World Religions Paper free essay sample

World Religion Paper (Rough Draft) By: Allison Workman The religion that I have chosen for my report is Wicca. Wicca is the religion of Witchcraft also referred to as the Craft. There are many myths that are associated with the Wiccan religion. Witches do not perform ride brooms and they are not â€Å"bad or scary† people. In fact most witches are normal people we come in contact with every day. I have learned many interesting facts in my weeks researching this religion. At this time my site visit and interview have not been completed due to family medical problems with my source. However, the interview and site visit are both scheduled for April 3, 2011 I will attempt to submit a summary of those by mid week next week for review. Compare and Contrast Wicca and Christianity are actually quite similar in many ways. However, there are vast differences in the beliefs of the parties as well. We will write a custom essay sample on World Religions Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Both Christianity and Wicca have a symbol that is prominent within the religion. Christians have the cross that represents the death of Jesus to wash away the sins of mankind. Wicca’s symbol is the pentagram. Despite the reports to the contrary the pentagram is not the symbol of a Satanist; in fact Satan does not even exist in the Wiccan culture. The pentagram is the symbol of the four elements (water, air, fire, earth) and the sprit which draws them all together. Both religions have groups that worship together. Christians call these congregations and they usually meet in a Church. When a group of witches gather to worship the group is referred to as a Coven and they generally practice outdoors though not always. Some Covens will gather at the home of the High Priestess to worship. Meeting places will differ from Coven to Coven. Many of the Ethical and Social views of these religions are similar as well. The Wiccan Rede is â€Å"If it harms none, do what you will†. Christians generally try to live by the Golden Rule. â€Å"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you†. These two phrases have a similar meaning. Both religions believe that women and men are equal in value as human beings. Both religions also accept women in secular leadership roles. All Wiccan religious groups believe that women should hold religious leadership roles as well; some denominations of the Christian faiths are accepting of this, but others still believe that men should be the religious leader of the family/church. The number of differences between these two groups is much larger that the similarities. One of the most notable is that Christianity is a monotheistic religion and Wicca is a polytheistic religion. While Christians worship God. The Wiccans worship the God and Goddess simultaneously. The Wiccan religion is all about balabance so the worship of the God and the Goddess signifies the balance, though the primary focus to a witch is the goddess. Witches accept homosexuality completely where Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. Christians worship every Sunday and Witches worship on the 13 full moons of the years and also perform rituals on the Sabbats.

Mid Term Review Essay

Mid Term Review Essay Mid Term Review Essay Services Marketing Midterm Review Chapter 1: Understanding Services Marketing * Four characteristics of services (pg. 9-11): * Intangibility: cannot be seen, touched, held, or put on a shelf, because they lack a physical existence or form * Customer cannot purchase physical ownership of an â€Å"experience† (entertainment), â€Å"time† (consulting), or a â€Å"process† (dry cleaning). This intangible nature prevents customers fro, examining services before their actual enactment. * Inseparability: the production and consumption of the service occur simultaneously * Suggests that interaction between the customer and the service provider must occur for the service to happen * Often, the customer is in the physical presence of the service provider; and in many instances the customer must also come to the site where the service is produced. * Variability: it is hard for a service organization to standardize the quality of its service performance * Unlike physical goods, services often rely on human p erformance, which can vary across workers and customers and from one time to the next. Further, because services are consumed as they are produced, little or no opportunity arises to correct a defective service before it reaches the customer. * Perishability: most services cannot be produced and stored before consumption; they exist only at the time of their production. * After-sales service agreement is a supplementary service (pg. 9): * Manufactured goods come with after-sales service, and other manufactured durable goods come with a warranty * Even nondurable and consumable products often possess a customer service element * Services and physical good often have both tangible and intangible characteristics (pg. 8-9) * At one end of the continuum are pure services, at the other end pure goods; although it is hard to argue that pure services and pure goods exist, counseling services and table salt would clearly fall at opposite ends of the continuum * Both physical goods and servic e marketers need to exercise creativity (pg.9) * Services marketing is relevant not only to service producers but to physical goods manufacturers as well; many successful manufacturing firms have differentiated their products by offering superior customer service Chapter 2: Frameworks for Managing the Customer’s Experience * Service Frameworks (pg. 21-26) * May perform several important functions: * Help services marketers understand service experiences by breaking services down into their individual components * Make communicating about diverse services much easier, because frameworks may include components applicable to all services * Identify specific issues organizations should consider in designing their service delivery * Specify relationships among various components that combine to produce the customer’s service experience * Any service experience can be categorized into four components: * (1) the service workers: those who interact with the customer and those who contribute to the service delivery out of the customer’s sight * (2) the service setting: both the environment in which the service is provided to the customer and areas of the organization to which the customer normally has little access * (3) the servi ce customers: the persons receiving the service as well as others who share the service setting with them * (4) the service process: the sequence of activities necessary to deliver the service * Three types of frameworks: * The Services Marketing Mix * Most common version of the marketing mix , known as the â€Å"Four Ps† of marketing, emphasizes the key roles of product, price, promotion, and place in the development of a marketing strategy * Services marketing mix adds three new Ps- participants, physical

Free sample - The Salad Bar. translation missing

The Salad Bar. The Salad BarBackground The introduction of Healthy salads by The Salad Bar is in a response to the rising cases of obesity in the country associated with eating unhealthy foods in fast food restaurants. Healthy salads are basically made from fresh farm produce such as lettuce and juices from fresh fruits will also be made, instead of the milkshake served in other fast foods outlets. Water will also be available at the convenience of the customers. The production and selling of the products shall take after the model of other restaurants such as In-n-out Burgers. Owing to the limited capital, the salad Bar will begin with a single restaurant with a plan to establish a countrywide presence in five years. By introducing these salads, The Salad Bar is looking forward to replacing the already existing market for fast foods with salads. Following this, customers will conveniently access healthy foods in any location in the country. As a result initial survey of the market indicates that the market for the new products exists. According to Jeffrey and French (1998), fast foods consumption and lack of exercise result in obesity and overweight situations (p.277). The combined effect of the healthy nature of the food, the favorable prices and the convenience in accessing the products will lead to increase in sales. The strength that the company has is convenience, and the strong product offered. The weaknesses include low capital and unreliable employees. The opportunities include favorable market, recovering economy, excited consumers and lack of stiff competition. The potential threats are the unpredictable economic situation, indecisive customers and financial instability.  Ã‚   Note that the current in research in the food industry indicates that parents as customers in this industry play a critical role in determining what is eaten by their children. Therefore, the development of advertisement plans would be tailored to focus more on attracting parents as customers for these salads. In addition, other adverts would target old people as most of them are on diet while others prefer natural foods with less fat. Therefore, these groups would form the major targets of the adverts which would be run on television, radio and the internet, especially on blogs. The adverts would run for a period of two weeks before launching these salads on the market. This is meant to create awareness among consumers and to assist them to realize and understand the need for healthier foods in their diet. Thereafter, these adverts would continue running, except that this time they would be on a less frequent basis; first to bring customers to an attention that there are healthy foods and to remind them on the places where these foods are found. Another area of focus would be on prices. On the other hand, outdoor promotions would also be important in the marketing of these foods. For instance, front-door promotions of actual food outside supermarkets, hypermarkets, etc. In consistency with this, the customers who visit these places would be able to visits the promotional stalls and taste these salads. As a result, these consumers would be presented by an opportunity to make their decisions on these foods based on facts in regard to the actual tastes of these foods. The advertisements and promotions of these foods are expected to increase the customer base of these products on the market. Notably, the creation of awareness of products among customers has been found to increase sales of products. In consistent with this, the promotion of these foods is expected to create a customer base. Furthermore, these promotions and adverts would alleviate the place of these foods in the market. On the other hand, these adverts and promotions are expected to increase sales and revenue in the short run. Therefore, these adverts and promotions should be run for the first three months as the market for these products is established. This would ensure a firm establishment of these products in the market as well as increase the revenues during this period. Additionally, this would also attract more customers to shift their buying behaviors towards spending their money on healthier foods. The items to be covered by the promotion are convenience, health and efficiency of the service. The foods served are low in carbohydrates and fats and include the following: organic and raw fruits, fat and grease free meats, fresh real fruit shakes, greens such as lettuce, vegetables such as green beans, snap peas, radishes, broccoli, avocadoes, tomatoes cucumbers, zucchini and carrots. Healthy meats such as lean beef, cooked shrimp, tuna and chicken breast will also be included. In addition, lemon juice, salad dressing and clear drinking water will be served if desirable. The expected net income for the first year of trading is 63,161. The net purchases for the year amounted to $61,000. Note that these were projected figures and they were expected to go higher or a little lower after the launching of the product in the market depending on the success of promotions and the advertisement campaign which was being carried out. In this respect, it was important to enhance the advertisement and promotional campaigns which were being carried out.

Argument in Support of Illegal Immigrants receiving Social Services Essay

Argument in Support of Illegal Immigrants receiving Social Services - Essay Example Increase in the illegal process of immigration mainly from Mexico to the United States, though has a long history, however, was witnessed most conspicuously since 1970s afterwards. Roots of the problem can be cited within execution of the Bracero Program during World War II (specifically in the year 1942) that allowed US employers to derive temporary workers from Mexico (Lemay 4). Now US being one of the strongest economic powers and having a politically stable democratic structure compared to Mexico, was regarded by majority of such workforce as a convenient shelter that would help them for economic and social prosperity. Thus, while a major part of the temporary workers never left the United States even after expiration of their temporary visas, on the other hand, America’s economic and social stability continued to attract immigrants from Mexico to such an extent that even after demise of the Bracero Program and consequent implementation of the â€Å"Immigration and Natura lization Act, 1965† much success could not be attained in controlling the process of illegal immigration.... The Act further states that applications for asylum or any other â€Å"Temporary Protected Status† will also be rejected by the state authorities (Colton-Sonnenberg 4). While considering the fact that the economic supremacy United States is enjoying owes a great deal to the illegal immigrants, actions taken by the nation against providing them with any kind of social service facilities clearly appear to be maliciously selfish and biased on humanitarian grounds. It has been clearly specified by several legal propositions (such as Proposition 187 of 1994) and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, 1996 that illegal immigrants are mainly responsible for economically burdening the nation as well as increased anti-social activism (Koven, and Gotzke 140-142). Illegal immigration, from legal perspective, is clearly an act of offense and a state has every right to take actions against those who are joining the act. However, actions taken by the United States to condemn the offense is offensive in itself as those are violating both legal principle of naturalism and norms of humanity. While evaluating the issue of American socio-economic prosperity, the immense contribution from immigrants and their successors in this scenario has been acknowledged by the former American President John F. Kennedy. He not only recognized the United States as a nation of immigrants but also emphasized on the importance of formulating immigration policy in such a manner so that social welfare of the immigrants is ensured (Colton-Sonnenberg 3). Getting to the roots of immigration problem it becomes clear the flaws in implementing the foreign policy has a major role to play to result in the influx of illegal immigration:

The extra credit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The extra credit - Essay Example There are negative effects of these externalities in production for instance; industrial pollution causes the marginal social cost (MSC) to curve higher than the private marginal cost (MPC). The externality for this discussion will be sea pollution by water vessels. Sea pollution occurs due to oil spillage from ships and sea vessels on transit, especially in cases of accidents or leakage. Other forms of pollution by the sea vessels are from discharging domestic wastes into the sea when the vessel is in transit. Passenger ships are the main dischargers of domestic effluent into the sea such as kitchen wastes and waste from sanitation areas. Other pollution may be from chemicals, and garbage from the sea vessel that find their way into the water during transit. Scrapping of old ships on beaches may also pollute the water is the scrap metal, paints, and pieces find their way into the water. However, most of the sea pollution comes from people living near the beaches, when they dispose chemicals, soil, oil, and rubbish into the sea. Disposal of Bunker oil from cargo ship is very dangerous and toxic to the sea creatures and is very difficult to clean sea pollution is bad for the society as it destroys the marine ecosystem by killing the aquatic plan ts organisms. There are some policies to control sea pollution in various countries such as government intervention through regulations, which include taxing polluters and forcing the polluters to compensate the affected. International regulations to prevent marine pollution from ships aim at preventing and lowering ship pollution. Port waste management under Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels highlights the requirements for all vessels to give a prior notice to the port on the waste onboard. The vessels should also offload the waste at the port and pay for waste discharge facilities. All ships of between 150

International marketing management Essay Example for Free

International marketing management Essay ‘Self- Reference Criterion’ 1. Define problem or goals in terms of home-country cultural traits, habits and norms 2. Define problem or goals in terms of foreign cultural traits, habits and norms 3. Isolate the SRC influence in the problem and examine it carefully to see how complicates the problem 4. Redefine the problem without the SRC influence and solve for the foreign market Self-reference criterion (SRC) as an unconscious reference to ones own cultural values, experiences and knowledge as a basis for decisions. The SRC impedes the ability to assess a foreign market in its true light. For example, Americans may perceive more traditional societies to be backward and unmotivated because they fail to adopt new technologies or social customs, seeking instead to preserve traditional values. In the 1960s, a supposedly well read American psychology professor referred to India’s culture of sick because, despite severe food shortages, the Hindu religion did not allow the eating of cows. The psychologist expressed disgust that the cows were allowed to roam free in villages, although it turns out that they provided valuable functions by offering milk and fertilizing fields. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one’s culture to be superior to others. The important thing here is to consider how these biases may come in the way in dealing with members of other cultures. Self-reference criterion importance to a marketing firm planning to enter international markets for the first time. Importance of Self-reference criterion as a topic of research Self-reference is a topic whose theoretical foundations have so far primarily been studied in the context of logic, the philosophy of language, systems theory, and post-modern culture. In computer science it has been a topic in the context of the recursively of Turing machines. In semiotics, there have been only few studies which have dealt explicitly with this topic, although marginal reflections on self reference can occasionally be found in the context of the theory of reference. Levels and degrees of self-reference criterion: Examples from advertising Just as signs may self-referentially refer to the world of signs, the media may refer to the world of the media in a self-referential manner. Citations, intertextuality, intermediality, met textual references, repetitions, recursions, and references to the communicative situation are some of the symptoms of self-reference in the media. Various degrees of self-reference must be distinguished, from the sign that refers to nothing but itself to the sign that refers only partially to itself and partially still to something else. Furthermore, self reference occurs at different levels of the message in which it occurs. Beginning with the smallest elements of the message, the first three levels of self-reference are derived from Peirce’s trichotomy of the interpret ant: 34 rheumatic (equivalent to the unit of a word), dicentic (equivalent to a proposition), and argumentative self-reference. In extension of this Peircean triad, textual, intertextual, intermedial and communicative self-reference will be distinguished. Communicative self-reference criterion Communicative self-reference pertains to pragmatics, the situation of text production and reception. The roles of the readers or the spectators and the enunciative roles of the authors, the producers, the actors or the players become the topic of the message. Instead of presenting or representing ideas or events in the world beyond the message, the text deals with its own communicative context, its communicative function, and its presuppositions. The text has thus its own pragmatic dimension as its topic. For example, the audience of a film is reminded of the fact that it is participating in the film while sitting in the film theatre. 38 Peter Greeanway’s actors that step out of their role as actors and mingle with the audience, or Alfred Hitchcock, who steps out of the role of a film producer to become an actor are further examples of communicative self-reference. B) International marketer must have knowledge of sub cultural groups Introduction Culture is concerned with social behaviour and attitudes, and this paper aims to highlight its significance for entry into foreign markets. Culture has been defined as â€Å"the integrated sum total of learned behaviour traits that are manifest and shared by members of a society†. Cultural factors have been itemized in the existing literature, but clearly among the most important are: customer beliefs and attitudes; morality, ethics and religion; social and consumption values; language and literature; social systems and social behaviour (especially the family); historical background; arts and aesthetics. Two authoritative studies have identified concepts of culture both as barriers to entry and as dynamic movers (Herkovits, 1970, Clutterbuck 1980). Furthermore, insufficient research attention has focused on defining more conceptual approaches to the internationalization of retailing and there is an even greater paucity of research into strategies for retailer entry modes; this is the main justification for this paper. In researching their approach to overseas markets, retailers must consider that culture can have an impact on their merchandising and promotion. The culture in which a person lives affects his/her consumption patterns and also the meaning that is attached to specific products. When promoting merchandise in a new culture, it is easier initially to appeal to existing culture requirements or expectations than to try to change them. Merchandising and promotion must be sensitive to the basic values of the country and the differences in patterns of consumption. Case Example (1) Entry into the Swiss Market In Switzerland, foreign dishwasher manufacturers and retailers expected the same rapid sales they had first obtained in other West European markets; but sales in Switzerland were so slow that research had to be done to find out why (this research should, of course, should have been done before, not after, market entry). The research showed that the Swiss housewife had a different set of values to, for example, her French and English counterparts; she was very conscious of her role as strict and hardworking, and her responsibility for the health of her family. To the Swiss housewife dishwashers simply made life easy, and this conflicted with her Calvinistic work ethic. As a result of this research, dishwasher manufacturers had to change their advertising – promoting, instead of ease-and convenience, hygiene-and-health. They did this by emphasizing that because dishwashers used temperatures higher than hand hot the process was more hygienic than washing up by hand. Thereafter retailers had no problem selling automatic dishwashers in Switzerland. Source: Author Cultures across countries High context culture – the meaning of individual behaviour and speech changes depending on the situation – nonverbal messages are full of important meaning (Read between the lines) – e. g. Saudi Arabia and Japan, written contracts are not always enforceable as new people move into executive positions (Chile, Mexico) Low context culture – intentions are expressed verbally – the situation does not change the meaning of words – e. g. India, China, Australia, New Zealand Cultural Assessment International retailers need to communicate meaning through the transmission of messages to people of different cultures if they are to succeed in the promotion of their products to enter foreign markets. Misunderstandings caused by cultural differences can seriously damage the image of a firm or product; therefore, in order to ensure the message transmitted is received in its correct form, the retailer needs to be completely aware of the implications of all the elements of the message in the foreign culture. Failure on behalf of the retailer to adapt to the intricacies of national customs and develop a rapport will lead to inadequate market entry strategies. Accurate communications are so vital that any risk of cultural misunderstanding needs to be eliminated. Firms must identify key management positions and insist that they are held, whenever possible, by someone of the same culture. Many firms make the mistake of putting nationals from the parent companies in charge of key positions within their foreign subsidiaries, often on the basis that fluency in the language is sufficient. In attempting to understand the most significant elements of the foreign culture, companies have to be vigilant and ensure a balance is maintained. There is no one method to adopt in the evaluation of other cultures for retailing purposes as the nature of the goods being offered should govern the method of assessment. The retailer must be sufficiently perceptive and guard against the over-exaggeration of the differences or the similarities between the foreign culture and its own. For example, in analyzing the United States market, a UK retailer may overemphasize a perceived common culture stemming from the common language and close political and economic relations. A common language cannot indefinitely set the seal on a common culture when the geographical, political and economic determinants of the culture are no longer the same throughout its area. The withdrawal of Marks and Spencer from the Canadian market in 1999 is a case in point; their precept was that the aforementioned â€Å"perceived† cultural affinity would facilitate acceptance of the St Michael brand name; in short the common language or heritage does not guarantee a common culture. A further complication in determining the important facets of a country’s culture is the existence of more than one culture or sub-culture within many nations world-wide. Table 1 lists a few states with cultural differences based along linguistic groupings and the problems these present to the international retailer. A cultural assessment will reveal a modal pattern, but a truly useful evaluation will also expose considerable variations within a group or a subset group. In fact, for some cultural characteristics, there may be a wider range within a given society than between societies. For example, young professional 25-30 year olds in Spain, France and Italy may have more in common, in terms of values, tastes and aspirations, than with their non-professional compatriots of the same age group. A cultural evaluation can be either static or dynamic. A static assessment serves only to identify the differences in variables between cultures, whereas a dynamic appraisal seeks to indicate which variables will change in the future, in what order and with what speed. For the international retailer, the identification of which changes would be readily accepted or rejected can mean the difference between success or failure. The analysis of a culture to ascertain the peculiarities of the population can be extremely expensive, time-consuming and unwieldy. Therefore, having conducted a rapid survey of key cultural elements of a nation, the international retailer with limited resources may choose to carry out a Partial Cultural Assessment which focuses on key elements fundamental to the success of its operations in any country. Table 2 shows several cultural factors, which could frustrate the progress of the operations in the event of a retailer failing to obtain accurate data from the assessment of the foreign markets; if a single element is incorrectly assessed, the effectiveness of the strategies will be diminished.

Essay --

Database Security: Database security is a critical Domain of Computer and Information Security that deals with protection of an individual database or group of database from illegal access, injections or possible destruction. Data can be a customer's information, intellectual property, financial asset or any number of other records that can be maintained and managed on a system. Without Database security people are at risk of identity fraud, theft, destruction of property and much worse. The global costs of such security breaches runs from over a billions of dollars yearly, and the cost to individual companies can be extreme, sometimes disastrous. One of the most popular method for protection of database includes storing a backup in a secondary location or datacenter. The Advantage of storing backup in secondary location is the process of restoration and damage prevention in case of data destruction or disaster at Primary source . A firm’s database infrastructure often contains the most important data and are subjected to a wide range of attacks. Some of the threats to database security are excessive and unused privileges, SQL Injection, DoS etc. Excessive and Unused privileges is when someone in the firm is granted database privileges that exceeds the requirement of their job function, these privileges may sometime be abused. A good example for Excess and Unused Privilege can be a University System Administrator who’s primary function is to maintain student information, but due to excessive privileges could potentially have access to modification of Student’s grades. Another example could be of an employee with access to human resources database access, leaving the organization i... ... The use of portable devices are causing most of the organizations to deal with higher risk from hackers gaining access to sensitive data. Database are mainly targeted by attackers since it contains high volume of important and potentially critical data. The best way to overcome these risk are through storing important information as backups and securing data transmission over public network. Organization should set up firewalls between company’s intranet and internet in order to block any external device access into the network . With all being said organization should continuously educate their employees about the risks and keep a track and secure the portable devices used by IT personnel. If such security measures are implemented by an organization they can ensure that critical and important information could be less susceptible to vulnerabilities.