The Student Center For Science Engagement - 1535 Words

The Student Center for Science Engagement (SCSE) at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), was established in 2008 with the mission to support students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics STEM disciplines with the challenges they face in their academic and career development. Mentoring relationships, critical components of the SCSE’s influence, are fostered by the SCSE’s advisors, mostly Ph.D.-level minority scientists. Accessibility to STEM professionals who reflect the student population has allowed students to envision themselves as scientists. SCSE advisors have systematically implemented holistic advising including but not limited to major and career exploration,†¦show more content†¦The SCSE’s effectiveness in recruitment and retention, the success of mentoring, and achievements of students as a result of mentoring will be discussed. Introduction A goal of President Barack Obama’s Educate to Innovate initiative in 2008 was to increase the contributions of underrepresented minority (URM) students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (White House, 2009). Notably, in the context of the United States, the fastest growing and youngest URMs are Hispanics. Demographic projections suggest that Hispanics will comprise 30 percent of the U.S. population by 2040 and the majority demographic group in several states (United States Census, 2008). Thus, the need to encourage and support innovation and competitiveness in STEM participation is important, especially for Hispanic students, who are significantly underrepresented. In 2009, Hispanics represented 16 percent of the U. S. population and 26 percent of all undergraduate enrollments, but they earned just 11.9 percent of STEM bachelor’s degrees in that year (National Science Foundation (NSF), 2010). In terms of STEM disciplines, Hispanic s received 3.4 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in the life sciences, 0.7 percent in the physical sciences, 0.5 percent in mathematics, 2.6 percent in the computer science field and 4.7 percent in engineering (Chen, Ho Soldner, 2013). This low STEM degree

Discuss some of the issues surrounding the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia free essay sample

Classification systems are needed for the purpose of treatment and research. It can also be comforting to and individual and their family to be able to identify what their problem is and give it a name. Any classification system relies on the symptoms an individual display. However, symptoms tend to cluster together, so most classification systems of mental disorder focus on syndromes (i. e. clusters of symptoms that tend to occur together). However there isn’t always a perfect fit between the symptoms an individual displays those identified for a particular diagnostic category, such as schizophrenia. The two systems currently used to classify psychological abnormality are the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). For a classification system to be meaningful and useful, it needs to be valid and reliable. Reliability refers to the consistency of a measuring instrument, such as a questionnaire or scale to assess, for example, the severity of their schizophrenic symptoms. Reliability of such questionnaires or scales can be measured in terms of whether two independent clinicians give similar diagnoses (this is known as inter-rate reliability) or whether the diagnoses are consistent over time (this is known as test-retest reliability). Validity refers to the extent that diagnosis represents something that is real and distinct from other disorders and the extent that a classification system such as ICD or DSM measures what it claims to measure. One problem is that of differential diagnosis where clinicians find it difficult to distinguish schizophrenia from those of other psychiatric illnesses presenting similar symptoms. Co-morbidity refers to the extent to which two or more conditions co-occur and psychiatric co-morbidities are common among schizophrenia patients- these including substance abuse, anxiety and symptoms of depression. Dual diagnosis is specifically used to describe people with mental illness who have coexisting problems with drugs and/or alcohol. For example, recreational drugs such as amphetamines and cannabis can give rise to schizophrenia like symptoms-making diagnosis very difficult. Studies show that ? of people with severe mental illness (including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia) also experience substance abuse. Such co-morbidity creates difficulties in the diagnosis of a disorder and also in deciding what appropriate treatment to give the patient. This is a problem because the patient may be misdiagnosed and given the wrong type of treatment which will not cure the symptoms they have and may cause another type of illness e. g. Clozapine drug can lead to Parkinson’s disease. People diagnosed with schizophrenia rarely share the same symptoms, nor is there evidence that they share the same outcomes. The prognosis for patients varies with about 20% recovering their previous level of functioning, 10% achieving significant and lasting improvement and 30% showing some improvement with intermittent relapses. From this we can conclude that that a diagnosis of schizophrenia, therefore, has little predictive validity- some people never appear to recover from the disorder, but many do. Another issue regarding the validity in the diagnosis of schizophrenia is that factors such as ethnicity or social class may lead to misdiagnosis. Research suggests that in the UK and elsewhere, rates of schizophrenia among African-Caribbean are much higher than any other group. One study showed that in a survey on hospital detained psychotic patients in Birmingham, 2/3 were African-Caribbean (both migrants and British born), whilst the remaining 1/3 were White and Asian. This may suggest that the diagnosis is subjective (purely based on the opinion of the clinician) but it’s difficult to determine whether this is due to psychosocial factors (being part of an ethnic minority) or if there is in fact a greater genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia. Another complication in the diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia is the fact that schizophrenia does not seem to be a single disorder (each of the symptoms of schizophrenia could be a disorder in its own right, with its own cause and treatment). This suggests there is no single underlying causal factor. Individuals don’t respond in the same way to treatments suggesting that there is a lack of validity in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. There are several subtypes of schizophrenia, differing between the DSM and ICD and there is a very fine distinction between each subtype however, people diagnosed with one subtype can often go on to develop another. This questions the validity of the categories in schizophrenia thus weakening its reliability. A further issue that raises question towards the diagnosis is treatment aetiology fallacy- where diagnosis may change depending on treatment success- because causes of schizophrenia are unknown , suggesting that diagnosis is only really a trial and error judgement which truly lacks validity and reliability. Further issues concerning the reliability in the diagnosis of schizophrenia is the differences between the classification systems (DSM IV and ICD-10). When dealing with schizophrenia, the manuals differ in terms of duration and symptoms. Another problem of the diagnosis of schizophrenia is that when someone is labelled as schizophrenic they can be discriminated as everyone can view they’re health record e. g. a person may not be given a job because they are labelled as schizophrenic. This is an issue because this will not cure schizophrenia and can lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy. This issue can be solved if the information is kept confidential and not disclosed to everyone.

Sundry Shop free essay sample

Sundry shop owners get a chance to tukar By Ooi Tee Ching [emailprotected] com. my 2010/10/28 KUALA LUMPUR:Â  The 10-year Small Retailer Transformation Programme or Transformasi Kedai Runcit (Tukar) aims to help small sundry shops modernise and prepare for the goods and services tax (GST). The government will eventually impose GST. When small sundry shops learn to incorporate point-of-sale systems in their daily trading activities, this will help them prepare for GST when the government implements this measure, said Mydin Mohamed Holdings Bhd managing director Datuk Ameer Ali Mydin. He said when sundry shops were modernised to use point-of-sale system, it would be easier for the retailers to itemise food items that were within or excluded from GST. The Tukar programme offers opportunities for 50,000 small sundry shops throughout the country to modernise and upgrade with the help of bigger retailers like Mydin, Econsave and Speedmart99. The Tukar initiative was a collective vision under the wholesale and retail lab session organised by Pemandu (Performance and Delivery Unit), Ameer said. We will write a custom essay sample on Sundry Shop or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Under Tukar, traditional sundry shops are offered the option to upgrade and undergo a facelift with the help of key local anchor companies like Mydin and Econsave. It is not mandatory, it is voluntary. Sundry shop owners who want to modernise can register with the government, Ameer said. The Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry will play the role of a facilitator to set rules for large, medium and small outlets. Medium- and large-sized retailers like us can offer the time and effort to give consultation to small sundry shops on the proper layout of merchandise, said Ameer. Well be doing this on a corporate social responsibility basis. Money is not everything. In fact, fair competition among retailers, big and small, is healthy. We have our own niche and we want to play a complementary role to small sundry shops. Ameer expects at least 10 per cent or 5,000 sundry shops to upgrade and modernise their retail business in the next 10 years.

Orientalism in Song of Roland. includes Edward Saids rhetoric.

Orientalism in Song of Roland. includes Edward Saids rhetoric. Orientalism is a theory of knowledge rooting from the earliest contacts of European travelers with the people outside of Europe. To the many that have studied the foreign lands and their people, Orientalism has become a science. It is a discourse of knowledge of what the Orient is represented to be in the European mindset. Orientalism and its troubles are best explained by a contemporary Arabic Christian author Edward W. Said.Sometimes it's difficult to understand and it is often easy to misinterpret what exactly Orientalism stands for. It is not a mere study of what the Orient is about. Early orientalists dealt with the knowledge of the Orient that they thought to be exactly opposite of what the Occident meant to them. There was a sense of the "other", something that is very different from "us", the Europeans. Because everything that is not Europe is this "other", Orientalism is a study that is very broad in its scope and geography.Pool in a Harem.The lands, that Orientalism covers, stretch from the North African Coast of the Mediterranean all the way into the deep and vast Asia, including everything in between. Said details this broadness:"...the range of published material of interest to Orientalist scholars is awesome. Arabic, innumerable Indian dialects, Hebrew, Pehlevi, Assyrian, Babylonian, Mongolian, Chinese, Burmese, Mesopotamian, Javanese: the list of philological works considered Orientalist is almost uncountable. Moreover, Orientalist studies apparently cover everything from the editing and translation of texts to numismatic, anthropological, archaeological, sociological, economic, historical, literary, and cultural studies in every known Asiatic and North African civilization, ancient and modern." (Orien. 52)The biggest historical problem with Orientalism is the misrepresentation of the true Orient. Early scholars were very ignorant towards the absolute truth and drew many of their conclusions about the Orient and its people based on...

Differences nuclear power between france and germany Research Paper

Differences nuclear power between france and germany - Research Paper Example The first usage of the nuclear energy was to use it as a weapon and the nuclear bomb was thrown on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The World War took a massive step in the history of nuclear energy research and the need of nuclear technology. Nuclear technology was required for the need of making the atom bomb. There was a race between all the powers to use this form of energy to deadly effects. America won and became the first to introduce it on the grander stage. Later as the war ended the race for nuclear technology did not end introducing a new usage for nuclear power-energy. France initially was extremely motivated towards the race of atomic warheads and weapons. However, in the field of energy development France did not concentrate much effort until the first oil supply shock of 1973. After the shock the government decided to concentrate solely on expanding the country’s nuclear power capacity. This decision was taken by the government looking at the fact that France had the engineering expertise and capacity but had very few other energy sources. Nuclear energy was a viable option because of its low output cost and high efficiency if managed effectively. (World Nuclear Association, 2011) Like many other countries Germany started the pursuit of nuclear energy in the 1950s. However, in the decade Germany was only able to develop a few reactors and none of them was on a commercial scale. Between 1960 and 1970 none of the reactors introduced be Germany could produce more than 1000 MW. The first commercial nuclear power station was introduced in 1969. First the reaction of the French will be analyzed. The survey commissioned by the state electricity producer EDF has conducted March 15 and 16 after earthquake in Japan on March 11. 1000 sample, 55 percent said they did not support the argument that the most important French Green Party to abandon nuclear energy. About 42 per cent is worth it. (Reuters, 2011) CÃ ©cile Duflot, leader of the Green Party

How to successfully execute business negotiations in Iran Essay

How to successfully execute business negotiations in Iran - Essay Example As a means of communication, shaking hands is the first gesture of recognition when meeting someone. As far as the opposite gender is concerned, a male has to wait to see if the female is extending her hands. If she does not, then a simple nod with a smile is considered as a polite gesture. Doing business in Iran requires the individual to be mindful of the culture and communication that prevails in the country. They are expected to dress conservatively yet smartly. Female alongside wearing a conservative dress, will have to cover their hair with a scarf (Circles of excellence, 2010). 2. Cultural Dimensions 2.1. High Context vs. Low Context Apparently, Iran can be associated with following a ‘high context’ culture of communication. The aspect that puts them into this category is their usage of flowery language and linguistic ability. According to Bar (2004, p. 27), â€Å"Iranians accord great import to the context of communication.† This holds true not only in cas e of communication with each other, but also in case of communicating with foreigners. However, the foreigners arguably may not be sensitive to majority of the contextual implications that are being shared via the communication. In certain aspects, the culture in Iran can be associated with low contextual dimension. They are pragmatic and considerate of force ratios. However, it does not surpass rational considerations. The considerations regarding confidence building, hardly ever bend over to the practical goal. 2.2 Cultural Gender Roles There are different expectations and roles for men and women in Iran. The society as well as the culture requires men and women to portray or rather demonstrate their characteristic in a way that is expected from them. Women have to portray preservation, modesty and dedication towards their home and family, whereas men demonstrate the reputation of their family through work. This kind of behavior is associated with the kind of upbringing that they have had. It is a norm in the Iranian society to maximize gender role differences and discrimination. It has been witnessed that there is no strong desire among the authorities to change this perception. This has been the tradition of the country for a long time (Dastmalchian, Javidan and Alam, 2001). 2.3 Religion and Business Majority of Iranians describe themselves as religious, thereby stating that their beliefs play a crucial role in their way of living as well as conducting business. Religion has some sorts of influence in the way business is done in the country. Religion does not only involve worship and ritual, but they also outline moral principles stating how true believers should be living their lives. The impact of religion on business induces honesty, loyalty as well as justice. This highlights how religion and business is associated to each other in a country like, Iran (Miller and Ewest, 2013). 2.4. Taboo Mannerisms: What Not To Do To make appointments a month before t he actual date of meeting and confirming the same a week before. Thus, avoiding any confusion. To not be late in attending those meetings. To have all business cards and materials translated into Persian (Farsi). To not be impatient as business negotiations often take quite a long time (Vayama, 2013). 3. Business Structures 3.1 Developing Relationships

Data Warehousing: Benefits and Implications

Data Warehousing: Benefits and Implications WHAT IS DATA WAREHOUSING? The term data warehouse or data warehousing was first coined by Bill Innon in the year 1990 which was defined as a â€Å"warehouse which is subject-oriented, integrated, time variant and non-volatile collection of data in support of managements decision making process†. When referring to data warehousing as subject oriented, it simply means that the process is giving information about a particular subject rather than the details regarding the on-going operations of the company. Moreover, when data warehousing was referred to as integrated it means that the data or information which are gathered from a number of sources are then all gathered to synthesize a coherent whole. On the other hand, data warehousing being time variant simply means that the data available were identified on a particular period. Lastly, data warehousing as being non-volatile means that the data is stable and when a new data is added to the system, the old data are never removed, instead they just remain there and this enables the organization to be able to give the management consistency in their business (Inmon, 1995). In the existence of modern times with the advent of technological advancements inevitably affecting the businesses in major ways, there has also been a development and emergence of new measures, practices, and techniques which used technology to be able to provide an unwavering solution to the problems in the organization with regards to the level and kind of information that the organization needs to be able to survive and prosper amidst the increasing competition in the market. Undeniably, one of this techniques and practices refers to the emergence of data warehousing as a tool helping todays businesses to be able to manage competition and the turbulent economic condition. The birth f the concept of data warehousing can be contributed to various researches and studies which were conducted in the past to provide various organizations with the means of getting information in a manner which is efficient, effective, and flexible. The data warehousing which is known today among the cor porate practice is not what it was when it started almost two decades ago. The practice of data warehousing nowadays is a result of the experiences and technologies in the last twenty years. Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball are two of the heavyweights when it comes to data warehousing. However, although their names are known in this field, these two scholars have two varying views with regards to data warehousing. The paradigm which was illustrated by Inmon holds that the data warehouse forms only a part of the general business intelligence system. On the other hand, the paradigm of Kimball assumes that the data warehouse is a conglomerate of all the data in the organization. Other researchers assume that there is no right or wrong theories among the two assumptions from the two heavy weighs in data warehousing. However, most of them support the notion of Kimballs paradigm. They believe that most data warehouses started only as efforts from various departments starting on what they call as data marts until they develop and evolve to become a data warehouse. Furthermore, according to Manning (1999), data warehousing ahs been heralded as one of the sustainable solutions to management information and dilemma and such also provide the organization and environment which entails various benefits if they are practiced in the right way and if the perspectives are directed towards the right goal. The process of data warehousing is said to have the intention of providing an architectural model which can best provide an illustration for the flow data from the systems regarding the operation to the decision support environments. However, according to the same author, one problems stems down from the data warehousing technique that is such a system is said to be too expensive to be affordable by some organizations or businesses. It is undeniable that data warehousing continues to attract interest, it is also undeniable that many projects are failing to deliver the expectations from what they are supposed to deliver and they still prove to be too hi gh of accost to be handled by some businesses. However, to be able to justify this relatively high cost, it has been said that organizations should look at the long term benefit of the warehouse rather than simply looking at the short term benefits that such can offer. Moreover, data warehousing is also said to be designed â€Å"to be able to support ad hoc data analysis, inquiry and reporting by end-users, without programmers, interactively and online† (Heise, n.d.). The author also mentioned some key factors which can make the data warehousing practice a success among different organizations. According to him one of the key ingredients to the success of the practice is to make the management, especially the higher management, aware and conscious of all the benefits which this tool entails and what can data warehousing do to improve the performance of the business. The author as a key to the success of data warehousing is choosing the right people to make it happen. By choosing the right people, the author does not disregard the fact that the contribution of individual minds should be recognized to form a synthesis and a greater whole. Training strategy, the right structure or architecture, a sustainable mission statement, showing early ben efits, ensuring scalability, understanding how important is the quality of data, and using only proven and effective methodology are some of the other key ingredients to make data warehousing a successful practice. THE BENEFITS OF DATA WAREHOUSING David Heise was able to identify some of the benefits of data warehousing. According to him some of the benefits that it offers include the fact that it has a relative orientation on the subject area, it has the ability to provide an integration of data which were retrieved from diverse and multiple sources, it allows data analysis from time to time, it adds ad hoc inquiry and reporting, it provides decision makers with the capabilities to analyze, it relieves the IT from information development, it ahs the ability to provide better performance for complex analytical queries, it relieves the burden of processing databases which are based on transactions, it allows a planning process that is perpetual and continuous, and lastly, it converts corporate data to make them strategic information which can help them in planning for a better performance of the organization. Another benefit of data warehousing is that it enables and it helps different organizations in the strategic decision making resulting into formulation of strategic decisions which are geared towards enabling a better business performance and yielding better results. It can be assumed that most data warehousing practices are not intended for strategic decision making because they are normally used for post monitoring of decisions regarding to how effective they are. Nonetheless, it should not be also disregarded that data warehousing, according to LGI Systems Incorporated, can also be sued for strategic decision making and can be used profitably. Another benefit of data warehousing is that it enables the user to have unlimited access to a relatively very large amount of enterprise information which can be used to potentially solve a large amount of enterprise problems which can even be used to increase the profitability of the company. A very well-designed data warehouse can yield a greater return-on-investment with unlimited benefits nad the ability to better assess the risks associated with the organization. SAPs DATA WAREHOUSING SOLUTION For most of the companies which are implementing SAP, the next logical step for them would be the consideration of data warehousing as a useful tool and technique in the conduct of their business performance. In some situations, there are companies which use data warehousing as being parallel with the SAP transaction system. SAP has usually been regarded among organizations as their most important reference for transaction data. With that, it can be regarded that data warehousing, when coupled with SAP, can provide a greater solution and better transaction records (Khan, 2005). It has been said that the main objective of data warehousing is the ability to be able to analyze data from a variety of sources which can support businesses when they a making decisions. BW or the Business Information Warehouse is regarded as being the SAPs data warehousing solution. BW refers to an end-to-end data warehousing solution which uses Sap technologies which are already in existence. It is composed of various layers and types of information which are essential in building the BW architecture and in executing data warehousing solutions which will be helpful in the companys business performance. SAPs data warehousing solution can also be helpful in other aspects such as quotation processing, order processing, delivery, analysis and comparison and administrative and management functions (Fu Fu, 2003). The Business Information Warehouse, being SAPs data warehousing solution, has been developed specifically for business to be able to potentially analyze and gather various types and kinds of relevant information which will provide statistical information about related transaction in the best ways possible. The BW is helping the knowledge workers to quickly mine and gathers the data of the business; it is also equipped with pre-configured information on reports and models. COMPANIES USING DATA WAREHOUSING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS An example of a known company which uses data warehousing is WalMart. Being the worlds largest retailer, many say that the company should be also the organization with the largest data warehouse which is going to serve as the database of its inventory and all transactions related to their business performance. The data warehousing also has a big implication on the business of WalMart. According to the management of the worlds largest retailer, more than any other purpose, their data warehouse is helping them to be able to make decision support systems between the company and its various suppliers. Aside from that, another implication of data warehousing on WalMart is that it enables the suppliers to be able to access a large amount of online information and data which will be helpful with their suppliers in terms of improving their operations. One example of companies using and reaping the benefits of adapt warehousing will be various pharmaceutical companies, or in a larger scale, the general healthcare industry. For most of the pharmaceutical businesses which are under operation, they were able to acknowledge the fact that they lack a sustainable focus on their promotional practices, resulting to diffused sales efforts. With that, they regard that data warehousing technique has a big implication in their business because they regard such as the best medicine and remedy for the aforementioned problem. They are even using data warehousing to be able to attain a sustainable competitive edge against other businesses in the industry. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, it has an implication also in the marketing department. Data warehousing helps the marketing department, through various information contained, to come up with promotional and marketing activities which can yield them maximum results. Moreover, data wareho using also has an implication on the human resources department of the organizations because they can also help in the effective allocation of people and resources (Desai, 1999). REFERENCES: Desai, Amit; For Pharmaceutical Companies, A Data Warehouse Can be Just What the Doctor Ordered Fu, Henry, Fu, Biao; SAP BW: A Steb by Step Guide; 2003 Heise, David; What is Data Warehousing; n.d. Inmon, W. H.; What is a Data Warehouse?; Prism; 1995 Khan, Arshad; SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement; 2005 LGI Systems Incorporated; The Data Warehousing Information Center; Accessed on April 9, 2010 from http://www.dwinfocenter.org/strategy.html Manning, Ian; Data Warehousing; Adopting an Architectural View and Maximizing Cost Benefits; 1999