Explain the 'open systems' approach to organisations, and how Essay

Explain the 'open systems' approach to organisations, and how environmental factors can affect the business organisation. Use the case to illustrate your answer - Essay Example In an open system, all aspects of an organisation starting from inputs all the way through the production process of outputs, and evaluation are all considered as being important. Boundaries and the external atmosphere are also very important to an open system. Strong open system analyses information that it receives from its surroundings makes the necessary changes in the organisation and then transmits the essential feedback to its environment (Thompson, 2011:12). Icy Foods Limited had no strong because when its external environment changed, it did not make the necessary changes in internal environment in order to boost their sales. Scott (2003) proposed several aspects that characterise open systems. These include self-maintenance, protection, boundaries and subsystems (Scott, 2003:89). In self-maintenance, organisations get the resources they need from the environment to survive. In terms of protection, organisations do not have to safeguard the environment, rather they use it as a source of information. In terms of boundaries, organisations have boundaries that are difficult to define. Lastly, when addressing subsystems, Scott (2003) notes that organisations have subsystems that are correlated in dynamic interaction (Scott, 2003:90-91). The organisation, being an open system relies on its external environment for the procurement and use of what it produces and the products that it offers. If the requirements of the organisation’s external environment change, they directly affect the organisation’s ability to sell what it produces. As seen in the case of Icy Foods Limited, the growth of the total sales of ready meals by large supermarket chains reduced the number of independent supermarkets that Icy Foods Limited used to supply to. Since several of Icy Food’s customers were forced out of business, the sales of the company reduced greatly. As a result of the

The Cheese and the Worms Essay Example for Free

The Cheese and the Worms Essay The Cheese and the Worms BY sk8erBN102 The Danger of Speaking Out Carlo Ginzburgs The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller explores the trials of supposed heretic Domenico Scandella. Better known as Menocchio, The Cheese and the Worms details his extensive beliefs about mistruths in religion and is written as a micro history of the events of his trial. At a time when religion and God were thought of as pure fact, Menocchio doubted their supreme existence and this lead to his death by burning. When reviewing Ginzburgs account f the trials, the sources of his many ideas come to light and these ideas show that the Catholic Church and its members were scared the most by Menocchios ideas about the origins of earth. Although a miller by trade, Menocchio was a well read, church going man. Having read various religious works, including the Bible, Menocchio came to numerous conclusions that did not sit well with upper authorities in the Catholic Church. To the Medieval Catholic Church, Menocchios most dangerous and outrageous claim was that the Book of Genesis was flawed. While tanding trial, Menocchio is quoted as saying, l have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed- Just as cheese is made out of milk- and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels. The most holy majesty decreed that these should be God and the angels, and among that number of angels there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time (Ginzburg, 4-5). Here, Menocchio is comparing the creation of the universe and in particular the human world to the reation of cheese from milk, suggesting that our existence was not formed by God but by some other means. Obviously, this is something that would not sit well with the ardent, strict religious officials of the time. During Menocchios time, the Catholic Church sought to keep a pristine reputation without anyone questioning the validity of their religion. Any remarks that would damage the history of Catholicism, no matter how small, were not taken lightly. However, Menocchio attacked a very integral part of Catholicism with force, thus making his remarks appear very dangerous to the oundation of the Catholic Church. Despite many warnings from his council, such as his lawyer telling him to, tell them what they want to know (Ginzburg, 5), Menocchio was a free spirit and wanted to speak his mind. While telling the court of his many thoughts, the origins of these, at the time, very radical ideas were unknown. Although the court documents prove that Menocchio had read many religious books, including an unknown book thought to be the Koran, poems and other resources, it was unlikely that he came up with all of his ideas from one single source. Menocchios ideas were more of a melting pot of various sources that had culminated in many discontinuous and contradictory ideas. Menocchio drew from as many as 11 sources, most likely more, that led to his conclusions about the origins of earth as well as what he thought were errors in the religion. It is likely that no single source led to his thoughts on the Genesis. It is more likely that Menocchio compounded oral history, The Bible and likely other sources to compounded with the massive amounts of information that came along with so many sources led to many contradictory ideas seen during his trials. This, combined with his heretical ideas, lead to his ultimate demise. Menocchios thoughts on the Genesis were the most damaging to the Catholic Church, as well as his own well being. Various sources contributed to his milk and cheese theory about the Genesis and the origins of religion, including the Bible, oral tradition and various poems and other religious books, including the possibility of the Koran. At a time when to doubt the Catholic Church was a very severe crime, Menocchio mocked religion (in the Churchs eyes) with his theories and heretical ideas, leading to his death.

Applications Of Lanthanides For Medicine

Applications Of Lanthanides For Medicine Lanthanides have been used for medicinal applications since the 1980s but the development of technology has led to a demand for new developments.1 Lanthanides, known as rare-earth elements, have a wide range of photophysical properties that are amenable to spectroscopic and crystallographic studies.1 This, along with the absence of lanthanides in biological systems, makes them ideal for studying protein structure and interactions. The chemistry of lanthanides arises from the shielded electrons in the 4f orbitals, located within the outermost filled 5s/5p orbitals2. This shielding means the luminescent f-f transitionsehibited by lanthanides are almost ligand-dependent. Despite their chemical similarities each lanthanide gives its own distinctive colour, luminescence emission spectra and nuclear magnetic properties.2 They are electropositive, very reactive and favour the Ln3+ oxidation state. It is these properties that make them useful as medicinal agents.1 Figure The f block lanthanidesLn3+ ions have similar ionic radii, donor atom preferences and coordination numbers in binding sites as Ca2+ ions which means that to some extent Ln3+ can mimic Ca2+ behaviour.3 For drugs molecules to reach their target they first need to be absorbed across the cell membrane a calcium dependent process. Calcium concentrations of mM are needed for efficient drug uptake, but these are rarely achieved under cellular conditions and even when it is the cell is likely to become damaged.3 It has recently been found that Ln3+ can perforate the membrane at concentrations as low as 10-5 M. It is therefore no surprise that co-administration of drugs with Ln3+ has led to an increased intracellular accumulation.3 This property has allowed lanthanides to be used as a co-administer to drugs, as a drug itself and imaging agents.3 Medicinal applications Anti cancer agents Lanthanides have been known to be anti cancer agents since the early 1990s primarily through the induction of apoptosis.3 Lanthanides, particularly Tb3+, increase the infux of Ca2+ into cells thus increasing the intracellular levels. This increases the endonuclease activity, leading to DNA cleavage and therefore apoptosis.4 The same result is achieved by the inhibition of phosphodiesterase, the molecule responsible for the degradation of cyclic adenosine 3,5-monophosphate (cAMP).4,5 The molecule cAMP has an important role in DNA replication and an increase in its levels leads to a corresponding increase in the protein kinase (PKA) levels. This has two effects both of which lead to apoptosis; the increase of endonuclease activity and the expression of apoptosis genes.3,5 However, these methods were not selective and influenced healthy tissues as well as cancerous ones.4 New developments have targeted this drawback in an attempt to limit the side effects of treatment. Titania nanoparticles (NPs) have the potential to target tumours in a non-invasive manner.4 Titania, a wide band gap semiconductor, produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) following excitation of valence band electrons to the conductance band upon stimulation.4 These photoelectrochemical reactions can be promoted by x-ray irradiation which allows non-invasive penetration of the human body. Two papers, published by H.Townley et al. and A.Gnach et al., reported the discovery that the interaction of titania-NPs with x-rays can be optimised by using lanthanides as dopants.4,5 Normal cells can tolerate a certain level of exogenous ROS due to a reserve of antioxidants which counteract the ROS activity.3 Cancerous cells have metabolic abnormalities which increase the intracellular ROS levels. This makes them more dependent on the intracellular antioxidant system and vulnerable to exogenous ROS levels.4,5 Lanthanide doped NPs generate higher levels of ROS, due to the lanthanides allowing increased x-ray absorption, than general NPs thus playing on this vulnerability. The increased levels cause DNA and mitochondrial damage, causing apoptosis.4,5 NPs have the capability to accumulate in tumours as a result of the defective tumour vasculature. This gives them the potential to be selective to cancer cells thus reducing side effects. The NPs can also be coated with moieties for specific targeting and activation further limiting the damage to healthy tissues.5 These properties of the NPs are enhanced by lanthanide doping thus giving a new application for lanthanides. The best results have been seen for [emailprotected] and [emailprotected] Imaging Figure The traditional contrasting agent with Gd3+ bound to the chelate ligand and the water molecule under observation.Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has been vastly improved due to the use of contrasting agents (CA) since 1988.6 These act to improve the contrast between healthy and pathological tissue by influencing the relaxation rate of protons of bound water molecules, T2.7 The faster the relaxation rate, the higher the intensity and the sharper the image achieved. Relaxation rates are increased when the water molecule is close to a paramagnetic centre. Gd3+ has 7 unpaired electrons and is used as contrasting agents in MRI due to its highly paramagnetic centre.6 The traditional contrasting agents used Gd3+ bound to a chelate ligand through eight donor atoms (figure 2). This gives the complex the stability and strong binding needed to ensure that Gd3 is not released into the blood.6 However, Gd3+ is unselective and distributes over a wide region of extracellular space. Develop ments have been made to make the distribution more selective by linking Gd3+ chelates to moieties that cause accumulation in areas of interest.7 However, the increase of the magnetic strength from 64 MHz to the present 125 MHz has led to the decrease in the efficiency of Gd3+ based CAs. Therefore developments have had to be made to meet the technological demands. Current commercial contrasting agents are based on Gd-DPTA, Gd-DOTA and their derivatives but utilizing the magnetic and luminescent properties of other lanthanides has allowed the developments of new CA.8 A paper recently published by C.Andolinia et al. described how the near infrared (NIR) luminescence of the lanthanides Dy3+Â  and Yb3+ has been combined with the traditional MRI-CA to create new multimodal imaging agents.6 These complexes act as light harvesting antenna due to the bifunctional chelators/chromophores present. They surround the reaction centre, in this case the tissues, and funnel absorbed energy to the reaction centre.8 It is through this method that more of the incoming radiation is absorbed and the contrast is improved. Optical probes absorb photons from the excitation source within the visible region as well as absorbing the photons caused by biomolecules.6 Therefore the absorption and luminescent emission of optical probes are both in the visible region which l eads to a decrease in the limit of detection as well as the depths that the photons can reach. The NIR probes have the advantage that the depth of light penetration is increased due to their excitation wavelengths being outside of the biological window.6 Evaluation of all of the lanthanides has shown Yb3+ to be the most efficient NIR and MRI bimodal imaging agent.7 Osteoporotic treatment Bones are involved in a very precise cycle of the resorption and desorption of the bone tissue, see figure 3. Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease in which the bone density is decreased through higher levels of resorption than desorption. It is most commonly treated with biphosphonates which inhibit resorption thus preventing bone degradation.9 However, this class of drugs is poorly lipophilic and thus have a low oral bioavailability. To counteract this, the drug must be administered in high concentrations which causes GI tract problems, low patient tolerability and suspected osteoporotic issues in the jaw.9 Figure The continuous cycle of bone degradation and rebuildingIt is well known that lanthanide ions preferentially accumulate within the bone3 where they have an inhibitory effect on osteroclasts (bone degradation) and a stimulatory effect on osteoblasts (bone making). Due to the chemical similarities of Ln3+ and Ca2+ mentioned before, Ln3+ can potentially replace Ca2+ ions within the bone and affect the bone turnover cycle.3 Y.Mawani et al. discovered that heavier lanthanide ions show a 50-70% accumulation in the bones compared to lighter ions which have a >25% accumulation.9 The half life for a lanthanide ion in the bone is 2.5 years compared to an elimination time from soft tissues, such as the liver, of 15 days. These properties have led to heavier lanthanide ions being used for osteoporotic therapy.9 Furthermore, adjustment of the ligand structure has allowed the improvement of oral availability leading to an increased uptake and reduced side effects. Previous lanthanide comple xes were found to be poorly soluble in aqueous phases therefore reducing the absorption across the GI tract.9 This led to small levels of lanthanide ions accumulating in the bones therefore making the treatment inefficient. The development of an orally active drug that can pass through the GI tract has allowed efficient delivery of lanthanides to the bone. Conclusion Despite the initial disregarding of lanthanides due to suspected toxicity they have shown to have excellent properties for use as medicinal agents. The similarity of Ln3+Â  and Ca2+ has allowed lanthanides ions to be used as anti-osteoporotic agents as well as for increasing the permeability of cells to other drugs. New developments have seen lanthanide ions being used as cancer agents, by causing increased levels of ROS, as well as improving the already existing imaging techniques.

Medea and Nietzsches Will to Power Essay -- Comparison Compare Contra

Medea and Nietzsche's Will to Power When Medea kills her children, audiences react with shock and horror. Any sympathy viewers have built for the woman is, in the words of Elizabeth Vandiver, â€Å"undercut† by this act (15). Since Medea is the protagonist, we question why Euripides chose to make her a child murderer. Most scholars agree that he invented this part of the myth. He also lessened her role as witch by drawing attention to her human qualities. This only highlights the infanticide (14) because we cannot excuse her ruthless act as monstrous and non-human. However, Medea remains very human until after she kills her sons. Appearing at the end of the play in the deus ex machina, she takes over not only the position but also the words of the gods. Euripides has transformed her into a different character. Exactly what the character is and what Euripides’ message is remains arguable. However, if we agree that Euripides had a modern sensibility and an almost prophetic sense of upcoming social struggles , as many scholars have posited, then we can also see why this play continues to fascinate us so much (Kawashima 50; Bellinger 49; Skinner). Edith Hamilton points to one aspect of Medea that seems especially relevant to modern audiences: Euripides’ valuation of the individual. She believes that he is the only classical writer to tap into two dominant themes in today’s world: â€Å"sympathy with suffering and the conviction of the worth of everyone alive† (197). Of course, as soon as we try to classify what it means to be an individual in the modern sense, we run into the plethora of theories out there. However, Medea poses difficulties as a protagonist that seem well-suited to the Nietzschean philosophy of tragedy and will. She ass... .../CLAS_351/ lecture24.html>. Roche, Paul, trans. Euripides: Ten Plays. NY: Signet, 1998. Schact, Richard. â€Å"Dionysian and Apollonian.† Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Ed. Ted Honderich. Oxford and NY: Oxford UP, 1995. 10 Nov. 2002. . Skinner, Marilyn B. â€Å"Lecture 9: Hellenistic Women.† Diotima. 1995. 15 Nov. 2002. . Taylor, Alan. â€Å"Will to Power.† Mus(e)ings†¦on Nietzsche: Wanderings and Reflections. 1996. 30 Oct. 2002. . Vandiver, Elizabeth. Greek Tragedy: Course Guidebook. Part II. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2000. Vellacott, Philip, trans. Medea. By Euripides. Literature of the Western World. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. NY: Macmillan, 1988. 853-86.

Compare and Contrast of Short Stories Essay

In â€Å"The Ones That Walk Away From Omelas† and â€Å"The Lottery†, Ursula Le Guin and Shirley Jackson portray a supposedly perfect society built on clandestine secrets. In the short story â€Å"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas†, Omelas’ inhabitants are smart and cultured, and it seems like a utopian city of happiness and delight. Everything about Omelas is your every desire, disregarding the secret of the city: the good fortune of Omelas requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in never-ending filth, darkness and misery, and that all its citizens should be told of this when they come of age. After the truth is told to the people of Omelas most are initially shocked and disgusted and somehow manage to live there life and make it worth it for the child’s existence; others just walk away from the city of Omelas. In the short story, â€Å"The Lottery†, a small village of about 300 have an annual lottery; women, men, and children participate, to see who will be the chosen one to guarantee enough rain for the corn crops. The winner is to be stoned to death. The way the authors use irony to depict the story societies as wonderful and perfect then towards the end the dark secret is discovered is very intriguing and captivating, which makes you want to keep reading. In the story, â€Å"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas†, Omelas seems to be this beautiful and cheerful place. The story takes place during a festival and there are children running around laughing and there is music. It talks about a race and how the horses are excited, â€Å"(the horses) flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another â€Å" with silver, gold, and green braided into their manes. The story has and air of excitement and celebration that is soon questioned when the author begins to talk about the child.

La Indolencia de Los Filipinos Essay

La indolencia de los filipinos (y de los estudiantes tambien) 1. What was the effect of conviction of â€Å"inferiority? † -The child or youth who tries to be anything else is blamed with vanity and presumption; the curate ridicules him with cruel sarcasm, his relatives look upon him with fear, strangers regard him with great compassion. No forward movement — Get back in the ranks and keep in line! With his spirit thus molded the native falls into the most pernicious of all routines: routine not planned but imposed and forced. Note that the native himself is not naturally inclined to routine but his mind is disposed to accept all truth, just as his house is open to all strangers. The good and the beautiful attract him, seduce and captivate him although like the the Japanese he often exchanges the good for the evil, if it appears to him garnished and gilded. What he lacks is in the first place liberty to allow expansion to his adventuresome spirit, and good examples, beautiful prospects for the future. It is necessary that his spirit, although it may be dismayed and cowed by the elements and the fearful manifestation of their mighty forces, store up energy, seek high purposes, in order to struggle against obstacles in the midst of unfavorable natural conditions. In order that he may progress it is necessary that a revolutionary spirit, so to speak, should boil in his veins, since progress necessarily requires the present; the victory of new ideas over the ancient and accepted one. It will not be sufficient to speak to his fancy, to talk nicely to him, nor that the light illuminate him like the ignis fatuus that leads travelers astray at night: all the flattering promises of the fairest hopes will not suffice, so long as his spirit is not free, his intelligence is not respected. 2. What is the meaning of the statement, tila ka kastila? The pernicious example of the dominators in surrounding themselves with servants and despising manual or corporal labor as a thing unbecoming the nobility and chivalrous pride of the heroes of so many centuries; those lordly airs, which the natives have translated into tila ka castila, and the desire of the dominated to be the equal of the dominators, if not essentially, at least in their manners; all this had naturally to produce aversion to activity and fear or hatred of work. 3. What does Rizal mean by saying that indolence in the Philippines is a chronic but not an inherited disease? When in consequence of a long chronic illn ess the condition of the patient is examined, the question may arise whether the weakening of the fibers and the debility of the organs are the cause of the malady’s continuing or the effect of the bad treatment that prolongs its action. The attending physician attributes the entire failure of his skill to the poor constitution of the patient, to the climate, to the surroundings, and so on. On the other hand, the patient attributes the aggravation of the evil to the system of treatment followed. Only the common crowd, the inquisitive populace, shakes its head and cannot reach a decision. Something like this happens in the case of the Philippines. Instead of a physician, read government, that is friars, employees, etc. Instead of patient, Philippines; instead of malady, indolence. 4. What proofs did Rizal give to show that pre-Spanish Malayans were not indolent? -Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Malayan Filipinos carried on an active trade, no only among themselves but also with all the neighboring countries. All the histories of those first years, in short, abound in long accounts about the industry and agriculture of the natives; mines, gold-washings, looms, farms, barter, naval construction, raising of poultry and stock, weaving of silk and cotton, distilleries, manufactures of arms, pearl fisheries, the civet industry, the horn and hide industry, etc. , are things encountered at every step, and considering the time and the conditions in the islands, prove that there was life, there was activity, there was movement. 5. How did it happen that the industrious pagan culture was transformed into that of an indolent Christian culture? -We have already spoken of the more or less latent predisposition which exists in the Philippines toward indolence, and which must exist everywhere, in the whole world, in all men, because we all hate work more or less, as it may be more or less hard, more ore less unproductive. The dolce far niente of the Italian, the rascarse la barriga of the Spaniard, the supreme aspiration of the bourgeois to live on his income in peace and tranquility, attest this. It seems that there are causes more than sufficient to breed indolence in the midst of a beehive. Thus is explained why, after thirty-two years of the system, the circumspect and prudent Morga said that the natives have forgotten much about farming, raising poultry, stock and cotton and weaving cloth, as they used to do in their paganism and for a long time after the country had been conquered! † 6. Why does the city of Hong Kong have more commercial and trade activities than the whole of the Philippines? It has more commercial movement than all the islands together, because it is free and is well governed. The great difficulty that every enterprise encountered with the administration contributed not a little to kill off all commercial and industrial movement. All the Filipinos, as well as all those who have tried to engage in business in the Philippines, know how many documents, what comings, how many stamped papers, how much patience is needed to secure from the government a permit for an enterprise. One must count upon the good will of this one, on the influence of that one, on a good bribe to another in order that the application be not pigeon-holed, a present to the one further on so that it may pass it on to his chief; one must pray to God to give him good humor and time to see and examine it; to another, talent to recognize its expediency; to one further on sufficient stupidity not to scent behind the enterprise an insurrectionary purpose land that they may not all spend the time taking baths, hunting or playing cards with the reverend friars in their convents or country houses. And above all, great patience, great knowledge of how to get along, plenty of money, a great deal of politics, many salutations, great influence, plenty of presents and complete resignation! 7. Was there gambling in the country before the coming of the Spaniards? -Yes, we do not mean to say that before the coming of the Spaniards the natives did not gamble: the passion for gambling is innate in adventuresome and excitable races, and such is the Malay, Pigafetta tells us of cockfights and of bets in the Island of Paragua. Cock-fighting must also have existed in Luzon and in all the islands, for in the terminology of the game are two Tagalog words: sabong and tari (cockpit and gaff). But there is not the least doubt that the fostering of this game is due to the government, as well as the perfecting of it. 8. What are the effects of too many religious festivals on the country? Remember, that lack of capital and absence of means paralyze all movement, and you will see how the native was perforce to be indolent for if any money might remain to him from the trials, imposts and exactions, he would have to give it to the curate for bulls, scapularies, candles, novenaries, etc. And if this does not suffice to form an indolent character, if the climate and nature are not enough in themselves to daze him and deprive him of all energy, recall then that the doctrine of his religion teach him to irrigate his fields in the dry season, not by means of canals but with amasses and prayers; to preserve his stock during an epidemic with holy water, exorcisms and benedictions that cost five dollars an animal, to drive away the locusts by a procession with the image of St. Augustine, etc. It is well, undoubtedly, to trust greatly in God; but it is better to do what one can not trouble the Creator every moment, even when these appeals redound to the benefit of His ministers. We have noticed that the countries which believe most in miracles are the laziest, just as spoiled children are the most ill-mannered. Whether they believe in miracles to palliate their laziness or they are lazy because they believe in miracles, we cannot say; but he fact is the Filipinos were much less lazy before the word miracle was introduced into their language. 9. What other evidence may be pointed out to show the lack of national sentiment? -The very limited training in the home, the tyrannical and sterile education of the rare centers of learning that blind subordination of the youth to one of greater age, influence the mind so that a man may not aspire to excel those who preceded him but must merely be content to go along with a march behind them. Stagnation forcibly results from this, and as he who devotes himself merely to copying divests himself of other qualities suited to his own nature, he naturally becomes sterile; hence decadence. Indolence is a corollary derived from the lack of stimulus and of vitality. That modesty infused into the convictions of everyone, or, to speak more clearly, that insinuated inferiority, a sort of daily and constant depreciation of the mind so that it may not be raised to the regions of life, deadens the energies, paralyzes all tendencies toward advancement, and of the least struggle a man gives up without fighting. If by one of those rare incidents, some wild spirit, that is some active one, excels, instead of his example stimulating, it only causes others to persist in their inaction. There’s one who will work for us; let’s sleep on! † say his relatives and friends. True it is that the spirit of rivalry is sometimes awakened, only that then it awakens with bad humor in the guise of envy, and instead of being a lever for helping, it is an obstacle that produces discouragement. 10. How do we know there was no national sentiment? -Absence of all opposition to measu res prejudicial to the people and the absence of any initiative in whatever may redound to its good. A man in the Philippines is only an individual, he is not a member of a nation. He is forbidden and denied the right of association, and is, therefore, weak and sluggish. The Philippines is an organism whose cells seem to have no arterial system to irrigate it or nervous system to communicate its impressions; these cells must, nevertheless, yield their product, get it where they can; if they perish, let them perish. In the view of some this is expedient so that a colony may be a colony; perhaps they are right, but not the effect that a colony may flourish.