What Kind of Stress a Police Officer Can Withstand Research Paper

What Kind of Stress a Police Officer Can Withstand - Research Paper Example According to Patterson (2009), the normal tasks and events can be classified into four areas. The four areas have been influential in the characterization of stress among police officers. The first source of stress for police officers is the whole law enforcement organization. The organization operates based on a strict paramilitary structure that discourages any form of insubordination (Bano & Talib, 2014). The bureaucratic structure of law enforcement presents a challenge to all officers. Some of the challenges that come with the system are the lack of adequate equipment, poor shift management, low pay, excess paper and inadequate training. Second, law enforcement faces stressful conditions because of the need to practice caution when dealing with the community (Russell, Cole, & Jones, 2014). The exposure of police officers to troubled individuals, criminals and the use of deadly force in some situation can lead to stress. The third source of stress for officers is the criminal justice system. It is challenging to work with lawyers, media, and the public.   For example, police officers sometimes feel the criminal justice system does a poor job of dealing with criminals and puts too many restrictions for them to perform their duties. The final source of stress for officers is their personal lives. Stress from personal lives can be caused by the pressure to buy a home, having a new baby, divorce and chronic illness affecting family members. There is no designated compensation for this form of stress. The research paper aims to analyze the impact of mental stress on police officers. It seeks to comprehend the impact of stress on the ability of officers to fulfill their normal duties. The findings from the research can help in determining the best options that can be implemented to help officers to manage stress.   Police Officers are subject to stress like normal workers. However, the situation for the police officers can be worse because of the life-threatening conditions that they face from day to day.

Mix Map Model Essay Example for Free

Mix Map Model Essay Mixmap model provides information that helps the company to determine the factors that effectively analyse the present tactics and based on the analysis it can determine future tactics. Mixmap model includes 4P’s, Product life cycle, BCG matrix and Ansoff matrix. * Product life cycle Product life cycles (PLC) are the stages that a product goes through during its life cycle in the market. Product life cycle is used in order to show current stage of the product or the company at present which including four stages, Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. PLC is useful for determining the current market position and it is significant for the company to adapt their product or brands marketing strategy to the changing condition of the market environment. Introduction – is first introduced. It offers something new in terms of its design or performance, with few competitors offering the same product. Growth – as volume grows, competitors may enter the growing market. Keeping up with demand could prove to be the main operations.. Maturity Demand starts to level off. Operations will be expected to get the costs down in order to maintain profits or to allow price cutting. Decline After time, sales will decline with more competitors dropping out of the market. Eg. MS is in a high fashion industry and its product offering is the latest trends and designs with a life of maximum 2 weeks so its product life cycle cure becomes like the above diagram. * Boston Group Matrix – Uses market share and market growth criteria for determining the attractiveness and balance of a business portfolio. Star – is a business unit within a portfolio, which has a high market share in a growing market. It is well- established and fantastic opportunities. Question mark – is a business unit within a portfolio that is in a growing market, but does not yet have high market share. Cash cow – is a business unit within a portfolio that has a high market share in mature market. Dogs – are business units within a portfolio that have low share in static or declining markets. Example MS in terms of BCG matrix is either ‘dogs’ (cash in balance) or question marks (cash cow). The portfolio of MSs products is good in clothing having star position and in food MS has occupied the position of question mark relative market shares is low with low industry growth and in financial services industry growth is high but MSs market share is low and will require substantial capital investment to turn them into stars. * McKinsey Matrix – Highlights the importance of fit between strategy, structure, sytems, staff, style, skills and superordinate goals. Three aspects of organizing. First, organizing involves a lot more than just getting the organizational structure right; there are many other elements to attend to. Second, the 7-s framework emphasizes fit between all these elements everything from structure to skills needs to be connected together. Third, if managers change one element of the 7-s, the concept of fit suggests they are likely to have to change all the other elements as well in order to keep them all appropriately aligned to each other. Strategy are plans an organization formulates to reach identified goals, and a set of decisions and actions aimed at gaining a sustainable advantage over the competition Structure – is the key ingredient of organizing for success. But structure can only work if they are supported by formal and informal organizational system System – can be subdivided in two ways. First, systems tend to emphasis either control over inputs or control over output. The second is between direct and indirect control. Style – refers to the leadership style of top managers in an organization and how key managers behave to achieving the organization goals. Staff – is about the kinds of people in the organization and how they are developed. Skills – relates to staff. It raises not only staff skills but also issues to do with how these skills are embedded in and captured by the organization as a whole. Superordinate goals – refers to the overarching goals or purpose of the organization as a whole. Superordinate goals are placed at the center of the 7-s framework: all other elements should support these. Example MS are fully exercising the 7s model and coordinating at all levels to generate maximum output. Structure is well defined since it is old player in this industry so they have learnt a lot from their experience curve and now have developed an outstanding structure. In the initial phase MS got experience through hit and trial method and now have developed good strategies and system. MS also has got excellent skills and is full getting benefit of these skills. They are well known figures in clothing industry and have gained professional and productive staff. MS have shared values which are widely spread in its all 7s and are reflected by their strategic moves * Ansoff’s Matrix – Is a very useful tool and can be used in nearly every scenario. It neatly summarizes many of the strategic options facing organizations. Market penetration – existing markets and products This is a strategy by which a company seeks to increase the sales of its present products in its existing markets. Product development – existing markets and new product This strategy has the aim of increasing sales by developing products for a company’s existing market. Market development – existing products and new markets This strategy has the aim of increasing sales by repositioning present products to new markets Diversification – develop new products in new markets This could be related to what we do at the moment. Diversification is a high risk strategy as the business is unfamiliar with the product and the target market. Example We can see from the Ansoffs Matrix, MS’s lunch of Financial services products will have involved a diversification strategy. As MS did not already sells financial products, so new market and new product. Both capability and market consideration has driven MS into development of new markets and products. 4Ps * Price – The price of a product or service is the important influencers in the decision on whether to buy. Eg. Marks and Spencer vary in price. However most of the products seem to be fairly cheap affordable prices. This is good because the clothes are of good quality; however the pricing isn’t too expensive. * Promotion – represents all of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product. The promotion mix consists of four elements: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling. Eg. Marks and Spencer tend to promote ladies fashion mainly on Television and on their website. They also advertise on billboards etc. * Place – refers to providing the product at a place, which is convenient for consumers to access.eg. For MS all ladies fashion is placed on a certain floor in the store, so it is easily found and is easy to locate, and find particular product. * Product – Product covers both the usefulness and demand for an item in general and also any specific features and benefits. In general, when buying the fast fashion clothes, style and quality are the key requirements for customer. If it is to stand out from rivals products. It can be done by changing this brand name, quality, and packaging. Eg. MS offers many different clothing concepts for man, woman and children, and also sell accessary and cosmetic.

Face Recognition Attendance System

Face Recognition Attendance System In the 21st century, everything around us has become depends upon technology to make our life much easier. Daily tasks are continuously becoming computerized. Nowadays more people prefer to do their work electronically. To the best of our knowledge, the process of recording students attendance at the university is still manual. Lecturers go through manual attendance sheets and signed papers to record attendance. This is slow, inefficient and time consuming. The main objective of this project is to offer system that simplify and automate the process of recording and tracking students attendance through face recognition technology. It is biometric technology to identify or verify a person from a digital image or surveillance video. Face recognition is widely used nowadays in different areas such as universities, banks, airports, and offices. We will use preprocessing techniques to detect, recognize and verify the captured faces like Eigenfaces method. We aim to provide a system that wi ll make the attendance process faster and more precisely. The core problem is identified along with solutions and project path. Furthermore, detailed system analysis and design, user interface, methods and the estimated results are presented through our documentation. Keywords: Attendance; Automate; Recording; biometric; face recognition; FRAS Face Recognition Attendance System NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology UML Unified Modeling Language IDE Integrated Development Environment MS Microsoft VS Visual Studio SQL Structured Query Language SSMS SQL Server Management Studio OO Object Oriented 1.1 Introduction Office automation refers to the collective hardware, software and processes that enable automation of the information processing and communication tasks in an organization. It involves using computers and software to digitize, store, process and communicate most routine tasks and processes in a standard office. [1] In addition, attendance considered as the biggest issues that may face lecturers in class. It takes time, effort and difficult to manage. Therefore, our project will focus on online student attendance. In another word, the aim of this project is to build a system that help lecturers take students attendance in a professional way. 1.2 Problem Definition Taking and tracking students attendance manually, losing attendance sheets, dishonesty, wasted time and high error scales are problems facing the lecturers use the existing attendance system. It is a hard process, take time and cause a lot of paper-based work. As a result, in order to solve these problems and avoid errors we suggest to computerize this process by providing a system that record and manage students attendance automatically without needing to lecturers interference. 1.3 Project Objectives Our primary goal is to help the lecturers, improve and organize the process of track and manage student attendance and absenteeism. Additionally, we seek to: Provides a valuable attendance service for both teachers and students. Reduce manual process errors by provide automated and a reliable attendance system uses face recognition technology. Increase privacy and security which student cannot presenting himself or his friend while they are not. Produce monthly reports for lecturers. Flexibility, Lectures capability of editing attendance records. Calculate absenteeism percentage and send reminder messages to students. 1.4 Project Scope Our project targets the students of different academic levels and faculty members. The main constraint we faced is distinguishing between identical twins. This situation is still a challenge to biometric systems especially facial recognition technology. According to Phillips and his co-researcher paper [2] to get the best results of the algorithms your system employed, they should run under certain conditions for taken pictures (i.e age, gender, expressions, studio environmentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦etc.) otherwise, the problem is still ongoing. They provide application (method) to solve this problem, but in order to use this solution you have to sign a contract with the (NIST) organization and to be a researcher or developer. For us, to solve this issue we suggest to record twins attendance manually. 1.5 Contributions of This Study We have searched for a system that can take, monitor and manage students attendance and absenteeism, send reminder messages, calculate absenteeism percentage, and produce weekly, monthly, and annual reports. Based on our searches, there is no integrated system can support our idea. In this project, we are trying to develop such a system that can do all those tasks. Our project will serve students, lecturers, and the university as whole. 1.6 Project Timeline We utilized Gantt chart in figure 1.1, to show a project schedule with the start and finish dates of several tasks of a project and the deadline to submit the project. 1.7 Document Organization This project consists of six chapters. These chapters organized to reflect the scientific steps toward our main objective. A brief description about the contents of each chapter given in the following paragraphs: Chapter 1 introduces the problem definition, project objectives, the contribution of this project, the scope of the work, and the project layout. Chapter 2 provides the reader with an overview of the literature review. Chapter 3 displays the analysis of the existing system, requirements elicitation which includes (functional requirements, nonfunctional requirements, User Requirements.), requirements specification, research methodology. Chapter 4 displays the architectural design, object oriented design figure. Chapter 6 displays the conclusion that includes limitation and future work.    2.1 Introduction Over the past decade, taking down students attendance process had been developed and changed.The driven force of this development is the desire to automate, facilitate, speed up and save time and efforts. Although that the attendance systems are around us everywhere, Taibah university lecturers still use a traditional way to record students attendance either through calling out students names or through a passing attendance sheet among students to sign beside their names. Both ways are time consuming and associated with high error scales. In this project, we attempt to reduce wasted time, eliminate buddy clocking, and automate the process. Our system uses facial recognition technology to record the attendance through a high resolution digital camera that detects and recognizes faces and compare the recognize faces with students faces images stored in faces database. Once the recognized face matches a stored image, attendance is marked in attendance database for that person. The process will repeat if there are missed faces. For example, if there are 4 faces missed for a bad position while the detecting phase, then this phase will start again to detect the missed faces and recognize them and continue the attending process. By the end of the month, a monthly report is send to the lecturer contains attendance and absence rates as a chart and the names of absentees. Also, a warning message sends to the student if he passes the allowed number of absence. In this chapter, we present a brief overview of face recognition in the background section, relevant works to our project with their advantages and disadvantages, how we relate to these studies and how this project can provide some beneficial features for lecturer. 2.2 Background Most lecturers have a significant number of students and it is hard to keep taking or tracking all their absence. Facial recognition is commonly used in many institutions to take attendance of a significant number of students. There are many errors that could occur during this process, including misidentification and self-recognition [3]. Lecturer can control the errors and correct it. In the next subsection, brief overview of the usage,techniques, and methods in facial recognition. 2.2.1 Face Recognition Usage Face recognition rises from the moment that machine started to become more and more intelligent and had the advance of fill in, correct or help the lack of human abilities and senses. [4]. Common uses ofFacial recognition clarify in following points; Security; can be crime-fighting it will recognize people based on their eyes, nose and face. Searching for lost people. Games Taking student or employee attendance 2.2.2 Face Recognition Techniques and Methods Many factors influence the process of face recognition such as shape, size, pose, occlusion, and illumination. Facial recognition, have two different applications: basic and advanced . Major face recognition recognizes faces or no faces such as balls and animals. If it is a face, then the system searches for eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Advanced facial recognition manages the question on a specific face. This contains unique landmarks: the width of nose, wideness of the eyes, the depth and angle of the jaw, the height of cheekbones, and the separation between the eyes, and makes a unique numerical code. Utilizing these numerical codes, the system then matches that image with another image and distinguishes how comparable the pictures are to each other. The image provenance for face recognition include pre-existing pictures from various databases and video camera signals. [5] A facial recognition system involves the following phases: Face detection, feature extraction, and face recognition as illustrated in Figure 2.1. [5] Figure 2.1:General structure of the face recognition system. The following table compares some of the biometric technology used lately. Table ‎2.1: Comparison among some of the biometric technologies Biometric Technology Accuracy Price Tools required Facial recognition Moderate Moderate Camera Voice recognition Moderate Moderate Microphone Fingerprint High Moderate Scanner 2.3 Related Work In this section, we highlight some related works that were developed to recognize faces and takedown attendance together with the advantages and disadvantages of each system. 2.3.1 Review of Relevant Work 2.3.1.1 Auto Attendance Using Face Recognition (by Mahvish Tania) Figure 2.2: Screenshot of Main Interface (Admin Tasks Interface) Figure 2.3: Screenshot of Auto Attendance systems interface In this project, we have two users responsible for the system [6]. The instructor who takes the attendance and admin who is responsible for managing students faces in the faces database. Admin selects a camera to capture, collect and save images to database or a folder. After the collection and saving the process done the trainingSet manager start to extract faces from the image by face detection. Finally, the trainingSet manager (Admin) will add the extracted image -person- to class or trainingSet. And as you can see in the illustrated figure, 2.3 above, attendance is taken down by recognizing the faces through a web camera and automatically marked in attendance sheet with daytime. The instructor chooses the course ID and the class ID to begin the attending process. Advantages: The system stores the faces that are detected and automatically marks attendance. Provide authorized access. Ease of use. Multiple face detection. Provide methods to maximize the number of extracted faces from an image. Disadvantages: The accuracy of the system is not 100%. Face detection and loading training data processes just a little bit slow. The instructor and trainingSet manager still have to do some work manually. 2.3.1.2 Attendance System on Face Detection (By NevonProjects) The system is created for employing a simple and a secure way of recording attendance. First of all, the software takes a picture of all the authorized individuals and stores the information into the systems database. Then, the system stores pictures by mapping it into a face match structure. The system will recognize the registered person and mark his/her attendance along with the arrival time whenever he/she enters the locations again [7]. Advantages: The system stores the faces that are detected and automatically marks attendance. Ease of use. Manipulate and recognize the faces in real time using live video data. Multiple face detection. Multipurpose software. Can be used in different places. Disadvantages: The accuracy of the system is not 100%. It can only detect face from a limited distance. It cannot repeat live video to recognize missed faces. 2.3.1.3 Face Login Face Login allows you to log in to your PC by looking at your webcam. FaceLogin associates user accounts with a picture, and then, when looking at your webcam, you can login because it detects you on the webcam. [8] Advantages: Only an administrator can run FaceLogin and change its settings. More than one way to configure users. Can store more than one image for a user to maximize face detection. Disadvantages: Applications accuracy is not 100%. Adding users manually. Associated risks with stored data and images. Uses traditional way to access the application. Limited use. 2.3.1.4 Biometric Face Detection Attendance Systems Face recognition systems with time attendance provide multi-biometric and multi-authentication modes. Attached with high resolution infra-red camera works in low light, best face recognition algorithms and identification methods. Advantages Convenient. Provide many recognition ways. High accuracy. Used for secure purposes. Provide many communication models. Disadvantages Limited capacity. Detect faces from a limited distance. People stand in a queue to take their attendance. Screen size. Still uses traditional authentication PIN way. 2.3.1.5 C-400 Facial Recognition Clocking System Facial recognition timing systems will give you precise attendance information and stop employees buddy clocking when employee sing on behalf of his colleague-. [9] Advantages C-400 Face recognition timing technology reduces any likelihood of your employees signing for each other in/out. Complete suite of reports. Printable attendance register in the event of an emergency. Disadvantages There is no External Bell Attachment. Device is expensive. The face has to be in front of the device to record attendance. 2.3.1.6 Churchix Face Recognition Software Churchix presents face recognition software, which takes someones face through a picture or video and then identifies it by comparing it with those in a database of pictures. The software is becoming more common in every day interactions. [10] Advantages: Attending members in videos and photos. High quality photos. High accuracy. Disadvantages: Some people they see as a threat to privacy. Inability to capture all the faces in the video. Restart the video several times to capture all faces. Figure 2.5: Screenshot of Churchix Face Recognition Software 2.3.2 Relationship Between the Relevant Work and Our Own Work Table ‎2.2: Comparison among applications viewed in the previous section Application Auto Attendance Using Face Recognition by: MahvishTania Attendance System on Face Detection By: NevonProjects Face Login Biometric Face Detection Attendance Systems C-400 Facial Recognition Clocking System Churchix Face Recognition Software Face Recognition Attendance System Database à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Hardware PC Webcam PC , camera Pc , webcam Camera camera PC , camera PC , camera Language C# C# unknown Unknown unknown unknown C# Scope student student anyone employees employees anyone Student light-on when-the camera starts à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Fast Face detection à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ unlimited distance à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ High accuracy à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ From table 2.2, the main point in our project is to create a system that facilitates students attending process. The following points summarize features will be adopted in the system: The light on when the camera starts facial recognition because reduce the error There are screen next to the camera to display the result of attendees and absentees The system at the end of the class update attendance sheet 2.4 Summary An automatic attendance management system is needed tool for huge organizations. Many organizations have been used face recognition system such as train stations, airports, and companies. Overall, this chapter provided an overview of some related works that were developed with their advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, we compare between the relevant work and our own work and show the differentiation between them. The matter that has to be taken into consideration in the future is a method to guarantee users privacy. Whenever an image is stored on servers, it must be impossible for unauthorized person to get or see that image. 3.1 Introduction This chapter examines the analysis that determined the adequacy of the existing attendance system and identifies the requirements of the new system. Additionally, a specification of functional, nonfunctional and user requirements will be presented to understand how the system will work. In the term of analyzing these requirements, UML diagrams of the new system will be presented. 3.2 Analysis of Existing Systems In the school, colleges and universities attendance system are used to keep the record of a student presence and absence. It is true that the Taibah University has an electronic system but still needs a manual intervention. There are two case to attend students: First, add students attendance directly to the attendance web page. Second, write attendees names on a paper then move it to the web page. These two cases have drawbacks such as in the first case, there is a possibility to disconnect the connection and chose the wrong date. In the second case, there is a chance to loss the paper and it is a waste of resources We did a questionnaire that was targeted a lecturer in Taibah University and the number of participants nineteen. The aim of this questionnaire is to determine the satisfaction of the current system. Here are some questions and their statistics. As shown in figure 3.1, 84.2% of lecturers do not like the existing systems, we should take into consideration this percentage and develop a new attendance system. As can be seen from the Figure 3.2, 84.2% of the lecturer sees the existing system not suitable for all people like deaf. This is one of the drawbacks of the existing system, and there are more such as: There is always a chance of forgery (one person signing the presence of the other one) More manpower is required (some person to take attendance) To overcome the problems in the existing system, we will develop a face recognition attendance system. The majority of lecturer sees as in the figure 3.3, if we replace the current system with a biometric system it will be successful. Overall these statistics, the lecturer is not satisfied about the existing attendance system. 3.3 Requirements Elicitation The requirements are the descriptions of the system services and constraints. 3.3.1 Functional Requirements System functional requirement describes activities and services that must provide. Taking and tracking student attendance by facial recognition in specific time. Sending the names of the absent student directly to the lecturer Permitting the lecturer to modify the student absent or late. Showing the names of who is absent or late in the screen to avoid errors. 3.3.2 Non-Functional Requirements Nonfunctional Requirements are characteristics or attributes of the system that can judge its operation. The following points clarify them: Accuracy and Precision: the system should perform its process in accuracy and Precision to avoid problems. Modifiability: the system should be easy to modify, any wrong should be correct. Security: the system should be secure and saving students privacy. Usability: the system should be easy to deal with and simple to understand. Maintainability: the maintenance group should be able to fix any problem occur suddenly. Speed and Responsiveness: Execution of operations should be fast. 3.3.3 User Requirements or Domain requirements Tools that the user must have in order to use the system and obtain good results: Software Requirements: windows7 or higher, SQL and visual studio. Hardware Requirements: high resolution camera and screen. 3.4 Requirements Specification Use case diagram is one of Unified Modeling Language (UML) that describes the system functionality, what actors that interact with the system and any associations between use cases. As shown in figure 3.4, the FRAS has actors named Admin, Lecturer and Student which are the main users of the system. Other actor, timer which turns camera on to record attendance by detecting and recognizing faces. 3.4.1 Use Case Description (Detailed Use Cases) (1) Log in Table ‎3.1: Log-in usecase description Use Case Name: Log in Use Case Number:1 Actors: Admin, Lecturer, student Description: This use case describes how Admin, Lecturer and student log into the system. Triggering events: Lecturer, admin and student enter his username and password. Steps Performed (Main Path): 1-System requires users to enter username/password. 2-Users enter username/password. 3-System validate entered username/password. 4-The use case ends successfully. Preconditions: System installed on pc. Admin, Lecturer and student must be authorized. Post-conditions: Log in is successfully. Alternate: If the Admin, Lecturer and student is not fill correctly, the log in fails. (2) Manage student attendance. Table ‎3.2: Manage student attendance usecase description Use Case Name: Manage student attendance Use Case Number: 2 Actors: Admin, Lecturer. Description:

Racial Diversity and the True Colors of Life Essay -- Sociology Racism

Racial Diversity - The True Colors of Life    Think of the world as a box of crayons. A box in which each color stands in its own designated space. Like these crayons, we each have different shades, tints, and most importantly, we all leave marks on our world when used. Some of us will leave a bold, vivid mark that cannot be unnoticed. For others of us, our mark is soft and subtle. Alone, each crayon can only achieve so much in the expression it can make. The way we express ourselves is limited to our own color that is made up of our customs, culture and experiences in life. It is not until we learn to mix our understandings, beliefs, our experiences, that a new color and expression can be made by each one of us. If we do this, the realm of possiblities for the box expands.    Being a freshman in a new world where all is overwhelming and completely foreign has presented its share of challenges. I have been faced with academic demands that I never experienced in my high school career. Socially, I have strived to find a place to fit in and find acceptance. The challenge I did not anticipate meeting with appreciation, however, is the diversity I have encountered in my first semester of college. For this reason, I have been prompted to take note of the diversity on our campus and to write this essay in an effort to emphasize its cruciality.    A man stands in the center of the quad preaching. In a voice filled with urgency and depth he preaches his belief that Jesus Christ is his salvation and the world's only truth. A young woman asks a panel of her peers, resentment and anger trembling in her voice, why she can not display her lesbian pride sticker on her car without glances of disgust... ...nd success and their place in the crayon box.    I realize the importance of the diversity on our campus and have a gratitude I never new existed. Never before have I embraced meeting my peers with a desire to explore a new culture or discover something about myself never known before. The girl who expresses her sexuality, the man who preaches his faith and the hippies who bead their lives are all beneficial to each and every student who passes them in their rush to class. For the first time in our lives we are trying to find our true identity. We are faced with adverse situations and ideas we are presented with for the first time in our lives. We look at our peers judgments and are forced to make our own. Through those, we discover our true selves. After all, how does a purple crayon know he is purple until he has compared himself to a red?   

Critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Essay

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, came as a reaction to the dreadful damages of the Second World War. This declaration was built according to the fundamentals of equality. It lists us all of our rights, all of our freedoms and how we can express them freely. It was constructed on the basic fact of it being just, equal to all, and right. However, are all articles applicable on all of mankind? Or can some of these be questioned? Generally, all of these articles should be applicable for the majority of humans, but not all of them. There is always an exception to the rule. There is always an outlier that doesn’t follow the rules. Many countries have rejected or not signed this declaration, therefore this declaration isn’t pertinent everywhere. One can find a lot of exceptions for many articles. Article 1 states that all human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights, that they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Nonetheless, not all human beings are reasonable and conscious of everything they do. Take serial killers for example. Their acts prove of inhumanity. A man with reason and/or conscience would never do such a thing. Also, should we give unreasonable people the same rights as the ones reasonable people have? Should they have the same privilege as others even if they have no sense of reason or conscience? The United Nations General Assembly also mentioned the fact that people should act in a spirit of brotherhood. Look around you, what brotherhood? Is killing each other brotherhood? Is fighting and starting wars brotherhood? Is forgetting every moral and correct way of acting just to get to power brotherhood? A definite no is the correct answer to these questions. There are no signs of brotherhood around us. On the contrary, if one takes a close look to our surroundings and everything around us, humans, one will only notice nothing but signs of rivalry and opposition. Article 2 raises the issue of the fact that we’re all equal in terms of rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Despite that, distinctions according to race, color, sex, religion, etc still exist in our modern society. Movements of racism, sexism, and religions distinctions still exist, but of course, lesser than before. People are still fighting and battling to erase these distinctions completely. This is a process every person looking for an equal and just world should follow. Article 5 states that no one shall be subjected to torture or to be cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. What about those who commit inhuman acts, those who torture other humans for the fun of it, don’t they deserve to have a taste of their own medicine? One should be treated the way one treats others. So if one tortures one another, that one shall be tortured or punished. Part 2 of article 15 articulates the fact that no one shall be deprived of his nationality. Well, what if that individual was involved in acts of high treason? What if that person turned his back on his country and denied his own nationality. That person definitely does not deserve to hold his nationality and shall be deprived from it immediately. Articles 18 and 19 talk about the fact that everyone is free to express their thoughts, opinions, religions. Some thoughts and opinions might actually harm others. Physically or mentally. In that way, it will refrain article 1. An example of such opinions/thoughts/religion would be Satanism and the Ku Klux Klan. These associations actions can damage others and hurt them. Therefore, these associations do not have the right to fully express themselves, but partially. They can only express the opinions/thoughts that do no harm to others. To sum things up, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is inconsistent; its articles are not always suitable. This declaration is not functional in all countries as some countries did not sign it. This declaration fails in its goal of it being universal; Exceptions can be found to some articles. Pieces of this declaration can be questioned for some precise individuals. It is not always applicable and it is not always a reliable document.

Case Analysis: The Annual Report Essay

1. The basic factors of communication that must be considered in the presentation of the Annual Report are compliance with accounting principles and regulations, accuracy of the information presented, and how much information you are going to disclose. The management has a lot of control over what and how much information it wants to disclose to the users of their financial report. Users can be shareholders, investors, customers, or if you want it or not, competitors. Therefore management doesn’t want to disclose too much strategic details about their future plans. However, it also has to attract prospective investors and therefore needs to give them enough information about the companies’ health. 2. One part of the Annual Report that is very interesting for investors is the Management’s Discussion and Analysis section. It gives the user of the financial report more specific details about how the company has done that year and contains information that cannot be found in the financial data. This section can include coverage over any favorable or unfavorable trends and any significant events or uncertainties in the areas of liquidity, capital resources, and results of operations (Ormiston, 2013). Another section of the Annual Report is the Proxy Statement. It is required by the SEC and solicits shareholder votes as many shareholders don’t attend shareholder meetings. This section also contains voting procedures, background information about nominated directors, executive compensation, etc. This information helps investors and creditors by providing information about the longevity and compensation of the companies’ top management as well as corporate governance (Ormiston, 2013). 3. One advantage of stating well-defined corporate strategies in the Annual Report is to attract investors. Prospective investors in your company want to see that your company is healthy and that you are generating cash flows from operations. They want to know if you are going to be able to pay out dividends. Therefore stating a well-defined strategy for the future can possible attract more investors. Another advantage of stating your strategy is that current investors remain investing in your company when they see that your company has a bright future. Investors like to plan ahead and therefore want to know your corporate strategy in advance. A disadvantage of stating well-defined strategies in the Annual Report is that you also disclose  critical information to your competitors. By doing so, your competitors know what your plans are and can try to position them better to compete with you. Another disadvantage of stating your corporate strategy in the Annual Report is that your customers might not like a change in your strategy and switch to your competitors. An example for this might be deciding to outsource all manufacturing to China. This corporate strategy might outrage your customers and lead them away from your company. 4. The effectiveness of annual reports in fulfilling the information needs for current and potential shareholders is usually good because management tailors the Annual Report as much as possible to the needs of investors in order to attract more investment into its company. Items like the MD&A or Pandora, which includes additional material to attract current and prospective investors, are specifica lly designed to attract more investment while giving the shareholder enough useful information to make a decision. Creditors of the company find the cash flow from operations statement useful because it provides them with information about how much money the company is making to determine their ability to pay their debt back to you. For most employees of the company the Annual Report is probably hard to read and understand because of the complexity and volume of information that it contains. They would most likely suffer from information overload and therefore the Annual Report is in my opinion not very effective in fulfilling their information needs. Most customers of a company are not going to be much interested in reading the financial statements of the company where they buy products. However, if important information about the company’s practices leaks to the public, the customers may switch to a competitor if they strongly disagree with said practice or strategy. Financial Analysts are probably going to find the information disclosed in the Annual Report very effective because they are used to reading these reports and know where to find useful information. However, because management has some control over what information to disclose or not to disclose, there is also some hard-to-find or missing information for Financial Analysts. This information can be employer relations with management, morale and efficiency of employees, or the firm’s prestige in the community. 5. Management knows when creating the Annual Report that competitors are going to analyze their strategy as well as shareholders and other users. Therefore it needs to be careful about  what information they want to disclose. The dilemma here is that you want to disclose enough information in order to attract investments, but cannot disclose too much information because otherwise your competitors are going to position themselves against you. This dilemma affects the decision about what information managers provide in their annual reports. 6. The sustainability report gives information about the environmental, social, and governance performance of a company and is a non-financial report. Many companies utilize this report to create a better image of their company in the public. This report is intended to show the companies’ performance and compliance with environmental standards and ratings. Sustainability reporting started in the 1980s by companies in the chemical industry who had image problems because of their negative impact on the environment. Nowadays, many companies use sustainability reports to improve internal processes, persuade investors, and improve their image in the public. This information can be helpful to investors because it portrays transparency and accountability and assures the investor of a good public image of the company. References Ormiston, A., & Fraser, L. M. (2013). Financial Statements. Understanding financial statements (10th ed., p. 12). New York, NY: Pearson Education.