Definition and Examples of Climactic Order

Dilated Cardiomyopathy and The Role of Autoimmunity in...

An autoimmune response directed against heart-specific antigens has been recognized as important to the pathogenesis of DCM. Specifically, muscarinic M2AChR autoantibodies have a 25-80% occurrence in various cardiac conditions; these antibodies can be found in 18-51% of patients with idiopathic DCM (4), 40-77% of chagasic patients with heart failure and 42% of those with an unspecified condition (18, 31). A wide variety of infectious and noninfectious agents have been reported to induce similar symptoms (32, 33), and recently, a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy with cisplatin and doxorubicin showed a DCM phenotype and the concomitant presence of serum autoantibodies against M2AChR (6). It is well established that cardiomyopathy can be recapitulated by experimental immunization with cardiac myosin plus an adjuvant or with the administration of antibodies against troponin I and the ÃŽ ²1-adrenergic receptor (33, 28, 34, 35). Similarly, we provide evidence that autoimmunity again st specific M2AChR epitopes (M2AChR-el2 and M2AChR-il3) may play a causal role in DCM. Therefore, BALB/c mice were DNA-immunized using a gene gun with plasmids encoding partial epitopes to induce potentially harmful anti-M2AChR-el2 and anti-M2AChR-il3 antibodies and establish cardiomyopathy. All mice progressively developed left ventricle dilation and dysfunction detected by echocardiography analyses (approximately 10-20 weeks post-immunization). Next, we mimicked the presence of autoantibodies

Wellness Fitness and Nutritional Plan

Question: Discuss about the Wellness Fitness and Nutritional Plan. Answer: Overview Jill is a student of a college and an athlete. She practices 4 times in a day and mainly plays on Saturday and Sundays. For improving her performances, Jill needs to work out daily. In the course of planning a female teenage athlete must know the start can be a challenging one. Jill needs to implement a proper fitness plan in her daily schedule (Desbrow et. al, 2014). Jill is a teenage female athlete who needs to plan her fitness profile along with the nutritional guide plan in a very proper way. Her fitness plan for four week can be by performing aerobic exercises, strengthening her training process, flexibility in training and ignoring or avoiding the triad in the female athlete group. After the season, Jill always faces difficulties in coping up with her studies and to lead a normal lifestyle. Therefore, she needs to plan in a very efficient way to meet up the nutritional requirements during her training and after as well. The nutritional plan for Jill is guided that deals with the total intake of the food and the total amount of water that is required to her body for maintain the physical fitness during the season and afterwards as well. (Payne Kirchner, 2014). Fitness Plan The fitness plan of Jill is given below: Aerobic Exercise Aerobic exercise is one of the efficient exercise and a must for the teenage female athlete. For maintaining a proper healthy and diet and for improving the performance, exercises must be chosen which are similar for those people who can perform well in the particular sports of their choice. Female teenage runners must incorporate running for boosting their performances and the fitness. Jogging or running can be a great way for them to leave out the boredom sand to motivate them-selves by promoting the adherence in the workout plan. Jill must incorporate aerobic exercises at least for 60 minutes for around 5-7 days in week for the best results in her health an in the athletic ability. Strength Training Process The teenage athletes especially the female can achieve the benefits from a well organized strength training program. The muscle mass can be build besides the performance of the athlete. This is the best way of boosting the health of the bone and this is very much important for the athletes those in the teenage period. Jill should include the exercises for building up of the muscle especially in the lower part of the body through squats, dead lifts and lunges. She also should lift the weights for two to three times per week. This should be done under a strong supervision of the coach. This process will give an optimal result. Flexibility Training The term flexibility means the specific joints that have the capability of producing a vast range of motion. The American Council on Exercise stated that flexibility helps in decreasing the risk of getting injured of an athlete. The improvement in flexibility can be obtained by stretching action in daily routine for about fifteen minutes. The stretching purpose after the exercise helps the athlete to prevent from the injury (Tenforde et al., 2016). Avoiding the Female Athlete Triad The daily exercises helps and participating in any sports events helps the female teen age athlete to gain some benefits and have great consequences in the field of athlete. The female teenage athlete has a significant risk in developing a female athlete triad. This is characterized by eating disorder, osteoporosis and menstruation loss. The triad can have lifelong injuries that can permanently damage the career of athlete (Tenforde et. al, 2016). Nutrition Plan Jill needs to wake up at around 6.30 am in the morning and need to drink minimum of 10 ounces water. In-taking more of water increases the energy level in the body for the strenuous exercises or for the performance that is required by the body image of Jill (Martinsen Sundgot-Borgen, 2013). The Nutrition plan for Jill can be (Parnell, Wiens Erdman, 2016): Breakfast 7.30 am 2 Egg-whites and 1 whole egg Half cup of oatmeal with one-third blueberries 16 ounces of water Mid-Morning Snack 10 am Half cup fresh fruit along with half cup low-fat cottage cheese 16 ounces of water Lunch 12.30 am 8 ounces of grilled chicken Half cup of Spinach Medium baked potato 16 ounces of water Pre-practice 45 minutes before the practice session For optimum level of energy, small snack need to be consumed before 45 minutes, like Gatorade of 15 ounce 16 ounces of water and crackers of peanut butter Gatorade of 16 ounce A banana Dinner 7 pm 8 ounce of grilled salmon 1 cup of brown rice 1 cup of steamed broccoli 16 ounces of water Before bedtime 10.30 pm 10 ounces of low fat milk Wellness Plan Stress is a mental disturbance that can hamper any individuals mental status, which ultimately disrupts all sorts of activities they are involved. The strategy for stress management for the female adolescent athlete is describes below: Plenty of Rest requires in between the performances for being fit during the performances. Managing the proper timing as per to the requirement of the fitness and to take the proper amount of food as per to the nutritional plan. Maintaining the positive attitude towards the life reduces the stress level. Recreational activities also help in reducing the level of the stress that might have developed during the poor performance (Bingham, Borkan Quatromoni, 2015). References Bingham, M. E., Borkan, M. E., Quatromoni, P. A. (2015). Sports Nutrition Advice for Adolescent Athletes: A Time to Focus on Food.American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine,9(6), 398-402. Desbrow, B., McCormack, J., Burke, L. M., Cox, G. R., Fallon, K., Hislop, M., ... Star, A. (2014). Sports Dietitians Australia position statement: sports nutrition for the adolescent athlete.International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism,24(5), 570-584. Martinsen, M., Sundgot-Borgen, J. (2013). Higher prevalence of eating disorders among adolescent elite athletes than controls.Med Sci Sports Exerc,45(6), 1188-97. Parnell, J. A., Wiens, K. P., Erdman, K. A. (2016). Dietary Intakes and Supplement Use in Pre-Adolescent and Adolescent Canadian Athletes.Nutrients,8(9), 526. Payne, J. M., Kirchner, J. T. (2014). Should you suspect the female athlete triad? Is your patient's dedication to her sport putting her health at risk? This review--complete with a brief screening tool--will help you identify at-risk athletes and those whose health is already being compromised.Journal of Family Practice,63(4), 187-193. Tenforde, A. S., Barrack, M. T., Nattiv, A., Fredericson, M. (2016). Parallels with the female athlete triad in male athletes.Sports Medicine,46(2), 171-182.

Compare and Contrast Vertebrate and Invertebrate Vision Essay Example

Compare and Contrast Vertebrate and Invertebrate Vision Paper Although vertebrates and invertebrates originally evolved from a common ancestral root, both have developed very different physical utilities for vision. Both are fairly effective and have taken many millions of years to evolve. They contain many common underlying mechanisms but differ in the features used to provide them. The definition of an eye is an organ of visual perception that includes parts specialized for optical processing of light as well as well as photoreceptive neurons (Alberts). The main feature of an eye therefore, in all organisms that possess one, is the collection of photoreceptors used in converting light energy into action potentials (electrical energy). When comparing vertebrate and invertebrate vision, the two best-studied cases are the compound eye exemplified by arthropods and the simple eye used in vertebrates. The main difference between the compound and simple eye is that the compound eye uses a spatial array of lenses so that each image in a local region of visual space falls onto one or a few photoreceptors. The simple eye, however, uses a single lens to image the world onto an array of photoreceptors. Compound eyes produce mosaic images. The compound eye is made up of many optical units called ommatidiums, each of which is aimed at a different part of the visual field. Each ommatidium samples a different part of the visual field through a separate lens. In a simple eye, each receptor cell samples part of the field through a lens shared by all receptor cells. In compound eyes, each ommatidium samples an angular cone-shaped portion of the environment, taking in about 2-3i of the visual field. We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and Contrast Vertebrate and Invertebrate Vision specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and Contrast Vertebrate and Invertebrate Vision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and Contrast Vertebrate and Invertebrate Vision specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer In contrast, each receptor of a simple eye may sample as little as 0. 2i of the visual field. In addition, the simple eye, inverts the image that falls on the retina. Since the receptive field of each ommatidium is relatively large, compound eyes have lower visual acuity than simple eyes. The mosaic image formed by a compound eye is also coarser than that of a simple eye. The simple eye in vertebrates focuses incident light in two stages. In the initial stage, incident light rays are refracted as they pass through the clear outer surface of the eye, called the cornea. They are further refracted as they pass through a second structure, the lens, and finally form an inverted image on the rear internal surface of the eye, the retina. Objects at different distance can be focussed in higher vertebrates by changing the curvature and thickness of the lens, which affects its focal length, the distance at which an image passed through the lens comes into focus. Diffraction is a property of all light and because of this, the angular resolution (resolving power) of any eye is limited by the diameter of its lens. The larger the lens diameter, the higher spatial resolution. The biggest problem for compound eyes is that the resolution is limited because the facets of the individual lens are so small. A compound eye of a given size will have a much lower resolving power than a simple eye of the same size. Optical superposition compound eyes are one way of increasing the effective lens diameter. This structure works by using several separate elements to image incident rays onto a single point, such as a single photoreceptor. This method is used in insects such as fireflies. Another way, is to use neural superposition. Simple eyes on the other hand, use a single lens, and have evolved entirely separately in the cephalopods and vertebrates. The octopus is a good example because the optical design of its eyes is remarkably similar to the vertebrate eye. The one major difference, however is that in octopus eyes, as in all fish eyes, the lens is much more powerful because it has to compensate for the loss in refractive power from the cornea, due to being underwater. Simple eyes have a much larger lens diameter which means that the spatial resolution achievable is much higher than is ever possible with a compound eye. Experiments by Kirschfeld have suggested that in order to obtain the same spatial resolution as a human eye, a compound eye would need to be about 1m across. The eye is a complex structure which has caused many arguments between evolutionary biologists and theologists. Theologists believe that the eye is so perfectly designed to harvest light, and that no intermediary design would be effective, that it must have been created by a divine designer. Biologists believe that it was created step-by-step through natural selection, and that any one step is always an improvement on the last, and thus the eye did not have to be this complex to be of benefit. This argument can be backed up by the evidence of optical diseases in which humans are handicapped in their sight, yet to them, the vision they have is better than none at all, as was a primitive form of an eye. Myopia (short-sightedness) and hypermetropia (long-sightedness) occur when the optical image of a point at infinity (i. e. he far point) falls respectively in front of or behind the retina. These errors commonly occur when the eyeball is too long, or too short, and is easily corrected with a concave or convex lens. These diseases are commonly found amongst the elderly who no longer have such deformable lens and so have difficulty varying the curvature of the lens, and thus focussing on objects at different distances effectively. This is an accommodation problem. Accommodation (discovered by Helmholz) is brought about by the ciliary body that acts on the zonular fibres that support the lens. It contains circumferential (circular) muscle fibres that allow it to act as a sphincter. The lens can be dilated by relaxing the circumferential fibres, and is said to be unaccommodated. The radial fibres of the ciliary body also act by pulling outwards on the zonular fibres that support the lens, thereby thinning it. The lens is accommodated when the circumferential fibres contract, and the lens is forced to shrink. The tension in the zonular fibres is reduced, and the lens is allowed to relax into a thicker, more curved shape, with greater refractive power. A related neuronal mechanism produces binocular convergence, in which the left and right eyes are positioned by the ocular muscles so that the images received by the two eyes fall on analogous parts of the two retinas, regardless of the distance between the object and the eyes. When an object is close, each of the two eyes must rotate towards the middle of the nose; when an object is far away, the two eyes rotate outward from the midline. Photoreceptors transduce photons of electromagnetic radiation from the visible light spectrum, into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the nervous system. The energy of the electromagnetic radiation varies inversely with its wavelength, and we perceive this variation in energy as variation in colour. The outermost layer of the vertebrate retina includes two classes of photoreceptor in vertebrates: rods and cones. There are about 100 million rods in the eye and 5 million cones. A small central area called the fovea, is densely packed with cones, but in the periphery, rods outnumber cones by 20:1. Cones function best in bright light and provide high resolution, whereas rods function best in dim light but provide much less resolution. In humans, cones mediate colour vision, and rods mediate achromatic vision. These different properties are used to expand the visual capabilities of animals living in certain conditions. For example, animals that live in flat, open environments such as rabbits, usually have horizontal regions within the retina that contain a high density of cones. This concentration of cones is called the visual streak. This region corresponds to the horizon in the visual world and is thought to confer maximal resolution in this part of the scene, allowing the animal to interpret shapes on the horizon with great precision. A receptor current exists for all sensory receptors which are usually modulated by the stimulus. In the case of vertebrate photoreceptors, the light stimulus actually reduces the circulating current, by causing the closure of ion channels. Although both invertebrates and vertebrates have eyes containing photoreceptors, they differ in their structure. Vertebrate receptor cells contain a segment with an internal structure similar to that of a cilium. This cilium connects the outer segment, which contains the photoreceptive membranes to the inner segment, which includes the nucleus and mitochondria. The photoreceptors of many invertebrates lack the ciliary structure that connects the inner and outer segments of vertebrate rods and cones and the lamellae and or stacks of disks containing visual pigment. Instead, the visual pigment is located in the microvilli formed by the plasma membrane, and these pigment-containing microvilli are organised into rhabdomeres. Visual pigments consist of 2 major components: a protein (opsin) and a light-absorbing molecule (either retinal or 3-dehydroretinal). Opsins are protein visual pigment molecules consisting of 7 transmembrane ? -helix domains. Opsins are coupled to photopigment molecules that are structurally altered by the absorption of photons, and in turn modify the opsin protein. The retinal molecule assumes two sterically distinct states in the retina. In the absence of light, the opsin and retinal are linked covalently and retinal is in an 11-cis formation. The covalent bond allows this light-absorbing molecule to act as a powerful antagonist. On capturing a photon, the retinal isomerises into the all-trans configuration, initiating a series of changes in the visual pigment, as the molecule is rendered enzymatically active. When light hits the photopigment, an intermediate metharhodopsin II forms that activates the G-protein transducin. Transducin activity closes Na+ channels and the receptor cell hyperpolarizes. Activated rhodopsin is hydrolysed spontaneously to retinal and rhodopsin which is hydrolysed spontaneously to retinal and opsin which are both used repeatedly. Studies made on the horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus have revealed a lot about vision. The crab has paired lateral compound eyes as well as five simple eyes: medial and lateral pairs on the dorsal surface and a single unpaired simple eye on the ventral surface. The compound eyes are typical compound eyes whereas the simple eyes are similar in structure to the simplest eye known, which consists of a shallow open pit lined with photoreceptor cells that are backed by screening pigment. Each ommatidium of a compound eye contains several photoreceptor cells. The photoreceptor cells of the Limulus compound eye are located at the base of each ommatidium. Each ommatidium lies beneath a hexagonal section of an outer transparent layer, the corneal lens. Visual transduction takes place in 12 retinular, or photoreceptor, cells. Each retinular cell has a rhabdomere, a part of the cell in which the plasma membrane is thrown into densely packed microvilli, making this the part of the cell that captures light energy. The microvilli greatly increase the surface area of the plasma membrane, which increases the probability that incident light will be captured by the rhodopsin molecules embedded in the membrane. Together, the 12 rhabdomeres of the retinular cells make up a rhabdome, which surrounds the dendrite of an afferent neuron, the eccentric cell. Depolarisations of the plasma membrane can be recorded in the retinular cells when the eye is exposed to very dim light. These quantum bumps increase in frequency as the light intensity increases (i. e. as more photons impinge on the receptors). The bumps are electrical signals generated as a result of the absorption of individual quanta of light. How can capture of a single photon lead to rapid release of so much energy? In this case, through a cascade of chemical reactions inside the cell that includes G-protein activation. Activation of the G-protein cascade occurs by diffusional contact between activated rhodopsin and molecules of G-protein, which are activated sequentially, as explained above; the activated g-protein in turn activates an effector enzyme, the PDE (phosphodiesterase); this is a 1:1 step, i. e. it has no amplification. A second stage of amplification occurs because the activated PDE is an enzyme which catalyses the destruction of cGMP. The net effect is to open ion channels, allowing cations to enter the cell. In Limulus, the receptor current through the light activated channels is carried by Na+, K+ and some Ca2+. This current causes a depolarising receptor potential. When the light goes off, the channels close again, and the membrane repolarises. The sensitivity of individual photoreceptors drops with exposure to light. This light adaptation is thought to be mediated by Ca+ ions, which enter the cells when light causes ion channels to open and which by some mechanism then reduce the current through light-activated channels. Although the Limulus eye is simple compared to that of invertebrates, the visual system is capable of generating electrical activity that parallels some of the more sophisticated features of human visual perception. The crab does however lack the degree of colour perception seen by the human eye, because it lacks the short and long wave colour pigments in its cones. It is interesting to see how two totally different mechanisms of visual perception can be so different yet interrelated in many ways, and that they have involved independently to perform the same function.

American Experience in Huck Finn Essays

American Experience in Huck Finn Essays American Experience in Huck Finn Essay American Experience in Huck Finn Essay Essay Topic: Mark Twain The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn â€Å"All modern American Literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.. † claimed Ernest Hemingway, a American author and journalist. This quote represents the idea and perception of Huckleberry Finn as a defining moment in American Literature, a time when a new culture was being formed west of the Atlantic that had many different subjects and characteristics than that of the literature in Europe. What makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn so original and such a representation of America is that whatever Huckleberry Finn, the character, is about or can be defined by, is what America was all about. Through this complex character, Mark Twain was able to create a new American experience and show the reader all about it. The main characteristics of the American experience that Mark Twain represented through this character included a social commentary on the southern culture and its response to slavery and its general antebellum culture, the nature that defines America and how America defines its nature and the freedom from it, and the new anti-materialistic hero. The opening of the book deals with the most serious issue depicted; the idea of slavery and the response of the southerners to its injustices. The majority of the American experience of slavery and its response are shown through the relationship between the main protagonist, Huck and his friend Jim. When Jim first approaches Huck to tell him that he has run away from his master Huck replies, â€Å"People would call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum- but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell.. † (1379). In a time when it was illegal to aide slaves in their escape, Huck was just beginning to start his moral dilemma of his loyalties to the law, and his friendship with Jim. This brings about a side note on the American experience of slavery that is not as developed as the response to slavery in Huck and that is: how does a person act and feel in a society in which they have friends that can become slaves. In many Abolitionist books and essays at the time, the reader was directed to feel for the slave as a man, as a brother. They used emotions to show the hardships of the slaves and play upon the guilt of the white American to end slavery. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain asked the reader to determine how they would act on slavery when they saw their friends under servitude. This was a large issue because it brings out personal alliances with cultural alliances of the south. However, the main American experience Twain is trying to develop on slavery is not the personal relationship and whether or not slavery was a terrible issue, it was the southerners response to slavery. This is exemplified by two separate cases. The first is with slavery and Jim, and the second is with Huck’s abusive and drunken father who would â€Å"lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard† (1359). Both of these issues were just symbols of the southern distorted culture of the time. A culture that could enslave a man, calls themselves good Christian men, and then falls asleep drunk. What is peculiar about this novel is not necessarily Twain’s feelings regarding the morality of this culture. It is fairly obvious that he disapproves of such and shows that it is a morally defunct society, but rather what makes this novel truly representative of the American experience is showing how even someone who is not morally corrupted acts upon it. Huck, who is shown through his helping of Jim and his friendship with Jim, clearly understands the injustice of slavery and the immoral acts his father does. What does he do about it though? Does he seek to transform this southern society through work or a mini-revolution? No, he just simply moves along. This is the central irony of the book, and thus represented of one of the ironies of the American experience in the 19th century. Huck Finn chooses to leave intact this society that is clearly in need of change, and just simply leaves the place behind. It shows that he is against slavery and the ideals of the south and thus won’t live in it, but he also won’t change it. This was one of the most prominent experiences of America in the 19th century. Many whites disagreed with slavery, but if it did not affect their lives, as they were not necessarily the culprit or the victim, they just went on living their lives. The most common feature of this novel is movement. While this was crucial in developing the irony that was the southern response to slavery, it is also important in itself. In this novel, the main characters are always going somewhere, leaving a place in which they didn’t like or had a bad experience, and moving on to the next. This sense of freedom from nature was feature that is distinctly American. In the novel, the river was a entral metaphor as it brought them food, their raft, but also gave them a means of transportation. The American experience of traveling for the sake of traveling and expanding yourself in nature is shown from their experiences with movement in the river. Huck Finn was a character who is always in motion, always free. This was seen by the fact that he did start out the trip trying to pr ovide freedom for Jim up the river, but when they passed Cairo he did not stop. In fact, the new route would take them to New Orleans, a slave-trading capital of the south at the time (Johnson). The freedom that nature provided Huck was seen by his depiction of the nights on the raft as â€Å"It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars.. † (1423). This freedom brings a release from the world of land, the towns where people were entrapped in a cycle of guns, alcohol, and racism. He does not see in moral meaning in nature like the transcendentalists of the time, rather it was an escape of the modern world, a place to have pleasant feelings. This freedom is an American experience. In just a purely physical sense, America has the opportunities for freedom. Vast lands, ample rivers, defined seasons all allow the American to seek freedom from society. This is something that was not seen in Europe as you were subjected to just your own country’s land through language, cultural, and physical barriers. This idea of jumping on a raft and finding your freedom, both spiritually as in the case of Huck and physically in the case of Jim, is something that represents a true American experience. This myth of the open frontier continued in writing for decades to come, a myth that would allow the individual American to escape the rapidly growing urban centers that were developing an uneducated middle-class. The last particularly American subject is the hero of the novel himself, Huck. Huck is envisioned as this romantic anti-society anti-inheritance hero. In coming-to-age novels of the time, many were determined to show the process the character mature, moving past their youthful selves and into a role of social acceptance of culture. Huck represents a new American subject, on who speaks as he wishes, and does as he wants. Because of his traveling lifestyle, Huck does not concern himself with inheritance or money for any matter. What mattered most for Huck in the story was the materials that made the journey possible. He was not concerned with his social class, his need for a life with a wife, kids, and money. This metaphor represents the American Anti-materialistic culture that was forming, and thus Twain depicted it as such in his story. The sense of anti-conformity culture was the subject, a view that was depicted primarily by Huck. To combat the idea that Huck was just a child, and this is how he was supposed to act, Twain introduces two characters. The Duke and Dauphin, con-artists who swindle people out of their money by performing productions represent the free nature, the anti-materialistic culture that Huck represents. While these two do act in order to obtain money, the goal of the money is not to obtain a higher social order, but to carry on in life. It supplies their thirst for fun. This was seen when after a heist, the Duke asks to count the money so that they can â€Å"take and give it to the girls† (1451). This shows that they went about their plan yes for the money, but the money was not an object that they desired; it is what it can be immediately used for that defines it. This was against the European experience of inheritance and the desire to better oneself in a Victorian fashion, and represented an American subject. Huck finds out throughout the story and the encounters with the people in the towns, how to live in order to escape the social conformity, thus creating his own identity. This idea of putting your obligations to you self-creation and fun, and not to the creation of a self that is defined by community or cultural standards was an effective approach to an American subject. In an extended metaphor, Huck Finn and his friends and acquaintances represent an American subject. Their reactions to slavery represent the blind eye and unwillingness to put about change in the southern culture of slavery and racism, a subject that would arguably represent the south to this day. At the same time, the river which took them away from their culture as opposed to fighting it, also represents the freedom of America, a subject Twain makes sure he repeats throughout the novel. Lastly, the characters themselves represent a new age of anti-materialism, a staunch contrast to the European idea of self-betterment for the sake of culture and standing. In all, these metaphors all show a new American subject. Cited: Twain, Mark. â€Å" The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. † The Harper Single Volume American Literature. Ed. McQuade et al. New York: Longman. 1999. 1355-1522 Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 2 and 6.

Culture of an Organization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Culture of an Organization - Research Paper Example In the said article, the report clearly states that there was major collaboration between the US and Mexican informants which resulted to the fall of some major drug cartels across Mexican boundary. Although Mexico was no longer part of the US’s area of responsibility, powerful and influential drug cartels in the said country remain to affect the US which usually would result to its continuing problem and fight with major prevailing crimes. In the article of Thomson, it also states that American officials believe that the Drug Enforcement Administration informants having link with cartels are of great help in tracking down culprits of major crimes. The US law enforcement agency is a significant component of the country’s criminal justice system. This agency must have important information as basis prior to its actual decision-making process towards the society’s concerns on criminal activities initiated by highly systematic criminal individuals, groups or organiz ations. This agency is therefore having a strong culture about relying on exact information. Its ability to incur services from Drug Enforcement Administration informants is a remarkable justification of its existing culture. In other words, informants have critical role to play towards the kind of decision that the US law enforcement agency must remarkably apply. ... e US law enforcement agency must therefore improve further its capacity to track down criminals and one way of doing so is to establish a high system of information-based system. Informants are significant components of it, which only means that they are elemental factors for the future directions of the US law enforcement agency. After all, an organization must remarkably consist of a social network which would not only make monitoring of flow of information and work output possible, but as well as culture (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2009). In the case of the US law enforcement agency, its potential networks for the fulfillment of its objectives involve the informants as its external stakeholders. The second article is â€Å"Independent Agency Gets New Powers to Prosecute New York Police Officers† written by Baker and published in New York Times. Board lawyers have been given the chance to act as prosecutors instead of the police agency employees in cases when police officer s will be subjected to internal or administrative discipline (Baker, 2012). According to Baker, this was the response of the federal government after the Police Department faced cases concerning corruption, stop-and-frisk practices, lack of integrity of its crime data, and some associated violations in policing. All of these are potential grounds and bases concerning series of Wall Street protests against the Police Department. In this agreement, civilians at last have the opportunity that their voices be heard through the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Based on the above summary of the second article, it is clear that civilians are therefore other external stakeholders that have potential impact on the decision-making of criminal justice agencies. After all, it is the people which the criminal

Organisational Transformation in Practice Essay - 2

Organisational Transformation in Practice - Essay Example Each of the several departments and business units need to revamp their working and management styles while gradually imbuing the change concept. Moreover the process of organizational transformation helps the employees to gain huge insights into the change process. However the process of organizational transformation also renders potential obstacles and challenges to the managers which must be effectively managed to render efficiency. Organizational transformation as a change process becomes effective if the newer business processes and innovations brought about are rightly absorbed by the existing business climate. Similarly while recruiting newer employees or installing newer machineries and production systems learning must be rendered to train the recruited workforce to inherit the existing organizational culture. Again the existing pool of human resources must be also trained to gain insights about operating the newer machineries to rightly adjust them to the innovative environm ent. (Brynjolfsson, Renshaw & Alstyne, 1997). The process of organizational transformation is found to be a spontaneous process involving the transformation of several organizational factors and business processes. Each of the different organizational factors like human and technological attributes tends to act in a collaborative manner to help in the transformation of organizational dynamics. The several business departments pertaining to customer servicing, resource allocations, financing and billing and inventory and management of distribution channels all contribute to the process of organizational change by effectively altering the existing operational and business processes. (Kamoche, Cunha & Cunha, 2002, pp.182-185). Self awareness - Feelings and thoughts The experience of organizational transformation can be studied along certain relevant parameters like alterations in management and leadership styles, alterations along the personal and at the employee level and changes alon g the organizational climate as a whole. Organizational leaders become closely associated with the transformational themes introduced in the concern to bring about a holistic change in the existing business processes. The approach of the business leaders to help in rendering change in the business processes brought about the theory of ‘transformational leadership’. Leadership aspects in the organizations underwent large amount of transformations owing to changes in the external business environment. Moreover transformation brought about in the existing leadership styles also called for large amount of changes in the behavioural patterns of the leaders making them more courageous and accountable. Further the above aspect also demanded the leaders to develop their visionary potential and thereby inculcate an environment of spontaneous learning. (Simic, 1998, pp.50-51). Similarly the roles of managers also assume equal importance and potential to guide the different organi sational levels to rightly adapt the change process. Role of managers in the change process involve guiding the people to perform in an efficient manner in respect to the changing environment. It is observed in this respect that the upper management body of the organisations operate based