ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Atricle Liu, C., Spector, P. E., Shi, L. (2007). Cross-national job stress: A quantitative and qualitative study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28 , 209-239. Web. Introduction In the present day, job stress may be regarded as a considerable threat to the occupational well-being of employees as the modern workplace and the world economy become more fast-paced and competitive. That is why a substantial number of studies related to organizational behavior were conducted in order to identify stressors (the sources of job stress) and strains (correspondent physical and psychological reactions that affect human behavior) (Liu, et al., 2007). However, various stress models that were proposed by scholars to explain the interdependence between stressors and strains were designed for Western societies predominantly. The results of the application of these models to non-western societies or to the investigation of job stress in cross-cultural and cross-natural settings cannot be regarded as valid (Liu, et al., 2007). That is why, in order to fill the substantial research gap, the exploratory study of Liu et al. (2007) examines the perceptions of job stress in two culturally dissimilar countries – the United States and China – using both quantitative and qualitative methods of research. In general, the study aimed to contrast the employees’ perceptions of job stress and their attitudes to strains in the United States and China. In order to present a complete picture and capture a more reliable contrast related to work stress between two countries, researchers collected “both quantitative and qualitative data on samples of Chinese and U.S. workers” (Liu, et al., 2007, p. 212). They used each method to address a set of hypotheses and applied hierarchical regression analyses that revealed significant correlations between job stressors and strains in both countries. According to the results of the qualitative analyses, Chinese employees reported a substantial number of job incidents related to work mistakes, job evaluations, employment conditions, indirect workplace conflicts, a lack of training, helplessness, anxiety, and sleep problems (Liu, et al., 2007). In turn, American employees reported more incidents related to a lack of job control and team coordination, direct interpersonal conflicts, frustration, anger, stomach problems, and feeling overwhelmed in comparison with Chinese (Liu, et al., 2007). The qualitative analyses supplied the qualitative results and revealed specific cultural job stressors of work mistakes, indirect conflicts, and job evaluations that were neglected in previous research. Main Body The research participants were randomly chosen from the University of South Florida in the United States and four universities in Beijing and Hubei, China (Liu, et al., 2007). They were sent survey packets with both quantitative and qualitative questionnaires. The second round of data collection was initiated to collect more qualitative data (Liu, et al., 2007). All answers were translated into English, and content analysis, quantitati
Introduction A collective effort has been found to be more effective when pursuing matters of political, social or economic interests. Although political parties sometimes tend to play this role, they have been found to lack some ideals because they may lack partiality in their operations. An interest group consists of people who join hands to press a particular goal or issue in a bid to persuade the government of the day to address the concerns. These groups work through the process of lobbying whereby they seek support over particular legislative matters which they need redress. This paper explores the structure and operating principles of the American Hospital Association as one of the most notable interest groups in United States today. Background of the American Hospital Association The American Hospital Association serves the interest of healthcare units by offering fair representation of their concerns in all matters regarding their operations. In addition, patients are also represented in this organisation because they form a very important part of the healthcare sector. The American Hospital Association has a wide membership base ranging from individual membership who totals about thirty seven thousand to hospitals and other health units which numbers about five thousand. These groups together constitute the umbrella body called the American Hospital Association. The main role of AHA is to make sure that members’ voice and concerns are heard not just at the local level but also at the national platform where necessary deliberations can be made and pieces of legislations adopted in the interest of members. The advocacy and lobbying efforts are directed towards the law making body as well as the executive branch of the government. The association was incepted in 1898 with the main role of advancing further training and educational needs for healthcare professionals. Important information on matters of health are also provided by the association The American Hospital Association may be classified as a single issue and also a public interest group because it only lobbies for matters on health and which is also an issue of public interest (Walker, 56). Mission and Vision The Vision of the American Hospital Association is “of a society of healthy communities, where all individuals reach their highest potential for health” (American Hospital Association, par.2) while its mission is “to advance the health of individuals and communities. The AHA leads, represents and serves hospitals, health systems and other related organizations that are accountable to the community and committed to health improvement” (American Hospital Association, par.3). Membership requirements There are three types of membership to AHA namely the associate, personal and institutional membersh
Introduction Black Rock is a film directed by Katie Aselton. It shows how people (Sarah, Abby, Lou, Derek, Henry, and Alex) struggle to survive on a village island. Gender stereotypes emerge when a night party turns tragic and makes friends become enemies (Carter and Steiner 2011). This essay reviews the cultural aspects presented in this movie. Summary Sarah, Abby, and Lou were friends since their teenage years, but they have been separated for a long time. Sarah manages to persuade Abby and Lou to travel to a remote island where they lived together most of their teenage years (Mathews-Green 2012). She hopes that their friendship will be renewed, and they will enjoy the company of each other. On the other hand, Henry, Derek, and Alex have just been fired from the military and are trying to keep themselves busy by hunting (Romanski 2012). Abby and Henry develop a strong bond, but he intends to use her for sexual satisfaction. He tried to be intimate with her, but Abby did not want their relationship to go that far. She resisted, but Henry was overpowering her before Abby accidentally killed him. Alex and Derek embark on a mission to hunt the three women to revenge and protect themselves from their evil plans (Carter and Steiner 2011). Review of Cultural Issues The most dominant cultural issue in this movie is male chauvinism. Henry thought that he had the right to be intimate with Abby, and that is why he tried to rape her when she resisted his advances. This practice affects most modern communities because it hinders the success of affirmative actions (Mathews-Green 2012). It violates their rights of making independent decisions and considers them inferior to men. Today, most women know their rights and cannot be intimidated by traditional practices that undermine their dignity. However, some men believe that they can control women and force them to do what they want (Romanski 2012). This is a backward belief because it does not respect the rights of women. In addition, it places women on an endless journey to survive in a society where male dominance is a tradition. Abby, Lou, and Sarah portray the image of strong women that cannot sit and wait for men to do everything for them (Mathews-Green 2012). They knew that Sarah had committed a crime by killing Henry, but none of them cared to act responsibly; therefore, they decided to survive in dark and frightful nights instead of facing the reality. The movie shows that women can survive without men’s help, and these characters proved that they are not weak (Carter and Steiner 2011). However, the movie portrays men as evil and that they do not know the rights of women in society. It was released in 2013 after affirmative actions had spread to all corners of the world, yet the director seems unaware of the efforts aimed at restoring equality between men and women (Mathews-Green 2012). The irony of this movie is that Henry, Alex, and Derek were soldiers that had fought in the Middle East to ensure peace prevailed in that region. However, the producer degrades their contributions to developing a peaceful society by depicting them as trigger-happy soldiers that
Introduction The police are an inevitable establishment in every society of the world, in large part due to their central role in guarding and securing compliance with enacted laws as well as conformity with the principles of social order (Ojo, 2014). The police are the main actors in the first cog of the criminal justice domain popularly referred to as “entry into the system”, whereby citizens bring criminal incidents to the attention of law enforcement officers or the police themselves identify a suspect by investigating a particular case (Adler, Mueller, & Laufer, 2013). Despite these important roles, it is evident that most police departments are faced with unique challenges that are largely perceived as defects. The focus of this paper is to discuss these defects and provide some viable solutions to the challenges. “The penetration of the system” in the field of criminal justice The first defect emanates from the failure by police to guarantee the constitutional due process as stated in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the American Constitution, leading to incidences where they are accused of depriving individuals of their life, liberty or property without due consideration of the law. The second defect concerns the failure of police to guarantee the civil rights of individuals by undertaking activities such as stop and frisk searches, arbitrary arrests, and racial profiling. The third defect, known as police brutality, is caused by highhandedness on the part of the law enforcement officers or an uncooperative, unsupportive, and aggressive attitude exhibited by the public towards the police (Adler et al., 2013). The fourth defect, known as an abuse of discretion, concerns the fact that the police are known to use the authority bestowed upon them by relevant legal statutes to harass and intimidate other people into compliance. Another defect facing police departments is that of corruption, whereby the police end up being compromised due to integrity issues, limited manpower, and skills, poor government funding, as well as general lack of appropriate orientation and commitment by some officers. The last defect, known as poor police-community relations, emanates from the negative public perception of the police and the lack of some police officers to establish positive relationships with community members (Adler et al., 2013). Several general solutions could be recommended to address the defects discussed in this paper. First, the content of police training needs to be changed so that it can include more liberal courses such as sociology, psychology, and political science. It is believed that these courses will impart to the law enforcement officers components o
A number of factors play a role in influencing final consumers and their buying behavior towards preference on a product. Personal decisions regarding choice of a product may be due to social influences, purchase situation, economic needs or psychological variables. Many firms consider some or all of these factors when developing an effective marketing strategy. All that trouble is to influence consumers into choosing their product over other available products. If this is effectively implemented, the company makes more sales and increases profit. Consumer behavior of choosing a product over others varies from one target market to another or between purchases. Customers react differently to the products in the market, and this may vary from one country to another. Pringles is a brand owned by Proctor and Gamble Company, which mass produces potato chips for snack lovers across a number of countries including the United States of America. The company has implemented the use of consumer behavior in luring its customers into buying their canned potato chips. Pringles’ most successful strategy is the varied use of flavor to influence consumer decision. This paper explains how Pringles’ strategy of varied flavor influences the purchasing behavior of consumers. Pringles extensively uses a variety of flavors in the potato chips industry. It currently has sixteen flavors of potato chips in their production line. The flavors include barbecue, cheddar cheese, cheeseburger, Salt and vinegar, chilled onion and honey mustard just to mention a few. Coming up with sixteen flavors of a product implies the company takes this marketing strategy seriously. Variety seeking consumer behavior is applicable in situations where there is a small customer involvement, but considerable distinction between the available brand options. In such circumstances, the consumers exercise a lot of brand switching. Most of them are not loyal to a brand of Pringles potato chips. They consume any brand at a given moment without weighing the available options. For product categories like Pringles, consumers’ evaluation of a flavor is experienced during consumption. The consumer does not give the flavor much evaluation until the moment it is being consumed. Future decision on buying a flavor of Pringles potato chips will depend on previous experiences. If the consumer’s previous experiences were good and satisfactory, then the same flavor would most likely be repeated. I
Climate is a term used to denote the patterns of weather occurring in particular regions of the globe. Climate change denotes the long-term changes in weather patterns over extended time periods. In modern times, the term has been used to describe the rapid climatic changes as a result of global warming. Climate change thus denotes fluctuations in the statistical properties of weather patterns when considered over periods longer than 10 years. As such, short fluctuations such as El-Niño, cannot be considered as climate change. There is a general consensus amongst the scientific community that the current increase in climate change is mainly due to human factors and the result of this climate change might have catastrophic consequences. There are mainly two factors that influence climate change: Natural and human factors. First, under natural causes variations in the radiation outputs of the sun has been found to have a considerable effect on the earth’s climatic conditions. According to scientists, solar output variation of 1% per century would result in a variation of the earth’s average temperature ranging between 0.5 and 1.0 0 Celsius (USNAS). Solar output causes surface heat fluctuations due to changes in heat absorption and radiation by the earth surface. Secondly, volcanic eruptions have been linked to climate changes. Volcanic eruptions of sufficient magnitude have the ability to alter the climate system of the whole world. Volcanic ashes, dust and gases released during volcanic eruptions creates a blanket that obstructs solar radiation from the sun thus reducing the earth’s surface temperatures. The last important natural factor is orbital variations. Orbital variations lead to changes in the levels of solar radiation reaching the earth mainly due to the position of the sun and the distance between the earth and the sun during each particular orbital cycle. During the 19 th century, the industrial revolution commenced resulting in the extensive use of fossil fuel for energy purposes. The industrial revolution also resulted in human migration from rural areas to cities with people looking for a better life. Land that was previously filled with vegetation was now cleared to make room for buildings and roads. Natural resources were extensively consumed for industries, construction and transport. As a result, the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases increased considerably. Greenhouse gases are an integral part of the earth’s climatic system as they help in warming up the earth’s surface. The increased emission of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) has led to the accelerated warming of the earth’s surface (global warming). Methane, emitted from oil drilling, waste dumps and landfills, is also another important greenhouse gas whose content has been continually increasing. The extensive us
Introduction In Too Big to Fail , Andrew Ross Sorkin gives a minute-by-minute account of the boardroom events surrounding the 2007-2008 economic recession in a chain of dramatic scenes. The book illustrates how a series of poor decisions plunged investment banks into a credit crunch, necessitating their bailout, conversion into bank holding firms, or sale. Sorkin relies on interviews of several top executives who had a hand in the financial crisis as well as on the accounts of regulators involved in developing rescue plans for the troubled banks. The central thesis of the text is that the downturn was precipitated by uncontrolled liquidity, “cheap money”, and “ultra-interconnectedness” among players in the American financial sector. 1 This paper gives summaries of the book’s twenty chapters, highlighting the central issues related to the crisis, investment banks, organizations, regulators, and individuals involved, and subsequent plans that stabilized the markets. Chapter 1 Sorkin starts by giving a profile of Lehman Brothers, one of the Big Five Wall Street firms at the center of the financial crisis in 2008. It all starts in 2007 when mortgage firms receive big profits due to rewarding innovations and policies in the real-estate sector. Consequently, financial executives relying on optimism-driven speculation reward themselves with hefty pay-outs and bonuses amounting to $50 billion. 2 The flawed financial model they are using leads to an exaggerated debt-to-equity ratio of 32 to 1. 3 As a result, the credit risk rises to levels that are higher than usual, precipitating a major economic crisis in America, Europe, and Asia. Specific scenes unfold with Richard Fuld, Lehman’s CEO, defending the company’s financial models and decisions on March 17, 2008. They include the opening of the “Fed’s discount window” that gave the firm access to “cheap rates” reserved for major commercial banks. 4 Lehm
Introduction The Terminator is one of the tensest, sci-fi films ever created and an attraction in the genre. In the year 2029, fights rage between the super intellectual machines that reign the world and the last traces of humanity. In late-20th-century Los Angeles, Sarah Connor suddenly finds herself followed by an unstoppable killer ‑ a Terminator sent from the future to kill her and her un-conceived son, John Connor, the future head of the human resistance. “The Terminator” is an imaginary character depicted by Arnold Schwarzenegger — a cyborg, originally imaged as a programmable killer and military penetration unit. “The Terminator” protagonist first appeared in the 1984 film of the same name, directed and co-written by James Cameron, and its follow-ups. The first movie in the sequence features only one cyborg: the one depicted by Schwarzenegger, although a second Terminator is pictured in a future flashback scene and is played by Franco Columbus. In both follow-ups, Schwarzenegger’s Terminator is ditched against other Terminators. In the sequels, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Schwarzenegger reprises the role, but with a twirl: Schwarzenegger is the hero but not the criminal, playing a dissimilar but visually indistinguishable cyborg in each of the movies of Terminator. Within the Terminator world made by Cameron, Terminators of the same “replica” share identical features. In the manufacture of the films, this has permitted multiple Terminators to be played by Schwarzenegger. In the background of the stories, this plot apparatus offers a certain permanence for the human temperaments, by utilizing their emotional knowledge with particular features. At various times, the character is given more precise descriptions such as model and series numbers, in attempts to define Schwarzenegger’s role from other Terminators. Nevertheless, this is done with some discrepancies. No ultimate canonical clarification is present in any of the films which elucidate exactly the various numbers assigned to the character symbolization. Coding The character is coded by the means of the surrounding peop
Introduction The topic about the contribution of sports to a country’s development has ignited heated debate among scholars with some supporting the view that sporting activities promote development while others oppose it. The proponents of the idea assert that sports competition contributes to the economic, social, and political development of a nation (Swinnen & Vandemoortele, 2008, p. 5). On the other hand, the opponents cite the underrepresentation of the special groups such as the persons with disability in sporting activities as the reason for opposing the view. However, although some scholars have detached sports from development, the truth is that sporting activities heavily contribute to development, not only for the participating individual but also to a country. Economically, sporting activities employ a large number of persons across the world, including players and coaches. Besides, sports improve the health of the players in terms of their physical fitness, which is a primary requirement for the military jobs. Politically, the activities are perceived as important tools that bring together persons from different cultural and religious backgrounds to boost cohesion and/or alleviate political animosities. Additionally, sports promote international interaction through the mega-sport international contests that bring together even the enemy countries. In such contests, the rival countries meet and participate in the games. The reunion may present an opportunity to initiate dialogue. However, at times, sports produce negative results on a country’s politics as evidenced by the cycle of violence that has characterized major football matches in the past, for instance, the football conflict between El Salvador and Honduras, which happened during the 1970 FIFA world cup in Tegucigalpa. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether sports contribute to the development of a nation or whether the activities inhibit the development of the country in question. To achieve the stated objective, the research will analyze the role of sports in the social, political, and economic development. The author seeks to support the view that sports contribute to political, economic, and social development. The Contribution of Sports to Development The importance of sports in stimulating development can be illustrated by the continued use of games to foster development in various countries. Various national and international bodies have used sports to achieve their development agendas. A case in point is the emphasis placed on the sports in the accomplishment of the ‘Millennium Development Goals’. The sponsors of the millennium development goals have cite