ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
English is an international language and significantly contributes to modern communication. In essence, proficiency in English greatly relies on how learners manage to understand its essential elements well. Grammar is one of the integral elements of English language as it contains major components, which determine individual’s speech. It is imperative to understand reading and writing, as they are integral elements of grammar. In this paper, I will base my discussion on the reflections of my first English teacher and compare the grammar approaches outlined by Derewianka and Tompkins et al . I am a slow leaner and my teacher had difficulties in teaching me the basics of grammar. My teacher made us translate words from our native language to English and we could construct and deconstruct texts. My teacher insisted on functional grammar, whereby, the use of language means understanding every word in a text, and how the word relates and affects all the other words in the text (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday, 2010). For example, when the teacher narrated a story, we had to describe the orientation of the narrative, give a descriptive summary of the narrative, provide a life lesson, and express our feelings and thoughts about the narrative. I noticed that Derewianka’s instructional techniques formed an important part of my grammar learning. We had to understand the relationship between grammar and genre. Generally, Derewianka’s teachings focused on functional grammar, where, grammar is taught in context at a whole text level. As suggested by both Derewianka and Tompkins, learning grammar is a continuing process, with each experience strengthening and improving consecutive learning process. By the time I reached my third year of K-12 education, I could utter and write simple words. Thereafter, Tompkins et al. (2012) teachings of grammar started taking effect as my teacher employed them in teaching us grammar in a gradual learning process. After learning a series of words (nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives), I constructed a sentense. I can remember learning the first word, “eating,” and after a series of transitions, I learned a simple sentence containing a process, a circumstance and a participant, “John is eating.” I can remember my teacher using symbols to describe English words, we could directly translate a sentence from our native languages to English for a start, and with time, English became part of us. I saw myself graduate from mastering a simple sentence to mastering complex
The American strategy professor Michael Porter developed the diamond model to explain the competitive standing of businesses on the market. The model owes its name to its shape reminiscent of that of a diamond. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, whose economic growth remains fragile and not exactly predictable. This paper will explain how Nigerian industries and organizations could improve their performance and efficiency, drawing on the theoretical framework provided by Porter. The Case of Nigeria: Porter’s Four Factors To build a comprehensive model relevant to Nigeria, one should analyze each of the factors in regards to the country’s current business environment. Thus, the model might look as follows:  1. Firm strategy, structure, and rivalry refer to organizational management within a given industry (Gamble, Peteraf, & Thompson, 2014). Eniola, Entebang, and Sakariyau (2015) argue that some of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in Nigeria include insufficient use of technology and poor knowledge regarding marketing techniques. On a larger scale, Nigeria’s business environment suffers from government corruption and red tape, which should be tackled to reach prosperity.  2. Factor conditions pertain to Nigeria’s factors of production, including labor, natural resources, infrastructure, and land. Nigeria is rich in natural resources such as gas, tin, coal, iron ore, limestone, zinc, lead, and arable land. However, as Eniola et al. (2015) point out, there is evidence of deteriorating man-land relationships and poor land use.  3. Demand conditions. To stay afloat and move forward, Nigerian industries and organizations should be digital-oriented and use modern technologies more extensively. One of the ways to ensure a solid presence on the market is to go online: statistics show that by 2023, 84.5% of Nigerians will be using the Internet as part of their everyday lives (Statista, 2019).  4. Related and supporting industries. One particular industry that can enhance the performance of all others but that is in dire need of changes is infrastructure. Nigeria is a big country, and as Eniola et al. (2015) note, many regions have yet to enjoy proper communication. Limitations For all its virtues, Porter’s diamond model is not devoid of certain pitfalls. First, while the proposed statements may be true, the model does not exactly assess Nigerian industries and organization’s abilities to succeed. The four factors may be seen as valid predictors of economic standing and performance. However, it is not easy to judge whether a given company or firm will take advantage of all the opportunities and use the available resources wisely.
Definition of ethnicity and social class Ethnicity refers to a particular group that has common characteristics and such characteristics include language, origin, religion, culture as well as ancestry. This is an issue of historical as well as biological fact and can not be altered by the culture in which an individual is brought up or grows up in. Talking about culture, this refers to what individuals develop to make them be able to have the adaptation of their world. Such developments may involve areas such as language, tools that boost prosperity, customs as well as traditions that give a definition to values and give organizations to social interactions, the religious beliefs among others. Culture plays a major role in determining the beliefs and practices that turn out to be associated with a particular ethnic group and offers its unique identity. Identity can either be personal identity, ethnic identity or social identity. On the other hand, the social class refers to the group of individuals that belong to the same economic, social or even educational status. Anyon Jean classifies these groups as the working class, middle class, and upper class. The working class mostly consists of those people who are involved in unskilled work. The middle class is a wider category in which we have the lower middle class and the upper middle class. This class consists of individuals ranging from those who have well paying jobs to those engaged in white collar jobs. The upper class consists of the top executives in multinational corporations among other elites. Anyon uses the idea of the social class to carry out an investigation in schools. The schools investigated are of different levels and the differences in levels are determined on the basis of the social class in which the parents belong (Anyon 1). Summary of the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples According to this report, the Aboriginal peoples are among the poorest people in Canada. About half of the total number of children either living on reserve or off-reserve live in abject poverty. Basing on the census of 1991, over 60 percent of families especially in Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg carry on with their lives under poverty line. The main problem that brings about these people not to be able to get away from poverty is the lack of formal education. Most of the Aboriginal children are faced with unemployment. Many of them regard going to school to be futile as there is a belief among them that the job prospects for them are very minimal. What the Aboriginal children have gone through while in the residential school structure has made a contribution to dissatisfaction with formal education chances. These children were taught in an education system that was well suited for the white than the Aboriginal children. Give regard to the different styles of teaching as well as learning of the Aboriginal peoples. Most of the parents of these children who went through negative experience while in the formal school system and this turns out to
The Health Authority-Abu Dhabi is a governmental regulatory body that is charged with the main responsibility of bringing sanity in the healthcare sector by ensuring that quality services are offered to the community. Its main function is to monitor the health status of the people and analyze the performance of various systems put in place. Additionally, the agency has an overwhelming task when it comes to enforcing the standards, inspection of regulations, and enhancement of world class-class services. For all these to be achieved, the agency has to develop awareness programs to sensitize the population about their rights as far as healthcare is concerned. Before the inception of HAAD, the healthcare sector lacked order and private service providers charged exorbitant prices on poor quality services that never aimed at improving the living conditions of people. Currently, the organization is supposed to ensure that payments and compensation rates of the health system in the region are fair and competitive. Recently, a new law was enacted to curb the increasing cases of fraud and malpractice in the healthcare system. The latest act is expected to guard the benefits of all individuals in the system, as well as supporting the practical wellbeing of all members. Through the law, the private sector is in a position to develop, as it has the freedom of offering various services at different prices. On the other hand, it is mandatory for the employer to obtain health insurance treatment for its employees, including their families. Each company in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi has no option but to follow the new law to the later and any organization found to have violated the law is subjected to punitive measures (Williamson, 2002). This paper will look at the causes of poor governance in the HAAD and will suggest some of the ways through which the organization might improve its performance. HAAD should act as the custodian of the public good meaning that it has to look into the welfare of each interested party, including the service providers and their various clients. Unfortunately, the agency never paid any attention to one of the major articles in the amended version of the law and this led to the violation of the rights and the privileges of one party-the employers. The chief executive officer of the agency issued a warning erroneously calling on all companies to renew their licenses with the insurance firms, as soon as possible since violators were to be dealt with according as cases would be filed against them in the courts of law. The CEO went on to set the amount that would be payable to the government upon violation of the new policy. The circular generated a heated debate in various levels of government, as well among private organizations and companies because no consultations were made and implementation of the policy would lead to great losses. Organizations had al
Introduction Convened in 2005, the world summit on social development came up with three main pillars of sustainable development. The pillars included environmental development, social progress, and economic advancement.The three pillars of sustainability are applied when ranking various cities. The index, compiled by London Centers for Economics and Business Research, finds European cities such as Frankfurt, London, and Copenhagen as leading in terms of their sustainability index based on people (public), planetary (ecological), and returns (economics). In the profit-factor category, the index ranks Dubai in the 47 th position while Madrid is in the fourth position (Koch, 2015). Dubai is scheduled to hold Expo 2020, which it claims will be the most sustainable Expo. Indeed, looking forwards to the Expo, Dubai has put in place various strategies to ensure that the city operates sustainably. This paper presents Dubai as a sustainable city. It also compares its sustainability with that of Madrid. Dubai is among the Gulf nations of the Middle East while Madrid is in Spain in Europe. In the discussion of Dubai’s sustainability, the paper also considers how Dubai is making the city ready for Expo 2020. The paper uses Porter’s five forces, SWOT analysis, intensive strategy, CPM, integration strategy, and BCG as the six major tools for comparing sustainability efforts in both cities. Porter’s Five Forces of Competitive Analysis Madrid Madrid is one of the highly ranked planetary sustainable cities across the globe and in the OECD. Therefore, it faces low rivalry from competing cities around the globe. The city already has various programs for maintaining sustainability. For example, it has implemented a BUS/HOV system, which has lower carbon emissions associated with transporting every passenger to the city (Sustainable Cities, 2015). With such successful models, the threat of new entrants on global platforms is currently low. However, in the coming years, more nations are likely to consider looking for better mechanisms for increasing sustainability because of the rising global warming and environmental degradation challenges that are associated with unsustainable lifestyles (Porter, 2008). Sustainability substitutes are indefensible mechanisms for running a city. Considering the implications of substitutes such as environmental degradation and the rapid replenishment of energy resources, Madrid residents do not embrace such mechanisms. Indeed, the high concern about the need for conserving and preserving the environment makes threats of substitutes low. The demand for a sustainable city is high. This situation lowers the bargaining power of buyers while increasing the bargaining influence of suppliers. For example, Madrid aims at incorporating sustainable tech
Introduction The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War and the polarization of the world. Even though the event seems to be beneficial for humanity in the long run, the effects of the matter are numerous and complex. On the one hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the rapid acceleration of regional security cooperation in the region, which is crucial for human security. 1 Indeed, since the boundaries have dissolved, it seems natural that countries should be more open to cooperation. On the other hand, Simão claims that broader analysis leads to the understanding that post-Soviet societies suffer from instability and increasingly complex forms of insecurity. 2 For instance, Leinsalu et al. report the increased number of conflicts based on ethnic differences and nationalistic moods. 3 Such observations lead to the understanding that short- and long-term implications of the collapse of the Soviet Union concerning human security are controversial. One of the pivotal matters is human rights and the protection of citizens of post-soviet countries. Soviet people were deprived of some of the central human rights, and the collapse of the regime should have positively influenced the matter. In the Soviet Union, people did have freedom of religion, and Stalin’s policies were explicitly nationalistic. 4 After the collapse of the USSR, Post-Soviet countries made human rights one of the primary concerns. 5 However, in Russia, human rights are applied in a week manner even 28 years after the regime has dissolved. 6 The present paper aims at answering the question of what are the short-term and long-term implications of the collapse of the USSR for human rights in Russia. This paper argues that despite the apparent positive impact of the event, the human rights of Russian citizens are still often violated. Historical Background The collapse of the Soviet Union came as a complete surprise since neither western nor Soviet authorities believed that the country could disappear so rapidly. However, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag flew over Moscow Kremlin for the last time. 7 On this day, the representatives of 12 Soviet republics declared the USSR no longer existed, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established. 8 There are different reasons cited for the matter, including a wide variety of external and internal causes. The history of the Soviet Union began after the Russian revolution in 1917 when Bolsheviks came to power. 9 Later, in 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist leader. 10 While initially the state was meant to be a society of true democracy, Stalin’s brutal regime and strengthening of the authoritative power of the Communist Party turned the country into a repressive state. 11 However, in 1985, Gorbachev tried to turn the country back to democracy through political openness, or glasnost, and economic restructuring, also known as perestroika. 12 Gorbachev’s policies are often cited as the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union. There were no significant economic or political pressures tha
Core Competencies of Wal-Mart Company Over the years, Wal-Mart has been able to leverage its core competencies to become the largest retail chain not only in the United States but also globally (Hayden et al., 2002). Core competencies, which can be described as main strengths or strategic advantages of a business in terms of underlying skills, functions, pooled knowledge and technical capacities (Mooney, 2007), allow global organizations such as Wal-Mart to sustain competitive advantage, expand into new markets as well as provide a substantial benefit to customers (Fishman, 2006). Perhaps one of the strongest core competencies for Wal-Mart has been its positive name recognition, which has inarguably assisted the company to establish a footprint while gaining a concrete reputation and brand recognition (Hayden et al., 2012). Positive name recognition has provided the best chance for Wal-Mart’s continued growth and survival as it now operates more than 3500 discount stores in the United States alone, and over 4000 stores worldwide. Wal-Mart has also been able to fully integrate its activities to achieve low-cost operations in the United States and abroad, hence generating the capacity to provide low prices to its customers (Fishman, 2006). Additionally, scholars and management practitioners argue that the logical and meaningful integration of various elements involved in managing Wal-Mart stores has enabled the company to streamline its systems and technologies with the view to maintaining effective communication and relationships with major suppliers and customers (Hayden et al., 2002). Consequently, the streamlined systems and technologies act as a core competency for the company as they enable it to achieve and sustain competitiveness. Moving on, it is now common knowledge that Wal-Mart has been able to apply the just-in-time (JIT) approach and other technologies to leverage on its competitiveness in the global retail sector. The JIT inventory management strategy allows the retail giant to minimize its product-ordering, thereby substantially reducing the costs associated with inefficient and ineffective inventory decisions and handling (Srivastava, 2005). Lastly, Wal-Mart’s employees are efficie
Introduction A contract is an agreement that outlines specifics details of an issue between different parties regarding a certain matter which is enforceable in a court of law (Meiners et al, 2006). A contract can take two other forms besides agreements i.e. based on promise or legal relationship. A contract must have more than one party who must either be an offeror, the person presenting the offer, or an afferee, the party accepting the offer (Meiners et al, 2006). For a contract to be considered valid it must contain five important elements: consideration, lawful subject matter, agreement, genuine consent and capacity to enter into contract (Turner, 2008). A contract must be valid to be upheld in a court of law; the validity of a contract is determined on the basis of five elements that have been outlined above. Where the conditions of a legal contract are met then it must be performed. Rules of offer and acceptance The rules of offer and acceptance that must be considered when forming a contract must be considered and include. (1) An offer must be clearly made and should be in such ‘a form that can be accepted by a reasonable person’, and must remain valid for reasonable time until it is either withdrawn or revoked (Turner, 2008). (2) For a contract to be valid, such an offer must be accepted and clearly communicated through actions or words, and ideally done in the same terms as the offer (Turner, 2008). (3) An offer can be withdrawn at any time as long as acceptance has not taken place (Turner, 2008). Finally, any counter offer made after an offer has been made has the effect of voiding any potential contract that could have resulted and a new acceptance must be obtained for every such new counteroffer. Requirements to create legal relations One of the conditions required to certify the validity of a contract is the ‘intention to create legal relations’ (Turner, 2008). This condition is usually determined by the court of law by looking at the nature of contract that was entered by the parties. For purposes of law, agreements are classified into two major categories; domestic contracts and commercial contracts (Turner, 2008). For domestic contracts the law presumes that parties to an agreement had no intention of being legally bound, and consequently terms of such an agreement cannot be enforced legally. The leading case for this legal precedent is Balfour v. Balfour where the court determined that the nature of agreement was domestic and therefore no intention to be legally bound existed between the parties (Meiners et al, 2006). Consideration Regarding consideration the law states that there must be exchange of benefits which must not be from the past (Turner, 2008). Additionally, consideration must certify the following rules; (1) it must be made by the person interested in obtaining the goods or services (promisee) and (2) consideration mu