Classical Mythology - Odyssey Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Classical Mythology - Odyssey - Research Paper Example He considered himself as having the same status with King Oedipus (Schefold & Giuliani, 29). This meant that people had to get to the king through him. He appeared to have the capability to be a bother to the people if he was the king. However, Creon argued that he was the one who made Oedipus the king. After Laius death, the king of Thebes was Creon. However, after his city was tormented by the Sphinx, he announced that anyone with a solution would get both his sister, Jocasta, and his crown. He never went back to that promise.  Creon and Odyssey tend to share a number of similarities. None of the characters seems to be entirely good or bad. Creon is known to have come up with a harsh law that discouraging people from mourning Polyneices. The punishment for breaking that rule would be death. According to Creon, burying and mourning Polyneice was considered to be a criminal act. The penalty was death by stoning in a public square. However, after discovering Antigone was involved in burying Polyneices, he issued a different punishment to her. This revealed that he is not as terrible as he appeals. He ordered that both Antigone and Ismene be guarded well (Marks et al, 53). Creon appears to be stubborn with regard to the harsh law he had proposed. Odysseus, who was the king of Ithaca, appeared to be victorious for ten years. He effectively defended Ithaca in the period of the Trojan War. Although he appeared to be a noble person, it indulged in adultery and forsook his wife, Penelope. This revealed that he was not as respectable as many might have thought. Odysseus lay with his wife every night but was insensitive to her desire.  Creon and Odysseus appeared to be flawed in their character. Creon appeared to have excessive pride. He claimed to have exclusive power to give orders in the entire city. As the king, he was the only one issuing orders in the city. His character came out as domineering and insensitive (Beye, 17).  

How Attitudes Are Formed Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

How Attitudes Are Formed - Essay Example Attitudes once formed play a vital role in governing the behaviors of the people (Albarracin, Johnson & Zanna, 2005). Many factors can have an influence on forming the attitude of the people, which includes learning from social environment, evaluation of social aspects, personal beliefs, cultural and religious norms, heredity factors, and personal or family life experiences. Since the attitude is directly in proportion to behaviors and behaviors have a direct impact on the actions of an individual, therefore, a positive attitude can only come under formation when one’s perception is optimistic. Cognitive, behavioral, and affective components also help in forming one’s attitude. There can be many theories that define how a person can form his attitude, amongst which two theories – Mere Exposure and Classical Conditioning comes under discussion below (Albarracin, Johnson & Zanna, 2005). Mere Exposure is one theory that defines that a recurring confrontation with an object or a person presides over the fondness of an individual as it influences the perception. For example, if a person is repeatedly watching a television serial or listens to a song repeatedly, each time his understanding of the images he watch or the sound he listen becomes better and his perception transforms into either his liking or boredom (Fiske, 2010).

Time and Life Essay Example for Free

Time and Life Essay According to a popular saying,schooldays are the happiest days of your life. Is there any truth in this? Answers to this question are bound to vary greatly from person to person. A person’s answer will depend on how happy the person’s schooldays actually were and on how happy the rest of his or her life has been since. To give a really true answer to this question you have to be fairly close to the end of your life. Hopefully,by this time you will have lived a long time. If this is the case,then you will have a long period of time to look back on. Will no other period of your life have made you happier than your schooldays? This seems rather unlikely. There are certain momentous times in a person’s life which are usually accompained by a great feeling of happiness,even of ecstasy. One of these is being in love. Another is a person’s wedding day. Yet another, and many parents would put this at the top of their happiness list, is the birth of a couple’s child. These are milestones in human life and they bring happinessto the majority of people who experience them. However, apart from these emotional milestones, there is a wide variation in what makes people happy. To a large extent what brings happiness to a person depends on what they are interested in. For example, athletes might well regard their period of supreme happiness as the time they won a major track or field event, especially an Olympic event. Footballers might regard the peak of their happiness as the time they played for a top-ranking team and scored a crucial goal in an important game. Ambitious businesspeople might be at the hightest point of their happiness when they bring off a particulary successful and shrewd business deal. If there are all these opportunities, and many more, for achieving happiness in life, how has the idea arise that schooldays are the happiest days of our life? It is at least partly because people’s memories, particularly older people’s memories, tend to be imperfect when they look back on the past. Not only that. Especially where childhood is concerned, older people tend to look back at past through rose-coloured spectacles. For example, they might remember the weather during the summer holidays as being much better than it is now. That has nothing whatsoever to do with modern climate change. It has to do with looking back on the past with affection and nostalagia-and a lack of realism. A few people’s schooldays might genuinely have been the happiest days of their lives. On the other hand, some people’s schooldays might have been an absolute nightmare with stern schoolteachers administering harsh punishments and fellow students teasing and bullying them, not to mention the often unbearable pressure of exams. For most people,neither of these extremes fits the bill. Their schooldays are the usual mixture of happiness and unhappiness,like the rest of their lives. Schooldays are not the happiest days of their lives.

Evaluation Of Mission Statement Business Essay

Evaluation Of Mission Statement Business Essay I used the vision statement matrix and shortcomings to review the vision statement. The components included are directional, focus, feasible, desirable and easy to understand. In shortcoming analysis, there are only 2 matrix involved which are vague and not distinctive. I used the mission statement evaluation matrix to analysis the mission statement. The mission statement got the components such as products/services, market, concern for survival, growth, profitability, philosophy and concern for employees. 2.0 Introduction PepsiCo is an American multinational food and beverage corporation with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products in around 200 countries. PepsiCo offers the worlds largest portfolio of food and beverage brands included 22 different product lines. PepsiCo is the biggest rivalry of Coca-Cola in soft drink industry. I, as a business analyst in PepsiCos Corporate Strategy department, had appointed to review the PepsiCos current vision statement and mission statement. I used the vision statement matrix table and shortcoming matrix of vision statement to review the vision statement of PepsiCo while used the mission statement evaluation matrix to analysis the PepsiCo mission statement. 3.0 Analysis of vision statement Vision statement is concerning a firms future business path such as where we are going. I had used the vision statement matrix to review the PepsiCos vision statement. I used the components such as directional, focus, feasible, desirable and easy to understand to evaluate the vision statement. (refer Appendix 1) In directional component, it is about the direction of PepsiCo target in future. Through viewing the vision statement, PepsiCo wants to become the truly sustainable company by improving the aspects involved and emphasizes on environment management, CSR and commitment to shareholders. By becoming a truly sustainable company, PepsiCo will become a strong and stable company and well known globally. Market expansion will bring opportunities to PepsiCo to extend its products range and lines and thus able to get in many other industries. Besides that, become a sustainable company will get PepsiCo into a more intense competition with competitors such as Coca Cola and other competitors from other industries that PepsiCo took part. For graphic component, it is about the picture that the company that the management trying to create. Well, in the vision statement of PepsiCo, the products portfolios are not mentioned. People are hard to get the picture of what the company wanted to do. Thus, the graphic component is not appeared in the vision statement of PepsiCo. In focus component, it is about whether the vision statement of PepsiCo is specific enough for PepsiCo to focus on actions that PepsiCo want to choose. From the vision statement, PepsiCo focus on environmental stewardship, activities to benefit society and commitment to build shareholder value to become a truly sustainable company. Thus, management of PepsiCo will make decisions based on the 3 actions that PepsiCo focused on. By completing the environmental stewardship, activities to benefit society and commitment to build shareholder value, it will make PepsiCo be environment friendly and gain good reputation with good CSR and fulfillment of commitment to shareholders. Thus, PepsiCo is able to gain the awareness of customers by good CSR and investors by good shareholder value. Well, it may bring opposite effects to PepsiCo if PepsiCo is not doing well of what it emphasizing which are stated in its vision statement. The shareholders might complain about the un-fulfillment of the comm itment to build shareholder value and public might have a bad image toward PepsiCo with poor CSR. In feasible component, it is about whether the company able to achieve the target. By viewing the vision statement, the feasible part of PepsiCo is improving all the aspects that PepsiCo operates in to create better tomorrow and thus become sustainable company. PepsiCo expected to able achieve the improvement of the aspects that PepsiCo operates. By achieve the improvement of the aspects, PepsiCo will has better control and understand of the aspects that PepsiCo involved. Thus, it is one step forward for PepsiCo to become a truly sustainable company. Well, some aspects are uncontrollable and PepsiCo has to stick in the uncontrollable aspects. In desirable component, it is about the long term interest of the stakeholders. Through the vision statement, the desirable part of the PepsiCos vision is commitment to build shareholder value. PepsiCo promise the shareholders benefits in order to gain full supports of the shareholders. Thus, the internal of company will become more united. Contribution of shareholders are become more significant such as introduce the investors and partners. By the way, it may be create barriers among the shareholders if the distribution of value is not equal. In easy to understand component, it is about ease to understand and communicate of the vision statement. By viewing the vision statement, PepsiCos vision statement is a bit lengthy but in clear English. The vision statement has 2 long sentences of stating what PepsiCo set for future vision. The vision statement is in clear and simple English but it is better to make it shorter and simpler. 3.1 Shortcoming of vision statement (refer Appendix 2) Vague mean that the vision statement is short of specifics about the company. The vision statement of PepsiCo is a little vague. It is because there are few options of actions in the vision statement and not sure which actions that PepsiCo want to follow. People will feel a bit confuse with the vision statement and will worry that whether PepsiCo is able to fulfill the actions in the vision statement. Next, the vision statement of PepsiCo is not distinctive. There are many actions in the vision statement for PepsiCo to go on and not specific enough. Besides that, the vision statement is too normal and can be any company using the same vision statement. There are only 2 shortcomings for PepsiCo vision statement and the other 3 shortcoming matrices are not related to the PepsiCo vision statement which are not forward looking, rely on superlatives and bland. Not forward looking mean the vision statement is not concern about the future. Well, PepsiCos vision statement is forward looking because in the vision statement, PepsiCo is concerning about the future with wanting to create better tomorrow by improving the aspects that PepsiCo involved. Rely on superlatives mean that the vision statement is set to be the most successful position. PepsiCos vision statement is not relying on superlatives because it didnt mention that PepsiCo want to be the top company but only want to create a better tomorrow and become a truly sustainable company. Bland is the lacking of motivational power of the vision statement. PepsiCo is making commitment to build shareholder value in the vision statement. The commitment will motivate the shareholders to fully support the company. 3.2 Recommendations Since there are few options in the vision statement and make the vision vague, I recommend that the vision statement should become directly to points which mean that PepsiCo should combine all the options of actions into 1 sentence. This will make people know that what PepsiCo want to do and goes on when they read the vision statement. Next, the vision statement is not distinctive to let people differentiate itself from other companys vision. PepsiCos vision statement is too broad and any company can use the same vision as PepsiCo. Thus, I recommend that PepsiCo simplify its vision statement and make the vision statement short and memorable for people. Based on the recommendations above, the old vision statement of PepsiCo is vague and not distinctive. Thus, I had modified the old vision statement based on the recommendations to enhance the old vision statement. The new vision statement of PepsiCo is as below: PepsiCo aims to keep improving all aspects that we operate and focus on environmental management, CSR and commitment to shareholders to create a truly sustainable company. 4.0 Evaluation of mission statement Mission statement is focused in current business activities such as who we are and what we do. A company mission is not to make a profit but what we will do to make a profit. Making profit is only an objective. (refer Appendix 3) I used the mission statement evaluation matrix to review the PepsiCos mission statement. From reviewing the PepsiCos mission statement, there are components such as products/services, markets, concern for survival, growth and profitability, philosophy, concern for public image and concern for employees can be seek from the mission statement. By the way, the customers, technology and self-concept are not exist and absent from the mission statement. Products/services component is about what the company offered. From reviewing the mission statement, PepsiCo is offering the convenient foods and beverages such as snack foods, soft drinks and etc. Well, this component can be enhanced by expanding the products portfolio. PepsiCo can try to get into more foods and beverages industries other than its already owned products such as instant noodles and perhaps alcoholic drinks and etc. The strong brand name of PepsiCo will make the new products adapt easier by customers and to successful. Market component is about what the market that the company is targeting and occupying. From the mission statement, PepsiCo want to serve the global market. PepsiCo is a well known company around the world and PepsiCo is now serving the world market as well. Thus, I would like to recommend PepsiCo to put efforts in penetrate into deeper demographic markets. For example, PepsiCo can cooperate with the vendor companies and put its drinks in the vendor machines in even smaller places such as schools, colleges, some grocery shops and etc. For concern for survival, growth, profitability component, it is about how the company concern about its survival in the industry, growth and profitability of itself. By reviewing the mission statement, PepsiCo provide financial rewards to investors and also chances of growth and enrichment of the employees and business partners. PepsiCo build good relationship with investors to guarantee the sources of capital for survival and grow. The enriched employees with skills are significant for the company to survive, grow and gain profits. The upgrade of business partners of PepsiCo also vital to earn profits. Thus, I recommend that PepsiCo could build a really stable and strong relationship with the investors, enriched employees and business partners. Hence, keeping the talented and skillful employees in the company and strong business partners are a very important step for PepsiCo to survive, grow and earn profit in the industry. The philosophy component is about what the company always strive to do. From the mission statement, PepsiCo strive for honesty, fairness and integrity in everything. PepsiCo would like to care for customers, consumers and the world. PepsiCo put the customers at the first place before anything. The concern for public image component is about whether the company is concerning about the public image. Through the mission statement, PepsiCo is concerning its public image by providing the opportunity for its business partners and communities to grow and upgrade. PepsiCo become environmental friendly and implement the CSR to gain the reputation. Concern for employees is about how the company cares about its employees. From mission statement, PepsiCo provide opportunities for growth and enrichment to employees. Well, PepsiCo can build good relationship with the employees and bring the sense of belonging toward company to them. By here, I recommend that PepsiCo to add in the 3 missing components which are customers, technology and self-concept to enhance the mission statement. Customers component is about the target market that the company served. PepsiCo can improve the mission by stating that it will serve the global customers of all ages since PepsiCo is serving the world market. For technology component, it is about the technology of the company adopt and using. This component is absent in the PepsiCos mission statement. By the way, PepsiCo can add in the component by stating easier delivery of products to customers with the advance technology and thus save cost and time. For self-concept component, it is about the self concept that the company hold as concept. This is missing from the PepsiCo current mission statement too. The self-concept of PepsiCo can be add in is delivering sustained growth through empowered people acting responsibly and building trust. By the new descriptions added in, I would like to suggest few modifications to the current mission statement. Our mission is to be global premier consumer products company serving the global market with customers of all ages focused on wide product lines of foods and beverages. We seek to produce financial rewards to investors as we provide chances for enrichment to our employees, business partners and the communities in which we operate. The technology makes us easier to reach customers. And we strive for honesty, fairness and integrity in everything we do. 5.0 Conclusion As a business analyst of PepsiCo, I had reviewed the vision statement and mission statement of PepsiCo with the analysis and evaluate matrix. Thus, I had recommended few enhancements and modifications to the current vision statement and mission statement. With the enhanced vision statement and mission statement, it is easier to read and understand by people. Hence, with a clear and simple vision statement and mission statement, PepsiCo can create a better future and become a truly sustainable company.

Visual Impairment in Alzheimers Disease :: Opthamology Alzheimers Disease Essays

Visual Impairment in Alzheimer's Disease The documentation of a severe form of dementia by Alois Alzheimer in 1907 began a massive investigation of the cause of this disorder. Some of the common symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease consist of memory loss, impaired language ability, impaired judgement, and learning (M. Wong, et al. , 1997). Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is mainly a disease of the cerebral cortex. Alzheimer's is marked structurally by the senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and severe loss of neurons and synapses in the cerebral cortex. Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disorder ( Hof, Vogt, Bouras, and Morrison 1997). Recent attention has been focused on visual dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease (K. U. Loffler, D. P. Edward, & M. O. M. Tso 1995). Visual Problems During the clinical evaluation of patients with mild to moderate dementia of the AD type, visual difficulties such as : topographic agnosia, visual agnosia, alexia without agraphia, and prosopagnosia are detected. AD patients have The problem of describing the individual components of a picture is consistent with the severity of cytochrome oxidase (C.O.) deficits in the association cortical areas. Other deficits experienced by AD patients were texture discrimination, blue-violet discrimination, and 4.72 deg/sec motion detection. When AD patients were compared to other age-matched controls, AD patients had shown specific deficits in contrast sensitivity. Deficits in color vision were only age-related (M. Wong-Riley, et al. , 1997). Studies Selective degeneration of large ganglion cell axons was observed in the optic nerves of AD patients, which suggested an impairment of broad-band channel visual function. Although studies show that the broad-band visual capabilities are not selectively impaired in AD. Dorsal LGN studies have shown that both the magno- and parvicellular neurons were greatly affected in AD patients. Strangely, AD patients were impaired at low frequencies instead of the high frequencies, like in old age. This implies that regions controlling the low spacial frequency processing in the primary visual cortex would be affected more than those for high frequency processing (M. Wong-Riley, et al. , 1997). The neuropathologic examination of the brains with visual impairment in the Hof et al. (1997) study revealed cortical atrophy dominating on the posterior parietal cortex and occipital lobe(Hof et al.). A study by Beta-amyloid is considered an important factor in AD and was shown to be the major cause in seni le plaques. Acetylcholine A number of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, including acetylcholine (ACh), somatostatin and glutamate have been found to be deficient in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Groundwater and the Hydrologic Cycle Essay -- Geology

Groundwater and the Hydrologic Cycle Introduction Water is the lifeblood of every living creature on earth. Approximately 70 percent of the earth's surface is covered with water. Thought the wonders of nature, water can take on many different forms, form the water we drink, to the ice we use to chill a glass of lemonade, to the water vapor used to steam clean equipment equipment. It is easy to understand the significance water plays in our lives, but it may be much more difficult ot understand the water that exists below the earth's surface, called groundwater. From the time the earth was formed, water have been endlessly circulating. This circulation is known as the hydrologic cycle. Groundwater is part of this continuous cycle as water evaporates, forms clouds and returns to earth as precipitation. The Hydrologic Cycle The hydrologic cycle begins with the water evaporation from the earth's soil, plant and water surfaces to form water vapor. The energy required to evaporate water is supplied by the sun. The vast majority of evaporation occurs from the oceans. It is estimated that 39 inches of water annually evaporate from each acre of ocean. Water vapor is drawn into the atmosphere by temperature gradients and can be transported over hundreds of miles by large air masses. When water vapor cools, it condenses to form clouds. As water condenses within clouds, water droplets increase in size until they fall to the earth's surface as precipitation such as rainfall, hail, sleet or snow. Approximately 70-90 percent of the water that falls to the earth's surface enters the soil. This water can become groundwater but most of it evaporates or is used by vegetation. Water that passes though the root zone ... ...ment levels (Florida Aquifer). Florida's growing population, now fourth in the nation, is placing a heavy demand on the state's water supply. The addition of 6,000 new residents each week has increased the use of water for direct human needs to more than 60 million gallons per day. Florida rainfall averages 54 inches per year, or nearly 150 billion gallons of water a day. Unfortunately, an estimated 110 billion gallons is lost to evaporation and plant life consumption. The southern 50 percent of Florida receives only 44 percent of the state's natural water supply, yet is home to 78 percent of the population and accounts for 75 percent of the state's total water use (Groundwater Withdraw). The largest consumer of water is the agriculture industry, using 42 percent. Homes, offices and hotels consume 11 percent. The rest is consumed by other industries.

Benefits Of Gardening

Benefits Of Gardening Gardening is a hobby for many people. Gardening means nothing to some people. Gardening is done all over the world in any type of weather. Gardening gives us pleasure and is very effective to our minds. Gardening is done at homes, hotels, parks etc. Nowadays there is barely any gardening done. Most people have forgotten the benefits of gardening. In the olden days every house had a garden. It was filled with vegetables, fruits and flowers. Nowadays most people think that gardening is useless.They buy all their vegetables and fruits from the market, but do they know whether the vegetables or fruits they eat are chemicalised or not? If we have our own garden there are two main and basic benefits. One is we can eat the fruits and vegetables without buying thus, reducing the expenditure. Two is we can be sure that the fruits we eat are fresh, healthy and non-chemicalised. The place where I live, gardening is done by most people but still some think it's useless. In my hometown, every house has a garden.It is a shelter from sunlight and it gives us an exercise. Most people nowadays fall sick when they are 40 or 50 years old but in my hometown it's quite different, all work in the garden from early morning till sunrise. It gives us a morning exercise and it makes us very energetic to do our work for the rest of the day. For most people gardening is a remedy for diseases like cholesterol and diabetes. It creates a peaceful mind. In the early morning when you wake up you hear the birds chirping in your garden. You can see green in front of you.People who have eye roblems are advised by the doctors to wake up early in the morning and see green plants. They will help to cure your eye problems. When you have a garden of flowers the fragrance that come from the flowers and the different beautiful colours are a real treat in the morning. Our life expectancy rate goes up if we are physically and mentally healthy, gardening helps in that case as well. I would say that overall gardening is a physical and psychological medicine for everybody. I encourage everyone to do gardening and you will find that you will get very good benefits from it.