Psychological Treatment of Culturally Diverse Populations Research Paper

Psychological Treatment of Culturally Diverse Populations - Research Paper Example In contrast in 2000, the numbers fell down to 69%. The U.S. Census Bureau foresees that racial/ethnic minorities will constitute a numeric majority by the year 2050. However, other private researches made by the Council of National Psychological Associations for the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Interests (2000) anticipate that this demographic transformation will take place sooner. The following 2000 U.S. Census figures will provide us with an overall idea on some minority groups. The U.S. Census Bureau reported several conclusions on the bases of these statistics. Most importantly, they consider that it is impossible for the mental health clinician not to meet clients who differ in regards to race, ethnicity, and culture. Secondly, what is defined as therapy can vary considerably from the traditional understanding of the mental health professional. And last but not least, mental health workers have to become culturally competent in order to meet the needs of their clients. Attention to diversity and cultural competence and awareness are of great importance for the U.S. society since it has become increasingly diverse. In this paper I will focus my attention on ethical practice with patience from different cultural, ethnic and racial background. I will also concentrate on some recommendations for the psychological treatment of Mexican-American population. The American Psychologica... Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services to Ethnic, Linguistic and Culturally Diverse Populations (APA, 1993) suggest comprehensible counseling and flexible perspectives for working with such individuals. It is of great importance that each psychologist remains sensitive to diversity issues and possesses general knowledge about the groups that seek mental health treatment. The American Psychological Association Ethics Code (APA, 1992) requires that psychologists are aware of "cultural, individual, and role differences" and "accord appropriate respect to the fundamental rights, dignity, and worth or all people (Principle D: Respect for People's Rights and Dignity, p. 1599)." Further, the psychologists are instructed by the APA Ethics Code (1992) to acquire the necessary training if he is to work with individuals of diverse background. Having the knowledge about the client's culture will aid the therapist to incorporate into the mental health treatment traditional spiritual and healing customs and will reinforce the partnership between the therapist and the patient. Aviera (2002) reports on multiple occasions when disclosing personal details "helps the Latino client feel that the therapist is a caring and real person (p.18)." Familiarity with one's culture, openness and genuineness of human interactions are of prime significance if the psychologist aims to work effectively with culturally diverse client. According to the numbers provided by the 2000 U.S. Census over 35 million identify themselves as Hispanic, which approximately makes 13 % of the total U.S. population. The majority 58.5% are of Mexican origin. Barona (2003) reports that "many ancestors of present-day Mexican Americans resided on this land when national borders were established more than

Ten Commandments for CEOs Seeking Organizational Change Essay Example for Free

Ten Commandments for CEOs Seeking Organizational Change Essay In our ever-changing, fast-paced world, competitive relationships Can shift quickly when companies respond too slowly to increased competition in their industry group. Succeeding in such a competitive and changing environment demands that CEOs reshape their organization to meet todays challenges and competitive realities. But responding to change remains highly elusive because there is a natural resistance to change at all levels within the organization, including at the top. CEOs and other members of the executive suite need to take a hard look at their existing organization and culture, ask tough questions about its appropriateness for the current competitive environment, and take concrete, implemental steps to forge a preferred culture and drive it downward throughout the entire organization. But therein lies the challenge, for few management teams both establish a comprehensive strategy for remaining competitive and take a hands-on approach to implement change internally. By not getting involved, they signal to employees that the change really isnt very important. A key premise of this article is that cultural change or any organizational transformation is essentially a top-down activity. It cannot be delegated. If the CEO perceives the need for change, makes it a top priority, and gives it a great deal of time and attention, the organization will change. By the same token, if the CEO offers only limited lip service, needed changes just wont happen. This article outlines how the CEO can be an enthusiastic sponsor of change by paying enough attention to implementation to make the transformation take place. Reynierse and Leyden (1992) provide a case study incorporating these steps. 1. Strategy-Driven The process I am advocating will be relatively ineffective without a strategic framework to provide competitive advantage. This process is not a substitute for such a strategy. Rather, the strategy is the starting point that establishes the context for all other steps. However, strategies will be relatively ineffective when management pays insufficient attention to their impact on the work forcefor ultimately it is the work force who will implement the strategy and make it succeed or fail. The point is that unless such a strategic plan is implemented and executed effectively, it will not be fully realized in the competitive marketplace. An overview of this process is depicted in Figure 1. A companys business strategies, plans, and goals are the starting pointnot the endof this exercise. They formalize the CEOs vision, setting the tone and establishing direction for the company in both the long and short terms. They provide a context for all other activities and decisions, establishing the limits for making many choices along the way. In addition, they determine the direction and boundaries for building the new organizational culture, including molding employee expectations. Resources are scarce in every organization, and management must accept the fact that it cant do everything. Strategic choices reflect judgments about where companies think they have marketplace competitive advantage so that plans implemented here enable them to grow faster and earn more than their competitors in these market segments. Similarly, the resources dedicated to building the organization are determined by this strategic focus. 2. Top-Down Involvement If something is important, a good rule of thumb is to have a top-down approach to getting it done. Ideally, then, the CEO must get involved. If the CEO attends to the organization, it will improve and gain competitive advantage. Conversely, if the CEO gives it scant time and attention, little organizational growth will occur. In short, the CEO who enthusiastically sponsors a broadly conceived program for building the company is more likely to succeed and reap the benefits down the road. A company-wide initiative needs an enthusiastic and supportive CEO who does not hesitate to play a continuing role during the change process. But where is the top? And who is the CEO? Building organizations is often better served by dealing with chunk-sized bites rather than the whole company. Particularly for large companies, it often makes better sense to deal with natural strategic business units (SBUs) rather than the entire company. At one level, there are often unique problems or opportunities in a unit or company division. At another level, it is most meaningful for those involved to deal with issues that directly concern them and their business unit. The approach I am advocating includes determining the firms core values and mission. It is unlikely that every SBU or company division will share the same core values or mission. Individual business units often have unique customers, competitors, product maturity, strategies, and objectives. These units need the autonomy to develop their own focus. For such cases the division executive is functionally the CEO for that unit and can provide the vision, enthusiasm, and driving force for success. Throughout, however, the CEO must remain interested and provide broad support for what is taking place. Even when the primary leadership role resides elsewhere, the CEO must be an advocate for change and reinforce actions taken at these lower levels. 3. Organizational Assessment Periodically it is valuable to take an objective snapshot of the broader organization. This not only provides information about the companys strengths and limitations but can also identify how those strengths and limitations measure up to the mission and the core values. Effective organizations have employees who share these values, and a carefully conceived organizational assessment will identify pockets of agreement and resistance. Several techniques, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups, are used for these organizational assessments. The organizational dynamics survey (Reynierse and Harker 1986) has been particularly effective, because it provides an objective measure of the underlying values that mold organizations. For example, the surveys broad customer orientation category taps a cultural value related to making customers a priority and satisfying their needs. Surveys are particularly important because they get every employee involved; everyone has the chance to be heard. Surveys also provide an opportunity for management to pay attention to employees concerns and to build their trust. This is achieved when management openly communicates with employees regarding key issues and responds to problems by taking timely, corrective action. At the same time, establishing trust is the first step in getting employees to buy in to managements broader vision. 4. Clarify Core Values Peters Waterman (1982) have one all-purpose bit of advice for management figure out your value system. Decide what your company stands for. Today many frequently echo this management theme. Identifying and clarifying core values are central to this approach as well. When they are integrated with a companys business strategies, core values help provide a focused mission. All too often, companies or their natural business units lack focus; their employees are confused about what the company stands for and what it is trying to achieve. However, when the focus and the mission are clear, they can drive the entire organization or SBU. Mission statements ideally should be brief, concise, and to the point. They should identify primary business activities, integrate key strategies, and reflect the firms core values. When we speak about core values we are dealing with many attractive virtuesMcLaughlin, McLaughlin Lischick (1992), for example, identified more than 100and it is tempting to include as many as possible. In my experience, however, an organization can give proper attention to only a fewsay, three to fiveclearly stated core values. Anything more will be too diffuse and will only confuse employees and dilute managements efforts. In other words, management has to make some hard choices, and established strategies provide the context for focus. There are no shortcuts; there is no generic mission statement. To build a focused organization, the management team has to participate in the process. We use a value clarification exercise when working with top and senior management. This exercise consists of 30 corporate values that are relevant (and credible) for business and industry. Each is defined and serves as an effective probe, placing key issues on the table for discussion. Some representative examples are shown in Figure 2. Because many are presented with a different thrust or emphasis, they can generate a provocative and lively discussion. This value-clarification process gains agreement for key priorities and direction, and fosters team-building through shared values and mission. Similarly, it lays the groundwork for resolving internal differences between functional groups that may have varied goals or priorities. Finally, it sets the stage for driving the process downward through the entire work force so other employees can buy in and share the focused mission as well. The risk in all this, says Peters (1992), is that management does such a good job that these values become fixed, even though they no longer are appropriate. The necessary caveat here is to return to strategy and competitive marketplace reality. Very simply, if the strategy is no longer appropriate and requires changes, the core values and focused mission probably need to be changed as well. They must therefore be revisited and modified as necessary to be congruent with any new strategies. A case can be made that because clarifying core values is so central to this approach, it should occur earlier in the process. There are benefits, however, of having it follow the organizational assessment step because this gives management another opportunity to respond to the input and reactions of the work force. Their perceptions of what the company really values are important and may indicate that changes are needed. 5. Work Force Involvement and Participation One of the advantages of the employee survey approach to assessing an organization is that all employees have the opportunity to participate and express their opinion. In other words, at an early stage in the process they have the chance to level with management, provide an employee perspective, and establish an agenda for later stages. While we begin the more intensive activities at the top with senior management, we involve lower-level employees, particularly lower levels of management, as quickly as possible. Although every situation will be different and will require different solutions, management should be vigilant for opportunities to involve new participants. A valuable tool is the use of focused task forces to address any priority issues that may have emerged from the organizational assessments or team-building sessions. This permits additional employee involvement at the problem-solving and solution-generating stages of the exercise. A fundamental assumption is that a focused organization requires a work force that shares this focus. The key to successful implementation, then, is the steps that are taken to drive the process downwardto downstreamso that all employees feel they are a part of this focused mission. Implementing managements vision demands paying attention to employees, managing their expectations, and responding to their concerns. Building the firm requires taking action steps that promote the core values and focused mission. I call these steps the culture carriers. It is through them that senior management can reinforce values consistently and frequently. Put another way, the culture carriers provide direction for marketing the core values and mission with all employees. The five culture carriers we have identified are summarized in Figure 3 and will be discussed separately. 6. Inspirational leadership Our studies of corporate culture indicate that there are two ways management stays in touch with what is going on in the company: 1. By visiting work areas and being visible to their employees. This is inspirational leadership at its best and is similar to the idea of Managing by Walking Around (MBWA), as developed by Peters Waterman (1982) and Peters and Austin (1985). 2. Through the balance sheet and financial focus. In general, however, many top executives emphasize financial performance and focus to the extent that they neglect their leadership roles. The broad process for organizational change outlined here provides structure for MBWA and for being a cheerleader. Although executives tend to underestimate their leadership effectiveness, they in fact exert considerable power by virtue of their leadership positions. As DePree (1989) observed, Leaders need to be concerned with the institutional value system. Each time they go out to a work area and talk to an employee or group of employees represents an opportunity to exercise influence and reinforce the companys mission and core values. This clearly communicates to employees what is important to the organization and what is expected of them. When the CEO or division head is leading the charge, everyone quickly picks up on it, and any ambiguity regarding what is taking place is quickly removed. The results are multiplied when this leadership role is being exercised by the entire management team. As an example, the management team of one of my client organizations made a contract with one another during a planning retreat to spend 15 minutes a day walking around, getting to know employees, and talking with them in each of their subordinate organizations. Though initially they were ambivalent and self-conscious about their task, it soon became an accepted and high-priority activity. They would confront each other daily by asking, Have you spent your 15 minutes walking around yet today? This, together with several other steps, quickly led to a turn-around in an otherwise demoralized work force. It was an important step for management to become informed, get on top of operations, get in touch with its people, and communicate direction. 7. Communication Put as simply as possible, employees cannot accept or implement top managements vision if they are unaware of it. Frequent formal and informal channels of communication are needed with all employees to introduce the focused mission and core values and reinforce them over a period of time. Executives must make liberal use of meetings, video presentations, posters, newspaper articles, brochures, and so on. If there is a rule of thumb, it is that you cant do too much in this area. Some of our clients have successfully used kick-off meetings in which they celebrated the focused mission and core values, gave every employee a wallet-sized card containing the mission statement, and provided other symbolic itemspins, coffee mugs, pencils, hatsthat focused on elements within the mission and its values. Primarily held to share information, the meetings were also used to rally employees and build enthusiasm for the new organization. The informal mixing that occurs at such kick-offs is also a va luable time for management to energize employees and talk with them further about the focus. 8. Financial Focus Well-ran companies have a strong financial focus that emphasizes both profitability and cost containment. It can play a significant resource allocation role that simultaneously provides increased funds and resources to programs that support the core values while denying (or at least sharply reducing) funds and resources to established programs that are less important to the mission. How capital is invested and what activities are expended carry important messages to employees. It is necessary to examine investment decisions in terms of a strategic standard that includes the companys core values and focused mission. Having done so, it may be necessary to withhold capital or budgetary expense dollars for those projects that fail to qualify under this standard. When capital investments and highly visible expenses are consistent with the values and mission of the company, they will provide support for and reinforce this focused mission among employees. But when inconsistency abounds, emp loyees will be confused and may withhold their support.

Ethical Issues On Genetic Engineering Philosophy Essay

Ethical Issues On Genetic Engineering Philosophy Essay There have been over the years many ethical issues as it concerns new technologically or scientifically advancement projects and inventions. Men were afraid of using lifts the first time it was invented. Men were also afraid of the use of airplanes the first time that they were invented and even till date, there exists some group of people in some parts of the world that doesnt desire to make use of airplanes as a means of transportation due to their view that this is a bad means of transportation. It is therefore however, a point worthy of arguing the different sides taken by different individuals that exists today as it concerns the science of cloning and genetic engineering. It is of great importance to make some explanations and definition of terms. What is Cloning? According to Voneky Wolfrum Cloning is the technological process and science of creation of an identical copy of the original organism or human through the mechanism of unfertilized ovums nucleus replacement with the nucleus of a body cell from this original organism or human. (Voneky Wolfrum, 2004). This establishes the fact that the developing embryo will actually have to die. This is because once its nucleus is changed; it means that this embryo has been changed because the nucleus is its functional unit and hence its identity. This is the basis of many arguments against this science. On the other hand, the definition of genetic engineering is the act of modification and changes to the DNA structure. We will talk more on genetically engineered foods and this however can be defined as food items that their DNA structure have been changed or modified through the science of genetic enginee ring. To concentrate now on the cloning technology, it will be of great importance to productively and constructively argue out this situation. Harris stated that the initial emergence of the cloning technology was met with great obstacles by individuals, governing bodies and the socially significant post holders. (Harris, 2002). Technological challenges and constraints the most fundamental limitation is the impossibility of repetition of consciousness, and this means that we cannot talk about the full identity of individuals, as shown in some movies, but only on the conditional identity measure and the boundary of which is yet to be research, but for the support of the basis takes the identity of monozygotic twins. Failure to reach absolute purity of the experience causes some clones is not identical, for this reason that decreases the practical value of cloning. Fear of causing such things as a large percentage of failures in cloning and related possibility of the appearance of people-freaks, as well as the issues of fatherhood, motherhood, inheritance, marriage, and many others. From the point of view of the worlds major religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism), human cloning is a problematic act or an act that goes beyond dogma and demands theologians clear justification of a position religious hierarchy. The key point, which causes the greatest aversion, here is the fact that to order to obtain a clone of one human being it is necessary to kill the embryo of another human embryo. Moreover, there are ethical beliefs, social and religious beliefs that continue to emphasize the need never to allow cloning. The major reason posed by these groups of people includes; 1) the creation of man is the sole duty of God and that it is bad for humans to try to take up these duties upon themselves and 2) the killing of one person to give life to the other through the act of replacement of the embryos nucleus is considered as murder according to most religious beliefs due to the fact that they believe that the embryo is human. Some investigations show the fact that some people hereby declare their stands that hold the belief on the other side. It is the duty of man to provide all help for his life and this he can do through the increased advancements in technology. There were the periods of Stone Age culture, computer and jet age and all these portray increased advancements in technology and also portray yet the reasons for more advancement. Advancements in technologies are aimed at solving mans problems and making life easy for a man. It is through the process of cloning that the endangered animal species could be salvaged. This forms also the opportunity of help to infertile humans with the need of reproducing their like. It is a way of maintaining the existence of the gene of any great influential man that had ever lived overcoming the barrier that death poses to hinder the furtherance of the societal economic important activities of this trait. The embryo at this stage has no senses, does not breath, has no awareness of the environment and hence is not yet a human but just an organ. When we consider the therapeutic cloning that could be used instead of organ transplantation, we can appreciate the fact that cloning is a very useful aspect of medicine as it affords an easier opportunity of managing such a patient in order that there will be no such need of prescribing immunosuppressive drugs which has its own numerous deleterious side effects against the human organism. There are two main approaches to human cloning: the human reproductive cloning and the therapeutic cloning. The human reproductive cloning suggests that an individual who was born as a result of cloning, gets the name, civil rights, education, upbringing, in a word has the same life as all ordinary people. The reproductive cloning is found with many ethical, religious, legal problems, which today still have no apparent solutions. In some states, work on reproductive cloning is prohibited in law. The therapeutic cloning suggests that the embryo development is stopped for 14 days, and the embryo is used as a product to obtain stem cells. Legislators in many countries fear that the legalization of the therapeutic cloning will lead to its transition into the reproductive one. However, in the USA and UK the therapeutic cloning is allowed. In addition, it is important to mention the main types of cloning. Bacteria cloning: Cloning is the only method of reproduction for bacteria. However, usually when people talk about cloning bacteria, they mean the intentional reproduction of some bacteria, the cultivation of its clones, and culture. Natural cloning (in nature) of complex organisms: Cloning is widespread in nature in different organisms. In plants, natural cloning is done with various methods of vegetative propagation. Molecular cloning: Owing to fundamental biological discoveries of the 19-th century, namely: the discovery of cellular tissue, the invention of the electron microscope, the discovery of the cell nucleuss structure, chromosomes, the DNA and genes, scientists can make possible what is now called molecular cloning. This is the technology of cloning the smallest biological objects molecules of the DNA, their parts and even individual genes. Molecular cloning of the DNA (usually in some way modified) is incorporated into a vector (e.g., bacterial plasmid or phage genome). Cloning of multicellular organisms: The greatest public and scientists attention involve multicellular organisms cloning, which was made possible due to success of genetic engineering. By creating special conditions and interfering with the structure of the cell nucleus, the experts make it evolve into the desired tissue or even whole organism. There are complete (reproductive) and partial cloning of organisms. With the help of complete cloning it is possible to recreate the entire body as a whole but partial cloning of the organism is not fully recreated (for example, only one or another of its fabric.) Animal, higher plant cloning and human cloning. To consider the ethical issues against the use of genetic engineering on food items, it is necessary to mention the opposing side and their points of argument at first and then lay down my expository and productive counteracting points on the proposing side. The opposing sides to the usage of genetically engineered foods have the following points; 1) these foods usually have been exposed to new toxins by method of genetic engineering making them dangerous to health, 2) there is lack of full control to these processes and there could be spontaneous and unexpected outbreak of unfavorable outcomes, 3) the alteration forms could lead to death as has been recorded concerning the altered form of food supplement- L-tryptophan killing an American citizen. This is a well-known fact that genetic engineering leads to the breeding of new strains of crops with disease resistance by the manipulations that organizes the stronger genes together and the removal of the weak ones. There is also the abi lity of producing crops with added nutrients like vitamins. This is a method that ensures fast and increased rate of food production to feed the worlds growing population. This affords the opportunity of growing crops that resist pest destructions. Finally, the presence of anti-freeze gene extracted from cold water fish which can be used genetically to induce higher cold tolerance in crops and prevent their damage by cold. In conclusion, it is rational to consider convincingly with these points of scientists that improvement in technologies have to be given full support to continue as it tends more towards solving mans problems than the possible disadvantages it can bring.

Zen Buddhist Perspectives on Modern Education Essay -- Educational Bud

Zen Buddhist Perspectives on Modern Education ABSTRACT: Many articles and books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but publications dealing with Buddhist educational views are rarely available. In this paper, I wish to expound on Zen Buddhist perspectives on modern education. The history of Buddhist education is long and complex. In early centuries (400 BCE- 800 CE), Buddhist monasteries in India and China functioned as educational centers where vinaya, sutras and other subjects were taught. Many men and women were refugees from social injustice and the sangha provided them with education, security and dignity. Spirituality and pedantry were always combined in Buddhist education. But from a Zen perspective, modern education has become an occupational training program to promote financial interest. Capitalism, science and technology have formed a new world view; to wit, occupational training has become more essential to one's way of living than the spiritual quest. Today, most students are concerned with finding fin ancial stability and material gain. Against this trend, Zen education encourages students to seek spiritual stability. Because of Buddha nature, this is a natural human inclination, while not everyone is talented to become a computer specialist or an investment banker. Zen education guides students to grasp the "twist and turn" of the samsaric world, teaching them to be compassionate, understanding, patient listeners and well-balanced individuals. Many articles and books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but publications dealing with Buddhist educational views are rarely available. In this paper, I wish to expound on Zen Buddhist perspectives on modern education. In the first section... ...nd appreciate ordinary things to fulfill the other missing fifty percent. Learning, then, becomes more complete. Notes (1) Bapat, P. V. 2500 Years in Buddhism. (New Delhi: Government of India, 1956), p. 158. (2) Ibid., p. 162. (3) Ibid., p. 165. (4) Chen, Kenneth. Buddhism in China. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 43. (5) Ibid., p. 44. (6) Ibid., p. 83. (7) Lin chi. The Record of Lin Chi. tr. Ruth F. Sasaki. (Kyoto, Japan: The Institute for Zen Studies, 1975), p. 14. (8) Hosaka, Gyokusen. Zen no yotei. [ Secret of Zen] (Tokyo: Kyoiku shincho sha, 1968), p. 57. (9) Ibid. (10) Merton, Thomas. Zen and the Birds of Appetite. (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 31. (11) Pang yun. The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang: A Nineth-Century Zen Classic. tr. Ruth F. Sasaki. (New York: Weatherhill, 1971), p. 46. Zen Buddhist Perspectives on Modern Education Essay -- Educational Bud Zen Buddhist Perspectives on Modern Education ABSTRACT: Many articles and books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but publications dealing with Buddhist educational views are rarely available. In this paper, I wish to expound on Zen Buddhist perspectives on modern education. The history of Buddhist education is long and complex. In early centuries (400 BCE- 800 CE), Buddhist monasteries in India and China functioned as educational centers where vinaya, sutras and other subjects were taught. Many men and women were refugees from social injustice and the sangha provided them with education, security and dignity. Spirituality and pedantry were always combined in Buddhist education. But from a Zen perspective, modern education has become an occupational training program to promote financial interest. Capitalism, science and technology have formed a new world view; to wit, occupational training has become more essential to one's way of living than the spiritual quest. Today, most students are concerned with finding fin ancial stability and material gain. Against this trend, Zen education encourages students to seek spiritual stability. Because of Buddha nature, this is a natural human inclination, while not everyone is talented to become a computer specialist or an investment banker. Zen education guides students to grasp the "twist and turn" of the samsaric world, teaching them to be compassionate, understanding, patient listeners and well-balanced individuals. Many articles and books on Buddhism have been published in recent years, but publications dealing with Buddhist educational views are rarely available. In this paper, I wish to expound on Zen Buddhist perspectives on modern education. In the first section... ...nd appreciate ordinary things to fulfill the other missing fifty percent. Learning, then, becomes more complete. Notes (1) Bapat, P. V. 2500 Years in Buddhism. (New Delhi: Government of India, 1956), p. 158. (2) Ibid., p. 162. (3) Ibid., p. 165. (4) Chen, Kenneth. Buddhism in China. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 43. (5) Ibid., p. 44. (6) Ibid., p. 83. (7) Lin chi. The Record of Lin Chi. tr. Ruth F. Sasaki. (Kyoto, Japan: The Institute for Zen Studies, 1975), p. 14. (8) Hosaka, Gyokusen. Zen no yotei. [ Secret of Zen] (Tokyo: Kyoiku shincho sha, 1968), p. 57. (9) Ibid. (10) Merton, Thomas. Zen and the Birds of Appetite. (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 31. (11) Pang yun. The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang: A Nineth-Century Zen Classic. tr. Ruth F. Sasaki. (New York: Weatherhill, 1971), p. 46.

The birds :: essays research papers

In the course of this film we see Melanie develop as a person through confronting the things she fears. Melanie confronts many fears through the course of the film and grows as a person as the film progresses. She goes through a lot in the film and the story implies that she has found herself by the end of the film. The story is of course a thriller but behind the thriller is Melanie’s journey. Melanie’s journey is very quick. She was extremely immature and lost at the beginning of the film and is some what grown up by the end. At the start of the film Melanie was very immature and lost. She is very rich and seems to want to do something with her life. She apparently spends time with charity and other activities of the sort. She is a prankster who apparently went skinny dipping in a fountain at Rome. She also wants to teach a miner bird lewd saying to give to her linguistic aunt. She must be very lost and has no direction in life. Through this film she gains a little more maturity. Melanie gains more maturity through the film. She acts like a lost little rich kid at the beginning and through the film she begins to show a little more maturity and self respect. She begins to see who she really is under all the confidence and pranks. She is needed in the film and she needs that responsibility to become a woman. She gains more responsibility and she becomes a woman, at last. The bird attacks give that catalyst that is needed to start her to become a responsible grown up. She needs the birds to let her become the friend of Cathy, the friend of Lydia and the girlfriend of Mitch. She needs the birds to let her become a protector and a great friend of Annie. She becomes a great person because of the love she shows for the family.

completing college the easy way :: essays research papers

Completing our education is a goal many of us share. Finding the time to juggle classes, family life and a job seems to be the hard part. In today’s growing corporate world, more and more people are expanding their education. Searching to obtain a higher level of education, online classes seem to be the wave of the future. The growths in the technology field make achieving our goals seem almost too easy to be true.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Traditional schools offer many learning opportunities, not only to the young, but also to the adults looking to move forward with their careers. Many adults head off to college, hoping to reach personal goals by obtaining a higher level of education. With this goal in mind, many are looking for job opportunities.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Higher levels of learning bring an achievement of not only personal goals, but also many gain financial opportunities that come with having a degree. Organizations are hiring individuals with educational backgrounds, to benefit their company. Having a high school degree in these changing times is not a big enough asset anymore.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Online learning is quickly becoming the wave of the future. Many traditional colleges are quickly adding online courses to keep in demand. Modern technology enables us to receive our education with out leaving our home or jobs. Today’s computers are holding large amounts of information making, those days of lugging books back and forth to the library a thing of the past.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Completing our jobs, taking care of families and now attending classes via the Internet makes college more acceptable to many individuals. Attending a class when it is convenient to ones schedule is creating an environment of educated adults who are benefiting the companies they work for.

Engineer in Society

Engineers work to develop economic and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics, scientific knowledge and ingenuity while considering technical constraints. The term is derived from the Latin root â€Å"ingenium,† meaning â€Å"cleverness†. The industrial revolution and continuing technological developments of the last few centuries have changed the connotation of the term slightly, resulting in the perception of engineers as applied scientists. The work of engineers is the link between perceived needs of society and commercial applications. As for engineering definition it is a discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific, and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or invention. The broad discipline of engineering encompasses a range of more specialized sub disciplines, each with a more specific emphasis on certain fields of application and particular areas of technology. The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects. The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine’er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to â€Å"a constructor of military engines. † In this context, now obsolete, an â€Å"engine† referred to a military machine, i. e. , a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). The word â€Å"engine† itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 250), and meaning â€Å"innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention. † Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those specializin g in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the older discipline of military engineering (the original meaning of the word â€Å"engineering,† now largely obsolete, with notable exceptions that have survived to the present day such as military engineering corps, e. g. the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Engineering, much like other science, is a broad discipline which is often broken down into several sub-disciplines. With the rapid advancement of technology many new fields are gaining prominence and new branches are developing such as materials engineering, computer engineering, software engineering, nanotechnology, tribology, molecular engineering, mechatronics, etc. These new specialties sometimes combine with the traditional fields and form new branches such as mechanical engineering and mechatronics and electrical and computer engineering. A new or emerging area of application will commonly be defined temporarily as a permutation or subset of existing disciplines; there is often gray area as to when a given sub-field becomes large and/or prominent enough to warrant classification as a new â€Å"branch. † One key indicator of such emergence is when major universities start establishing departments and programs in the new field. For each of these fields there exists considerable overlap, especially in the areas of the application of sciences to their disciplines such as physics, chemistry and mathematics. Engineering is a subject that ranges from large collaborations to small individual projects. Almost all engineering projects are beholden to some sort of financing agency: a company, a set of investors, or a government. The few types of engineering that are minimally constrained by such issues are pro bono engineering and open design engineering. By its very nature engineering is bound up with society and human behaviour. Every product or construction used by modern society will have been influenced by engineering design. Engineering design is a very powerful tool to make changes to environment, society and economies, and its application brings with it a great responsibility. Many lists of engineering societies have established codes of practice and codes of ethics to guide members and inform the public at large. Engineering projects can be subject to controversy. Examples from different engineering disciplines include the development of nuclear weapons, the Three Gorges Dam, the design and use of Sport utility vehicles and the extraction of oil. In response, some western engineering companies have enacted serious corporate and social responsibility policies. Engineering is a key driver of human development. Sub-Saharan Africa in particular has a very small engineering capacity which results in many African nations being unable to develop crucial infrastructure without outside aid. The attainment of many of the Millennium Development Goals requires the achievement of sufficient engineering capacity to develop infrastructure and sustainable technological development. Safety is the state of being â€Å"safe† (from French sauf), the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered non-desirable. This can take the form of being protected from the event or from exposure to something that causes health or economical losses. It can include protection of people or of possessions. Safety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed even when pieces fail. Continuous changes in technology, environmental regulation and public safety concerns make the analysis of complex safety-critical systems more and more demanding. Safety is often seen as one of a group of related disciplines: quality, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety. These issues tend to determine the value of any work, and deficits in any of these areas are considered to result in a cost, beyond the cost of addressing the area in the first place; good management is then expected to minimize total cost. Theoretically, safety-engineers take an early design of a system, analyze it to find what faults can occur, and then propose safety requirements in design specifications up front and changes to existing systems to make the system safer. But actually, safety engineers are assigned to prove that an existing, completed design is safe. If a safety engineer then discovers significant safety problems late in the design process, correcting them can be very expensive. This type of error has the potential to waste large sums of money. The exception to this conventional approach is the way some large government agencies approach safety engineering from a more proactive and proven process perspective, known as â€Å"system safety†. The system safety philosophy is to be applied to complex and critical systems, such as commercial airliners, complex weapon systems, spacecraft, rail and transportation systems, air traffic control system and other complex and safety-critical industrial systems. The proven system safety methods and techniques are to prevent, eliminate and control hazards and risks through designed influences by a collaboration of key engineering disciplines and product teams. Software safety is a fast growing ield since modern systems functionality are increasingly being put under control of software. The whole concept of system safety and software safety, as a subset of systems engineering, is to influence safety-critical systems designs by conducting several types of hazard analyses to identify risks and to specify design safety features and procedures to strategically mitigate risk to acceptable levels before the system is certified. Additionally, failure mitigation can go beyond design recommenda tions, particularly in the area of maintenance. There is an entire realm of safety and reliability engineering known as Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), which is a discipline that is a direct result of analyzing potential failures within a system and determining maintenance actions that can mitigate the risk of failure. This methodology is used extensively on aircraft and involves understanding the failure modes of the serviceable replaceable assemblies in addition to the means to detect or predict an impending failure. Every automobile owner is familiar with this concept when they take in their car to have the oil changed or brakes checked. Even filling up one's car with fuel is a simple example of a failure mode (failure due to fuel exhaustion), a means of detection (fuel gauge), and a maintenance action (filling the car's fuel tank). For large scale complex systems, hundreds if not thousands of maintenance actions can result from the failure analysis. These maintenance actions are based on conditions (e. g. , gauge reading or leaky valve), hard conditions (e. . , a component is known to fail after 100 hrs of operation with 95% certainty), or require inspection to determine the maintenance action (e. g. , metal fatigue). The RCM concept then analyzes each individual maintenance item for its risk contribution to safety, mission, operational readiness, or cost to repair if a failure does occur. Then the sum total of all the maintenance actions are bundled into maintenance intervals so that maintenan ce is not occurring around the clock, but rather, at regular intervals. This bundling process introduces further complexity, as it might stretch some maintenance cycles, thereby increasing risk, but reduce others, thereby potentially reducing risk, with the end result being a comprehensive maintenance schedule, purpose built to reduce operational risk and ensure acceptable levels of operational readiness and availability. The two most common fault modelling techniques are called failure mode and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. These techniques are just ways of inding problems and of making plans to cope with failures, as in probabilistic risk assessment. One of the earliest complete studies using this technique on a commercial nuclear plant was the WASH-1400 study, also known as the Reactor Safety Study or the Rasmussen Report. Once a failure mode is identified, it can usually be prevented entirely by adding extra equipment to the system. For example, nuclear reactors contain dangerous radiation, and nuclear reactions can cause so much heat tha t no substance might contain them. Therefore reactors have emergency core cooling systems to keep the temperature down, shielding to contain the radiation, and engineered barriers (usually several, nested, surmounted by a containment building) to prevent accidental leakage. Most biological organisms have a certain amount of redundancy: multiple organs, multiple limbs, etc. For any given failure, a fail-over or redundancy can almost always be designed and incorporated into a system. Health is the general condition of a person in all aspects. It is also a level of functional and/or metabolic efficiency of an organism, often implicitly human. At the time of the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 1948, health was defined as being â€Å"a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity†. Only a handful of publications have focused specifically on the definition of health and its evolution in the first 6 decades. Some of them highlight its lack of operational value and the problem created by use of the word â€Å"complete. Others declare the definition, which has not been modified since 1948, â€Å"simply a bad one. † In 1986, the WHO, in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, said that health is â€Å"a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. † Classification systems such as the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC), which is composed of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) also define health. Overall health is achieved through a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being, which, together is commonly referred to as the Health Triangle. Health and working together safety engineers plan, implement, and coordinate safety programs to prevent or correct unsafe environmental working conditions. They promote workplace and product safety by identifying and monitoring potential hazards to people or property. They then apply an advanced knowledge of industrial processes and human performance principles to reduce or eliminate the risk of injury or damage. To create a safe and environmentally sound workplace, engineers coordinate with outside organizations, such as fire departments or the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA); design and install safety devices on machinery or clothing; and investigate causes of industrial accidents to prevent further incidents. They also conduct tests to ascertain air quality, noise level, temperature, or radiation. Once the analysis is complete, they then consult with governmental organizations on how to handle such problems in compliance with safety regulations. Health and safety engineers then coordinate the training of workers on safety procedures using safety equipment, devices, and clothing. Working under the Health Department and the work involves is the planning, administration and performance of public health engineering duties concerned with the execution of one or more phases of the environmental health program. The work entails advising public officials or individuals on problems requiring professional public health engineering expertise, including measures for improvement and compliance with legal requirements, assisting in the promotion of public health through application of environmental health practices, assisting in the enforcement of the provisions of local and State health matters and investigations of related conditions and problems. The work is performed under general supervision of a Senior Public Health Engineer with leeway allowed for exercise of independent judgment in carrying out details of the work. Engineers also played a relatively indirect role in medicine until the last 40 to 50 years. They produced instruments and articles specified by doctors and medical practitioners. There was however an interesting contribution made by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1855. He responded to the scandal of the appalling conditions of the Crimean War military hospital, publicised by Florence Nightingale, by designing the first portable hospital of one thousand beds within six days of receiving a request for help from the War Office. The project was completed in five months from design to admission of the first wounded soldier. The introduction of anaesthetics in 1846 fundamentally changed surgery by suppressing pain. This gave surgeons more time and allowed for the developments of new techniques which made surgery more constructive. However modern medical developments really began in 1876 when Robert Koch, a German doctor, proved for the first time that microorganisms could cause disease. The first chemical agent to attack infection, salvarsan or ‘606’ (arsenobenzene) was developed by Paul Ehrlich in 1910 and although it had many side effects, remained the only means of curing acute infection until the second world war when penicillin was introduced. Although penicillin was originally discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928, it was the innovation and ingenuity of chemists and engineers such as Ernst Chain, who built for Beechams the fermenter which enabled bulk semi-synthetic penicillins to be produced. Whilst chemists and engineers were involved in delivering the benefits of microorganisms such as antibiotics and vaccines, electrical engineers were advancing and applying technology to the benefit of healthcare. Of special merit was Godfrey Hounsfield’s singular contribution in the 1960s of the development of three dimensional reconstructions from two dimensional (2D) X-rays, namely the brain scanner, later to be developed into the body scanner. Engineering in medicine has been an important and it’s believed that the role of the engineer in many areas of healthcare will grow. Constant innovation and development is needed to avoid the generations of the 21st century looking back at our surgical and medical techniques with the same appalled fascination in the 19th century. The ever-expanding array of medical technologies includes artificial hips and organs, endoscopy (enabling minimally invasive surgery), intelligent prosthetic devices (artificial limbs, hearing aids) and implantable devices (pacemaker, defibrillator), novel technologies used in cardiac catheterization, patient monitoring, and medical imaging. These developments have had a tremendous impact on the medical industry and have led to numerous technologies and medical devices without which modern medicine would be unthinkable. Today’s activities range from nano- to information technology and involve such diverse applications as microsensors, artificial organs, physiological modelling, genomics, molecular imaging, home care monitoring, ergonomics, information processing, data management, and patient safety. Environment in this case is natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished by two components. Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive human intervention, including all vegetation, animals, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries. Others is universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from human activity. The natural environment is contrasted with the built environment, which comprises the areas and components that are strongly influenced by humans. A geographical area is regarded as a natural environment (with an indefinite article), if the human impact on it is kept under a certain limited level. In engineering, is more related with environmental engineering whereas define as the application of science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites. Environmental engineering involves water and air pollution control, recycling, waste disposal, and public health issues as well as knowledge of environmental engineering law. It also includes studies on the environmental impact of proposed construction projects. Environmental engineers conduct hazardous-waste management studies to evaluate the significance of such hazards, advice on treatment and containment, and develop regulations to prevent mishaps. Environmental engineers also design municipal water supply and industrial wastewater treatment systems as well as address local and worldwide environmental issues such as the effects of acid rain, ozone depletion, water pollution and air pollution from automobile exhausts and industrial sources. At many universities, Environmental Engineering programs follow either the Department of Civil Engineering or The Department of Chemical Engineering at engineering faculties. Environmental â€Å"civil† engineers focus on hydrology, water resources management, bioremediation, and water treatment plant design. Environmental â€Å"chemical† engineers, on the other hand, focus on environmental chemistry, advanced air and water treatment technologies and separation processes. Additionally, engineers are more frequently obtaining specialized training in law (J. D. ) and are utilizing their technical expertise in the practices of Environmental engineering law. Most jurisdictions also impose licensing and registration requirements. Modern environmental engineering began in London in the mid-19th century when Joseph Bazalgette designed the first major sewerage system that reduced the incidence of waterborne diseases such as cholera. The introduction of drinking water treatment and sewage treatment in industrialized countries reduced waterborne diseases from leading causes of death to rarities. In many cases, as societies grew, actions that were intended to achieve benefits for those societies had longer-term impacts which reduced other environmental qualities. One example is the widespread application of DDT to control agricultural pests in the years following World War II. While the agricultural benefits were outstanding and crop yields increased dramatically, thus reducing world hunger substantially, and malaria was controlled better than it ever had been, numerous species were brought to the verge of extinction due to the impact of the DDT on their reproductive cycles. The story of DDT as vividly told in Rachel Carson's â€Å"Silent Spring† is considered to be the birth of the modern environmental movement and the development of the modern field of â€Å"environmental engineering. † Conservation movements and laws restricting public actions that would harm the environment have been developed by various societies for millennia. Notable examples are the laws decreeing the construction of sewers in London and Paris in the 19th century and the creation of the U. S. national park system in the early 20th century. Briefly speaking, the main task of environmental engineering is to protect public health by protecting (from further degradation), preserving (the present condition of), and enhancing the environment. Pollutants may be chemical, biological, thermal, radioactive, or even mechanical. Environmental engineering emphasizes several areas: process engineering, environmental chemistry, water and sewage treatment (sanitary engineering), waste reduction/management, and pollution prevention/cleanup. Contribution to society is engineers and scientists assess the impacts of a proposed project on environmental conditions. They apply scientific and engineering principles to evaluate if there are likely to be any adverse impacts to water quality, air quality, habitat quality, flora and fauna, agricultural capacity, traffic impacts, social impacts, ecological impacts, noise impacts, visual (landscape) impacts, etc. If impacts are expected, they then develop mitigation measures to limit or prevent such impacts. An example of a mitigation measure would be the creation of wetlands in a nearby location to mitigate the filling in of wetlands necessary for a road development if it is not possible to reroute the road. Engineers and scientists also work to secure water supplies for potable and agricultural use. They evaluate the water balance within a watershed and determine the available water supply, the water needed for various needs in that watershed, the seasonal cycles of water movement through the watershed and they develop systems to store, treat, and convey water for various uses. Water is treated to achieve water quality objectives for the end uses. In the case of potable water supply, water is treated to minimize risk of infectious disease transmittal, risk of non-infectious illness, and create a palatable water flavour. Water distribution systems are designed and built to provide adequate water pressure and flow rates to meet various end-user needs such as domestic use, fire suppression, and irrigation. Most urban and many rural areas no longer discharge human waste directly to the land through outhouse, septic, and/or honey bucket systems, but rather deposit such waste into water and convey it from households via sewer systems. Engineers and scientists develop collection and treatment systems to carry this waste material away from where people live and produce the waste and discharge it into the environment. In developed countries, substantial resources are applied to the treatment and detoxification of this waste before it is discharged into a river, lake, or ocean system. Developing nations are striving to obtain the resources to develop such systems so that they can improve water quality in their surface waters and reduce the risk of water-borne infectious disease. There are numerous wastewater treatment technologies. A wastewater treatment train can consist of a primary clarifier system to remove solid and floating materials, a secondary treatment system consisting of an aeration basin followed by flocculation and sedimentation or an activated sludge system and a secondary clarifier, a tertiary biological nitrogen removal system, and a final disinfection process. The aeration basin/activated sludge system removes organic material by growing bacteria (activated sludge). The secondary clarifier removes the activated sludge from the water. The tertiary system, although not always included due to costs, is becoming more prevalent to remove nitrogen and phosphorus and to disinfect the water before discharge to a surface water stream or ocean outfall. Engineers apply scientific and engineering principles to the design of manufacturing and combustion processes to reduce air pollutant emissions to acceptable levels. Scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, catalytic converters, and various other processes are utilized to remove particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOC), reactive organic gases (ROG) and other air pollutants from flue gases and other sources prior to allowing their emission to the atmosphere. Scientists also have developed air pollution dispersion models to evaluate the concentration of a pollutant at a receptor or the impact on overall air quality from vehicle exhausts and industrial flue gas stack emissions. To some extent, this field overlaps the desire to decrease carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from combustion processes. Technology is an application of knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to changing and manipulating the human environment. Technology includes the use of materials, tools, techniques, and sources of power to make life easier or more pleasant and work more productive. Whereas science is concerned with how and why things happen, technology focuses on making things happen. Technology began to influence human endeavour as soon as people began using tools. It accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and the substitution of machines for animal and human labour. Accelerated technological development has also had costs, in terms of air and water pollution and other undesirable environmental effects. Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result. Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference. As for conclusion, engineer and engineering plays vital role in our life. Engineer has contribute a lot with the careful research and development using all the mathematical and science related in creating, solving and also improve our daily life. In existent of engineer also we are aware in the safety, health and environment. In ways, engineers identify what is safe and what not. Engineer create something in aided the medical profession thus improving the quality of life. Engineer also contributes in preventing pollution to occur and also find alternative for not destroying the environment. With more technological advancement, engineer have unlimited to what they can do in contribution to the society. Engineer must bear in mind, that everything must have it weakness and consequences. As such, engineer with obligation to serve the society must have good research and have think all the effect that could have happen before doing anything.