ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Benefits of Using Second Life as an Instructional Tool The introduction of technology to the field of education has occasioned many beneficial outcomes for both students and educators. Second Life, in particular, has afforded teachers a whole new range of possibilities in offering instruction via virtual platforms. One of the benefits of Second Life is that teachers can be able to offer instruction to a global audience that is not limited by physical boundaries or geographical locations. Another benefit that is closely related to the above is that students who use virtual classrooms for educational purposes can now learn from their safe environments instead of having to attend physical classrooms. Such an arrangement saves time and critical resources for both educators and students. Third, the sense of immersion that Second Life generates makes it an excellent tool for role-play, content reinforcement and re-enactment. These attributes are critical to any form of educational instruction, and Second Life offers the much-needed platform for educators to reinforce the necessary content to students. Forth, it is a well-known fact that instructing learners by showing them how to do things as opposed to traditional techniques of instruction brings highly positive results. Fifth, the interactive nature of Second Life not only affords students and teachers an interesting, faster and more effective learning experience, but it also foster an environment where students are able to interact with others for collaborative development. Sixth, the simulation possibilities inherent in Second Life can provide students with a critical comprehension of what it is like for other people in the real physical world. This attribute prepares the students’ mental and intellectual capacities for future challenges. Lastly, Second Life affords educators the possibility to prepare immersive self-paced tutorials and assessments, administer them via the virtual space and feed results into an online database for students to view their performances. Benefits of using Second Life for Professional Development & Networking In a landscape of technology innovations, one of the benefits that Second Life can afford teachers is the opportunity to collaborate with other instructors in not only developing digital learning resources, but also in designing student-based online activities. Second Life also benefits an educator’s professional development through providing a framework for skill development as well as knowledge and practice sharing through collaborative work, team scheduling and preparation, development of high order thinking skills and collaborative reflection for knowledge acquisiti
Global competition has prompted organizations to utilize human resources as a way of gaining a competitive advantage. To improve the working experience, operation managers should plan labor, design jobs and introduce standards that improve individual and team performance. Planning involves matching the available labor force with demand or holding employment constant. Work schedules are determined by the nature of the industry. Some industries like food and beverage require fixed schedules, while others allow the employees to schedule their programs, and give them independence (Heizer and Barry 384-385). In the past, job specialization was used by managers to improve production. Today, management is not only concerned about production, but also on the work life that employees lead. A varied job design makes work interesting and gives employees an opportunity to utilize their potential. Work variety benefits both the employees and the organization. Employees acquire diverse skills and can identify with their jobs from the start to the end. Through feedback, they realize the significance of their jobs. This recognition gives them a sense of self worth, independence and freedom to make decisions (Heizer and Barry 386-388). Team work promotes productivity because working together empowers employees, and satisfies them psychologically. When employees are empowered, their potential is maximized and productivity is increased. Satisfied employees put an organization ahead of its competitors. However teams may be costly and result in individual differences if not managed well. To overcom
Proving an argument is one of the main questions in philosophy. There are several theories of justification that uses different approaches to our “belief system”. The aim of all theories was to find ways to justify truth. An entire philosophical movement tried to work out a strategy and universal philosophical methodology in order to find solutions for current philosophical problems. A branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge development and such notions as truth, belief and justification and its structure is called epistemology. There are four basic theories in epistemology that raise the question of the structure of justification. They are infinitism (suggest a linear or infinite structure of justification), foundationalism (suggests a finite linear structure), coherent theory (the basis is a circular structure of justification) and skepticism (does not offer the structure of justification or, in other words, it is also called an empty structure of justification). The two theories that are in confrontation are foundamentalism and skepticism. Those to theories tend to “argue each other” and block these arguments. In order to solve this problem, a proper analysis of foundamentalists and skepticism theories should be done through the comparison and analysis of their arguments. There are several forms of skepticism. In the Western philosophy, skepticism is a theory that there is no any kind of certain knowledge. It is based on two principles: the first one says that one cannot be sure in his/her knowledge and there is not certain human knowledge; the second principle claims that all we know can only be “probably true” and one cannot be sure of anything. According to Marcus Lammernant,” in contemporary analytical epistemology, skeptical problem is taken to be theoretical in nature. They are composed of skeptical argument for the impossibility of knowledge or justified belief” (Greco 9). In other words, skepticism is based on a doubt. For, example, if somebody is telling me about some issue, I can have my doubts that one’s arguments are true. The main skeptical argument is that certain knowledge implies certainty, one cannot be certain of anything, consequently, one cannot know anything for sure. Thus, one can obtain certain knowledge only through doubt and testing. However, one should not confuse skepticism and nihilism. According to skeptical doubt, the truth is asse
Introduction Various innovations are being attained in different fields. Innovation refers to the process of coming up with new ideas or changes that are able to shift or alter the way things are done. In business terms, it is the process of “developing a new customer value by coming up with amicable solutions that are able to meet their new and inarticulate needs” (Mohan 2005, p. 481). This can be achieved by coming up with effective processes, ideas, services, technologies, and technologies among many others. Innovation is also important in businesses because it gives a business a competitive edge over its rivals. Businesses that have a culture of innovation have the potential of performing better thus remaining at the niche of the market. In the mobile industry, mobile banking is one of the recent innovations that have influenced the operations of the telephone/mobile phone industry positively. This invention has enabled the company involved in the innovation to have a competitive edge over its rivals. Mobile banking, also called ‘m-banking’, is used with reference to services relating to account transactions, performing check balances, payment of bills, and application of credit among many other banking transactions that can be conducted, effected using mobile phones, or through personal digital assistant. Mobile Banking: Advantages in General Mobile banking has brought a significant positive change in the banking sector based on the changes it has brought. According to Dirk and Koehn (2011), innovation may change the organisational strategy and structure (p. 35). Mobile banking is considered an innovation because it reshaped the way banking was practiced. Many of the banking practices used were based on the conventional or traditional practices. It was a very tedious and time-consuming experience when it came to payment of bills, depositing of money, and even checking of money in ones account. Introduction of the mobile banking was a very big innovation that allowed customers to engage with their banks in their remote locations (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev 2009, p. 462). People are not required to walk to the bank branch to get service. In terms of mobility, individuals can transact all financial transactions at the comfort of their homes or anywhere without having to spend energy and time travelling to the bank. Therefore, this important innovation has elevated the banking sector with most financial institutions investing more in this technology to compete favorably with their competitors. There are different types of innovation including radical and incremental. Every type has its own demerits and merits in line with the innovation. Both types of innovations are aimed at improving the performance of the organisation. This innovation in banking is an incremental innovation because it involves a limited change in the existing products and services. People used mobile phones for communication. They could walk into banks to pay or ch
Introduction The Labour Party is a left faction political organization and presently the runs the administrative government in the United Kingdom. Established during the early years of the 20th century, it has been the most important left wing party of in England, Scotland and Wales then onwards. However, Northern Ireland is considered to be the party’s stronghold where it has only of late started organizing its operations again. The Labour party outperformed the Liberal Party as the most significant opponent to the Conservative party during the start of the 1920s. It has served several terms in the government of United Kingdom, initially in the form of minority governments during the years 1924 and 1929-31, then as a subordinate ally in the wartime alliance from 1940 to 1945, and later formed a majority government, during the terms in 1945-51 and in 1964-70. The Labour party once again formed the government in 1974-79. (Curtice, 117-118) However, this time it was with an uncertain and dilapidated majority. The party retorted back with a resounding victory claiming a substantial 179-seat majority during the 1997 general elections with Tony Blair steering the party to a triumph. It was the party’s first general election success since October 1974 and the first general election after 1970 wherein it had surpassed 40% of the popular vote mark. The party’s overwhelming preponderance in the House of Commons was to some extent slenderized to 167 during the 2001 general election and more significantly brought down to 66 in 2005. (Hindmoor, 411) Background UK general election: 2001 The UK general election, 2001 was held on 7 June 2001 and the phrase “the quiet landslide” was coined by the media to denote the Labour Party victory. The Labour party claimed its second succeeding supposed ‘landslide victory’ consecutively, upholding its majority position from the preceding election. Tony Blair emerged as the first Labour party prime ministerial candidate to be triumphant in sufficient number of seats to claim his stake to a complete second successive term in government formation. The Labour party surfaced as the victor with an overall majority of 167 seats by popular vote. (Curtice, 119) However this overall majority was slightly reduced by 12 seats with the party obtaining 179 seats in the previous general elections. The election process was also noticeable due to the evident voter indifference which led to the turnout falling to a mere 59%, the grimmest from the time of the Coupon Election in 1918. All through the course of the election the Labour Party had sustained a considerable lead in the opinion and exit polls and the outcome was believed to be quite certain. However, the low voter turnout hurt the Labour party the most with the party loosing out on approximately 2.5% of its vote share and 6 seats. (Curtice, 120) UK general election: 2005 The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held o
Our main goal was to stop the layoff of teachers, not to reduce prep time, increase salary, and possibly reduce workload on the teachers. The outcome of the negotiation was in favor of the teacher’s union. However, due to the constraint in the budget, many of our demands were not met. The board had a budget deficit of $188,6902, it was difficult for us to negotiation our demands of increasing the salary of the teachers. The parents union was a strong third party influence that strongly opposed any form of strike or disruption of normal schooling. Therefore, the negotiation process went through a distributive form of procedure wherein the Board of Education, the teacher’s union, and the parents’ body together tried to solve the problem. The process was more integrative as all parties wanted to come to a middle point wherein all their demands were satisfied to some extent . The bargaining process must be convergent and not divergent as this would increase individual differences of the negotiators and therefore no outcome would be possible to be reached. Negotiation is believed to be “non zero-sum game” wherein the outcome can be that of mutual gain and that is ensured through an integrative bargaining process . This process has been followed in out negotiation process, such that the outcome of the process is beneficial to all the parties involved. The distributive process involved in the negotiation is related to the distribution of pay, the ratio of teachers and pupils, the total number of employees in the school, the duration of the working day and the recall period. This aspect dominated the beginning of the negotiation process. However, the first phase of negotiation based on this approach did not end satisfactorily for either of the parties. This led to the use of an integrative process of negotiation in order to satisfy the requirements of both the parties. The integrative process of negotiation put forward the proposal of increasing the salary of the teachers through direct contributions made by the parents. Further this process also helped us finding innovative proposals to reduce the deficit in budget. According to the study conducted by Beersma and de Dreu integrative process of negotiation helps in deriving better outcome than distributive process and they also found that the former helps in creating better atmosphere for the bargaining process to take place. The teacher’s association employed a number of negotiating tools to achieve their goals. In doing so, the association consciously acknowledged and accepted the goal of the board to reduce the number of teachers and increase the productivity of the paper stationeries. In this respect a more cost effective means of sending the study material through emails to the students was suggested by the association in order to reduce the cost of printing. This helped the association and the board to reduce the cost of the materials, and therefore reduced the budget deficit considerably. As the budget deficit was the ma
Introduction Generally, remuneration denotes the way in which employees are rewarded after executing their responsibilities. The payments take diverse forms. There are two comprehensive classes of payments namely intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic payments regard self-engendering result including self-esteem and gratification stemming from performing useful work (Armstrong 2000). Extrinsic rewards entail palpable financial and non-financial rewards. These motivate employees and contribute significantly to the level of commitment, loyalty to the organization and determination to work. The management should ensure that the nursing staff receives re-training regularly as deemed necessary. Main Body Staff errors due to insufficient knowledge and lack of guidelines The healthcare industry is sensitive since the profession deals with the saving of human lives. As a result, it is essential for the management of any healthcare institution to put strategic staffing in place. The strategy helps in ensuring that the right people are employed. St Patrick’s human resource manager should be aware that having the right individuals is an asset to the institution. Employing the wrong people is a liability to any organization (Armstrong 1996). Failure of the human resource function to explicitly employ rigorous recruitment means that chances of such individuals quitting the job or being fired due to incompetence are high. The human resource manager requires implementing a recruitment strategy with at least four crucial steps. First, prospective employees should submit their applications through e-mail. The nursing profession requires high academic qualifications. This means that the production of authentic certificates is paramount. After certifying the authenticity of the certificates, the recruiting team should respond to the applicant. In order to develop a positive image of the institution, applications that have been rejected should receive a letter of regret. The next step should involve the calling of the prospective employee for an interview over the phone. The applicant requires passing the telephone interview. The human resource should lay much emphasis on the fact that St Patrick will only look for employees who can empathize with their clients and who are friendly, cheerful, and equally humble. The selection processes for the qualified employees follow the interview. Those found qualified will automatically be absorbed into St Patrick mainstream employees. Before being permanently employed for a position, the applicants must pass additional requirements and application tests during probation. Finally, the employee-services human resource department will have to contact its new employees in case it offers a permanent position. Relevant work details will be offered to the new employees of the institution. In fact, the nursing staff will have to sign the essential documents like the official contract form for employment. These strategies will facilitate staff retention that is currently a big challenge for this healthcare institution. In
Since the human body represents the individual’s unique base of operations in the world, it is not surprising that endless energy is devoted to polishing and strengthening it. Each culture has its own ideas about what it takes to make a body “right.” All cultures have their own notions about how the body properly should be shaped and sized and decorated. The images of what a “good” body should look like are unbelievably varied. The modal body appearance in one group may seem to be not at all human to a representative of another group. It is possible to mention the elaborate body tattooing practiced in Polynesia, body scarring prominent in Africa, lip enlargement found in Brazil, and teeth filing popular in Africa. Analogous body reshaping is current in Western culture in such practices as body piercing. Of course, body piercing also is still popular in the modern scene. The idealized images of the body proclaimed by each culture are translated into clothing fashions, preferences for certain body builds, health and exercise regimens, and a thousand body camouflaging strategies. Through this paper, I will show where and how body piercing has made its mark on society and where it made its way in and out of popularity over time.   * Thesis. Many cultures use piercings for specific reasons; from fashion to rites of passage it all relates to social status, whether to strive for acceptance or rebel from it. Body piercing has been a staple of preliterate or aboriginal cultures for centuries. Also, body adornment through piercing has roots in many ancient cultures. For instance, Egyptians believed they reflected status and beauty. “The earliest known mummified remains of a human that was pierced is over 5,000 years old. This worthy gentleman had his ears pierced with larger-gauge plugs in his ears” (Roberts, 2004). The Egyptians prized certain piercings so much that some, such as belly piercings were reserved only for the Pharaoh himself. Many pubertal rites really amount to a demand that individuals radically revise parts of their anatomy to fit specified patents. Even the Bible mentions piercing as one of the possible ways for body decoration. The Old Testament mentions body jewelry as a mark of social status and high rank (Roberts, 2004). In ancient Rome, it was believed that nipple piercing signified strength, for this reason, genitals were pierced to prevent injury to gladiators. After the period of the Middle Ages, piercings found their way back into people’s lives but for different reasons than they were once believed to have stood for. In the Renaissance period and Elizabethan England, women’s fashion began to show more flesh and the desire to adorn oneself w
Britain v. America: How America and Britain gained independence History shows that to gain independence against the most powerful armies across the globe the colonists namely America and Britain strategized on how to limit their weaknesses and augment their strengths. In fact, before gaining independence, America appeared to be alienated, unprepared, and disruptive state. However, the nation managed to reign above the largest global empires. For instance, in the eighteenth century, the British armada emerged dominant over other navies, but the regal American marine military managed to win most fights. British on the other hand had numerous strengths that it capitalized on to reign over other nations. Britain, for instance, emerged victorious in all battles, and it was never defeated in warfare. The country reported success over different commanding states including Spain and France over the past one hundred years. Apparently, these probabilities appeared to work not in favor of America. Although the British forces materialized as an underdog, the army was considered the most excellent across the globe. The British defense forces were fed properly, well remunerated, disciplined, and very equipped (Davidson et al. 36). Most global oceans and seas were under the control of the navy from Britain. Instead of using the continental assembly to raise funds for servicing the military, the Empire easily sourced for the required resources. The Hessians militias who fought soldiers from America were mainly hired using such funds. The American soldiers faced setbacks trying to accumulate resources for procuring the fundamental equipment such as blankets, sheets, and shoes for the mercenaries. Hence, the winning belief amongst the British militia lured many Indian clans who supported Britain having been assured that their ancestral territories would be protected. Few American soldiers preferred putting on the crowns and nearly half-disliked warfare. Even though soldiers from American lacked monetary foundation and martial forces compared to the British army, the American mercenaries sturdily believed in fighting for independence and freedom. Indeed, the American soldiers possessed indefinable merits. Unlike the British soldiers who initiated warfare away from their domestic terrains, the Americans soldiers set majestic grounds. That is, the Americans went into the battlefield with the intention of securing liberation, independence, as well as protecting their respective rights (Davidson et al. 37). These grounds justified that Americans waged warfare to secure the long denied independence. Whereas the American political principals and mercenaries appeared to be untested, they amazingly emerged to be very experienced. The British armed forces equipment, troops, and commands had to tak