Historical Impact on Working Conditions (HR, Employee Labor and Research Paper - 1

Historical Impact on Working Conditions (HR, Employee Labor and Relations) - Research Paper Example The momentum of ‘cotton culture’ took off with deployment of large number of Black slaves. In 1790, it is estimated that 700,000 slave workers lived around Ohio River and Mason-Dixon Line (Reef, 2007, pp. XVI-XIX). Throughout eighteenth century, factories grew rapidly where profit was the chief motive. Without any legislation to protect workers rights, the situation was quite messy for laborers who often had to work 14 hours a day. Laborers often protested, but could not match the power of employers. In 1835, a strike was organized in Philadelphia for 10 hours in a day work. By the end of civil war, factories were more organized in technical terms with better equipments and tools. Coming up of railroads carried the next level of growth momentum. Yet, labors had little say on their workings. After the civil war, the struggle gained momentum from labors, though in unorganized and uncoordinated fashion. With little or no government assistance, it was tough to move forward (Reef, 2007, p. XIX). Although the term ‘collective bargaining’ was initially used in 1891 by economist Sidney Webb, it was introduced in raw form ever since the inception of trade unions soon after the post civil war period. Collective bargaining is a method of arbitration between firm and the agents of a unit of employees intended at arriving at deals that sets operational conditions. Collective agreements normally specify wage amounts, shift hours, training, security, extra hours pay, and rights to take part in factory or corporation issues. Working conditions slowly improved side-by-side with the growth of trade unions. Many labor legislations were passed that set standard rules for hiring and remunerating labors. The first key event in the US labor history was establishment of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886. AFL ran on the form of ‘craft unions’ and was conservative in the sense that it did not challenge capitalism per se. Instead, it was

U.S. Role in the Modern Middle East Essay Example for Free

U.S. Role in the Modern Middle East Essay For a period of more than sixty years, United States has been a prime player in politics of the Middle East. Since the 1991 Gulf War, Iran in the 50s and the time of contemporary Iraq devastation, the policy of United States has always created a big impact in the domestic affairs of the Middle East. For example, one of the current pervasive features is the Anti-Americanism in the present day public opinion of the Middle East. In this region, Israel is considered one of the best allies of the United States of America. Israel has been receiving aid from America since it was created in 1948. In fact, Israel receives a staggering amount of approximately $3 billion annually (Porter, 2010). This is a fact that foreign policy experts in the Middle East are supposed to be aware of. The Middle East is a hostile region and Israel requires guarantee from America on the security front. Moreover, the United States on the other hand relies on the Israel administration in several respects. For example, during the cold war, the Washington administration needed Israel so that it can counter communism. The United States needed Israel in formulation of a market economy approach in Middle East and again as a reliable ally in strategizing the Middle East policy projects. The foreign policy experts in Israel have several things they need to learn not only on what is happening today but also from history. According to Kaplan (1993), Arabist tradition dates back to the times of Eli Smith in 1827 who took to the Lebanese mountains to learn Arabic. The impact of Arabs however on the U. S. policy began in 1940s. This is the moment United States engaged itself actively in this region. Kaplan shows that the Arabs are just like â€Å"China hands† since they also had and still have skills Department of State needed such as reliable contacts, local culture knowledge and language. Arabs in State had that domination capacity in the Middle Eastern bureau and this enabled them to absorb several others to their viewpoint. Arabs are mostly bound in a small world of their own and thus during this time they lacked enough imagination on what were the interests of the United States in their region. Arabs want a pristine Middle East and for long they have been against its modernization. As Arabs strive to show the harmony between Arab- Islamic and Western culture, they loath the Greeks and Maronites. But of all, what they hate most is the Israelis. They blame them that they spoiled the century-old idyll. For the policy makers thus, there is needed for them to understand that America’s continued support for Israel angers Arabs and once made many of them to turn to anti-Semitism. Arabs carry old grudges which make them not to see the value Israel has on United States. Kaplan in general wants to show the policy makers that the issues concerning Israel are not just about Israel and oil but there is need for the country to devote to Arabs since they are part and parcel of the American history. In as much as America may decide to concentrate on what is happening within the boundaries of Israel, it should not be forgotten that the relations that Israel has with its neighbors determine the outcome. According to Bronson (2006), oil for example has always been a significant factor in Saudi-U. S. relationship as well as in all the rest of the Saudi dealings. This can hardly be otherwise for this country since it carries almost a quarter of the available oil resources in the globe and its oil exports carries between 90% and 95% of the overall export earnings. It is however important to state that even if oil offers a good explanation of what America wants in this region, it is not possible to explain the relationship strength. Thus, decision makers in the United States have to determine the relationships needed to be sustained and in what manner they should be maintained. The policy makers may be required to know that peace is the main solution to the major problems experienced in Lebanon and this will only be achieved if Lebanese are in a position to love their siblings more as it seems as if they hate them. According to Friedman (1989), he confesses that the internal divisions in Israel have to be papered afresh so that a new political life may take route. Even if Friedman looks like he has exaggerated on this point, U. S. decision makers in foreign countries like Israel need to see that there is a possibility of Israel going the Lebanon way. All in all, U. S. foreign policy experts need to understand in their endeavors that the hostility that Arab countries have towards Israel still acts as the heart of Israel-Arab problem. The missing debate in Washington is not between those few who want Israel to be destroyed and the majority who want it to survive. Irrespective of what, Washington must support the right for Israel to exist in recognized international borders and most of all defend its interests against nay threats. References Porter, K. (2010).The US-Israeli Relationship. Retrieved from http://usforeignpolicy. about. com/od/countryprofi3/p/usisraelprofile. htm Kaplan, R. D. (1993). The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite. Retrieved from http://www. danielpipes. org/885/the-arabists-the-romance-of-an-american-elite Bronson, R. (2006). Thicker than oil: Americas uneasy partnership with Saudi Arabia, New York: Oxford University Press US. Friedman, T. L. (1989). From Beirut to Jerusalem. Retrieved from http://www. danielpipes. org/32/from-beirut-to-jerusalem

Food Clustering For Diabetes Diet Health And Social Care Essay

Food Clustering For Diabetes Diet Health And Social Care Essay The common way for Diabetes Educators to inform diabetes patients of their nutrition therapy is by introducing food substitution. The existing categorization mechanism is not efficiently for classify the food for diabetic patient. Clustering Data Mining (DM) Techniques can be a very useful tool to collect food items with the same elements into groups. This paper looks at the use of K-mean to Cluster food dataset into groups based on food elements using RapidMiner tool .The output from the clustering algorithm will help other recommendation systems software to provide patient with a good recommendation for there diabetes diet. Keywords data mining; diabetes, data set ,K-meant. 1. Introduction Food and nutrition are a key to have good health. They are important for everyone to maintain a healthy diet especially for diabetic patients who have several limitations. Nutrition therapy is a major solution to prevent, manage and control diabetes by managing the nutrition based on the belief that food provides vital medicine and maintains a good health. Typically, diabetic patients need to avoid additional sugar and fat for finding the substitution from the same food group [4].The effective clustering from the various actual nutrients is needed to apply. The clustering will encourage diabetics to eat the widest possible variety of permitted food to ensure getting the full range of trace elements and other nutrients. This paper is set out as follows. Section 2, introduces some related work of data mining and diabetic diet. Section 3, describes the used data set and summarize the main features that it contains. Data preparation process is presented in Section 4. Section 5, describes the materials and methods used in this study. In Section 6, the conclusion is given. 2. Literature Review Li et al [1], this study proposed an automated food ontology constructed for diabetes diet care. The methods include generating an ontology skeleton with hierarchical clustering algorithms (HCA)also it is used intersection naming for class naming and instance ranking by granular ranking and positioning .This study based on dataset from food nutrition composition database of the Department Of Health the dataset. Phanich et al [2], proposed Food Recommendation System (FRS) by using food clustering analysis for diabetic patients. The system will recommend the proper substituted foods in the context of nutrition and food characteristic. They used Self-Organizing Map (SOM) and K-mean clustering for food clustering analysis which is based on the similarity of eight significant nutrients for diabetic patient. This study is based on the dataset à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Nutritive values for Thai foodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  provided by Nutrition Division, Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health (Thailand). 3. Dataset Description This study is based on the dataset provided by The USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (SR)[3].the Values in the database based on the results of laboratory analyses or calculated by using appropriate algorithms, factors, or recipes, as indicated by the source in the Nutrient Data file. Not every food item contains a complete nutrient profile. The used data set is an abbreviated file with fewer nutrients but all the food items was included. The Dataset contains all the food items with nutrients with 7540 records and 52 attributes. Table1, 2 and 3 show data set attributes and their description. In order to check for missing value I used Rapid Miner tool. Table 4 present sample of data set. 4. Data Preparation The quality of the results of the mining process is directly proportional to the quality of the data. I need first to prepare the data set by applying Data preprocessing strategies. Data preprocessing is an important and critical step in the data mining process, and it has a huge impact on the success of a data mining project. The purpose of data preprocessing is to cleanse the dirty/noise data. Fig. 1 shows the different strategies in the data preprocessing phase. In this study I focused on data cleaning and data reduction. Figure 1 strategies in data preprocessing Table 1 description of data set attributes from 1- 24Table 2 description of data set attributes from 25-48 Table 3 description of data set attributes from 49-52 Table 4 Sample of dataset Shrt_Desc Water Energ_Kcal Protein Lipid_Tot Ash Carbohydrt Sugar_Tot othersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ BUTTER,WITH SALT 15.87 717 0.85 81.11 2.11 0.06 0.06 BUTTER,WHIPPED,WITH SALT 15.87 717 0.85 81.11 2.11 0.06 0.06 BUTTER OIL,ANHYDROUS 0.24 876 0.28 99.48 0 0 0 CHEESE,BLUE 42.41 353 21.4 28.74 5.11 2.34 0.5 CHEESE,BRICK 41.11 371 23.24 29.68 3.18 2.79 0.51 Data Cleaning Data cleaning, also called data cleansing or scrubbing, deals with detecting and removing errors and Inconsistencies from data in order to improve the quality of data [6]. The aim of data cleaning is to raise the data quality to a level suitable for the clustering analyses. The Methods used for data cleaning are fill in missing values and eliminate data redundancy. Missing value: It is common for the dataset to have fields that contain unknown or missing values. There are a variety of legitimate reasons why this can happen. There are a number of methods for treating records that contain missing values [7]: 1. Omit the incorrect field(s) 2. Omit the entire record that contains the incorrect field(s) 3. Automatically enter/correct the data with default values e.g. select the mean from the range 4. Derive a model to enter/correct the data 5. Replace all values with a global constant Within this study both missing and unknown data have been set to zero. Duplicated Records Duplicate records do not share a common key and/or they contain errors that make duplicate matching a difficult task. Errors are introduced as the result of transcription errors, incomplete information, lack of standard formats, or any combination of these factors [7] . The data set used in this study include data objects that are duplicate. Using RapidMiner to removing duplication .As result from this process the 7540 records decreased to 7139 record. Data Reduction Data reduction can be achieved in many ways one way is by selecting features [5], The used data set contains many Irrelevant features that contain almost no useful information for data mining task As [2] I will focus only on eight attributes out of fifty two attributes, as they are important for diabetes diet. The eight nutrients include: Carbohydrate Energy Fat protein Fiber vitamin E Vitamin B1(also known as thiamine) Vitamin C Data Normalization Data normalization is one of the preprocessing procedures in data mining, where the attribute data are scaled so as to fall within a small specified range such as -1.0 to 1.0 or 0.0 to 1.0. Normalization before clustering is specially needed for distance metric, such as Euclidian distance, which are sensitive to differences in the magnitude or scales of the attributes. The K-Means typically uses Euclidean distance to measure the distortion between a data object and its cluster centroid .However, the clustering results can be greatly affected by differences in scale among the dimension from, which the distances are computed. Data normalization is the linear transformation of data to a specific range. Therefore, it is worthwhile to enhance clustering quality by normalizing the dynamic range of input data objects into specific range [8].in this study I will normalize data to the range of [0, 1] . Figure 2 show the result from the data preprocessing Figure 2 Result from Preprocessing(Data cleaning , Data Reduction , Data Normalization) 5. Data Analysis Methodology After data preparation, a second step is using a K-means to cluster food data set. In order to work with optimal k-value as [2] used the Davies-Bouldin index [9] to evaluate the optimal k-value. The k-value is optimal when the related index is smallest. For this study, I used K=19 since it gives the smallest value. The final result is the food clusters which foods in the same group provide the approximate amount of the eight nutrients. Data analysis solution RapidMiner was used to analysis the data set and cluster food item. The whole process sequence shown in figure 3.figure 4, 5, 6 shows the final result. Figure 3 data analysis process Figure4 food Items clustered into 19 clusters Figure4 distribution of 8 Nutrients into clusters from (0-12) Figure4 distribution of 8 Nutrients into clusters from (13-18) 5.1 K-mean Evaluation a performance based on the number of clusters. This operation builds a derived index from the number of clusters by using the formula 1 (k / n) with k number of clusters and n covered examples. It is used for optimizing the coverage of a cluster result in respect to the number of clusters. By applying the K-mean model to this data set the Cluster number index = 0.997 witch indicate a good coverage. 6. Conclusion Data mining has been widely used in many health care fields. The Diabetes Diet Care was one of the health problems that data mining play role on it .this experiment are conducted based on USDA National Nutrient dataset. The results demonstrate that K-mean is very effective and it can successfully create food groups that will help in many recommendations systems.

Is Collusion Possible :: essays papers

Is Collusion Possible 1. Introduction. In this essay I would discuss the price and output determination under the one essential type of imperfect competition markets- oligopoly. Inter-firm interactions in imperfect markets take many forms. Oligopoly theory, those name refers to "competition among the few", lack unambiguous results of these interactions unlike monopoly and perfect competition. There is a variety of results derived from many different behavioural assumptions, with each specific model potentially relevant to certain real-world situations, but not to others. Here we are interested in the strategic nature of competition between firms. "Strategic" means the dependence of each person's proper choice of action on what he expects the other to do. A strategic move of a person influences the other person's choice, the other person's expectation of how would this particular person behave, in order to produce the favourable outcome for him. 2. Two types of behaviour (Collusive and non-collusive). Models of enterprise decision making in oligopoly derive their special features from the fact that firms in an oligopolistic industry are interdependent and this is realised by these firms. When there are only a few producers, the reaction of rivals should be taken into account. There are two broad approaches to this problem. First, oligopolists may be thought of as agreeing to co-operate in setting price and quantity. This would be the Collusive model. According to this model, firms agree to act together in their price and quantity decisions and this would to exactly the same outcome as would have been under monopoly. Thus the explicit or co-operative collusion or Cartel would take place. Second approach of the oligopoly analysis is based on the assumption that firms do not co-operate, but make their decisions on the basis of guesses, expectations, about the variables to which their competitors are reaching and about the form and the nature of the reactions in question. The Non-collusive behaviour deals with this model. Here, though in equilibrium the expectations of each firm about the reactions of rivals are realised, the parties never actually communicate directly with each other about their likely reactions. The extreme case of this can even imply competitive behaviour. Such a situation is much less profitable for firms than the one in which they share the monopolistic profit. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the case of the possibility of collusion between firms in order to reach the monopolistic profits for the industry, assuming that they do not co-operate with each other.

Increase Petrol Price

Bad traffic and increasing pollution are thorny issues challenging every major city in the globe. To combat such problems, government encourages companies to mark up gas price in an effort to decrease car use and cut down waste gas. However it may temporarily alleviate the problem, but is doubtfully the optimal solution. First of all, consumers and economy would be victimized by such measures. The number of cars in a country directly depends on the proportion of the population affluent enough to own cars.As a result, raises in gas price could invoke hard feelings among this segment of people but would not drastically change their behavior in using cars. Even if the number of cars on road is reduced due to higher gas cost, this is not the best way to solve traffic problems. Such policy would hurt the auto industry, place higher costs on current and prospect car owners, and undermine the economy of a nation. In the long run, the final way out could be the construction of better roads a nd more effective use of available transport facilities.Secondly, there is evidence that waste gas from cars is not the leading cause of air pollution. The culprit may be the discharge of polluting substances into the atmosphere due to the rapidly growing manufacturing industry. As a result, reduction of the number of cars would not return us a blue sky and fresh air. We could better handle this problem if we could increase control over industrial waste discharge and adopt more environmental friendly materials and production equipment. Finally, other measures like the application of cheaper and cleaner energy resources could also be a better solution.For example, we now have the ability to make cell-powered or even solar-powered cars. Such energy is completely clean and plentiful. However we still have a very long way to go to turn such technologically possible into afford able and practical products. To conclude, it is not the best way to control traffic and pollution by increasing gas price because such action will hurt consumers and economy without achieving what it is aimed for. Measures such as construction of better transport facilities and development of new energy resources could be more effective solutions.

King Edward II of England

King Edward II of England This profile of King Edward II of England is part ofWhos Who in Medieval History Edward II was also known as: Edward of Caernarvon Edward II was known for: His extreme unpopularity and his general ineffectiveness as king. Edward lavished gifts and privileges on his favorites, fought against his barons, and was ultimately overthrown by his wife and her lover. Edward of Caernarvon was also  the first Crown Prince of England to be given the title Prince of Wales. Occupations: King Places of Residence and Influence: Great Britain Important Dates: Born:  April 25, 1284Crowned:  July 7, 1307Died:  September, 1327 About Edward II: Edward appears to have had a rocky relationship with his father, Edward I; upon the older mans death, the first thing the younger Edward did as king was give the most prestigious offices to Edward Is most notable opponents. This did not sit well with the late kings loyal retainers. The young king angered the barons still further by giving the earldom of Cornwall to his favorite, Piers Gaveston. The title Earl of Cornwall was one that had hitherto only been used by royalty, and Gaveston (who may have been Edwards lover), was considered foolish and irresponsible. So incensed were the barons over Gavestons status that they drew up a document known as the Ordinances, which not only demanded the favorites banishment but restricted the kings authority in finances and appointments. Edward seemed to go along with the Ordinances, sending Gaveston away; but it wasnt long before he allowed him to return. Edward didnt know who he was dealing with. The barons captured Gaveston and executed him in June of 1312.   Now Edward faced a threat from Robert the Bruce, the king of Scotland, who, in an attempt to throw off the control England had gained over his country under Edward I, had been retaking Scottish territory since before the old kings death. In 1314, Edward led an army into Scotland, but at the Battle of Bannockburn in June he was roundly defeated by Robert, and Scotlands independence was secured. This failure on Edwards part left him vulnerable to the barons, and his cousin, Thomas of Lancaster, led a group of them against the king. Beginning in 1315, Lancaster held real control over the kingdom. Edward was too weak (or, some said, too indolent) to dislodge Lancaster who was, unfortunately, an incompetent leader himself, and this sad state of affairs persisted until the 1320s. At that time the king became close friends with Hugh le Despenser and his son (also named Hugh). When the younger Hugh attempted to acquire territory in Wales, Lancaster banished him; and so Edward gathered some military might on behalf of the Despensers. At Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, in March of 1322, Edward succeeded in defeating Lancaster, a feat that may have been made possible by a falling-out among the latters supporters. After executing Lancaster, Edward annulled the Ordinances and exiled some of the barons, freeing himself from baronial control. But his tendency to favor certain of his subjects worked against him once more. Edwards partiality toward the Despensers alienated his wife, Isabella. When Edward sent her on a diplomatic mission to Paris, she began an open relationship with Roger Mortimer, one of the barons Edward had exiled. Together, Isabella and Mortimer invaded England in September of 1326, executed the Despensers, and deposed Edward. His son succeeded him as Edward III. Tradition has it that Edward died in September, 1327, and that he was probably murdered. For some time a story circulated that the method of his execution involved a hot poker and his nether regions. However, this gruesome detail has no contemporary source and appears to be a later fabrication. In fact, there is even a recent theory that Edward escaped his imprisonment in England and survived until 1330. No consensus has yet been reached on the actual date or manner of Edwards demise. More Edward II Resources: Edward II in Print The links below will take you to an online bookstore, where you can find more information about the book to help  you get it from your local library. This is provided as a convenience to you; neither Melissa Snell nor About is responsible for any purchases you make through these links.   Edward II: The Unconventional Kingby Kathryn Warner; with a foreword by Ian MortimerKing Edward II: His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath 1284-1330by Roy Martin Haines Edward II on the Web Edward II (1307-27 AD)Concise, informative bio at Britannia Internet Magazine.Edward II (1284 - 1327)Brief overview from BBC History. Medieval Renaissance Monarchs of EnglandMedieval Britain   The text of this document is copyright  ©2015-2016 Melissa Snell. You may download or print this document for personal or school use, as long as the URL below is included.  Permission is   not  granted to reproduce this document on another website. For publication permission,  please   contact  Melissa Snell. The URL for this document is:http://historymedren.about.com/od/ewho/fl/Edward-II.htm