Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Understanding Best Methods in Evidence-Based Practices in Healthcare Research Paper

Understanding Best Methods in Evidence-Based Practices in Healthcare and for Nurses - Research Paper Example In today’s medical world, electronic clinical information systems (ECIS) are now found in every hospital and clinic setting, allowing for nurses and doctors to quickly access information electronically and apply solutions immediately at the patient’s bedside. When medical staff are able to complete forms and search for information electronically using national standard code terms (or SNLs) on hand-held devices, this eliminates the older practices of having to return to one’s desk to look up information in books and office folders and then notate everything on paper. Eliminating excess time by having portable access to electronic medical information databases on the go, provides the environment in all clinics and hospitals of quickly and accurately providing efficient solutions and operations for all concerned (Allread et al., 2004). The ability for nurses to conduct research also provides the development needed for gaining experience in addressing clinical questi ons about cases and confronting ethical issues (Webb, 2011). Clinical research also provides opportunities to build a strong foundation of scientific information and knowledge, particularly applicable to clinical settings. Research in evidence-based systems also provides opportunities in developing processes within the nursing management sector as part of delivering better information and infrastructure in hospitals and clinics, between management and staff and between management, staff, and patients (Webb, 2011).

Monday, October 28, 2019

Organisational Structure Of The Ikea Company Commerce Essay

Organisational Structure Of The Ikea Company Commerce Essay Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, as a child, started a profitable business selling matches to neighbours on his bicycle. In 1943, at just 17 using money he received as a gift from his father for doing well in school he formed IKEA which is an acronym made up of his initials and the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village in Sweden where he grew up. In 1947, furniture was introduced for the first time in IKEAs product line in the form of armchairs. Local craftsmen made the furniture using wood from a nearby forest. IKEAs furniture became very popular and the line was extended to include more products. Its interesting at this point in the companies history because Kamprad was based in a very poor area of Sweden, and because of this, the people were naturally frugal and highly resourceful, in other words they had to maximise and be inventive with the limited resources available to themThe author believes that this is the setting and cornerstone for all of IKEAs subsequent success. IKEAs vision was To create a better everyday life for the many people. According to Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea; To design a desk which may cost $1,000 is easy for a furniture designer, but to design a functional and good desk which shall cost $50 can only be done by the very best. Expensive solutions to all kinds of problems are often signs of mediocrity. (Chandler, 1993: 12) Ikeas success is based on the relatively simple idea of keeping the cost between manufacturers and customers down. Costs are kept under control starting at the design level of the value-added chain. Following on from this the culture of the company emphasizes efficiency and low cost, which cannot be achieved at the expense of quality or service. Bureaucracy is fought at all levels in the organization. Kamprad believes that simplicity and common sense should characterize planning and strategic direction (Bartlett et Al, 1993: 78). Bartlett C.A. Ghoshal S. (1993) Transnational Management. Irwin Publishers Boston Massachusetts Symbolic policies, such as only flying economy class and staying at economical hotels, employing young executives and sponsoring university programs have made cost part of corporate culture and have further inspired the influx of entrepreneurship into the organization. Despite his vast wealth it is reported he used to only drive an eleven-year-old modest Volvo. By 1951, furniture sales dominated his sales inventory and he decided to specialize exclusively in low priced furniture. The author recognises here that he is playing to his market strengths and again this is a further cornerstone of his subsequent success. In the same year, the first IKEA furniture catalogue was published. IKEA opened its first furniture showroom in 1953, which allowed customers to check the quality and use the items they were buying. The author recognises that any company that is prepared to allow customers to use its products before buying them will likely ensure that the quality of the product is if anything substantially above its utility specification. People also like to handle and view a potential product before purchase, which is part of the reason, that ecommerce will always take on limited success. Today IKEA is actually a privately held company owned by Stichting INGKA Foundation, a non-profit registered in Leiden in the Netherlands that is controlled by the Kamprads three sons. The Dutch foundation is worth US$36 billion in 2006. IKEA Group with its headquarters in Denmark, is a multinational operator of a chain of stores for home furnishing and furniture. It is the worlds largest furniture retailer with a reputation for low cost, style and design. IKEAs annual home furnishing sales are 20 billion euros with more than 260 IKEA Group stores in 25 countries (Ohlsson, 2010). IKEA has about 40 distribution centres worldwide in 16 different countries, and implemented the automated Astro warehouse management system in 2005 (2005) in 15 of their Distribution Centres (DC) and Customer Distribution Centres (CDC). IKEA has approximately 1,220 suppliers from 55 different countries split more or less evenly between Europe and Asia, the top five of which are China 20%, Poland 18%, Italy 8%, Germany 6% and Sweden 5%. The company holds 3.5m stock keep units, with 10000 different product types amongst them, 10% of which are new every year. It is also a major global employer with 125000 employees in 40 different countries. Human resources The companys ethos was quite Christian in its values-their philosophy was to treat others as one would like to be treated oneself and their belief is akin to that shown by Japanese companies to their workers today that is to increase commitment and hence productivity from staff, one has to provide them with the belief of belonging to the company. For instance, all design teams enjoy complete autonomy in their work, but are expected to design new appealing products regularly. Ikeas employment philosophy is widely welcomed in the USA where historically moral amongst staff and working conditions and benefits are poor in the retail sector. This accounted for the fact that the sector had one of the highest turnover rates of all industries. Consequently, it also suffers from high human resource (HR) costs, as companies have to recruit and train replacements at frequent intervals. Definition: Management Information Systems (MIS) is the term given to the discipline focused on the integration of computer systems with the aims and objectives on an organisation. Information systems can be broadly divided into operational level for transaction processing, knowledge level for knowledge and office management, management level for decision and intelligent support and strategic level for executive support. The information systems support an information value chain for both business process-supply chain, enterprise, customer and knowledge management and management activities-planning, co-ordinating, controlling and modelling. Ultimately all the systems process data and provide feedback and for executive support for decision making planning, monitoring and implementation of strategy and the general workforce. Definition of an organisation -a stable formal structure that takes resources from the environment and processes them to produce outputs. An organisation can be said to be a formal structure with a standard operating procedure, politics and culture. Environmental factors affect their outputs -these maybe resources, government, competitors, financial, institutional culture, technology. Impact of information systems is seen in terms of a microeconomic model, transaction cost model, agency theory and behavioral theory. sociotechnical systems, redefining boundaries, recognising work flows, flattening, electronic market. Diagram Organisation Information technology mediating factors -environment culture structure standard procedures politics management decisions chance Information systems Information systems relate to the way in which Ikea is organized, its management and its technical layout. Information systems do not just consist of information technology (IT) and information transfer systems-the technical requirements should act as an adjunct to the business strategies of the enterprise rather than being a hostage to its fortune. Often business strategy requires the execution of complex processes of control and automation and the ability to quickly analyze and react to relevant data, not in an uncontrolled firefighting or reactive manner but with anticipation and forward planning based on likely demand and external changes in the business environment. Diagram showing interdependence between Business strategy, software, hardware, data management, telecommunications Organisational framework The problem is that in complex business organizations SBUs tend to design their information management needs according to their best interests rather than to the interest of the enterprise as a whole. This is termed the silo affect. To survive in an every more competitive environment, management must be strong enough to ensure that their strategy is implemented in the execution of cross-functional business processes and that information can be managed and shared across spatial, functional, geographic and segmental boundaries. Stakeholders interests e.g.are often ignored at the expense of damaging other parts of the supply chain, and the chain weakens. This maybe for several reasons, particularly because corporations are often intimidated by the thought of sharing competitive information with their suppliers. Their information security facilities often prohibits suppliers from gaining advantage by withholding from them key information e.g. manufacturing processes can benefit from effi cient production through accessing a real-time demand system. Companies therefore face a dilemma-do they share information to the extent that it allows their potential competitors access to their market information or do they with-hold information and become less competitive. In the end and on balance, a closeted attitude becomes self-defeating and exposes them to the risk of a more aggressive competitor. Ikea does not actually manufacture products, however it plays a very large design and innovative role in their production. By outsourcing manufacturing they can retain a competitive advantage -if one company fails to provide product as specified they will find another company that can and they do not suffer from set-up costs and ultimately ROI costs. One can immediately see the main problems relating to information management for IKEA. None more so than with a company whose strategy demands supply from a worldwide network and delivery to a worldwide customer base. One can easily understand that where there is a disparate group of suppliers, co-ordination between various supplier and DC is critical. A range of kitchen products e.g.may be produced by different manufacturers who have different supply times, manufacturing ability, geographical location, delivery times etc. On one hand one does not want idle inventory stock as this costs money, on the other one wants to ensure a constant supply which can meet fluctuations in demand-otherwise customers will become frustrated and will purchase elsewhere. In addition customer demand may vary between geographical location e.g. a country maybe has mainly city based stores where there would naturally be higher demand e.g. for space saving furniture which may be manufacturered in a country r ound the other side of the world. Ikea faces huge logistical problems, particularly as their ethos is to supply medium range quality product at low price. Supply planning is key to this strategy. One needs in this situation to forecast across the whole company and to organise its distribution centres into groups and hold one lot of a float of stock for a number of DCs. The capacity and geographical location of the CDCs become crucial to the companies strategic planning. Clearly a high capacity geographically distant CDC or a low capacity near CDC have redundancy issues because of the volume of product they hold and there impact on delivery time. Technology At operation level, Astro WMS (Group, 2010) is a modular WMS that IKEA adopted in 2010 and increases and improves efficiency in their distribution centre. Astro simplifies and streamlines the work process to provide total control of warehouse management with full tractability, accuracy, and on-line planning. In order to optimise capacity, handling equipment and storage spaces must be fully utilized. Astro is an automated warehouse management system that allows for ordering fulfilment automatically so reducing manual cost with automated re-ordering purchase orders being sent to suppliers when stock levels are low. Fully automatic double-aisle cranes from LTW Doppelmayr operate without any manual input as if robots have taken over the world leaving man redundant. In IKEA DC in New Jersey USA is running Astro WMS at full capacity with 175 warehouse employees. Ed Morris, Operations Manager at the site comments, We have seen that we are already back to picking 4,500 customer order lines per day and able to ship 34 trailers to the stores by the end of week one. I am confident that we will be exceeding our previous daily expectations in the very near future. Through the partnership we have built with the Consafe team, I am sure that both sides will take things away from this project and use them in the future. I really believe that this cutover was a success for both IKEA and Consafe. There will be space for 70.000 pallets in the 2 conventional modules and 100.000 pallets in the high-rack system. The warehouse capacity will be 270.000 pallets and therefore the largest IKEA Distribution Centre in the world. Taking a product to market involves many steps and information management is crucial to the products success. Ikea often designs and develops products from their inception to market. In order to do this they work from CAD drawings and have prototype machines model real products from their design drawings. But product manufacturing is more involved than just prototype production and testing. One must consider material source and process cost with the manufacturer as well as packaging development. IKEA is famous for its flat packs that were designed not just to fit into the customers car easily, but are mainly designed to maximize use of space during transport and warehousing so reducing costs storage and handling costs to a minimum. (Economist, 1994: 101). IKEA realized early on that space is often redundant during storage or transportation, yet costs money regardless of whether it is utilized or not. Hence the idea of a flat pack where storage and transport demand can be anticipated easily and utilized efficiently. In addition products have to market researched and tested and there has to be careful consideration in rollout, forecasting and financials. Neglecting one of these areas can cause immense damage to the company as a whole e.g. if a product reaches the shelf which is faulty may damage the brand of the company e.g. if the manufacturing process is too costly to set up it can place borrowing costs and liquidity capital under significant strain. The product must also be indexed, catalogued, labeled and displayed correctly. All of these represent part of the supply process, all of them require huge information analysis and appropriate information transfer. Order planning is therefore crucial to their operation and differences between expected demand and supply will affect their bottom line. In 2005 realising that these issues were becoming critical, the company decided to use an SAP based demand-planning tool solution with Manugistics and their goal was to reduce inventory levels in distribution centres by at least 10%. In its deployment the software must be able to identify critical resources such as people, equipment, storage, suppliers, finances, and be able to forecast with reasonable accuracy supply and demand fluctuations. Diagram-Forecast, stock, orders, material resource planning, requisition, quality, invoice, payment, structure of DC, CDC manufacturers. Production manager and finance officer. Management issues In modern corporate culture constant improvement has become a leading concept, and the technology has to keep up. Therefore the system needs to be flexible and adaptive, i.e. they need to be able to adapt changes in the flow. The limits of this flexibility are set at an early stage, by the choice of system and provider/supplier. As the company has such a vast range of stock there is also a tendency to be production-oriented, rather than customer focused which has made its supply chain more push than pull which naturally creates a supply-demand imbalance. The Supply Chain Council is an independent group of international supply chain industry executives and experts who developed the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model over a ten-year period using in-depth industry research and analysis. The models however are often based on forecasts and on theories, which are exact in them selves, but whose results maybe incorrect. The reason is that they require great quantities of data that are hard to gather and have to be estimated and calculations often have to be carried out for entire batches. One such example is the Wilson formula. The Wilson Formula The Wilson formula is a traditional method for determining production quantity where the total consumption during a period of time is known. The formula assumes that the only costs entailed are a warehousing cost per stock keeping unit and a one-time cost every time an order is placed, known as administrative re-ordering costs. The formula tries to find an optimal balance between the two costs to minimize the total cost, which is known as the economic order quantity (EOQ). In order for the Wilson formula to work, a number of conditions have to be met: Demand is constant and continuous The lead time for receiving ordered goods is constant Administrative re-ordering costs and warehousing costs are constant The order quantity does not need to be expressed as an integer The entire order quantity is delivered to the warehouse on the same occasion No shortages allowed The price/cost is independent of time requirements and ordered quantity Goods handling is ignored which is often a considerable cost e.g. the value of the article is often not proportional to the handling cost of the good. The administrative re-ordering cost is hard to determine. Price and demand also varies over time making judgement obsolete. Management by Objectives Ikea uses Opportunity Analyzer, which makes use of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model. Best practices and key performance indicators are embedded in Opportunity Analyzer Management. Opportunity Analyzer recognizes important key performance indicators (KPIs) e.g. delivery performance. While MIS systems are extremely useful in generating statistical reports and data analysis they can also be of use as a Management by Objectives (MBO) tool. MBO is a management process by which managers and subordinates agree upon a series of objectives for the subordinate to attempt to achieve within a set time frame. Objectives are set using the SMART ratio: that is, objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-Specific. The success of any MBO objective depends upon the continuous tracking of progress. In tracking this performance it can be extremely useful to make use of an MIS system. Since all SMART objectives are by definition measurable they can be tracked through the generation of management reports to be analysed by decision-makers. http://www.supply-chain.org/resources/scormark/tutorial SCOR considers management processes and planning. Ikea has such a large range of products that one has to be able to benchmark supply chains against products in order to best assess the most profitable items. SCOR takes product and cross references them individually against customer sub-type then groups similar supply chain characteristics. It then applies performance matrices-those of agility, responsiveness, cost, assets and reliability and scores each group of supply chains accordingly creating a ranking of supply chains. The advantages are obvious in that the more efficient supply chains can be more heavily relied upon, to create profit, the weaker ones losing out from future reliance. However, the disadvantage is that supply chains may cut across market segments and unifying groups by supply chain efficiency rather than by market segment may destroy market uniformity. The executive team can select a relevant KPI for the particular target area. Today, companies connect into networks or chains, increasing the flow rate throughout the supply chain to satisfy an ever more demanding customer. Increased power is given over to the vendor to keep stock at the desired level. http://www.jda.com/company/display-collateral.html?did=636dcid=1 The demand supply chain software must also be able to provide key metrics in areas where demand exceeds supply and available capacity. This will improve order fill rates and network utilization and will free working capital tied to ineffective inventory. However, understanding the supply demand chain in its practical execution is not all that is required. The product, must also align with its financial evaluation in an integrated business plan. It must be able to identify any performance concerns and gaps at the lowest practical level across the strategic/business plans. The software must become a forecasting tool and be able to perform a what if scenario for management to make best estimate prediction on future capacity demands. It must be able to relate assumptions, risks and opportunities to specific hierarchy levels in the SOP plan. These are decision support systems. Like all good army strategy there must be a backup plan when all goes wrong with practical and well-worked altern atives e.g. its no good having a back up generator if its not properly serviced regularly. The information tool must also be able to track changes over time and carry out real-time review analysis of supply and highlight areas where inventory positions violate pre-defined tolerances. It must also be able to highlight critical resource constraints related to material, labor and other capacity variables. Clearly there is a position that optimizes resources, distribution, transportation, stock inventory, production and materials. http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/operations-supply/10574219-1.html Recommendations IKEA is undoubtedly a highly successful global firm. Like all firms they must ensure competitive advantage. In information transfer terms they have problems relating to the fact that their suppliers are multiple and demand can vary. It may be better for them to consider horizontal back integration and begin to act as suppliers to ensure consistant information flow-from factory to customer. They will undoubtedly sometime soon saturate their market and further market expansion may not be possible. They must look toward expansion elsewhere either by parallel related market considerations e.g. home or commercial furnishing design or by backward horizontal integration. Both would be ideal targets for integrated information design providing the company with synergistic information value and ultimately increasing their information value chain.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Wedding Speech Delivered by the Brother of the Bride -- Wedding Toasts

Wedding Speech Delivered by the Brother of the Bride For those of you who don't know me I'm Anna's brother Kevin and I'm here today to say a few words on behalf of our father. Unfortunately Ron is unable to be here today due to ill health. Nevertheless it goes without saying that he passes on all his love and best wishes to Anna and Melvin on their special day. When Anna asked me to give her away I was deeply honored. But all I could think was God I'll have to make a speech. To be honest standing here I feel a bit like a sheik walking into his harem for the first time. I know what I've got to do, I just don't know where to start. All I can say is thank God for the Internet. First of all, on behalf of my mother Linda and I, I would like to welcome Melvin?s parents Lyn and Michael, who I'm sure are very proud of their son today. I'd also like to welcome relatives and friends of both families and thank you all for being here, especially those of you who have traveled a long way to make this special occasion so memorable. Anna and Melvin have obviously worked really hard organizing everything for today but your hard work has definitely paid off. I'm sure everyone here agrees that the ceremony was wonderful. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone else involved in making the day so special, including Chris and Joanne for their efforts with the wedding invitations and order of service.... ... words of advice as they enter into this next stage of their lives together. However I think you know each other well enough to know how to stay on each others good side. So all I will say is this. Anna - If you want something from Melvin just ask for it. Don't forget he's a man and hints don't work. Melvin - Always remember as a great philosopher once said, a man who gives in when he is wrong is a wise man. Whilst a man who gives in when he is right is married. And finally everyone all that remains is for me to ask that you all join me in a toast. Anna and Melvin may you both live as long as you like and have all that you need for as long as you live. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Anna and Melvin.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Porphyria’s Lover Analysis

Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning – An Analysis The finest woks of Browning endeavor to explain the mechanics of human psychology. The motions of love, hate, passion, instinct, violence, desire, poverty, violence, and sex and sensuousness are raised from the dead in his poetry with a striking virility and some are even introduced with a remarkable brilliance. Thanks to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, so many people living in such close quarters, poverty, violence, and sex became part of everyday life.The absence of family and community ties meant newfound personal independence; it also meant the loss of a social safety net. The mid-nineteenth century also saw the rapid growth of newspapers, which functioned not as the current-events journals of today but as scandal sheets, filled with stories of violence and carnality essay writer program. Hurrying pedestrians, bustling shops, and brand-new goods filled the streets, and individuals had to take in mi llions of separate perceptions a minute.The resulting over stimulation led, according to many theorists, to a sort of numbness. Notably many writers now felt that in order to provoke an emotional reaction they had to compete with the turmoils and excitements of everyday life had to shock their audience in ever more novel and sensational ways. Thus violence also became a sort of aesthetic choice for many creative people. Browning can be charged of also employing violence as a tool for evoking aesthetic brilliance but this is only at the superficial level.Because when it comes to the use of violence in his poems we find them as close to reality as reality itself. His poems show us the human passions in flesh and blood and he was not going to be one who denied the presence of violence as a potent human passion or one who presented it as something out of proportion just to create sensation. His incorporation of violence with other human passions was real just and fully understandable. M any of Browning's more disturbing poems, including â€Å"Porphyria's Lover† and â€Å"My Last Duchess,† reflect this notion.In his poem â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover† we find Browning at his best. The poem is a love poem†¦ but has a lot more to offer than just the bright sunny side of love. For Browning love was a passion, which had its destructive side as well. But this did not in anyway lessen or tarnish its reputation as being the purest emotion. In fact the destruction that mostly love brought on the characters of Browning’s poems was mostly due to other reasons like violence, may be.Porphyria's Lover also demonstrates several of Robert Browning's defining characteristics as a poet. It contains his criticism towards the beliefs and practices of self-restraint and his traditional use of dramatic monologue to expose a single character's personality, which in turn often provides an additional depth to his works in coordination with his use of unpoe tic language. Also taking into account the author's own personal experiences with his wife, the poem can also be perceived as a representation of the development of their relationship.Browning's criticism of the idea of self-restraint is evident throughout the poem â€Å"Porphyria's Lover† as it was shown in the internal debates both characters underwent as they decided whether or not they should consummate the love between them. In Robert Browning's dramatic monologue, â€Å"Porphyria's Lover,† the love-stricken frustrations of a nameless speaker end in a passionate, annihilating response to society's scrutiny towards human sensuality.Cleverly juxtaposing Porphyria's innocent femininity and her sexual transgression, Browning succeeds in displaying society's contradictory embrace of morality next to its rejection of sensual pleasure. In an ironically tranquil domestic setting, warm comfort and affection come to reveal burning emotional perversions within confining soci al structures. The speaker's violent display of passion ends not with external condemnation, but with the matter-of-fact sense of a duty fulfilled.Porphyria's lover sits next to his murdered love without any regretful aftermath or consequence; from the narrator's viewpoint, a perception wholly distorted by the forced internalization of his feelings for Porphyria, not even the ultimate hand of God can rob him the serenity of a moment free from judgment. Porphyria’s Lover is his first dramatic monologue in which we are witness to the union of two lovers. This union, as the poem reaches its end, culminates in to a unique eternal nirvana.Browning's presentation of an unreliable narrator is necessarily so, for in the ironically ordinary setting of Victorian simplicity, the speaker's insanity is justified and accounted for. With traditional notions of nature's wrath and God's omnipotence framing the start and finish of the scene, Browning employs the narration's natural poetic flow in order to heighten the blow of the unexpectedly unorthodox turn of events. The speaker's great passion comes to parallel that of God, nature, and ultimately, social expectations, thus embodying the force of the â€Å"sullen wind† (Line 2) itself.Moreover the very beginning of the poem shows a setting where the nature is presented in wrath and fury- violence marks its presence from the very onset. This is in fact a sign of forces other than ‘love’ at work. As the young goddess is shown gliding across to meet her lover, the forces of nature rage around. They represent the various odds going against the two lovers. The use of nature as an opposing force by the master poet is a splendid technique. The reason being only nature in its enormity would have been potent enough to match the magnanimous stature of love.And Browning did want to convey this message across that despite its pure magnanimity love was overshadowed and forced to change its direction because of o ther forces. And the consequences of such changes though ending up in the final victory of love did cast rather painful shadows. The first line of the poem, ‘The rain set early in tonight,’ is indicative of the fact that there was something that was not right. Something that was unusual. Something that was just not befitting the sacredness of the meeting of the two lovers.The very word ‘early’ provides that desired effect and the reader at once realizes the inevitability of fate. The word also signifies that there was a certain degree of expectation and hope; that the rain would set in late at some other expected time. The feeling of hope that things might have worked the way love wanted them to! In the next line the use of ‘sullen’ is actually the word that cements the fact that there are opposing forces working against love. Moreover the sheer potency that the force of wind represents shows the odds that the passion of love is up against.Even though the reader has no idea what the poem is going to bring but the mention of the force of wind is enough to make us realize that there is s tension from the very outset. The whole feeling is further substantiated by the word ‘vex’ in the third line. More over water symbolizes femininity and the line, ‘and did its worst to vex the lake’ shows that Porphyria was made to face the worst possible odds. Just like the wind tore across the elm tops and tried its utmost to disturb the waters†¦ so did the forces of fate tried their best to stop her from meeting her lover.Browning grants certain credibility to the narrowness of the speaker's viewpoint in that it displays the most extreme result of lifelong subservience to the world's own confining expectations. Introducing nature's unpredictability at the onset of the poem, Browning suggests the detrimental effect of an outside force and foreshadows the speaker's equally spiteful gesture: â€Å"It tore the elm-tops down for spite, / And did its worst to vex the lake: / I listened with heart fit to break† (3-5).Here the speaker muses about his apparent powerlessness to weather's force, the symbolic obstacle of the outside world that keeps Porphyria away. The next line is the point where very cleverly the poet manages to change the focus of attention of the reader to the lover without losing any of the effect that the imagery and settings has created so far†¦ ‘I listened with heart fit to break. ’ This line is indicative of another thing and that is that the lover was waiting desperately and has reached a certain degree of impatience when his beloved enters the sordid cottage.The room where the lover is waiting also signifies a certain level of pathos that is underlying throughout the poem. The next few lines are simply drenched in love and tenderness that the lover has for Porphyria in these pathos-ridden surroundings. First the use of the word ‘straightâ €™ shows the level of devotion the two lovers have. It shows how keenly and decisively the poet was waiting for her that he noticed every single detail- as how she came in straight to him and how dearly Porphyria wanted to meet him. The next line is simply fantastic in its construction as it shows the love between the two in its totality. She shut the cold out and the storm,’ The poet does not use the word of door anywhere though it is understood that she must have shut the door when she came in. But does this imply that before she came the doors were open. I would not agree to that; but rather it signifies the fact that the sheer presence of Porphyria had barged out the cold, dreariness and the ‘storm’ – the storm here carries dual meaning of one that was raging outside and the other one that was the barrage of questions twisting and swirling in the mind of the lover.Thus her arrival had brought to peace the storm outside and the storm inside; or to p ut it in more appropriate terms the lover no longer cared for the storm outside as the storm inside him had been pacified by her person. Further as the poem proceeds we realize more of the purity in the love of the two characters. Porphyria kneels down and all the grim shadows of uncertainty and confusion fade away†¦ her sheer presence had provided the lover with all the warmth he needed to bring him back to life. The line is suggestive of a motherly feeling especially as well; the word ‘warm’ marks the motherly essence in the love.The motherly feeling here is presented in the broader sense of the word, as one of selfless love. Further more the use of this word also amplifies the fact that her motherly tenderness for her lover had endowed upon the dreary cottage a home like aura. Browning is a master of senses. At his best he is like a painter who uses simple actions, simple images, and everyday feelings to represent vaulting passions and towering emotions. In the next lines that follow, we find the poet using simple images of Porphyria to display her sensuous facet or to be more exact her feminine element ‘Which done, she rose, and from her form’These lines present a beautiful scene of a young maiden getting up. Now the impression one gets from these lines are those of a young girl standing up with her slender physique, her chiseled limbs, and her proud manner in which she carries herself. All the actions that follow are multifarious in their implications. For one they show a young girl going through motions that are indeed a compliment to her physique ‘Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,’ A young girl taking off her cloak and shawl would be going through the motions that would amplify her beauty in a very sensuous manner.Moreover they also show that the girl is absolutely at ease with her beloved meaning there by that she felt completely at home. Furthermore the way in which she takes off her gloves and then her hat†¦ all show that she meant to spend some time and was not in a rush and that she felt comfortable with her lover. And then finally after done with all that she sat by his side. Thus Browning’s genius is evident here, as he has used simple actions to highlight two different facets that fully substantiate the feeling of love between the two characters- one of sensuousness and the other of trust and purity.Love is a strange emotion. In fact it is one of the most puzzling emotions ever. And yet it is the simplest. Considered in its entirety it is an insatiable desire for satiation, an ever increasing thirst for more and yet it gives you that little joy that is suffice enough to keep you going for a life time, it fills you with that unique pleasure which though lasts for a moment but leaves you with an ecstasy, so full and complete. ‘And, last, she sat down by my side’ These lines are followed by remarkable lines that exude the aura of such passionate and tre mendous love.From the moment she sat by his side we find a strange tinge of sensuousness amalgamate itself with the tone of love so dominating in the whole poem. Porphyria sat beside her lover just like a child snuggles beside his mother. She could feel the same calm and repose that a child feels at the side of his mother. But from here starts the strange union of sense with feelings, of adoration with desires†¦ as she reaches out to her lover and finds him not responding to her, she at once realizes that he was going through the motions of that emotion which a child encounters when after getting noticed by his mother he wants to be pampered. She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare,’ Paradoxically, the warmth of Porphyria's love appears to the narrator to be so temporary that it incites his own predominant passion. Innocently seeking to comfort her afflicted lover, Porphyria forces him to embrace her and makes â€Å"her smooth white shoul der bare† (17). Abruptly, Browning's scene of chilling weather interrupted by warm companionship becomes a picture of overt sexual expression amidst the cottage's roaring fire.The initial presentation of traditional domesticity, a comforting shelter from a raging storm, turns quickly now to unstoppable, passionate pace. These lines that follow are of one of the most critical nature as they are hinging on the two extremes of love and physicality. A little turn towards either could make a complete mess of the scene, a total collapse of the expression, and a break in the rhythm. But this juncture shows us Browning in his full splendor. This is the point that distinguishes him.Like a seasoned doctor he carries out the dissection of the emotions, bringing forth the two elements of love and physicality in complete balance and striking fusion. Porphyria’s action of putting her arms around his waist is indicative of the trust she had on him. But then the very next line is maste rfully interwoven in this aura and presents a picture of conditioned yet subtle lure. She bares her shoulder before her lover. Now the use of a bare shoulder is one of the most intelligent symbols to represent sensuousness as a bare shoulder has a very unique shape.It is ‘smooth’ and ‘white’, and moreover it has a ‘curving shape with soft flesh’ around it. Now such a physical image is enticing because it incorporates in itself strong feminine quality as the ‘curves and soft smooth flesh’ speak of the untold story about the girl†¦! Illicit sex out of wedlock presented a major concern for Victorian society; the famous Victorian â€Å"prudery† constituted only a backlash to what was in fact a popular obsession with the theme: the newspapers of the day reveled in stories about prostitutes and unwed mothers.Here, however, in â€Å"Porphyria's Lover,† sex appears as something natural, acceptable, almost wholesome: Porp hyria's girlishness and affection take prominence over any hints of immorality. The odyssey continues in this land of strong passion of love and we find the lines heightening in the physical imagery showing love in its full splendor. Porphyria made her lover lay his cheek on her bare shoulders and let her hair fall loosely around †¦This whole image speaks volumes about the balance in the motions of love that the two lovers had. To add the final touches to this fine picture of perfect love Porphyria softly re-confesses her love for the young man. Here brilliantly the poet explains the feelings of the young lady as she expressed her love for her lover †¦ by using the word ‘murmuring’, Browning is hinting to the eventual femininity that underlines her heightened feelings. She is after all a girl whose vaulting passions are tamed down by her femininity.The poet speaks out the lovers mind here as well, saying that he perceived this softness in confession to be the cooing down of her feminine self in the face of opposition from ‘pride, and vainer ties’, instead of giving herself to him in the powerful flow of her emotions. But this at no point suggests that the lover had any grievance or doubt on her love for him. Thus these lines points out the basic feminine psyche, that a girl is basically weak when it comes to facing the world but this in no way suggests that her passions are not strong enough.And moreover they also hint at the Victorian society’s respect for hollow ideals like ‘pride’. Browning's poem cannot be seen merely as a character analysis of a nameless speaker; its events frame not only the speaker's apparent insanity but the primary source of his distorted emotions. The narrator's own â€Å"struggling passion† (23) impedes his ability to think and act in a way that society views appropriate; yet, paradoxically, it is society's limited notion of what is appropriate that kindles the ultimatel y fatal fire of his passionate endeavor.The next few lines are splendid example of Browning’s genius as the lover answers his own views about the femininity of her beloved, prevailing over her passion with the realization that her passion had prevailed at least that night as she came gliding through the rain and thunder with in and without to her lover. The whole notion of his beloved coming to him despite the unfavorable odds makes him feel proud of her and the way Browning conveys this notion also reminds the reader of the typical male psyche! ‘Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshiped me†¦. The lover feels a strange sense of relief as if he has regained a sense of surety that he stills possess his possession†¦ so much typical of the male psyche. Now we enter the point of debate where the love of the lover is rattled by the conflict that starts to grow in his heart. This line of Browning is so violent as it is filled with all the conflict, anguish, fear, disturbance, which one can imagine ‘That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good:’ The line is filled with a strange amalgam of relief, achievement, anguish, and fear.The first two words ‘that moment’ have been very dexterously placed and they fulcrumize the two extremes of anguish and relief†¦ as if something that is there and one feels so relaxed and then the very next moment the heart is gripped by the fear that will it be there the next moment. So fighting it out in the middle the lover finally resolves to eternalize that moment when she is there with him. Further more importantly, â€Å"When glided in Porphyria† (60), the narrator's weakened heart has already been broken many times if not once, both by social restrictions on his love ffair, and the subsequent limitations on Porphyria's love for him. Therefore, the speaker's distance from the world outside becomes also an inability to respond to Porphyria upon her ent rance; he sits in the cottage wanting only her love, without need of explanation, so that when he is spoken to, â€Å"no voice replied† (15). Soon, Porphyria's gift of comforting warmth within the storm exacerbates his obsession to the point of insanity-driven violence. This is a very revealing stage. The violent love shines out in its total brilliance.He takes a string of her hair and winds it around his beloved’s neck three times†¦ the line is so blatantly clear; he is going to kill her†¦ he is going to kill the one thing he would be willing to die for! ‘Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. ’ The over mounting horror has been cleverly dealt with the next line in which the lover reveals his conviction of his belief that she felt no pain. First he says, ‘No pain felt she; And then as if to substantiate his view he adds I am quite sure she felt no pain. ’ This line perhaps encompasses the whole love of the loverâ⠂¬ ¦. is belief that what he desires would be the same thing desired by his beloved. Somehow the line acts as a balm to the stressful event maybe. Such is the intensity his conviction that may be the reader is even drawn to the belief that this is the right to thing to do. Or maybe this line in a way sanctifies the whole act. His strong faith in his conviction exudes a feeling of satisfaction and consummation as well on the part of the lover. But seen in another light the speaker's lust for precedence over other forces in Porphyria's life evidently leads to her fatal end.His ecstasy at her new, momentary devotion leaves him at the gate of attaining his dream, but without any sense of trajectory: â€Å"Porphyria worshipped me; surprise / Made my heart swell, and still it grew / While I debated what to do† (33-35). On the instantaneous realization of Porphyria's love, the speaker's requited passion and rational mind still stand separate to some extent. However, it is not long b efore his heated desire to keep her â€Å"Perfectly pure and good† (37) lead him to find â€Å"A thing to do† (38).The narrator's being situated above social law, if but only once, proves to be so stunningly empowering that he loses rational ability to decipher anything but a self-centered whim. The complacency of Browning's speaker in carrying out his murderous deed ironically reflects the complacency of society towards the sexual, aesthetic, and sensual pleasures of life. Exhibiting no definite regret beyond the weariness of having taken what was the only available path, the speaker points to the painlessness of his lover's necessary death: â€Å"No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain† (41-42).However, Browning's presenting the reader with an unreliable narrator serves only to intensify the psychological effects of his unrequited love, and says nothing for the supposed convictions and yearnings of Porphyria. While Porphyria finds her way to the s peaker through the symbolically oppressive weather of the outside world, the speaker kills her upon realizing not only society's restrictions on their relationship, and maybe also his belief of Porphyria's own unwillingness to love him fully but for the present moment.Browning presents the justifiability of the murder only through the stricken eyes of the narrator; while the poet points to social confines as the cause of the speaker's insanity, he does not discount the narrator's moral responsibility for the deed. The next actions that follow this act also amplify these notions. He opened the lids of her eyes and saw them as laugh as freshly and sweetly as they were before. Such was the intensity of his love for her that he could not see any change that the violent blow of death had brought on her, but does this at nay stage justify the murder.Calmly he untied the firm hold of her tresses around her neck and passionately kissed her on her cheek. It is evident that the social barrier s had made his love hinge on madness. For him that moment is forever when Porphyria was his own. But under all these charges of insanity, the intensity of his love is undeniable as he propped his darling’s head on his shoulder and as they sat in that calm†¦ he realizes that may be this was what Porphyria wanted too†¦ and so both had the love they wanted†¦ such was the union that not even the heavens had not said a word. Thus in freezing the oment and liberating the two of them from social structures, Browning distorts the deed to a point where it appears to be a divine event foreseen even by God. In toying with Porphyria's dead body, the narrator relates not the coldness of sudden death, nor the warmth of sitting with his love, but the blazing, untouchable serenity of enacted passion: â€Å"her cheek once more / Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss† (49). In the moment of Porphyria's death, the existence of her heated love for the speaker appears to hi m to be so infallible that God cannot even intervene: â€Å"All night long we have not stirred, / And yet God has not said a word! (59-60). Browning presents the viewpoint of a speaker educated in the divine workings of an ultimate force, yet the long-stifled yearnings of an unjustly socialized man color the intensity of the situation. In Browning's dramatic monologue, God's hand of judgment shifts away from the murderer himself and onto the culture that first inhibited the speaker's rational thought. Browning's characterization of a nameless speaker in â€Å"Porphyria's Lover† forms an unexpectedly conclusive response towards the sensual numbness of Victorian society.While the suggested insanity of the speaker would traditionally indicate the narrator's unreliability in a moral sense, Browning constructs the isolated scene such that the lover's emotional internalization is not only understandable, but divinely justified. The musings and actions of this unreliable narrator s erve to illustrate the consequence of society's confines in a shockingly violent release. Through naturally flowing language, this poetic account of burning emotion within a setting of tranquil domesticity presents the all-consuming power of human sensuality in its bleakest attempt to override social structures.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Helpful Predators in Agriculture Essay

The effective way of managing insect pests is usually through the execution of multiple methods, these differing tactics are assimilated into a single method to keep the pests at an acceptable level. Execution of multiple methods minimizes the possibility of the pests in adapting to any of the single method. An apt definition of integrated pest management, according to Cornell University’s Biological Control, would be, â€Å"An ecologically based pest control strategy that relies heavily on natural mortality factors and seeks out control tactics that disrupt these factors as little as possible† (Weeden, Shelton, and Hoffmann). These agricultural pests, according to Altieri and Nicholls, such as insects, nematodes, and weeds, are responsible for more than 30% damaged crop production worldwide annually. These losses had been consistent since the 1940’s, when farmers started using chemicals in order to control pests (10). These agrichemicals that have been used have its setbacks; they have proved to be costly to farmers, they are harmful to the environment and, despite its popularity, it had not proven to be 100% effective. As mentioned in Organic Gardening magazine, insect-pests continued to be a problem mainly due to the pests’ resistance and their unusual ability to adapt to a single method control strategy (1992). Many farmers are now looking for a solution that is less dependent on agrichemicals and focused more on copying nature’s way of predatory system, among plants and insects. This method, known as ecological pest management, delegates the entire farm as a complete complex system. This new method aims to keep the insect population at a manageable level with the use of many supporting or interdependent strategies, compared to the old method of aiming for the total eradication of every pest using one method for each pest. The method of ecological pest management uses forces that have been present in the natural world, longer even than the invention of agriculture itself. As plants develop their innate defense mechanism against pests, they were helped by factors within the ecosystem, such as: â€Å"1. Insects that prey on crop insects and mites by eating or sucking their juices. 2. Helpful parasites that appropriate pests for food. 3. Organisms that cause diseases to insects, at times being fatal, and keep them from feeding or reproducing; these organisms also prey on weeds. 4. Helpful fungi and bacteria that stays on roots, thereby retarding advances of disease organisms† (Altieri and Nicholls, 11). Biological control is much like a living insecticide. It is the employment of natural enemies with the purpose of managing pests. It usually involves manipulating an insect into attacking a pest insect. According to a report published by Sustainable Agricultural Network, the natural enemy may be a predator, a parasite, or a disease that will attack pests (78). Helpful predators belong primarily in the families of beetle, dragonfly, wasp, and bugs. Using chemical insecticides have been known to have eliminated these predators in farms. It has been studied that pests like Tetranychid mites, for example, have been plentiful in apple plantations where pesticides have wiped out entire predators’ population (Altieri and Nicholls, 80). Almost all predators prey on a vast variety of insect species and on different life stages, thereby making them very useful in managing insect pests. Some of the most efficient predators are spiders, lady beetles, ground beetles, lacewings, minute pirate bugs, big-eyed bugs, and syrphid flies (Altieri and Nicholls, 86). Conclusion Agriculture had been changing its ways, it has been steadily returning to nature for the answers it has long sought for. Insecticides and pesticides are gradually being stored in the shelves, resulting in a healthier soil, crops, and a healthier method of farming. Perhaps it is within the grand design, that when human ingenuity falters, we return to commune with nature. Works Cited Altieri, Miguel and Clara Nicholls. Manage Insects on Your Farm, A Guide to Ecological Strategies. Beltsville, MD, Sustainable Agricultural Network, 2005. Meet the Beneficial Insects, Organic Gardening. 09 February 1992. Retrieved 09 April 2009. Weeden, Catherine, Anthony Shelton and Michael Hoffmann. The Integrated Pest Management Strategy, Biological Control: A Guide to Natural Enemies in North America. Cornell University. Retrieved 09 April 2009.