ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Meningiomas are tumor growths that develop and extend from the meninges. These types of tumors are common and comprise a third of all brain tumors. Normally, meningiomas develop as slow–growing tumors (Lee 10). However, with time, malignancy cannot be overruled. According to medical researchers, most meningiomas are asymptomatic and exhibit no symptoms throughout an individual’s life. In addition, there exist no formal treatments other than periodic observation (Ransohoff 15). For these reasons, there are several types of meningiomas based on their locations, which include convexity meningiomas and Olfactory Groove Meningiomas. Causes To date, the main causes of meningiomas are still unknown. However, like other cancerous growths, meningiomas are initiated by exposure to unfavorable factors such as atomic radiation and other body elements leading to a genetic disorder in the body. (Lee 20). Physically, the tumors may result from head injuries, though their linkage is unknown (Ransohoff 15). Convexity Meningiomas Convexity meningiomas tumors develop on the dural base under the lower occipital, and suboccipital bone overlying the convexity (Mefty 135). As a result, Convexity meningiomas grow on the surface of the brain, beneath the skull. This accounts for more than twenty percent of all meningiomas (Ransohoff 65). Convexity meningiomas are normally asymptomatic until the tumors enlarge in size. After the tumors have enlarged significantly, their symptoms appear based on their location and proximity to the brain. According to health experts, convexity meningiomas normally affect individuals within the age group of the ’40s and ’70s (Mefty 137). Symptoms Headaches According to medical experts, one of the most common symptoms of convexity meningiomas is headache (Mefty 138). These headaches can be mild or severe, and naturally occur on the forehead. Growth of convexity meningiomas in the brain changes the brain pressure levels. With increased brain pressure, affected individuals typically experience severe headache pain, limiting one’s ability to concentrate. In this regard, headache pains among on-convexity meningiomas patients occur regularly or irregularly. However, among convexity patients the headache pains recur frequently. Seizures Another major symptom experienced by convexity meningiomas patients are seizures (Ransohoff 78). Seizures results from abnormal disruption of the brain electrical activity. Most of the patients, who have had seizures, have reported experiencing involuntary muscle spasms coupled with visual hallucinations lasting for short periods. Once the seizure ends, affected individuals emerge as confuse, fatigue
Introduction The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model is a mechanism that is mainly used by organizations to enhance their efficiency, particularly when it comes to the issue of strategy management and achievement. Often, organizations rely on several indicators to determine whether their performances are well in track to achieve organizational objectives. Such indicators, including the financial measurements are, however, inadequate in pointing out accurately an organization’s actual position in as far as it business operations and performance are concerned. The BSC provides an elaborate mechanism for organizations to determine several indicators, which are all used in determining strategy. This paper seeks to discuss the use and efficiency of BSCs by organizations as they pursue their strategies and objectives. In particular, the paper seeks to discuss Tesco Plc. and its application of BSC. Tesco Plc. is the leading British retailer of food, selling more than 4000 varied food products. The retailer has further expanded its portfolio to include the sale of other non-food items, including electronics, kitchen utensils, stationery, and clothing among many other commodities. The Tesco chain of stores is currently ranked as the third largest in the world, after global leader Walmart of the USA and French company Carrefour. Apart from operating in native Britain, Tesco also has a presence in at least 13 other countries across the globe (Datamonitor, 2011). In 2012, Tesco achieved a total group sales value of £72 billion and £3.8 billion in profits before taxation. The underlying diluted earnings per share increased by 2.1%, while the full year dividend per share stood at 14.76% (Tesco Plc, 2012). Tesco introduced its BSC in 1998. Over the years, the BSC has been critical in enabling the firm to achieve its strategies and objectives. Each year, the firm reviews its BSC with the intention of ensuring that its organizational goals are achieved. There is strict adherence to the BSC in Tesco. Weekly data is accumulated and stored. The scorecard in every store helps managers to also access the corporate scorecard that is presented on quarterly basis (Witcher & Chau, 2008). Management staffs at the top of the hierarchy oversee the firm’s performance in the process of unearthing problems in the firm. However, once the problem areas have been identified the local management is given the mandate to resolve and improve on the areas. Given the size of Tesco Plc., the firm req
Introduction Knowledge management refers to the “strategies and practices that are used by organizations to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adaptation of insights and experiences” (Frappaolo, 2006). The insights and the experiences represent knowledge. In the context of an organization, the knowledge can be embedded in the various management processes or it can be embodied in employees. Knowledge management as a field of study emerged in the early 1990s (Frappaolo, 2006). It was later adopted as a management function that focused on creating competitive advantages by indentifying and modeling valuable information. In the twentieth century, knowledge management evolved in response to technological advancement. Thus new concepts such as knowledge bases and expert systems were adopted. At the beginning of the twenty first century, knowledge management was emphasized at the employee level in order to improve their competence and productivity. The concept of knowledge management has been adopted due to the following reasons. First, it aims at providing the knowledge that is required in product development (Scarbrough & Swan, 2001). Second, it helps organizations to manage their intellectual resources effectively. Finally, it enables the organizations to understand the business environment. Besides, it enables workers to acquire the ideas and experiences that are relevant to their responsibilities. Thus the competitive advantages that are associated with knowledge management include the following. First, it enables firms to “leverage the expertise of their workers” (Frappaolo, 2006) in order to achieve their strategic goals. Second, it facilitates innovation and learning within the organization. This leads to increased efficiency and productivity. Finally, the new ideas or information helps in shortening the product development cycle. This enables firms to
Introduction Life course perspective assists us to think about late adulthood in the context of the entire life course. It recognizes that the experiences of the current stage of life are shaped by life events experienced in earlier stages of our lives. This paper discusses; life course perspective contributions to our understanding of personality development, mental health and/or cognitive changes in late adulthood; and three research studies designed in a manner that reflected the life course perspectives. Life course consists of elements that make up the overall structure and timing of events in one’s life from birth to death. Life courses must be examined and taken into account to understand the aged individual. This is the basis for longitudinal studies. Life structure is composed of: roles, such as, occupational, social, and family; relationships, for instance, intimate, personal and professional; and inner structure, that is, goals, values, motives, and memories. The development of all these aspects can be considered a life course. To understand this development or progression, change and continuity are the elements that must be examined. Elder (2008) focused on the richness and uniqueness of an elder’s life course. Assisting elders understand the story of their lives preserves identity and feelings of self worth. Contributions of life course perspectives to understanding personality development, mental health and/or cognitive changes in late adulthood Life course perspective contributes a lot in the understanding of personality development, mental health and cognitive changes in late adulthood. First, when one adopts life course perspective, understanding the role of individual differences in personality play in mastering different socio-developmental tasks across life span is possible. Life course perspective provides a system for describing individual differences in personality dispositions and temperamental traits (Heath, 1999). According to life course perspective, prior experiences, including occupancy, and patterning of roles in early adulthood, can affect subsequent wellness. In other words, being aware of something about the past experiences of an individual would assist to account for differences in psychological wellness in later life. A more dynamic, longitudinal and contextual view of the relationship between health and wellness is necessary. Turner, (2008) explains that it may not be
Introduction Environmentally it would be very difficult to argue against the fact that waste management has become an eminent factor of consideration in the whole world. The development of land is occurring at an alarming rate while the rates of recycling, scarce usage and proper disposal of waste remain dismally very low. The amount of discards by users exacerbates various environmental problems. The significant environmental strains are thus attributable to unregulated use and discarding mechanisms especially for waste that involves synthetic materials due to improper discards. Thesis statement This paper presents a road cleanup of trash and examines the real situational effects of waste to environmental degradation. The analysis also focuses on the intellectual behavior of people regarding environmental cleanup procedures. In the fight against negative impact posed to the environment by waste, recycling or reuse of materials such as glass, plastic bottles, and metals are major campaign strategies for environmental justice and peace. Environmental effects of Waste On the issue of the environmental effects, industries may be causing a lot of strain to the environment but the proposed solutions counters on intoxication and cleanup management techniques. Today the environment is facing a serious challenge whereby the plastics are not recycled, and instead they face haphazard dumping all over. Plastics remain at the dumping sites for hundreds of years because they break down at a very slow pace and thus the reason why we need a controlled mechanism. For the above mention reasons, it would be better to cleanup and sort waste for recycling, other than keep producing new similar products and dumping. Today the world is faced with the problem of global warming, as a result, if emissions to the atmosphere. Besides the fuel and emissions of green house gases such as carbon dioxide, the waste deposits also cause major global effects. The solution to environmental degradation The first procedure is an urgent need to inform people and ensure they understand the fundamental principles of enhancing life through waste management. Study indicates that only a ninth of the used plastic bottles are recycled. The rest face is dumping into the woods, roadsides, seascapes, streams or rivers. These decay-resistant materials clog the landfills, thus causing intoxication through leaching (McKinney et al., 162). What procedures can boost the deposits cleanup procedures? As an environmentalist, I was involved in various cleanup procedures. The best practices for enhancing plastic recycling in today’s setting are through awareness campaigns over the impact on the environment. It is important to create responsiveness among consumers over home or business recycling initiative, provide the consumers with the latest news, and recycling methods regarding ways of dealing with wastes (McKinney et al., 150). Other than enforcing awareness, the physical cleanup procedures comprise of three main steps. The environmentalist must assess contamination of the site, for instance, the number of waste deposits. The a
Religion is a vital aspect of many cultures and the primary global faiths encompass millions of followers, which in the modern globalized world continuously travel, interact, exchange beliefs, and co-exist. Religious literacy is an important skill in the 21st century in order to have the ability to comprehend and establish a dialogue with people of other faiths without creating difficulties in communication or inadvertently insulting them. Religious literacy can bridge cultural divides while illiteracy can cause issues in interaction (Moseley, n.d.: par. 1). Religious illiteracy can contribute strongly to ethnic and religious conflicts which often plague interreligious areas where boundaries are contested alongside national identities. Religious spaces protected in communal settings use autochthonal rhetoric and creating cosmopolitan identities which contribute to inciting differences. In the modern pluralistic world, there are many regions in both developed and developing countries with deeply divisive century-old religious conflicts that can only be maintained through competence and understanding of the inherent socio-cultural elements that contribute to the religious identity and kinship in such communities (Robinson, 2016: 476). When approaching the study of religions and culture, there are inherently insider and outside perspectives which offer differing viewpoints regarding faith and values. While an insider understanding helps to have self-knowledge and better understanding, it can also lead to self-deception and prejudicial stance. An outsider perspective that someone with religious illiteracy would not have offers the opportunity of detached analysis and critical reason regarding the matter of faith. Religious illiteracy may face challenges of personal and passional commitment, at times reaching radical depersonalization while a broad understanding of all religions removes vitality and offers objectivity and sympathy of other’s religious traditions (Kessler, 2002: 3). Religious literacy is an aspect that is commonly useful in situations outside conflict zones and scholarly research. Ironically, the United States as one of the most religiously diverse countries is also the most illiterate in that sense. The prevalence of religious illiteracy is inherently dangerous due to the volatility of the concept, and through history, religion has been one of the greatest advocates or supporting mechanisms for forces
Developing a plan for a company’s expansion in the international market is not an easy task. However, with appropriate planning and careful approaches, companies may come up with successful methods that will enable them to become prosperous in other countries. To make one’s business aspirations profitable, it is necessary to develop a strategy that will help to implement the desired innovations. First of all, such planning requires the investigation of the target industry in another country. Then, the company needs to choose the most appropriate entry mode and assess its limitations and benefits. Furthermore, the organizational structure should be selected and outlined. Finally, successful international expansion is not possible without a follow-up action plan which will delineate further procedures necessary to acquire a stable place in the international market. A Brief Description of the Company and Chocolate Industry in Singapore Saudi Chocolate Company (SCC) is a Saudi company that was established in 1995. The first factory was built in Riyadh – the heart of the Kingdom. We aimed to provide the market with the finest chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa derivatives. Currently, the Saudi Chocolate Company is the largest chocolate producer in the Middle East. With our team of experts in chocolate production, we have managed to reach state-of-the-art chocolate production. The confectionery industry in Singapore develops at a high rate. Over the past few years, the growth level was 20% annually (Koh). The largest importers of chocolate and sugar are the US, North Asia, the EU, and Australia. Of the entire food consumption in Singapore, confectionery has the largest percentage growth. As lifestyles in the Asia Pacific area become enhanced, people’s taste choices are altering accordingly. Growing urbanization and income levels among the citizens of Singapore are the main agents for market expansion (Acute Market Research). The reasons for chocolate market growth in Singapore are connected with a wide spectrum of the utilization of chocolate confectionery and flavored food products. Moreover, market growth is expected to be sustainable owing to chocolate’s stress mitigating abilities and its nutritional value (Acute Market Research). Along with other Asia Pacific regions, Singapore is assumed to be a fast-expanding market owing to high demand. Changing consumer choices lead to increased sales, which require thorough approaches to expansion strategy development. The current leading chocolate manufacturers include Ferrero Group, Mondelez International, Hershey Foods Corporation, Meiji Co Ltd, Arcor, Nestle, and others (Acute Market Research). With the current expansion of chocolate products in Singapore, the Saudi Chocolate Company could take advantage of the situation and enter the confectionery market with further development plans. Recommended Entry Mode and Rationale in Singapore There is a diversity of entry modes into the international market, each of them having advantages and disadvantages. Taking into consideration the aspirations of the Saudi Chocolate Company and the target market, exporting seems the most suitable solut
A common thread running through The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is the disparity between our façades and our real selves, as well as the disparity between what we tell ourselves about the reality of our situations and what is actually real. The main character, Dowell, must come to terms with the realization that no one is who he believes them to be. Dowell has constructed a reality for himself, one which has kept him afloat. But when his reality is shattered by truly getting to know the people around him, he must redefine what it means to be ordinary. The book essentially asks the question, ‘What is normal, anyway?’ Another question asked by the book—one which the main character must grapple with—is ‘What is a good person?’ At the onset of the novel, Dowell’s world is well defined. He classifies people into neat boxes, much like a checklist. You are good or you are bad. You are normal or you are abnormal. For Dowell, a normal person is one who is conservative, obeys the rules society has laid out for us and is devoid of passion. Decisions are made rationally, within the confines of what is acceptable behavior according to the mores and norms of society. For Dowell, the social contract trumps all. If one is unwilling to abide by the very fabric of our society—the unspoken rules we all agree to—then nothing is secure. If you do not follow the rules and the morality which we all claim to espouse, then you are bad. For Dowell, the classification of people should be quite simple. In juxtaposition with Dowell’s very dispassionate and detached ideas about how one should behave, think, and feel is the recurring image of the heart. The book revolves around two couples, who according to the narrator in the opening, are ‘normal’ friends. The heart serves as a motif woven throughout the story itself. In fact, the two couples meet because of their literal hearts, or at least, because of their supposed heart ailments. Dowell’s wife, Florence, and the husband of their couple friend, Edward, are being treated at a spa in Germany for heart conditions. And it is the feelings of the heart, which lead to the downfall of the characters in the book. This is a perfect opposing feature to allow the story’s conflict and theme to fully blossom. Dowell’s view of the world is laid asunder due to the heart. It is because of our feelings that life does not work in the manner Dowell wishes it did. The irony is deep and terrifically rendered for the main character, whose world would be complete if people would simply ignor
“Mending Wall” is one of those poems that are not particularly difficult to decipher. Written by Robert Frost, the poem addresses a metaphorical wall that people build around themselves, excluding others from their lives. However, while the topic and theme of the poem are quite clear, its message might not be. At first glance, Frost warns his readers against building a wall that would isolate them from others: “Where there are cows? But here, there are no cows.” (Frost, n.d.). However, the specified interpretation appears to be far too straightforward and simplistic to represent the core of the poem. Moreover, Frost does not stalk the audience directly, nor does he make a statement about the barriers that people build to prevent others from entering into their lives: “Good fences make good neighbors” (Frost, n.d.). Therefore, the exact message of the poem could be seen as quite difficult to identify. Arguably, Frost encourages his readers to define the boundaries of their walls carefully, not to exclude the people that are essential to them. The question of the poem’s purpose, or the lack thereof, brings one to the question of why writing a poem without one. Indeed, from a rational perspective, creating a poetic piece that does not have a distinctive goal seems pointless. However, the described assumption represents a general misunderstanding of the very concept of a poem. Unlike other literary genres, which are typically built to convey a rational thought, a poem usually represents an amalgamation of emotions and strives to evoke similar feelings in a reader. Similarly, Frost’s “Mending Wall” is expected to evoke an emotional response as opposed to introducing a rational solution. Therefore, the lack of purpose does not devalue the specified art piece. Reference Frost, R. (n.d.). Mending wall . Web.