Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Lab Report Example inch from the base of the pot and it was detached with the assistance of a glass fiber to make the cooling procedure of the example impede. This gave the experimenter sufficient opportunity to gather the information required (the difference in temperature versus time). Like clockwork, the temperature was noted until the example of liquefied Tin arrived at a temperature close to 150C (10C over the point of solidification of unadulterated Tin) so as to keep the thermocouple sheath from freezing. After the information was gathered, a plot of temperature versus time was created. The plot appeared as a bend, which is the Tin-cooling bend. The bend shows the cooling procedure,. Theoretical: This investigation was aimed at deciding the liquefying purpose of unadulterated Tin. For this reason, a clay pot containing unadulterated Tin was warmed in a heater up to the temperature that was expectedly over the liquefying purpose of unadulterated Tin. When that was accomplished, the example of flu id Tin was placed into a compartment that was loaded up with sand. A thermocouple sheath was put into the dissolved Tin and was confined with the assistance of a glass fiber. This hindered the cooling procedure of the example of Tin and gave the experimenter sufficient opportunity to gather the entirety of the necessary information (the difference in temperature versus time).

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Professional Research and Communication Research Design and Methodolo

Question: Talk about theProfessional Research and Communication for Research Design and Methodology. Answer: Presentation: 1. The table underneath shows the reactions with respect to impression of 100 clients towards the nature of food provided by the retail food store. For this situation, the score is acquired by duplicating the Rating on Likert Scale Number of Responses Reactions 1. Unequivocally Disagree 14 14 2. Oppose this idea 16 32 3. Uncertain 26 52 4. Concur 14 28 5. Unequivocally Agree 30 15 All out 100 141 141/100=1.41 all out number of respondents furnished by the respondents with the relegated rating number of the Likert scale. This procedure of increasing the quantity of reactions to the rating is mistaken as it neglects to speak to the extent of the respondents for the announcements. A superior measure for assessment of the impression of the clients towards the nature of the food results of the organization can be focal propensity (Weiss and Weiss 2012). The computation of the mean of the reactions of the clients can be determined by including all the numbers and afterward partitioning by the absolute number of reactions. The can help in showing up at a specific center worth. Once more, the middle speaks to the proper center worth (Gentle et al. 2012). The middle can be specified by list posting the figures in a numerical figure. The mode speaks to the information that happens most often. The mean as a proportion of the focal inclination can be considered as a superior measurement as it can properly sum up the information into a solitary file number (Andersen et al. 2012). This can speak to the entre information all in all. Furthermore, the focal inclination can likewise help in correlation of the information that can distinguish the most proper single worth that is illustrative of the whole recurrence conveyance (Weiss and Weiss 2012) Again, the mean can likewise give an exact depiction of the information (MacDonald 2012). 2. Truly, the aftereffects of the investigation can modify if the chose and the reprehensive example of the examination don't take an interest in the overview. The non-cooperation of the lower number of individuals in the online overview can prompt blunders as the little, number of tests may not sufficiently speak to the whole objective populace of the investigation. The odds of neglecting to incorporate an unsatisfied client are pretty much 35%. Accordingly, the support of more modest number of tests can ignore many focused on populace. Likewise, the investment of lower number of respondents can likewise prompt one-sided results that can ignore the perspectives of numerous members. Furthermore, the fluctuation that is controlled by basically the standard deviation of the chose test are gotten from the examples of the investigation. In this manner, the littler size of the example due to the non-interest of the respondents can prompt developments of the examples from the populace. Moreover, this can likewise influence the general reliability of the task as this non-investment of the respondents can prompt littler size of the examples and higher fluctuation. This thus can prompt inclinations that can happen because of absence of response.3. The information on the sex of the respondents are viewed as the ostensible worth or, in all likelihood perceptions that can appoint an unequivocal code as a particular number and the numbers can be viewed as basically marks. One can check the ostensible qualities yet not place the information all together or, in all likelihood measure the general ostensible information (Berenson et al. 2012). The qualities in the Fahrenheit Thermometers that mirrors the temperatures in Fahrenheit are basically interim factors. The temperature identified in Fahrenheit can be viewed as the factors that can be counted in a continuum and can have distinctive numerical worth (Berenson et al. 2012). The Kelvin thermometers that gather esteems speaking to temperatures in Kelvin can be viewed as the proportion factors. The temperature estimated in Kelvin is basically a proportion variable as zero Kelvin mirrors the way that there is no temperature at all (Andersen et al. 2012). The quantity of things a client buys in entire numbers can be viewed as the Ledger parity can be viewed as an interim as the individuals would have both zero equalization or, more than likely negative parity in their record (Weiss and Weiss 2012). 4. Non-trial research can be viewed as the exploration that is shy of the treatment of a free factor and arbitrary task of various members to assorted conditions or, in all likelihood requests of conditions or both (Gentle et al. 2012). Trial study can be directed for assessment of the impact of drinking squeezed orange on the exhibition of the players in the end of the week. The student can do the non-trial quantitative research by utilizing numerical or, in all likelihood he quantifiable information. The consequences of the investigation are basically founded on destinations just as deliberate perceptions (Pickard 2012). The factors of the exploration that incorporates execution of the players and numerous others can be distinguished that are quantifiable. Be that as it may, the non-trial studies can be enlightening, prescient, and illustrative (Marczyk et al. 2010). The illustrative investigation can follow the adjustments in the practices and mentalities of the players and set va rious markers for distinguishing proof of reactions of the members towards a specific boosts. The illustrative hypothesis is basically founded on the connection idea that offers a sentiment of wellbeing and can look at the relationship between factors of connections (Gall et al. 2010). Semi trial examines are basically the subjects to concerns concerning inward legitimacy thus the treatment and control gatherings probably won't be practically identical at the standard (John Kuada 2012). On account of irregular analyses, the members of the investigation have equivalent chance of getting chose to a specific mediation gathering or, in all likelihood the examination gathering. The semi trial configuration can be alluded to as the procedure that thinks about three unique plans that incorporate uncontrolled before just as after examinations, differing time arrangement structure and controlled when considers (Marczyk et al. 2010). Here, semi examinations can likewise be completed for testing the effect of drinking juices on the exhibitions of the players in the end of the week. Here, the uncontrolled investigations both when explicit mediation can be checked and the differences because of the intercessions can likewise be assessed to assess the impacts of the drinking jui ces on execution of players. This is a straightforward report in spite of the fact that is better than simply the observational examination. The abrupt modifications in the patterns can make it trying as the watched change would perhaps because of the adjustments. The semi trials can likewise utilize the time arrangement plans that perceive various intercessions and influence the whole pattern. A period arrangement examination can likewise be done for ascertaining the exhibition against time. Controlled when studies can be done where information can be accumulated out both when intercessions (MacDonald 2012). An analysis is basically an examination that consolidates a treatment, a strategy and a program that is deliberately presented and a result can be watched (Mackey and Gass 2015). In the event that on the off chance that an exploratory investigation is led, at that point four fundamental components should be consolidated in the framework. The procedure of the exploratory examination basically incorporates the methodology of control, control, procedure of irregular task just as arbitrary choice. The analyst can change the conditions according to the prerequisites of the investigation and control the whole condition. Once more, the exploratory investigation can be both controlled and controlled to show up at the results (Graziano and Raulin 2010). Besides, tests allude to the systems that include the endeavors to limit various mistakes just as inclinations that can build the certainty that thusly can control the result. Additionally, the test study can likewise incorporate the procedure of arbitrary assignments. A strategy is likewise utilized to assess effects of various modifications and treatment is basically to make various estimations both before just as after then treatment and complete a near report after the task. So as to show up at the indisputable outcomes, factual investigation can be out to acquire convincing results. The speculations testing methodology can be completed where he invalid theory can be expressed as There is no contrast between the players drinking the juices on their presentation. The elective theory in such manner can be there exists a change between the pre and post the circumstance of drinking juices on execution of the players. A matched t test can be done for testing the speculation. Here, two diverse combined factors communicated as the matched variable where the determination of the principal variable fundamentally followed by the pre variable can be done. Once more, the combined example measurements can give the mean, standard deviation, numbers and standard blunders for both when treatment (Leary 2011). The p esteem in the matched example test can help in showing up at the outcomes. References Andersen, P.K., Borgan, O., Gill, R.D. what's more, Keiding, N., 2012.Statistical models dependent on tallying forms. Springer Science Business Media. Berenson, M., Levine, D., Szabat, K.A. what's more, Krehbiel, T.C., 2012.Basic business insights: Concepts and applications. Pearson Higher Education AU. Nerve, M.D., Borg, W.R. what's more, Gall, J.P., 2010.Educational research: A presentation. Longman Publishing. Delicate, J.E., Hrdle, W.K. furthermore, Mori, Y. eds., 2012.Handbook of computational measurement

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Navigating tutorials with your dissertation supervisor

Navigating tutorials with your dissertation supervisor Navigating tutorials with your dissertation supervisor Both undergraduate dissertations and masters dissertations are strictly regulated, in most cases meaning that a student is only allowed a limited number of hours with their dissertation supervisor. This means that it is absolutely essential to make the very most of the time you have with them as their help will be invaluable in writing a first class dissertation. Read our top tips to maximise the efficiency and value of your dissertation tutorial time. Prepare It is vital to prepare fully for your dissertation tutorials. Your time will be wasted if you have to spend part of it catching up and looking at materials you could have studied in advance. This careful preparation and research is an important part of dissertation writing. Prepare a list of topics or issues you need to cover for each tutorial and make sure you get through them. Remember that the number of times your supervisor looks over your drafts during the dissertation writing period may also be limited, so prepare ideas and sections to discuss during tutorials to get the maximum possible amount of input from your dissertation supervisor on your work itself. Plan ahead The limited number of dissertation supervisions you have will fly by much quicker than you anticipate. To avoid the common pitfall of finding you have run out of allocated hours but still have a huge section of dissertation writing to tackle, or an important area still to discuss, find out at the beginning how many hours you are allowed. Then draw up a plan in discussion with your supervisor, assigning each major topic or area a tutorial or part of a tutorial, making sure you will be able to fit everything in to the time allowed. The structure of this plan should echo your dissertation structure. Remember to try and leave some time at the end for a final read-through with your supervisor once you have finished your dissertation writing, for correction of minor errors and referencing, bibliography etc. Take notes Your dissertation supervisor is likely to be an expert on the topic you are writing your dissertation on. Make sure you take copious notes throughout supervisions to help you remember all the valuable advice and information they will give you. If they mention a text or theorist you should look at then make sure you write it down, don’t rely on memory alone. These supervision hours and their knowledge are extremely precious and you will kick yourself later if you can only remember part of what was discussed. The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Dissertation See all articles in the series Planning a dissertation: the dos and donts Dissertation research: how to find dissertation resources Masters dissertation research â€" library cataloguing best dissertationdissertation helpdissertation referencing tipsdissertation structuringdissertation writing service

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Essay on Human Trafficking Modern Day Slavery - 1036 Words

â€Å"Trafficking† refers to illegal trade, an over-used word by the media that can be daintily attached to drugs, weapons, and humans. We hear the term so often; one can easily be desensitized to its context. Nicholas Kistof of the New York Times states, â€Å"Human trafficking is a convoluted euphemism.† He goes right to the heart of the matter and refers to it as modern human slavery. Human slavery is raw, honest and sadly much more prevalent than we would like to believe. Every year an estimated 800,000 people are transported across international boundaries for the purpose of human slavery. In the United States alone it is estimated that 100,000 children each year are part of the sex trade. According to the US Department of State in†¦show more content†¦In countries where a cast system is still activity respected, it is not uncommon for a farmer to sell off his daughter in order to support his impoverished family. Ruchira Gupta, a journalist, discovered how often this happens by accident while visiting the hills of Nepal in 1994. She remembers, â€Å"Many villages in the hills had no women between the ages of 15 and 45.† After nine months of research and countless obstacles from politicians and local mafia she finally had enough information to produce her film The Selling of Innocents. The film went on to win an Emmy in 1997. From there she created the organization Apne Aap (self-help in Hindi) to bring awareness to the women of the world. Her story and others like it finally spurred the government to action and in 2000 the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act was passed in the United States. Many victims are coerced through false promises of free transportation to better places or promises of employment. Going willingly into a lie of a better life and then the victim arrives and finds that they are either physically, financially or emotionally a prisoner. Along with sex trafficking many people are transported and held for slave labor. 80% of victims are women, leaving a surprising 20% of men and boys are also held against their will as well. The selling of children into slavery is sadly a common practice and even culturally accepted in parts of the world like India. Should we leave theseShow MoreRelatedModern Day Slavery: Human Trafficking 866 Words   |  4 PagesBlood Borne Connections.) Human trafficking is the modern day slavery, it involves taking control over a person through force, fraud or coercion to exploit the victim for forced labor, sexual exploitation. or both (â€Å"What† par.1). This is become the sad reality for many, approximately three out of every 1,000 people worldwide are being forced into this such slavery. Victims of human trafficking are people of all backgrounds and ages, no one is safe from the dirty hands of human traffickers. Every yearRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1244 Words   |  5 Pages Human trafficking Around the world human trafficking happens around us without us noticing or realising what is happening. Modern-day slavery exists around the world and it is known today as human trafficking or trafficking in persons. So, what is human trafficking and why don t many people seek for help or go to athoughty ? Well human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Every year millionsRead MoreHuman Trafficking And The Modern Day Slavery Essay1006 Words   |  5 Pagesfield of criminal justice, and is known as the modern day slavery. This paper will also discuss the globalization in human trafficking. The study examines the impact of economic globalization on the human trafficking inflows around the world. This paper will begin by providing the definition of what human trafficking and globalization is, and how it works within the context of law enforcement. The history of human trafficking and how human trafficking is effecting societies across the world. ThisRead MoreHuman Trafficking And Modern Day Slavery Essay1390 Words   |  6 PagesHuman Trafficking There is an ever growing problem that is coursing the world. Every day 3,287 people are sold or kidnapped, and are forced into slavery. (Human Trafficking Statistics Reports 2012) Most people do not realize that modern-day slavery happens closer to home than they think. 14,000-17,500 is the estimated number of people trafficked into the United States each year. (Human Trafficking Statistics Reports 2012) The government has tried to reduce this problem as well as everyday peopleRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1604 Words   |  7 PagesHuman Trafficking One of the most serious crimes worldwide, human trafficking is the buying, selling, and transportation of people for the use of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or organ removal. â€Å"Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.† (What is human trafficking Homeland) It happens in the United States and foreign countries. Many people do not see it happening, but in fact it is happeningRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1531 Words   |  7 PagesHuman trafficking is modern day slavery that occurs with both genders of all ages. Human trafficking occurs mostly in poorer countries like Asia, and Eastern Europe and isn t solely sexual slavery; the victims can be used for labor purposes also. Organizations like Shared Hope International and Coalition Against Trafficking in Women fight to rescue the victims of human trafficking. These organizations spread the dangers of hum an trafficking through education and public awareness. Often times traffickingRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1228 Words   |  5 Pages Around the world human trafficking happens around us without us noticing or realising what is happening. Modern-day slavery exists around the world and it is known today as human trafficking or trafficking in persons. So, what is human trafficking and why don t many people seek for help or go to athoughty ? Well human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Every year millions of men and woman andRead MoreHuman Trafficking : A Modern Day Slavery961 Words   |  4 PagesEnglish IV Nov. 23 2015 How to Stop Trafficking Women are not the only ones being sold today. Man are not the only ones selling humans today. All different kinds of humans are being sold in something called human trafficking. Human trafficking has become a problem worldwide and is effecting all people male, female, children, LGBT. There are many solutions, one of them is to educate the children at a younger age. Human trafficking is like a modern day slavery. The people being sold are forced inRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1732 Words   |  7 PagesHaley Gooding Mrs. Gallos English 3 Honors 6 April 2017 Human Trafficking One of the most serious crimes worldwide, human trafficking is the buying, selling, and transportation of people for the use of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or organ removal. â€Å"Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.† (What is human trafficking Homeland) It happens in the United States and foreign countries. Many peopleRead MoreHuman Trafficking : Modern Day Slavery1210 Words   |  5 PagesHuman Trafficking Imagine being able to own a business and make nothing but profit. One of the types of trafficking is Labor Trafficking, which helps keep prices cheaper by having cheap workers. If companies do not have people working in factories for very little then a lot of prices would go up crazy like on clothing and furniture. A lot of countries economy are built off sex trafficking which helps the economy significantly. The ongoing â€Å"phenomenon† of human trafficking is not a problem

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Fracking Carbon Dioxide and Natural Gas Free Essays

April 8, 2012 Dear Senator Greg Ball, The current practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) began in America in the late 1990‘s and has been wreaking havoc on the land and the lives of the American people since. In case you are unaware, fracking is the process well diggers use to extract natural gas and oil from the earth. They use pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to form veins (or fractures) in the rock in order for the natural gas or oil to escape. We will write a custom essay sample on Fracking: Carbon Dioxide and Natural Gas or any similar topic only for you Order Now Although this process is an affective way to produce the natural resources from the earth, there are repercussions that are being ignored by the well companies. For instance, there were several private wells in Dimock, Pennsylvania contaminated with methane caused by the fracking done by Cabot Oil and Gas. The people living off these wells were not able to use their water. Although the gas company denied any kind of fault, they compensated the residents financially and built a new pipeline to bring clean water in. In December, 2011 the EPA sent out letters to the residents telling them their water was safe to drink. But in January of 2012 the EPA retracted its position and told the gas company to immediately take care of the problem. Another problem that has developed due to fracking is pollution around the dig sites. Emissions associated with combustion include nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Another emission problem is the emission produced from the natural gas. Gasses such as methane, ethane and liquid condensate and volatile organic compounds (VOC). VOC’s have been proven to cause birth defects, neurological problems, and cancer. Most recently, in March of 2012, officials in Ohio are blaming the wastewater produced from fracking for a series of recent earthquakes. What my goal would be from you Mr. Ball, is that you would introduce a bill to the senate that would encourage regulation on fracking from the federal level. If the federal government would regulate the way fracking is done in America, it could save many lives and help save the environment. Bad drilling techniques, design and execution are some of the reasons the drilling wreaks so much havoc. This is something that could very easily be regulated by inspections of the wells. I also believe that the number of wells being drilled needs to be regulated. In Pennsylvania alone, there are 3,500 wells. This number is too high. Having that number of wells in such s small area, is inviting problems. If the federal government would make some regulations on how many wells per square mile are aloud, it would cut down of a lot of the damage being done. It may also be possible to regulate how far from civilian dwellings a well should be drilled. If the wells were drilled several miles from any home, the chances of it endangering people and animals would decrease. Mr. Ball I appreciate you taking time to read this letter and listening to my concerns. I am confident that you love this country as much as I do and will try to put an end to hydraulic fracturing as we know it today. Sincerely, How to cite Fracking: Carbon Dioxide and Natural Gas, Essay examples

Monday, May 4, 2020

A1 script win213 free essay sample

You work for a medium size wholesale book publisher as the system administrator. This year management has decided, at the last minute, to sell books at its annual book conference. The company as a rule does not sell its books retail, consequently management does not want to purchase an off the shelve retail sales program. Rather, you have been assigned the task of writing a PowerShell text-based program calledLearnName_SalesProgram. ps1 which will do the following. Allow the sales clerk to the following at the console: 1. Enter the book title –data type string. If the user enters a null string, the program should beep and redisplay the needed value 2. Enter a one sentence description of the book — data type string 3. Enter the book’s ID number. Code numbers are alpha-numeric (e. g. ROM482,SCI233,BUS400). If the user enters a numeric value, the program should prompt for alphanumeric 4. Enter the list price of the book with a dollar sign and decimal format –data type decimal 5. We will write a custom essay sample on A1 script win213 or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page If the user does not enter a numeric value the program should prompt for a numeric value 6. Calculate the harmonized tax rate (HST) of 12% (list price X . 12 = tax payable) – data type constant. Display the tax payable and total purchase price for the book to the customer. (tax + list price = purchase price)- data type decimal 7. Output the above information to a file called BookSalesConference2014. txt in the following 8. Optional: include a running total called â€Å"Total Book Sales:† which is saved to the file 9. The file format should look like the following: ______________________________________ Title of Book: Description: Code Number: List Price: Tax Payable: Purchase Price: _______________________________________ Total Book Sales: (optional) Set-Variable TaxRate -Option Constant -value . 12 if ( (Test-Path . \BookSalesConference2014. txt) -ne â€Å"True† ){ New-Item -Type File . \BookSalesConference2014. txt } Clear-Host [string]$Title = Read-Host â€Å"Book Title† while ( $Title -eq â€Å"† ) { [console]::beep(1000,500) $Title = Read-Host â€Å"Please Enter Book Title Again† } [string]$Description = Read-Host â€Å"Book Description† [string]$CodeNmeber = Read-Host â€Å"Code Number† while ( $CodeNmeber -match â€Å"^\d+$† ) { $CodeNmeber = Read-Host â€Å"The Code Nmubers Are Alpha-numeric. Please Enter Again† } [string]$InputPrice = Read-Host â€Å"List Price â€Å" while ( $InputPrice -notmatch â€Å"^\$[0-9]+(\. [0-9]{0,2})? $† ) { $InputPrice = Read-Host â€Å"The Prices Are Dollar Sign Plus Numeric. Please Enter Again† } [Decimal]$ListPrice=$InputPrice. Remove(0,1) [Decimal]$Tax=$ListPrice * $TaxRate [Decimal]$PurchasePrice=$ListPrice+$Tax Write-Host â€Å"Tax Payable: $† $Tax Write-Host â€Å"Purchase Price: $† $PurchasePrice Write-Output â€Å"________________________________________________________________† . \BookSalesConference2014. txt

Saturday, March 28, 2020

The Amoral Prince free essay sample

Machiavelli presents his stance on morality first through his rejection of morality as a viable framework, and second through his promotion of virtu, glory, and reputation, which brings considerations outside of the amoral nature of the search for power. It is clear that Machiavelli has higher priorities than the moral actions of the prince. We will write a custom essay sample on The Amoral Prince or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He regularly rejects morality as a necessity, opting instead generally for that which creates stability. â€Å"This leads us to a question that is in dispute: Is it better to be loved than feared, or vice versa? My reply is one ought to be both loved and feared; but, since it is difficult to accomplish both at the same time, I maintain it is much safer to be feared than loved†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (51) Here he spurns the idea that love, a generally accepted goal of those seeking the moral high ground, is relevant to the higher goal of the safety of the prince. Some would contend that Machiavelli is promoting evil by promoting fear over love, but he doesn’t ever promote evil when it is not called for, only when it is most efficacious. In this instance he simply felt being feared was the safer alternative. Evil for the sake of itself is actively discouraged. â€Å"[the prince] should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary†(55) Here what is necessary is what maintains power, but with that necessity absent, honorable actions are preferable. Machiavelli does obviously have some moral compass, as he feels that good actions do have a value over evil actions when power is not a consideration. For the leader though, power is always a consideration, and subsequently morals are never the most pressing goal. Instead of worrying about his own morals, the leader needs to instead worry about their absence in others: Anyone who wants to act the part of a good man in all circumstances will bring about his own ruin, for those he has to deal with will not all be good. So it is necessary for a ruler, if he wants to hold on to power, to learn how not to be good, and to know when it is and when it is not necessary to use this knowledge. (48) The implication here is that in a world with all good men, a leader would be able to lead through only good actions. As this is not the case, leaders are forced to beat evil doers at their own game when necessary. In addition to trying to outsmart those who would do evil against the prince, the prince should also make efforts to discourage future acts of evil by others, and subsequently prevent future necessitation of his own harsh acts: Well used cruelty(if one can speak well of evil) one may call those atrocities that are commited at a stroke, in order to secure one’s power, and are then not repeated, rather every effort is made to ensure one’s subjects benefit in the long run. 30) From this it is evident that cruelty should never be a goal in itself, as it alienates ones subjects, which has its own harms. Machiavelli gives us Maximinus as an example: [he] had acquired a reputation for terrible cruelty†¦ So everybody was†¦ agitated with hatred arising from their fear of his ferocity. First Africa rebelled, and then the senate and the whole population of Rome; soon all Ital y was conspiring against him. His own army turned against him†¦ Seing so many united against him, they lost their fear of him and killed him. 62) So it is clear that Machiavelli is not in favor of evil; it causes a populace to turn against its leader. If the populace’s fear of punishments and interventions by the prince rivals their fear of having an unstable state, they will have no reason to further support the prince. Machiavelli’s prince should be viewed as generally moral, even if occasionally he is not, in order to promote stability and respect towards himself. Again, this is not for the sake of morals, but for the sake of the kingdom’s maintenance. As a general rule, Machiavelli does not respect morals as an important part of being a leader, though he doesn’t actively disdain them. The appearance of morals has its own important ends, of causing the populace to respect their ruler, but this is not the same as being an actually moral person. From this one would conclude that Machiavelli is a promoter of amoralism, but as we will see he does have respect for some goals beyond only power and stability. In many ways glory is the means to causing respect, and resultantly stability, â€Å"[Ferdinand of Aragon’s] deeds have followed one another so closely that he has never left space between one and the next for people to plot uninterruptedly against him†(68) In this instance by constantly maintaining an honorable reputation, Ferdinand was able to avoid any maintained criticisms of himself, which compounded could have lead to unrest. Prior examples have shown glory, virtu and reputation is merely another means to an end, not an end in itself, but there are quite a few hints that glory is something to be sought for its own sake: Men are much more impressed by what goes on in the present than by what happened in the past†¦ So they will spring to a new ruler’s defense, provided he plays his part properly. Thus, he will be doubly glorious†¦ just as he is doubly shamed who, being born a ruler, has lost power through lack of skill in ruling (73) Here it is notable that glory(and its inverse, shame) are quantified. Were these simply means to state stability, it is expected that a ruler should achieve exactly as much as is necessary. Instead, glory is something that should be sought, and shame avoided, in quantity. It seems more notable that one can be ‘doubly shamed’. For consistency with the premise that maintenance of power is the end goal, any loss of it would seem the ultimate shame. In this case it seems more about the spectacularity of the failure, and presumably the endurance of the subsequent shame in public memory. Glory and reputation then seem to be partly a search for a lasting memory of greatness within the public consciousness, not just for the preservation of the state. Glory is not only its own end, but it is one that can only be achieved through moral means, â€Å"One ought not, of course, to call it virtu to massacre one’s fellow citizens, to betray one’s friends, to break one’s word, to be without mercy and without religion. By such means one can acquire power but not glory. (28) This is an interesting contrast with Machiavelli’s many statements to the effect of doing whatever maintains power is best, good or bad. There is still an implication that it is better to have power without glory, than it is to have neither. Still, it is clear that glory is something desirable of itself, and that it cannot be achieved through immoral means. A prince then, once he has attained his power, must have moral considerations at heart. Machiavelli’s prince is by no means an immoral or even amoral actor, though he may occasionally commit immoral acts, in the search for power. Clearly, morals do play into the search for a lasting reputation, which is by Machiavelli’s estimation at least equally, if not more important than power alone, â€Å"Above all a ruler should make every effort to ensure that whatever he does it gains him a reputation as a great man, a person who excels. †(68) This great man cannot become so simply by being an acceptable leader, one who holds power but does not use it towards his reputation. Yes, Machiavelli does teach us that evil acts are occasionally necessary, but purely as a means towards the stable foundation that allows a ruler to lead with success and morality.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

The Case of the Unidentified Industries-2006 Essays

The Case of the Unidentified Industries-2006 Essays The Case of the Unidentified Industries-2006 Paper The Case of the Unidentified Industries-2006 Paper From the balance sheet and the financial date given in Exhibition 1, I manage to connect the dates with the companies in the following order: 1. The online book seller correspond to balance sheet A, due to high inventory turnover but at the same time keeping low inventory, high cash and long term debt. 2. The book store chain correspond to balance sheet B, due to keeping high inventory, high plant and equipment assets, and profit per revenue is low. . The online direct factory to customer personal pc vendor correspond to balance sheet C, due to high number of account receivable, low inventory, low plant and equipment, but high inventory turnover. Because the inventories are presold, the company doesn’t need long term assets and high inventory. 4. The pharmaceutical manufacturer corresponds to D, due to high number of assets in other assets (know-how, or some intangible assets), high profit-revenue, high stock price and low profit-net worth. 5. The advertising agency correspond to E, firs because of the hint given for the company and second because the acc receivable and acc payable are almost equal both relatively high, also the plant-equipment assets are low. 6. The computer software developer corresponds to F, due to the low inventory percentage showing it is a service. It also has low plant-equipment showing that this business is more of an office type. This company is one of the most profitable of the all 14 firms, which is usual for high-tech company. . The health maintenance organization corresponds to G, because of having low plant-equipment and no inventory and accounts receivable are very high. Also revenue per assets is high which is typical for a medicine company. 8. The restaurant chain corresponds to H, due to the very high inventory turnover, typical for a restaurant. The plant-equipment assets are high and the accounts receivable are low, because in this business the customer pays right after receiving the g oods. 9. The retail grocery store corresponds to I, because the numbers show high inventory and high plant-equipment, because a grocery store has to be well stocked at all times. Also the accounts payable is high which indicates that a retail grocery store would have several suppliers. Also, high revenue to assets and low profit to revenue is typical for grocery store. 10. Department store chain refers to J, because of the high inventory, high plant-equipment and high accounts payable. The common stock and receivables collection period are relatively high which is common for a department store chain. 11. The retail drug chain refers to K, due to high inventory, high accounts payable and high plant/equipment. The higher accounts receivable indicates when drug chains bill insurance companies which is common for this business. 12. The electric and gas utility goes to L on the balance sheet (with 72% of its revenue from electricity sales and 28% of its revenue from natural gas sales). This is the reason for the company inventory. The high plant-equipment number and the receivable collection period it’s usual for company that sends bills monthly. 13. The airline company goes to M, because there is no inventory which means it is a service business. The high plant-equipment is due to the price of the aircrafts. Usually people pay with cash or credit card when they book a flight which explains why the accounts receivable number is low. The profit is low, probably of the crises, fuel cost and the very competitive market in that industry. 14. The commercial bank refers to M (â€Å"fitted into the most nearly comparable balance sheet and ratio categories of the nonfinancial companies†) due to no inventory on the balance sheet, shows that the company provides services. This company has the highest accounts receivable (90%) which can be explained by the loans given from the bank to the clients. Also it has the highest receivable collection period with it being 4071 days.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Law - Case Study Example the winner. Since football pools are meant for betting in favor one specific team or player, it comes under the definition of gambling. Section 6 (1) and (2) of the Gambling Act 2005 defines gaming in these words: Hence, the activity offered to Wilson is gambling, and does not come under the fold of sports at all. Consequently, the activity is illegal in the eyes of law and void agreement according to the statutes of Contract Act. There are two types of offer and acceptance to an agreements i.e. Express and Implied. Express offer or acceptance involves words, whether written or oral, and Implied form of agreement is considered on the basis of the performance of an act. Since, the cousin accepted the check from Sam, and did not protest against it, it means that he has accepted the terms and conditions of the offer made by Sam. Consequently, the cousin cannot claim any remedies against it, provided he accepted the terms and conditions of the agreement by receiving the check from the borrower i.e. Sam. Since Maureen could not seek any remedy against her supervisor, she had been under constant threat of sexual harassment, she could not get any solid or effective remedy against the harassment, she had to seek legal remedy from the court of law Since the management of Cameo Industries has established some rules within its workplace, they must have implemented these rules for the security and welfare of the staff members on the one hand, and for the growth and discipline of the organization on the other. The employment law, Lester (2001) argues, can and should play an important role in providing feasible ways for families to balance the conflicting demands of work and care-giving obligations, particularly as women continue to seek full participation in the workforce. Though the company had no powers to announce legal penalty to the

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Wireless and Mobile Technologies Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Wireless and Mobile Technologies - Case Study Example e of this discussion is to use the case study of Delta Airlines and demonstrate the way mobile and wireless technologies can be used for attracting new customers and carrying organizational tasks as a way of improving business efficiency. Mobile technology refers to the cellular communication based on portable technology (Smyth, 2004). The technology includes the use of dial-up services and wireless protocols access to the internet. On the other hand, wireless technologies refer to all types of communications where transmission of information happens over a defined distance without the help of wires, cables or any electrical conductor (Webb, 2010). For example, Infrared wireless communication is used for data or information in devices with infrared radiation installation Mobile and wireless communication technologies are used to improve customer service in business settings. Customers can use wireless communications or mobile computing options to access customer relationship management systems. Wireless connection allows the business to update customer details from a remote location. Delta utilizes smartphone apps and Wi-Fi to create a 24-hour customer service during flights (News.delta.com, 2015). The technologies provide great flexibility in working. Mobile computing provides powerful solutions that can be accessed through a network. For example, Delta aims at creating a lasting traveling experience and updating customers about flights and ticketing through wireless and mobile platforms. Customers get information through smartphones and social media on how to book tickets and catch next flights. Mobile and wireless technologies are used to keep production or service provision problems in check (News.delta.com, 2015). Firms churn out products or offer services without any gross errors. The security and safety of Delta customers depend on how well they can track their luggage and baggage during the flight. Installation of a Wi-Fi system where customers can

Monday, January 27, 2020

Manufacturing Process of Bricks

Manufacturing Process of Bricks A brick has been a common construction material used everywhere for more than 6000 years, and has been in various shape, sizes and were made by mixing many different type of materials, each of them having their own advantage and disadvantage; and formed the basic structure and the back bone of many civilisations and was used in a wide range of buildings in centuries from building palaces, housing factories, in tunnels construction, water ways, bridges, making it the oldest manufactured building material. For centuries, the brick making process was done by hand, and involved clay being moulded and then dried in the sun until the industrial revolution when the process turned to mechanization. Today technological and mechanical advancement has helped to have a more complete knowledge of the raw material and its properties, and better control of firing, improvement in the kiln designs, all have contributed to the advancement of brick quality and has made contemporary bricks more efficien t and has improved the overall quality of the products. Today, brick is found in various materials and made in various shapes depending on the use. There are concrete brick, calcium silicate brick, clay brick and Adobe brick. See Appendix 1 This report will be looking at the technology associated with the manufacturing process of automated and traditional soil clay brick, adobe brick plain mud brick which are still use today in certain part of the globe or sometimes and slump brick- and the future of brick. PART ONE MANUFACTURING PROCESS OF AUTOMATED BRICK The first stage in the manufacturing process of the soil clay brick start with the selection of the raw material. RAW MATERIAL The main raw material in brick making is clay and it is one of the most abundant natural mineral materials on the planet. On earth, there is a wide range of clay which varies considerably in physical properties, colour, hardness and mineralogical content; making it difficult to pinpoint particular clay and say this is the best clay for brick making but they do, however, have certain properties in common. PROPERTIES and TYPES OF CLAYS Clay is complex material as individual, and their deposits is unique due to their specific modes of formation and physical characteristics, and are rarely present as pure minerals but rather are mixtures of the different clay types of one group or type normally being dominant. But the Clay entering in brick manufacturing must possess and fulfil some specific properties and characteristic such as the ability to be crushed and mixed with water to form a plastic material which can be moulded into various shapes; shrinkage or swelling percentage on firing, meaning when subject to appropriate temperatures the clay particles must fuse together; the bloating characteristics, meaning the percentage of water absorption; firing colour, meaning the colour of the brick after drying and percentage of fines produced upon crushing and fire strength and these physical properties determine their commercial value. The clays from which burnt bricks are made may be divided into three principal types, all of which have similar chemical compositions but different physical characteristics. They are: 2. A Surface Clays also called Alluvial and Drift Clays Found near the surface of the earth, may be the up thrusts of older deposits or of more recent, sedimentary formation; are readily worked and require little preparation. 2. B Shale clays or rocky clays Shale is sedimentary deposits clays that have been subjected to high pressures until they have hardened almost to the form of slate which are often difficult to work and necessitate the use of heavy machinery to extract but, may be brought into plastic condition by long weathering (i.e. by exposure to rain, frost and sun) or by crushing and grinding in water, and they then resemble ordinary alluvial clays in every respect. 2. C Fire Clays Fire clays are usually mined at deeper levels of the earth than other clays where they form the bed layer under seams of coal and have refractory qualities and a high degree of resistance to heat. MANUFACTURING PROCESS The process of making clay brick is generally uniform, although manufactures tailor their production to fit their particular raw materials. In general, the manufacturing process consists of essentially of six stages: Mining and Gathering raw materials Preparation of raw material (crushing, grinding, screening and mixing the raw materials) Making of the brick or Forming Process (forming, cutting and coating) Drying Curing ( firing and cooling) Packaging and storing Diagram of the industrial manufacturing process of clay bricks MINING and GATHERING RAW MATERIALS The choice of the mining method of clay will depend on the kind of clay, on the depth, thickness, hardness and physical geology of the clay location under the ground. The general method of extracting clay from the quarry is once or twice a year using heavy plant machinery to stock pile large amounts, so to ensure continuous brick production regardless of the weather conditions and because clays are rarely present as pure minerals but rather mixtures of the different clay types; laboratory testing of the clays from different parts of quarry will determine the characteristics of the layers and will be stock in separate different categories which will facilitate the blending of the raw materials. PREPATION OF THE RAW MATERIAL In the manufacturer, the clay rock is crashed and reduced in smaller particles, and then the material produced is screen through an inclined vibrating screening machine to control the particle sizes prior to water being added. During the screening, manufactures adjust and compensate the different variations in chemical composition and physical properties by blending clays from different locations and sources to fit their standard of the end product. Consequently, to fulfil their requirements of perfect clay for bricks making, or for the composition of the raw material to fulfil their standard, the different mixes and proportions of clay and chemical are blended together, prior to add water, as which of them affect the working properties of clays causing them to vary in their behaviour affecting the properties of the final product. At the same time, manufacture has standardized their end product and their manufacturing processes to limit variations in the processing and the inconsistency in end product. For instance, a clay brick that when cure turn white may be developed commercially because, by adding various minerals like oxide of iron will affect the propriety of the brick in such a way that when cure it will produce a red brick if also there is consistency in the manufacturing processes. Example: Clay containing from 5 to 8 % of oxide of iron will, under ordinary conditions of firing, produce a red brick; but if the clay contains 3 to 4% of alkalis, or the brick is fired too hard, the colour will be darker and purple. An excess of Alumina compound tending to make the colour lighter and brighter. FORMING OF THE BRICK The first step in forming process is to produce a homogeneous plastic clay mass work up into proper consistency by adding water to clay in a mixing chamber with one or more revolving shafts with blade extensions. After the kneading, the plastic clay mass is ready for forming. There are three different methods of shaping and forming brick: the stiff-mud process or extrusion process 6. A. The stiff-mud process or extrusion process In the stiff-mud process or extrusion process, the clay is mixed with just enough water to produce clay plastic mass with water in the range of 10 to 15 percent of the clay mass. Next, the clay is extruded through a die, producing a horizontal column of clay which passes by conveyor belt through an automatic wire cutter to create the individual brick. The cutter spaces and die size are precisely calculated to compensate for shrinkage during drying and firing. 6. B. Soft-mud process In the soft-mud process or moulded process, the clay contains too much water to be extruded. The plastic clay mass contain 20 to 30 percent of water per mass is used to produce brick either by hand or machine. In the machine driven soft-mud process, standard brick are produce in mass quantities as the machine replicate the hand-making process much quicker. 6. C. Hand making In the simplest form which is done by hand, the craftsman will produce one brick at the time by stuffing a lump of soft clay in a mould and the excess clay is stuff from the top of the mould and the brick is turned out. The mould is lubricated with either sand or water to prevent the brick from sticking in the mould. 6. D. The dry-press process In this process hydraulic or compressed air rams is used to press clay with very low plasticity, containing no more than ten percent of water by weight, into steel moulds under pressures from 500 to 1500 psi creating a very compact and dense brick. DRYING PROCESS Prior to the brick to be fired in the kiln, after the brick is formed using any of the method describes above, it containing 7 to 30 percent of moisture, depending upon the forming method. This moisture must be removed prior to the brick can be fired in the kiln otherwise, there will be formation of scum and certain mechanical defects from occurring or the brick will explode when the brick is subject to the intense heat of the kiln. This drying process which last about 18 to 40 hours, is normally done by placing the green brick in enclosed dryer which utilize excess heat supplied from the exhaust heat of kiln to maximize thermal efficiency. To ensure good result, devices are installed to measure and control humidity in the drying facilities. A. Firing After the drying, the brick are fired in furnace chamber called kiln for 10 to 40 hours, where there are subject to a temperature of ranging between 100 to 1200 degrees centigrade depending on clay type or material used and the type of finished brick required. During the process, clay particles and impurities will undergo changes as the temperature in the kilns rises. The remaining water in the brick will dry up or evaporate; unlike the metal, clay softens slowly and melts or vitrifies gradually in rising temperature. The clay molecules mass breaks down becomes soft enough to stick together; the mass becomes tight, solid and non absorbent giving the brick it texture and colour. To ensure a good product and avoid the brick to be deformed due to heat also called viscous fusion, kiln is fitted with sensors to control the temperature in the different stage the firing process. 7.A.1. What is a Kiln? In brief, kilns are just containers for heat; fuelled by natural gas, coal, sawdust, and methane gas from landfills or a combination of these fuels. There are many different types of kilns but the most common types are the continuous kilns (tunnel) which are always firing; they never cool and are capable of turning out large quantities of bricks at steady constant rate and the periodic (intermittent) kilns which are fired on an intermittent schedule. http://www.pottery-magic.com/pottery/history/bottle_kiln.htm PACKAGING Following the firing process is the packaging but prior to that the bricks are gradually cool down, for 10 hours for tunnel kiln and form 5 to 24 hours in periodic kiln, as the rate of cooling affect directly the final colour of the bricks. After the brick has cool downs, there are unload from the kiln; sorted, graded, packaged and place in a storage yard or loaded rail cars or truck of delivery. PART TWO MANUFACTURING PROCESS OF ADOBE CLAY BRICK The adobe brick, this type of earthen building materials has been around since the beginning of civilisation and has been the main building material for most of the civilisation. In our day, Adobe are mostly used in hot and dry climates and become the characteristic of the third world. Although this is a very old material, it manufacturing process hasnt change since. As with the soil clay brick the main ingredient which enter in the manufacturing process is clay and the manufacturing process start with the choice of the raw material. SELECTION OF RAW MATERIALS Adobe brick are made from a mixture of mud or clay and small pieces of straw or reeds, and are formed by hand and left in the sun to dry. The secret of make adobe bricks lays on the choice of the type of clay to use as it is made of surface clay soil. Although the bricks are made in rural area where there is no sophisticated laboratory for testing but prior using the clay it has to be tested. The testing of the clay can be done by filling 2/3 of a graded glass jar with the clay you plan to use, and then fill the jar with water and put a lid on. Shake the jar for about two minutes making sure the clay is totally mix up with the water then let the jar and the mix to sit overnight. After about 24 hours, examine the jar and its content; the clay would have broken up into two distinct bands of sand on the bottom and clay on the top. There should not be more clay than sand on the ration of 30 percent clay and 70 percent sand for an ideal adobe brick making clay. EQUIPMENT NEEDED Clay soil Measuring Tape Hammer Hand Saw 24 timbers Nails Shovel Bucket Water Straw PREPARATION OF BRICKS After selecting the clay, an area must be clear prior to start making bricks and a shed to protect the newly made against the rain as it can take a couple of days for them to dry. In the nearby, dig a hole of about 3 to 4 feet long, 2 to 3 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet deep as a mixing pit for the different ingredients. Then fill the hole with water and let it drain out as this will strengthen the wall of the hole for it not to crumble while mixing the clay soil. This will take at least a day to dry out.  Make mould of the bricks using timber. The traditional size is 4 by 10 by 14 inches and this is made with 2 by 4 studs nailed into a ladder like shape. MAKING ADOBE BRICKS Once the water in the pit has dry out, fill the pit halfway with the clay soil then add water gradually as mixing with the feet our shovel until the mix is stiff. Straw can be added to reinforce the mix but it is not necessary.Fill the mould using a shovel or hand thenlevel off the excess with the shovel or with a straight edge, makingsure there are no air pockets or gaps.  Let the bricks set and then gently remove the mould from them leaving the wet adobe bricks to dry for several days (at least three) before handling. Wash the mould and repeat the process in a different area. DRYING PROCESS Leave the adobe brick where they are while they dry in the sun for several days before turning them on the edge to completely dry out and harden and put under the shed so that the drying time can continue. When the edges turn white, they are ready to be moved, but not used. This process could take at least 3 weeks prior the brick is use. PART THREE THE FUTURE OF CLAY BRICK As the world population is growing especially in developing countries, there is a need of urbanisation to accommodate this populace meaning more bricks are needed to answer to this demand of infrastructure development. With the growing problem of energy price soaring, with the world running out of fossil fuel, with the reduction of deforestation which encourages the expansion of the desert, the clay brick industry is now facing an energy crisis and this crisis is affecting and will affect everyone. In the developed country, it is affecting the price of the accommodation and the house price while in the developing country it is leading to the impoverishment of many. This crisis resound as called for innovation by funding a new way of making new type of clay brick or improving the firing process by a new design of kiln aiming to reduce energy consumption by minimizing the energy required by the process as firing time and temperature in the kiln are the two key factors which contribute in the making of solid brick. In the developed country, electricity and fossil fuel are use as the main fuel source for brick firing as they are abundant. Founding other alternative to these sources of energy could be the way forward. But investing in nuclear power will raise an environmental issue of dealing with the nuclear waste; investing in the renewable energy will be a gamble in the way that, most of this technology are still in embryonic state and will require funding a good spot to install them and a big area to cover to be able to produce enough energy necessary to power this industries such investment will impair on the price of brick. It will mean also to divert energy which will be helpful to thousand household into industry. UNFIRED CLAY BRICK The way forward will be probably in reducing the energy consumption by designing better kiln and improving our knowledge of the minimum energy required by the process as unnecessary prolonged firing time and too high temperature will eventually consume more energy but minimum firing temperature and shortening firing time do not only reduce energy but also increase the productivity. In the developing country, this crisis reverberates as called for innovation, finding an alternative for curing clay brick as they are facing desertification. Curing is done, depending on the area, by fire wood, rice husk and maize cob or residue as main fuel sources for brick firing because they are abundant in developing country. Even though other agricultural waste such as saw dust and oil palm shell are used as substitute for wood, a new design of kiln is necessary to cope with the small size of fuel. If thinking in term of innovation in finding a new way of making clay brick, the new brick should be energy efficient in manufacturing process especial if cure through a kiln. Although the adobe clay brick may seem to be the answer but this brick however is not very strong or durable and tend to crack on drying. But one of the modern additions is to compensate this weakness by mixing soil clay with sand and stabilizing it with 4 to 8 % of cement or gypsum and then compress these materials in a given mould form, which results in strong and durable bricks, which do not crack. This is done with simple and yet innovative manually or engine-operated brick presses made from substantial steel sections with axle steel shaft with a top round shaft is case hardened carbon steel with a lid and with a bottom that moves up and down; the compression given by the machine compact the soil particles together to make dense regular shaped brick, usually 300x300x 130 mm in size and it is use  to produce interlocking soil clay bricks without burning. MANUFACTURING UNFIRED CLAY BRICKS This process uses the same type of clay use for the adobe brick. After the soil clay has been selected, it must be properly mix with Portland cement or gypsum then add water to the content so that the final product is a dry mixture containing about 15% water by weight. The dry mixture is poured in the mould of the press machine which is compress by pushing the press lever from one side to the other after closure of the top with a steel lid, with a force of about12 to 14 tons mould pressure. After the compression finish, the brick is eject from the machine and stack in the way to prevent water loss. Water is added daily so that the cement can be hydrated properly. The curing process will take about 28 days.   ADVANTAGES This Environmentally-sound building process is practical, inexpensive and  environmentallyHYPERLINK http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/environment/soil-brick-making-machines-can-save-the-forests.html  HYPERLINK http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/environment/soil-brick-making-machines-can-save-the-forests.htmlfriendly, as well as significant in cost savings and on-going green benefits, building with unfired soil clay bricks is one of the solution for the housing crisis because it has a lot of environmental benefits. Figure 2 The environment is protected in several ways: It lessens the ecological impact of building construction, thereby reducing deforestation and the need kiln. There is hence no need to burn the bricks, which makes this process a very low-energy requiring one. It saves money as the brick can be made On-site eliminating transportation, middlemen and breakage cost. On the other hand, unfired clay brick provide a sustainable and healthy alternative as replacement to conventional masonry materials. The structures made with soil bricks are as beautiful and durable as housing made from conventional bricks with the higher acoustical qualities that shut out exterior noise for less stressful living and reduce the need to heat or cool the interior. The soil brick is suitable especially for use in multi storey buildings, due to its durability and robustness. The bricks are already strong enough to be handled for storage when they leave the machine. Brick presses allow countryside people to build independently their own affordable bricks to self-build their houses and not have to rely on salesmen and production in towns, bad roads, transport problems and fluctuating prices. CONCLUSION The lack of fossil fuels the world will face shortly will drive the world in an economical crisis which we havent experience before driving up the price of accommodation. Though the idea of compress clay bricks from soil is far from new in the developing country, but for some unknown  reasons this technology doesnt seem to have made its brake through the developed world. There is a need to implement this new product of a low carbon footprint in the building industry. REFERENCES http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VITAHTML/SUBLEV/EN1/CLAYPROD.HTM /how_242553_.html www.ibstock.com/pdfs/technical/TIS16howbrickaremade http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/environment/soil-brick-making-machines-can-save-the-forests.html http://www.newdawnengineering.com/website/brickandtile/tbrick/ http://opus.bath.ac.uk/16170/1/papers/Paper%2031.pdf www.bia.org/bia/technotes/t9.html REPORT: Manufacturing of Bricks 9.12.2006 Publish: The Brick Industry Association www.gobrick.com/omnisam/common/getfile.cfm?file=/bia/technotes/t9 Access 20.03.2010 Careful humidity control Publish: Vaisala news 1998 Www. Vaisala.com Access 24.03.10 ABCs of making Adobe bricks Publish: College of agriculture and home economics New Mexico state university March 2003 www.aces.nmsu.edu Access 24.03.10 Websites Mineral information institute www.mii.org 16.03.10 Bright Hub www.brighthub.com 13.03.10 University College London www.es.ucl.ac.uk 13.03.10 Answer.com/reference answer www.answer.com 17.03.2010 How to make adobe bricks www.ehow.com 17.03.2010 How to make Adobe bricks www.doityourself.com 07.04.2010

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Is Holden Caulfield a Typical Teenager?

In the novel, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield is a 16 year old boy from New York City. He recently got the ax from his school, Pencey Prep, for failing four classes. He ends up roaming around the streets of New York City for three days, after leaving school early for Winter Break. Through Holden’s adventures, he becomes addicted to smoking, drinking and going out to night clubs. This conclusion leads me to think that he has the common issues that teens deal with daily. Although Holden secludes himself from the rest of the world, he is very much like a typical teenager when it comes to having problems in school. Holden reveals a strong hate for school. In chapter one, he states that â€Å"he didn’t know anyone at Pencey that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. † (pg. 6) Later, Holden gets kicked out from his school, Pencey Prep â€Å"on account of flunking four subjects and not applying† himself and all. (pg. 6) Holden is well known because teens can relate to him in so many things including issues in school. It seems that whenever Holden would get depressed he would turn to abusing alcohol, which is common among teens. In chapter 10, Holden was in a night club and he tried to order a scotch and soda, when the waiter asked for some verification of his age. (pg. 90-91) It seems that Salinger made this the only time alcohol wasn’t readily available in the novel. In chapter 12, Holden was at another night club, Ernie’s, when he tried again to order a scotch and soda, and was able to do so easily. He states that even if you were six years old you could get liquor at Ernie’s; nobody cared how old you were. (pg. 111) Again in chapter 20, Holden gets drunk at another night club. (pg. 194) The Catcher in the Rye demonstrates many life lessons, such as not abusing alcohol. In the novel, Holden Caulfield is like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere in the puzzle, meaning he doesn’t fit in with the world. He has a really rough time fitting in at school because he thinks they are all phonies. In Chapter 1, Holden accidentally leaves â€Å"all the foils and equipment and stuff on the subway† so the whole team ostracizes him the whole way back on the train. (p. 6). In Chapter 6, Holden gets in a fist fight with his roommate Stradlater, because Holden continuously calls Stradlater a moron because Stradlater was criticizing what Holden wrote about for Stradlater’s paper that he asked Holden to write. (p. 54). Holden had a rough time fitting in both at school and in the world in general. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates a young boy struggling to try to fit in with everyone else and deal with life’s problems at the same time. From failing out of school to going to night clubs and getting drunk, this novel is told right from a teenager’s point of view. Salinger represents Holden as a character in his novel that holds many characteristic of a typical teenager, including alcohol abuse. To this day, Holden is well-known worldwide, by many people. He is known as the character that best describes teenagers and life problems.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Leading Quietly by Joseph Badaracco

Lecture Text Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. : Leading Quietly* Now what I’m going to do today is talk for a while about research I’ve done over the last five years and completed with the publication of a book by that title: Leading Quietly. What I set out to do initially was to see what I could learn about leadership and effective leadership, if I looked beyond, if I looked away from, what I’ll call the heroic model. And the heroic model is one that, with the briefest sketch, is familiar to all of us. Who are heroic leaders? They are people who change the world or part of the world, they’ve got very strong values, they are charismatic, they are inspiring, they are willing to make sacrifices, sometimes, in some walks of life, the ultimate sacrifice, because they sacrificed their lives. I have no intention, here today or at any point, in tearing down all that the great figures have contributed to our world. Without them, our world would be a poorer and meaner place. Without them, we wouldn’t have examples of courage to talk to our kids and to others about. But the proposition I want to put in front of you today is that viewing leadership, particularly leadership in organizations, particularly in the middle of big, complicated business organizations, simply in terms of heroism, is a limited and sometimes even misleading perspective. Let me say a little bit more about why I think that’s the case. I think there are at least three problems with this heroic view. One of them I call the pyramid issue. If you think about the world in terms of heroes, you tend to have in the back of your mind a big triangle, and at the top you’ve got great leaders, and at the bottom, fill in your favorite candidates, the skunks, bottom-dwelling slugs, T. S. Eliot’s hollow men. What about everybody else who is in the middle? People who are neither out saving the world like great heroes, saving companies, saving brands, nor are they exploiting it. They are doing their jobs, living their lives, taking care of the people around them. The heroic model doesn’t say much about them. The second problem with the heroic model was expressed in the Burke videotape. He said, â€Å"I never had any trouble telling right from wrong. † And I think that is fundamentally right because there are so many situations, as you know, when this is right and this is wrong, and the task is not to figure out what is the right thing to do, it’s to get yourself or other people to move in that direction rather than this one. But there are a whole set of messy, complicated problems that I refer to as right versus right problems that do not fit the simple, heroic, dothe-right-thing model. Let me give you an example. * Edited for clarity Copyright ? 2002 Page 1 You are at home. It’s evening. Someone knocks on your door. It’s somebody who works for you, he’s worked with you for a number of years. He says, â€Å"I’m really sorry to bother you at home, but I’ve got some really fabulous news. † This individual lives just a couple miles away. And he says, â€Å"I wanted you to be one of the first to know. My wife and I have been looking for a home and we really think we have found the house of our dreams. It’s really expensive, we are going to have to take some money out of the kids’ college funds, but this is just a fabulous home, and you know you are my boss, and you are the best boss I’ve ever had†¦. I’m sure many of you have had this experience. â€Å"The best boss I can even imagine having. † So you nod politely and in the back of your mind you know that there is a layoff coming and that this individual’s name is on that list. By buying this house, he’s not only putting himself on t he brink of financial calamity, he’s going to be taking a plunge over it. Now what do you do? You know the layoff is coming. As a corporate officer, you have a duty of confidentiality to the corporation. You’re not supposed to disclose the coming layoffs piecemeal to your friends. That’s supposed to be announced when everything is set up legally, when the HR work is done, at a point in time that senior executives decide. But this person is a friend. You owe this person a lot. Surely you have an obligation, I think, to help them out. And what if the person happens to go a little bit further and says, â€Å"Do you think I ought to do this? † And of course what you’re thinking is â€Å"You’re crazy if you do this. † And you are supposed to tell the truth, right? This is not a right versus wrong situation. You’ve got three obligations here: to your friend, to the truth, and the duty of confidentiality to your organization. You may think this is kind of a made-up story, but in the last eight or ten years or so, even when the U. S. economy was growing slowly in the early 90s and even when it was growing quickly in the late 90s, we had continuous layoffs. I heard four or five versions of this exact story. A good friend, what do you tell them about a layoff when you can’t tell them anything prematurely? This is what I would describe as a messy, right versus right kind of problem. The final thing wrong with the heroic view is that, at bottom, most of us most of the time don’t want to be heroes, even think it is irresponsible to act heroically. The saying is that martyrdom is a oncein-a-lifetime experience. I had a student, an auditor in fact, from the Nieman program, which brings journalists here to Harvard, in my second-year elective course a couple of years ago. The rules for auditors say that you can listen, you can’t participate. So we were having a discussion about an organization, it was a mini-Enron, there were lots of things going on that shouldn’t have been going on. A young guy knew what was going Copyright ? 2002 Page 2 on, he had copied some documents. The question was, what he should do? And there was a lot of enthusiasm building up in the class for him to blow the whistle. He had a tennis pal who was a journalist with the local newspaper. And I was watching this woman sitting over on the side, she was a reporter for a big New York City newspaper, and she was getting really agitated, and you could see her almost physically holding her hand down, because she knew what the rules were but she was going to separate her shoulder or something like that trying to restrain herself. So I called on her and she said, â€Å"Listen, what you have to understand is, if you are going to propose blowing the whistle, is that whistleblowers always get screwed. † That may be an overgeneralization, but life is really tough, at least in this country, for people who blow the whistle. And that’s the message she wanted to send. So you have the problem of the pyramid that leaves most of us out. You’ve got these messy problems that don’t fit into the right versus wrong format, and you’ve got the fact that most of us want to live to fight another battle. We’ve got complicated obligations in life, very few people realistically, pragmatically, are going to roll everything up into one big ball and sacrifice it, often no matter how great and how urgent they think the problem is. We might do that for somebody close to us, but would we do it for our organizations? I don’t know. So what I want to do is encourage you for a little while this afternoon to think beyond this model, and it’s a very, very powerful model. You’ve got the great figures of history that we’ve learned about since we were kids in school. Every walk of life has its heroes. Every business and industry has its heroes†¦I don’t know how many of you have seen the latest Economist, the title is â€Å"Fallen Idols: The Overthrow of Celebrity CEOs. † This looks like one of those statues in East Germany or in Eastern Europe after the breakup of the Soviet Union, down on the ground smashed. The smiling face here is Jack Welch. So we have the celebrity CEOs. Turn on the TV, go to a movie, go see Spiderman, it’s a relentless diet telling us that the people we really ought to admire and emulate are the folks who do great things, whether it’s fighting the mafia, or space aliens—pick your own favorite. I think in fact that this heroic view is almost—I’m going out on a limb here because I’m hardly a scientist—almost genetically etched in us. A long time ago when somebody in a crowd said, â€Å"We’d better go this way because the saber-toothed tigers are going that way,† the folks who responded and followed these leaders away from the sabertoothed tigers are the ones who survived, and the ones sitting over there saying, â€Å"Well, I’ll think it over, we’ll see,† are the ones who got consumed for lunch. That’s one view. My argument is that it is not the only view. In fact, I want to go a little bit further because the conclusion of the study I did, Copyright ? 2002 Page 3 and I should tell you a little bit about the study†¦What I essentially did was gather a lot of case studies, in the end about 150, of people who were typically in the middle of an organization, had a messy, complicated problem, had a significant degree of self-interest, prudent self-preservation, but also wanted to do the right thing for their organizations and for themselves, and I looked at how they resolved their problems. And I did it pretty systematically. I put them in three categories: people who looked like they were successes, they did the right thing for themselves and their organizations. People who failed, and they often said, â€Å"I failed,† explained why, and said what they would do differently the next time. And then the muddy cases. And I tried to go through systematically and see what separated the success stories from the others. And what I want to put in front of you are some basic conclusions about how these people think, how they behave, what they did. And I’ll give you some examples and, in fact, I’ll even come back to the little anecdote about the â€Å"house of my dreams,† and tell you a little bit about how you might approach that in this quiet leadership vein. But the big conclusion I came to is that we really need to look away from the figures on the pedestal, from time to time, maybe quite often, so we can see it’s the daily, unglamorous, in-the-trenches quiet leadership that so often is what moves and changes things in organizations. And I hope to encourage you to think a little bit about the people who work for you, the people you work with, to see if some of them don’t fit this model of quiet leadership that I’m describing. See if there’s something you can learn from them, and see if, when they work for you, there are ways you can encourage them, support them, help hold them up as examples for people in your organization. As you’ll see, quiet leadership can be lonely work. It’s out of the spotlight, it’s often unrewarded, sometimes it is even unnoticed, it’s done by people who are doing something right for themselves, right for the organization, but often there is no one standing by to give them a medal. Now I did a 150 cases, I’m a professor here at Harvard, but neither of these are reasons you should pay attention to the ideas I’m putting in front of you. Let me give you a more serious and more historically significant way of thinking about this†¦. This is a quote from Albert Schweitzer. I imagine most of you know who he is. He was born at the end of the 1800s in Germany. He was an astonishingly talented young man. He could have had a career as a theologian. Not just sort of a technical theologian; he was a deeply religious Christian. He was also a brilliantly talented musician. So, he could have had a nice life in Germany following either of those pursuits. Copyright ? 2002 Page 4 He decided instead to become a medical missionary. He worked in Africa. He won the Nobel Prize in 1952. Took the money, spent it expanding his hospital down there, and stayed in Africa working as a medical missionary until the point when he died. This is what he says. And I think this is a remarkable statement: â€Å"Of all the will toward the ideal, all of our highest aspirations, only a small part of it can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with†Ã¢â‚¬â€ notice that phrase—†small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is†Ã¢â‚¬â€ notice again how strongly he puts this—†a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. These folks who get the recognition compared to the former are â€Å"like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean. † This is someone who is a heroic leader, by so many standards, basically saying, don’t pay a lot of attention to people like himself. Look elsewhere—look at the people engaged in the se small and obscure deeds. So, what I’d like to do now is spend the remaining time, maybe fifty minutes or so, telling you a little bit about these quiet leaders: What I looked at, what I learned, how they think, and what they do. I summarize this in the form of seven lessons. Let me say a little bit about each one of these. The first thing about these people is they don’t kid themselves. What they don’t kid themselves about is how much they know, how much of what goes on around them they can control, how far they can see down the road. This is true even when people had titles like CEO, like general manager, like plant manager. They had a sense of the fragility, the uncertainty, the tentativeness of almost everything. Now, of course, for Americans, and the Americans in this room, you know we had our Internet bubble blow up and then collapse. And for so many people in the world after September 11th, maybe these reminders of the fragility of things are not as necessary as they were a few years ago, at least in this country, when it looked like we had sort of a lock on everything. Machiavelli says somewhere in The Prince that â€Å"fortune is basically the equivalent of a great powerful river. † And what human beings are doing is building little structures on the side of the river. And he says, of all the things that happen, about half of it is under our control. The rest is the plaything of this great force, this river he talks about. You take all the precautions you can. You build the dykes. â€Å"But, at the end of the day,† he says, â€Å"it’s only 50/50. About half of this is out of your hands. † Copyright ? 2002 Page 5 These folks I looked at had sort of a permanent view that they were likely to be surprised. That the future, whatever it might hold, was made up of multiple alternative scenarios. The future, no matter how hard and smart their efforts were, could easily come up from behind and sort of bite them in the posterior. They were also political realists about their organizations. They didn’t kid themselves about other people’s motives. They knew that in any organization, there are some people who are basically in it for themselves. They also didn’t kid themselves about the fact that most organizations are organized like pyramids—a lot of the goodies go to the people at the top, and lots of smart, ambitious people are trying to get hold of those goodies. They realize that organizations tend to be organized on the basis of insiders and outsiders. Insiders tend to take care of themselves; lots of outsiders are trying to get in. In other words, I’m not talking about saints, social workers, would-be martyrs, folks who are holier than thou. In fact, I’m talking about people—and I’ll spend a little more time on this in a moment—who are quite eager to get higher pay, promotions, and make their way up to the top of the greasy pole. They did not kid themselves about how the world worked. But, there’s one other element that I want to add to this basic idea of, â€Å"don’t kid yourself. † These folks were not cynics. When I mention things like the politics, the competition that takes place in any organization, it’s easy for you to think when I say, â€Å"Don’t kid yourself,† that I’m talking about the sort of Machiavellian maxim, â€Å"Do unto others before they do unto you. That’s not what I’m talking about. And that’s not the way these people thought. They were realists. They expected to be surprised. And they were just as likely, they thought, to be surprised by good things as by bad things. In other words, pessimistic, dark- tinted glasses are just as distorting as naive, pink-tinted glasses. These folks tried to see the world for what it was. They recognized that people do things for all sorts of reasons. People who you don’t expect—who are almost at the bottom of the list of people to show up when times get tough and there were things in organizations that really needed doing— sometimes surprised them. The second basic trait I found, I summarize this way†¦these people trusted their motives, even when their motives were mixed. Let me explain that a little bit. The heroic view tends to say that great leaders are motivated by altruism, by idealism, by the highest and most noble instincts you can imagine. By the way, that’s what makes it so easy for biographers— and this has been fashionable for about twenty or thirty years now—to write biographies of great leaders in which they point out that they were actually motivated by human, even low, motives: ambition, Copyright ? 2002 Page 6 pride. And often did some things that even these leaders themselves are hardly proud of. But that’s only because we have a kind of false conception of what it really is that makes human beings tick. As I said a moment ago, the quiet leaders that I looked at, that I talked with, that I thought about, they liked bigger paychecks rather than smaller paychecks. They preferred to have more people reporting to them than fewer. They wanted to have long, successful careers in their organizations or, if that didn’t work out, in other organizations. And when they found themselves in one of these messy, complicated problems, one of the things they thought about, and thought a lot about, was their own careers and their own reputation. â€Å"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? † You can get stranded alone out there. Who is going to take care of you? â€Å"If I am only for myself, purely, unalloyedly self-interested, what am I? † This is what I mean by mixed motives. And I want to go a little further than this to say why these mixed motives are so important. Let me give you an example of a senior marketing rep. This is somebody who is a little surprising because he had lots of opportunities to move into management but never took them. He really loved sales. He worked for a big American pharmaceutical company, and it had a terrific product for a fairly common form of mental illness. I don’t want to point fingers at any particular company. It turned out that this product had a second use, one that the Food and Drug Administration had not approved. It worked really well for losing weight. And some doctors were actually prescribing it for people who needed diets, not treatment from depression. And the company caught on to this, and it organized an unwritten, undocumented marketing campaign to encourage more of its reps to get out there and sell the product for this unregulated, unapproved use. This guy, whom I will call Elliott Cortez, wanted to get ahead, like most of the people I looked at. He went along with the program. So, he’d meet with doctors. He’d describe to them that it could be used for diet. He’d fill prescriptions. But, for some reason, I don’t know what it was, he began after time to get a little uncomfortable about this. Then a little more uncomfortable about it. And finally what did he do? He decided he was going to stop doing this. And he went around to the doctors to whom he’d been pushing or promoting his product for diet purposes, told them he was going to stop doing that, and explained why. He told a couple of other sales reps he was going to do the same thing. And he told his boss. Copyright ? 2002 Page 7 I don’t know what the initial trigger was that got him to do this stuff. But I later asked him why, once he was alerted to the problem, he went and did all of this. And he said, â€Å"Well, to be honest, there were really two things. I came to realize, first of all, that some people could get sick with the misuse of this product. And I realized secondly, given the scale of the campaign that this company was waging, unapproved and unregulated, that the company could get in a whole lot of trouble. And who was going to get the bull’s-eye painted on them? When the time came, it would be the reps and the marketing execs who were out promoting this unapproved product. And I did not want to get hung out to dry. † Now, what do you make of this story? It’s kind of an interesting one to talk about. Is this heroic leadership? Not by any standard. This guy was very careful. What motivated him? He didn’t want people to get sick as a result of what he was doing. But he also didn’t want to get himself in trouble. His motives were quite mixed. You might ask yourself, wouldn’t it have been better if he had blown the whistle, if he had dropped a dime, called the FDA, photographed some papers and sent them off? Who was going to win that uneven competition between a giant pharmaceutical company and a lonely rep? It’s a no-brainer. The company would have won. So he made the sensible decision not to blow himself up in place. But, he did something. He didn’t do everything; he did something. Within the little sphere where he reasonably could have some influence, and maybe set an example—the doctors, a few other sales reps and his boss—he explained to them what he was doing and why he was doing it. What if his motives had been purer? What if he didn’t have the selfpreservation instinct? I would argue he would not have done so well. A lot of cases of quiet leadership that I looked at are much more like distance runs than glamorous 50-yard, 100-yard sprints in front of a cheering crowd. And what often matters is not the purity of your motives, but the strength of your motives. You’ve got to have some skin in the game. And part of the reason he went around and did what he could is because he did not want to end up in court, in the press, on TV, in the event things came down on his company. His motives were mixed. And my argument is that he was probably much more effective as a result of that. There’s so many fascinating studies coming out now, the folks who do mind/body research. And what many of these studies tend to find is that our minds do far more processing and analyzing of reality preconsciously, unconsciously, than anybody ever realized. And often this analysis, this analytical work that’s done by these deep levels of our mind, doesn’t express itself in rational linear thinking. It expresses itself in feelings, in hesitation. If you’re facing one of these messy Copyright ? 2002 Page 8 problems, don’t think you’ve got to be General Patton or some other charge-the-hill hero. If something inside you is saying â€Å"slow down, slow down,† trust those mixed motives. That’s the second trait that I found among these people. The third thing these folks did was buy time. Sometimes they begged, sometimes they borrowed. I’ll come to this in a moment. Sometimes they played games. They stole a little time. They did exactly the reverse of what so many American managers were told to do just a couple of years ago. Remember the mantra about Internet time? And instead of this sort of old-fashioned ready, aim, fire, the new mantra was fire, ready, aim. Because the world was moving so fast. Now, in retrospect, you can see that for the monstrously bad advice it was. Hundreds of billions of dollars were thrown away by folks trying to seize opportunities on Internet time. The only thing that actually moved on Internet time was the Internet bubble itself, which rose and collapsed pretty much on the Internet time schedule. That said, the folks who were telling us that things were different were right about something else. Because they frequently reminded us that the world was getting to be a more complicated place. Business was becoming globally deregulated; you know all the rest of that sort of story. Why they went on to say that as the world got more complicated, you ought to make decisions faster and faster, I don’t know. But, they were right about the ever-growing complexity of situations that people faced. Taking their advice, however, doing things on Internet time, basically made them a candidate for an award that medical schools give out occasionally. It’s the SSW award. It stands for â€Å"swift, sure, and wrong. † The quiet leaders I looked at found ways to take time to get decisions right. They didn’t make their decisions on the basis of external pressures. They made their decisions when they were ready to make the decisions. Now, that may sound to you like a kind of naive, academic, ivory tower piece of advice, because all of you have about twenty-eight times more things to do than you’ve got time to do them. And typically, the In basket is a lot bigger than the Out basket. And I understand that. But, when you get one of these messy, complicated sorts of problems, you have a sense that it’s got ramifications, ripple effects leading throughout the organization, you’ve got to find the time. And you’ve got to take the time to get things right. There was a fascinating article, an interview about six weeks ago in the New York Times with Joseph Murray, a now-retired surgeon who Copyright ? 2002 Page 9 lives in a suburb of Boston. He was a pioneer in kidney transplantation. And he used to have a slogan up in his operating room, and the slogan said, â€Å"If the operation is difficult, you’re not doing it right. † And what he meant by that was, before you do something, especially something pioneering, like taking a kidney out of one person and putting it into another, you better make sure you’ve imagined all the steps and all the possible scenarios. And what does that take? That takes time. Quiet leaders find ways to get the time they need. Quiet leaders also learn some lessons from investment bankers and venture capitalists. They invest wisely. Now, let me tell you a little bit about what I mean by â€Å"invest wisely. † Sometimes professors here give their students a little bit of advice at the end of the course, which is that what they ought to do is get themselves some â€Å"go to hell† money. This is money you keep in fairly liquid form in the event that you just can’t take it anymore wherever you’re working. Then you don’t have to keep that job. You can get another job, but you’ve got a cushion. It makes perfect sense. That’s not exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about here. I’m talking about investing something that is far more important to careers and far less tangible, much more subtle than just money. I’m talking about political capital, a composite of two things. It’s your actual track record, and it’s your reputation: what people, especially influential people in an organization, think about your track record. So, it’s those two things. The quiet leaders I looked at, I’m only exaggerating a little bit, when they came upon these sort of messy problems, they thought about them like venture capitalists. They asked themselves, â€Å"How much political capital do I have? How much am I going to put at risk? What kind of returns am I going to get? And when am I going to get those returns? † In an ideal world, they looked for ways to handle these problems, even if there was some initial investment or a risk of their political capital. In the end they got back out even more than they put in. As I said, they weren’t looking to be martyrs or saints. Like venture capitalists, they often invested their political capital, and I’ll say more about this in a moment, in increments. They took small steps. They nudged a little bit. They escalated gradually to get a feel for what was going on, to learn a little bit more. If things looked bad, they’d back off and they’d move in another direction. If things looked good, they would invest a little bit more. They were very pragmatic people. They were looking for what was attainable. They were sort of following, without ever having heard it, this French maxim, which is Copyright ? 2002 Page 10 â€Å"the better is the enemy of the good. † Try to find something in this complicated, shifting, uncertain world that will work. Now, keep in mind what I said earlier, that they cared about getting these things right, and they were tenacious people. So, when they looked for ways to invest capital, they weren’t looking for your savings bond investment where you put in some money and you get an absolute guarantee of four or five percent. They were willing to take some risks, willing to shake the tree a little bit, willing to use some imagination, but they were concerned about the art of the feasible, the art of the practical. And they picked their battles. There were some cases where they said with regret, â€Å"Something was going on over here, and I just didn’t want to get involved. I don’t think I could get involved. If I had gotten involved, I would not have been able to make a difference. And so with regrets, I moved on. † Now that is not the heroic charge-the-hill, all purpose do-gooder approach to getting things done in organizations. But many of these people felt— and you can judge for yourself whether you think they were thinking soundly or not—that they had to pick their battles because they wanted to live to fight another day. And they wanted to move up in their organizations where they would have even more influence. There’s a wonderful statement of Machiavelli’s: â€Å"A man who has no position in society cannot even get a dog to bark at him. † That means you’re invisible. â€Å"A man who has no position in society. If you want to make a difference, you’ve got to be a player at the table. And not just once, but several times, again and again and again over a career, and at smaller and smaller tables. And that’s what these folks were thinking. A limited amount of political capital—they wanted to build it. They invested it carefully, with some imagination, with some care, but they invested it carefully. The fifth thing I found was this—which may not be intuitively obvious to all of you. Let me give you a little bit of background, a little bit of Harvard University lore. In the mid-1800s there was an ichthyologist named Louis Agassiz. Ichthyologists study fish. And he got to be a very important person, not just in his field, but nationally. Why? Well, in the mid-1800s Darwin and people who looked at fish fossils supposedly had something to say about whether God did it, or whether it was the unfolding of an evolutionary process. He was also a brilliant researcher and scholar. And so for a variety of reasons his lab attracted the best and brightest. The tale has been told many times. When graduate students came to work at his lab the first day and he’d say, â€Å"It’s really great to have you here. Here’s what I want you to do. † He gave them a little tray. And the tray would have on it an ordinary fish. He’d say, â€Å"I want you to go and look at this fish Copyright ? 2002 Page 11 and then come back in a little while and tell me what you see about the fish. † So, they’d go off. And when would they come back? A half hour, an hour, and knock on the door. And kind of eager, they’d have some things to report. He said, â€Å"No, I want you to go and look at the fish. † So, they’d come back at lunchtime. â€Å"Go back and look at the fish. † At the end of the day, same routine. Even at the end of the week. And they had ice in those days, but these fish were probably getting a little funky. It was only after two or three weeks that Agassiz would say, â€Å"Come in and tell me about the fish. † What he was trying to inculcate in them is the habit of discipline: focused, consistent, penetrating powers of observation. Looking and looking and looking and looking. As you move into more and more complicated general management situations, there are just more layers there. There’s more to see. There’s more to understand: There’s more to understand technically, there’s more to understand politically, there’s more to understand financially. And if you’ve got general management responsibility, you’ve got to bring that together. These folks that I looked at bought time. And in the process of investing carefully, they spent lots of time living with, sleeping with, and sweating over their problems. They really worked and worked their problems. And it was often only at the end of this effort to drill down that they had the creative breakthroughs that were critical. Let me give you a list of names here: Darwin Smith, George Cain, Alan Wurtzel. Am I ringing any bells? Colman Mockler? It’s interesting, there’s a book that I suspect that many of you have heard of, and maybe a number of you have read, called Good to Great by Jim Collins. He did a big statistical sample and found about twenty companies that had been doing terribly for fifteen years and then, for the subsequent fifteen years, outperformed the market by a factor of three. And he went in and studied their executives to try to find out what happened, how these companies were turned around. Darwin Smith was at Kimberly-Clark, Colman Mockler was at Gillette, George Cain was at Abbott Labs, and Alan Wurtzel was at Circuit City. All companies you’ve heard of, all companies that have had spectacular long runs after these turnarounds. Collins notes about these people that they spent their whole careers in their industries, if not in their companies. Talk about drilling down, looking at your fish. They knew these businesses from the bottom up, from the inside out. And Collins’s conclusion, not mine, was that this intimate sort of knowledge was what enabled them to accomplish all of what they did. I heard a talk by somebody who was getting an award for outstanding leadership a couple of months ago. He used an interesting phrase. He Copyright ? 2002 Page 12 said, â€Å"I didn’t really realize I was a leader. He said, â€Å"I was working too hard to lead. † A lot of the heroic stuff that you hear about sounds kind of glamorous. The message of this drill down stuff is, look at your fish: It can be pretty tough. Come back to that little example I gave you at the beginning. This long-term co-worker and friend comes to you saying, â€Å"I found the house of my dreams,† what are you going to do ? The easy way out of that situation is, don’t look for wiggle room, stick to the rules. And remember, we had three rules you could apply. You had the rule of the duty of confidentiality. And so what do you say to your friend? â€Å"Great. That’s fabulous, congratulations. I wish you and your family the best. † And you try to paste a smile on your face that doesn’t look too fake, because you know you’re helping to send him over the precipice. Or, you say, simple rule, tell the truth. So you blurt out the truth. And you swear this person to confidence, of course. And you hope that the old piece of advice that says, â€Å"Best friends only tell their own best friends† doesn’t come into play. And you haven’t violated confidentiality, and you’re not going to get in trouble for it. OK? Or you say, â€Å"This is my friend. Friends have to help friends. There’s going to be a layoff and your name is on it. † I would argue that in a case like that, following the rules is hardly leadership, barely ethical. You’ve got to find a way to have a little bit of wiggle room. Following the rules in a world full of rules, and oft-conflicting rules, can be a copout. The final little piece of advice here is to create compromises. The quiet leaders I looked at were really good at compromising. That’s probably not leadership—that’s what politicians do. You know, that’s what you do when you go to a car dealer. And you say, â€Å"This is a piece of junk. I’ll give you $10,000 dollars. The car dealer says, â€Å"It’s appraised $20,000 dollars. † You agree on $15,000. That’s a capitalist act between consenting adults. That doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with leadership, morality, what’s good for an organization. And that’s right. Although I have t o say that, in some of these cases, these folks who were really committed to doing what was best for their organization and for themselves realized that after digging down, after trying to be creative, after thinking like venture capitalists a little bit, they could go so far and go no further, and they compromised. There’s this Country Western song that says, â€Å"sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. † Sometimes you’re the bug: you stop. But the important word there is the word â€Å"create,† not the word â€Å"compromise. † Because what the best people did was find a way to rethink, to reconfigure a situation, so it didn’t look like zero-sum, I Copyright ? 2002 Page 13 win/you lose. So, there was another way of thinking about the whole thing so that they could go forward. I want to give you an example that’s not a quiet leadership example. It’s a heroic leadership example. And it involves Abraham Lincoln, who was not simply an American hero, but in many ways is in the pantheon of world heroes. In 1858 Lincoln was running for senator, and he would have the same problem when he ran for president. The great problem in America at that time was, should we have slavery in the Northwest Territories? Should the territories be free, or should they have slaves? And Lincoln did not want to take a stand on that issue. In his heart, most people believe, at the time he opposed slavery. But he was an ambitious politician. His best friend said about Lincoln after died that he had a little engine of ambition that would never stop ticking. So, what would Lincoln do? What could he do? If he said he opposed slavery in the Northwest Territories, all the votes in the South would be lost to him in his running for president. If he supported slavery, he would lose the abolitionist vote in the North. Lincoln came up with the following answer. He said, â€Å"I oppose slavery in the Northwest Territories because it is unfair. Who is it unfair to? It is unfair to free white men who may want to migrate to the Northwest Territories to build careers. Why is it unfair to them? Because slavery is unfair economic competition. And free white men (i. e. , the voters I’m seeking) should not have to face that kind of competition. † Now, if we had more time, we could discuss this at some length. I will say, quite plainly though, that had Lincoln not come up with this tactic, which was described as one of the most brilliant pieces of political strategy or propaganda in American history, he would be an obscure, unknown Illinois politician. He could not have been elected otherwise. The Civil War might have turned out differently. What was one country might have been two. You can speculate about when or whether the Emancipation Proclamation would have been issued. What Lincoln did was take what looked like a win/lose, either/or situation and recast it. Let me come back and close off by talking about the â€Å"home of my dreams† case. My hunch is that the vast majority of you in that situation would do something like the following. And this is what the people I’ve run into have actually done. It looks like you’re on the hook. Either you say congratulations or else you say, â€Å"Look, I’ve got to warn you. † Copyright ? 2002 Page 14 In one case I asked somebody point blank, â€Å"What did you do? And he said, â€Å"What I did, I don’t know if it’s the right thing or not, but I said, ‘Look, there are a lot of layoffs now in some of our competing firms, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had some here. Are you really sure you want to get that far out on a limb? ’† Now, is that he roism? Of course not. Is it leadership? Well, you’re trying to make a difference in this person’s life. You’re not trying to make the decision for him, and you can’t make the decision for him by telling him what’s going to happen. You’re trying to get him to think a little bit. And often that’s what quiet leaders do. Instead of telling people the answer, they find ways to get other people to think a little bit. It’s creative. It’s a way of finding a little wiggle room. You’re not the hero who’s saving this person, this family. You’re not the corporate hero maintaining the duty of confidentiality. You can judge for yourself. But I take it as a way of imaginatively and quickly, on the spot, recasting the situation. Let me summarize just very briefly. I don’t think quiet leadership is the only way. There’s lots of situations where what needs to be done is clear. And you’ve got to get it done, or you get it done through other people. And I don’t mean to detract for a moment from the great heroes who have made the world a much better place. But I am saying that we need a broader view, and I’m encouraging you to look in your organizations for people who don’t make noise, who you may not have noticed, who tend to operate quietly, behind the scenes, without asking a lot for themselves, but who are the kind of unseen cogs and gears that keep people going. People who, when they face, not a big problem that everybody gets excited about, but an everyday problem, bring to it a little extra effort, a little more care, a little more imagination, a little more analysis. These little brush strokes cumulatively make things a much better place. I’m suggesting you look for them, try to learn from them, and even try to reward them. One quiet leader used a phrase that actually ended up as the cover art in my book; you see those footprints over there on the side. He said what quiet leaders try to do is they try to leave a trace on the beach. And I really like that phrase, because it captures a degree of modesty. We’re not trying to change the world. It captures a degree of realism. The waves and the wind will come and wash away stuff on the beach. But despite that, these folks are determined. They’re tenacious. They look for ways to get the things done that need to be done. So they are willing to leave traces on the beach, even though these are only traces. Put differently, they care about small things. And that’s the final thing I want to say, both about quiet leaders and, as kind of a caution or asterisk about great leaders and the heroic approach: that it tends to distort your view. Copyright ? 2002 Page 15 The last thing I want to put up is a quote from a remarkable but little known American named Bruce Barton. He started a big advertising firm. He ran for Congress. He was a very successful writer at the end of his life on religious subjects. And this is what he said: â€Å"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped at a newsstand, I am tempted to think that there are no little things. That, I think, is almost the diametrically opposite view of the folks who say, â€Å"Look on the pedestal. Look at the defining moments. Look at the catalytic events. Look at the big folks in history. † It’s pretty easy, I think, to miss the wisdom that lies behind this view. So, learn from leaders. Use them as models. Use the great leaders to teach yourself, to teach people in organizations, to teach your kids. But, don’t forget the quiet leaders, they matter too. Thank you very much. Copyright ? 2002 Page 16