U.S Involvement in the Vietnam War :: Vietnam War Essays

U.S Involvement in the Vietnam War "No new taxes." This is a quote that most all of us remember from the 1992 presidential election. Along with it we remember that there were new taxes during that presidents term in office. There are a myriad of promises made and things done in a presidential election year that have questionable motives as to whether they are done in the best interest of the people or in the interests of the presidential candidate. These hidden interests are one of the biggest problems with the political aspects of government in modern society. One of the prime examples of this is the Vietnam War. Although South Vietnam asked for our help, which we had previously promised, the entire conflict was managed in order to meet personal political agendas and to remain politically correct in the world's eyes rather than to bring a quick and decisive end to the conflict. This can be seen in the selective bombing of Hanoi throughout the course of the Vietnam War. Politically this strategy looked very good. However, militarily it was ludicrous. War is the one arena in which politicians have no place. War is the military's sole purpose. Therefore, the U. S. Military should be allowed to conduct any war, conflict, or police action that it has been committed to without political interference or control because of the problems and hidden interests which are always present when dealing with polit United States involvement in the Vietnam War actually began in 1950 when the U. S. began to subsidize the French Army in South Vietnam. This involvement continued to escalate throughout the 1950's and into the early 1960's. On August 4, 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred in which American Naval Vessels in South Vietnamese waters were fired upon by North Vietnam. On August 5, 1964 President Johnson requested a resolution expressing the determination of the United Sates in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in southeast Asia ( Johnson ). On August 7, 1964, in response to the presidential request, Congress authorized President Johnson to take all necessary measures to repel any attack and to prevent aggression against the U. S. in southeast Asia ( United States ). The selective bombing of North Vietnam began immediately in response to this resolution. In March of the following year U. S. troops began to arrive. Although the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution specifically stated that we

Common Inventory System Problems & Solution Essay

Symptoms: Preoccupation with the forecast within the execution time frame. Typically, companies begin altering their forecast management processes when addressing supply chain performance. But this is unwise without understanding the nature of your demand and the root causes of forecast errors. When forecast accuracy is overemphasized, fill rates and inventory turns don’t improve, even when forecast accuracy does. No measure of customer service or inventory turns. Customers must be satisfied on an ongoing basis for a company to achieve long-term sustainability. Yet, inventory managers often have no idea how well customers’ needs are being met. Similarly, without knowing how quickly inventory moves through the value-creation-and-delivery system, a company won’t be able to manage inventory levels. Daily planning is based on a back order report. This is an entirely reactive model. Today’s fast-paced marketplace requires proactive inventory planning to meet current demand. Customers will switch to a competitor if their needs are consistently unmet in the time frame they dictate. Solutions: Mandatory tracking of fill rate and inventory turns for all product lines. Product managers should know these measures at all times. Fill rate should be measured daily, while inventory-turn measures will vary based on sales and production cycles. The important thing is that managers are both tracking and working to improve these rates. Develop realistic forecast-error measures. Developing realistic measures for how much forecast error you can tolerate without a SKU stock-out is essential. Typically, companies estimate plus or minus 10 for this measure, which equals about two days worth of inventory-a miniscule amount considering that companies often have weeks or months worth of inventory. Effective forecast management and inventory planning require accurate data, so accurate forecast error measures are a must. Mistake No. 2: Having unqualified employees manage inventory Symptoms: A sentiment that â€Å"our business is different because (fill in the blank).† Every company has inventory planning challenges, such as variable demand. No business is so different that it would not benefit from strategic  inventory management. Decentralized inventory management. If warehouse managers, office clerks, and other employees without specific inventory-management training are making inventory-management decisions, then it is certain that wasteful inventory is piling up throughout the system. Usually, this model reflects a company with no clear goals or strategy for inventory planning. Lack of formal training program or professional peer interaction. Inventory management is a professional skill that requires upfront and ongoing education. Emphasizing â€Å"buying† over planning. Buyers make purchases, but planners make strategic decisions to meet goals. Thinking of inventory planning from a purely â€Å"buying† point of view means opportunities for improvement and financial benefits will be overlooked—daily. Solutions: Recognize that inventory management requires professional job skills, and hire and train accordingly. Just as a company with hundreds of thousands of free dollars on its balance sheet would hire professional investment advisers, a company with hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory should have professional inventory managers. Assign accountability for inventory management. Often, companies can’t answer the question, â€Å"Who is in charge of making sure inventory levels support strategic goals?† If no one is, then these inventory planning goals will never be met. TOP 5 SOLUTIONS: 1. Use reorder points on inventory items to keep purchasing streamlined and inventory manageable. Reorder points (otherwise known as min. and max. levels) are the best method for making sure you have the right amount of inventory in your warehouse at all times. If you have too little inventory you could lose out on sales, but if you have too much your cash is tied up in inventory that will not be sold. One of the biggest problems many companies have is managing their cash. A quick way to solve that from an inventory standpoint is by making sure you have set the appropriate reorder points for your business. 2. Spend money on specialized training for mission-critical software. Companies with a lot of inventory spend thousands of dollars on software they need in order to manage and track their items as  they move all over the world. This software manages millions of dollars’ worth of assets. After spending so much money on software, some companies don’t want to spend a f ew thousand dollars extra to buy the specialized training they need to implement the software. This is a big mistake because this software won’t do you any good if you don’t spend a little bit more to learn how to use it. If you try to learn your software on your own you may suffer for months before you learn the basics of how it works. 3. Rearrange the warehouse to set up for picking efficiencies. Sometimes trainers see mistakes that are so obvious you would think they’d be corrected immediately, but warehouse managers may be too distracted to notice them. We often see 100,000-square-foot warehouses that are organized inefficiently. These companies could save themselves large sums of money by making a few changes to where they place their inventory. The items that you sell the most or send out the most should be right next to the shipping dock. This keeps your employees from having to walk all the way across the warehouse to pick them up every time you are going to send them out. As companies grow, sometimes they just randomly put things where there is sp ace. This works for a little while, but as you grow you need to think about efficiency because the minutes that your employees spend driving around the forklift cost you money. 4. Take time to get to know your technology so that you can use all the functionality. Rarely will a company use all of the functionality their software provides. Most of the time there is more that the software can do for you that you haven’t explored. Software companies always hear from their customers about which features they want added to the software when a lot of the time the features are already there. The more features that you use in the software the more effective you can be in managing your inventory. You should either assign someone within the company to learn the software functionality or pay someone to come in and teach it to you. 5. Stop doing yearly physical inventories and move to a more regular, smaller cycle counting and reconciling routine. Businesses used to shut down for a day to a week each year to go into their warehouse and physically count everything to make sure that it matched the information in their software. This practice is mostly outdated because of the amount of time and money it takes. Doing these checks in smaller, more regular cycles keeps a company from having to shut down. We recommend picking one section each day to check  your product levels against the information from your inventory software.

Can We Speak of a ‘Classless Society’

Can we speak of a ‘classless society’? Stratification is a concept we are faced with on a daily basis, whether it is a conscious or subconscious element of our lives. Class has been a dominant form of stratification in traditional views of society, but man’s evolution in thought, behaviour, outlook, organization and culture has led to critical criticism questioning the very existence of class itself: Does class still exist? Can we speak of a ‘classless society’? Analysing the role that class does or doesn’t play in modern society is interesting because we are our very own sources.Through first hand experiences of class we can determine the role it plays in our everyday lives. Class can be viewed both subjectively depending on how we think of ourselves, or objectively dealing with how we are structurally located in society. (Milner, 1999) Therefore, combining our subjective, micro-level understanding of class with a macro-level, objective analys is of class, we can determine the degree to which class persists in modern society. The idea of stratification and class will continuously persist as it provides a foundation for organization and identity in society.Although the word ‘class’ will never die, the traditional role class plays in society has certainly died. ‘Social Class’ is the class of today; it has followed the death of the rigid, traditional and intolerant class of yesterday. Today people are more empowered and can take control of their social standing, an idea supported with the current social mobility and emergence of the middle class. ‘Social class’ classifies people in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, age, culture etc. Naturally, economic class continues to play its role in society, but it does so in harmony with other aspects of ‘social class. Class is disintegrating because people are becoming more individualistic. What matters today is how people see themselves, a s opposed to how they are viewed by society. (Pakulski, et al. , 1996). Traditionally, society consisted of inherited classifications between masters and slaves, and lords and peasants etc. , which constituted the ‘natural’ way of association. There are certain parts of the world where people still live by their inherited class. In India for example there is a Caste System, in which every individual is categorized into divisions (colour, ancestors, rank).There are four main castes with various sub-castes and each have a large amount sub castes within them, furthermore outside the caste system are the ‘Untouchables’ who are oppressed and viewed as impure all the time. The four main castes: Brahmins–priests Kshatryas–warriors Vaishyas–traders Shudras–laborers A significant classical view of class is that of Marx. His traditional view of class contained two distinct classes: Bourgeoisie or the capitalist class, who own their own mea ns of production, and the Proletariat or working class, who own their own labour. Marx, et al. , 1848) Exploitation between these two social groupings in the capitalist production process defined Marxist class (Pakulski, et al. , 1996). The Marxist view is ‘real’ and ‘objective, furthermore its concerned with the different strata as a whole rather than the individuals within them (Saunders, P. 1990). For Marx, social power was achieved purely through economic class. He viewed class as a rigid and positional aspect of society. Hence, his interpretations of class failed to account for the fluidity of modern class.Conversely, Weber’s view of class is much more synonymous with the role class plays in modern society. He looks at class in terms of the cultural and social roles it plays in society and focuses more on stratification through consumption rather than production. (Pakulski, et al. , 1996) He juxtaposes class as an economic relation with class as a soci al relation, unlike Marx who predominantly focused on economic class. Weber analysed class in terms of status and stratification in the light of: property, ownership, occupational skills, religion, legal rights, lifestyle and consumption.This view of class is still relevant in today’s society and therefore Weber’s view of class is not wholly classified under the ‘dead’ or dated outlook on class. Weber did also look at class in terms of economic relations and the possessions of economic goods, as well as market position. He believed that life chances are determined by how one is positioned in the market. (Weber, 1922) This relates to the Indian Caste systems where members of a high caste (Brahmans) enjoy more wealth and opportunities; members of a low caste (untouchables) perform unwanted menial jobs.The ‘Untouchables’ being the lowest stratum are regarded as underprivileged, demoralized and ‘backward’, hence given the jobs such as sweeping, garbage collector and regarded as impure individuals- the idea that once they touch another individual there needs to be a cleansing as the ‘untouchables’ are ‘dirty’. Individuals were relatively powerless, as they could not acquire wealth or status through changing position in a market place. Today, however, hard work and merit allows for social mobility and people have a stronger influence over their position in society. Milner, 1999) Having said that, some individuals do not get the opportunity of social mobility- due to the fact that they are either uneducated or the fact that they do not have the right social networks.Gandhi named the Untouchables â€Å"Harijians† (Children of God)- by doing this he tried upward mobility by trying to elevate their status through different means (befriending and eating with the impure). ‘Underclass’ in general tend to suffer multiple deprevisation, as they are dependent on state welfare (i f given) and have low levels of education hence making it harder for upward mobility (Saunders, P. 990) Social mobility and individual control over social standing has been greatly strengthened through the modern preoccupation with education. The increased priority given to exposing larger proportions of society to education has empowered individuals, allowing them to use their educations as a tool to overcome ‘class’ barriers. Overall, the ability to move up and down the social ladder in present day society makes class that is classified purely in an economic sense irrelevant. Economic’ class is no longer a steady, inherited, and ‘life-long’, concrete concept, as people can change their economic standing within their own life span or across generations. The concept of the ‘middle class’ has also arisen through the idea of social mobility and empowerment through education, and does not concur with Marx’s traditional view of class. Today, the ‘proletariat’ of traditional Marxism is being replaced by machinery as the advancement in technology has made some manual work redundant.Furthermore, the idea that many modern companies do not solely rely on legal ownership of a company, but instead hire people due to technical competence, gives people the opportunity to hold managerial positions that have a lot of power. This is the idea of recruitment via ‘meritocrality’ and hints at the death of classical conventions of class. Therefore, the idea of objective class being defined as the relationship between the ownership and non-ownership of productive resources has greatly dissolved (Lee, et al. , 1996).Having said that in India the opportunity of mobility is limited it all comes down to the status, power or class of the individual- this is due to the fact that India is still developing and full of politics, an individual would have to have the right connections in order to do or acquire anyt hing but most important factor in accomplishing anything in India would be money. Furthermore if an individual is a Shudras they would have less capital compared to the Brahmans, hence decreasing their chance of opportunities they can take.Within the Indian caste system most people remain in one caste their entire life and marry within their caste. Although class is viewed differently today, it does not necessarily mean that modern views of class are more ‘equitable. ’ In fact, there is still a strong lack of equity within the different classifications of gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc; furthermore there are parts of the world where class is a vital aspect in their everyday life and interaction. The difference being that in contemporary society people are more attached to individualist and consumerist forms of discrimination and inequality.It can be said that today consumption is more important than production, class is no longer a ‘lifetime experience’, but instead thought about as an ‘individual biography’, and exclusion from the labour market is the more appropriate way to think about poverty. Although the concept of class is ever-present, the objective and subjective role it plays in society has been greatly transformed within the western society, thereby accounting for the death of classical class theories.Having said that India could never be a classless society as people are not acting constructively to escape class divisions, this is due to the fact that most ‘underclass’ cannot undergo upward mobility, as they do not have the opportunity or resources. Class is a social relationship that invades each individual’s lives. There has been a death of traditional class within the western society as individuals are acting constructively to escape class divisions and go towards a classless society, however an evolved definition of class continues to dominate the 21st century.Bibliography Saunders, P. 1990. Social Class and Stratification, USA, Rutledge. Pakulski J and Malcolm W. (1996) The Death of Class. London: Sage. Milner, A. (1999) Class. London: Sage. Weber, M. [1922] ‘Class, Status and Party. ’ Extract from Economy and Society in W. G. Runciman [ed. ] (1978) Max Weber: Selections in Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 43-56. Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right. Cambridge: Polity. Pp. 139-48 Marx, K. and Engels, F. [1848] ‘Bourgeois and proletarians’, section 1 of The Communist Manifesto, in D. McLellan [ed. ] (1977) Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 222-231. Prandy, K. 2002. Ideal Types, Stereotypes and Class. The British Journal of Sociology, Volume 53 number 4, page14. Brahman. (2010). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved October 06, 2010, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www. britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/77093/Brahman â€Å"Harijans. † The Columbia Encyclopedia, S ixth Edition. 2008. Retrieved October 06, 2010 from Encyclopedia. com: http://www. encyclopedia. com/doc/1E1-Harijans. html

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) for Antibiotics

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) for Antibiotics Dhayalini Yoginthran Antibiotic resistance is something that has been growing in the world, some might even say that we are entering or have already entered a post antibiotic world. It is currently one of the superior concerns in the 21 st century, especially in regards to pathogenic microorganisms. Throughout the years, research had allowed for the development of first line antibiotics that were efficacious against infections plaguing the population. Due to resistance build up towards first line agents, second line agents were then used to treat infections, which usually have a broad spectrum in treatment. In some cases pathogens have also acquired resistance towards multiple drugs, one such example would be Staphylococcus aureus (Zainnudin and Dale, 1990) . Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are substances produced by animals, bacteria and plants. They are also known as host defence peptides and are a part of the non-specific immune system. Differences between eukaryotes and pro karyotes show the potential of targeted therapy with the use of AMPs . They are dynamic and are of broad spectrum and have shown plausible evidence that they may be used as a new therapeutic agent. AMPs are quite small, have various sequences and lengths. They are also known to be cationic and amphipathic (Hultmark, 2003). They have shown considerable bactericidal activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative strains of bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis , malignant cells as well as viruses that are enveloped (Reddy et al., 2004). AMPs work by the interaction with the membrane of the potential pathogen thus leads to the perturbation of said membrane. The peptide is then inserted into the bilayer of the membrane that causes the displacement of the lipids. The perturbation and the displacement actions render it easy for the peptide to be translocation into the intracellular target of the pathogen. AMPs are usually derived from coding sequences in a gene, databases of known AMPs have been curated to hold information of AMPs as well as to provide tools to predict possible AMPs that are found in genomes (Fjell et al., 2007). The Antimicrobial Peptide database (APD) is one of the major resource for antimicrobial peptide sequences that have been curated. AMPs from various phylogenetic kingdoms are available, making the prediction of models based on qualitative and quantitative activity easier. In order to bring the development of AMPs into light, certain objectives are to be met. An AMP must be active against the pathogen in which it is targeted against and must have a high therapeutic index. In order to look for a suitable AMP that can act as a broad spectrum antibiotic. A method will be explained to show the screening process to look for one such AMP. The method would be to employ template based studies. A template AMP will be used to look for peptides that have better antimicrobial activity and also is reduced in toxicity by altering amino acid sequence s. In order to elucidate positions of amino acids that are important in antimicrobial activity, a single amino acid in the peptide will be changed, and hence the changes will be studied. Template AMPs that could be used for this would be lactoferrin or magainin. The variety of peptides are designed based on the amphiphilicity and charge of the AMPs and their role in antimicrobial activity. It will be possible to synthesis peptides using a high throughput approach of arrays that is done together with a speedy luminescence assay to portray bactericidal activity. This would lead to us being able to perform a complete substitution method to study the amino acid changes in the desired peptide. Several substitution studies that have been performed have shown that the activity shown by the substituted amino acids differ with regards to the template AMP utilised (Schneider et al., 1995). A linguistic model shall be used to pinpoint patterns in natural peptides (Loose et al., 2006). It is po ssible that the novel peptide that is constructed based on this will show superiority against models that are generated based on the random shuffling of amino acid sequences. Functionally important patterns of amino acids will be found using this linguistic model. In a previous study conducted by Loose et al (2006), 4 out of 40 designed peptides showcased activity against E. coli and B. cereus at an acceptable concentration.

2 page paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

2 page paper - Essay Example Since commencement in 2009 over $1billion has been promised to fund over 50,000 creative projects (Trump). This is overwhelming prove that Kickstarter campaigns are and efficient way of funding creative projects. This essay discusses gives the pros and cons of Kickstarter campaigns are an effective way to finance creative projects. At the start, Kickstarter campaigns were simply viewed as a platform of helping start up theatre companies and artist to raise the amount of money that is sufficient to get their projects up and running. Surprisingly, over time these campaigns have proven to be an effective way of raising money for well- known artists and projects (Cebulski 78). For instance, in 2012, a video game guru, Tim Schafer had aimed at making $400,000 but eventually he made $3.36 million. Additionally, Amanda Palmer, a musician had set a goal to make $100, 000 on a music album but ended up making more than $1 million (Trump). In spite of the immense success enjoyed by the kick starter campaigns in funding creative projects, there have been cases of failure leading to increasing criticism from skeptics. It has been observed that in the long- run, Kickstarter funded programs fail to materialize and get unto trouble. However, this failure can be attributed to the Kickstarter model that takes into account the two examples discussed above (Cebulski 78). Palmer was criticized for asking for help from local musicians after her big break while Schafer stated that his project was headed to exceed its budget. This leads to the conclusion that those that contributed to the Kickstarter projects were fooled. On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind that those that support Kick starter campaigns are not looking to invest or get the greatest value for their money. The logic of the Kickstarter campaigns is understood once an individual understands that the concepts follows the concept of a gift not that

Advances in imaging and minimally invasive surgery Essay

Advances in imaging and minimally invasive surgery - Essay Example Patients can leave the hospital right after the surgery and return to their normal activities. This is more convenient than going to the conventional open surgery. In minimally invasive surgery, special medical instruments may be used, such as highly special optic cables, miniature endoscope cameras and special surgical instruments placed in tubes inserted into the body through small incisions. Internal images of the interior of the body are transmitted to a video monitor. Through it, the surgeon can identify the internal features, and do surgical operations if needed. Recently, optical engineering and imaging technology make it even more possible to visualize the manipulation of tissues. It can even reach to remote internal locations which is difficult during the former and traditional procedures (Boppart   A., Deutsch F. and Rattner  D. W., 1987). Technology has become more sophisticated most especially in helping the doctors and surgeons to locate tumors from different areas of the body internally. With these, it will be more helpful for them to explore the whole body and to get more precise diagnosis. It enhances internal navigation for surgeons and simultaneously record findings. Several medical instruments and ultrasound devices are used in minimally invasive technology. The purpose is to get images from the internal organs in order to point out the possible internal problems and provide the most accurate explanations. Dr. Stephen Smith, of the Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering said that their ultrasound device could really advance the use of minimally invasive technology. Their team first developed the three dimensional ultrasound scanners in 1987 in acquiring images of the heart. What they could provide is not simply two dimensional images but more detailed three dimensional images. He provides the comparison between the more advance imaging technologies than

Thought questions 3 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Thought questions 3 - Coursework Example The idea of portraying a witch as an old, poor and female was the idea of the Christians to portray the witches as a bad example. They even went to the extreme of portraying them as wrinkled, rugged, and bed-ridden individuals. The idea was to make people dislike the witches as they were portrayed as evil people. In actual sense, witches were of varying ages, and there were young witches who were not poor. Both males and females engaged witchcraft so the portrayal of witches as always being old, poor, and female was inaccurate. Massive outbreak in witch-hunt broke out during the 16th century. During this period, the Christians were undergoing a very important historic reformation known as the Protestant Reformation. Christians had previously hunted witches, but the Reformation seems to have contributed to the mind attribute that placed the devil in a manageable perspective. The reformation had somehow managed to create a link and a perception to relate witchcraft and the devil, which justified the execution of witches. Eighty percent of witch-hunt victims were women most of whom were single. They were also between ages 45 years and 65 years. Most of them were at the bottom in the social status, nearly 80 percent. Most of them were disliked, quarrelsome and poor. Initially, witches were tried using the accusatory justice where they were presumed guilty until proved otherwise. The Christians latter popularized another system, inquisitorial type of justice where the defendant was innocent until proved otherwise. This method required that the one convicted of witchcraft give a confession. This was latter altered, and torture was included to obtain a confession from the accused witches. Free and voluntary confession by the suspected person of the crime made, examination and subsequent accusations were a ground of conviction. Another criterion was the affirmation of two credible persons under oath that they had witnessed the accused doing