Role of Technology in Protecting the Environment Essay

Introduction Over the past few decades, technologies have made a few great contributions to the environmental protection. Renewable technologies have reduced the demand of fossil fuel; computer technologies have enabled paperless office into reality and thus decreasing the number of trees used to produce paper. Therefore, I have come in to believe that technologies will serve as a major role in protecting the environment, both in the present and future. However, due to certain limitations like political agenda in the current globalized world, the role of technologies may be suppressed and may only be fulfilled in the future. Current Perspective One of the most significant technological advancement today that aimed to protect our†¦show more content†¦They have allowed us to glimpse the capability of today’s technologies to protect our environment through substituting other environmentally-unfriendly but yet essential products. Adding to that, the creation of recycling technologies such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) that separated human waste from the water and the Twin-Chamber Melting Furnace (TCF) that recycled aluminum has proven to us the potential these technologies have in minimizing the environmental threats. By utilizing these technologies, environments can be better protected from dangers such as arsenic pollution. But everything has two-dimensions and that is true for technology as well. One of the greatest problems to such inability of the current technologies to protect our environment is the insufficient energy generated from the renewable technologies. According to his book Sustainable Energy without Hot Air, David JC Mackay has made it clear that the amount of energy generated by renewable energy technologies can only satisfy the need for Britain if it were country-sized. This means that even developed country will rely heavily on burning of â€Å"black gold† such as oil and coal to produce energy for its daily consumption and so, it will be even more worrisome for the developing countries with a greater energy needs. Therefore, environmental issues such as acid rains andShow MoreRelatedFeeding the Growing World Population1411 Words   |  6 Pagesworld population while also protecting the environment. Although both believe alternative food systems could be the change of our futu re, each approach these subjects differently. Schonwald is not afraid to keep an open mind with the use of technology, while Nestle focuses on important choices one needs to make for the environment. Both of these come down to four factors that determine if alternative food systems should be accepted. 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Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice Free Essays

string(321) " intranet one can type in the key words for a specific knowledge domain — say, for example, knowledge about the design of optical pickup units for CD/DVD players and recorders — and the yellow pages will retrieve a listing of the people within Philips worldwide who have stated that they have such knowledge\." â€Å"Tacit Knowledge† versus â€Å"Explicit Knowledge† Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice by Ron Sanchez Professor of Management, Copenhagen Business School and Linden Visiting Professor for Industrial Analysis, Lund University Contact information: Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy Solbjergvej 3 – 3rd floor DK 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark email: sanchez@cbs. dk Abstract This paper explains two fundamental approaches to knowledge management. The tacit knowledge approach emphasizes understanding the kinds of knowledge that individuals in an organization have, moving people to transfer knowledge within an organization, and managing key individuals as knowledge creators and carriers. We will write a custom essay sample on Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice or any similar topic only for you Order Now By contrast, the explicit knowledge approach emphasizes processes for articulating knowledge held by individuals, the design of organizational approaches for creating new knowledge, and the development of systems (including information systems) to disseminate articulated knowledge within an organization. The relative advantages and disadvantages of both approaches to knowledge management are summarized. A synthesis of tacit and knowledge management approaches is recommended to create a hybrid design for the knowledge management practices in a given organization. JEL code: Moo 1 Introduction Managers concerned with implementing knowledge management in their organizations today face a number of challenges in developing sound methods for this still emerging area of management practice. Both the growing literature on knowledge management and the advice offered by various knowledge management consultants, however, seem to advocate forms of knowledge management practice that often appear incomplete, inconsistent, and even contradictory. This paper suggests that the current lack of coherence in the diverse recommendations for knowledge management practice results from the fact that the development of both theory and practice in this emerging field is being driven by two fundamentally different approaches to identifying and managing knowledge in organizations. These two approaches are characterized here as the â€Å"tacit knowledge† approach and the â€Å"explicit knowledge† approach. This paper first clarifies how these two fundamental approaches differ in both their philosophical premises and derived recommendations for practice, and it summarizes the main strengths and weaknesses of each of the two approaches in practice. We then suggest that sound knowledge management practice requires a creative synthesis of the two approaches that enables the strengths of one approach to offset the inherent limitations of the other approach, and vice versa. . Tacit Knowledge versus Explicit Knowledge Approaches Even a casual review of the many articles and consulting recommendations on knowledge management practice today soon reveals a plethora of recommended processes and techniques. Unfortunately — especially for the many managers looking to researchers and consultants for insights to guide development of sound knowledge 2 mana gement practices — many of these recommendations seem unconnected to each other, and in the worst cases many seem to be quite at odds with each other. Close analysis of these recommendations, however, usually reveals that the many ideas for practice being advanced today can be grouped into one of two fundamentally different views of knowledge itself and of the resulting possibilities for managing knowledge in organizations. These two views are characterized here as the â€Å"tacit knowledge† approach and the â€Å"explicit knowledge† approach. Let us consider the basic premises and the possibilities for knowledge management practice implied by each of these two views (see Table 1 for a summary of the differences in the two approaches). The Tacit Knowledge Approach The salient characteristic of the tacit knowledge approach is the basic belief that knowledge is essentially personal in nature and is therefore difficult to extract from the heads of individuals. In effect, this approach to knowledge management assumes, often implicitly, that the knowledge in and available to an organization will largely consist of tacit knowledge that remains in the heads of individuals in the organization. 1 Working from the premise that knowledge is inherently personal and will largely remain tacit, the tacit knowledge approach typically holds that the dissemination of knowledge in an organization can best be accomplished by the transfer of people as â€Å"knowledge carriers† from one part of an organization to another. Further, this view believes that learning in an organization occurs when individuals come together under circumstances that encourage them to share their ideas and (hopefully) to develop new insights together that will lead to the creation of new knowledge. Recommendations for knowledge management practice proffered by researchers and consultants working within the tacit knowledge approach naturally tend to focus 1 Some writers and consultants have even gone so far as to argue that all knowledge is tacit in nature. The irony in trying to communicate to others the â€Å"knowledge† that all knowledge is tacit, however, should be obvious. 3 on managing people as individual carriers of knowledge. To make wider use of the tacit knowledge of individuals, managers are urged to identify the knowledge possessed by various individuals in an organization and then to arrange the kinds of interactions between knowledgeable individuals that will help the organization perform its current tasks, transfer knowledge from one part of the organization to another, and/or create new knowledge that may be useful to the organization. Let us consider some examples of current practice in each of these activities that are typical of the tacit knowledge approach. Most managers of organizations today do not know what specific kinds of knowledge the individuals in their organization know. This common state of affairs is reflected in the lament usually attributed to executives of Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s: â€Å"If we only knew what we know, we could conquer the world. † As firms become larger, more knowledge intensive, and more globally dispersed, the need for their managers to â€Å"know what we know† is becoming acute. Thus, a common initiative within the tacit knowledge approach is usually some effort to improve understanding of who knows about what in an organization — an effort that is sometimes described as an effort to create â€Å"know who† forms of knowledge. 2 An example of such an effort is the creation within Philips, the global electronics company, of a â€Å"yellow pages† listing experts with different kinds of knowledge within Philips’ many business units. Today on the Philips intranet one can type in the key words for a specific knowledge domain — say, for example, knowledge about the design of optical pickup units for CD/DVD players and recorders — and the yellow pages will retrieve a listing of the people within Philips worldwide who have stated that they have such knowledge. You read "Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice" in category "Papers" Contact information is also provided for each person listed, so that anyone in Philips who wants to know more about that kind of knowledge can get in touch with listed individuals. 2 Know-how, know-why, and know-what forms of knowledge can also be described (see Sanchez 1997). 4 An example of the tacit knowledge approach to transferring knowledge within a global organization is provided by Toyota. When Toyota wants to transfer knowledge of its production system to new employees in a new assembly factory, such as the factory recently opened in Valenciennes, France, Toyota typically selects a core group of two to three hundred new employees and sends them for several months training and work on the assembly line in one of Toyota’s existing factories. After several months of studying the production system and working alongside experienced Toyota assembly line workers, the new workers are sent back to the new factory site. These repatriated workers are accompanied by one or two hundred long-term, highly experienced Toyota workers, who will then work alongside all the new employees in the new factory to assure that knowledge of Toyota’s finely tuned production process is fully implanted in the new factory. Toyota’s use of Quality Circles also provides an example of the tacit knowledge approach to creating new knowledge. At the end of each work week, groups of Toyota production workers spend one to two hours analyzing the performance of their part of the production system to identify actual or potential problems in quality or productivity. Each group proposes â€Å"countermeasures† to correct identified problems, and discusses the results of countermeasures taken during the week to address problems identified the week before. Through personal interactions in such Quality Circle group settings, Toyota employees share their ideas for improvement, devise steps to test new ideas for improvement, and assess the results of their tests. This knowledge management practice, which is repeated weekly as an integral part of the Toyota production system, progressively identifies, eliminates, and even prevents errors. As improvements developed by Quality Circles are accumulated over many years, Toyota’s production system has become one of the highest quality production processes in the world (Spear and Bowen 1999). 5 The Explicit Knowledge Approach In contrast to the views held by the tacit knowledge approach, the explicit knowledge approach holds that knowledge is something that can be explained y individuals — even though some effort and even some forms of assistance may sometimes be required to help individuals articulate what they know. As a result, the explicit knowledge approach assumes that the useful knowledge of individuals in an organization can be articulated and made explicit. Working from the premise that important forms of knowledge can be made explicit, the explicit knowledge approach also beli eves that formal organizational processes can be used to help individuals articulate the knowledge they have to create knowledge assets. The explicit knowledge approach also believes that explicit knowledge assets can then be disseminated within an organization through documents, drawings, standard operating procedures, manuals of best practice, and the like. Information systems are usually seen as playing a central role in facilitating the dissemination of explicit knowledge assets over company intranets or between organizations via the internet. Usually accompanying the views that knowledge can be made explicit and managed explicitly is the belief that new knowledge can be created through a structured, managed, scientific learning process. Experiments and other forms of structured learning processes can be designed to remedy important knowledge deficiencies, or market transactions or strategic partnering may be used to obtain specific forms of needed knowledge or to improve an organization’s existing knowledge assets. The recommendations for knowledge management practice usually proposed by researchers and consultants working within the explicit knowledge approach focus on initiating and sustaining organizational processes for generating, articulating, categorizing, and systematically leveraging explicit knowledge assets. Some examples of knowledge management practice in this mode help to illustrate this approach. In the 1990s, Motorola was the global leader in the market for pagers. To maintain this leadership position, Motorola introduced new generations of pager designs every 12-15 months. Each new pager generation was designed to offer more advanced features and options for customization than the preceding g eneration. In addition, a new factory with higher-speed, more flexible assembly lines was designed and built to produce each new generation of pager. To sustain this high rate of product and process development, Motorola formed teams of product and factory designers to design each new generation of pager and factory. At the beginning of their project, each new team of designers received a manual of design methods and techniques from the team that had developed the previous generation of pager and factory. The new team would then have three deliverables at the end of their project: (i) an improved and more configurable next-generation pager design, (ii) the design of a more efficient and flexible assembly line for the factory that would produce the new pager, and (iii) an improved design manual that incorporated the design knowledge provided to the team in the manual it received — plus the new and improved design methods that the team had developed to meet the product and production goals for its project. This manual would then be passed on to the next design team given the task of developing the next generation of pager and its factory. In this way, Motorola sought to make explicit and capture the knowledge developed by its engineers during each project and to systematically leverage that knowledge in launching the work of the next project team. In addition to its tacit knowledge management practice of moving new employees around to transfer knowledge of its production system, Toyota also follows a highly Using modular product architectures to create increasingly configurable product designs, Motorola was able to increase the number of customizable product variations it could offer from a few thousand variations in the late 1980s to more than 120 million variations by the late 1990s. 7 disciplined explicit knowledge management practice of documenting the tasks that each team of workers and each individual worker is asked to perform on its assembly lines. These documents provide a detailed description of how each task is to be performed, how long each task should take, the sequence of steps to be followed in performing each task, and the steps to be taken by each worker in checking his or her own work (Spear and Bowen 1999). When improvements are suggested by solving problems on the assembly line as they occur or in the weekly Quality Circle meetings of Toyota’s teams of assembly line workers, those suggestions are evaluated by Toyota’s production engineers and then formally incorporated in revised task description documents. In addition to developing well-defined and documented process descriptions for routine, repetitive production tasks, some organizations have also created explicit knowledge management approaches to supporting more creative tasks like developing new products. In the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler Corporation, for example, several â€Å"platform teams† of 300-600 development engineers have responsibility for creating the next generation platforms4 on which Chrysler’s future automobiles will be based. Each platform team is free to actively explore and evaluate alternative design solutions for the many different technical aspects of their vehicle platform. However, each platform team is also required to place the design solution it has selected for each aspect of their vehicle platform in a â€Å"Book of Knowledge† on Chrysler’s intranet. This catalog of developed design solutions is then made available to all platform teams to consult in their development processes, so that good design solutions developed by one platform team can also be located and used by other platform teams. Other firms have taken this explicit knowledge management approach to managing knowledge in product development processes even further. For example, GE 4 A platform includes a system of standard component types and standardized interfaces between component types that enable â€Å"plugging and playing† different component variations in the platform design to configure different product variations (see Sanchez 2004). 8 Fanuc Automation, one of the world’s leading industrial automation firms, develops design methodologies that are applied in the design of new kinds of components for their factory automation systems. In effect, instead of leaving it up to each engineer in the firm to devise a design solution for each new component needed, GE Fanuc’s engineers work together to create detailed design methodologies for each type of component the firm uses. These design methodologies are then encoded in software and computerized so that the design of new component variations can be automated. Desired performance parameters for each new component variation are entered into the automated design program, and GE Fanuc’s computer system automatically generates a design solution for the component. In this way, GE Fanuc tries to make explicit and capture the design knowledge of its engineers and then to systematically re-use that knowledge by automating most new component design tasks. 9 Advantages and Disadvantages of Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Approaches Like most alternative approaches to managing, each of the two knowledge management approaches we have discussed has both advantages and disadvantages. We now briefly summarize the main advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches (these are also summarized in Table 2). Advantages and Disadvantages of the Tacit Knowledge Approach One of the main advantages of the tacit knowledge approach is that it is a relatively easy and inexpensive way to begin managing knowledge. The essential first step is a relatively simple one — identify what each individual in the organization believes is the specific kinds of knowledge he or she possesses. Managers can then use this knowledge to assign individuals to key tasks or to compose teams with appropriate sets of knowledge to carry out a project, to improve performance in current processes, or to try to create new knowledge in the organization. As Philips did with its intranetbased â€Å"yellow pages,† managers may also elect to create an open database listing the knowledge claimed by individuals in the organization to facilitate knowledge sharing between individuals. A tacit knowledge approach may also lead to improvements in employee satisfaction and motivation when an organization â€Å"officially† recognizes and makes visible in the organization the kinds of knowledge that individual workers claim to have. In addition, the tacit knowledge approach is likely to avoid some of the practical and motivational difficulties that may be encountered in trying to secure the cooperation of individuals in making their knowledge explicit (discussed under the explicit knowledge approach below). 10 A further advantage often claimed for tacit knowledge management approaches derives from the view that making knowledge explicit increases the risk that knowledge will be â€Å"leaked† from an organization, so that leaving knowledge in tacit form also helps to protect a firm’s proprietary knowledge from diffusing to competing organizations. (The potential disadvantages of leaving knowledge in tacit form are summarized below. ) Although relatively easy to begin, the tacit knowledge approach also has some important long-term limitations and disadvantages. One disadvantage in the tacit knowledge approach is that individuals in an organization may claim to have knowledge that they do not actually have or may claim to be more knowledgeable than they really are (Stein and Ridderstrale 2001). The knowledge that various individuals have is likely to evolve over time and may require frequent updating to correctly communicate the type of knowledge each individual in the organization claims to have now. In addition, if knowledge only remains tacit in the heads of individuals in an organization, then the only way to move knowledge within the organization is to move people. Moving people is often costly and time-consuming and may be resisted by individuals who fear disruptions of their careers or family life. Even when knowledgeable individuals are willing to be moved, an individual can only be in one place at a time and can only work so many hours per day and days per week, thereby limiting the reach and the speed of the organization in transferring an individual’s knowledge. Moreover, sometimes transferred individuals may not be accepted by other groups in the organization or may otherwise fail to establish good rapport with other individuals, and the desired knowledge transfer may not take place or may occur only partially. Most seriously, leaving knowledge tacit in the heads of key individuals creates a risk that the organization may lose that knowledge if any of those individuals becomes 11 incapacitated , leaves the organization, or — in the worst case — is recruited by competitors. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Explicit Knowledge Approach In general, the advantages and disadvantages of the explicit knowledge approach constitute an inverted â€Å"mirror image† of the advantages and disadvantages of the tacit knowledge approach. Whereas the tacit knowledge approach is relatively easy to start and use, but has important limitations in the benefits it can bring, the explicit knowledge approach is much more challenging to start , but offers greater potential benefits in the long term. Let us first consider the long-term advantages of the explicit knowledge management approach, and then the challenges that have to be overcome to start and sustain this approach in an organization. Perhaps the main advantage of the explicit knowledge approach is that once an individual articulates his or her knowledge in a document, drawing, process description, or other form of explicit knowledge asset, it should be possible through use of information systems to quickly disseminate that knowledge throughout an organization or indeed anywhere in the world. In effect, converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge creates an asset that is available 24/7 and is free from the limitations of time and space that constrain the dissemination of tacit knowledge by moving individuals. Moreover, knowledge that has been made explicit within an organization can often be more carefully codified and more effectively leveraged than tacit knowledge assets. To codify some forms of knowledge is to categorize and order the knowledge so that important interrelationships between different kinds of knowledge within the firm can 5 Of course, under patent, copyright, or trade secrecy laws, an organization may have intellectual property rights in the tacit knowledge developed by individuals in the organization, and these rights may discourage — though not entirely prevent — individuals from sharing such knowledge with other organizations. 12 be identified. For example, forms of knowledge that are related by sharing a similar theoretical or practical knowledge base can be identified, as can forms of (complementary) knowledge that are interrelated by being used together in an organization’s processes. Once the various forms of explicit knowledge in an organization are codified in this way, knowledge created in one part of an organization can be proactively leveraged through information systems to people and groups elsewhere in the organization that can benefit from having that knowledge. Moreover, by disseminating some instance of explicit knowledge to other individuals who have expertise in that knowledge domain, the explicit knowledge can be discussed, debated, tested further, and improved, thereby stimulating important â€Å"incremental† forms of organizational learning processes. Such processes also help to identify which individuals in the organization are actually capable of making significant contributions to the organization’s knowledge base, and which are not. An important further advantage of systematically articulating and codifying an organization’s knowledge is that this process makes an organization’s current knowledge base more visible and analyzable, and this helps an organization to discover deficiencies in its knowledge assets. In effect, by making an organization’s current knowledge base more visible, so that the organization can begin to see more clearly what knowledge it does have, it should be possible for an organization to begin to see more clearly what knowledge it does not have. Focused, structured, managed learning processes to remedy important knowledge deficiencies can then be launched and may lead to more â€Å"radical† forms of organizational learning. Once an organization establishes processes for articulating, codifying, and leveraging explicit knowledge assets, the systematic dissemination of explicit knowledge within the organization should minimize the risk that it will lose vital knowledge if key individuals become unavailable or leave the organization. 13 To obtain the potentially significant benefits of an explicit knowledge management approach, however, a number of organizational challenges must be overcome. These challenges arise primarily in assuring adequate articulation, evaluation, application, and protection of knowledge assets. Individuals may not have sufficient skill or motivation to articulate their useful knowledge. Individuals vary greatly in the precision with which they can state their ideas, and some individuals — perhaps many — may need organizational support to adequately articulate their knowledge into useful knowledge assets. 6 Providing organizational support to individuals to articulate their knowledge may have a significant financial cost and inevitably takes time. An even more fundamental challenge arises when an individual is capable of articulating his or her knowledge, but resists requests by the organization to do so. At the heart of such resistance is usually a belief that an individual’s job security or position of influence in an organization depends on the tacit knowledge that he or she has and that the organization needs. Such beliefs result in fear that full revelation of an individual’s important knowledge would be followed by dismissal or loss of influence in an organization, because — presumably — the individual would no longer be as necessary or important to the organization. Overcoming such fears is likely to require a profound rethinking of the employment relationship in many organizations, especially with regard to key knowledge workers. New employment norms may have to be defined and institutionalized that both seek and reward ongoing learning by individuals and their continuing contributions of explicit knowledge to the organization. 7 6 Of course, the more knowledge-intensive an organization’s work is, and the more an organization is populated by â€Å"knowledge workers† with advanced education and training in formally communicating their ideas, the less difficult the articulation of explicit knowledge within the organization should be. Further, not all knowledge of individuals will necessarily be worth more to the organization than it may cost the organization to help or to reward individuals who try to articulate their knowledge. Essentially, managers must try to understand when the marginal cost of articulating knowledge is becoming greater than the marginal benefit of 14 Organizations must also meet the challenge of adequately evaluating knowledge that has been made explicit by individuals. Individuals with different backgrounds, education, and organizational roles may have varying sets of knowledge, with resulting differences in their deeply held ideas about the most effective way to get something done. Such differences will be revealed in the process of making their ideas and knowledge explicit, and managers implementing explicit knowledge approaches must establish a process for evaluating the individual knowledge that has been made explicit and for resolving conflicting knowledge beliefs of individuals. Organizations with experience in managing this process have found that the people involved in such evaluation processes must be respected within the organization for their expertise, objectivity, and impartiality. In most organizations, the time of such people is usually both very valuable and in short supply, and involving such people in evaluating explicit knowledge in many forms may impose a significant cost on the organization (although the resulting benefits may far outweigh the costs). Since knowledge is useful to an organization only when it is applied in action, a further challenge in implementing explicit knowledge management approaches is assuring that knowledge articulated in one part of the organization is not rejected or ignored by other parts of the organization simply because they prefer to stay close to their own familiar knowledge base — i. e. , because of an intra-organizational â€Å"not invented here† syndrome. One approach to managing this concern is the implementation of organizational â€Å"best knowledge† and â€Å"best practice† practices. In this practice, the committee of experts responsible for a knowledge evaluation process (discussed above) examines both the theoretical knowledge and practical applications of knowledge articulated within the organization, and defines the â€Å"best extracting the next bit of knowledge from an individual. Since no one currently knows exactly how to make such a cost-benefit analysis at the margin, as a practical matter organizations that implement the explicit knowledge approach do not strictly try to optimize this process and tend to prefer to â€Å"err† on the side of articulating more -rather than less — knowledge. 5 knowledge† and â€Å"best practice† in applying that knowledge currently available within the organization. The various groups within the organization to whom this knowledge or practice applies are then required either to adopt and use the currently defined â€Å"best knowledge† and â€Å"best practice,† or to demonstrate con vincingly to the committee of experts that they have developed better knowledge or better practice in applying knowledge. If a group persuades the expert committee that their knowledge or practice is better than the currently defined â€Å"best knowledge† or â€Å"best practice† in the organization, the expert committee then modifies the current â€Å"best knowledge† or â€Å"best practice† for the organization in light of the new knowledge they have received from the group. Implementing such a rocess for assuring that an organization’s best knowledge and practice are actually used requires a high degree of organizational discipline in adhering to the organization’s current best knowledge and best practice, and such discipline will normally require building a high degree of organizational trust that the process of the expert committee for deciding best knowledge and best practice is objective, impartial, and transparent. Finally, an organization that creates explicit knowledge assets must take care that those assets remain within the boundaries of the organizati on and do not â€Å"leak† to other organizations, especially competitors. Security measures of the type most organizations now routinely use to protect their databases must be extended to provide security for the organization’s explicit knowledge base. 16 Conclusions As described above, the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches involve quite different emphases and practices, and one might naturally be led to ask, â€Å"Which approach is right? † As with most alternative approaches to management issues, however, the answer is â€Å"Both are right — but in the right combination. As the discussion in this chapter has suggested, there are important advantages to be obtained through both the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches, and in many respects, the advantages of each approach can be used to help offset the disadvantages of the other. In any organization, therefore, the goal is to create a hybrid design for its knowledge management practice that synthesizes the â€Å"right† combination and balance of the tacit and explicit knowledge management approaches. What the â€Å"right† combination and balance may consist of will vary with a number of factors — the technology the organization uses or could use, the market conditions it faces, the â€Å"knowledge intensity† of its strategies and operations, the current attitudes of its key knowledge workers toward the organization, the degree of geographical dispersion of its knowledge workers, the resources available to the organization to invest in developing infrastructure and processes for its knowledge management practice, and so on. However, some basic guidelines may be suggested. Organizations that have not implemented systematic knowledge management approaches should in most cases begin with tacit knowledge management practices of the type discussed in this chapter. Such practices are relatively inexpensive, fast to implement, and less challenging organizationally than full-blown explicit knowledge management practices, and they often create surprising organizational interest in and energy for developing more extensive knowledge management practices. In any event, implementation of tacit knowledge management practices should be seen and communicated within the organization as only the first step in an evolving management 17 process that will eventually include more formal and systematic explicit knowledge management practices. Achieving some initial organizational successes through use of tacit knowledge practices also helps to build confidence that the much greater organizational demands involved in implementing explicit knowledge management practices will be worth the effort. We have discussed here a number of reasons why in the long run organizations that manage to implement effective explicit knowledge approaches not only will be more effective at leveraging their knowledge, but will also become better learning organizations. When the respective advantages of tacit and explicit knowledge management practices can be combined, an organization should be able to develop and apply new knowledge faster and more extensively than organizations that do not try to manage knowledge or that use only tacit or only explicit knowledge management practices. Thus, the eventual goal for most organizations will be to devise and implement hybrid knowledge management practices in which explicit knowledge management practices complement and significantly extend their initial tacit knowledge practices. 18 References Sanchez, Ron (2004). â€Å"Creating modular platforms for strategic flexibility,† Design Management Review, Winter 2004, 58-67. Sanchez, Ron (2001). â€Å"Managing knowledge into competences: The five learning cycles of the competent organization,† 3-37 in Knowledge Management and Organizational Competence, Ron Sanchez, editor, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sanchez, Ron (1997). â€Å"Managing articulated knowledge in competence-based competition,† 163-187 in Strategic Learning and Knowledge Management, Ron Sanchez and Aime Heene, editors, Chichester: John Wiley Sons. Spear, Steven, and H. Kent Bowen (1999). â€Å"Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,† Harvard Business Review, September-October 1999, 97-106. Stein, Johan, and Jonas Ridderstrale (2001). â€Å"Managing the dissemination of competences,† 63-76 in Knowledge Management and Organizational Competence, Ron Sanchez, editor, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 19 Table 1 Basic Beliefs in Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Management Approaches Tacit Knowledge Approach Explicit Knowledge Approach Knowledge is personal in nature and very difficult to extract from people. Knowledge can be articulated and codified to create explicit knowledge assets. Knowledge must be transferred by moving people within or between organizations. Knowledge can be disseminated (using information technologies) in the form of documents, drawings, best practices, etc. Learning must be encouraged by bringing the right people together under the right circumstances. Learning can be designed to remedy knowledge deficiencies through structured, managed, scientific processes. 20 Table 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Tacit versus Explicit Knowledge Management Approaches Tacit Knowledge Approach Explicit Knowledge Approach Advantages: Advantages: Relatively easy and inexpensive to begin. Articulated knowledge (explicit knowledge assets) may be moved instantaneously anytime anywhere by information technologies. Employees may respond well to recognition of the (claimed) knowledge. Likely to create interest in further knowledge anagement processes. Important knowledge kept in tacit form may be less likely to â€Å"leak† to competitors. Codified knowledge may be proactively disseminated to people who can use specific forms of knowledge. Knowledge that has been made explicit can be discussed, debated, and improved. Making knowledge explicit makes it possible to discover knowledge deficiencies in the organization. Disadvantages: Disadvantages: Ind ividuals may not have the knowledge they claim to have. Considerable time and effort may be required to help people articulate their knowledge. Knowledge profiles of individuals need frequent updating. Ability to transfer knowledge constrained to moving people, which is costly and limits the reach and speed of knowledge dissemination within the organization. Organization may lose key knowledge if key people leave the organization. Employment relationship with key knowledge workers may have to be redefined to motivate knowledge articulation. Expert committees must be formed to evaluate explicit knowledge assets. Application of explicit knowledge throughout organization must be assured by adoption of best practices. 21 22 How to cite Approaches to Knowledge Management Practice, Papers

Action Research in Physical Education free essay sample

With the adjustment of teaching, teachers can rethink teaching methods, the use of cooperative teaching approach to students with moderate to severe disabilities in general education more sports programs. Twenty-six regular students and six self-contained special education students were took part in this study ninety minutes per week. The researcher was based on TeeBall to design a series of physical education activities for regular students and multiple disabilities students, including hitting different kinds of balls, ball throwing, running, and et al. Video, photograph and group discussion were carried out to know the educational effects and help improving the educational qualities. The activities or procedure of physical education were adapted based on the responses of the students. In addition, increased and adjusted human resources in special education to help the progress of inclusive adapted physical education at school. Overall, Adaptation of teaching methods can increase the regular class and special education students to participate in activities, and adapted physical education program should not focus only on the participation, but should also consider that student can have opportunity to establish sense of achievement and to obtain confidence. The activities should be interesting enough in order to increase the acceptance by peers for student with multiple disabilities. Finally, the sharing of practical experience through reflection can facilitate the teaching abilities in adapted physical education. Keywords : nclusive physical education 2. modify teaching method 3. special education students Introduction In the last a number of decades, several countries have enacted legislation to increased inclusion of individuals with disabilities into classrooms, schools, and communities. There was a key point since 1975 when Public Law 94-142 mandated that students with disabilities be educated in the least restrictive environment, schools have been required to make placement decisions for children with disabilities that are inclusive, educating these children in their home communities with same-age peers whenever possible (Kamens, 2007). Even though the term ‘inclusion’ appears nowhere in federal legislation governing the education of students with disabilities, it has been the subject of endless discussion (Friend, 2011). Friend thinks that inclusion is a belief system shared by every member of a school as a learning community about the responsibility of educating all students so that they reach their potential. That is to say, Inclusive education is not only an important issue and trend for all learners but also for teachers. In spite of inclusive education movement, there are still a variety of students with moderate to severe physical or intellectual disabilities placed in self-contained classes for their school day (Block, Taliaferro, Campbell, Harris amp; Tipton, 2011). The researcher is a self-contained class special educator, who teaches in the elementary school, having some inclusion experience with general class. Students in a self-contained class are difficult to study with general students, especially in academic studying such as language, mathematics or science. Although they rarely have opportunities to study in general classes due to cognitive disorders, most of them can participate in physical activities. Physical education offer vast opportunities for students to engage in activities and development at very different levels of ability. Many students who struggle with reading, writing, and mathematics, for example, will often excel in sports (Peterson amp; Hittie, 2010). In other words, physical education is a good way to conduct inclusive education for those students and must adjust the activities to match their variety of abilities. P. L. 4-142, Education for All Handicapped Children Act â€Å"identified physical education as a direct service required for students with disabilities† (Auxter, Pyfer, amp; Huettig, 2001, p. 12). What is more, amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (Public Law 108–446, 2004) defined special education as †¦ specifically designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including-instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings; and instruction in physical education. Research had been shown that appropriate physical activity experiences improve one’s ability to learn (Changeux, 1997; Ericksson et al. , 1998; Mears, 2003; Van Praag, Kempermann, amp; Gage, 1999), whereas insufficient physical activity appears to limit one’s ability to learn (Howard, 2000; Mears, 2001). In addition, physical activity regulates the balance of neurotransmitters and hormones that enhance one’s ability to learn and lessens the need for chemical or drug intervention for attention disorder, depression, panic disorders, and many other personality/mental and behavior disorders (Jensen, 2000). However, in many cases these students are not included in general physical education programs, and they receive their adapted physical education (APE) only with peers from theirself-contained class (Block, Taliaferro, Campbell, Harris amp; Tipton, 2011). Traditional physical education by definition is no different than adapted physical education, in which the primary focus is on offering an individualized developmentally appropriate education based on cognitive, motor, and personal–social development (Etzel-Wise amp; Mears, 2004). Inclusive physical education means providing all students with disabilities the opportunities to participate in regular physical education with their peers, with supplementary aides and support services as needed to take full advantage of the goals of motor skill acquisition, fitness, knowledge of movement and psyco-social well-being, toward the outcome of preparing all students for an active lifestyle appropriate to their abilities and interests (Goodwin, Watkinson, amp; Fitzpatrick, 2003). Some esearchers have found that students with and without disabilities demonstrated favorable attitudes toward peers, coaches, and teachers as a result of inclusion (Obrusnikova, Valkova, amp; Block, 2003). Children with disabilities will often demonstrate more confidence and increased active participation when their peers are also engaged in the same activity (Etzel-Wise amp; Mears, 2004). Moreover, when game are appropriately modified to create successful experience for all learners, students with and without disabilities are more receptive to accommodating students with disabilities (Kalyvas amp; Reid, 2003; Obrusnikova et al. 2003). Using peer tutors has also been determined to have a positive effect on students with disabilities who are included in general physical education. Think that current educational reforms are challenging school systems in similar ways to make the general curriculum accessible to all learners. It is only when teachers are willing to plan ahead and analyze their curriculum, instruction, rules, equipment, and environment that children with disabilities will have a chance at full participation in general physical education (Lieberman amp; Houston-Wilson, 2009). For students with significant disabilities, special educators may collaborate with physical therapists, general educators or adapted physical education teachers who may provide support in integrating students with special needs into the class, helping them improve physical functioning. Successful teaching frequently depends on the provision of appropriate support services. Support services might be quite varied and might involve teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, related service professionals, adapted physical educators, volunteers, students, and others (Winnick, 2011). Hence, a co-teaching model allows general and special education teachers to share their skills and knowledge, to face difficulties and solve problems together enabling them to respond more effectively to the diverse needs of their students (Luckner, 1999), facilitate their access to learning (Jimenez-Sanchez amp; Antia, 1999; Kirchner, 1994), and as such promote ‘inclusive thinking’ (Argyropoulos amp; Nikolaraizi, 2009). Co-teaching is defined as when â€Å" two or more professionals jointly deliver substantive instruction to a diverse, or blended, group of students in a single physical space† (Cook amp; Friend, 1995, p. ). The practice provides teachers with an opportunity to share professional expertise each other. In most instances, general educators are considered masters of content, and special educators are viewed as masters of access (Villa, Thousand, amp; Nevin, 2008). It is beneficial to all learners, if we can come together dissimilar expertise and design activities to mach their abilities. A quality program in adapted physical education and sport depends to a great extent on the availability of quality human resources and the ability of involved personnel to perform effectively within a group. To provide high-quality services for adapted physical education and sport, the teacher must work with various school and IEP committees (Winnick, 2011). Effective communication is key to navigating professional relationships, whether teachers are thrown together or have time to get to know each other (Sileo, 2011). In addition, teachers can involve students in developing adaptations to games that allow students with significant disabilities to participate (Peterson amp; Hittie, 2010). Sometimes activities or games must to adjust to meet students’ needs. A good adaptation does the following: promotes interaction and interplay, meets the needs of all students in the class, improves or maintains self-esteem, provides physical activity, and provides a safe experience for all (Winnick, 2011). Modifications to conduct the adaptation of physical activities have been directly or indirectly categorized in many ways. Lieberman and Houston-Wilson (2009) suggest four modification areas for adapting activities: equipment, rules, environment, and instruction. Each modification area involves a change or variation so that students with unique needs might be better able to participate in skills or games. Besides, the instruction or environmental cue is an event a learner responds to (Collier, 2011). Thus, when conducting inclusive physical education, there are many factors, such as class size, place, and time, must take into account. The educators of this study designed many Tee-ball related activities to achieve inclusive physical education. Tee Ball or T-Ball is a sport based on baseball and is intended as an introduction for children to develop baseball skills and have fun. The game is the entry sport to baseball and softball for young players, generally four to eight years old. Members of two teams take turns hitting a ball off a batting tee set on home plate. Batters try to get on base and advance to home; fielders try to prevent that from happening. The elimination of pitching allows children to participate without the fear of being hit by a pitched ball. Tee ball develops the primary baseball skills of hitting, running, fielding and throwing. The players gain an understanding of the fundamental rules, which allows minimally competitive league play at all age levels (http://www. eeballusa. org). The researcher and his colleagues used the rules of Chinese Taipei Happy Ball association to develop many related activities. At the same time, we adjusted many rules, material, and activities to meet students’ abilities, and mapped out different goals and objectives for general students and self-contained class students. For example, we may focus on stepping with opposite foot to shift weight, follow-through, be more forceful swing for students with moderate to severe disabilities. Although there are many researchers, textbooks authors, and educational policy makers recommend co-teaching or modification may an inclusion strategy for students with disabilities, there is little research supporting these recommendations in physical education. The purpose of this study was to put into practice an inclusive physical education by adjusting a variety of teaching methods, so self-contained special education students and regular students can also join the general physical education. The following research questions were explored: 1. How to design the inclusive physical education curricular or adjust the activities in order to meet all learners’ needs under co-teaching? What had been changed between general and self-contained students after participating in adapted physical education? Method The researcher used an action research design to examine how teachers collaborate with each other and find out how to modify the course for all learners. Action research is a methodology that fulfills two important onditions; one is that it seeks the improvement of teachers’ practice in order to improve their students’ understanding, using any appropriate tool, and the other is that it seeks and understanding of the educational setting and context in general (Feldman amp; Minstrell, 2000; Kemmis amp; McTaggart, 1988). For the sake of this reason, the researcher believed that the framework of action research was the best choice to shape inclusive practice, in order to solve problems together enabling teachers to respond more effectively to the diverse needs of students. According to Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) there is a group of four fundamental aspects in action research: planning, acting, observing and reflecting. They highlight the dynamic complementarity of the four aspects in action research which end up in a cycle, and ultimately in a spiral of such cycles (Argyropoulos amp; Nikolaraizi, 2009). These aspects were present in the project of the present study and converged to the fulfillment of the ultimate target of action research which is ‘change’. Participants The researcher and his colleague invited a general class teacher at four grade and related personnel to join this project and organized a team to implement it. The collaborative action research group included 3 physical education teachers, 1 general class teacher, and 1 teaching assistant in the elementary school in Pidigan Central School. Two of three physical education teachers have dual certification (i. e. , general elementary education and special education), and the researcher (also have dual certification) had teaching experience in general class. Participation was voluntary. The cooperating teachers that participated in this project were 3 female and 2 male, with an average of 8. 5 years of teaching experience (see Table 1). In addition, there were 6 self-contained class students and 26 general class students at four grade also involved in this study. Students, who studied in self-contained class, were all moderate to severe disabilities and three of six students had inclusion experience before this study.

Third Party Presidential Debates Essays - , Term Papers

Third Party Presidential Debates The Second College Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary defines debate as; To engage in argument by discussing opposing points (American Heritage,369). Another definition is as follows; a formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition (American Heritage,369). The Random House College Dictionary offers this definition; To engage in formal argumentation or disputation with (another person, group, etc.) (Random House,342). So which definition is correct? We know a debate is a discussion or an argument. What has to be decided is whether or not it is between two groups or several groups. That same question has arisen in the Presidential debates of the 1996 presidential election campaigns. That question being whether or not Ross Perot and his running mate should have been included in the debates with President Clinton, Bob Dole and their running mates. In order to answer this question we have to know more about the debates history. The presidential debates are in place for the public to see and hear what the candidates have to say about issues facing the nation. While debating between presidential candidates has been occurring throughout Americas history they were limited to a small audience (Leone,_). However with the 1960 debates between Kennedy and Nixon a whole new world was opened as millions of viewers watched the debates on television (Leone,_). Those first televised debates are generally credited with giving John F. Kennedy the winning margin in a very close presidential race (Leone,_). Following the 1960 election there were no publicly televised debates until 1976, and since then the debates have become an expected and important feature of presidential campaigns (Leone,_). The confidence of the debates with widespread views of general lack of government legitimacy prompted the formation of the Presidential Debate Commission before the 1988 election thus replacing the League of Women Voters as the debate sponsors (Leone,_). What is the purpose of this commission? The mission of the Commission on Presidential Debates is to ensure for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates are held every four years between the leading candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States (Commission,_). The commission sponsored the debates of 1988, 1992 and are planning, organizing and implementing the 1996 debates (Commission,_). The commission also has a goal that is; To afford the members of the voting public an opportunity to sharpen their views of those candidates from among whom the next President or Vice president will be selected. In light of the large number of declared candidates in any given presidential election, the Commission has determined that its voter education goal is best achieved by limiting debate participation to the next President and his or her principal rival(s) (The Commission on Presidential Debates,_). In the case of a third party the Commission also has a position. The Commission developed nonpartisan criteria to base its decision regarding selection of nonmajor party candidates for participation in the 1996 debates(Commission,_). The purpose is to identify nonmajor candidates who realistically have a chance of election as the next President of the United States and who are considered to be among the principal rivals for the Presidency (Commission,_). The commission goes on to say that the chances do not have to be overwhelming, but must be more than theoretical (Commission,_). The Commissions criteria for inclusion in the debates of a nonmajor party candidate is a review of the following questions; Is there evidence of national organization, are there signs of national newsworthiness and competitiveness, are there indicators of national enthusiasm or concern, to determine whether the candidate has a significant chance of election to warrant inclusion in one or more of its debates (Commission,_)? In order to better understand these criteria we have to look at them in greater detail. Evidence of national organization involves satisfaction of the eligibility requirement of the Constitution of the United States (Commission,_). The candidate should have placement on ballots in enough states to have a mathematical chance of obtaining an electoral college majority (Commisson,_). The candidate should also have organization in a majority of congressional districts on those states (Commission,_). Finally the candidate must be eligible for matching funds from the Federal Election Commission or be able to adequately fund a national campaign and be endorsed by federal and state office holders (Commission,_). Signs of national newsworthiness and competitiveness are described by opinions of electoral experts, media and non-media personnel (Commission,_). They include professional

Collapse of the Aral Sea essays

Collapse of the Aral Sea essays The breakup of the Former Soviet Union has forced those now independent states into a state of confusion. Republics that were once one nation now are separate governments. They now must compete for trade alliances, industrial resources, financial resources, and most importantly, agricultural resources. An area of developed concern is the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world, located in Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, but between 1960 and 1990, the Aral Sea dropped into the sixth position. By 1980, more than 95 percent of the inflow into the Aral Sea was diverted for irrigational purposes. Due to financial competition, and policies that gave preference to irrigation for agriculture, the Soviet Satellites withdrew unprecedented amounts of water from the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea. These two rivers were the only sources of inflow into the Aral Sea; their names are Syr Darya and Amu Darya. Much of the biological diversity has disappeared, of the 24 differen t species that once thrived in this lake, only four remain. If these processes continue, this lake has the potential to become a lifeless brine lake. There are many different by-products of this disaster ranging from the decline in fish population diversity to a rise in the amount of brutal sand storms to declining human health in the area. Since the collapse of the Aral Sea, millions of people living in the surrounding area have developed some type of health problem. From mild allergies to thyroid cancer, these effects are serious. Scientists have determined a major contributor to the cause of these diseases are winds that whip the salt on the receding shoreline into the air, creating blinding sand storms. Since the 1960s the amount of occurrences of these storms have increased sixty fold. The salt is carried over a hundred miles and is deposited on land where it reduces the productivity of the land. The main reason for diverting the water flow into ...

Art History: Traditional and Contemporary Essay artist, art, painting

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Elements of Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Elements of Literature - Essay Example The conflict between rationality and a deliberate slipping into the dream world and the character of Willy who simply refuses to see reality make the story realistic and one with which one identifies. Willy Loman’s character is said to be trapped in adolescence. Though he has reached the ripe age of sixty and is the father of two grown up sons he still idolizes the romantic concept of the rags to riches story. To him his uncle Benjamin represented ideal manhood. He is still mesmerized by the aura of his uncle who used to say on his accumulating huge wealth â€Å"Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. [...] And by God I was rich" (Miller 48). His obsession with virility and machismo might be understood as his failure to live up to society’s expectation of a successful male. He would boast about his being a successful salesman in his youth and tried to take refuge in an imaginative past. He wanted his sons to be what he could not. Willy wanted his sons to be popular, famous and well-established but failed to incorporate in them the tenacity and diligence required to be an achiever. Like a child Willy would go by apparent and temporary moments of joy and victory but did not have the far-sight to chalk out the right directions for his sons. He lived in an illusion that his sons were the best and the brightest among all the other kids in the vicinity. But when he came to realize the truth it was too late. He has become an old man and both of his sons were men in their thirties and yet not settled with a job and a wife. He was all the more depressed when he found that the others have gone way ahead of him in terms of money, social status and established children with secure future. Charley whom he used to pity is father of a successful and renowned son. Willy’s disillusionment is complete when he understands that he had over estimated

Probable reasons of why racists mitigate their views whenever possible Essay

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Lilypads Hotels Essay Example for Free

Lilypads Hotels Essay According to the Court, the Fourth Amendment is mute about undercover searches (inside the home or out), inspections of welfare mothers and probationers homes, flyovers of curtilage and trespasses on property beyond it, surveillance of public movements, most compelled testing for drugs and alcohol, dog sniffs of cars and luggage, and rummaging through garbage. n1 Why don’t you contact me directly at natashagils at yahoo dot com and we can make this work one on one instead of going through middlemen to get assignments done. And the Amendment is close to irrelevant in a host [*604] of other situations, including third-party subpoenas for documents, checkpoints for drunk driving and illegal immigration, residential and business health and safety inspections, and searches of junkyards for stolen parts. n2 Under current constitutional doctrine, the government needs no justification to engage in the first set of actions, and so little to carry out the second that it is virtually unregulated. †¦ A crucial initial assumption in this essay is that, at bottom, neither the language nor the legislative history of the Fourth Amendment drives the analysis on this issue. †¦ I am looking for socio-political explanations for our current Fourth Amendment doctrine, not formalistic ones. The most obvious such explanation for the decisions referenced above is that the Supreme Court does not want to shackle government law enforcement efforts. Undoubtedly, that is a large part of the answer. But it is not the entire story. As I have suggested elsewhere n5 (and briefly explain again here), effective crime control and a more activist interpretation of the Fourth Amendment are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Other explanations for the Courts less-than-robust reading of the Fourth Amendment focus on the ironic consequences of decisions, mostly generated by [*605] the relatively liberal Warren Court, that were meant to expand its scope. For instance, it is fashionable to place much of the blame for todays law on the Warren Courts adoption of privacy as the core value protected by the Fourth Amendment. This move, in Katz v. United States, n6 was hailed at the time as a major enhancement of constitutional protection against government intrusion. As many have pointed out, however, because privacy is a manipulable concept, the Court has since found it easy to declare that a large array of police actions-ranging from use of informants to public surveillance and school and workplace drug testing-either do not implicate or are only limply protected by the Fourth Amendment. n7 This diagnosis has some attraction as well, but fails to explain why even the more liberal justices have often gone along with many of the privacy-diminishing holdings of the Court. In this essay, I too suggest that the modern Courts early expansive stances on the Fourth Amendment have ultimately led to its diminishment. But Katzs expectation-of-privacy formulation is not the culprit. Rather, three other liberal dogmas-what I call the probable-cause-forever position, the individualized suspicion mantra, and the obsession with exclusion as a remedy-are the primary reasons we have a Fourth Amendment Lite. The end-logic of these three dogmas produce such unappealing results that even moderate and liberal justices have balked at them, leaving us with a search and seizure jurisprudence that is much less than it could be. When a search requires probable cause to be constitutional, courts are naturally more reluctant to denominate every police attempt to find evidence a search. When suspicion must be individualized, they are more likely to gloss over the harms caused by investigations of groups. And when the sole serious sanction for an illegal search or seizure is suppression at trial, many judges have less sympathy for viable claims, because they cannot stomach dismissal of criminal charges against guilty people. I. Probable Cause Forever Of course, probable cause is not required for every police action that is called a search or seizure. Terry v. Ohio, n8 a Warren Court decision, stands for the proposition that both detentions short of arrest and patdowns of outer clothing are permissible on reasonable suspicion, which represents a certainty level somewhere below the even-chance threshold often associated with probable cause. The Terry Court was willing to relax Fourth Amendment strictures with respect to stops and frisks because the governments interest in effective crime prevention and [*606] detection on the streets justified the brief, though far from inconsiderable, intrusion upon the sanctity of the person that these actions occasion. n9 In the seizure context, the post-Warren Court has routinely relied on this balancing approach-or what I have called the proportionality principle-in holding that several different types of detentions short of an arrest may take place on less than probable cause. n10 In the search context, however, it has been much less willing to follow this route. Instead, the Court has insisted, in the words of Justice Stewart in Katz, that searches conducted . . . without prior approval by judge or magistrate [and therefore without probable cause], are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, subject only to a few specifically established and well- delineated exceptions. n11 †¦ [In] T. L. O. .. [the Court] then went on to hold that probable cause was not required to search a school childs purse for evidence of disciplinary infractions, thereby creating the one major exception (other than Terrys frisk rule) to the probable-cause-forever dogma. Labeled the special needs doctrine, a phrase taken from Justice Blackmuns concurrence in T. L. O. , the exception, when it applies, requires only that government action be reasonable, n14 which in practice has meant that neither a warrant nor probable cause is required. But the special needs exception is usually only applicable when, as in T. L. 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Essay --

Nino Foley 3/4/14 PS 326 Defensive Realism V. Neoconservatism The Iraq Invasion Politically and economically, it could be argued that no other country’s foreign policy exercises such a powerful influence in world affairs as that of the United States. Nowhere is this more the case than the Middle East; a highly contested and volatile region, rich with natural resources and geopolitical importance. The 2003 invasion of Iraq serves as an example of one the most significant events in the region in recent history. The respective lens of systemic defensive realism and domestic constructivism via neoconservatism will be juxtaposed as explanations for the decision to invade Iraq. Defensive realism, in its tenet of states responding to threats, pits the U.S in a reactionary position after 9/11. Responding to the perceived threats of WMD’s in Iraq, scarcity of oil caused in part by increased consumption in India and China, and an unstable international arena in the wake of September 11th, the U.S elected to unilaterally invade Iraq, ignoring objection from the U.N and the global community; hence confirming one of the primary realist principles – the unimportance of international institutions. The election of George W. Bush in 2000 introduced a powerful era of neoconservatism, an ideology whose roots can be traced back to the 1960’s and would exercise momentous influence in the decision to invade Iraq. The Bush Administration housed ten of the founding 25 members of the â€Å"Project for the New American Century†, a neoconservative think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Among them were Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Together they would advocate for American hegemon... ...hat necessitated the war. That these systemic forces are of greater importance than the possibility of an underlying ideology in the Bush Administration and are reaffirmed by the cause/effect of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. But this perceived reaction would not have been possible without the filter through which the global situation was being processed, namely neoconservatism. And this is truly where neoconservatism trumps defensive realism. The amalgamation of neocon policy makers with a preexisting agenda to invade Iraq, combined with an administration operating from an ideology that prioritizes the preemptive use of force – is a superior position when compared with a theory that is based in classifying the U.S as a reactionary actor. It was the realities of a domestic ideology in the executive branch that paved the way for the Iraq invasion; not .

Feminist Contributions Essay

Feminism is a conflict theory which views society as male dominated and it seeks to describe, explain and change the position of women in society. Feminism is therefore a theory of women’s subordination and also a political movement. There are different types of feminism, which I will be evaluating in this essay; Liberal, Radical, Marxist, Black and Postmodernist feminist. Feminists criticise mainstream sociology for being ‘malestream’. By contrast, feminists examine society from the viewpoint of women an see their work as part of the struggle against women’s subordination. However, although all feminists oppose women’s subordination, there are disagreements among feminist’s theories about its causes and how to overcome them. Liberal feminists are concerned with the human and civil rights and freedoms of the individual, they believe that all human beings should have equal rights. In liberal feminism, the concept of society changing itself to adapt to women does not occur. Liberal feminists insist that all that is needed to change the status of women is to change existing laws that are unfavorable for women and that this will open up more opportunities for women to prove themselves as equal to the opposite sex, this is referred to as reformism. In addition, liberal feminists reject the idea that biological differences make women less competent or rational than me, nor are men biologically less emotional or nurturing than women are. Liberal feminist Oakley, distinguishes between sex and gender. She claims sex differences are seen as fixed, whereas gender differences vary between cultures and over time. Therefore what is considered a proper role for women in one society or at a specific time may be disapproved of or forbidden in another. According to liberal theorists, sexist attitudes and stereotypical beliefs about gender are culturally constructed and transmitted through socialisation. However, liberal feminism can be seen as a critique of the functionalist view of gender roles. For example, Parsons distinguishes between instrumental and expressive roles. In his view, instrumentals roles such as paid work are taken on by males, while expressive roles such as unpaid domestic labour and childbearing are taken on by females. On the other hand liberal feminism challenges this view. It argues that men and women are equally capable of  performing each roles. Radical feminists emerged in the early 1970s and its key concept is patriarchy. Radical feminists have three key arguments; patriarchy is universal as male domination of women is evident in all societies. Firestone argues that the origins of patriarchy lie in women’s biological capacity to bear and care for infants, as a result of this women become dependent on men. The second argument is that patriarchy is the primary and most fundamental form of social inequality and conflict. Thirdly, all men oppress women and all men benefit from patriarchy. Particularly from women’s unpaid domestic labour and from their sexual services. For radical feminists, patriarchal oppression occurs in the public sphere of work and politics and also in the private sphere of the family. According to radical feminists, patriarchal power is expressed through sexual or physical violence or the threat of it. As Brownmiller notes, fear of rape is a powerful deterrent against women going out alone at night. Likewise Rich argues that men force women into a narrow and unsatisfying ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, which becomes the only socially acceptable form of sexuality. Radical feminists believe that if women are to be free, personal and sexual relations must be transformed. They have suggested three strategies to achieve this. Firstly separatism, which is when women live apart from men and create a new culture of female independence. Feminist Greer argues for the creation of all-female or ‘matrilocal’ households as an alternative to the heterosexual family. The second strategy is consciousness raising, through sharing their experiences in women-only consciousness-raising groups, women come to see that other women face the same problems. The third strategy is political lesbianism; many radical feminists argue that heterosexual relationships are inevitably oppressive because they involve ‘sleeping with the enemy’ and that lesbianism is the only non-oppressive form of sexuality. Marxists have a key criticism of radical feminists. They argue that class is the primary form of inequality and that capitalism is the main cause and beneificiary of women’s oppression, not men. Another criticism comes from Anna Pollert, who argues that the concept of patriarchy is of little value in explaining women’s position because it involves a circular argument. In contrast, Marxist feminists dismiss liberal feminists’ view that women’s subordination is merely the product of stereotyping or outdate attitudes. Likewise they  also reject the radical feminist view that it is the result of patriarchal oppression by men. Marxists see women’s subordination as rooted in capitalism. This results from their primary role as unpaid homemakers, which presents them in dependent economic positions in the family. Their subordination performs four important functions of capitalism; women are a source of cheap, exploitable labour. As they are viewed as financially dependent on their male partners, they can be paid less by employers. Women are a reserve army of labour, that can be moved into the labour force during economic booms and out again at times of recession. Women produce the labour force through their unpaid domestic labour, by nurturing and socialising children to become the next generation of workers by maintaining and servicing the current generation of workers. Thirdly, women absorb anger that would otherwise be directed at capitalism. Ansley describes wives as ‘takers of shitâ €™ who soak up the frustration of their husbands, this explains male domestic violence against women.

Music Role of a Composer Essay

A person who creates the music the music we listen to by writing a piece of music for theatre, radio, film, TV and computer games where music is needed is known as composer. Composing of music has played a vital role in the lives of composers making others to be considered as princes of music like Josquin and Palestrina yet others had unique styles of composing their music. The roles of a composer are to create music by creating situations in which sounds will basically be. A composer has to devise strategies to ensure coordination of elements of performers set into motion. This is achieved by ensuring that proper notation of music has been done in order to accurately direct musicians. The task of a composer is to write an original piece of music fitting for a specific mission after which the composition will then be performed by musicians. The music composed might be having lyrics or just instrumental. Furthermore, it can be either in the form of country, classical jazz or even folk. The work of composer improved a great deal between 900 to 1820. in the 900’s, composers used to create music in that there is a solo singer and choirs or more probably in an Organum style . In the process of change, music styles became more complex and multiple parts were used for different instruments and this help to bring harmony. The recorder, lute and the invention of printing press that brought about standardization of musical notation. Later the Organum was modified into the modern harmony of today by use of a figured bass to accompany a melody. The introduction of keyboard in equal temperament enabled different keys to be used without alteration. Finally, during the classical period, the composers fostered for loyalty or nobility of the time. The composers of the time were offered with creative tools to build many accredited pieces of music given that the concept of music was abstract and detached allowing them to explore the music industry. Josquin Desprez (1440-1521) was the master of composing in his time . He created his music with careful words which were of marvelous simplicity and sophistication. Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) was the instrumentals in bringing into being the romantic music era. These two men brought about great change in the musical industry and meaning to composers without fear of experimenting. References Fulcher, J. The Composer as an Intellectual. Music and Ideology in France 1914-1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 Smith J. & Carlson B. The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence. Crossway, 1995

Geography and Fact Sheet About the Philippines

Geography and Fact Sheet About the Philippines Population: 99,900,177 (July 2010 estimate)Capital: ManilaArea: 115,830 square miles (300,000 sq km)Coastline: 22,549 miles (36,289 km)Highest Point: Mount Apo at 9,691 feet (2,954 m)The Philippines, officially called the Republic of the Philippines, is an island nation located in the  western Pacific Ocean in Southeast Asia between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea. The country is an archipelago made up of 7,107 islands and is near the countries of Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Philippines has a population of just over 99 million people and it is the 12th largest country in the world. History of the Philippines In 1521, European exploration of the Philippines began when Ferdinand Magellan claimed the islands for Spain. He was killed shortly thereafter however after getting involved in tribal warfare on the islands. During the rest of the 16th century and into the 17th and 18th centuries, Christianity was introduced to the Philippines by Spanish conquistadores. During this time, the Philippines were also under the administrative control of Spanish North America and as a result, there was migration between the two areas. In 1810 though, Mexico claimed its independence from Spain and control of the Philippines went back to Spain. During Spanish rule, Roman Catholicism increased in the Philippines and a complex government was established in Manila.In the 19th century, there were numerous uprisings against Spanish control by the local population of the Philippines. For example, in 1896, Emilio Aguinaldo led a revolt against Spain. The revolt continued until 1898 when American forces defeated the Spanish at Manila Bay in May of that year during the Spanish-American War. After the defeat, Aguinaldo and the Philippines declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898. Shortly thereafter, the islands were ceded to the United States with the Treaty of Paris.From 1899 to 1902, the Philippine-American War took place as Filipinos fought against Americ an control of the Philippines. On July 4, 1902, a Peace Proclamation ended the war but hostilities continued until 1913.In 1935, the Philippines then became a self-governing commonwealth after the Tydings-McDuffie Act. During World War II, however, the Philippines were attacked by Japan and in 1942, the islands came under Japanese control. Beginning in 1944, full-scale fighting began in the Philippines in an effort to end Japanese control. In 1945, Filipino and American forces caused Japan to surrender, but the city of Manila was largely destroyed and over one million Filipinos were killed.On July 4, 1946, the Philippines then became fully independent as the Republic of the Philippines. Following its independence, the Philippines struggled to gain political and social stability until the 1980s. During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the Philippines began to regain stability and grow economically despite some political conspiracies in the early 2000s. Government of the Philippines Today the Philippines is considered a republic with an executive branch made up of a chief of state and a head of government - both of which are filled by the president. The legislative branch of government is made up of a bicameral Congress that consists of a Senate and House of Representatives. The judicial branch is made up of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals and the Sandigan-bayan. The Philippines are divided into 80 provinces and 120 charter cities for local administration. Economics and Land Use in the Philippines Today, the economy of the Philippines is growing due to its rich natural resources, workers overseas and imported products. The largest industries in the Philippines include electronics assembly, garments, footwear, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, wood products, food processing, petroleum refining ,  and fishing. Agriculture also plays a large role in the Philippines and the main products are sugarcane, coconuts, rice, corn, bananas, cassava, pineapples, mangoes, pork, eggs, beef, and fish. Geography and Climate of the Philippines The Philippines is an archipelago comprised of 7,107 islands in the South China, Philippine, Sulu, and Celebes Seas and the Luzon Strait. The topography of the islands is mostly mountainous with narrow to large coastal lowlands depending on the island. The Philippines is divided into three main geographic areas: these are Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The climate of the Philippines is tropical marine with a northeast monsoon from November to April and a southwest monsoon from May to October.In addition, the Philippines, like many other tropical island nations has problems of deforestation, and soil and water pollution. The Philippines also has problems of air pollution because of large populations in its urban centers. More Facts About the Philippines Filipino is the official national language while English is the official language of government and educationLife expectancy in the Philippines is 67.6 yearsOther large cities in the Philippines include Davao City and Cebu City Sources: Central Intelligence Agency. (7 July 2010). CIA - The World Factbook - Philippines. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html Infoplease.com. (n.d.). Philippines: History, Geography, Government, and Culture - Infoplease.com. infoplease.com/country/philippines.html United States Department of State. (19 April 2010). Philippines. state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2794.htm Wikipedia. (22 July 2010). Philippines - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines