People's Behaviour in the Quality of Service or Care Essay

People's Behaviour in the Quality of Service or Care - Essay Example A health assistant acts in the delegation from a health professional. The health assistant, therefore, does not belong to a distinct profession. Correspondingly, a health assistant works according to guidelines that the NMC conduct codes put forward. The NMC code of performance requires that every HCA have a qualification that also has evidence. The evidence enumerate the list of certificates that illustrate the educational level, the place of education and the specific skills that the HCA is capable of performing. Working in the community, I have been taking care of an 18-year-old patient in his home. The patient was suffering from a chronic lung disease and so had to use a tracheostomy tube to help with his breathing difficulty. The function of the tube is to clear and remove secretions from the patient’s airways and provide easy and safe delivery of oxygen to his lungs. There is this particular morning that I was looking after him as recommended that he undergoes saline neb ulizer every morning. This clears off the thick mucus he produces to make it easy for him to breathe easily. In addition, I give him colomycin, which is an antibiotic that helps kill bacteria. This is necessary for him as he is at risk of catching bacterial infections. Most of the times he is always asleep as this is done in the early morning hours. On this day, just as I was done with his saline nebulizer, he was up. I then began to try to connect the chamber to his trachea to start the colomycin nebulizer. He started shouting that he did not want the procedure done. He wanted to be left alone. He pulled the chamber off his trachea and kept shouting.

MULTINATIONAL CORP-EVOL & CUR ISSUE Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

MULTINATIONAL CORP-EVOL & CUR ISSUE - Assignment Example el Kors are reputable business platforms whose main aim is growth; therefore, with people continuing to sell their products through Amazon, and others continuing to maintain a high sense of fashion through Michael Kors, the share values of these companies will always be stable, all factors kept constant. The motivation behind these investments was that of buying and holding until the share values reach a valuable high. With the state of the economy being in jeopardy due to tensions with Russia and North Korea, it was unnecessary to invest in equities with a high Rate of Change and penny stocks; this is because during such economic times they could fluctuate really fast and bring in huge losses. On 26th of April I opened a 20,000-share long position with Michael Kors at a share value of $92.19, which amounted to $1,843,800. With a Price to Earnings Ratio of $30.50, and an Earnings Per Share value of $1.97, the price of each share was clearly overpriced. This is due to the fact that most people speculated that the company was doing good business, thereby prompting more investments, thus the exaggerated price per share. The fact that the fashion trends do not change all of a sudden was a good bet that the share value of Michal Kors would continue increasing, which made the purchase of these shares a good buy. At the time of the purchase, the value of Michael Kors shares was very low compared to how KORS had performed in February and a better part of March. This meant that somewhere around the end of March, the shares would start increasing again due to salary payments. The graph below clearly shows that my speculations were correct, since the share value of Michael Kors went up near the end of the month. On 1st April, I sold 15,000 shares to reduce my long position with Michael Kors at a share value of $94.69, making a profit of $37,490 and still remaining with 5000 shares as a Michal Kors long position. The graphs below depict the behavior of Michael Kors Holdings

Advantages and Disadvantages of Positivism

Advantages and Disadvantages of Positivism Q. Discuss the advantages, strengths, disadvantages and weaknesses of a  positivist approach to the social sciences. The profusion of use and multifariousness of meaning of the word positivism results in a need for any essay on the subject to first give its own precise definition for its use of the term, distinguishing its particular context from its use in other contexts. The term positivism, first coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte in the nineteenth-century, was first originally confined to the boundaries of philosophy and natural science; by the present, the term has spread its meaning to cover fields as diverse as law, political theory, the social sciences, philosophy and even literature. In all of these fields the dictionary definition of positivism as ‘. . . a system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or logically proved, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism’ (Oxford, 1989: pp. 385-386) remains broadly true of most of its uses, though it does little to reveal the subtle distinctions of use of the word positivism in each of these disciplines. For instance, legal positivism is ‘. . . a view which, in contrast to the natural law view, claims that a legal system can be defined independently of evaluative terms or propositions is the view that in law’ (Hugh-Jones, S. Laidlaw, J, 2000: p88); in literature positivism refers to a specific period of Polish literature where writers were inspired by the nascent achievements of science and technology; and in philosophy the term logical positivism meant the scientific investigation of the philosophy of language — as in writers such as Wittgenstein. All in all then, the term positivism has an umbrella use designated by the dictionary definition, but then has several further and more individualistic uses depending upon the context in which it appears. ‘Positivism is the view that serious scientific inquiry should not search for ultimate causes deriving from some outside source but must confine itself to the study of relations existing between facts which are directly accessible to observation’ (Hugh-Jones, S. Laidlaw, J: 2000: p.3) The definition of positivism chosen for use in this essay, its particular domain being the social sciences, is that stated above by Hugh-Jones and Laidlaw. According to this version of positivism, data gathered from sense perceptions is the only possible data that may be used as a foundation for knowledge and thought. Hence, all data and phenomena taken from beyond sense perceptions or the properties of observable things is banished — thuds a priori metaphysics and theology dismissed in toto. Science alone sets the perimeters for human knowledge, and, accordingly, positivism maintains the expectation that science will ultimately attain to solve all human problems. As such, a social scientific definition of positivism regards the research of social scientists as identical in importance to that of natural scientists; that is, social scientists, like natural scientists, employ theories and explanations for phenomena, inferred from sense data for the purpose of social benefit. Wit h respect to political science as a social science Popper thus says ‘We get the particular definition of one of the social sciences — political science — which tries to separate the subject from the values we apply to it, and argues that it is possible to develop value-free knowledge’ (Popper, 1983: p. 75). This quotation shows the extent to which one particular social science’s use of the term positivism has mutated from its general umbrella use. For the purposes of this essay, positivism will be regarded as having four essential characteristics (King, 1994: p. 204). (1) It is concrned with the search for the unification of scientific method, that is, with the notion that logic and inquiry are universal principles extending across all scientific domains. (2) That the ultimate end of scientific inquiry is to gives explanations of social phenomenon and to make predictions about their behaviour as according to discernable laws of society. Thus positivism in the social sciences seeks also to develop a ‘general law of social understanding’, by discovering necessary and sufficient conditions for any phenomenon. (3) Positivism maintains that social scientific knowledge must always be subject to proof through empirical experimentation. All subjects of reaseach and investigation in the social sciences should be based upon observations derived from sense-perceptions. (4) Social sciences must seek to free themselves of valu e-judgements as far as possible, and of moral, political, and religion ideas that might contaminate their research. Thus, in short: social sciences must seek to dicover universal conditions behind social phenomena;all social scientific empirical statements must be asolute truthes which are true at all times and true in all places; finally, research can proved only by empirical experimentation. In There Is More Than One Way To Do Political Science Marsh Smith (2001), while debating whether the social sciences might legitimately have both a positivist and realist approach to science, argue that one of the principal strengths of positivism is that it is ‘foundationalist’: that is ‘. . . in ontological terms it argues that there is a ‘‘real world’’ out there, that it is independent of an agent’s knowledge of it’ and that ‘. . . it is possible, using the proper ‘‘research methods’’ for an observer to discover these real relationships between social phenomenon’ (Marsh Smith, 2001: p. 529). Thus the great strength and advantage of a positivist approach to the social sciences is that it grounds anthropology, sociology, political science and so on upon a hard and definite ‘foundation’ of empirically testable data, and makes theories out of this data from which absolute laws of social behaviour may be attained. A second distinct advantage then of positivism is that it permits an analysis of the causal relationships between phenomena. Positivism thus allows the social sciences to make certain predictions about the phenomenal world. Thus Dowding states ‘. . . all good political scientists produce models with definite predictions . . . which they can then test one way or another against data gathered from the actual world’ (Dowding, 2001: p. 92). A chief strength then of a positivistic approach, is that it brings to the social sciences the desire to emulate the excellence of the natural sciences in respect of their rigorous experimentation, precisely stated hypotheses, definite laws, and thus prediction of behaviour. By approaching its investigations thus, social scientists attain a high level of accuracy in their results and in their predictions, and thus come closer to a total description of the behaviour of social phenomenon. By approa ching the social sciences from a positivist position, social scientists are able to cut away from existing ‘knowledge’ many prejudices, suppositions, superstitions and other non-scientific opinions that have gathered about these social phenomena (Marsh Smith, 2001). In other words, positivism, by declaring valid only those things which conform to its vigorous standards of investigation, strips social phenomenon of their perceived nature and reveals them as they really are. A second key advantage of taking a positivist approach to the social sciences is that such a move solidly roots the social sciences in the accomplishments of the natural sciences over the past four hundred years. Early positivists like Comte, Spencer and Saint-Simon understood their theory and work as something growing directly out of the experimental and theoretical achievements of the great natural scientists like Newton, Spinoza, Darwin and others. Comte knew that the natural sciences and natural scientists, were essentially positivist: that is, they appealed to the perception and measurement of objective sense-data from which to make experiments, analyze results and make theory, predictions and laws. Comte and the other early positivists thus understood their work as an act of ‘making explicit’ the theory which natural scientists had adhered to for centuries. When, in the twentieth-century, social positivists like Ernst Laas, Friedrich Jodl and Eugen Duhring began to establish the theoretical and experimental parameters of the social sciences, they also understood their work as a branch of the natural sciences and as a continuation of its discoveries. Anthropologists, sociologists, social scientists of the early twentieth-century faced a choice: they could orientate their subjects within the sphere of natural science and its immense harvest of the past two decades, or they could orientate it in the sphere of theology and the liberal arts which had dominated all human history before the advent of natural science. Laas, Jodl, Duhring and later Marsh, Smith and others have all agreed that the social sciences must be built upon the platform established by the natural sciences. These sciences have been the predominant intellectual authority for Western Europe for nearly four hundred years, and social scientists think that the positivist approach to the natural sciences offers greater objectivity, certainty of prediction, and deeper insight into thei r subjects than could achieved by any other method of inquiry. Further, the allegiance of the social sciences to the natural sciences, through a shared conviction in the positivist philosophy, means that the social sciences can constantly draw upon the fund of new empirical material daily unearthed by these natural sciences. In other words: if the social sciences have an exchange of knowledge between themselves and the natural sciences, then every refinement of experimental method, theory, or analysis achieved by the natural sciences may be immediately seized upon and utilized by the social sciences also. And, vice-versa, this interchange allows the social sciences to more freely disseminate their discoveries within the world of the natural sciences. Moreover, by sharing a positivist philosophy with the natural sciences, the social sciences may draw from its authority in the presentation of their results to the wider scientific and academic community. That is, the employment of positivism by the social sciences, dispels and neutralizes the accus ations from some quarters of the scientific and outside world, for instance those of Karl Popper, that such sciences are ‘pseudo-sciences’. This claim can hold no weight if it is seen that the natural and social sciences share alike the same methodology and principles of operation. Nonetheless, it should be made clear that whilst the social sciences derive authority and knowledge from the natural sciences, that they do not depend upon it exclusively for authority. Indeed, the social sciences have made their own refinements to positivism, and thus their methods of experimentation and analysis, quite independently of those achieved in the natural sciences. The social sciences have adapted the positivism they received from the social sciences to conform to their own empirical material and the idiosyncratic and diverse domains encountered in societies and the human world. In short, the social sciences have moulded positivism to the world of empirical human affairs, thus ent ering a territory that the natural sciences had previously not trodden. Historically, perhaps the greatest weakness and hence disadvantage of positivism generally, and with respect to the social sciences in particular, has been its insistence upon methodological absoluteness. Since the time of positivism’s foundation in the philosophy of Auguste Comte, positivists have persistently sought to use its scientific methods to explain every conceivable aspect of social phenomenon; that is, they have wanted to observe an object in its totality, tracing its entire phenomenological casuistry, its material composition, and thus produce a absolute theory of knowledge about that phenomenon. According to this scientific philosophy positivism must produce absolute laws to describe the behaviour and nature of phenomenal objects. The naivety of this search for the perfection of methodology and absoluteness of social scientific laws was exposed in the second half of the twentieth century, firstly by the advent of post-modernism (Popper, 1989: p.109-128), which sho wed the epistemological difficulties — impossibilities? — of extending science to such extreme levels; secondly, positivism’s applicability in all instances was increasingly undermined by the new theories of social scientists themselves. The various discoveries of anthropology, sociology, political science and other social sciences led researchers to an ever clearer conclusion: the phenomena of social science are far too sophisticated and involve the intimate interaction of too many separate objects, people and processes to be scientifically observed in their totality. Sociologists for instance, in their investigations into the mechanisms of the smallest of social units, the family, soon realized that no absolute and all-encompassing laws could be applied to the behaviour of these units (Gerrad, 1969: pp. 201-212); the great complexity coming from the need for the axioms and paradigms which are true of one family unit must, according to pure positivism, be shown to be true of all family units in all places and at all times. Pure positivism states that the laws of social science are of the same type and significance as the laws of physics, biology and chemistry; but for these laws to attain this equality, the laws of social science must be easily expressible and as rigorously testable as those of the natural sciences. The difficulty of attaining such equality is easily demonstrated by Gerrard’s (Gerrard, 1969) experiments, where he discusses the complexity of social issues involved in a four member family unit in America, and then postulates the near impossibility of scientifically demonstrating that family units in Northern France, in Thailand, in Hawaii and in all other places can be shown to obey the same exact rules as those affecting the family in America. Thus social scientists from the 1950’s onwards, confronted with the sheer vastness of ethnic, racial and community diversity, began to question the possibility of producing social laws that would be universally and ubiquitously binding. And in 2006 when even natural scientists have no certainties even about the exact behaviour and nature of a single atom; how can social scientists hope to prove laws for something as complex as a city? Another weakness of extreme positivism has been its inability to accurately prove its hypotheses through empirical experiments (Popper, 1983: p. 12 also: Dowding, 1995: p. 138). Whereas experimentation in the natural sciences usually involves the investigation of inanimate or relatively simple objects such as metals, stars, chemicals and so, these having the same properties constantly, in contrast, social phenomenon — people, communities, organizations etc., — are animate and are compositions of vast complexly intertwining feelings, emotions, thoughts, volitions, passions, motives, associations and so on. Thus, to undertake a social experiment, a social scientist has to be sure that he can separate the single mental or behavioural element, say ‘a criminal tendency’ that he wants to investigate, and then to exclude or control the influence of the other mental and social factors that will otherwise affect the accuracy of the experiment. In many instances suc h exclusion is nearly impossible to the degree of purity demanded by extreme positivists; a human being cannot be put in a test-tube or a vacuum and so shielded from external influences in the way that magnesium or atoms can. Thus social scientists have become ever more conscious that a major limitation of the positivist approach in respect to their discipline is its insistence upon perfect conditions for experimentation and for the accuracy of hypotheses and predictions (Dowding, 1995). Further, other discoveries in the social sciences have begun to place an ever greater emphasis upon the life of the individual and upon subjective experiences as vital factors in the constituency of societies (Marsh Furlong, 2002). The hermeneutic or ‘interpretive’ approach has come to assume ever greater importance within the social sciences, setting up for itself an area of investigation of phenomenon quite different from positivism, and therefore undermining the legitimacy of positivism’s claims to describe the totality of social phenomenon. Positivism is, according to this view, the outcome of a particular culture and particular history (Western European); what legitimacy then does it have to proclaim its results as of universal validity, as it must, to meet its own standards of scientific investigation? Moreover, social scientists themselves bring to their experiments their own subjective experiences, their own thoughts, volitions, prejudices etc., and these all affect experimentation and thus the security of results — just as surely do these things in the subjects of analysis. Thus David Marsh and Martin Smith have stated, in their powerful metaphor derived from Marsh’s earlier article, that ‘In the social sciences . . . subjective ontological and epistemological positions should not be treated like a pullover that can be ‘‘put on’’ when we are addressing such philosophical issues and ‘‘taken off’’ when we are doing research’ (Marsh Smith, 2005: p.531). That is, they should not be treated as a ‘pullover’, as temporary measure, as they have been by positivists to date. In the final analysis, it seems clear that neither the extreme positivism once advocated in the wake of Auguste Comte’s first philosophical writings, nor extreme anti-positivism nor anti-foundationalist positions as have recently been taken by some hermeneutists and realists, can lead to significant future progress in the social sciences. The chief strength and advantage of a positivist approach is the vigorous process of setting hypotheses, of empirical experimentation to test these hypotheses, of deep analysis to measure the results, and then the ability to codify the results in a set of laws and predictions. Claiming for themselves, in this sense, a parallel certainty of laws and predictions as and laws demanded by the natural sciences, positivism reveals to the social sciences phenomenal objects as they really are — as they are when stripped of superstitions, fallacious theories, prejudice and so on. Positivism demands a definite residue of facts and ‘truthsâ €™ that are universally applicable to social groups and communities irregardless of time, place or environment. In striving so vigorously for such ideals, positivism gives the social sciences a high degree of authority and respectability within the wider scientific and academic community as a whole. Further, a positivist approach in the social sciences affords a ready means of comparison and exchange of knowledge between other disciplines such law, philosophy, literature and so that employ positivism also. Indeed, in seminal respects, such is the importance of positivism for the social sciences that it is difficult to see how they could justify being ‘sciences’ without it. The two principal disadvantages of a positivist application to the social sciences are these: firstly, that its search for ideal and perfect standards of scientific methodology and analysis are too unrealistic when set beside the extreme complexity of social phenomenon; the second weakness, is positivism’s lack of empathy and consideration of the subjective, individual and hermeneutic aspects of social phenomenon. Dealing with the first objection, critics of positivism argue that it cannot — working as it does in the outside world, in cities and in companies, in villages and mass organizations — attain the same standards of empirical excellence, either in experimentation or in verification of results, as can natural scientists working in the controlled conditions of a laboratory and deriving principles mostly from inanimate matter of slighter sophistication than human beings. Moreover, social scientists have a nearly insuperable difficulty in codifying laws of so cial phenomena with the precision that physics or chemistry allow for material phenomena. Thus positivism in the social sciences attains a lower level of prediction and accuracy with respect to the phenomenon it observes, than do the natural sciences. The second major weakness of a positivist application is its failure to take sufficient account of the subjectivity of individual life and to interpret the meaning of that phenomenon for the subject and the community of the subject. On these matters positivism has nearly nothing to say, and thus it is barred from a whole hemisphere of human social experience. As the first sentence of this conclusion suggested: neither an extreme positivist not an extreme subjective or hermeneutic attitude can dominate the future of the social sciences. Rather, social scientists must learn to join positivism with subjectivism, thus fusing the two halves of social phenomenal experience. If positivism can be brought into union with the subjective in the social sciences, and if positivists can learn to tolerate something less than perfection in their methodological approach, then positivism must still be said to have a large contribution to make to the future of social science. In might be said then, in our final words, that positivism is simultaneously an advantage and disadvantage for the social sciences; whether one or other of these qualities is dominant remains to be seen. BIBLIOGRAPHY — Dowding, K. (2001). ‘There Must Be An End To Confusion: Policy Networks, Intellectual Fatigue, and the Need for Political Science Methods Courses in British Universities, in Political Studies, Vol 1., pp. 89-105. — Dowding, K. (1995). Model or Metaphor? A Critical Review of the Policy of Network Approach. Political Studies, Vol. 45, Issue. 1, pp. 136-158. — Green, D. P. Shapiro, I. (1994). Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory : A Critique of Applications in Political Science, pp. 89-95. New Haven, London. — Gerrard, James. (1969). The Sociology of the Family, pp. 303-316. Ford Press, Pittsburgh. — King, G. (et al.). (1994). Designing Social Enquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, pp 201-208. Princeton University Press, Princeton.  ­Ã¢â‚¬â€ Hugh-Jones, Steven Laidlaw, James. (2000). The Essential Edmund Leach, p163. New Haven, London. — Marsh, David Smith, Martin. (2001). ‘There Is More Than One Way To Do Social Science: On Different Ways To Study Political Networks’ in Volume 49, Number 3, pp. 528-541. — Marsh, David Furlong, Paul. (2002). ‘A Skin Not a Sweater: Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science’ in Marsh, David and Stoker, Jerry (Eds.). Epistemology in Political Science, pp. 17-41. Palgrave, Basingstoke. — Popper, Karl R. (1983). Realism and the Aim of Science, pp 1-13. Routledge, London. — Popper, Karl R. (1989). Conjectures and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 69-76. Routledge, London. — Quirk, Randolph (et al.) (Eds.). (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Human Gene Therapy :: Biology Biological Genetic Essays

Human Gene Therapy Ashanthi Desilva is now able to ride her bike in her suburban Cleveland neighborhood. She can play basketball with her friends or go fishing with her family. She is slightly inconvenienced by her weekly shot of the critical immune system enzyme: adenosine deaminase (ADA). Ashanthi was born with a faulty gene that results in the inability for her body to produce ADA, leaving her dangerously susceptible to even the weakest of infections (Brown). In 1990, researchers collected samples of Ashanthi's blood, isolated some of her white blood cells, and incorporated into them a virus engineered to contain a healthy ADA gene. These cells were then injected back into her body. She was the first patient to undergo gene therapy, and without that therapy and the weekly shots of ADA, she would have been destined for a life of isolation. Human gene therapy is the replacement of an absent or faulty gene with a functioning gene. As a result, the body is able to produce the correct enzyme or protein, thereby eliminating the cause of the disease (Gene_Therapy_Overview). There are essentially two types of gene therapy: somatic cell therapy and germ line therapy. Somatic cell therapy involves treating any cells of the individual, except the gametes, at the cellular level to correct an absent or malfunctioning gene. This can be accomplished in three ways: ex vivo, in situ, or in vivo. Ex vivo involves removing cells from the patient, altering the genetic material, and placing them back into the patient. In situ requires the vector be placed directly into the affected tissues. In vivo gene therapy involves injecting the vector into the bloodstream. The vector then must find the target tissue and deliver the therapeutic genes. Germ line gene therapy treats the gametes or an embryo, which would be used in the case of in vitro fertilization. The difference between somatic and germ line gene therapy may seem to be subtle; however, the alterations obtained through germ line therapy are not only found in that generation, but are passed on to the individuals progeny. That has serious repercussions when it comes to discussing the ethics of using germ line therapy. Presently, similar techniques are being examined for both somatic and germ line gene therapy, but germ line therapy is more difficult (Coults). This is not to say that somatic cell gene therapy is easily accomplished. One challenge facing researchers is finding a suitable vector that would safely and efficiently deliver the genetic payload into the patients' genome.

Epicatechin content in green tea (Camellia sinensis) supplements and their antioxidant activities

Introduction/background Green tea produced from Camellia sinensis is a popular beverage and is consumed worldwide. Green tea produced from Camellia leaves are mainly consumed in East Asian countries including China, Japan and Taiwan; whereas in western parts and south Asian countries, black tea is relatively popular (Chan, et.al. 2011). Green tea produced from Camellia is believed to have several health benefits. The tea from Camellia mainly contains flavanols or catechins, epigallocatechins, epicatechin gallate and epicatechin. The tea is manufactured in such a way that the catechin oxidation by polyphenol oxidase is prevented (Chan, et.al. 2011). Although all of these components in green tea are reported to have several health benefits, in this study only the role of epicatechin in green tea from Camellia has been extensively reviewed. Epicatechin is a strong antioxidant, which has been suggested to have several health benefits (Ravindranath, et.al. 2009).1.1. Project Aims Considering the antioxidant acti vities of epicatechin content in Camellia sinensis, and having reviewed available literature on the subject area, this project therefore aims to; Identify and quantify epicatechin content in herbal supplements by using standard compound. Understand and evaluate the antioxidant property of the standard compound that has been reported to be the antioxidant activity of the supplements. These aims were targeted with the views to providing clearer understanding of the role of antioxidants, present in green tea, as well as the health benefits associated to it.1.2 Standardization of plant extractsHerbal supplements are the complex mixtures containing organic chemicals derived from different plant sources including leaves, stems, flowers, roots and seeds. Although most herbal supplements and their compounds present in them are safe, many have been reported to have biologically active compounds that can alter several physiological processes within the body, as well as may interact with drugs. Thus, it is important to know the presence of active ingredients in the herbal supplement (Bent, 2008). Moreover, plant extracts are found to be rich in free radical and reactive oxygen species that are implicated in the alterations of various metabolic processes, and may lead to human diseases (Cases, et.al. 2010). Information on the biologically active compounds in herbal products will also help consumers in many aspects. Higher therapeutics effects can be seen in standardized extracts compared to the whole herb or non-standardized extracts; this is because, active principal is concentrated to a much higher level in the extracts than in the plant itself. Thus, purchasers of herbal products will get health benefits if extracts are standardized (Cases, et.al. 2010). 1.3 AntioxidantsAntioxidants are the compounds that are commonly derived from enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase; from minerals such as selenium, manganese, copper and zinc; as well as naturally from A, C and E vitamins (Lobo, et.al. 2010). Natural antioxidants are commonly found in plants consumed in the diet including carotenoids and phenolic compounds. Moreover, plants contain high concentrations of numerous antioxidants that include polyphenols, carotenoids, tocopherols, tocotrienols, glutathione and ascorbic acid (Charles, 2013). Their most important role in the body is to protect cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are the unstable molecular species containing an unpaired electron that are able to exist independently. Most of these species are highly reactive and are potentially damaging to the cells (Lobo, et.al. 2010). Some of the common oxygen- free radicals that are involved in many human diseases include hydroxyl radical, superoxide anion radical, hydrogen peroxide, oxygen singlet, hypochlorite, nitric oxide radical, and peroxynitrite radical. Increased levels of these reactive species in the body cells induce damage of the DNA, proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. Thus, a balance between free radicals and antioxidants is necessary for proper physiological function (Lobo, et.al. 2010). Any dis-balance in this may result the initiation of various diseases including cancer, vascular diseases and degenerative diseases. Hence, the study of antioxidants and their sources have been the focus of intense research.1.4. Brief information on herbal supplements to use in the projectThis project studies the presence of epicatechin content in Camellia sinensis; thus, the project uses herbal capsules from Camellia sinensis as herbal supplements. Camellia sinenis is taken as green tea and contains antioxidants i n it, which is why it is commonly used in herbal medicine. Epicatechin is abundantly found in Camellia sinensis herbal supplement. Cameillia sinensis also contains various active compounds as extracts. Some of the major active compounds found in Camellia sinensis include catechins, caffeine, flavonols and proanthocyanidins (Charles, 2013). The health benefits of green tea (Camellia sinensis) epicatechins are being extensively studied and explained . Endothelial cells are associated to vascular function and homeostasis whose dysfunction may have implication in cardiovascular disease including atherogenesis. (Moore, et.al. 2009). Moreover, some studies suggest their anticancer role by enchaining apoptosis (Ravindranath, et.al. 2009). With findings emerging from several new studies regarding the health benefits of the green tea from Camellia sinensis, it is being increasingly popular among the people. Methods Simple and reliable techniques will be chosen in this project to investigate epicatechin content in Camellia sinenis. Experiments will be carried out using reflux extraction to determine the biologically active compounds present in the test supplement (herbal capsules from Camellia sinensis). This will be confirmed by NMR analysis. NMR analysis will be done to confirm that determination of correct biological compound including antioxidants from Camellia sinensis. Crude extract will be made from the material extracted from herbal capsules using a suitable solvent under reflux, which will then be run on thin layer chromatography (TLC) to see if a corresponding band for the standard also appears in the extract. This will tell whether or not the compound is present in the extract, as the study of organic compounds present in the supplement of Camellia sinensis can be made using this technique. To cut of the evaporation time, rotary evaporation method will be employed while evaporating th e solvent. Reverse phase analytical high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) will be used to identify the standard compound in the extract and then to quantify the amount of compound in it. Finally, the antioxidant assay will be carried out to determine the antioxidant activity of the extracted compound; as a control, plant Flavonoid quercetin, which has antioxidant activity, will be used. REFERENCES Charles, J.D. (2013). Antioxidant Properties of Spices, Herbs and Other Sources. Natural Antioxidants. 39-64. Chan, E.W.C, Eu, Y.S, Tie, P.P, Law, Y.P. (2011). Pharmacognosy Research. Antioxidant and antibacterial properties of green, black, and herbal teas of Camellia sinensis. 3(4), 266-272. Irshad, M and Chaudhuri, P.S. (2002). Indian journal of experimental biology. Oxidant-antioxidant system: role and significance in human body.. 40(11), 1233-1239. Lobo, V, Patil, A, Phatak, A, Chandra, N. (2010). Pharmacogn Rev. Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health. 4(8), 118-126. Moore, R.J, Jackson, K.G, Minihane, A.M. (2010). The British journal of nutrition. Green tea (Camellia sinensis) catechins and vascular function. 96(4), 597-605. Ravindranath, M.H, et.al.,. (2006). Evid Based Complement Alternat Med.. Epicatechins Purified from Green Tea (Camellia sinensis) Differentially Suppress Growth of Gender-Dependent Human Cancer Cell Lines. 3(2), 237-247. Ravindranath, et.al., (2009). Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine. Differential Growth Suppression of Human Melanoma Cells by Tea (Camellia sinensis) Epicatechins (ECG, EGC and EGCG). 6(4), 523-530. Roman, M, (2001) Natural Products Insider, http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/articles/2001/04/the-benefits-and-pitfalls-of-standardizing-botanic.aspx, 11/12/2013. Uzunalic, A.P, et.al.. (2006). Food Chemistry. Extraction of active ingredients from green tea (Camellia sinensis): Extraction efficiency of major catechins and caffeine. 96(4), 597-605. Yang, Z, Xu, Y, Jie, G, He, P and Tu, Y. (2007). Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. Study on the antioxidant activity of tea flowers (Camellia sinensis) . 16(1), 148-152.

Labor Relations Essay

In reviewing information pertaining to labor unions, there is a plethora of information about unions in the transportation industry. One of the most widely known unions is the teamster unions, which deals with truckers. Labor unions and issues with automotive industry are often seen in the media. The newest transportation industry in American history is the airline industry. As the newest transportation industry that is still vital to American comfort, convenience, and commercial, the airline industry is ripe for workers to organize and demand a greater piece of the profits from operations. In this essay, an effort will be made to review this company in regards to labor relations. Company’s stance toward Labor Delta Airlines was founded by C. E. Woolman, an agriculture extension agent (Anthony, Kacmar, & Perrewe, 2010). C. E Woolman was not a banker, venture capitalist or war pilot, as many of the competing airlines were. He didn’t have the aggressive military style that many of the other airline founders had. What C. E. Woolman instilled within the employees at all levels of the organization is that people matter and should be treated fairly and equitably. This philosophy led Delta Airlines to be the leader in customer service from the company’s inception through the many mergers over the years. Through the difficult financial times when other airlines were laying off employees and filing for bankruptcy, Delta continued to pay their people well and keep them employed. There was an exception during the Ronald Allen CEO era of 1987 thru 1997. Human relations took a significant down turn during his tenure as CEO, especially during 1993 and 1994, but Delta decided to part ways with Allen and began repairing those fragile relationships with its employees. Delta Airlines still focuses on the human relations factor and has been able to repair the relationship with its employees; they believe it is their key to success. Despite the corporate culture to take care of its employees, a number of Delta employee departments are unionizing. They feel as though that piece is not being distributed justly. Formulate a strategy for negotiating a labor agreement Human behavior dictates that there will be problems. As a company starts making money, there is always a desire by the employees to acquire more of the profit. On the other hand, management has a desire to retain as much of the profit to be provided to investors and to receive bonuses for their â€Å"supposedly† wise business practices. When one group wants more and another wants to retain, there will be conflict. And this is precisely what is happening at Delta Airline, as well as among many industries in the transportation arena. Employees, seeking to gain an upper hand threaten to strike; however, management must be willing to address the matter through negotiation. The Negotiation Process Fisher and Ury recommend conducting negotiations according to the process of â€Å"principled negotiation. † Their method has four main tenets: 1. Separate the people from the problem. The idea should be for both sides to work together to attack a problem, rather than attacking each other. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to overcome emotional responses and set aside egos. 2. Focus on interests rather than positions. The natural tendency in many negotiations—for example, dickering over the price to be paid for an antique—is for both sides to state a position and then move toward middle ground. Fisher and Ury warn against confusing people’s stated positions with their underlying interests, and claim that positions often tend to obscure what people truly hope to gain through negotiation. 3. Generate a variety of options before deciding what to do. The pressure involved in any type of negotiation tends to narrow people’s vision and inhibit their creativity, making it difficult to find optimal solutions to problems. Instead, Fisher and Ury suggest developing a wide range of possible solutions as part of the negotiating process. These possible solutions should attempt to advance shared interests and reconcile differences. 4. Base the result on objective criteria. No one will be happy with the result of a negotiation if they feel that they have been taken advantage of. The solution is to find and apply some fair standard to the problem in order to guarantee a mutually beneficial result. Fisher and Ury’s principles provide a good overall guide for the actual negotiation process. In his book, Nierenberg offered a number of other tips and strategies that may be effective in promoting successful negotiations. For example, it may be helpful to ask questions in order to form a better understanding of the needs and interests of the other side. The questions must be phrased diplomatically and timed correctly in order to avoid an antagonistic response. The idea is to gain information and uncover basic assumptions without immediately taking positions. Nierenberg stressed the importance of listening carefully to the other side’s responses, as well as studying their facial expressions and body language, in order to gain quality information. Nierenberg noted that good negotiators will employ a variety of means to accomplish their objectives. Small business owners should be aware of some of the more common strategies and techniques that they may see others apply or may wish to apply themselves. One common strategy is forbearance, or â€Å"patience pays,† which covers any sort of wait or delay in negotiations. If one side wishes to confer in private, or adjourn briefly, they are employing a strategy of forbearance. Another common strategy is to present a fait accompli, or come to a final offer and leave it up to the other side to decide whether to accept it. In a simple example, a small business owner may scratch out one provision in a contract that he or she finds unacceptable, then sign it and send it back. The other party to the contract then must decide whether to accept the revised agreement. Nierenberg warns that this strategy can be risky, and encourages those who employ it to carefully appraise the consequences first. Another possible negotiating strategy is reversal, which involves taking a position that seems opposed to the original one. Similarly, feinting involves apparently moving in one direction in order to ivert attention from the true goal. For example, a negotiator may give in on a point that is not very important in order to make the real objective more attainable. Another strategy involves setting limits on the negotiation, whether with regards to time, the people involved, or other factors. It is also possible to change the participation in the negotiation if it seems to be at an impasse. For example, a neutral third party may be enlisted to help, or one or two people from each side may be sent off to continue the negotiation separately. It may also be helpful to break down the problem into small pieces and tackle them one by one. Another strategy might be to trade sides for a short time and try to view the situation from each other’s perspective. All of these techniques may be applied either to gain advantage or to push forward a negotiation that has apparently reached an impasse. Analyze the principle economic and administrative issues The airline industry is a fast growing sector demonstrating a very strong growth rate. It is associated with a number of social and economic benefits and is a growing contributor to the global inventory (Whitelegg, 2000). Business cycles have a wide reaching impact on the airline industry; during recession, air travel was considered a luxury and therefore spending is cut which leads to reduced prices. The industry creates its impact not just by providing direct employment, but also through the creation of opportunities throughout the travel and hospitality sector of the economy. Jobs in hotels, resorts, restaurants and car rental agencies are all impacted by the airline industry (Global Airline Industry Program, 2011). The airline industry itself is a major economic force, both in terms of its own operations and its impacts on related industries such as aircraft manufacturing and tourism. There are few industries that create the amount and intensity of attention that airlines receive, not only among its participants but from government policy makers and the media as well. The crucial issues on the table vary depending on whether the person is in management or is a worker. For management, the key to retain as much money as possible, while for the workers the goal is to obtain more of the profit. Thus, in management, the argument would be made to show how much money is used to provide employee insurances and benefits, reinvest in equipment and aircraft, general property and liability. On top of that, investors must be repaid. For the employee or worker, this is a stressful environment where the employee needs to be compensated for his work-related stress. Employee paid benefits continues to decrease, and the employee is forced to pay a disproportionate share. Thus, the employee needs more money just to live at a sustainable level. Recommend policies and procedures to administer a labor contract and resolve disputes. It is of utmost importance to resolve conflict expeditiously and justly for all parties involved. Thus, I would recommend the following policies as a means to resolve disputes: When a team oversteps the mark of healthy difference of opinion, resolving conflict requires respect and patience. The human experience of conflict involves our emotions, perceptions, and actions; we experience it on all three levels, and we need to address all three levels to resolve it. We must replace the negative experiences with positive ones. Acknowledge the conflict – The conflict has to be acknowledged before it can be managed and resolved. The tendency is for people to ignore the first signs of conflict, perhaps as it seems trivial, or is difficult to differentiate from the normal, healthy debate that teams can thrive on. If you are concerned about the conflict in your team, discuss it with other members. Once the team recognizes the issue, it can start the process of resolution. †¢ Discuss the impact – As a team, discuss the impact the conflict is having on team dynamics and performance. Agree to a cooperative process – Everyone involved must agree to cooperate in to resolve the conflict. This means putting the team first, and may involve setting aside your opinion or ideas for the time being. If someone wants to win more than he or she wants to resolve the conflict, you may find yourself at a stalemate. †¢ Agree to communicate – The most important thing throughout the resolution process is for everyone to keep communications open. The people involved need to talk about the issue and discuss their strong feelings. Active listening is essential here because to move on you eed to really understand where the other person is coming from. Determine the most likely interest dispute and determine how you could leverage economic pressure to help resolve that dispute. â€Å"There is no way to overstate the role â€Å"leverage† plays when it comes to achieving favorable settlements. Leverage is defined as: â€Å"positional advantage; the power to act effectively; strategic advantage†. Stated more simply, your leverage is whatever power you have† (Cory, 2011). Leverage is usually more about situational advantage than objective strength or power. For example, a single individual or small business may have few resources relative to a large corporation but still have situational advantage by virtue of being able to compel the larger corporation to appear and answer in a favorable venue. Likewise even when there is a legitimate claim which could result in a significant loss to the defendant, if the plaintiff does not have the resources or the fortitude to stay the course, then the defendant has the situational advantage by virtue of being able to delay and wait the plaintiff out. Leverage can be real or imagined. Your actual leverage at any point in time is based only on the other side’s perception of your leverage (which can obviously differ significantly from the actual facts). There are obviously situations where you have an information advantage, such as when you know about a weakness in your case that is not yet known by the other side. In such a situation you will, perhaps only briefly, appear to have more leverage than you actually do. Likewise, you can be at an information disadvantage such as when you mistakenly think that the other side has a stronger case than they actually do. There are also situations where you mistakenly think that your case is stronger than it actually is which occurs when for one reason or another you don’t have all the facts, or when the facts have not been accurately relayed to you. But regardless of your actual leverage, if there is no fear on the other side, you have little if any effective leverage (Cory, 2011).