Internal and external (domestic and foreign policies) changes in the Essay

Internal and external (domestic and foreign policies) changes in the US since 1980 - Essay Example When George bush was appointed president, he appointed an experienced team that runs all matters of foreign policy (Beisner 90). He rejected many of Clinton’s policies and adopted others that were from a unilateralist approach. In his term, several international treaties were not implemented, and new realism was adopted as the new policy. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 on the United States led to major changes in the foreign polices of the country, and adopted an overwhelming priority, which was war on terrorism (Beisner 91). The domestic policies that were in place during the cold war focused on supporting businesses and expansion of opportunities of people who fall in the middle class. As a country, the United States has a history of promoting and disregarding human rights abroad; however, it has a mixed record at home (Beisner 49). The federal branch of the government continues to support the use of abusive counterterrorism policies. The criminal justice system employs policies that are marred with racial disparities and harsh sentences (Beisner 57). The US has undergone several changes in the foreign and the domestic policies. These policies are implemented with the aim of establishing better lives and security for American citizens. This paper has been a discussion of the changes that have taken place in the domestic in addition, the foreign policies of the country since

Comparison of health and safety aspects between Bahrain & UK Essay

Comparison of health and safety aspects between Bahrain & UK - Essay Example This research paper identified the main reasons as to why OSH regulations and standards in Bahrain are not at par with that of United Kingdom. The research paper also identified the main problems that face Bahraini OSH standards. The paper has also given some suggestions with regard to improving OSH standards in construction sites. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.INTRODUCTION 4 2.RESEARCH OBJECTIVES/AIMS 5 3.RESEARCH PROBLEM STATEMENT 5 4.LITERATURE REVIEW 7 4.1 Hazards and risks associated with construction of sites 7 4.1.1 Factors that increase risks in construction sites 7 4.1.2 Types of health and safety hazards associated with construction sites 8 4.2 Occupational Health and Safety in construction sites in Bahrain 10 4.2.1 Reasons why Occupational Health and Safety in construction sites in Bahrain are not in at par with those of United Kingdom 10 4.2.2 Current status Health and Safety in construction sites in Bahrain 12 4.3 Occupational Health and Safety in construction sites in United King dom 14 5.RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 5.2Primary Data Collection 19 5.3Secondary Data Collection 19 6.RESEARCH RESULTS 20 6.1 Primary Data analysis 20 6.1.2 Responses from Bahrain 20 6.1.3 Responses from United Kingdom 27 7.ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH RESULTS 30 7.1 Comparison of OSH aspects in United Kingdom and United Kingdom of Bahrain 30 7.2 Risk Management 33 7.2.1 Risk Assessment and Management in Construction sites in United Kingdom 34 7.2.1 Risk Assessment and Management in Construction sites in Bahrain 35 8. RECOMMENDATIONS 36 9. CONCLUSION 36 10. References 38 1. INTRODUCTION Working in construction sites is amongst the most hazardous occupations in the entire Universe. This is due to the fact that workers in these construction sites are at great risks of being exposed to various health hazards (Sambidge 2009). These hazards may result into workers’ disability, injury, death or illness (DOSH 2011).Another factor that makes working in these construction sites even worse is that protecting workers against these hazards is amongst the greatest challenge facing the managementof these construction sites.The challenge of protecting workers against these hazards is due the risks involved, anddynamic nature of construction activities(DOSH 2011). Due to hazards in involved in construction sites and activities, construction occupational safety and health have been developed by various nations and internationally. Even though it is the responsibility of every construction company in every country to ensure that the safety and health of its workers are upheld, the standards at which th

Discussion 4C Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion 4C - Assignment Example It is important for people working together to get along at their work places as they require each other at some point during work. When people get along in workplaces, it is easier and faster for them to help each other finish tasks and deal with deadlines. The video is about a talk on email etiquette and how the email works. It was good to learn the don’ts involved when sending a single mail to multiple people. I also learned that I can be in a position to prevent computer viruses spread through emails. An important lesson learnt from the video is that it is valuable to respect other workers whom you working with. The times when an individual does not feel like working should be spent outside the office rather than making noise for others. It is important for people working together to respect each other. Hacking into people’s machines and emails to get vital, and secretive message is one of the risks of electronic communication. Sensitive information meant for specific individuals could get into the wrong

Fixing Urban Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fixing Urban Schools - Essay Example This project concluded that members of the school board, mayors, foundation leaders and city council need to have an idea on how to improve school systems. One of the vital elements of reform policies that can transform performance in schools is giving responsibility to other school members other than just superintendents. Most superintendents maintain their jobs for approximately three years. The school officials normally hire a different superintendent serious and confident enough to advance a school and raise the performance of students. Three years is not enough to achieve set goals. When a superintendent leaves, he or she leaves behind partially implemented plans and unfulfilled goals. This report declares that big city leaders face issues of political and intellectual types. The political issue is the complexity of developing and maintaining a strong coalition that can conquer the resistance to change that many large organizations face, whose constituency consists of opposing civil employees and interest groups. Only a number of communities have enjoyed the advantage of both a system of political support and strong ideas. Political support is important because it plays a huge role in making ideas come to life. It is not clear how to solve the issues faced by city schools. Without proper direction, the millions of young people’s future living in the city are at stake. This is because they need the public school system to shape their employment ability and their entry into society. (Hill & Celio, 1998). Apart from teachers, members of the school board, mayors, foundation leaders and city council need to have an idea on how to improve school systems. One of th e vital elements of reform policies that can transform performance in schools is giving responsibility to other school members other than just superintendents. Most superintendents maintain their jobs for approximately three years. The school officials normally hire a different superintendent serious and confident enough to advance a school and raise the performance of students. Three years is not enough to achieve set goals. When a superintendent leaves, he or she leaves behind partially implemented plans and unfulfilled goals (Hill & Celio, 1998). The reasons why public schools face these issues is poverty, racial isolation, social instability and labor unrest. It is also helpful if local leaders can gather the needed administrative and political support to attain such reforms. The biggest challenge faced by urban schools relates to the reality that the term connotes worries concerning experiences of education for minority and poor youth. Improving public schools hence communicate s the idea of conquering inequalities in occupational, educational, and social opportunity throughout economic and racial groups. Overview of Current Policy: The policy of fixing urban schools encourages school restructuring as a way to allow improvement in the achievement of students and the effectiveness of an organization. This happened with the appointment of state officials and local appointed boards to run schools. The move prevented any bureaucracy in the management of urban schools. Because of bureaucracy, schools normally have a poor relationship with community and parental networks. This relationship is important because it helps facilitate the effective education of children. Creating a sense of community for public schools is a suggestion by many scholars. They claim that this is what separates different schools socially. For example, catholic schools run based on functional communities. This means that the

Servicescape Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Servicescape - Coursework Example ines the impact of servicescape on Las Iguanas restaurant in terms of the emotional, cognitive and physiological effect that the business environment has on customers and employees. Las Iguanas is a popular restaurant chain in the United Kingdom with major branches in London, Liverpool, Newcastle and other towns and cities. The company’s restaurants are located in different environments with each environment bringing its unique opportunities and challenges to the company’s marketing strategy. This study is based on the company’s branch in Liverpool. The study employed a stratified sampling technique to collect data through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews based on a sample size of five employees and five customers of the restaurant. After a detailed analysis, it was clear that the physical environment and ambience of the company had a huge impact on the organization’s operations. All the respondents admitted to having been influenced by the restaurant’s physical environment and ambience. From the findings, 90% of the respondents were positively influenced by the restaurant’s physical environment and ambience, 8% were negatively influenced, while the other 2% were unsure as to whether the business’ environment had a role to play in their association with the restaurant. This studys objective was to focus on assessing the impact of servicescape on customers and employees of Las Iguanas restaurant in Liverpool. Servicescape refers to an organizations ambience and physical environment. This study applies the servicescape model on one of the prominent restaurant businesses in the UK, the Las Iguanas Restaurant. This will assess the impact of Las Iguanas physical environment and ambience on its marketing activities in order to provide appropriate recommendations to the management team of the business for necessary improvements. The study is guided by the research question, what is the emotional, cognitive and physiological effect that Las

Determination of Interest Rates Essay Example for Free

Determination of Interest Rates Essay Interest rates are the payments one makes to another as the cost of borrowing funds. Interest rates should be equal to different borrowers under the same prevailing economic conditions. Various factors come into play to determine the interest rate to be paid by a borrower. This paper explores the factors used in determining the prevailing interest rates. Among the factors used to determine interest rates are credit quality, local and world economic and political conditions (Lando 143). In addition, the demand and supply of funds also determine the interest rates set on borrowings. The borrower always has a feeling that the interests charged are the best deal and that better returns will accrue from the funds borrowed. In the same manner, the lender should also feel the interest charged would have the best returns. Credit quality refers to the capability of investors to pay under a given economic situation. Interest rates are charged in direct proportionality to credit quality (Singleton et al 56). Big businesses and government can easily pay for the loans borrowed plus the interests charged. An investor may also compare the opportunity cost of money over a given period. The economic condition may be in a state of either inflation or deflation, forcing the lender to consider the opportunity cost of funds over a given period. An increase in inflation rate results in an increased rate since the expected inflation rate is also accounted for in the rates set (Sullivan et al 505-506). For instance, if in a situation without inflation, the interest rate is 4%, then this becomes 7% if the inflation rate is 3%. The declining value of collateral due to inflation may affect a borrower’s ability to pay. This will increase the risks associated with the repayment ability of the borrower. The higher risks are therefore included in the interest rate charged. Political subsidies by governments also influence interest rates. Governments can lower the interest rates on borrowers by subsidizing certain loans such as college student loans, public housing loans, and other public work program loans. Conclusion Interest rates, the excess on a borrowed money paid to the lender by the borrower, is determined by many factors. The main factor is the prevailing economic conditions. These could be inflation or deflation. The government may also subsidize certain type of borrowers to motivate them to borrow. The ability of the borrower to pay, the credit quality, is also a vital determinant of interest rates.

Learning Difficulties Encountered By Efl Students English Language Essay

Learning Difficulties Encountered By Efl Students English Language Essay Recently, listening has gained more and more attention in foreign language learning. In learning a foreign language, it is suggested that the most important step should begin with an effort to listen. (Rubin Thompson, 1994) Listening provides input for learners to make learning occur and listening exercises draw learners attention to new forms in language, such as new vocabulary items. (Rost, 1994) Listening can be regarded as a necessary skill in the diagnosing and preparation of foreign language students and can even be served as a good predictor of language achievement. In consequence, listening comprehension acts as a pivotal role in foreign language learning. (Oxford, 1993) In this essay, three issues are discussed. Issue 1 states listening difficulties in second language acquisition. Underwood (1994), Chiang and Dunkel (1992) and Rubin and Thompson (1994)s viewpoint are discussed. Issue 2 proposes taxonomies of the factors affecting listening difficulties. Boyle (1984), Yagang (1993) and Rubin (1994) s point of view of the factors affecting listening comprehension are referred to. Issue 3 mentions studies in listening difficulties of L2 listeners in foreign countries. Tauroza and Allisons (Rubin, 1994) study is about speech rate. Boyle (1984)s study is factors most frequently mentioned in listening comprehension. Lynch (1997)s study is a case study of a intermediate-level learners progress in listening comprehension. Goh (2000)s study discusses listening comprehension problems. BODY Chapter 1 Listening difficulties in second language acquisition Underwoods (1994) point of view ¼Ã… ¸ Underwood (1994) identified seven potential difficulties in listening comprehension as: (1) lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak, (2) not being able to get things repeated, (3) the listeners limited vocabulary, (4) failure to recognize the signals, (5) problems of interpretation, (6) inability to concentrate, (7) established learning habits. Many language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension is that the listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks. (p7) They feel that the utterances disappear before they can sort them out. http://nccuir.lib.nccu.edu.tw/bitstream/140.119/33414/7/95100307.pdf They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part. Another difficulty is that listener is not always in a position to get the speaker to repeat an utterance. This is particularly likely to be the case when students are on the edge of conversation outside the classroom. For people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech (p 17). And students need to learn to listen for the signals in order to be able to connect the various utterances in the way the speaker intended them to be connected. (p18) Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have considerable difficulty in interpreting the words they hear even if they can understand their surface meaning. (p19). Inability to concentrate can be caused by a number of things, but in listening work it is a major problem, because ev en the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension. (p19) Outside factors may well make concentration difficult, too. An inferior machine or poor recording can make it very hard for the students. As for establishing leaning habits, when the learner can more readily accept the frustrations involved, he will be more prepared to strive for a partial and incomplete understanding of what is being said. (pp16-19) Rubin and Thompsons (1994) point of view Rubin and Thompson list three common problems in learning to listen to a foreign language. The first problem is that the speaker talks too fast. If the listener can not follow the speaker, the listener can let the speaker know that he is not following. He can ask for repetition and slowing down the speed, seeks clarification, rephrase, and repeat. The listener can pay attention to intonation and tone of voice, focus on question words such as who, what and when and assume that the here and now are relevant. That is, the sentence is directly related to the subject they have just been discussing. Assume that what a person says is directly related to something he or she is experiencing at that very minute. The second problem is that the listener is not getting anything out of foreign language TV and movies. If the listener could not understand the foreign language TV and movies, they should try to take control of his listening by predicting what he was likely to hear. For example, use vi sual clues and use his background knowledge. Anticipate information in a segment by relying on your knowledge of what such a segment is likely to contain. Listeners could also use information from the segment itself and determine the genre of the segment. Knowing the genre of a segment will help you determine how best to approach it. For instance, if it is an interview, then concentrate on the questions. If it is a news report, a who, when, where strategy will work best. If it is a drama, look for the story line. Listeners could listen to familiar elements, listen to familiar-sounding words, listen to and jot down repeated words, learn to recognize numbers and learn to recognize proper names. The third problem is that the listener tends to stop listening when he hears an unfamiliar word or phrase. Many learners, particularly in the early stages of language learning, panic and lose their concentration when they hear an unfamiliar segment. As a result, they miss portions of the passag e that might have helped clarify the unfamiliar word or segment. The listener should concentrate on familiar elements and keep listening. Understanding something is better than getting nothing at all. If you continue listening, chances are that you will comprehend at least some parts of the massage. It is possible that the portions you missed were not very important after all. Chiang and Dunkels (1992) point of view Chiang and Dunkel (1992) pointed out that listeners comprehension in English may be thwarted by a number of cognitive and linguistic factors as well as academic and cultural issues, including: (a) inability or lack of opportunity to engage in communicative interaction with the second/foreign language teacher or lecture; (b) inability to detect the main points of the lecture or to grasp the usual goals of particular genres of discourse situation of which the discourse is a part; (c) unfamiliarity with the structure and type of the discourse ; (d) inability to apprehend discourse markers and logical relationships in the English lecture; (e) inability to comprehend lecture speech delivered at faster rates of speed; (f) limited short-term memory for English input; (g) failure to use appropriate cognitive or learning strategies; (h) poor inference abilities in English; (i) limited proficiency in English; (j) lack of prior knowledge about the content of the spoken or written text; and (k) inability to process L2 input devoid of speech modification such as elaborations or redundancies. Of these difficulties confronting L2 learners, Chiang and Dunkel explored the effect of three of them. The first situation was when the listeners had limited listening proficiency in English, the second situation was when they lacked prior knowledge about the topic of the L2 lecture, and the third situation was when they were not supplied with modified speech. The results revealed a significant interaction between prior knowledge and text type. Chapter 2 Taxonomy of the factors affecting L2 listening difficulties Boyles (1984) three categories of factors Boyle (1984) began with a survey of the factors most frequently mentioned in the literature on listening comprehension, including three categories of factors. The first category referred to the listener factors, including experience in listening to the target language, general background knowledge of the world, educational background and type of school, knowledge of the target language in its various aspects, memory, powers of analysis and selection and motivation and attitude of the listener to the speaker and to the message. The second categories, the speaker factors, contain language ability of the speaker: native speaker-beginning level non-native speaker. Speakers production: pronunciation, accent, variation, voice affect, too. Speed of delivery and prestige and personality of the speaker count. The third category, factors in the material and medium, comprise difficulty of content and concept, especially if the material is abstract, abstruse, highly specialized or technical, len gthy or poorly organized. Acoustic environment such as noise and interference and amount of support provided by gestures, visuals also have influence on listening comprehension. Yagangs (1993) four aspects of factors http://eca.state.gov/forum/vols/vol31/no1/p16.htm Instead of three categories, Yagang (1993) proposed that the sources of listening difficulties came mainly from the four aspects: the message, the speaker, the listener, and the physical setting. The message factors comprised content and linguistic features. In content which is not well organized, listeners cannot predict what speakers are going to say. And if listening materials are made up of everyday conversation, they may contain a lot of colloquial expressions, such as guy for man. Students who have been exposed mainly to formal or bookish English may not be familiar with these expressions. The speaker factors consists of redundant utterances, such as repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies, apparently meaningless addition such as I mean or you know and speakers personal factors such as their accents. Learners tend to be used to their teaching accent or to the standard variety of British or American English. They find it hard to und erstand speakers with other accents. The listener factors played a more important role in EFL students listening. For example, foreign language students might be not familiar enough with clichà © and collocations in English to predict a missing word or phrase. For example, they can not be expected to know that rosy often collocates with cheeks. EFL students might be lack of sociocultural, factual, and contextual knowledge of the target language.   (Anderson and Lynch 1988).It can present an obstacle to comprehension because language is used to express its culture. Factors in physical setting included noise, both background noises on the recording and environmental noises, could carry the listeners mind of the content of the listening passage. Listening material on tape or radio lacks visual and aural environmental clues. Not seeing the speakers body language and facial expressions makes it more difficult for the listener to understand the speakers meaning. Unclear sounds resultin g from poor quality equipment can interfere with the listeners comprehension. Rubins (1994) five categories of factors Rubin (1994) classified these listening factors into five categories: text, interlocutor, task, listener and process characteristics. Text characteristics referred to acoustic-temporal variables, acoustic-other variables and morphological and syntactic modifications (including restatements). Acoustic-temporal variables are speech rate, pause phenomena, and hesitation. Acoustic-other variables are level of perception, stress and rhythmic patterning perception and L1 and L2 differences. Variables of morphological and syntactic modifications are redundancy, morphological complexity, word order and discourse markers. Text characteristics referred to text type. Visual support for texts is also an important variable. Interlocutor characteristics referred to variations in the speakers personal characteristics, such as gender, pronunciation, accent, expertness and so on. Listener characteristics are listeners language proficiency level, memory, attention, affect, age, gender, learning disabi lities in L1, and background knowledge as well as aptitude, processing skills, background biases, motivation, and confidence level. Process characteristics referred to how listeners interpret input in terms of what they know or identify what they dont know. Top-down, bottom-up and parallel processing is being examined in L2 contexts. Current views of listening comprehension propose that listeners actively process language input. Two types of processing have been discerned: cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. Research on listening strategies includes: work on several languages; work contrasting strategy use at several proficiency levels; work with interactive or transactional listening; work with cognitive and metacognitive strategies; work considering the relation of strategy use to text, task, and setting. Chapter 3 Studies in listening difficulties of L2 listeners in foreign countries Tauroza and Allisons ( )studyspeech rate Griffiths suggests that different language have different normal rates and the rates defined in studies using English can not be applied exactly to studies of other languages. Most research quotes a normal speech rate of 165 to 180 words per minutes for native speakers of English. On the other hand, while Foulke reports a threshold (the rate at which comprehension begins to decrease rapidly) level between 250-275 w.p.m., others states that comprehension decreases as a function of mental aptitude and difficulty level. Tauroza and Allison compare normal speed of British speakers for four types of speech. They found that while the mean for radio and interview speech events lies within the range of 160 to 190 w.p.m., the means for conversation and lecture categories are outside this range. The mean rate for conversation in words per minute was 210, while for lectures, 140. They note further that thirty-three percent of their lecture data was slower than 130 w.p.m. and twenty-three percen t of the conversation data was faster than 220 w.p.m. The issue of normal speech rate is one that still needs a great deal more research that takes into account all of the variables mentioned above. (Rubin, 1994) Boyles (1984) study-factors most frequently mentioned in listening In Boyles (1984) study, 30 teachers and 60 students in Hong Kong were asked to list the six factors which they considered the most important in aiding or hampering the effectiveness of listening comprehension. It was interesting to know that the students gave much more importance to vocabulary than teachers did. It was surprising that the students mentioned two factors, memory and concentration, barely mentioned by the teachers. In addition, the students considered that there was a possible relationship between their reading habits and their listening comprehension, which was not mentioned by the teachers. On the other hand, the teacher seemed to specify the linguistic factors more sophisticatedly. The teacher would specify the factors as ability to pick up clues, complex syntactical structures, stress and intonation and interference from Chinese. On the contrary, the students just indicated that the lack of general language ability or the difficulties in English listening comprehens ion. Lynchs (1997) study-a case study of an intermediate-level learners progress Lynch (1997) conducted an ethnographic study of a Japanese student who attended English language courses at the Institute for Applied Language Studies, the only one taking an undergraduate course in economics at the University of Edinburgh. His scores on the listening tests were relatively low in comparison with his reading and grammar scores with the other students in class. A number of possible reasons were found to explain his difficulties in listening comprehension. First, he was the youngest member in his class so that he was unwilling to engage in negotiation with his seniors. Second, he was the only undergraduate student with an economic background in his English class so that he viewed himself as insufficient in some general background knowledge. Third, he joined Course 3 in the EAP program, skipping the basic class, Course 1 and 2. Therefore, he thought he needed more time to get used to negotiate with others in English. Fourth, his lowest listening score disappointed him gr eatly. The perceptions of the subject had made a substantial influence on his English learning. Gohs (2000) study-listening comprehension problems Goh (2000) investigated the comprehension problems of second language listeners in a cognitive perspective. She identified real-time listening difficulties faced by 40 Chinese undergraduates and examined their difficulties within the three-phase model of language comprehension proposed by Anderson. (1995). The data were collected from learners self-reports in their diaries, semi-structure interviews and immediate retrospective verbalizations. The data revealed 10 problems that occurred during the cognitive process phases of perception, parsing, and utilization. She also, made a comprehension between two groups, high ability listeners and low ability listeners. Each group consisted of eight students selected according to their grades in a post-instruction standardized proficiency test, the SLEP test of Educational Testing Service 1991. She found that listeners with highly ability and low ability both had a perception problem with recognizing words they knew. Another problem they both shared was parsing problem that they quickly forgot what they thought they had understood. In addition to these two problems, high ability listeners reported a utilization problem that they were often unable to extract the meaning out of the message even if they had understood all the words. On the other hand, low ability listeners reported another perception problem that they often did not hear the next part of a text because they spent too much time thinking about what they had just heard.