Carphone warehouse Essay

Introduction Carphone warehouse is a mobile phone retailer founded in 1989 in an era when phones were too bulky, hence being referred to as carphones. It’s based in UK and has over 1700 stores across Europe. Outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company carries on its business under the name phone house. Carphone warehouse did its initial public offering at the main market of the London stock exchange (Great Britain et. al, 2011). There has been tremendous growth in the business and this has resulted to Carphone opening many branches at home and also in Western Europe. Ways of improving operations at Carphone warehouse In its quest to provide modern services to its customers and the staffs in general, carphone warehouse has embarked on going back to the drawing board to ensure they have many of the latest mobile technologies. The strategy by this company to utilize smart technology in its stores has attracted a lot of attention and many shoppers are flocking their shops. The younger generation is so much obsessed with smart technology; the large workforce of carphone is mainly the younger generation. This strategy is very good as it portrays a positive image to those shopping in its stores (summers, 1998). Carphone partners with many well performing companies together with which they do business. By using this strategy they enhance their market position and this puts them ahead of the game. Recently it announced a possible partnership with Samsung which will see up to 60 standalone stores open across Europe. The company is well endowed with technology and many of their staffs are well equipped with the latest technology. According to the latest statistics from the stores, they have rolled out over 5000 tablets to members of their staff across all stores which is now seen as the single biggest digital workforce. The CEO of the company said in one of the tabloids that they put technology at the heart of what they do, and so practice what they preach. Carphone warehouse needs to undertake several measures to improve their business. To get at the top does not require much effort than to remain there. This company should evaluate their pricing; this should be done first by evaluating what the customer think about their prices. They should come up with prices that are not way too high out of business neither too low to bring a burden of cash flow shortage (Greasley, 1999). They should also have prices and commodities for all classes of people, both high end customers and the common shoppers. This will help bring up the profitability of the company. Carphone warehouse needs to improve on their weak spots.   There were criticism and accusation that they were slamming to win new customers, customers alleged that when they bought phones on this store their landlines accounts were subsequently switched off without their consent, a scenario like this will portray bad picture on this company. The company needs to improve their corporate image by coming with better ways of public image (Greasley, 1999). The company should also explore new markets by improving their marketing. Venturing into new demographic areas will help the company to increase its clientele which in the long run will boost sales. Carphone should spread their wings even in Eastern Europe or even in other continents. Involvement of employees in the business is vital for the growth. Although carphone has improved in this aspect by digitalizing their staff, employees should be motivated to be brand ambassadors of the company. Being up to date with the current trends in the technology will also help the company to compete actively and increase their sales. References Greasley, A. (1999). Operations management in business. Cheltenham: S. Thornes. Summers, M. R. (1998). Analyzing operations in business: Issues, tools, and techniques. Westport, Conn: Quorum Books. Great Britain., Freeman, P., & Saunders, D. (2011). The Carphone Warehouse Group plc v   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Office of Communications Case 1111/3/3/09:

Examination of Clinical Psychology

Examination of Clinical Psychology Kristina England PSY/480 Tara Thompson University of Phoenix Clinical psychology focuses on the â€Å"assessment, treatment, and understanding of psychological and behavioral problems and disorders; in fact, clinical psychology focuses its efforts on the ways in which the human psyche interacts with physical, emotional, and social aspects of health and dysfunction† (Plante, 2011, P. 5). This paper will examine the field of clinical psychology.This paper will provide a brief overview of the history and evolving nature of clinical psychology, explain the role of research and statistics in clinical psychology, and last discuss the differences between clinical psychology and other mental health professions, including social work, psychiatry, and social psychology. Throughout the course of history, there have been many events that have laid the foundation for the development of clinical psychology; each era holding a different view and providing n ew perspective and insight as explanation.The ancient Greeks believed the Gods â€Å"were the cause of both health and illness and that the mind and body were closely interconnected† (Plante, 2011, P. 46). Moving into the Middle Ages followed the same concept of the relationship between health, illness, body, and mind; however, it was spiritual beings such as demons, sin, and witches that caused disease and insanity. The Renaissance brought new discoveries, beliefs, and insight to the table; decreasing the beliefs that the cause of disease and insanity were the result of supernatural beings or religious views.Discoveries in medicine provided information in biomedical reductionism. It was suggested that â€Å"disease and mental illness could be understood through scientific observation and experimentation rather than beliefs about the mind and soul† (Plante, 2011, P. 46). Moving forward to Freud’s time, Sigmund Freud along with his colleagues brought the notion o f the connection between the mind and body to resurface; as Freud demonstrated the â€Å"connection between unconscious conflicts and emotional influences capable of bringing forth disease† (Brown, 1940).Freud’s views of the connection between the mind and body gave an opening for the beliefs of the Greeks to reemerge; allowing a more holistic view of health to be considered as an acceptable answer regarding emotional life, and one’s health, illness, and behavior. Psychology was first established when Wilhelm Wundt developed the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1879 and published the first classic psychology text in 1890 titled Principles of Psychology. The American Psychological Association (APA) was established in 1892 with G.Stanley Hall as its president and led into the creation of clinical psychology. Clinical psychology was formed not as a result of agreement of the APA, but rather in spite of it as many clinicians felt lack of support and concern for the clinical aspect of psychology. As a result more focus began to take place in clinical psychology and in 1896 the first psychological clinic was opened at the University of Pennsylvania by Lightner Witmer and a future for the need and purpose of clinical psychology.The evolving nature of clinical psychology holds much in store as advancements in technology and communication fields continue to rise. There are many events that have contributed to the ever-changing and evolving nature of clinical psychology; one event in particular that significantly impacted clinical psychology is the changes made by the APA. The changes made in the publications and the revisions of the DSM, particularly regarding the ethical standards (Plante, 2011). The field of clinical psychology will continue to change with new methods and cost efficient ways reaching to expand and redefine quality mental health care.Research and statistics are a fundamental part of clinical psy chology and are, in essence, the very foundation of which it is built. Research is used to help answer questions regarding diagnosis, treatment, and human behavior as well as when investigating research questions; particularly in cases involving new, rare, or unusual phenomenon. Generally, the primary goal of research in clinical psychology is to â€Å"acquire knowledge about human behavior and use this knowledge to help improve the lives of others. Clinical psychologists use the scientific method in conducting their research activities† (Plante, 2011, P. 06); the scientific method is a way to ask and answer questions through making observations and performing experiments. The steps to the scientific method include asking a question, doing background research, constructing a hypothesis, perform an experiment to test hypothesis, analyze data, and draw a conclusion, and finally communicate the results (â€Å"Science Buddies,†Ã‚  2002). Statistics in clinical psychology a re applied to research and is used to determine whether the findings are valid and reliable so that they can be modified to accommodate, or remain the same.The differences between clinical psychology and other mental health professions can include length of education and training, point of focus, and location, or setting, of the work environment. Social workers typically hold a bachelor’s degree in social science, such as psychology or sociology, and subsequently enter a two-year graduate program to attain a master’s degree in social work; followed by two years supervised clinical experience to become licensed as a Clinical Social Worker (Plante, 2011, P. 25). Unlike with psychology, social work holds less emphasis on training in research.Psychiatrists are â€Å"physicians who earn a medical degree (MD) and complete residency training in psychiatry† (Plante, 2011, P. 24). Generally, psychiatrists receive a bachelor’s degree in premedical related fields su ch as biology or chemistry; followed by four years of medical school to obtain a MD degree. Prior to residency, a one year clinical internship is completed; however, unlike a clinical psychology internship, medical internships focus on medical training, and the residency is more so aimed to psychotherapy.Social psychology is â€Å"the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another; studying how individuals are affected by social interactions with groups and relationships† (Kinderman, 2009). Unlike clinical psychologists, social psychologists do not treat individuals suffering from mental or emotional issues; but rather observe how individuals influence one another’s behavior and attitude both individually and in group settings. According to the APA, clinical psychology â€Å"attempts to use the principles of sychology to better understand, predict, and alleviate intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social, and behaviora l aspects of human functioning† (APA, 2009a, as cited in, Plante, 2011, P. 5). This paper has examined the field of clinical psychology. This paper has discussed the history and evolving nature of clinical psychology, explained the role of research and statistics in clinical psychology, and last discussed the differences between clinical psychology and other mental health professions, including social work, psychiatry, and social psychology.References Brown, J. F. (1940). Freud’s contribution to psychology, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 10(4), 866-868. Doi: 10. 1111/j. 1939-0025. 1940. tb05757. x Kinderman, P. (2009). The future of psychology: a view from outside. Counseling Psychology Review, 24(1), 16-21. Plante, T. G. (2011). Contemporary clinical psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Science Buddies. (2002). Retrieved from http://www. sciencebuddies. org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method. shtml

Bmw Films Essay

Where the BMW films a good idea? How successful was the campaign? In my opinion, the BMW films where a great idea at that specific moment in time. The company had no new product launches to promote. Furthermore, budget was available in order to â€Å"experiment† new ideas and innovative advertising and promotion actions. With this pure branding exercise BMW had little to lose (mainly money) and a huge deal to win. The campaign proved to be an incredibly successful one. In order to measure and justify this effectiveness I have chosen to highlight the following reasons: †¢Number of people who watched the BMW films: The films reached a great amount of people (aprox. 9 million viewers) in the early stages of the campaign. Furthermore, BMW had managed to capture the audience they were targeting †¢Feedback from the viewers: The positive feedback received proved to the marketing team that the campaign had been a success. Comments showed enthusiasm and in some cases even led to action. Feedback from the media: BMW achieved to generate the sufficient interest in order to receive praises from media publications that gave the initiative a â€Å"Hollywood movie† status. †¢Press activity: The marketing team was overwhelmed when they saw that the press activity was 10 times higher than expected. †¢Viral Campaign: One of the most unexpected achievements of the campaign was to produce a massive chain reaction amongst the viewers. 94% of viewers recommended the films to others. †¢Increase in sales: After the BMW films campaign, sales in 2001 increased almost 12% from the previous year. In this year BMW surpassed the 200,000 sold units barrier for the first time in North America. What was the motivation behind the idea? Given the opportunity to do pure branding the marketing team aimed at achieving through non-traditional promotion a memorable campaign that would remain in people’s minds for years to come. The motivation behind the campaign was to â€Å"refresh† the BMW brand by attracting the interest of a younger demographic segment and leave behind the traditionally yuppie customers related to the brand in previous years. The fact that the campaign was distributed through the Internet shows the commitment of the company to attract these younger customers. The key concepts that the campaign was trying to communicate were the excitement of driving, the performance of the BMW cars and the excitement related in driving the â€Å"Ultimate Driving Machine†. A key issue for the marketing team was also to explore new possibilities in terms of promotion and to achieve the highest impact possible amongst the target audience. The first mover advantage had been at the core of BMW’s campaigns and the BMW films were to be no exception to that rule. Who was the target market? What was the typical North American BMW customer? Is it the same as its competitor’s typical client? The â€Å"typical† BMW customer was about 46 years old with an average income of $150,000, well educate, married and with no children. Most importantly, 85% of BMW’s potential buyers were on the Internet before buying a BMW. Their customers saw driving as a pleasure and tended to be leaders. They enjoyed being in control. The competition was targeting different types of clients. The Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Toyota and Nissan for example, were mainly targeting lower income level customers. As for the higher end brands such as Mercedes, Porsche and Jaguar they were targeting older customers with higher income level more focused on luxury and comfort. How healthy is the brand in the US compared to previous years? What are the weaknesses? At this point in time the BMW brand was healthier than ever before in the US market. In this period, out of the people that intended to buy a luxury brand, 16% said they would buy a BMW against 11% that intended to buy a Mercedes. This represented a significant turning point in BMW’s operations in the US. The strongest weakness I perceive in the BMW brand is the fact that it relates to people who are passionate about driving and look for the excitement of being in control of a car. Furthermore, I believe it is people who tend to be willing to maximize the cars attributes in order to experiment the whole experience the car can provide. In this sense, the brand is perishable, as customers tend to look for other attributes such as comfort; reliability and prestige tend to focus on other brands such as Mercedes or Jaguar. What should McDowell do? Which option is the correct one? In the short term I would recommend McDowell to produce a few more short films in order to take advantage of the momentum created by the previous films. However, this strategy would not be sustainable in the long term as the competition would start copying this format and the effectiveness of the campaign would be diluted. What I would suggest in the long term would be to organize events in the major US cities that would reinforce the BMW Films concept but more personalized towards the customers. The idea behind this would be to create a lasting bond between both parties. In order to achieve a good segmentation of customers to attend these special events I would use the www. bmwfils. com web page to select (through the previously provided information by the customers) the ones that perfectly fit the brands criteria and the ones that have the most potential of becoming BMW customers. Assuming that BMW in the short term will have new products to launch and that the advertising budget will still be low in comparison with competitors, I believe that these events would be a perfect follow up to the BMW films campaign and that expectation would be created amongst the specialized media. Furthermore, not only would BMW be innovating in non-traditional advertising and promotion formats but they would also have the capability of specifically targeting potential customers. In this way BMW would continue to expand on the BMW Films idea but in this case the customers will perceive that they are the ones at the wheels of the â€Å"ultimate Driving Machine†.

REFORMING THE NATION, RESPONDING TO WAR, FAMOUS SPEECHES Essay

REFORMING THE NATION, RESPONDING TO WAR, FAMOUS SPEECHES - Essay Example The war had far-reaching effects in all aspects of the lives of the German people both politically, economically, socially, culturally and environmentally. There were tremendous changes in the culture of the German people after the First World War. The Nazis developed a belief that individuals were not important and what they needed was a strong government. An ideology was developed that women were to be trained for childbearing and home keeping while men were to be equipped with military and working skills (Roberts, p.46). These beliefs brought about a lot of changes in the way of life, education system, and culture of the German people. In the post world war one Germany, all learning institutions become single sex. Ladies and young men were given different forms of training. The different trainings offered ensured ladies did not have careers but become housewives after marriage. Young people in schools sung about aggression, brutality, and anti-Semitism. Young people were encouraged to play with guns and take pleasure in fighting. During that period, women were encouraged to have more than four children and those who complied were aw arded gifts. The lives of women were to revolve around â€Å"family, church and food preparation†. In addition, they were expected to shy away from smoking and wearing makeup. A lot of ideals were also developed for German households. In contrast to how women were treated, young boys were trained majorly in science and arithmetic. Their training involved a lot of physical exercises, and it was compulsory that they join the labor service at the age of eighteen. The work there was mainly blue-collar which ensured that men toughened up for the military. It was after that a requirement that every man serve in the military for two years before joining the workforce (Roberts, p. 46). Women were laid away off their jobs to create chances for men. After the war, many soldiers believed

International marketing plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

International marketing plan - Assignment Example In order to expand the market target of the company with baked products, the company commenced the construction of a new bakery in 2009 in Al Kharj. The aim of the company in constructing an additional bakery was to increase the portfolio of baked products they offered to the market. In this case, the L’usine brand was adapted as a brand name for all baked products. The L’usine brand is a family-oriented brand that offers products mainly for use as consumer products. The retail industry with reference to consumer products provides both basic products and other products used in the daily family lives. In this case, the L’usine brand provides products such as bread, burger bums, sandwich rolls, and puffs among other products. The aim of the products is to offer consumers with a variety of products that can be used for breakfast and snack purposes both at the family setting and at the workplace. However, the position of the products is related to the family segment of the market. This shows that the products do not target a certain social class and therefore targets every customer while at the same time providing the hotel industry with products to offer to their customers under customized customer-dependent orders. Based on the positioning of the products, the L’usine brand is better placed as it competes with both bread and the confectionery industry companies offering customers with quick-bites (ready to consume products). The product strategy for the L’usine brand involves pricing and diversity of products. Starting with the pricing strategy, it is observed that the target market of the company allows low-prices to facilitate and increase operations’ productivity by considering economies of scale. With the market position playing a role, the pricing strategy ensures that the products sell at a low price while at the same time generating vast sales. On the other hand, the diversity strategy ensures that the

Belbin's Team Roles Inventory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Belbin's Team Roles Inventory - Essay Example The deliberate combination ensures smooth running of affairs with little hiccups on the way. Ostensibly, this is to enhance efficiency coupled with specialization and division of labor. According to Belbin’s definition of what a team is (1993), he gave an insightful opinion about what a team is in this sense; he said that a team is not just a collection of individuals that are given specific job titles in an organization. Instead, he defined it as a deliberate conglomeration of persons who best understand one another in the sense that they work in tandem in areas they are best proficient in with the sole aim of achieving a specific objective. With regard to these, a team is fragmented into simpler units of individuals who are charged with different responsibilities and all these coalesce at a point to further a single interest. In his journal ‘understanding groups at work’, Alcorn (1989) stressed the need of applying the Belbin model in work place. He argues that in putting it in practice, the management of an organization is able to come to terms with its employees strengths and weaknesses and use these in strengthening the performance of the organization by utilizing the strengths of the persons and ignoring their weaknesses. I.e. duties will be assigned to the most appropriate person who will execute them skillfully and with little efforts. Application of this model is also aimed at not bringing confusion and multiple assignment of duties to the employees as these may result into absconding of duties. The information accrued from the Belbin’s model can be extensively used in a work place to help undertake to some duties that are equally helpful. It helps identify and nurture a highly skilled and work-oriented persons to keep in the work place, it enhances a sense of belonging and an attitude of can do to the employees in the work place. Not enough, Belbin’s model also inculcate high-level trust and understanding that brings about coherency in the work place besides instituting a productive and efficient working relationship. Lastly, it can also help in recruitment of employees such that only the best are engaged (Hayes, 1997). In relation to the fact that in an organization group work is necessary, the groups are composed of the different people who work hand in hand to achieve a specified objective. All the members of the group are assigned specific duties that they can best perform in and these are called team roles, Benders and Hootegem (2000) defines team roles as the tendency to demonstrate and manifest proper conduct that are ethical and rational to fellow team members in pursuit of the certain benchmarks in the organization. It also warns that the aim of teamwork is not to gauge personality but to establish the correct behavior that can be tolerant others in a work place. Though the number of team roles might be different from one organization to the next, Belnin in his perception proposed the e xistence of nine different team roles. Of all the team roles, each had a peculiar role to play given on grounds that it is his/her best performing area. This is according to the evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses- the strengths prevail upon weaknesses. The nine team roles advanced by Belbin Belbin advanced nine possible team roles that are necessary in teamwork, these roles are all-important and are peculiar, and each seems to be the driving force of the other. All are

Teaching Literacy in Reception Classes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Teaching Literacy in Reception Classes - Essay Example This essay stresses that the students who are coming from different nations around the world meet a challenge of dealing with the difficulty of living and getting used to a the living that is accustomed for the foreign land that they ought to fit into. In this paper, a comprehensive set of lessons shall be discussed that would be directly applicable to any subject in general. The applicability of the said lessons is attested by the fact that in dealing with multicultural classes, there is a certain need of having a variety of approaches as to how the subjects are presented. This paper directly refers to multiculturalism as an agent of interest among students in a certain class. As per mentioned herein, it could be noted that the lessons that are suggested for implementation in this paper are mainly focused in enhancing the respect that students have towards each other’s culture. There have also been other suggestions addressed to the instructors as to how they are supposed to deliver the lessons for better results for the class. Through the usage and application of the suggested aids and attitudes towards the subject or lesson implementation, it could be noted that the technological innovations would be much helpful in creating an environment that would be susceptible for everyone to understand the main reasons of the lesson implication. In an overall view, it could be observed that the entire paper gives a high regard for creating a peaceful environment for learning within a class that is composed of multicultural students.

Psychology Anthropology Analysis Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Psychology Anthropology Analysis - Term Paper Example Consequently, this action is undertaken as a means combating the temptation of unfulfilled wishes which need to be attained through the selection of a particular path, whether negative or positive (Freud 11). Analyzing, the selection made by Aphex Twin one can comprehend that the individual’s desire for the realization of pleasure was attained by the means of a positive outlet in the diverse form of art such as music. This notion is termed as Substitutive escapism where an individual may choose to explore the services that are provided by the mode of expression that is art (â€Å"Overview of Freud’s Civilization and its Discourse†). Within this context, Freud’s description of Aphex Twin’s life can viewed through the lens of the pleasure principle and the coping mechanisms that are favored by an individual to escape these pleasures. 1.2 According to the abundant literature which has aimed to unravel the mysteries of madness and its vivid association with the minds of poets, artists and musicians, the whims of such creations are understood to be the products of deranged souls whose yearnings often mask under the temperance of art (Foucault 29). Foucault’s theories on discourse, knowledge and power examine the evolution of mankind from the middle ages to modernity, the ramification of which has been a comprehensive understanding of madness and what the concept essentially implies. Within the context of western modernity, Aphex Twin’s life and career are marked by significant progress during the course of which the artist has been able to redefine music, represent a generation and utilize his capabilities to create an illusion that emerges from profound reflection (â€Å"Historical And Sociocultural Contexts For Foucault’s Madness And Civilization†). If Foucault’s views on madness and its gradual development with the progress of humanity are to be applied, then Aphex Twin’s artistic creati on can be viewed from the concept of creativity which is characterized by social transgression and a transcendence of socially accepted boundaries (â€Å"Foucault on Art and Madness†). This observation postulates that art and its forms can be comprehended as a means of liberation where an individual can only seek solace through expression that may appear abstract to those who have not dared to cross the borders of sanity. This notion essentially assesses the work of Aphex Twin in the light of madness, ingenuity and audacity. 1.3 An example of the dimensions of the pleasure principle that has been provided by Freud in his work encompasses the notion of pleasure in the form of intellectual effort and the role of the external environment in fulfilling an individual’s desires. Freud asserts that the pleasure derived by a human being is a notion which is dependent upon several factors, therefore, if an individual’s external environment is not able to assist the attai nment of his/her desires then it is likely that such a person would resort to the selection of substitute-gratifications and fall in the trap of a mental illness (11). For Foucault, the foundations of madness reside in the special bond that is shared by an artist and his work. In this context, Foucault refers to personalities such as Van Gogh and Nietzsche in describing their relentless commitment to the

Should animals be used for research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Should animals be used for research - Essay Example There are many medical practitioners who argue that animal testing is based on a false premise since the results from animal experiments may not necessarily be significant to the effects on the human body; human beings, as certain a species, surely react differently to chemicals that are applied to these experimental animals. This makes it difficult for such experiments to be successful. Two of the most famous cases of this type of experiment are the ones involving Thalidomide and Clioquinol. Thalidomide came clean in the animal testing stage, involving thousands of animals, and it was deemed safe to be released to the public even to pregnant women and breastfeeding women. At least 10 000 children had been born with serious birth defects because their mothers had taken Thalidomide when they were pregnant, even if the animal testing proved it to be safe. Another drug is the Clioquinol, which was also tested on thousands of animals successfully but failed when it was used by humans. It was marketed as a drug against diarrhea and it worked well in animals. In humans, though, it actually caused diarrhea. As a result, more than 30 000 cases of paralysis, blindness and deaths occurred to those who took Clioquinol (Archibald). Another drug that was deemed safe for public use was Vioxx, which was used to treat arthritis. It was perfectly fine on the animal testing level, and was even proved to be beneficial for the heart but the results indicated otherwise in humans. It actually induced about 140 000 heart attacks and strokes in the US. Hormone replacement therapy is another thing, which was proven to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke in monkeys but increases the risk in humans. The Lancet reported that more than 20 000 British women acquired breast cancer as a result of taking HRT, in addition to cases of heart attacks and stroke. These are not

Describe rehearsal, exercise, and maintenance of business continuity Assignment

Describe rehearsal, exercise, and maintenance of business continuity - Assignment Example Unique case studies where DR and BC have flourished and become beneficial include the Electric Company, bank, and automotive case studies (Disasterrecovery.Org, n.d.). The situation of the electric company involved instability in the WAN connection that was probably because of an unpredictable ISP service. In response, the company used an alternative FatPipe WARP before getting a larger replacement for the ISP carrier. This was a brilliant idea in the sense that the business continued to operate with a weaker internet connection before the company enhanced its internet strength. The beneficiaries of this plan included the customers and the organization itself. Concerning the European bank, a similar problem was evident when it experienced redundancy in North American VPN. The bank put concerted efforts to rectify the mistake by installing new MPVPN. Surprisingly, the problem was solved and the customers benefited from the disaster recovery in the sense that the bank improved the efficiency of its services (Disasterrecovery.Org, n.d.). Although the two scenarios were unique and unrelated, it is notable that the approach to risk management was very different for both cases. The Electric Company was more credible and practical in its approach in that it acted on mitigation as well as maintenance measures. It means that the European bank has a rather unfortunate disaster recovery approach because customers must have suffered inconveniences at the time of replacements. Consequently, the Electric Company delivered more benefits to its customers because of a proper Business Continuity Plan. On the other hand, the European bank did not have a well-planned recovery procedure (Disasterrecovery.Org,

Triangle Factory Fire Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Triangle Factory Fire - Essay Example Immigrants desperately needed work and were at a disadvantage because they were â€Å"struggling with a new language and culture† (â€Å"Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire: 100 Years Later†). Because of this, the workers were willing to work in conditions that many would consider unacceptable and unbearable. Women as young as fourteen worked in factories to help support their families, and most did not have the protection of a labor union that acted on their behalf. Though labor unions, such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Womens’ Trade Union League, existed at the time, the Triangle Waist Company was a non-union shop (â€Å"Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire: 100 Years Later†). Managers locked workers in to the building once the work day started, required them to leave by a single exit at the end of their shifts, and subjected the workers to a search as they left the building. On the day of the fire, witnesses noted that the doors were locked, and only one of the two elevators available to transport workers from the upper levels of the building was in operation. Additionally, a worker who escaped the fire related that the water buckets intended for use in the event of a fire were empty (â€Å"Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire: 100 Years Later†). These are just a few of the factors that contributed to the magnitude of the disaster. The New York (State) Factory Investigating Commission formed as a result of this tragedy, uncovered the extent of what it called a â€Å"neglect of the human factor† (â€Å"Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire: 100 Years Later†). The findings of the Commission indicated that attention to light and illumination, ventilation, cleanliness, and basic â€Å"indispensable comforts† would not only improve the workers’ condition, but would also benefit the companies by increasing efficiency and effectiveness. The Commission states that â€Å"the standardization of factory sanitation is

An Analysis of the Stubbies Advertisement by Coca-Cola Essay Example for Free

An Analysis of the Stubbies Advertisement by Coca-Cola Essay The 2005 ‘Stubbies† advertisement by Coke-Cola owned soft drink company Lemon and Paeroa (LP) is constructed in such manner to produce ‘New Zealand’ within it text. The advertisement has been produced with particular attention and reference to New Zealand and New Zealanders, subjugating a sense of nationalism among viewers. This essay analyses and explains how LP creates and fosters a sense of national identity among viewers through elements of; nationalism, banal nationalism, and symbolism. The 1970s styled advertisement for LP was created by the production company Sliversceen Auckland. The storyline shows a formally dressed suited male entering a tailor shop and becoming acquainted with the casual clothing item of ‘stubbies’ shorts (Vist4ads 2005). These are an iconic clothing item associated with rural New Zealand and are coupled with values such as practicality and comfort. A range of men are then shown in variety of situations depicting the versatility of the stubbies shorts. Although a great deal of focus is given to the stubbies shorts, the item being advertised is the soft drink LP. It is drunk throughout the commercial, and the advertisement suggests that both stubbies shorts and LP are essential items of iconic ‘kiwi’ culture. This is reinforced through catchphrase ‘You were there and so was LP.’ The use of personal pro-noun ‘You’ connects and involves the audience with advertisement through the nationalistic branding technique of ‘co-creation (ZALA VOLCIC and MARK ANDREJEVIC 2011).’The reliance as brand placed upon consumers to build and disseminate the brands identity. The brand LP has constructed their advertisement in a particular way which leaves a reliance on consumers to reflect, build and distribute brand identity of being an iconic ‘kiwi’ favourite soft drink through drawing on their proud heritage and positive pastimes which make up New Zealand identity and culture. The consciousness of a space as a nation requires a level of imagination: a sense of people affiliating to the same state who negotiate and construct meanings. The definition of a nation requires a construction of representation of an image (Bell 1996). LP strives to be an iconic image which in turn encapsulates the embodiment of what it means to part of the nation of New Zealand. Media scholar Claudia Bell states that the building of a nation is not all natural, rather facilitated through socialisation mechanisms that guide us a citizens (Bell 1996). The advertisement aims to guide viewers to reflect on time when men wore ‘stubbies’ and ‘everyone just left their keys in the car anyway’. The portrayal by LP of these events is suggestive that these were ‘the good times’ for New Zealanders. The viewing population of New Zealand absorbs these values, reflections and associations with LP as assumptions of identity, which are unconscious taken on board. The connective association with LP and New Zealand national identity is an is an implicit marketing tool by Cola-Cola in order the present LP as New Zealand ’s drink of choice and a natural feature of a nation as summarized through the slogan â€Å"world famous in New Zealand since ages ago.† This reminds the viewer that a nation can only be formed through history which makes us unique as a nation. Production and construction of ‘New Zealand’ in the advertisement occurs through the advertising construction and production of banal nationalism. Banal nationalism is a concept founded by Michael billig which argues that the consistent reference to the everyday representations of the nation conceptually forms expressions of nationalism such as forming an imagined sense of national solidarity and belonging among those united in a national sense. Billing claims that everyday expressions of nationalism can be as important and reactivate as the representational flag-waving of nations. (PRIDEAUX 2009) Banal nationalism is repeated throughout the LP advertisement in a variety of ways. Firstly the sense of implied unity through the advertisements plotlines desires to be ‘our’ story and a snapshot of everyday New Zealand in the summer time of the 1970s. This is achieved through the voice-over language and popular expressions throughput the advertisement such as the colloquiums â€Å"back in the day† and ‘Kiwi’s.’ The casualness of the phrases projects a sense of understanding and unity among the New Zealand audience. The LP drinking New Zealanders shown the advertisement embody characters which are portrayed as typical ‘Kiwis’ in 1970s such as the small Maori boy with a large afro hairstyle posed next to his bike and the characteristic rural New Zealand bloke complete with singlet, jandals, and a mullet. Banal nationalism also occurs through the advertisement portrayal of typical New Zealand scenes which are familiar with such as the dairy, the rural country side, and a summer barbeque. These are relatable settings to almost any New Zealander and enables personal reflection. The symbols of banal nationalism symbols are most effective because of their constant repetition, and almost subliminal nature, therefore a very powerful marketing and advertising tool. The production of ‘New Zealand’ occurs in the LP advertisement through the placement of a range of symbols which are an attempt to reference and embody New Zealand as a nation. The repeated image of the kiwi bird along the window in scene when a stubbies clad male is impressing a pretty girl is not a coincidence. The kiwi bird is the product of New Zealand and being used to repeatedly remind viewers of their place in the nation, a process Michael billing describes as being ‘flagged,’ a term coined by nations overuse flying nation flags. The kiwi is iconic since the bird is native to New Zealand. The advertisement also couples the kiwi with other iconic symbols associated with New Zealand and national pride such jandals, and the act of a large summer barbeque which are symbolic of deeper meanings to the New Zealander such as relaxation and family. New Zealand indigenous symbols such as the kiwi bird that are distinctively New Zealand are particular important in the production of nationalism within advertisement simply as they are not British. Historically New Zealand derived symbols of national identity from the motherland such as Britannia (Bell 1996). The kiwi build nationality as it is naturally occurring and guides New Zealanders as citizens. Symbols are closely interlinked with national identity as they draw associations among viewers. The production of national symbols like the kiwi into this advertisement that is selling bottled soft drink is not random, rather an attempt to associate the idealised images associated with the symbol and merge with the marketed product o f LP. The advertisers wish to make LP symbolic and iconic and to naturally compel viewers to place LP into their symbolic category of what embodies New Zealand as a nation and what it is to be a New Zealander. New Zealand is multicultural nation and this has been understood by the advertiser by portraying a range of different New Zealander within the thirty second video clip. This is most effectively portrayed in the end scene of summer barbeque. The barbeque is made up both Pakeha and Maori attendees who seen chatting, relaxing, and drinking LP. The use of people who literally look like they are New Zealanders localises the advertisement for effective absorption of values. Although New Zealand has many cultural issues such as regular Treaty of Waitangi disputes, these are brushed aside and New Zealand mixed culture is produced and perceived as positive. Although LP is part of a global multinational company Coke-Cola this is ignored and the advertisement is produced with a distinct New Zea land feel leading consumers to believe the drink is of local origin, in particular the small town of Paeora which the drink shares its name. The advertiser claim ‘world famous in New Zealand’ also slants towards the projection the soft drink is locally produced and therefore competes on a level international soft drinks cannot. (Bell 1996). A key component of nationalism is an understanding of history and the intermingled of both of New Zealand major ethnic races pays homage to New Zealand colonial past and assimilating cultures. LP understands that the world is rapidly changing and globalisation is rapidly expanding and increasing the dominance of transnational marketplace therefore produced affirmation of ‘New Zealand† and nationalism with their stubbies advertisement to showcase and assert distinctiveness of the nation’s unique local, regional, and national identity (Bell 1996). â€Å"Any nation’s existence relies on some sense of loyalty to that nation, on patriotic sentiment, on awareness of nationalism. A sense of shared purpose, a pride in a place, acknowledgment of national success. All these combine in a sense of belonging (Bell 1996)†. Michael Billing noted that Billing noted that every day we are reminded that we belong to a nation through routine occurrences including using passports, the language of political speakers, the media and academia (Billing 1995 ). However through examination it has become apparent that nationalism has become a tool by advertisers to foster nationalist feelings to their audience. The advertisement establishes and produces New Zealand as a nation and then reproduces and represents New Zealand as an LP loving nation. In advertising, the power of recognition is manipulated for economic ends. The ‘stubbies’ advertisement shows an idealised version of New Zealand is order to create a collective inter est in the product. Bibliography Bell, Claudia. Inventing NZ: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity. Auckland: Penguin Books, 1996. Billig, Michael. Banal Nationlism . London : Sage Publishing , 1995 . PRIDEAUX, JILLIAN. Consuming icons: nationalism and advertising in Australia. Nations and Nationlism (School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland) 15, no. 4 (2009): 616–635. Vist4ads. LP stubbies. 2005. http://www.visit4ads.com/details.cfm?adid=20954 (accessed 08 2, 2013). ZALA VOLCIC and MARK ANDREJEVIC. Nation Branding in the Era of Commercial Nationalism. International Journal of Communication 5, 2011: 598–618.

Marketing Communications Mix Strategies | Tesco

Marketing Communications Mix Strategies | Tesco Although the 4P characterization has led to widespread use of the term promotion for describing communications with prospects and customers, the term marketing communications is preferred by most marketing practitioners as well as by many educators. Consider that we may want to use marketing communications to refer to the collection of advertising, sales promotions, public relations, event marketing, and other communication devices. Promotion is considered as Sales Promotion. (Shimp 2007) {Terence A. Shimp (2007), Integrated Marketing Communications in Advertising and Promotion, 7th Edition, Ohio, Thomson South-Western, P: 4.} Marketing Communication is used by organisations to communicate with customers with respect to their product offerings. In this sense, Marketing Communication is one side of the communication process with customers. Market research, in which suppliers seek to elicit information on consumer requirements from consumers, is the complementary component of the communication process. The following summarises this very simply: (Rowley 1998). Source: Promotion and marketing communications in the information marketplace. According to Rowley producer should communicate to reach the customers and in turn should listen to the customers needs and requirements to enhance the product and service. Tesco proudly announced that one of the reasons to its Success is listening to their Customers and its suppliers. Tesco has adopted multiple qualitative research techniques to reach their customers such as focus groups, accompanied shops, home visits to collect the feedback in order to straighten the things and respond quickly. Modestly they say Its simple we listen and respond, providing customers with what they tell us they want. { [online] < http://www.tesco.com/talkingtesco/listening/> (March 19, 2010)}. Marketing Communications Mix also know as Promotional Mix consists of Advertising, Personal Selling, Sales Promotion, Direct Marketing, Internet Promotion and Publicity. Marketing communications Mix strategies: Source: Promotion and marketing communications in the information marketplace. Push Strategies: A promotion strategy that calls for using the sales forces and trade promotion to push the product through channels. The producer promotes the product to wholesalers, the wholesalers promote to retailers and the retailers promote to consumers (Kotler et al. 2005). Pull Strategy: A promotion strategy that calls for spending a lot on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand. If the strategy is successful, consumers will ask their retailers for the product, the retailers will ask wholesalers and the wholesalers will ask the producers (Kotler et al. 2005). Push Strategy aims at Intermediaries, its make good use of Sales promotion and Personal Selling. Pull Strategy aims at direct customers, its make good use of Advertisements. Advertising: Source: You tube : Tesco Christmas 2009 advertisement. [Online]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8y85QTa1g8 (March 19, 2010) This Advertisement is about promotional offers at Tesco for Christmas, It states that everyone could enjoy a finest Christmas at Tesco with an affordable range of products. Advertising is a paid form of non-interactive showcase of products and services to the consumer through print media or other common advertising channels (Rowley 1998). Advertising Models: AIDA Model: Attention: Making customer aware of the product. Interest: Developing an interest in the product. Desire: Making customer think that he needs the product. Action: Purchase is made. Designing communication strategies is important to identify whether the objective is to draw to attention, cultivate interest, stimulate desire or provoke action(Rowley 1998). Communication Objectives: Source: Promotion and marketing communications in the information marketplace. From the above objectives, AIDA is strongly recommended (Rowley 1998). According to Rowley a communication strategy should have a message and it should go along with its communication objective. The message should reflect the unique selling proposition (USP) of the products. The organizations should concentrate on elements of the message that need to be considered are: Content, Structure, Format and Source. Importantly these Advertisements should be target oriented; the Organisations should often have a strategy on the market to target. Impact of Advertisements: A good communication strategy would yield results per expectations. It should be market oriented and should reach market without any cost to the market. Directive would leave an impact, provided its ethical. Positives of Advertisements: It can create awareness in the targeted market. It can reach markets far and wide. Positioning of the product and Brand image could earn customers trust. Negatives of Advertisements: It cannot answer the customer queries. Always may not provoke customers to purchase decision. Too many Advertisements may cause audience loose concentration. Personal Selling According to Baker (2003) personal selling can be defined as the personal contact with one or more purchasers for the purpose of making a sale. To be effective, marketing management needs to integrate personal selling with other promotional elements, with other organizational functions such as distribution and production, and with the customer and competitive structures prevailing in the market. Different stages in Personal Selling: Generating leads and identifying prospects Pre-call planning The approach The presentation Overcoming objections Closing Follow-up. Baker says Personal selling is a two-way approach and it employs push strategy and is relatively expensive per contact and according to a 2001 survey, the average cost of an outside salesperson is in excess of 55,000 pounds per annum. The actual time spent on face-face customer communication is typically around 20-30 per cent of working hours. Sales management issues: Selection of sales Team Training Leadership and supervision Remuneration Evaluation and control Impact of Personal Selling: Efficient sales force often yield results Personal selling increases the customers interest and desire on the product and it could lead to purchase Personal Selling should act as forum for answers to all the customers queries Positives of Personal Selling: High Interactive communication between the buyer and the seller Detailed product information and features Relationships can develop Negatives of Personal Selling: Cost oriented Team Not appropriate approach towards thousands of prospective buyers Sales closure time could lead to customer dissatisfaction Sales Promotion: Sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product or service (Kotler et al. 2005). As per the above definition, sales promotion offers reasons that would achieve immediate sales. It seeks to lure people to buy now. Promotional Tools: Samples Coupons Rebates Price packs Premiums Advertising specialties Patronage rewards Point-of-purchase Competitions, lotteries and games Impact of Sales Promotion: It helps to lure consumers and attract them from competitors Customers trying our products, giving a chance to retain them Positives of Sales Promotion: Increase immediate sales Interim strategic tool Negatives of Sales Promotion: Not for long-term usage, as customers may get used to this. Too much involvement into sales promotion may harm the brand image Seasonal Promotions: Advertisement Models: Internet promotion: Its interlinked with Place i.e. Mix in Mix. Sales Promotion: Public relations: Promotional Strategies: Pull Strategy: Push Strategy: Mercer (1996), in emphasizing that communication must be a two-way process, says (p. 309): The ideal form of promotion is the conversation which takes places between the expert sales professional and his or her customer. It is interactive and conversation is specific to the needs of both. Other forms of promotion, which deal in the average needs of groups of people can only hope to approximate to this ideal. Promotional Mix: Place: Introduction: The main purpose of this report is to determine the importance of the Location in retailing. It includes an analysis of Tesco and Corner Shop locations by taking into account all the factors of well chosen place for retail store as well as current situation on the Market. Report discusses the role location played in the success of those retailers. It also tries to assign the importance of the Location in comparison to other elements of the retail Marketing Mix. First Tesco Metro has been opened in 1992 and are usually located in the town and city centre locations (http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.aspx? pointerid=3DB554FCAE344BD88EEEEFA63D71B831). They are usually smaller than ordinary Tesco store but bigger than Tesco Express with the size varying between approximately 7,000 to 15,000 sq.ft. Source: Online Available http://www.tesco.com/talkingtesco/stores/. Psychology Analysis: The Epic of Gilgamesh Psychology Analysis: The Epic of Gilgamesh Jungian analysis is a deep psychology of the unconscious and includes the interpretation of dreams as well. Jung believes that most dreams are attitude-compensations. The attitudes that dreams balance are those of the ego. Carl Jung believed that myths and dreams were the main way to the self-realization because he believed that they allowed humans to understand and relate to parts of their psyches which would have otherwise been unreachable. Dreams offer the ego information, advice, constructive criticism, and even sometimes wisdom. If the ego is open to acceptance rather than defensive, it can evaluate these alternative perspectives and decide whether to accept or reject them. Jung developed a process called individuation, which was the therapy he created which tries to deepen a persons experiences psychologically. Responding to dreams required interaction of many aspects of the personality, which he titled the archetypes: the Self, shadow, animus, and anima. He defined an archetyp e as a universal and recurring image, pattern, or motif representing a typical human experience. Archetypes are patterns and behaviors; are primordial images which are part of our psyche and social systems. Archetypes can grow on their own and present themselves in many different ways. When people dream, they form images unconsciously. The images that are formed in these dreams correspond to the sacred images, stories, and myths of primitive people. Archetypes are similar to instincts and they also reveal themselves in peoples unconscious by these powerful symbolic images; they are collective meaning they are held in common by a social group. They appear simple on the surface, but they are very complex. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest written stories in the history of earth and it comes from ancient Sumeria. Many believe it was first written on clay tablets, showing the adventures of the historical King of Uruk-Gilgamesh. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, he travels between his c onscious and unconscious in order to solve inner problems and grow out of his own fear of death. Through the Jungian analysis one can determine how the myth of Gilgamesh fits into the unconscious of every human. Gilgamesh is a king that oppresses his kingdom and forces his people to build a wall around his land, which inside he is guilty of committing atrocious acts. Gilgamesh is one third mortal and two thirds divine, because his mother was a goddess. He is an arrogant king who constantly oppresses and wrongs the people of his kingdom. He is struggling throughout the epic with the gods, his kingdom, and most importantly, himself. In order for an individual to reach their unconscious, there needs to be a specific dreamer established an in Gilgamesh, the dreamer is the hero of the story-Gilgamesh. He must go through the process of individuation, which is the psychic life of the individual, the archetypes interact in a pattern which both reflects and fosters the development of the personality (Devinney and Thury, 2005). The natural process that individuals go through which causes the need for self-realization and leads people to explore and integrate parts of themselves which they have never l ooked into before is individuation. It helps people become different from others in their society. In order for Gilgamesh to discover and uncover who he truly is, he must encounter the shadow, the animus and anima and most importantly-the self. In the epic, the ego is the conscious I of the self that works to produce and preserve its self-defined identity. In the process of individuation, the conscious coming-to-terms with ones own inner self usually begins with a cutting off of the individuals personality and the hardships that go along with that process. The second archetype in the individuation process is the anima and animus. Jung stated the anima was the unconscious feminine component of males and the animus was the unconscious masculine component of females. Jung believed the anima and animus act as guides to the unconscious, and that every individual must form one and building that connection is a very difficult but rewarding process, and that it is necessary for psychological growth. They are determined by the gender of the dreamer themselves. Due to Gilgamesh being a male, he has an anima, which is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a manes psyche. The first animia in the epic is Gilgameshs mother, the goddess Ninsun. In the beginning of the myth the reader discovers that Gilgamesh is worshiped like a god, even though he is part human as well. His mother acts as a guide and confidant throughout the myth, and he receives word of Enkidu through dreams that his mother interprets for him. She leads him to the next stage of growth for himself by giving him the information about his new companion, Enkidu. For Gilgamesh, he still is unaware of a lot of his own personality and this is where the third archetype comes into play. The shadow is the same sex as the individual, but has the complete opposite personality and self-image. The shadow for Gilgamesh is Enkidu, he is a replica god of Gilgamesh himself-but he is uncivilized and beast-like. He represents the great opposite of Gilgamesh, but they are identical in authority and vigor. He first appears to Gilgamesh as an enemy, informing the shepherds that he will go to Gilgameshs kingdom and will challenge him in front of his people and state that he is the strongest around. They quarrel in Gilgameshs city and he beats Enkidu which caused them to become friends and also causes Gilgamesh to have a bigger insight to his unconscious. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel through the forest, they encounter another shadow archetype. Together they embark on a trip into the forest where Humbaba, the king of this forest lives. Humbaba signifies all t he personality characteristics that Gilgamesh wants, including strength, courage and glory. Gilgamesh believes that by killing Humbaba he will create some immortality for himself and his people. On their way back home, Gilgamesh comes to an anima, Ishtar the goddess of fertility. She is drawn to Gilgameshs beauty and strength and she recommends for him to marry her, but Gilgamesh refuses and continues to insult her with stories of her past lovers, which causes her to become extremely angry with him. Ishtar is a negative anima, who can cause Gilgamesh to demolish himself. Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh but Enkidu kills the bull, which causes him in the end to suffer a slow death from the gods, and ultimately hurts Gilgamesh because he lost his comrade. With Enkidus death, Gilgamesh goes crazy and eventually becomes his shadow and takes on those characteristics. Gilgamesh turns away from his kingdom and takes on the beast-like personality Enkidu displayed when they first met. A third shadow archetype is displayed in the land of Utnapishtim, where Gilgamesh winds up on his search for immortality. Utnapishtim is the land of gods, where they live and thrive. Gilgamesh longs for the gods immortality, it is shown here the fear that he has for death and why this search is so important to him. The gods inform him if he stays awake for seven days and seven nights and they will grant him with immortality-but he fails at this challenge and therefore he fails at reaching his goal of becoming immortal. On his return back to his kingdom Gilgamesh has won his wish of immortality in a different sense, he found his self through the journey. By encountering all the archetypes Gilgamesh builds his inner self and builds his personality in many different ways. The archetypes he encountered represented his unconscious dreams and wishes, and he discovers his self through his unconscious discoveries. Using Jungs theoretical perspective to analyze the epic myth of Gilgamesh, one discovers Jungs belief that myths and dreams were intertwined. Jung attempted to uncover ways that individuals could determine their inner selves and he found that myths and dreams were a way to reach into ones unconscious. Through Jungian analysis, a reader can interpret a myth to better understand the personality characteristics of humans. The fear of death that haunted Gilgamesh also haunts many individuals in our society and societies prior. This epic shows the reader that any individual can discover their inner self through understanding different archetypes including, shadows, animas and animus, and lastly inner selves which will help them break into their own unconscious. Gilgameshs heroic journey has been dignified because it is more than just a great journey story; it is also an unbelievable academic quest. Gilgamesh has courage and determination which is important for him to defeat the obstacles he was faced with during his journey, but he also must have undeterred tolerance, internal strength, and willful self-examination.

First-principles Calculations of Rare Earth Diffusivities

First-principles Calculations of Rare Earth Diffusivities First-principles calculations of rare earth (Y, La and Ce) diffusivities in bcc Fe ABSTRACT: The impurity diffusivities of rare earth elements, Y, La and Ce, in bcc Fe have been investigated by the first-principles calculations within nine-frequency model and semi-empirical corrections for magnetization. The microscopic parameters in the pre-factor and activation energy have been calculated. For the three elements, the solute-vacancy interactions are all attractive, and Y and La solute atoms more favorably bond to the vacancy. The solute-vacancy binding energy can be explained in terms of the combination of the distortion binding energy and the electronic binding energy, and the strain-relief effects accounts for larger portion of the binding energy for Y and La than that for Ce. The diffusion coefficients for Y and La are comparable, and predicted to be larger than that for Fe self-diffusion. Compared with Y and La, Ce shows large migration energy and weak solute-vacancy attractive interaction, which accounts for the lowest diffusivity of this element. Keywords: Diffusion; Rare earth; Bcc Fe; First-principles calculations 1. Introduction In the past years, the addition of rare earth (RE) elements has been regarded promising in steels [1-3]. A series of beneficial research for the development of Rare earth Addition have been focused on the purification and modification of inclusion, since RE elements are characterized by significant negative free energy changes for compound formations. RE doping also improve the high-temperature oxidation resistance of steels due to the reactive-element effect (REE) [4,5].In addition, the phase transformations, recrystallization behavior, and the corrosion resistance of steel can be improved by adding RE [6, 7]. Knowledge of all of these is essential to understand the influence of RE additions on the physical, chemical and various properties of steels. In spite of the progress so far in RE application, it is apparent that many questions still remain rather controversial. Data for the effects of rare earths on the surface and interfacial properties, surface tension, contact angle, etc., of steels, are unanswered, for the sake of precise solubilities of rare earths in iron and steels are still not available. Furthermore, accurate thermodynamic data are still unsatisfactory, to accurately predict these characteristics. Kinetic properties, in particular diffusion coefficients for RE, are necessary in understanding the underlying mechanism of RE’s above effects [8]. Therefore, the investigation of the diffusivity for these RE elements is expected to be useful in the context of developing RE steels. Although for diffusion in bcc Fe many data are available, nevertheless there is little experimental or calculated data for RE. For the three commonly used RE elements, Y, La and Ce, only the diffusion coefficient of Y has been reported [9].The purpose of the present work is to investigate the impurity diffusivities of rare earth elements, Y, La and Ce, in bcc Fe by the first-principles calculations within nine-frequency model and semi-empirical corrections for magnetization[10,11], calculate the associated solute-vacancy binding energies, migration energies, pre-factors and activation energies for these impurity diffusivities, as well as the self-diffusion coefficient of Fe, thus discuss the related factors of the diffusion coefficients. 2. Methodology The temperature dependence of diffusion coefficient D is expressed in the Arrhenius form D=D0exp(-Q/kBT). For bcc Fe, the Arrhenius plot of self-diffusion and solute diffusion in iron of the ferromagnetic state deviates downwards from the Arrhenius relationship extrapolated from the paramagnetic state [12]. This effect is attributed to the change of magnetization which affects the diffusion activation energy. The temperature dependent magnetization on the diffusion activation energy is well described by the following form [13]: QF(T)=QP[1+ÃŽ ±s(T)2] (1) where QF(T) and QP are the activation energies in the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic state, respectively; s(T) is the ratio of the magnetization of pure iron at a given temperature T to that at 0K, and has been experimentally measured [14,15]; the constant ÃŽ ± quantifies the extent of the influence of magnetic on activation energy. The measured value of ÃŽ ± for Fe self-diffusion is 0.074, in the case of the solute species investigated in this context that have no measured ÃŽ ± values available, the values can be estimated from a semi-empirical linear relationship with the induced change in local magnetization on Fe atoms in the first and second neighbor shells of a solute atom [16]. The first-principles calculations give direct access to the magnitude of the activation energy in the fully ordered ferromagnetic state (T=0K). Given the values of ÃŽ ± and s(T), we can compute QP through the relation , and QF(T) from Eq. (1). We based the diffusion calculations on the assumption that the mechanism of diffusion is primarily monovacancy mediated. For self-diffusion and solute diffusion on a bcc lattice, the diffusion coefficient can be expressed as following [10,17]: Dself=a2f0Cvw0 (2) Dsolute=a2f2Cvw2(-ΔGb/kBT) (3) where a is the bcc lattice constant, f0=0.727 is the self-diffusion correlation factor, f2 is the correlation factor for solute diffusion which depends on the relative jump rates for a vacancy to different sites neighboring the solute atom. Cv denotes the equilibrium vacancy concentration, can be written as Cv=exp(ΔSf /kB)exp(-ΔHf /kBT), where ΔSf and ΔHf are the vacancy formation enthalpy and entropy, respectively, the harmonic approximation makes these two become temperature-independent constants. and kB is Boltzmann’s constant. w0 and w2 are the vacancy hopping frequencies for Fe and solute atoms to exchange with a nearest-neighbor vacancy, respectively. Based on transition state theory (TST), the vacancy hopping frequency w is written as , where and are the phonon frequencies in the initial state and transition state, and the product in the denominator ignores the unstable mode; ΔHmig is the migration energy, gives the energy difference for the diffus ing atom located at its initial equilibrium lattice position and the saddle-point position. The solute-vacancy binding free energy ΔGb can be expressed as ΔGb =ΔHbTΔSb, where ΔHb and ΔSb are the binding enthalpy and entropy, respectively. The correlation factor f2 can be calculated using the nine-frequency model developed by Le Claire [11] which involves different jump frequencies of vacancies to their first neighbor position in the presence of the solute atoms, as illustrated in Fig. 1. In this model, the interaction of solute-vacancy is assumed up to second neighbor distance. The nine frequencies shown in Fig. 1 correspond to all of the distinct vacancy jumps, including the host Fe atom jump w0 without impurity. The detailed calculation procedures could be found in Ref. [10]. Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the nine-frequency model for the bcc Fe crystalline with a solute atom. The arrows indicate the direction of the vacancy jumps. The numbers in the circle represent the neighboring site of the solute atom. For convenience, we can represent the self- and solute diffusion equations (Eqs.(2) and (3)) in Arrhenius form to obtain the pre-factor and activation energy of diffusion. By combining the above Eqs., the diffusion coefficient for Fe self-diffusion and solute diffusion can be expressed as: (4) For self-diffusion, the pre-factor is, and the activation energy in the fully ordered ferromagnetic state given as . Also, the solute diffusion coefficient can be expressed in an Arrhenius form with the pre-factor is, and. The first-principles calculations presented here are carried out using the Vienna Ab Initio Simulation Package(VASP) with the projector augmented wave(PAW) method and the generalized gradient approximation of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof functional(GGA-PBE) [18]. The computations performed within a 4à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´4à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´4 supercell including 128 atoms. The binding, vacancy formation and migration energies were calculated with 300eV plane-wave cutoff and 12à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´12à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´12 k-point meshes. All calculations were performed spin polarized, with a ferromagnetic ordering of the Fe moments. The residual atomic forces in the relaxed configurations were lower than 0.01eV/Ã…. The transition states with the saddle point along the minimum energy diffusion path for vacancy migration were determined using nudged elastic band (NEB) method [19] as implemented in VASP. We adopt the harmonic approximation (HA) to consider the contribution of normal phonon frequencies to free en ergy. The normal phonon frequencies were calculated using the direct force-constant approach as implemented in the Alloy Theoretic Automated Toolkit (ATAT) [20] package. Similar cutoff energy, k-point mesh size and supercell size used for the total energies were used for the vibrational calculations. 3. Result and discussion Table 1 illustrates our calculated vacancy formation, migration and binding energies, as well as the constant ÃŽ ± for solute species, the associated activation energies for self- and solute-diffusion in the paramagnetic and fully ordered ferromagnetic state. For pure bcc Fe, the vacancy formation energy and migration energy obtained here are consistent with the reported range of values, ΔHf=2.16-2.23 eV and ΔHmig=0.55-0.64 eV [10,21,22]. For Y impurity in bcc Fe, the calculated vacancy binding energy and activation energy in full ordered ferromagnetic state also compare well with the previous first principles work [9,23], in which ΔHb=-0.73 eV and =2.26 eV. It can be seen that Y and La have smaller activation energy than that for Fe self-diffusion, while Ce is predicted to have a lager value of activation energy than that for Fe self-diffusion, in both the ordered ferromagnetic and paramagnetic state. Table 1 Vacancy formation energy ΔHf , solute-vacancy binding energy ΔHb, migration energy ΔHmig, the ferromagnetic activation energy and the paramagnetic activation energy QP; the variable dependence parameter of activation energy on magnetization ÃŽ ± (the value for Fe is taken from experimental measurements, while the values for Y, La and Ce have been estimated from first-principles calculations). Solute-vacancy binding energy plays a crucial role in understanding solute diffusion kinetics. From Table 1 it can be seen that referring to the nearest-neighbor solute-vacancy pairs, the binding energies are all negative, which implies the solute-vacancy pairs are favorable. Specifically, Y and La impurities are computed to have higher values of solute-vacancy binding energies -0.69 eV and -0.66 eV, respectively, while that for Ce is -0.43 eV. To obtain information on the origin of these attractive behaviors, we decompose the total binding energy into the distortion binding energyand the electronic binding energy as [24] . The distortion binding energy is the energy that can be gained by reducing the distortion in the bcc Fe matrix when a solute atom and a vacancy combine to form a solute-vacancy pair, and can be expressed as: (5) where and can be calculated as follows: after the supercell containing a solute-vacancy pair (or a substitutional atom) has been fully relaxed, the solute-vacancy pair (or the substitutional atom) is removed from the system, then the total energy can be calculated. denotes the total energy of pure bcc Fe supercell, and is the total energy of the supercell containing a vacancy. Then can be calculated from . The calculated energy decomposition for solute-vacancy binding is shown in Table 2. The distortion energies (-0.31 to -0.65 eV) for all solute elements(Y, La and Ce) are negative, and much bigger than their corresponding electronic binding energies (-0.04 to -0.12 eV). This implies that the distortion energy is the major part of the total binding energy, i.e. the strain relief effect contribute significantly to the interaction between the impurity atom and the vacancy, especially for the solute Y and La, which accounted for 94.2% and 97.0% of the total binding energy, respecti vely. Table 2 Decomposition of the total solute-vacancy binding energy into distortion binding energy and electronic binding energy. The correlation factor f2 is related to the probability of the reverse jump of a solute atom to its previous position [25]. Table 3 lists the calculated values of correlation factors for Y, La and Ce at representative temperatures of 850, 1000 and 1150K. The correlation factors for Ce is nearly a constant close to 1, while the Y and La diffusion correlation factors decrease with increasing temperature, corresponding to the weak solute-vacancy binding for Ce and the strong solute-vacancy binding for Y and La. Therefore, the Ce atom is the most difficult to return back to its original position in the temperature range of our investigation. Including the smallest binding energy, highest migration energy and correlation factor, provides an explanation for the low diffusivity of Ce atom. Table 3 Correlation factors (f2) for Y, La and Ce solute-diffusion at representative temperatures of 850, 1000 and 1150K. Table 4 lists the calculated diffusion activation energies and pre-factors for Fe self-diffusion and Y, La and Ce impurity diffusion. For pure bcc Fe, we find our calculated results are in good agreement with the published values. For Y impurity in bcc Fe, the calculated activation energy in full ordered ferromagnetic state also compare well with the previous first principles work, while the pre-factor is as much as two orders of magnitude lager than the reported value. The experimental or calculated diffusion coefficients of La and Ce are not available to the best of our knowledge. Fig. 2 presents a direct comparison between the calculated and published temperature dependent diffusion coefficients for Fe self-diffusion and Y solute diffusion. For Fe self-diffusion, the calculated values are in good agreement with Huang et al. [10] and Nitta et al.[24], but smaller than the measured data of Seeger [25], this discrepancy may be due to the impurity, defects and grain sizes of the testing materials, and instrumental accuracy. For Y solute diffusion, the diffusion coefficient values are higher by a factor of 4-5 than those due to Murali et al. [9], this discrepancy can be attributed to the harmonic vibration and the influence of the bulk magnetization on the activation energy. The temperature dependence of the solute diffusion coefficients for Y, La and Ce in bcc Fe matrix are plotted in Fig. 3, where the Fe self-diffusion coefficient is also included. It can be clearly seen that the diffusion coefficients for Y and La are higher than the self-diffusion in pure bcc Fe, while the diffusion coefficients for Ce are lower than that of Fe self-diffusion, over the entire temperature range below the ÃŽ ±-ÃŽ ³ phase transition. For the case of Ce solute diffusivity, the lowest value of diffusion coefficient originates from the largest migration energy and the smallest solute-vacancy binding energy. For the two faster diffusers, Y and Ce, which have the comparable diffusion coefficients, we can observe that the diffusion rate of La is higher than that of Y at temperatures below 930 K, but this relation reverses with temperature rising above 930 K. This is attributed to the effects of the diffusion pre-factors of these two elements. Therefore, the investigation for diffusion should also be based on detailed considerations of the diffusion pre-factor, including the contribution of the correlation factor, rather than the vacancy formation energy and migration energy. The diffusion properties of solute elements (Y, La and Ce) in bcc Fe matrix have been studied using DFT calculations in conjunction with the Le Claire nine-frequency model. Of the three impurities that we investigated, the diffusion coefficients for Y and La are comparable, and predicted to be larger than the Fe self-diffusion. In contrast, the calculated results indicate that Ce diffuse slower than Fe self-diffusion. The slowest diffusion rate of Ce originates from that the solute-vacancy binding energy for this element is lower than that of Y and La, and the former has higher migration energy as well. In the case of Y and La, the small direction deviation between the trends of the diffusion coefficients of these two impurities, mainly comes from the contribution of the diffusion correlation factor. The authors are grateful for the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51101083) and the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia (No.2013MS0813). References [1] M.F. Yan, C.S. Zhang, Z. Sun, Appl. Surf. Sci. 289 (2014) 370. [2] W. Hao, W.T. Geng, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. Phys. Res. B 280 (2012) 22. [3] Y.H. Yoo, Y.S. Choi, J.G Kim, Y.S. Park, Corros. Sci. 52 (2010) 1123. [4] S.K. Samanta, S.K. Mitra, T.K. Pal, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 430 (2006) 242. [5] R. Thanneeru,S. Patil,S. Deshpande,S. Seal, Acta Mater. 55 (2007) 3457. [6] S.T. Kim, S.H. Jeon, I.S. Lee, Y.S. Park, Corros. Sci. 52(2010) 1897. [7] H.Z. Li, H.T. Liu, Z.Y. Liu, G.D.Wang, Mater. Charact. 103 (2015) 101. [8] D. Simonovic, M.H.F. Sluiter, Phys. Rev. B 79 (2009) 054304. [9] D. Murali, B.K. Panigrahi , M.C. Valsakumar, C.S. Sundar, J. Nucl. Mater. 419 (2011) 208. [10] S.Y. Huang, D.L. Worthington, M. Asta, V. Ozolins, G. Ghosh, P. K. Liaw, Acta Mater. 58 (2010) 1982. [11] A.D. Le Claire, Philos. Mag. 21 (1970) 819. [12] S.Takemoto, H. Nitta, Y. ijima, Y.Yamazaki, Philos. Mag. 87 (2007) 1619. [13] L. Ruch, D.R. Sain, H.L. Yeh, L.A. Girifalco, J. Phys. Chem. Solids 37 (1976) 649. [14] H.H. Potter, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 146 (1934) 362. [15] J. Crangle, G.M. Goodman, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 321 (1971) 477. [16] S. Takemoto, H. Nitta, Y. Iijima, Y. Yamazaki, Philos. Mag. 87 (2007) 1619. [17] M. Mantina, Y. Wang, R. Arroyave, L.Q. Chen, Z.K. Liu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 (2008) 215901. [18] G. Kresse, J. Hafner, Phys. Rev. B 47 (1993) 558. [19] G. Henkelman, H. Jonsson, J.Chem. Phys. 113 (2000)9978. [20] A. van de Walle,M. Asta,G. Ceder, Calphad 26 (2002) 539. [21] C. Zhang, J. Fu, R.H. Li, P.B. Zhang, J.J. Zhao, C. Dong, J. Nucl. Mater. 455 (2014) 354. [22] H. Ullmaier, Atomic Defects in Metals, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 1991. [23] O.I. Gorbatov, P.A. Korzhavyi, A.V. Ruban, B. Johansson, Yu.N. Gornostyrev, J. Nucl. Mater. 419 (2011) 248. [24] X.S. Kong, X.B. Wu, Y.W. You, C.S. Liu, Q.F. Fang, J.L. Chen, G.N. Luo, Z.G. Wang, Acta Mater. 66 (2014) 172. [25] M. Mantina, Y. Wang, L.Q. Chen, Z.K. Liu, C. Wolverton, Acta Mater. 57 (2009) 4102. [26] H. Nitta, T. Yamamoto, R. Kanno, K. Takasawa, T. Iida, Y. Yamazaki, S. Ogu, Y. Iijima, Acta Mater. 50 (2002) 4117. [27] A. Seeger, Phys. Status Solidi A 167 (1998) 289.

Pastoral Ministry Essay -- Religion, Christ, Church, God

Christ is the leader of the Church, Paul in Ephesians 1:22 said â€Å"God placed everything under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church† however, God entrusted the authority to lead to his servant whom he set them aside to lead the community. Pastor as a public Leadership is to lead community. A person who is called by God to lead public has a responsibility to be in the community, with the community and for the community. One of best questions raised in the class during public leadership discussion was â€Å"How we can be a community pastor rather than just a church pastor?† This really a kind of question we are to consider as pastor especially as rural congregation pastor. In most cases when pastor are called to ministry, especially the first call, what is in pastor’s mind is not the community in general but only the congregation he/she is going to serve. As a pastor we are not just called to deal with the Spiritual life of p eople in the Church, we are also responsible to take part in the leadership of socio-economic, political, cultural and others aspect of the whole community we are called to. God calls pastor through congregation, whenever God calls it is not because who we are but because whom God is. Jesus does not says to the eleven disciples, all authority has been given to you, therefore go†¦ what is said was all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18). All the power and the authority belong to God, however, God entrusted his authority to us to go and be a servant. Who is going to be a good leader? Leading does not demand perfectness; the only perfect leader of his people is God. Paul did not pressed on the perfectness of young Timothy we he gave for public l... ...ng out and proclaims the gospel for unchurhed, and pastors should focus on internal evangelicalism. It is hard to evangelize other before we got evangelized ourselves. Most Churches tries to evangelize other by giving away their resources, being a good steward is good to promote the work of evangelism; however, pastor should focus first on evangelizing the members of their congregation. Today majority of Church goers do not understand their bible. When God ordered Moses to build the Tabernacle, its construction started from the inner most of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25:10), the last work to be done to finish the Tabernacle was the outer parts ( Exodus 40:33). Here I want to indicate that the Pastor should start the work evangelism from the pew to the community. To produce good evangelist the pastor should work on making his congregation biblical well versed.

Man’s Struggles of Fate by the Curse of Birth in Eugene ONeills A Lon

Man’s Struggles of Fate by the Curse of Birth in Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey into Night deals with tragedy and its attendant focus on character rather than plot. Another emphasis on the play is on the past that ceases to haunt his characters. O’Neill’s characters of A Long Day’s Journey into Night struggle with the past. These characters all seem to agree with Mary Tyrone who claims that a person â€Å"can’t help being what the past made him† (Baym 1313). The fact that a character can struggle with his or her past suggests that the past is something open to question, changeable, and perhaps even unknowable. Patricia Schroeder says â€Å"The past as it invades the present or as individual characters interpret it had little currency on the formally realistic stage† (Schroeder 30). O’Neill’s characters of A Long Day’s Journey into Night reveal the ongoing past gradually and continuously throughout the play. As one reads the play, he or she can see O’Neill deal with his own past through these characters. For Eugene O’Neill, there is only one real subject for drama: The subject here is the same ancient one that always and always will be the one subject for drama, and that is man’s struggle with his own fate. The struggle used to be with the gods, but it is now with himself, his own past. Implicit in this statement are a number of O’Neill’s fundamental principles in this play and his own life. O’Neill embeds principles of Greek tragedy within a naturalistic play and so fully realizes his lifelong goal of dramatizing â€Å"man and this struggle with †¦ himself, his own past† (Schroeder 30). In this play it is, indeed, the â€Å"struggle† to understand the formative past that s... ...less present of the Tyrones†. â€Å"O’Neill not only challenged the distinction between the past and present, he also broke down the barrier between stage and spectator that had been erected along with the proscenium arch†. The man’s struggle with self, fate and the past is a common theme among many modernist writers. Through O’Neill’s experimentation of eliciting an emotional response through his realistic settings and characters, we learn more about the â€Å"common man.† We all struggle with our pasts and our place in this world. At least through works like A Long Day’s Journey into Night we know that we are not alone in having a â€Å"dysfunctional† family with problems and conflicts. We all have problems, struggles and fears. These elements are just a part of life. Life is taking our past and learning from it so that we can live our present and prepare for a future.

Disorders

The research states that in sexual trauma there is a prevalence of consequent axis II disorders, especially Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as well as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Substance Use Disorder (SUDS) (Yen et al. , 2002). This heavy correlation between PTSD, borderline personality disorder and substance abuse disorder, create complications in treatment (Ross, Dermatis, Levounis, and Galanter, 2003). The goal of the present paper is three-fold.First, it aims at reviewing current research and theoretical frameworks which are designed to measure the degree of the relationship between PTSD and BPD. It is also sought to trace how it is possible by seeing to the correlation to avoid or neutralize further psycho social problems while reducing harm in substance abuse prevention. Second, the researcher plans to analyze the implications of how failure to address these dynamics in reducing harm and treating co-occurring disturbances may further delay treatment and cr eate relapse.Finally, there is an analysis of the methodologies employed in the treatment theories presented. A particular emphasis is made on the Integrative Treatment Approach suggested by Najavits (2002) and the Dialectical Behavioural Therapy developed by Lineham (1993). The researcher attempts to explain how these theories influenced the understanding of this dilemma. Before proceeding to the first point, it is necessary to clarify the main theoretical concepts, such as BPD and PTSD.Speaking popularly, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is â€Å"a normal response to an abnormal event† (Schiraldi, 2000, p. 3). Being categorized by the American Psychiatric Association as one of the anxiety disorders, it is typically caused by either or several of the three types of traumatic events: Intentional Human causes, Unintentional Human causes, or Acts of Nature. The presence of the stressor as part of the diagnosis differentiates PTSD from other disorders and makes it a uniquel y complex phenomenon.Besides an exposure to the stressful event, American Psychiatric Association in the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994, paraphrased in Schiraldi, 2000) lists another four PTSD criteria: persistent (more than one month) re-experiencing of the trauma (this category of symptoms is titled â€Å"intrusive memories† in Johnson, 2004), persistent (more than one month) avoidance of trauma-associated stimuli and suppression of general responsiveness (â€Å"avoidance behavior according to Johnson, 2004), persistent (more than one month) symptoms of hyperarousal (or, according to Johnson, 2004, â€Å"hypervigilance†), and disruption of psychological and functional equilibrium. In its turn, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) from the viewpoints of attachment theory and developmental psychopathology is defined as â€Å"a highly prevalent, chronic, and debilitating psychiatric problem† associated with the fo llowing symptoms: â€Å"a pattern of chaotic and self-defeating interpersonal relationships, emotional lability, poor impulse control, angry outbursts, frequent suicidality, and self-mutilation† (Levy, 2005, p. 259).Kernberg (2004), who considered the organization of the personality to be crucially determined by affective responses as displayed under conditions of peak affect states, listed â€Å"identity diffusion and the †¦ predominance of primitive defensive operations centering on splitting† among the key symptoms of this psychological dysfunction noting that they are accompanied by â€Å"the presence of good reality testing† (p. 99). The researcher meant that although the patient imagined himself living in the paranoid and distorted reality, he differentiated between the self and other objects. It is true that many current researchers acknowledge the correlation between PTSD and BPD, the latter being treated as one type of personality disorders (PDs). Bremner (1999) conceptualized BPD as fitting to the psychiatric disorders associated with traumatic stress.From this perspective, an exposure to traumatic events and consequent stress affected structural and functional aspects of the brain so that stress-related psychiatric dysfunctions were developed. The viewpoint was supported by McGlashan et al. (2000) who as relying on the results of a descriptive, prospective, longitudinal, repeated-measures study of a clinical sample of four representative DSM-IV personality disorders called The Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study (CLPS) (N = 571) found a high rate of Axis II/II overlap. To specify, PTSD and BPD co-existed in almost a half of the sample. To be even more specific, Yen et al.(2002) conducted a longitudinal, prospective, naturalistic, multisite and cross-sectional study to analyze the correlation of the aforementioned two Axis II disorders within the population of 668 individuals between the ages of 18 and 45 years. Twenty-five percent of those participants (N = 167) exhibited BPD symptoms. Furthermore, BPD participants more often suffered from lifetime PTSD than patients with any other form of PDs (51% of those 191 individuals who reported of a history of traumatic exposure). Overall, Yen et al. (2002) hypothesized that BPD symptoms trigger vulnerability for traumatic exposure which is the key characteristic of PTSD. Bolton, Mueser, and Rosenberg (2006) observed that between 25% and 56% of individuals with BPD exhibit symptoms of current PTSD as compared to approximately 10% of other patients.Upon analysis of the two studies – the index one involving 275 mentally impaired inpatient and outpatient individuals with PTSD (30 patients with BPD among them) and the replication one involving 204 patients (20 people with BPD among them), the researchers stated that comorbid diagnoses of BPD and PTSD were associated with higher rates of severe anxiety and depression. Ross, Dermatis, Levou nis, and Galanter (2003) cited empirical evidence of comorbid PDs being highly associated with Substance Use Disorder (SUDS) in approximately 50% of the samples. They also shared a viewpoint that stress-related dysfunctions predicted worse treatment outcomes, for example, poorer psychosocial functioning, increase drug use, and lower retention rates.In a course of the eight-month research in a specialized inpatient dual diagnosis unit at a public hospital, the researchers observed the population of 100 patients, among which 53% displayed some kind of PDs. Seventy-four percent of the interviewees were targeted as having BPD, whereas twenty-five percent exhibited PTSD symptoms. Patients with comorbid disorders (dual and triple diagnoses) were more likely to abuse substance use (33% – alcohol; 32% – polysubstance; 25% – cocaine; 21% – cannabis; and 13% – heroin). Consequently, such individuals had more inpatient admissions and more severe symptom profi les than the ones with a single diagnosis. The difference between people with the single-, dual- and triple diagnoses was extremely evident in after-hospitalization treatment. Ross et al.(2003) argued that comorbidity of PDs as accompanied by SUDs should put the clinicians on alert as such individuals needed to be guided â€Å"at this critical junction† (p. 275) of a transition from the in- to out-patient environments so that they would be aware of the necessity to comply with after-care therapy. II†¦ The concluding section is dedicated to the analysis of the two innovative and effective therapeutic approaches to treating PDs as combined with SUDs: first, the Dialectical Behavioural Therapy developed by Lineham (1993) and, second, the Integrative Treatment Approach suggested by Najavits (2002). The former approach fits into the problem-solving therapeutic paradigm which is praised for the treatment allowing wide amplification and being clinically effective.Its core assum ption is that antisocial and inadequate behavioral patterns are explained by the scarcity of patients’ psychological resources to cope with their problems in an alternative acceptable manner. Lineham’s Dialectical Behavioural Therapy differentiates from other problem-solving alternatives in its particular attention to the effect of a specific diagnosis on the course of treatment and its extensive preventive measures against poor attendance. Linehan compared the outcomes of her dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) to the ones of standard outpatient-care methods to find that the ratio of patients who continued treatment with the assistance of a single therapist increased from 42 to 83 percent. The approach utilizes a range of cognitive-behavioural therapeutic techniques as based on a dialectic philosophy.On the one hand, the patient is helped to value his/her self as a precious and integrative phenomenon by eliminating the feelings of guilt, self-abomination and neglect . On the other hand, a therapist assists an individual with multiple disorders in finding stimuli for change. The core concept of the approach is the â€Å"skill† which is defined as â€Å"cognitive, emotional, and overt behavioral (or action) response repertoires together with their integration, which is necessary for effective performance† (Linehan, 1993, p. 329). The scholar described the four broad modules of skills: (1) mindfulness, (2) interpersonal effectiveness, (3) emotion regulation, and (4) distress tolerance.To proceed, the pioneer of this method listed three categories of skills training procedures: (1) skills acquisition, (2) skill strengthening, and (3) skill generalization. An introduction of new skills occurs at the first stage. At the further stages, a patient learns to manage the freshly acquired skills and project them onto the everyday environment. The Integrative Treatment Approach suggested by Najavits (2002) was designed specifically for treatin g PTSD and substance abuse. Therefore it is especially valuable for helping patients with multiple diagnoses. This therapeutic technique is a present-focused one so far as it helps patients to free themselves from the past traumatic experiences and enables them to practice in acquiring safety from trauma/PTSD and substance abuse.Being equally effective for single patients and groups of various backgrounds, Najavits’ methodology relies on the five principles. First, individuals with multiple disorders are stimulated to value safety as the main life goal in regard to relationships, thinking, behavior, and emotions. Second, they are guided into the integrated course of treatment, during which several dysfunctions are seen to at once. Third, individuals are helped in designing ideals to balance against the loss of ideals resulting in PTSD and substance abuse. Fourth, a range of exercises includes cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, case management practice. Finally, the method heavily relies on clinicians’ activities.