Reinhold Niebuhr :: essays research papers fc

Reinhold Niebuhr Theologian, ethicist, and political analyst, Reinhold Niebuhr was a towering figure of twentieth﷓century religious thought. He is well known and is appreciated for many reasons among American theologians. Niebuhr had a very strong opinion and much to say when it came down to man and violence in regards to peace and war. Although he thought of himself as a preacher and social activist, the influence of his theological thought on the field of social ethics and on society made him a significant figure. Reinhold Niebuhr was born in Wright City, Missouri, on June 21, 1892 as the son of Gustav and Lydia Niebuhr. His father, Gustav was an immigrant from Germany and became an ordained minister of the German Evangelical Synod after graduating from Eden Seminary at St. Louis, the training school for ministers of the Deutsche Evangelical Synod of North America. His mother was a daughter of German Evangelical Synod missionary, Edward Hosto. Gustav and Lydia had four children, Hulda, Walter, Reinhold, and Helmut Richard (who is as famous as Reinhold in theological circles). Thus Reinhold grew up in a religious atmosphere in his parents’ parish of St. John in Lincoln, Illinois. His father considered himself as an American and a liberal. It is not surprising that Reinhold aspired to have such liberal values and follow in his father’s footsteps to Eden Seminary in 1912. With a strong impression from his father’s ministry, Reinhold, the favorite child of his father, decided to be a minister. By his decision, Reinhold studied in the Evangelical pro-seminar, Elmhurst College, near Chicago, which provided him with foundations of liberal arts and languages, from 1907 to 1910, and then he moved to Eden Seminary at St. Louis, following his father’s path. After graduating from Eden Seminary, he encountered a serious money problem because of his father’s sudden death in the spring of 1913. In the same year, Niebuhr became an ordained minister of the German Evangelical Synod. Then he attended Yale Divinity School with a scholarship and received a Bachelor of Divinity in 1914 and his final degree of Master of Arts from Yale University in 1915. His professional life began with the ministry. In 1915, the mission board of his denomination sent him to Detroit as pastor where he served for thirteen years. The congregation numbered sixty-five when he arrived and grew to nearly seven hundred when he left. His witness of working class life in his ministry with American automobile industry laborers in Detroit gave him a critical view of capitalism and made him an advocator of socialism concerning social and economic reality.

Dr. Debra Fischer Astronomer

Maryssa Buffano Miss Arnold Science – Current Astronomer Essay 4/12/2011 JMJ Dr. Debra Fischer – Astronomer An astronomer is an astrophysicist who studies stars, planets and galaxies. Astronomers use the laws of physics to investigate the matter and energy of celestial bodies. They then apply the research findings to solve space navigation and communication problems and even discover new planets and stars. In 1512, Copernicus theorized that the planets orbit the sun and the race to uncover new planets began.Historically, most of the famous astronomers have been men, such as Galilei Galileo and Johannes Kepler. Other men have made planet discoveries. For example, William Herschel uncovered Uranus, and Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto. Recently, there has been a new â€Å"man† on the planet hunting team, and she is a â€Å"woman†. Dr. Debra Fischer is a professor of astronomy at San Francisco State University. Her quest is to find planets orbiting around distant s tars. Debra Fischer completed her undergraduate work in science and physics at San Francisco State.Her search for planets began when she was a graduate student in astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. While there, she worked with astronomer Geoff Marcy. Marcy co-founded the California and Carnegie Planet Search Project with Paul Butler in 1983. The purpose of this planet hunting team was to discover extra-solar planets orbiting nearby stars. Swiss astronomers discovered the first extra-solar planet in 1995. Marcy’s team validated the existence of three more planets and a multi-planet system in 1996.Debra Fischer joined the project as a post-doctoral fellow managing the Lick Observatory in 1997. Through her work there, Fischer discovered more three planets herself by 1999. In order to unearth extra-solar planets, Fischer and her team at the Lick Observatory use a method known as the Doppler technique. By using an observation procedure that measures the meta l content of stars, a star’s velocity can be monitored. Fluctuations in the star’s velocity that signal the presence of the gravitational pull from an orbiting planet.Once a potential planet is identified, it is studied for a full orbital cycle. This process can take days or years depending on the planet’s distance from the star. Over 300 exoplanets have been confirmed using this methodology. Fischer is credited with over 200 of them. She brought the world’s first robotic telescope completely dedicated to finding new planets to the observatory in 2004. She still continues her work at the Lick Observatory today. Fischer’s work discovering of exoplanets has led a search to find earth like planets.She has been a strong force behind the Kepler space telescope. In 2009, NASA launched a spacecraft from Cape Canaveral to search the galaxy for planets that could possibly support life. After three years of orbiting, the Kepler telescope observations should provide a reliable number of earth-like planets that can be further studied. Fischer says the Kepler project, â€Å" will chart a course toward one day imaging a pale blue dot like our planet, orbiting another star. † Even if extra-terrestrial life is not found, its implications are profound.Is life common throughout the galaxy or is earth the only living planet? Debra Fischer is an amazing astronomer and woman. Her quest for knowledge never ends. Her latest efforts include detecting Hot Jupiters and Neptunes and writing computer programs modeling orbits and star velocity. Her pursuit of study continues today not only planet hunting, but also in educating others. Fischer teaches at several universities and travels as a guest lecturer. She encourages everyone she meets to reach for the stars.

Interview With A Human Resource Middle Manager Essay

Employee performance appraisals are no longer novel practices in the human resource management field. According to Arthur Sherman, George Bohlander and Scott Snell, employee performance appraisals have been around since the nineteenth century and were routinely administered to federal employees in the United States (303). The activity gained considerable commendation enough to make it increasingly popular both among small and large, and public and private organizations. It was not until after World War II, however, that performance appraisal became widespread and became accepted as a regular part of organization check-up and maintenance (Bohlander). Longenecker and Goff, on the other hand, summarized the oft-cited purposes of performance appraisals in literature. As stated by them, performance appraisals are used to motivate employees, provide a basis for salary or wage dispensation, facilitate discussion regarding employee concerns, provide data for human resource decision and serve as communication tool of managers towards their employees. Performance appraisals are response to the ever more competitive pressures in the nature of employment (Murphy and Marguiles 2). There are various other functions of performance appraisals explained in literatures, yet overall, they generally refer to the fulfilment of administrative as well as development purposes. I was able to get an interview from the Middle Manager of a firm and I was able to get her opinion regarding their policies in the company and how she treats her people. She explained furthermore that she employs performance appraisal as a logical part of running their organization, and a means of appraising, developing and maximizing the knowledge and abilities of employees—the organization’s greatest wealth. It is a basic part of managing human resource in that most practitioners consider it an indispensable part of maintaining or improving organizational effectiveness. Emily McGregor, a Human Resource Deputy Manager of the _____________ stated that the main objective of their performance appraisals is to provide logical judgments so that they can back-up salary increases, promotions, transfers, and terminations. She also mentioned that performance appraisals are tools of informing a subordinated about the quality of his work and how he can improve in the areas that need change. Lastly, she emphasized that performance appraisals are venues where coaching or counselling sessions between a boss and a subordinate can take place. Those were great words, I guess, and I was awed at the keen intellect this woman possesses. During the course of the interview I was able to record the exact words she said such that I got to listen to it again and looked at how her comments were person-centered or position-centered. When one shifts from talking about the topic to talking about the person, then she is engaging in person-centered comments. These comments are more often than not, negative ones. Also, the shift can result from a most reasonable discussion into a bitter argument. Most of these focus on the word â€Å"You. † I also got to look at how she engaged in position-centered communication which emphasized rules and norms that apply regardless of whether or how others are affected by the behavior. The manager told me that she has slowly developed specific communication strategies that help in conflict management and resolution. Her early learning experiences seem to establish the more generalizable patterns she has used in later years. She states, â€Å"As I watch and hear my parents manage their own interpersonal and intrapersonal, I have slowly learned through imitation. Moreover, my conflicts are inevitable in any management methods used in these conflicts set patterns for later development. In the course of coping with these conflicts, I have reinforced certain coping styles, often on a partial reinforcement schedule. Thus, I am reinforced for compliance while others are reinforced for defiance, some for cooperation and some for the expression of hostility, some for disengagement. † Thus, she continued by saying that she confronted one of her supervisors who was not doing well with her job even after several confrontations. I told her, ‘When we hired you for this job, I was emphatic in letting you know that we are a struggling small company. If you are not successful in bringing in cash, we night as well not be able to make payroll and our other expenses. † Thus, after some time, I found out that there was no more motivated collection person than an employee who was convinced that every non-paying debtor is keeping food out of the mouths of her babies. Certainly, hiring someone to manage receivables and make sure people got paid was a fabulous way to improve cash flow. But other tricks can be used over the past years which have also achieved substantial success. For example, Ms. McGregor can be ruthless about cash management. All expenditures must be justified and â€Å"smart. † All large purchases must include some measure of bargaining or looking for the best deal. † She tells me that she would tell her people about simply denying credit. She said that as a practice they just simply deny credit on smaller orders. They were willing to lose some customers to make sure that they were fully paid. Looking closely at this interview, one is able to pinpoint the person-centered comments which she used. She comments again when she said that â€Å"If you are not successful in bringing in cash, we night as well not be able to make payroll and our other expenses. † She was actually stating a fact, but this seemed emphatic and too direct as if the person to whom she was saying it to was to blame for the small cash collections. Her other comments though, were a little bit more position-centered as he told the employee in an objective way that, â€Å"All expenditures must be justified and â€Å"smart. † All large purchases must include some measure of bargaining or looking for the best deal. † REFERENCES Longenecker, Clinton and Nick Nykodym. â€Å"Public Sector Performance Appraisal Effectiveness:A Case Study. †Public Personnel Management. 25(1996) Longenecker, Clinton and Stephen Goff. â€Å"Performance Appraisal Effectiveness: A Matter of Perspective. †Management Journal. 57(1992) Murphy, Terrence and Joyce Margulies. â€Å"Performance Appraisals. † ABA Employment law Section. Proc. Of Equal Employment Opportunity Committee Mid-Winter Meeting. 24-27 Mar 2004.

Electrical design for a new leisure centre Essay

Electrical design for a new leisure centre - Essay Example Thirdly, the system design is justifiable because of the quality of lighting that comes from the bulbs and tubes provided. The brightness of the various lights and the colors are friendly to the eyes of the customers in the Leisure centre. The transmission voltage ranges are low, ranging from 2 kV to 35 KV because of the step down and step up transformers within the power system of distribution. Combined centre and the Ice rink areas consume more power units than the rest of the leisure centre. The final justification of the power distribution system design was that the continuous monitoring of the electric meters and circuit breakers. There are primary distribution lines, which carry the medium voltage power to the distribution transformers at the customer premises. Voltage is lowered to the utilization voltage through the transformers to suit the house hold appliances. At this voltage, power is transmitted through the secondary distribution lines. Residential and commercial customers are connected to the secondary distribution line while non-residential buildings and customers demanding larger amounts of power are connected to the primary distribution lines. Leisure centers have a large electrical load than residential buildings; therefore, electrical equipment installed should be more robust and larger. Leisure center’s owners should purchase electricity at large voltages since it comes in a cheaper rate. Owners, in this case, provide and maintain their own step-down transformer mounted in a transformer room inside the building or on a pad outside the room. . This is made to ensure the reduction of volta ges to their required levels. Electricity is therefore transmitted to switchgear, whose role is to distribute electricity efficiently and safely to various electrical closets within the building. Safety features contained in the switchgear include circuit breakers. In this system, circuit breakers allow power disruptions downstream, which may

Freemark Abbey Winery Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Freemark Abbey Winery - Case Study Example Hence, Freemark Abbey Winery might be better off harvesting immediately before the storm and eliminating the risk of the rain spoiling the grapes. The not-so-ripe grapes could yield wine that sells for $2.85 per bottle. If Jaeger decided to harvest later and the storm did not strike, there is a high chance that the acidity of the grapes would not fall below about 0.7 percent. In this case, the resulting wines would still sell at a higher price than wine produced from the not-so-ripe grapes harvested now, regardless of what the weather condition is like. However, there is a slight chance that the acidity of the of the grapes would drop below about 0.7, in which case the resulting wine would sell at a slightly lower price of $2.50 per bottle. To make this decision, a decision tree, Michael Porter's (1997) five forces analysis, and SWOT analysis are used to aid in the decision making process. Both five forces analysis and SWOT analysis reveal that Freemark Abbey Winery should pursue a differentiation strategy. From the decision tree in Appendix 1, it can be seen that there are 3 possible decision alternatives and 7 possible outcomes. The first possible decision alternative is to harvest after the storm and sell thin wine should the storm strike and the botrytis mold not form. The second possible decision alternative is to harvest after the storm and sell the wine in bulk should the storm strike and the botrytis mold not form. The third possible decision alternative is to harvest immediately. The first decision alternative has the highest expected revenue per bottle of wine but is inconsistent with a differentiation strategy. The second decision alternative yields the next higher level of expected revenue and is consistent with a differentiation strategy. The third decision alternative yields the least revenue and at the same time is inconsistent with a differentiation strategy. However, the third decision alternative is the least risky. Prioritizing the criteria, it is felt that the revenue and differentiation criteria are more important. Hence, it is recommended that Freemark Abbey harvest the grapes later. Should the storm strike and the botrytis mold not form, it is recommended that Freemark Abbey sell the wine in bulk or the grapes directly. Both the expected value and the rollback analyses yield the same recommendation. 2. DECISION PROBLEM Should the grapes be harvested immediately or after the storm If Jaeger waited after the storm, there are some chances of a warm, light rain, which will result in the formation of botrytis mold yielding the botrytised Riesling. The quantity is 30 percent lower than the normal wine but it sells for $8 per bottle. However, a storm just before the harvest is more likely to produce rain-soaked berries, yielding a thin wine that would sell wholesale for only about $2.00 per bottle and costing Freemark Abbey Winery its reputation. It could sell the wine in bulk or sell the grapes directly to preserve its reputation but these options would bring only half as much revenue, which is the second decision problem. Hence, Freemark Abbey Winery might be better off harvesting immediately before the storm and eliminating the risk of the rain spoiling the grapes. The not-so-ripe grapes could yield wine that sells for $2.85 per bottle.

The Primary Function of Human Resource Management Term Paper

The Primary Function of Human Resource Management - Term Paper Example Programs such as those that rotate employees between different kinds of units within the organization and those that encourage directed learning as well as promoting inter-agency communication across the entire company are being increasingly viewed as having paramount importance. Furthermore, Human Resource department must develop a system of recognition and reward for the staff in regards to their contributions to the agency. While there is still some truth to the image of the HR department as keeping track of birthdays and other events for the betterment of the morale of the staff, HR is now developing into a much more sophisticated part of the overall business network. In fact there is bound to eventually be a complete split between the duties of the â€Å"file clerk† aspect and the duties of the director of the department. †¦the Society for HR Management (SHRM) Global Forum report on "The Maturing Profession of Human Resources Worldwide" (2004) showed that over half ( 54.8%) of HR professionals say the most frequently encountered obstacle to career advancement is HR's not being held in high esteem by the organization. One thing is certain, HR is evolving and the profession will either be driven reactively by external changes or will more proactively define its own future. (Vosburgh, 2007, p. Talent, for lack of a better term, is one of the most strategic parts that HR is playing in the current business model. â€Å"Talentship† is a term being used to describe this new paradigm in the creation.... One of the first steps in bringing HR into a more productive and strategic part of the business model is to make the same type of paradigm shift in separation of functions. While many HR professionals today still struggle to get a seat at the business table, the HR profession in the future should continue to evolve and take more responsibility for overall organizational effectiveness. To do this the HR professional will need to become better at utilizing systems thinking and systems measurement. (Jamrog, and Overholt, 2004, p. 54) Talent, for lack of a better term, is one of the most strategic parts that HR is playing in the current business model. â€Å"Talentship† is a term being used to describe this new paradigm in the creation of a more far-reaching strategy for Human Resource Planning. Similar to the roles between finance and marketing, HR is now also being asked to help companies’ research and locate another critical component, the market for talent. Using the sa me analogy, a company cannot succeed if their finance and accounting team is not successfully pared with their sales and marketing team. In fact over time there have been regulatory and best practice applications that have helped to further cement this finance-marketing relationship. However, in HR the guidelines are a little fuzzier, and in fact are usually only to be found in individual policies and procedures and certainly in some academic and business journals. â€Å"Organizational decision processes and tools employed in the talent market are far less mature and refined than those used in finance or marketing† (Boudreau, 2005, p. 18). Now more than ever companies need professional practices in place in order to align their business needs with greater

Just by Faith Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Just by Faith - Term Paper Example It is clear that many religions find commonality in that they believe that it is faith that drives them to believe and stand fast in their belief. Most religions such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity believe in a sense of morality and justice; but the idea of a human being divine and one with God is considered to be pagan and contrary to the foundation of many religions. No one can reach God’s status, not by works, nor by faith. Humans are at a certain standing and God determines and dictates their outcome. Even in the Christian sect, there are people who oppose the notion that Jesus was both human and God. Does a leader who possesses such religious knowledge need to be sanctioned in order to be of any value to the human race? Is following Jesus and rejecting his divinity contradictory in nature? â€Å"Love Wins,† a quote often used by a pastor from Grand Rapids Michigan, named Rob Bell says it all. In his teaching, and his preaching, he teaches the congregation that it does not really matter what the details say, what matters in the end is Love. The Bible says that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son that whoever believed in him, would not die, but would have eternal life. Do they believe that God gave his son to the world, or do they believe that God loved the world so much? There are many faces to this one verse that is loaded with meaning. Pastors try to decipher its essence but find it difficult to â€Å"speak for God.† John piper says â€Å"If the Bible is coherent, then understanding the Bible means grasping how things fit together. Becoming a Biblical theologian means seeing more and more pieces fit together into a glorious mosaic of the divine will. And doing exegesis means querying the text about how its many propositions cohere in the author's mind.† The Bible is up for interpretation and God speaks into words to make understanding easier. In the Christian realm, Jesus is Lord. (Maier) Jesus is God but in the flesh. As sinners, it is believed that our sin was paid for by Jesus dying on the cross. Could there have been any other way? God himself says that He is Lord and there is no one higher than He. But why so much controversy on this particular issue? All three religions; Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe in Jesus. They just believe that Jesus had a different purpose. The details of each religion varies greatly, neither are good or bad, they just are. (Jesus: The Islamic and Christian views of comparison: compared)Christians believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. Jews consider Jesus to be a prophet and in the long run, â€Å"missed the boat† when he came to earth to save His very own people. However, what is Jesus and is it important that he be ordained from above to make a difference in this world? It is clear that this is not the case. Jesus walked and breathed scripture. He knew scripture by heart but he had to learn it. We have little account of Jesus w hen he was a young child and a teenager. The Bible is vague in that it speaks of his miracles but fails to explain the surrounding text. The Bible itself is written in a way that it allows people, common and theologians to interpret it. Pastors spend years and years attempting to make sense of written scripture that was present long before they were even born. Biblical scholars and Scientists use their academic credentials to bring what they feel to be the truth, alive in their minds. Geologists study rocks dating back to the time that Jesus supposedly walked the earth. In addition, the common people attempt to depend on what little they have. What they do know is that their Faith has carried them thus far. If we compare a divine being, anointed or not, to a school teacher, you can find much similarity. It is assumed that this person would