ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction An indecent behavior is defined as an action that is inconsistent with generally acknowledged moral standards in a society. This implies that indecent behavior is relatively contextual to the concerned society. Consequently, a society might regard a behavior as being indecent while another society does not condemn it. Grisham (1996) portrays violence as an indecent behavior where he writes about Sarah who narrates her experience as a murderer. This essay will touch on the constituents of indecency, the role of society in defining indecency as well as the connection between indecency policies and social change. Constituents of Indecent Behavior While I appreciate that indecent behavior is contextual to the society’s perceptions, Grisham has isolated a core constituent of indecent behavior which is a perceptively universal. In this light, he has focused on violence that is depicted in movies and absorbed by people in real life situations. In his article, Grisham describes Sarah’s testimony where she narrates about her journey to Memphis along with her boyfriend. Sarah, further, reveals that they had watched a violent movie, which is referred to as Natural Born Killers, before starting their journey. This movie induced violence in her boyfriend making him to kill people on his way. However, we realize that murder is not accepted in their community since the actors of the movie were jailed after killing fifty-two people (Stone, 1996). The author additionally states that Sarah and Ben had not started their trials in the court of law which would litigate their case. This statement shows that Sarah and Ben should ultimately face the law and confront a case of murder besides violence. Indecency Media Attraction Media is attracted to indecent behavior due to materialism which entirely considers profits and disregards the negative impacts on the societal behavior. The media has realized that violent entertainment is a form of modern popular culture. Consequently, they have profoundly concentrated on violence especially in entertainment. Grisham (1996) portrays how the media is attracted to violence regardless of morality. In his article, he explains that Sarah and Ben had watched a violent movie and travelled to watch another one at Memphis. This shows that the media has noticed the increasing quest for violent entertainment. It is, therefore, indisputable that the urge of watching violent movies has inspired the attraction of media to violent entertainment. Social Change and Policing Indecency Grisham (1996) contends that there is an extremely strong connection between entertaining media indecency and changing the social behavior. He argues that indecency instills immoral aspects in the society which reduce the overall standards
Virginia Commonwealth University has evolved from quite a small college into an educational establishment offering numerous courses in various fields (Bonis, Koste and Lyons 7). Moreover, VCU has also shaped the layout of the city (Peifer n.p.). It is quite easy to predict the future of this university when taking into account the past of VCU. One of major values of VCU has been diversity and development (“Report of the Commission to plan for the establishment of a proposed state-supported university” 33). The university now offers courses in medicine, education, business, engineering, science and so on. It has also announced development of the art school. VCU will offer a number of courses in the contemporary art. Importantly, introduction of new courses is associated with construction of new facilities that are often combined into a complex of campuses. It is necessary to note that the university’s prestige has increased significantly since the 1990s (Peifer n.p.). More students as well as educators are attracted. Of course, these are talented and ambitious people, who contribute to development of their disciplines and strive for self-development. This leads to expansion of the university as new facilities are built to meet the demands of newcomers and attract more students. This also leads to diversity that affects the development of the educational establishment. New courses are provided to respond to this diversity. Hence, the next step in the development of VCU is further integration of its facilities into a single complex. Thus, VCU is likely to be connected with MCV through a number of facilities that will be built in the nearest future. Opening of the art school in 2015 may play an important role in this process. Facilities of the new faculties will physically unite VCU and MCV. New buildings and areas used by the educational establishment will be located between VCU and MCV. In the long run, the city’s downtown can transform into a university city where facilities of a single educational establishment will be located. The city is already changing significantly and these changes respond to demands of new students and educators. New shops, malls, restaurants and recreational areas appear in the city. New parks and squares will contribute to transformation of the city into a big and complex VCU campus. The newly integrated educational establishment is likely to be called Virginia Commonwealth University. Its culture will be still based on principles of diversity and development. Each faculty will have a significant degree of freedom but there will be centralized management as well. It will ensure that all faculties will comply with the culture and major regulations of VCU. It will be easier to impose certain standards and follow them, which is important for the image of the educational establishment. To sum up, it is possible to foresee big changes that will take place in VCU. It will become bigger and more complex. The university will offer cours
The increased complexity of modern society preconditions the appearance of new approaches to management. The fact is that the functioning of a certain organization depends on a number of factors; however, efficient management remains crucial as it aligns the cooperation between various departments and assures those relevant objectives will be considered. For this reason, much attention is given to the sphere of management and ways to implement it into the functioning of modern organizations. Besides, consideration of a company as a certain system with its unique peculiarities is one of the basic elements of modern management. There is a tendency to differentiate between open and closed systems as they have different properties that affect the functioning of a company greatly. For instance, a problematic issue could be considered from both perspectives to understand the advantages and disadvantages of one or another approach. An organization under consideration experiences a significant staff shortage that affects its performance and deteriorates final results. Using a closed-system perspective, several important points should be outlined. First, this sort of system introduces limits for the data transfer between the company and other organizations as well as between various departments within the company itself (Johnson, Miller, & Horowitz, 2008). This model makes the unit’s functioning less efficient. Despite the fact that departments are organized in an autonomous manner and possess certain independence, the results might be unsatisfying. Workers might feel isolated and suffer from a lack of corporate spirit. For this reason, a staff shortage becomes a crucial problem for the company of this sort. First, its closed character bears pressure upon them. Second, departments isolation introduces the low degree of substitutability, and it is hard to align the company’s functioning in case one or another worker quits. However, using the open-system perspective, some other facts should be noted. The open system model presupposes that a certain entity is free to exchange information with the other ones to promote its evolution and rise (Marquis & Huston, 2015). In reference to the above-mentioned problem of staff shortage, the adherence to the given perspective could help to minimize the probability of the problem’s occurrence or make its aftermath less devastating. Possessing certain information about other departments functioning, workers will be able to function more efficiently and decrease the level of stress (Marquis & Huston, 2015). Moreover, the constant flow of data guarantees improved outcomes and results in better motivation. For this reason, open systems are preferable in the complex modern environment. Considering the above-mentioned facts, it is possible to improve the system by initiating its transition from the closed to open one. First, improved cooperation between departments should be e
Creativity today is seen as one of the most important traits of a successful person. It is responsible for such crucial activities as problem-solving, decision making, critical approach, inventions and discoveries, unconventional solutions. Creativity is required in almost any profession. Besides, it is a feature that makes people’s everyday life easier and much more interesting. The origins, development, and growth factors of creativity have been studied by multiple experts in the field of psychology. There are various approached towards the definition of creativity and the aspects of human life it is mostly used in. The scientists agree that creativity starts to develop in early childhood and continues to grow during the teenage, and there are circumstances that help its growth or slow it down. The scholars distinguish between two different types of thinking. First one is called convergent thinking; it represents a person’s ability to form solutions and solve problems relying on logic, experience, and knowledge. The other one is divergent thinking; it is responsible for innovations, alternative approach, and unusual decisions (Feldman, 2011). Creativity is often associated with divergent thinking. This kind of thinking starts to develop in early childhood. Individuals demonstrate higher and lower abilities of divergent thinking. In adult life, creativity and divergent thinking can also be developed and stimulated. The desire to create something that has not been produced before starts with the desire to explore, learn, and gain knowledge empirically (Feinstein, 2006). This means that the development of creativity in childhood happens when the children’s desire to explore the world around is satisfied. One more very important factor that stimulated the development of creativity is the application of critical thinking, search for solutions. For example, when a child is asking questions this signals about their interest towards the outer world, and in such situations, it is best to stimulate the thinking process, let the child build hypotheses and try to answer their question, or answer it using demonstration. Teaching a child to accept whatever is said blindly is a way to reduce their creativity and ability for critical thinking (Torrance, 2013). It is recommended or the educators to teach the children to see connections and be able to apply the knowledge they gained in the classroom in life outside of school. The process of learning should not be locked in the four walls of the classr
Introduction David Ricardo proposed the theory of comparative advantage and several other offshoots of the theory arose as refinements. According to the comparative advantage theory, trade is beneficial even in the absence of absolute advantages. Improvements in the competitive advantage theory include the Heckscher-Ohlin theory that calls for the use of the most abundant factor of production to gain a competitive advantage for a state. In addition, the Stolper-Samuelson theory says that trade liberalization is beneficial to abundantly-endowed factors of production, meaning that less-endowed factors are disadvantaged. At the same time, there is the state-centered approach and the society centered approach, seeking to explain the relationship between countries and their uptake of trade globally, as well as the reasons for the existence of protectionist practices amid trading partners. Differences between Stolper-Samuelson and Ricardo-Viner The comparative advantage theory and its offshoots fail to explain the rapid increase in inter-industry and inter-firm trade because they concentrate on national units of production. The society-centered theory cautions against
Introduction The aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake which impacted that eastern half of Japan resulted in $309 billion in property and business losses with major companies such as Panasonic, Toyota and Sony having been adversely impacted as well due to various aspects of their supply line (i.e. manufacturing and delivery facilities) having been located within the Tohoku region (Chandler, 2012: 26). Not only that, many local businesses and enterprises were of course adversely impacted as well creating a subsequent boom in short to mid term loan requests in order for such companies to avoid bankruptcy (Westervelt, 2011: 19). Based on this, the problems that need to be addressed as a result of this crisis are threefold: the first is the need to implement some form of reconstruction, the second is to address the issue of the sheer amount of business loan requests to local lenders and the last is the need to keep markets calm and not cause undue negative speculation which could result in unstable market conditions. All of these factors boils down to what the Japanese central bank could possibly do to handle this particular crisis and what would be the inevitable effects on the Japanese money market and foreign exchange market. Possible Solution One possible solution to this issue takes the form of the central bank emulating what it did immediately after the 1995 Kobe earthquake in which it created a 500 billion yen loan program which targeted various banks and lenders within the affected region of the disaster (Neely, 2011: 303). Articles released a month after the earthquake disaster indicated that the central bank was planning a 2 trillion Yen (roughly $186 billion) infusion into the economy in order to both ease market concerns and address the issue of providing sufficient loans for businesses within the affected area of the disaster. The inherent problem with this strategy is that this will increase the value of the yen which would subsequently hurt exports within the country as well as cripple the recovery efforts that will need to be undertaken within Japan’s eastern region. Analysis of Money Markets The Great East Japan Earthquake, March 2011 What you have to understand is that immediately after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake the Yen actually strengthened instead of weakened, as seen in the chart indicated above. The reason behind this can be connected to several reasons: the first being the fact that “historically” the Japanese Yen has been a currency with low interest rates, as such; investors have tended to use it as funding currency wherein they borrow Yen and subsequently invest it in other markets where the overall interest rates are better (Fisher, 2012: 76 – 78). The end result of such actions was that when the disaster impacted Japan (resulting in a drop in currency values) various investors actually unwound their overseas investments and bought Yen as a method of covering their pending debt repayments to creditors. When combined with the second reason behind the currency value increase, which was
Information About the Author and Journal The article titled “Examining CRM and ECRM Adoption by Greek Firms” was written by Irene Samanta, Graduate Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece, and published in the Journal of Marketing and Operations Management Research in 2012. It was later republished in the International Journal of Systems Engineering in 2019. Research Questions and Objectives The article seeks to answer the following research questions (Samanta, 2012):   * How do CRM strategy and information technology affect B2B relationships?   * What is the impact of the firm’s size on its technology adoption? The objective of this research is to effectively approach the topic of CRM applications in Greek companies that utilize it at the consumer product level. This objective is important due to the fact that CRM technologies have become the standard of operations in the global market (Samanta, 2012). As such, the rates of their adoption, their availability, success, and effects on B2-B relationships require an analysis with respect to the companies’ capabilities, sizes, market segment, and geographical positioning. Methodology and Data Collection Instruments The methodology of data collection and analysis is as follows (Samanta, 2012): The participants in the study were recruited from Greek firms that dealt in the consumer products sector that have either applied CRM technology or had RM practices without utilizing specialized software (Samanta, 2012). All participants had a degree of knowledge about CRM technology and showed interest in participation. The candidates were chosen from a list of companies as presented by the databases of the Greek Union of Consumer Products Industries as well as those of Statbank, which accumulates about 85% of the companies in Greece (Samanta, 2012). The researchers utilized snowball sampling methods in order to find companies relevant to the search. The response rate was 19.8%, with 73 participants out of 370 firms that were considered for research (Samanta, 2012). The selection of the companies included small-sized firms (10-49 personnel) as well as small-medium (between 50 to 249 personnel) (Samanta, 2012). Very small companies (under ten personnel) were excluded from research because of relatively low awareness of CRM technologies or relationship marketing in general (Samanta, 2012). The preferred data collection instrument was the questionnaire. It was sent to participants via e-mail after the initial contacts were filled out and the interest in the research was fully presented (Samanta, 2012). The primary respondents were either general managers, management assistants, or related contact persons in the Marketing and Sales departments. Results of the Study The study found that the main advantages as recognized by Greek small and small-medium firms are data collection, customer contacting, and customer filing. These parameters had an average score of 4.97-5.83 on an 8-bit scale, where 4 is the average result (Samant
Introduction Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1598. The themes of the literary work have received some major attention from critics and readers since they include such issues as gender roles, infidelity, and deception, all of which are still relevant in the current life. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that despite the fact that Much Ado About Nothing was written in the sixteenth century, it touches topics that are being discussed in modern society to this day. Gender Roles With regards to the issue of societal gender roles, many characters in the comedy play are subjected to a variety of biases, expectations, and limitations due to their gender. For instance, Hero willingly obeys the orders of her father, and she is as willing to obey her husband-to-be. While Much Ado about Nothing is filled with wordplay, pranks, and a lot of misconceptions, Shakespeare was successful in exposing the ugly truth about the gender inequalities of Elizabethan society. Such inequalities can be traced through the witty language of the character Beatrice, as well as how male characters view female characters. The character of Beatrice is one of the most prominent figures in Much Ado About Nothing . The author created her to offer readers and viewers a character that would oppose the traditional understanding of a woman of the Elizabethan era and broke some ground for thought regarding gender inequality (“Much Ado About Nothing”). On the other end of the spectrum, there is a Hero who plays the role of an ideal fiancée and a daughter. She is quiet, polite, and obedient, while Beatrice is sharp, witty, and cynical (“Much Ado About Nothing”). It becomes evident that Beatrice was not a “typical” woman by Elizabethan standards when she spoke critically of the character of Benedick: “I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you” (Shakespeare 3). Beatrice took many jabs at his character, which was regarded as unusual: a woman criticizing a man cannot align with societal gender norms. There is no doubt that Beatrice stood out among other female characters of Much Ado About Nothing because her image as a confident and independent female was not a common occurrence in Shakespearian times. For instance, she refused to marry because there was no one that could be equal to her; also, she did not want to obey a controlling husband. On the other hand, Beatrice agrees to marry at the end of the play, but it remains unclear whether she submitted to the authority of a man or continued being herself instead (BBC). Infidelity and Honor The issue of infidelity is another theme that Much Ado about Nothing covered. I
The porters Barriers to Entrance Barriers of entrance by other new competitors into the sensor industry seems not to be a major cause of worry to our company nor to the shareholders’ money since there are a lot of barriers that a new competitor faces, which include high capital requirement, government regulations and brand identity. Thus, the industry is not that attractive for new competitors Rivalry among Competitors With the potential of new entrants into the market, resulting from low switching costs, access to distribution channels and low risk of retaliation, there is an increase in competition. Competition seems to be a worrying factor for our company, in terms of switching costs to new products, lack of differentiating our products from those of our competitors and pricing. Our competitors on the other hand, have competitive advantage to us because by virtue of them been in the initial stages, they incur little switching costs, they can also differentiate their products from ours to get new customers and in so doing, they may offer different low prices from ours. With these, our company has to invest highly in research and development to be in position to counter our competitors. Availability of Substitute With competition from new entrants into the market, there are a number of available substitutes for the products offering low prices coupled with the buyer’s high propensity to substitute our products for others. This affects our profits in a huge way. Bargaining power of the Suppliers and Buyers Our Company as manufacturing industry is specialized in production of specialized products and with existence of very few competitors producing the same products, the buyers do not have much bargaining power. In addition, it is very beneficial to the company because there are no substitutes for our supplies, and only a few suppliers exist. In addition, the switching cost to other supplies is quite significant, and this poses as a discouraging factor. In conclusion the general attractiveness of the industry in terms of the bargaining power of the suppliers and buyers is average given that one factor is a constraint and the other an opportunity. Company’s Strategy for Achieving Monopoly For our company to achieve monopoly we have to take risks and invest heavily into our products. How then do we fund investments? One option is to sale stock, which is a good option to taking a loan that may put the company in problems if the investment strategy fails. Secondly, the company has to continuous invest in research and development in order to cut on costs of production, achieve product differentiation and meet the customers’ requirements. For this to be viable, it should be accompanied by extensive market research on the needs customers. In order to get more customers, the company s