ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Though the definition of media does not arouse heated debates, its role remains an object of active discussion. We can find different approaches to formulating what media means in our life. “The media play a very important role in our lives. Media help fulfill two basic needs – they inform and they entertain”, says Helen E. Katz in her (2003, p.2). In contrast to this concise and restrained definition, it is interesting to recollect Tony Schwartz’s metaphor: he calls media “the second God”, which is “all-knowing and all-powered”, existing “both outside us and within us”, but “always with us, because He is elsewhere” (1983, p.1). In his works, a famous philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan provides several definitions of media that reflect their role in people’s life. In his (1964), McLuhan claims that “all media are fragments of ourselves” (p.284). Below, I would like to discuss the meaning of this phrase and express my own considerations about it. Not intending to pick on wording just in order to philosophize, I nevertheless have to focus on the use of the world “fragments” in McLuhan’s phrase. We can see different meanings in this word: does it highlight that the essence of media reflects the essence of our “selves”, or personalities? Or does it tell us that media help us to share some pieces of our “selves”? To discuss it in detail, we need to get familiarized with McLuhan’s ideas closer. In his (1964), Marshall McLuhan offers us a phrase that has become an aphorism, “The medium is the message”. The significance of (1964) consists in
Essential functions Following are the key functions to be performed by the company’s sales manager: Link to Consumers The sales manager shall be the link between the company and its customers. The managers shall therefore be responsible in communication customer complains or any other information to the Marketing Vice President. Key duties will involve selling company products to the target market. Being the link between the company and its customers, the sales manager shall be responsible in communicating important messages to different departments; this shall make it easy for the manager to work together, and thus enable the company to reach its goals, mission and values. Recruiting Sales Staff This task will involves searching for well qualified sales staff to represent the company in different markets. The manager will also allocate duties to the newly hired sales tem together with the existing sales representatives. As the overall sales team leader, the sales manager shall be responsible in motivating, monitoring and supervising representatives’ performance both at the field and in the offices. Setting Target and Budgets The manager shall be responsible in setting budgets to be used in distributing company products to the markets, as well as setting targets for projected sales revenue in different markets. It shall be important to ensure that these goals are met. Understand the Market The sales manager shall be the source of information regarding competitors’ moves in the market, which will be important for the company because it shall be able to stay ahead of the competition after understanding rivals’ market expansion plans (Bunn & Johnson 15). Primary Objectives First, Sales manager’s key objective shall be to promote the company and its products to the market in the most aggressive and beneficial manners. Means used will be the ones that will be affordable to the company; they must also help in maintaining the value of company products among consumers. Second, The sales manager shall ensure that goods reach customers’ locations at the right time and in the form they had left company stores. This shall ensure that quality is always guaranteed, and thus prevent inconveniencing company consumes. Third, the manager shall pursue with zeal consumers loyalty to company products. This is a must achieve goal, because it will lead to more repeated business for this company. The manager should always have it in mid that most of the company’s revenue is garnered from repeated business, which should remain the case. Fourth, the sales manager shall be liable for maintaining smooth routes of communication between the company and its customers. The manager should thus inform or train the sales team on ways of keeping consumers happy and collecting information that will e of great use for the company. The sales team should understand very well their employer’s mission, goals and vision, w
Organization Type The organization under analysis can be identified as a for-profit one, as it aims at delivering services and products of the target denizens of the population and retrieving financial benefit. Seeing that the company has not expanded fully into the global market yet, it can be defined as an S-corporation. The latter type is typically described as the entrepreneurship that involves a single-taxation system and is managed financially by its shareholders. In particular, the process of taxation implies that the shareholders should partake in the process. Among the most obvious constraints of an S-Corporation, the limited amount of shareholders (100 or less) needs to be mentioned. Since the firm is planning to expand as it enters the realm of the global economy, it can be assumed that it will change its current status to a C-Corporation as a result of an increase in the number of shareholders (Shenk, 2015). Employee Compensation and Benefits Package Health Insurance The Secretary of the Department will be provided with an opportunity to use healthcare services of the Millennium organization. The specified benefits are a part of the Point-of-Service Plan strategy (Reed, Butler, & Rilla, 2011). Dental Insurance The organization also offers a Fully-Funded Employer Plan for the treatment of dental health issues of the Secretary of the Department. The specified package covers 100% of the costs and, therefore, implies that the organization is ready to invest in the health of the staff members. 401K Retirement Savings Plan Although the adoption of the plan that can be defined as the most common strategy used by the U.S. organizations might be viewed as somewhat lazy, the reasons for the specified approach to be adopted concerns primarily the fact that the firm cares about its staff members’ wellbeing and respects their rights as the members of the organization. Particularly, the give retirement plan implies that the employee is in complete control of it. Although the specified option means that a significant part of liabilities is assigned to the la
The article dwells on conservation-based management of aquatic species. In particular, exploited fish types in various ocean waters have been highlighted in the article. There are a number of unprecedented requirements that have been imposed by the various fish species especially when it comes to the need undertake real-time management of assorted fisheries. For instance, the Pacific salmon is known for its complex adaptive nature. The management process entails several steps one of which is identification of different fish species found in both fishers and sea waters. In order to make informed management decisions, incorporating abundant information is vital. In addition, population-specific timing of the available fish species comes in handy in conservation-based management. The researchers achieved an extremely accurate approximation of stock make-up for salmons that reside in River sockeye. Attaining such a high degree of accuracy would not have been possible without utilizing qualitative methods such as complex genetic variation which is also a major histocompatibility complex. The researchers in the article carried out an analysis entailing a total sum of 9300 salmon fish species. The survey was undertaken in Fraser River sockeye within a period of 2 months. In order to obtain an unbiased sample, salmon fish were extracted from mixed stock fisheries. The experiment was instrumental in finding out stock-specific exploitation objectives controlled by conservation needs. The Fraiser River drainage was the most important sample ground for the salmon fish. Data on geographical locations and key tributaries of the river were used by the researching team. This meant that gathering known samples was a crucial and initial procedure. From the article, 140 operculum punches were obtained in 1999. The latter was followed by mixed stock samples in the lower region of Fraser River and test fisheries. Either fin clips or operculum punches were used to extract DNA samples. After DNA samples had been collected, the process of laboratory analysis followed. It was necessary to analyze the different samples so as to come up with the right evaluation. The results indicated that timely and accurate information is fundamental in effective fishery management. From the analysis, accurate results were obtained from GSI data.
Introduction A contract is an agreement that outlines specific details of an issue between different parties regarding a certain matter; it is usually a written document, although it can also be verbal and is enforceable in a court of law (Turner, 2008). When a contract has been broken a breach is said to have occurred; breach of contract in legal terms is used to describe actions that has been undertaken by one of the parties in contravention to the binding agreement as originally agreed between the parties. It is also used to describe situations where the terms of an agreement as entered between various parties is not honoured according to the articles of the agreement (Elias and Levinkind, 2005). In this paper we are going to discuss two of the major ways that termination of a contract may be undertaken, namely premature termination of a contract and termination based on contractual claims. It is imperative that parties to a contract be aware of the circumstances under which a contract might be breached in general. Most of UK standard contracts dealing with engineering and construction projects have a range of provisions necessitating termination. In this paper we shall review one such form of contractual agreement that is routinely used by parties in the construction sector i.e. UK JCT building contract. Grounds for Premature Termination A contract that is prematurely terminated would normally be undertaken by the employer for a variety of reasons that has nothing to do with the nature of articles and provisions of the agreement (Murdoch and Hughes, 2008). Most forms of contract termination on this ground normally occurs under factors that are described as ‘termination for convenience” because the reasons for doing so are varied and can be undertaken at any time (Lavers, 2011). This form of contract termination provides the employer with a lot of leeway in terms of reasons of doing so which makes it very essential to ensure such reasons are justifiable in order to maintain fairness in the event that a contract is cancelled on such grounds. There are three grounds for termination covered by the UK JCT contract; one, when a contractor fails to rectify a structural fault within a period of 14 days after being notified to do so (Lavers, 2011). After the expiry of these 14 days the employer is justified to terminate the contract if the contractor had not rectified such faults by then and this will mean the contract has been prematurely terminated. Secondly, the employer may prematurely terminate the contract if there is evid
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s is a fictional story that surpasses the field of Vietnam War fiction. Essentially, it surpasses the fiction in general even though the author categorizes it as a work of fiction. The story, narrated in first-person narrator covers the events before and after the war. The story exposes the soldiers’ dilemma, fears, and feelings during and after the war. The author explores the historical, social and economic setting of the time, which is evident in the contemporary world (O’Brien 1). The soldiers are depicted as young men who are unprepared for the war. This is evident by the intangible emotional fear they carry along with memories of their loved ones. Tim O’Brien’s captures the historical negative effects of Vietnam War on US economy. The soldiers carried some food supplies, pictures of their girlfriends, fear, sadness and confusion. This in essence portrayed their social status, a characteristic exhibited by a present day soldier when going to war. The Irony of being at war is that Peace and conflict are both inevitable; it is the way we handle either of the two that determines our opinion of life in general both in the present and future, that is clearly depicted in the book where O’Brien is the Protagonist re-living his experience at war through the pages of his book as the fictional character. Age, we see that this is an important qualification required when recruiting troops to join the army in fighting any war. Among other things, lack of maturity was largely the cause of death as young men under nineteen, were not equipped with the emotional stability required to deal with the Ugliness of war. When drafted, one is not left with much choice and the decision made is unfortunately more often than no based on fear other than ethics. With the alternative of going to jail many of the young men reluctantly motivated only by the embarrassment of shame. Among the striking things possessed by the soldiers were weapons, protective gears for survival purposes. Personal items included a bible, foot powder, comic books, marijuana and a hatchet. O’Brien asserts that dignity could never be put down and was perhaps the hardest emotion to carry but could not be surrendered. O’Brien observes that fear and panic in the midst of the noise of battle was a common phenomenon. Ironically, some soldiers were at the brink of crying, wishing that they had not come (O’Brien 21). The narrator brings forward the constant stream of distressing memories of the war, attempts of realism and insights. Fear among the soldiers
Penny Pasque and Shelley Errington conducted an extensive study to establish the position of women in high learning, particularly in institutions of higher learning. Their study incorporated the feminist theory to assess the state of affairs in these institutions, as far as women are concerned. The book has five sections with nineteen chapters, which are closely related. In the first section, they talk about the waves that have shaped the struggles of women, including the efforts put in place to support women in high education. The scholars argue that at least three waves of feminism have existed since women started fighting for their rights in society. The contributions of Native American women are much appreciated since they contributed to the elimination of some of the issues that affected women as far as achievement of their dreams were concerned. The major waves of feminism employ various ideologies, including radicalism, Marxism, liberalism, and socialism (Pasque, & Errington, 2011). In the second chapter of the first section, the two scholars discuss issues that women encounter in their professions. It is noted that professional women have always encountered problems in realizing their academic dreams, particularly in institutions of high learning. The two authors engaged in research to interview professional women on their views pertaining to the role of women in advancing high education in the country. The findings of their study were shocking because all women expressed their displeasure regarding the roles that society allocates to women. Women are expected to undertake inferior courses in institutions of high learning, such as nursing and secretary, while men special and advanced courses, such as medicine and engineering are reserved for men. In the third chapter, the authors talk about some of the techniques that women applied in advocating for their rights. For instance, women collaborated with other minority groups, such as the disabled and people of minority races, to claim their rights in high education. The second section of the book analyzed the professional experiences of women graduating from the established institutions of high learning. Through research, the authors concluded that life was never easy for any woman. Some women would engage in professional work while at the same time furthering their studies, but few of them could manage this experience. The student leadership in the institutions of higher learning did nothing to avert this situation. This was mainly because women were u
The film “Coded Bias” provides comprehensive information regarding the problems related to facial recognition algorithms, determining several sources of bias. They primarily include the original orientation of creators on white faces, leading to the lack of data regarding dark complexion and the prevalence of prejudiced male developers. These conditions do not allow establishing equality in terms of race and gender and seem to present a significant threat to the field stemming from the failure to meet everyone’s needs. In addition, the lack of knowledge of how the programs process data and make conclusions does not help eliminate the risks. In turn, the possible ways of reducing this type of bias attributed to present-day facial recognition algorithms are to prevent their implementation in legal proceedings and police activity in general and introduce practical improvements. The former means accepting responsibility for decisions, and the latter suggestion is multi-faceted and should begin with updating databases to increase their variety and conducting independent assessments to confirm efficiency. By adopting these measures, bias based on race and gender can be addressed over time, and the appropriate quality of operations can be guaranteed. The mentioned ideas seem crucial for promoting proper use of technology; however, they can not only increase the precision of programs but also resolve the challenge concerning surveillance and racialized minorities. This standpoint is based on the above consideration, according to which accountability for decisions should be clearly established. This change can be performed if the algorithms work correctly, and minimizing or eliminating bias, in this case, is possible if internal and external evaluations correlate with each other
For decades and even centuries, literacy was associated with the ability to read and write exclusively. However, these skills are far from being sufficient to be successful in the 21 st century. People start adding more meanings to the notion, which leads to a certain confusion in the society, educational systems, as well as people’s minds (Mackenzie 1). Although a specific definition has not been developed, people agree that being literate includes but is not confined to being able to understand textual, visual, and audial information (Kędra 67). Educators also argue that critical thinking and social skills, as well as the ability to use diverse types of technology, are as important as the ones mentioned above. It is possible to note that literate people of the 21 st century can appropriately process and respond to textual, visual, audial, social, cultural, technology-based messages. Such areas of knowledge as reading and writing have been associated with literacy, which has not changed throughout decades. Being literate presupposes being able to read and write texts, but these skills are only a part of the basic items on the list (Kędra 67). Educators emphasize that contemporary people also need to “read” visual and audial messages to elicit as much data as possible to develop the most effective behavioral patterns (“What Does It Mean to Be Literate”). Nowadays, every individual is bombarded with diverse visual and audial bits of data, and it is critical to interpreting these messages correctly to be successful in modern society. Importantly, critical thinking skills, as well as social and emotional literacy, are also regarded as fundamental for the current life. Children who can socialize and understand others’ emotional states have proved to be more successful than those who do not have such types of literacies (“What Does It Mean to Be Literate”). Globalization has brought people of various backgrounds together, and the representatives of different cultures have to interact in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, teachers should take into account these multiple literacies to equip their students with what they will need in their future. It is also necessary to note that the ability to use media and technology is also a part of the literacy of the 21 st century. Young people and children are savvy users of diverse types of technological advances such as mobile- and computer-based technologies (“What Does It Mean to Be Literate”). Middle-aged and older people tend to lag, which makes them less prepared to address the challenges of the modern world. Furthermore, children and adolescents are heavy users of technology, but they may use it ineffectively. Hence, teachers should make sure they help their students to overcome issues associated with the use of technology, as well as help their students’ parent
Introduction Corruption is a highly widespread phenomenon, which normally occurs in the situations of political and social dominance of one individual over another and when regulations and policies poorly function. This definition applies to the case of police corruption since law enforcement officers can exercise both legal and physical power to gain personal and financial benefits at the expense of citizens. Noteworthily, along with other types of corruption, police corruption is considered to be more common in less developed and less democratic countries (Aymaliev & Kosals, 2016). A possible reason for such an outcome is that less democratic states provide greater opportunities for involvement in corruption due to administrational failures to deal with the problem. As a developing democracy, Russia has high corruption levels that have been reported in numerous international studies (Gerber & Mendelson, 2008; Semukhina & Reynolds, 2013). Acknowledging the severity of the problem, president Dmitry Medvedev began a process of police reform in 2011 aimed “to improve the work of Internal Affairs Authorities of the Russian Federation” (Gladarev, 2012, para. 1; Galeotti, 2012). While many researchers question the results of the introduced initiatives, the causes for the insignificant effect of the recent Russian police reform remain understudied. Therefore, the present research project will explore the determinants of police corruption that the reform aimed to target from the perspective of institutional theory, which captures both individual and organizational factors of corruption. The police reform in Russia will also be contrasted with measures undertaken with a purpose to curb police corruption in other countries, including Australia and Georgia. Research Question Which individual, institutional, and organizational factors of corruption did Medvedev’s 2011 police reform target, and how successful was it in eliminating the practice of corruption among law enforcement officers in Russia compared to other states? Aims To evaluate the factors of in/effectiveness of Medvedev’s 2011 police reform while contrasting the undertaken measures with those from other countries (Australia and Georgia). Objectives The formulated research aim will be achieved by meeting the following objectives:   * to critically evaluate the existing literature on factors predisposing individuals and public bodies to corruption by focusing on the institutional theory perspective.   * to appraise the literature on the police system in Russia, ident