogue. For example, when Lady Catherine goes to visit Lizzie Bennet, and they have an argument, Lady Catherine defends her self by saying; â€Å"Do you know who I am?†You are shown whom she really is when she talks. Her opinion is strong, and she dislikes people talking back at her. In the novel, when Lizzie Bennet was dining with her, she would frequently ask a question, then answer it herself. Austen uses Lady Catherine as an example of a person who has a lot of money, and I high up in the social hierarchy, but lacks manners and tact, and is a general snob. A close acquaintance of Lady Catherine is Mr. Collin’s; who is a cousin of the Bennets. He is the chaplain at Rosings Park, for Lady Catherine. Mr. Collins almost worships Lady Catherine, as she has a lot of money, and he name is well known in society. He is incredibly materialistic, and puts money over personality. He tries to impress people by name dropping, often using Lady Catherine, in hope to gain popularity. He feels that it is important to do this, so that people will be impressed by him, as not only does he know Lady Catherine, he dines with her at least once a week. He is an example of someone who thinks that he has to be accepted in society and does this by varied means. He is a snob, and dislikes people that he feels are below him, although he himself is not highly popular. He has a fine image of himself in his head, and holds a good opinion of himself. You are shown that he is shallow when he asks Lizzie Bennet to marry him, as he claims that he is in love with her, and then when she refuses, he quickly got engaged to Charlotte Lucas, which just proves that he did not love Lizzie, and only asked her, as Lady Catherine said that he should have a wife. He is satirically made fun of most when he proposes to Lizzie Bennet. Austen makes the reader almost pity him, as he embarrasses himself to no end, without really knowing it, and making the reader laugh at him. You can compare Mr. Collins to Mr. Darcy. Mr Darcy is high up in the social hierarchy, as he takes after his father’s name who set such an example, and he sees no reason for him to name drop at all, especially as he is already at the height of society anyway. Mr. Darcy comes across as the type of person who is actually fine with those who are below him, and although he may be â€Å"off†with them, and have formed opinions of them, his mind is not closed, and so there is a chance for it to change. This is shown when he is kind and civil to the Bennets who were not of the same class as him. Mr. Darcy does not seem to enjoy the company of Mr. Collin’s as he is a sycophant, and tries to â€Å"get to know Mr. Darcy†by talking about Lady Catherine, Mr. Darcy’s aunt. He is an example of someone who is a gentleman, and does not abuse his social rank, although it may seems like that to many people who do not know him very well. Mr. Darcy was born into money, and so always knew what it was like, and so does not need to abuse it, when there are other people who were not born into money, and do. For example, they might have got their money from labouring, and then made it big, and disowned their former history, and then mocked the people who were labouring. The Bingley sisters are a perfect example of this. The Bingley sister’s are examples of â€Å"new money†, people who were not born into money, but made their money themselves. Even though this is the case, they like to think that they were born into money, and pretend that they were always in polite society. They abuse their rank in society, and they mock the people who they feel are below them, they think that those who work for their money are of the lower class; this is ironic as they themselves made their money in such a way. The Bingley sister’s are examples of people who have money, and really abuse it by thinking that they are very high up in life, and are rude to those who they think are below them. Mr. Bingley is a true gentlemen, who does not distinguish a person by how much money they have. He is an example to all those who thought that they were better than anyone else were. He treated everyone with respect. This is shown when he falls in love with Jane Bennet, who everyone else thought was far below him, and that Mr. Bingley was far superior to her. He showed everyone else that it did not matter where a person was on the rich list, but what sort of person they were, and that their personality mattered. William Lucas was a vain and boastful man, and boasts a lot about his knighthood, but he isn’t really all that experienced, and it is all just a large faà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ade that he is hiding behind. He is an example of someone who is really proud, but does not really have a reason to be proud. All of the characters mentioned, and several others in the novel are metaphorically wearing a mask, and pretend to be something that they are not, just so that they can be â€Å"excepted into polite society†. They are all one person, as they are like sheep, and copy each other, so that they can also be excepted easier. For example, when no-one knew of the deeds Wickham had done, everyone liked him, as most people did, but when some people found out what he had done, even if they did not tell anyone, you could tell that everyone else was trying to copy them by not being civil to him. They just used to follow the crowd, and they would get so caught up in what they were trying to be, that they would forget who they really were, and what their real identity was. Austen depicts this using satire in her novel, and makes it known to the reader what it was like in those times. In some ways it also can be reflected on what it still is nowadays, except nowadays there is a sheet over it all, and so you cannot see it that much. All in all I think that the satire is very affective, and I think that Austen uses it to her advantages, and it reflects true fully what the real situation was in those times, and how it was hard to tell whom the real people were. I think that the satire that she uses is really clever, and it makes you think a lot. On the surface it is quite light hearted, but underneath the surface it is much deeper than humour, and it makes you understand that there was a lot of people who were so obsessed with being sociable, that in the end you had to laugh at them. It is hard to understand it fully nowadays, as times have changed, and people have different understandings. The satire could become diluted in such situations, but I think that in this case it does not, and it stays strong. I think this because it just makes the modern world which we live in seem so much more trivial, and it gives you an understanding of what it must have been like to live then. I feel that the satire used in Pride and Prejudice is altogether witty, and clever, never once failing to mean something.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Moral Dilemma
Amy is a sweet six year old girl from our neighborhood and she had always played with my dog when she got home from preschool. I was friends with her mother and she was already familiar with me which meant that I did not have to establish rapport to interview her. I sought permission from the parents if I may use her responses to a moral dilemma in my course assignments and they gave their consent. Amy is a precocious child, she likes to play with the neighborhood kids and she can argue even with those older than her when she wants to prove a point. I was trying to devise a moral dilemma that was fitted for her age and reality and I thought of using my dog in it so she would be more able to relate. One afternoon, right after school, I asked Amy the following: Suppose you were playing in this yard, and you saw that Boo had been wandering in the neighbor’s lawn and you saw him made a mess in the lawn. You know that the neighbors might get angry with it but since you really love Boo and he might get in to trouble if you tell the neighbors that he made a mess in their lawn you do not say anything. Now that the neighbors had found out about it and they suspected that the other neighbor’s dog did it and they were actually going to have the dog arrested. What would you do? After some thought, Amy asked me whether the police would really arrest the dog after making a mess in the neighbor’s backyard and although I was actually trying hard not to laugh, I told her that in this city they do. Amy fell silent and thought for a while, and then she said, I guess I have to tell because the police will find out and I might get arrested too. I then asked her, what if the police question you; will you tell then or not? Amy replied that she would not lie because God would be angry with her. I also told her, what if the neighbor’s won’t be angry, will she still tell? Amy replied that she would not because no one had asked her and she would not want Boo to get into trouble. I also asked her whether what Boo did was bad and does she not think not telling I bad? Amy said that what Boo did was not wrong or bad because dogs are really like that and she did not think that not telling was bad either because no one asked her. I must admit that Amy’s responses had me confused and I was reading Kohlberg’s moral stages of development and I tried to determine at what stage Amy was, even if she was just 6 years old, she had some pretty logical responses like when she said that Boo was not bad because dogs really do mess on lawns and that she was not bad because she did not lie at all, it was that no one asked her. She made it clear that if someone asks her, then she would tell the truth because she would not want God to be angry with her. Using Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, I will try to examine Amy’s responses fully. According to Kohlberg, moral development proceeds in a successive pattern and each moral reasoning is distinct from the other, although some people may resort to an earlier moral reasoning stage to examine a moral dilemma (Boyd & Bee, 2006). For example, a child is said to be in the first stage of moral development which Kohlberg calls precoventional morality and wherein the child’s moral reasoning is determined by punishment and authority. An older child may be oriented towards conventional morality where a certain amount of goodness is ascribed to actions that benefit family members or society would still use the authority and punishment orientation if the situation presents itself. With Amy’s responses it is clear that she was still in the first stage. She was not going to lie because God would be angry with her, this to her meant that God punishes all children who lie and since God is all knowing and sees her actions then God would be able to tell whether she was saying the truth or not. This clearly indicates the orientation to think in terms of authority and punishment. Amy was more likely to have been told numerous times that lying is bad and even if no one would know that one is lying, God is able to tell who is lying or not thus it does not make sense to lie at all. It is also noteworthy that Amy uses the word lie to not saying the truth but to refer to not saying anything as not telling. This implies that Amy is able to distinguish to a certain degree when a wrong is committed, lying is bad but not telling is not bad. An older child might argue that not telling is the same as lying but then it is probably an influence of Amy’s environment and the people she interact with. On the other hand, when Amy said that Boo was not wrong at all because he was a dog and dog naturally make messes in the lawn tells me that she actually has a fairly good idea about how man and animals are different and how dogs are not governed by the moral reasoning of man (Sandstrom, Martin & Fine, 2006). This is actually reflects the second stage in Kohlberg’s reasoning, although the subject is Boo, it still shows that Amy is able to discern that punishment is a risk that one has to avoid. For example, she said that she did not want Boo to get into to trouble so she would not tell. This meant that she did not want Boo to be punished and she has a role in it, but if she was going to be the one punished or someone else’s dog then that would not be right and therefore she just have to say the truth so she won’t get punished. Amy also was probably in the outset of the third stage of moral development, she was trying to protect Boo and had given Boo a sense of identity and feelings by saying that Boo would be in trouble and arresting Boo would not be right. Amy was maintaining good interpersonal relationships, she thought that by protecting Boo she was being good to Boo and since she liked Boo she was obligated to protect Boo’s welfare. However, since she argued that if someone asked her about Boo’s crime, she would not lie is still in the obedience stage. The whole exercise had made me think that Kohlberg was probably right in saying that moral development proceeds in distinct patterns. But I would argue that it is not as strictly hierarchical as Kohlberg claim it to be. We know that stage theories presuppose that one stage leads to another and that a person cannot be able to proceed to the next stage if he/she does not go through the first one (Crain, 2005). This is actually true, but the stages are more fluid and a person can gravitate from one stage to another. It does not indicate moral maturity or highly ethical principles but it just shows how people progress in their moral thinking. Amy at 6 years old is quite adept at making her point about lying and not lying and about being punished and God being angry with her. But it also revealed that she is capable of higher thinking processes that are actually rational even for a 6 year old like her. Kohlberg also said that the stages of moral development is influenced by the socialization process (Kohlberg, 1986), and in effect is merely a product of how a child is socialized into thinking about what is wrong and what is right. Amy comes from a very religious family and God is an ever present element in their house that it is no wonder that Amy think of God like that. It could also be that because Amy is still young, and her parents might think that she would be more obedient to God than to other authority figures and therefore has inculcated in her mind that God punishes liars. In the end, moral development is actually more a function of how a child is reared and trained, it is the parent’s role to instill moral values and train them into thinking morally right. References Boyd, D. & Bee, H. (2006). Lifespan Development 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Crain, W. (2005). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Kohlberg, L. (1986). The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Sandstrom, K., Martin, D. & Fine, G. A.  (2006). Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Roxbury Press Â
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