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Introduction

Ethics has been a fundamental aspect of the contemporary human society. Indeed, they have been considered as some of the most crucial aspects that should guide the human relations in almost every aspect of their lives. This should explain the immense incorporation of the same in almost every aspect of the society, with almost every institution coming up with a code of ethics aimed at guiding human relations. Needless to say, a wide range of ethical issues come with considerable controversy revolving around their ethical nature. Indeed, there are differing views on how these behaviors or aspects of the society may be. Nevertheless, the ethical and unethical nature will always be determined by the goal the particular issue is about to serve.

Abortion

Abortion comes as one of the most controversial issues as far as ethics are concerned. Like any other modern issue, abortion comes with an ethical, as well as unethical side. One of the ethical aspects pertaining to abortion revolves around the rights of an individual to make choices pertaining to their bodies and what happens to them. It is worth noting that women are require to carry the baby to full term, an aspect that is not only tedious but which also weighs heavily on them. Indeed, pregnancies weigh don heavily on their health, shapes of their bodies, as well as their capacities to undertake certain activities (Kaczor 28). The constitution guarantees that human beings have certain fundamental and inalienable rights, one of which revolves around determining what happens to them or their bodies. In this case, the ethical debate pertaining to abortion revolves around guaranteeing or safeguarding an individual’s capacity to make decisions pertaining to her body and what he or she does with it (Kaczor 33). In addition, it is evident that there are some instances where such pregnancies would be detrimental to the health of the psychological health of the mother (Kaczor 33). For instance, in instances where the pregnancy has resulted from rape, there is high likelihood that the mother will never be at ease with the child and may even end up tormenting him or her upon giving birth.

However, abortion comes as unethical especially considering the fact that it touches on the life of another human being. Indeed, abortion, irrespective of the logic and reason behind it, involves the termination of the life of a human being (Watkins 26). This, undoubtedly, touches on the inalienable or fundamental rights of human beings. Just as the mother may have the right to make her choices pertaining to her body, the kid has the right to live to full term, a right that is inalienable and guaranteed right from the time that he or she is conceived (Watkins 29).

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment also draws considerable controversy especially with regard to the ethics and unethical sides. One of the ethical aspects pertaining to death penalty is based on the utilitarian argument. Indeed, the society is morally obligated to safeguard the welfare of its citizens. Criminals threaten the welfare and safety of the citizens, in which case only by eliminating them would society ensure that they do not trouble the society again (Mandery and Evan 13). In addition, capital punishment comes as one of those things that bring the greatest balance of good over evil. This is especially considering its capacity to deter violent crime. Indeed, common sense dictates that individuals that know the consequences of certain courses of actions will be unwilling to undertake them (Mandery and Evan 15).

However, capital punishment also has an unethical side. This is especially considering that the society is morally obligated to protect human life. Indeed, taking human life would only be permissible in instances where it is a necessary condition to the achievement of the greatest balance of good over evil for all concerned parties (Jacquette 27). Considering the value that he society has placed on life, as well as its obligation to minimize pain and suffering in all possible cases, human beings are duty-bound to look for a less severe alternative to death penalty that would achieve the same goal. In addition, there has been controversy over the criteria used in sentencing people to death (Jacquette 34). Scholars have outlined the fact that capital punishment is not necessarily given to individuals that commit the most heinous crimes rather, in most cases, it is awarded to people that commit crimes against white people. This introduces the aspect of racial discrimination, which brings into question the fairness of the system. Moreover, questions have been raised on the use of a criminal act to punish another criminal act.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia, like other issues touching on human life comes may be considered ethical or unethical depending on the side of the debate. Euthanasia refers to a legal term that underlines medically assisted mercy killing, usually for individuals that hate terminal illnesses that bring immense pain to them. This is, essentially, one of the ways of preventing an individual from suffering unnecessarily (Paterson 32). One of the ethical aspects pertaining to euthanasia revolves around the right of an individual to make decisions pertaining to their lives. Indeed, a large number of people that undergo euthanasia already indicate or give their consent to the termination of their life in order to end their suffering (Paterson 34). In addition, one would examine the quality of life that an individual leads. Life would only be preferable in instances where pain does not supersede or is not more than the happiness that the individuals have. Unfortunately, most patients with terminal illnesses have immense pain that supersedes their happiness. On the same note, these individuals would undoubtedly be dying within a short time, with the remaining time only being filled with suffering and pain (Paterson 37).

However, euthanasia also comes as unethical especially considering the sanctity of human life. Indeed, opponents of euthanasia state that the society has the duty of preserving human life and only having it terminated by natural causes. In any case, if the individuals are terminally ill, it only means that they would not have to suffer for a long time, in which case their lives should be preserved so they can die naturally (Keown 22). In addition, there have been instances where the terminally ill individuals do not have the capacity to make such decisions or even give their consent for the performance of such actions. This is even in instances where they may have insinuated in the past that they would not want to undergo the suffering (Keown 28). Of course, the question remains as to how the doctors would know the point where such pain is unbearable as to necessitate euthanasia.

Human beings and free will

Free will has been one of the most fundamental rights or rather inalienable rights in the contemporary human society. Of particular note are the nature of decisions that they are required to make and the limited nature of their capacity to make them. Free will, as a term, is taken as underlining the fact that human beings have the capacity and freedom to do, fee and think whatever they want irrespective of their age, experience, place of birth, race, creed, religion, personality or other aspects (Wundt 58). On the ethical side, individuals have the freedom to determine the course of their lives and the actions that they take as guaranteed in the constitution. Indeed, human beings have certain fundamental and inalienable rights even in instances where they may be incarcerated (Wundt 60). They should be allowed to make fundamental decisions as to what happens to their bodies, an aspect that underlines full control for everything that happens to them.

On the unethical side, free will is not so free after all. Free will is a creation by man rather than a donation (Markovits 70). It is not something that human beings were born with rather it is their most crucial and deepest task in the middle of the world, as well as the social structure within which man is implicated to attain self-guidance, self-direction and self-independence for himself (Markovits 72). In addition, it is worth noting that there are limits to freewill especially considering the interconnectivity of human actions, in which case, an individual would only be free to undertake certain decisions or activities to the extent that they do not cause harm to other human beings.

Ethics in gay rights

Homosexuality has drawn considerable controversy from numerous quarters. The ethical basis of gay rights revolves around human needs. Human beings have certain needs that must be met prior to other needs (Murphy 32). If heterosexuals meet these needs through meeting the opposite sex, it is hypocritical to deny homosexuals of the opportunity to meet the basic need pertaining to love and a sense of belonging through meeting a person of the same sex that they can marry (Murphy 32). In addition, it gay rights touch on the fundamental human rights pertaining to the capacity of individuals to make decisions on how they should lead their lives.

However, gay rights are unethical especially with regard to their effect on the continuity and sustainability of the society. First, it is noteworthy that homosexuality is in all respects unnatural especially considering that the union of individuals is primarily aimed at forming families, after which those families would interact and make a contribution to the society within which they live (Corvino 44). Indeed, gay rights would not naturally make this contribution to the society. In addition, same sex marriages are primarily against the biblical or religious teachings as to the intentions of God for humanity.

In conclusion, Ethics has been a fundamental aspect of the contemporary human society. Indeed, they have been considered as some of the most crucial aspects that should guide the human relations in almost every aspect of their lives. A wide range of ethical issues come with considerable controversy revolving around their ethical nature. Nevertheless, the ethical and unethical nature will always be determined by the goal the particular issue is about to serve. Indeed, the ethical and unethical nature of gay rights, euthanasia, capital punishment and abortion is subjective as it depends on the goals that they serve.

Works cited

Markovits, Daniel. A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2011. Print.

Wundt, Wilhelm. Ethics: The Facts of Moral Life. New York: Cosimo, Inc., Jun 1, 2006

Paterson, Craig. Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Natural Law Ethics Approach. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. Print.

Keown, John. Euthanasia, Ethics, and Public Policy: An Argument against Legislation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.

Mandery, Evan J, and Evan J. Mandery. Capital Punishment in America: A Balanced Examination. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2011. Print.

Jacquette, Dale. Dialogues on the Ethics of Capital Punishment. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Print

Kaczor, Christopher. The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print

Watkins, Christine. The Ethics of Abortion. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Print.

Murphy, Timothy F. Gay Science: The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Print.

Corvino, John. Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Print.

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Buying Video Games Will be a Thing of the Past?

Introduction

The industry of video games is at the edge of an evolution. It first transitioned into the digital space and today, gaming is expanding across devices and platforms making the industry to offer gaming as a serving and not as a good like before. Historically, gamers have been purchasing video games in physical copies in which people used to visit gaming stores and purchase their favorite games (De Prato, Feijóo, & Simon, 2014). But this is gradually changing because recently, there has been an increased gaming flexibility which allows gamers to play across devices and platforms. For some time now, there has been a transition of video games towards the digital model and gaming services like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Now, and Xbox Play Anywhere allowing gamers to play on multiple compatible platforms and devices. Previously, these video games were only on physical discs and gamers could only access them with their consoles. The ability to play on digital space and to play across platforms and devices has been ongoing for quite a while. Gaming being offered as a service though is a recent phenomenon, it is taking shape (De Prato, Feijóo, & Simon, 2014). Gaming as a service involves subscribing to game libraries and streaming the video games instead of buying them which creates a range of possibilities in multiple areas of the gaming sector. This essay will support the argument that one day buying video games will be a thing of the past.

Tech Companies Involvement and Streaming

Nontraditional gaming companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook are creeping into the gaming industry. The industry of technology is looking for a way to make streaming of video games as natural as movie streaming on Netflix or music streaming on Spotify (Johnson & Woodcock, 2019). Through Xbox console, Microsoft has gotten into the gaming industry. Two years ago, Project xCloud was introduced by Microsoft, it is a streaming service of video games allowing the users to stream games on the personal devices. Project xCloud became fully functional a year later and subscribers can access it on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Facebook, along with Unity Technologies started to develop a gaming platform in the year 2016 and a program known as Stadia was launched by Google (Bengtsson, Bom, & Fynbo, 2021). The program is a cloud gaming service by Google allowing gamers stream video games as they play. Users can access it on Google’s browser, tablets, phones, and PCs. The goal for Microsoft, Facebook, and Google is to allow gamers to stream video games even without a video game console or a computer. As the trend continues, buying physical video games in the form of discs or cartridges is becoming a thing of the past.

It would however be argued that the move towards streaming and playing video games online would limit the gamers and would not give them sole ownership of the video games as it would when one buys physical copies of these games. Also, it would require gamers to have constant and uninterrupted access to internet connection (Rienzo & Cubillos, 2020). In cases, of internet downturns, gamers would be interrupted and would not have a good experience playing. In addition, gamers would experience issues such as low hard drive space that is why they would prefer to have a storage medium. On the part of the companies, selling physical video games has been a source of their revenue for years and a move towards digital gaming would hurt their traditional source of income (Zeng, 2021). In response to this argument, proponents of streaming and playing video games online would argue that subscribing to video streaming services is the future and would benefit video game companies such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft as the cost of manufacturing, storing, and shipping of video games would disappear. Besides, subscription services allows for generation of revenues for the gaming companies throughout while traditionally, gamers used to but video games occasionally such as during holidays. Furthermore, the production cost of physical copies is quite high and consequently, it would lead to smaller profits.

The Evolution of Digital Technology

The advent of the distribution of digital games can be traced to the late 20th Century but recently it has come to be truly recognized as an alternative to buying physical copies. Today, consumers are in support of digital subscription and several factors attribute to this surge (Brock, & Fraser, 2018). The most influential attribute in the relatively lower price of digital games as well as its convenience. But still opponents would argue that there are a number of factors that prevent digital games from taking over the gaming market completely. Relative to physical retail, it is argued that the price differences are not that substantial to encourage consumers to prefer digital purchases over retail. This is coupled with other issues such as consumer-unfriendly practices and poor marketing (Brock, & Fraser, 2018). As a proponent of digital gaming services, one would argue that gaming companies are now more conscious of the expectations of gamers and could therefore maximize by releasing their games exclusively digitally. Another positive digital distribution feature is that smaller and independent developers have the opportunity to compete in the gaming market and be successful (Sepasgozar, 2020). In this digital era, it is evident that eventually, digital distribution of games will supersede physical game copies. According to David Darling, a veteran in the gaming industry; it is the same as flipping a coin, at some point, it is going to flip. He states that in six months things would change and everyone would be wondering why it did not change before.

Gaming the Digital Space

The first stage of the gaming industry transformation is transitioning from buying physical gaming copies to digital distribution. This form of distribution has helped in the introduction of major changes to the gaming industry (Rienzo & Cubillos, 2020). Digital forefronts have been created like the Steam and the Epic Games Store which sells vast libraries of games. There have been other developments which include the mobile games propagation on a variety of devices like tablets and phones as well as the subscription model’s expansion with services that facilitate digital game libraries and online multiplayer like PlayStation Now, PlayStation Plus, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Live. The video games’ digital distribution encourages competition and innovation among developers and the rise of this form of distribution comes hand in hand with an increase of power in various devices. Games had gradually moved from cartridges on consoles and physical discs on PC to digital downloads on PCs and other portable devices such as smartphones and tablets (Charness & Boot, 2016). Currently the mobile gaming market accounts for about 51% of the gaming industry’s market share with PC and console gaming comprising 24% and 25% respectively. Moreover according to a research conducted by Camps-Ortueta et al. (2021), the digital format of video gaming has grown to about 80% of sales since the year 2017. According to the report, thanks to digital online gaming, more than 220 million people in North America are mobile gamers and the market value of digital video game globally is more than 120 billion dollars. This demonstrates that the industry of digital video games has grown substantially over the years.

In this regard, opponents would argue that physical video games are much cheaper and safer compared to the digital mobile gaming. Gamers tend to incur more costs in terms of internet connection charges (Eliashberg ET AL. 2016). Internet service providers tend to impose huge data charges for online gamers depending on the time of play. Some games require that gamers have online accounts typically with monthly or bimonthly subscription fees. The second point against gaming in the digital space is security. Gaming in the digital space exposes gamers risk of hacking. Gamers are required to key in their personal information while signing up for a number of reasons (Zhang et al. 2019). There are risks involved especially when hackers manage to hijack the gamers’ personal information. Their information ca be used for illegal activities which could cause damage to the players’ reputation in a split second.

In response to this argument proponents would argue that costs associated with digital gaming are not that huge compared to physical gaming. In fact, there are costs associated with physical video games purchases and one of them is delivery cost and time. Subscribing to online gaming is fast (Zhang et al. 2019). Even with the additional data charges, gamers tend to socialize because gaming online allows communication between players who are geographically apart. This encourages interaction and a great team play.

Gaming as a Service

Today, there is a shift in the model in which games are distributed as a service and not as goods. This implies that today and in the days to come, gamers will exclusively buy video games through a model of subscription to a gaming library which is streamed on a mobile device (Cai et al. 2016). This is contrary to the one-time buying of single games which has historically prevailed as a business model. Successful companies in industries such as software and entertainment are also shifting towards provision of products as services under the model of subscription. Netflix for instance, switched from mailing to its customers physical DVD copies to enabling them to stream and download movies and shows under subscription tiers. Adobe and Microsoft also shifted from one-time purchase of Creative Suite and Office software to selling their products via digital downloads under the model of subscription as well (Cai et al. 2016). Looking back at how technology has evolved and the shift of focus in related industries as mentioned above, selling gaming as a service and not a product is the next logical step in the industry of video gaming. Hence the statement, buying video games is a thing of the past.

As a matter of fact, that transition to selling video games as a service in the subscription model is already underway. PlayStation Now by Sony for instance enables subscribers to stream games on their personal computers, iOS devices, and PS4. Shadow is another subscription service offering cloud-based gaming across macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, and Windows. Shadow, PlayStation Now, and soon-to-be live services like ‘Netflix for games’ by Microsoft, Google Stadia, and Project xCloud are all trying to make gaming more about internet strength and less about machines that gamers play on (Zhang et al. 2019). The rise of such services, there is a less requirement to have powerful devices just to play video games. In fact, with these services, more people can play a broad range of games. Such emerging service, both non-streaming and streaming, have managed to lower the barrier to entry and are also inviting more gamers to play. In addition, related industries have been touched by this innovation and can go beyond the stimulation of innovation and competition in the gaming industry. The early stages of this transition however calls for the need to have a stable and faster internet connection. Opponents would argue that these emerging services are yet to fully mature and until then, professional gamers cannot employ them (Zhang et al. 2019). Latency and input lag are some of the problems that online gaming services must get rid of prior to professional gaming accepting them. This means that ‘gaming as a service’ model will coexist with traditional models in order to cater to various market segments.

Conclusion

There are continuous advancements in the capabilities of internet bandwidth making the digital distribution to flourish. Thanks to these developments, more industries have incorporated this method and the gaming industry is not an exception. However, there are divided opinions in the gaming industry with respect to the distribution of games. Some prefer digital while others prefer physical distribution. In order to address the issue, the paper has evaluated it from the perspectives of both the industry and the consumer. As is discussed above, innovation is at the heart of the gaming industry, thus, new technology, new experiences, and new controls are inevitable. The world has continued to move towards spending time on their devices making streaming services to be the order of the day. From movies to music and now video games, digital game playing is becoming an important avenue for revenues. Gaming companies are looking towards leveraging on this. Soon enough, gamers will no longer have to buy video gamers, rather, they will only need to subscribe and access video games easily on their devices.

References

Bengtsson, T. T., Bom, L. H., & Fynbo, L. (2021). Playing Apart Together: Young People’s Online Gaming During the COVID-19 Lockdown. YOUNG, 29(4_suppl), S65-S80. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F11033088211032018

Brock, T., & Fraser, E. (2018). Is computer gaming a craft? Prehension, practice, and puzzle-solving in gaming labour. Information, Communication & Society, 21(9), 1219-1233. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1468920Cai, W., Shea, R., Huang, C. Y., Chen, K. T., Liu, J., Leung, V. C., & Hsu, C. H. (2016). A survey on cloud gaming: Future of computer games. IEEE Access, 4, 7605-7620.

Camps-Ortueta, I., Deltell-Escolar, L., & Blasco-López, M. F. (2021). New technology in Museums: AR and VR video games are coming. Communication & Society, 193-210. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.34.2.193-210

Charness, N., & Boot, W. R. (2016). Technology, gaming, and social networking. In Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (pp. 389-407). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-411469-2.00020-0

De Prato, G., Feijóo, C., & Simon, J. P. (2014). Innovations in the video game industry: Changing global markets. Communications & strategies, 94(2), 17-38.

Eliashberg, J., Hennig-Thurau, T., Weinberg, C., & Wierenga, B. (2016). Of video games, music, movies, and celebrities. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(2), 241-245. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.03.004

Johnson, M. R., & Woodcock, J. (2019). The impacts of live streaming and Twitch. tv on the video game industry. Media, Culture & Society, 41(5), 670-688. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443718818363

Rienzo, A., & Cubillos, C. (2020). Playability and player experience in digital games for elderly: A systematic literature review. Sensors, 20(14), 3958.

Sepasgozar, S. M. (2020). Digital twin and Web-based virtual gaming technologies for online education: A case of construction management and engineering. Applied Sciences, 10(13), 4678. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10134678

Zhang, X., Chen, H., Zhao, Y., Ma, Z., Xu, Y., Huang, H., … & Wu, D. O. (2019). Improving cloud gaming experience through mobile edge computing. IEEE Wireless Communications, 26(4), 178-183.

Zeng, Y. (2021, May). How Human Centered AI Will Contribute Towards Intelligent Gaming Systems. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Vol. 35, No. 18, pp. 15742-15743). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yilei-Zeng-3/publication/354511185_How_Human_Centered_AI_Will_Contribute_Towards_Intelligent_Gaming_Systems/links/613ba4074e1df271062acd50/How-Human-Centered-AI-Will-Contribute-Towards-Intelligent-Gaming-Systems.pdf

Access to quality healthcare and improving community well-being

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Institution

Introduction

Access to quality health in a community creates many benefits such as longer life span, more developments, excellent growth, and living a stress-free lifestyle. The role of public healthcare providers and partners in health initiative is to take care of the general health status of the community. Mortality rates, life expectancy, years of potential life lost, and the population statistics forms the common health assessment tools used in evaluating the state of health of the community are (Lewenson & Truglio-Londrigan, 2010, pp. 43-47). Delivery of quality health care services and well-being of people acts as a major challenge for many nations across the world, United States being the most affected. Despite the efforts by the health care sector to increase the quality of healthcare and improve patient outcome, most communities have never seen improvement in the health care sector. According to Winkfield (2014), the condition of healthcare facilities plays a significant role in determining the quality of health care services offered. In addition, the performance of the government in collaboration with the department of health plays a major role in influencing the quality of health of the U.S. people. Further, Healthy People 2020 have a list of health issues that affect people in U.S. (Healthy People 2020, 2014).

Key Factors Associated with Health

The Bradenton community in Florida faces many health care issues accelerated by many factors associated to society, ethics, politics, and economy. Access to quality health care services and patients well-being is the main issue affecting people from this community. The problem affects a large number of people in the community, calling upon health care experts’ intervention improve the health status of Bradenton community. Healthy People 2020 focus on ensuring every person in the United States has access to quality health care services and enjoys a healthy lifestyle by introducing many beneficial innovations to the health care sector (Healthy People 2020, 2014).

The background of Bradenton

Bradenton is a city found in Manatee County, Florida. It stands as the largest city in Florida with an approximate population of 50,000 people according to 2012 statistics. The people of Bradenton demonstrate the modern lifestyle living model because of the presence of a comfortable and civilized environment.

Social factors

The Bradenton community upholds unique social and cultural practices distancing them from other communities in the Florida. The community is governed by a democratic mode of governance where they democratically elect their leaders. Most people in the area speak English language, although some speak Spanish, and French. The community values education and most of its members have attained higher levels of learning.

Health consideration

The community promotes a healthy lifestyle by pursuing health and life fulfilment activities that promote the quality of life and well-being of every person. Moreover, the community has a number of economic activities that give them revenues and help them acquire their basic and secondary needs. The city has numerous health care centres and hospitals where people receive treatments depending on their location. The high standards of living experienced by the people of Bradenton contribute to the high spread of chronic kidney disease because they lack proper nutrition education programs. The rate of employment is moderate with 30 percent of the adult population working in formal sectors. U.S. financing has a strong relationship with the current economy. The high growth rate of health care spending in U.S. exceeds the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the population, and inflation rates. Lack of adequate financing because of the current economic status affects the provision of healthcare services in major cities like Florida. The health care cost has raised because of the dramatic increase in health care spending bearing in mind only a small amount of GDP share is devoted to health care. Lack of adequate health care facilities and workforce in some communities like the Bradenton community in Florida promotes increase in chronic disease prevalence (Florida Health, 2014HealthH).

Relationship to Florida as a Whole as well as the USA

Florida Department of health puts all the necessary efforts in ensuring every person has access to improved healthcare services. The Healthy People 2020 objective aids in achieving the goal and objectives for the health sector. They involve in communities in healthy practices and push the government into making health available to people in rural areas. Survey from Florida health charts on the quality of health care and well-being reveal the following. Firstly, the sector identified strategic health as the priority area of concern for the 67 county-level community health assessment and health improvement planning processes. Secondly, chronic diseases are very common in the area. The most common health issues affecting people from the community include diabetes, obesity, tobacco use, and overweight. Another issue that emerged as a concern to the Florida Department of health is dental problem. Finally, poor public health infrastructure and policies hinder achievement of quality health care services. The city has been on the move to introduce health policies and laws governing health care providers in the area. Florida Department of health has introduced many solutions to health problems facing communities in the city. One of the most significant solutions is the introduction of local networks that promote easier communication between people in the rural areas and urban areas (Florida Health, 2014).

On the other hand, the issue not only affects Florida community but also the whole of United States. The 2010 National healthcare Quality and Disparities report evaluates the quality of healthcare in United States by the year 2010. The major areas studied are; patient-centeredness, timeliness of services, patient safety, and effectiveness of care. The NIMHD and the Department of Health Human Services (HHS) helped generate the report. The nation plays a significant role in ensuring progress and change in the healthcare industry because they are responsible for providing the needed infrastructure and financial support. The report developed many alternatives to resolving the issue of healthcare disparities in the United States. The most recommended areas that needed more support included patient and family engagement, safety, care coordination, palliative care, and population health (U.S. Department of Health & Human Service, 2011).

Access to Health Care

Access to quality health care services plays a major role in improving the outcomes of a community. The Bradenton community should live a happy lifestyle free from health problems such as cases of chronic kidney diseases. Community assessment process helps in identifying and determining solutions to problems affecting a population in the community. The health care sector has a duty of ensuring health-related quality of life and well-being of every person in the world regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, financial status, or political affiliates. Government initiatives like the Affordable Care Act aimed at improving quality of health in the community and ensuring people stay a healthy lifestyle. The Affordable Care Act helps in reducing health costs.

The community complains of dissatisfaction with the current health care policies. The cost of health care in U.S. averages 175 percent and most of the population lack health care insurance while other developed countries offer quality healthcare services. The Affordable Care Act helps reduce the rising costs of healthcare; improve the quality of healthcare services and effectiveness, and cover more of its people with insurance would help reduce the number of complaints from citizens (Menzel, 2012). The relationship between the Affordable Care Act and the Brisbane community in Florida continues to grow as more people enrol in Health Insurance Marketplace. The health care act demonstrated justice and fairness for all people representing one nation.

Drivers and roadblocks

The creation of reforms in the health sector requires a combined effort from the various stakeholders. Individuals can aid in promoting health reforms through having group meetings. During such meetings, they can discuss the challenges they face in acquiring health services and how to solve these challenges. They can even make individual contributions to raise funds for purchase of certain medical equipment that are unavailable at the area medical centre. Furthermore, individuals ought to make their voices heard by the government in situations whereby a health care facility is non-existent. It is their right to demand for such facilities without fear of reappraisal.

The government plays a crucial role in health reforms. Any changes that occur in health reforms usually go through a vigorous scrutiny by the parliament. This body comprises of representatives of the people who discuss on development matters. The government, through this body can ensure adequate allocation of funds to each constitution to ensure development of health facilities in each constituency. Furthermore, it should ensure adequate control of these funds by ensuring auditing of the use of the funds and physical checks on the existence of supposedly complete projects. The government, as a major employer of health workers, should ensure adequate compensation for their effort. They should ensure that they train them well on new programs that are due for implementation.

Health care providers and the community play a major role in promoting health reforms by ensuring they educate their employees on possible benefits of enrolling for new health reforms. In some instances, such reforms are compulsory and it is the onus of the employers to make the necessary deductions from employees’ salaries for purposes of subscription to medical cover. Health care providers ought to work hand in hand with the government in the implementation of new reforms. They should also implement utmost professionalism in their delivery of services and compliance with new standards that are by the reforms.

Communication

The Medicare policies do not address costs in policy decisions. The room for ambiguity occurs. Medicare does not consider costs in coverage determinations. In practice, the costly new technologies undergo much scrutiny than other devices and services. Conditions of coverage involve sifting through the complicated evidence base, evaluating the benefits and risks. Moreover, the coverage depends on the determination of the right time for implementation and under what conditions favourable.

Three areas that present challenges include achieving the aims of making healthcare effective, timely, and efficient. These challenges are more evident in the way information and communications are managed in nursing (ANA, 2010). Failure to manage information and communications appropriately may result in unnecessary costs, reduced quality of healthcare and inefficiencies. These challenges may be overcome by using nursing informatics. This is the specialty which integrates computer science, information science and nursing science to manage and transmit communication data, knowledge and information in nursing practice. This is useful because it supports nurses, patients and other healthcare providers. Documentation is a major aspect in nursing informatics. This is because quality care is dependent on effective communication. Nursing informatics can improve the accuracy and timeliness of patient charting. Nurses can be involved in the process of improvement by ensuring that patient notes are taken and recorded in the relevant systems in a manner that improves the timeliness and effectiveness of healthcare delivery.

Alternatives

Communities like Brisbane experiencing the problem of quality healthcare should consider promoting wellness and introducing a healthy lifestyle especially for racial and ethnic groups. The federal government should be on the first lane in promoting the public to preventing disparities in healthcare. Many researchers have developed many mitigation measures to the problem as discussed below. According to Baldwin (2003), healthcare providers are the most influential people in preventing the problem. The issue raises a bigger concern considering that such professionals would help eliminate the problem. The future of nation healthcare needs is at risk because presence of minorities in the healthcare sector would help them offer effective services to other racial and ethnic minorities. Increasing the number of professional doctors and implementation of health informatics would increase access to health for the people in the community. Technology helps bring reliable and effective clinical practical guidelines that help improve the health of a community (Savel and Foldy, 2014).

Recommendations

Application of health care innovation in Bradenton Florida helps in increasing the quality of life and well-being among people in the community. The availability of resources such as money and skilled work force would help the community implements all the program strategies and promotes quality patient outcome. Moreover, the programs will create an enormous impact in the health care industry by reducing mortality and morbidity cases through decreased cases of chronic kidney disease. As healthcare sector continuous growing in Florida, healthcare experts introduce new implementing health care informatics.

Nurses help in implementing healthcare reforms introduced by the healthcare sector and the government. Healthcare providers require frequent problem-based education in order to increase the quality of patient care and provide services to all citizens. Such programs should not only focus on physicians but also nurses because of their role in improving the healthcare sector. Nurses easily interact with patients, and they are responsible for most home-based and bed-manner services. The seminar given by White on NIH Health Disparities in October 2011 focused only on physicians. White ought to have included nurses and healthcare providers in the seminar because they too interact with patients and are more likely to improve patient outcome. Some of the issues and strategies proposed by White such as developing programs for evaluating the relationship between patients and healthcare providers would also work with nurses (White III, 2011).

Conclusion

The Brisbane community and health care officials should focus on implementing health care reforms capable of improving the quality of health care and well-being of the community. The government and health policy makers must take part in generating rules and regulations guiding the implementation of the program in all healthcare institutions across the country.

References

ANA. (2010). Health System Reform: Nursing’s Goal of High Quality, Affordable Care for All. ANA Issue Brief, 9(6), 1-10. Retrieved January 7, 2014, from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/Policy-Advocacy/Positions-and-Resolutions/Issue-Briefs/Health-System-Reform.pdf

Florida Health. (2014). Florida Vital Statistics Annual Report 2013. Florida: State of Florida

Department of Health. Retrieved from http://www.flpublichealth.com/VSBOOK/pdf/2013/Intro.pdf

Healthy People 2020. (2014). About Healthy People. Foundation Health Measures. Health-

Related Quality of Life and Well-Being. Retrieved from http://healthypeople.gov/2020/about/QoLWBabout.aspx.Lewenson, S. & Truglio-Londrigan, M. (2010). Public health nursing assessment tool.”

Nursing Outlook 58. 2: 1-57.

Menzel, T. P. (2012). Justice and Fairness: A critical element in U.S. health system reform.

Journal of Law medicine and Ethic, 1. 1: 589-597

Savel, T. G. and Foldy, S. (2014). The Role of Public Health Informatics in Enhancing Public

Health Surveillance.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 61. 3, 20-24

U.S. Department of Health & Human Service. (2011). National Healthcare Quality Report,

2010. Retrieved from

http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/qrdr10.htm

White III, A. (2011, October 13). NIH VideoCast – What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would

Want Us to Know About Health Care Disparities. NIH VideoCast – What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would Want Us to Know About Health Care Disparities. Retrieved September 11, 2014, from

http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=10685&bhcp=1

Winkfield, E. (September 2014). LAmerica’s Healthcare Crisis: Is There a Solution?

Retrieved from

http://realtruth.org/articles/090203-005-health.html

Business Systems Management Assessment No 2 – 2021

Monday May 24, 2021

Assessment 2 – Business Analysis

1. Create a hierarchy chart/organisational chart of the roles from the information provided.

2. What information does the chart created in item 1 provide to understanding the case study?

To understand the case study, the information on the above chart helps to understand the case study by showing the internal structure of the organization, the employees and their positions, and the reporting structure. This is important because it will show the decision-making framework and the reporting structure. Apart from the reporting relations and the chain of command, the chart allows a better understanding of how information and communications moves, either following a bottom up or top down structure depending on the type of information. For example, the need to start making products for sale and to increase profits include information flowing from the executive board through the president to the rest of the employees under the CIO. Similarly, the issues within the organization and the solutions suggested are some of the critical information moving from the different directors below the CIO all the way up to the president in a bottom up approach. Therefore, the chart has a number of roles including the stipulation of reporting relationships, the display of the chain of command, and the understanding of roles at different managerial levels.

3. How was IT perceived in the originating organisation and how does this contribute to the current position in the new company?

In the case, IT had not performed particularly well in the previous organization and the way the division was taken over meant that the conventional IT practices and tools, including information and technology, were retained to provide a smoother takeover. In the originating organization, IT was perceived as a non-priority both in making it an independent department and in ensuring that its role remained aligned to the business strategy. There was little investment in IT, poor leadership, a lacking strategy, and no portfolio management. The severity of the IT department from the previous organization impacted the troubled new division. First, there was an information dump from the old to the new organization, required for a transfer of information and other important technological support. However, some of the tools transferred were useless for the organization. Secondly, the new organization still regarded IT as a non-priority division, giving more focus to other business units. The new organization inherited a poorly aligned IT department to the business strategy, and sadly continued in the same approach and perception. The IT department was demoralized and felt constrained by the many reactive issues that emerged just to keep the business afloat.

4. The following is an excerpt from the information provided. Explain the implication and significance of each issue both from a business and IT perspective.

“The business unit managers were lobbying against change and prioritised their own interests above all. The systems were not designed for the specific industry sector and therefore weren’t easily usable.IT costs were high and unpredictable across all areas. In separation 500 core apps had been inherited when only 150 were relevant to the new company.”

The first issue is that “the business unit managers were lobbying against change and prioritised their own interests above all”. The implication and significance of this issue from the business perspective is that it created a divide amongst the different business units. There lacked a harmonious structure that ensured that while every department remained true to its purpose, it also ensured that the overall business strategy and objectives were adhered to. From an IT perspective, this issue meant that other business units did not consider the role of IT and how it contributed to the welfare of their own individual units. Again, the issue of aligned goals and strategies, between the units and the IT department emerge. The consequence is that the departments were in competition for the resources provided by the firm, creating a toxic work environment, especially for the IT staff.

In the second issue, the systems were not designed for the specific industry sector and therefore weren’t easily usable. From a business perspective, the implications are that the organization experienced operational inefficiency, increased costs of operating the systems, poor supply of information to the different decision makers, and reduced growth of the communication capabilities in the organization. From an IT perspective, the consequences were that the role of the IT division were limited. It also meant that IT infrastructure was used mainly to troubleshoot emergencies and to respond to different issues sue to poor applicability of the systems.

The third problem was that IT costs were high and unpredictable across all areas. From a business perspective, this led to an increase in operating costs, and thereby a reduction in overall profits. It also meant that the costs risks were high for the IT department, creating a high likelihood for failed projects due to these risks. From an IT perspective, high and unpredictable costs meant that effectiveness of roles and projects was severely compromised. The budgeting and cost functions were difficult to implement due to the complexities of an unpredictable cost structure.

Lastly, another issue was that in separation, 500 core apps had been inherited when only 150 were relevant to the new company. From a business perspective, the organization faced a challenge of integrating the different technologies and applications to the demands of the new organization. Another major implication is that the organization incurred considerable costs relating to the maintenance, staffing needs, and hardware requirements of the more than 300 useless core apps. From an IT perspective, the issue’s main implication include a cybersecurity risk posed by less frequently used apps and emerging issues in compliance and usage. Additionally, the existence of the many unused apps also meant that the operating costs were high, reducing the budget that could be used elsewhere to improve services.

5. Explain the impact of the following issues from both the business and IT perspective.

a. There was no alignment between business strategy and IT

The main implication from a business perspective is that there were no responses and solutions to maintain or support enterprise momentum. The business needs, those relating to the IT framework, were not adequately addressed. For the IT department, the lack of alignment meant that the solutions availed for the business were inefficient and only added to the cost of running the organization.

b. Process development and understanding was poor

For both the business and IT, poor process development and understanding meant that there were no continuous development of both the business and its offerings. It also meant that communication was hampered. Employee development was ineffective and the products and services offered could not be enhanced. Particularly for IT, this issue implied poor definition of roles up to the basic level.

c. Portfolio management and prioritization was non-existent

For the business, the implication was that the value of every program or project in their portfolio was poorly understood and linked to the overall business strategy. For the IT department and the business, a lack of portfolio management and prioritization meant that resources were deployed without effectiveness and the different projects were based on relationships rather than the value to the organization. Overall, bottlenecks and overheads increased creating a culture of reduced business growth and minimal collaboration.

d. IT investment was ad-hoc and lacked measure

From an IT perspective, ad hoc investment decisions meant that the management failed to consider the wider applications of every decision. From a business perspective, ad hoc decision making for IT investments meant that the business was only responding to emerging issues without planning ahead. Combined, the business and the IT issues created a culture of ineffective decision making, leading to a loss of market share

e. There was no accountability

A lack of accountability meant that the number of distracting activities in the business was high. Unproductive behaviour and culture also emerged due to the increase in the time and effort spent on tasks. The confidence and skills of different staff members were deteriorating instead of improving. Overall, the business and the IT department lacked a structure to ensure consequences for every action.

f. IT strategy and governance were non-existent.

A non-existent IT strategy and governance meant that the CIO was unable to align the department and all efforts to support the overall busies strategy. For the business, it meant a reduction and failure to generate shareholder value. The lack of governance reduced the role played by IT in aligning operations and management with the requirements and needs of the organization.

6. Create a list of ALL issues which are described within the case study. Assign to each of the directors shown (in your organisational chart developed in Item 1) accountability for the various issues. Obviously the governance issues fall under the Director of IT Strategy & Planning, the Project Office and Governance.

Issue Directors Responsible

The business unit managers were lobbying against change and prioritised their own interests above all. President and Director of Relationship Management

The systems were not designed for the specific industry sector and therefore weren’t easily usable. Director of Enterprise Architecture

IT costs were high and unpredictable across all areas. Director of Operations

In separation 500 core apps had been inherited when only 150 were relevant to the new company Director of Application Management

No alignment between business strategy and IT Director of Relationship Management

Process development and understanding was poor Director of IT Strategy & Planning, the Project Office and Governance

Portfolio management and prioritization was non-existent Director of Operations

IT investment was ad-hoc and lacked measure CFO and the Director of IT Strategy & Planning, the Project Office and Governance

There was no accountability CIO and the President

IT strategy and governance were non-existent Director of IT Strategy & Planning, the Project Office and Governance

6. Explain the importance of an IT Governance Framework and associated mechanisms for success. For each of the specific governance issues indicated below and described in text, describe a response that the director might offer to Vlad and the fellow directors.

An IT governance framework describes the structure for organizational, business processes and leadership regarding information technology (Gregory, Kaganer, Henfridsson, & Ruch, 2018). The importance to success of an organization is that the structure helps to ensure that standards within the IT department support and enable the attainment of overall business objectives and strategies. A governance framework in the IT division is important because it creates a chart that is vital in assigning responsibility, workflow organization, and ensuring that every critical task is completed on time. It facilitates the accountability of workers to their assigned roles and ensures a proper reporting structure for easier and faster decision making process (Gregory et al., 2018). The relationship that governance provides creates stability in the workplace.

What processes should be followed to identify key initiatives?

The first step would be to identify strategic initiatives, determine their scope, create alignment to the business goals and strategies, identify milestones and supporting activities, ensure measurable outcomes, establish a working timeline, and define accountabilities.

How should they be evaluated?

To evaluate the initiatives, satisfaction surveys amongst key stakeholders can be undertaken including staff members, managers, and product consumers. Additionally, goal attainment reports, behavioural observations, and self-reporting records can be used to measure effectiveness.

What criteria should be key?

Establishing a reporting structure and ensuring that information flows both ways from top to bottom and vice versa.

Who should prioritize initiatives?

The Director of Operations

How will they measure success?

To measure success, the director will consider the satisfaction levels of staff members and users of IT in the firm, check the schedule, quality of new structure, performance in relation to the business strategy, and stakeholder satisfaction

7. Why was governance selected as the most critical issue by Vlad and how does it impact the other director’s areas of control?

Every successful governance is founded on the basis of good governance. Governance does not only apply to the entire organization but also to the smaller pieces, such as departments and divisions, that make up the cogs and gears of the leadership structure. Governance is a critical issue for a number of reasons. First, Filatotchev, Poulsen, & Bell (2019) found that good governance ensures that there is a culture of integrity and accountability. With a notable governance structure, the IT function would show positive performance and sustainable progress. Good governance also means that the interests of the department are aligned to those of the organization (Filatotchev et al., 2019). Vlad identified it as an important issue because it impacts every other aspect of the IT function. It impacts other director’s areas of control by streamlining roles, defining responsibilities, and creating accountabilities. Governance is also critical to the structure that defines how employees relate to the overall organization. For example, it provides clarity, enables better management of expectations, enables better decision and policy formulation, and offers consistency in all of these factors. Employees are clear on their role and the reporting structure where governance is present. Vlad, selected governance as the most important issue because without it the entire firm would eventually collapse based on failures of the operating structure.

References

Filatotchev, I., Poulsen, A., & Bell, R. G. (2019). Corporate governance of a multinational enterprise: Firm, industry and institutional perspectives. Journal of Corporate Finance, 57, 1-8.

Gregory, R. W., Kaganer, E., Henfridsson, O., & Ruch, T. J. (2018). IT Consumerization and the Transformation of IT Governance. Mis Quarterly, 42(4), 1225-1253.

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Literary theory and criticism: America BY ALLEN GINSBERGThe poem America talks about the hard times after the second world war. It discusses such issues as the political unrests during this time and calls for a positive change. The poem’s style is a type of free verse; which Ginsberg wants to represent the unorganized messiness in American society during this time.

Literary theory in this poem focuses on power and the ability to make choices. There are many different interpretations of this text, with most focusing on the American Dream in America. The book focuses on this unreliable concept of nobility through storytelling, which includes its own form of propaganda in a sense.

The literary critic of society, who is often hidden behind the scenes and never shown whether they are a hero or villain, is portrayed as someone with power-making choices that might result in both sides being wrong in some way.

America has been widely used as a metaphor for revolution throughout history with varying results; it has been seen as both a savior and an enemy depending on what kind of revolution was taking place at the time. Ginsberg makes use of this by adding the idea that the government is able to use the media to control not only its own citizens, but how it is viewed outside of its own borders. In a foreign country, America is often seen as a savior. In America, however, it is seen as controlling and oppressive. As much as the speaker seems to want to take some sort of stand against these claims in this poem, he cannot. The fact that he says that America “gave me no dreams” and “no help” shows how he feels about his homeland. He wants change, but also has seemingly accepted that change cannot be made because of what has happened in the past; instead it must be accepted and move on from there.

The first stanza talks about the terrible and harsh things that Americans were faced with during the time, including violence and death. The second stanza talks about how Ginsberg doesn’t want America to be like it was before. In his opinion, what America needs are “new eyes” with an “innocent vision”. He mentions that he would like for there not to be anymore politicians or plutocrats who take control of people’s lives. This stanza can be interpreted as a call for a change in government and what it means to be considered as an American.

The third stanza talks about other countries and how America should not care about everyone else. He says that he wants America to “leave the others alone” and not be concerned with the other countries and their issues. The fourth stanza mentions that Ginsberg wants the crowd of people to become peaceful. He wants them to stop fighting each other and become peaceful people, “who are happy in their ignorance”. This stanza can be interpreted as advice or a call for hope.

The poem and Allen Ginsberg have both received a lot of criticism. Critics, who were on the left, have said that the poem did not contribute anything positive to society. While some critics, who were on the right, love the poem’s aggressive style and message and are dedicated to keeping it alive. Another criticism of America is that it does not follow a typical pattern of meter or rhyme scheme; however Ginsberg’s style was displayed in his other poems as well.

“America” is a poem Ginsberg wrote in December 1948, when he and Gary Snyder were driving from Merrimack Street in New York City to their new home at Corinna, which is on the Hudson River in Croton-on-Hudson. On the way, Ginsberg writes about how the cold weather has affected his windpipe. He claims that this has caused him to cough and vomit due to his lungs being as dry as tinder without lubrication [1]. “Wherefore Art Thou America?” was written by Allen Ginsberg on December 5, 1948. The poem was published for the first time in “Arion” on October 30, 1949.

A final criticism of America was that it was unorganized and that you could not understand what Ginsberg was talking about since he used obscure terms and short phrases throughout the entire poem.

However, Ginsberg said that this was the symbolization of how he thought America was during the 1950s. He said that people were unaware of what was happening around them.

This could lead some to believe that this poem would not have received as much criticism if it did not have such a strong message and political undertone to it.

A positive aspect of this poem is that it has a strong message: one that urges the people to move together in order for change to occur. For example, in stanza three he says “don’t give me that individual crap.” This could also be interpreted as meaning don’t separate from each other, because we are stronger when we work together.

The poem makes use of metaphors, as Ginsberg creates a picture in the reader’s mind. The first stanza is an example of a metaphor. Ginsberg compares the speaker to a “savage beast” that is “beaten and petted out of shape” later on in life, just as the speaker had been in his youth. The poem revolves around themes of love, patriotism, and spirituality. The first stanza is an example of this, as he talks about how the “fierce winter” is “nursing at its breast a baby black bomb”.

In America by Allen Ginsberg, the speaker reflects on his childhood to adult life in America. The speaker is often described in multiple ways throughout the poem, notably as a “boy”, a “man”, and now as an “old man”. In this poem, Ginsberg uses the concept of self-identity to create different personas. Recall that identity changes are often androgynous, making this metaphor particularly relevant. The speaker is also frequently referred to using Ginsberg’s pet name, “Klootch”. An example of this occurs in stanza 3 when the speaker says he remembers his father calling him “”Klootch””. This act makes him feel nostalgic for his childhood, making it apparent that he perceives his adult life as being very dull.

He wants the poem to seamlessly flow together. He also wishes for it to have a mixture of feelings and ideas; some of these feelings include anger, hope and peace (Bertens). Ginsberg wants the reader to be able to understand what he is trying to say through his use of figurative language.

America by Allen Ginsberg there seem to be two major themes. The first theme is violence and death were major things Americans were faced with during this time period after World War II. The second theme is that Ginsberg wants America to be a utopia. Many of the poems Ginsberg wrote were personal critiques on modern society, but “America” is more general. In this poem, Ginsberg writes that he wants America to be a utopia and he feels that he can help make it so. The speaker wants America to have equality in all areas: economic, political, and social. He feels that the American government has taken too much power from the people in recent past years, making things much easier for them to do wrong. In addition, Ginsberg wishes America had better health care and free education.

The first theme, violence and death, is described in the first stanza. In this stanza Ginsberg describes the issues Americans were faced with after World War II including death and the draft. “I’ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” [2]. This quote is saying because of all this violence in America many people lost their minds and became homeless. These people needed drugs to help calm them down so they could function normally through each day.

In order to achieve utopia, Ginsberg believes in a system of strict political participation. Ginsberg advocates for the United States government to be more democratic. He believes that if citizens were more involved in their government, they would have a better society. The speaker asks the reader to try to make America a utopia, using Ginsberg’s poem as example for people’s participation in American politics and the American way of life.

Works Cited

“America By Allen Ginsberg | Poetry Foundation”. Poetry Foundation, 2022, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f. Accessed 18 Apr 2022.

Bertens, Hans. Literary theory: The basics. Routledge, 2012.

ACC112 – Accounting Principles II – ACC 112

Annual Report Analysis Project

Name:

To successfully operate in the world of business, the ability to comprehend a company’s annual report and analyze the financial condition of a company is extremely important. This assignment will help you gain some experience interacting with an annual report, and it will allow you to apply some of what you have learned so far in accounting to a “real world” company.

For this assignment, you are to examine the 2018 financial statements of Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc., and use that report to answer the questions that follow. Each answer should be numbered, and each question should be answered in complete sentences. For full credit, show all calculations.

1. (6 points) As of 12/30/2018, How many shares of common stock are:

a. Authorized?

b. Issued?

c. Outstanding?

2. (2 point) What is the par value of the common stock?

3. (2 point) Did the company pay a cash dividend in the most recent year? If so, how much?

4. (2 point) If a company does not pay dividends, what might the reason be?

5. (2 point) Why would people invest in a company that did not pay dividends?

6. (4 points) Did the company repurchase treasury stock during the most recent year? If so, how many shares?

7. (20 points) Prepare a horizontal analysis of the Income Statement for the most current year. (See page 18-11 for the proper format).

Note you MUST USE EXCEL to create the horizontal analysis. An excel file MUST BE TURNED IN with the project to earn points for this question.

8. (4 points) What is the company’s current, Basic EPS? Did EPS vary more than 10% from prior year?

9. (18 points) Calculate the following liquidity ratios for the current year and give a one sentence description of each result. (Assume that all sales are on credit.)

For example: Current Ratio $1,020,000 current assets

344,500 current liabilities

= 2.96 : 1

For every dollar in current liabilities, the company owns $2.96 in current assets to pay for them.

Current Ratio

Receivables Turnover Ratio

Inventory Turnover

10. (18 points) Calculate the following profitability ratios for the current year and give a one sentence description of each result.

a. Profit Margin on Sales Ratio

b. Rate of return on Assets

c. Rate of Return on Common Stockholders’ Equity (ROE)

11. (12 points) Calculate the following solvency ratios for the current year and give a one sentence description of each result.

a. Debt to assets ratio

b. Times Interest Earned Ratio

12. (4 points) Calculate the free cash flow of the company for the most current year (Hint: use the formula given in the book on page 17-17)

FOR QUESTIONS 13 – 15: LOOK AT THE NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (beginning on page 6)

13. (2 Point) In what state did Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. incorporate?

14. (2 Point) For 2018, what percentage of the company’s sales were from “Perishables”?

15. (2 Point) What does the company estimate for the useful life of its buildings for depreciation purposes?

Accidents caused by teenage driving

One of the most significant accomplishments in a teenager’s life is receiving their driver’s license. Receiving a license gives teenagers the key to feeling free without adult supervision. They become more independent. I believe that children are not ready to obtain a permit at 15. The age requirements should be 18 years of age due to the number of accidents that are caused by teens. Unfortunately, in the state of Georgia, pre-teens can obtain a permit at a young age, “an estimated 2,500 teenagers died in the united states from motor vehicle Crashes” (Barua Rashmi)(pg402). In order to reduce teenage driving-related accidents. It should be mandatory for younger people to get their permit at 18years old. I believe that they should take a driver’s education course that’s provided by public and private schools. Ultimately, passing the laws and regulations exam with a score of 100, but also pass the road exam with a score of 100. If we were to change the driving requirements, 90 percent of teens’ lives could be saved, and accidents could be reduced.

Pre-teens are not ready to have the same level of driving responsibilities as an adult. Teen drivers have a higher chance of fatal crashes because of immaturity level, lack of skills but most of all experience on the road. That is why I think every teenager should be involved in mandatory driver’s education courses by all public and private schools. The course can be combined with a hands-on education course. The school might just have to cut specific courses or cut funding toward classes that students are least likely to sign up for so that the course could be added to all school’s curriculum. For example, some parents cannot afford lessons nor have the time to teach driving if we could get this course added to all school curriculum. Teens’ inexperience behind the wheel really makes them more susceptible to distractions behind the wheel. Distracted driving can take on many forms beyond texting and talking on the phone while driving.

Teens feel they are ready to take on the thrill of driving, but most of them break the rules. That’s why being familiar with the laws on the road is important. It prevents teens from harming others and themselves. I believe that if the exam is passed with a hundred percent, the material is understood by the teen, so when they hit the road, everything will roll smoothly if they pass with anything less than a hundred. They should not be able to get their permit if the requirements are not met. That simply indicates that there was a miss understanding along the way when studying. Teens need to understand fully before putting their life and others in danger. Barua Rashmi says, “typically seat belts use the lowest among teens. In fact, many teenagers are involved in fatal crashes are unbuckled”. A car crash can be avoided if making sure road safety rules are well known, making that a focus. Therefore, if the exam is not passed with a hundred, then no permit should be obtained until the expectations are met.

The road exam to get your license is a big step. Behind the wheel, your life and others are in your hands. Being comfortable and knowing your material is the most reliable way to stay safe. If someone is incapable of passing the driving exam, then a license should not be given. Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of teen death. As a country, it is our job to be consistent with teaching when it comes to driving. The concept of driving needs to be drilled in the mind before taking the wheel. This means the exam needs to be passed with a hundred to show understanding before getting out on the road. “Teen the like hood of teen drivers engaging in one or more risky behaviors is when they are driving” (Barua Rashmi)(pg 402). Driving is something they need to know it’s serious. It takes all your attention, so in addition to that, if the road exam is not passed with a score of a hundred, they should not be given a license. Everyone should try to prevent car injuries and death.

Finally, talking to teens about the responsibility of obtaining and permit and license requires focusing, knowing your information on the laws and roads, and keeping yourself and others safe. If we can push forward with this proposal, then we can save thousands of teen lives and others as well that may be involved.

Citation

Barua Rashmi, Fernandez- Vidal- Marian No pass No drive: Education and Allocation of time: The University of Chicago Press November’s 4 2014

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/678262.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_search_solr_cloud%252Fcontrol&refreqid=excelsior%3A38def118b5332628a1471f2c814219ed

Milestone 4: Final Draft

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Milestone 4: Final Draft

The introduction to the essay is not captivating and the grammar is not correct. The use of the word ‘so’ in a sentence must be followed by ‘that’. The essay should have started well and not with mistakes of sentence structure. The grammar used in the first paragraph should be improved to be of high standards. This means that the words used should be changed, in order to make the essay improve. The thesis statement is not structured well and should be shortened to communicate effectively to its reader. Some of the arguments presented in the thesis are not present in the essay’s body. More evidence should be provided to ensure that the reader obtains a lot of information regarding the arguments (Sherry, 2011).

The quotations have not been cited well, as the citations are found after the fool stop. This means that the citation has been placed at the wrong place. Explanations to the quotes are not given and the reader has to make their own conclusions. Upon reading the introduction, there is a lot of confusion regarding what it is about. The information has been mixed up, as one is not sure if the essay is about, parents, graduating or even students. The introduction is not captivating as the grammar, word choice, and punctuation are not correct as well as appropriate. There is contradiction between the conclusion and the essays purpose. The conclusion is a direct repetition of the thesis as well as the introduction (Sherry, 2011). It is not possible to identify the importance of the essay or what has been achieved. The conclusion ought to be more captivating, so that a person who has not read the essay can know what it is about.

The transition sentences have been stated, rather than being made to flow into the different paragraphs. There is no connection between the various paragraphs. There is not mention of music programs in the essays body, despite it being mentioned in the introductory paragraph. In order to connect the body paragraphs to the topic sentence, there have to be bridging clauses and this is not evident in the essay. Only a few transition words are used in the essay. This means that the reader has to make their own conclusions. Often, this is tiring to the readers and words of transition should have been used, such as; therefore, moreover, among others.

When quoting a sentence, it should not start at the beginning of the sentence without some explanation. Wordiness is an element present when the sentences are being quoted, and this should be reduced. An example of a long quoted sentence is “Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement (Beason, 1996).” There is no use of comma slices in most sentences to separate the various clauses. There are some paragraphs, which do not have any citation. This is plagiarism and it is an offense, which has serious consequences. The use of articles ‘the ‘and ‘a’ is not correct and this should be looked upon (Sherry, 2011). Also, some of the citations in the reference list have not been used in citing the essay. The essay should be reviewed thoroughly as well as proof read, in order to establish the mistakes it has.

References

Sherry, M. (2011). In Praise of the “F” Word. In Nadell, J., Langan, J., & Comodromos, E.A.

(2011). The Longman writer: Rhetoric, Reader, Research Guide, and Handbook (8th edition). New York, NY: Pearson.

Beason, T. (1996). Students Give Top Grades To These Tough Teachers – They

Won’t Accept Anything Less Than Excellent. The Seattle Times Retrieved from

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960328&slug=2321424

Modernism in literature

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Modernism in literature

Introduction

Literature has ever since inception had its main objectives as being provision of entertainment, instructions as well as enlightenment to the target readers, observers as well as hearers of the particular pieces. In analyzing the ‘history of literature’ we focus on the development of literature in form of poetry or even prose aimed at also establishing development in communication as well as in literary techniques within particular pieces of literature. It is however worth noting that not all materials in written form constitute what is called literature. Nevertheless, the history of literature have undergone through great evolutionary stages but modern period in literature history dates back to the eighteenth century and began in Europe with the enlighten thinkers. This is actually in line with views of critics of development of literature whose position is that the enlighten thinkers of the eighteen century in Europe a should be credited with the development of modern literature and not as otherwise would be argued. This paper therefore conquers with the foregoing notion as developed by the critics, as there is much evidence to qualify the proposition.

Discussion

It should be noted that literature from Europe in the 18th century has greater reference in understanding the history of literature. Main characteristic to modernism was the embrace of self-consciously distinction between traditional forms of literature especially in verses as well as in poems (Davis, 2006, p. 1-15; ‘Jalic Inc’. 2000 – 2013, para 1). Among other historical shocks that have been viewed to have had great influence in the revolution of literature from the traditional modes of expression to the modernized systems was the first world war. It made scholars and philosophers to reconsider and to reassess the societal assumptions with such renowned personalities as Freud Sigmund questioning the rationality of human beings through the horrors witnessed in the war. As a major modernist writer, James Joyce wrote a novel in 1922 titled Ulysses, which focused on the life of Bloom Leopold. His work is viewed to be an epitome of the modernism approach in literature fiction. Instead of use of narration as an artistic feature, Joyce’s works instituted a means through which ordering, giving shape, ordering as well as establishing general significance in works of literature would be realized. Modernism is said to exhibit great cohesion between different artistic genres as well as across different geographical regions. Self-consciousness as well as deliberate action informed and inform people embracing the modernism in literature. In an almost similar notion with romanticism, modernism embraces the strength of inner/self consciousness. Nevertheless, in a contrast to the romantic world of literature, modernism takes little care on natural environment, personal being as well as the major historical structures. It is because of the structure of the modern world, which is portrayed and perceived as being impersonal, capitalist as well as antagonistic towards the impulse of arts. The world war is therefore shown to have had great influence in determining such mechanisms through which the modern day contemporary worlds of arts is perceived. The western civilization in particular was the main target of the war and as such, the influence was inevitably spilled over to such fields as the arts field. Yugoslav Princip’s assassination of Austria’s Ferdinand is shown to have been the actual trigger to the war. The battle for supremacy between the first world countries, which had great power, made the war inevitable and therefore strategic alliances formed to make up the opposing sides. The war was first of its kind by the involvement of different countries as alliances and blocks through which they fought their allies. Among notable effects of the war in Europe was the need to have the map redrawn after dismantling of some of the countries. Besides, major imperial powers and empires such as Germany, Ottoman, Russia as well as Austro-Hungarian were dismantled hence leaving a great mark on the global history. This therefore explains how the modern era preconceptions of nature as well as the modern welfare got eroded during the war. Besides, it should be noted that such adverse effects were recouped by the subsequent world war within the same generation.

Among great modernism literature writers were Woolf, Kafka, Proust and Joyce James. Literature shows the influence of such novelists’ work amongst themselves as well as towards the contemporary world in the time and later times as we read today. It is through literature that we learn the influence of Proust’s work in modernism in the early years of the 20th century towards the making of such other great modernism novelist like Woolf. Woolf invested in studying much works by the novelist until his death in 1922 and was more cautious of her works than all other novelists of the time. She compared her works with such of Proust and developed theoretical frameworks about tradition as well as influence. In efforts to establish female tradition in literature, she wrote the famous quote that “we think back through our mothers if we are women,” (Lewis, nd, p. 78) showing the influence of generational influence in literature from the past forms of literature and the modernism literature. Much is therefore shown on the influence of Proust’s works of literature towards Woolf’s fiction modernism works.

Thomas Mann is equally a well renowned modernism writer whose literature encompassed matters off social, personal, political as well as philosophical aspects as influenced by the literature developed after the enlightenment era within Europe. His major works reveals an interlink between sexual, social , spiritual, political as well as natural and in fact shows an ambivalent interplay between intellectual detachment as well as an urgent emotional attachment. He therefore adopted an ironic style in his writings, which successfully expressed emotional as well as ambivalence in literature. His modern fiction explored history from the inner perspective and shows the interaction between political/ideological structures as well as the individual consciousness (‘German literature’, nd, para 1-3).

James Joyce was equally a celebrated figure in modern literature and the influence of his works is evident in modern fiction. In his writing, Joyce interlinked stream of consciousness, mythical parallelism, absurdist drama as well as other modern literary stylistic devises and the effect is evident in modern fiction. The impact of the global war was no least sparing to his works of literature as is shown through his writing and exiles after the outbreak of the war in early years of 20th century ( HYPERLINK “http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Anthony_Domestico” o “Anthony Domestico” Domestico and HYPERLINK “http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Pericles_Lewis” o “Pericles Lewis” Lewis, 2010, para 1-5). Ulysses, among his other works of literature puts him in the light of modern literature in 1922.

Modernism was equally characterized by reforms in education sector within Europe, which necessitated all sorts of literature to be produced. Writers were therefore streamlined to a particular system and such writers who failed to align in such system found themselves alienated in a world of solitude. Among all the artists, the poets got full advantage to the modernism and embraced imagery in their works for the foregoing social political as well as economic status. Through the works of literature, the nineteenth century poets as Eliot critically analyzed modernism and effectively represented the world in pieces of literature among which are highly cerebrated even today. Literature, arts as well as architecture radically broke from the conventional way of expression and the effect quickly spread over. The works of Kafka represented modernism as an attempt to break from the realist movement where the realists held art as a reality which lacked subconscious or spirituality (“Franz Kafka as Modernist”, nd, para 1-3). He is remembered in introducing ‘Kafkaesque’ as an adjective in modern literature to have an illusion to a social system, which is somewhat inhuman, impersonal as well as bureaucratic.

The late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century saw the rise of ‘romanticism’, which in its simplest form is distinct form the literature that proceeded the enlightenment period that followed it. The major distinction between the two was that while romanticism embraced the specific role played by instinct, spirit, emotion as well as the soul in literature, the enlightenment period literature had special focus on scientific approach to all human dilemmas and endeavors, which is literary detached from the person.

Despite the initial influence, that romanticism had on renowned English poets of the time, the influence slowly diffused to be felt throughout Europe with both arts and humanities feeling it. The society was therefore directly impacted where romanticism changed the manner in which individual persons within the society permanently changed on the perceptions on emotions, institutional structure as well as the relational fiber. The impact has therefore been carried down the ages to be translated as ageless, as well as a recurrent phenomena. Romanticism strictly adhered to individualism and the personalized attributes in emotions, instinct as well as spirit while the enlightenment period in the 18th century sidelined individualism and had preference to experimentation on scientific perspectives (Smith, 2011, para 1-5).

Enlightenment period was the historic period which preceded the romanticism period and its through a thorough understanding of the main features of this historic era that one can appreciate the distinctive features that defines romanticism period. Unlike with romanticism, enlightenment period was characterized by reason and logic where supporters of the ideology supposed that understanding the human society was much easy through the scientific perspective. People as well as their relations, institutions, roles as well as general societal framework would be easily understood through the adoption of the scientific perspective.

In the history of literature, romanticism emphasized on the objectivity of literature and it was in itself a defining feature of the historical attribute. In Europe for instance, it was more valuable to build on the physical infrastructure over the new resources, capital as well as techniques, which would aid in scientific experimentation in the era of enlightenment. In this regard, subjective emotions mattered less towards contemplating on nature as well as in creating individual impulses as the romanticism would latter allude to. Economic as well as political themes took centre stage in the literary works of the historic period. Personal thoughts as well as individual feelings were equally well represented within the philosophical writings of the age. In fact, the position of the romantics was that through close attention in literary works of the ordinary objects, literature had the capacity to change the common perceptions of objects, experiences, emotions and quotidian objects into extraordinary. Shelley in ‘Defence’ furthered the notions of romanticism through his position that emotions as well as human relations are the basic building blocks upon which human life holds. Through an imagery of a machine, which comprises of various parts, the position of Shelley was that unlike how different parts constitute the whole machine and are often not aware of the other constituent parts, human lives are built on love. Love on the other hand is shown through literature to be an identification of ourselves as represented by others through action as well as thought. The live of human beings revolves around esteeming other people’s lives as an equal to oneself and so considering their pleasures and pains as one would consider his/her own. In individualism, romanticism holds to the essence of self as well as social quest where personal deep feelings, quests for connection, transcendence and the self-awareness in a context of many people are the defining feature. Unlike with experimentation with enlightenment era, emotions and personal feelings cannot be customized through creation of specific plans to realize it. In a rather more comprehensive definition to romanticism by Trilling as well as Bloom, they view it as a health restoring as well as revival to instinctual life, which is contrasted to working of a machine as well as scientifically based progression. The literal perspective of romanticism was to have people appreciate own inward strength uphold personal trust as well as the personal intuition (Kreis, 2000, para 1-7). Externally the notion directed people to appreciate external world through which the interactions of human beings and the nature could be critically observed, interpreted and cerebrated through innate lessons derived. The variations in shift of attention from within to the nature surrounding us would make us appreciate more the works of literature.

The inception of romanticism challenged the notions and positions developed in the enlightenment period literature perspectives, which ascribed to essence of logic and scientific experiments to build up on knowledge better society as well as success. New models of modern literature therefore ensued and little or no essence was upheld for the traditional formulae previously used. The perceptions and intuition held by the romanticism supporters explains the pace at which the notion spread across Europe as well as in America. The industrial revolution was credited to have revolutionized the manner in which people thought, related with each other, worked as well as how people felt. This therefore had the implication of having people mechanize own feelings and perceptions, a notion which romanticism tried to fight through instigating that people would imagine, dream again fanaticize and consciously experience the touch of literature. The English poets were however, the initial artists who rode on the notions of romanticism though later the other genres followed suit. In those countries where the notion of romanticism was being introduced through visual arts, music as well as poems, a new dimension of imagination was being structured where emotional structures of the human life and society would regain its rightful position. It is worth noting that many centuries down the line, the notions of romanticism remain relevant and engraved within people’s minds even in the contemporary modern world.

Conclusion

In conclusion, therefore, the influence of cultural shocks as were experienced in the 18th century is wholly criticized to have brought bought the observable dynamics in the modern literature, which ensued in the late 18th century, and the early years of 20th century. Great revolutionist novelists adopted the influence of the European revolution in literature as shown by the enlightenment period. The period is characterized by literature which main emphasis was on experimentation as against individualism as was explained by emphasis on human internal traits in emotions, spirituality as well as identification with the nature. The enlightenment notion from started from Europe in the 18th century and spread over to other locations globally. Its emphasis was on creating a predefined structure through which scientific systems in which testing and understanding human character was possible as against defining it merely on human attributes. Nevertheless, Romanticism in literature embraced the specific role played by instinct, spirit, emotion as well as the soul in literature. This therefore constitutes the arguments on the influences of the two schools of thought towards the contemporary modern literature as we have it today. The effect of both the schools of thought is evident in pieces of literature including poems and novels. This effect can be better analyzed through the works of literature by modernism novelists such as Woolf, Proust, James Joyce as well as Franz Kafka as previously discussed. Besides, the discussion above supports the position of critiques in literature that hold to the position that modern literature dates back to the eighteenth century in Europe during the enlightenment period.

Bibliography

Davis D. A., 2006. World war I, literary modernism, and the U.S. south. Available at:< https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/indexablecontent?id=uuid:dcbcf3b6-1d42-4be7-bf8e-3979f0ee3196&ds=DATA_FILE>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

HYPERLINK “http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Anthony_Domestico” o “Anthony Domestico” Domestico A. and HYPERLINK “http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Pericles_Lewis” o “Pericles Lewis” Lewis P., 2010. James Joyce. Available at:< http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/James_Joyce>[Accessed 17 December, 2013]

“Franz Kafka as Modernist”, nd. Kafka’s life. Available at:< http://www.jeremychapman.info/cms/franz-kafka-as-modernist>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

‘German literature’, nd. Thomas Mann. Available at:< https://sites.google.com/site/germanliterature/20th-century/thomas-mann>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

‘Jalic Inc’. 2000 – 2013. Modernism. Available at:< http://www.online-literature.com/periods/modernism.php>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

Kreis S., 2000. The Romantic era: lectures on modern European intellectual history. Available at:< http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture16a.html>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

Lewis P., nd. Proust, Woolf, and modern fiction. The Romanic Review, 99(1): 77-86

Smith N., 2011. Overview of Romanticism in Literature. Article Myriad. Available at:< http://www.articlemyriad.com/overview-romanticism-literature/>[Accessed 17 December, 2013].

Model of the Earth-Moon System

ASTR 1010L

The goal of this lab is twofold – first, to help you get a feel for the the relative sizes of the Earth and moon and just how far apart they are from one another (and how much EMPTY SPACE is out there!!, and second, to review and practice mathematical skills you will need in later labs. We can work on this together – join a WebEx session during any tutoring hours or schedule a time that works for you!

This lab has lots of math in it – this is not like the majority of our labs this semester. Most will have some small calculations here and there (though two will be more math intensive), so do not fear the rest of the semester if this is difficult for you. Definitely take a break if you are getting frustrated, and remember you can send me an e-mail or text any time. Make sure to give me guidance as to what you need – just saying “I’m stuck on question 12” doesn’t help me help you!

To follow up on all the amazing pictures in the first lab, let’s start looking at the actual sizes of objects in the solar system. The Earth’s average diameter is 12,756 km. Because it is difficult to have a feel for the size of this numbers like these, we will often use ratios, or the number of times one number contains the other, to express sizes and distances.

You may have seen ratios written like 16:9 (the aspect ratio of HDTVs and movie screens), indicating that the screen is 16 units wide and 9 units (any unit!) high. Instead of this notation with a colon, we will simply divide the first number by the second, and say that the ratio of the width to height of an HDTV is 16/9 = 1.8. In other words, the screen is 1.8 times wider than it is tall.

The Moon’s average diameter is 3,476 km. How many times larger is the Earth than the moon?

12,756 km

137160065405003,476 km = 27.25%Km

If you’re not used to dealing with ratios like this, two questions may arise. First, what happens to the units? Second, your calculator may say something like 3.669735327963. What do you actually write down!?

First, the units. Almost any time that you are presented with a measurement in astronomy, it will have some sort of unit attached. After all, 12,756 km is a very different size than 12,756 inches. Remember from algebra that if you have the same variable in the numerator and the denominator of a fraction, you can cancel it? For example, 4ab/a just equals 4b, right? You can do the same with units. In the case of ratios, you will have the same units on the top and bottom, and so they cancel out, leaving an answer with NO UNITS – it’s just the amount of times one number goes into another. We’ll talk about other cases in a bit when we discuss converting between units.

Second, how many digits do you write down when taking an answer from your calculator? The key is this – your calculator may be faster than you are at doing math, but you’re the one with the brain! Almost all of the numbers you will be seeing this semester are measurements that have been made about objects in the solar system. This makes them different than numbers in math. Numbers in

math are typically exact numbers – if you have 3 dozen eggs, you know you have exactly 36 eggs. You count 1 – 2 – 3 dozen and know that a dozen contains 12, and 3 x 12 = 36.

Not so with measurements! If I tell you that I measured a piece of paper to be 12 cm wide, that just means it was closer to 12 cm than it was to 11 cm or 13 cm. If really I measured the piece of paper to be really close to 12 cm – closer to 12.0 cm than 11.9 cm or 12.1 cm, then I write my measurement as 12.0 cm. If the paper was really, really close to 12 cm, like right on the line of the ruler, I would say it was 12.00 cm. The extra digits tell us about the precision of the measurement. The more precise your measurement, then more digits you are justified in writing down.

Take a few minutes watch the significant figures videos in the Introduction to the Solar System folder, then determine the number of significant digits (also known as “sig figs”!) in each of these measurements, underline which digits are significant, and briefly explain why. HINT: The answers are NOT all the same – whether or not the zeroes are significant depends on where they are!

Significant figures are also discussed on p. xiii of the Mathematical Review document in iCollege.

12 cm#2 of SigFigs:Explanation: All non-zero numbers are significant.

12.0 cm#3 of SigFigs:Explanation: All trailing zeros that are placeholders are not significant

12.00 cm#4 of SigFigs:Explanation: All trailing zeros that are placeholders are not significant

120 cm#2 of SigFigs:Explanation: Zeros at the end of numbers which are not significant but are not removed.

1200 cm#2 of SigFigs:Explanation: Zeros at the end of numbers which are not significant but are not removed

102 cm#3 of SigFigs:Explanation: Zeros between non-zero numbers are significant.

102.0 cm#4 of SigFigs:Explanation: All trailing zeros that are placeholders are not

0.012 cm#2of SigFigs:Explanation: The zero to the left of the decimal value less than 1 is not significant.

When you are calculating with measurements, just keep in mind the adage that “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.” If you are multiplying or dividing – which we will do more often than adding and subtracting since we’ll often be dealing with ratios – then your answer should have no more significant digits than your least precise (i.e. weakest) measurement.

In the case of the diameters given above, how many significant digits does 12,756 km have?

5 significant digits

How many significant digits does 3,476 km have?

4 significant digits

So how many significant digits should your answer have?

The answer should have a total of 9 significant digits.

So you take that number that was given to you by your calculator (3.669735…) and round it off to 4 significant digits. In this case, we have to think carefully. If we just truncated the answer, we’d get a ratio of 3.669. However, because the next digit is greater than 5, we need to round up. This makes the ratio 3.670. You need that zero at the end to show that you really do know the answer precisely! Just saying 3.67 means your calculated ratio is between 3.665 and 3.675 – but the numbers you were given for the Earth’s and Moon’s radii allow you to know better than that.

I know this can be a bit confusing, and we’re not going to get overly obsessed with significant figures, but it is important that you know how to decide to write down off your calculator based on the numbers you use in a calculation.

Let’s try it out on a few calculations.

Jupiter’s diameter (measured at its equator; it’s not perfectly spherical…) is 143,000 km. How many times larger than Earth’s diameter is Jupiter’s diameter?

143000 km Answer equals to: 11.222 times therefore, Jupiter’s

12,742 km diameter is 11 times larger than earth’s diameter.

How many sig figs should your answer have?Why?

11.222 has 2 significant digits because all non-zero numbers are significant.

What units does your answer have? Why?

The answer has 5 units because all non-zero numbers after the decimal point are significant hence they ought to be counted.

The Moon’s average distance from the Earth is 384,400 km. How many times the Earth’s diameter is this? Make sure to show your work like in part a!!)

384,400

12,742 = 30.1679

Therefore, the Moon’s average distance from the Earth is 30 times the diameter of the Earth.

Ok, now it’s about time to start using this information! On the next page, I want you to draw a “scale model” of the Earth and Moon. I’ve started you off with a circle in the upper right corner for the Moon.

Next, we need to measure the diameter of the Moon circle in centimeters. It’s small, but you should be able to measure to hundredths of cm (e.g. 0.33 cm or 1.55 cm or 3.02 cm) by estimating between tick marks on a centimeter ruler. If you don’t have a centimeter ruler, then you can print the one posted in iCollege – just make sure to print it at 100%. On a typical centimeter ruler, the millimeters are the little tick marks between the centimeter marks (remember that 10 mm = 1 cm). In order to be as precise as possible about the size of Earth in our model, we need to be precise in our measurements; because the Moon circle is so small, by estimating between tick marks you should be able to make a measurement with 2 significant figures (0._ _ cm; remember that the leading 0 is not significant). If the measurement falls exactly on one of the tick marks, then the final (estimated) digit will be a 0 (e.g. 0.50 cm).

So, what is the diameter of the model Moon (the circle on the next page) in cm with 2 significant digits?

The diameter of the model moon is 420500cm. In this case, the figure has 4 significant digits. The zero between units 2 and 5 is significant because it appears between two significant digits.

Now to the Earth… You figured out that the Earth’s diameter is 3.670 times the Moon’s diameter. The point of a scale model is that if the real Earth has a diameter is 3.670 times the Moon’s real diameter, then the diameter of Earth in your model is 3.670 times the Moon’s diameter in the model.

So, in a few minutes, when you calculate where to draw the Earth, how large will you draw it (what will be its diameter)? Don’t forget to show your units in your work and in your answer. (Hint – you should get an answer smaller than the width of your fingertip, and the units of your answer should be cm because 3.670 is a ratio and doesn’t have a unit and you measured the model Moon in cm.)

Earth’s diameter= 12742km

Moon’s diameter 3.670 times smaller than 12742km Earth’s diameter

Therefore, Moon’s diameter is 12742 divided by 3.670 times

12742 = 3,471.93 km rounded off to 3,472km

3.670

3,742km equals to 3.472e+8cm

Answer= moon’s diameter is 3.472e+8cm.

You also figured out the ratio between the Earth-Moon distance and the Earth’s diameter. How many cm apart will your circles representing the Earth and the Moon be drawn?

I didn’t say it, but you did show your work, right? The distance you find should span a large portion of the page but still fit on the page. Check in with me if you’re not sure you got the correct number.

Earth-Moon distance is 384,400Kkm

Earth’s diameter is 12742km

384,400 km = 3.844e+10

12742 = 1.2742e+9

3.844e+10 – 1.2742e+9 = 3.71658e+15

Answer = 3.71658e+15cm

The distances between objects in astronomy is almost always given as the distances between the CENTERS of the objects, not the distances between their surfaces. (For relatively little things far apart from one another, this doesn’t matter too much, but if you’re dealing with relatively large things close together, it can be very important.)

Draw a line from the center of the Moon circle to where the center of your Earth circle will be.

187642549593500The model Moon 

Because you know where the center of the Earth will be in your model, it will be easier to draw the Earth if you know its radius, the distance from its center to its surface, rather than its diameter.

The Earth’s diameter is two times its radius. A note about sig figs here… In this case, 2 is an exact number – the diameter is defined by mathematics to be exactly two times the radius. So, because it’s exact, you don’t have to worry about how many significant digits it has – it’s “perfect”. Your answer for the Earth’s will should have 4 sig figs because 6,378 km has 4 sig figs, and it’s the “weak link” since 2 is exact.

Using your value for the diameter of the model Earth in cm from part b, what is the model Earth’s radius (in cm)?

Earth’s diameter 12742km which is equivalent to 1.2742e+9cm

Radius is 2 times smaller than earths diameter

Therefore 12742 = 6371km

2

6371km = 6.371e+8cm

Answer = 6.371e+8cm

Next, draw a circle the appropriate size for the model Earth using the radius you calculated in part e. The center of the circle should be the end of your line. (You don’t need a compass or anything special, just do your best to draw a shape that’s close to a circle instead of something random and lumpy.)

Model Earth

Label your model Earth.

Congratulations! You’ve constructed a scale model of the Earth-Moon system!

We’re not quite done with the lab, though. Keep pressing!

Any time you use a model or look at a picture, there is some sort of scale to the model or the picture. The scale is what allows you to convert between measurements you make on the model or picture and the real sizes of the objects in the model or picture. In your Earth-Moon model on the previous page, the scale was 1 cm = 17,500 km. This isn’t a conversion factor like there are 10 mm in 1 cm, but it tells you that 1 cm on the model (your drawing on the previous page) is 17,500 km in real life. However, the math that you use to convert between units is the same as you would use to convert between sizes in the model and sizes in real life.

Before we proceed, review the “How to Convert Units of Measurement” resource in the Introduction to the Solar System folder.

What is “The Big Secret”?

Numbers with units, like 16.2 meters or 32 ft/sec², are treated exactly the same as coefficients with variables, like 16.2x or 32y/z²

Give an example, different than one in the “How to Convert Units” webpage, of using the principle of multiplying by 1 to convert one unit to another.

60 minutes = 1

1 hour

Let’s say we want to convert 5 hours into minutes, we multiply it by 60 minutes which is equal to 1 hour.

60 minutes x 5 hours = 300 minutes

I hour

What are the two steps to “How to Pick a ‘1’”?

Construct a fraction that is equal to 1 and multiply the original measurement by that fraction.

Now let’s use this method to confirm the scale given above. Fill in the blank below with the length of your line between the centers of the Earth and Moon (the distance you found in part c of #5), then complete the calculation. Because in the model 1 cm = 17,500 km, the fraction

11430001435100017,500 km equals 1 and so is a valid conversion factor.

1 cm

3,742km ×

17,500 km

224028065405001 cm=

What units cancel?

Kilometers (Km) cancel in the calculation.

What unit stays in your answer?

Since we are looking for the distance in centimeters, the centimeters units will stay in the answer

Does your answer roughly agree with the actual distance between the Earth and Moon? (This value was given to you in part b of #5.) If it’s FAR off, then check your math on the last few pages, but if it’s pretty close, then the difference is due to rounding and imperfect measurements

– remember you were only able to measure the size of the model Moon to 2 significant figures.

To see how the Earth-Moon system is different from Jupiter and its moons, let’s use the same scale (from the Earth-Moon model in Part 1) to calculate values that you can use to construct a model of Jupiter and its moons.

This time, you are starting with actual sizes in km and need to convert them to cm in your model. Therefore, you need to cancel km out, and so your fraction will be reversed. Fill in the table on the following page using the equation below. Make sure that you show the units of the model distances and diameters in the table. Show the work for a few of your calculations below.

509651018605500Each conversion now will look like this:km ×1 cm=

17,500 km

Object Actual

Diameter Diameter in Model Actual Distance

from Jupiter Distance from

Jupiter in Model

Jupiter 143,000 km 143.0e+10cm N/A N/A

Io 3,640 km 3.640e+15cm 421,800 km 421.8e+ 12cm

Europa 3,120 km 3.120e+8cm 671,100 km 671.1e+10cm

Ganymede 5,260 km 5.260e+12cm 1,070,000 km 107.0e+20cm

Callisto 4,820 km 4.820e+15cm 1,883,000 km 1883.0e+8cm

Whoa, there’s a problem here, isn’t there! You can’t fit that on one (regular-sized) page! This is why pictures in astronomy can often be laid out in a way that is really deceiving! Look at the “Jupiter and its Moons” picture.

Based on your numbers above, explain what is meant by the following sentence: This isn’t a real picture, though it is made from real pictures.

Although the figures appear as a true representation of the measurements, they are figures that have been rounded off to the nearest digit.

To at least get a feel for this model, and see the relative sizes of Jupiter and Earth, draw a circle representing Jupiter at the bottom right of this page and then – with the correct spacing between the centers of the circles – add Jupiter’s closest “big” moon Io to your model (Jupiter has LOTS of moons, but only the four listed above are more than a hundred miles across). It should fit on this page – just find a place that doesn’t have text on it that is the correct distance from Jupiter.

Does your drawing of Jupiter seem like it’s about as many times across as your drawing of Jupiter as you calculated in part a of #5?

Yes, the model looks quite as many times as the drawing. The Jupiter drawing is actually larger than the Jupiter model.

If so, congratulations and good job! If not, then there’s been a calculation error somewhere, and you need to find it… Remember that you can consult classmates or Dr. Skelton!

Io is MUCH smaller than Jupiter, but is Io similar in size, much larger than, or much smaller than the Earth’s Moon?

Io is the fifth moon from Jupiter. Its average distance is about 262,000 miles (422,000 km) from earth. Io is locked such that the same side always faces Jupiter. Io has a mean radius of 1,131.7 miles hence making it slightly larger than Earth’s moon.

A few more subtopics before we’re done with reviewing math… First, prefixes for metric units.

The basic unit of length for the metric system is the meter. For most adults a meter is roughly the distance from the tip of your nose to the end of your outstretched arm. This distance is useful for measuring the sizes of cars and buildings, but not the size of a cell or the distance to Pluto.

The basic unit of mass is the gram. A regular paperclip is about half a gram; one of the big paperclips is about a gram and a half. A nickel has a mass of 5 g (actually 5.000 g). Useful for measuring the mass of a bug, but not the mass of an ingredient in medication or the mass of a person.

So, we add prefixes to the basic units that indicate a multiplier that makes the unit either bigger or smaller. In words, what do the following prefixes mean? (You may research this online if you need to.) What symbol (all are regular letters except for micro-, which is a Greek letter…) do we use to represent the prefix?

I’ll get you started with the first one; note that this means that a nanometer (nm) is one billionth of meter, a nanosecond (ns) is one billionth of a second, and a nanogram (ng) is one billionth of a gram!

nano-one billionthn micro- one millionth μm

milli- one thousandth mm

Using the prefixes does help us more easily represent objects that are very large and very small, but honestly, in astronomy, we are dealing with objects that are very, very massive and very, very far away. We deal with these very, very large numbers in different ways. For masses, we use scientific notation or use ratios to compare an object’s mass to the Earth’s mass or to the Sun’s mass. (You will see this in the Moons of Jupiter lab.)

For distances, however, we define two new units. For distances in the solar system, we typically use astronomical units. One astronomical unit (abbreviated AU) is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Jupiter is, on average, 778,600,000 km from the Sun. To find out how many AU this is, fill in the conversion below. Put Jupiter’s distance in the first blank, then complete the conversion factor with the average distance between the Earth and Sun in km (149,600,000 km, often rounded to 150,000,000 km). Cross out units that cancel, and make sure use the correct number of sig figs and the correct units in your answer.

149,600,000km

24809458636000778,600,000 km ×

150,000,000km = 7,765,237,333.3

That’s a lot easier number to get your head around, isn’t it? Even Pluto at its farthest is 49 AU, or 49 times the Earth’s distance, from the Sun.

For even farther distances, we use a unit called a light year, defined simply as the distance light travels in one year. Light travels remarkably fast – 299,800,000 meters every second! Even so, distances in space are vast – it takes light 500 seconds (8 minutes and 20 seconds) to travel from the Sun to the Earth. Light from nearby stars takes years to reach us; light from distant objects may take millions or even billions of years to get to us.

In order to figure out how large a light year is, we need two more pieces of information. One is the relationship between distance travelled, speed, and time. You’ve seen this before, I’m sure: ???????? = ????????????????.

The second thing we need is the number of seconds in a year. This is relatively easy using the conversion method you discussed in previous questions. Fill in the missing information in the conversion below, then cross out units that appear on both the bottom and the top, and then calculate. Your answer should have 5 sig figs because 365.24 days in a year is a measurement rather than a definition. (The number of hours in a day, minutes in an hour, and seconds in a minute are definitions and therefore are exact numbers, so we don’t have to worry about them when deciding what the weakest link is.) Don’t forget that your answer should have units!

1 yr ×

365.24 days

180721065405001 yr×

hrs

277050565405001 day×

min hr×

s min =

3529330-300355004361815-30035500To figure out how big a light year is, you take that number of seconds and multiply it by the speed of light. Again, remember that your answer needs to have units and the correct number of sig figs.

252984014287500287655019621500???????? = ???????????????? = 299,800 km × 365.24s = 109,498,952 km

s

That’s a big number! Did your calculator tell you (after using your own brain to figure out the correct number of significant digits and units…) 9.460 x 1012 km or 9,460,000,000,000 km? These are the same amount, just represented in different ways. In either case, a light year is over nine trillion kilometers – this is close to six trillion miles!!! And the closest star to us is over four light years away!

Watch the two scientific notation videos on iCollege. Scientific notation is also discussed on pages viii and ix of the Mathematical Review.

What is the point/purpose of scientific notation?

The purpose of scientific notation is to represent numbers that are either too small or too large to be captured.

Numbers in scientific notation are written in the form a x 10b, where a is called the coefficient and b

is the exponent.

What is the rule for what kind of number a must be?

 The whole numbers

What is the rule for what kind of number b must be?

 The integers including; the positive whole numbers, their negative counterparts, and zero.

In some sciences, there are very, very small numbers (not negative, just much smaller than 1) that need to be represented by scientific notation. We use negative exponents for these very small numbers – a negative exponent just means it belongs in the denominator of a fraction instead of the numerator. For example, 6 x 10-6 is the same as 6/106 or “six millionths”, whereas 6 x 106 is “six million”. In astronomy, though, we’re almost always dealing with very large numbers so we usually don’t need to deal with negative exponents.

Write the following numbers in scientific notation.

1,400,000 km (the Sun’s diameter) = 1.4 × 106

b. 5,980,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg (the Earth’s mass) = 5.98 x 10²⁴

c. 4,560,000,000 yr (the age of the solar system) = 4.56×108 

Write the following in regular, non-scientific-notation and then in words as you might say them (e.g. “120 trillion”).

Time of the last ice age: 1.8 x 104 years ago

187.2 which is 187 years, 2 months ago

Time when dinosaurs became extinct: 6.5 x 107 years ago

695.5 Which is 695 years and 5 months ago

Age of the universe: 1.38 x 1010 years

1393.8 years which is rounded off to 1394 years

Distance to the Moon: 3.84 x 105 km = 384 000 kilometers

Average distance between the Sun and Pluto: 5.91 x 109 km

5910000000 kilometers

Mass of the Sun: 2.0 x 1030 kg

2e+30 grams

(That last one is kind of mean, isn’t it… See what you can figure out without spending too much time – but it helps make the point why scientific notation is pretty useful, doesn’t it?)

One time you will see negative exponents is in the Moons of Jupiter lab, so a question to think about (and hopefully remember in a couple of weeks!):

Consider the numbers 1.05 x 10-3 and 9.89 x 10-4. Are these numbers fairly close to one another, or quite different? Explain your conclusion.

Hint: write them in decimal (normal, non-scientific) notation and the round them to one significant figure…

9.89 x 10-4 = 0.000989

1.05 x 10-3 = 0.00105

1.05 x 10-3 is larger than 9.89 x 10-4 based on the number of zeros after the decimal point and the number raised to the figure. -3 is greater than -4.

One final scientific notation note – when you have to do calculations with numbers in scientific notation, it is important to make sure you enter them into your calculator correctly. Your calculator has a specific way of entering scientific notation – and it really is better to use the button designed for scientific notation rather than “*10^” and then the exponent!! (The reason has to do with the way that the calculator deals with the number and order of operations.)

Usually there is either a CAPITAL E (not the lower case one – it’s something entirely different!), capital EE, or a capital EXP marked on or above one of the calculator keys. On many TI calculators the E is above the comma, so you have to press “2nd” then “,”. If you can’t find a button that seems right, e-mail Dr. Skelton a picture of your calculator or look at the calculator documentation (you can search your model online).

The E or EXP means “times ten to the”, so you would enter 2×104 into your calculator as 2E4 without any multiplication signs, 10s, or exponents. Your calculator now knows this is a single number rather than a calculation it’s supposed to do. For negative exponents, you will probably need to use the (-) button or the +/- button to let the calculator know you’re not subtracting.

What button (or sequence of buttons) does your calculator have to enter scientific notation?

MODE and Sci (Short form for Scientific mode) buttons

If your calculator returns an answer in scientific notation to you, it may not look just like we’ve been writing – instead, it will have an E (which, recall, means “times ten to the”) or just a small superscript number at the far right of the display. If your calculator says 6.05E7, what should YOU write down as your answer? Hint: It shouldn’t have an E in it…

Answer: 9.67e7

To finish, I would like you to complete a couple more unit conversion problems then do a graphing exercise.

You can use the same method of converting between units that was used even when there are more than one unit – for example, if you are travelling at 55 miles per hour, what is your speed in meters per second? You just need to concentrate on changing one unit at a time – miles to m and hours to s. First, fill in the blanks in the conversion below, cancel any units that appear on both the top and bottom, then calculate the answer. You will need to figure out what goes into the completely blank numerators based on what units need to cancel and then looking up the conversion factor.

55 mi

1371600654050019202406540500hr×

0.9hr

5min ×

55min

271907086360003300s ×

17kmm ×

1700m 17km =

Answer = 100km

3398520-266700004285615-26670000Now try one by yourself, making sure to show all your steps like in the previous problem.

The Earth travels around the Sun at a speed of 29.8 km/s. How fast is this in miles per hour?

While its speed averages out to about 29.8 km/s (18.5 mps) or 107,000 km/h (66487 mph), it actually ranges by a full km per second during the course of the year – between 30.29 km/s and 29.29 km/s (109,044 – 105,444 km/h; 67,756.8 – 65,519.864 mph)

Almost there! Just a little more about graphing!

Look at the graph of the temperature structure of Venus’ atmosphere.

Based on this figure, describe how the temperature changes with altitude on Venus.

4572000476250As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, it heats up the surface of Venus.The greenhouse effect on Venus causes the temperatures at its surface to reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius)

Based on this figure, what is the temperature at the surface of Venus? Explain or show mathematically how you arrived at your answer using the information in the graph.

I multiplied the highest middle and lower temperatures

How much does the temperature drop from the surface to an altitude of 100 km (just over 60 miles)?

Above 60 miles (100 km) from Earth’s surface the chemical composition of air becomes strongly dependent on altitude and the atmosphere becomes enriched with lighter gases (atomic oxygen, helium and hydrogen). 

The final exercise (yes, really!!) helps demonstrate why graphs can often demonstrate data much more clearly