ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
The film selected for review and aiding in analyzing the concept of ethnocentrism and its effects on individuals, societies, and multinationals is “The Namesake”. Released in 2007, the film chronicles the lives of an Indian couple and their children as they attempt to adjust to the cultural dynamics involved in emigrating from West Bengal in India, to the US, and raising their children to appreciate the intricacies of these two varying cultures (Bahri, 2007, p.10). The film is divided into two parts, the first part portraying the couple (Ashoke and Ashima) in India, then the second part portrays their life in the US, with subsequent scenes involving movement between the two countries. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture, (in-group), is superior to other cultures and involves the tendency to view other cultures as secondary, with the central focus and point of reference being the individual’s culture. In the film “Namesake”, Ashoke and Ashima want to raise their children to respect and practice their Indian culture and value their Indian heritage, which they believe is better and superior to the more liberal American culture. They especially want their children to remain true to the Indian culture of courtship and marriage, which involves arranged marriages, an expectation that unsurprisingly causes friction with their children who have taken to the comparatively liberal American culture of courtship and marriage. Viewing the film, one gets the sense of importance that Indians attach to the institution of marriage. Unlike the American culture, that puts emphasis on courtship and getting to know one’s spouse before marriage, Indian couples rarely court, and yet as portrayed in the film, marriages in India last longer than most American marriages. Ethnocentrism has an impact on how societies and individuals in it relate to members of other societies. Watching the film, the struggles of Gogol Ganguli (the couple’s first son), as he tries to fit into the American lifestyle in his teen hood resonates with me. Many Americans view the American culture as the prototype for all cultures, and Asian cultures, especially Indian culture, is viewed – a view I had before watching the film – as overly conservative and retrogressive. No matter how hard Gogol tries, by dating American women, listening to ‘American’ songs like rock music, and reading American books, he finds that he cannot escape from his Indian heritage, and finally resolves to understand his Indian culture more. He finds out that his own heritage is not necessarily inferior to the American culture. Watching the film also gave me an insight into the Indian culture that positively altered my view of the same. The sense of communal warmth that permeates the Indian society is admirable, and Indian communities are much more closely-knit than the American communities are. I especially found the elabo
Introduction The symbols, names, designs, terms, or other aspects that identify good or service from a seller as unique from those of different sellers denote “a brand”. Brand experience underscores sensations, cognitions, emotions, and behavioural reactions induced by brand-associated stimuli that are components of identity and design of a brand, wrapping, communications, and surroundings (Neumeier, 2006, p. 18). Originally, branding sought to distinguish the cattle of an individual from those of another by way of a characteristic mark burned into the skin of the animal using a hot iron stamp. Branding was afterwards employed in marketing, advertising, and business (Neumeier, 2006, pp. 19-20). A current instance of branding is the Coca Cola used by the Coca-Cola Company. The most precious fixed asset to a company is its brand. A first encounter at the undergraduate dissertation briefing a month ago could make someone feel his or her heart sink at the massive books that one must read. I went to Starbucks to have a nice coffee, took out my Apple laptop from my Zara message bag, dropped a note on Moleskine notebook using a Muji ballpoint, and noticed that brands are surrounding us. Brands actually use our emotions to divide us into numbers of tribes and choosing a brand turns out as our symbol of personal identity. Marty Neumeier has supported this view in the book, ‘The Brand Gap’. I cannot live without brands, everything I am using is related to a specific brand, all the products or services have a label or logo on them
Introduction Australia is one of the continents with very rich records tracing to the period before 1788. During that time, the area was called the Gwondaland, characterized by the presence of the Aborigines and huge animals called the dinosaurs. The country’s history is significant and could help one understand the present Australia, the struggles it has undergone and its people. The Aborigines were the natives of the land prior to colonialism that tried to resist the English inva
In the late 19th century, the American economy experienced the great depression. This caused many renowned businessmen and owners of capital to suffer extensively. As a result, they started cutting the wages of their workers and treating them very harshly as a way of recovering from the depression. This forced the workers to start movements and begin the labor struggles in America. The Pullman strike is an example of the drastic measures workers took to curb the predicament. Pullman was a great businessman and was the kingpin in building sleeping cars for the railroad industry. As a result of his vast wealth, Pullman also developed a working community. He built a town in Chicago, Illinois, and gave it his name, where he supported all the residents of the town, who formed his workforce. After his company (the Pullman Palace Company) experienced the depression in the early 1890s, it experienced a massive decline. The effects of the depression were, however, felt more by the workers than by him. However, this led him to drastically cut the labor force, and many employees lost their jobs. Few employees were lucky to stay, but underwent wage cuts and very hard labor without any extra compensation from Pullman company. The rent charged for the houses by Pullman was not cut even after cutting their wages. Pullman cut the debt owed by his employee from their salary without their request. He even went to a point of terminating the committee of the worker’s representatives. These were inhuman practices that Pullman exercised, but the employees were still grateful to Pullman for building the town. As a result of t
Introduction There are countless reasons why people opt for payday loans. Just like in the case of Tonya Burke, different needs can force one seek for a payday loan. Given the exorbitant interest rates accompanying such loans, one may be forced to take another loan to cover the previous ones. Even though opponents may argue that the loans attract huge interests, they are extremely important in handling emergency cases. However, lack of proper regulation of the market has resulted in entry of other players who can infringe on a client’s privacy (Bailey, 2013). For instance, Hydra Group in Kansas City was taken to the Federal District Court for engaging in “illegal cash-grab scam” in which it borrowed loans using the clients’ bank accounts. These mixes in operations of payday loans have attracted proponents and opponents of equal measure. Numerous ethical and legal arguments are ongoing regarding payday loans while the debate faces a fair share of censure and backup in relation to punishment of payday lenders, or forgiving the sincere payday loan services. The Practice of Payday Loans As the name suggests, borrowers have limited periods of returning the money because the lender targets the payday of his/her client. A consideration for the borrowers is the ability to be in a payroll to have access to credit facilities. Some countries refer to the accredited payday institutions as cash schemes of microfinance depending on the territorial legislations put in place to protect the interests of both parties involved in the business. For some reason, people will always have money problems and after exhausting all avenues of income generation, an individual would opt for a payday lender in order to settle bills or deal with an emergency. More often than not, the lender becomes part of a debt twist, especially when the loan accrues interest, the salary is not forth coming, and the payday loan lenders need their money (Bazelon, 2014). In most cases, people take the loans to deal with emergencies like school fees, home bills, medical emergencies, and previous debt resettlement among other things. This explains why it becomes overly difficult to clear one loan using an ove
The major problems facing the credit card division of BankUSA BankUSA’s credit card division is contemporarily facing numerous problems. These challenges include neglect of responsibilities by some departments, poor data collection methods, complacency by some employees, lack of collaboration between departments, and difficulties in identifying the main cause of problems in the department among others. The success of any organisational division hinges on collaboration between the various departments within the division. In BankUSA credit card division, there is no collaboration between the departments. The marketing department does not allow staff members from the operations department to help in development of a customer survey program. In the end, the different departments end up collecting contradicting information from consumers. Apart from lack of collaboration between the departments, some departments have neglected their duties. For instance, instead of the operations department taking ample time to give its input in developing customer survey questions, it hands the task to staff members with limited experience about the company. The level of complacency among some of the employees in the company is high. Staff members in the operations department think that they have adequate experience in what amounts to outstanding services. However, they do little to help the company improve its performance. When called upon to help the marketing department in developing customer survey questions, they give the responsibility to individuals with limited experience about the company. BankUSA’s credit card division is incapable of ascertaining if it meets all consumer needs. Moreover, the division uses inconsistent methods in collecting data from customers. Consequently, the company ends up collecting contradicting information regarding its performance. The credit card division operates in numerous sites and offers a number of services, and given that the credit card division offers numerous services at different sites, it is hard for the division to point out its basic challenges. The measuring of the real service level There is a significant mismatch between the internal and external service levels in the BankUSA credit card division. An organisation is on the right track when both internal and external performance levels rhyme. At times, information collected from these two service levels may be confusing, and thus might lead to poor organisational performance, if not interpreted well. The real service level is what is measured externally.
Skin is a vital body organ protecting people from harmful external influences. Considering that nutrition is one of the essential factors defining the overall quality of skin maintenance, while an impaired nutritional status can have an adverse effect on skin integrity, as well as its biological and protective functions, the sufficient intake of various micronutrients such as minerals and vitamins can significantly boost skin health. Therefore, this essay will aim to discuss the role of nutrition in skin maintenance, as well as nutritional requirements identified in the literature on the topic. Such nutrition-related processes as inflammation and glycation take place on the cellular level and have multiple external symptoms. For instance, as Hayse (2015) states, glycation happens when excess sugar in the bloodstream attaches to organic molecules in the tissue. First of all, glycation makes skin molecules stiff and inflexible. Since one of the main affected proteins is collagen, it leads to the loss of skin elasticity. Secondly, the body recognizes glycated proteins and lipids as abnormal substances and, therefore, generates antibodies such as cortisol that provoke inflammatory processes (Hayse, 2015). With the inflammation, the skin healing can significantly slow down and lead to acne breakouts, as well as visible signs of aging. My experience is consistent with researchers’ evidence. For instance, the day after eating too many sweets and junk food, I frequently observe such signs of inflammation on my face as pimples. It means that since glycation and inflammation are internal processes, the skin effects they have cannot be treated by using external means only. Sufficient intake of vitamins and other nutritional factors can substantially help preserve skin integrity. According to Dean (2011), vitamin C and vitamin A are among the primary nutritional elements contributing to the skin’s health. For instance, one of the most important effects of vitamin C is the suppression of the production of free radicals due to exposure to ultraviolet light, which, according to Oregon State University (2018), leads to oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is the condition that develops when the body does not have enough antioxidants to counteract free radicals (MitoQ University, 2018). Lipids are especially susceptible to oxidative stress: it leads to greater permeability of foreign substances into the membrane, which consequently results in cell die-off and skin aging. The sufficient intake of vitamin C helps prevent these adverse effects as it increases the ability of the body to fight free radicals. As for vitamin A, its derivatives, including retinoids and carotenoids, play an essential part in e
The COVID-19 pandemic and related government measures not only changed the order of life of many societies, foreign and domestic policies of countries but also the business climate and market conditions of the vast majority of economic zones. Indeed, this unique event generates interest in in-depth research and detailed analysis of all industries, especially those in the Canadian sector. The company that was chosen for this study is Tim Hortons, one of the largest players in “The Coffee and Snack Shops industry in Canada” (Couillard, 2020, p. 2). It is no secret that the industry and the restaurant business are one of the hardest hit by the stringent government restrictions associated with COVID-19 quarantine. It can be said that the current conditions are giving rise to many concerns for Tim Hortons’ owners. However, the upcoming vaccination and the end of the lockdown could open up many opportunities for the company, especially in other regions. These marketing problems create new research topics for marketing researchers (Hair, Ortinau, & Harrison, 2020). The writer of this work surveyed the industry background and related speculations and developed a decision problem for Tim Hortons. The question is whether Tim Hortons should continue to expand into the European market after the COVID-19 pandemic. Coffee & Snack Shops in Canada by Lucie Couillard Summary In the course of data collection, many reports related to the topic of interest were analyzed. It is essential to clarify that the author of this paper could not find any recent works describing the Canadian coffee and snack shops industry, and Tim Hortons specifically, from the Canadian geographical region; that is why sources from the United States were used. The most informative and therefore worthy of mention is Coffee & Snack Shops in Canada by Lucie Couillard. The American Psychological Association (APA) citation format for this report is APA 7. In the report, she describes the state of the industry in Canada as of 2020 and provides readers with various market data (Couillard, 2020). Moreover, she observes market trends and the situation over the past five years and makes assumptions about the future of the Canadian coffee and snack shops industry. Patient: Tim Hortons by Middleton, Roche, Kincaid, and Sklar Summary More sources have been found exploring the coffee shop and restaurant industry in Canada. One of them is Patient: Tim Hortons , whi
Introduction The National Mediation Board (NMB) is an autonomous U.S. government agency created by Congress through the Railway Labor Act amendments of 1934 (Orenic, 2009). A principal purpose of the Railway Labor Act was the promotion of peaceful settlement of labor disputes in the transportation industry so vital to the national welfare. Its functions have been categorized as predominantly ministerial; therefore, it cannot make decisions involving the interpretation of the act; these remain the sole authority of Congress. The NMB is comprised of three members, selected by the president, with Senate confirmation (Orenic, 2009). These members must be persons with no past labor or railroad affiliations and should have a different political affiliation. The tenure for each member is a single three-year stint, during which, each member serves as chairperson on an annual rotation (Orenic, 2009). The board is authorized to appoint experts and assistants to act in any capacity necessary to effect transactions and can assign or assign any portion of its duties or functions to individual members or employees (Silverstein, 2011). It also has the authority to provide for salaries and expenditures necessary to complete the action. NMB oversees harmonious labor affairs in two of the United States’ main transportation industries; the airlines and the railways. It deals with the arbitration, negotiations, and workers’ representation disputes and offers administrative and monetary assistance in addressing grievances in the airline and railroad sectors (Silverstein, 2011). The board’s dispute-resolution approaches are intended to revolve around revising or creating new collective bargaining pacts and the construal of existing ones. Roles of National Mediation Board A key role played by the NMB is mediation. The Board provides various services to parties of a dispute subject to the Railway Labor Act. These services include mediation of disputes relating to the changing of existing agreements affecting rates of pay, rule, and/or working condition (Holley, Jennings & Wolters, 2011). In addition, the board is involved in the designation or certification of the representatives of a group or craft of employees, election monitoring, and interpretation of a contract made under its mediation program. The purpose of the NMB is to take the initiative that will avoid any interruption of interstate commerce, enforce the limitations of the freedom of choice or association by the employees of an air or rail carrier, and provide a means for the prompt and orderly settlemen
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Christian based poem that aims at giving reference to the fall of man. In the poem, Sir Gawain is visited by a green knight in the form of a mysterious warrior. The knight then challenges sir Gawain to strike him with his ax in exchange for a blow in a year and a day. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and chops off the head of the knight in only one blow. To sir Gawain amazement, the knight stood up, took his head from the ground, and promises to meet him at the agreed time. This paper will discuss Christianity and magic in the poem. The aim of the discussion will be to give an insight into how these two value systems influence the characters and their actions in the poem. To begin with, the poem has a Christian origin. It refers to the fall of man according to Christianity and extends all the way to the times of Jesus Christ. For example, the knight can be taken to represent the serpent that tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. Sir Gawain in this case assumes the role of Adam. By accepting the offer given to him by the knight, sir Gawain fell just like Adam. There is an element of magic when the knight stands up after sir Gawain chops its head off. The green knight himself and the girdle gave to sir Gawain to protect him from the ax are symbolic representations of magic. It is this element of magic that makes the poem revolves around a hero going through a quest to test his ability. In the poem, Christian values such as faithfulness are portrayed by the act of sir Gawain of struggling to uphold his oath. However, sir Gawain failed to uphold this secret when he was tempted by the lady of the castle. The event of sir Gawain being tempted by a lady and falling into the lady’s craftiness has been influenced by Christianity. Just like Adam of the bible falls into the tricks of his wife, sir Gawain was tricked by a lady. The character of ladies in the poem of being tempting has been drawn from the biblical story of the fall of man. More about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight What is the setting in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? 5 2020 Which stanza pattern is used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? 5 442 Who is the trickster in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? 5 98
Introduction Insider trading is a form of trade that involves parties who have the advantage of access to materials and information that is not available to the public. This form of trade has been regarded as unethical. This is because having information that is not known to others is an unfair advantage (Brenkert & Beauchamp, 2012). This paper discusses the moral problems associated with insider trading. It outlines the negative impacts that this practice has on trade and society as a whole. Ethical Issues of Insider Trading When parties with inside information participate against those without, there is a probability that inadequate market research is done. Despite the level of research that the outside party does, the level of information remains unequal. This discourages potential investors from participating and affects the market size. Investor confidence is a major factor in business growth because it determines the efficiency of the market. There is a high probability that when a market is influenced by insider trade, the knowledge influences decisions. This ensures that the market is very variable. Variable markets are unstable and may not be reliable in the long term (Saylor, n.d). Trade involves competition in which the best player gains. Perfect competition cannot be experienced in insider trading, and this slows down the business world. This is because market research and analysis will not be adopted in a growing business. It is a form of shortcut that encourages unfair competition. Using a firm’s information and material for personal gain is like stealing. This is because the materials and information belong to the company. The beneficiary of these should be the company through the person, and not the person through the company. This is unlawful, according to the legislators (Brenkert & Beauchamp, 2012). Viewed from the disadvantaged party’s point of view, insider trading is wrong. No one would want to be in a situation where he or she is less privileged. Therefore, it should not be applied if the general public finds it unacceptable. Trade involves the other person’s free consent. If that is not the general public’s opinion,