The Background of the May Fourth Movement in China Essay

The Background of the May Fourth Movement in China - Essay Example Indeed, in the WWI China had joined the allies against Germany, and after the war demanded that allies end the occupation of the Chinese territories, but such demands were ignored in the Versailles Treaty. Frustration and indignation of the Chinese escalated and lead to student demonstrations on May 4, 1919 in Beijing, which quickly expanded to other main cities. The disappointment over the West instigated many Chinese to search elsewhere for help. Still, while the May Fourth Movement grew on the base of the student protests, it had a deeper historic background that contributed to it. In fact, the roots of the May Fourth Movement, also called the New Cultural Movement, can be found in China already around 1916, when Chinese intellectuals began to spread disdain for the traditional Chinese culture, blaming it for turning China into a secondary international player. So, it is no wonder that the controversy over the Versailles Treaty lead to the explosion of popular outrage, and amplifi ed appeals to much needed "new culture" and the need to return to China its due international role. Moreover, at the same time the government of the Northern Warlords, the militant sovereigns and ruling groups, submitted to the foreign powers and significantly increased taxation, which made the population suffer.

JOURNAL 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

JOURNAL 5 - Essay Example To help in dealing with such issues, WMF included archeological institutions as well as representatives of various fields that include information management, virtual technology, conservation, infrastructure engineering, and architecture in the symposium (Pompei et al. 6). WMF hoped that the result of the forum would reach as many scholars as possible especially on issues regarding planning as well as conservation projects. The discussions held helped students in acquiring opportunities of learning about and being able to contribute to the knowledge as well as appreciate the ancient Roman society. Additionally, the discussion also presented the individuals with a unique opportunity to compare as well as exchange experiences, views, and ideas concerning best practices. More importantly, the discussion aimed at suggesting ideas that would contribute towards the chief goal of preserving the archaeological sites ((Pompei et al. 7-8). Recently, more conservational work has been carried ou t by the Instituto Centrale per il Restauro and other numerous local institutions with help from other foreign organizations. Many of these institutions attended the symposium. In this region, much work under historical and scientific fields has been executed with the main goal of preserving the remains of the Romans. Some of the remains range from tombs to an entire insulae and represent the Roman history dating back to the first century AD. The efforts of the WMF were brought to Pompeii when the region was listed among the most 100 endangered sites. According to the WMF, the symposium presented an opportunity that would help in the re-definition of the best conservation techniques that would be used both in the contemporary world and in the future. Although the discussion came across numerous disagreements, there were several ideas in which individuals agreed on. For instance, most archaeologists maintained that while implementing any effort in

Ethical Implications for Human Trafficking in the United States Essay Example for Free

Ethical Implications for Human Trafficking in the United States Essay Ethical Implications for Human Trafficking in the United States Human trafficking is a type of modern-day slavery in which millions of people, regardless of gender or age, around the world are forced into. Human trafficking is the trade of human beings for the purpose of forced labor, sexual exploitation or illegal profits and usually involves the use of violence, fraud, or coercion to recruit, hide, and transport people illegally (Act Now). According to the United Nations is both a definition of human trafficking is â€Å"The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs. † (UNICEF) The traffickers use different types of strategies to exploit the â€Å"slaves†. There are two types of slavery: those who are forced to work for money and those who are kidnapped and forced to work for food (â€Å"Human Trafficking†). Trafficking primary involves exploitation which comes in many forms such as forcing victims into prostitution, subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude, compelling victims to commit sexual acts for the purpose of creating pornography and misleading victims into debt bondage (Do Something). Of the 27 million slaves around the world, 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation (Do Something). Many of the people who are victims of human trafficking are people who voluntarily enter the business but under false pretenses. These people leave their homes in order to change their quality of life but many of the times they are lied to about the conditions of the work they are intended to do. Due to monetary problems or joblessness, people try to find better opportunities out of the country. Poverty is a huge contributor to human trafficking as well. Mostly in third world countries and sometimes in second world counties, family members will sell females and children for cash. Females can cost around US$100-2,500 depending on the country, the age of the female and if she has had a child or not (PBS). Then they must work off the debt they accumulate, which includes costs of food, shelter, and other expenses with interest which can take years to settle. Homeless children or children who come from broken families are more susceptible to the sex industry to survive economically. These innocent victims put their trust on â€Å"manager† or the â€Å"middle man† who promise them a higher paying job in a better area. Many women leave their homes in order to find better opportunities for a high paying job for their family but when they arrive to the new city, they are forced into an exploitative job. They way human traffickers secure the â€Å"slaves† is by making them dependant on them by taking their passport away, making them into drug addicts and with emotional and physical abuse. Although 110 countries have signed and approved the document, implanting the policies and law proves most difficult. The challenge lies in targeting all the criminals who target innocent and vulnerable people who organize the human trafficking ring. In March 2007, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) formally launched a Global Initiative to fight Human Trafficking meaning they will help draft laws and help implement policies against human trafficking. The biggest international milestone to date has been the adoption of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women, and Children (Act Now). The reason why it is so difficult to eradicate human trafficking is due to economical reasons. In economic terms, by increasing the amount of product in the most cost effect manner, the cheaper the product which is favorable for all consumers. However, putting it in simpler worlds, to provide lower prices for consumers, human traffickers reduce the cost of production by providing cheap labor to the factories. In order to find a better opportunity for their life, many people are being trafficked voluntarily. This means that they sign an â€Å"indentured servitude† agreement in which they are smuggled from one country into another. Even though this is illegal and exploitative, it allows people to move to a place that might have more resources to sustain them, which could balance the burden of human population. Because human trafficking allows some companies to produce goods and services at a lower cost, the other companies that compete legally will have to innovate and improve their businesses to stay competitive. Meaning human trafficking encourages the development of more efficient and innovative technology by providing cheap labor. Human trafficking dehumanizes the victims and rewards the perpetrators. With 50% of all slaves are under the age of 18 years, two thirds of them suffer from physical abuse from their handlers and it affects them in the long run (Do Something). They are more likely to develop metal health problems, engage in substance abuse, engage in prostitution and either commit, or be a victim of violent crimes (Do Something). We may think that things like this could never occur where we live but Orlando is the perfect example of how human trafficking in everywhere. According to Giselle Fernandez of the Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Florida is the number two destination for human trafficking due to the theme parks. Many of the girls work at the hotels, become prostitutes or end up in pornography. In order to prevent such a heinous crime, females must be educated so they are less susceptible to false hopes. Increasing police pay in certain destination areas so they are less likely to be bribed by traffickers. Only with efforts from the government, private companies, and especially communities will we be able to eradicate human trafficking.

The 4 Gospels and their Themes

The 4 Gospels and their Themes The authors of the four gospels in the Bible had a specific group of people they wrote to and in this assignment I am going to look at those specific people and what the authors said about the life and work of Jesus. I am going to also going to look at the main themes of these four gospels, beginning from Matthew to John. The author of the book of Matthew is the Apostle Matthew who was one of Jesus` disciples. The gospel of Matthew was written in Greek. The author wrote to a particular group of people mainly Greek speaking Jews, even though the author wrote to certain group of people the writing does have a worldwide outlook. Matthew concentrated more on the fulfilment of the Old Testament than the writers of the other gospels. In Matthew Jesus teaching pointed to the blessings of the kingdom being extended to gentiles. MATTHEWS MAIN THEMES The main purpose of Matthew is to prove that Jesus Christ is the Messiah which means the anointed one. Jesus can also be interpreted as Joshua in Greek which means the Lord saves. Matthewss goal was to convince his readers that the King of kings has come, with this in mind he uses words and names that the Jews are familiar with. Also unique to Matthew is the expression, that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by various prophets.  [1]   THE MAIN PURPOSE AND FOCUS OF MARK The gospel of Mark was written by John Mark. Mark was a close associate of peter, it was from Peter that he received the tradition of things done and said by the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark has more of the preaching of Peter, put together by John Mark. According to early church tradition Mark was written in the region of Italy more specifically in Rome. In book of Mark John Mark explains Jewish customs and interprets Aramaic words John Mark seemed to have an interest in persecution and martyrdom. John Mark wrote that the suffering Jesus was also the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Christ and the Lord. MARK`MAIN THEMES Marks gospel is simple and holds an important account of the ministry of Jesus Christ, with an emphasis on more of what Jesus did than what he said. Mark moves quickly from one scene in Jesus` ministry to another. Even though Mark bases his emphasis on the humanity he does not neglect the deity of Christ. Mark wrote to strengthen and guide the Roman believers who were being persecuted by Nero. After the death of Peter and eyewitnesses to Jesus` life, this gospel message needed to be written down.  [2]   THE MAIN PURPOSE AND FOCUS IN LUKE The writers name is not mentioned but evidence points to Luke. The gospel of Luke was written to Theophilus and the message in this gospel was meant for his own instruction and also for those among whom the book would be distributed. Luke was probably written around A.D. 59-63. The book of Luke would have likely been written in Rome. Luke had an outstanding command of the Greek language. Lukes words in general seem to reveal geographical and cultural sensitivity. Lukes gospel centers on Gods plan to provide salvation to the world. LUKE`MAIN THEMES Luke was written to strengthen the faith of all believers and to give an answer to the unbelievers. It was written to displace and unveil the false reports about Jesus. This third gospel presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially vital for understanding the way of salvation. The first two chapters of Luke emphasize the Old Testament and its promises of a Messiah while the third and part of the fourth chapters show clearly that Jesus is the Messiah, who can fight against the evil one, Luke continues in the rest of the chapters to write about the life and works of Jesus and everything that had been revealed by the law, the prophets and the Psalms about Jesus had been fulfilled.  [3]   Luke often stressed the humanity and compassion of Jesus. Lukes favourite expression is the Son of Man. The disciples were witnesses of to this fact and their mission was to share this Good News with all nations. THE MAIN PURPOSE AND FOCUS IN JOHN Some translators have felt that Johns aim was to present a forth from a different view point the Christian message that would appeal to Greek thinkers. John would have been thinking of the Greek readers some of whom were being influenced by heresy. John` main purpose was evangelistic, to build up believers as well as to win new converts. John also focuses on Jesus` claim that He was God by including Christs seven I am statements. John records certain occasions when Jesus equals Himself with the Old Testament I AM. John 8:58 Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM. JOHN` MAIN THEMES The writer of John also said that These are written that you may believe that Jesus Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have life in His name John 20:31. John also speaks of Jesus as the pre-existent divine Word who became a human being so as to speak the words of God, reveal the glory of Gods grace and truth, to put a bridge between the children of light and the children of darkness, to bring judgment on the unbelieving world and to give eternal life through the gift of the Holy Spirit to all believe and abide in Jesus. John wrote that Jesus was and is the saviour of the world.  [4]   John reveals the Bibles most important message, believe and follow Jesus, because He is the way to eternal life. John speaks of Jesus as the light of the world and the bread of life, the way, the life and the good shepherd. CONCLUSION The four canonical gospels are very detailed and factual about the life and work of Christ. Matthew writing to prove to the Jews that Jesus is their Messiah, while Mark stressed the humanity of Jesus but he does not neglect His deity. Luke wanted to show that the place of the gentile Christian in Gods kingdom is based on the teachings of Jesus. Luke` main theme is the nature of Jesus Christ` messiah ship and mission. The gospel of Luke presents Jesus in ways that would appeal to an audience of high minded gentiles. The gospel of John is presented firstly with a prologue or introduction. John speaks of Jesus as one sent from God to reveal His love and grace to man. All the four gospels have unique story on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and they all speak of one person only Jesus who is the saviour of the Jews and the saviour of the world. All the resources I used are very helpful for doing a research like this one and I would recommend any theological student to use these book s when doing their essays or research work.  [5]  

Gender Barriers inside Sports Essay -- Equality Feminism Athletics Ess

Gender Barriers inside Sports Throughout the history of sports, there has always been a gender barrier. There are certain sports that are aimed towards females and others that are directed towards males. When men or women enter a non-traditional sport for their gender, it is not widely accepted. However, there are those few athletes that pave the way for the rest and eventually our society will change and accept the new ideas in sports. Some people will always make judgments about the athletes who cross that gender barrier. At the same time there are others who will respect and look up to these athletes as role models who they will someday follow. In the movie Pumping Iron II, women bodybuilders are faced with judgments about their sexual orientation just because of their physical appearance. There is one character, Carla, who is always shown with her mother and sister, but never with a boyfriend or husband like the rest of the women. She does not feel the need to defend her sexuality and the audience never questions it, because she is more feminine than the other competitors. She wears girlish clothes and has a feminine face and hairstyle. Carla is also shown as a synchronized swimmer, which is an elegant and graceful sport. The manner in which she moves and her body frame differ from the rest of the women. One of the more "mannish" looking characters in the movie is Bev. Bev is the competitor with the most muscle. Her features, her hairstyle and her clothes are not as feminine as Carla's. Therefore, her sexuality is questioned. It is unfortunate that society links women's sports with mannishness and mannishness with lesbiani sm (Cahn 328). There are not only stereotypes of women in sports, but also of men. What is you... ... the future, sports will not be deemed male or female and athletes will be truly free to participate in whatever they love to do. Until then, athletes are still fighting with society and making breakthroughs everyday, creating an easier path for the generations to come. Works Cited Arnold, Gina. Synch Different. www.metroactive.com Cahn, Susan. "Crushes, Competition, and Closets: The Emergence of Homophobia in Women's Physical Education." Sexual Orientation. A.Dalke. Hult, J.S. "The Story of Women's Athletics: Manipulating a Dream 1890-1985." Women and Sport: Interdisciplinary Studies. Costa, M and Guthrie, S.R. Humant Kinetics Publ, 1994. Newberry, Paul. Sydney-Martin Short, Olympian? Associated Press, Sept.14, 2000. www.canoe.ca/2000GamesSynchro/sep14_fin.html-29k "Stereotypes are often overrated". http://idsnews.com/features/msjocks/page2.html

Inhumanity in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find and Shirle

In Flannery O’Connor’s, â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find,† and Shirley Jackson's, â€Å"The Lottery,† both short stories deal with man’s inhumanity in different situations, and ending with a similar consequence. Jackson and O'Connor both use two characters to depict man having the power to manipulate truth and objection into something people accept. In O’Connor’s’ A Good Man is Hard to Find, the Misfit is a character in need of desired assistance, troubled and confused he wanders savagely murdering strangers. On the opposite side of the ring, you have a seemingly traditional early 1900’s Caucasian senior citizen traveling with her family. Hasting to waste time, the grandmother drives her family all through the Southeastern states. The two meet in a tire blow out, and for the grandmothers’ wicked mouth this will be the end for the entire family. In a haste reaction trying to spare her own life other than her already dead family, she extends her arm towards the cold killer trying to unravel the slightest last bit of morality the Misfit has. At that moment, her Christian morals are revealed, but sadly the old woman finally was silenced. The Misfit fired his g un, scared and just in awe at the hope and desperation the grandmother had in her Christian hopes of saving her life. Humorously towards the killing the Misfit quotes, â€Å"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." â€Å"In Matthew 10:39 Jesus says, â€Å"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.† O’Connor delves into this paradox in several of the short stories in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. For instance, the grandmother in â€Å"A Good Man Is Hard to Find† loses her earthl... ...er not using her voice caused her to lose her life; by not speaking she already had placed her hands into blind obedience resulting in her stoning. Being very inhuman, these stories tackle the very essence of inhumanity in tradition. Are you willing to play the lottery? Works Cited Hooten, Jessica. Comp. Baylor University. "EBSCOhost: Individualism in O’Connor’s A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND,† (2008). EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. Connors, Flannery O' "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Pegasus Web Server Home Page. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. Shields, Patrick J. "EBSCOhost: Arbitrary Condemnation and Sanctioned Violence in Shirley Jackson's "the Lo..." Vol. 7.No.4 (2004): 411-19. EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Dec. 2004. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery--Shirley Jackson." Classic Short Stories. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.

Female Authors and the Novel Essay

The contribution of female authors towards the development of the novel is significant. Indeed it can be argued that feminine sensibility plays a key role here. G K Chesterton describes the novel as a feminine art form, and he explains that it is the female eye for homely detail, as well as the talent to depict the intricacies of relationships, that make it so (39). These qualities are important because they serve to counteract the male tendency towards philosophy and idealism. Such tendencies must be overcome because the novel is aiming for an individualistic and democratic voice which is beyond all factionalism. The search for an individual voice had been the aim of literature since the Protestant Reformation. It was the aim too of the Enlightenment; but the practical effect was only to introduce the rigid formality of classicism. So the constraints of the Church had been replaced by just another form of constraint. Such constraints were overcome in the end by the female prose writers, and gradually over a long period. In this respect we will examine the two writers Aphra Behn and Mary Shelley, separated by a century and a half. The former presages the advent of the novel, while the latter perfects the form and paves the way for the great Victorian age of the novel. Classicism was the key barrier to the development of the novel. All efforts towards informality were frowned upon by the stalwarts of Augustan literature, led by Dryden and Pope, so the novel was perforce directed underground. Here it flowered in the hands of the women writers, who were mostly ignored because they concentrated on sentimental romance, and appealing to woman readers alone. Daniel Defoe is now regarded as the first proper novelist, but it is plain to see that he has adopted a form established by the female writers, who produced mostly trifling and salacious romances. Such a description may be applied to Aphra Behn’s Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, but it is also notable for being the first epistolary novel. Her reputation, however, rests on Oroonoko, a love story involving an African prince captured by slave traders. Though not yet a proper novel, it contains many innovations that point in that direction. Behn assumes a conversational tone with the readers in places, inspiring familiarity. It also contains an omniscient voice of narration, which was to become the most distinctive characteristic of the novel proper. However, she feels obliged to explain her omniscience, and so the narrator is tangentially involved in the story itself. She knows all the incidents in Africa because she has lived the slave plantation and has conversed with the African prince. By the time Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein, the novel form has almost come into its own element, and its history boasts such great novelists as Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Smollet and Austen. Nevertheless, Shelley’s original contribution in not insignificant. The voice of the novel reflects ‘individual expression’, and this has been largely perfected by this point. Shelley goes on to tackle the theme of individualism itself. It is the story of a mad scientist who cuts himself off from the world in order to create a being from assembles and inanimate organs. We discover similarities between the project of the mad scientist and the project of the novelist giving life to his fictional creations. The novelist functions as an individual, and his is probably the loneliest occupation of all. At the same time it is his task to create individuals, purely from the imagination. Shelley’s theme is at heart the mutual dependency of creator and creature. Though she is outwardly concerned with the misuse of science, and of the terrible consequences of mechanization, the underlying theme remains that of individualism. In this sense we may interpret her novel as an exploration of the limits of the novel. In conclusion, female writers can be said to be largely responsible for the development of the novel from the Restoration onwards. The evolution of the novel has avoided the limelight, yet the novel has been the primary vehicle for the advance of individualism. Only with the Industrial revolution and the rise of democracy does the novel burst forth as the principal mode of literature. Aphra Behn and Mary Shelley were key proponents in novel’s development. Works Cited Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko. Ed. Janet M. Todd. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. The Victorian Age in Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Collector’s Library, 2004.

Business Intelligence Essay

1. Integration * 1.1 BI infrastructure * * All tools in the platform use the same security, metadata, administration, portal integration, object model and query engine, and should share the same look and feel. * 1.2 Metadata management * Not only should all tools leverage the same metadata, but the offering should provide a robust way to search, capture, store, reuse and publish metadata objects such as dimensions, hierarchies, measures, performance metrics and report layout objects. * 1.3 Development tools * The BI platform should provide a set of programmatic development tools and a visual development environment, coupled with a software developer’s kit for creating BI applications, integrating them into a business process, and/or embedding them in another application. The BI platform should also enable developers to build BI applications without coding by using wizard-like components for a graphical assembly process. The development environment should also support Web services in performing common tasks such as scheduling, delivering, administering and managing. In addition, the BI application can assign and track events or tasks allotted to specific users, based on predefined business rules. Often, this capability can be delivered by integrating with a separate portal or workflow tool. 1.4 Collaboration * This capability enables BI users to share and discuss information, BI content and results, and/or manage hierarchies and metrics via discussion threads, chat and annotations, either embedded in the BI platform or through integration with collaboration, social software and analytical master data management (MDM). 2. Information Delivery 2.1 Reporting * * Reporting provides the ability to create formatted and interactive reports, with or without parameters, with highly scalable distribution and scheduling capabilities. In addition, BI platform vendors should handle a wide array of reporting styles (for example, financial, operational and performance dashboards), and should enable users to access and fully interact with BI content delivered consistently across delivery platforms including the Web, mobile devices and common portal environments. * 2.2 Dashboards * This subset of reporting includes the ability to publish formal, Web-based or mobile reports with intuitive interactive displays of information, including dials, gauges, sliders, check boxes and traffic lights. These displays indicate the state of the performance metric compared with a goal or target value. Increasingly, dashboards are used to disseminate real-time data from operational applications or in conjunction with a complex event processing engine. * 2.3 Ad hoc query * This capability enables users to ask their own questions of the data, without relying on IT to create a report. In particular, the tools must have a robust semantic layer to allow users to navigate available data sources. These tools should include a disconnected analysis capability that enables users to access BI content and analyze data remotely without being connected to a server-based BI application. In addition, these tools should offer query governance and auditing capabilities to ensure that queries perform well. * 2.4 Microsoft Office integration * In some use cases, BI platforms are used as a middle tier to manage, secure and execute BI tasks, but Microsoft Office (particularly Excel) acts as the BI client. In these cases, it is vital that the BI vendor provides integration with Microsoft Office applications, including support for document and presentation formats, formulas, data â€Å"refreshes† and pivot tables. Advanced integration includes cell locking and write-back. * 2.5 Search-based BI * * This applies a search index to both structured and unstructured data sources and maps them into a classification structure of dimensions and measures (often, but not necessarily leveraging the BI semantic layer) that users can easily navigate and explore using a search (Google-like) interface. This capability extends beyond keyword searching of BI platform content and metadata. 2.6 Mobile BI This capability enables organizations to deliver report and dashboard content to mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) in a publishing and/or interactive (bidirectional) mode, and takes advantage of the interaction mode of the device (tapping, swiping and so on) and other capabilities not commonly available on desktops and laptops, such as location awareness. 3. Analysis * 3.1 Online analytical processing (OLAP) * * This enables end users to analyze data with extremely fast query and calculation performance, enabling a style of analysis known as â€Å"slicing and dicing.† Users are (often) able to easily navigate multidimensional drill paths. And they (sometimes) have the ability to write-back values to a proprietary database for planning and â€Å"what if† modeling purposes. This capability could span a variety of data architectures (such as relational or multidimensional) and storage architectures (such as disk-based or in-memory). * 3.2 Interactive visualization * This gives users the ability to display numerous aspects of the data more efficiently by using interactive pictures and charts, instead of rows and columns. Over time, advanced visualization will go beyond just slicing and dicing data to include more process-driven BI projects, allowing all stakeholders to better understand the workflow through a visual representation. * 3.3 Predictive modeling and data mining * This capability enables organizations to classify categorical variables and to estimate continuous variables using advanced mathematical techniques. BI developers are able to integrate models easily into BI reports, dashboards and analysis, and business processes. 3.4 Scorecards These take the metrics displayed in a dashboard a step further by applying them to a strategy map that aligns key performance indicators (KPIs) with a strategic objective. Scorecard metrics should be linked to related reports and information in order to do further analysis. A scorecard implies the use of a performance management methodology such as Six Sigma or a balanced scorecard framework. Market Leaders IBM. SAS. Oracle. 1 Oracle 1.1 Strengths * * In 2011, Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite, with its principal component Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), continued to execute on its stated top-to-bottom BI vision. This year, the products have the highest aggregate Ability to Execute scores. References depict a customer base that is Oracle through and through — 85% run Oracle Database as their data warehouse, nearly 75% run Oracle Applications, and a majority utilizes Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle is deployed most broadly (in respect of global deployment) of any vendor in this Magic Quadrant, with average user populations nearing 3,000 and data volumes of more than 5 TB, and it is considered the BI standard for nearly 70% of firms surveyed. While complex workloads are below average, the breadth of use scores in the highest quartile. * * During the Magic Quadrant evaluation process, Oracle announced and completed its acquisition of Endeca, a search-based provider of e-commerce and analytic capabilities. Customer surveys were conducted before the Endeca acquisition was completed; therefore, Endeca is not factored into the Magic Quadrant evaluation of Oracle’s execution, but was considered as part of its long-term product vision. Relatively low numbers of existing references access hybrid data types using OBIEE. Gartner believes that this is a forward-looking acquisition that will have significant impact on the company’s business analytics future (see â€Å"Endeca Buy Extends Oracle’s Ability to Support and Discover Diverse Data† for a more detailed opinion of the acquisition). * * In October 2011, the company announced an engineered system — Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine — that leveraged assets across the Oracle stack. The integrated hardware/software analytics solution features a package of OBIEE with new in-memory capabilities (based on Oracle’s acquisition of TimesTen), optimized Oracle Essbase to support the range of traditional BI (reporting, dashboards and analysis), and dynamic planning, what-if and scenario analysis, as well as interactive visualization and data discovery capabilities. The system is designed to support high-performance BI and performance management use cases with the intention of improving the performance, scale and speed of reporting, analysis and planning applications. It is now generally available. * * References select Oracle primarily for functionality, enterprise application integration, and data access capabilities. Additionally, customers indicated that they valued the products’ ability to support large numbers of users. Like other megavendors, the product road map plays an important role in the evaluation process. Ease of use and cost do not factor significantly into the selection process. * * Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA) are predefined analytic applications for horizontal business processes such as finance, procurement and sales analysis. Customers and prospects find this combination of analytic applications built using the OBIEE toolset appealing, with many buyers selecting both at evaluation time. Additionally, the company also delivers vertical-specific analytic data models for industries such as retail and financial services for IT buyers looking to establish a common data model standard as the foundation for analytics. 1.2 Cautions * References rate OBIEE as difficult to implement, with only SAS Institute considered more difficult. Also, the product was rated as having lower than average ease of use scores. As ease of use for both developers and end users takes on an even more important role in business analytic deployments and evaluations, Oracle must explicitly address these issues or risk being marginalized in user-driven projects. The company has been slow to respond to the data discovery trend. However, some functions are now available in the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, and the Endeca acquisition will add more capabilities in this important area. * * Product functionality evaluation scores remain below average again this year, a trend that appeared in last year’s report. Additionally, customer support and product quality issues are rated below the average (in the fourth and third quartiles respectively) for all vendors in this report. In fact, both support and product quality were also noted as issues that blocked further deployments within customer organizations. This represents a slip from last year’s scores. While not huge red flag items now, they may become more problematic without dedicated company attention to address client concerns. * * Oracle customers use the product mostly for static report viewing, parameterized reporting and scorecard capabilities, leading to below average user complexity ratings. Slightly more than 25% of customers Gartner surveyed for this report run the most current version of the BI suite, which is significantly below average for vendors in this analysis. * * More than 10% of survey respondents indicate that they plan to discontinue, or are evaluating a discontinuation of, software use in the next three years — a relatively high response rate given responses from the prior year. This is above the average for all vendors in this research. 2 SAS 2.1 Strengths * * SAS gets high marks for its global footprint and broad industry initiatives. Unlike some other BI platform vendors, SAS focuses on advanced analytical techniques, such as data mining and predictive modeling, where references acknowledge it as a leader of the pack. SAS’s clients also have above average complexity scores (for the depth of use of different BI use cases) on larger than average data sources. SAS customers also access and interpret unstructured internal and external data more often than any other vendor’s clients surveyed for this Magic Quadrant. * * SAS’s solution-oriented analytic application approach to the market is a differentiator, giving the company the advantage of having a wide variety of cross-functional and vertically specific analytic applications out of the box for a variety of industries, including financial services, life sciences and manufacturing. While others are also adopting this approach, SAS remains in the lead. Customers also report an above average sales experience. * * The primary drivers for customers choosing SAS remain functionality and data integration. In addition, references reported that they select SAS because of availability of skills. In the past, we have heard concerns over a lack of available SAS expertise; we suspect that this improvement is linked to the aggressive stance the company has taken to forge substantial partnerships with services firms, specifically Accenture. This broadened ecosystem also expands SAS’ sales channels with multiple partners positioning SAS-based solutions to their customers. * * On the software partnership front, SAS has partnered with a number of database vendors (such as Teradata) to push the execution of its models directly into the database management system without moving the data. Not only does this reduce data duplication and movement, it also allows SAS users to leverage the power and scalability features of the database to run predictive models against very large datasets with high performance. * Overall, SAS has a wide and loyal user base, many of whom have built careers around these products. References have a solid, positive outlook for SAS’s success within their organizations, as well as in the market as a whole. The company recently reported double-digit revenue growth for 2011. 2.2 Cautions * * References report that SAS is very difficult to implement — it was the No. 1 firm in this category. Companies also indicate that the product is considered difficult to use for business users (it was ranked No. 2 in this category). Its dashboard capabilities were rated lowest of all the vendors in this research. SAS is very much aware of these criticisms, and in 2011 embarked on a major development initiative involving hundreds of resources to improve usability and implementation activities. While it is too early to see the results of these efforts in surveys, we expect to see improvement in these areas in next year’s reference assessment. If no improvement is noted, this will directly impact SAS’s Ability to Execute scores for 2013. * * SAS’s dominance in predictive analytics and statistics continues to be challenged on many fronts. In addition to the SPSS suite, IBM also acquired Algorithmics in 2011 to bolster its portfolio; we are seeing greater adoption of open-source â€Å"R† in some products and embedded predictive and statistical capabilities in others. New entrants to the BI platform Magic Quadrant Prognoz and Alteryx accentuate these capabilities as core components of their product suites. While SAS still remains the acknowledged front runner, buyers have more options now, and SAS must continue to defend its franchise. The company recognizes this and, for example, has reinvigorated its emphasis on placing its software products in higher education settings for student and teacher use. * * Customer references report that cost is the most common factor blocking further adoption. In fact, verbatim responses to the survey mention cost in many ways — leasing terms, expensive to maintain, ongoing costs and so on — and, again, the company is very much aware of this criticism. With more options now available, SAS should also remain responsive to customers and prospects in these areas. The average tenure of SAS’s reference customers that participated in this survey was five years. Over 10% reported that they are planning to replace or are considering replacing the software in the next three years. Despite SAS’s success and awareness as a leader in the predictive analytics space, the company is still challenged to make it onto BI platform shortlist evaluations when predictive analytics is not a primary business requirement. While a little less than 60% of references indicated that SAS was their company’s BI standard, functionality used in traditional BI areas (reporting, dashboards, OLAP and so on) was lower than for other BI leaders in this report. Like last year, ad hoc query remains the one exception, with clients aggressively using SAS BI for that component. 3 IBM 3.1 Strengths * * IBM maintains its leading position on the Completeness of Vision axis for this year’s Magic Quadrant. The company takes a holistic approach to what it calls Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO), combining comprehensive software, hardware and services in a coordinated market offering. IBM’s business analytics software portfolio includes a unified BI, analytics and performance management platform, and is complemented by IBM information management software and appliances (Netezza, for example). Services are made up of a consulting line of nearly 9,000 people, which is a growing part of IBM Global Business Services (GBS). IBM can offer both a tools-based and/or a solution-driven offering, along with significant vertical expertise, to customers and prospects. * In 4Q10, IBM introduced its latest business analytics platform, IBM Cognos 10. Throughout 2011, additional capabilities have been released and customer adoption has begun in earnest. Cognos 10 references who responded to this year’s Magic Quadrant survey painted a very interesting snapshot — on average nearly 4,000 users, over 12 TB of data, broad functional use, and very high platform integration scores, all at or near the top of all ratings for all vendors in this report. Overall, Cognos 10 references were significantly more satisfied than Cognos 8 customers, who were the majority of IBM’s survey respondents. While some indicated that upgrading from Cognos 8 to Cognos 10 had some complexity, the majority rated it as straightforward or very straightforward. This bodes well for IBM’s future ability to execute, providing the firm delivers superior service and support and problem-free software. * * The average tenure of IBM respondents was seven years, second highest of all vendors in this survey. Gartner often hears this long-standing customer commitment in inquiry, and this represents a strong customer loyalty factor. This year, less than 7% of references noted that they are planning to discontinue use of the software in the next three years (or are considering doing so), which is significantly lower than last year’s result. * * Advanced analytics is a particular IBM strength. The company’s SPSS software continues to advance nicely, readily allowing IBM to bid for predictive analytics and statistical use cases. Customers rated IBM’s predictive capabilities in the top quartile of all vendors. A secret weapon at IBM’s disposal — IBM Research — delivers another level of research and development prowess to the overall IBM value proposition. For example, Watson, the Deep Question and Answer system that interprets natural language and scores possible answers based on probability, is a visible example of IBM Research at work. While not a part of the Cognos 10 platform, it demonstrates the depth and breadth that IBM can bring to clients’ advanced analytic scenarios. * The top reasons why customers select IBM are functionality, ease of use for end users, and data access and integration. IBM’s road map and future vision weighed heavily in reference decisions. In 2011, IBM delivered a new Cognos 10 mobile application for the iPad that is included free in existing user roles. In early 2012 the company will introduce Cognos Insight, a personal, desktop BI product that enables independent discovery and â€Å"what if† modeling, while also providing full interoperability with the larger workgroup and enterprise solutions. 3.2 Cautions * Twenty-three percent of Cognos 8 references indicate that performance continues to be problematic (a persistent problem for the last several years), nearly three times the average response for other vendors evaluated in this Magic Quadrant. In contrast, Cognos 10 references reported below average performance concerns. This is a sure signal that IBM must encourage upgrades to Cognos 10 without technical and/or financial disruption. * Again this year, references consider the Cognos products more difficult to implement and use than those of competitors. While Cognos 10 was rated slightly below average, other IBM products (Cognos 8, SPSS software and Cognos TM1) were deemed significantly more difficult. These are cited as two major reasons that limit expanded BI deployments with Cognos 8. As such, improved system administration and end-user usability were major development themes of the Cognos 10 release. References indicate that Cognos software is used largely by a consumer/casual user population. Reporting is the most extensively deployed component, followed by ad hoc query and OLAP analysis. * * IBM’s customers also continue to have less than optimal customer experiences, with support and sales interactions, along with product quality, rated in the bottom quartile of all vendors reviewed in this report. References also rate product functionality slightly below the average for all vendors. The bright spot is that Cognos 10 references rated product functionality near the top of all vendors, and support, sales and product quality were rated better than for Cognos 8. These issues remain IBM’s Achilles’ heel, and will limit its ability to raise execution scores next year unless action is taken quickly. * * License cost continues to be another source of customer concern across all products in the IBM business analytics portfolio. Gartner client inquiry also bears out this concern. Higher than expected costs to upgrade from Cognos 8 to Cognos 10 have stalled some projects, but changes in configuration, user roles, and/or support costs appear to drive the increase. As a counterpoint, existing Cognos 10 users did not identify license cost as a concern.

Is Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Working?

Introduction Mental health now represents approximately 25% of the ill health burden and is also the single largest cause of disability in the United Kingdom (Hersen & Sturmey, 2012). Additionally, statistics indicate that 25% of people in the country will experience mental disorder at some point in their lives with 0.01% experiencing severe mental illness. More recent studies indicate that mental illnesses are responsible for approximately 40% of all morbidity in the United Kingdom (Beinart et al 2009). The National Health Service introduced improving access to psychological therapies programme with an aim of increasing the availability of therapies in the country. It is designed majorly for individuals with mild to moderate health difficulties like anxieties, depression, post traumatic disorders and phobias (Bullock et al 2012). Improving access to psychological therapies programme treats these conditions using different therapeutic techniques like cognitive behavioural therapy, couples therapy and interpersonal therapy (Barkham et al 2010). It essentially seeks to employ the least intrusive methods in treating patients. This approach is often referred to as the stepped care mode meaning that the patients first get low intensity therapy in form of computerised cognitive behavioural therapy and guided self-help. In cases where the low intensity treatments are inappropriate or unsuccessful the patients are often transferred to high intensity therapy in the form of one on one cognitive behavioural therapy. Improving access to psychological therapies programme has expended the provision of talking therapies in the United Kingdom and is the only instance in the world where the government has provided free talking therapy on large scale (James, 2010). IAPT is relevant to counselling psychology because it affects the therapies that counselling psychologies use in attending to the patients. The counselling psychologies are required by the National Institute for Health and Care E xcellence to rely on the recommendations contained in IAPT while attending to the patients. Analysis of talking therapies The World Health Organisation defines health as a physical, mental and social wellbeing of an individual. However in most cases people do not regard mental and psychiatric problems as disease leading to the stigmatisation and marginalisation of the patients away from the normal way of life (Beidas & Kendall, 2014). Although mental illnesses are not as obvious as physical illnesses, they cause serious changes in behaviour that lead to dysfunctional disabilities that interfere with actions, speech and thought. However, talking therapies offer the patients with mental illnesses an opportunity to return to normal way of life. Talking therapies are the most commonly used treatments as they allow the patients to express their thoughts, problems, emotions and feelings with the therapists. The patients are open with the therapists and trust them to generate solutions to their varied challenges (Robertson, 2010). The therapists can deliver therapy through direct interactions with the patient s, computerised interactions or group discussions. All these therapies are designed for helping patients experiencing difficult times in their lives by initiating self-belief and optimism to facilitate the recovery process. Talking therapies are also known as psychotherapies or psychiatric counselling offers one of the best means of ensuring that the patients share their feelings with the therapists in order to help them prescribe the best means of helping the patients recover from mental illnesses (Corrie & Lane, 2010). The therapies also present the patients with an avenue for speaking about how they feel more than their families, friends or anybody else would do, thus encouraging them to share as much information as possible for easy intervention by the therapists. World Health Organisation reports indicate that depression is among the major mental illnesses affecting people not only in the United Kingdom but across the globe. This has led to the great debate on whether talking therapies are efficient in curing such a widespread disease (Garrett 2010). Some critics of the talking therapies argue that the therapies alone cannot cure depression as curing the disease require other simultaneous treatments and even medication at times. For the psychiatrists to be more effective they need to be amiable and supportive in order to gain the trust of the patients so that they can open up and share more of their experience and challenges. They also need to be very sensitive to the feelings of the patients because for instance aggressive and uncompassionate patients tend to get more demoralised when they feel that they are worthless and insignificant (Cowen et al 2012). At times the therapists opt to make use of group therapy in cases where the patients share similar problems. In this case, all the patients sit down to share their anxieties and problems with each other. Group therapy helps the patients to open up and share their problems with other patients and agree that such problems have solutions which are only possible if they choose to support the efforts of the group. However in cases where some patients feel that they have been suppressed by the group or that the group has formed a judgement against them, it becomes difficult for the therapy to work as it further limits the interaction of such patients with the society and in the process worsening the conditions of such patients instead of delivering cure (Sturmey & Hersen, 2012). There are also cases where the patients get extremely attached to the groups and become extremely dependent on them so much so that they are unable to make decisions without the approval of the group (Dartington, 2010).This is not good for them as it also exacerbates their conditions instead of pr oviding cure. The talking therapies that focus on the provision of direct solutions to the patients are very effective in managing depression as the patients can use the direct advice given to them or even reject them in cases where they feel uncomfortable with such advice. However the inherent problem with this therapy is that the vulnerable patients might form a habit of letting the therapists solving their problems for them thus denying them the power of personal decision making (Lloyd et al 2013). Furthermore, in case such decisions fail to provide the desired solutions to the patients, they may form a revulsion against the therapist leading to more depression as they tend to get frustrated by the fact that they may never find a solution to their problems. Cognitive behavioural therapy deals with patients that suffer from very mild to moderate depression. It encourages patients to understand and accept their negative emotions and then provides assistance to them so that they can think positively and usefully (McHugh & Barlow, 2012). The therapy involves both behavioural and cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is concerned with the patients’ thinking patterns whereasbehavioural therapy deals with associated actions. When the two approaches are combined carefully, they provide a powerful means of helping the patients overcome many emotional and behavioural problems. Cognitive behavioural therapy may involve a mix of the two therapies depending on the nature of the problem because some problems require more behavioural interventions while others require more cognitive intervention therapy. One of the strengths of the Cognitive behavioural therapy is that it not only aims at helping the patients overcome their conditions but also equip them with new skills and strategies that they can use in solving future problems (Osimo & Stein, 2012). The therapy examines all the elements that maintain the problems faced by the patients. It involves creating a partnership between the therapist and the patients and heavily involves the patients in planning and treatment throughout the process. Arguments for talking therapies used by IAPT According to McQueen (2008), the majority of the patients who use talking therapies say that it helped them as they benefited in many ways. First off, it gives the patients an opportunity to be listened to regularly and as such they are able to express their feelings to the therapists. This helps the patients to forget the bad things that happened to them in the past and start over afresh. In this way, the therapy ensures that the patients let out their feelings that could have otherwise remained deeply bottled up. The other benefit of talking therapy is that the therapists are non-judgemental and impartial while attending to the patients (Norman & Ryrie, 2009). This helps the patients to share their negative feelings without the fear of being criticised making it easier for the counselling psychologist to attend to them. In addition to this, it boosts the confidence and self-worth of the patients which is crucial to their recovery because many patients struggle with this. Talking th erapies equips the patients with learning skills and techniques for managing anger or relaxation which is important in reducing the chances of the patients suffering a relapse of the diseases. Talking therapies helps the patients in combating loneliness because at times the patients do not have people to confide in, but the counselling psychologist gains their trust and present them an opportunity of opening up about how they feel and think and the reasons behind such perspectives (Mueller, 2010). The counselling psychologists ask the patients questions while respecting their boundaries which is important in getting them out their shells and suggesting ways of overcoming loneliness. Lastly, most of the time the patients are capable of solving the problems on their own but all they need is moral support when things get tough for them. This what talking therapies offer to the patients as the counselling psychologist offers them an opportunity for sharing their problems and provides th em with empathy that they may not be getting from friends and family. Arguments against talking therapies used by IAPT Walker & Fincham (2011) claim that talk therapy is one of the best mechanisms available for the average individuals to deal with mental illnesses. However, one serious limitation to the therapy is that it is reliant on what the patients can remember. Most studies on talking therapies do not use the therapists or their techniques in evaluating the success of the therapy partly because most of them are written by professional counselling psychologists (Smith, 2012). Instead they focus on the willingness of their patients and their level of motivation in their quest for psychological assistance. Regardless of the techniques employed by talking therapy, it still has some inherent limitations. These limitations fall into general categories that include the level of motivation of the patient, nature of the problem and the skills of the therapists (Sturmey & Hersen, 2012). Talking therapies are not able to achieve high levels of efficiency with the low motivated and uncooperative patients. These patients too need help but none of the techniques used by talking therapies can function without the active partnership between the patients and counselling psychologists. This implies that some patients are not able to receive treatment from talking therapies. The patients that come to the counselling psychologists with the expectation of the counselling psychologists doing something to fix them often go back home disappointed and quickly terminate the treatment once they realise that the process has nothing to do with doing something to someone but rather an interactive process of doing something with someone (Walsh, 2009). As such a well-motivated patient is more likely to receive effective assistance from a poorly skilled therapist than a low motivated patient is from a well skilled therapist. Conclusion The findings of this study reveal that although talking therapies being emphasised by IAPT have registered some levels of success, they have their own inherent weaknesses that limit the efficiency of care delivery offered by counselling psychologists. Counselling psychologists rely on these recommended therapies in delivering treatment to the patients with mental illnesses but the weaknesses in IAPT reduces the level of their efficiency. The major weakness of IAPT is its over reliance on talking therapies, particularly cognitive behaviour therapy. In addition to this, it fails to cover some sections of the population. In order to improve the efficiency of IAPT it needs to include other therapies and increase its coverage to include other neglected segments of the population like children and young people. Furthermore there is still need for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to look into better ways of helping the counselling psychologists improve the quality of c are being offered to the patients with mental illnesses in the United Kingdom. References Barkham, M., Hardy, G. E., Mellor-Clark, J., & Wiley InterScience (Online service). (2010). Developing and delivering practice-based evidence: A guide for the psychological therapies. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Beidas, R. S., & Kendall, P. C. (2014). Dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices in child and adolescent mental health. Oxford: Oxford university press Beinart, H., Kennedy, P., & Llewelyn, S. (2009). Clinical Psychology in Practice. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Bullock, I., Clark, J. M., & Rycroft-Malone, J. (2012). Adult nursing practice: Using evidence in care. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Corrie, S., & Lane, D. A. (2010). Constructing stories, telling tales: A guide to formulation in applied psychology. London: Karnac. Cowen, P., Harrison, P., & Burns, T. (2012). Shorter Oxford textbook of psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dartington, T. (2010). Managing vulnerability: The underlying dynamics of systems of care. London: Karnac. Garrett, V. (2010). Effective short-term counselling within the primary care setting: Psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural therapy approaches. London: Karnac. Hersen, M., & Sturmey, P. (2012). Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Psychology, Child and Adolescent Disorders: Volume 1. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. James, I. A. (2010). Cognitive behavioural therapy with older people: Interventions for those with and without dementia. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Lloyd, C. E., Pouwer, F., & Hermanns, N. (2013). Screening for depression and other psychological problems in diabetes: A practical guide. London: Springer. McHugh, R. K., & Barlow, D. H. (2012). Dissemination and implementation of evidence-based psychological interventions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McQueen, D. (2008). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy after child abuse: Psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the treatment of adults and children who have experienced sexual abuse, violence, and neglect in childhood. London: Karnac. Mueller, M. (2010). Oxford guide to surviving as a CBT therapist. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norman, I. J., & Ryrie, I. (2009). The art and science of mental health nursing: A textbook of principles and practice. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: McGraw Hiil, Open University Press. Osimo, F., & Stein, M. J. (2012). Theory and practice of experiential dynamic psychotherapy. London: Karnac Robertson, D. (2010). The philosophy of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT): Stoic philosophy as rational and cognitive psychotherapy. London: Karnac. Smith, G. (2012). Psychological interventions in mental health nursing. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Sturmey, P., & Hersen, M. (2012). Handbook of evidence-based practice in clinical psychology. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Walker, C., & Fincham, B. (2011). Work and the mental health crisis in Britain. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Walsh, L. (2009). Depression Care Across the Lifespan. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Discuss the ways in which women’s domestic role

Beginning in the home, a woman's role is socially constructed from an early age. A woman's role models are traditionally her parents and many women naturally follow in their mothers footsteps. However, this can often work In reverse and women of whose mothers stayed at home In a domestic care role then go on to carve careers for themselves. Although these days women do have careers they are still socially seen as the homemaker regardless of this.A woman's domestic role is often run alongside other work and a great number of women choose careers which are care eased. The sexual division of labor is at the heart of gender inequality, which is underpinned by the patriarchal family structure where the man Is the highest authority and sole provider and there Is a rolled dolls of tasks and responsibilities, all of which have been regulated by social norms that have become constructed and ingrained over time. Florence Nightingale was a great influence in creating the nursing/caring role.She acknowledged that a great number of women naturally progressed into care roles and so she introduced the role of a nurse yet it was not a consider profession at this point Medical stations in the Crimean war were poorly staffed with awful medical and sanitary conditions. This was reported by the media In Britain. Florence Nightingale, one of 38 voluntary nurses traveled to Turkey to help relieve the situation. Nightingale worked towards improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and activity for the patients of the hospitals.Death rates were reduced dramatically with the introduction of such measures. Nightingale kept meticulous records of the number of deaths, and the causes of deaths, so that on her return to Great Britain she could Justify the need for Improving conditions In hospitals. Criticisms of Florence Nightingale have been that she created a female occupation, excluding males based around her view that women were naturally caring and naturally gifted at looking after people. This only emphasized ‘female virtues' especially in the media as they made this her main point even though there was much more to her than Just this point. As a result of what she did the beliefs of the male professionals were further supported. Those beliefs being that women are innate males in the workforce and the nursing role was stereotyped as a role which only women performed bringing with It the stereotype which we still hold today. Even now, with many more men taking on the role of the nurse we seem to find this unusual and sometimes quite a surprise.During this time the education system excluded women from the ability to gain scientific knowledge and the medical profession denied access to women who actually had managed to gain education. After Florence Nightingale, Ethel Bedford Fenwick (who is she) said that by 1901 , although we had moved on from the workhouses there was still no professional nurses in Britain and campaigned for a nationally recognized training sys tem to create an actual nursing ‘profession' This era was such named the era of the ministering angel' She worked to elevate nursing from the time of Florence Nightingale.During much of the 20th Century there was little progress with the imbalance of male to female care professions, even with the introduction of the INS women still made up the majority of the workforce in the INS with the male professions making up the majority of top rank Jobs, such as surgeons and insulates, much higher paid, recognized and respected professions. Domestic service of all kinds was the single largest employer of women (40 per cent of female occupations stated in the census of 1851 in provincial cities and 50 per cent in London).The textile and clothing sectors came a close second (http:// www. BBC. Co. UK/history/British/Victorians/women's_work_OLL . SHTML) A greater number of women than men choose Job roles in the care industry. Ann Oakley refers to this as being the influence of gender oscil lation and the women's domestic role in the home throughout history. This fact adds to the divide between men and women in the health and social care sector with statistics showing that in 2010 for an example, women made up 74% of the workforce in the INS and men only 26%.Even the most educated women earn less than men, women generally receive a lower return on their education and workplace discrimination against women is reflected in pay irrespective of educational level. In 2009 the BAM report was released, highlighting the inequality in male and female salaries within the health care industry. An average gap of El 5,245 between men and women in the same reversions. â€Å"Our results show that men and women with identical experience and expertise are paid differently – which suggests evidence of discrimination† (BAM 2009) It seems women are discriminated against due to her weakness in her ability to move.

Dissertation Checklist What to Do When Your Work Is (Nearly) Due

Dissertation Checklist What to Do When Your Work Is (Nearly) Due Dissertation Checklist: What to Do When Your Work Is (Nearly) Due Big dissertation deadline approaching? Hopefully, you have a draft you’re happy with and it’s time to get your dissertation ready for submission. But what do you need to do in these last days? Check out our dissertation checklist for three key steps in preparing your final piece of work. 1. Check Your Style Guide When you’ve finished redrafting, the first thing to do is reread your style guide. This should contain everything you need to know about how to present your work, including: What to include on a title or cover page. Whether to include a dedication or acknowledgements. The length and style of the abstract. How to format the table of contents. Whether to include a list of abbreviations. How to format the document (including page margins, tables, figures, illustrations, footnotes, endnotes, and the text of your dissertation itself). The referencing style you should use. The maximum word count and which sections count towards it. You’ll then need to double check that your dissertation follows these rules as closely as possible. 2. Proofread Carefully After making any final changes, make sure to proofread your dissertation one last time. Your focus here will be looking for typos and other minor errors to ensure that it is 100% error free. You may want to ask someone else to check your writing for you at this point (we’re always available). But if you do need to proofread your own work, try using the following tips: Read slowly and carefully, taking regular breaks as required. Print your dissertation out and check it on paper. Start at the end and work backwards through each chapter. Read problematic passages out loud. Look for different types of error individually (i.e., start out checking the punctuation, then the grammar, then the spelling, etc.). These tips should help you keep your concentration while proofreading. 3. Preparing to Submit Finally, when you have an error-free manuscript you can be proud of, you need to check your college’s guidelines for submitting a dissertation. This will usually include preparing: One print copy of your dissertation, professionally bound. One digital copy of your dissertation, typically in PDF form. Make sure to leave enough time before the deadline to get these ready. Your college should be able to recommend a local binding business for the print copy (or offer binding on campus). And you can export a document as a PDF file via Microsoft Word itself. Summary: Dissertation Checklist If you have a dissertation deadline coming up, make sure to tick off the steps on our dissertation checklist. These include: Reread your style guide to make sure that your dissertation follows it. Check your writing for typos (or have a professional do it for you). Read your college’s guidelines on preparing your dissertation for submission (this will usually involve creating one printed and bound version and one electronic version). And once you’ve submitted, we suggest taking a few days off to relax before preparing for your oral defense. Well done on getting this far, and let us know if we can help you over the finishing line.

Miracles Essays

Miracles Essays Miracles Essay Miracles Essay Essay Topic: The Healers a.1) Christians believe that a miracle is an event that apparently transcends human power and the laws of nature. That is attributed to a special divine intervention or to supernatural forces. However there is room for argument. some choose to believe that a babies first smile is a miracle, this of course dose not transcend human powers or the laws of nature, also some people think that all miracles are legends. Or stories but this does not come into the Christian faith.a.2) Jesus was presented as a miracle worker in many ways; he performed healing miracles (LK 18:35-43) Jesus healed a blind beggar, Jesus said to the beggar your faith has healed you this quote is teaching of devotion to God, the beggar devoted his life to God and truly believed that he would be healed, another example of Christians being healed by there faith is (LK5:17-26) Jesus healed a paralytic, some men lowered the paralytic man from the roof in front of Jesus, Jesus saw their faith and s aid friends, your sins are forgiven. Then he told the paralytic to get and walk and the paralytic did so. This teaching shows that Jesus had the authority to forgive sins and had the power to perform remarkable things.Jesus also performed Exorcisms such as, (LK4:31-39) Jesus removed a demand (illness) from a man, with the power of God, Jesus had great influence over the demand and cast it away, this is evidence to support the quote is Jesus the son of God, teaching us that Jesus has authority and we should live our lives as he commands, furthermore Jesus performs another exorcism in (LK8:26-39) Jesus removed many demons from a man who called himself Legion because there were so many demons in him, the demands begged for Jesus not to order them to go to the abyss, so Jesus let them go into some pigs, when this happened the pigs ran into a lake and drowned. This phenomenal event showed that Jesus really does love every one even demons, for he took pity on them because they did not wan t to go to the immeasurable depths of hell. How ever the pigs died anyway but theres nothing to prove that Jesus intended for this to happen this also again shows Jesus power and authority over the demons.Jesus performed natural miracles like the one in (LK5:1-11) it is said that man can not rule over mother nature but Jesus did, with his assume ability to perform miracles, where there had been no fish all night Jesus said let down your nets for a catch and Simon did so to find so many fish that his nets began to break. This teaches us just how much power Jesus held within his human body give a man a fish and you can let him live for a day, give a man a thousand fish and his whole village can live for another day. Another natural miracle Jesus performed is in (LK9:10-17) with only 5 loves of bread and 2 fish Jesus fed 5000 men, taking the five loves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. This is truly an amazing thing to be done and teaches us that we should be thankful for the food that God has blesses us with and we should give thanks as Jesus did when we eat.Lastly Jesus performed raisings, such as (LK7:11-17) Jesus raised a widows son, when he saw the widow his heart went out to her and he touched the coffin and the young man was returned to his mother. This heart touching occurrence teaches us to love and have feeling for those that we dont know (the Good Samaritan), as Jesus did for all those who he healed.All of these extraordinary stories are based on Jesus love for others he is presented as a worker of miracles thorough love and affection for others and unquiet ability to forgive every. He even forgave those who hammered him to the cross he is a symbol of admirable and distinguished love and authority.b.) For Christians today the healing miracles are phenomenal events that we cannot explain scientifically, (all though some people choose to believe a miracle is just a story or legend). To a Christian a miracle that involv es healing means that God is still at work today helping those who have faith and bring the light of the holy spirit to those who have been deprived of Gods love in their lives.The miracles Jesus performed in (LK4:38-40) where he healed many of their sicknesses, shows that his love was so strong he was willing to put his own life in danger to help others, he may have caught a life threatening illness from someone healed. These kind of events still happen today with people like mother Teresa, she was a Christian who took care of ill people and risked her own life in the process. With her strong Christian faith and infinite love for those around her, she would unquestionably help an ill person to their feet and take care of them.Although physical and mental healing takes place today, It is not always in the same way as in Jesus day. Today people are most likely to be physically healed by medicine and mentally healed by councillors and psychologists. Although there are stories of peopl e whose faith has healed them today, Jesus said many times your faith has healed you, this phrase goes for what happened to a girl called Amanda Manifold.Amanda was born into a spirit filled family, in 1968 when she was 8 years old she her self received the Holy Spirit with the bible evidence of speaking in tongue and was baptised by full immersion. That same year she became very ill, and was diagnosed as having a rare and sinister form of leukaemia (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) the treatment for this was experimental and the doctors gave Amanda a 20% chance of survival to her 10th birthday. She under went many courses of chemotherapy and finally went into remission. Unfortunately, ten months later she had a relapse and was gravely ill. No one in that hospital with A.M.L had ever serviced a relapse, however the doctors tried their best to save Amandas life. They attempted an autologous bone marrow transplant, which was unsuccessful. Chemotherapy was not an option as her immune system wa s far too weak. There were many complications and Amanda spent over two months in intensive care, fighting for her life. On the 17th of January 1989, the specialists said they could not give her any more treatment and sadly told Amadas parents that she would not see another summer. We have done all we can, they told them, we cant perform miracles.Amanda and her parents knew God could perform miracles. They trusted fully in gods healing promises and never doubted that Amandas health would be restored. Three weeks later she returned to school, strong healthy and full of the joy of the lord. Since 1989 she has had no further treatment. This amazing turn-around had confounded the specialists and they call her the miracle girl. Amanda praises God for her life and His unfailing promises. This story shows that today like in Jesus day your faith can heal you and others.However some scientists believe in mind over matter, and have and have done experiments with hypnoses, a hypnotised man was told hot metal was touching his skin when really it was cold, his skin blistered anyway showing that his body reacted violently to what his mind believed. Therefore if someone really believed they were ill then their body might react to this and vice versa, if they believed they would be healed then they would become healthy again.With the help of science we know today that illnesses are not caused by demands but by diseases and viruses etc. although some may question why good faithful Christians who have devoted their lives to God should become ill, is this maybe the work of the devil? Health has very little to with being ill (dr.Drew of Weston), this statement to me means that to be mentally ill is the same as being physically ill, if you had a fever you would stay in bed feeling unhappy and unsociable and if your illness was really bad you might lose hope and die, this can be closely associated with what might happens if you are mentally ill, you would stay in bed not wanting to talk and become very unhappy causing you to lose hope of life and lead you to suicide. To a Christian death is not seen as the end but as a new beginning with God in heaven, this is not a good reason to kill you self though, Christians believe that God gave you life and he chooses when to take it away.c.) Do healing miracles happen today? this statement can be seen in two different lights, in one light (the dark one) it is seen that healing miracles do not happen today, only a very limited amount of so-called healers will admit that they do not have any powers the apostles had. They do not dare attempt even the healing miracles that the apostles did. Jesus said heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Theses present day supposed healers will attempt only certain cases and will reject anyone who has anything seriously wrong with them.But in the other light (the bright one) there is a man called David Hathaway, who is a healer who has tremendous powers to heal, on the 13th march 1999 he healed a man called Peter who was blinded by a fishing rod. David loves to see young people like this healed, when doctors can do nothing. However, seeing Peters lack in faith, David made him sit down and watch with his one good eye others being healed, David wanted Peters faith to be lifted by what he saw. When Peters turn came David took authority of Jesus name and immediately Peter began to see colour, it became clearer and clearer until God gad completed a miracle.

Free Essays on Surgeon

Imagine a modern day surgeon walking into an operation room or worse, tent, in the early 1860’s, during the Civil War. This time was considered to be the middle ages of medicine. A Civil War general graphically depicted the typical surgery routine like this; â€Å"There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, their bare arms as well as their linen aprons smeared with blood, their knives not seldom held between their teeth, while they were helping a patient on or off the table...The surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth.... wiped it rapidly once or twice across his bloodstained apron, and the cutting began.†# Picture that in your mind and now wonder why 60% of the 620,000 people who died during that four-year war died from disease after visiting the so-called hospital. In this time period before Louis Pasteur and his discovery and work with bacteria and viruses. Doctors during this time had inaccurate views about the causes of disease and infection; most blamed toxic â€Å"miasma† or â€Å"efflura† from wet swamplands or tents with poor ventilation. Some also thought that the ingestion of too much or too little salted meat, heat alternating with cold, battle stress or even the smell from the latrines caused all these diseases. A report in 1864 by the American Medical Association noted that the air was full of â€Å"pus corpuscles, floating about as dust,† which would settle in the wounds and cause infection. These experts suggested that the need for better ventilation in the operating room was â€Å" the great lesson of war.†# Granted, the last statement was an idea heading in the right direction, but the bloody, dirty, hands and tools of the surgeons were definitely overlooked as a problem. While most surgeons were aware of a relationship between cleanliness and low infection rates, they did not know how to sterilize their equipment. Due to a frequent shortage of water, surgeons often went days without... Free Essays on Surgeon Free Essays on Surgeon Imagine a modern day surgeon walking into an operation room or worse, tent, in the early 1860’s, during the Civil War. This time was considered to be the middle ages of medicine. A Civil War general graphically depicted the typical surgery routine like this; â€Å"There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, their bare arms as well as their linen aprons smeared with blood, their knives not seldom held between their teeth, while they were helping a patient on or off the table...The surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth.... wiped it rapidly once or twice across his bloodstained apron, and the cutting began.†# Picture that in your mind and now wonder why 60% of the 620,000 people who died during that four-year war died from disease after visiting the so-called hospital. In this time period before Louis Pasteur and his discovery and work with bacteria and viruses. Doctors during this time had inaccurate views about the causes of disease and infection; most blamed toxic â€Å"miasma† or â€Å"efflura† from wet swamplands or tents with poor ventilation. Some also thought that the ingestion of too much or too little salted meat, heat alternating with cold, battle stress or even the smell from the latrines caused all these diseases. A report in 1864 by the American Medical Association noted that the air was full of â€Å"pus corpuscles, floating about as dust,† which would settle in the wounds and cause infection. These experts suggested that the need for better ventilation in the operating room was â€Å" the great lesson of war.†# Granted, the last statement was an idea heading in the right direction, but the bloody, dirty, hands and tools of the surgeons were definitely overlooked as a problem. While most surgeons were aware of a relationship between cleanliness and low infection rates, they did not know how to sterilize their equipment. Due to a frequent shortage of water, surgeons often went days without...

System Design for Riordan Manufacturing Human Resources Department Essay Example

System Design for Riordan Manufacturing Human Resources Department Essay Example System Design for Riordan Manufacturing Human Resources Department Essay System Design for Riordan Manufacturing Human Resources Department Essay Essay Topic: Claim Of Fact The Namesake Introduction In the previous section of this service request system solution proposal, we cited Riordan Manufacturing current position in the global plastics manufacturing market as an existing world leader, that has every intent to maintain that namesake by continuing to develop its technology both o the production line as well as behind the scenes where it supports those individuals that work hard every day to keep Riordan Manufacturing in the upper echelon, elite class of global business that are providing for the world’s needs in mass quantities on a daily basis. Riordan Manufacturing started out as a small, licensing Dr Riodan’s patents, but it has grown into a strong corporation that employs over 500 professionals in its offices located in Albany, Georgia, Pontiac Michigan, San Jose, California and it’s international office located in Hangzhou, China. The company’s growth over the last two decades and its resulting assets are considerable. For example, the companies assets are valued at over $1 billion. After receiving a service request from Hugh McCauley, the corporate operations officer for Riordan Manufacturing, who expressed a desire to enhance the level of technology used at Riordan Manufacturing, wanted our company to analyze Riordan Manufacturing’s current human resources technology in-place in that department and consolidate the array of applications they currently use into a single, integrated system that will serve their functional needs and introduce their employees to the latest technology. Our team understands Riordan Manufacturing’s need for new technology and their desire to expose their personnel to the latest, cutting-edge methods available to members of the human resources management environment, so that those same tools and methods may be exposed to their human resources personnel and exploited in every imaginable way to make Riordan Manufacturing more productive by giving their employees an enhanced sense of peace of mind by managing their employment-related issues more quickly, thoroughly and effectively through the implementation and subsequent application of cutting-edge technology. Riordan Manufacturing is quite aware that keeping pace with the changes of the global marketplace and the increasing demands created by a growing population can only be realistically met by investing heavily in technology, not just in the manufacturing plants and on the assembly lines, but also in the areas of logistical support, such as the human resources department. Application Architecture The current system being used in the human resources department of Riordan Manufacturing is marginally capable of handling the information management needs of the company. The first step in designing a completely new system is to upgrade the HRIS software they currently have installed. Recycling their current system will save considerable financial resources. As well, there will not be a need to purchase a completely new application, so training requirements will also be minimized. We must also keep in mind during the design of the new information system, that per the service request, SR-rm-004, Riordan Manufacturing explicitly expressed the desire to keep their current application but wants to integrate everything into a consolidated, unified system, â€Å" Analyze the HR system to integrate the existing variety of tools in use today into a single integrated application. †¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Riordan, 2011). Nonetheless, there will still be a need for some measure of training. Since the current HRIS will be upgraded to the latest version its likely that there will be some issues with familiarity of the enhanced version of the HRIS application. Also, since there were various instances of data management being accomplished on separate computer systems using an assortment of different applications, such as Microsoft Excel, there is a fairly good chance that all of the capabilities of the HRIS application were not being utilized in the first place. Consequently, we expect a need for proficiency training for the current staff. That training should cover both the basic functionality of HRIS as well as the advanced concepts in order to maximize Riordan Manufacturings investment in the human resources application. The architecture of the final solution system will be a single HRIS application that will provide specialized interfaces for several groups of users. There will be one type of interface configured especially for the Riordan Manufacturing human resources administrative staff working directly in that department. There will be another interface designed for the Riordan Manufacturing employees that do not work in the human resources department. There will be an interface for the personnel working in Hangzhou and finally, there will be an interface for the off-site contractor handling the Workers’ Compensation claims and benefits. Despite the fact that all of the interfaces access the same database, the interface configuration for each group of users differs in terms of data accessibility and language support. The human resources administrative staff needs access to all of the records for each employee. Additionally, the human resources staff needs to be able to store, manipulate and generate reports from the collateral data indirectly related to employment records, such as job classifications, policies and procedures, Equal Employment Opportunity data, personal employee files, promotions, benefits tracking and accounting data, organizational relationships and hierarchies, employee handbook data, specific communications, tax data and other various data types and classifications of data that bear some direct or indirect relationship to employment condition. So, all employee-related information is kept in a single, consolidated database, which is accessible by the appropriate personnel or contractors. Furthermore, to describe the system architecture more specifically, read and write data access is dependent on the job title or business role of data requester. Security Controls There should exist two distinct security and control infrastructures. Norton AntiVirus 2011 will be installed on all systems company-wide. It has a proven track record of thorough, reliable virus protection, while minimizing the demand on system resources. It was also selected by professional reviewers over all other market competitors, â€Å" Reviewers say Norton Anti-Virus 2011 is the best antivirus software currently available. It gets top marks from experts, †¦ a Gold award from AV-Comparatives. org Norton earns excellent marks for removing malware and spyware is much less of a resource hog than it was in previous years. Installation is fast and easy, and the interface is easier to navigate. Experts note little impact on system performance and say the software runs unobtrusively in the background without disrupting programs or applications ConsumerSearch (2011) Process Design Instead of using seperate applications or paper forms (which can be damaged or lost), personal information will be entered directly into the database by the employees. the interfaces will be modified so that data types are monitored by the HRIS application to ensure that meaningless information is not entered in the database inadvertently. Also each use r will be required to login to the system so the application know which interface to display on the users’ computer display. The login identification control algorithm will interpret the classification of the user during login and the associated interface will control the language and the access rights of the user accordingly. So, for example, if an employee that normally works in China has temporarily been assigned to work in the Pontiac, Michigan office and needs to make an adjustment to his employee information because his wife gave birth while he was away, he could login to the HRIS system in Michigan and the interface would give him the appropriate data privileges and will display all of the information in Chinese. The HRIS database will now act as the central repository for all human resources-related information and will consolidate data from all personnel in all offices throughout the corporation, including the contractors’ office that manages the Workers’ Compensation benefits. References Riordan Manufacturing, Service Request SR-rm-004, (2011). ttps://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/cist/VOP/Service%20Requests/RiordanSR/riordanSR004. htm ConsumerSearch (2011) consumersearch. com/antivirus-software Apollo Group. (2003, 2004, 2006). Riordan Manufacturing. Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Business/Riordan/RioMfgHome002. htm

Financial Aid Calculator for Private Schools

Financial Aid Calculator for Private Schools While many parents experience sticker shock when they see the price of tuition at private schools, it is important to remember that affording a private school education is not like purchasing a house, vehicle or another high-end purchase. Why? Simple: private schools offer financial aid to qualified families. Thats right, about 20% of private school students nationwide receive some form of financial aid to defray the cost of tuition, which averages about $20,000 at day schools (and closer to $40,000 or more in many urban areas on the East and West Coasts) and over $50,000 at many boarding schools. According to NAIS, or the National Association of Independent Schools, nearly 20% of students at private schools nationwide are awarded some financial aid, and the average grant of need-based aid was $9,232 for day schools and $17,295 for boarding schools (in 2005). At schools with large endowments, such as top boarding schools, about 35% of students receive need-based aid. At many boarding schools, families earning under about $75,000 year may actually pay little or nothing in tuition, so be sure to ask about these programs if they apply to your family. Overall, private schools give out more than $2 billion in financial aid to families.   How Schools Determine Financial Aid To determine how much financial aid each family should be granted, most private schools ask families to fill out applications and possibly submit tax forms. Applicants may also have to fill out the School and Student Service’s (SSS) Parents’ Financial Statement (PFS) to determine what parents can pay towards their children’s private school tuitions. About 2,100 K-12 schools use the Parents’ Financial Statement, but before parents fill it out, they should be sure the schools they are applying to accept this application. Parents can fill out the PFS online, and the site offers a workbook to guide applicants. Filling out the form online costs $37, while it costs $49 to fill it out on paper. A fee waiver is available. The PFS asks parents to provide information about the family’s income, the family’s assets (homes, vehicles, bank and mutual fund accounts, etc.), the debts the family owes, how much the family pays for educational expenses for all their children, and other expenses the family may have (such as dental and medical expenses, camps, lessons and tutors, and vacations). You may be asked to upload certain documents related to your finances onto the website, and these documents are stored securely. Based on the information you submit on the PFS, the SSS determines how much discretionary income you have and makes a recommendation about your â€Å"Estimated Family Contribution† to the schools to which you are applying. However, schools make their own decisions about the amount each family can pay for tuition, and they may adjust this estimate. For example, some schools may decide that they can not afford this amount and may ask the family to pay more, while other schools may adjust the cost of living for your city or town based on local factors. In addition, schools vary in how much aid they offer based on their endowment and the school’s commitment to providing financial aid to broaden their student body. In general, older, more established schools tend to have larger endowments and can offer to provide more generous financial aid packages. Where to Find a Financial Aid Calculator The truth is, there really isnt a fool-proof financial aid calculator for private school applicants. But, private schools do try to work closely with families to meet their needs. If you want a general idea of your estimated FA award, you might consider a financial aid calculator used by students applying for financial aid at college. You can also ask the admission office for statistics on average financial aid awards offered by the school, percent of family-need met and the percent of students who receive aid. Also, look at the schools endowment and ask what the full financial aid budget is, these factors can help you get an idea of how aid is allocated to families. Because each school makes its own decision about financial aid and how much your family should pay toward tuition, you may wind up with very different offers from different schools. In fact, the amount of aid you are offered can be one of the factors you consider when choosing the right private school.