ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Selling drugs is big business and more so in the United States where the pharmaceutical market is worth several billions of dollars. But Americans pay higher drug prices than consumers in other countries. Boston University researchers have found that prices in Canada and Europe are just half to two-thirds of U.S. prices (Harrison, 2004). With shrinking health insurance, many people are finding it difficult to afford drugs and consequently proper healthcare. Drug companies argue that drugs cost more mainly because of the risks and research and development efforts that go into it. Thesis: It is often debated whether the high cost of drugs in the United States is justified or not; the high cost of drugs in the United States is totally justified when one considers the expenses involved in producing drugs and the benefits accrued as a result of drugs. The rapid rise in research and development (R&D) costs are largely due to an increase in costs of clinical testing. Clinical testing costs are highest in the “post approval” research and development – this refers to clinical studies performed after FDA approval, known as Phase IV – which are often mandated in the case of drugs that are put on a fast track for approval (Moran, 2003). Most of the drugs on fast-track approval used to be those used to treat life-threatening conditions such as cancer or AIDS. But now, more drugs are put on the fast track for approval even though they may not be used to treat life-threatening conditions (Harrison, 2004). In 2004, 13.2% (US$4.9 billion) of R&D expenditures by American pharmaceutical firms was spent on phase IV trials (Gagnon and Lexchin, 2008). Main body Christopher F. Koller in his article titled “Why Drug Prices Keep Exploding” says there are six elements that play a huge role in the financing and delivery of healthcare: product development: product development, marketing, differential pricing, and cost responsibility, patent protections, political spending and technological imperative (Koller, 2001). Huge costs are involved in the research and development of new drugs. Once a drug is developed, it needs to be marketed. Gagnon and Lexchin (2008) have found that pharmaceutical companies spend almost twice as much on promotion as they do on R&D. Third party insurance coverage has created opportunities for differential pricing by the industry (Koller, 2001). Legally, Medicaid gets the lowest price and the common citizen has to pay double that of Medicaid. The company must protect its privileged position through patents (Koller, 2001). There is also the need for political lobbying to have favorable laws passed. In 2003 alone, the industry spent nearly $116 million lobbying the government (Ismail, 2005). Finally, people have a tendency to depend
Representing a “Typical” Hong Kong Martial Arts Movie The phenomenon of a wuxia film is barely explainable, yet it mysteriously works with most audiences. Typically defined as a martial arts movie, a wuxia film positions the choreography of its fights as its primary attraction (Dilley 120). Although the emphasis on action elements as opposed to character development might be considered as reducing the artistic value of the film, the fight scenes in Hong Kong martial arts films can be interpreted as independent art pieces given the time, effort, and cultural elements that went into their creation. Ashes of Time is one of those movies. Since the fight scenes are edited in an elaborate manner, particularly, with close-ups and the focus on the weapon mastery, the movie looks nearly surreal, therefore, allowing the audience to become immersed in the atmosphere and experience the unique environment of the Song Dynasty era. Film Analysis Cinematography Editing Style Perhaps, the most controversial aspect of the movie, the editing style of the director sparked a number of heated discussions because of its ostensible lack of focus. Even for a wuxia movie, the choice of the fight elements in the scene in which Hing Qigong fights bandits in the desert might seem erratic (Artz 196). However, a closer look at the way, in which the images were chosen for the movie, the ways in which the panoramic scenes were cropped, etc., will show that the choices made by the editor, in fact, served a very specific purpose. For instance, by choosing to portray the army of bandits by showing only their feet at 00:51:54 and then switching abruptly to the main character, the director creates an impression of chaos that the battle represents ( Ashes of Time ). Image Composition and Mise-en-scène The mise-en-scène of the battle is supposed to strike with its grandeur and scale, and it partially succeeds at this task. The scene opens with a few bandits appearing on the horizon, yet, as the action unfolds, more enemies emerge, and soon an entire army appears on the horizon ( Ashes of Time ). The impression of impending doom is, therefore, built up with the help of clever use of mise-en-scène. Similarly, the image composition, which at first isolates the bandits from the positive character, and then clashes the two, creating an impression of chaos, is impeccable. It serves the purpose of portraying the complexity of the lead character’s path and at the same time remains true to the action movie staples (Jaffe 60). Camera Angles The angles, at which the camera moves, also contribute to the impression of an intense fight. While the camera is still during most of the scene, the fight sequence is short from several angles ( Ashes of Time ). Much to the credit of the director, though, the use of Dutch angles is very careful (Yaco
Introduction The success of the United States Intelligence Community is significantly influenced by its strategies and national security priorities. The cooperation of the Community with intelligence services in other countries all around the world encourages its effective performance and contributes to the country’s dominance on the international stage. In recent years, the military, economic, and intelligence partnership between the United States and India is strengthening. The purpose of this policy paper addressed to the National Security Council is to evaluate the benefits and risks of the intelligence partnership expansion between these countries. Indian Intelligence Services Surprisingly, there is not enough publicly known evidence concerning the operations of Indian intelligence services. However, the intelligence agencies of this country “have a long and rich history,” and a cultural tradition of espionage that was used for state security occurred in the ancient era (Shaffer, 2018, p. 598). The description of a highly significant and active role of intelligence in ancient India may be found in Vedic literature (Shaffer, 2018). Contemporary intelligence agencies appeared during the colonial period, that is why they are among the oldest similar agencies in the world. At the present day, the expansion of the United States intelligence partnership is determined by the well-developed network of India’s intelligent services. The list of Indian intelligence agencies includes the Research and Analysis Wing, the Research Bureau, the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and many other services and agencies across the country. The Research and Analysis Wing is an external intelligence agency of India that may be regarded as the most renowned on
Introduction The business world is getting more sensitive and very competitive. Given the definition of a company, it would be right to say that a business unit is an entity, a person who can be viewed independently as a member of the society. It therefore has an obligation to ensure that it participates in the normal developmental projects that other members of the society are involved in. The manufacturing companies are the leading polluters of the environment. The retail stores are also adding to this pollution. Wal-Mart for instances, wraps its products with plastic papers which are poorly disposed and turn into menace in our environments. Many of the manufacturing firms emit the greenhouse gases into the environment, causing massive pollution (Keinert, 2008). They therefore have great responsibility to the society. It takes away a very important item which it must find a way of compensating in order to ensure success. There are a number of ways through which a firm can give back to the society. Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the most important activities for most of the corporate businesses in giving back to the society. It is a kind way of appreciating the fact that the community is important. It is a fine way of telling the society that the firm appreciates its support. This way, the society will come to the realization that it is acknowledged by the firm. This would create trust and a close tie between the community and the firm. It is one of the best ways of making a firm part and parcel of the community. This way, the community would not view the business as just a simple business unit out for pure gains in profits. They will see the firm as one of their own and therefore will feel obliged not only to offer it any assistance and protection it may require, but would naturally be turned into a pool of loyal customers. Asongu (2007) says that corporate social responsibility cannot be avoided by any firm that hopes to succeed in the market. Coming up with an appropriate corporate social responsibility is one of the biggest challenges in the twenty first century. The cultures of societies around the world are varied. For a firm with an international outlook, there is a serious need to develop a strategy through which this process can be made a success. Corporate social responsibility can be taken from many fronts. There are different activities that a firm can do as a corporate social responsibility. However, what may be appreciated by the American society may not be the same thing that the people of the United Arabs Emirates appreciate.
Introduction When creating a marking strategy, it is crucial to create a comprehensive budget to understand if the cost of the marketing strategy is adequate in comparison with the expected profits. The budget needs to be prepared for up to three years and include an overview of projected income. The present paper provides an estimation of costs and revenues of UAV Pro for twelve months, starting from January 2021, based on the current trend in sales. The budget plan will also take into consideration the changes in the marketing plan and brand management. Revenue Estimation The central problem of creating a realistic budget for a new product is estimating revenues, as the data on demand for the product is rarely available. Fortunately, UAV Pro has a history of sales as AirBolt GPS, which can be used for making estimations. The project on Kickstarter started on August 30 and reached the desired goal of AU$50,000 in just 7 hours (AirBolt, 2020). In one month, the project made a little over AU$1,000,000, which is approximately $750,000 (AirBolt, 2020). The demand for the product is expected to decrease with time; however, the implementation of an aggressive marketing campaign and rebranding is expected to raise the interest in the UAV Pro. Thus, projecting $750,000 of monthly revenues for FY 2021 seems adequate, as sales are expected to be the only source of income. Cost Estimation Cost estimation is crucial for understanding how much income a company should make considering the needs of production and distribution. The costs can be divided into operating costs and income taxes. While companies often have costs associated with long-term and short-term debts and legal obligations, UAV Pro is not expected to have any such burden in FY 2021. Thus, the categories included in the costs will be limited in comparison with already operating companies. The analysis revealed at least 13 cost categories, excluding taxes. Since the company is located in Australia, a 30% income tax should also apply to the revenues. Budget Analysis Table 1 below demonstrates the quantified estimation of revenues and costs for FY 2021. The estimations are based on the assumption that the company will want to make significant investments in research and development since it is a high-tech product. Additionally, the company is not expected to need many employees; however, all of the workers will be high-skilled. Finally, the production of UAV Pro is expected to be offshored to China, which will help to make the product cheaper. Table 1: FY 2021 budget for UAV Pro in US dollars FY 2021 Budget for UAV Pro Revenues:                                 Sales                       $9,000,000.00                                           Costs:                                    Accounting and Legal        $60,000.00    Advertising                 $600,000.00   Insurance                   $50,000.00    Office Supplies             $10,000.00    Postage                     $2,000.00     Production                  $3,000,000.00 Rent                        $100,000.00   Research and Development    $1,000,000.00 Salaries and Wages          $500,000.00   Telephone/Internet          $5,000
Feminist aspirations and concerns are not new to the people of the 21 st century; in fact, fighting for women’s rights has been on the agenda of the human race for quite long. However, it would be wrong to claim that the concept of feminism is being shoehorned into the discussion of modern gender roles and relationships between men and women (Paludi, 2012). Al-Saadawi, Al-Uthman, and Al-Zayyat shed some light on the current gender stereotypes, particularly the ones that pertain to women and address the flaws of the present-day image of a woman in contemporary society. Although the three stories in question seem to share only very basic characteristics, such as the fact that each of the short novels are narrated by women, the novels, in fact, nail down the superfluous nature of the stereotypes of women that are popular in the modern society, as well as map the methods of fighting these stereotypes, some allowing for retaining sanguine hope, and some involving indispensable sacrifices. Each story in question makes a powerful statement about oppression distorting women’s lives and depriving women of an opportunity to evolve in both personal and social aspects of their lives. Narjis, the woman depicted in the novel by Al-Saadawi, is the symbol of what might be viewed at first as a rather shallow problem to analyze. With the topic of the story revolving almost entirely around appearance and the visual representation of women in contemporary society, the novel taps upon a range of complex social issues. In fact, one may argue that the above-mentioned image of women in society is not as vapid a topic as it may seem at first glance. After all, visual information is essential to the process of shaping opinion about a specific phenomenon, concept, or object, and the way in which women are portrayed in contemporary society affects their roles and lives to a considerable extent. To be more specific, in the novel in question, it is not the social prejudice that is inte
Introduction American founder of the Ford Motor Company and progenitor of modern automobile assembly line mass production known as Fordism, Henry Ford became one of the best known and wealthiest persons who ever lived. A pioneer of welfare capitalism, Ford was an ardent believer in international peace via international trade and cooperation. An enigmatic and complex figure at times, Ford exhibited a wide range of strongly held opinions and interests. His fundamental/down to earth outlook on life permeated in various aspects of his life – business as well as life philosophy.. In regards to the role of history, Ford once said, “ History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today (The Phrase Finder ). This is considered his second most popular saying the other being “ People can have the Model T in any colour – so long as it’s black (The Phrase Finder ).” Discussion History is in essence a written, oral, preserved chronological order of past events (Lemon). It is the mechanism through which the human experience is put into perspective – past, present, and future. History assists in understanding past tragedies as well triumphs and is a tool to measure success and failure. Without knowledge of the past, mankind cannot live a successful life. History is a measuring rod to ascertain natural feelings and desires – how one thinks. The essential key to understanding the importance of history is who the authors are and what is their agenda. Have they committed truth or have they put their personal spin/slant on it and for what reason? Ford postulates that history has become synonymous with tradition – time honored practices, customs, or beliefs. In most cases, however, such institutionalized traditions are not rooted in proven historical fact. Where does it say in the Bible that Jesus was born on December 25 th or that he resurrected from the dead on Easter? For that matter how can a rabbit lay eggs? From the Ham Curse to present day Weapons of Mass Destruction and War on Terror – all traditions that have become an
Literature Review Section The literature review seeks to support the proposed solution to the research problem. The proposed research question is: what is the role of knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes of the healthcare providers in reducing healthcare disparities? The only solution to decreasing healthcare disparities amongst the minorities is to improve the knowledge, behavior, and attitudes of the healthcare workers. Researchers such as Hammarlund et al. (2017), Marshall et al. (2017), and Terndrup et al. (2019) illustrate how well-informed healthcare workers uphold their knowledge, behavior, and attitude in reducing health disparities amongst all patients. Educational knowledge and behavioral interventions improve the attitudes of resident physicians towards healthcare provision. Hammarlund et al. (2017) state that graduate medical training barely covers healthcare disparities. The physicians graduate and proceed to facilitate healthcare without adequate knowledge about the existing healthcare disparities. The study focused on the difference between resident practitioners with knowledge about health disparities and those without the knowledge. According to the findings, after a month of training about health disparities, the trainees showed positive behavior, and attitude and had more knowledge about how to reduce health differences. The conclusion is that healthcare providers need education about existing healthcare inequalities to offer equal services. Medical students need to undergo cultural competency training in their undergraduate courses. Most U.S. medical schools require the institutions to include cultural competency education in their learning but only a few schools add the program. According to McElfish et al. (2017), medical schools need innovation programs that combine learning objectives with community trends. In their research, the authors engaged health professionals in such activities as educational seminars and community-based learning to expose them to the reality of healthcare discrepancies (McElfish et al., 2017). The study showed that the trained physicians found the need to change the state of healthcare. Training residential physicians on how to deliver care to people with diverse cultures are significant. Marshall et al. (2017) provide that learning how to associate with patients from a different culture is crucial to delivering adequate care. The study concluded that training the physicians about the existing health gap amongst the minorities is not enough if they are not educat
There has been an argument as to whether whistle blowing should be considered an essential aspect when it comes to the issue of enhancing a better business continuity mismanagement system. This is the reason why the US Labor Department is collecting comments that will give a good direction and come up with new regulations that will have a long term effect of protecting whistle blowers (Honour 1). Whistle blowers are mainly workers who voice issues about security, safety, and health concerns. Business continuity is an activity performed by many organizations to ensure that critical business functions are accessed and guaranteed by all the stakeholders concerned. Many people have assumed that business continuity should only be conducted or done when an organization is faced by a disaster (Honour 2). Although this should not be the case, however, business continuity should be done or performed daily to maintain recoverability, service, and consistency. It has been argued that encouraging employees to report risky business operations in their organizations supports and enhances business continuity. This is because silenced workers will never feel free to work well. In the long run, their potential will not be realized. This is a very important issue when looked at from a business continuity perspective. Perhaps there is a need to ponder on the question of whether or not whistle blowing should be encouraged as an essential aspect of business continuity (Honour 3) about disaster recovery and emergency management. Workers should be given a voice as a way of getting a better insight into a given organization. This way, they stand a chance to better understand the risks faced by an organization without the knowledge of others or better still the public at large. These risks can be hidden, but they may have a very large business impact on a given organizations’ continuity. For efficient business continuity, there is a need to have good disaster management and recovery measures that will ensure that huge losses are not incurred. Without good measures to mitigate such eventualities, an organization will find it hard to operate well, and this may come up as a challenge in a bid to compete well. As much as whistle blowing can be encouraged as a way of identifying disasters in advance, several boards have seen this as a threat to their organizational and business operations and hence, not a good thing (Honour 2). Instead of appreciating such employees, the management and boards have seen them as enemies who are reporting the organization to a given regulatory or government body that will eventually punish them. This should instead be seen as a way of encouraging employees to voice their concerns on areas they think the organization is not doing well. Organizations are advised to have their whistle blowing structures internally as a way of assessing their performance. If this is done efficiently, employees will feel that they are highly value