Management Case Study Essay

The case study below takes place at the Sir Charles Wilberforce Hospital’s cafeteria, which is experiencing problems with the change management. Due to the new management undertaken by Keith Davis, there was a major issue of inadequate communication channels, as Keith told his employees what to do rather than consult them, especially with the decision-making. The best alternative to rectify this problem is for Keith to adapt to a consultative management style, in order for employees to take ownership in their workplace through expressing their opinions and feel more valued, however still allowing Keith to still make the final decision. Another major issue addressed in the Cafeteria was the amount of unmotivated staff. As employees feel unsatisfied with their work, the best solution to this issue is Goal Setting. Through employees setting strategic goals they will increase their motivation through achievement of these goals which will lead them to set more challenging ones. Lastly, the third major issue recognised was Keith’s poor leadership skills which made it difficult for employees to fulfil expectations and find enjoyment in the workplace. The best alternative solution for this problem is to retrain Keith’s leadership abilities so he is able to adopt all the qualities needed to become a better leader in his managing role. Although this may be an expensive method, the new leadership qualities Keith will learn will make a happier work environment for his employees and build a better employer/employee relationship. 3. Problem identification Poor communication channels Keith focuses on top down communication channels, providing a one way communication which is from him to his employees, rather than two-way which provides his employees to communicate ideas with him. This negatively impacts the hospital as the Keith is unable to discuss problems or ask questions amongst employees to see if there are any problems going on amongst the workers and therefore leading to job dissatisfaction employees. Although Keith tried to soothe Julia when the issue between her and Madison was brought to his attention, he did not follow it up or treat it as an importance. Lack of staff motivation Prior to Keith’s managing, Anne’s original foundations of self-satisfaction and close family ties seemed to motivate the employees at Sir Charles Wilberforce hospital. Keith’s changes were made to become more efficient, employees were left struggling to gain satisfaction and motivation in order for themselves to achieve their hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1954). In this hierarchy of needs Maslow developed, employees have five needs, physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualisation, once they fulfil one of their needs they can graduate to the next one to fulfil it and so on. Without fulfilling the social needs of forming social ties or self-actualisation of gaining enough experience within the kitchen to become a supervisor, it became unknown to the employees of what they are capable of and decreased their enticements to complete tasks and feel satisfied. Insufficient leadership abilities Keith lacks major leadership qualities, as the organisational layout he uses is to tell employees what to do, depriving them of guidance and support. The Hersey Situations leadership model suggests that leadership focuses on follower’s readiness (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 2001). This theory suggests that at Sir Charles Wilberforce, if the employees feel they are unable to complete a task Keith should give those clear and specific instructions. If they are willing and confident Keith needs to provide them display high task orientation, and if employees feel able but are unwilling Keith would need to use a supportive approach. Lack of teamwork The teamwork environment of delegating tasks amongst of employees was not addressed by Keith. He believed that employees needed to finish work on time, plan menus monthly and take on cleaning responsibilities, whereas, the use of team work would have provided a better suited time managed system. Through having each employee assist with cleaning duties, planning menus, helping out another if time was short as well as assisting each other to get all food out and made the kitchen would be less chaotic. This would have assisted with issues if someone was ill, allowing more than one person to prepare greater portions of meals. 4. Statement of Major Problems The three major problems that are brought to the attention at Sir Charles Wilberforce Hospital are: Inadequate communication channels Unmotivated staff Insufficient leadership abilities The poor communication channel Keith utilises is top-down communication from Keith to his employees. As this is a workplace that depends on seeking ideas from others and support from each other, two way communications between Keith and his employees is necessary. This will allow employees to feel part of the decision making and feel they can share their ideas to improve the workplace. Following this Keith must then improve his leadership skills, putting his employees first and assisting them with any help and support they need in order to achieve a positive workplace. This may involve Keith revising the organisation’s culture, or distinguishing the strength and weakness of each employee so he knows how to assist each of them. Once Keith’s leadership abilities are improved, staff motivation must be identified and given, in order for employees to become productive within the kitchen and gain job satisfaction, increasing their abilities and allowing them to feel the want to work. 5. Generation and Evaluation of Alternative Solutions Inadequate communication channels Regular work meetings Set regular meetings within the kitchen, in order to concerns amongst employees to be discussed as we as evaluation on how the business is going and openly discuss ways to improve or maintain it. Advantages Allows for feedback Employees can listen to each person’s idea and encourages discussion openly Evaluate the earnings to the previous week and that time the previous year, allowing each person to suggest ways to improve or maintain their profit margins. Disadvantages Some employees may not attend May be time consuming to discuss all ideas Consultative management style Implement a Consultative management style in order to increase two-way and open communication between Keith and the employees. Advantages Allows employees to feel ownership in decision making Allows employees to share their ideas and opinions Gives confidence to employees Disadvantages Employees may feel held back to express their opinions because they do not feel comfortable Employees may feel offended if their ideas are not taken into consideration Time consuming Unmotivated staff Goal setting Implement setting goals, which involve employees setting goals that motivate them to improve their capabilities. Advantages Gives self-satisfaction Increases productivity and performance levels Disadvantages Time consuming to distinguish appropriate and achievable goals Goals ay appear as unattainable and lead to employees to give up Job design Mr Dev can alter the job design to assist in identifying and correcting any deficiencies that affect performance and motivation. Advantages Job enlargement, can be used to increase motivation by giving employee’s more and varied tasks so the employee is motivation to try new tasks Job rotation allows an employee to work in different departments or jobs in an organization to gain better insight into operations motivating the employee to increase his/her skills and knowledge about other jobs. Disadvantages Job enrichment may lead the employee transferred too much responsibility in the kitchen and independence in the planning and control aspects of the job which may suppress motivation levels Reward and Recognition Evaluating each employee to identify which people are performing to their maximum, and rewarding them financially or non-financially for their hard work, therefore motivating other employees to improve their work standards. Advantages Employees will increase performance to obtain more rewards Will produce higher standards amongst the employees Self- enrichment Disadvantages Expensive to keep purchasing rewards and reassess each employee to recognise After a while employees may feel that rewards may not motivate them anymore Keith may not want to undertake the idea of rewarding and recognising employees Insufficient leadership abilities Retrain Keith Retraining programs for Keith within the company or externally will allow Keith to develop better leadership qualities and create a happier workplace. Advantages Positively effects employees to feel trust and support from Keith Keith can evaluate themselves as to what skills are expected to lead the employees Disadvantages May take a while for Keith to learn and adapt to these skills May be expensive Dismiss Keith Dismissing Keith will demolish the issue of poor leadership abilities and will allow the business to replace him with a more experienced manager. Advantages Re-appoint a new manager who possess all correct leadership skills Employees are in a happier environment where they can get the support they need More time appropriate and efficient than retraining Disadvantages May be hard to find a replacement Employees may find it hard to adapt to a new manager and may be resistant to give them a chance due to their bad experience with Keith 6. Recommendation Consultative management style A Consultative management style is the recommended alternative for Keith to address to his employees. The type of management style used by Keith at this point is autocratic, which involves him making decisions for the hospital kitchen unilaterally. Although regular meetings are a good alternative by providing mediation and assistant towards employees, the consultative management style involves a permanent change to the organisation. The consultative style would involve Keith discussing ideas of possible changes to be made within the kitchen, as well as employees being able to give their opinions and ideas. By implementing a consultative management style, employees at the cafeteria will be able to perform to their optimum level, concentrating on increasing common sense approach for Keith to meet the needs and wants of the employees, as well as making employees realise their own abilities and capabilities in performing tasks, (McClelland, 1987). Similarly to regular meetings, the consultative approach gives open communication, however unlike meetings the consultative approach is more permanent in the workplace and is used daily, for example in decision making, gaining assistance with a task or getting support with a concern. This will benefit the kitchen, as the employees will respond more positively to any changes to feel more a part of the workplace and a sense of belonging. Keith will benefit from this style, as he will be given a broader range of ideas as well as maintain his authority to make the final decision. Goal Setting Setting goals is the preferred alternative for Keith to use within the kitchen. Despite the fact being rewarded motivates someone to maintain if not improve performance to be rewarded again, goal setting gives motivation. Goal setting enables employees to measure their processes and work performance. This enables employees to gain feedback on their results, unlike rewards and recognition which just motivates employees to try harder to gain another reward rather than possessing the want to gain the self-satisfaction that they have improved. Edward Locke’s theory of goal setting outlines that in setting specific and challenging goals it enables process and outcome improvement (Locke ; Latham, 1990). Similarly, job design suggests a different form of motivating to increase their skills of different tasks, however it also does hold the ability to measure the improvement that setting goals do. If goal setting is adapted by Keith, his employees would be able to achieve towards a higher performance, as well as motivating them to set higher goals with increasingly difficult tasks, once they have been achieved. Through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this can assist in setting goals with Locke and Latham’s theory. Maslow theory suggests that ‘although no need is every fully satisfied, a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates an individual to satisfy that need’ (Robbins, Bergmann, Stagg and Coulter, 2012, p559). This suggests that in identifying each need, physiological safety social esteem and self-actualisation, employees at sir Charles Wilberforce can pinpoint what tasks they need to complete in order to graduate to the next level. For example one of the employees may find that they feel they don’t belong, in order to achieve this level they can set a goal to form relations with other employees on a professional basis. Once this goal is achieved they can move on to develop their esteem needs. Retraining Keith Although, retraining Keith may be considered a time consuming process, compared to the alternative of dismissing Keith, it appears to be a more logical approach. Through retraining, Keith is able to gain leadership skills that he may not be aware are essential skills he needs in order to be a manager. This will transform him from telling his employees what to do, to instead assisting and guiding them through changes. Despite the expenses of this method, it may also be difficult for Keith to cooperate as well as understand the concept of these skills however unlike dismissing, he will be able to improve and allow for a happier work. The trait theory suggests that it is impossible to identify and isolate characteristics from leaders from non-leaders. However there are seven traits associated with leadership, these being ‘drive, the desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, job-relevant knowledge and extraversion’, (Robbins, 2012, p605). Eventually with the retraining, Keith may possess these seven leadership abilities to involve his employees in decision making process and form a trust bond.

Chinese Typography Study

Typography in Publication Design Chinese Typography Study Training for cultural awareness and sustainability Choi Chi Kit Jackson, Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong, [email  protected] edu. uk Monica Chiu, Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong, [email  protected] edu. hk Sylvia To, Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong, [email  protected] edu. hk Abstract: This paper aims to present the unique quality of Chinese letterforms & characters, and to discuss our approach of teaching Chinese typography as a tool of nurturing cultural awareness and sustainability.Through in-depth research of traditional literature, study the philosophy from past, examine the visual symbols and tangible artifacts in the surrounding at present-day to enable students’ to translate and transform the materials into experimental typographic designs for modern communication. We believed that this is a good method for our future creative talents to engage with traditional value and essence sustainab ility through typography design practice. Key words: cultural awareness, Chinese aesthetics, letterform appreciation, iconic architectural elements, pictogram, philosophy, cultural identity . Introduction Movable types have contributed a major way of communication since the invention of printing. Today, the existence of digital media has drove typography design to a formulaic nature. For Chinese typography, the unique human philosophy contained in writing system enriched our life and soul since it’s developed by ancestors and scholars. However, the reliance of digital media made this distinctive philosophy being disregarded by many design students in Hong Kong.Since ancient time, human civilization reflected and recorded cognition towards their living environment by direct imitation to produce imagery or drawings, for example cave paintings, monumental carving and primitive written symbols. However the direct copying of objects and forms had its limitation when it came to abs tract association of ideologies. During civilization development, languages were formulated and gradually migrated into two different streams: one headed to the direction replacing pictographs with phonetic system all together.Pictographs were soon replaced by alphabets; which the meaning of words were constructed by combinations of different sound, later developed into language system with enormous amount of words. Another different direction was extension from pictograph with phonetic component and the additional association from pictographs. The former was well adopted by western world to become roman alphabets whereas the latter was Chinese characters for Chinese culture. AaBbCcDdEeFfGg Chinese typography constituted a major way of communication for literature and culture sustain.Unlike roman alphabets, the meaning of Chinese characters comes with the unique combination of ancestor’s artifacts, activities, space and sounds in daily life. Even though the representation of Chinese letterforms changed according to human civilization, this unique way of writing system ( Kanzi) still transmit in today’s Chinese characters since oracle bone script been found. Horse ? Herd ? Despite the changes and amendment made along the rise and fall of dynasties, Chinese written language is basically retained with the same ancient artifacts and literature and still in used today.In some sense, we are communicating with our ancestors. ? In this paper we discuss the nature and characteristics of Chinese writing system with the approach of training aims to revitalize this cultural philosophy on contemporary Chinese typography. 2. Design Principles of Chinese Character 2. 1 Traditional Chinese culture in modern design context Chinese arts and crafts development reached its peak as early as Han Dynasty (206 B. C. – 8 A. D. ). Lots of documents have been found such as the Kaogong ji (1) that llustrated and stated rules and dimensions for architecture and deco rative ornaments. These information was however more inclined to the technical aspects of construction and production rather than the design principles and thinking in a modern context. Pages extract from Kaogong ji The closest attempt to design theory and thinking seems to be embedded in the deepest roots of Chinese culture when our ancestors tried to create the primitive form of communication, the Chinese letterforms. This can be trace in the six categories of Chinese Characters, the ‘liushu ’. 2. Generation of Chinese characters Chinese characters evolved basically from pictographs that represent objects, actions, events and sounds since 5000BC. This is distinctive from roman alphabets which the meaning of words comes from a combination of alphabets but not from one single alphabet. Every Chinese character has its own meaning, or even more than one. Various types of character were first classified systematically in Han Dynasty, around 100 AD by the Chinese linguist Xu Shen , whose etymological dictionary ‘Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters, Shuowen Jiezi, divides the script into six categories, the ‘liushu’. 1. Pictographs ( xiangxingzi) 2. Pictophonetic compounds ( , Xingshengzi) 3. Indicative Characters / Ideograph ( , zh shizi) 4. Associative Characters / Logical aggregates ( , Huiyizi) 5. Associate Transformation ( , Zhu nzhuzi) 6. Borrowing ( , Ji jiezi) We have approximately over 60,000 Chinese characters. Although some strokes were simplified or lost occasionally in the past, Chinese characters are basically is in its stable structure since Qin Dynasty. (2)The 6 categories of Chinese Character (‘liushu’) mention here is an extreme important knowledge for Chinese for maximizing our communication possibility, to serve as guideline for new letterform creation in coherent logic; this can be discussed as similar as western design principles. 3. Chinese Typography Training Today, we are const antly bombarded by excessive visual excitement and information. In the process of coding and decoding visual message, if the origin of Chinese letterform can be well preserved, one can reveal the purest form of visual dialogue for our next generation. Communication depends on common principles -assumptions and meanings, purpose and values – but common meanings can be established only by communication and agreement† (Richard McKeon, 1998). 3. 1 The consequence of traditional and modern Chinese characters Although the unique combination of symbolic marks still exists in modern Chinese letterform, a major problem is modern fonts design concentrate very much on modification of geometrical shapes to relatively simple structure for the needs of digital media.Hence, we see the large gap between the combination of symbolic marks and cultural meanings obtained within. In order to sustain the unique literate and cultural traditions, we believe the co-existing of symbolic marks an d geometrical structure should not be overlooked. Pictogram Oracle Bone script Bronze script Seal script Clerical script Regular script Cursive script Movable type Digital font ? ? Same as many western typography design, our practical guide to Chinese typography training is a combination of origin and new, involved literature review and experimental workshops.Along with our four years coaching experience gone through with the application and interpretation of philosophical notion of Chinese calligraphy emerged with theoretical, aesthetic and contextual approaches. Time Space Social Artefacts ? Literature Cultural People 3. 2 Cultural sustainability Chinese letterform composed of symbolic marks for linguistic and visual communication. It is a significant medium to connect Chinese culture and social ideologies. In this regard, we obtain Chinese typography as perfect channel to facilitate student's creativity as well as literature and cultural knowledge.Literature Review Exper imental Workshops Design for cultural awareness and sustainability. 3. 3 Teaching and learning strategy Our training method consist two main stages: 3. 3. 1 Literature review It is our essential stage to buildup theoretical and methodological brought from ancient Chinese intellects, a practical based training leading students to translate and transform the Chinese calligraphy philosophy into new visual dimensions. 3. 3. 2 Experimental workshops Another approach to learn typography is to forget about typography.By employing experimental graphic treatments, materials and imagery, we hope to further enhanced audience’s emotional and spiritual responds in reading. Through serious of experimental workshops, we facilitate students to explore and experiment new visual codes. Through our practice-based research project fused with theory and medium in all kinds, we established new aesthetic perspective and approach that manifests the fusion of cultural and functional qualities for con temporary Chinese typography design.Eventually, increase the awareness of cultural sustainability. Literature review Experimental workshops Learning process Origin ? Translate ? Transform + Learning process Explore ? Experiment To demonstrate the idea how we embrace literature and cultural knowledge as well as facilitating students’ Chinese typography creativity, our learning contents and work examples will be further discussed. Student’s examples will be show to demonstrate our academic achievements including the awarded projects in national competition. 3. Learning Contents 3. 4. 1 Fundamental Principles of Chinese Letterform Chinese calligraphy is an expression of innermost spirit of one’s well-being. Calligraphy appreciation enriches viewers experience through acknowledge of one's expressive strokes, shapes and structure. In the past, painter and calligraphers has a common practice to developed skills begun by imitating works from great masters. The exercise shown here was intended to revisit, rethink and embrace the very fundamental principles of Chinese writing system.By respecting the origin to establish new forms, and be free to give personality to that form. Exercise: Calligraphy in practice Knowledge: principles of writing order, 8 strokes theory, 34 grid systems, origin of Chinese calligraphy, personality, express, control. Technique: structure, strokes, form, shapes, and grid. Learning process: Origin 3. 4. 2 Letterform and Chinese Philosophy Chinese Yin-yang philosophy used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn.The Yin-yang concept is not opposing force, but complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system of equilibrium. Chinese typography consists of Yin-yang philosophy within. Elements of each letterform are in placed within a grid system of 34 different for mats. Everything is organized in a right position of perfect balance. Yin-yan Examples of Chinese letterform ? ? ? ? ? Symmetrical Balance Asymmetrical balance Stability Visible & invisible Spacing Fullness and emptiness Balance and sense of space Balance and hierarchyIn this content, students were asked to learn historical knowledge of Chinese calligraphy and principles of Chinese letterform design. Through extensive exploration and experiments to develop, translate and transform the principles into modern typography design. The training is to nurture the appreciation of aesthetic quality of Chinese letterform. 3. 4. 3 Simplified type strokes and forms Although there are straight structure and format for standard characters, designers still have flexibility during actually implementation of Chinese characters (Junior school teachers may disagree with this).Since Chinese characters are the graphic representation of what we see in real world, there is no absolute right or wrong compo sition of letterform. In fact the development of script has reflect this flexibility: pictographs > metal script>seal script >clerical script >regular script, not to mention the drastic change from Traditional Chinese to Simplified. Letter strokes and composition are continuously morphing and altering over time. Historically, it is a visual game which artists play around with the forms and strokes for visual interest such as , , . Today, these hrases are still in use in our ordinary life such as paper cut, red banners for blessing; embroidery, furniture and architecture for decoration†¦ So, almost every character has its own meaning or a story to tell. The following examples demonstrated how Chinese characters can be read as graphic forms with an intentional to remove strokes and emerge two or more forms together to become new composition. Viewers are amused by the tricks, and enjoy the process of reading and decoding the design. And we believed that this can be a good appeti zer for students to start off the feast of Chinese Typography.For this content, students were asked to play with their own Chinese names by simplifying strokes and forms. They may find it confusing in the beginning but soon discover the fun of â€Å"being wrong†. Strokes were removed deliberately but the principle is that the characters could still be read and be understood. The process includes reduce strokes ? add weight ? use counter space ? align grid ? create style. The experimental exercises show below demonstrated how students examine the equilibrium philosophy with strokes from Chinese name.Through practicing the principles as first step, several techniques were employed (Diagram 1-5). Next, students were asked to come up with a suitable idiom or phase that can well express the visual quality from previous design, finally translate and transform the visual approach and ordinary letterform to new image structure (Diagram 6). Exercise: Type structure Knowledge: structur e, strokes, grid, form, shapes, space, yin-yang philosophy. Technique: eliminate elements, graphic treatment, Visible & invisible space, positive & negative association, counter space, form and deform, distortion, grouping, illusion, positive and negative space, fullness and emptiness, visual balance in strokes, counter-space, the subtle interchangeable black and white marks Learning process: Origin > Translate > Transform 3. 4. 4 Characteristics from materials Chinese characters are pictogram compose with symbolic marks of artifacts to become the foundation of our culture, however people today are often ignore the beauty and stories behind. The beauty of such simple geometrical form revealed the culture, activities, space, sound or motion of daily life at the time.Each letterform build within a grid contained a story, a connotation or more. If Chinese characters are originally invented by our ancestor with an instinct to be survive, why can’t we create typography from ignor ing everything about typography? Psychologists suggested that human being is capable of internally organizing and representing aspects of his environment, and this representation or map is subject to continuous change and revision. Each time this cognitive map is changed or reinforced that can be said to have ‘learned’. (Kerry J.McGarry, 1981). Our following exercise requires students to examine the properties of various materials and explore the possibility to create Chinese characters which convey message in both visual and language. Through the assignments, students were asked to keep repeat testing by manipulating materials. Our workshop for this particular topic consists of two stages: 1. 2. By playing with physical materials to examine and explore the possible appearances or performance Observe to discover the human physiological reaction against the experimental workSoftness within hardness explores the physical property of bamboo stick Cloth ? , surround ? , pe netrate ? , stand ? , Rise ? , transparent ? , roll ? The above works demonstrated our process to obtain human physiological reaction through materials. The collected information and experiments such as textual elements or visual appearance will be transformed and developed into typography that can convey a message with physiological response. Exercise: Play with materials Experiments: materials, texture, objects, etc.Techniques: flat laying, top-up, layering, reduce/destroy, add on or attach, transparent, marks or scare, positive & negative space, lighting & shadow, 2D or 3D, physical & chemical reaction, interaction, alternation, etc. Learning process: Explore > Experiment 3. 4. 5 Artefacts This is another experimental workshop attempted to challenge the functional aspect of letterforms. If Chinese characters concealed imagery of artefacts for functional communication for humane society, we doubted if this communication still serve effectively? Would this be a communication gap be tween ancient time and modern world?Can this problem be fixed by rediscovering the elements consisted in our present time? In this exercise, students were asked to discover their own letterform story through image capture. Students were asked to capture the expressive cultural artefacts or physical environment, with those elements found from existing place and time, a contemporary letterform is possibly formulated. Exercise: Type finding Exploration: cultural artifacts, icon, architecture, humanity, society. Technique: photography, discover, observation. Learning process: Explore > Experiment 4. Type design inspired by ‘liushu’ 4. 1.Pictographic Characters ( xiangxingzi): Strokes and structure VS iconic elements and symbols Pictograph, also known as pictogram to conveys its meaning through pictorial illustration of a physical object. The forms of these Chinese characters can be linked and associated directly to the physical objects such as Horse, Fish, Sun and Moon ( ). As highly simplified graphic representation of objects, motion and stories, a scene of drama all frozen into a still frame, all these dialogue, props, lights and textures are condensed into graphic strokes. The beauty of culture is locked into the visual codes of each letterform.When we believe that Chinese characters are frozen images of drama/stories, the best way to unfreeze them is by placing them back to the physical/material world. There has no necessity to create additional visual elements if they are already out there in the real world. Perhaps all we have to do is to re-discover them again. In this exercise, students were asked to create their typeface through captured image of iconic structures and cultural artifacts of architecture, temples, street scenes, Chinese restaurant, local tea shops, road signs, ritual materials, and any thing relates to our heritage and culture.Students will then ask to identify the patterns and images until the basic visual elements can be rev ealed. A new letterform will be formulated and developed with those elements they found. Students were also encourage to study the pictorial origins and stories of Chinese characters, experiment to decode all underlining meanings, almost like an archaeologist interpreting the prehistoric world of life with unearthed fossils. (Left to Right) Light ? , Hole ? , Bamboo Scaffolding Light ? : It depicted the simplest form of light beam that created the strokes radiated from the center point.Hole ? : There had no stroke in the word. The form was generated with layers of corrugated boards that created the depth of a hole. Bamboo Scaffolding : The student studied thoroughly the materials and structure that construct the unique characteristics of the bamboo scaffolding. All elements were reduced to their basic forms such as the bamboo sticks, tiding strings, broken pieces, dirt and objects around the building site. Viewers could associate the visual structure of the typeface with the conte xt of the design immediately. Left) visual elements (Right) Temple Temple : The student took a lot of photos at an old temple to grasp the detail of the ancient architectural style of Chinese buildings such as censer, stone carving lion and pagodas that reflected not only the life style of ordinary people, but also their religious beliefs. With these unique visual elements, student was able to formulate the letterform of primitive, simplicity of rich textural quality typography. 4. 2 Indicative Characters / Ideograph ( zh shizi) The indicative characters are used to express things that are abstract in meaning. They may be purely abstract symbols that indicate directions, or symbols will be added to pictographic characters to indicate abstract nature of matters. Examples are Chinese words indicating above, beneath, concave and convex. ( ) In this content, students will have to experiment with different materials with textual properties, conditions and mood to see how they can be co nnected to represent the meaning of Chinese characters. In the history of Chinese ainting, there is a famous saying of â€Å"One will be enlightened in inner-self if one can learn from the greater nature in one’s surrounding. † (3) It is to get rid of the computer table and go out to discover the origin and beauty of nature. (Left to Right) Trapped ? , Diffuse ? , Concave ? , look ? 4. 3 Pictophonetic compounds ( , Xingshengzi): Another category of character is a pictophonetic compound, which is to have one component to indicate the type or meaning of word, named as radical, while the other component to indicate the pronunciation of the word. ( This increases largely the possible combination of words, and nearly 90% of Chinese words used nowadays are created as pictophonetic compounds. This category can sometimes indicate the relationship between words with the same radical, and makes classification of characters very efficient. Here is an interesting student’s experimental work for lyrics design of Chinese Opera (Cantonese Opera). Traditional Chinese music notes is embedded into the lyrics characters. Music notes become the strokes of the letterform, and the length and distance between characters indicate the rhythm of the song.The design integrates the sounds with the meaning of characters, and reveals the aesthetics of traditional Chinese calligraphy. 4. 4 Associative Characters / Logical aggregates ( , Huiyizi) Pictograph is a very effective medium of communication for indicating physical objects and visual materials, but it has its own limitation when comes to abstract concepts and ideologies. Instead of switching completely phonetic system, our ancestors created flexible manipulation of the formation of letterforms so as to enrich the complexity of Chinese and allow broad dimensions of communication.To express abstract concepts, they created the associative characters that put two or more pictographic characters together to describe an action, or something abstract. ( ) For example the character â€Å"illuminate† is the combination of two pictographs of sun and moon, which are obviously the biggest illuminating objects at that time. The character ‘? ’ is the pictographs of one man after another showing the meaning of follow / by. (Left to Right) Stack ? , Wrong ? , Sun-drying of Clothes The students’ works above show the creativity of making logical aggregates through objects and letterforms.Stack ? : by piling up a stack of corrugated boards, the form and appearance of the material associate the image with the meaning of the word ‘stack’. Wrong ? : The symmetric image of the character is created by a strong contrast of ‘black & white’ colour. This also depicts the meaning of ‘right & wrong’ carried by the Chinese character. ( ) Sun drying of clothes : The design captures very common street scenery in Hong Kong where people dry their laundry ou tside public estates. The clothes form the shape of Chinese characters.Viewers can understand the meaning of the words even they do not understand the Chinese words. 5. Pictogram with Chinese Aesthetics and Chinese Philosophy Traditional Chinese intellects enrich one’s literate spirit through practicing calligraphy and painting. It is an expression of innermost beauty of one's integral soul of balanced lifestyle. Calligraphy enriches the intellectual capacity of viewers through appreciation of expressive quality of strokes, shapes and structure that extends to acknowledgement of one's well being.Chinese painters spent their life to reveal their spirit and emotion through the use of ink, washes and impressionistic brushstrokes. Both components of black and white shared the same level of importance. Realism is never their aim, and sometimes the negative space is the message. Like landscape painting, masters drew their landscape freely with changeable perspectives, and white spa ce is used to suggest distance. â€Å"The nature is an entity as ONE, and then separated into wind, rain and four seasons. The brightness and darkness, high and low, close by and far away, the peak of imitation is between alike and unlike. (Shi Tao, 1642–1718) (4) The surrealistic and impressionistic nature of Chinese arts provides a perfect laboratory for student’s exploration of Chinese typography. Below example shows how Chinese calligraphy reflects Chinese philosophy of yin-yang positive & negative, fullness & emptiness to works hand in hand with another significant art form carried from Chinese painting. Through the necessary process from studying literature and ideologies of the ancient time, he attempted to extract and translate those beliefs and principles into graphic rules and visual principles.The exercise offered students a good opportunity to test extensively if the rules and principles are versatile and applicable. (Left) Typographic poster of a Chinese poem (Right) Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting It is human instinct to gain knowledge from the past for the needs of improvement. When we learn that iushu is the traditional ways of creating meaningful and comprehensive characters, we start to think that may be we can employ similar principles to create new characters for things that do not exist in the past.Or maybe we can take advantage of the constructional nature of Chinese character to create new letterforms through imagination. For words or objects with more than one meaning, or with ambiguous meaning, they will lead to subjective interpretation. (Paul Rand, 1985) Nowadays young generation is so used to the ‘Martian language’ online which is a new language based on traditional Chinese. The principle of creating that language is amazingly similar to those developed from liushu. A good example is the borrowing of a long-term unused character ? for a helpless facial expression.Seemingly, the principle of charact er creation developed over long period of time is already embedded in our DNA and influence every move we make. In the last session, we are going to present our student’s contributions on typography design with their enthusiasm on cultural phenomenon. The essential and efficiency for adapting typography principles into contemporary of representation were successfully demonstrated. Night Street: With highly developed and sophisticated transport network in Hong Kong, paved highways and roads were built to serve the needs of busy local economy 24 hours a day.No other place would witness this unique energetic transportation, bustling bridges and highway nightlife on earth. Street lamps and vehicle lights mark the night and become the energetic strokes that reveal the scenic impression of a cosmopolitan city. (Left) Joss paper . (Right) Awful Taoist incantation Joss paper : Paper offering is a common tradition in Hong Kong during funerals, festivals and special occasions to ensu re the well being of the deceased and ancestor.Joss paper, also known as ghost money, a traditional handmade paper product, which is decorated with seals, stamps, engraved designs or other motifs. The type was created by the rich texture and quality of the ritual paper products with visual elements interacting with original strokes to unfold this cultural distinctiveness in a contemporary approach. Awful Taoist incantation : The original meaning of the phrase means poor works of calligraphy that is difficult to read and understand. The design employs the traditional symbol of incantation and combines it with new online languages used by youngster nowadays.This is a good example showing the potential of bringing new life to our tradition especially when we know that we are sharing the common language with our ancestors. (Left) Chinese Input Method (Right) Rock’N roll against the organizational system Chinese Input Method : In modern digital world, unlike using roman alphab ets, Chinese have to type in characters with different input methods (Cangjie, Pinyin, Jianyi) They are dictated by the keyboard format and the graphic form of characters, both of which are unrelated to the original meaning of the characters.This design challenges the idea by creating the letterforms with keyboard radicals, and the results are semireadable, between alike and unlike. Rock’N roll against the organizational system : All Chinese characters are the results of different composition with 8 basic strokes. This provides the possibility to decompose and recompose the strokes to generate new letterforms. This design decomposes the strokes of the words ‘organizational system’ and recomposed into ‘Rock & Roll’ in Chinese, so as to demonstrate the conflicts between the two forces. (Left) Suppression in Childhood Right) Fourth of June Suppression in Childhood : The big rectangular shape in Chinese character always conveys the meaning of trap, s urround and block. The design employs this symbol as a metaphor of suppression in childhood where all letters written by the child is surrounded and blocked, no matter they are about study, games, toys, friends, examination, dreams, and etc. Fourth of June : The design makes good use of the characteristic of Chinese characters that the combination of strokes is quite flexible and sometimes could be quite ambiguous.The words of ‘Six’ and ‘Four’ are mixed with ‘Patriotism’ and ‘Riot’ intentionally to post a question â€Å"Is 4th of June an patriotic action or a riot? † 6. Conclusion If we see typography as a powerful tool of visual communication, the unique visual quality of Chinese typography could definitely empower the creativity of designers, and enrich the communicative value of text. Typography can do a lot more than just providing a comfortable and legible platform for message delivery.By creative manipulation of Chine se character, viewers can firstly look at the visuals at textual material, and then look through the visuals to discover the underlying concepts embedded inside with the clever correlation with culture and information. It can prepare readers by setting the right context and atmosphere, and enhance the meaning and impact of message. We have described our complete approach for Chinese typography training. Our philosophy of Chinese typography training has been proven effective to facilitate heritage concept and necessary information in typography design. Image and text are the two major lements in visual communication. For Chinese typography, letterform composes both elements in an entity. With this unique communication quality, Chinese typography is a perfect medium to bridge the traditional Chinese cultural to the modern world of communication. Although it is no easy task for young generation to understand the knowledge in full, with our enthusiastic to embrace heritage and creativit y into Chinese typography, students gradually develop and grow themselves from aesthetic appreciation and eventually sustain the cultural identity for Hong Kong. Footnotes: 1. Kaogong ji sometimes translated as Book of Diverse Crafts, is a classic work on science and technology in Ancient China, compiled towards the end of the Spring and Autumn Period. 2. Being pictographs, the graphic forms of characters are good for story telling and readers can â€Å"guess† the meaning of words by simply looking into the graphic forms. However Simplified Chinese Style drastically reduced total number of characters by combining words of similar pronunciation, and simplified the letterform by removing strokes, but the characters lost the quality of storytelling because they are not longer pictographs. . , ( ) 4. , , ( , 1642–1718) References Richard McKeon (1998) Selected Writings of Richard McKeon, Vol. 1, Philosophy, Science and Culture. McKeon, Zahava K. , and William G. Swen son, eds. University of Chicago Press. Kerry J. McGarry, (1981) The Changing Context of Information: An Introductory Analysis. Clive Bingley. Paul Rand (1985) A Designer’s Art, Yale University Press.

Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Communication - Essay Example Cultural decisions establish correct or acceptable behavior by determining individuals’ positions with regard to one another and with regard to other aspects of the social and natural environment. Thus the way we seem to â€Å"naturally† feel toward family members, authority figures, or the environment is determined by well-established traditions that arise from cultural decisions regarding the appropriate relationships between people as well as with other living things. For example, while domination of humans over nature is the norm in American and other Western cultures, in other contexts such as some African cultures, the appropriate position of humans with regard to nature is harmony and coexistence (Communication & Cultural Diversity Lecture). The prevalence of cultural decisions in controlling behavior over the long term often leads to a tendency to believe that the culture-specific view is the â€Å"right† view. From within one cultural perspective, the different values and beliefs of another culture or co-culture tend to seem misguided or wrong, leading to ethnocentrism (Communications & Cultural Diversity Lecture). It is easy to think of extreme examples where another culture’s beliefs are clearly abusive or otherwise harmful to society, but ethnocentric attitudes are probably more common and exceptionally dangerous when directed against less severe differences of opinion. Anthropological theories of culture are extremely useful and easily applicable to the mini-societies we call workplaces. By applying anthropological concepts to businesses, a new discipline called Business Culture theory emerges. The valuable insights of Business Culture theory offer an excellent method with which to evaluate potential employers, and by doing so determine to what extent the culture of a business is consistent with our own values. Evaluating the culture of a business requires that we analyze the workplace environment and

Revolution in russia 1917 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Revolution in russia 1917 - Essay Example Moreover, as per the historical perspective, the act of revolution is regarded as a movement that is often highly violent undertaken to overthrow or make significant changes in the old regime and completely change the fundamental scenario of society for betterment. In the 18th century, the French Revolution evidently refashioned the entire society with the aim to make people believe that transformation can be achievable through rebel and violence. Likewise, a significant example of revolution of the 20th century was the Russian Revolution of 1917, which was led by Vladimir Lenin (Neitzel 1-2). Correspondingly, the paper intends to highlight the aspects of Russian revolution 1917 and its changing dimensions. Besides, in this regard, the paper explores the key reasons behind the introduction of revolution in the Russian economy. The paper will also demonstrate the relationship between government and the inhabitants during the revolution. The paper will also recognize the key aspects in terms of the impact of the revolution over the Russian economy through identifying the series of activities involved. In this respect, the essay will also explore the prior cause of Russian revolution. Since, 1533 Russia was under the governance of tsars, who were regarded as second largest in terms of their courage and power in the global scenario. In the 19th century and the early 20th century, students, workers, members and peasants introduced movements to overthrow the government. Moreover, the 1825 revolt against Nicolas I as well as the 1905 revolution was the two unsuccessful movements that aimed at establishing constitutional monarchy in the nation (Stobaugh 222-223). Moreover, the main reasons of the dilemma in the government regime stemmed from incompatible transformation of the nation into a modern economy. On the other hand, industrial society was in the autocratic mode before the revolution. Besides, the fall of Russian

Manets On the Beach and Vincent van Goghs The Sower Essay

Manets On the Beach and Vincent van Goghs The Sower - Essay Example Ordinary subjects are used. The painter uses small stokes, sometimes even using pointillism, to create the impression of their subject. The use of color is more vivid in these scenes. Movement is also a characteristic of Impressionism. Both Manet’s On the Beach and van Gogh’s The Sower use impressionism as a style. Manet’s On the Beach and van Gogh’s The Sower use everyday subjects. Manet’s subject was his wife and brother at the beach. Van Gogh’s The Sower depicts a field worker leaving the fields at sunset after a long day reaping wheat. Although Manet used his brother and wife, the beach scene could have been any two people. The ordinary subject did not matter as much as catching the moment in time on canvas. While Manet captured family members, van Gogh painted a random worker. The other difference is Manet captured people at leisure, while van Gogh painted a worker. The two scenes are polar opposite. One shows people that are well off en ough to go to the beach and relax, while the latter shows a worker. Both are ordinarily different. The technique and style used in both paintings make them Impressionism. Manet has smoother small strokes, but they are still small. Van Gogh’s picture has more visible small strokes. The contrast is Manet’s painting looks smoother than van Gogh’s rough picture. Although both are oil paintings, the blending method makes the visual impact different. This type of painting technique gives the impression, but no real detail in features.

WEP 300 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

WEP 300 - Essay Example According to several experiments in laboratories, classrooms, organizational workplaces and other environments, rewards essentially weaken the very basis of interventions they are meant to support (Pink 1). The findings show that the inability of any particular incentive program can be attributed more to the insufficiency of the emotional assumptions upon which such plans are based than the seemingly botched approach taken to implement the incentive. As such, Pink (6) noted that monetary incentives blunt individual creativity. The researcher based his reasoning on economics and psychology studies. He cited the â€Å"Candle Problem† experiment by Karl Duncker, which was invented in 1945 to examine â€Å"functional fixedness† in human reasoning. The outcomes support the inefficiency of incentive-based human resource management. Duncker proved that it is not easy for an adult to solve issues facing him or her by summoning an out-of-the-box mentality. This is because humans are not bound to â€Å"iterate(ing) something new† (Pink 8). This means can be construed the general human reluctance to experiment with new objects in an innovative manner. Similarly, Sam Glucksberg repeated the experiment in1962, but focused on the impact of monetary inducements on creativity. He established that financial incentives may actually worsen the problem of fixedness in employee thinking and functions. As such, Pink noted that a Candle Problem experiment conducted on two sets of sample employees working as a team to find a solution established that there are modest impacts of incentives on creativity between the group that was subject to incentives and the other that was not (7). However, the outcomes showed no undesirable consequence of incentives. Therefore, it can be argued that the average performance of employees is marginally better when creativity is based on incentives, but the variation is not

Audit Evidence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Audit Evidence - Essay Example These are all physical items owned by a business; these may include Land, motor, buildings and other freehold property. Besides these physical assets there is also another class of assets referred to as intangible assets, this class contains such items as patents, copyrights and good will. What the auditor does in looking for audit evidence is that he checks these particular items individually for things like physical location for those it can be verified. Items which may require verification are buildings and freehold property. The auditor also considers amortizations for intangible assets such as goodwill and patents. The other class of assets is the Current assets that include fast moving goods of the business and other short term items of the business among these are the inventory, account receivables, and liquid money that is held by the business. It should however be noted that all the items may not involve the same methods of gathering the evidence as some tend to offer a complicated documentation process while others have a simpler system thus for the auditor to decide what method to use he has to consider each of these items and determine which of the items requires what method. In the following discussion I wish to determine what method to use in each of the selected items in the current assets namely inventory and account receivables. Under the examination method different modes are used by the auditor depending on the item involved. (Elder, Bisley and Arens 2008) Inventories These require physical counts by the auditor to verify the amounts indicated in the records, this verification may involve several methods - The client does the counting and the auditor simply observes and does test counting for some of the items. -The auditor does literal counting for all inventories Other procedures touching on inventory involve examination of purchase invoices and sales reports for a given period. Also determining whether the inventory is pledged or is subject to liens. Accounts receivables These all debts owned to the business what the auditor needs to check when it comes to these is whether some are overdue and also check on the ones that may look very s8uspicious.These may include recurrent accounts with very huge balances etc Checking of these accounts mainly provide evidence on rights and obligations. Advantage of this method of evidence gathering The auditor gets first hand information, this

Starbucks CO Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Starbucks CO - Essay Example It is almost impossible for any business not to become involved in some kind of community affairs. Some of this involvement is primarily charitable, while other community affairs with which business becomes involved pays a direct return to the company. It is difficult to separate one from the other because in most instances both community and business reap positive rewards from any business participation in community affairs. Starbucks pays a special attention to stakeholder responsibility and environmental policies. Pollution is, unfortunately in most cases, a by-product of everyday living. The operation of a "free market" system may fail to serve the best interests of society because of the inability of the market to adjust itself independently and adequately to certain kinds of side effects such as pollution. Also, the buyers and sellers in the marketplace often lack the quantity and quality of information necessary to undertake effectively and efficiently the proper transactions to optimize the side effects for the best interests of both parties involved. Under a free market economy, private industry, local governments, and county, state, and federal governments can, and do, sometimes relieve themselves of certain costs associated with disposal of waste materials by using the atmosphere, oceans, lakes, rivers, and landfills, as free waste receptacles. If it is to the economic advantage of the particu lar emitter to do so, it will normally take advantage of this free resource. The general theory behind much of it is that by business participating in community affairs it makes the community a better place in which to live. By making the community a better place to live, it helps improve the community for all those who live there and as an inducement for hiring new employees from distant communities, possibly needed experts from

Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 13

Summary - Essay Example Therefore a careful attempt is made by the authors to bring out all the effects that the rapid change of the family structure is making on the economy. It also states the difference between the structure of the married and the individual working class. It lays an emphasis on the role of the different genders in a family and their relationships. With the rapid change of the economy and the society there has been transformation in the role of the family members. Therefore the authors have tried to emphasize on the current change of roles in between man and woman and their implications. According to the authors, the relationship between the members of the family directly affects the market and its outcomes. The authors seem to bring clear evidence that the family as a unit is continuously aiming for maximizing their income. Taking this into consideration it can be assumed that the monetary issues are one of the prime considerations of the family members and all other goals and aims revo lve round the primary aim. Chapter four of the book, ‘‘Economics of Women, Men, and Work’ basically deals with the time allotment between the household and the labor market. The major emphasis is made on the female gender in this area. The authors have made it clear in their book that they advocate more and more female participations in the labor market. Primarily, the women are involved in the household work therefore that they do not often get time for any other job. But as the aim of the family unit, according to the authors, is maximization of income, thus the women should allocate time both for the household chores and even their career. Right allocation of time between both would not only help the women but also the family in both short and long runs. In the short run, it will help the family in maximizing their income and also in the long run these earnings will provide the women and their children a better economic viability in

Participatory Action Research Essay Example for Free

Participatory Action Research Essay The youth group was started in 2004 after the youths realized something was going wrong in the community and they were the right people to rectify the situation. They then came together and registered with the Ministry of Culture and Social Services Youth Affairs. It’s a non-profit making organization whose purpose is to address the needs of the youths and to improve the living standards of the community. The group brings together youths of both genders and has no ethnic or racial barriers as it believes youths from whatever background experience the same problems and must come together in order to solve them. Majority of the youths are trained in various fields of education and so it’s a pool of educated young men and women committed to be difference makers in other people’s lives. Currently the group has thirty five fully registered and active members but there is room for more members to join them. Since its formation, the group has provided their voluntary services beyond area of operation to improve the well being of the community. Their areas of activities include youths and community mobilization and awareness on HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), guidance and counseling services, education on income generating activities, youth and community education on alcohol and drug abuse, education on leadership and administration, planning and accountability, tree planting exercise and offering voluntary services for the well being of the community. The group is seeking to address the most pressing needs that are affecting them and the community where they are living. These pressing need collaborative efforts as they cannot be solved by the community alone as they need technical expertise and some substantial funding. These needs were prioritized according to their impact in the community and they include; the high unemployment rate among the youth, gender disparity due to the culture, and idleness among the youths leading to irresponsible youth behavior, high infection rate of AIDS and other venereal diseases, drug abuse, poor farming methods leading to food insecurity and afforestation problem.. The members agreed that they had the brains, knowledge and skills and if put together and shared will bring a big change among the group members, other youths and the community at large. Though they have had challenges especially from the elderly community members when discussing on sexual issues, the group is committed to continue working until they have attained their set objectives. Their services to the community have effected some positive changes, which have commended by the community members. The group also works with other major stakeholders who have been helpful to the group in terms of training and financial support. These include the Community Based Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, Religious Organizations, Society and the Government to improve the living standards of the community. These stakeholders have been very helpful to the youth group because they have been offering training without charging them any fee, giving the youths some incentives as well as the community and funding their projects at some level. They have been able to work with the group since it was started and have promised they will continue working with them as long as keep the agreement with them. The possible research question that could be answered if the researcher collaboratively worked the major stakeholders is to find out whether their input into the group has had and positive impact to the youth group and to the community. This research question will be a guide to getting some critical information which will be used by the group to improve on the areas that they are not performing well (The research question could be as follows; What has been your input to the group and has it had any impact to the group and to the society? ) The benefits of doing the work the researcher is proposing is that it could again help the group to be able to identify their weakness and then find out solutions for them. It will also open another door for them to meet other partners through the researcher who will pump in some more useful input to the group. Through their interaction with them some critical issues may rise which could not have been solved, but it will be an opportunity to solve them. In one way the group could be advertising or selling itself and what they are undertaking through these formal discussions as the contents of the discussions will be published somewhere, which will get some support for the group. This could be beneficial to the group and to the researcher as he/she will be able to learn more about how groups work. As concerns to the ethical issues, the protocol has to be followed and the group has to be consulted first before anything happens. There should be respect for the group and any information about the group should be kept secret as it is. The researcher should make sure that he/she work within the guidelines of the group and should she/he need any information should follow the right channels but not go to public and tell the public about the group against their wishes References Luft, J (1984). An Introduction to Group Dynamics (3rd Edition). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Toseland, R Rivas, R. (2005) Introduction to Group Practice, Allyn Bacon. New York.

A Comparison of Tom Regan and Stephen Rose

A Comparison of Tom Regan and Stephen Rose Brianna Still People often use animals for a lot of experiments even though most people think that is it wrong. People make up countless excuses to why its okay to do this. But it is not okay. Animal researchers and such agree with my opinion that using animals for tests that we as humans would never want to do, is bad and very hypocritical, yet unfortunately there are just as many scientists who say that it is completely fine and that there isnt really much harm brought to the animals. Mind you, these scientists have apparently never owned a beloved pet close to their heart. The two essays, Animal Rights, Human Wrongs by Tom Regan and Proud to be Speciesist by Stephen Rose, talk about the issue of animal rights, but are written on completely opposing sides. They both talk about animals that are used for human benefits but in two completely different ways. Regans essay is much wider in my opinion. Roses essay looks at a detailed and personal view in this subject matter. Regans argument is that ani mal usage should be stopped because animal experiments for humans is not justified. But, Rose challenges Regans idea saying that the safety of mankind is more important than the rights that we would like animals to have. He says that using animals for research is perfectly fine. Regan is better at explaining the subject and has more credibility with actual examples to give a whole image of the subject matter. Rose doesnt do so good because his material is only built from science and research. Regan just appears more logical and fair on the issue matter. According to Regan animals have ethical rights, so he states that he thinks that they should be treated with respect by sane humans. He talks about how a mans description about the whaling process to show how few rational humans killed a whale for their ravenousness (336). Regan happens to be a philosophy instructor, therefore the arguments and viewpoints that he makes are more trustworthy. For a long time, hes been quarreling for the rights of animals, thus his statements are supported with very sturdy reasoning and they are sourced from all types of fields from things like people, knowledge and science. He states that butchering animals for pleasure, luxury and experiments is not at all right or vindicated, so it shouldnt be practiced. Regan claims that if it cannot be justified, then it shouldnt be done. Of course most people and organizations that do these type of things cannot come up with a moral enough reason as to why what there doing is actually justifiable, hence he probes them to stop using these creatures unless they can deliver a fitting justification. On the opposing side, Rose discusses the prominence (and therefore, importunateness) of animals when it comes to research and exploration for the physical wellbeing and survival of people. He quotes Alzheimers as an example (342) from his own particular experience to illuminate the role that animals play in human research to find treatments for it. Roses arguments about animals rank in research are undisputable because these claims are backed up completely by logic and science. Rose, himself is a biology instructor and a researcher on the side, so his arguments are very much reliable, usable and logical. He says, The first statement is plain wrong; the second, the claim that animal have rights, is sheer cant (342, 343). Moreover, he speaks about speciesism and states that animal activists are speciesists too; they just prefer animals to humans. Though his arguments are solid, his credibility is weakened because his aims and examples are only from science. Also, his biasedness can be taken into consideration, because he is a researcher, not an activist. He doesnt care as much about the moral rights. Even though the practice of these beasts in research is essential, his opinions and arguments are weak because of the narrow space of his research. Regan has carried on about how science constantly ignores animals rights. He declares that the research on animals are just not justified sufficiently, and he thinks that using animals for our welfares is ridiculous. Regan talked about a rabbit in stock (337) to show how a rabbit is put through many pains just to find out the feasibility of cosmetics and such on people. Yet this example of the rabbit supports his idea, it doesnt shield the entire idea of research. Some researches about deadly diseases are unavoidable because they are vital to the survival of human life. Regans argument is still weak since he isnt able to describe exactly why this research cant be avoided. In total, Regan sounds pretty convincing, and his philosophies are pretty much effective regardless of occasional drawbacks. Rose clarifies how scientists have been able to find cures for things like Epilepsy, Parkinsons, diabetes, and such (343), and he talks about how fundamental animals are in that research. He says, How far the concept of right can be extended-to not swatting a mosquito that is sucking your blood? To prevent your cat from hunting and killing a rat? Does an ant have as many rights as a gorilla? (343). Rose additionally indicates that some species of are more privileged than others if that species is more important than the other one. He talks about the rights of animals being only relative, meaning that if animals are in a greater proximity with human than they have more rights and vice versa; if we are in more proximity than we are the ones with more rights. He feels that activists of animal are Speciesist themselves, so he its not wrong if its vice versa as anti-activists are speciesist too. He says, Just because we are humans, any discussion of rights must begin with human rights. (3 43). Rose is proud to be a speciesist in favor of humans since he thinks we should privilege humans over animals and he, himself is a human. Roses urgings and examples are pretty convincing and full of facts, but they keep being weakened by doubt about his limitation. Roses reasoning and good logic can also be flawed by arguments that are from every other field except actual science. Hence, Roses idea gives room for some doubt although his reasoning, facts and ideas about the research are very waterproof. Regans tactic for the topic is fair. He started somewhat aggressive, but then considerate and lastly suggestive. He says, Possibly the rights of animals must sometimes give a way to human interests (339). He knows that usage of animals for the happiness of humans, from time to time, cannot be completely rejected, but all he asks for is a legit, logical reason. He states that all cruel things done to animals should be justifiable, otherwise they shouldnt even be considered valid. Then, he suggests a relative approach of how a deed can be justified with an example of racism and sexism (339). He asked people to reduce animal use as much as they possibly can, and justify it every time they kill an animal. His hint of relative approach pleases the readers conscience and is able to leave an impact on readers mind. Rose, conversely, says that there are not any rights that are not as privileged as humans. His awareness of our human rights alongside animal rights calls the integrity of the readers. He mentions that animal activists are speciesist too, so we too can be speciesist of humans. Rose says that animal activists are the kind of people who take medicine for Parkinsons disease, for example, or insulin for their diabetes, and such although they know that those drugs or treatments were experimented on animals. Roses reasons are faultless, but overlooks that it is a normal human behavior to aid an illness with prescriptions and medicine. Any rational thinking being would do anything for the certainty of their survival, so his argument can be questioned if you put it in that light. Rose talks about Declaration of Animals in Medical Research (344) that is only signed by specialists and doctors, and not by other fields of people. Thats why, while Roses opinions about speciesism in favor of human s are reasonable, sound and considerable, his notions are weak because he is so narrow and bias. Regan effectively presented his notions, reinforced by legit factual evidence, lecturing all likely parts, whereas Rose built his thoughts on facts and examples solely from research and science and that made him that much less credible and it made his arguments narrow. Roses statements and ideas can be effortlessly weakened rather than Regans arguments, because there are definitely potential doubts about his biasedness, and also his arguments are just really narrow. Though Rose made some very solid points in his essay, he could have been a lot more effective, and Regans essay contains just about everything and talks about the obvious wrongs that the rest of us cannot and should not ignore. Works Cited Regan, Tom. Animal Rights Human Wrongs: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003. Rose, Stephen. Proud To be A Speciesist.

Internet Security Essay -- essays research papers

Security on the Internet How do you secure something that is changing faster than you can fix it? The Internet has had security problems since its earliest days as a pure research project. Today, after several years and orders of magnitude of growth, is still has security problems. It is being used for a purpose for which it was never intended: commerce. It is somewhat ironic that the early Internet was design as a prototype for a high-availability command and control network that could resist outages resulting from enemy actions, yet it cannot resist college undergraduates. The problem is that the attackers are on, and make up apart of, the network they are attacking. Designing a system that is capable of resisting attack from within, while still growing and evolving at a breakneck pace, is probably impossible. Deep infrastructure changes are needed, and once you have achieved a certain amount of size, the sheer inertia of the installed base may make it impossible to apply fixes. The challenges for the security industry are growing. With the electronic commerce spreading over the Internet, there are issues such as nonrepudiation to be solved. Financial institutions will have both technical concerns, such as the security of a credit card number or banking information, and legal concerns for holding individuals responsible for their actions such as their purchases or sales over the Internet. Issuance and management of encryption keys for millions of users will pose a new type of challenge. While some technologies have been developed, only an industry-wide effort and cooperation can minimize risks and ensure privacy for users, data confidentiality for the financial institutions, and nonrepudiation for electronic commerce. With the continuing growth in linking individuals and businesses over the Internet, some social issues are starting to surface. The society may take time in adapting to the new concept of transacting business over the Internet. Consumers may take time to trust the network and accept it as a substitute for transacting business in person. Another class of concerns relates to restricting access over the Internet. Preventing distribution of pornography and other objectionable material over the Internet has already been in the news. We can expect new social hurdles over time and hope the great benefits of the Internet will continue to ove... ...o that its confidentiality and integrity are preserved. That is, the data remains secret to those who do not posses the secret key, and modifications to the cipher text can be detected during decryption. Two of the most popular symmetric ciphers are the Data Encryption Standard (DES) and the International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA). The DES algorithm operates on blocks of 64 bits at a time using a key length of 56 bits. The 64 bits are permuted according to the value of the key, and so encryption with two keys that differently in one bit produces two completely different cipher texts. The most popular mode of DES is called Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode, where output from previous block are mixed with the plaintext of each block. The first block is mixed with the plaintext of each block. The block uses a special value called the Initialization Vector. Despite its size and rapid growth, the Web is still in its infancy. So is the software industry. We are just beginning to learn how to develop secure software, and we are beginning to understand that for our future, if it is to be online, we need to incorporate security into the basic underpinnings of everything we develop.

Essay on Conflict Resolution and Mediation to End School Violence

Use of Conflict Resolution and Mediation to End School Violence       Conflict and differences of opinion exist in every healthy organization. Americans need to try to take control of today's youth and the violence that is and has been developing in this country for many years.   Although violence will never be extinct, there are many different ways to reduce violence.   Each school and student population has different ways of dealing with and helping to curb the need for violence in schools.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The most effective and most common method in dealing with violence in schools is conflict resolution.   It has been used in many different states and in several different formats to try to give the students, faculty, and parents an idea to what may help stop or prevent this violence and other problems from happening.   According to the Texas Youth Commission, there are ten main reasons for instituting a school-based conflict resolution/mediation program.   They are as follows: * Conflict is a natural human state that becomes more prevalent during personal growth. * A more effective system is needed to deal with conflict in the school than expulsion or court intervention. * The use of mediation to resolve school-based problems can result in improved communication between and among student, teachers, and parents. * Mediation training assists in preparing students to live in a multicultural world. * Shifting responsibility for solving conflicts from teachers to young adults will free teachers to focus on teaching. * Mediation provides a system of problem solving that is uniquely suited to the personal nature of young people's problems. * Mediation training increases students' interest in con... ...vary by ethnicity, family income, or geographic location" (Factors, 2).      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is obvious that the use of conflict resolution and mediation is essential in our school systems.   Not only does it provide a safer way to talk out the problems between students; it also gives us a mean to handle the problem of violence in our schools more safely.    Works Cited Harberg Consulting Group. Conflict Resolution. [Online].  Ã‚   Available: http://www.hcgnet.com/html/conflictresolution.htm (November 20, 1998) Author Unknown. Factors Contributing To School Violence. [Online].Available: http://ericweb.tc.columbia.edu/monographs/uds107/prerentingfactors.html (September 21, 1998) Author Unknown. Ten Reasons for Instituting A School-Based Mediation Program. [Online]. Available: http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/prevention/medprog.html. (November 20, 1998).

Moving Beyond ADHD Essay -- Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder

Moving Beyond ADHD Friends are the family you choose. As a teenager, when it is hard to relate to your parents, friends become the day-to-day emotional support that everyone wants and needs. I suppose the search for a group of friends with whom you can share yourself completely is one of the "struggles of adolescence." Disabled or not, this can be one of the toughest struggles of young adulthood. Having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has always complicated this for me. The symptoms of ADHD have been described as disconnection between impulses and the knowledge of consequences. That separation permits impulses to be acted upon even with the awareness that those impulses have repercussions. In elementary school, I was "too hyperactive" to be admitted into the Boy Scouts and spent more time with an ignorant and intolerant principal than with my classmates. Although I had one best friend, Kelli, and a miraculous second grade teacher, Mrs. Shapiro, who through a combination of Pizza Hut coupons and gold stars, got me to read books, I sp...

Narrative Reporting

Narrative reporting and introduction of OFR is an important development in corporate responsibility. The introduction of mandatory OFR made several companies race to meet with the requirements of the law. Subsequently, the OFR was made non mandatory again but awareness has been created. Every investor knows that he should look at the OFR of a company he seeks to invest in. If the OFR is missing it raises doubts about the credibility and the intentions of the company .In future even though the mandatory clause has been withdrawn, companies are likely to produce more comprehensive and informative OFR than ever before.Narrative reporting concentrates on presenting events and actions in certain order so that complications and problems are understood. Narrative reporting concentrates on the descriptions, events and facts that pertain to events, identifying the personnel who are involved and the manner in which the sequence of events took place. The OFR (Operating and financial review) is a report included in a company’s annual report and accounts that is published to meet the requirement of corporate governance that enumerates the operating activities and financial affairs of the company.In the UK the Operating and Financial Review was introduced with the purpose of increasing corporate responsibility. The purpose of this requirement was that social and environmental issues would be described in the OTR and this would provide a wider level of information to the shareholder. In addition, it was expected that the OTR would in a way compel companies to carry out external audit of these issues. Specifically it was intended that the OFR would provide better information to the investors on the likely performance of the companies during the financial year.The contents of the OFR should have an overview of the capital structure of the company and the financial characteristics of the company. In addition, the OFR was required to provide the main risks and uncertaintie s that faced the company. Further, the OFR was required to have descriptions of the brand strength, market strengths, company reputation and R&D, that is the resources that the company enjoyed in the market. Most importantly, the OFR required the companies to disclose the objectives and strategies of the company (Financial Reporting Council 2007).The OFR also required the companies to disclose its relationships with suppliers, customer and employees. In other words the company was required to disclose its relationship with the stakeholders of the company. The company was also required to comment on the reputation of the company, especially in relation to the society and the environment. Moreover, the company was required to comment on the impact the reputation would have on the future performance of the company (Yeldar. R. 2007).In the UK the OFR disclosures have been left to an extent to the directors of the company. Their views on the different points are critical in making the di sclosure useful to the company. Moreover, the government has focused on the OFR to fill the lacunae in reporting that traditional financial statements left in the annual reports (Morris. G, McKay. S & Oates. A, 2006). If the board is so inclined, then the OFR can simply be relegated to a public relations activity of the company.The point is that if companies choose not to include corporate responsibility issues in their OFR then there may be a need for a mandatory inclusion of corporate responsibility indicators in the OFR. Even though OFR is driving the companies to disclose corporate responsibility issues, the final decision to disclose remains with the companies (Gee. P, 2006). The OFRs are required to honestly disclose the performance, development and the position of the company to help the investor make better decisions. In addition, the OFRs are required to provide the salient factors and the important trend that affect the present financial performance and the future status o f the company. It is believed that not too many boards of directors will be eager to make an honest disclosure of these trends.To assess the current state of narrative reporting in the UK let us take a look at the review of narrative reporting published by the ASB on January 15, 2007. The report gives some areas of improvement that is the key performance indicators are missing in narrative reporting, the companies are not careful in their description of the principal risks and uncertainties and do not mention their approaches in mitigating these risks and uncertainties. What is most important is that forward looking information is not disclosed in the narrative reports.The review lauds the companies for reporting an increasing number of environmental, employee and social issues, the companies are giving good description of current developments and present performance and that the companies are providing more or less good descriptions of their current business, markets, strategic pla ns and objectives (Ploix. H, & Charkham. J 2005). The auditors are currently required to comment on whether the OFR is consistent with their knowledge of the Annual Report and accounts. However, it is often seen that currently the companies in their OFR often give spin over substance.The companies over emphasize their favorable performance and avoid mentioning their areas of weaknesses. It is expected that now the companies will be required to product a broader annual report and specify their non financial performance and plans for future. For example, Shell is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the UK and has a share of 23% of all emissions from FTSE 100 companies but this is not mentioned in the OFR of the company. There are no specific plans either to reduce emissions. Similarly, BP and Scottish Power are responsible for 17% of the emissions but this is not clearly mentioned in their annual reports.The lacuna in the law is that the auditor is required to compare the OFR s tatements with the financial reports and accounts and check if the statements in the OFR are in agreement with financial reports and accounts. This does not require the auditor to mention the omissions that have been made from the OFR nor does the audit of the narrative statement require the board of directors to make statements that disclose the weaknesses of the company. It is clear that in case of Shell, BP and Scottish Power if their emission levels of greenhouse gases are mentioned and the weaknesses in their future plans of reducing these emissions are clearly delineated in their annual reports, then several ethical investors may decide to stay away from these companies (Cowan. N, 2006, p 137).The recent history of the OFR is that the OFR was first introduced in 1993 by the ASB. At that time it was not mandatory. The Companies Act 1985(Operating and Financial Review and Directors’ Report etc.) Regulations 2005 required quoted companies to prepare a compulsory OFR and ot her companies to include in their Directors’ Reports a business review. Small companies were exempt from the requirements of this regulation.The Accounting Standards Board issued an accompanying Reporting Standard that those companies that complied with the Reporting Standard 1 would be presumed to have met the OFR Regulations. In November, 2005 the Chancellor announced that the government wanted to do away with the need for quoted companies to prepare an OFR. In January 2006 the Repeal Regulation of 2005 came into force that did away with the need for quoted companies to make an OFR.The Reporting Standard 1 was converted into a Reporting Statement. This remains just as a guiding statement for companies that decided to produce an OFR (Vilers. C, 2006). In the next month that is February 2006 the government requested suggestions and comments on improving the narrative reporting requirements. In May 2006 the government publicized amendments to the Business Review legislation. F inally, in November 2006, The Companies Act was given the final assent. and the Business Review requirements are now given legal sanction.Gordon Brown’s decision to abandon the mandatory nature of the OFR has been supported by two arguments. First, the government claims it wants to reduce bureaucracy. Second, government feels that the new requirements for business review meet the EU requirements for narrative reporting. This is the official line of the government.. However, there are other reasons that are being given as the reason for the abolition of the compulsory clause. It is claimed that the abolition of the mandatory requirement is offered as an incentive to business to remain in the UK and to attract new businesses to the UK. It is a part of the race to make UK attractive to business investors.Several environmental organizations like Friends of Earth and NGOs have decided to file a law suit against the government to force it to see reason. They see the withdrawal of t he mandatory clause as signal to the business sector to continue with their environmentally baneful expansion plans. These organizations had been earlier clamoring for mandatory social and environmental reporting for businesses. From this perspective it seems that Gordon Brown’s decision is not a good one.There are other reasons given to support Gordon Brown’s decision. The claim is that more than 80% of the listed companies will voluntarily comply with the requirements of Reporting Statement and generate OFR statements. Those that do not will face investor reaction and comply with the Reporting Statement requirements. Those that persist in not producing an OFR voluntarily will be perceived as not transparent by the investing public. In addition, the proponents of the abolition of mandatory OFR aver that the size and the complexity of the annual reports daunting to most investors. In 2005 the average length of the annual reports was 71 pages. Adding to this only confus es the shareholders.Finally, the materiality get out clause has made the compulsory OFR ineffective. This has also allowed companies to get out of the need to report their weaknesses. However, we should not write off the OFR as dead. Every business knows that it should have an OFR to inform its shareholder. The need for qualitative, non-financial information has been created in the investors. If a company does not produce an OFR the investor may suspect it several faults. The end result will be that the shareholders will find it prudent to stay away from companies that do not produce a comprehensive OFR. There will be reputed persons who will stay away from the boards of companies that do not produce an OFR that meets the standard prescribed by the ASB.The OFR lives in the business review. The government is not compelling the companies to produce an OFR but the shareholders, investors and other stakeholders will compel the companies to produce and OFR. Environmental organizations an d NGOs will take up the matter with companies that do not report on social and environmental issues. Companies that refuse to make OFRs may be shunned by ethical investors, high profile employees and environmentally conscious business partners. The awareness has been created, guidelines have been drafted and the importance of corporate responsibility has been emblazoned. The OFR has taken on a life of its own and even without compulsion it will feature in the annual reports of most UK companies.As the consciousness of investors increases, as the top employees become choosier and as corporations become more environmentally sensitive, OFR will continue to thrive. There is no need to revive the mandatory clause. Enough consciousness has been created to make the corporate sector aware and alive to its reporting responsibilities, the Business Review is adequate for this purpose. Those companies that do not behave in a responsible manner will suffer because they will not be able to sustai n the interests of stakeholders that matter.To sum, there are a number of reasons given in support of the abolition of the mandatory clause and a number of reasons are being given for the reintroduction of mandatory requirements for OFR However, the importance of the OFA has been driven home to the companies, the investors and other stakeholders. Financial reporting alone does not give enough information to make a decision and he knows that an OFA is important. The OFA continues to live in the UK corporate world even after the mandatory clause has been abolished.References:Cowan. N, 2006 Risk Analysis and Evaluation, Lessons Professional Publishing..Financial Reporting Council 2007 ‘ASB Publishes Review of Narrative Reporting’. Retrieved on January 30, 2007 from http://www.frc.org.uk-Gee. P, 2006 UK GAAP for Business and Practice, ElsevierMorris. G, McKay. S & Oates. A, 2006 Finance Director’s Handbook, Elsevier.Ploix. H, & Charkham. J 2005 Keeping Better Company : Corporate Governance Ten Years on, Oxford University Press.Vilers. C, 2006, Corporate Reporting and Company Law, Cambridge University Press. 205 -209Yeldar. R. 2007 Accounting Standards Board Publishes Review of Narrative Reporting, Retrieved on January 30, 2007 from: http://ry.com/news/news/?id=3345

Consequences of High Interest Rates in the Ghanaian Economy…..

Interest rates are among the closely watched variables in the economy. The media on daily bases record their movement because they affect our everyday lives and have crucial consequences for the health of the economy. They affect personal decisions as whether to consume or save, whether to buy a house and whether to purchase bonds or put funds into a savings account. Interest rates also affect the economic decisions of households or businesses such as whether to put their money in the bank or invest in new equipments for factories.Before continuing, we must understand exactly what interest rates mean. By holding financial instruments , such as loans or bonds. Savers and financial institutions extend credits to those individuals or firms that issue the instruments. The amount of credit extended is the principal amount of the loan or the bond. Those who hold financial instruments do so because they receive payments from the issuers in the form of interest. The percentage return earned is the interest rate or rate of return.Rate of return is the price of credit in financial markets and is usually expressed as a percentage (%) of the total amount borrowed that is to be paid each year (over and above the repayment of the principal, or amount borrowed). Thus, it is the price of credit of the rate of exchange between the present and the future. Rate of returns (r) vary given interest rate (i). It is the value of i that just equates the present value (PV) of the benefits of the extra capital when discounted at i to its cost (Pk). That is, r is defined as : r=MRP/Pk, where: MRP=Marginal Revenue Product Pk= CostWe would however, take a look at how interest rate is calculated, various theoretical analyses that seek to explain the determination of interest rates, distinctions between nominal and real interest rates. Finally, we shall relate it to the case of the Ghanaian economy and look at the consequences of the high interest rates in Ghana. CONCEPTS OF INTEREST YIELD/RA TE Interest yields on financial instruments are thought of in different ways. The most important of these are Nominal Yield Current Yield Yield to Maturity NOMINAL YIELD Assuming that a bond is issued in an amount of 100,000 with an agreement to pay 6000 in interest every year.The annual payment of 6000 is the bond’s annual coupon return. This is simply the fixed amount of interest that the bond yields each year. The nominal yield on a bond is equal to rN= C/F, where rN is the nominal yield, C is the coupon return and F is the face amount of the bond. The annual yield of the 100,000bond with the 6000 coupon yield or return is equal to 6000 / 1000,000=0. 06 or 6 percent. Current Yield The current secondary market price of the bond typically is not the face value of the bond. Bonds often sell in the secondary market at prices that are different from their face value.For this reason, those contemplating on bond purchase often are interested in the current yield of a bond. This e quals to r i =C/P Where ri denotes the current market yield, C is the coupon return and P is the current market price of a bond. For instance, the current market price of a bond with a face value of 100,000 might be 90,000. If the coupon return on the bond is 6,000 per year, then annual current yield on this bond is equal to 6,000/90,000=0. 667 or 6. 7 percent. Yield on Maturity A bond’s yield on maturity is the rate of return if the bond is held until maturity.Calculating this yield can be complicated, however, because the bonds normally differ. Typically, bonds are sold at a discount, below its face value. Hence, other things being equal, the bond holder receives an automatic capital gain if the bond is held to maturity. A capital gain occurs when the value of a financial asset at the time it is redeemed or sold is higher than its market value when it was purchased. Consequently, the bond pays a coupon return. The yield to maturity must account for both the capital gain and the coupon returns that a bond yields to its owner. MEASURING INTEREST RATESThe financial credit market instrument can be classified under four types ?Simple Loan This provides the borrower with an amount of funds (principal) which at the maturity date must be repaid to the lender along with an additional amount known as an interest payment. Supposing, a bank made you a simple loan of 100,000 for one year, you would have to pay the principal of 100,000 in one year’s time along with an additional interest payment of say 10,000 given interest rate to be 10%. Most often, commercial bank loans to businesses are often of this type. ?Fixed payment loan:This provides the borrower with an amount of funds that he is to repay by making the same payment every month, which comprises part of the principal and interest for a given number of years. For example, if you borrowed 100,000, a fixed payment loan might require you to pay 12,600 every year for 25 years. ?Coupon Bond A coupon bond pays the owner of the bond a fixed interest payment every year until the maturity date, when a specified final amount is repaid. For example, a coupon bond with 100,000 face values might pay you a coupon payment of 10,000 per year for 10 years and at the maturity date repays you the face value amount of 100,000. Discount Bond A discount bond is bought at a price below its face value (at a discount) and the face value is repaid at the maturity date. However, unlike the coupon bond, the discount bond makes no interest payment. It just pays off the face value. For example, a discount bond with a face value of 100,000 might be bought for ? 90000 and in a year’s time the owner would be repaid a face value of 100,000. These four types of instruments require payments at different times. Simple loan and discount bonds make payment only at their maturity dates, while fixed payment loans and coupon bonds have payments periodically until maturity.The decision as to which of the instrume nts provides you with more income is difficult since they all make payments at different times. To solve this problem, the concept of present value was invented to provide us with a procedure for measuring interest rate on these different types of instruments, Present Value (PV) approach shows the present value Ao of a known amount An, to be received in ‘n’ years assuming compound interest is at the rate ( i) . The present value (PV) formula is Ao=An/(1+i)n NORMINAL VERSUS REAL RATES OF INTEREST So far we have discussed interest rates only in current cedi terms.There is, however, a problem with this. Inflation can erode the value of interest received when a financial instrument matures. Any individual must take this into account when evaluating how much to save. For instance, supposing that a saver can earn a stated current cedi interest rate or nominal interest rate of r=0. 06(6%) on each cedi that he allocates to a one year bond. Supposing also that the saver expects that prices of goods and services would rise by a factor, ? e=0. 03(3%) Where ? e is expected rate of inflation. This is the rate of inflation that he expects to face.Such inflation would reduce the amount of goods and services that his interest would permit him to purchase. Thus, although the saver earns post interest on the bonds he anticipates the inflation will eat away at that interest and the rate ? e. Hence, the real interest rate that this saver anticipated or his expected inflation-adjusted interest rate is approximately equal r = r-? e r = 0. 06-0. 03=0. 03, Where r = real interest and r = nominal interest rate. In terms of what his savings can buy this saver actually anticipates earnings only 3% on his one year bond.A rate of return in current-cedi terms that does not reflect anticipated inflation is known as Nominal Interest Rate. The anticipated rate of return from holding a financial instrument after taking into account the extent to which inflation is expected to redu ce to the amount of goods and services that this return could be used to buy is termed as Real Interest Rate. The real interest rate is crucial for determining how much the individual desires to save. The reason is that savings is foregone consumption. This individual is likely to give up more consumption if the real rate of return on savings is large.This means that the real interest rate is a crucial determinant of the saving in the nation where this saver is a citizen. Countries with high nominal interest rates often experience very low saving rates because expected inflation is so high. THEORIES OF INTEREST RATES Various theories have been propounded by various economists to explain the determination of interest rates. However we would focus on three main theories namely; †¢Classical theory †¢Neo-classical/Loanable funds Theory †¢Keynesian/Liquidity Preference Theory CLASSICAL /REAL THEORY OF INTEREST RATESThis theory by Marshall and Pigou uses savings and investm ent in determining interest rates. The theory equates investment to demand for capital or supply of bonds (i. e. , sales of bonds). and savings to supply of Capital or Demand for bonds (i. e. purchases of bonds). Hence interest rate is determined when investment equals savings as illustrated below Figure 1. INVESTMENTS – SAVINGS COMBINATION IN THE BONDS MARKET Where B (supply of bonds) = I( investment ) B (demand for bonds )= S (savings) r is the equilibrium rate of interest at where S=IAccording to the classicals, there are only two groups of people in the market to provide bonds; investors and government. Firms sell bonds in order to have capital or funds for investments. The sale of bonds however, depends on the expected rate of returns and the cost in selling the bonds. Hence bond price is expressed as PB=Y/r where PB=Bond Price , Y=rate of returns and r= interest rate, implying an inverse relationship between Bond prices and interest rates, Expected rate of returns is as sumed fixed, and when interest rate rises above the rate of returns, it affects the relationship between investment and interest rate.Assumptions: †¢The classicals assume that, †¢Income is constant †¢The saving-investment schedules are independent of one another Criticisms: †¢Keynes asserts that income is variable and not constant and that the equality between savings and investment is brought about by changes in income and not by variations in the rate of interest. †¢Keynes also states that the saving-investment schedules are not independent of one another THE NEO-CLASSICAL/LOANABLE FUNDS THEORY This theory explains the determination of interest in terms of demand and supply of loanable funds or credit.The theory defines rate of interest as the price of credit which is determined by the demand and supply for loanable funds. According to Prof. Lerner, it is the price which equates the supply of credit or saving plus the net increase in the amount of money in a period to the demand for credit or investment plus net hoarding in the period Demand for Loanable Funds. Three main entities of demand for loanable funds; governments, business men and consumers need them for purposes of investment, hoarding and consumption. Government borrows funds for constructing public works.Business men borrow for the purchase of capital goods and for investment projects. Such borrowings are interest elastic and depend mostly on the expected rate of profit. Individual consumers however may demand loanable funds for the purchase of durable consumer goods like houses. These borrowings are also interest elastic. At lower rates of interest, people borrow more than at higher rates of interest in order to enjoy their consumption now. Supply of loanable funds The supply of loanable funds comes from savings, dishoardings and bank credit.The main sources of supply of loanable funds are private, individual and corporate savings. Savings depend on the level of income. For a given level of income savings will depend on interest rate, and the higher the interest rate the greater will be the inducement to save and vice versa. This saving is referred to as Personal Savings. Corporate savings are the undistributed profits of firms and it also depends on current rate of interest to some extent. High interest rate deters borrowing and thus encourages savings. Dishoarding may also occur when interest rate is high or increases.Thus, one dishoards (ie, releasing hoarded money or idle money holdings), if the cost of holding that money increases as a result of high interest rate. Hence, there is a positive relationship between interest rate and dishoarding. Banks also give credit when the borrowing rate is high. That is when interest rate on credit payable by borrowers is high, hence a positive relationship between interest rate and bank credit. Criticisms: †¢Savings not interest elastic. The theory over emphasis the influence of the rate of interest on savings as interest elastic.Thus, people save not only to earn rate of interest but also for other purposes like precautionary motive, hence savings are interest inelastic. †¢The theory is also criticized for combining monetary factors with real factors making it unrealistic. †¢Equilibrium rate reflects unstable equilibrium. The demand and supply schedules for loanable funds determine the equilibrium rate of interest OR which does not equate each component on the supply side with the corresponding components on the demand side. KEYNESIAN/ LIQUIDITY PREFERENCE THEORYKeynes defines interest rate as the price which equilibrates the desire to hold wealth in the form of cash that is the demand and supply of money determines interest rates. The supply of money is considered fixed and exogenously determined (that is inelastic). Demand for money is also called liquidity preference which is the desire to hold money. In this case, interest rate is the premium which has to be offere d to induce people to hold their wealth in some form other than hoarded money. According to Keynes, speculative demand for money is determined by interest rate and bond prices.He considered the current interest (i) as that which determines the speculative demand for money. The higher the rate of interest, the lower the speculative demand for money. At very low rate of interest people will rather prefer to keep their money in cash than investing in bonds because purchasing of bonds will mean a loss. Determination of interest rates The equilibrium interest rate is determined at a point where the supply and demand for money equilibrates. At the point of liquidity trap, there is the belief that interest rate will not fall but will at a point in time rise hence investors hold money against future rise in interest rate.Criticisms: †¢The theory is considered as indeterminate by Prof. Handson. Keynes asserts the liquidity preference determines the interest rates. The problem is that a new liquidity preference curve would have to be drawn at each level of income. This indicates that income levels will have to be known before otherwise, the supply and demand for money curves cannot tell us what the interest rates will be. †¢Hicks and others were of the view that interest rate is determined by the following; i. Investment demand function ii. Savings function iii. Liquidity preference function iv. Quantity of money function.They are present in Keynes theory but not all are the interest rate analysis. Keynes ignores investment and savings, hence his theory is considered as incomplete. TRENDS IN SAVINGS AND LENDING RATES IN THE GHANAIAN ECONOMY (1994-2004). YEAR19941995199619971998199920002001200220032004 LENDING RATE31. 2440. 5641. 7143. 5838. 536. 54743. 7536. 3632. 7528. 8 DEPOSITE RATE21. 3726. 7532. 2432. 320. 215. 3925. 817. 4312. 4911. 969. 87 INTEREST SPREAD9. 8713. 819. 4711. 2818. 321. 1121. 226. 3223. 8720. 7918. 9 The interest spread was calculated as a difference in the averages of the lending and the deposit rates covering the said period.Between 1997 and 2001, the interest spread increased and subsequently started falling at a slightly varying decreasing rate. This was the period when the lending rates were high 43. 75% in 2001, down from 47% in 2000 because of the high inflation rate and the general turbulence within the economy. The corresponding deposit rate was 17. 43%. Between the years 2001 and 2004, the average interest spread was 23. 66%. This rate of profits of the commercial banks, heralded the spiral influx of foreign banks especially from neighbour Nigeria. It has been taunted that the banking sector is doing very well.In reality there has not been much competition between the existing banks, hence the high lending rate as well as their profits. They tended to act as collusive oligopolies. Recent developments and trends in the banking sector has been that, competition at long last has set in. For instance the Zenit h Bank has unilaterally decided to reduce it’s lending rate 14. 1% with respect to the general rate. This will result in much more innovation in the sector resulting in better banking services and a general reduction in the interest rate as pertained in competitive markets.From the existing trends, especially as indicated in the graph above, other sectors of the economy will take advantages of the low interest rate to boost up investments and hence output with a resultant increase in the GDP. This is the miracle of interest rates. HIGH VERSUS LOW INTEREST RATES IN THE GHANAIAN ECONOMY. In most economies including Ghana, interest rates are largely influenced by the prime rate which is the rate at which the central bank gives over-night loans to the commercial banks. Thus, when Bank of Ghana (BOG) fixes its prime rate, interest rates are adjusted depending on the direction of the prime rate.There is however a positive relationship between prime rate and interest rates. When pri me rate is set high or low interest rates are also fixed relatively high or low. For instance, interest rates followed a declining pattern in 2003. The monetary policy committee of BOG revised the prime rate downwards from 21. 5% in 2003 to 18. 5% in 2004. In line with this downward revision, the commercial banks’ base rates dropped from an average of 29. 0% to 25. 4%. Interest rates for the 91-day treasury bill dropped from 18. 71% at the beginning of the year to 17. 8% at the close of December 2004. The inter-bank interest rate also dropped from 17. 12% in January to 16. 23% at the end of December. Interest rates, however, low or high have both favourable and adverse effects on the economy of a country. During periods of high interest rates investment falls and savings increase and vice versa in the case of low interest rates. The table and graph below shows interest rates, 1998-2004 and interest rate margins respectively. YEAR1998199920002001200220032004 SAVINGS22262929. 2 525. 232319. 25 TIME DEPOSITS914. 7513. 520. 520. 1418. 515. 5Holders of stocks lose during periods of high interest rates and holders of money (cash) gain though money earns zero interest. In periods of economic boom, high interest rates might be needed to check inflation, while low interest rates will be needed to stimulate investments and create employment in recessions. In between these two extremes, interest rates are adjusted up or down depending on prevailing economic conditions. High interest rates will slow down the economy and cripple the private sector. Investors cannot access funds from financial institutions, thus creating low level of investments.It will also be tempting to invest available funds in high yielding bonds than in infrastructural business investments. This will reduce spending, shrink national output and bring down inflation. Low level of investments will therefore create unemployment. The central bank reacts by lowering interest rates using the sight depo sit rate (inter-bank transaction rate with commercial banks also referred to as the key rate). Low interest rates stimulate the economy. Investors can access low-cost capital for investment. Employment increases, and the national output increases.Low interest rates therefore allow for borrowing and spending, but then, inflation will also pick up. As inflation picks up, companies can increase employment, since real wages decrease. Successive increase in interest rate leads to inflation. Inflation however bad for an economy also leads to reducing unemployment rates since there is a negative relationship between inflation rate and unemployment rate. CONSEQUENCES OF HIGH INTEREST RATES IN THE GHANAIAN ECONOMY. High interest rates have certain repercussions in the Ghanaian economy. Prior to 1987, there was a decline in economic growth and development in Ghana due to high interest rates.Current high interest rates on bank loans (over 25%) and treasury bills (17%) have been a serious imped iment to raising capital in the local market. private sector growth in Ghana has been constrained by limited financing opportunity for private investments. High interest rates lead to crowding out of the private sector in the money market; it makes available loanable funds to the government. Thus, lenders of loanable funds shift lending to only the government with the surety that there is 100% safety in retrieving their money since they believe that governments do not die.Studies done in the past show that the growth process in Ghana has been driven mostly by public investments. As a result, some have attributed the lack of accelerated growth to a combination of weak investment and low productivity from the private sector. Hence the current government in its manifesto promised to make the private sector the engine of growth by providing the right socio-economic framework. For example, the government through the monetary policy committee of the bank of Ghana (BOG) managed to reduce t he Bank’s Prime Rate from 21. % in 2003 to 18. 5% in 2004 and currently down from 15. 5% at the beginning of 2006 to 14. 5%. When the prime rate fell, the BOG was expecting a corresponding decrease in commercial bank lending rates but its evident that the private sector is not responding to such developments; commercial bank lending rates have ranged between 18. 5% and 33. 5% as indicated by the Governor of the BOG. This has been a major concern for small and medium scale enterprises that cannot access loans at these exorbitant rates to expand their activities High interest rate may lead to increase in debt ratio that is, when interest rate is set high, cost of governments borrowing increases, interest payments increases and total debt increases. When government wants to finance its debt, it either prints out or borrows money to finance its debt. However if the government wants to avoid the former which usually leads to inflation, it falls on borrowing to finance its debt. Th ese borrowings also attract interest payment which increases the total debt payment in economy.For instance, profile of interest rates in Ghana reveals the real rates ranging from 10% to 21. 7% in 1996 to 1999. The high rates which are more than 100% between 1996 and 1999 worsen the debt burden. It is clear that since1997, borrowing from domestic sources was not even enough to finance the deficit as a result of high interest payments, thus for the last half of the 1990’sthe country had to borrow externally and/or print money to finance the deficit. For instance, in 1995 change in domestic debt was 200. 9 billion cedis but interest payment was 232. billion cedis which is over and above the change in domestic debt. As in year 2000 change in domestic debt was just 855. 5 billion cedis but interest payment was1446. 2 billion cedis over and above the change in debt. Consequently, as a result of the borrowing (i. e. domestic and external) it contributed to a high rate of growth of our debt that led to a state of bankruptcy in which the government failed to honour its debt obligation. As a result, in 2001 the Ghanaian economy was declared H. I. P. C. ?The need for the government to make interest payments on large debt may contribute to inflation.For example ,inflation may result if the government decides to finance interest payment, not by collecting taxes, instead by borrowing. For instance, prior to year 2000, the government of Ghana depended on borrowing to finance its debt as a result inflation recorded at that period was very high ( i. e. 41%). ?At very high rate of interest people hold bonds or save money rather than investing. Inflation occurs as a result of higher prices of goods and services, cost of living become very high, the poor and low income earners suffer economic hardships.Between 1980 and 1983 in Ghana, inflation was very high not forgetting interest rate as well. This led to economic hardships in 1983. ?High interest rate deprives both loca l and foreign investors from investing in the economy. This disturbs economic growth and development. In Ghana, when interest rates are high foreign investors invest in capital goods rather than in productive ventures. In spite of the consequences of high interest rate, there are also some benefits. The truism that high interest rate contributes to high inflation rate reduces unemployment ratio in the economy.In Ghana for instance, the economy has achieved respectable rate of GDP growth averaging over 4% in the 1990s as compared to the negative average growth rate over the period 1970 -1983. However, the average inflation rate fell to about 19% in 1998 relative to 122% in 1983 due to increase in employment levels or a reduction in unemployment levels as one of the factors responsible for this trend. ?High interest rate serves as a tool for monetary control in the economy. Through the use of the open market operation (OMO), where the economy is operating beyond its full employment le vel.That is when it is considered as being hot; the rate of interest can be increased by the central bank in the purchases of previously issued governments bonds. This mops up excess liquidity thereby reducing the money supply in the economy. The result is that demand for money now exceeds money supply thereby bidding up interest rate. This slows down the growth rate to an acceptable level enabling the economy to operate at full employment level. ?During periods of high interest rate, financial institutions records very high turn-overs. Governments tend to earn high tax revenue through taxes charged on banks’ turnovers.The bank of Ghana’s annual report (1997), recorded a high turn-over as a result of high interest rates as shown in the table below . The Central Bank maintained its rediscount rate at 45. 00per cent throughout the year under review. Money market rates were also fairly stable in the year. The 91-day Treasury Bill discount rate for example remained at 42. 80 per cent through November before declining to 42. 48 per cent at the end of the year. The commercial banks’ borrowing rates were also generally stable throughout the year. Rates for savings deposits moved up slightly from 22. 50-31. 0% to 22. 50-32. 00% and the range for call money from 25. 00-31. 00% to 24. 00-34. 00% per annum. The bank’s lending rates however, showed some upward trends. Rates for the Agricultural sector (usually the lowest) moved up from 30. 00 –47. 00% to 35. 00 – 49. 00% per annum while that for the miscellaneous (usually the highest) rose from 41. 50 – 48. 00% per cent to 41. 50 – 51. 00% per annum. INTEREST RATES (Percent Per Annum) 1994199519961997 DecemberDecemberDecemberDecember 1. CENTRAL BANK a. Rediscount Rate (Bank Rate)33. 0045. 0045. 0045. 00 b. Treasury Bill Discount Rate(91days)29. 040. 5042. 8042. 48 2. DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS A. Borrowing Rates. (%) i. Demand deposits4. 00-13. 445. 00-10. 005. 00-10. 005. 00-15. 00 ii. Savings Deposits13. 75-22. 5021. 50-31. 0022. 50-31. 5022. 50-32. 00 iii. Time Deposits 1 month22. 00-26. 5026. 00-32. 5029. 00-37. 0029. 00-37. 00 3 months14. 50-31. 0025. 00-36. 0025. 00-40. 5025. 00-39. 00 6 months14. 75-31. 0022. 75-37. 0032. 00-39. 2532. 00-39. 50 12 months14. 00-31. 0023. 50-36. 0027. 75-39. 5027. 75-39. 75 24 months22. 00-29. 2524. 00-35. 0027. 50-35. 0024. 00-35. 00 36 months26. 50-29. 0035. 0035. 0030. 00-38. 00 iv.Certificate of Deposits13. 75-24. 5023. 50-37. 0025. 00-37. 0025. 00-37. 00 v. Call Money25. 00-33. 5024. 00-34. 00 vi. Any other20. 00-24. 0022. 50-25. 0022. 50-33. 0022. 50-33. 00 B. Lending Rates. (%) i. Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing22. 50-35. 5028. 00-47. 0030. 00-47. 0035. 00-49. 00 ii. Export Trade20. 38-35. 5034. 25-47. 0030. 00-47. 0035. 00-49. 00 iii. Manufacturing26. 00-35. 5033. 00-47. 0039. 00-47. 0039. 00-49. 00 iv. Mining & Quarrying29. 00-37. 5030. 00-47. 5035. 00-47. 5035. 00-49. 00 v. Construction29. 00-37. 5039. 00-47. 5041. 00-47. 5041. 50-49. 00 vi. Other Sector29. 00-37. 039. 00-47. 5041. 50-48. 0041. 50-51. 00 Source: Bank of Ghana During the year under review, total outstanding credit granted by commercial banks to public institutions and the private sector increased by ? 474. 8 billion or 64. 8 per cent to ? 1,207. 2 billion. This compares with an increase of ? 299. 8 billion or 69. 3 per cent in the previous year. The Commerce and Finance sector recorded the highest increase of ? 84. 5 billion followed by Cocoa Marketing sector which registered an increase of ? 78. 2 billion. Significant increases were also recorded in outstanding credit to Manufacturing (? 1. 5 Billion), Construction (? 53. 2 billion), Services (? 49. 7 billion), Mining and Quarrying (? 36. 7 billion) and Import Trade (? 18. 8 billion). Credit for Cocoa financing showed an unusually large increase as a result of financial accommodation given to COCOBOD in the face of a larger than expected crop size. In conclusion, the various levels of interest rate (that is high or low) affect the economy in diverse ways (i. e. positively and negatively). However the optimum benefits derived from those varying levels of interest rates depends on prudent economic management.The interest rate problem does not rest with Government and the Bank of Ghana only but also the commercial banks. The rising rates of interest are acts perpetuated by the banks for more profit and these rates charged by the commercial banks are just too high and that is what hurt investors. In addition, the banks impose charges and commissions which are completely inexplicable. REFERENCES: ?Business and Financial times issue number 689 ?Bank of Ghana Annual report (1997) ?The state of the Ghanaian economy (2004) ?The internet (Nii K. Sowa, CEPA, Inflation and interest rate fixation in Ghana) ?Article by Ampong Owusu Kwabena -Bsc engineering KNUST, Masters in international business (NORWAY), and Masters in Financial Economics (NORWAY). ?Man aging Ghana’s Dept. – Nii K. Sowa, CEPA, Accra ?Henderson and Poole; Principles of Economics ?David C. Colander: Economics ?Miller, R. L and D. D. Van Hoose; Money, Banking and Financial Market ? Miskkin F. S: The Economics of Money and Banking and Financial Markets ? Dr. Henry D. Jackson: An Introduction to Macroeconomics 1999 ? Dr. Henry D. Jackson- McConnell Brue: Economics, 5th Edition.