J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter Series :: Harry Potter Series

Thus far in Rowling’s predicted seven book series, all four books can be found to have a number of shared themes that are rather evident in all of them. The most evident, however, would be that things in the land of Harry Potter are not always what they seem, and in order to get along well in this land, you must accept the differences of others. Harry’s life for his first few years could be categorized under both of these themes. Harry, after all, is always having bizarre things happen at the most inopportune moments; his aunt, uncle, and cousin (the Dursleys) are definitely less than accepting of this, resulting in a very poor relationship between Harry and them (The Sorcerer’s Stone 18-24). Throughout the other four books this inacceptance of Harry’s differences by the Dursleys always leaves Harry with a burning desire to get back to Hogwarts. Harry, as a result of this poor home life, adjusts rather easily to his newly found life of wizardry. For him it is finally an explanation for the odd occurrences of before, and gives him a chance to be among others like him. The themes present themselves in a variety of other characters and situations as well. The character of Hagrid, for example, which upon first description should lead one to believe he is the fiercest creature alive; he is definitely to be avoided (The Sorcerer’s Stone 14, 46-47). On the contrary though, Harry, Ron, and Hermione look past this and find a friend and protector. Harry’s godfather is also believed to be a creature, of sorts, â€Å"out to get† Harry. However, he turns out to be there to protect him, as well. As for situations, each book revolves around a mystery with so many twists and turns, that the final solution for it is almost always a surprise. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, for example, the reader is lead to believe that Professor Snape is the one helping the dark lord, Voldemort, do harm to Harry and steal the stone; in the end, the reader finds the guilty party in the most unlikely character, meek, stuttering Professor Quirrell (288). In The Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts is suddenly plagued by students turning to stone. The initial belief is that Draco Malfoy is the culprit, then the blame shifts to Hagrid, and even Harry becomes a suspect.

The Reasonable Winners and Emotional Loser’s of the Miller’s Tale

In many stories we are accustomed to, the â€Å"good† characters that are kind and affectionate triumph over the â€Å"evil†, who manipulate the weak through trickery. However, in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, the winner has qualities of a villain while the loser has benign qualities of winners. The three male characters, John, Absolon and Nicholas, who all have great affections for Alisoun, face different ends. Absolon who is able to get a hold of his emotions after his struggle with Alisoun, meets a victory while John meets a bitter end because of his great love for her.Nicholas, despite his great success in trickery loses focus and gets burnt harshly by Absolon. In the Miller’s Tale, the character’s ability to reason and overcome their emotions determines their final victory. In the Miller’s Tale, John is the epitome of a man who is overcome by his emotions. John, despite his wealth, is a carpenter who is highly uneducated for he is peas ant. Because he is uneducated, he has no choice but to depend on his emotions in making his judgements. He must decide the right and wrong based from his feelings.Unfortunately, this leaves him vulnerable to those that can notice his inablity to think for himself. Nicholas and Aliouson is very aware of John’s weaknesses. Knowning Johns devoted love for Alisoun, the two easily tricks him into thinking that a flood greater than that of Noah’s is coming. Greatly overcome by emotinos and fear that Alisoun might die John fools even the most ridiculous instructions given to him. Never once does John question Nicholas’s motives or words. Poor John, however, does not only care for Alisoun but even for Nicholas as well.He shows his worries for Nicholas saying â€Å"Me reweth soore of hende Nicholas† and visits his room to check up on him (Chaucer 276). Of course, John again, cannot see that Nicholas is acting and tricking him. He is too succumbed to his emotions b y the time Nicholas talks about Alisoun’s danger, John forgets to ask nicholas the reliability of his words. John’s reliance on emotions caused by lack of education, leads him to a disaster. Not only does he gets physically hurt falling from the roof, but faces mental pain, rejected and tricked by his love.Absolon is also another character who has great love for Alisoun. Although he is a clerk, he lacks the experience and knowlegde of real love and has fantastical image of courtly love. Therefore, he serenades to Alisoun every night and asks for her love continously, even after rejects him. Because he is so overcome by his emotions, it seems that his ability to reason is disabled; he does not stop and wonder what he can do to win Alisoun’s heart. Instead, he persists on Alisoun, to fulfill his desire to get her love.Then when he kisses Alisoun’s ass and is humiliated greatly, he is cure of his love sickness. He is finally able to use his intelligence to d evise a plan to revenge Alisoun. Absolon is finally able to realize the reality of Alisoun’s absent love. He makes a logical decision to get his pride back by trying to burn her with a hot rod. It is interesting how now he is able to foresee other characters’ actions. Although it was Nicholas rather than Alisoun that gets burnt, Absolon is able to detect and foresee that someone will try to trick him again by putting their ass out the window.With his new knowledge and realizaion of reality of love, Absolon is able to plan ahead of those who tricked him. Finally, in control of his emotions, Absolon meets a victory and is the winner. The tale’s most devious character, Nicholas who devises and beings the trickery, does not have a clear stance in being the winner or the loser. In the beginnning of the tale, Nicholas is a character who is driven by his intellect and reasoning. He is only character who succeeds in charming Alisoun. Unlike John and Absolon, he does not pour out all his affection to her but uses few sweet words to express his love.He is also not as emotionally attached to Alisoun and values the plan and method of getting with Alisoun more. Even when he as the chance to sleep with her and John is away, he does not, proving that he enjoys using his intellect and does not simply given into his momentairly emotions. Therefore, Nicholas is an acute character who uses his knowledge effectively to create a plan to fool John. He succeeds in doing so by manipulating John’s love. He is aware that John, who is controlled by his emotions, would be easily duped and exploits it.However, after his great success intricking John without much effort, Nicholas loses much of his focus and becomes lazy. Overcome by pride and cockyness, he lets his guard down, allowing his emotions to take over. When Absolon comes back for another kiss, he sticks his ass out the window, definitely putting his logic aside and not thinking. The image of him presen ting his ass also symbolizes his vulnerability and lack of reasoning. Nicholas, although victorious in the beginning, gets duped, beding both the winner and the loser.The three characters, John, Absolon and Nicholas all get tricked at one point. Whether it is their love or pride, the three men is overcome by their emotions eventually. This might make one questions the intent. It might be possible that Chucer in the Miller’s Tale, might be doing so to prove that all classes are influenced by their emotions. No man, whether he is a clerk or a peasant, can fully control his emotions at all times. Therefore, he might making an underlying claim that all men are vulnerable and equal in some extent.

EPC Plant Equipment Maintenance Process

Man-hours of Planned WOW Standby Man-hours ratio 0 No. Of Standby Man-hours / No. Of total Man-hours Mean work-order execution time (Days) Maintenance cost and cost ratio 0 Total maintenance cost per month / Total equipment book value 0 Differentiated values for man-hours and spare-parts 0 Divided in separated categories of equipment (rotary, fixed, facilities, etc. ) Measured monthly Level 1 cross-functional map of the current processWe at EPIC have been able to produce and deliver high quality, high-value chemicals to our customers through modern process technologies and hallucinated equipment and facilities. However, The ever increasing competition in the market requires us to reduce our plant maintenance costs and improve maintenance productivity by reducing non-value-adding activities and idle times, optimizing our manpower and machinery resource allocation, reducing spare-parts inventories, and minimizing the equipment idle-time and maintenance/procurement delays. These objecti ves may not be achieved unless we review, assess, and improve our maintenance planning and execution processes.To achieve an acceptable level of maintenance quality and productivity aimed at increasing production reliability and continuation, we have proposed to initiate a comprehensive analysis of maintenance processes, targeted at 50% reduction in maintenance costs and time, 30% reduction in spare parts inventory, and an average inter-overhaul period of at least 8 years. Implementing the above initiative will hopefully enable us to maintain our cost leadership and remain at the top of the domestic chemicals market. Review/analysis of the current state and its problems/issues As cited in the section n symptoms/problems and the root cause analysis chart, The most basic symptoms of the maintenance process which are manifested in the internal customer's dissatisfaction are delayed execution and poor quality of maintenance work.These are mainly attributed to unskilled maintenance worke rs, poor coordination and cooperation between production and maintenance workers, and long procurement procedures, which result in several losses: 0 Downtime from breakdown and changeover times 0 Speed losses (when equipment fails to operate at its optimum speed) 0 Idling and minor stoppages due to the abnormal operation of sensors, blockage of work on hates, etc. 0 Process defects due to scrap and quality defects to be repaired 0 Reduced yield in the period from machine start-up to stable production. But the ultimate cause of all these inefficiencies lies in the non-optimized function-oriented hierarchical organization within the maintenance and other company-wide departments. In fact, this last phenomenon is the cause of fragmented processes and unnecessary control and inspection, which in turn hinder employees' motivation and empowerment as well as cause very long cycles of spare-parts procurement. Initial improvements- Streamlining

A critical approach to Barn Burning (by William Faulkner)

A critical approach to Barn Burning (by William Faulkner) "Barn Burning" is a sad story because it very clearly shows the classical struggle between the "privileged" and the "underprivileged" classes. Time after time emotions of despair surface from both the protagonist and the antagonist involved in the story.This story outlines two distinct protagonists and two distinct antagonists. The first two are Colonel Sartoris Snopes ("Sarty") and his father Abner Snopes ("Ab"). Sarty is the protagonist surrounded by his father antagonism whereas Ab is the protagonist antagonized by the social structure and the struggle that is imposed on him and his family.The economic status of the main characters is poor, without hope of improving their condition, and at the mercy of a quasi-feudal system in North America during the late 1800's. Being a sharecropper, Ab and his family had to share half or two-thirds of the harvest with the landowner and out of their share pay for the necessities of life.English: Uncle Ab's House See 15225.As a result of this sta tus, Ab and his family know from the start what the future will hold hard work for their landlord and mere survival for them.No hope for advancement prevails throughout the story. Sarty, his brother and the twin sisters have no access to education, as they must spend their time working in the fields or at home performing familial duties. Nutrition is lacking "He could smell the coffee from the room where they would presently eat the cold food remaining from the mid-afternoon meal" (PARA. 55). As a consequence, poor health combined with inadequate opportunity results in low morale. A morale which the writer is identifying with the middle class of his times "that same quality which in later years would cause his descendants to over-run the engine before putting a motor car into motion" (PARA. 20)...

Improve Business Writing Skills to Increase Productivity and Revenue

Improve Business Writing Skills to Increase Productivity and Revenue Current Business Writing Skills Scenario Your employees’ abilities to write and rewrite, clearly and concisely, goes a long way in establishing a competitive advantage for your business. If you want to make the best first impression on all your customers, clients, vendors, other transacting parties, and anyone who comes in contact with your business, then your employees need to master the art of effective business writing skills. Because most employees spend a substantial part of each workday writing whether it's email, reports, briefings, presentations, or requirements summaries improving business writing skills willsave your company money and increase employee productivity. Good writing skills lead to improved productivity and cost savings for the business. When employees spend a lot of time writing reports and end up producing error-prone documents, your business is likely to lose goodwill. Another issue with poor business writing skills is that it leads to wasted hours of editing and proofreading. This negatively affects your business productivity, since the time spent to make corrections could have been utilized for profit-making activities. Additionally, you might need to hire experienced editors orproofreaders for key business documents, adding more expense to your payroll. Drasticallyimprove your employees’ business writing skills by conducting business writing training. This will lead to improved productivity and by reducingthe average time spent on a single business writing task. Here is empirical proof: Current Business Writing Skills Scenario Suppose that your organization has a work unit of 30 workers. Each worker earns $60,000 per year. Similarly, each writer spends 3.2 hours a day on writing. Within an average 40-hour working week, 40% of the time is therefore devoted towards writing. Current Costs to your Company Under the current scenario, your company is paying $1,800,000 ($60,000*30) to workers on an annual basis. As already mentioned, each worker spends 40% of his or her time every day in writing. This means that, currently, your business is spending $720,000 ($1,800,000*40%) on an annual basis on youremployees’ business writing efforts. Assuming that there are 240 working days in a year, the total annual employee writing hours are 23040 (240days* 3.2 hours/day* 30 workers). This means that you are currently paying $31.25 per hour ($720,000/23040 hours) as the average annual costs per hour on business writing. Staff Training - Revised Scenario Now, let’s consider an alternative. Suppose you train your staff how to improve their business writing skills. Through our 6-step proven business writing methodology, you can reduce your staff’s average time spent on writing by 30%. Keeping all other factors constant, it means that each writer now spends 2.24 hours a day (3.2 hours* 70%) on writing. Revised Costs to your Company Even from a quick glance, you can clearly see that improving your staff’s business writing skills will have a strong positive impact on time and money saved. Keeping the number of employees (30), the total annual salary ($1,800,000) and the total working days per year (240) constant, here are new results: Total employee writing costs for the year will reduce to $504,000 (1,800,000*28%) Total annual employee writing hours will decrease to 16,128 (240 days* 2.24 hours* 30 workers) These simple empirical calculations prove that you can save on your total writing costs by more than $100,000 and total writing hours by 6,912 hours annually. The resources saved can be invested in other business activities to generate profits. The benefits of an effective business writing skills improvement program are far reaching. They lead to improved information flow, better coordination, and manyother growth and branding incentives for a business. To learn more about the power of business writing and how to improve business writing skills for your employees, download my guide, Four Ways to improve your Team’s Business Writing Skillstoday!

Don Martins Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Don Martins Company - Case Study Example According to the paper Martin’s has competitors in: furniture, electronic household appliances, branded big-ticket items. Martin’s advantage is the big parking lot right behind his store. This is a competitive advantage that must be explored, because parking is a problem in the area. It works to Martin’s advantage if his customers can park right next to the store, because that would make it easy to cart away and load the big-ticket items onto the customers’ vehicles. This is one major incentive for customers to choose to purchase repeatedly from Martin’s store. From this study it is clear that the firm has just begun to feel the effects of declining financial sustainability, with the incurrences of losses in its operations for the last fiscal year. This is not to say that the Martin’s business is already in dire financial condition. The business is still financially viable at present and maybe for a few more years, but the flat revenue growth and the downtrend in earnings should be arrested if the company will continue to be viable in the long term. Martin’s business, despite the most expansion, has not realized the additional revenues which were expected. This means that the firm has not maximized its marketing potential in order to take full advantage of the expansion. The company has resorted to costly advertising which has not brought increased sales. It should rethink this strategy and resort to promotion that directly impacts upon its customers’ needs. It is assumed that the company also has e-marketing capability, as most firms, even small ones, are equipped with online capacity.

Operational IT services Case Study Research Paper

Operational IT services Case Study - Research Paper Example The organization chart is given in Appendix 1. .The important business activities include Sales, Pricing, Marketing, Booking, Reservations, Tour Packaging, Collection, Payment, Invoicing and Billing. People they mostly deal with are Clients, Suppliers, and Tour Agents. They also use MYOB Accounts Package to keep their daily accounts and intend to interlink it with the new Travel and Booking System TABS. Figure 1 depicts the department, people and software currently used by the Red Sky Company Wilson Consulting Services (WCS) is the company who is developing Travel and Booking System (TABS) for Red Sky Travel. They have all the necessary technical and servicing staff for developing and deploying the TABS. The technical staff of Wilson Consulting Services includes Project Managers, Analysts, Programmers, Testers, Technical Writers, Service Desk Manager, and Service staff. Red Sky Travel staff that is going to use the software will be oriented by the Wilson Consulting Services. A deal is also made for accessing VMware Service Manager 9 range of software which will provide support for any ITIL process that is implemented. A fee will be charged for support of ITIL process. The system is expected to become live in 12 weeks time and it is expected to automate important data of travel business and its interfacing and linking with other application program such as MYOB Account Right Premier Package and VMware Service Manager 9 range of software. The services in information technology are managed through a set of processes called ITSM which stands for Information Technology Service Management. Figure 2 depicts complete flow of services in ITSM Methodology. (ITSM Consulting Services)[1] ITSM methodology starts with the customers or business end-users who give their needs or requirements such as business strategy, service planning, organization planning and Technology planning through the Requirement Definition Process. Once the requirements are defined