ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Competitive intelligence involves the process of intelligence collection, analysis on the variations in the market, on competitors, changes in products and management strategies. Competition intelligence assists the management of an organization in defining the current market trends and possible changes in future. In addition, the company is aware, through its intelligence personnel, of the strategies developed by its competitors in the improvement of their goods and services. The company is well informed on the changes in the market trends, fluctuation of prices, changes in the laws of demand and possible adjustments of the products and services from its competitors. Competitive intelligence acts as a fundamental analysis procedure and protocol of decision making and a tool of strategic development for various companies (Rouach and Patrice 552). Competitive intelligence facilitates a platform for learning and development of advanced motives and strategies in the improvement and growth of a company. According to Bose, a company, institution or administration develops sufficient knowledge concerning a particular product, market or service (Bose 510). Competitive intelligence assists the formation of businesses and companies because the companies make use of its intelligence personnel before adopting or establishing new businesses. The knowledge gathered from competitive intelligence gives room for improvement and acts as an assisting tool to the formation and establishment of businesses. Competitive intelligence is recognized in the various business and market related establishments. In addition, the legal rules and regulations governing the business and market fields acknowledge and enhance the use of competition intelligence. This indicates that it is not an illegal establishment. The ethical considerations must however be instilled during the process of conducting the research on the various aspects in the market and about competitors. Competitive intelligence becomes illegal when a company’s intelligence goes overboard in his/her collection of information and data on the various formation and strategies of the competitors. Intelligence experts make use of the current technologies in the facilitation of data and information collection. The use of competition intelligence assists the various companies in the establishment of the strategies used by their competitors in the establishment and regulation of their various products in the market. Rouach and Patrice, indicates in his article that the companies practicing competitive intelligence can fail in their establishment and calculations (Rouach and Patrice 557). This can lead to closure or realization of losses due to
In some cases, an unexpected musical encounter can produce a very strong impression on a person. I have recently become familiar with this effect. Several days ago, I was at my friend’s apartment, and we were listening to some music, mostly such genres as trip-hop, jazz, or reggae rock. One of our acquaintances suggested that we should try something different. In particular, he suggested an excerpt from Antonio Vivaldi’s composition called Four Seasons . This initiative was not strongly supported by others, but we decided not to object. We knew that this person immensely enjoyed classical music, so we did not want to offend him by saying this musical genre did not really fit the party. In the beginning, I was very skeptical about it. However, the melody which evokes the image of a summer thunderstorm strongly appealed to me. In my opinion, this music captures the turbulence of nature as well as the emotions of a person who witnesses this natural phenomenon. Furthermore, the solo violin included in this brief movement helps to emphasize the idea of turbulence or unrest. This is one of the main details that I can identify. Another issue is that while listening to this short excerpt, I did not want it to stop. In my opinion, very few musical compositions can have such an effect on a person. Overall, this musical recording made me forget about many of my daily problems. Later, I even listened to other works of this composition. I did not like most of them very much, but this short movement called Storm proved to be a real exception. To some degree, it changed my views about classical music. In my view, it can capture a person’s imagination, and this is one of its major strengths.
Introduction Watson’s Mill is a 19 th century gristmill, located in the village of Manotick, Ottawa. The fact that this gristmill started flour production in 1860 is a fascinating in itself, contributing to the inclusion of the mill as a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. Apart from the technology of grinding grain that mostly remained unchanged and the architectural significance, the mill is also surrounded by tragic stories and no less tragic myths. In that regard this report provides an overview of the site, based on evidences gathered on sit and a review of corresponding information from external secondary sources. Description The mill is located in the town of Manotick, 20 km south of Ottawa (City of Ottawa). The mill is situated on the banks of the Rideau River, seen from the outside as four-floor building, which is seen as a three-floor from the entrance. The industrial feel, rather than residential feel of the building can be seen through its narrow width in its rectangular shape. The overall grey-brown tone of the mill can be explained through the usage of the unornamented stones in its construction. The building reflects symmetry in all of its aspects, starting from the original roof and including the positioning of its windows. Technology The technology of grinding grains in the mill mostly remained unchanged, where the wheat of the grain is milled using the mill stones. The common element changed in the mills was the way they were powered. Watson’s mill can be seen as a classical mill design, in which the mill was powered through water. Nevertheless, Watson’s mill did not use water wheel, where being situated on a river bank, the water flowing under the mill powers the turbines, which in turn drives the driveshaft turning the mill stones, the belts, and the scoops operating between floors. Being antique machinery, the method of operating Watson’s Mill was a cutting-edge technology at the time. The latter can be specifically seen through the usage of six turbines to power the mill, which was more powerful in delivery, regulable, and what is most important, they were still operable in winter as they did not freeze. The regulation of the turbines power is conducted through a horizontal wheel next to the millstones, where turning the wheel regulates the gates underneath the mill. The higher the gates, the more water flows through the turbines, and accordingly, the more power they produce and vice versa. The milling process consists of several stages, which can be represented through various operations on a different floor. The most intermedia
It is widely accepted that affective influences such as emotion and motivation create strong behaviors that leans towards set goals. However, the need to characterize these influences properly require more work. But one should still make an effort in order to give these influences and their contribution to changing behaviors the very right description. The question remains whether emotions and motivations naturally affect behavior. Evidence, (Hall & Goertz, 2013) suggests that emotions and motivations influence behaviors systematically, yet investigations of these are often conducted independently of the other. Here, this paper analyzes various motivational and emotional accounts to create new fruitful research suggestions on the relationship between motivation, emotion, and behavior. The relationship between motivation, emotion, and behavior The complex and sophisticated nature of humans characterize the deployment of behavior to meet a certain goal. Humans pursue emotionally and motivationally meaningful lives, yet they do not understand that these influences determine goals around which their behaviors are centered (Hall & Goertz, 2013). Motivation and emotion are broad constructs, whose effects on behavior remain understudied. Emotion is a construct that includes several subcomponents that define the relationship between humans and the environment. Autonomous reactions and cognitions make up emotions. In contrast, motivation defines the desire by an individual to more into action (Hall & Goertz, 2013). Motivation strives for positive incentives because it clamors for good motives. The internal state of motivation pushes a person to move towards a goal that can only be inferred by noting specific behavior. Extrinsic motivation achieves external rewards, such as farming to make money, while intrinsic refers to rewards such as singing for oneself for faith or religious reasons. Therefore, motivation is a result of external and internal desires that relate to the behavior of a person towards meeting a certain goal Relationship between motivation and behavior How people begin moving toward a behavior varies as emotions pull them towards showing their feelings. Emotions react to external stimuli with different intensities and persistence, while behavior
Mastering the art of managing the key processes of a complex organization is not an easy task. Because of the necessity to embrace a range of concepts and monitor numerous processes, one may fail to keep the track of the changes that occur within the company and, therefore, deliver a careful and a well put together plan based on the company’s future prospects. In his article “Managing Complex Organizations: Complexity Thinking and the Science and Art of Management,” Kurt Richardson addresses the issue of coordinating the supervision of various processes within complex organizations and the challenges that the specified task presupposes. Richardson argues that, though it is impossible to incorporate every last detail of the company’s operations into the analysis of the organization’s key advantages and the threats that it may be facing, there is, in fact, no need to do so; following several essential rules on decision making and learning to make suppositions concerning the implications of specific steps in financial management of a company is enough to succeed in navigating the complex mechanism of a major enterprise. In order to understand the specifics of complex organizations’ operation, it is crucial to differentiate between complex and complicated. Though the key processes of an enterprise may be outstandingly easy to understand, they may still happen to be very hard to monitor simultaneously, which predisposes their complexity. As long as managing a company involves dealing with several processes that involve a different set of elements and are guided by different principles, the organization operation must be viewed as complex, even though these processes may be extremely simple. In order to navigate the complexity of the organizational processes, one must introduce the basic principles of logics into the organizational management, Richardson explains (Richardson 14). At this point, the key concepts of the Boolean logics should be brought up: identified by the author of the article as the “universal language” (Richardson 14), this language serves as the mediator between the language of computing and the ordinary interpersonal communication. The necessity to incorporate computer logics into the company organism is becoming increasingly big at present, with the rapid integration of information technologies into the operation of companies. The concept of incompressibility is often used along with the idea of companies’ complexity; however, the very idea of absolute incompressibility should be take
In the world of business and management, it is important to understand how to increase the efficiency of an organization. An efficient workforce, for instance, means a highly-profitable business venture (Gallagher & Tombs, p.286). It can also mean an effective organization able to accomplish its goals (Watson, p.248). A company composed of productive workers will manufacture products and provide service at lower costs as compared to an organization with disgruntled workers. It is, therefore, the goal of every business leader or entrepreneur to maintain this high level of productivity and thus the hypothesis that a happy worker means increased efficiency. It is important to verify if indeed this is the case. This paper will take a closer look at a study using data from 66 Dutch home care organizations and find out if indeed employees that are satisfied with their jobs are positively linked to organisational efficiency. Conceptualization At the very beginning, researchers Toon W. Tarris and Paul J.G. Shreurs immediately found trouble in explaining what they are attempting to achieve. This is because of the vagueness of some of the concepts a
Unemployment is a state which occurs when a person of working age is actively searching for a gainful work because of lack of opportunity to offer skills in exchange for financial gain (Gitis par. 7). This means that unemployment occurs when able women and men are involved in searching for gainful job because they cannot find any at the present. Types of Unemployment The main types of unemployment are classical unemployment, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, frictional unemployment, hidden unemployment, and underemployment (Kim par. 9). Classical unemployment is a situation which arises when real wages surpass the market clearing level, thus, making the number of available vacancies to be less than that of the job-seekers. Cyclical unemployment occurs when the economy cannot create enough jobs for all the job-seekers. This type of unemployment often occurs during economic depression or downfall in the business cycle. Structural unemployment occurs when the labor market cannot supply enough opportunities for the job-seekers due to a disparity between skills required for the available jobs and skills possessed by those seeking employment (McConnell and Macpherson 34). Frictional unemployment is the duration it takes a job-seeker to change jobs or transition from one opportunity to another in the labor market. Hidden unemployment is the missing data about job-seekers that the job market cannot absorb, especially within the official unemployment database. For instance, persons who have given up on seeking for job opportunities fall in this category (Goldin par. 11). Lastly, underemployment occurs when the level of skills of an employee surpasses the job that the labor market can supply. Full employment and natural rate of unemployment Full employment refers to a situation where labor resources that are available in the market are optimally used. This means that full employment is the optimal embodiment of the unskilled and skilled labor in the labor market in the most competent way. On the other hand, the natural rate of unemployment refers to the general percentage of the unemployed labor force in the market but seeking or willing to get employment at any given time (Kim par. 18). Impacts of unemployment on the economy The first impact of unemployment on the economy is the extra financial costs that a government may have to incur when unemployed persons are paid some stipends. Thus, apart from lost income from idle labor resources, such government will have to incur the extra cost due to compensation benefits. The second impact of unemployment is reduced spending power in the economy since the unemployed would focus on saving than spending (Williams par. 14). Besides, unemployment may lead to recession in the economy since health costs, living standard, and income per individual will be adversely affected. In addition, un
Introduction The Silk Road or silk route was a trade route across East, South, Western Asia and Afro-Eurasia (Xinru 2010, 17). This route was named after the major commodity traded-silk. This route was very significant for the development of China, Egypt, Arabia and Rome. Silk was the major trade from China, alongside tea, spices and porcelain, other goods traded included perfume, hemp and satin, gold. Silver, glass and these goods would travel to major oasis trade towns end to end (Xinru 2010, p.18). The merchants business flourished with this arrangement and they kept enriching themselves from the trade exchange (Gordon 2010, p.169). The first attempt to open up the East was pioneered by Alexander, which came with the Alexander’s empire in Central Asia. Soon after the Romans and Egyptians joined in the silk trade route and explored East and Central Asia (Xinru 2010, p.18) The silk route trade influenced in many ways the central Asian countries, and played a part in shaping the Asian societies. It is indeed true that cultural, economic and political aspects were developed as a result of the silk trade route (Stewart 2008, p.176). The rise of the trade saw the people in these societies begin to adopt several settings and lifestyles borrowed from the merchants who came and settled and brought in different goods like gold, silver, glass and hemp for trade (Xinru 2010, p.18). Civilization also was established in the process because the trade route attracted many philosophers who came up with the Mongolian symbols that developed writing. The philosophers began teaching the locals how to read and write. International trade was able to attract historians from Persian and Arabic states who also came to establish and discover the basis of the trade route and also try to connect the Mongolian history. The silk trade did have a great impact on the Mongolian’s economy. The merchant business continued even after Genghis, where they would bring clothes, food and other supplies and the Great Khan would exclude them from paying tax (Xinru 2010, p.21). The Mongolian empire was able to benefit from the goods brought in and later they began to charge the merchants taxes. The economy became stable and competition arose in the market. The merchants could sometimes face losses due to bandits on the road but the losses were recovered from the Mongolian treasury and so the Mongolian empire could work through its losses to stability (Xinru 2010, p.22).The losses also came due to delays of shipments. People preferred the camel as the mode of transport because it was the safest despite being slow. However sometimes merchants were faced
Barbara Ehrenreich is a political essayist and social critic who is brave enough to tackle the most burning issues of modern society in her books and magazine articles. The problem of capital punishment is one of the issues that get the author’s thorough investigation. Being rather controversial, this problem does not stop invoking people’s desire to solve it: is it ethical and reasonable to deprive of life of those who dared to step over the borderline between human principles and animal instincts to kill, or is capital punishment one more link in the chain of murders? In her essay Dirty Laundry: Benetton’s ‘We, on Death Row’ Campaign (Summer, 2000), Barbara Ehrenreich dwells on the Benetton campaign against the death penalty and the execution of a criminal known as Young Elk. The controversial nature of the problem discussed seems to have encouraged the author to choose the same strategy of presenting her views on it. The thing is that at first sight, understanding the author’s argument presents some difficulty to the reader. In the beginning, it seems that the author is in two minds about capital punishment, but this assumption is a rather deceptive one. The hesitation arises because of the complex nature of the argument the author builds. Barbara makes a complex argument against the death penalty and the well-known company’s anti-death penalty advertising campaign. Other questions that the essay under consideration raises are the politics of consumption and advertising ethics. We believe that reading Ehrenreich’s essay presupposes some background knowledge of the reader on Benetton’s We, on Death Row Campaign. At the beginning of 2000, Benetton launched a campaign about the death penalty. The company revealed the faces of the prisoners on death row with the purpose to remind everyone that the debate about capital punishment concerns not some virtual characters but real men and women, in flesh and blood; the problem is not that distant as might seem from the news that occasionally appears on radio and TV, this problem concerns everyone – staying indifferent means living a life of parasite caring just of one’s one needs. The author’s focus on this campaign helped her to reveal her attitude to capital punishment. Throughout the essay, we can find a lot of supporting arguments that she uses to express her opinion. Giving a bright description of the portraits of the condemned people, Ehrenreich thinks about the certainty of their future and makes the reader look into their eyes: who are all those people- killers or victims themselves? The author concentrates mainly on the photos provided by Benetton but not on the interviews that accompany them. She says that she cannot but wonder while reading the interviews: “guilty or innocent?” but admits that the answer can be found in the faces of the inmates rather than in the inter
In the 19th century, the question of American civilization was frequently raised and discussed at different levels. It was expected that Native Americans could sell their forests and become farmers on the same grounds the whites had at the moment (Takaki, 2008). Andrew Jackson was the author of this idea who demonstrated his humane and just intentions. However, when he became the President of the United States, his goals were changed and led to the creation of one of the most ambiguous and provocative movements, the Trail of Tears. American Indians were imagined as unable to civilize, and the power of white settlers was great, which allowed the government to ignore Indians’ achievements, petitions, and readiness to cooperate and maintain the Trail of Tears. The Indian Removal Act was the desire of the government to use Native American lands for the selfish purposes of the cotton planters and railroad companies. Cherokees and other Indian tribes were defined as an obstacle to American development as a nation (Takaki, 2008). During the Trail of Tears, it was officially reported that no more than 400 people died, but it was evident that the deaths in the containment centers and the camps where the Cherokees were held reached more than 4000 (Learn Liberty, 2021). In the chosen master narrative, many facts and factors of the removal were ignored, including multiple petitions and individuals eager to support American Indians. The Trail of Tears justified the possibility of taking everything from the Cherokees and offering multiple opportunities for white American citizens. In the past, this choice was based on language, education, and constitutional differences; in the present, the differences between the representatives of these communities also exist. Despite the intention to create an equal American society, the example of Indian removal proves the superiority of skin color and the prejudice of the government. Instead of protecting all citizens and respecting their past, the Trail of Tears showed how people could lose everything in a moment. That historical event shaped the present treatment of the American Indians and demonstrated why minorities did not protect themselves, even if they were legally supported.