ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction I never understood why some people say that accounting is boring. I find it rather exciting. My interest in finance developed many years ago. As a kid, I used to earn my pocket money for doing some household errands. Back then, I realized that saving a portion of what you earn and thinking properly about better opportunities to spend it are wise decisions. From my earliest experiences of dealing with money, I knew that planning the expenditures pays off as you seldom find yourself broke and more often find yourself able to afford anything you need. It is a simple thought: one should plan their finances. However, I have learned that not everyone manages to comply with the simple principle. I have observed people struggling with money issues although they earned enough. I believe that often the problem is the lack of organizational skills. What I mean by that is that some may indulge in excessive spending as if they do not realize that it will not end well. I think that this basic understanding of the importance of financial planning is what initially made me interested in the profession. Main body Later, of course, I discovered that the area of accounting and finance is much more complicated. But the fundamental principle is the same: income, profit, costs, expenditures, turnover, and other financial indicators need to be properly calculated, planned, and systematized. I strongly believe that any activity that somehow involves spending money, paying, selling, or buying is doomed to fail unless its finances are properly managed. However, I also believe that accounting and finance professionals should be able to do more than calculate. There is a range of skills and abilities that make a good professional in the area. After studying accounting and financing for a while and reflecting on my achievements, I think I possess the necessary characteristics. First of all, an important feature for any professional is self-management. When one faces a large challenging task, it is necessary to establish what needs to be done to fulfill it and ensure that proper actions are taken. Completing a challenging task takes determination. I learned it the hard way. Back at school, I was on the organizational committee for an event held by the school administration for the local community. We had a thoroughly designed plan for the event, and I remember being excited about implementing it. But when we started the preparation, things kept falling apart. Several key participants suddenly refused to come. The venue turned out to be inadequate, so we had to urgently find a new one. The technical equipment needed for the event broke down. We constantly had to make new decisions and come up with changes to adjust the initial plan to the circumstances. It was stressful and frustrating. I w
Introduction China has a history that spans thousands of years. Many leaders have contributed to the positioning of the country to its present position on the global front. Every century has been marked by a revolution. Each of these centuries is linked with the death of a portion of the population. In the recent revolutions, leaders developed a doctrine that they followed and required the citizens to follow. In most countries around the world, there is an important figure that can be associated with the changes that occurred at a particular time (Bernstein 421). Some of the changes have come through revolts, social movements, war, and some through peaceful transitions. One of the most influential leaders in China is Mao who caused fortune and suffering in equal measure to the citizens. Some historians have claimed that he is the greatest Chinese who ever lived while others claim that he led to the death of many Chinese people and hence one of their worst leaders. This essay looks Mao Zedong and the changes he brought to China in an effort to find out whether they were beneficial or harmful to the Chinese people. Specifically, the paper will prove that he was a blessing or a curse to the people. Birth and Rise to Power Mao Tse-tung (also known as Mao Zedong) had control over China for a long time. He became one of the most influential and feared leaders until his death. Mao was born to a peasant family in rural China in 1893. He briefly attended school before leaving to become a librarian in 1918 (Terrill 23). At the time he left school, he was greatly interested in political ideas. He had a passion for communism. He joined a communist movement in the following year. The movement of his choice was the ‘May the Fourth’ movement. Mao worked for the movement with passion while recruiting many members and getting promotions in the party ranks. By 1924, he had started many communist groups in the city of Shanghai. This agenda led to his promotion to membership of the central committee of the Chinese Communist party (Terrill 15). He was then arrested and put in prison three years later. However, unfortunately, he managed to escape the prison. However, Mao was unlucky as the same people that had imprisoned him killed his wife. One of the most important events that propelled him to the national political front was the ‘Long March’ where he led the march of over 100,000 communists. During this event, he was chosen to be the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. He retained this position until he died in 1976. Changes in China under Mao Under Mao’s rule, China underwent a series of transformations that many researchers and historians have recorded as his legacy. Some of the most important of these transformations include the ‘Long March’ that took place before his leadership, development of the Five-Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution that is the subject of this paper. These transformations were important influences to the Chinese political, social, and economic fields. Although Mao developed and supervised the development
Article Summary This article uses the findings of surveys and interviews conducted on business professionals, government executives, and customers to provide practical ways to prepare for the shift in digital transformation, from the current individual-centered approach to the fast-approaching everyone-to-everyone (E2E) model. The article provides important information on the characteristics of digital transformation (flexibility, holistic integration, customization, and responsiveness) and aspects of the E2E economy (hyper-connectedness and collaboration). According to the authors, the shift in digital transformation is being triggered by technological disruption (e.g., social media explosion, the mobile revolution, analytics, and cloud enablement), the emergence of new ecosystems that cut across multiple organizations and functions, increased fragmentation of value chains, the convergence of industries, intelligence sharing, and increased connectivity and interactivity (Berman and Marshall 9-13). The guiding principles for E2E economy formulated by the authors include the ability of organizations to provide optimal customer experiences through the right partnerships, capacity to use contextual and predictive analytics to generate customer value, and capability of organizations to balance their critical intellectual capital with the need to achieve integration into dynamic and flexible business ecosystems (Berman and Marshall 14). Article Critique One of the foremost strengths of the article is its capacity to integrate most of the elements associated with digital transformation into easily understandable frameworks and graphs. Additionally, the authors do an excellent job of connecting the various customer-, organization-, and technical-level components of digital transformation (e.g., digital mobilization, collaboration, responsiveness to customer needs, and data analytics) to the ongoing shift in digital transformation. This connection provides a holistic picture of the major ingredients needed by businesses to adopt and implement the E2E economy. One can agree with these assertions as they are consistent with the findings of other studies showing that digital transformation is influenced by factors such as disruptive technologies, customer experiences and behavior, and big data. A third strength relates to the clear and coherent nature in which the authors discuss their central arguments on the shift from the customer-centricity paradigm to the E2E economy. Upon reading the article, one is able to clearly understand that factors such as hyper-connectivity, collaboration, adoption of disruptive technology, and reliance on big market data are necessary ingredients in making the needed switch to E2E digital transformation. This is quite agreeable based on the current trends being witnessed in the business environment, though the authors should have done more to identify which of these factors are most relevant to business organizations. Another key strength is hinged on the use of practical case studies to reinforce their arguments on how supply chains and organizational e
The US-Russia relations had their high and low points; they have been allies in war and at times coming very close to engaging each other in warfare. The Cold War (1947-1991), which seemed to be a struggle between capitalism and socialism, was one of the low points during their long relations. This article will examine the US-Russia relations all through the cold war. Soon after the end of the Second World War, the signs of tensions and mistrust reappeared even though the two nations had been allies during the war and the US had even supplied Russia with military hardware and other items that aided it to push back the Germans. The western democracies, in particular the US and the Soviets clashed mostly about the Eastern European take over by the Soviet Union. The increasing influence of the Soviets over Eastern Europe seemed to worry the Americans, who had stronger political and economic influence over Western Europe. The US and Russia political and social ideologies were contradictory and the two competed along these ideologies. The US promoted the Marshal economic plan to its Western European allies and not long after, Russia countered with the Camecon plan (Vohra, 176). The Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) was Russia’s response to the western nations’ 1949 NATO treaty. Joseph Stalin viewed the post-world wars world as divided into two camps namely the capitalist and imperialist camp and the communist and progressive camp. His US counterpart, Harry Truman also had the same view describing them as two opposing systems and portrayed the capitalist as free and the communist as bent on subduing other nations. Nikita Khrushchev took over Russia’s leadership and in 1953 stated that capitalism and imperialism could coexist peacefully since he viewed the Communist system as having become stronger (Gaddis, 84).The 1955 Geneva summit and the 1959 Camp David Summit showed Presidents Eisenhower and Khrushchev had some willingness to cooperate on world issues. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis however, almost brought the two nations to direct engagement in a nuclear war (Scott, 188). This incidence was the lowest point of the US- Russia relations in the whole duration of the Cold War and was a result of the neck to neck arms race between the two. Russia had felt left behind and decided to build a nuclear base in Cuba, an action that was not taken kindly by the US. If not for the dialogues between the two camps, both formal and secret, they would have most definitely sparked of a nuclear war. During Leonid Brezhnev’s regime (1964-1982), also known as the Russian stagnation period, the hostility between the two nations declined. The numerous negotiations between the two resulted in signing of agreements towards limitation of arms and summit meetings. The 1970s Russian invasion of Afghanistan however increased hostility between them and the US (Kirkpatrick, 250). During the regimes of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the relations seemed cordial resulting in more summit meetings that led to a reduction of arms within the two camps. Both
This response paper aims to explore and discuss Christianity readings: The World’s Religions by Huston Smith and Mary Pat Fischer Living Religions: Western Traditions. Although the two works have a different scope of content – one encompasses the religions of the entire world concerning contemporary values, and the other focuses on western traditions – both of them dedicate significant parts to the study and analysis of Christianity in the modern world. In his book The World’s Religions, Huston Smith looks at the traditions of Christianity in the context of the contemporary world, its principles, and values. Although the description of Christianity is selective, it is performed in a very comprehensive and eloquent manner focusing on the points relevant and important in the world of nowadays. The author contemplates the principles, prospects, and contributions into the history of the world’s largest faith. His interpretation of the shared faith in Christianity before it separated into Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Churches is considered to be a very advanced and modern interpretation of this period of Christianity. Not all of the statements made by Smith, however, could be regarded as a progressive point of view. His work implies that the future of Christianity – and any religion – is dependent upon taming the science and controlling its progress (Cousineau, 2003). Additionally, Smith also acts as an opponent of the evangelical churches for their interpretation of the Bible and involvement in politics. Finally, his religious views combine both liberal attitude to the Bible and other religions and quite an orthodox opinion that Jesus Christ was “fully God and fully man”. In her book “Living Religions: Western Traditions”, Mary Pat Fisher also devotes a substantial part to the aspects of Christianity, its origins, central teaching, and practices in the context of the Western world. These issues are discussed concerning common experiences of human existence: love, evil, compassion, wisdom, death, etc. The work is based on the understanding of the doctrines of the largest religions of the world, including Christianity. Additionally, Mary Pat Fisher focuses on how the religions and their doctrines intertwine in contemporary Western society, and how they were influenced by the non-religious world, pop culture, and scientific progress. The author highlights that although the general belief is that the popularity of Christian religion is now decreasing, the future of today’s Western society still depends and in many ways is predetermined by the development and progress of the Christian religion. Overall, both authors are faithful Christian believers and their beliefs find their reflection in their works. Although both concentrate on a variety of religions other than Christianity, it is the highlight of both works, although the work of Huston Smith concentrates on general concepts of the doctrine and the history of Christianity, while Mary Pat Fisher focused her research on the peculiarities
Introduction Many people live on the planet, so it becomes natural that all may not think, act similarly in a given situation. Considering this another thing which becomes natural is that all the people will not follow a particular religion or believe in one god, for instance, the people who believe in Islam worship Allah, people who believe in Christianity worship Jesus Christ and there are many more religions which the people believe in across the globe. Among those many religions, there is a beautiful religion called Hinduism. A person who practices Hinduism is called a Hindu. 13% of the people across the world practice Hinduism. The sole aim of all the religions is to make the people realize the value of life and to make the most of the same but doing holy acts and by not indulging in undesirable activities, to make sure that this happens every religion has its holy book, the Christians follow the Holy Bible, the Muslims (people who believe in Islam) follow the Quran, similarly as the other people follow their holy books, the Hindus follow the Bhagavad-Gita. Bhagavad-Gita focuses upon the attainment of god, which can only be possible if the holy book is read and followed in all situations. The holy book focuses upon the fundamental teachings of Hinduism and is divided into 18 chapters to simplify complex concepts for a better understanding of the people. All the other holy books focus upon the same fundamental teachings but the only difference is that those books put across the same concepts in different words and situations. The Fundamental teachings of Hinduism Hinduism stresses upon the four most important teachings, the same will be seen one by one. The first concept is the concept of Dharma; the term means “A comprehensive ordering of life according to principles and practices appropriate for one’s age and station (“caste”) in life. This includes the basics of the Indian caste system, which segments people from birth into certain levels in society, placing each person in the caste where they will live out their life. Although the caste system was abolished by national law in 1949, it remains a significant force throughout India.” (Windmill). To simplify it can be said that Dharma is nothing but the duties which an individual has to realize and fulfill during his/her period of existence. The same is talked about in the chapter by the name “The Eternal Duties of the human beings” in Bhagavad-Gita. “Chapter three establishes the fact by various points of view that the performance of prescribed duties is obli
Introduction Globalization has opened new markets for global companies to expand their market outreach. However, as critics of globalization claim, the unfair trading environment between “poor” communities in third world countries and the strong and powerful multinational companies (MNCs) from the western world undermines the principle of fair trade. Relative to this discussion, many people have accused MNCs of exploiting workers from poor and vulnerable communities for economic gain. Mainly, they claim that the workers who toil in the field to produce coffee, cocoa, sugar and other agricultural products for the giant multinational companies get paid little money, or no money at all, for their work. Comparatively, the powerful companies that use them make huge profits from their activities. Some observers perceive this situation as modern-day slavery because even voluntary workers have to continue working for such companies because their life circumstances cannot allow them to stay unemployed. Many western companies that play a significant role in this trade gain from lower costs of production, while the western markets benefit from readily available exotic products. Undoubtedly, this situation creates a significant ethical concern regarding the activities of powerful companies in poor and vulnerable communities. This paper explores the ethical arguments surrounding this issue by explaining the positive and negative consequences of such actions. Similarly, this paper explores the actions of the authorities that should correct this situation by explaining how the principles of utilitarianism apply to this situation. What Elements (Circumstances Or Consequences) Of This Situation Are Good / Bad, Acceptable / Unacceptable? What is Unacceptable Although western companies enjoy cheap labor from developing countries, to cut their operational costs, it is unacceptable for such companies to use child labor to get raw materials. Child labor is a common form of exploitation that western MNCs “support” through their economic activities in developing countries (mainly, African and South American countries are most affected). For example, giant multinational companies often ignore the use of child labor in the cocoa fields of West Africa and Latin America. Although it is undesirable to use children as laborers, many farmers employ them to make a profit from the business because child labor is cheap. Using child labor in such a business is unacceptable because it is immoral to do so. Indeed, children who work in such farms cannot exercise their free will to accept or deny such jobs. Western companies are wrong to ignore this situation because they would not accept to use child labor in their home countries in the first place. For example, undoubtedly, the manager of a giant MNC, such as Nestle , which profits from child labor in West African cocoa fields, would not allow his children to work in such fields. T
What are the different types of hypotheses? Why might a researcher use more than one type? Establishing a well-grounded hypothesis is crucial for successful scientific research. It shows the researcher’s competence in his or her field of studies, indicates the presence of unique ideas and innovative suggestions and defines the overall direction of further research (Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh, & Sorensen, 2009). A hypothesis is called inductive if it is build based on the generalization of some phenomena and observed relationships. A deductive hypothesis is the one derived from a theory. Usually, three types of hypotheses are defined, namely research, null and alternate. The first one “states the relation one expects to find as a result of the research” (Ary et al., 2009, p. 91). The null hypothesis states that there exist no relationship between the variables or that the expected result will not be proved. The alternative hypothesis, on the contrary, represents the positive outcome of one’s suggestions, indicating that the relationship between the variables exists (Ary et al., 2009, p. 92). Using more than one hypothesis can help a researcher to explain the phenomenon more comprehensively, to consider all possible options for the solution of the problem and to reach some meaningful result (Gliner & Morgan, 2009). A researcher, thus, can show more unbiased and objective approach to the problem. What parametric and nonparametric tests are used for hypothesis testing? Parametric tests require numerical data and researcher’s assumptions about the selected parameters; the data under consideration should be from ratio or interval scale (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2011). Parametric tests usually ensure more precise testing of alternative hypotheses, as they provide the comparison of null and alternative hypotheses based on the calculated numeric probability (Sheshkin, 2003). Among the key parametric tests are the t-test for one or two independent samples, single-factor between-subjects variance analysis and one or two sample proportion test (Sheshkin, 2003). Nonparametric tests involve the group of statistical criteria, which do not include the probability distribution parameters in the calculation and are based on operating with frequencies or grades. Those tests deal with nominal and rank-order data (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2011). The most widely recognized nonparametric tests are Friedman analysis of variables test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test, Wilcoxon signed-ranks test, Moses test for equal variability, Siegel-Tukey test for equal variability, chi-square tests for homogeneity and independence (Sheshkin, 2003). What is the relationship between hypothesis testing and data? Curran (2011) defines statistical hypothesis testing as a “formal, objective, repeatable way of making inferential statements ba