8 Things Adult Students Need to Know About Test Prep

Global Warming And The Green House Effect - 1608 Words

With a world that is constantly changing and evolving everyday, there still remains one unsettling factor that consistently surfaces. Global warming or the green house effect,† specifically the field of atmospheric and oceanic temperatures rising caused by human activity, or anthropomorphic climate change. This idea in society was only a superstition, but scientists believe that this once fabled tale has turned into a reality because of our over production of carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gases. With dramatic spikes in the production of green house gases within the last 100 years, it has become incredibly hard to deny the threat of anthropomorphic climate change and its diverse effects on oceanic water levels and†¦show more content†¦Two effects contribute to the retention of the heat within the walls: the first is the translucent material receives solar energy (light form) from an outside source that causes the green house to heat while simultaneously emi tting infrared radiation from inside the walls that cannot dissipate easily because it is trapped within a barrier. The second is the translucent material creates a solid barrier that traps the hot air created from within to be confined, thus causing the temperature of the green house to rise. This concept of the way a green house works applies directly to the way the world is heating, the only difference is in the case of our planet, instead of a translucent material trapping infrared radiation it is â€Å"greenhouse gases.† These gases effect the light’s intensity, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures, and even vegetation. This in turn affects all forms of life on our planet. Nevertheless, not all gases cause global warming and disrupt the fragile balance of our atmosphere. In fact the main few, like methane and water vapors, are even very surprising because they’ve been around sense the dawn of mankind, and the earth as a whole. Methane can result from natural sources as well as human activity; however, there are specific habits and practices that dramatically increase the production of methane. Many of which include the decomposition of a variety of wastes in landfills, many agricultural practices

British film industry Essay Example For Students

British film industry Essay British films are widely defined as feature-length films which are expected by their makers to receive theatrical distribution and for which either the financial or creative impulse comes from Britain. The guiding principle is to identify films that directly contribute to British film culture or to the culture of the British film industry.  In the past scores of British films have never made it to the cinema being described as lacking quality and being average and unambitious. However recently people have commented on the makeover in British Cinema. This makeover refers to the increased popularity and commercial success of British Cinema in the UK and in some cases the US box offices. Also some British films have gained some excellent reviews from some of the worlds best-known film critics.  There is no typical British film as they come in many different genres from the social realist northern comedy of East is East, the British gangster movies of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Face to the Costume drama/biopic of Mrs Brown and Young Elizabeth. The only link between all these films is that they tackle issues that are typical representations of the British society and British national identity.  An example of diversity in British Cinema since the 1990s is Trainspotting. Trainspotting is a British made film which was based on Irvine Welshs 1993 novel also titled Trainspotting. It was made in 1996 and was directed by Danny Boyle one of Britains hot directors of 1990s who also directed Shallow Grave.  Trainspotting tackles the issues of new ladism (which is present in the popular and successful British sitcom Men Behaving Badly), disaffected youth, drug addiction, themes of Scottishness, unemployment, poverty and societies norms. Danny Boyles Trainspotting has a very clear distinction from other films that concentrate on male crisis. In most youth-orientated films young male joblessness and social exclusion are presented as either with no history, no proposed solution or no exception of change. As quoted by film critic Robert Wade, Danny Boyle framed the male underclass not as a social problem but as a subcultural lifestyle with certain attractions for a young, post-political male audience. Rather than attempting to arouse anger or social outrage Trainspotting encourages a knowing, empathetic complicity between audiences and the films young male inhabitants. Trainspotting addresses the anxieties of young male viewers by portraying the young male underclass in terms of an appealing subculture of dissent from the demands of adulthood, women and work. This point is backed up by Renton (Ewan McGregor) philosophy in the film, which is I choose not to choose life. Trainspotting was a very low budget film as it costed 1.7 million to produce with the funds being provided by Figment, Channel Four and Polygram. However Trainspotting was a box office success pulling in people, part of this success may be because of the aggressive distribution of Trainspotting in the UK from Film Fours Distribution Company Film Four Distributions Limited.  Another example of diversity in British Cinema since the 1990s is Mrs Brown. Mrs Brown was made in 1997 and was directed by British Director John Madden who also directed Shakespeare in Love. The film is based on Queen Victoria (Judi Drench) in 1864, who at the time was in deep mourning for her husband Prince Albert after his sudden death. Her private secretary arranges for John Brown (Billy Connolly), her ghillie to bring her favourite horse down from Scotland. This then leads to Queen Victoria then developing a close relationship which becomes the subject of scandalous gossip in Victorian Society hence the film title Mrs Brown.  Mrs Brown was a very low budget film as it costs only à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½1 million to produce with the funds being provided by BBC Films and BBC Scotland. .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .postImageUrl , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:hover , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:visited , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:active { border:0!important; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:active , .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u55c3feb82c301094aee6b5403712e82f:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: A British Muslim EssayMrs Brown was a very successful film in the US and the UK. An example of this success is that in the UK it was one of the films that made up to 23% of British box office successes in the UK in 1997. This may be because the narrative and the iconography shown in Mrs Brown are part of a very popular genre among audiences in the UK and US, this narrative and iconography are also shown in the film Young Elizabeth which was made in 1998 and directed by Shekhar Kapur. Toby Miller quoted that this is because it is the preferred image of Britain showing heritage and tranquillity It also could have been down to the fact that the distribution of Mrs Brown was very aggressive especially in the US and was handled by the American distribution company Miramax who also distributed The English Patient (Anthony Mingella 1996) and Little Voice (Mark Horman 1998).  Another example of diversity in British cinema since the 1990s is East is East. East is East was made in 1999 and was directed by British director Damien ODonnell and produced by Leslie Udwin The film is a social realist comedy which is set in the 1970s and concentrates on cultural diversity, cultural identity and cultural crisis. These themes in the film are embraced through two cultures; Christianity vs. Islam and the Northern Working Class vs. Asians. The film put across a very realist approach, an example being the inclusion of the Former conservative MP Enoch Powells Rivers of Blood speech which was said in the 1970s and referred to the increasing number of immigrants who were living in England The film is based on a mixed raced relationship with the fathers (Om Puri) religious beliefs being with Islam and the mothers (Linda Bassett) religious beliefs being with Christianity.  This leads the children to becoming very confused as they want to take up the British, Christian culture but the father will not let them as he wants them to take up the Pakistan, Islam culture and even arranges marriages behind his sons back. East is East costs 2.4 million to make but the response to the film surpassed expectations as the number of prints in circulation increased from 79 to 246 in the first few weeks. It took over 1 million in the first weekend and by the middle of 2000 had taken 10 million in British and foreign markets.  East is East was suppose to being funded by FilmFour and the BBC, but the BBC pulled out at the last minute leaving FilmFour to fund it on their own with the support of the MEDIA programme. This turned out to be FilmFours gain and the BBCs lost.

Performance Management System

Based on your research into the pre-selected company, outline, analyse and evaluate the performance management system that the company is using to achieve its key strategic goals. You will need to research current theories and practices from literature as they relate to performance management systems. This research should be used to provide evidence that supports your evaluation and recommendations. Your report should: Provide a situational analysis of the company under investigation. Analyse and evaluate the current performance management system (PMS). Discuss the fit between the PMS and the company strategy. Make recommendations on how the PMS could be improved. The report requires: The use of information from the pre-selected organisation. The use of analytic tools to evaluate the PMS. A range of references from literature that should demonstrate breadth and depth of your research. The use of the wider literature to provide evidence for your evaluation and recommendations. The display of critical evaluation and diagnostic skills in the choice of the data included. The display of critical evaluation in the choice of the information sources used. Appropriate and accurate use of the Harvard Referencing System. Text books: at least 5 text books. At least 4 academic journal articles (found using EBSCO, Emerald, ABI/Proquest, Science Direct, Informit, PyscInfo etc.). 2 other sources of your choice: Blog, newspaper, magazine or other Internet source. No more than 1 reference may be general Internet based sources. Wikipedia is not to be used and does not count as an academic reference. Introduction Performance Management System is a solution that provides the meeting place for a large number of people and the management practiced by them, which also includes training and development of new individuals in the system and to the system itself. This is a sort of system which provides a platform for the development of an individual or the entire team with better and improved performance evaluation of the group or an organization, which results in an improved efficiency (Murphy Arvey, 1998). Performance Management Performance management is about bringing management teams and people together to form an environment where continuous growth is the only goal to be achieved, and is practised by all the individuals and teams of this environment. It is a long term evolution process, aimed at continuous improvement of the company or organization, by closely monitoring the performance of the individuals and the teams working day and night to build the company big, and then channelizing their efforts and energies in such a way that they become much more effective and influential to the organization. This is done with help of each team member (DeNisi Kluger, 2000). This is not an individual task or an overnight task, it requires both time and patience to witness the complete effect. There are four major parts of the PMS, they are as described below: Performance Review Cycle (PRC) It is an ongoing process, consisting of a series of meetings within the organization between the managers and the employees, related to the work done, role played, target achieved, problems faced and betterment solutions. Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) It is a process with strict time boundaries; it requires the improvement to be done, after it is identified where it is required. It is not to be confused with disciplinary process, as it has nothing to do with discipline. HR and Discipline Specific Professional Practices within the organisation Merging the discipline committee with the companys HRs the performance improvement is ensured within the organization by a number of ways. Relevant HSE performance measures (Hillgren Cheatham, 2000). There are many type of Performance Management Systems being used by different companies, some of them use manual ways for performance evaluation like making record files and then employing another skilled manpower to assess the performance of others on some set guidelines decided by them or designed by them from some outer agency, thus creating too much complexity in the process (Martin, Bartol Kehoe, 2000). Or, another way popular these days for the performance evaluation purpose, is the use of specialised system for the same task. These are developed according to some specific needs or can be customized according to individual business needs. ReviewSNAP, Taleo Perform, and Success Factors are few examples of these type of systems. Lets take the example of ReviewSNAP and look into it what it actually is. ReviewSNAP It is a system for mostly small and medium sized organizations with not such a huge data to handle. It can be customised according to specific business needs with features like goal setting and notes creation. Features like maintenance of the job description, employees self-assessment series, review due reminder, reporting and statistical dashboard. The dashboard, what is the current performance index of the organization and the managements role to improve it. ReviewSNAP is a simple application as it is a web-based system and requires no software maintenance. ReviewSNAP is a 4 in 1 professional system. It makes performance based appraisal easy to be implemented as the performance matrix is set and every individual is also aware of his performance, so this makes an efficient and transparent system (Weatherly, 2004). It provides better insight to an individual about his performance and improvements. Rewards are now easy to be implemented based on performance as the target is already set, if individuals meet the target they get the reward or else its a fare system. New content can be added to the system anytime, which can make it an ever growing system that never goes out of date even if the company policies change completely. Figure 1 Figure 2: (Weister, 2015) ReviewSNAP is fully automated performance management system very user-friendly, reliable and affordable software, used as a service solution to help companies align goals for greater results (Beatty, Schneier Shaw, 1995). It also enhances the communication as well as coach the individuals, increase employee engagement, and save time and money through improved efficiency. Case Study Union Bank Trust Company is a private bank situated in Nebraska that offers a variety of services like banking, lending, and investment and trust services. There are many branches of this bank which offer full service and loan production offices in Nebraska as well as Kansas. Along with Lincoln and Omaha, there are branches located in nineteen communities of Nebraska and the area near Kansas City Metro (Hillgren Cheatham, 2000). Throughout the world, it is ranked third largest private bank in Nebraska with bank assets of $2.6 billion and trust assets of $11.8 billion as of June 30, 2013. In 2011, UBT decided to curtail the ineffective and inefficient performance management practices which have become standard worldwide and started looking for some new and more efficient system to evaluate the performance of its employees. Chad Theis, first vice president of HR at UBT was also very unimpressed with the current practice of once in a year meeting of the managers with their employees, where they evaluate their annual performance and based on that provide them with a target to achieve in the next 1 year. Like other big companies, UBT also provided its managers with free decision making and evaluation techniques, but this caused non uniformity, as different managers had different way to evaluate the employees (Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology, 2003). Moreover, lot of times, the performance evaluation part was almost dropped down by simply being forgotten by bigger issues to handle. Even the managers of the company were not happy with this performance evaluation system as they themselves faced the problem in evaluating the employees in the annual cycle meeting and due to which the goals they set for them were hardly achieved by a very few of them. Also, they noticed that at the time of evaluation, the employees are also not very active in their part of participation, as they were also aware that it is more of a show-off than a real practice. This is when the managers at UBT decided to move out of its old methodology and observe something new. In this quest, they came up with the idea of 4 by 4 process. Both the managers as well as the employees felt the need of often meeting with each other to better understand each other. So, in this way, they conducted cycle meeting quarterly, where the management had an interaction with their sub-ordinates and discussion were carried out on their performance in this 3 month period and based on that rewards and goals were give n (Armstrong Baron, 2000). Now, after coming over with a new idea to understand the problem, they now needed an evaluation system which can evaluate the large dataset on their part. This is where they came across ReviewSNAP. According to Theis, the service first seemed a bit expensive on its part, but when he investigated deeper about the capabilities of the systems, he found that there are many services which can be used for the evaluation purpose and based on the number of services offered and the ease by which the system can be operated. The price was not enough to call the deal off, hence, the company decided to go with ReviewSNAP as the official Performance Management System for them. The biggest catchy factor for the company was the part of the system where they asked, what they actually needed in the system. It was totally customized in accordance to them after long discussion, where they discussed with the software developers to attain their needs. In fact, the company also helped them in getting what they required, as a service from them (Smither). From the time ReviewSNAP system got installed as an official PMS, it is observed that there is a marked growth in their performance, because of the reason that each employee knows their present as well as past performance. Regular cycle meetings are held so that employees can directly meet their superiors and discuss about their improvement. Now, the managers can also monitor the growth very easily and dont have to take much stress on this task of evaluation. The employees are also satisfied as the system working now is totally transparent and they themselves know where they stand in the performance matrix, what is their goal to be achieved, what is to be done to achieve it and what will be the reward for achieving the goal. The new system brought zeal in every employee to self-excel and perform well to achieve the goal and get the reward (Lee, Havigurst Rassel, 2004). Conclusion Examples like these make it clear that the performance management task has not lost its value, in fact it is regaining its true value of total manpower management and bringing out the best in everyone in order to benefit the organization more. Further changes can go on in the system in terms of more features to be included like business forecast. References Arvey, R. D., Murphy, K. R. (1998). Performance evaluation in work settings. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 141-168. Beatty, R. W., Baird, L. S., Schneier, E. C., Shaw (1995). Performance, Measurement, Management, and Appraisal Sourcebook. Amherst, MA: Human Resource Development Press. Cardy, R. L. (2003). Performance management: Concepts, skills, and exercises. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. DeNisi, A. S., Kluger, A. N. (2000). Feedback effectiveness: Can 360-degree appraisals be improved? Academy of Management Executive, 14(1), 129-139. Greguras, G. J., Robie, C., Schleicher, D. J., Goff, M. (2003). A field study of the effects of rating purpose on the quality of multisource ratings. Personnel Psychology, 56, 1-21. Hillgren, J. S., Cheatham, D. W. (2000). Understanding performance measures: An approach to linking rewards to the achievement of organizational objectives. Scottsdale, AZ: WorldatWork. Lee, J., Havigurst, L. C., Rassel, G. (2004). Factors related to court references to performance appraisal fairness and validity. Public Personnel Management, 33 (1), 61-78. Martin, D. C., Bartol, K.M., Kehoe, P. E. (2000). The legal ramifications of performance appraisal: The growing significance. Public Personnel Management, 29(3), 379-406. Smither, J. W. (Ed.). Performance Appraisal: State of the Art in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. (2003). Principles for the validation and use of personnel selection procedures: Fourth edition. Bowling Green, OH: Author. Weatherly, L. A. (2004). Performance management: Getting it right from the start. SHRM Research Quarterly, 2, 1-10. Armstrong, M., Baron, A. (2000). Performance management.Human resource management, 69-84. Figure 1: Available at: https://lh4.ggpht.com/5rAYcEbw7QWOUYvid9IX9BomHIB1xm-E9-tUEF9w3cyBOKWrkmE3FGhZcI9kak1InBo9bQ=s161 [Accessed 10 Jan. 2015]. Figure 2: Weister, N. (2015). Employee Performance Reviews. Bridging the gap.. [image] Available at: https://www.reviewsnap.com/performance-management-infographic.cfm [Accessed 10 Jan. 2015].