Summary on Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides Assignment

Summary on Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides - Assignment Example It covers the sea beds and is the foundation of land masses. Tectonic plate shifting along fault lines is the primary cause of major earthquakes. However this is not just the sole reason for earthquakes. Localised low intensity and low impact earthquakes also occur frequently everyday at different parts of the world. They are due to the shifting of underlying layer of soil, and are confined only to small localities in cities, town or rural area. Lisbon, 1755: The Lisbon Earthquake: The Lisbon earthquake in the country of Portugal back in the 1st of November 1755 was one of the most ghastly natural calamities in the memory of mankind. Nothing every of such gigantic destructive scale had ever occurred in the near recallable future, swallowing everything from a huge civilisation, to thousands of people, human constructions etc. The Lisbon earthquake due to its sheer magnitude of destruction is till date studied by geologists, seismologists, construction firms and earthquake experts. The natural disaster on the 1st of November 1755 in Lisbon was a combination of two natural disasters: A series of high and medium intensity earthquakes followed by an equally devastating Tsunami, due to the aftershock of the earthquake. The date was November 1st 1755 at 9:30 am, one of the most scared days in the Roman calendar (All Saints’ Day), thousands of devotees and followers had gathered in the innumerable streets and lanes of Lisbon crowding near Cathedrals or flocking towards the smaller churches. The day was crisp and clear and the priest had just begun chanting â€Å"Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, diem festum†¦Ã¢â‚¬  when the cathedrals and churches started to sway and lurch from side to side. The bronze bells began to ring madly and candles toppled from their stands and fell over. Within seconds from the initial ushering of the tremor, it gathered intensity and magnitude, tossing buildings down like match boxes and dislodging large chunks of masonry that fell on fearful worshippers crushing them to their death. The second larger shock came a few seconds later and caused even more damage compared to the first one, razing damaged construction and building to dust, killing thousands. After 90 minutes from the last major shock, three devastating Tsunamis struck the coast of Lisbon one after the other wiping out human settlement along the coast line and leaving nothing but indistinguishable ruins and mangled remains of construction debris and human bodies washed up on the shores. The extensive damage caused by the earthquake triggered a massive fire outbreak in the entire city, initiated by toppled candles and broken hearths, that set flame to the highly combustible wooden buildings. Soon the entire city was engulfed in the violent lashings of flame, charring to death thousands of people and leaving nothing but roasted remains of human property and burnt dead bodies. This was the horrific natural calamity in Lisbon two and a half centuries ago t hat killed tens of thousands of people and scarred the entire city mercilessly with irreversible damage that took centuries to rebuild. San Francisco, 1906: The San Francisco Earthquake: San Francisco was no stranger to destructive earthquakes and fires. It had burnt down 6 times during the years of gold rush in the years 1849 – 1851. This was because most of the building were made of flimsy

Employment law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Employment law - Essay Example The emphasis is on the common law tests used to determine employee status. This is a particularly contentious area in the modern labour markets where the lines between the employed and self-employed are increasingly â€Å"blurred†.3 This paper demonstrates that the common law tests developed to determine the employee status is unsatisfactory and why. I. Significance of Determining Employee Status Initially, the courts treated the employee status as one defined around the concept of master and servant. As a result, during the 19th century, the employment relationship was primarily regarded as one of service in which the emphasis was on the servant’s (employee’s) duty to remain loyal and subservient rather than the master’s (employer’s) duty to â€Å"provide continuing employment.†4 In more recent times the word â€Å"worker† continues to gain currency in legislation and regulations suggesting the modernisation of employee status.5 For i nstance, Section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that: In this Act ‘worker’ (except in the phrases ‘shop worker’ and ‘betting worker’) means an individual who has entered into or works (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under) – (a) A contract of employment, or (b) Any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that or a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual.6 In other words, the term worker is used interchangeably with the word employee, reflecting the varying forms of employment that can take place in modern times. For instance the individual who works from home may not be under the kind of control that the workplace employee is, but should not be denied employee status.7 The use of the word worker immediately draws attention to the changing nature of the employee status and carries with it the identification of the significance of the employee in today’s labour market. The employee is no longer a servant, but a source of human capital. In this regard, the common law tests for determining the master servant relationship which necessarily flow from the older notion of master and servant, is no longer compatible with modern notions of the employee/employer relationship. There are essentially four primary reasons justifying a more robust test for determining employee status in more recent times. To begin with, the predominance of the contract of employment as a basis for identifying the employee’s status does not take into account the relative inequality of bargaining power between the employee (the weaker party) and the employer.8 These inequities compromise the extent to which the employee may bargain for and ob tain specific benefits under the contract of employment. The fact is, a self-employed worker will obviously be responsible for its own salary and health and safety at work.9 Secondly, the

Buss & Gov Que Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Buss & Gov Que - Essay Example In order to understand the effectiveness of the system approach to innovation, it is significant to review how this system has led to strengthening of innovation in the United States of America. Innovation in the Unites States of America can be viewed as a role of free access to markets, capital, human resources, macroeconomic environment, and industrial structure (Bergek et al 2008, p 408). The Function approach has been used by policy makers in the United States, which in turn has strengthened the tendency of innovation system perspective to open up richer and more difficult innovation policies. In addition, policymakers also use the innovation system approach to define process goals of their interventions in terms of a changed functional pattern in industrial operation. They have done this by explaining the nature of these processes in terms of the outcome of a balance between various inducements and blocking mechanisms. The approach is applied to identify the key policy challenge s that exist. The components of the innovation system are networks, institutions, and actors who contribute to the function of diffusing, developing, and utilizing new products and processes. Although the system calls for collective actions and coordinated action, an innovation system approach is analytical in nature in the sense that it does not focus on how to exist as fully-fledged system. For instance, access to capital is very essential to commercializing output. Some areas in the US have taken longer periods to bring new items to market. Due to this, the availability of funds to fund the commercialization of new technologies is very essential in determining the performance of the business. In addition, the industrial structure in the United States has provided competitive environment where technological innovations can operate. Further, development is often linked with availability of technology developers whose role is to drive development by providing required technologies, resources, markets, and applications. Most industries innovate and improve on new products in order to be competitive. The level of resource mobilization in the United States is strong since it has managed to mobilize human capital through education and training in specific scientific and technological disciplines as well as entrepreneurial, finance and management. There is an association between industries and educational institutions whereby educational institutions offer educational programs that prepare students to venture into business by developing stronger association to the industrial sector via internships, cooperation, and research projects (Bergek et al 2008, p 410). The importance of innovation and diffusion process recommends the generation of positive external economies, which is a key process in the formation, and growth of business. The feature of United States markets and marketing potential has influenced the innovation and diffusion of its business. For instance, it has access to regional, local, and international markets in which it can sell its products. The nature of technological innovation changes with time so as the nature of industrial products and services in that industries and factories manufacture new products based on new and enhanced technology. Therefore, in order for commercialization to be successful like it is in the United States, it is vital to create a conducive surrounding to innovation and

Consideration In Total Quality Environment Essay

Consideration In Total Quality Environment - Essay Example Consideration in a total quality environment is to take care of all employees. It is the duty of the leaders to take care of the needs of their subordinates and to keep them motivated at all levels of management. Consideration is considered very important as it is the key to keep up the spirits of the employees and makes them loyal to the organization. Giving employees a sense of belonging to the organization is very crucial in increasing productivity which in turn increases the sales and profit margins gradually (Gupta & Valarmathi, 178). For this very reason many scholars have formed various models in order to retrench employee motivation through extended consideration like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and Fredrick Herzberg’s motivator – hygiene factors theory. Consideration in the context of Total quality management needs to be implemented at all levels as in total quality control environments the quality of the productivity of all employees has to be in good health and furthermore enhanced. Consideration is not only to take care of employees needs but it also deals with providing them with a vision to work towards as without a given direction employees tend to feel alienated from the organization. To keep employees productive and satisfied they should not only be given monetary benefits but also a set of goals and tasks that have to be accomplished within a given amount of time. This helps the employees to be satisfied with their job as they feel that they are linked with the foremost working aspects of the organization (Wu?stenhagen, 228). Therefore consideration is one of the core elements in total quality management as without proper employee consideration leadership and management an organization will not be able to succeed the qualit y of its productivity, its services and its organization and/or production processes. Consideration is now given a priority even in the organizations which are far from the total quality concept as employees are the backbone and without a strong backbone an organization cannot succeed (Total Quality Management, 312). INITIATING STRUCTURE Initiating structure is to organize the order in which information flows within the levels of the organization and the accountability of an employee to its superior, in simpler context it means getting people organized. It is also the way in which a leader sets and creates expectations for their subordinates and holds the employees accountable. Organizational structure is very important as it is responsible for a smooth flow of decisions, duties, goals and information from the up to downstream of employees. All activities are allocated in the best way to achieve the strategies and objectives of the organization. Initiating structure is to lay down a foundation of operating procedures on which routine tasks are placed and organized. It also helps to define the importance of one individual over another through their position in the organization and also decides which individuals in the organization are responsible for decision making processes. Without a definite structure an organization is more likely to break apart. In a total quality environment it is important to see if the structure of the organization is prominent enough to give the employees a direction and understanding of how things are carried out and how tasks are performed. A lack in the initiation of structure will result in ambiguity of tasks and actions of the employees, noise in the information flow and eventually directly affect the productivity of all employees. Total quality management refers to the improvement of all aspects of the organization to improve productivity on the whole and so without proper initiation of structure the total quality management pri nciple holds no value. CONCLUSION There are two types of leaders one who give importance to consideration and others who consider initiation of structure more important than consideration. Moreover, in several research

Biography of Albert Einstein Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Biography of Albert Einstein - Essay Example Thus Einstein spent only six weeks in his place of birth. The image of Albert Einstein as an intellectual giant does not relate to skills as a kid. He could scarcely talk till the age of three. Taking this disadvantage into consideration, it was not expected that he would become a scientist whom the world would remember and respect for ever. Despite the problem in speaking, Einstein used to be very constructive and creative right from his early childhood. It has been recorded that he was really good in making tall card castles. It was also evident that he was different from his peers and had interests quite varied from that of children of his age. One ideal example of this is that he did not enjoy playing soldier which used to be a very common game amongst children of his age. Interestingly, at the age of twelve he got totally involved in a geometry book (Lewis, 1985). For a boy of this age to get interested in geometry when children of his age played around with toy cars, suggested the extra ordinary scientific aptitude he possessed even early during his childhood. Education The initial days of Albert Einstein’s schooling was done in Munich. He began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium (Lewis, 1985). He was not a bright student at this school. It has also been argued that as a young boy with high aptitude in Science, the school and the syllabus could not be of interest to Einstein. In the autobiography notes of Einstein it has been mentioned that he developed disinterest in the education system and distrust on the educators. However, the fact that Einstein does live up to the academic standards that the school doesn’t mean that he was slow student. It has been recorded in his autobiography that he came up with his own proof for the Pythagoras theory early in the age of 12 (Einstein,1987). Later, in the year 1894, the family business which was run in Munich collapsed. The family was forced to move from Munich. Young Einstein was of fifteen the n. He had to drop out of high school. The family moved to Italy. Einstein took a break from his education for a year as the family was still getting adapted to and settled in Italy. The next year he tried getting into Eidgen?ossiche Technische Hochschule which is the Federal Institute of Technology.. However he couldn’t pass the entrance examination. He then studied for a year in Swiss high School. He graduated from this school in the year 1896 (Lewis, 1985). This qualification further helped him get admitted to Eidgen?ossiche Technische Hochschule. He was not a bright student here in the Federal Institute as well. It has been reported by a number of researchers that Einstein’s teachers didn’t even expect him to pass this course. He continuously tried to organize a University scholarship to support his studies and living expenses. Attributing to the poor academic records all these efforts were turned down by the University. He also tried to get into a job of a h igher secondary teacher along with his studies so that he could manage his living expenses. He was not successful in getting this as well. He successfully graduated from Eidgen?ossiche Technische Hochschule in the year 1900. An analysis of the schooling and education of Einstein suggests that he never had been a bright student. He studies in three different countries including Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Early Years of Work Albert Einstein’s initial days of professional endeavors were unduly in nature. He had to survive with small scale jobs for many years. He had been relying on temporary tutoring and teaching jobs for his survival. Being a mediocre in terms of academic performance, he couldn’

The Challenges of Cash Flow Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Challenges of Cash Flow - Assignment Example This will enable customers to mail payments and checks processed by the bank as quickly as possible. Companies should use one bank to centralize and easily manage their cash. Tightening credit requirements – It is a marketing strategy to extend credit to customers to increase sales. Businesses often have to extend credit to customers, particularly when starting out or growing. Businesses should also scrutinize individual customers to assess the risks related to selling to customers on credit. Additionally, companies should accept credit cards although it will attract a small percentage of interest (Linzer, 2006). Increasing sales – increased sales would defiantly increase cash inflow. In order to achieve this objective, a company should sell more goods to existing customers and get new customers through advertisement of products and services (Jones, 2008). Pricing discounts – discounts on accounts receivable motivate customers to pay early in order to claim the discount offered. This will definitely improve cash inflow. However, this will reduce the firm’s profit margin. A company may delay payments to the suppliers as a counteraction. This must be done with a lot of precaution so as not to affect the firm’s credit rating. Securing loans – bank overdraft or other short-term loans can also be used to solve short-term cash flow problems (Linzer, 2006). A long-term amortized loan is also another way to solve cash flow during financial difficulties but it should sum up principal and interest until the loan is finally settled. Set cash flow targets- proper cash flow projections will enable your firm to properly estimate and project the required cash flow. The use of cash flow analysis tools like use of cash budget and projected cash flow statement are also effective (Jones, 2008). Make payment by your customers as

To talk of a consolidated democracy is a myth. How far do you agree Essay

To talk of a consolidated democracy is a myth. How far do you agree with this statement - Essay Example The research on the practical implications and needs of democracy – as developed in the context of this paper – has led to the assumption that the existence of a consolidated democracy is not feasible; in fact, consolidated democracy should be rather considered as a myth. The above argument is justified in this paper by referring to the forms of democracy in a series of Mediterranean states – France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Malta. The political decisions developed by the governments of these countries in the context of democracy are presented and analyzed using a series of relevant examples. The comparison of these practices with those of USA, another country where democracy has been promoted, has verified the assumption that consolidated democracy should be characterized as a myth; democracy, as introduced in countries worldwide, is a political system incorporating elements of democratic behaviour and values which have been combined with the values and ethics of various political teams in order for specific political interests to be promoted. 2. Democracy – consolidated democracy, characteristics and forms In order to understand the reasons for the non-feasibility of consolidated democracy it would be necessary to refer primarily to the rules and the ethics of democracy as a theoretical framework. Then the concept of consolidated democracy would be explained and analyzed making clear the reasons for which the specific political system is not applicable – in practical terms. 2.1. Theories on democracy Through the decades, different approaches have been used by theorists in order to explain the context and the priorities of democracy as a political system which should be promoted in all countries worldwide ensuring equality and fairness for all people – reference is made to the initial aims of democracy, as included in the theoretical framework of the specific political system. In accordance with Harrison (1995) the k ey rule of democracy would be summarized as follows: ‘the citizen body as a whole meets to decide what to do’ (Harrison 14) – referring to a practice related to the Athenian democracy. On the other hand, Lane & Ersson (2003) notes that a distinction should be made between real democracy (i.e. real life democracy) and the ideal democracy, a concept related to justice (Lane & Ersson 2003). It is explained that the potential existence of democracy in real life can be explored using two important questions: ‘a) what are the conditions for democratic stability and b) what are the outcomes of a democratic regime? (Lane & Ersson 24). It is made clear that the use of the above two questions is helpful in order to realize why democracy is quite difficult to be developed in real life; there can be no ideal social conditions – social turbulences are likely to appear even in countries which social rights and ethics are highly promoted, i.e. social stability cann ot exist – at least not for a long time; on the other hand, the benefits of a democratic regime are quite difficult to be set as a priority by governments worldwide; in this context, it is quite unlikely that the public interest is set above all interests even in countries where the interests of citizens are of high importance for the political decisions. A similar approach can be identified in the