Integration of Evidence-Based Practice Into Professional Nursing Practice Essay Example for Free

Integration of Evidence-Based Practice Into Professional Nursing Practice Essay In this paper we will discuss the integration of evidence based practice into professional nursing practice. Scott McSherry (2008) define evidence based practice as the combination of individual, clinical, or professional expertise with the best available external evidence to produce practice that is most likely to lead to positive outcomes for a patient. Despite literature surrounding what evidence based nursing is and isn’t, nurses struggle to get evidence into practice. Many reasons have been reported including a lack of understanding about evidence based nursing means. Scott McSherry (2008) also define evidence based nursing is a process by which nurses make clinical decisions using the best available research evidence, their clinical expertise and patient outcomes. We will also discuss nursing’s simultaneous reliance on and critique of EBP in the context of critical reasoning. There will also be discussion of a study done that examined the effects of integrating evidence based practice into clinical practicum among RN-BSN students and the limitations of evidence based practice and an alternate view of decision making. Lastly we will discuss evidence that challenges the traditional practice regarding injection sites (Cocoman Murray 2010). According to Guem et al. (2010) evidenced based practice is a problem solving approach to clinical care that incorporates the conscious us of the current best available evidence, a clinician’s expertise, and the patient values. Evidence for evidence based practice does not always rely on research findings. Sources used can include research findings, clinical experience, quality improvement data, logical reasoning, recognized authority, and client satisfaction, situation, experience, and value (Leddy Pepper 2008 p. 66). On the contrary evidence based nursing is essential because of its potential to save time and money and improve patient outcomes by decreasing costs, through standardizing and streamlining costs (Scott McSherry 2008). It is important o understand the difference between evidence based practice and evidence based nursing because at times they are used interchangeably. Scott McSherry (2008) state that the nursing practice has welcomed EBP but when it comes to EBN, it is still yet to come reality because the concept is much unsophisticated and can lead to problems associated with its use and misuse. EBN is merely a construct and has yet to be successfully implemented (Scott McSherry 2008). In essence the dilemma with EBN is that we don’t really know the definition of nursing. Although there are problems with the definition we know that clinical judgment is one of the major concepts used in nursing thus it reinforces the notion of EBP and ultimately EBP. To advance the profession and ensure solid standards of practice, we should look beyond evidence based practice, while useful in implementation it is just one of many other component parts (Jutel 2008). Evidence based practice is like the new black in nursing practice and already occupies a prominent position, several international nursing organizations support its use as a strategic action in the advancement of the profession. Despite the emphasis on EBP, there is also a strong opposition to it, not with the actual use of EBP being a problem but with the fundamentals on which it stands. These arguments complain of the veracity of the criteria used in EBP which simultaneously undermines and cannot support EBP (Jutel 2008). If it had not been for the cultural turn which recognized that things are not always as they seem or that power, society, and culture contribute as much as science to generating knowledge, the debate about EBP would have never surfaced (Jutel 2008). Although nurses argue against EBP, they lack important tools necessary to replace EBP. â€Å"Nursing education places high value on authority and adherence to clinical protocols, rather than on skills† (Jutel, 2008. P. 419). Opponents of EBP suggests that development of clinical practice guidelines, critical care pathways, and protocols may actually interfere and entice practitioners to develop somewhat of a cookbook recipe attitude to client care (Leddy Pepper 2010). With quality improvement being rooted in industrial production, perhaps standardization may not be as desirable because patients have unique needs and characteristics the may be overlooked when adhering to strict clinical practice guidelines. Nursing adopts a devoted and somewhat naive trust when assessing information, we are quick to accept the truths of a peer reviewed article, drug company propaganda, and quick to accept an argument on inconsistencies of EBP. The tools EBP claims to own, are incredibly useful, however, are not tools of EBP; they are critical skills of information appraisal. As evidence based practice rapidly replaces the traditional paradigm of healthcare decision making, health care members have an obligation to access knowledge, apply it in practice, and lead others to use it appropriately (Geum et al. 010 p. 387). For example RN-BSN programs; these are adult students who have clinical knowledge and skill, structured background and educational preparation and employment experience but have not taken a formal research course, thus they show less confidence to include evidence based practice in their practices because these are courses that are not common outside a baccalaureate curriculum. To examine the effectiveness of the integration of EBP into a clinical practicum a study was done among Korean RN-BSN students. The main goals were to enhance students’ competencies for EBP knowledge skills and attitudes and to expose students to opportunities that would encourage the use of best evidence (Geum et al. 2008). Each student was instructed to define patients nursing problems for their individually assigned patient and to formulate nursing problems using the EBP question format, PICO, which we discussed earlier in the semester, to select the nursing intervention for the problems posed. Before the EBP practicum, the overall and individual scores for EBP efficacy among RN-BSN students indicated that students were â€Å"a little confident† regarding the EBP process (Geum et al. 2008, p. 389). Results of this study indicate that integration of EBP into an RN-BSN clinical practicum had a positive effect on EBP efficacy and decreased barriers to research utilization among students in Korea, which also corroborates with studies conducted in other countries. Evidence based practice is a learned set of skills thus critical thinking is vital in developing evidence based nursing practice (Geum et al. 2008). Regardless if the evidence on complications, nurses in clinical settings still continue to use and instruct nursing students on the use of dorsogluteal injection sites as the site of choice for intramuscular injections (Cocoman Murray 2010). So, where should an intramuscular (IM) injection be given? Nurses have traditionally used the dorsogluteal, but recent literature has advocated the ventrogluteal site. Choosing sites has been a matter of personal preference, rather than the results of evidence based practice. Slow uptake of medications, major nerves and blood vessels present make this site problematic. A British study suggests â€Å"as previous studies have shown the low efficacy of gluteal intramuscular injections, this route should be avoided for most drugs† (Cocoman Murray, 2010. P. 1171). As the sciatic nerve lies only a few centimeters from the injection site, injuries pose a significant threat, making the need for accurately identifying landmarks especially important. An alternative site is the ventrogluteal, seen by many as the preferred site. This site provides the greatest thickness of gluteal muscle and is free from penetrating nerves and blood vessels (Cocoman Murray 2010). Despite evidence favoring the ventrogluteal site, nurses are slow to use it, relying on the much taught and used dorsogluteal site. â€Å"Studies show that only 12% of American nursing staff uses the ventrogluteal site† (Cocoman Murray 2010. P. 1172). Studies suggest that some reasons the site is not used is because of nurses’ unfamiliarity in locating the site and potential needle stick injury. Unfortunately, nurses have not come to realize that when using the V method, the non injecting hand is to be removed, as it’s only used for visual land marking (Cocoman Murray 2010). Throughout this paper we have discussed the integration of evidence based practice into nursing from various articles. In the various articles the authors talked about evidence based practice compared to evidence based nursing, the integration of evidence based practice in RN-BSN programs. We also discussed the article on a clinical example which suggested that the ventrogluteal intramuscular injection site over the dorsogluteal site is preferred when it comes to positive patient outcomes.

Classical Theory: The Good Son :: essays research papers fc

After watching the movie the good son I found a lot to similarities between what went on and the classical theory. I plan on highlighting Cesare Beccaria’s classical theories central assumptions and giving examples of events that occurred in the movie to connect the two. To setup some of the story I’ll introduce you to the characters and what their role is throughout the movie. The mother and father are Wallace and Susan Evans, and their children are Henry and Connie. After Mark Evans mother dies, and his father Jack goes out of town on business Mark is sent to live with his Uncle Wallace and Aunt Susan and their two kids for three weeks.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The classical theory is one that believes that human beings were believed to act in terms of their own self-interest, but also to be capable of considering which course of action was really in their self-interest(Classical 1). Also the classical theorists believed that people were free willed, making them completely responsible for their actions(Bohm 12). The state would then construct laws and punishments in such a way that people would understand peaceful and non-criminal actions to be in their self-interest through strategies of punishment based on deterrence(Classical 1). When it came to punishing individuals, Beccaria believed that the only purpose for punishment was for deterrence to make sure that that individual or anyone else who knew of the crime did not also commit the same crime(Bohm 14).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the assumptions that the classical theory makes is that it assumes that everyone is motivated to engage in crime through the pursuit of their self-interests(Agnew 17). As a child most of what you do is in the pursuit of your own self-interest, at least so it seems at the time. In the beginning of the movie the crimes start out slow that Henry commits and seems to drag Mark into every time he does, but with them being so small Mark does not think anything of them. For instance, the two boys start throwing rocks acting as they were grenades and it then escalades into throwing the rocks through panes of glass on the building that they are inside of. Another example, it is right after that point in the movie that Henry takes Mark to a well and pulls a box out of the well that he has hidden. Inside the box are a lighter and some cigarettes that Henry lights up and gets Mark to take a drag.

Looking at the Contemporary Generation Essay

The literary historian Malcolm Cowley described the years between the two world wars as a second flowering of American writing. Certainly American literature attained a new maturity and a rich diversity in the 1920s and ’30s, and significant works by several major figures from those decades were published after 1945. Faulkner, Hemingway, Kerouac, Steinbeck, and Katherine Anne Porter wrote memorable fictions. In the post-war period, many Americans felt fractured from reality and found themselves struggling to piece together their identities. The proposed national identity was that of prosperity, hope and success but in the years following the war and in the wake of losing so many citizens, many Americans did not see themselves in the same line. Instead they were experiencing hardship, hopelessness and constant struggle to rebuild their lives in a war torn nation. This attitude is what prevailed in much of the post-war literature along with the various ways in which people sought to recompose themselves. The disillusioned mass found their voice in the page of Hemingway and Kerouac. As it is said that literature speaks for the contemporary society, and as long before P. B. Shelley had once said that Poets are the unacknowledged legislatures of the world, hence it was the serious effort of Hemingway and Kerouac that made the contemporary society to rebuild their world in a new way. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Kerouac’s On the Road; are the two catalogue of contemporary society which makes the world understand the prevailing circumstances of that time. The post World War-II era of the American society witnessed many changes. There was certain change in the socio-cultural outlook of the society. The ideology of Beat Generation emerged during this point of time. Central elements of Beat culture include a rejection of mainstream values, experimentation with drugs and alternate forms of sexuality, and an interest in Eastern religion. The literary movement of the Beat Generation exploded into American consciousness with two books in the late 1950s. The first one was Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, published in 1956. The book achieved notoriety when poet and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti went to trial for selling it in San Francisco. The second book had an even more profound cultural effect when it was published. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, published in 1957, was viewed as nothing less than a manifesto for the Beat Generation. However the Beat literary movement was short-lived. Most of the work Kerouac published in the 1960s had been written during his creative peak in the 1950s. Beat literature retains its popularity decades later because the writers of the Beat Generation must ultimately be judged by their work, not by any real or imagined influence on popular culture. Allen Ginsberg’s poetry is still revered. The nightmarish visions of William Burroughs continue to influence post-Modern writers. Finally Kerouac’s On the Road is still a campus favorite, and continues to draw scholarly criticism. Jack Kerouac had a major influence on an entire generation of Americans following the publication of On the Road, his semi-autobiographical novel that became the bible of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. Kerouac’s impact continued into the next decade as the hippie movement developed during the 1960s and writers such as Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins, and songwriter Bob Dylan produced works influenced by Kerouac’s spontaneous, confessional, free-thinking style. On the Road is, the story of two young men, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, who travel frantically back and forth across the American continent seeking thrills. The novel is actually a thinly veiled account of Kerouac’s own life in the late 1940s, when he fell under the spell of a charismatic drifter named Neal Cassady (represented by Moriarty in the novel). Every episode in the novel was inspired by real-life events. The book shocked readers in 1957 with its depiction of drug use and promiscuous sex. Many critics attacked the work as evidence of the increasing immorality of American youth. Other critics saw it as a groundbreaking work of originality. American readers, fascinated with the bohemian lifestyle of the characters, turned the novel into a bestseller. This novel is about Sal Paradise, a writer and college student, lives in Paterson, New Jersey with his aunt. He spends much of his time with his eccentric and artistic friends in New York City. One of his friends, Chad King, introduces him to Dean Moriarty, a young man recently released from a reformatory in New Mexico. Dean spends the winter in New York and then he moves back west to Denver in the spring. A few months later, Sal follows him to Colorado. Sal move toward west, learning more about him and the many intriguing people he meets along the way. He arrives in Denver and connects with a group of his New York friends. He moves into an apartment with his friend Roland Major, but Sal is anxious to see Dean who is on a tight schedule, hustling back and forth between his wife, Marylou, and his girlfriend, Camille. Sal roars around Denver with Dean and other friends and goes to a party in Central City. After a few weeks, he leaves on a bus for San Francisco. In San Francisco, Sal moves in with his friend, Remi Boncoeur, and Remi’s girlfriend, Lee Ann. Remi gets Sal a job as a special policeman at a barracks for overseas workers. Sal hates working with the other cops there who are miserable and narrow-minded. After a few months, Sal leaves San Francisco and travels to Los Angeles. On the bus he meets Terry, a young Mexican-American woman, and they fall in love. Sal goes with Terry to Sabinal, her hometown near Bakersfield. He meets her family, moves into a tent with her and her young son, Johnny, and gets a job picking cotton. But he soon realizes that he can’t make enough money to support Terry and her son. He persuades Terry to move back with her family and he returns to his life in New York. Sal’s and Dean’s friendship throughout the novel reflects the buddy themes found in much classic and pop culture. They are two men sharing travel experiences. Their relationship is a part of the male bonding stereotype. Yet, what they have transcends a typical friendship. Through their adventures and travels, they become comrades and brothers. Dean’s madness envelops Sal; Dean can make the mundane extraordinary for Sal. Their deeds and misdeeds bond them together in a way that ordinary friendship rarely does. Friendship also plays a role in the Beat culture that Kerouac describes. It is only when Sal’s group of friends was together that he can truly experience the kind of life they want to live. In On the Road, however, friendship is also a power that can destroy. Sal eventually sees his relationship with Dean as destructive. During their final journey he laments Dean’s coming to take him to Mexico. Dean, and the subculture represented by Sal’s Beat friends, come to represent the destruction of the traditional values of American society like family and relationship. This kind of individualist subversion is one of the themes of the novel, and Sal can sense that something is being lost by this destruction. During the final journey, Sal realizes that the destructive nature of this kind of friendship can have severe consequences for the people surrounding him and Dean. On the Road deals also with the sense of adventure and exploration in two main ways. First, there is the story of exploration. For Sal, the country and towns that lie before him represent new adventures. Through his first journey, Sal understands himself to be one in the long line of explorers and settlers who went west to find a new life. Sal mythologizes much of the American West during his trip. He sees the possibilities of time and existence in the Mississippi River, echoing other great American writers such as Mark Twain. In the Denver mining town he finds a sense of the Old West, a time of cowboys and dangerous frontiers. As he picks cotton with other migrant farm workers, he imagines himself to be a part of that culture and those who farmed and worked civilization into being in the American West. Yet, the second sense in which On the Road deals with the American West takes a much sadder tone. In this way, the novel comments on and criticizes its times. Just a year before the book was published, in 1956, President Eisenhower had signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which formally began the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A plan for the system had been in the works since 1921, and this was just one of many signs that America was taming its West. Sal realizes through the novel that though modernity and technology are bringing greater access to transportation and to places in the West, there are fewer and fewer places to be discovered. Sal confronts this reality as he visits the Wild West Festival in Cheyenne, a tourist attraction that can only simulate the real Wild West. The mining town outside of Denver has also ceased to be a true part of the West, being now a part of tourist culture. Sal and Dean also feel sadness for the Indian cultures of the mountains of Mexico; for they realize that the coming of a highway means the destruction of their culture. By the end of the novel, the reader begins to understand that any road that leads to the American West brings with it the potential destruction of culture even as it gives freedom to the traveler or tourist. The aspect of On the Road that has been most criticized in the decades following the novel’s release has been Kerouac’s portrayal of the relationships between men and women. While Kerouac himself was roundly criticizing the social structures of family and work that kept men from finding a truer way of life, his novel failed to record the plight of the women being subjected to the same pressures and conventions of society. More to the point, the characters seem unsympathetic to the toll that the women have to pay in meeting the appetites and helping with the travels of the men. In the story the life that Sal and Dean want to live is one that rejects all notions of authority and rule. Dean has little regard for the law and conventions of society. Authority is seen in the novel through the pleadings of the maternal characters for Dean and Sal to settle down and fulfill their responsibilities, and it is most clearly understood in the various run-ins that the group of Beats has with law enforcement. Anarchy in the individual eventually confronts the authority of society. Kerouac used mobility, alongside other themes, to express resistance to established norms in the culture of the United States during the nineteen fifties. The use of mobility in both the content and the structure of the novel and relate it to expectations of family, progress and attached sexuality. This resistance is ambiguous in that it rebels against ideals of family and home at the same time as it reproduces the established American mythology of mobile, male outlaws. This interpretation is placed in the context of the counter-culture of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties in the United States which was a period when many young people were striking out against the presuppositions of rootedness, family values and the ‘-American Dream. Using the insights of new cultural geography and cultural studies and the use of mobility in this story; is a key text in the counter-culture, which represents a contestation of a central theme in American culture. Mobility is clearly an important part of North American mythology and as such it is open to change and challenge from resistant sub-cultures. Apart from Kerouac, it was Hemingway who contributed a lot in the making of emotions of the people in the post World War era. Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, remains as a romance and a guidebook. It also became a modern-day courtesy book on how to behave in the waste land Europe had become after the Great War. The Sun Also Rises successfully portrays its characters as survivors of a lost generation. In addition, the novel was the most modern an American author had yet produced, and the ease with which it could be read endeared it to many. But for all its apparent simplicity, the novel’s innovation lay in its ironic style that interjected complex themes without being didactic. Generally this novel is considered to be Hemingway’s most satisfying work. The material for the novel resulted from a journey Hemingway made with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and several friends to Pamplona, Spain, in 1925. Among them was Lady Duff Twysden, a beautiful socialite with whom Hemingway was in love (the inspiration for the novel’s Lady Brett Ashley). There was also a Jewish novelist and boxer named Harold Loeb (source of Robert Cohn) whom Hemingway threatened after learning that he and Lady Duff had had an affair. Lady Duff’s companion was a bankrupt Briton (like Mike Campbell). The trip ended poorly when Lady Duff and her companion left their bills unpaid. The ending of the novel is only slightly more tragic, yet it recovers those precious values which make life livable in a war-wearied world: friendship, stoicism, and natural grace. The Sun Also Rises is as much an extended character study as it is a novel where the story being told is no more important than the characters being examined. The five central characters are expatriates living in Paris and are members of the lost generation, â€Å"You are all a lost generation† [Hemingway, Epigraph] caught up in the sense of despair and disenchantment which followed the First World War. There is no real hero amongst those five; each possesses a flaw which prevents this status being reached. The Sun Also Rises concerns a group of Americans living in Europe during the 1920s. The narrator and principal character is Jake Barnes, a newspaper correspondent. The leading female character is Lady Brett Ashley. In the course of the novel, we learn that her husband, a British officer, was killed in World War I and that she was a nurse in the hospital where Jake Barnes was sent after he suffered a disabling injury in combat. Serving as the narrative voice throughout, Jake begins the story by talking about his past and current relationship to another character, Robert Cohn, who will subsequently figure in the plot but who is not the novel’s protagonist. Jake tells us that Cohn comes from a wealthy Jewish family and that he attended college at Princeton where he distinguished himself on the boxing team. When Cohn’s first wife left him, he took up with a young woman named Frances Clyne, and she went with him to Paris where he wrote his first novel. Although Jake speaks of Cohn as a friend, there is a certain antagonism beneath the surface. Jake characterizes Cohn’s book as poor and admits that he lied to his friend to get out of a proposed trip to South America. It is in the book’s second chapter that Jake fills us in on himself. It is there that we learn the narrator is currently a foreign correspondent working in Paris for an American newspaper. Jake also tells us that he was wounded in World War I and that his injury has left him in the supremely frustrating condition of being impotent without diminishing his sexual desire. Jake brings the tale into the present night at the Cafe Napolitan, a popular haunt of the lost generation and the avant garde in the Left Bank district of Paris. He meets and buys a drink for a local prostitute, Georgette, and when they go to another trendy spot, the Cafe Select, they encounter Robert Cohn and his fiancee, Frances. The high point of the scene comes with the arrival of Lady Brett Ashley accompanied by a group of extraordinarily handsome (and possibly gay) young men. Brett exudes sexuality and sophistication. Cohn is enthralled by her, but she refuses his request to dance and leaves the night club with Jake. The first-person narration of Jake Barnes is sometimes referred to as a roman a clef. A roman a clef is a story understandable only to those who have a key for deciphering the real persons and places behind the story. The story of Jake Barnes resembles the real events of the summer of 1925 in the life of Hemingway and his friends. Still there is enough difference that no key is needed for understanding. The novel stands on its own whether or not the reader knows on whom the character Lady Brett Ashley is based. The Sun Also Rises is an impressive document of the people who came to be known, in as the â€Å"Lost Generation†. The young generation had their dreams and innocence smashed by World War I, â€Å"Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters† [Hemingway, 10] emerged from the war bitter and aimless, and spent much of the prosperous 1920s drinking and partying away their frustrations. Jake epitomizes the Lost Generation; physically and emotionally wounded from the war, he is disillusioned, cares little about conventional sources of hope such as family, friends, religion, and work and apathetically drinks his way through his expatriate life. One of the key changes Hemingway observes in the Lost Generation is that of the new male psyche, battered by the war and newly domesticated. Jake embodies this new emasculation; most likely physically impotent, he cannot have sex and, therefore, can never have the insatiable Brett. Instead, he is dominated by her, as also Cohn who is also abused by the other women in his life. Jake is even threatened by the homosexual men who dance with Brett in Paris; while not sexually interested in her, they have more manhood than Jake, physically speaking. Hemingway’s spare, laconic prose was influenced by his early work as a journalist, and he has probably had the greatest stylistic influence over 20th-century American writers of anyone. The key to Hemingway’s style is omission; we usually learn less about Jake through his direct interior narration, but more through what he leaves out and how he reacts to others. For instance, we understand him much better through his thoughts on Cohn, who shares many of Jake’s traits. As an example of how much Hemingway omits, Jake never even fully describes his war injury, leaving it somewhat open to interpretation. There are two primary questions which Hemmingway asks readers to contemplate in The Sun Also Rises. The first is whether or not unconditional love is a sign of weakness or strength. The second is whether or not the sexual triumphs of a man are indicative of his level of manhood. Both of these questions define the theme of this masterful literary achievement, which centers on the balance of power between the strengths and weaknesses which are battled within us and within our relationships. Both the World Wars resulted in a vigorous change in the society, in term of socio-economic and socio-cultural attitude. It was natural for the generation of that contemporary time to be under immense confusion and disillusionment. However it was the literary genius of both Hemingway and Kerouac to evaluate the current impulse of the generations and they were triumphant in their attempts, which is proved in the success of their concept in both the novel The Sun Also Rises and On The Road, as both these story depicts the real sentiments of the contemporary generations. References: 1. Hemingway Earnest. , 1995, The Sun Also Rises, Scribner, New York: USA 2. Cresswell Tim. , 1993, Mobility as Resistance: A Geographical Reading of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford: UK 3. Kerouac Jack. , 2007, On The Road, Viking Penguin, USA 4. Elliott Ira. , 1995, Performance Art: Jake Barnes and â€Å"Masculine† Signification in The Sun Also Rises, Duke University Press, USA

The Representation of African Americans in the Media and...

Introduction In popular culture, specifically American television, representations of African Americans often rely upon an array of stereotypes. Representation is the production of meaning through language or signifying systems. In media, the dominant stereotypes of African Americans include the sapphire, the coon, the jezebel, and the buck. These stereotypes originated during the minstrelsy period of the 1830s from white actors in blackface. While classic Black stereotypes originated during this period, they have carried on past the stage onto the small screen today. Television is a complex site of power where African Americans themselves have enacted these aforementioned stereotypes, particularly in the situation comedy genre. African†¦show more content†¦Also completing the cast are RB singers K.Michelle and Karlie Redd (Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, 2013). The show is known much less for hip hop and much more for its drama. The first season surrounds the love triangle between Stevie J, Mimi, and Joseline. Stevie J’s â€Å"chronic infidelity† has been criticized as a form of abuse (Abrams, 2012). Abrams (2012) gave an opinion piece on The Grio’s website that had received much attention. She believes that showing unhealthy relationships with emotional abuse and chronic infidelity is â€Å"contributing to and condoning a culture of misogyny that sanctions the abuse of black women† (Abrams). She feared that trivializing destructive behavior in entertainment will cause viewers to be unable to handle these behaviors in their own lives. Communication Problem In communication scholarship, there isn’t enough understanding of how reality show audiences feel about what they watch. The purpose in conducting this study is to develop an understanding of how audiences interpret performed identities in reality television. There needs to be more discussion of the present state of reality television. 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Shadow Of A Doubt Essay - 3266 Words

Shadow of a Doubt Shadow of a Doubt is an Alfred Hitchcock film that was shot on location in the 1940s town of Santa Rosa, California. The town itself is representative of the ideal of American society. However, hidden within this picturesque community dark corruption threatens to engulf a family. The tale revolves around Uncle Charlie, a psychotic killer whose namesake niece, a teenager girl named Charlie, is emotionally thrilled by her Uncles arrival. However her opinion slowly changes as she probes into her mysterious uncle. In the film, director/producer Alfred Hitchcock blends conventions of film noir with those of a small town domestic comedy as a means of commenting on the contradictions in American values.†¦show more content†¦To allow him to continue his nap, the landlady lowers the blind before leaving and its shadow is drawn down over Charlies face. Rather than inducing sleep, the darkness causes him to sit up alertly. Charlie snuffs out his cigar, finishes his drink, rises and ang rily hurls his glass against floor. He raises the blind and observes the two visitors waiting outside for him and speaks: quot;What do you know? Youre bluffing. Youve nothing on me.quot; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Charles leaves the room, and intentionally walks toward and past the two men as a challenge. They ignore him, but chase after their suspect (filmed from high above) in a desolate, abandoned lot, quickly losing his track and appearing astonished by his abrupt disappearance. The camera turns up and to the left, discovering the cigar-smoking character in profile on a rooftop. From a cinematography point of view this is the most Film Noir portion of the film. In a dark and dirty setting it introduces us to the good guys and the bad guy, culminating in a chase scene. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;We dissolve to see Charles in a dingy poolroom talking on a telephone. He is sending a telegram to his sister in Santa Rosa, California. He has invited himself to take sanctuary there and will arrive on Thursday. Santa Rosa, California is introduced as Charlie repeats the words quot;Santa Rosa, Californiaquot; to the operator - we are shown a beautiful,Show MoreRelated shadow of a doubt Essay699 Words   |  3 PagesCharlie-Horse nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In Shadow of a Doubt, Hitchcock utilizes and stretches the ambiguous line between comedy and suspense by utilizing smaller characters in the film to keep the story line moving, and to help break sequence or rhythm of what the audience had been perceiving at the time. 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Also, Plato describes that the one who broke the chained and explored outsideRead MoreComparing The Matrix With Readings From Plato And Descartes1023 Words   |  5 Pagescontrasting The Matrix with readings from Plato and Descartes This essay will discuss The Matrix, from synopsis of the following; The Republic by Plato, depicting the famous cave allegory, and Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes, offering doubt that some senses are accurate. By examining these two readings, and the movie, it will allow the author to show some comparisons, and to show how they are also different as this essay indicates the world is very real. The Matrix In TheRead MoreHitchcock/Descartes924 Words   |  4 PagesHitchcock/Descartes Am I really awake typing a paper for philosophy? Did I just watch the Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt or did the â€Å"not so supremely good God† plant a reel of thoughts in my head (Descartes16)? That would be ironic since the themes of the film are based upon human understanding of doubt, dreams, good, evil, ignorance and knowledge. The film portrays a neat staircase that leads into the house of an all American family and a rickety set of stairs off the side of the house that

Integrating Competitive Intelligence Management †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Integrating Competitive Intelligence Management. Answer: Introduction An ancient saying has it that "you cannot solve an impasse if you do not understand the causes of the problem." Luckily with the modern tools and techniques of management science, problem identification and the solutions are never far off (Lawrence 2012). CHEMS Ltd. has adopted a set of processes that take up to four months from when an order is placed with the company to the time the last container is delivered to the client. While on one hand, the processes that take almost a third of a year to implement will work diligently for an entity working in a monopolized market, on the other hand, it may be an uphill task for a company like CHEMS Ltd operating in a competitive market (Freeman 2010). To be able to comprehend fully the company operations let's delve into its operations: CHEMS Ltd has four processes. Firstly, the customer places an order with the company. The company examines the orders and may decide to go ahead and process the order or decline that order altogether. Only a minuscule 0.1percent of orders are declined. Secondly, the company procures the materials to be used to process the order and this may take up to 9 weeks to accomplish. Thirdly, the production of the chemical begins and is overseen by three managers. Lastly, the company orders packaging containers which are delivered in two weeks. The finished chemicals are then packaged and delivered to clients. The production process entails three middle-level production managers who control the manufacture of chemical for CHEMS Ltd. The managers, however, do not have control on the input mix during the production process. The production process begins when materials have been sourced by the procurement section. The production managers make adjustments required for the final product required by the client without making an alteration to the inputs. They also manage quality control, and the production process including quality control takes a month. Decision-making structure and process Decision making at CHEMS Ltd. is a continuous process. The first decision made is whether to manufacture a clients order or not depending on the quotation. Overall, 0.1 percent of the orders placed by the clients are not processed. Once it has been decided that clients product can be manufactured, sourcing of raw materials begins. A price list and quotations are sourced from three suppliers. The raw materials are bought from the supplier with the lowest quotation which is a general rule followed by procurement divisions globally (Siqueira 2017). After the purchase of raw materials, decisions are made during the production process and quality control. When the final product has been manufactured decisions on packaging are made and orders placed for containers to package the product. From the many logistics companies involved, a choice is made on who will deliver the product to the client through competitive bidding (Arbin 2008). According to Errasti (2016), it is crucial for managers to provide regular reports during the production process. At CHEMS Ltd, senior managers present their reports weekly on the production process detailing the cost of the batch, weekly profits, and the sales volume. The chief accountant makes the decisions on product mixes, quality of material inputs and general project changes with approval from senior managers. The decision-making structure can thus be summarized to involve choosing of clients, ordering of chemicals, negotiations for pricing, manufacturing of the product, approvals from chief accountant, quality control, sourcing for packaging materials and lastly choice of logistics company to deliver the product to the client within the agreed time to avoid loss of business (Engell 2008). The process is as illustrated in the figure below. Analysis of the Key Challenges Facing the Senior Managers of CHEMS Ltd The production reports do not help senior managers in decision making. One of the greatest challenge facing the senior managers as employees is that the e-mail system not friendly. They hardly read the emails which they see as a hindrance (Price 2015). The information system is not automated. For this reason, every time they are required to produce reports required for decision-making, they have to do it manually. The resultant reports end up taking a lot of time and are prone to human errors which may lead to poor decisions (Mclellan 2017). Does CHEMS Ltd Reflect a High Level of Competency in Provision of Information to its Senior Managers and its IS System? CHEMS Ltd does not reflect a high level of competency in its provision of information to its senior managers. The decision support system is not synchronized with their reports (Yang 2008). Many companies have sophisticated decision support systems that link up all the processes within the organization to enable candid analysis of the organizational performance (Yin 2015). However, this is not present at CHEMS Ltd. The senior managers are frustrated by the system and are prone to make errors of judgment during manual transfer of reports (Rajagopal 2014) A synchronized system such as an enterprise resource planning would be very useful here (Rouse 2017). According to Barbaro (2008), the ideal information management system links all the companies operations such that it can assist in quick and accurate decision-making. It should also provide real-time data based on the past and present trends to be able to make future decisions while accounting for risks and uncertainties (Reuvid 2014). Finally, it should be interactive, easy to use and involve all players in the company and provide reports filtered reports for effective decision-making (Raza 2015). From the foregoing, the information management system at CHEMS Ltd does not meet the minimum parameters. Another challenge faced by senior management is in terms of lack of decision support system. This is manifest in numerous meetings that end up taking a lot of time to make decisions. This would have been simplified if duties were delegated to junior managers and teamwork from the three project teams with a portal to share company progress reports (Rajagopal 2014). According to Power (2010), decision support system can offer senior management comfort and reliability while making top decisions. At CHEMS Ltd, job dissatisfaction from the senior managers is partly due to the frustration they experience with their information management system and decision support system. They end up having hostile mind-frames which they may export to junior employees (Topolosky 2016). Lastly, senior managers do not make the last decision as they have to share their reports with the chief account who makes the last decisions with their approval this can be a source of a power struggle in the company (Price 2015). How to change the ordering and production process in CHEMS Ltd. The current production process at CHEMS Ltd depicts numerous areas of wastage and excesses (Azevedo 2013).To start with, the ordering process and choice of the clients takes 2 days for any new order or request from customers to be processed. In addition to that, procurement of chemicals to manufacture the products and the quality control process takes anywhere from 4 weeks to 9 weeks. Moreover, once the supplier for the chemicals has been identified and price negotiation agreed, the production begins in earnest instead of applying Just-In-Time inventory management (Hirano 2009). Further, 4 weeks are required to arrange for packaging and delivery of finished products to the clients which results in time and money wastage (Philip 2007). The ordering and manufacturing processes reveal enormous wastage of resources. Having a price negotiating team of 10 people who only manage to save the company $25,000 per annum is a misuse of human resource that could be utilized elsewhere to make great savings (Azevedo 2013). The information system comprising of the company emailing system and database is largely unutilized by the senior managers who prefer to create reports manually. The senior managers also do not use the company email optimally (Karim 2011) Due to the above-mentioned reasons, if CHEMS Ltd is intent on introducing change to its staff, some of the key areas of change to adhere to would be in time management, procurement management, engineering controls or business process re-engineering, re-order levels, human resources, information system, decision support system and finally inventory management (Saeed, Khan and Ahmad 2013). CHEMS Ltd currently has lots of wastage in terms of production. This can be associated with the 4-month period it takes to manufacture and ship a clients order. For this reason, if processes like choosing clients orders, placing orders for chemical inputs and the manufacturing process were re-engineered, the company could make enormous cost savings (Mohapatra 2013). The operational costs would reduce due to timeliness in placing orders, manufacturing, and distribution of finished products. Instead of paying employees for four consecutive months for one order the changes could result in one month salary or less (Azevedo 2013). Operational cost savings from say changes like automation of processes with information system would mean that CHEMS Ltd would reduce the number of workers doing procurement and other technical duties resulting in cost savings and enhance the profits (Guanglin 2014). Changes introduced in ordering and production processes would lead to more efficient and timely production of finished products. This would mean that CHEMS limited can compete in the market favorably using strategies like Just-in-time production which would attract more clients (Arbin 2008). The company would also enjoy economies of scale by producing quality products at low cost (Philip 2007). This would translate to lower prices than the competitors or rapid response to customer orders which would lead to more market share (Mariotti 2015). Currently, senior managers are dissatisfied with the information system as it is. They struggle to create reports and do not use the company email system. A change in the company processes would lead to better output by the employees and better employee relations (Long 2017). This would, in turn, lead to talent retention and teamwork within CHEMS Ltd (Topoplosky 2016). Better processes lead to less wastage and hence increase the production. Inefficient processes and systems do quite the opposite. With this regard, a small change in the processes at CHEMS Ltd. would lead to more than proportionate change in production at the company (Farrel 2008). If CHEMS Ltd would avail its capacity and requirements to its customers before they make orders, then the company would reduce the time taken to sieve through the orders and choose what orders to manufacture. This is because all the orders would be standardized and none would be requested out of the scope of production by CHEMS Ltd (Philip 2007).This also implies that the selection team would spend less time making their choice and possibly select all clients. Instead of the 2 days taken to select the clients, the process could take less than a day. Currently, the procurement division at CHEMS Ltd has to contact each supplier individually for different chemicals. Since the three suppliers have provided a price list for their products, the company can automate its procurement processes to reduce the time taken by the suppliers to return firm quotes. As a result, the time could be reduced to a maximum of one week in ordering (Guanglin 2014). Currently, CHEMS Ltd produces one order after the other which takes four weeks. The company could re-engineer the production process such that different stages of manufacturing take place concurrently. This would reduce the time taken to a maximum of a week instead of 4 weeks (Mohapatra 2013). Introducing instant quality control from the time materials are ordered to ensuring proper calibration of the machinery would ensure that there are few adjustments by the production managers and that all products conform to set quality standards. This would reduce quality control time from 3 weeks to one week (Hirano 2009). Once the material has been produced, it should be packaged in real time. This would, in turn, ensure that the 2 weeks that are spent ordering for packaging containers are done away with. Ordering for the packaging containers should be done as the product is being manufactured or earlier. Thus when the product is manufactured, it should be packaged immediately into the containers rather than having to wait for the containers to arrive (Philip 2007). Reliable companies with the geographic reach to the clients should be chosen to ensure reliable and safe delivery of the ordered products to the client. The week taken to arrange a courier firm to deliver the products could be done away with if the company outsourced the distribution to reliable supply chain companies (Errasti 2016). A reliable information system such as an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) can be used by the stakeholders of CHEMS Ltd to ensure that all every process is undertaken timely to save on time (Yin 2015). From the time an order is placed by a customer, 1 day is spent analyzing the order and choosing whether or not to manufacture the order. Ordering and procuring of the chemicals used to manufacture the products should take 1 week if the process is automated. Overlapping production and checking for quality control during the process leads to manufacturing the product 2 weeks. Packaging and distribution should take 1 week. The total time taken from the moment an order is placed to the time finished products are delivered to the client should be approximately one month. Information systems are used in organizations to help different groups at different levels of the organization to execute their duties. With this regard, information systems within an organization are deployed in mainly three management levels. The first level management includes senior managers responsible for strategic decisions. The second level management includes the tactical managers while the last level includes operations management such as production managers (Davoren 2016). These are information systems used mostly by the operational managers to transact the business of the company. In an organization like CHEMS Ltd., the production managers could use the transactional processing system to identify the orders placed from the customers to enable them to know how many products to make. Transactional processing systems include point of sale systems, store management systems, inventory or stock management systems and order placement systems as well as payroll systems (Markgraf 2016). The production managers can use the stock control system to manage their products orders and know the recorder levels thus preventing delay when acquiring new stock. The point of sale system could assist in scheduling production to optimize the machinery. Order placement systems could be used to acquire more customers and customize the products made. Payroll system can be used to optimize on the workers required during production (Davoren 2016). This is used by the middle-level managers in an organization to track the trend of their operations and make tactical decisions. They could be standalone systems or could be integrated into the transactional processing system (Karim 2011). Management information systems include budget systems, human resource management systems to monitor the performance of the company personnel and sales management system to track the sales made (Davoren 2016). The middle level or tactical managers at CHEMS Ltd could be interested in knowing the production trends, the sales volume for a particular period of time such as on a weekly basis. They may also like to know the employees turnover to be able to find out if there are any issues affecting workers and decide on rewards and motivation tactics to retain talent as well as identify work stressors affecting employees output(Yang 2008). Sales management system can be linked directly to the transactional processing system to identify the company performance in terms of sales volume. They can inform the tactical or middle management at CHEMS Ltd on the sales progress made in a certain duration. Budge systems can be used to plan the company's future requirements in order to operate effectively (Markgraf 2016). These are sophisticated management information systems currently being used by organizations to track their operations in areas such as human resource, management of suppliers, inventory management, financial management, customer relationship management and so much more in one package. They can be customized according to the needs of the organization. CHEMS Ltd could use this system to track their processes and manage their stakeholders such as suppliers and clients efficiently (Karim 2011). These are modern information systems running on online platforms such as social media, customer relationship management systems, company email among others. They analyze the trends of the company stakeholders and give reports on the needs of users so that the company can exploit the manifest needs to make sales. CHEMS Ltd. can use this system to expand their customer base and create a sustainable competitive advantage (Davoren 2016). According to Yang (2008), DSS are systems used by senior managers in an organization to make strategic decisions about the operations of the company. They are usually linked to internal systems such as management information systems, transactional processing systems and to external sources to enable senior management to understand the strength and weaknesses of the company and opportunities and threats outside the company. These are linked to databases and function on processing large datasets of structured queries. They analyze and filter the database depending on the commands executed. They mainly rely on the company databases to give senior managers information to make informed decisions. CHEMS Ltd can use this system to manage their suppliers and their inventory (Davoren 2016). This class of DSS is linked to the company models in order to the best decision from complex alternatives that a company can make. They use a model such as financial models, accounting models and economic models to decipher the best course of action given many options that a company can make. They use parameters rather than datasets used by data-driven DSS (Yin 2015). CHEMS Ltd can use this system in the analysis of their financial position and future alternatives given uncertainties such as competition, the introduction of new laws on chemical and many other unforeseen risks (Conerly 2015). Also known as intelligence decision support system, this system conducts data mining from the company and outside sources using a specified knowledge or pattern of logic to present the best alternative to myriad options that can be made. The intelligence used could, for instance, be best pricing alternative to competition (Yang 2008). CHEMS Ltd can benefit from this system in trying to seek new markets where the competitive rivalry is fierce or to position itself in a new market where pricing of products is still new. This system is mainly used where the company has many documents and the user wants to retrieve certain information in an unstructured format. They are mainly used to retrieve required information from web pages in much the same way as search engines do (Markgraf 2016). It can be useful to senior managers at CHEMS Ltd in quick preparation of weekly reports for the meeting without resorting to manual methods of making the final touches as they currently do. This system supports groups of users in aiding decision-making through live interaction, sharing of media, communication and electronic mail. It enhances group work and group dynamics that give users more say in the decisions made for the company. This system can improve employee relations at CHEMS Ltd where it is noted that senior managers are in a foul mood after frustrations in using the email and databases. It is good for enhancing teamwork and interaction among employees (Price 2016). Interaction of the different models, databases, management information systems and decision support system can form the executive information systems that employ life interaction of data, infographics and live graphical interface that senior managers and executives at CHEMS Ltd can use to make real-time decisions from an informed angle (Yin 2015). How to change Production Equipment in CHEMS Ltd and choose a scheme As a result of increasing competition from foreign competitors, CHEMS Ltd has to make a strategic choice to change its production process to make it faster, efficient and cost-effective. That way, the company can respond on strategic angles such as rapid response to clients orders, cost leadership, offer premium products that are inimitable by competitors among other strategic options (Freeman 2010). The production equipment can be changed from a technological point of view whereby introduction of an automated system from two suppliers is required for decisions to be made. The decisions have to match cost-effectiveness and the savings made in the long run after the purchase of the automated computer system (Raza 2015). To choose the best approach to sourcing for an automated system from either Taiwan or collaboration with a local university, a decision tree model will be utilized in helping to reveal all the possible outcomes where the best outcome can be chosen (Reuvid 2014). From analysis of the options, either buying system 1 from Taiwan or collaborating with the university the different outcomes are as shown in decision tree model shown below various outcomes are presented and whereas the outcomes may benefit the company in some way, the best outcome that saves the company on the initial outlay expenditure and running cost or one that brings the most proceeds must be chosen (Manktelow, 2017). Recommendation From the outcomes, it is evident that acquiring system 1 from Taiwan would bring the company proceeds of $3Million after subtracting the initial outlay of $2.5 Million. The second option that is collaborating with the university for system 2 would bring proceeds of 4.25M. It is therefore in the best interest that CHEMS Ltd collaborates with the University as it stands to gain more and make proceeds of $1.25Million than if it chose to buy system 1 from Taiwan. The best decision is where the company saves money and operates efficiently in the face of risks and uncertainties (Vollmer, 2015). Conclusion This paper has critically looked at the ordering, production and decision-making process at CHEMS Ltd, a company that manufactures finished products from chemicals. The paper has evaluated the various stakeholders involved in the company including the senior management, the employees, suppliers, and clients. From the ordering and production processes, it was established that the company bears resource wastage, especially on time resource. The paper has established the various ways in which time is wasted and offered alternative methods to the production process. It was established that the company could spend one month in the production process instead of the 4 months it currently takes. The paper also looks at the challenges facing the senior management and discusses ways in which those challenges can be handled including the provision of superior management information system and executive information system. Various information systems were discussed and ways they could fit in CHEMS Ltd explored. The paper finally looks at system evaluation and how to choose the best decisions for the company using a decision tree model. Different decision outcomes were analyzed and the best outcome was chosen to benefit the company in the bid to overcome the challenge increased competition from foreign companies. References Arbin, K. (2008). The road towards successful e-ordering implementation: success factors and barriers. International Journal of Procurement Management, 1(4), p.415. Azevedo, A. (2013). Advances in sustainable and competitive manufacturing systems. Cham: Springer, pp.80-84. Barbaro, A. (2008). Managing financial risk in planning under uncertainty. 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