Mycoplasma pneumoniae Essay -- Essays Papers

Mycoplasma pneumoniae Background: Mycoplasma pneumoniae is unique because of its small genome and physical size. The bacterium contains only 500-2300 Kba in its genome that produces about 700 different proteins. Its reduced genome has been clearly mapped. M. pneumoniae size range from 0.2 to 0.8 micrometer and are capable of passing through most filters designed to remove bacteria. The bacterium is the smallest living organism capable of replicating itself. The bacterium lacks a cell wall but has a three layered cell membrane with sterols. It can take on any shape from cocci to filamentous. An agar plates the colonies have a specific fried egg look. It lives mainly as a parasite in humans where it can maintain its osmotic balance with its environment. It has a strict dependence on the host for nutrients. They grow aerobically and use glucose as its main food source but need the host for amino acids, lipids, nucleotides and sterols. Disease: M. pneumoniae is generally referred to as primary atypical or walking pneumonia because the symptoms are not as sever as pneumonia. The symptoms include a dry hacking cough, fever, and headache. The symptoms will last for about 2 to 3 weeks. M. pneumoniae affects people worldwide. Typically only 33 % of people who have M. pneumoniae will get atypical pneumonia. The majority, 77 %, will come down with an upper tract infection (tracheaobronchitis). M. pneumoniae is transmitted through aerosol droplets. The bacterium is capable of infecting anyone at any time but it has a pattern of coming in the fall and winter and causing an outbreak every 4 to 8 years, although more tight communities occur more frequently. The pathogen rarely occurs on children less than 4 years of age. Since th... ...r and headache of which, 15 % required hospitalization. Texas: From August 1st through November 15th, 215 workers of 4500 had Mycoplasma infections in a tertiary care center. Patients suffered from abrupt onset of headache, shaking chills, and severe malaise, followed by fever and cough. Only 2 % required hospitalization. New York: From August 1st to October 26th, 48 out 189 people came down with an acute respiratory infection in an autism center in upstate New York. Six percent of the patients required hospitalization. References: http://meded.ucsd.edu/isp/1999/CAP/mycoplas.html http://www.invivogen.com/otherproducts/plasmocin.htm http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic467.htm http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/mycoplasmapneum_t.htm http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00022322.htm http://www.med.sc.edu:85/mayer/myco.htm

Living with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome :: Personal Narrative Health Essays

Living with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) The end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 was a very trying time for my loved ones and I in Guangdong Province. I didn't know what was happening in my town. It started with people getting fevers. My father told me that the flu was spreading, that everyone is getting sick and I better stay inside if I don't want to catch it. Little did we know that what we were trying to avoid was not a mere flu outbreak, rather the coming of something much worse. My father's early dismissal of this disease only kept us comfortable a few months. By February of 2003, over 300 cases of this disease were reported just in our province. The fevers turned into respiratory problems and finally pneumonia. The Chinese Ministry of Health said this was atypical pneumonia. As conditions worsened here, it came to be known that a local doctor treating the pneumonia visited Hong Kong. Some how his contact with our infected citizens led him to infect 12 others on his hotel floor in Hong Kong. After the outbreak in Hong Kong, people started to take the disease more seriously. An outbreak occurs in Vietnam, tracing back to a man admitted in a Hanoi hospital for a high fever and sore throat. He goes on to infect 20 staff members at that hospital. At every hospital where these symptoms were present, the staff kept getting sick. The disease was termed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS for short. By March, there was even a case of a flight attendant from Singapore who contracted the disease from a stay at a Hong Kong hotel. It was later found that through contact she had spread her case to 100 others in Singapore. During this ordeal life in our province became extremely difficult. I was told to always stay indoors. I couldn't leave the house to see my friends or even go to the store. The farmer we got our eggs from became very sick, and soon after his whole family shared his illness. People were afraid to go anywhere. We didn't know how this was getting around, all we had were the hundreds of people getting sick. The disease grew to huge proportions in Hong Kong.

Mona Lisa’s Smile: Single-sex Education for Girls Essay -- Movies Femi

Mona Lisa’s Smile: Single-sex Education for Girls â€Å"Men Are from Mars - Women Are from Venus,† it is the title of a bestseller book, which tells us how different boys and girls are. Single-sex education was introduced because of the huge differences, and it once flourished in the United States. Since the 1970s, however, it began to be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Many girls’ schools closed or amalgamated and the trend towards co-education continued to spread. Until nowadays, the debate between single-sex education and coeducation still carries on. Single-sex education benefits girls especially, by offering equally rigorous academic opportunities, and helping them cultivate leadership and greater confidence; yet it also creates over-confidence and social problems. Thus a real solution is to offer â€Å"single-sex classrooms at coed schools†, which combines the advantages of both single-sex education and coeducation. The huge differences between boys and girls provide the foundation of single-sex education, and especially for girls, whose potential is not fully nurtured in an elitist male education system. Among a great number of gender differences, girls differ most distinctively from boys in brain and learning style. Many studies demonstrate sex differences in the structure of the brain. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins, â€Å"the higher association cortex, the part of the brain thought to be responsible for our most complex boystal operations, is markedly asymmetric in boys but not in girls; and in boys, the area is larger on the left, whereas to the extent that there was asymmetry in the brain, girls' association cortex is larger on the right.† ( qtd. in NASSPE 3) . In another study, L. S. Allen and R. A. Gorsk... ...g environment. Meanwhile, they could socialize with guy friends at coed schools, which will prepare them for later entering into society much better than had they not interacted with boys at girls’ schools. Admittedly, this â€Å"single-sex classrooms at coed schools† education is not perfect, but it makes the most of both single-sex education and coeducation. It might be the future of single-sex education. Works Cited Gu, Tong. Telephone interview. 1 December 2004. Grà ¶n, Georg et al. â€Å"Brain activation during human navigation: gender-different neural networks as substrate of performance.† Nature neuroscience. April 2000, 3(4):404-408. National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE). Brain Differences. January 2002. . The National Coalition of Girls’ Schools (NCGS). Benefits of Attending. December 2004. < http://www.ncgs.org/type0.php?pid=16>.

Assessing the Role of Motivation on Employees

thr ole CHAPTER 1- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The main purpose of this study was to† assess the role of work motivation on employee performance†. This study in an assessment of this purpose used deductive approach in which a qualitative survey was carried out among employees of different companies. The survey was intended to get their responses on what they feel is (are) the best factors that could motivate them as employees among a list of ten motivational factors.In this light the study sets to identify the most ranked factors among the ten motivational factors. The analysis from the empirical findings showed that Job satisfaction† was the most ranked factor for both sub groups that made up the sample survey. However a study from previous researches used in this study showed that different results could be obtained from different groups of already working employees.This study therefore can be seen as an introduction to a more detailed study to be carried by future research ers on the field of employee’s motivation. CHAPTER 2- INTRODUCTION * Background When looking at factors that affect job satisfaction, I find that Agency theory might be helpful as it explains the extent to which organizations need to think of their human resource responsible in producing the output needed by organizations to meet shareholders value.Agency theory is concerned with issues related to the ownership of the firm when that ownership is separated from the day-to-day running of the organization. It assumes that in all but owner- managed organizations the owner or owners (known in agency theory as the â€Å"principal†) of an organization must vest authority to an â€Å"agent†-corporate management- to act on their behalf. The principal recognizes the risk, here and act on the assumption that any agent will look to serve its own as well as the principal interests as it ulfils it contract with that principal. However, this is not the situation in real life s ituation. As all agents are perceived to be Opportunistic. These approaches are to examine the problems of human exchange derived from the field of finance and economics but they are often applied to the study of shareholders Risk Management (SHRM). Agency theory is therefore used to analyze this conflict in interest between the principal (shareholders of organizations) and their agents (leaders of these organizations).Whereby the â€Å"Agents† in keeping with the interest of the shareholders and organizational goals turn to use financial motivational aspects like bonuses, higher payrolls, pensions, sick allowances, risk payments, perks to reward and retained their employees and enhance their performance. There is a strong lobby propounding the view that human resources and their management are the source of competitive advantage for the business, rather than, say, access to capital or use of technology.It is therefore logical to suggest that, attention needs to be paid to th e nature of this resource and its management as this will impact on human resource behavior and performance and consequently the performance of the organization. Indeed Boxall and Steeneveld (1999) argue that there is no need to prove the relationship between firm critical influence on performance and labour management as it is self evident that the quality of human resource management is a critical influence on the performance of the firm.Concern for strategic integration, commitment flexibility and quality, has called for attention for employees motivation and retention. Given this perception, the principal in an organization feels unable to predict an agent’s behavior in any given situation and so brings into play various measures to do with incentives in other to tie employee’s needs to those of their organization. Thus getting employee’s identification with respect to the organization, and thus increasing their commitment level.As an approach to mediate the employment contract, elements of human resource strategy (especially those to do with rewards and retention) can offer a way of ensuring an efficient transaction process that enables both parties to get committed towards the fulfillment of each other needs. The fundamental problem, dealt with is what drives or induces people to exploit their potential resources in the way they do in organizations? The issue of motivation and performance are they positively related?By focusing on the financial aspect of motivation problem like bonus system, allowances perks, salaries, etc. By paying attention to the financial aspect of motivation, I intend to probe in to the role this aspect has on enhancing employee’s performance. I believe, financial motivation has become the most concern in today’s organization, and tying to Mallow’s basic needs, non-financial aspect only comes in when financial motivation has failed. Though in some situation, it is being operated side by sid e.But as a research topic for my thesis I will employ the financial aspects of motivation used by the agents of organization in enhancing their employee’s performance and the extent to which non-financial aspects of motivation turn to enhance employee’s performance. To evaluate the methods of performance motivation in organization in organizing some motivational factors like satisfies and dissatisfies will be used to evaluate how employees motivation is enhanced other than financial aspects of motivation. Problem Statements As a research question, the research seeks to answer what role motivation plays in enhancing performance in organization. This will be possible through analysis of information gathered from students. Hence this thesis is mainly quantitative. * Objectives In trying to find an answer(s) to the research question and on the basis of the above background discussion and research question, the main purposes developed for this thesis is to assess the factor s that motivate employees to perform best at work.This is done by carrying out a survey in which respondents responding to a survey, ranked the least two most important factor on a list of ten factors, and how these factors influence them. * Limitations and Demarcations The limitation is being considered in relation to the natural explanation to which the researcher has limited the study and the active choices to limit the study area that is financial motivation as a determinant of performance. The study is limited to existing theories and models, and their influence and limitation on performance enhancement.By considering the financial and non-financial aspect of motivation on employees’ performance relating to existing theories and models, I intend to mark a demarcation for the study. Here I have considered limitation in line with the research objective that is the study is limited. I believe that with the changing nature of the work force, recent trends in development, inf ormation and technology, the issue of financial motivation becomes consent on one of the most important assets in an organization.A lot has been said on the outside forces of an organization. This research considers the inside forces as a starting point. Ideally, a study of all the explanatory variables will be considered appropriate in order to capture the interactive influences of other variables and thus be able to come up with holistic and generally more acceptable results, of financial motivation and performance. * Definitions Motivation: Motivation by definition refers to what activates, directs human behavior and how this behavior is sustained to achieve a particular goal.Also it can be defined as the set of processes that arouse, direct and maintain human behavior towards attaining some goals. Jones (1955) argues that† Motivation is concerned with how behavior gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, and is stopped and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organization while all this is going on. † Role of financial motivation: The potential role of money is – (1) Conditioned reinforce (2) An incentive which is capable of satisfying needs (3) An anxiety reducer (4) Serves to erase feelings of dissatisfactionEmployee satisfaction: This refers to the positive or negative aspects of employee’s altitude towards their jobs or some features of the job. Organizational Goals: A concept, which refers to the focus of attention and decision-making among employees of a sub-unit. Organizing: This involves the complete understanding of the goals of organization, the necessity of proper co-ordination, and the environmental factors that influence the goals and employees within the organization. Employee attitudes: Mental state of readiness for motive arousal.Performance: the act of performing; of doing something successfully; using knowledge as distinguished from merely possessing it; A performance comprises an even t in which generally one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people. Efficiency: The ratio of the output to the input of any system. Economic efficiency is a general term for the value assigned to a situation by some measure designed to capture the amount of waste or â€Å"friction† or other undesirable and undesirable economic features present.It can also be looked as a short run criterion of effectiveness that refers to the ability of the organization to produce outputs with minimum use of inputs. CHAPTER 3- Literature review * What is motivation? According to Greenberg and Baron (2000) this definition could be divided into three main parts. The first part looks at arousal that deals with the drive, or energy behind individual (s) action. People turn to be guided by their interest in making a good impression on others, doing interesting work and being successful in what they do. The second part referring to the choic e people make and the direction their behavior takes.The last part deals with maintaining behavior clearly defining how long people have to persist at attempting to meet their goals. Reinter (1995), Buford, Bedeian &Linder (1995), Higgins (1994) all cited in Linder (1998,) defined motivation as â€Å"the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction, a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific unmet needs, an unsatisfied need, and the will to achieve, respectively. Young (2000) suggest that motivation can be defined in a variety of ways, depending on who you ask .Ask someone on the street; you may get a response like â€Å"it’s what drives us† or â€Å"it’s what makes us do the things we do. † Therefore motivation is the force within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work. † Halepota (2005) defines motivation as â€Å"a person’s active partic ipation and commitment to achieve the prescribed results. †Halepota further presents that the concept of motivation is abstract because different strategies produce different results at different times and there is no single strategy that can produce guaranteed favorable results all the times. Antomioni (1999), â€Å"the amount of effort people are willing to put in their work depends on the degree to which they feel their motivational needs will be satisfied. On the other hand, individuals become de-motivated if they feel something in the organization prevents them from attaining good outcomes. It can be observed from the above definitions that, motivation in general, is more or less basically concern with factors or events that moves, leads, and drives certain human action or inaction over a given period of time given the prevailing conditions.Furthermore the definitions suggest that there need to be an† invisible force† to push people to do something in return. It could also be deduced from the definition that having a motivated work force or creating an environment in which high levels of motivation are maintained remains a challenge for today’s management. . This challenge may emanate from the simple fact that motivation is not a fixed trait –as it could change with changes in personal, psychological, financial or social factors.For this thesis, the definition of motivation by Greenberg & Baron (2003) is adopted, as it is more realistic and simple as it considers the individual and his performance. Greenberg &Baron defines motivation as:â€Å"The set of processes that arouse, direct, and maintain human behavior towards attaining some goal†. (Greenberg &Baron, 2003) Bassett-Jones &Lloyd (2005,) presents that two views of human nature underlay early research into employee motivation. The first view focuses on Taylors, which viewed people as basically lazy and work –shy†, and thus held that these set of em ployees can only be motivated by external stimulation.The second view was based on Hawthorn findings, which held the view that employees are motivated to work well for â€Å"its own sake† as well as for the social and monetary benefits this type of motivation according to this school was internally motivated. * Motivational theories Even though much research been conducted on the field of financial motivation and many researchers and writers have proposed theories on the concept of financial motivation, and its role in enhancing employee’s performance in every organization some of these models have been widely used and accepted by today’s organizations leaders.In this thesis discussion on some of the motivational theories will include Alders (ERG theory), Maslow (Need theory), Vrooms (Expectancy theory), Adams (Social equity theory), Taylor (productivity theory), Herzberg (Two factor theory), Mac Gregory (theory X and Y), Geogopalaus (path goal theory) and skinn er (Reward theory). To better understand this discussion a summary of the theories is presented and an indebt discussion on Maslow and ERG theories on which I base my thesis overlooked.Alder asserts in his Existence relatedness and growth theory commonly known as the ERG theory that there are three basic human needs: Existence, relatedness and growth, which must be meet by an employee to enable him, increase performance. Maslow (1943) suggests that human needs can be classified into five categories and that these categories can be arranged in a hierarchy of importance. These include physiological, security, belongings, esteem and self-actualization needs. According to him a person is motivated first and foremost to satisfy physiological needs.As long as the employees remain unsatisfied, they turn to be motivated only to fulfill them. When physiological needs are satisfied they cease to act as primary motivational factors and the individual moves â€Å"up† the hierarchy and se ek to satisfy security needs. This process continues until finally selfactualisation needs are satisfied. According to Maslow the rationale is quite simple because employees who are too hungry or too ill to work will hardly be able to make much a contribution to productivity hence difficulties in meeting organizational goals.Vroom (1964) proposes that people are motivated by how much they want something and how likely they think they are to get it he suggest that motivation leads to efforts and the efforts combined with employees ability together with environment factors which interplay’s resulting to performance. This performance interns lead to various outcomes, each of which has an associated value called Valence. Adams (1965) on his part suggests that people are motivated to seek social equity in the Rewards they receive for high performance.According to him the outcome from job includes; Pay, recognition, promotion, social relationship and intrinsic reward . to get these rewards various inputs needs to be employed by the employees to the job as time, experience, efforts, Education and loyalty. He suggests that, people tend to view their outcomes and inputs as a Ratio and then compare these ratios with others and turn to become motivated if this ratio is high. Taylor (1911) observed the soldering by employees, which is a situation whereby workers work less than full capacity.He argued that soldering occurs due to the fact employee’s fear that performing high will lead to increasing productivity, which might cause them to lose their jobs. This slow paces of work where promoted by faulty systems however this situation is not what prevails with contemporary employees who organizations evaluate them through their performance. Herzberg suggested that there are factors in a job, which causes satisfaction. These he called intrinsic factors (motivators) and other factor he refers to as dissatisfies (hygiene factors).According to him if the motivation al factors are met, the employee becomes motivated and hence performs higher. Mac Gregory suggested that there exist two sets of employees (lazy and ambitious employees) with lazy employees representing theory X, hard and ambitious workers representing Y. According to him the lazy employee should be motivated to increase performance in an organization. Geogopalaus path Goal theory of motivation states that, if a worker sees high productivity as a path leading to the attainment of one or more of his personal goals, he will turn to be a high producer.But if he sees low productivity as the path leading to the attainment of his goal he will turn to be a low producer and hence needs to be motivated. This discussion on the above motivational theories explains the fact that the concept of employee’s motivation has been a critical factor addressed by previous authors as what determines the core competence of every organization in achieving a competitive position. Skinner who propound ed that any behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated supported this view. The term motivation has been used in numerous and often contradictory ways.Presently there appears to be some agreements that the crucial thread that distinguishes employee’s motivated behaviors from other behavior is that it is goal directed behavior, Bandar (2000P223) argues that the core of motivating individuals lies in the goal-directed aspect of behavior. Jones suggested â€Å"motivation is concern with how behavior gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is stopped and what kind of subjective re-action is present in the organization while this is going on. The process egins because of tension within drives or needs of an employee. Next there is a search within the company or groups or within employee to fulfill his desires. When the employee is satisfied with his financial motivation he redefines his desires and needs and the process is initiated again. These groups of resea rchers were over the years divided into what was later labeled the content and process theories of motivation. Steers, mow day& Shapiro (2004) the process generated during this period, makes this period referred to as â€Å"the golden age of work motivation theories†. Never before and, some would argue, never since has so much progress been made in explicating the etiology of work motivation† (steers et al. ) Bassett-Jones & Lloyd (2005) suggests that the â€Å"content theorists led by Herzberg, assumed a more complex interaction between both internal and external factors, and explored the circumstances in which individuals respond to different internal and external stimuli. On the other hand, process theory, where victor Vroom was the first exponent considers how factors internal to the person result in different behaviors.From the focus point of these two groups, one could observe that the process theories attempt or try to understand the thinking processes an indivi dual might go through in determining how to behave in a workplace. The primary focus was on how and why questions of motivation, how certain behavior starts, developed and sustained over time it is true that human behavior in general is dynamic and could affect the individual’s personal altitude as well as factors surrounding that individual.These exogenous factors eminent from the environment in which the individual operates generate stimuli to employees. It is my belief that employees in general are goal seeking and look for challenges and expect positive re-enforcement at all times. Hence it could only be of benefit if organizations could provide these rewards and factors. Though I have discussed earlier in this thesis that employees are financially motivated, motivation could be seen as a moving target, as what motivates differs among different people.And may even change for the same person over a given period of time, developments within the modern organization has proba bly made motivating employees ever more difficult due to the nature of every individual, behavior increasing the complexity of what can really motivate employees. Bassette-jones & Lloyd (2005) â€Å"expectancy, equity, goal setting and reinforcement theory have resulted in the development of a simple model of motivational alignment. The model suggests that once needs of employees are identified and organizational objectives and also satisfy employee needs .If poorly aligned, and then low motivation will be the outcome†. According to (Wiley, 1997) â€Å"modern approaches to motivation may be organized into three related clusters: (1) personality-based views (2) cognitive choice or decision approaches and (3) goal or self-regulation perspective; where personality-based views emphasize the influence of enduring personal characteristics as they affect goal choice and striving. Workplace behavior is posited to be determined by persons current need state in certain universal need category.Cognitive choice approaches to work motivation emphasize two determinant of choice and action; expectations, and subjective valuation of the consequences associated with each alternative. These expectancy value theories are intended to predict an individual choice or decision. Goal framework to work motivation emphasize the factors that influence goal striving which focuses on the relationship between goals and work behavior. The assumption is that an employee’s conscious intentions (goals) are primary determines of task-related motivation since goals direct their thoughts and action†.It is worth noting that an in-depth review of all the different theories mentioned above, is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, the personality-based perspective of work motivation within which Maslow need theory of motivation and Alders ERG theory falls will provide the main support and serve as a foundation for the research reported in this thesis. Specifically, as organi zational scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the idea that people are motivated to use their jobs as mechanisms for satisfying their needs.This project intend to use Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory of motivation as a foundation to identify the factors that motivate today’s employees, and in the process determine a ranking order off actors that motivates these employees, the original Maslow theory will be looked at more detail hereof. * History and Explanation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need Theory The â€Å"motivation to work† published by Maslow probably provided the field of organizational behavior and management with a new way of looking at employees job altitudes or behaviors in understanding how humans are motivated.Probably the best-known conceptualization of human needs in organizations has been proposed by this theory. Abraham Maslow was a clinical psychologist who introduced his theory based on personal judgment, which was generally k nown as the need hierarchy theory. According to him if people grew in an environment in which their needs are not met, they will be unlikely to function as healthy individuals or well adjusted individuals. This idea was later applied to organizations to emphasize the idea that unless employees get their needs met on the job, they will not function as effectively as possible.Specifically Maslow theorized that people have five types of needs and that these are activated in a hierarchical manner. This means that these needs are aroused in a specific order from lowest to highest, such that the lowest-order need must be fulfilled before the next order need is triggered and the process continues. If you look at this in a motivational point of view Maslow’s theory says that a need can never be fully met, but a need that is almost fulfilled does not longer motivate.According to Maslow you need to know where a person is on the hierarchical pyramid in order to motivate him/her. Then yo u need to focus on meeting that person’s needs at that level (Robbins) According to Greenberg and Baron (2003,) the five needs identified by Maslow correspond with the three needs of Alderperson ERG theory. Whereas Maslow theory specifies that the needs be activated in order from lowest to highest Alder’s theory specifies that the needs can be activated in any order. His approach is much simpler than Maslow’s.Alder specifies that there exist three main needs as opposed to five postulated by Maslow. This human basic needs include existence, relatedness and growth. These needs according to Alder need not necessarily activated in any specific order and may be activated at any time. According to him Existence needs corresponds to Maslow’s physiological needs and safety needs. Relatedness needs corresponds to Maslow’s social needs and growth needs corresponds to esteem and self-actualization needs by Maslow.Below is a summary of these needs that in this thesis are divided into Deficiency needs(psychological, safety, social needs) and Growth needs (esteem, self-actualization needs). Factors Explanation 1. Physiological needs are the need at the bottom of the triangle and include the lowest order need and most basic. This includes the need to satisfy the fundamental biological drives such as food, air, water and shelter. According to Maslow organizations must provide employees with a salary that enable them to afford adequate living conditions.The rationale here is that any hungry employee will hardly be able to make much of any contribution to his organization. 2. Safety needs this occupies the second level of needs. Safety needs are activated after physiological needs are met. They refer to the need for a secure working environment free from any threats or harms. Organizations can provide these need by providing employees with safety working equipment e. g. hardhats, health insurance plans, fire protection etc. The rationale is th at employees working in an environment free of harm do their jobs without fear of harm. . Social needs: This represents the third level of needs. They are activated after safety needs are met. Social needs refer to the need to be affiliated that is (the needed to be loved and accepted by other people). To meet these needs organizations encourage employees participation in social events such as picnics, organizations bowling etc 4. Esteem needs this represents the fourth level of needs. It includes the need for self-respect and approval of others. Organizations introduce awards banquets to recognize distinguished achievements. . Self-actualization: This occupies the last level at the top of the triangle. This refers to the need to become all that one is capable of being to develop ones fullest potential. Most research on the application of need theory found that although lower-level managers are able to satisfy only their deficiency needs on the jobs, managers at the top level of org anizations are able to satisfy both their deficiency and growth needs (Greenberg &Baron2003) this view was supported by Shipley &Kiel (1988)Shiply &Kiel (1988) argue that as â€Å"need satisfaction is an attitude, and that it is perfectly possible for a worker to be satisfied with his/her need, but not be motivated the reverse of which holds equally true. Hence, need satisfaction and motivation are not synonymous and both need fulfillment and un- fulfillment can have negative as well as positive influence on motivation. * Organizational /managerial Applications of Maslow’s Need theory The greatest value of Maslow’s need theory lies in the practical implications it has for every management of organizations (Greenberg & Baron 2003).The rationale behind the theory lies on the fact that it’s able to suggest to managers how they can make their employees or subordinates become self-actualized. This is because self-actualized employees are likely to work at their maxi mum creative potentials. Therefore it is important to make employees meet this stage by helping meet their need organizations can take the following strategies to attain this stage 1. Recognize employee’s accomplishments: Recognizing employee’s accomplishments is an important way to make them satisfy their esteem needs.This could take the form of awards, plagues etc†¦ According to (Greenberg & Baron 2003, p197) research carried out in GTE Data services in Temple Terrace, Florida shows that awards are given to employees who develop ways of improving customer’s satisfaction or business performance. But it should be noted that according to Greenberg &Baron awards are effective at enhancing esteem only when they are clearly linked to desired behaviors. Awards that are too general fail to meet this specification. 2. Provide financial security: Financial security is an important type of safety need.So organizations to motivate their employees need to make them fi nancially secured by involving them in profit sharing of the organization. In a research carried out with AT&T and Wang showed that 50% of their employees received financial outplacement services to assist laid-off employees in securing new jobs. 3. Provide opportunities to socialize: Socialization is one of the factors that keep employees feel the spirit of working as a team. When employees work as a team they tend to increase their performance.Research conducted on IBM shows that it holds a â€Å"family day† picnic each spring near its Armonk, New York headquarters. 4. Promote a healthy work force: Companies can help in keeping their Employees physiological needs by providing incentives to keep them healthy both in health and mentally. In a research carried out at the Hershey Foods Corporation and Southern California Edison Company showed that Employees are provided with insurance rebates with health lifestyles while extra premiums were given to those with risk habits like smoking. * Criticisms of Maslow’s Need theory of motivationMaslow proposed that if people grew up in an environment in which their needs are not meet, they would be unlikely to function healthy, well-adjusted individuals. Research testing Maslow’s theory has supported the distinction between the deficiencies and growth needs but showed that not all people are able to satisfy their higher-order needs on the job. According the results of the research managers from higher echelons of organizations are able to satisfy both their growth and deficiency needs lower level managers are able to satisfy only their deficiency needs on the job.Maslow’s theory has not received a great deal of support with respect to specific notion it proposes (Greenberg &Baron 2003, p195). To them this model is theorized to be especially effective in describing the behavior of individuals who are high in growth need strength because employees who are different to the idea of increasing their growth will not realize any physiological reaction to their jobs. Centers &Bengal (1966) in their survey carried out among a cross-section of the Working population in Los Angeles, posited â€Å"background factors, altitudes and aspirations Affects workers needs, expectations and situation assessment†.According to Graham & Messner (1998) there are generally three major criticisms directed to the need theory and other content theories of motivation. (A) There is scant empirical data to support their Conclusions, (b) they assume employees are basically alike and (c) they are not theories of Motivation at all, but rather theories of job satisfaction. This was supported by the views ofNadler & Lawler (1979) in Graham &Messner (2000). Nadler & Lawler (1979) cited in Graham & Messner (2000) were also critical of the need theory of motivation.They argue that the theory makes the following unrealistic assumptions about employees in general that: (a) all employees are alike (b) all s ituations are alike and that (c) there is only one best way to meet needs. Another critic to this view was Basset-Jones & Lloyd (2004). Basset-Jones & Lloyd (2004, p 961) presents that in general, critics of the need theory argue that it is as a result of the natural feeling of employees to take credit for needs met and dissatisfaction on needs not met.Nonetheless and regardless of the heavy criticism levied at the hierarchy of need theory, I believe that this theory has a made a significant contribution in the field of organizational behavior and management especially in the area of employee motivation and remains attractive to both researchers and managers alike. The incorporation of the need theory into the work environment today could be as a result of the contributions made so far by Maslow’s Hierarchy of need theory. Empirical studies on employee motivation using the original and Adapted Maslow’s model If any person has to come up with the question that is there any need for employees motivation? The answer to this type of question of-course should be simple-the basic survival of every organization is it public or private limited before, today and in the foreseeable future lies in how well its work force is motivated to meet the objectives of the organization. This explains why the human resource department in today’s organization is became a focus of its core functions.I think that motivated employees are needed in this rapidly Business world where the principal-agent conflict is the issue confronting most managers. Most organizations now consider their human resources as their most valuable assets (a strategic or competitive advantage). Therefore, in order to effectively and efficiently utilize this strategic asset, I believe managers and the organization as a whole must be able and willing to understand and hopefully provide the factors that motivate its employees within the context of the roles and duties they perform.This is bec ause highly motivated employees are the cause of high productivity levels and hence higher profits for the organization. Having noted this rationale the next question one may ask are what factors motivated today’s employees†? According to Wiley (1997, p265) at some point during our lives, virtually every person may have to work. He claims that working is such a common phenomenon that the question â€Å"what motivates people to work is seldom asked.Wiley went on to say that â€Å"we are much more likely to wonder why people climb mountains or commit suicide than to question the motivational basis of their work†, therefore, exploring the altitudes that employees hold concerning factors that motivate them to work is important to creating an environment that encourages employee motivation. From the much amount of literature available on employee motivation, it is clearly evident that a lot of surveys regarding employees and what motivates them have been undertaking. These employee motivation surveys have been conducted in many different job situations, among different categories of employees using different research methods and applications. One of the very first survey to be conducted was on industrial workers by (Hershey & Blanchard, 1969) over the years, similar or different survey employees have been carried out see (Kovach, 1987, 1993) (Wiley, 1995), (Lindner, 1998, 1999) According to a research carried out by Kovach on industrial employees who were asked to rank ten â€Å"job rewards† factors based on personal preferences where the value 1 represented most preferred and 10 being the least preferred.The results were as follows (1) full appreciation of work done (2) feeling of being (3) sympathetic help with personal problems 4) job security (5) Good wages and salaries (6) interesting work (7) promotion & Growth (8) employees loyalty (9) Good working conditions (10) tactful discipline. During the periods of (1946, 1981 & 1986) when e mployee surveys were carried out, supervisors were at the time asked to rank job rewards, as they taught employees would rank them.The rankings by the supervisors were relatively consistent for each of the years. These rankings were as follows: (1) Good wages (2) Job security (3) promotion and Growth (4) working conditions (5) interesting work (6) personal loyalty to employees (7) tactful discipline (8) full appreciation (9) sympathetic help with personal problems (10) recognition (Kovach 1987) The results from the supervisor survey indicated that their ranking had not changed over the study period with regards their collective perception of factors that motivate employees.This shows that they had a very inaccurate perception of what motivates employees but also that they did not realize the importance of the need theory. In a survey by Wiley (1997, p. 278) in which approximately 550 questionnaires were administered to person employed at different industries and divided into 5 subgr oups, or categories namely: (occupation, gender, income levels, employment status and age) they were asked to rank 10 factors according to the level of importance each is in motivating them to perform best with the most important factor ranked 1 and the least important ranked 10th.The survey concluded with the following collective rank order by respondents: (1) Good wages (2) full appreciation of work done (3) job security (4) promotion (5) interesting work (6) company loyalty to employees (7) Good working conditions (8) tactful discipline (9) recognition (10) sympathetic help with personal problems.The results from a representative sample of the labour force in seven different countries by Harpaz (1991) showed that the two most dominant work goals were â€Å"interesting work† and Good wages†; He further concluded that these two factors were consistent across different organizational levels, between genders and age groups. Quinn (1997) also cited in Harpaz (1991 p. 311) concluded, â€Å"When the ratings of twenty three job related factors (including the need factors) were carried out, the conclusion reached was that no single factor was pre-eminently important†.He further pointed out that, â€Å"The most aspect of the worker job was that of sufficient resources to perform a task. From the above studies presented so far, the rankings by different subgroups have shown semantic differences in the importance placed on different motivational factors. For example (Kovach, 1987, Wiley, 1997 and Harpaz, 1990) . The discrepancies in these research findings supports Nelsons (2001) positional view that â€Å"what motivates employees differs and may change for the same employee over time†.It is appropriate at this level to give a brief summary of the previous researches in this thesis. Even though the original need hierarchy theory was presented some 50 years ago, some of its if not all factors remain of significant importance to employees toda y. The large number of earlier and recent studies investigating employee motivation using sometimes the original or modified version of Maslow’s theory, may continue the appreciation of this theory and the issue of employee motivation.The literature also shows that where the original theory was lacking (short comings or criticized for), has been greatly taken into consideration. Researchers have taken issues such as differences in gender, age, income, culture & countries etc and how these may affect or influence employee work motivation extensively. The commonality between these previous researches is the agreement that certain factors are more important as motivational factors than others and that these factors may change from one employee to another.These previous studies have also been taken using different methods, from surveys, questionnaires, face-face interviews, but their outcomes have not differed significantly. A possible explanation could be due to the fact that ev en though these studies were carried out using different methods and target population, the motivator’s factors remain same. The literature used in this thesis covers a wide range of time period, highly relevant and useful for addressing the purpose of this thesis. CHAPTER 4- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY * MethodIn order to form a background and to give the reader an appropriate direction of focus of my work, I have put forward and motivate the choices I have made when working on this research. Thus all the issues raised in this chapter should form the basis for evaluation of the result in the light of how I have planned and carried out the work. * Choice of Subject In a rapidly evolving environment, where skills and capabilities continuously play a vital role in the creation of shareholders wealth and values, firms must be able to learn fast and adapt regularly.So as to attract, retain and integrate their workers with respect to new challenges of globalization and technological adva ncement. Ensuring that their workers can construct and share strategically valuable knowledge. Organizations must be able to arouse, directs and sustained human behavior to achieve organizational goals and meet shareholders value many organizations have failed to link employee’s interest to those of the organizations and as such, employees and employers job contract has become unstable, with higher labour turn over.Thus I have chosen to write on this topic because traditional tangible assets (employees) have become less important than intangible knowledge -based assets (technology). I believe, a study like this one could form the bases for the evaluation of company motivational strategies, and thus a quorum for future research and organizational adjustments.The emergence of the knowledge economy is one of the most dramatic shifts to have taken place in society since the industrial revolution, with the impact of the World Wide Web I address the belief that, with the current tr end of globalization, labour turnover demands more part times to full time jobs, companies need to continuously measure and evaluate their motivational strategies with respect to labour turnover and the number of new applicant and hence think on how to enhance performance.Having worked back home, with some organizations where I served as an intern, I realized that some employers were misunderstanding the concept of motivation. The work environment was not conducive and in most situations, the environment was tense with little or no job satisfaction employer’s turn to look upon financial motivation as the only aspect of motivation, which can be used to enhance every employee’s performance. Thus, I thought of the issue of employee’s motivation of a research interest.Thus when the issue of a C-level thesis came to my mind I reflected on my past experience with my former employers with motivation being a point of focus. I believe the result and recommendation could serve some other organizations and open up opportunities for further research. We may agree that in reality most if not all organizations consider their employees to be the most valuable resources since the other factors of production can easily be obtained due to globalization.Researchers for example Pfeiffer (1998), cited in (Whittington and Evans, 2005) suggested â€Å"perhaps the only remaining source of sustainable competitive advantage is through people†. This in other words suggests that the effective and efficient management of this human resource has and will continue to be of increasing importance possibly for all organizations. Thus, the subject of this thesis was based on the increase importance of people within all kinds of organizations.That is to identify if financial motivation is the sole factor pushing today’s employees to go the extra mile and give their best at work, and in so doing provide a rank of all other factors that can push employees to best performance. Aspiring as a future manager, the findings of this thesis will not only help me understand what motivates employees in different works of life, but also an advantage for my future managerial abilities and capabilities. * PerspectivePerspective in terms of a research study can be considered as the starting point of the research study . it more or less clarifies from which direction the researcher(s) studies the problem at hand and how he or she plans to interpret the research findings in reality. The choice of perspective usually has a strong connection with the purpose of the research and most often than not influences the choices of methods and theories needed to carry out the research (Reed, 2006).The general perspective in this thesis is broadly from USBE student’s point of view as employees and future employees. That is to identify what motivates employees to do best at work. This perspective is taken with the hope that results of this thesis could act as gu ide that would help organizations retain their most valuable resource and hopefully reap the rewards of a motivated work force. This thesis will provide a collective rank order of motivational factors among employees, taking the perspective of the employees is considered to be appropriate for this thesis.Writing a research like this one requires every researcher to take a stand and have a view of knowledge. Here, I have taken my stand or perspective for this research with respect to two folds. An academician and a businessperson can often view problem interpretation differently. Here the perspectives I have taken reflect my interpretation and findings of the problem at hand. Thus, my overall objective is â€Å"To assess the role of work motivation on employee’s performance†.Thus my perspective is that of performance enhancement in relation to financial Motivation and to judge if other motivational factors can as well enhance employees’ performance. * Preconcepti on Individual’s preconceptions are their ideas that exist regarding different phenomenon. According to the Cambridge advanced learners dictionary, preconception is an idea or opinion formed before enough information is available to form it correct (Reed, 2006, p1).This opinion is as a result of a complex pattern, which is usually influenced by a person’s practical experience, social background education, etc. Each and everyone decision values and behavior is affected by preconceptions for they posses it. It therefore undermines everyone complete objectivity especially when making observations. Rather than pursuing complete objectivity, I should instead be aware of such a phenomenon and let them not interfere in my decisions in an unreasonable manner.Preconceptions differ from individual to individual depending on for example experiences, education or previous scientific work. Education in its self forms a strong foundation for understanding, preconceptions. Preconcepti ons are socially founded, subjective opinions on the issues to be studied. The scientist preconceptions vary depending upon the parents, religion conviction, circle, and set of acquaintances, working places, social status. Some are deeply founded than others and as such are harder to change e. g. faith and politics.As a business student with previous economic background and work experience, my preconceptions will not only affect my findings and the conclusions made, but also the whole scientific process as noted earlier. Thus pure objectivity is very difficult to maintain in scientific research. To some extent, my findings reflects the values, my work is inevitably subjective and that it is important for me to give the reader knowledge regarding my background providing the reader with sufficient information against which the work research can be evaluated and understood.Preconceptions are the foundation upon which I have based all my following experiences and therefore the following experiences can be colored by our preconceptions. They are not just a built in memory; they affect me while I search from new knowledge and decide the approach that I have on the subject that am about to explore (Sarita N, and Ulrika Ronnholm (2004) Culture what are its effects). My preconceptions came from my previous studies and practical experience within the public sector in Cameroon and educational background.Having this in mind, my preconceptions (especially about the motivational importance of money) and how this might affect the study was questioned at great lengths Primarily because the empirical findings or results of this thesis will be based on the responses obtained from the questionnaires administered to the survey participants, which of course during the study period are not affected by my individual preconceptions. * Ideal Depending upon the way you choose to perceive the reality, a scientific research should be essential to give the reader knowledge on the research .This view should follow the theoretical and scientific choices of the study. They are two scientific ideals that emerge from the interpretation at hand; the positivism and the hermeneutic. These ideals are two extremes and the researcher may place him any way along the line. In my reflections upon the rule of financial motivation, I describe myself as an unreconstructed positivist, guided by the belief that employees are motivated financially to perform better. As a result, conclusions can be drawn about employees’ attitudes towards financial motivation.These results in the generation of scientific knowledge base on generalized propositions that can be tasted against facts from which it is possible to Asses the rule of work motivation on employee performance. * Approach In this research, I will follow the deductive approach. Since it utilizes a wide range of existing theories and tries to find answers from existing research and findings about motivation and employees enhance ment, which I very much believe, will be use to form the basis to compare, analyze and investigate the findings of the research.The investigation will start from a sample questionnaire and various theories on motivation, and performance enhancement relating them to previous research. And then conclude by analyzing Results of the questionnaire ranking the motivational factors that is welcomed by employees towards their performance. Reed (2006,p1) suggest that,† empirical research generates knowledge derived from observation or experimentation as opposed to theory and that empirical research uses inductive reasoning to draw conclusions about the experimentation and observations †.In general, a study can be carried out using an inductive or deductive approach. Reed goes further to present that the inductive approach is â€Å"where specific observations or measurements are made in order to develop broader conclusions, generalization and theories. The deductive on the other hand, is â€Å"where one starts thinking about generalizations, then proceeds towards specifics on how to prove or implement the generalizations. * Research Method Basically, they are two main research methods and each method is employed and used depending on the research question at hand.Firstly, the qualitative method is where the goal is to widen the knowledge and the whole pre-understanding through field observations or in laboratories. The weakness of this method is the effect from the control of the phenomena, which will continue to change because of the scientific process. During the oral method, the interviewer should guide the conversation as little as possible. Through the language, the scientist and respondents could take part of each other’s thoughts by their own valuations and experience, for it ecomes easier for the scientist to gather information from the respondents. Qualitative research is by no means a new strategy or framework for doing social research (Ha milton, 1994; Vidich and Lyman, 1994). None-the-less, there has been a very considerable growth in the use and popularity of qualitative research since the early 1960s, which can easily convey the impression that it is of more recent origin than is in fact the case. It seems to imply any approach, which does not entail the collection and analysis of qualitative data.This view is generally regarded as unhelpful though it does have some currency, largely because for most writers and practitioners, it is viewed as being more than the mere absence of qualitative data. Quantitative methods on the other hand are based on already decided and well-structure questions, which all the respondents will be asked. The information is reduced to a certain area of interest and respondents will be repeated the same questions. This can be combined with open questions, which give the respondents the flexibility to answer from different perspectives.Quantitative and qualitative aspects may also be comb ined in the same study. They can complement each other by bringing width and depth into the research. A mix of qualitative and quantitative studies gave me the best ideal to follow as by focusing on secondary data, and previous research I intend to forge ahead with the research question. With my main objective, to achieve a deeper understanding of the chosen subject, this research will knowledge realized from articles written on the topic conducted in previous research.The combined approaches will be the most meaningful way to probe into the subject and assess the role of the financial aspect of motivation in enhancing employees’ performance. The major part of this thesis uses a quantitative method, as the aim is focus on gathering information or opinions about the many factors in a systematic manner (in this case a survey) in order to identify the factor that motivates today’s employees. However, a quantitative approach is considered most suitable when analyzing the r esults between the different subgroups of respondents as the results are mainly presented in figures. Collection The search among the students yields a considerable amount of literature (both books and scientific articles) concerning work motivation dating as far backs as the 1950s. To develop a strong theoretical background, several of these materials were utilized, which enabled me to select those that I considered most suitable for this thesis. The books and articles were found using the search engines and databases available at the Internet. From a review of literature, a survey questionnaire was developed to collect data for the study.The survey questionnaire developed included a list of ten factors that were adapted from previous researchers already mentioned in the previous discussions. During the study period, 100 surveys were administered to employees who represent the target population of this study. These typed questionnaires were all hand-delivered to participants, which were dropped in a box assigned for collection. My presence was only relevant for explaining some statements in the questionnaire that the respondents needed further explanation.The questionnaire asked participants to rank the surveys ten questions according to how important each is in motivating them as future employees to perform best at work. The most important factor was ranked 1and least important ranked 10. All factors were to be ranked and no rank could be used more than once. The participants were as well asked to indicate their; Name, Current age. The respondents filling the questionnaire found no major problem in understanding the question as they were asked the only major problem I realized although from a very small number of respondents, was that of ranking the factors.However, out of the 100 hundred questionnaires administered 75 responded questionnaires usable for this project (75%). The remaining 25% were those that were not refund by the respondents for various reas ons, which could not be, count for. In general, collecting data among employees was very interesting, as many of the respondents were happy making an assessment of their future employment situations. Therefore I consider the 75% response rate to be adequate and a good sample for this project. * SampleThe purpose of this project is to access the role of financial motivation in enhancing employee’s performance in organizations, utilizing Mallow’s hierarchy of need theory as a foundation in order to achieve this aim. The process through which this would be obtain is by allowing individuals to rank a given set of adapted motivational factors according to how important each is in motivating them as employees to perform best at work. I am of the view that by using a general survey method rather than interviews, it would be possible to overcome some of the major concerns of Mallow’s critics.As a result, a total of 100 questionnaires (see appendix for sample of administ ered questionnaire), were prepared and randomly administered among employees of different organizations. These questionnaires were distributed randomly in order to ensure maximum representation of all level of employees from different works of life and to avoid any possible biases. To ensure this, for example, the sample included employees from different age groups, regions and studying different field of programmers. * Choice of investigating factorsChoosing the investigating factors for a research is of great importance for the outcome of that study. The factors selected in this study are from a number of previous studies, enabling this thesis to accommodate a broader view of the existing literature. Therefore it is only necessary at this point to motivate my choice for adopting some factors for this thesis and not others. Firstly, the original plan was to undertake a case study of Company to assess the role of financial motivation on the performance of their employees, taking int o consideration my preconceptions.However, this did not materialize because of some understanding difficulties, for example, when I contacted through phone calls to carry out my study, I was told of the understanding difficulties. Therefore with a degree of counseling from my supervisor the decision was taking to instead carry out a general survey involving employees of various companies both private and public. Secondly, only four subgroups are considered in this project.These included (name and age) because I saw them as the most appropriate subgroups to be used for this project since the respondents to the survey included just students who could only be sub-divided for easy analysis of the results. Thus a third factor was to include the basis on which the selection for the factors was done to ensure validity in the results obtained from the analysis of the survey. Thirdly, the basis for selecting the ten factors in this project was that each factor must have been used by at least more than one previous research thus making the results and analysis of this thesis objective.Hence a discussion on what constitutes Deficiency needs and Growth needs was necessary as a fourth reason for the selection of investigating factors. Fourthly, it is worth noting that from the ten factors of need used in this study, three could be regarded as Deficiency needs for every employee (Good working conditions, job security, and nature of job). While the other seven could be considered growth needs for every employee (promotion and expectations, organizational/management style, recognition, satisfying goals, Good wages, team spirit, working hours).These factors were considered to be appropriate for this study. Finally, it is worth nothing that even though most of the target population of previous studies was specific group of employees, however most of the factors used were the same, though some were different. In this study, certain factors such as Good working conditions, workin g hours were not considered, as I did not find them highly relevant in this study, as their inclusion will only result in a pull of unnecessary data. * Data analysisAfter data were collected on all the factors, excel computer programme was used to present the results. The collective rank order was determined by entering the ranking given to each of the 10 factors in the survey questionnaire. After entering the rankings given to each factor by each respondent, the total or sum of all the rankings for that factor was totaled. The factor with the least or lowest sum, was ranked number 10 or the last factor and the factor with the highest sum was ranked 1 or first.The same procedure was used to analysis the ranking of factors between the different subgroups. This system of data analysis was found to be more appropriate as different participants gave a different ranking for the same factor, and this was the simplest method that I could use to present the results. * Quality of the researc h design Validity: Research design is often divided into three broad categories, according to â€Å"the amount of control the research maintains over the conduct of the research study†. Th

Learning English

English is the most widely spoken language in the world, and has more second-language speakers than any other language. English is also the language of the Internet, and so studying, doing research, interacting with international companies and travelling is almost impossible without at least some English. It is now impossible to find a country where learning English has not become popular. You wish to travel someplace, you have to communicate. If you don't know the language of the country where you go, just try speaking English and they will understand. magine that you don't know english and you go to china and of course you don't know chinese and you need to find an address. how will you ask that address to some one ? and i can give you thousands of examples like that. Now in most of the job application the company ask about the languages you know. and all of them expect that you know english because international customers rely on English speaking employees to help them with day to day operations to interpret, translate and communicate directly with English speaking customers. Speak fluent English can improve job opportunities. There are other opportunities available for those who learn English. Learning English can improve the chances of being accepted into colleges. Learning English also can expand the ability to access news and information, much of which is generated only in English. if you are looking for an information on internet and if you are looking it in english you will find more than in your language. because english is an international language. you can find all the news , magazines, all the information you need you can find in english. as we all know music connects people to people. f you don't know english how will you understand the meaning of the song and how will you enjoy it. music is really important in life. imagine a life without music how boring will it be. no music on the radio when you are in rush? i really can't imagine a life like that . english is important for your education too. if you go to USA to study you get a better education than you will get in your country. you will mee t some new international friends and some hay if you need some think from the countries that you have friends you will solve it easily. in the end learning english is the best thing to do for your life.

Adultery †Duffy Essay

Duffy presents relationships in the poems adultery and valentines in different ways. In adultery the title suggests betrayal and deceit. It explores the wife’s feeling towards her husband’s infidelity. Whereas in valentines, Duffy shows the different ways we love people and challenges the true meaning of love. Adultery is a regular structure of 11 stanzas. This shows repetition and also restriction. It has a regular repetitive rhythm so as to avoid losing the impact and the theme of the poem which is betrayal. Duffy introduces her poem in an exciting and a mysterious way; wear dark glasses in the rain. This shows that the person is hiding his identity. â€Å"Guilt. A sick, green tint† makes the reader pause and think giving the word â€Å"guilt† a bigger effect. It shows the damage caused by the action of the betrayer. She leaves the word† hands† unwritten which makes it important due to the various things a person can do with it. The second stanza creates an atmosphere of excitement and also shows a hint of prostitution when Duffy uses the line† money tucked in the palms†. â€Å"You are naked† is also of significance because it not only implies infidelity but also the word naked could mean vulnerability. Duffy uses this to present the reader different ways to look at the partner. Duffy uses the word â€Å"bastard† which is an offensive word. She could have just used the word bad person but instead she chose bastard because it is much more emotional and dramatic and shows the way the partner feels about the adulterer at that point in a more effective way. It shows the bitterness and the anger which is also shown throughout the poem. This could also suggest that the adulterer was a male since woman ar usually not called bastards. The reason it could be a married couple is due to the use of the word wedding cake later. â€Å"Sweet darkness in the afternoon† could suggest deception because people usually draw their curtains during the afternoon so that others from outside cant see. However, sweet darkness is also an oxymoron because they are two opposites. Duffy could have used these words to show how the two lovers make something that is spooky (darkness) into a more affectionate atmosphere by having sex. The stanza increase the about sexual atmosphere by suing words such as â€Å"gasping, radiant,yes†. Duffy uses a simile in â€Å"life which crumbles like a wedding cake† to compare the adulterer’s life to a fictional life where the marriage would still crumble due to guilt. The â€Å"tarnished† spoon could be a metaphor that suggests the adulterer has been with so many other lovers as well. Duffy suggests that men don’t live up to their promises. When they do something wrong, they try to win the other half over by buying â€Å"flowers† which could mean that they are up to no good. The word â€Å"darling† expresses the bitterness and the sarcasm of the partner. It gives us an insight on how the partner feels. Duffy builds up tension towards the end of the poem. She uses words that have got implied meanings. Similarly, she uses this same technique for â€Å"valentines as well although the theme of the poem is totally different and represents relationships in a different way. Valentines as the title suggests is about love and how it is expressed especially on Valentines Day. Duffy uses 1 line stanzas to give a more dramatic impact and also gives the key ideas. Duffy suggests that a â€Å"red rose† or a â€Å"satin heart† does not really carry the real meaning of love. The word â€Å"not† crates an effect which suggests that Duffy strongly thought that the roses and hearts were just fake symbols of love. Instead, Duffy tries to have an â€Å"onion† as a symbol of love. Duffy compares her onion to a moon wrapped in brown paper. The brown paper implies the outer skin of the onion. The moon is known for its romantic setting and its† light† could mean that true love provide the light of your life. In valentines, the poem uses imagery to get a point across. The poem has got the onion as the extended metaphor with an implied meaning of true love. However, in adultery Duffy uses the words â€Å"innocent onions† to show that the adulterer implies that they have not done anything and that they are completely innocent even after all the cheating. Duffy implies that love isn’t always going to be full of happiness. There are hardships as well which is the reason why she chose an onion. The onion can show the hardships through the† tears† when we peel an onion. Tears are part of true love. Duffy also suggests that by peeling an onion, the different layers of someone’s personality is also discovered. However, in adultery Duffy uses the word â€Å"unpeels† to suggest the sexual effect. Usually, photos are indicated for nostalgic moments of life. However, Duffy twists this idea by using† photo of grief† which implies that there would be sorrow and depression in love. She is trying to say that these are the truths of love. She uses â€Å"not a cute card or a kissogram† to imply that she was against normal gifts that did not really hold the true meaning of love. However, in adultery â€Å"your flowers dumb and explicit on nobody’s birthday† can portray that the person is up to no good. A flower which is a normal symbol of love is portrayed as betrayal and heartache. In valentines love is used as the key basic towards a good relationship. In adultery, the word â€Å"love† is used as an accusing comment by the partner to the adulterer. It suggests that the adulterer does not really know all about love since he is cheating. â€Å"a ring thrown away† shows that the marriage would most probably end due to the deception. Similarly in valentines, Duffy mentions a â€Å"wedding ring† which is important since it’s a sign of love. On the other hand, Duffy could have used this to suggest that marriage is not the best option if there is no passion in a relationship. The word† lethal† is unusual to be in this poem. This however could mean that love is lethal in a way. It’s a metaphorical death of love that is break-ups. This word similarly is also mentioned in adultery for a different situation though. In adultery, Duffy builds up a situation on all the different ways the person cheats. She uses the word lethal to make sure that the reader doesn’t feel comfortable with the deception and the betrayal. This word shows the dangerous consequence of adultery. However, in valentine the repetition of the word ‘cling’ shows the way feelings can take a grip on people. On the other hand, in adultery the feelings certainly didn’t make the relationship between the two people any stronger. In valentines, the poem uses imagery to get a point across. The poem has got the onion as the extended metaphor with and implied meaning of true love. Whereas, in adultery Duffy uses language technique of implied or hidden meanings to create a mood that builds on and then changes it. She uses language effectively to present how the partner feels. The poem adultery could be personally linked to Duffy. She might have had relationships where she was hurt or was betrayed by her lover. Whereas, in valentines she could have just wanted people to experiment and modernise their way of thinking instead of just sticking with the old boring meaningless ones.

Frederick II of Germany

The Crusade is a series of eight military campaigns between 1096 and 1270 in which Europeans attempted to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims who ruled the Middle East. Members of these groups are said to be recruited after a meeting of the church council in France where the Pope had called upon â€Å"knights† to go to the Holy Land and free the Christians from the Muslim rule. Aside from these, the Crusades are also tasked to regain the Holy Sepulcher. After the said meeting, the traveling preachers were said to be the ones responsible for propagating the concept which was then openly accepted by the people.That was said to be the start of the eight crusades in the next 200 years of history. Along with the mounted knights, many more foot soldiers were to â€Å"take the cross,† or become Crusaders. These included archers, crossbowmen, spear men and foragers. Under the feudal system, they owed their allegiance to landowning lords. Crusades were costly enterpr ises. The money for outfitting the soldiers on their expeditions to the East might be provided by the feudal lords or raised through taxes, sales of land or other property, or loans.Payment of the loans could be delayed until their return, and no doubt some had dreams of coming home with some of the treasure hinted at by the Byzantine emperor. Of course, a great many never came home at all. However, the Crusades failed to achieve their objective and cost untold lives. However, they did expose Western Europe to new ideas, and resulted in a heightened desire for adventure and an urge to see distant places. This curiosity was eventually channeled into the exploration of the New World. Frederick II of Germany who then headed the Fifth Crusade was blamed after its failure.Although he was considered a leader of the crusade, he was not around to actually lead the group. He did sent his army to support every actions made by the crusades yet many of the crusaders feel that they might have do ne much better or yet outperformed what they have done should Frederick II was present to show his leadership skills. After this incident, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights named Hermann von Salze told Frederick II to marry Yolanda who is then the Queen of Jerusalem, in order to save the bad impression of those who had expected the victory of his crusade.Frederick was such a fickle minded and irresponsible man. He was said to have reaffirmed his vow to the pope but he kept on changing minds and switching dates as to when he could meet the deadlines . With such an act, Pope Gregory believed that the delaying tactics being done by Frederick was a sign of his being coward. Soon after, Frederick II was excommunicated by Pope Gregory. After several excommunication orders imposed upon Frederick II, the Knights Templar and other members of the Teutonic Knights refused to help him again.After no help has been extended to Frederick, he decided to talk to the Sultan of Jerusalem and ca me up with an agreement. They quickly came to an agreement, with Jerusalem being granted to the Christians, and both parties agreeing to a ten-year truce. Al-Kamil was criticized by his people for making this agreement, but he knew that he could retake the Holy Land whenever he wanted. Frederick was similarly criticized by the Christians, who protested that he was sent to kill the heathen, not dine with him and sign treaties.Additionally, they were now noticing the defensive vulnerabilities of Jerusalem that the Sultan had counted on when he made the deal. The Emperor entered Jerusalem on March 17, 1229. On the next morning, Sunday, Frederick went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate mass, only to find that no priest was there. Undaunted, he proceeded to crown himself King of Jerusalem. This act, combined with the conquest that he represented, earned Frederick the hatred of most Palestinian barons.He had liberated Jerusalem and become its King, but it was immediately evi dent that his grasp on the Holy Land was tenuous at best. The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. In 1244 the Khwarezmians retook Jerusalem, after the end of a ten-year truce following the Sixth Crusade. The fall of Jerusalem, no longer an earth-shattering event to European Christians who had seen the city pass from Christian to Muslim control numerous times in the past two centuries, did not prompt an immediate call for a new crusade.Pope Innocent IV and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor were engaged in a continuation of the papal- imperial struggle. King Louis IX who lead the seventh crusade was having difficulty trying to fix and prepare another set of knights to compose the seventh crusade after all previous crusades had failed. France was perhaps the strongest state in Europe at the time, as Provence had mostly fallen under Parisian control after the Albigensian Crusade, and Toulouse was led by Louis IX's brother Alphonse, who joined him on his crusade in 1245.Another brother, Charles I of Anjou, also joined Louis. For the next three years Louis collected an ecclesiastical tenth (mostly from church tithes), and in 1248 he and his approximately 20 000-strong army sailed from the ports of Aigues-Mortes, which had been specifically built to prepare for the crusade, and Marseille. Louis IX's financial preparations for this expedition were comparatively well organized, and he was able to raise approximately 1,500,000 livres tournois.However, many nobles who joined Louis on the expedition had to borrow money from the royal treasury, and the crusade turned out to be very expensive. They sailed first to Cyprus and spent the winter on the island, negotiating with various other powers in the east; the Latin Empire set up after the Fourth Crusade asked for his help against the Byzantine Empire of Nicaea, and the Principality of Antioch and the Knights Templar wanted his help in Syria, where the Muslims had recently captured Sido n.However, Egypt was the object of his crusade, and he landed in 1249 at Damietta on the Nile. Egypt would, Louis thought, provide a base from which to attack Jerusalem, and its wealth and supply of grain would keep the crusaders fed and equipped. On June 6 Damietta was taken with little resistance from the Egyptians, who withdrew further up the Nile. However the flooding of the Nile had not been taken into account during the campaign, and it soon kept Louis and his army grounded at Damietta for six months, where the knights sat back and enjoyed the spoils of war.Louis ignored the agreement made during the Fifth Crusade that Damietta should be given to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, now a rump state in Acre, but he did set up an archbishopric there (under the authority of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem) and used the city as a base to direct military operations against the Muslims of Syria. In November, Louis marched towards Cairo, and almost at the same time, the Ayyubid sultan of Egyp t, as-Salih Ayyub, died. A force led by Robert of Artois and the Templars attacked the Egyptian camp at al-Mansourah, but they were defeated and Robert was killed.Meanwhile, Louis' main force was attacked by the Mameluk Baibars, the commander of the army and a future sultan himself. Louis was defeated as well, but he did not withdraw to Damietta for months, preferring to besiege Mansourah, which ended in starvation and death for the crusaders rather than the Muslims. In March of 1250 Louis finally returned to Damietta, but he was taken captive on the way there, fell ill with dysentery, and was cured by an Arab physician. In May he was ransomed in return for Damietta and 400 000 livres, and he immediately left Egypt for Acre, one of the few remaining possessions of the crusaders in Syria.Meanwhile, the Mameluk soldiers of Egypt revolted. Turanshah, as-Salih's successor, took control of Cairo, creating a Mameluk dynasty that would eventually conquer the last of the crusader territorie s. Louis made an alliance with the Mameluks, and from his new base in Acre began to rebuild the other crusader cities. Although the Kingdom of Cyprus claimed authority there, Louis was the de facto ruler. Louis also negotiated with the Mongols, who had begun to appear in the east and who the Christians, encouraged by legends of a Nestorian kingdom among them (cf.Prester John), hoped would help them fight the Muslims and restore the Crusader States. They, like the Muslims who were similarly negotiating with the Mongols against the Christians, were unaware that the Mongols were not interested in helping either side and would eventually be disastrous for both. Louis' embassy to the Mongol ruler Mongke Khan, headed by William of Rubruck, was a failure. The Khan rejected Louis' invitation to convert to Christianity, and instead suggested Louis submit to him. In 1254 Louis' money ran out, and his presence was needed in France where his mother and regent Blanche of Castile had recently die d.His crusade was a failure, but he was considered a saint by many, and his fame gave him an even greater authority in Europe than the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1270 he attempted another crusade, though it too would end in failure. As clearly stated in this paper, it has been said that entering truce agreements with the enemy is a not acceptable for the Crusades. In the case of Frederick II, most of his supporters had failed to be identified with him and also was not accepting the thought of being a traitor to their country.The crusades can be synonymous to heroes of each country in the world where they are often roused by the spirit to fight for what is right and what is advantageous for their countrymen. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. â€Å"Sixth Crusade. † http://everything2. com/index. pl? node_id=1387038 (accessed May 6, 2007). 2. â€Å"The Crusades, Science and its Times:700-1449. † http://www. bookrags. com/research/the-crusades-scit-021/ (accessed May 6, 2007). 3. â€Å"Sevent h Crusade. † http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Seventh_Crusade (accessed May 6, 2007).