ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Background Asian countries were often associated with supremacy over the maritime world. China had extended its powers in this framework during the Mongol Yuan period already (Sen and Mair 72). However, the country was conquered by Qubilai Khan in the 13th century, and he received control over the lucrative maritime trade. Qubilai realized the necessity to accept Chinese political ideologies to maintain control. In addition to that, he allowed the traditional social structure and culture that were affected by Mongol customs over time. Cooperating with the help of Chinese advisers and ministers, Khan encouraged people from other countries to work in his court. Trying to ensure his leadership, Qubilai declared himself the Great Khan of the Mongols. This action triggered a civil war and made Asia his main contender. Emphasizing his power, Qubilai also attacked neighboring kingdoms, including Japan (Sen and Mair 73). At this point, the Mongol Empire stretched across Eurasia. Mongols sought to go beyond conquering territory to institute a global order of free trade, universal communication, and international law. Trade Across Asia As the Mongols started controlling the main trade routes of Asia, this industry improved its performance significantly. Numerous traders were gathered in caravans and went to other countries (Japan and Korea, for instance) to sell their products. From the early days of Genghis Khan, the Mongols sought to destroy the feudal system and aristocratic rule. A fair system was developed which rewarded loyalty and merit. The empire was able to establish trade connections amongst the disjointed towns along the Silk Route by organizing a free-trade zone. (Weatherford 15). This process has maintained both ways, through the import and export of products. Even though the impact of Mongol rule on trade was somewhat conservative and harsh, it was accepted by most regions. Most saw it as a consistent and reliable set of standards, which is vital for the normal operation of a trading system. Mongols also adopted various new approaches to commercial trade practiced on a large scale. For example, there were attempts to control and redirect traffic of trade routes to increase the effectiveness and reach of products from one region to another. China’s maritime connections also improved significantly when the country was under Mongol’s control. The Silk Road developed and finally reached the Arab world, the representatives of which carried most of the trade (Davis 40). They settled in the Muslim community of China and established several trade bureaus in the main ports, which provided them with an opportunity to control trade before it reached the coast. To improve this situation and increase control, several highly mobile groups were created. They moved across the seas near China and participated in the “irregular” trade that was not affected by any government and did not presuppose the necessity to pay any taxes. These individu
What are the advantages of a CCD camera vs. a tube camera? There are many advantages of a CCD camera in comparison with its predecessor, the tube camera. CCD or a charged couple device is a microchip that is connected to a camera. This chip increases the quality of the footage taken by a camera. Among some of the most important benefits of a CCD camera is that it is easier to maintain and uses less power. Moreover, in terms of quality, a CCD camera gives better, more accurate, and permanent geometry and registration. That means that a CCD camera is better in defining the shapes of objects, and can also align blue, green, and red signals into the fine lines. The other significant advantage of a CCD camera is that it doesn’t age as fast as a tube camera does. This makes CCD cameras work longer, which saves money. In addition, a CCD camera has no blooming and also doesn’t burn-in, which was quite a serious flaw of all-tube cameras. Besides all that, a CCD camera weighs less and needs less power, and so it is much easier to maintain, transport, and produce. What are Pan and Scan? Pan and scan is a method that allows adjusting film images from one format to another. Pan and scan use 4:3 proportions, or 1.33. This method is used to make widescreen films with proportions 2.35:1 adaptable to the formerly standard television screen with proportions 1.33. In the video, the lecturer notes that because pan and scan were not taken into account by directors, it often gave an inaccurate presentation of the film content. But in former times, pan and scan allowed people to watch movies on TV that were originally meant to be shown in the cinema. The lecturer gives an example of two people talking on the right and left sides of the screen. Proportions 2:35 can show this scene accurately without editing, but using proportions 1:33, the camera appears to switch between the two actors, showing only one of them at a time. In reality, the camera did not change positions in the scene; this effect is the result of the editing done so that a viewer could comprehend the film. Pan and scan formerly referred to a section of the viewfinder where the most important film elements appeared and were fixated. Even though much more was shot than only this 1.33 section, producers were saying that this content would not be seen by the viewers. This was all before the widescreen era. What is the significance of 100 IRE and name two ways it can be measured? A specific IRE value is represented by the diagonal lines in a viewfinder. It is done so that the operator can have a vision screening in order to control what he or she films. The IRE value is created to measure the degree of brightness on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being pure black and 100 representing pure white. At either extreme of the scale, any kind of image disappears. The normal IRE value usually falls at around 70. Whe
The decision of the US government to impose an anti-dumping duty on Chinese importers of solar panels can have both positive and negative affects. First of all, this policy can strengthen the position of American manufacturing companies that cannot fight off the price competition of their Chinese counterparts. Such restrictions can save jobs of approximately 25 thousand American employees, who work in these manufacturing companies (Solar Energy Industry Association, 4). These people are directly employed by the producers of solar equipment. One should also take into the indirect employment and the fact that such companies create job opportunities for the distributors, installers, and sellers of this equipment. Thus, the benefits of this can be quite palpable. Yet, one should also consider some of the negative aspects. At the given moment, the market share of Chinese companies is approximately 50 percent. They fill half of the total demand for solar panels in the country. Provided that they will have to pay the tariff of more than 100 percent, they will have to abandon the US market. This will eventually result in decreased supply of such products and higher prices. On the whole, these changes can be illustrated with the help of this graphic. In this graphic, the red curves indicate the changes in supply. P1 is the price of solar panels at the point when Chinese products are available to American customers. In turn, P2 is the price of these goods when their supply dramatically decreases. Hence, it is possible to say that customers will not benefit from the quotas imposed on foreign importers. These products can become less affordable to American buyers. This is one of the reasons many environmental organizations argue that such policies will slow down the spread of solar energy technologies in the United States. Overall, one can argue that these tariffs can unbalance the equilibrium of demand and supply, and the impacts of this change will not be beneficial for every stakeholder. Apart from that, one should also take into account the distributional consequences of this approach within the United States. In particular, we need to speak about those organizations which are engaged in the transportation of solar panels, sales, installation, maintenance, and so forth. The decreased supply of Chinese solar equipment will eventually diminish the demand for their services in the long term. On the whole, solar equipment industry should not be limited only to manufacturing companies. Such interpretation fails to consider the way in which this market works. The alleged benefits of anti-dumping tariffs will not be equally distributed. These tariffs will have a positive effect on such producers as SolarWorld, yet, they will not bring any improvements to other representatives of this industry. This is one of the reasons why 25 American companies opposed this decision by arguing that it could threaten more than 100,000 jobs within the United States (Palmer, unpaged). This argument must not be overlooked by policy-makers; it is quite probable that the benefits of these anti-dumping quotas will be outweighed by its drawbacks. Therefore, prior to ado
Summary of the case The Siemens bribery scandal presents one of the most indignities that a respected organization can get into in order to gain market competitiveness. Prior to 1999, the company got into a series of bribing to different countries around the world so that it could win contracts and establish its market. Some of the key nations that were bribed included China, which received a bribe of $14 million, Israel obtained $40 million, Argentina received $40 million, and Bangladesh got $5billion. The total bribe is believed to be over $1.4 billion. The problem of bribery for Siemens can be blamed on various factors ranging from the law in Germany before 1999 to Siemen’s poor business culture. The former has to do with the law that did not restrict giving bribes to foreign nations. Siemens greatly utilized this practice to the extent that when the law was scrapped in 1999, the culture was already deeply embedded in its system. It persisted with this practice and could easily admit that the money was used to keep its business going in several countries. The scandal has so landed the company into deep trouble as it has been forced to pay a fine of $1.6 billion and an extra $1 billion to repair its compliance with international business processes. What explains the high level of corruption at Siemens? The extraordinary corruption levels at Siemens can be traced to the laws adopted prior to 1999 that gave room for the practice to thrive. Besides, it is also a factor that contributes to poor business culture. Its managers thought that the practice could help keep the business alive. What would have happened to a manager at Siemens if he or she had taken a stand against corrupt practices? Any manager who could have taken a different stand against the business culture could have faced strong resistance from other executives. How does the kind of corruption Siemens engaged in distort competition? The corruption at Siemens impacts competition as it locks out competitors wishing to participate in the same trade or nation. What is the impact of corrupt behavior by Siemens on the countries where it does business? The impact that stands out to a nation receiving the bribe is that it jeopardizes local jobs and makes citizens pay high costs for goods. What would have done a fair manager at Siemens? As a manager, the first step is to institute management change that is in tandem with national laws and good business culture.
Moore and Martin (2011) provide an illustration of challenges individuals with disabilities face in the USA. Politicians, officials, and business people claim they are committed to achieving the heist level of diversity. Nonetheless, people with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable groups who are often ignored and neglected. It is reported that almost 70% of people with disabilities were unemployed in 2009 (Moore & Martin, 2011). Clearly, this trend has to be changed. Luckily, a number of organizations focus on the needs of disabled persons and their needs. For instance, the American Association of People with Disabilities is a non-profit organization that concentrates on the rights of people with disabilities. These people can address the organization for consultancy services as well as assistance in their fight for their rights. The Arizona Bridge to Independent Living is a national non-profit corporation that provides a variety of services for people with disabilities. The services include (but are not confined to) peer support, instructions on independent living skills, home modification, and self-advocacy. The Protection and Advocacy System is a national network of agencies that provide people with disabilities with consultancy services and assistance in accessing equal rights in public services as well as employment opportunities. Hire Heroes USA is a non-profit organization that provided services to veterans with disabilities aimed at assisting these people in landing good jobs. The National Organization on Disability is a national non-profit organization that concentrates on all aspects of the life of people with physical or mental impairment. Apart from organizations working on providing services and support to people with disabilities, there are organizations concentrating on the development and provision of technology services to people with mental and physical impairments. For instance, the Alliance for Technology Access is a national non-profit organization that provides services and technology to help people with disabilities to accommodate the home, work environment with a specific focus on communication technologies. Interestingly, apart from providing services directly to people with disabilities, the American Foundation for the Blind collaborates with companies producing technologies for people with sight impairments to make their products more accessible. The Center for Accessible Technology is an organization that focuses on the use of computer technology by people with disabilities. The organization provides consultancy services to people with disabilities as well as companies that want to achieve true diversity by employing people with physical or mental impairments. The Infinite Potential Through Technology (also referred to as Infinitec) is an association focusing on providing services to increase access to technology for children with learning disabilities. The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication is an organization that concentrates on promoting innovations in technology aimed at improving the quality of life of peo
Introduction One of the areas currently being accentuated by organisations’ management is ways through which employees’ performances, engagements and commitments can be enhanced. In fact, most organisations focus on how they can improve their employees’ commitments to jobs and attainment of goals as well as the motivation of workforce to perform beyond expectations (Schuler, 2002). In particular, organisations tend to focus on how line manages can improve the performance of workers under their supervision. The reason is that there is a shift in employees’ management perspectives particularly focusing on the way line managers can attain increased performance (Albrecht, 2010). Studies indicate various factors that contribute to employees’ motivation resulting in increased performance. One of the factors is the engagement between employees and the line managers or immediate supervisors. Moreover, studies suggest that good relationship between employees and their immediate manager or supervisor contributes to increased happiness, engage
Introduction In keeping with the company’s philosophy and tradition of working with culturally diverse teams, managers are required to posses the knowledge of how to effectively handle these teams for optimal performance and productivity. Any manager leading culturally diverse teams must clearly take into account the members’ cultural disposition in order to establish an effective mechanism through which all members can participate in achieving the goals and objectives set by the company (Foldy, 2004). Definition of Terms Culture: Although culture has various definitions, this handbook takes culture to mean “…a learned system of meanings that fosters a particular sense of shared identity and community among its group members” (Ting-Toomey & Oetzel, 2001, p. 9). Cultural Diversity: This concept “…refers to identities such as race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, and other dimensions of difference derived from membership in groups that are socio-culturally distinct” (Foldy, 2004, p. 530). Why Should Managers Bother with Cultural Diversity Issues A multiplicity of empirical studies have demonstrated that in the presence of effective integration processes, culturally diverse teams perform at least as well, occasionally even better than homogenous teams (Pitts & Jarry, 2009). Other studies have demonstrated that business productivity yields superior outcomes when management practices are congruent with national culture, and when meaningful participation is promoted (Gwynne, 2009). The Challenges of Leading Culturally Diverse Teams Managers must realize that when members of diverse national or ethnic groups come together for work-related purposes, their basic templates for conducting co-dependent actions diverge greatly. These differences have the capacity to damage business relationships, communication processes, coordination and cohesion, as one person interprets another’s actions or behaviors in a manner which was not originally intended, and more important, neither person have prior knowledge that the misunderstanding has occurred (Pitts & Jarry, 2009). Such a scenario limits the team’s capacity to perform up to its potential. Current literature on diversity effects demonstrates that engaging in faulty work processes will ultimately lead to a negative relationship between diversity and organizational performance by virtue of the fact that members in a team will find it difficult to work well together (Pitts & Jarry, 2009). This process-oriented challenge prevent the team from generating outcomes that are equal or better to those generated by a team that did not undergo a similar procedural challenge. Overall, it is a well known fact that “…managers set up their teams to fail because they themselves fail to help the
It is important to note that traumatic experiences in one’s past can lead to reactions, which can be highly disruptive and unpredictable. Such reactions include violence and crime, which puts not only the life of a traumatized person at risk but also other people affected by the crime of violence. Regardless of one’s conditions, including severe trauma, violence and crime are justifiable reactions. Both violence and crime bring damage to other innocent individuals, which means that one’s traumatic reaction is hurting society. It is stated that among incarcerated women, “the majority of the sample (70.8 %) reported using illicit drugs, and 59.6 % had committed at least one violent offense. History of drug use was significantly correlated with trauma, PTSD status, and violent offending” (Howard et al., 2016, p. 21). In other words, all of these women have high rates of some form of traumatic past, which led to crime and subsequent incarceration. The judicial system does not allow one’s past trauma to justify crime and violence. Among male prisoners, “incarcerated offenders are more likely to experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and associated symptoms than the general population. PTSD may develop from a variety of events, including being a victim of violence, witnessing violence, or from committing a violent offense.” (Ternes et al., 2019, p. 68). In other words, these men are imprisoned primarily due to their criminal actions, and they tend to have some form of traumatic past. However, crime or violence does not justify one’s trauma, which is indicated by the prevalence of trauma among prisoners of both genders. In conclusion, trauma was highly common among incarcerated individuals, and they were imprisoned due to their crimes, some of which included violence.
Microsoft Corporation is a public company founded by Bill Gates, its chairman, and Paul Allen on the 4th of April 1975 in Albuquerque New Mexico in the United States of America but its headquarters have since shifted to Redmond, Washington DC. The corporation has a worldwide market for computer software, video game consoles as well as consumer electronics. Among the renowned products of the corporation include Microsoft servers, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft office suite, Business software, Microsoft expression, Windows Developer tools, Windows live, Zune, Bing, and Windows Phone. “Among its most strategic products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite.” (Lemley, Peter & Robert, 2006). In the year 2009, the entity was ranked the third-largest corporation in the world preceded only by Petro China and ExxonMobil. It is undoubtedly the largest technology corporation in the universe. The corporation is listed in the New York Stock Exchange (NASDAQ) as well as the Hong Kong Stock exchange (HKEX) and its stocks have been fairly stable in the past years since its debut listing on the NASDAQ in 1986. In addition, it has done several stock splits since inception (up to nine stock splits), although the dividend payout has been steady and in fact, reverted from annual dividends payout to a quarterly dividends payout scheme from 2003. In the fiscal year ended 30th June 2009, the company’s balance sheet indicated a total asset base of $ 77.888 Billion of which the current assets constituted the largest portion of $ 49.280. This was largely attributed to an increase in cash and short-term investments as well as an increase in the net receivables for the year whose summative value came to $ 42.5 Billion. The valuation for goodwill ($ 12 Billion) and property plant and equipment ($ 7 Billion) also constituted a significant increase in the value of the total assets. Total liabilities in the period 2009 increased to $ 38.330 Billion from the previous year $ 36.507 Billion. Current liabilities also formed the bulk of this figure standing at $ 27.034 Billion, long term liabilities largely consisted of long-term debts of $ 3 Billion with the payables and accrued expenses forming the bulk of current liabilities at six billion dollars. Total equity for the period to 30th June 2009 was $ 39.558 Billion significantly made up of common shareholders equity of sixty-two billion dollars and other equity amounting to $ 962 Million. However, the reduction in total shareholders equity and particularly the earlier stated common shareholder’s equity of $ 62. 382 Billion, can be attributed to the accumulated deficit that saw the corporation’s retained earnings reduce slightly in the year 2009 to $ 23.793 Billion. The company’s 2009 revenues were value