ASDA’s Responses To Changes In Its Business Environment

ASDA Group (ASDA) owned by Wal-Mart group company, is a grocery and general merchandise retailer in the UK. In 2008, ASDA recorded a profit before tax of  £520.4m, down slightly from  £532.7m but exceeding arch rival Sainsbury's. ASDA's sales hit  £18.57bn, up from  £16.7bn, in ranking the chain third in the supermarket hierarchy after ASDA and Sainsbury's.There have been many changes in ASDA's business environment over the last 65 years. ASDA is usually conducting research to identify changes in the business environment and responding to the customer needs its research identifies. One of the research models is PESTE (STEEP). The PESTE model uses the five headings of sociological, technological, economic, environmental and political factors. Factors in the macro-environment such as tax changes, new laws, trade barriers, demographic change and government policy changes affect the management decisions at ASDA.Sociological (gender roles, age of consumers, the extent of local mig ration/mobility, patterns of consumption, culture of a population, out of town shopping/car usage, busy people/working more hours)One of the sociological factor is dietary habits. Nowadays, people want to try different and new foods. ASDA has responded by increasing its range of foreign foods such as Mexican, Indian and Chinese. Likewise, the large ethnic populations that have moved to the UK have made ASDA respond by increasing its range of foods. For example, there is a full aisle of Polish food in ASDA in Boston, Lincolnshire. This is not extraordinary, considering that in this little city (30,000 citizens) almost 50% is Polish. Another factor the ageing population also has impact on the demand for non-food products such glasses from optical stores. ASDA have its own ‘ASDA Opticians'. This is example how ASDA responds to changes in sociological environment and the age of customers factor.TechnologicalTechnology is an area where there have been a lot of advances. The example of this is the mass use of microwaves. The Company launched a range of microwaveable foods. Welcomed new technologies, ASDA has implemented online shopping and self service checkouts which make easier shopping for customers. Furthermore, new technologies enable improvements to the way that ASDA does its business. The company uses information technology to support its operations. For example, it can see how individual products are performing store-by-store at a glance through data collection. ASDA appears to have responded well in this area.Political – Legal changes (laws on foods, competition laws, rate of unemployment, tax policies, price regulations etc)Planning permission is heavily regulated in the UK. ASDA is aware of planning permission regulations. Store expansions goes ahead to comply with planning regulations. ASDA identifies relevant planning laws and comply with them to reduce any disruption to its store expansion programme by local people’s dissent or the local authority refusal. This supports the successful opening of a new store in an area. An example is the development of huge out of town ASDA Superstores which have huge car parks. This was made possible by the government allowing them planning permission to build.The UK is a member state of the EU so ASDA has to abide by EU laws e.g. competition laws. ASDA is restricted from growing too large. To overcome this they have started to offer more services such as financial services . There is ‘ASDA money' (ASDA FINANCIAL SERVICES LIMITED) which offers credit cards and insurance. In addition, it provides mobile phone network. The ‘ASDA mobile' is the cheapest supermarket mobile network with a cheaper overall tariff than rival Tesco.Environmental/Ecological (more focus on organic, recyclable, less waste, environmental regulations etc)A global warming is the one of the biggest threat to a natural environment. The cause of global warming is the emission of carbon dioxide. To m eet these challenges, ASDA supports carbon reductions in most of its stores. ASDA’s  stores are eco-friendly, 40% more energy efficient and emitting 50% less carbon dioxide than a standard new build store. Over the past couple of years ASDA has been working with its suppliers to reduce the amount of carbon emitted during manufacture, growing and processing of their products — something that’s known as embedded carbon.Many people now do not want to eat food that has been grown or reared using chemicals, they want natural food. ASDA has responded by introducing a wide range of organic food ranges. For example, ASDA have launched the Organix brand which helps people to find organic food on storefront shelves.Economic (recession, competition, inflation, taxes etc)ASDA like its main competitors Tesco and Sainsbury have been accused of tax avoidance, depriving farmers of a livelihood and functioning as modern-day monopolies that drive local businesses out of communi ties. ASDA has grown enormously and has forced many small retailers out of business; they have received a lot of criticism in this area and appear not to care. They have also been criticised for the low prices they pay UK farmers for their products , which in same cases has forced farms close.In addition, ASDA has been criticised for not responding to the needs of some shareholders, such as UK farmers. As we see this economic factors are where ASDA has problems responding positively to changes in business environment. It could have negative influence for its clients. Some people could change their preferences and to go shopping in a competitor supermarket due to a bad publicity.ConclusionIt is important to respond accurately to factors such as tax changes, new laws, trade barriers, demographic change and government policy changes. This evaluation has considered how ASDA has responded to external changes. In evaluating how well they have responded, they have responded well to externa l changes concerning their customers but not so well in areas of economics. Some of these wrong responses has influence for negative public relations, especially force many small retailers out of business and the low prices they pay UK farmers for their products. In other hand, to take  responsibility for natural environment by carbon reductions policy is really impressive.

Language And Literature Essay

Analyze, compare and contrast the following two texts. Include comments on the similarities and differences between the texts and the significance of context, purpose, audience, and formal and stylistic features. Cranes by Jennifer Ackerman, and To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant, both aim to enlighten and educate their readers on the behavior and beauty of waterfowl. Text 1, Cranes, an article from National Geographic from 2004, demonstrates how people can help birds discover their migration patterns, while in contrast; Text 2, To a Waterfowl, a poem written in 1815, illustrates how birds can aid people in the search for inspiration. Ultimately both, Cranes and To a Waterfowl focus on these specific birds with the intention of promoting the appreciation and understanding towards nature. This comparative commentary will aim to identify and investigate the similarities and differences between the two texts, through the analysis of the significance of the context, audience, purpose, and formal and stylistic features. Cranes, a journalistic article established for National Geographic, explores the habitation of a community of cranes. The article discusses the operations of the new crane reserve, where the endangered species are monitored during their growth in a simulation of a natural environment, where humans in crane costumes examine their development. The article further demonstrates its journalistic characteristics when it quotes crane biologist Richard Urbanek, who explains, â€Å"these chicks have been raised in captivity but have never heard a human voice nor seen a human form, except in crane costume.† Fundamentally, the article demonstrates the experimental program to reintroduce a wild migratory population of whooping cranes to the eastern half of North America, and the process involved in reaching their goal. In contrast, To a Waterfowl explores the narrator’s personal experience and response to an encounter with a waterfowl. The poem demonstrates a narrative, which illustrates a crane’s flight and its struggle to escape the hunter and its demise, which results in the individual establishing an internal reflection, which ultimately reveals the morality that William Bryant wanted to convey. The didactic poem creates a natural scene in order to derive a moral lesson from it, which I believe, very romantically, that no matter how circumstances present themselves in life, you will be directed by the providence of God, or a higher â€Å"Power†. Though fundamentally, Cranes and To a Waterfowl both discuss and explore experiences relating to cranes, they possess different purposes, which essentially results in them possessing different target audiences as well. To a Waterfowl’s main purpose is to communicate the central moral teaching regarding God’s benevolent providence. The waterfowl acts as an allegory to express this theme within the poem. Referring to the poem allegorically, the waterfowl may represent human struggles that we face throughout life, while the bird’s adversary, the hunter, represents the pursuing threats that we constantly face in life. I believe that the poem is targeted towards a more mature audience due to its thematic complexity and seriousness. In contrast to this, Cranes’ purpose is to inform and educate the readers on the â€Å"modern techniques† pioneered by â€Å"Operation Migration†, and their mission to help â€Å"endangered birds learn their traditional migratory routes.† Therefore, I believe that this National Geographic article’s intended audience are individuals who are interested or concerned about the preservation of endangered animals, and in this example, specifically cranes. A significant difference between the two texts exists in their structures. Cranes is presented as an article, and demonstrates many of the format’s characteristics. Visually, it possesses two images, in order to compliment the text and attract the reader’s attention to the article, and is structured in paragraphs. In terms of context and language, the article demonstrates numerous examples of factual information, supported by evidence, rather then expressing opinionated points. For example, referencing â€Å"crane biologist Richard Urbanek†. In contrast to this, To a Waterfowl illustrates numerous examples of standard characteristics of a poem. Bryant divides the poem into eight stanzas, each with the same metrical structure and each with the same rhyme pattern. Although both texts are written in different formants and demonstrate different structures, both texts exemplify the use of descriptive imagery in their use of language in order to enhance the description the writers are trying to illustrate. For example, in the poem, the writer describes the surroundings by saying, ‘weedy lake’, ‘rocking billows’, and ‘crimson sky’, while in the article Cranes, the first paragraph has examples such as ‘emerald green grass’, ‘snow-white plumage’ and ‘elegant black wing tips that spread like fingers when they fly’. Furthermore, in contrast to the article, the poem utilizes allusions towards the Bible, by mentioning heaven, and utilizing biblical language such as â€Å"thou art gone†. Conclusively, both texts, Cranes by Jennifer Ackerman, and To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant demonstrate numerous contrasts in their use of language, purpose, audience and stylistic features, however, both are similar in their aim to communicate the significance of crane migrations, scientifically, and emotionally.

No need for topic PowerPoint Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

No need for topic - PowerPoint Presentation Example This paper discusses the business as well as marketing plans for Apple Inc. as the main points that will affect its presentation in the imminent. Business strategy. Hotelling, Steve, Joshua, and Brian, (p.12) says that an expert by the name Gil Amelio recognized why Apple was deteriorating stating lack of cash, quality hardware as well as software, focus as some reasons. Apple has reached leadership in its target market via the constant invention of new products. It came up with iPods and iTunes around 2003 thereby making them obtainable for Microsoft Windows systems. Research shows that by around 2011 in the worldwide market, iTunes accounted for 70% for the download of music. iPad, Mac, iPod are samples of good quality products Apple has produced than its contestants in the market attracting a lot of customers like the iPod that is easy to use due to its fast mover benefit. Again, its success has come through developing high quality ground breaking yields that are easy to use and t hat provide clear differentiation. Apple got its first advantage in the market due to the provision of online music through the use of iTunes as well as iPods. By the time other industries were coming into the market, Apple had relished benefits with a low degree of competition. The high level of growth has enabled the Apple company to be difficult to catch by other contestants therefore product growth and propagation plans has benefited the industry. This tells that the company will constantly lead the PC industry as long as the benefits stand. However, the accomplishments of sales benefits are not automatic. One fault in the proliferation plan may result to difficulty in strategy being realized. For the strategy product growth as well as a proliferation strategy to be successful, detailed info is needed from the producer regarding the new thing about the product. Most PC users and other groundbreaking yields do not know a lot of info about the company and the new thing about the p roduct. Apple should create ways to let people know as well as persuade customers from the entry of their groundbreaking yields in the market. Marketing Strategy According to Hotelling, Steve, Joshua, and Brian, (p. 13), Apple began a marketing movement around the iMac scheme known as No Beige with a view to distance its design from the other beige box of the time. Again, Apple has hired effective marketing plan where customer group may be forced by demographic, budgetary and others. At this moment of time, its products are made to target businessmen, students, doctors and many more. While Windows PCs came loaded with temporary software, Mac came with valuable and creative programs that consist of processor, spreadsheet amongst others. Hotelling, Steve, Joshua, and Brian, (p. 15). The position of the Apple is to aim brand loyalty as well as less price subtle customer like for instance, it has claimed on developing Unibody MacBook as well MacBook Pro. Marketing strategy is built arou nd different components. The first thing is to create a groundbreaking product to keep customers absorbed. Apple has driven a lot of clients in the worldwide market to choose its product because some have been developed for watching videos as well as producing products or mp3. Above all, the industry created numerous websites so that consumers can

EU & HR Seen Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

EU & HR Seen Questions - Essay Example The purpose of this paper is to study the acts impacts on privacy issues and other controversies related to the UK Human Rights Act of 1998. One of the first cases that spark controversy related to this act involved The Times and a convicted murder Lee Clegg. Lee Clegg was a military officer convicted of murdering a teenage joy rider in 1993 for which he served a two and half year sentence before been cleared by the courts of the charges (BBC, 2000). While the soldier was in prison the newspaper followed a protest of people campaigning for the release of Mr. Clegg and later published an article. The lawyer of Lee Clegg did not like the newspaper involvement and suit them for libel, a civil suit which Mr. Clegg won. The Times claimed they were within their rights to publish the story, but the court decision was based on the fact the activity was a private meeting which did not provide them with the rights reporters have of writing and voicing their opinions of public events. In this case the Human Rights Act of 1998 ruled in favor of an individual over the press and allowed this person to earn a significant cash award of over $100,000. The ruling created a precedent which would open the door for the utilization of the Act for other judicial purposes. Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 involves the right to respect for private and family life. Article 8(2) stipulates that there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except as in accordance with this law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interest of national security, public safety, or economic well being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of rights or freedoms of others (Opsi, 1998). Article 8 protects intrusion into the private life of individuals, a

Different internet service providers (ISPs) Essay

Different internet service providers (ISPs) - Essay Example Other providers such as satellite ISPs have their strengths in being alternatives to lack of internet service providers in certain areas, where they serve to meet client demands, but at high prices due to infrastructure needs, which is not the case for DSL, which is cheap, but with increase in speeds so does the cost. It is with these different ISPs that even Ethernet delivers high speeds that beat all the rest, but depending on the base and client needs meaning that Ethernet ISPs are favorable towards clients who need high speed internet for file transmission and reception. Introduction Different ISPs have different qualities of services, which are as diverse as their services and speeds, as well as their reliably, where each ISP has its own quality threshold. With this in mind, evaluation of different ISPs and how they work, as well as their technologies need to be reviewed in order for a subscriber to make the best decision in choosing a provider. Ethernet Ethernet, for most users uses technology from Gigabit LAN, where LAN stands for Local Access Network and the network uses a high speed connection from one internet hub to another and to other computers. As such, the technology implements a number of protocols that are required to ensure that traffic is communicated as needed, where there are two bases for Ethernet. The first one is the base 10 and the second is base 100, while there is even a third base that has come up in recent times, base 1000, and with each increase in the base, there is more throughput of data and information through the network (Smetannikov 2000, p.78). Different service providers supply internet to different clients at different localities where Ethernet is supplied according to the demands of the client. As such, clients from recent times have made use of the base 1000 model to increase their throughput and even plan for future requirements as some providers are only consistent with the base 10 model. Consequently, the Ethernet int ernet providers make use of multiple base hubs to supply internet signals on different bases so that at any given time they are up to speed and meet the requirements of different clients. This happens especially in research laboratories that transmit and receive large amounts of data, making them targets for ISPs that use Ethernet for supply. The main problem with this type of ISP is the small size of the frame it uses, which in turn hampers throughput at high speed. ISPs of this nature provide the hardware or services that use small frames in data transmission, which result in wastage of clock cycles in the CPU, which is a negative consequent. However, if well managed with the knowledge of some of these internet service providers, then the throughput can be increased by moving larger files to allow for larger frames rather breakdown of information for transmission. The prices at which internet service providers place for this technology is based on how old or new the technology in play is, as well as the throughput of information. It is also done based on the bandwidth allowed for the entire network and links to outside networks using the ISPs infrastructure, which means that all traffic is measured and billed by the ISP. Problems in the network arise from the use of cables which lead to dropped packets, and this can make

Lysistrata by Aristophanes Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Lysistrata by Aristophanes - Movie Review Example Protesting war was just as risky for Lysistrata as it is for many today. She chose to do it defiantly, courageously and in a very public way. Protestors today may not share the same immediate threats as Lysistrata, but the dangers are still there. Lysistrata is such a compelling figure of strength and determination that even a Greek guy wearing a mask could evoke the emotion Aristophanes infused in this character. Of course, modern sensibilities prefer that a strong, intelligent and probably beautiful actor be used to bring this character to life. This is the way of Hollywood, after all. But from the standpoint of acting and emotion, the real character of Lysistrata lies in the writing of Aristophanes. The medium used to bring this character to life is almost irrelevant. The story is so compelling and tragic, yet triumphant, that modern or ancient audiences would find much to enjoy and ponder in any staging of this

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a Shared Faith Assignment

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a Shared Faith - Assignment Example If not for lesser details of greater complications, these religions would be precisely the same. What a unified body of worshippers that would make! But there are discrepancies even among fellow believers. This paper is not about these discrepancies, but about the relative philosophies among believers of these three separate yet united religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been intertwined throughout history by the certain commonality they share in theology, all three are monotheistic (believing in one God) and conceive God to be the Creator and also the source of moral law. The same figures, histories and places are prevalent in each, although they are frequently presented with different roles, perspectives and meanings. 54% of the world’s population consider themselves of the Abrahamic religion. These religions share the collective belief that Adam was the first man created and ancestor of all human beings, Abraham is a prophet and the Torah (which is comprised of the first five books of the old-testament) as being a revelation of God. The holy scripture Jews read is called the Tanach, which is the Torah. Christians study The Holy Bible, both the old and new testaments. And the Muslims follow the Quar’an. All three of these works cover the first 5 old testaments, and the lessons of such prophets as Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Noah, and the list goes on. The fact these religions are monotheistic is the most significant unity between them. In Judaism and Islam, the monotheism of God is absolute including of God’s essence. In Christianity there is a doctrine titled Trinity which says that God exists as 3 persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit united in one being. Christians believe Jesus is God, Jews and Muslims deny this stating that God is too powerful to be reduced to a man that has such needs as eating and sleeping, and who could be beaten, and experience death as Jesus did. They attest that no savior is needed or available as an in termediary for us. Islam regards Jesus not as God, but only a human being that became a magnificent messenger of God, and was God’s word brought to Earth. Jews not only deny Jesus as God but as a prophet as well believing the true messiah the word promises has not come yet, but will arrive at a future place in time. Just as Jews refuse Jesus, so too do many Jews and Christians refuse Muhammad, a prophet singular to Islam religion, visited by the angel Gabriel who brought the final message of God to Earth. Christians share with Muslims the belief in the second coming of Jesus, yet they are split in this joint notion as Christians believe this will be the time of rapture and the final judgment day and Muslims believe Jesus coming will be only to kill the false messiah and restore God’s people once again leading them through this treacherous time. Jesus will rule and then die forty years after leaving behind him a world cleaned and restored to true religion, the religion of Islam. Aside from monotheism, some other mutual views of God these religions hold are that God will reward the good and punish the wicked, God knows the thoughts and deeds of men, the dead will be resurrected, and a personal relationship with God is within everyone’s grasp. We can return to God always through repentance, perfection is not expected of His creation. Following God’s commandments in this physical world connects us to God spiritually and our mission on Earth is to proclaim the glory of God and His existence everywhere. All three religions maintain that life is a test and we will all be judged by God after death since He

How did the American Revolution impact Concordians, and Americans, not Term Paper

How did the American Revolution impact Concordians, and Americans, not just physically, but emotionally and politically - Term Paper Example This laid the foundation of a democratic society where everyone had the right to voice their opinions in important matters. This also had the effect of bringing ruling class closer to the working class and consequently more rights began to be granted to them. In addition to this, the revolution also stirred up positive emotions among the Americans. After their role in the Revolution, women started to stand up for their rights and they began to get hired in important positions without being looked down upon. Also, even though slavery did not end with the end of revolution, people started to recognize its menace and began to raise their voice against it (A.Gross, 2001). The Revolution, in other words united the hearts of the different communities living in Concord and America, who all had the same purpose of seeing their country achieve the epitome of success. American Revolution certainly influenced a major change in American thinking, which marked the beginning of the America’ s journey to become a superpower. Works Cited A.Gross, R. (2001). The Minutemen and Their World. Hill and Wang; First American Edition edition.

HRM-related issue Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

HRM-related issue - Assignment Example Every organization must have a definite strategy in order to deliver positive results. The purpose of the strategy is to make sure the assets of the organization are used to improve the productivity of the organization. Apple employs effective and professional HRM techniques that aim at keeping the company both profitable and valuable. Some of the techniques include networking and teamwork. The company has embedded emerging and effective strategies in a systematic way. The strategies are embedded within wider program of the organizational targets and goals. The strategies involve regularly up-skilling the human resource managers (Chanda & Shen 2009). The company is also integrating a variety of HRM policies as well as practices. The specific business strategy of the company takes into consideration a wide collection of factors. The business strategy of Apple Inc. is shaped by the core values of the company. Conversely, the core values of the company were considered while developing H RM practices. Successful implementation of the HRM strategies depends on the ability to develop employees and managers who are willing to facilitate and acquire the necessary competencies and attitudes. Apple has invested in a self-disciplined workforce with the necessary skills. The central point in the HRM strategy is the development of working practices and motivation that leads to increased flexibility and quality of work (Holbeche 2009). The HRM strategy seeks to have commitment and mutuality from the principle organizational players. Human resource management in the Apple Company implies that the contribution of the personnel is crucial to organizational success (Chanda & Shen 2009). According to the company, people are the most important asset. The company has embedded the HR strategy into the company policy. The employment practice is driven by the commercial intentions. The company uses and incorporates the human resources to the extent that they are compatible with the org anizational objectives. Human resource managers must strive towards achieving a sense of collective purpose among all the organizational stakeholders. HRM must develop real strategic approaches which factor in the aspects of the employee relations with an aim of transforming the employees’ mindset (Tyson & York 2000). This makes the employees congruent with the business objectives of the company (Holbeche 2009). The HRM of Apple Company is careful to ensure that the cost of rewarding different groups, hiring and training employees is matched by their anticipated levels of contribution and market availability. The core employees of the Apple Company must undergo intense indoctrination into the core values of the company (Kaplan & Norton 2001). It is expected that these values are to be seen in the behavior of these employees. This is not the case with the peripheral employees of the company. Research shows there are instances where the empowerment of the employees is seen as a threat by the HRM (Tyson & York 2000). The strategic roles of the human resource manager entail the flattening of hierarchies to accommodate the market driven reorganizations of the multinationals (Tyson & York 2000). Apple Company has business units that are functional and ensures that products to be delivered are both quality and excellent (O'Grady 2009). HRM strategy calls for increased employee involvement and teamwork. Through HRM, groups within the organization must

A proposal to modify Exercisco Fitness Club Essay Example for Free

A proposal to modify Exercisco Fitness Club Essay Description: A proposal to modify Exercisco Fitness Club in Pokfulam, the location has been proposed to Baguio Villas. This location has been chosen because the area is very clean and there is a large population and this would be an advantage because there is more market share, and there would be more potential customers. The location is also good because there is a major project developing (cyber-port). This would be an advantage for the business because it would give it a good reputation. Plus this is another advantage because there is less competition and Baguio Villas is a very scarce place. The new technology applied to the Fitness center would in theory increase the customers attending the club. The club would easily keep a record of the customers joining and leaving the club. Plus the new system would be able to pinpoint specific addresses for business purposes. E. g. if a customer has not paid the bill for a month. Also the club would let members interact in fitness courses if they prefer and they would be able to purchase different materials connecting to the course. Address: 59th Mount Hermon Rd,5th floor Krono Plaza, opposite Glon Canyon Rd Telephone: 25849843, Fax: 28394785, Manager Mobile: 91234534 How the business could use the following: Databases: The business will use this to record all the members data and personal phone numbers etc. And also if they are a regular fitness members. Also the database will ensure that the different courses which members attend. And also if they would want to purchase some material concerning the course Spreadsheets: The business uses this to record all my annual or monthly results so I can see if I make any profits etc. Web Sites: The business uses this to help people sign up as a member online so they dont need to travel to the center to obtain the form. And also any special offers or any special events Image Creation: The business will use this to format my images to suit posters and web sites etc. And also I will use image creation to produce and format a logo unique for the business Desktop Publishing: The business will use this to create posters and newsletters for members and maybe also forms for people who would like to become members. History: The business has been recently opened. To be exact the business was first formed 4 months ago. The business has not succeeded very well compared to its predicted cash flow rate. This is because the business has not been able to keep a stable record of the time and number of customers who come and go from the Club. But the has started to release that without technology it would be very hard to cope with the expanding competition around the country and the world. The types of customers targeted are spilt into 2 categories. Day time customers and Evening time customers. This is because since Hong Kong is a large low unemployment country customers, a majority male, will travel and work. This meaning that since the males or females who work will be off on their jobs there would be a less customers coming in at the day time. So the best thing to do is to target mostly house wives or else young adults. But in theory at the evening there would be more customers because the customers who arrive from their jobs normally tend to travel to a fitness club. Overall adults will the type of customers who would most likely attend the Fitness club. The role of the receptionist is to welcome people into the fitness club and also take phone calls and entrance fees etc. The receptionist also checks members ID and handles the database to record the revenue coming into the business. Instructors The role of the instructors would be to train the members who preferred to have instructors rather than working out sole. Also the instructors would be trained in medical so they could aid people if a situation arises. Managing Director The role of the managing director is to run the day to day of the business this meaning he/she would motivate the employees and give feed back to the Board of Directors, and the managing director would receive feedback from different departments in the business and make decisions. Cleaners The cleaners have been contracted from a different business, this saves the hassle of employing individual cleaners by the business. Accountants Analysis of ordering system When a member first enters the fitness club and wants to work out, the staff asks for the membership card, they identify the number from their notebook (which consists of the members name last name alphabetically and their membership number). Then the staff asks the member to fill out the table on their record book consisting of the Members name, membership number, time checked in and their signature. When the members finished, they sign-out and record their time on the book. Also the staff will collect the members card, and they give back to the member when theyre done with theyre work out.

Calculations of Rare Earth (Y, La and Ce) Diffusivities

Calculations of Rare Earth (Y, La and Ce) Diffusivities First-principles calculations of rare earth (Y, La and Ce) diffusivities in bcc Fe Xueyun Gaoa,b,[*], Huiping Rena, Chunlong Lia,c, Haiyan Wanga, Yunping Jia, Huijie Tan a ABSTRACT: The impurity diffusivities of rare earth elements, Y, La and Ce, in bcc Fe have been investigated by the first-principles calculations within nine-frequency model. The microscopic parameters in the pre-factor and activation energies have been calculated. For the three elements, the first nearest-neighbor solute-vacancy interactions are all attractive, in which Y and La solute atoms more favorably bond to the vacancy. The solute-vacancy binding energy can be explained in terms of the combination of the distortion binding energy and the electronic binding energy, and the decomposition results of the total solute-vacancy binding energy suggest that the strain-relief effect accounts for larger portion of the binding energy for Y and La than that for Ce. The diffusion coefficients of Y are one order of magnitude larger than that of La, and predicted to be comparable to that of Fe self-diffusion. Compared with Y and La, Ce shows large migration energy and small solute-vacancy att ractive interaction, which accounts for the lowest diffusivity of this element. Keywords: Diffusion; Rare earth; Bcc Fe; First-principles calculations 1. Introduction In the past years, the addition of rare earth (RE) elements has been regarded promising in steels. A series of beneficial research for the development of rare earth addition have been focused on the purification and modification of inclusion, since RE elements are characterized by significant negative free energy changes for compound formations [1-3]. RE doping also improve the high-temperature oxidation resistance and the corrosion resistance of steels due to the reactive-element effect (REE) [4,5].In addition, the solidification, phase transformations, recrystallization behavior, of steel can be improved by adding RE [6, 7]. Knowledge of the above mentioned mechanism is essential to understand the influence of RE additions on the physical, chemical and various properties of steels. In spite of the progress so far in RE application, it is apparent that many questions still remain rather controversial. A thorough theoretical study on the diffusivities of RE elements in Fe-based alloy is still lacking, which is essential for understanding the effects of RE on the structure and properties of steel, and is also helpful for designing and preparing RE doped steels [8]. For the three commonly used RE elements, Y, La and Ce, to our knowledge, only the diffusion coefficient of Y has been reported [9]. The diffusion of substitutional-type solute is mainly controlled by vacancy mechanism. In this case, the interaction of solute atom with vacancy plays significant roles in understanding of the diffusion properties of solutes. To understand the microstructure evolution in bcc Fe alloy, DFT method has been applied in calculations of the binding energies of solute atom with vacancy [10]. Based on the nine-frequency model of Le Claire, Ding and Huang et al. [11,12] developed a computational framework to calculate the solute diffusion coefficients in bcc Fe, which presents an effective method in investigation of the diffusion properties in bcc Fe alloy. The purpose of this work is to investigate the impurity diffusivities of rare earth elements, Y, La and Ce, in bcc Fe by the first-principles calculations within nine-frequency model and the semi-empirical corrections for magnetization[11,13], calculate the associated solute-vacancy binding energies, migration energies, pre-factors and activation energies for these impurity diffusivities, as well as the self-diffusion coefficient of Fe, thus discuss the related factors of the diffusion coefficients. 2. Methodology The temperature dependence of diffusion coefficient D is expressed in the Arrhenius form D=D0exp(-Q/kBT), where D0 and Q are the pre-factor and activation energy, respectively. Below the Curie temperature, the self-diffusion and solute diffusion coefficients in bcc Fe deviate downward from the Arrhenius type relationship extrapolated from the paramagnetic state [14]. These deviations are attributed to the change of magnetization which affects the diffusion activation energy. To investigate the effect of magnetic disorder on the diffusion activation energy of spin-polarized metals, Ding et al. [15] reported a first-principles approach based on the spin-wave DFT method for studying the self-diffusion of bcc Fe and fcc Co, and the calculated values of ÃŽÂ ± agree well with the experimental data. More recently, by combination of the first-principle calculations and Heisenberg Monte Carlo simulations, Sandberg et al. [16] presented a quasi-empirical model to study the magnetic contribu tion to the self-diffusion activation energy of bcc Fe. Murali et al. [17] conducted a systematic study of the effects of phonon and electron excitations on the free formation energy of vacancy, the solute-vacancy binding energy, and the vacancy migration energy in bcc Fe. The authors then calculated the Fe self-diffusion coefficient based on the computed free energies, by employing the semi-empirical model presented in Ref. [18]. The diffusion associated data yielded by these methods are in good agreement with experiments. We employ the semi-empirical model to describe the dependence of the diffusion activation energy on the magnetization in the ferromagnetic state [18]: QF(T)=QP[1+ÃŽÂ ±s(T)2] (1) where QP is the activation energy in the paramagnetic state; s(T) is the ratio of the magnetization of bcc Fe at a certain temperature T to that at 0K, and has been experimentally measured [19,20]; the constant ÃŽÂ ± quantifies the extent of the influence of magnetic on activation energy, the measured value of ÃŽÂ ± for Fe self-diffusion is 0.156 [11].In the case of the solute species investigated in this context that have no measured ÃŽÂ ± values available, the values can be estimated from a linear correlation with the induced changes in local magnetization on Fe atoms in the first and second neighbor shells of a solute atom [21]. The first-principles calculations give direct access to the magnitude of the activation energies for self- and solute diffusion in the fully ordered ferromagnetic state (T=0K). Given the values of ÃŽÂ ± and s(T), we can compute QP through the relation , and QF(T) from Eq. (1). We based the diffusion calculations on the assumption that the mechanism of diffusion is primarily monovacancy mediated. The self-diffusion and solute diffusion coefficients on a bcc lattice can be expressed as following [11,22]: Dself=a2f0Cvw0 (2) Dsolute=a2f2Cvw2(-ΆGb/kBT) (3) where a is the bcc lattice constant, f0=0.727 is the self-diffusion correlation factor, f2 is the correlation factor for solute diffusion which depends on the relative vacancy jump frequencies around the solute atom. Cv denotes the equilibrium vacancy concentration, can be written as Cv=exp(ΆSf /kB)exp(-ΆHf /kBT), where ΆSf and ΆHf are the vacancy formation enthalpy and entropy, respectively, the harmonic approximation makes these two become temperature-independent constants. and kB is Boltzmanns constant. w0 and w2 are the vacancy hopping frequencies for Fe and solute atoms to exchange with a nearest-neighbor vacancy, respectively. Based on transition state theory (TST), the vacancy hopping frequency w is written as , where and are the phonon frequencies in the initial state and transition state, and the product in the denominator ignores the unstable mode; ΆHmig is the migration energy, gives the energy difference for the diffusin g atom located at its initial equilibrium lattice position and the saddle-point position. The solute-vacancy binding free energy ΆGb can be expressed as ΆGb =ΆHbTΆSb, where ΆHb and ΆSb are the binding enthalpy and entropy, respectively. The correlation factor f2 can be calculated using the nine-frequency model developed by Le Claire [13] which involves different jump frequencies of vacancies to their first neighbor position in the presence of the solute atoms, as illustrated in Fig. 1. In this model, the interaction of solute-vacancy is assumed up to second neighbor distance. The nine frequencies shown in Fig. 1 illustrate all of the distinct vacancy jumps in a bcc system with a dilute solute concentration, including the host Fe atom jump w0 without impurity. The detailed calculation procedures could be found in Ref. [11]. Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the nine-frequency model for the bcc Fe crystalline with a solute atom. The arrows denote the jump directions of the vacancy. The numbers in the circle represent the neighboring site of the solute atom. For convenience, we can represent the self- and solute diffusion equations (Eqs.(2) and (3)) in Arrhenius form to obtain the pre-factor and activation energy of diffusion. By combining the above Eqs., the diffusion coefficient for Fe self-diffusion and solute diffusion can be expressed as: (4) For self-diffusion, the pre-factor is, and the activation energy given as . Also, the solute diffusion coefficient can be expressed in an Arrhenius form with the pre-factor is, and. The first-principles calculations presented here are carried out using the Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package(VASP) with the projector augmented wave(PAW) method and the generalized gradient approximation of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof functional(GGA-PBE) [23]. All calculations were performed in spin polarized. The computations performed within a 4à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´4à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´4 supercell including 128 atoms. The binding, vacancy formation and migration energies were calculated with 300eV plane-wave cutoff and 12à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´12à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´12 k-point meshes. The residual atomic forces in the relaxed configurations were lower than 0.01eV/Ã…. The transition states with the saddle point along the minimum energy diffusion path for vacancy migration were determined using nudged elastic band (NEB) method [24] as implemented in VASP. We adopt the harmonic approximation (HA) to consider the contribution of normal phonon frequencies to free energy. The normal phonon frequencies were calcu lated using the direct force-constant approach as implemented in the Alloy Theoretic Automated Toolkit (ATAT) [25] package. Similar cutoff energy, k-point mesh size and supercell size used for the total energies were used for the vibrational calculations. 3. Result and discussion Table 1 illustrates our calculated energies for vacancy formation, migration and binding, as well as the constant ÃŽÂ ± for solute species, the associated paramagnetic activation energies and fully ordered ferromagnetic activation energies for both self- and solute-diffusion. For pure bcc Fe, the vacancy formation energy and migration energy obtained here are consistent with the reported range of values, ΆHf=2.16-2.23 eV and ΆHmig=0.55-0.64 eV [11,26,27]. For Y impurity in bcc Fe, the calculated vacancy binding energy in full ordered ferromagnetic state also compare well with the previous first principles work [28], in which ΆHb=-0.73 eV. It can be seen that Y and La have smaller activation energy than that for Fe self-diffusion, while Ce is predicted to have a lager value of activation energy than that for Fe self-diffusion, in both the ordered ferromagnetic and paramagnetic state. Table 1 Vacancy formation energy ΆHf , solute-vacancy binding energy ΆHb, migration energy ΆHmig, the ferromagnetic activation energy and the paramagnetic activation energy QP; the variable dependence parameter of activation energy on magnetization ÃŽÂ ±. Fe Y La Ce ΆHf(eV) 2.31 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ ΆHb (eV) à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ -0.69 -0.66 -0.43 ΆHmig (eV) 0.54 0.09 0.17 1.09 ÃŽÂ ± 0.156 0.088 0.038 0.125 (eV) 2.85 1.71 1.82 2.97 QP (eV) 2.47 1.57 1.75 2.64 Solute-vacancy binding energy plays a crucial role in understanding solute diffusion kinetics. Table 2 presents the binding energies of Y, La and Ce atoms with vacancy in their 1nn, 2nn and 3nn coordinate shells. From Table 2 it can be seen that referring to the first nearest-neighbor solute-vacancy pairs, the binding energies are all negative, which implies the solute-vacancy pairs are favorable. Specifically, Y and La impurities are computed to have higher values of solute-vacancy binding energies -0.69 eV and -0.66 eV in 1nn configuration, respectively, while that for Ce is -0.43 eV. Correspondingly, we found that Y, La and Ce atoms relax towards the 1nn vacancy by 22.3%, 19.6% and 12.2% of the initial 1nn distance (2.488 Ã…) after the structure optimization. The interactions of the solute-vacancy pair at the 2nn shells tend to be smaller in magnitude than that of 1nn, and that of Ce-vacancy predicted to be repulsive. The interactions of the 3nn solute-vacancy are relatively we ak, indicating that the interactions of the solute-vacancy are local. According to Le Clair model [13], in the situation that the interactions of the first and second nearest solute-vacancy neighbors are appreciable, the nine different jump frequencies should be considered. To obtain information on the origin of these attractive behaviors, we decompose the total binding energy into the distortion binding energyand the electronic binding energy as [29] . The distortion binding energy can be obtained by the distortion reducing of the bcc Fe matrix when a solute atom and a vacancy combine to form a solute-vacancy pair, and can be expressed as: (5) where and can be calculated as follows: after the supercell containing a solute-vacancy pair (or a substitutional atom) has been fully relaxed, the solute-vacancy pair (or the substitutional atom) is removed from the system, then the total energy can be calculated. denotes the total energy of the pure bcc Fe supercell, and denotes the total energy of the supercell containing a vacancy. Then can be calculated from . The calculated solute-vacancy binding energies of 1nn, 2nn and 3nn are shown in Table 2, along with the energy decomposition for 1nn solute-vacancy binding. The distortion energies (-0.31 to -0.65 eV) for all solute elements(Y, La and Ce) are negative, and much bigger than their corresponding electronic binding energies (-0.04 to -0.12 eV). This implies that the distortion energy accounts for a major part of the total solute-vacancy binding energy, i.e. the strain relief effect contributes significantly to the interaction between the impurity atom and the vacancy, esp ecially for the solute Y and La, which accounted for 94.2% and 97.0% of the total binding energy, respectively. Furthermore, there is a strong correlation between the binding energy and the distance of the solute-vacancy, and the lattice relaxation around the vacancy is local. For the case of Ce-vacancy , specifically, we found that Ce atom relax away from the 2nn vacancy by 4.3% of the initial 2nn distance, which leads to the positive binding energy. Table 2 Decomposition of the total solute-vacancy binding energy into distortion binding energy and electronic binding energy. Units are eV. Solute element Y La Ce ΆHb (1nn) -0.69 -0.66 -0.43 (1nn) -0.65 -0.64 -0.31 (1nn) -0.04 -0.02 -0.12 ΆHb (2nn) -0.16 -0.21 0.10 ΆHb (3nn) -0.06 0.09 -0.05 The calculated migration energies of the different vacancy jumps corresponding to the paths in Fig. 1 are listed in Table 3. The migration energies of w2 jump for Y and La are lower than that of w0 jump for host Fe atom (0.54 eV), while the migration barrier of Ce in bcc Fe is higher than that of Fe self-diffusion. The migration barrier of w2 jump for Y is 0.09 eV, comparable to the reported value of 0.03 eV and 0.02 eV [9, 30]. The results indicate that there is a correlation between the binding energy of solute-vacancy and the migration energy, i.e. the strong attraction of solute-vacancy in 1nn configuration gives rise the low migration energy of the corresponding vacancy jump. For the three solute atoms, because of the strong attraction of 1nn solute-vacancy, the migration barriers of which the 1nn vacancy jump away from the solute atom, i.e. w3, w3, and w3, are higher than that of the opposite jumps, i.e. w4, w4, and w4, as well as that of Fe self-diffusion in pure bcc Fe. And t he same tendency can be found in the results of jump w5 and w6. Table 3 Migration energies for different jumps in the presence of Y, La and Ce in bcc Fe matrix. Units are eV. Jump Y La Ce w2 0.09 0.17 1.08 w3 1.81 1.84 1.55 w4 0.91 0.99 0.92 w3 0.93 1.23 1.07 w4 0.04 0.03 0.08 w3 0.86 0.92 0.87 w4 0.12 0.05 0.11 w5 0.94 0.98 0.89 w6 0.69 0.67 0.82 The correlation factor f2 is related to the probability of the reverse jump of a solute atom to its previous position [31]. Table 4 lists the calculated values of correlation factors for Y, La and Ce at representative temperatures of 850, 1000 and 1150K. The correlation factor of Y is 3.3ÃÆ'-10-5 at 1000K, close to the value of 1ÃÆ'-106 obtained by Murali [9]. For the three elements, the correlation factors of Ce have the highest values, and the correlation factors of La are one order of magnitude lower than that of Y. Therefore, Ce atom is the most difficult to return back to its original position in the temperature range of our investigation. Including the smallest binding energy, highest migration energy and correlation factor, provides an explanation for the low diffusivity of Ce atom. Table 4 Correlation factors (f2) for Y, La and Ce solute-diffusion at representative temperatures of 850, 1000 and 1150K. T(K) Y La Ce f2 f2/ f0 f2 f2/ f0 f2 f2/ f0 850 6.4ÃÆ'-106 1.111 2.9ÃÆ'-107 1.264 0.379 1.373 1000 3.3ÃÆ'-10-5 1.070 2.4ÃÆ'-106 1.223 0.381 1.370 1150 1.2ÃÆ'-104 1.034 1.4ÃÆ'-10-5 1.188 0.383 1.367 Table 5 lists the calculated diffusion activation energies and pre-factors for Fe self-diffusion and Y, La and Ce impurity diffusion. For pure bcc Fe, we find our calculated results are in good agreement with the published values. For Y impurity in bcc Fe, the calculated activation energy in full ordered ferromagnetic state is lower than the previous first principles work, and the pre-factor is as much as two orders of magnitude lager than the reported value. The experimental or calculated diffusion coefficients of La and Ce are not available to the best of our knowledge. For the case of experimental investigation, due to the very small solubilities of La and Ce in iron, the measured data may be affected by segregation of solutes, grain boundary, other impurities and the method of detection. Besides, the theory calculations, e.g. molecular dynamics (MD), first-principles etc. have not been applied widely in the study of RE contained steel yet, so the fundamental data of RE elements i n iron, such as the potential functions of Fe-La and Fe-Ce, is lacking. Table 5 Activation energies in the fully ordered ferromagnetic state () and paramagnetic state (QP), along with diffusion pre-factors for Fe self-diffusion and impurity diffusion of Y, La and Ce in bcc Fe. Reference (kJ mol-1) QP(kJ mol-1) D0(m2/s) Fe Present work 275.3 238.1 2.99ÃÆ'-10-5 Huang et al. [11] 277 239 6.7ÃÆ'-10-5 Nitta et al. [32] 289.7 ±5.1 250.6 ±3.8 2.76ÃÆ'-10-4 Seeger[33] 280.7 242.8 6.0ÃÆ'-10-4 Y Present work 165.9 159.9 1.09ÃÆ'-109 Murali et al. [9] 218.1 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 8.0ÃÆ'-107 La Present work 175.6 169.2 2.88ÃÆ'-1010 Ce Present work 286.3 275.8 7.66ÃÆ'-106 Fig. 2 presents a direct comparison between the calculated and published temperature dependent diffusion coefficients for Fe self-diffusion and Y solute diffusion. For Fe self-diffusion, the calculated values are in good agreement with Huang et al. [11] and Nitta et al. [29], but smaller than the measured d

Situational Influences On Purchasing Behavior :: essays research papers

Running head: Situational Influences on Purchasing Behavior Situational Influences on Purchasing Behavior Abstract There was an investigation in an attempt to understand what situational influences affect purchasing behaviors of consumers. Fifty subjects were asked to complete a survey in determining what attributes affect the decision to purchase a product. The effect of purchase was based on three different times of day: morning, afternoon, and evening. The effect of purchase was also based on whether subjects preferred caffeinated or non-caffeinated soda depending on the time of day. The subjects were asked to rate their preferences on a 5 point rating scale, one being agree and five being disagreed. The results indicated there was a relationship between caffeination and usage situation. Situational Influences on Purchasing Behavior Why do people shop? How do situational factors influence the decision to purchase certain items? The act of purchase is affected by many factors: mood, time pressures, or even a person’s disposition towards shopping. Time can be seen, as an important factor because it often determines how much effort and search a consumer will put into making a purchasing decision. A person’s mood can be affected by the degree of pleasure or arousal that is present in the store’s atmosphere. Most people tend to base a purchase decision towards a specific occasion; or even the way an individual may feel at a specific point in time can also play a big role in what we feel like purchasing. These factors may cause one to decide more carefully on a purchase. Marketers like to use segmentation strategies when advertising to let buyers know their product will meet a specific need one may be looking towards. Overall, many consumers’ purchase decisions are greatly affected by group s or social settings. The presence of other people around often has a positive influence on one’s purchasing behavior. Consumers look for different product attributes depending on they intend to use their purchase. In an attempt to understand how situational influences affect purchasing behaviors, researchers looked at several different approaches to study consumer behavior. Monroe and Lee (1999) based their research on issues involving the buyers’ processing of price information. Their assumption concerned how prices influence buyers’ purchasing behaviors has been that a consumers already know the prices of products that they consider for purchase, but, they are not able to remember the prices of items they had recently purchased. Overall, what consumers can remember may not always be a good indicator of what they already know.

Mother Daughter Relationships - Daughter Pushed to the Brink in Amy Tan

A Daughter Pushed to the Brink in Joy Luck Club      Ã‚   In Amy Tan's novel, Joy Luck Club, the mother of Jing-mei recognizes only two kinds of daughters: those that are obedient and those that follow their own mind. Perhaps the reader of this novel may recognize only two types of mothers: pushy mothers and patient mothers.   The two songs, "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented," which the daughter plays, reinforce the underlying tension in the novel. These songs represent the feelings that the daughter, Jing-mei, has had throughout her life. The mother in this novel is pushy. She wants her daughter to become a child prodigy so badly she can practically taste it. She makes Jing-mei perform tests out of magazines to see if she could by some chance be one of those extraordinary children they are always reading about and watching on TV. Jing-mei has no interest in becoming a child prodigy; eventually gives up on these tests, and hence her mother gives up on them, too. The mother also pushed Jing-mei to try and be something she wasn't in the way of looks. After watching Shirley Temple on TV, Jing-mei's mother took her down to the beauty training school so she could get her hair cut to look like a Chinese Shirley Temple. Well, like the tests, the haircut failed too. She ended up with an uneven, Peter Pan looking haircut. Jing-mei's mother said that she now "looked like Negro Chinese" as if it was her fault her hair ended up the way it did (Tan 1208). After the first two attempts to make her daughter into a child prodigy, the mother is just about to give up on the idea that her daughter can be better than what she already is, when her last idea hits her. She was watching the Ed Sullivan show, when she saw a girl playin... ...ause her mother pushed her to hard to do things that she simply did not want to do. If her mother had just been a little more relaxed and not so caught up in her daughter becoming a child prodigy, then they would have had a better relationship. If parents push their children to do something they do not want to do, they may end up, like Jing-mei's mother, paying for it.    Works Cited and Consulted: Ghymn, Ester. Images of Asian American Women by Asian American Women Writers. vol. 1. NY: Peter Lang 1995. Souris, Stephen. "'Only Two Kinds of Daughters:'" Inter-Monologue Dialogicity in The Joy Luck Club." Melus 19.2 (Summer 1994):99-123. Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Vintage Contemporaries. New York: A Division of Random House, Inc. 1993. Willard, Nancy. Asian American Women Writers. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia 1997.

Robert Frosts Desert Places and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening :: Robert Frost Poet Poems Desert Woods Essays

Robert Frost's "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" Robert Frost takes our imaginations to a journey through wintertime with his two poems "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Frost comes from a New England background and these two poems reflect the beautiful scenery that is present in that part of the country. Even though these poems both have winter settings they contain very different tones. One has a feeling of depressing loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show how the same setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on their mindset at the time. These poems are both made up of simple stanzas and diction but they are not simple poems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the poem "Desert Places" the speaker is a man who is traveling through the countryside on a beautiful winter eventing. He is completely surrounded with feelings of loneliness. The speaker views a snow covered field as a deserted place. "A blanker whiteness of benighted snow/ With no expression, nothing to express". Whiteness and blankness are two key ideas in this poem. The white sybolizes open and empty spaces. The snow is a white blanket that covers up everything living. The blankness sybolizes the emptyness that the speaker feels. To him there is nothing else around except for the unfeeling snow and his lonely thoughts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The speaker in this poem is jealous of the woods. "The woods around it have it - it is theirs." The woods symbolizes people and society. They have something that belongs to them, something to feel a part of. The woods has its place in nature and it is also a part of a bigger picture. The speaker is so alone inside that he feels that he is not a part of anything. Nature has a way of bringing all of her parts together to act as one. Even the animals are a part of this wintery scene. "All animals are smothered in their lairs,/ I am too absent-spirited to count". The snow throws its blanket of whiteness over everything and to him it is a feeling of numbness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  "The loneliness includes me unawares". The speaker has lost his enthusiasm for life. He can not express his feelings easily because of this feeling of numbness. The speaker is also in denial about feeling alone. He is at a stage where he just does not care about too much and he is feeling a bit paranoid. "They cannot scare me with their empty space." He is saying who cares how I feel, I do not need anyone else.

Grace Nichols Essay

In the poem by Grace Nichols ‘Of course when they ask for poems about the ‘Realities’ of black women’, this poem contains certain splits which reflect upon her experience as an immigrant moving from the Caribbean to the United Kingdom and how she collaborates her two worlds together, by using both Creole, the language from her homeland and Standard English. She resists the notions of the black women in a contemporary society through her poetry and is rather fond of her Caribbean heritage and also still being proud of her European custom and seeing it as belonging to her. This space ‘in between’ of being a writer between two worlds, are all geographical, cultural and personal and there is a split that is caused not only by physical migration but by the adoption of new cultural customs, and the personal rifts of identity and agency. Grace Nichols strived to find her voice in London to write about her homeland Guyana, and the pressing issues of bla ck women ideologies. She strives to be true to the inner language of her voice by fighting against these dogmas that conflictingly were being imposed from the colonial power that is her current homeland, the United Kingdom and she achieves this by creating something new. In her poem ‘Of course when they ask for poems about the ‘Realities’ of black women’ she defeats the black women stereotypes by refusing the historical legacy of the grotesque and patronizing colonial structures of the black women and the black women as ‘frail victims.’ 1 She gets this message across in the poem when she states: â€Å"Maybe this poem is to say, that I like to see we black women full-of-we-selves walking Crushing out with each dancing step the twisted self-negating history we’ve inherited Crushing out with each dancing step,†2 this is a split that is caused by the physical migration into a colonial country and her need to express the issue caused by colonial powers. Fortunately, by being a black British writer, her voice is heard much greater by those with fixed ideologies of black women. And, additionally she signifies that she has not lost her roots and the Caribbean blood still pumps within her veins, she continues to be the voice of her ancestors. In the essay by Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ he states that identity is seen through visual arts and cinemas are â€Å"resources of resistance and identity, with which to confront the fragmented and pathological ways in which that experience has been reconstructed within the dominant regimes of cinematic and visual representation of the West.† 3  Hence a poem that wants to achieve this requires the experience to tell it. He is also implying that people of the diaspora need to take back their identity as it has been told for too long through the dominant cinema. Thus, Nichols’s splits of geographical displacement have had a profound impact on her writing across two worlds and she has a strong sense of agency, to be able to go against the norms of her current geographical content and speak out to those ideologies influenced by dominate powers and the â€Å"abused stereotypes already in their head.† 4 Referring to the Western systems, the tone in this poem portrays the ignorance of the West. Not only has her diaspora caused geographical splits in her literature but also produced cultural splits. Nichols expresses a diversity of cultural experiences of her migration to Britain and the constant intervention of a black British identity. Her poem signifies the split of cultural identity, we can see this within her writing on her experience, in the opening lines of the poem she states â€Å"Of course when they ask for poems about the ‘Realities’ of black women†5 we get the idea that the industry requests her to write poems about what they assume the black women to be. Thus, asking her to subscribe to those cultural norms, however Nichols resists this request by saying â€Å"I say I can write no poem big enough to hold the essence of a black woman or a white woman or a green woman.†6 Nichols’s message is apparent here, that there is no fixed label of a black woman and that the ‘black women’ comes in many different forms not one specific shape. By doing so she challenges the concept of the basic racial or gendered identity. The ‘Green women’7 is used by Nichols to show the significance of color, that it is not necessarily about black and white but more focused on woman in general, that the focus should not be on the color of skin. Hall states that, â€Å"We all write and speak from a particular place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific. What we say is always ‘in context’, positioned.†8 Nichols’s separation from her homeland encourages her to resist the norms of the West and to use her experience and her new cultural knowledge of her new custom to confront the so called experience of the black women that has been reconstructed by the West through cinematic and visual representations. She finds her identity as a black British writer and also uses her multicultural identity, along side with her diaspora experience to her advantage to articulate herself and represent her  image as an authentic writer with strong agency. Nichols embraces the noti on of split selves and her multicultural identity and it is evident in her poem when she mixes her mother tongue, Creole, her foreign tongue and Standard English. We capture this essence in line 39-41 â€Å" a piece-a-pussy/ that see the pickney dem/ in the grip-a-hungry-belly†9 she uses a mixture of both Creole and English to send her message across that she will always remain true to her traditions and that she is reclaiming her heritage whilst respectively passing on the legacy. These two languages were constantly interacting and Creole was considered as the inferior language by the colonial power, thus she deliberately uses Creole in her work to defy hierarchical systems and her sense of agency is manifest. Furthermore, Nichols’ personal rifts from her diaspora have left her with an endless desire to return to her lost origins, she scarcely achieves this through her poetry â€Å"and yes we cut bush to clear paths for our children and yes we throw spat to catch whale.†10 She shifts between two identities, therefore one cannot say that identities are stable but rather that â€Å"diaspora identities are those which are c onstantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.† Nichols is a writer across two worlds as she is constantly interacting between her past Caribbean culture, and her present British culture, she finds common ground between both. Therefore, her personal rifts of yearning, separation and nostalgia are also what characterize her diaspora experience in her poem. Grace Nichols’s geographical, cultural and personal rifts are what depict her diaspora literature, from physically moving to London from the Caribbean and finding her voice in a place where they are considered a minority, toward learning to conform and adapt to the new cultural values and norms of the British. Whilst, at the same time remembering your motherland’s traditions and values. We do not lose the sense that she is a Caribbean writer throughout her poem â€Å"Of course when they ask for poems about the ‘Realities’ of black women†, because she fuses Creole and English together to form her new identity as a black British writer. I relate to her experience, as I too am a person in between two worlds, straddling two cultures and I too have desires for my motherland Iraq, and the stereotypes of our culture forces one to find a ‘space in between’ to discover an identity suitable in both worlds. Her poem has a sense of hope and delight that one of a diaspora  identity can explore and is free to be more than one person, that the black women is a myth, although black women are still exposed to slavery, their courage may lead to a promising future. Bibliography Hall, Stuart. â€Å"Cultural identity and diaspora.† Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990. 222-237. Nichols, Grace. â€Å"Of course when they ask for poems about the ‘Realities’ of black women† Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman. London: Virago, 1989.

Aq for Conformity

Young people of my country conform and deviate, but in varying degrees. This is expressed by Suematsu in paragraph 3 of passage B where he states â€Å"Conform too much, and you are toast, deviate too much, and you are toast too. † in context to the school life. It is the same with Singapore. Young people of my country must find the perfect balance of conforming and deviating in order to be â€Å"popular†. And that answers the question as to why they conform and deviate. Even within Singapore, different young people may conform and deviate in different ways and in variable degrees.For example, students in a secondary school may find that breaking the rules, â€Å"deviating† in other words, is considered cool but students from a junior college may find conforming more to their style. This is probably due to the mental maturity of the different age groups. In secondary school, students are still young and may not fully comprehend the consequences of their actions o r maybe even be given rose coloured glasses by their peer (peer pressure), whereas in JC, the students have matured greatly from their secondary school days and understand the consequences they have to face in breaking a rule.However, we also have to consider what kind of circles the young people come from. Some young people may come from more shady backgrounds, and they may break more rules (of both society and school) than normal, but to them, or perhaps, to their social circle, it may be a form of conforming. It isn’t their fault as they have been brought up or have been exposed to such an environment at a early age. To them, it is the norm. they do not know how else to act except to deviate.Even within that circle, there may be some limits to the kind of rules or how many you can break. This is also illustrated by Suematsu who states â€Å"We all conform to some standard one way or another†¦ this collective standard can vary even within a society. † It is also seen in the undercurrents of Heath and Potter’s work where they state â€Å"they do place limits.. † which states that even with deviation, there is a limit to what you can do.As Heath and Potter argue, the conformity will not destroy individuality. Which is probably why most young people in my country tend to deviate less (in terms of society and rules). Even with our uniform, most of the young people do not bother to accessorize or alter our uniform (except maybe the length) too much. It is, in our perspective, a uniform, and therefore, is not an accurate representation of our true selves.We tend not to bother too much about showing off our individuality, saving that for when the weekend comes or when we go out. As Suematsu states â€Å"the conclusion that limited means of expression equals limited expressions of individuality which may be wrong. † Besides, â€Å"students have a thousand and one ways to modify a school uniform†, which is also another r eason why students conform to wearing the uniform, though they deviate a little by maybe, shortening the skirt a little too short, or wearing pretty hair accessories.It is probably also true that many young people of my country may fuss a little too much over details such as hair, makeup or attire (more often lately). When we go out, it is important to look our best in order to portray our individuality (this is the same for many other countries). Even so, be it our moral compass, or our parents or even the society, young people still conform to a certain type of limit set by above mentioned factors, though deviating. This is the so-called golden balance that Suematsu mentions.

Golding’s representation of the deaths of Simon and Piggy Essay

How is language used to describe events? Discuss the link between these sections and characterisation of the two boys earlier in the novel. From the beginning the reader can tell that Simon and Piggy are set apart from the rest of the boys. Both their psychical and mental attitude to living on the island is different to the other boys on the island. It is ironic that all the children will physical defects die. The first death is of the littelun with the birthmark. Later Simon and Piggy die, all three of these characters have defects, Simon is epileptic and Piggy is asthmatic, overweight and wears glasses. This makes the characters seem unique or it could also simply mean that they were not strong enough to survive on the island. However their characters make them see more special rather than weak. It is also ironic that Piggy, the one with the most deficiencies dies the most violently. The first time we meet Simon, he is in his choir robes. He faints on the beach because of the heat and Jack mocks him. We know he is delicate. He has epilepsy. We find out about Simon’s appearance, which also highlights Simon’s characteristics: â€Å"He was a skinny, vivid little boy, with a glance coming up from under a hut of straight hair that hung down, black and course† He is helpful and works for the good of others; he is the only one to stick with Ralph to make the shelters. He is kind to the littluns and finds fruit for them. The others recognise he is ‘different’ to them in some way. Ralph frowned. ‘He’s queer. He’s funny.’ Piggy says He’s cracked. He has a secret place in a clearing full of flowers and butterflies and is sufficiently at one with the jungle to walk in it alone at night. He is at one with nature and he has no fear. He seems able to prophesy – he is the first to suggest as if it wasn’t a good island and he tells Ralph, You’ll get back to where you came from. He is the most perceptive about the beast. He says maybe there is a beast: â€Å"What I mean is†¦ maybe it’s only us†. He is the only one to see that the problems on the island stem from the boys’ relationships with each other, not from an outside force. Yet no understands what he’s trying to say. When the Lord of the Flies ‘speaks’ to him this idea is reiterated: the voice in Simon’s head says: â€Å"Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!†¦ You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you?† He is killed just as he is about to reveal the truth. It is ironic that he is the only one who finds out that the ‘beast’ was a dead parachutist, but is denied passing on the message because the groups of boys think, in their frenzy, he is the beast. Nature cares for Simon’s body in death just as it had in life. â€Å"The waves turned the corpse gently in the water. †¦ Softly, surrounded by a fringe of bright inquisitive creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out towards the open sea.† â€Å"Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination to manual labour.† Piggy has physical disadvantages because he is fat and asthmatic and is short sighted. Without his glasses, everything becomes a blur. He is very intelligent – in Chp.1 it is his idea to make a list of names and it is he who realises that no adult knows the boys are on the island. Later he suggests making sundial and hats. Ralph recognises Piggy could think†¦ Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains. However, he does not speak as grammatically accurately as the others: â€Å"How can you expect to be rescues if you don’t put first things first and act proper.† Perhaps this is to suggest he wasn’t as well educated as the others and that he is not from the right class of people to be a successful leader: at the time the novel was written, most power was still in the hands of the middle and upper classes. He is embarrassed by his nickname, and he behaves with dignity when Ralph betrays the name to the others. We never know his real name. He is kind and considerate to the littluns like Simon. He helps the boy with the birthmark talk about the ‘snake-thing’ and helps Percival talk about the beast. He is later often left to care for them when the others are exploring and hunting. He has the most mature attitude of any boy on the island. He scornfully sees the other boys: â€Å"Acting like a crowd of kids†. Piggy is pragmatic. When Simon dies, Piggy tries to convince Ralph there was nothing they could have done: â€Å"It was an accident†¦ and that’s that.† Like Ralph, he believes in civilised values and clings to what creates order: â€Å"I just take the conch to say this. I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back.† He shouts, â€Å"I got the conch† when they go to the fort to confront Jack, to try to show Jack that he has a right to be heard. Piggy and the conch are destroyed together by the rock Roger levers. Thus, intelligence and the symbol of authority are ‘dead’, so we know that there is nothing left to stop Jack gaining full control. At the end, Ralph mourns the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. Simon and Piggy’s deaths have a lot to do with their personalities and their life on the island. Simon’s death is caused by the other boys getting out of control, ironically it’s the first time that Simon tries to communicate properly with the group but he still isn’t able to. Simon and Piggy’s death are very different. Simon, is killed as part of a ritual that the boys create in their frenzied dance, it’s not premeditated or planned in any way, but is committed as a group act when all the boys are in a weird sort of hypnotic state, in doing their dance, they have abandoned all sense of being civilised and human, and just gone along with their dark side. As Simon was closest to nature he is lucky enough to be spiritually taken away by the sea. At least before he dies he discovers the truth behind the island. With the death of Simon the boys are one step nearer to barbarity. The murder of Simon is particularly horrific because it involves all the other boys – they get caught up in the frenzied chant: â€Å"The crowd †¦ leapt onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore.† Also, even Piggy and Ralph join in, so Golding is showing that the possibility of doing wrong when in a mob situation is not confined to the bad characters. It also helps continue the religious allegory in the book. Simon is often associated with Christ or a saint. He has come down from the mountain to bring good news, that they have nothing to fear. Like Christ and so many saints, though, he is not thanked or welcomed but killed for trying to help. Even though Simon’s death was quite brutal his body is carried away in a very spiritual and he appears like an angel: ‘Simon’s coarse hair with brightness’ Golding makes out that Simon is an angel and has a halo around his head. This again contributes to the religious allegory in the book. The world is also mentioned making Simon’s death seem something that has affected the whole world and not just something that can be limited to a group of savages. From the beginning of the chapter you can sense the atmosphere because the weather shows how the boys are feeling. The boys are ‘flinching’ and the term ‘stroke’ is used which shows that something violent is about to happens. The rain starts of very light but as they are killing Simon a storm breaks out signifying that they are releasing their anger. In a way Simon deserved his special ending because of the way he was being portrayed as the beast and the fact that they were calling Simon ‘it’. Simon’s death brings the chapter to a nice end and brings some significance to his death. Where as with Piggy his death is very short and is in the middle of the chapter and then pushed aside and then the rest of the story carries on without care. Piggy’s death is him fighting for what is right, but unfortunately he’s fighting savagery not rational human beings any more. The choir has turned into a bunch of painted ‘hunters’ who do exactly what Jack tells them. It is Roger who kills Piggy who is described as a ‘bag of fat’; just before the rock actually hits Piggy, though, Golding says he is ‘holding out the talisman, the fragile, shining beauty †¦ the shell’. This shows that Piggy is the guardian of the thing that the conch stands for, right, justice, freedom of speech and order. The actual description of Piggy’s head smashing on the square red rock is rather grotesque and gruesome and is seen very much as a child would describe it. His legs and arms twitch ‘like a pig’s after it has been killed.’ It is ironic that the conch should almost ‘die’ the same time that Piggy does. At this point all sense of control and civilised behavi our has been shattered. Piggy is killed partly because Roger realises he can hurt somebody; can exercise power over another living creature, without being punished for it. At the start of the novel Roger is throwing stones at some of the little ones. At that point he is still too conditioned by his past to actually throw to hit the children. By the end the restraints of civilisation have disappeared and he feels free to do as he likes. Piggy’s death is described in a child like manner where Golding uses words such as ‘stuff’ and this is ironic because Piggy was the most adult like on the island. Unlike Simon deaths Piggy’s is quick and graphical. Simon and Piggy’s death can also be similar because both of them didn’t have time to say what they wanted to: ‘Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for event a grunt†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Piggy tries to get the message across that the conch is still important and that rules are still important. Simon wanted to tell the truth about the beast about how they didn’t need to be scared anymore. Both of these were vital messages that could have saved the boys from their savage behavior and could have saved the lives of Simon and Piggy. The difference between Simon and Piggy’s death is that Simon’s death was seen as an accident that the whole group was responsible for whereas Piggy’s death was caused on purpose and was caused by one singled person, therefore making it seem worse out of the two.

Catholic Sacraments

The Sacraments of the Catholic Church are, the Church teaches, efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions. † Though not every individual has to receive every sacrament[->0], the Church affirms that, for believers as a whole, the sacraments are necessary for salvation, as the modes of grace divinely instituted by Christ[->1] Himself.Through each of them Christ bestows that sacrament's particular grace, such as incorporation into Christ and the Church, forgiveness of sins, or consecration for a particular service. The Church teaches that the effect of a sacrament comes by the very fact of being administered, regardless of the personal holiness of the minister administering it. However, a recipient's own lack of prope r disposition to receive the grace conveyed can block the effectiveness of the sacrament in that person.The sacraments presuppose faith and through their words and ritual elements, nourish, strengthen and give expression to faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church[->2] lists the sacraments as follows: â€Å"The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments. There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism[->3], Confirmation[->4], Eucharist[->5], Penance[->6], Anointing of the Sick[->7], Holy Orders[->8], and Matrimony[->9]. † Baptism[->10] is the first and basic sacrament of Christian initiation.Baptism is usually conferred today by pouring water three times on the recipient's head, while reciting the baptismal formula: â€Å"I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit[->11]. † The ordinary minister of the sacrament is a bishop or priest, or a deacon. In case of necessity[->12], an yone intending to do what the Church does, even if that person is not a Christian, can baptize. The sacrament frees from original sin[->13] and all personal sins, and from the punishment ue to them. Baptism makes the person share in the Trinitarian life of God through â€Å"sanctifying grace[-;14]†, the grace of justification that incorporates the person into the body of Christ and his Church, also making the person a sharer in the priesthood of Christ. It imparts the theological virtues[->15]: faith[->16], hope[->17], and charity[->18] and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and marks the baptized person with a spiritual seal or character that indicates permanent belonging to Christ.Baptism is the foundation of communion between all Christians. The many symbols of baptism include a white garment, symbolizing innocence and purity, a candle, symbolizing the Light of Christ, the Oil of Chrism, which is used to anoint the baby or candidate being baptized, and the water, which symboliz es cleansing and the washing away of sin. Confirmation is the second sacrament of Christian initiation. It is called Confirmation because it confirms and strengthens baptismal grace.It is conferred by â€Å"the anointing[-;19] with Sacred Chrism[-;20], which is oil mixed with balsam and consecrated by the bishop, which is done by the laying on of the hand of the minister who pronounces the sacramental words proper to the rite. These words refer to a gift of the Holy Spirit[-;21] that marks the recipient as with a seal. Through the sacrament the grace given in baptism is strengthened and deepened.Like baptism, confirmation may be received only once, and the recipient must be in a state of grace meaning free from any known unconfessed mortal sin[-;22] in order to receive its effects. The originating minister of the sacrament is a validly consecrated bishop[-;23]; if a priest confers the sacrament and in special cases, the link with the higher order is indicated by the use of oil bles sed[-;24] by the bishop on Holy Thursday[-;25] itself or on a day close to it. In the East, which retains the ancient practice, the sacrament is administered by the parish priest immediately after baptism.In the West, where administration is normally reserved for those who can understand its significance, it came to be postponed until the recipient's early adulthood; but in view of the earlier age at which children are now admitted to reception of the Eucharist, it is more and more restored to the traditional order and administered before giving the third sacrament of Christian initiation. The Eucharist is the sacrament, the third of Christian initiation, completes Christian initiation by which Catholics partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus[->26] Christ and participate in his one sacrifice.The first of these two aspects of the sacrament is also called Holy Communion. The bread which must be wheaten and wine which must be from grapes used in the Eucharistic rite are, in Catholic fa ith, transformed in all but appearance into the Body and Blood of Christ, a change that is called transubstantiation[->27]. That is, Catholics believe they are sacramentally, though not physically, eating and drinking the human flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Only a bishop[->28] or priest[->29] is enabled to be a minister of the Eucharist, acting in the person of Christ himself.Deacons[->30] as well as priests are ordinary ministers of Holy Communion, and lay people may be authorized in limited circumstances to act as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. The Eucharist is seen as â€Å"the source and summit† of Christian living, the high point of God's sanctifying action on the faithful and of their worship of God, the point of contact between them and the liturgy of heaven. So important is it that participation in the Eucharistic celebration is seen as obligatory on every Sunday and holy day of obligation[-;31] and is recommended on other days.Also recommended for thos e who participate in the Mass is reception, with the proper dispositions, of Holy Communion. This is seen as obligatory at least once a year, during Eastertide. The Sacrament of Penance is the first of two sacraments of healing. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions in the following orders different names of the sacrament, calling it the sacrament of conversion, Penance, confession, forgiveness and Reconciliation. It is the sacrament of spiritual healing for a baptized person from the distancing from God resulting from sins committed.If a man sins after baptism, he cannot have baptism as a remedy; Baptism, which is a spiritual regeneration, cannot be given a second time. Reconciliation involves four elements: Contrition the Penitent's sincere remorse for wrongdoing or sin, repentance, without which the rite has no effect; Confession to a Priest with the faculty to hear confessions while it may be spiritually helpful to confess to another, only a Priest has the power to admin ister the sacrament, Absolution by the Priest, and, Satisfaction or Penance.Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm. Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must make satisfaction for or expiate his sins. This satisfaction is also called penance.In early Christian centuries, this element of satisfaction was quite onerous and generally preceded absolution, but now it usually involves a simple task for the penitent to perform, to make some reparation and as a medicinal means of strengthening against further temptation. The priest is bound by the seal of confession[->32], which is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other fashion.A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs an automatic excommunication whose lifting is reserved to the Holy See[->33]. In some dioceses, certain sins are reserved which means only certain confessors can absolve them. Some sins, such as violation of the sacramental seal, consecration of bishops without authorization by the Holy See, direct physical attacks on the Pope[->34], and intentional desecration of the Eucharist are reserved to the Holy See.A special case-by-case faculty from the Sacred Penitentiary[->35] is normally required to absolve these sins. Anointing of the Sick[->36] is the second sacrament of healing. In this sacrament a priest anoints the sick with oil blessed specifically for that purpose. The anointing of the sick can be administered to any member of the faithful who, having reached the use of reason, begins to be in danger by reas on of illness or old age. A new illness or a worsening of health enables a person to receive the sacrament a further time.When, in the Western Church, the sacrament was conferred only on those in immediate danger of death, it came to be known as Extreme Unction[->37], Final Anointing, administered as one of the Last Rites. The other Last Rites are Confession if the dying person is physically unable to confess, at least absolution, conditional on the existence of contrition, is given, and the Eucharist, which when administered to the dying is known as Viaticum[->38], a word whose original meaning in Latin[->39] was provision for a journey.Holy Orders[->40] is the sacrament by which a man is made a bishop[->41], a priest[->42], or a deacon[->43], and thus dedicated to be an image of Christ[->44]. A bishop is the minister of this sacrament. Ordination as a bishop confers the fullness of the sacrament, making the bishop a member of the body of successors of the Apostles, and giving him the mission to teach, sanctify, and govern, along with the care of all the Churches.Ordination as a priest configures the priest to Christ the Head of the Church and the one essential High Priest, and conferring on him the power, as the bishops' assistant, to celebrate the sacraments and other liturgical acts, especially the Eucharist. Ordination as a deacon configures the deacon to Christ the Servant of All, placing him at the service of the bishop, especially in the Church's exercising of Christian charity towards the poor and preaching of the word of God.Aspirants to the priesthood are required by canon law[->45] to go through a seminary[->46] program that includes, as well as graduate level philosophical and theological studies, a formation program that includes spiritual direction[->47], retreats[->48], apostolate experience, etc. The course of studies in preparation for ordination as a permanent deacon is decided by the Episcopal conference[->49] concerned. Matrimony[->50], or Marriage, like Holy Orders, is a sacrament that consecrates for a particular mission in building up the Church, and that provides grace for accomplishing that mission.This sacrament, seen as a sign of the love uniting Christ and the Church, establishes between the spouses a permanent and exclusive bond, sealed by God. Accordingly, a marriage between baptized[->51] people, validly entered into and consummated, cannot be dissolved. The sacrament confers on them the grace they need for attaining holiness in their married life and for responsible acceptance and upbringing of their children.As a condition for validity, the sacrament is celebrated in the presence of the local Ordinary[->52] or Parish Priest[->53] or of a cleric delegated by them or in certain limited circumstances a lay person delegated by the diocesan Bishop with the approval of the Episcopal Conference[->54] and the permission of the Holy See[->55] and at least two other witnesses, though in the theological tradition o f the Latin Church the ministers of the sacrament are the couple themselves.For a valid marriage, a man and a woman must express their conscious and free consent to a definitive self-giving to the other, excluding none of the essential properties and aims of marriage. If one of the two is a non-Catholic Christian, their marriage is licit only if the permission of the competent authority of the Catholic Church is obtained. If one of the two is not a Christian, the competent authority's dispensation is necessary for validity.