Ethical thinking arise from the news reporting - Nude photos of Assignment

Ethical thinking arise from the news reporting - Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebs posted by hackers - Assignment Example The availability of information and sizeable technological innovations has added to its utility. Presently lives have become increasingly hectic and competitive. No one stops to double think before acquiring an opportunity to eat from someone else’s plate without having to work for it. Undeserved benefits, easy money and respectful back seats of power are craved by everyone. Those who do manage to get their hands on such power are slowly addicted to the uselessness. They put on guises of importance but mostly just eat the profit from the jobs executed by their subordinates. Call that inhumane verbally, but that’s the mode of operation in leading firms and organisations. Unlawful devouring of assets is often masked by a greater degree of deceptive backbone. You have strong sources or friends with powerful seats? Eat all you want. The world is yours. The leaked photos of Jennifer Lawrence, as many blogs and online networking sites are rampant about, are a breach of law and definitely categorised immoral (Steinberg,  2014). Hackers either do these things as a sale pitch for their abilities or as a means to blackmail their chosen party. They have no sense of responsibility but can find well developed and easily accentuated excuses. They attain access to a person’s work station and from there every folder, every document and every picture is their property and for the world to see. These hackers believe that all information, whatever the type, needs to be shared. The cultural infrastructure should therefore be very strong to cope with internal issues as well to aid in a strong clientele formation. The employees have a greater influence on the organisational culture, and it is a substantial part which cannot be easily moulded once formulated. The major role is played by the executive authorities in outlining the culture while the employees have to adhere to it as a whole

Will Boots benefit from Treat Street or will it have a negative impact Dissertation - 1

Will Boots benefit from Treat Street or will it have a negative impact on the perception of their loyalty card - Dissertation Example The primary aim of this paper is to offer a set of plausible recommendation to Boots for developing a strong base of loyal consumers through a better consumer relationship and communications. In this process, the consumers’ perceptions and views regarding the loyalty programs and loyalty cards have to be analysed and identified for incorporating effective changes. In order to achieve this aim an extensive research has been conducted using a set of questionnaires. The questionnaire includes multiple types of open ended and close ended questions. The close ended questions are consists of likert scaled questions where five major factors have been mentioned say price discounts, exchange offers, gifts, enhanced value added services, redemptions and other miscellaneous benefits. These likert questions have been used for quantitative data analysis through data process methods. Besides, there are also three close ended questions which have been used for qualitative research purposes. There are three questions for close ended purposes which has been used to collecting comments for qualitative purposes. For better and higher rate of accuracy level, 100 respondents have been interviewed for collecting the primary data using the set of questionnaire. Higher range of sample size helps to reduce the sampling and other types of research related errors. The result of the surveys and interviews using the questionnaire are explained below and the relevancy of each question will also be discussed along with. Apart from the likert scale questions, there were three close ended questions which directly enquire regarding the loyalty card and brand. The first question aims to obtain the views of respondents about the relationship of loyalty cards and trust of the brand. This question strives to determine the influence of loyalty cards offering on consumers brand preferences. The following diagram represents the results of the respondents graphically. Figure 1: Do you feel loyal ty cards can help in improving trust with the brand? (Source: Author’s Creation) As per the above table, it can be observed that nearly 65% of the total respondent believes that loyalty cards are very effective for enhancing the trust with consumers with a specific brand. However, on the other hand, there were also 20% of respondents who do not consider that loyalty cards are effective in marinating better relationship with a brand by creating trustworthiness among them. Rest 15% of respondents are undecided or no sure that whether loyalty cards are really effective in shaping a better trust for a specific brand. As per the overall feedbacks from 100 respondents, it seems that loyalty cards are important for consumer relationship perspective. The next close ended question focuses on the influence of the loyalty card on the consumer’s purchasing decisions. Consumer’s buying process is complicated and influenced by a number of factors and among these factors, mark eting mix related factors plays very important role. The primary objective of marketing mix is to create value for the customers and in this respect loyalty cards are vital tool. The business organisation can influence the consumer’s behaviours by bringing effective changes in the marketing mix strategies. Therefore, this question is helpful got the Boots in reshaping their loyalty cards offering to influence the consumers’ buying decisions. The following figure presents the results of the survey. Figure 2: Does the aspect of loyalty card affect your purchase

See the Truth, Perceive the Lie Essay Example for Free

See the Truth, Perceive the Lie Essay Nietzsche explains nature as an overall relative to humans; he proposes a potent and significant explanation of the development of language and the realization of concepts. He achieves this by exploiting the successive effects on human awareness. He suggests that originally humans were an artistically creating subject as he puts it. Whose essential human determination is the construction of metaphors? Due to evolution, humankind developed a capacity to reason, distrust, remember, and control. Humans were driven by instincts which established themselves directly into inventive sounds, gestures and metaphors. Humans thereof signify the motivation, which ultimately develops into the base of language. As a result, humans manipulate this metaphor of understanding a stimulus, which may well vary from one to another; as it is totally subjective. The ossification of language begins, these instinctual sounds are combined and expanded throughout a community, and arise to turn into ordered and solid words which in sequence combine into a progressively established language. In such manner, language turns into an unyielding, sum of common notions, perceptions, and ideas. Now, as soon as the reader gets comfortable with Nietzsche’s view of language. Everything changes, language arbitrates amongst the human perception and the reality being sensed, this transition happens when he explains that, in order for us to further study the development of concepts. We need consider that â€Å"every concept arises from the equation of unequal things† which he considers â€Å"cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal†, in other words, every word immediately becomes a concept exactly to the extent that it is not intended to function as a reminder of the sole and fully individual unique experience to which it owes its source; but it would be better to say, a word converts into a concept in that it all together has to fit a myriad more or less related cases, in which situation if I consider only the boundaries proposed by Nietzsche, I conclude in harmonizing with his point of view. In addition to constructing language, humans likewise form concepts for everything they come across. Nietzsche describes that concepts are groupings wherein the mind unconsciously collects analogous matters into, despite the fact that actually, each person is sole and individualized. Nietzsche gives the example â€Å"Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects†. Wherein one comprehends a leaf, were many have ever been alike who have similar physiognomies thus we classify each one as a leaf. This in my opinion is tremendously subjective as he proves it. Consider the Platonic realism, or even, in metaphysics, a universal. Where it is explained what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities; by Plato these are inherit to our existence and just scaled to what is grasped. But for Nietzsche, humans clutch everything in order to have a certain kind of organization and case inside their personal environment, crafting yet an additional sense of truth. In distinction to the unexpected, unsettled realm of sense, in Nietzsche’s view, the structure of ideas exhibits solid uniformity and breathes out in reason the power and â€Å"coolness† which characterizes mathematics. As Nietzsche declares, no one who has sensed this calm gasp of reason will hardly be certain that even the concept that is as â€Å"bony, foursquare, and transposable as a die† is nonetheless just the â€Å"residue of a metaphor† , and that the impression which is involved in the creative conversion of a nerve stimulus into images, is the foundation of every single concept. But in this sense truth means â€Å"never violating the order of caste and class rank†. This relation of math, logic, and reason with â€Å"truth† is the only case were I wholly come to an agreement with Nietzsche, and wish to point out the importance, especially of math, as a tool used to understand the surrounding world. Nietzsche reasons that concepts do not occur in nature for the reason that each solitary creature and object is individualized and sole in one way or another and as a result, cannot be considered an additional foundation of truth. Essentially, Nietzsche trusts that we ought to take every incentive and consider it according to its distinct features as an alternative of grouping them into concepts. The conceptual order is stratified by a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries†. The conceptual direction challenges humanity as more dense, more general, better recognized, a â€Å"new world†. This new world as Nietzsche describes â€Å"seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity, and it finds this in myth and in art generally†. This determination constantly puzzles the conceptual categories and groups by bringing onward new changes, metaphors, and metonymies. It persistently shows a passionate need to alter the world which presents itself to humans, so that it will remain as â€Å"colorful, irregular, lacking in results and coherence, charming, and eternally new as the world of dreams†. But there is one detail left unnoticed by Nietzsche. The tendency of humans to rule over one’s kind. Governments, religions, all bring forth ranks, classes, castes. Every human under such parent, directly or indirectly is never able to freely sense â€Å"truth† in its most accessible form so to build upon it, which results in the imprisonment and trickery forced upon such humans into building up on virtual, man-made â€Å"truths†. Nietzsche considers this environment of fixed concepts is in need of an insolent, inventive reply. â€Å"But man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived D and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells i him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is released from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. † he endorses an existential valor that declines the power of the conceptual order, its sanctions and embargos, and its inevitabilities. This transition is one from sanction to character. The artistic determination is not strictly defeated but hardly restrained. In other words, this enormous charter and laying of concepts to which the penurious man grips his entire existence so that he may reserve himself is but a framework and puppetry for the most daring acts of the freethinking intellect. In a few words, I myself do not completely agree with Nietzsche on the matter of language and concepts. If for example we take into consideration any other intelligent species on our planet besides humans, we can clearly note that a form of communication exists between them, and furthermore there exist a primitive form of conceptualization. If for example dogs are considered, it is evident that dogs are clearly able to communicate with each other, even with humans at some degree; this could be a form of language (for them). Again dogs, can obviously distinguish a car from a human, they can even tell apart humans from one to another as a dog will not attack his owner, or even the owners friends and family, when guarding the house. In my opinion this demonstrates how it is natural to manifest language and concepts, which shows that it is nature’s choice to be projected to us in such manner. Nietzsche’s sole target, in my understanding, is to demonstrate that language, concepts, truths, and lies are all unreal, just a view, since humans were the ones who fashioned language and in sequence, concepts, which in Nietzsche’s opinion do not truly exist in nature. Instead, we use it to sort and organize our own surroundings while using it as a way to cooperate with other humans. But if we really wish to be so subjective about our surroundings then even Nietzsche is wrong. If we really aim to judge what is true and what is not, then we should consider a higher form of perception, our brain itself. We see through our eyes, but are these images the actual view of this world? We hear with our ears, but are these sounds really there? We smell with our nose, but is this the actual scent? We feel when we touch, but is there really something there?

Earning Management Essay Example for Free

Earning Management Essay â€Å"Earning Management† refers to those accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of fundamental rules of accounting practices but unethically misrepresented to the users of accounting information. For the personal interest managers often try to show outstanding performance of the business and use the strategic way to falsify Income, Assets or Liabilities. Earning Management as generally understood refers to systematic misrepresentation of the true income and assets of corporations or other organizations. Creative accounting is at the root of a number of accounting scandals, and many proposals for accounting reform – usually centering on an updated analysis of capital and factors of production that would correctly reflect how value is added. Quality of accounting information is one of the Fundamental Concepts of Accounting Framework. Where it’s mentioned that, accounting information must be Relevant, Reliable, Comparable, and Consistent Comparable (Intermediate Accounting by Keiso, Weygandt, Warfield, 12th edition). Unless having these qualities a report cannot be treated as qualified. Managers that always promise to make the numbers will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers. – Warren Buffet Definition of Earning Management * Managing earnings is â€Å"the process of taking deliberate steps within the constraints of generally accepted accounting principles to bring about a desired level of reported earnings.† (Davidson, Stickney and Weil (1987), cited in Schipper (1989) p. 92) * Managing earnings is â€Å"a purposeful intervention in the external financial reporting process, with the intent of obtaining some private gain (as opposed to say, merely facilitating the neutral operation of the process).†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"A minor extension of this definition would encompass â€Å"real† earnings management, accomplished by timing investment or financing decisions to alter reported earnings or some subset of it.† (Schipper (1989) p. 92). * â€Å"Earnings management occurs when managers use judgment in financial reporting and in structuring transactions to alter financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders about the underlying economic performanc e of the company or to influence contractual outcomes that depend on reported accounting numbers.† (Healy and Wahlen, 1999, p. 368) Motivators Earning Management * Meet financial analysts estimates of earnings that leads to performance-based compensation * Raise the stock price thereby enhancing the value of stock options * Smooth net income making it appear that the earnings are increasing at a steady rate * Make it look as though future earnings are higher than they really are by establishing cookie jar reserves (inflated expenses) in the current year that can be drawn on in future years. (Dr. Steven Mintz, Professor and Area Chair, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting From this figure we’ve indicated that in the level – 2, where bridge between 13 creates should be the concerning point of maintaining the qualities of Accounting Information. Qualities are not only help to detect falsification, but also helps users to take decisions. Primary Qualities: * Relevance – It helps users to predict the ultimate outcome of past, present, and future events. It also helps users to predict that, how much loss/profit company can made. * Timeline – Specific timeline of accounting period helps users to trace out the business performance over the years. * Reliability – To assure that the information is verifiable, faithful and reasonably free of error and bias. Secondary Qualities: * Comparability – The reported information should be measured such a way that it can be compared with other company’s reports. * Consistency – Treatment of similar events from period to period must be used by same accounting standards. Standards cannot be changed suddenly, unless it’s proved that new method is better than previous. Perspective of Earning Management There are two perspectives on earnings management. (1) the Opportunistic perspective, states that managers seek to mislead investors by showing attractive predetermined accounting information, (2) the Information perspective, first enunciated by Holthausen and Leftwich (1983), under which managerial carefulness is a means for managers to reveal to investors their private expectations about the firms future cash flows. (Earnings Management: A Perspective by Messod D. Beneish) Accrual vs. Earning Management Plenty of research report shows managers try to use Accrual in financial engineering. Accruals are the difference between net income and cash flows. For example, when companies sell items to others on credit during a growth period, the sale creates an accrual of revenue. When companies engage in earnings management, they can increase or decrease income by creating accruals; these are often referred to as non – discretionary (flexible) accruals. Reasons behind using accrual as the engineering tool are – * Accruals are the principle product of GAAP, so it’s easy to do falsification with camouflage. * Accruals resolve some problems related with the effects choosing various accounting methods. * It will be hard for investors to see effect of unobservable components of accrual. Types of earnings management Theoretically there are two types of earnings management. They are income increasing and income decreasing earnings management (Messod, 2001). a) Income Increasing earnings management: As the name suggests, income increasing earnings management is the process to boost up net income of the company intentionally (to hide the poor performance) so that investors get some wrong signal about the firm’s financial position and performance and make the decision of investing in to company (Messod, 2001). Management are motivated towards increasing earnings management because of getting more debt and equity Financing. b) Income decreasing earnings Management: This process of earnings management is done by decreasing the amount of net earnings. Management is more involved in income decreasing earnings management is to get future compensation like: reducing this month’s earnings by increasing expenses, they ensure the profit from the next month. Also tax avoidance, import tariff rel ief, union negotiations etc. are other reasons for manager’s motivation towards income decreasing earnings management (Messod, 2001). In corporate world these are the types of earning management mostly done by the management: a) Revenue and Expense Recognition Under standard accounting rules, a company must record revenue in its books when it earns that revenue not when it actually receives payment. Similarly, it must record expenses when it incurs them not when it actually pays money. These rules leave room for companies to manipulate their numbers for earnings management (www.budgeting.thenest.com). For example, say a company signs a deal on December 1 to buy $1 million worth advertising time on TV over the next two months. The company could recognize the entire expense in December, recognize the whole thing in January or split the difference. If it records it all in December, then that years profit will be lower by $1 million but the company will get a head start on the next years profit by not having any advertising expenses in January. Profits have been shifted from one year to the next with an accounting t rick. b) Cookie Jar Reserves Companies shift earnings around by creating overly large reserve accounts in good years, then drawing them down in bad years. For example, when a company sells a product with a warranty, it must recognize the estimated expense of honoring that warranty at the same time it books the revenue (www.budgeting.thenest.com). A company might conclude that it incurs warranty costs of $10,000 for every $1 million in sales. If its having a particularly profitable year, it might decide to take a $30,000 warranty expense per $1 million in sales. That builds up a big warranty reserve now so that the company doesnt have to record warranty expenses in the future, thus shifting profits from one period to the other. This tactic goes by the name cookie jar accounting, because it essentially stashes excess profits away to be used when needed. c) The Big Bath There will be times when a company simply cant avoid a bad year. No matter what it does, its going to post a loss because of a sour economy, unfavorable market conditions, and legal trouble, whatever. Some companies, though, deliberately make a bad year even worse by shifting all kinds of expenses, one-time charges and write-offs into that year and shifting revenue out of it. This allows it to inflate profits in future years (www.budgeting.thenest.com). The reasoning behind this strategy is that if the company is going to take a bath, it might as well take a big bath. The companys stock price was going to suffer anyway, the thinking goes, and the damage probably wont be that much worse if the company inflates the loss. Indicators of Earnings Management We have find out five factors which can be important indicators of earnings management: a) Political connection and earnings management: Firms with political connection (large number of stockholder, or CEO or board of directors of the company is a parliament member) are more involved in earnings management (Paul, Mara and David, 2010). Mainly the reasons are- political leaders help the particular firm involved in earnings management to avoid penalization by SEC and also political leaders use these companies’ financial performance and position to increase their public image. b) Internal Audit and earnings management: This one is another major indicator of earnings management. If the quality of internal quality is low there are some possibilities of earnings management. According to the research, if a company is having high quality internal audit, they might be less motivated towards earnings management (Douglas, Jason and David, 2008). Main reasons are: these internal auditors are more professional, responsible towards their job and they barely miss the expert’s expectations. c) Financial transparency and earnings management: Many studies have shown that financial transparency and earnings management are related. If a particular financial report is more transparent then the manager are less interested toward earnings management (James, Robert and Cheri, 2004) The main reason behind this situation is detail information about the accounts including: change in depreciation methods, details about each and every account will help investors to find out any manipulation done by the manager.

Pollution Associated With Oil And Gas Production Environmental Sciences Essay

Pollution Associated With Oil And Gas Production Environmental Sciences Essay 1.1.1 Oil and gas production generally generates massive wealth for countries and contributes to the socio-economic development in the areas of foreign exchange earnings, provision of job opportunities, improved infrastructure, water supply, sewerage and waste treatment, health care and education, among others. Despite these economic and social benefits associated with the oil and gas industry, the exploitation of oil and gas reserves has not always been without some ecological side effects. Oil spills, damaged land, accidents and fires, and incidents of air and water pollution have all been recorded at various times and places. 1.1.2 The discussions that follow will seek to highlight the pollution associated with the various stages of the oil and gas production; and will discuss the wide range of approaches used by governments across the globe to regulate the attendant impact and pollution to the ecosystem. The discussion will also suggest an appropriate strategy to be adopted by the industry in order to achieve its overall goal of finding the right mix of regulatory, co-regulatory, incentives and voluntary mechanisms to meet the challenge of world energy demands, whilst minimising adverse impact on the environment by conforming to current good practice. The environmental impacts of the activities of the oil and gas industry exploration and exploitation, refining and products marketing have been of concern to government regulatory agencies, oil companies operators as well as the host communities. The potential for extensive and irreversible environmental and social damage from oil development projects is particularly acute in developing countries with inadequate regulatory frameworks or weak environmental and social legislation. The impacts of oil and gas operations generally occur in the form of human, socio-economic and cultural impacts, atmospheric impacts, aquatic and terrestrial impacts. Human, socio-economic and cultural impacts may include changes in land-use patterns, such as agriculture, fishing and hunting as direct consequence (for example, land-take and exclusion) or as a secondary consequence in the form of new access routes, leading to unplanned settlement and exploitation of natural resources. The impact could also result in changes in aesthetics because of unsightly or noisy facilities. It has been reported that in some places where oil is discovered, the economy develops rapidly, but it is an economy of misery.    Poorly built oil camps are carved out of the landscape and bring with them many social problems, such as forced displacement, alcoholism, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV/AIDs. Oil companies and governments regularly wash their hands of the communities mostly damaged by the oil development. In most instances, these communities are left on their own to try to determine how much and what kinds of harm the oil and gas industry has caused, and to search for ways to restore their communitys health. Protests by communities, often confrontational in nature, are the most eloquent testimonies of the resistance to the general pollution of the environment by the activities of oil companies. For example, in 1995, proposals by Shell to dispose of the Brent Spar oil storage facility provoked an extensive campaign of protests by activists from Greenpeace aimed at stopping Shell from dumping the Brent Spar in the North Sea. Spontaneous protests in support of Greenpeace and against Shell broke out across Europe, and eventually resulted in Shells eventual abandonment of plans to dump it deep in the Atlantic., Atmospheric pollution results from flaring, venting, and purging gases, fugitive gases from loading operations and tankage and losses from process equipment, combustion processes such as diesel engines and gas turbines. The main emission gases include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, volatile organic carbons and nitrogen oxides. Gas flaring exposes workers, communities, and wildlife to pollution with various health effects. The flares pollute the clouds, causing a black rain that poisons water sources. The Niger Delta in Nigeria is a typical example of a region adversely affected by the impact of oil and gas exploration and production. Pervasive gas flaring is one of the key factors that have worsened the environment of the Niger Delta, attracting concern from the international community. It has been reported that Nigeria has the Worlds highest level of gas flaring and flares about 16 per cent of the worlds associated gas. Aquatic pollution result from production water, spills and leakages, cooling water, process, wash and drainage water, drilling fluids, and chemicals used for well treatment. Oil is often spilled during transport through pipelines, trucks, and ships. When oil spills, it pollutes groundwater and waterways, harms plants and animals, and causes damage that may last for years to resources for hunting, fishing, and farming. Even once the oil appears to have dissipated, it can still lurk beneath the surface of beaches and the sea bed, severely affecting marine organisms that burrow, such as crabs, for literally decades. These burrowing creatures are also food for other animals, so the cycle of poisoning continues for many years. In addition to the impact on marine life, oil spills have a direct impact on humans too long after the initial media frenzy has died down. For example, some Alaskan communities were affected by the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 as important commercial fishing and hunting grounds were contaminated for an extended period. Tourism was also affected. Oil and gas operations also have potential impacts on vegetation and soils resulting from deforestation, disturbance due to construction activities, indirect impact due to social change and contamination resulting from spillage and leakage or solid waste disposal. During the course of exploration oil, forests are cut down and homes are destroyed. Roads are built, and streams and rivers are blocked up. Seismic testing damages homes, wildlife, and the land.    Oil drilling can cause fires, explosions, and other accidents that endanger workers and the community. For example, in 1988, the offshore platform Piper Alpha, which was located in the British sector of the North Sea oil field and operated by Occidental Petroleum, was engulfed in a catastrophic fire and resulted in the loss of 167 lives, costing billions of dollars in property damage, and the shutting down of approximately 10% of total UK gas production. The dumping of toxic water is also a major cause of pollution. Laws about drilling in wealthy countries require the toxic water to be put back into the ground rather than dumped on the surface.   Oil companies often do nothing more than dig a hole and dump in crude oil, drilling wastes, toxic water, and other wastes leading to the contamination of groundwater and land. Pollution at the refining stage results from refineries releasing toxic waste into water, soil, and air and this leads to various health risks. This pollution also adds to global warming. The decommissioning phase of oil and gas production, if unchecked, can also present environmental problems by the disposal of oil platforms into deep waters. The end result could be hundreds of rusting platforms, obsolete subsea infrastructure and disused pipelines running all the way to land. It is important to point out here that the impact on the environment of oil and gas exploration and production operations depends on the stage of the process, the size and complexity of the project, the nature and sensitivity of the surrounding environment, the effectiveness of the planning, pollution prevention, and mitigation control techniques. While some of these impacts can be said to be the result of unpredictable acts of God, the occurrence of some of these potentially devastating impacts often result from accumulation of errors and questionable decisions, most of which are rooted in the organization, its structure, procedures, and culture. These organizational factors include flaws in the design guidelines and design practices, misguided priorities in the management of the trade-off between productivity and safety, mistakes in the management of the personnel on board, and errors of judgment in the process by which financial pressures are applied on the production sector resulting in deficiencies in inspection and maintenance operations. The Piper Alpha accident of 1988 is one of the cases that can hardly be attributed to an act of God: gross human error greatly contributed to this accident. Notwithstanding the fact that the coincidence of the final events that triggered the catastrophe was not in itself controllable, the failure resulted essentially from an accumulation of management errors. In November 1990, Lord Cullens report into the disaster severely criticised safety procedures on the rig owned by Occidental Oil. The immediate cause of the disaster was a failure in the permit to work system which caused a breakdown in communications between the day shift and the night shift. This led to the use of machinery which was undergoing maintenance and caused the escape of gas from an insecurely fastened temporary flange. Thereafter, there appeared to be a series of failures and errors of judgment which contributed to the overall scale of the disaster. In the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1998, the US National Transportation Safety Board ruled that drinking by the ships captain, a fatigued and overworked crew and inadequate traffic control by the Coast Guard all contributed to the enormous oil spill by the Exxon Valdez off the Alaskan coast in 1989. In another instance, the final Report by the Commission set up by US President Barack Obama to investigate the cause of the recent BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on 20 April 2010 in which 11 workers were killed and led to an estimated four million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico (the National Oil Spill Commission) concluded, among others, that the explosive loss of the Macondo well could have been prevented ; and that the immediate causes of the Macondo well blowout can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean that reveal such systematic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry.

WWI Peace Settlement :: essays papers

WWI Peace Settlement The First World War started in 1914 and ended in 1918. Germany and her Allies, Austria - Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria lost the war with the British Commonwealth, France, Belgium, Russia and Serbia, who with Japan formed the Allies and who were later joined by Italy, Rumania, USA and some other countries. Millions of people were killed during the war, empires were broken up, countries were half bankrupt so the First World War left whole nations suffering. Idealists on both sides vowed that a disruption like this should never repeat. So The Treaty of Versailles was the way to maintain peace among nations. So, in January 1919, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Georges Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain who were otherwise known as the ^Big Three^ and representatives of twenty nine other victorious nations met in Paris to draw up a peace treaty. The Treaty of Versailles, which was based on Wilson^s Fourteen Point Programme for Peace, dealt with Germany and the rest of the losers of the First World War. The Peace Treaty mainly dealt with three kinds of arrangement which were territorial, military and war guilt. The treaty was signed on the 28th of June 1919. The Germans considered the treaty to be too harsh, inhuman and unfair. Germany was not allowed to be represented at the Peace Conference, they had no say. The Germans were appalled at the severity of the treaty the Allies expected them to sign. The treaty was practically forced upon them followed by a threat by the Allies saying that they will invade Germany if they do not agree to sign, there was no room for negotiation. The Germans were bitter and felt extremely humiliated and embarrassed. Another reason which caused ill feeling between Germany and the Allies was the treaty terms itself. Germany hated having to be disarmed with her army reduced to a very low number as 100 000 volunteer men and been forbidden to have tanks, only a small navy and no air force and moreover no troops were to be allowed into the Rhineland. The Rhineland was handed over to the League of Nations. War guilt was another major point. Germany had to agree with the allies^ statement that Germany and her allies alone were to be blamed for starting the war. They had to pay for damage and were forced to pay heavy reparations. They had to pay some payments in goods as well. Germany lost 13 1/2 per cent of

Ealry Film :: essays papers

Ealry Film Being able to capture motion has occupied the human psyche sine primitive times. This is evident through the Lascaux cave paintings which depict buffalo with multiple legs in a attempt to represent the animal running. Other simple innovations also led to the motion picture, these ‘optical toys’ demonstrated the eye’s persistence of vision. These ‘toys’ grew more advanced, but lifelike motion could not be achieved until the photographic process was nearly perfected. In the 1870’s Eadweard Muybridge was successful in capturing the complete motion of a horse galloping. This was the first step in bringing pictures to life. The next invention came from a Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, who devised a thin, flexible, plastic base he called celluloid, on which could be put photosensitive material. George Eastman was the first to market this celluloid film, and in 1890 Thomas Edison and William Dicksom successfully tested the Kinescope. The first motion picture captured and copyrighted on this Kinescope was titled â€Å"The Sneeze†, which is simply a man sneezing. Edison continued to make short films in his studio, nicknamed the Black Maria. His shorts usually were comprised of people performing vaudeville acts as a form of sideshow attraction. These films would be viewed in Kinescope parlors, from large wooden boxes with a eyepiece on top. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, the Lumieres brothers improve on Edisons Kinescope, and create the Cinematograph, a smaller more portable camera, that can film and view motion pictures. With this new Cinematograph, the Lumieres brothers were able to film and then project the product for an audience. They filmed what was around them, daily life for upper-middle class Europeans, their first was a whole group of people leaving a factory at the end of a work day. Simple, but for its time it was amazing, seeing live people walking around and moving just as they normally would, but on a big screen! These types of films became the Lumieres trademark, slice of life documentary work that would be shown in front of audiences. One of the Lumieres films: Arrival of a Train in the Cioat Station, was a train coming straight for the camera on an angle, that terrified the viewers. Edison continued to make films, under his own, controlled conditions. Although both Edison and the Lumieres, saw the motion picture as nothing more than a sideshow act and both filmed very documentary-esque work, each had their own criteria for filming.