ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Abstract The question regarding the purpose of the universe and life often puzzles us. Each individual has his own reasoning about the existence of universe and life. Various social scientists and religious scholars have given different interpretations for the emergence of the universe and the forms of life in it. It would be wrong to accept any a particular theory as being completely true because no concrete evidence exists for any of them. Nonetheless, there seem to be a creator or a supremacy authority which governs the natural laws and brings about changes in the universe. Introduction Aristotle’s principle of universe was simple: everything existed for humankind. However, Newton’s theories and Hawking’s ideology, has influenced modern science. This has led to the emergence of various rationale supported by different philosophies explaining the purpose of universe and the life that exists within it. There seem to many forms of life in the clockwork universe which serve no purpose. Primary issues concern the logic behind the need for universe and all that which exists within it – planets, stars and different life forms- and what was present prior to its founding Aristotle’s Philosophy The philosopher adopted the man-centric approach when forming his theory. Aristotle believed that everything in the universe exists to support humankind other than this “nature” serves no specific “purpose”. (Hardie, 2004, p. 63). The underlying principles provided a rationale behind various happenings in the universe. Therefore, Aristotle’s philosophy became the foundation defining the very existence of the universe and everything in it. He has been termed as a “humanist” by Glenn M. Hardie (2004). According to “humanists”, “the inherent progress of nature can be positively and beneficially influenced by intelligent intervention by human action”. (Hardie, 2004, p. 63). Nonetheless, the following theologists questioned the premise on which Aristotle based his ideology. Theories Presented by Others Many well-known theologists have studied and presented their own philosophies. Heraclites and Parmenides had “postulated a model of nature and the universe” which laid the “foundation” of using science and applying “physics” and “metaphysics” to determining the reasons for existence of universe (“Greek Philosophy”). Moore et al (2007) state that it is the religion and religious convictions which influence an individual’s perception about the purpose of the universe and life. Religiously inclined individuals believe that God is the Creator of the universe. Mary Schweitzer endeavored to draw lines of similarity between faith and science. Contradictions in Theologies Each philosopher has his own set of principles and purports a different rationale behind the purpose of universe and life. Undoubtedly, some of the theologists have built on the ideas of their predecessors. Non
H.W. Heinrich’s domino safety theory effectively addresses accident causation in industries. It elaborates on the different elements that characterize occupational health and safety. Heinrich argues that many accidents experienced within the workplace are often caused by an unsafe working environment and negligence by employees. This is true, as studies have established that many employers do their best to provide employees with safeguards, but most of them do not use them as required. According to the theory, 88% of accidents occur following a sequence of unsafe acts carried out by employees. This element is often determined by the traits that someone inherits from their parents, thus nothing much can be done with regard to preventing their pronouncement other than managing the social environment. In other cases, some employers tend to ignore the safety needs of their employees by providing unsafe working conditions, which eventually contribute to accidents within the workplace. Heinrich correctly identifies the best solution to the challenge of accidents within the workplace. Providing a safe working environment and training employees on occupational health and safety can play a pivotal role in reducing and/or eliminating accidents. Effective monitoring and evaluation of the way employees execute various tasks can also be an effective way of minimizing accidents in the workplace. The ability of the employer to achieve this feat depends highly on the efforts made in enforcing laws and policies governing the workplace. It is important to take disciplinary actions against employees who exhibit a high degree of non-conformance to the safety regulations provided. Proving a safe working environment yields many benefits for both the employer and the employees. The employer benefits from having a healthy and highly productive workforce, while the employees tend to benefit from reduced costs incurred in treating the injuries and absenteeism.
Introduction The BNP Paribas group is a market leader in the banking industry with operations in over 75 countries. It has a strong presence in Europe, Asia, and North America, where it provides investment, commercial, corporate, and retail banking services. Retail banking covers direct banking services such as credit facilities and mortgages extended to individual customers. The purpose of this report is to recommend an international expansion strategy for BNP Paribas. The report analyzes the macro-environmental characteristics of the Singaporean market, available opportunities and threats, and BNP’s strengths and weaknesses in respect to its international expansion strategy. Potential Target Market The Singaporean retail banking market has seen an accelerated growth over the past few years. The accelerated growth is projected to reach a value of $297bn by 2019 (MarketLine 2015). From 2010 and 2014, the market grew to a value of $228bn, averaging an annual growth rate of about 8%, which is higher than that of South Korea (MarketLine 2015). The significant growth rate has made the Singaporean retail banking market highly competitive in the Asia-Pacific region. The key segments driving the Singaporean retail banking market include mortgage and customer credit. In 2014, mortgages were valued at $168bn, which was equivalent to 74% of the market (MarketLine 2015). In contrast, the credit segment was worth approximately $60bn, an equivalent of 26% of the market. In this view, BNP Paribas can leverage on its market leader position in retail banking to expand its mortgage and consumer credit services to the Singaporean market. Macro-environmental Characteristics of the Market Macro-environmental characteristics encompass the external factors that are not under the direct control of a firm. In this report, the PESTLE framework will be used as a model for analyzing the macro-environmental characteristics of the Singaporean retail banking market. Political Singapore enjoys a relatively stable political and governance landscape. The country’s competent leadership has favored competitive capabilities in many sectors, particularly the manufacturing industry. Singapore’s strict anticorruption policy has seen it being rated among the top five countries with the least corruption index globally. As a result, there has been an increased flow of foreign direct investments into the country in recent years. Singapore has a thriving banking sector with strong liquidity levels. According to MarketLine (2015), the country’s regulatory body, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), requires tier 1 banks to maintain “capital ratios of above 9.0” (para. 8). In addition, the authority requires banks to observe the Base III capital standards on capital adequacy. Under this global regulatory framework, banks must maintain a mandatory “common equ
The need to hedge investments against the uncertainties coupled with a drive to make profits have seen the derivative market expand immeasurably in the 21 st century. A derivative can be defined as a contract or agreement that derives most of its principal value from the value of something else, often called the ‘underlying’ (Kollo & Overdahl, 2003; Stulz, 2005). Individuals and institutions invest in derivatives to hedge against losses that may arise from the underlying instruments (Hashmian, 2001). In most instances, a financial asset, rate, or index is used as the ‘underlying’ to give the contract its principal source of value. However, other derivatives such as commodity derivatives exist, and are as equally effective as the financial derivatives. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate how the futures derivatives could be used to hedge against the risk or uncertainty associated with the vagrancies of weather/ Hashemian (2001) posits that “…futures are binding contracts between the sellers and the buyers creating an obligation for the seller to deliver a certain amount of goods at a certain time and at a fixed price to the buyer” (p. 80). The buyer of the futures contract is obligated to pay the contract price at the transaction time to receive the commodities at the agreed time. According to Hashemian, the price of the contract is primarily determined through the employment of competitive bidding. Farmers and traders dealing with large-scale production and sale of agricultural commodities such as tea, coffee, and wheat are increasingly using the futures market to hedge against losses that may be initiated by the vagrancies of weather or the effects of global warming (Geman, 2005). It is a well known fact that trading in tea as a commodity is a very lucrative business, globally. However, tea is affected by the vagrancies of weather, and quality of the commodity, which is of fundamental importance in global markets, is virtually dependent on the prevailing weather. It is also known that much rainfall or too much sunshine means that the grade will definitely go down, necessitating international traders to buy the commodity at low prices (Geman, 2005). Under such circumstances, the local marketers of the commodity and the international traders can enter into a futures contract using tea as the underlying commodity. It is imperative to note that the prices for the tea are agreed upon at the exchange, where sellers initiate asking prices and buyers set the bidding prices (Hashemian, 2001). The agreed price for the contract is called the going price. When the above contract is entered into, farmers and their local representatives will have successfully hedged their commodity (tea) against the risks and uncertainties associated with weather, and they wont really mind if the quality of the tea went up or down depending on the weather since the contract is sealed and payment made even before the delivery of the commodity
William Shakespeare is one of the well-known English-speaking poets, whose contribution to the world literature cannot be underestimated (Potter vii). The poet was able to add novelty to the writing style while making it unique and exceptional due to the theatrical connections of the author (Potter vii). Meanwhile, Shakespeare paid particular attention to love as a critical subject of his poems, his impressionistic language and impression assisted in seeing love from dissimilar angles while presenting the variability of its nature. Love and passion have always been matters of discussion, but Shakespeare was able to see its tragic and poetic side while adding contradiction to the positive emotional state of the individual’s mind (Bates 195). In this case, a sonnet is one of the forms of Shakespearean writing styles and sonnets 18 and 130 were selected for the analysis. It could be claimed that despite addressing different gender of lovers and tone, the chosen sonnets address the controversial feeling of love, portray the essence of nature’s beauty, are devoted to muses, and use the main concepts of Shakespearian language. The sensation of love and attraction tends to be a principle component of Shakespearean sonnets, and these topics are reflected in the poems 18 and 130 respectively. In this case, the falsity of love is discussed in number 18, as the author uses a disturbing comparison to express his attitude towards his mistress such as “black wires grow on her hair” and “her breasts are dun” (Shakespeare 269). It could be said that this comparison helps express the emotions of the author and underlines the fact that love can be tragic and complex feeling. The usage of this vocabulary of this poem assists in seeing the controversial and confusing nature of love, and it creates a perception that beauty is not the definer of attraction while being close to the reality is critical. In turn, in the context of poem 18, the author uses metaphors such as “lovely”, “temperate”, “gold”, and “darling buds of May” (Shakespeare 39). In this case, the employment of these words underlines the closeness of the poet with the lover and his positive attitude towards the feeling of passion. Consequently, despite the controversial definition of love in the sonnets, they tend to reflect its principles due to the importance of this topic to the Shakespearean sonnets. Meanwhile, another similarity between the selected sonnets is the interference of love with the magnificence of nature. For example, Shakespeare describes the appearance of the mistress by contrasting with the magnificence of nature such as “like the sun” and “roses damasked” in sonnet 130 (Shakespeare 269). Based on these words, the mistress appearance opposed to the beautiful nature and its reflections, and this literature tools are used to express his attitude towards his lover and her strong connection with reality. In turn, the sonnet 18 also depicts the correlation of love with nat
Executive Summary The paper on noncompliance with the blood transfusion documentation process has five main sections. “Introduction” briefly describes the organization’s problem, and the “Quality Indicator” section covers the details of the process associated with the issue and its relevance. “Nurses’ and Leaders’ Roles” explains how employees of different levels affect the indicator and its improvement. The “Plan for Improving Care” section analyzes the risks associated with noncompliance to the documentation process, the factors contributing to it, and the experience of patients and staff. Finally, this section suggests methods based on research that can be applied to improve the situation. The last section, “Implementation Plan,” deals with the tasks that the hospital may face, distributed according to the elements of implementation – organizational culture; leadership; networks and communication; resources; evaluation, monitoring, and feedback; and champions. Introduction Blood transfusion is a vital procedure in hospital conditions, and it requires professional training. The need for a process may arise in case of severe blood loss or in case of disease, due to which some of the blood cells are poorly produced. All steps of the procedure include filling in the documentation by the staff to avoid errors and confusion. However, a problem of noncompliance with the blood transfusion documentation process appeared. The issue brings risks to patient safety and the effectiveness of the organization. To solve it, this paper proposes a few methods that can be applied in the hospital. Several research papers were studied – about the challenges in the process of filling out documents (1-4), the influence of specific factors on the work of medical staff (5-8), a
Introduction It could be hardly doubted that in the contemporary world, which is the subject to continuous changes related to the process of globalization the understanding of different cultural values and norms, as well as developing one’s current perspectives within the cultural continuum, is of high significance. The phenomenon of culture could be broadly defined as the complexity of learned, shared, and transmitted knowledge of values, beliefs, norms, and lifeways of a particular group that guides an individual or group in their thinking, decisions, and actions in patterned ways. One of the most important concepts, which are related to culture as a whole, is cultural competence. This concept could be generalized as a holistic approach to a responsible and comprehensive understanding of domestic and foreign cultures. It is evident that such a method would be applicable in numerous spheres of life; however, cultural competence is largely promoted in the public health sector as one of the most efficient and promising methods of delivering care. This paper aims to elaborate on the concept of cultural competence as well as on its application to various areas of concern within the healthcare system. Another purpose of this essay is to reflect on personal growth within the cultural continuum. Main body First of all, it is essential to dwelling upon the notion of cultural competence to put further reasoning in the proper context. As is stated by Calzada and Suarez-Balcazar (2014), cultural competence (CC), despite being a well-recognized concept in the contemporary academic literature, does not have a universally accepted definition. Nevertheless, it is possible to compare how different authors define CC. Calzada and Suarez-Balcazar (2014) define CC as “an ongoing, contextual, dynamic, experiential and developmental process that impacts one’s ability to understand, communicate with, serve, and meet the needs of individuals who look, think, and/or behave differently from oneself” (p. 3). This definition could be considered to be inclusive and representative since it allows grasping the essential aspects of the concept. Huey et al. (2014) propose a more diversified explanation as they categorize cultural competence by three types of models: skill-based, adaptation, and process-oriented models. However, the definition provided by Calzada and Suarez-Balcazar (2014) appears to be the most suitable in the context of this paper. Further, it is essential to reflect on my personal development in terms of cultural competence. The cultural assessment tool is one of the most beneficial methods for evaluating one’s level of cultural competence development. I consider my current perspective on CC and the cultural continuum as a whole to be significantly improved by this course since it explored the traditions of culture, health, and healing within western healthcare. It could be noted that before this course, my knowledge of cultural competence and its particular aspects was insufficient regarding compliance with the current p
An Economy in Transition Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson are the two of the most influential people of their epoch who made a great impact on determining the path of the newly-established republic. Both of them claimed that the national focus is the best way for the country. However, the key difference in their opinions was also evident. Namely, Hamilton stated that wealthy aristocracy should lead the government while Jefferson believed that common people’s interests should be valued above all. Let us take a closer look at the visions of Hamilton and Jefferson and their consequences in economic transition. Hamilton supported a strong national government. Along with this, there appear new forms of employment arrangements such as paternalistic employment including apprenticeship and indenturing (Oakes et al. 264). It ensured the establishment of wage labors as well as labor contracts. In turn, Jefferson proposed commercial laws to encourage international market trade. Taking into account that Napoleon strived to spread the French Revolution through Europe, the latter was in was experiencing a decrease in trade. As a result of this situation, “American shipping tonnage tripled between 1780 and 1810, reaching almost 11 million tons annually” (Oakes et al. 264). A huge increase in overseas shipping was also induced by the strong support of business services in harbor cities. Also, Jefferson sponsored the U.S. Embargo Act of 1807 aimed to encourage England and France to respect American rights. This initiative led to the decline in international trade as American trade representatives were unable to sell their products overseas while other countries still could export their goods to the US market. With the implementation of the Land Act of 1800 suggested by Harrison and supported by Hamilton, the size of the minimum parcel was reduced by half. Furthermore, “in 1804, the minimum size was decreased to 160 acres and the price reduced from $ 2.00 to $ 1.64 an acre” (Oakes et al. 266). Although prices were still high, the mentioned reductions allowed plenty of settlers and newcomers to improve their financial conditions. At the same time, the Treaty of Greenville opened the route through the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio (Oakes et al. 266). The two identified measures caused a wave of migration to the trans-Appalachian region. Oakes et al. state that the population of this region grew significantly, for example
Introduction Reading has always been regarded as an important skill to achieve good results in second language learning. Researchers claim that lexical approach has proved to be effective when learning English as a second language (Lewis 1997). It has been estimated that adult (well-educated) native speakers of the English language have about seventeen thousand base words in their vocabulary (Goulden et al. 1990). Therefore, it is important to work out specific approaches to develop learners’ reading skills and help them enrich their vocabulary. It is necessary to note that the correlation between the language proficiency and reading comprehension has been studied for decades and there can be no doubt that there is strong correlation between language proficiency and reading comprehension (Droop & Verhoeven 2003; Jiang 2011). Apart from this, scholars have also focused on some more specific issues. Thus, it has been estimated that learners need to know about 98%-99% of words to read a text for pleasure (Schmitt et al. 2011; Hsueh-chao & Nation 2000). Importantly, some scholars suggested that even 65-70% could be enough for proper understanding of a text (Schmitt et al. 2011). It has also been found that extensive repetition of word forms contributes greatly to acquisition of new vocabulary (Brown et al. 2008). These findings are extremely important for designing new strategies to develop learners’ reading skills and vocabulary. The data can also be used to design specific types of assessment to assess learners’ proficiency (Salmani-Nodoushan 2003). The study of Schmitt et al. (2011) is of special interest as it defines specific percentage of known words necessary for proper comprehension. However, it can be more fruitful to develop the study. It is important to understand how many known words a text should contain for learners to acquire new vocabulary. It is important to understand whether the use of authentic texts should prevail for advanced or intermediate learners or these texts can also be used for pre-intermediate or even elementary learners. It is still unclear what kind of texts (authentic, adapted, academic, fiction, scientific, etc.) can be used. It is necessary to define the exact percentage of known words in texts, which can be regarded as a kind of threshold for effective acquisition of new vocabulary. Admittedly, this information will help educators to work out specific and effective strategies to help learners of English develop their skills. The present study will focus on the issues mentioned above in the context of Saudi Arabia as regional peculiarities can influence greatly development of learners’ skills. Hypotheses To achieve the objectives mentioned above the present study will focus on such issues as reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The hypotheses the present study will test are as follows:  1. Texts contai