Food and Culture in Boston Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Food and Culture in Boston - Research Paper Example The food culture in Boston is shared largely with the food culture in New England, owing to the fact that in both regions, seafood marks the main recipes for almost every single meal that is prepared in the region (Freedman, n.p.). Dairy products also characterize the food culture in the Boston region, where most of the meals must have a dairy product component as a core recipe, not only for the home cooked foods but also for the restaurant foods. This is because; the Boston region has passed its home-based food culture to the restaurants, such that there are many restaurants in Boston that serve ethnic cuisines (La Befana, n.p.). The ethnic food culture in Boston is not only related to the American cuisines, but also to cuisines from different parts of the world, such that in the larger Boston area, different cultural restaurants serving cuisines from different parts of the world exists, such as the Italian, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese foods (BDG, n.p.). The culin ary life of the Boston region has undergone a renaissance over time, owing to the market culture and the bounty agricultural production, which has enabled the region to have a variety of food substances for preparing different recipes and cuisines. The market culture referred, to as the Haymarket, consists of farmers selling different agricultural products on a weekly basis, where the farmers hold an open-air market for selling mainly fruits, vegetables and dairy products (BDG, n.p.). History of culinary evolution in Boston  Ã‚  

Team Creation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Team Creation - Essay Example The selection of the project team members will be done on the basis of this vital information. Next, a pool of candidates should be prepared from whom the project team members are to be selected. The selection process must consist of personal interview, group discussion, and if necessary, written or objective type assessment based on the project requirements. The project team should have some specialist members, supporting staff, and multi tasking experts. (Chapman and Ward, 2003) Team Building Strategies Effective team building can be critically helpful so that the project team leader may not have to face the problem of incompetence that may lead to total deadlock and unrecoverable down time. According to Chapman and Ward (2003), a project has a project life cycle, which is divided into the stages of conceptualization, planning, execution, and administration. During team building, it should properly be defined that what the team members are expected to do through each stage of the p roject life cycle. In the team, decisions must be based on consensus, team values must be specified, goals must be shared, and evaluation must constantly be done right from the time of team building to ensure better coherence and productivity. The team size should neither be too large or too small. (McGregor et al, 1966) Potential Areas of Conflict The cultural issues can particularly be important while managing a culturally diverse project team. Technical issues can create problems when the project team is diverse in the sense that specialists from different fields of profession and academia are taking part. Besides cultural and technical conflicts, conflict of opinion too can lead to serious problems. Racial barriers, personal ego, and lack of respect for each other are common in a diverse project team. The situation may become more complicated in the case expectations are unreasonably high and goals are not properly set. Techniques of Reducing the Probability of Dysfunctional Con flicts Some ethical values like respect for each other, dedicated participation, and mutual trust must be ushered in the project team (McGregor et al, 1966). Project life cycle provides the project team members with a framework that can be helpful in dividing responsibilities, setting priorities, etc. The way of doing things in the course of the project should be sequenced according to the project life cycle in order to avoid risk of confusion and dysfunction (Chapman and Ward, 2003). The basic questions like â€Å"what is management?† and â€Å"what is business?† must be answered in relation to the project with support from practical case studies. Tools and techniques like inventory control and networks of critical path can help in better decision making to avoid dysfunction and hence dysfunctional conflicts (Payne at al, 2004). Conflict Resolution Techniques Conflict resolution techniques should be available right from the beginning of the project work. Consensus bas ed decision making, proper goal setting, goal sharing, and integration of team values are the basic conflict resolution techniques. Mutualism, dedication, and respect add more emotional intelligences to the project team and hence conflict resolution techniques can effectively be based on the ethical grounds (McGregor et al,

The Cinderella Of The Building Industry Construction Essay

The Cinderella Of The Building Industry Construction Essay Building maintenance normally regarded as the Cinderella of the building industry. The maintenance of the built environment affects everyone continually, for it is on the state of our homes, offices and factories that we depend not only for our comfort but also for our economic survival. Maintenance of the building will start from the day the builders and contractors leaves the site of the construction or after the construction is fully completed. Normally, all the building owners wants their building will keep the maintenance to a minimum cost and need the maintenance in a good and effective maintenance. In order to get the effectiveness of the maintenance, organizing maintenance work is required for the maintenance. Organizing maintenance work is to examine how work will organized to best effect. Consideration will give particularly to the place of statutory control and guidance and the involvement of contractors. The value of the supervision and inspection will explore. The overal l aim is to expose methods that are most likely to achieve the desired end-result of satisfactory buildings in which to live, work and play. Organizing is the managerial function of arranging people and resources to work toward a goal. The purposes of organizing include but are not limited to determining the tasks to perform in order to achieve objectives, dividing tasks into specific jobs, grouping job into departments, specifying reporting and authority relationships, delegating the authority necessary for task accomplishment, and allocating and deploying resources in a coordinated fashion (Anton, 2010). As a word, organization can mean an organization that is the process of getting something organized. Different organization will organize building maintenance differently. For example, two different local authorities will not organize their building maintenance work in the same way unless two different organization of the building maintenance will organized the building maintenance work in the same way is if they outsourced the provision of the service to the same company of the outsource contractors (Wood, 2009). British Standard Institution (1964) defines maintenance as work undertaken in order to keep or restore every facility such as every part of a site, building and contents, to an acceptable standard. The British Standard further explain that where there are statutory requirements for maintenance, the acceptable standard must be no less than that necessary to meet the statutory requirements, and maintained is defined in the Factories Act (1961) as maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair (Seeley, 1976). ORGANIZING MAINTENANCE WORK MAINTENANCE PLANNING The Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines a plan as a method or procedure for doing something on the design, scheme, or intention. In term of building maintenance management, maintenance planning has both a narrow and wide definition. The narrow definition relate to preventive maintenance in the form of planned maintenance programmed. While, wide definition maintenance planning as an essential management tool for controlling all aspects of a building maintenance management operation and will include planned preventive maintenance programmed, planned levels of expenditure on day-to-day and reactive maintenance, disaster planning, and planned strategies of asset management in conjunction with a business plan or corporate plan (Wordsworth, 2001). The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ Guidance Note on Planned Building Maintenance defines the maintenance planning under five categories that are determining the policy for maintenance, deciding and preparing maintenance p rogrammes and obtaining funds for them, getting the work done, controlling progress of work and budget expenditure, and monitoring the effectiveness of the programme (Wordsworth, 2001). The nature of the maintenance planning in the building maintenance involves determining systems and sequences of operation. This noted that maintenance planning must necessarily involve a level of prediction. The prediction is not only focus on the building stock and the deterioration, but also focus on the future policy of the owners or users of the buildings. The maintenance manager or maintenance department can deal with these uncertainties with a twofold oncoming, which are by collecting and analyzing sufficient information to place as much degree of certainty on the variables as possible and by recognizing that a level of uncertainty will remain and introducing flexibility and review options within the plan (Wordsworth, 2001). The collection of the information is to assist the maintenance manager to predict with some degree of confidence will be in the form of condition surveys of the property, details of costs and cost trends in building, and information related to the wider po licies of the owners and users of the building. Care in such information gathering will enable the maintenance manager or the person who responsible for the maintenance of the building to reduce the uncertainty and permit effective planning to proceed (Wordsworth, 2001). In planning maintenance, an aim of the maintenance manager is to match the available resources with the workload. The effectiveness planning is difficult with this category of work because of the large number of uncertain factors involved. In view of the uncertainties, maintenance planning must be formulated at different levels and constantly revised according to the new information that is put into the system. Long-term programmes medium-term programmes and the short-term programmes were identified as a level of the maintenance planning (Seeley, 1976). SUPERVISION OF MAINTENANCE WORK Supervision is a management activity carried out to ensure that the work as in a plan will carry out correctly and expeditiously as what in the maintenance planning (Wood, 2009). Furthermore, the supervision of maintenance work was executed is to ensure that is of a satisfactory standard and in accordance with the drawings and specification. With the larger contracts, it is customary to employ a clerk of work who is constantly in touch with the job in order to supervise the maintenance work. Besides that, the clerk of work also is responsible to ensure that the maintenance is work as a planning. However, with the smaller contracts or smaller jobs periodic supervision only can be obtained often through the medium of architects, surveyors, inspectors or other supervisory staff (Seeley, 1976). Clerk of work must have an extensive practical knowledge of building materials, principles of construction and the execution of techniques in all trades. As a supervisor in the maintenance work, they need to ensure that all the materials and workmanship are in accordance with the drawings, specification and any other relevant documents. Furthermore, the clerk of work must to avoid their self from making any exorbitant demands or altering details or materials without getting the approval from the architect, surveyor or maintenance manager to whom he is responsible (Supervision of Maintenance Work, 1976). Besides that, the clerk of work will also responsible to prepare reports for consideration by the architect, surveyor, or maintenance manager. The preparation of the reports might be in the term of weekly reports, periodic reports or special reports (Seeley, 1976). Site meeting is also one of the supervision of maintenance work. This is one of the way to organizing maintenance work. Site meetings will hold regularly on larger jobs and are generally convened by the architect, surveyor, maintenance manager or any person who responsible for the supervision of maintenance work. The main objective of the site meetings is to ensure that satisfactory progress is maintained and to provide the opportunity for clearing outstanding points. Supervision of maintenance work is important for the all parties to get involves in the site meeting including subcontractors (Seeley, 1976). Adequate supervision of work to the new construction and of alteration and repair work need as one of the way in the organizing maintenance to ensure that the materials and workmanship comply with the contract particulars and relevant statutory requirements. In the absence of such strict supervision in the maintenance progress, inferior materials, poor workmanship and the omission of important details can occur resulting in subsequent trouble and expense to the building owner (Seeley, 1976). PLANNED INSPECTIONS A planned inspection is a formal systematic check carried out at predefined regular intervals against a detailed list of plant, equipment and activities (Code of Practice on Planned Inspections, 1993). According to the Baiche, Walliman and Ogden (2006) work needs to check regularly to ensure compliance with legislative requirements (Wood, 2009). The purpose of the planned inspections is been carried out is to ensure the systematic examinations of all locations, facilities, tools, plants, materials and to observe how these are used by employees and contractors. By carrying out the planned inspections and through taking follow up action on any defects or unsafe working practices noted, the maintenance manager or the person who responsible to maintain the building. Critically, planned inspections can effectively contribute to the provision of the safe working environment and reduce the risk of injury to persons, damage to equipment, buildings and to the environment (Code of Practice on Planned Inspections, 1993). Furthermore, planned inspections are carrying out for a variety purposes including preparation a schedule of the facilities that need to maintain and their present condition, detecting misappropriation from predetermined standards and incipient faults that may result in such deviations developing before the next inspections. Other purposes are ascertaining the cause of the misappropriations, the extent of the remedial work necessary to restore to the required standard and prevent a recurrence of the defect, and the relative urgency of the work. Checking that previous work was done in accordance with the instructions and that the work specified was adequate also is a purposes and the reason why the planned inspections is required to carrying out in the organizing maintenance work (Wordsworth, 2001). The complicated design of the buildings and the great variety of the possible defects makes it necessary fully preplan the inspections and to provide comprehensive checklists to ensure that no part of the building is missed from the inspections. Appropriate criteria also should be laid down for each element, components, or equipments and the types of the inspections needed fully defined and documented. Planned inspections also include details of the form of the inspections. For a greater consistency in organizing the maintenance work, special program macros should be prepared for each element and sub element, setting down the essential information required by the inspector with space to record the result and the recommendation of the inspections. For the later processing, a location code is required to assists and gives some information. To facilitate retrieval and computer processing of inspections, the facilities and elements should be grouped according to the location and the peri odicity of the inspections. SCHEDULING CONCLUSION

Analysis of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Essay -- Pride and Prej

Analysis of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen It centers on the elder sisters of the Bennet family, Jane and Elizabeth. Their personalities, misunderstandings and the roles of pride and prejudice play a large part in the development of their individual relationships. The spirited Elizabeth and softhearted Jane have to deal with not only their own feelings but also the status of their family, both of which affect the outcomes of their marriages. The struggle is very believable and realistic because the story takes place a long time ago. The way people interact with each other today is quite different than how they would interact with each other back then. Pride and Prejudice is an appropriate name for the book. These notions permeate the novel thoroughly, especially in the views of Elizabeth and Darcy. Jane's temperance does not allow for these qualities to exist in her personality. Mr. Darcy is characterized as a proud, haughty, arrogant man and ends up almost immediately alienating himself from the townspeople. This opinion arises after he refuses to dance with the young ladies who have attended the ball and his obvious reluctance to talk to anyone. His pride was said to come from his extreme wealth. Our first introduction to pride and prejudice is at a ball Mr. Bingley throws. His sisters and a dear friend of his, Mr. Darcy, accompany him. Eighteenth-century England was quite preoccupied with status, especially concerning wealth and reputation. Darcy's reluctance to speak with anyone stemmed from his lack of respect for anyone outside his close-knit circle. His good breeding was obvious only to those whom he knew well. Elizabeth is prejudiced against Darcy for entirely different reasons. She rec... ...l fortune of her own, as did Mr. Bennet. They did not love each other but stayed together, proving to an extent the family values of the time. Mrs. Collins married for the sake of getting married and settling down. Her desire to have a family of her own overrode the many failings of the man she married. Fortunately some marriages were based on love. Jane and Elizabeth found the perfect matches. Their beaus were good, principled, financially secure men. Austen presents the two major contrasting types of marriages. Both kinds reflect the mentality of that time period. I enjoyed this book immensely. Jane Austen's style of writing delights me. Her work may not be profound but it is insightful, and light-hearted. Her characters are distinct and universal. Elizabeth is one of my favorite literary characters. Her confidence, wit and spirit can only be enjoyed.

Netflix vs Blockbuster Hbs Case Stufy

1. When evaluating stock decisions for Blockbuster, should be divided into 2 separate decisions could have been made, depending on the period in the test case. At the starting period of the text, 1997-2002, Blockbuster is the undisputed market leader (2, 1) of a giant, fragmented and steady industry, it has superior access to suppliers (brought the hottest titles faster than anyone in the industry) , this was its core business. Blockbuster had a wide coverage on a national level of stores (2, 2) , reaching almost 70% of the U. S population within a short drive length, and were recognized as the most powerful brand in the industry by 90% of the population. Furthermore it sustained a growing rate of sales growth within stores within that period along with a stable income from late fees (3,1). In light of these facts, at this period going long for the Blockbuster stock is a very confident and solid decision. However the tide is changing at 2002 following the rise of Netflix, Blockbuster strategy to ignore and mock at the treat instead of tackling it (9, 4), the failure to understand the Netflix is giving customers feature which are lacking in Blockbuster’s stores (Recommendation, no late fees, a wider selection of movies) show of a company which lacks the innovation to face the new treat and the ability to understand the new customer taste (Movies as entertainment rather than special occasion). The late response in entering the online rental business caused severe financial losses to the company due to stiff learning curve (stock, suppliers), marketing expenses, price war and giving up on late fees (10,1), all along while keeping its conventional cost structure, with an expensive 10 people per store staff (2,2) . Therefore I would hold the stock at short starting 2002 , Blockbuster just doesn’t seem like its understanding the new market, instead of being innovative they are fighting a losing battle and react lately instead of initiating in the areas where Netflix lacks. However for Netflix the decision is quite the opposite, at its starting era we would play short on the stock. The facts are that Netflix is entering a highly fragmented market (2,1) while betting exclusively on a new format – DVD (3,2) using an innovative distribution technique which have never been tasted in full scale (3,4) and without a proven track of handling a huge inventory, the company did struggle at these years. However starting 2000 we would reverse the decision on the stock. Netflix highly innovative actions such as changing the pricing model (5,1) , developing an highly advanced recommendation system (5,4) and allowing for user rating have highly differentiated the company’s service at the exact points in which Blockbusters service were lacking. Furthermore, the collaboration with major studios (6,1) and with the USPS (8,1) have improved Netflix’s soft spots and allowed for the service to improve greatly and the have a huge growth potential (opening the entire variety of movies for rent – not just hits , reaching 90% of its subscribers in a single day), the innovation process also shows in financial status, Netflix is performing at great annual rates starting 2000, of doubling its subscribers number , maintaining a positive cash flow and increasing its revenues (Fig1, Fig2), all while keeping its core business and expertise (no restructuring costs) . For conclusion, Netflix’s highly innovative approach which is a reoccurring theme throughout the case, along with great financial performance and operational expertise (7, 3) makes a long decision in Netflix the obvious choice. 2. At first Blockbuster supplied a wide base of consumers primarily with hit and new movies (2, 4), in addition Blockbuster offered a limited amount of advice (2, 5) from the staff present at each store. The costumers were supposed to rent the movie for a â€Å"movie night† and return it as quickly as possible. Netflix initially set up to perform the same task – Deliver costumers with the movies they were looking for before logging of the site and in addition supply them with some highlighted titles with recommendation from limited staff weekly, as with Blockbuster , customers were also supposed to return the movie within a specific due date or be charged. However, Netflix evolved over the years and started supplying costumers with enhanced features not offered by blockbuster. The proprietary recommendation system developed (5,3) by Netflix allowed to use movies as a taste based product, meaning that Netflix started offering a recommendation service to its subscribers for movies they might like, instead of choosing movies ahead or choosing from shelves without knowing too much. Furthermore the recommendation system, along with the user based rating system (6, 3) allowed for the costumers to receive a substantial amount of advice regarding movie choices. Another evolvement occurred when Netflix adopted the new model (unlimited rentals, 3 movies queue), the model actually caused customers to related to movies as form of entertainment and therefore Netflix acted as entertainment provider (4, 1) instead of a special event when using Blockbuster’s conventional video service

My Expectations for English This Year Essay

I am very happy to be taking English this year. I have strengths I wish to expand on and weaknesses to improve. I have two main goals for this class this year. I hope with the help of my teacher and classmates I can make the most of this class. I am interested in English in many areas. For beginners, I would like to read novels. In the past, I would choose to read short, young adult books. Now I believe I am ready to read harder, more advanced books. I used to dread writing assignments, but I have come to realize writing is part of life. I just have to do it. Overall I enjoy English class. I have more weaknesses than strengths when it comes to English. My strengths are reading well, brainstorming ideas for writing assignments, and turning homework in on time. I can read well, but the trouble comes when I need to understand what I read. When it comes to writing, I have trouble expressing the words in a unique way. Finally, my grammar could use improvement in areas such as spelling and punctuation. After much consideration, I have come up with two goals that I hope to achieve from this class. The first one is to become a better, more advanced writer. I choose this goal because I feel communication is the key to life. In order to communicate well, I need to be able to write and read. That brings me to my second goal: to be able to get the most out of what I read. I want to be able to understand what I read. Accomplishing these goals will help me prepare for college. I am looking forward to writing a lot of stories, essays, and journal entries this year. I also am excited about reading novels to expand my reading level. I hope to achieve my goals. In doing all this and with practice, I hope to be well prepared for college.