In on the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, Mary Essays - Ethics

In on the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, Mary Anne Warren discusses a few arguments against abortion, namely bringing into play whether the fetus is actually a person, or "not a member of the moral community". She defends that abortion is a morally sound action. Don Marquis, in his essay An Argument that Abortion is Wrong, takes the opposite stance. He claims, "that abortion, except perhaps in rare instances, is seriously wrong". The first thing we read in Warren's article is the thought experiment first conceived by Judith Thomson. It's an analogy that uses a normal person, male or female, and a famous violinist. Let's say the Society of Music Lovers kidnaps you, and hooks you up to this dying violinist. If you choose to unhook yourself, the violinist will die, but if you let him stay hooked up to you to use your kidneys, then he will be cured and both of you will be free. Thomson asks what a person's obligations in this situation are, and, to be consistent with Warren's argument, she says it would be ridiculous to be stay in bed with the violinist, and thus you are able to leave at any time. You shouldn't feel responsible for the death of the violinist. But Marquis, in his essay, points out that, while good for dealing with abortions due to rape, the analogy doesn't hold up. Thomson draws to our attention that in pregnancy a fetus uses the woman's body for life-support, but the woman doesn't use a fetus's body for life support. Thus, in an abortion the life that is lost is the fetus's, not the woman's. This leaves us with a standoff. I think this overall analogy is not significantly helpful for either side of the argument. Warren then discusses whether or not abortion is actually the killing of a "person", calling into question when a fetus matures to the point of personhood. She defines the moral community as having some of these six characteristics: sentience (capacity to have conscious experiences), emotionality (capacity to feel sad, angry, happy, etc.), reason (capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems), capacity to communicate (by any means), self-aware ness (concept of oneself), and finally moral agency (capacity to regulate one's own actions). This is clearly very sketchy, because infants and mentally or physically challenged people are still referred to and thought of as "people", or "members of the moral community", despite a lack of many of these traits. Both articles address this idea of personhood, but neither one really wins. The good thing with defining personhood biologically, saying it's a person at conception, quantifies itit gives a definitive time, not some subjective date when certain sentient or reasoning qualities are met, and this lessens the confusion. But I still agree somewhat with the view held by Warren that fetuses can't reason or fend for themselves nor do really anything other than exist. So again, I don't think either side has a stronger case, because both Warren and Marquis have points that basically offset one another. An interesting thing that Marquis then does is go on to talk about FLO, or "future like ours". He claims that killing deprives a person of a future that is like ours, and says that abortion is killing a fetus that will have a future like ours. Taking someone's entire future away from them is the worst of crimes, and he argues that abortion is this kind of deprivation of future. Killing an adult is an awful thing to do because it takes away that adult's future, a future that is of great value. The same goes for aborted fetusesthey had a future that would be valued but it was taken away from them. Warren also argues that a woman has a right to life, so she can make a decision that she sees fit, since her body belongs to her and only her. In response to this, Marquis says that, except during rape (when he believes it is permissible), a fetus has just as much of a right to life as the woman, and therefore an abortion is wrong. Marquis concludes that abortion is seriously wrong, except in unusual cases (rape, incest,

Citing Conference Proceedings - Harvard Style

Citing Conference Proceedings - Harvard Style Citing Conference Proceedings – Harvard Style Every now and then, intellectuals climb down from their ivory towers and gather to swap ideas and discuss research. These are known as academic conferences and often serve as the ground from which new ideas grow. As such, you may need to cite conference proceedings – the collected presentations given at a conference in published form – when writing a paper. Most referencing systems have a format for how to cite this kind of source, so it’s important to familiarize yourself with the rules. Herein we provide details of how to cite conference proceedings using Harvard style referencing. There are other referencing systems available, though, so remember to check which system your college or school prefers. Published Proceedings The papers presented at a conference are often published as a collection known as the conference proceedings. If you need to cite the entire proceedings of a conference, the format to use is: Surname, Initial(s). (Year) Full Title of Conference Proceedings. Conference Location, Date. City of Publication, Publisher. So, for example, if you were citing the proceedings of the Third Annual Proofed Conference as a whole, it would appear in your reference list as: Proofed (2015). Proceedings of the Third Annual Proofed Conference. Cambridge, May 24-27, 2015. Cambridge, PMP Publications. More commonly, you’ll want to cite one paper from published conference proceedings. In this case, your reference should include the specific paper you’re citing followed by where it can be found: Author Surname, Initial(s). (Year) Title of Paper, Full Title of Conference. Location, Date. City of Publication, Publisher, page range. If, then, you wanted to cite Alan Presenter’s paper from the Third Annual Proofed Conference, it would appear in your reference list as: Presenter, A. (2015) The Glory of Conferences, Proceedings of the Third Annual Proofed Conference. Cambridge, May 24-27, 2015. Cambridge, PMP Publications, pp. 105-127. You may also need to include access details for papers found online (e.g., a URL and a date of access). Unpublished Presentations More occasionally, you may want to cite a presentation you saw at a conference, but which isn’t available in published form. In these cases, you’ll need to provide the following details in your reference list: Contributor’s Surname, Initial(s). (Year) Title of Presentation, paper presented at Title of Conference. Location, Date. If you were to cite Alan Presenter’s paper before it was published, the reference list entry would therefore look like this: Presenter, A. (2015) The Glory of Conferences, paper presented at Proceedings of the Third Annual Proofed Conference. Cambridge, MA, May 24-27, 2015.

Heinekens Internal Processes,Mission and Vision Research Paper

Heinekens Internal Processes,Mission and Vision - Research Paper Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that despite its origin in Dutch, Heineken has made a significant presence in the two Americas, owing to the massive business opportunities in the region. The company entered the American market and Latin America in the early 20th century following the slackening of regulations in the region. And in 2010, Heineken entered into strategic acquisitions of beer companies in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. In the latter two countries, Heineken settled for FEMSA. The organization’s internal processes revolve around managing risks through effective control systems. These measures, according to the company, ease its identification of the risks for better interventions in order to realize its operational and pecuniary goals. In addition, these internal mechanisms enable the company’s operations to be in line with relevant laws and policies in the countries within the two Americas. The company relies on a system of control for prop er processing and release of financial statements. In light of these, Heineken’s internal control mechanisms form the central part of their internal management processes. Heineken is renowned for its push for quality of goods and financial restraint. The company encourages an entrepreneurial culture across organizational levels so as to obtain opportunities that foster continuity in terms of business development and creativity, whilst absorbing controlled risks. Heineken International argues that the carefully structured customized portfolio per country and the rigorous balance sheet depict the brewer’s risk appetite. Regardless, in competitive markets like North America’s and emerging South America’s, achieving financial restraint where proper marketing expenditure pays out has been relatively counterproductive to Heineken.

Animal Experimentation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Animal Experimentation - Research Paper Example As a result, The use of animals in scientific experiments increased dramatically especially after the discovery of anesthetics in mid-nineteenth century; the number of non-human animals used in scientific investigations in UK alone increased from one million per year in early nineteenth century to exceed five millions per year in the 1970s. This huge increase in the use of animals for research purposes was paralleled with an increase in the resistance and oppositions to animal testing. The animal testing controversy involves three sides; a group that is in favor of using animals for medical research debating that human superiority to animals justifies the use of animals in experiments. On the other hand, there is group of people who opposes the use of animals in experiments for ethical concerns. Obviously, both of these two sides are extreme; we cannot allow animals to suffer just based on the proponent’s claim nor can we stop animal tests due to the fact that it would stop hu mans from advancing in medical fields. This controversy resulted in new laws and regulations such as, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) that limits the number of animals that should be tested and the level of pain an animal can endure. Although, of course, experimenting on animals should be regulated, discontinuing this practice must never happen since it would negatively impact the advancement in the medical fields which will affect both humans’ race and non-human animals. The anti- animal testing movement argues that animals have the same rights as humans and therefore we should not be carrying out experiments on them. Tom Regan, a professor at the North Carolina University, argues that animals have similar emotions to our emotional beings, and considering them inferior species is similar to racism. According to Charles Darwin, best known as the father of evolution, humans are different from other species in â€Å"degree† not in â€Å"kind†. Thus Regan believes tha t â€Å"speciesism† which points to the view that the specie that we belong to is superior to other species is the same as racism and sexism. Furthermore, the response that we would get if we ask ourselves what gives us the right to carry experiments on animal for our benefits would be that we humans are more intelligent than other animals. But what about the case of infants or some mentally disabled patients, wouldn’t there be some animals that are more intelligent in comparison to these two examples? So, animals that are less intelligent than humans shall not be tested for human benefits unless we are ready to scarify some of our specie members. Similar to the philosophy of human rights which state that all people should be treated equally, animal rights as well demand that all animals should be equally treated, which prevent the harm of individuals to benefits other(). Humans as well as other animals experience life, and their rights to live and treated equally shou ld not be ignored. Why should animals be the victims of enduring harmful and procedural experiments that would yield benefits that are mostly useful for humans? The answer to this question is the fact there is not many alternative, and only animals are qualified for carrying out medical experiments. The limitation of sources to gain essential information is the reason why animals are used in experiments; there are no computers

Business coursework; Fish and Chip shop (Burnham high street) Essay Example for Free

Business coursework; Fish and Chip shop (Burnham high street) Essay Introduction I am doing an investigation on a small local business to identify ways that it could be improved and what the business is doing wrong at the moment that is preventing it from making the progress that it could make. The local shop that I chose was the fish and chip in Burnham high street, SeaWorld. I chose this shop because I am a fan of seafood and when I go into a seafood place I expect to find many items that are actually seafood but normally they have different varieties of food but rarely any seafood. They normally have kebabs, chips, burgers, but chips are a necessity with fish. Preparation We started off making our individual surveys for both customers and workers and chose the best survey to be printed out. We also were planning on tasting the food in SeaWorld as well to see how good the product was. We thought of the types of shop that would be competitors. What we did For our research we had about an hour to go to the fish and chip shop in Burnham high street, but unfortunately SeaWorld was closed so we decided that some of us would take out the surveys on the public while the other group would see how the point of sale looked and find anything wrong with it. There were quite a few surveys done, and we managed to figure out some problems with the point of sale. Luckily there was a worker inside SeaWorld who did not mind us asking questions about his workplace. I think that we had taken a few surveys of people who go there regularly, but would have liked to see how the business was when it was open. Things like how many people go there, what there menu was, how well priced the food was, what majority of the regular customers thought of the seafood shop. We also looked out for competitors and how accessible their shops are, how their shops looked and how close they are to SeaWorld. Place SeaWorld is in Burnham high street and because it is quite a small high street even a small number of competitors would be a problem. There arent any seafood restaurants or seafood take-away as such in Burnham high street but there are cafes and fast food shops and there is a seafood shop in Burnham. These are also competitors because if people go into these shops it can pose a threat to the business of SeaWorld by reducing its market share. The other issue with the place is how easy it is for the customers to access the shop in terms of parking, distance and is there a contact number so they can order over the phone? The restaurant has a telephone number next to the restaurants name which is convenient for the customers and the business because it wont be crowded so they will have enough seats but they will still be getting the sales and revenue. The first take- away or restaurant that you see when you enter the high street from hog fair lane is SeaWorld which means that for ease of access and to save time people will go here. Therefore I think that the place that the seafood shop is not bad, but the look of the point of sale from the inside and outside needs to change. It needs to be re-painted and the inside needs to be looking more spacious to attract more customers. Product I did not have the opportunity to get a good look at their menu because at the time they were not open, but from what I saw there was a range of fried and battered fish food, chips and drinks which is what their customers would expect and this makes them look good. There was a problem though which was that on the outside of the shop there was a label that said kebabs that is something that you wouldnt expect in a fish and chip shop and I dont know if they do sell kebabs but if they didnt then that would be misleading the customers which would be irritating for them and they could potentially lose customers. If they did have kebabs then it would be inappropriate. Price I was not able to ask or look at the prices that they had for their food but the price needs to be below five pounds for each product and above a pound. If the products are priced too highly customers would not buy from that shop and if it was too low then they will be at a loss and will not be able to run efficiently. Theoretically the lower the price the more demand there is for that product, but you also need to balance between charging high enough to cover costs but low enough to keep the customers buying. Sometimes even if the prices are high the demand still remains the same, this is because things like customer service is good and the product also should be better than others. For the seafood shop it means that they need to be friendly to customers, deliver orders on time and put the customers needs and requests first. Promotion Walking along Burnham high street I did not see any form of promotion for the seafood shop. This is one of the crucial factors of getting a small business to succeed. If people do not know where you are or even if you exist then how will you get more customers? The seafood shop does not even have a website which means that it makes it harder for people find out about such a shop. The locals around Burnham high street might know about the shop but not many other people will. Therefore they need to find a form of promotion that will allow them to be known but not too expensive either. Picking the promotion The ways of promotion best for SeaWorld is through leaflets through letter boxes, this is a form of promotion suited to this business because it will be spread throughout the local area, because people from other areas are not going to travel a long way just to get to SeaWorld and it is not that expensive. The down side to leaflets is that it is often seen as junk and discarded, so it has a low success rate and you would need to find someone to hand them out or put them in letterboxes this means they need to pay that person as well. Another way that is cheap and affordable is advertising in the local newspaper, this would reach a wide local audience and there is only the cost of publishing it in the newspaper. The size of the advert can be adjusted so that it fits the budget of the seafood shop, but to get a large sized advert that is well designed it may be expensive. Another promotion that is totally free, very reliable and trustworthy is customer word-of-mouth recommendation; this is when customers recommend the shop to family and friends. When it is recommended by family and friends people trust that it is a good shop and go there, but it is the customers choice to do it and you cannot control it. You can aid this by providing excellent customer service, good value for money and good standard of food. A good thing to advertise is offers like buy one get one half price or tokens on newspaper or leaflets that have good offers which they can claim. Offers for a meal are actually cheaper than buying them all individually so it encourages customers to buy more and they would chose a place that has offers on food to one that does not. Loyalty cards are also a good incentive to get new customers and keep existing customers to come back for more and this would increase sales because a certain number of purchases would get them a reward, which is normally more food. Frequent customers would feel angry that they do not get discounts or complimentary food. Survey of worker We did a questionnaire on the worker about the Seafood shop, and working conditions and he seems to be very positive about working there, but from how he spoke we realised that he was being bias so we cannot really trust everything that he said. He said that it was a good environment to work in and that the working conditions were good. The environment would be good because it would be busy. The workers seem happy and motivated therefore I would expect the customer service to be good as well and the food to be of a good standard. I asked what kinds of fringe benefits or monetary benefits they get but it seemed that he did not get any. The staff cannot be kept well motivated for long without any benefits. The owners can make the staff more motivated by giving monetary benefits at first and then fringe benefits. At first they would find that money is what they need and will be motivated when money is at the other end and it will be cheaper to give small monetary benefits than fringe benefits. When the business grows it can afford fringe benefits and the workers need benefits other than money to motivate them. The easiest fringe benefit could be a discount on the food in the fish and chip shop, or free lunch for the workers. To keep them well motivated there needs to be a better fringe benefit that they will get for working well or achieving a target number of sales.

Ecommerce Industry Analysis :: essays research papers

Industry Analysis: On-Line Higher Education Industry Today’s industries of Higher Education are witnessing a burgeoning interest in the use of the Internet. The rise of the Internet, by information technologies and business application, represents a large base of potential customers for e-commerce activities. Generally, it can be said that e-commerce is a highly significant way of conducting business. For that very reason, a widespread of universities and colleges actively exploit opportunities created by the growth of e-commerce by initiating on line courses and degrees to accommodate this demand. This industry analysis will capture the principal effects that e-commerce, i.e. on line courses, may have, as compared to those of conventional Higher Education Industries, as well as explore the barriers and opportunities that may face each. These issues are examined using market research, newspaper articles, and annual industry reports. Higher Education Firms are undertaking growing numbers of e-commerce initiatives and increasingly offering on-line incentives required to participate in the growing online market. A range of on-line incentives includes expedited degrees, decreased tuition fees and minimal face-to-face time with instructors. However, to realize these gains of on-line courses and the associated incentives requires fundamental Internet knowledge and a high degree of competency with on-line universities in offering adequate resources. Higher Education institutions are producers of information concentrated products, and may face a raft of challenges when instilling these new competencies. The Gartner Group estimates that firms creating e-commerce sites spend $1 million in the first five months, and $20 million for a place in cyberspace that sets them apart from the competition. These costs are projected to increase at a rate of over 25% per year over the next two years. An examination of the annual reports of Online Higher Education companies reflects the magnitude of these costs. South University’s annual report for 2003 reveals that the firm spent $152 million on advertisement, equipment, and software, amounting to 9% of their annual revenues for the year. This figure for Capella.edu is $34 million (16% of revenue). Once these investments are in place, the costs of entry into virtual universities mainly include considerable marketing expenses. Activities such as the placement of banner ads in portal sites are $12 million (12% of revenue). Transaction and organizational costs affect every educational institution. The potential of Virtual Universities to reduce these costs is most important, because the cost affect the consumers. Comparisons to campus education also create economic challenges to online institutions.

Palm Hospital Notes

Palms Hospital (Traditional Project Analysis) Palms Hospital * 250 bed capacity; investor owned; Islamorada, Florida * Founded in 1946 by Rob Winslow, went back in 1967 after the war * High economic growth, population expansion Acknowledged to be one of the leading healthcare providers in the area * Currently evaluating a proposed ambulatory (outpatient) surgery centre * More than 80% o all outpatient surgery is performed by specialists * Minor procedures take about one hour or less, major procedures take two or more hours * About 60 percent of the procedures are performed under general anesthesia, 30 percent under local anesthesia, 10 percent under regional or spinal anesthesia * Operating rooms built in pairs for prep and surgery efficiency * Outpatient surgery market has experienced significant growth since the first ambulatory centre opened in 1970; 1990 – 2. million surgeries, 2009 – more than 20 million surgeries * Growth was fueled by three factors: rapid advance ments in technology made it possible for inpatient surgeries to be performed as outpatient surgeries,; Medicare has been aggressive in approving new minimally invasive surgery techniques, meaning number of Medicare patients who use outpatient surgery services has grown substantially; patients prefer outpatient surgeries for convenience, and third party payers prefer them for less cost * Inpatient surgery numbers have been flat due to these factors over the last 20 years; outpatient procedures grow at 10% annually * No other outpatient surgery centre exists in Palms Hospital’s immediate environment, but rumors about physician owned facilities are surfacing * Palms Hospital owns a land adjacent to the facility that would be a perfect location for the new ambulatory surgery centre; the land was bought for $150,000, spent $25,000 to clear the land (also expensed for tax purposes) to put sewer and utility lines. If sold today, the land will ring in $200,000. * The supposed buildin g will house four operating suites that will cost $5,000,000 plus another $5,000,000 for equipment costs for a total of $10,000,000. *Note: the building and the equipment fall into the modified accelerated cost recovery system (MACRS) five-year class for tax depreciation purposes; in reality, the building has to be depreciated over a longer period than the quipment * Although the project may have a longer life, the hospital assumes a five-year life in its capital budgeting analyses and then approximates the value of the cash flows beyond year 5 by including a terminal/salvage value in the analysis; to estimate this value, the hospital uses the market value of the building and equipment after five years, which in this case is $5M before taxes, excluding land value. *Note: taxes must be paid on the difference between an asset’s salvage value and tax book value at termination; for example, if an asset that cost $10,000 is depreciated to $5,000 and then sold for $7,000, the firm owes taxes on the $2,000 excess in salvage value over tax book value * Expected volume for this centre is 20 procedures a day, with an average charge of $1,500 but charity care, bad debts, managed care plan discounts and other allowances lower the net revenue amount to $1,000; the centre will be open 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, 250 days out of the year.Labor costs are expected to run at $918,000 a year excluding fringe benefits; utility costs run at $50,000 a year * If the centre is built, hospital’s cash overhead will increase by $36,000 annually, primarily for housekeeping, building and grounds maintenance; centre will be allocated $25,000 of the hospital’s current $2. 8M administrative overhead costs. On average, each procedure will require $200 in expendable medical supplies, including anesthetics. The hospital’s inventories and receivables, as well as accruals and payables will increase. Overall change in net working capital is expected to be small, the refore not imperative to the analysis. The hospital’s tax rate is 40%. * Inflation – one of the most difficult factors to deal with in project analysis. Input costs and charges have been rising at twice the rate of overall inflation. Inflationary pressures are highly variable.Analysis is started by assuming that both revenues and costs, except for depreciation, will increase at a constant rate – which they project will be at 3%. * Board members’ concerns – wants to make sure that a complete risk analysis including sensitivity and scenario analysis is performed before the proposal is presented (board was forced to close a daycare that appeared to be profitable but turned out to be a big money loser – 2 years ago) * Another concern would be the impact of the centre on the current volume of inpatient surgeries. Surgery department head projected that the outpatient surgery centre could siphon off up to $1,000,000 in cash revenues annually, hat c ould lead to a $500,000 reduction in annual cash expenses * The data developed for risk analysis were as follows: three input variables are highly uncertain – number of procedures per day, average revenue per procedure, building/equipment salvage value. If another centre was built to compete with theirs, number of procedures could be as low as 10 a day, but if acceptance to their centre is strong, they could be doing 25 procedures a day. * Net average revenue (cost of procedure) is $1000. But if surgery severity is high, net average revenue could be $1,200. If severity is low, it could be $800. If real estate and medical equipment values stay strong, salvage value could be as high as $6M, but if it weakens, it’ll be as low as $4M – considering that the average salvage value is $5M. Another board member question why the scenario analysis only had three scenarios and suggested 5 or 7. * Based on historical scenario analysis data that use best case, worst case, and most likely, the hospital’s average project has a coefficient of variation of NPV (net present value) in the range of 1. 0-2. 0 and the hospital typically adds or subtracts 4 percentage points to its 10 percent corporate cost of capital to adjust for differential project risk. * Note: the case asks us to conduct complete project analysis and present findings. It suggests the application of Monte Carlo simulation (but that is bullshit because that’s the simulation you need a computer software for).