Consolidation of an ERP system on a global standard to enhance Research Proposal

Consolidation of an ERP system on a global standard to enhance visibility - Research Proposal Example Another pointer to the need for an ERP is when the existing system is unable to support the needs of the organization or when many resources are required to maintain and support the organizational activities. Growth of an organization leading to incompatibility of the various information systems used is also a driving force towards adoption of ERP. Lastly, when organizational employees are unable to respond to questions from their key suppliers and customers, it is time to implement an ERP system (Awad and Nassar 3). In the current world, the main question is not whether to implement an ERP system, but what system they should implement (Awad and Nassar 2). Consequently, once an organization has decided to implement an ERP system, the next step should be deciding on how such project would be undertaken and the goals of such a venture. At this stage, the organization determines the functionalities and modules to be included into the new system. According to Awad and Nassar, installatio n of ERP system demands that companies be able to match its business process to the functioning of the ERP systems (3). Additionally, in implementation of ERP there is a need for the organization to fully understand all the requirements which come with such an initiative. The top management must be willing to support the installation of ERP even after completion of the project by offering education to all employees (Carter et al. 23). According to Jitpaiboon, consolidation of the enterprise resource plan in an organization is critical for its global strategy (2). Consolidation of enterprise resource planning is critical in automating all the functions needed for managing the various local operations. The most critical activities supported by ERP include customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (CRM) and accounting systems. Data stored in ERP system is critical in enabling the employees to gain visibility into consolidated and accurate information about busines s performance (Fawcett and Magnan 24). Furthermore, a well implemented ERP system is a key performance indicator (KPIs) needed by organizations to ensure achievement of the corporate objectives. Moreover, Awad and Nassar explain that an ERP solution can enhance transactional interoperability (3). Organizations can choose to implement ERP solutions for each business division or the entire business can adopt a single ERP system to standardize and centralize its key operations. The chosen configuration can have a significant impact on the ability of an organization to enhance visibility and ensure that they achieve all the operation functionalities envisioned during its development. For globalized organizations such as Thermo Fisher, it is critical to consolidate their business operations into a fewer ERP systems. Problem Statement Thermo Fisher is an international organization dealing with scientific equipment and reagents required for research, diagnostics, analysis and discovery. Th e company has annual revenue of around 11 billion USD and has about 37,000 employees (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Aging with drugs and alcohol Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Aging with drugs and alcohol - Essay Example For example, forgetfulness and confusion, which are the effects of alcohol, can mimic Alzheimer’s disease. â€Å"Due to multiple and chronic diseases, elderly often take numerous drugs. Elderly or those persons who are above sixty-five years of age may take seven or more prescription drugs along with some over the counter drugs† (Stewart & Cooper, 449-461). The sensitivity to alcohol’s effects increases with age and small amount of alcohol can affect judgment, co-ordination, alertness, and reaction time in elderly. Therefore, it makes them prone to accidents, falls, and fractures. The medical complications of alcohol abuse includes alcoholic liver disease, gastrointestinal tract diseases including bleeding, inflammation of pancreas, metabolic disturbances and increase risk of infections. The tolerance level of elderly to infections and bleeding is quite lower then that of younger people. In addition, the elderly are at increased risk of suffering from malnutrition, deficiency of vitamins, anemia, diseases of heart and blood vessels; bone mass reduction and even cancer. The loss of nerve cells occurs normally with aging but alcohol induced degeneration and shrinkage of brain along with damage to nerves throughout the body adds up to it and lead to further consequences. Alcohol use in large amount can lead to inflammation of stomach, intestine, and pancreas, which can hinder the digestion of food and the absorption of nutrients (Stewart & Cooper, 449-461). Alcohol abuse can also have psychosocial implications as the heavy drinker have increased chances of clashes at home, with friends and colleagues. Alcohol when combined either with other drugs, prescription or over the counter can be harmful and even fatal. â€Å"This is especially important for the aged people as they are often the users of prescription drugs and over the counter drugs† (Adams, pp. 13-14). The alcohol drug combination can have problematic consequences especially in

Experiences of Adult Offspring Making Care Decisions

Experiences of Adult Offspring Making Care Decisions In normal aging, decline in mental skills is modest with no consequential decrease in ability to care for oneself. Normally, older adults are able to maintain activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, transferring, and toileting, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), which include shopping, cooking, housekeeping, laundry, and handling money (Schaie, 1989). Nevertheless, one in 10 persons over 65 and nearly half of those over 85 have Alzheimers disease, a form of dementia (The Alzheimers Association, 1999) and, thus, have problems with IADLs, ADLs or both, and need assistance with care decisions. Often these decisions are left to adult offspring who are ill prepared to cope with role changes and parent-caring responsibilities (Archbold, 1980; Brody, Johnsen, Fulcomer Lang, 1983; Brody, Kleban, Johnsen, Hoffman Schoonover, 1987; Cantor 1883; Stoller, 1982). What is the experience of these adult children as they negotiate their way through the their own internal voices, their family of origin and the healthcare system? Have we been asking the right questions when we assume that all is reduced to family obligation and responsibility? This project was designed to elicit and understand the experience of those adult offspring who are making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. Chapter I includes background and significance of the project, the philosophical framework in which the project question is poised, the project question, and definition of terms. Background and Significance of the Project Although almost half (47%) of persons 85 and older will have mental impairment (Schaie, 1989), many elderly do not make plans for dealing with possible changes in mental status. As elderly â€Å"age in place†, it is frequently left to family members to decide about care and living arrangements. For most family members these care decisions about the care of elderly parent are difficult at best (Pfeiffer, 1995), and the number of people involved in making these decisions will increase as life expectancy increases and the population of the United States continues to age. Life expectancy is the average number of years people born in a given year are expected to live based on a set of age-specific death rates. At the beginning of the 20th century, life expectancy at birth was 47.3 years. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the average life expectancy has increased dramatically at birth to nearly 77 years. In addition, life expectancy for every age group has also increased during the past century. â€Å"Based on todays age-specific death rates, individuals aged 65 years can be expected to live an average of 18 more years, for a total of 83 years. Those aged 75 years can be expected to live an average of 11 more years, for a total of 86 years† (http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/Document/HTML/Volume1/goal.htm, August 14, 2000). Persons older than 65 now comprise 12.7% of the population of the United States (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1999, http://www.census.gov/statab/www/states/md.txt, August 14, 2000). By the year 2020, 20% of the population will be older than 65 years (US Bureau of the Census, 1996). The largest percentage of growth is in elders 85 and over, a group at high risk for mental disorders such as Alzheimers disease. Almost 19 million Americans report they have a family member with Alzheimers, and 37 million know someone with the disease (The Alzheimers Association, 1999). Since 7 out of 10 people with Alzheimers live at home, lost productivity of caregivers is estimated to cost American businesses $26 billion a year plus $7 billion annually related to costs for health and long-term care (The Alzheimers Association, 1999). Other estimates put the cost of informal caregiving at $18 billion. In a project of 7, 443 of elders seventy and over taken from a national representative sur vey, the cost of informal care for mild dementia at $3,630 per person with double the cost for moderate dementia relatives and almost five times the cost for severe dementia (Langa, Chernew, Kabeto, Herzog, Ofstedal, Willis, Wallace, Much, Straus Fendrick, 2001). It is not surprising that the public is starting to ask for help with this complex issue. Previous research sought to identify predictors of placement decisions by family caregivers with dementia (Colerick George, 1986) when care options were few and rational mental models of decision making were thought to be superior to the human mind. At the turn of the 21st century, however, the healthcare environment offers multiple models of care for mentally impaired patients (Abraham, Onega, Chalifoux Maies, 1994). Decision making needs to be informed by the context of continuity of care, which now ranges from home and home-like environments to part time respite or adult day care to long term care services in nursing homes. Indeed, â€Å"patients and families are often surprised if not shocked about the actual services they may receive from various community-based or institutionalized services† (Abraham, Onega, Chalifoux Maies, 1994, p.165). In addition to the increasing complexity of choices, rational mental models of decision-making are in question and giving way to a more naturalistic project of how real world decisions are being made (Sloan, 1996). Rational standards, in which it is assumed people merely choose among options, do not take into consideration most contextual factors that impact on decision-making in real-world situations (Beach Lipshitz, 1993; Cohen, 1993). There is a stark contrast between the assumptions of rational decision-making and naturalistic decision-making. In the naturalistic decision making paradigm, problems are seen as ill structured rather than artificial and well structured. Solutions to these problems are made in uncertain, dynamic environments rather than static, simulated situations. Goals are shifting, ill defined or competing rather than clear and stable. There are action/feedback loops to decision-making process not one-shot decisions. Time stress is a factor and stakes are high i nstead of the presumed luxury of leisurely deliberation and absence of true consequences for the decision-maker (Orasanu Connolly, 1993; Zsambok, 1997). Research on the experience of making care decisions for mentally impaired parents needs to take into account the way decisions are made in the real world and the numerous opportunities for care assistance that are available today. The majority of middle aged, and even young-old Americans, will be faced with making decisions about care for a mentally impaired parent at a time in life when they are dealing with their own transitional issues, as well as those of the generations before and after them. Given the resulting emotional and financial cost, it would be wise to develop health policy about mentally impaired elder citizens and their offspring based on an understanding of the experience of making decisions about the care of a mentally impaired parent. Understanding what these care decisions mean to the increasing number of persons who must make care decisions for mentally impaired parents would lay the foundation for addressing issues in getting adequate assistance for these famili es. It would also help to provide a framework for policy decisions about the fragmented care system for the mentally impaired elderly, and decrease the cost to society in lost productivity. Clearly, the experience of making these decisions needs to be reexamined. Since the definition of naturalistic decision-making is â€Å"the way people use their experience to make decisions in the field setting† (Zsambok, 1997), it is incumbent upon the researcher to go into the field. Qualitative methodologies, which involve fieldwork can help build knowledge of the enormously complex and profound issue of making care decisions for mentally impaired family members. CHAPTER III METHODS Methods Design of the project Personal Reflections Part of the process in analyzing data during a qualitative project is the use of field notes. I have to admit that the process of recording field notes after each visit was a tiresome one for me. I choose to incorporate my thoughts and feelings about the phenomenon at hand, the relationships with my respondents, and the data, in the form of tape recorded field notes immediately after each visit, which were later transcribed. I have never considered myself disciplined enough to be a consistent and in-depth journaler but do consider myself a very reflective person. I guess what happens to me is once I start to put down thoughts and feelings into a very personal form, I dont know when or if I can stop. I also wanted to keep some of my personal issues private and did not initially understand who might be reading these notes. In addition, the interviews were so intense and so moving that I thought I would never forget one word, one thought, one emotion, or one observation that I had experienced before, during and after the encounter with each respondent. Well I guess it easy to imagine that, indeed, I have forgotten some of my reactions. I have been impressed and surprised by how valuable reading my field notes were during this project. When I was growing up, I was exposed to several close relatives who either had dementia or a type of mental illness where they were experienced delusions. My own grandfather experienced delusions and hallucinations when I was about 11 and was hospitalized in a mental institution for some time. I do remember some of his erratic behavior, he stayed right next door to our house, which enabled us to visit him anytime, so I had experienced being around a relative with mental conditions. I was surprised to learn that many of the respondents who had taken a mentally impaired parent into their home stated that they did not feel particularly close or even liked their parent while growing up or in subsequent adulthood. On the other hand, many family that their parents had had hard times during their lifetimes and wanted to make this part of their lives easier. Indeed, many family the parent had become part of the nuclear family and took them everywhere with them. I couldnt help but wonder, how ever, that the parents dementia might make things somewhat easier for these adult children regarding painful memories. One of the difficulties I encountered during this project was role change. I was the listener, the interpreter, and the one becoming vicariously part of their experiences. It was hard not to intrude and offer some input and advice when I family it was being solicited or challenge assumptions when needed. I was surprised and shocked about how deeply this affected me. Another challenge was the feelings I had to deal with after each interview. It was difficult sort out at first what my feelings were versus what I had ‘empathized during the interview and hadnt let go of. After many interviews I family tired, very tired and fatigued, sometimes depressed, sometimes overwhelmed and some times angry. On the other hand, some interviews energized me and where I had gone to the interview very tired after a busy day at work, I drove home feeling great until my real fatigue actually caught up with me. One helpful strategy was to have one of my committee members review some of my field notes. I learned from that feedback to pay attention to my feelings and use them to inform myself about how that particular respondent interacted with the world. Although there were many personal issues that came up during interviews which held personal meanings for me and from which I had to distance my own reactions from the respondents, there were also professional issues which got to me. When the ‘system, be it healthcare, political or whatever let these informants down, I took it personally. It made me very angry that in our very rich, very evolved society we do not offer supports and safety nets for those who are dealing with such difficult and challenging isse4s such as making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. I am hoping my anger will drive me to work on legislative issues and to continue research in this area. CHAPTER IV RESULTS The five themes and nineteen categories (see Table 1) presented in this chapter emerged from sixty-seven codes rendered from the raw data. Raw data consisted of nineteen transcripts from interviews with twenty-two adult offspring who self-identified as primary decision-makers for mentally impaired parents. Findings collapsed into five main themes: Level of Contact ; Interpersonal Conflict; Personal Sharing; Providng Assistance; and Giving Gratitude. These themes suggest that, indeed, adult offspring in this project did go through a reiterative decision-making process when making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. At various times during the course of numerous decision-making processes, adult offspring struggled to find that Level of Contact internally, as reality set in that parents were no longer able to make effective and safe care decisions. There was the need to Interpersonal Conflicty as they contemplate where they, as adult children, fit into this picture and what r esponsibilities they will accept while negotiating with other siblings. Other phases of the decision-making process involve: Personal Sharing as they stepped up to the plate and made and implemented decisions; inevitably having to alter course as circumstances and levels of energy changed (Providng Assistance); and Self Sufficiency where they reinforced their decisions by being thankful that their situation (or perception of their situation) was more tolerable than others in similar circumstances. Nineteen sub-themes or categories flowed from the five themes. Level of Contact consisted of Defining Condition, Safety Concerns, and Role-Reversion. Interpersonal Conflict involved a Conscious Choice, Strained Family Relationships, Sharing the Load and Sole Responsibility. A Thread of Memory on the part of the parent sustains adult offspring in the Personal Sharing stage of the decision-making process. In this stage, the adult offspring would be Guessing Needs of the parent, Getting Information, looking at Finances, and Expressing Goals. Caregiver Wear and Tear, Time Constraints, and Problems with Care triggered a Providng Assistance phase. Adult offspring would respond to these stressors by Dealing with It and Becoming Assertive with the parent. Finally adult offspring would use mental coping strategies to confirm their decisions and the accompanying hardships by Comparing with Others and turning to Spirituality (Self Sufficiency). Theme I. Level of Contact Category 1. Defining Condition All but three of the interviews contained a category of Defining Condition of the parent. Adult offspring went through a process where they had to let go of their past preconceptions of parents capabilities and put their own words to the startling fact that the parent needed help with care decision making. Sometimes this became much clearer after the parent was in the household a number of years. One respondent who had taken his mother in before the onset of dementia was able to describe her condition after several years of living with her. She used to get on the bus and run around and all that stuff. When she took that fall she developed this what I call this old persons syndrome. She became so deathly afraid of falling again that her movements became choppier and choppier and tighter and tighter and the tighter they got the more prone she was to kind of losing her balance a little bit and then she would get scared more. She has physically gone down hill a lot since then. Mentally, well mentally shes gone down a lot too. Dementia, as I understand, is about a ten-year disease and she is probably three to four years into it. She probably had some symptoms of dementia four years ago, but it has gotten significantly worse since then. I think it has been four years. Although this respondent was able to clearly acknowledge symptoms of dementia, he still had difficulty accurately defining which symptoms were pertinent to the dementia and to the type of dementia involved. I said well my mother doesnt have Alzheimers, my mother has dementia. She said oh it is the same thing. I said well no its not, it is a significantly different thing. Alzheimers is a variation of dementia, dementia is a much broader category. If my mother has Alzheimers it wouldnt be safe to leave her alone because Alzheimers, as I understand it, is a spatial disorientation to where they can feel they are not where they need to be and they need to go where they want to go. Now they may be right there, but they dont feel it and so they go. My mother doesnt have Alzheimers. She plants, she is right where she wants to be and she knows it. But she does have dementia, that mental sense of connection to what just happened. And the gal said well we treat them both the same. Well how can you do that, they are both two separate issues and for one you should do this and for the other you should do that. Its frustrating. This adult son as he was trying to define the condition to himself, limited his conception to physical components of Alzheimers however inaccurately. How he defined his mothers condition to himself influenced what decisions he made and implemented in the Personal Sharing stage. Indeed, he had recently undergone an investigation by the Department of Aging (from which he was cleared of all charges) for leaving his mother alone and for cleanliness issues. Another respondent described how she was able to put words to the deteriorating condition of her mother. This respondent was a registered nurse with her masters degree and chose to define the condition through objective tests and outside opinions. No, she was not. She was totally independent and totally well until about the age of 82. So, that is getting to be close to five years now, she is 86. Then she began to get lost driving and not to be able to do what you and I would do if we were lost to stop and find out where we were, draw a map and follow it home, she couldnt do it anymore. At that point I took her toI had a wonderful physician who was a geriatric specialist and she got us in touch with some psychological testing services and we went through a battery of those and came up with the fact that what she should for her level of functioning prior to that date, she was losing an awful lot of executive ability. You probably know better than I exactly what that encompassed. So that is the point at which somebody had said to me she truly has some dementia developing, it is not just normal forgetfulness, it is dementia. Then I began to intervene with things like finances and make sure that she got to doctors. You know, just gradually taking on more and more responsibility. Note how this daughter accurately describes and defines her mothers condition, relying on her own observations and objective tests, a method of assessment which she probably is familiar with through her professional nursing career. Once the diagnosis was established, she got on with Personal Sharing phase by examining finances and making and keeping doctors appointments. This was an only child, born of parents who were also only children of which only the mother was living. These circumstances necessitated that the daughter did not have the luxury of dealing with siblings and determining her place in all of these decisions for her mentally impaired mother. Another adult daughter defined her mothers condition by the things she was still able to observe and how she functioned. Yeah. She is so observant. On the way home from [the daycare facility] the other day she said you know I am just intrigued by the cloud formations. She said I look up and I see all these configurations in the cloud. Coming down 29 she said have you ever thought about the laying of asphalt on that road, that is such a steep hill. How did they lay all that asphalt without it trickling down hill? So I mean shes not out of it. And every Sunday morning I dont know what triggers it she wakes up at six oclock and says is it time to go to mass. The other mornings of the week she will say what day is today. But somehow Sunday she knows it is Sunday. She will say now what time is it. Be sure to fast long enough to go to communion. She is a big help to me with her hands. She folds all the laundry. She cleans up all the plates and Sunday afternoon she took the fern and gave it a haircut all afternoon, it took quite a while to do it. She cuts up the salad, she makes fruit salads, she will wash ve getables, she will wash beans, anything she can do with her hands. Focusing on the positive might impact on this respondents ability to acknowledge continuous regression and might negatively influence the Personal Sharing phase when the inevitable physical decline begins and nursing home care must be considered. I mean if the time comes when she can no longer go to the Center or she is so feeble I would then have to make the choices to whether I was going to have somebody come in during the day to care for her and then I would be the caregiver until I got home from school until the next morning or put her in assisted living. I doubt that she will ever need nursing care, although one never knows. I mean nursing home care. She would be more likely to go into an assisted living. And as to where I would take her I dont know. Two other respondents defined their mothers and mothers-in-law mental impairment by attributing it to being taken advantage of by a preacher. Respondent: I truly believe that the religious aspect of this deteriorating her rather than helped her. Ive had extensive kinds of confrontations on her about she and God. This man always prayed with her and just a week ago did she say I believe in God. I think this man was her avenue and had her believing she was an avenue to God. Wife: And shes been in church all of her life and taught Sunday school. Respondent: I think it was a brainwash. I think this lady right now could still be playing the piano and doing everything she wanted to do if she hadnt of gotten too involved with him. Interviewer: So you think some of her thinking difficulties have to do with being involved with the church. Respondent: I know so. Three years, two years or more before this happened she always raised money for the preacher. She was the league chairman. She was going to give him this appreciation and I told her I was not taking her back there for her to take a bunch of money a thousand dollars or so out of the bank to give to some preacher. She said if you dont take me Ill catch the bus. It took her fourteen hours to go to West Virginia. It almost killed her. They continued talking about their journey to define in their own words what was happening to their parent despite what others were telling them. Wife: Then the people told us that she had gotten to the point where she was not bathing, had weird stuff on her hands, dirty, nasty stinking and he was steadily draining her and the neighbors and the church people had been telling us this and of course we didnt believe it not as strong a woman as momma was. But, they said she was even begging in the church for money for him and she would call us here and people kept sending bank statements to them that checks were bouncing. And he found out because he asked about a savings account and she said what savings account and we know that his father left her plenty of money. She doesnt have a dime except for money that she gets Respondent: And we have a beautiful house like this in West Virginia and we have borrowed on it. We go there and live four weeks out of the year. Two months out of the year we are there, we just came back. But, yeah I really think that this man really deteriorated her mind. Any time something would go wrong for himI hadnt paid attention to it. She would tell Wife that she called the preacher and he prayed with her and things were okay. I think that can happen to an old person and its called brainwash. Brainwash is a strange thing. The respondents kept coming back to the fact that their mother was taken advantage of by a preacher but incorrectly attribute this as a cause of her mental impairment rather than a consequence of it. On the other hand, they were able to seek out a doctors opinion and had some understanding of dementia. And I started questioning him about her and he said why dont I just get the chart and discuss it with you. I said because I am going to be taking her away from here and she can not get over here to see you properly. She has to pay somebody for everything that they do. So, he started out with dementia and I said what is dementia. I said is that Alzheimers what is it. He said a form of it. He said she will do well for a good while and I cant tell you how long, but he said she will start deteriorating and this will take over and it will appear to be almost like Alzheimers. He said she always has some deficiencies here in the spine at the base and that is going to be crippling and she would be wheelchair bound. He said other than that there was some enlargement of the heart which is normal for this age, 95 or 96. That is how we found out. There was always no problem everything is all right. Because we never went to see her business because she took care of everything. But when we found i t out that is when we made the decision. She had always said she would come and live in her room at the right time and the room was fixed, it was all ready Of course she has been unhappy many, many times in the beginning when we brought her here. She always wanted to send money back to the preachers wife, which she used to always buy her clothes all the time and making commitment always for that group. I guess people like who they like. I think they took advantage of her, I know so. This man was also an only child and it is evident that he moved into the Personal Sharing phase with the support of his wife while short-circuiting the Interpersonal Conflict stage due to his clear place in the family and no siblings with whom to negotiate. Category 2. Safety Concerns As adult children moved through the Level of Contact phase, they inevitably encountered issues about the safety of the parents behavior. They were often still unsure about whether these safety concerns were real since many times at the beginning of the course of the mental impairment, they were being told of these behaviors by others and not directly observing them for themselves. Thus presented quite a dilemma. The adult offspring were still struggling with defining the parents condition and not believing that the parent they knew could no longer be counted on to behave in an appropriate and safe manner. Looking back on being told of his mothers erratic behavior about finances and being drained of her life savings by a local preacher, one adult son remarked: Well it really was at a point that something I should have addressed ten years ago when I was told by distance relatives and friends and classmates there in the town that he was doing this. I just came to grips to where I just didnt believe it and you all told me and I didnt do anything about it. You all were right. I should have called this guy on the carpet way back. Hey man what are you doing. As I tell Wife Im not sure that would have been right either because then it is hearsay. This respondent was much more comfortable intervening in the situation once he had concrete evidence of the unsafe manner in which his mother was handling her finances and ability to live on her income. What happens is I have fact. I have the canceled checks. I know things that hes done. I have people that have seen him take her to the stores where she can cash checks and wait on the money, all of that. Safety Concerns whether they were about finances, getting lost in familiar surroundings, leaving appliances on such as stoves, falling or being unable to perform routine activities of daily living particularly eating regularly were effective at helping the adult offspring to move through the Level of Contact phase only when they were real to the adult son or daughter. The implications of seeing a formerly competent parent falter at taking care of themselves in an appropriate and safe manner seemed to be almost impossible until unsafe behaviors were personally observed. One adult daughter put it this way: Um, so it went on like that and then, what really brought it to a head was one morning I knew she needed milk. She could get her cereal but for some reason that was the thin that she really wanted so thats what she did, um, and I thought, well Ill drop the milk by and shell have milk for her cereal and then Ill come by at lunchtime and see, you know, see whats going on. So ordinarily, my mother slept very well and slept a little bit later in the morning, so I thought, well, you know, I let myself in and put the milk in the refrigerator and then thought, well, Ill just take a little peek, maybe shes awake, and I went around the corner and my mother, yeah she was awake but she was also on the floor surrounded by her covers, didnt know how shed gotten there, didnt know who she was, didnt know who I was at first, but she was so upset and you know, didnt have any idea how long shed been there, so I got her back up on the bed. She didnt hurt anything, cause the bed was low and she just sor t of slipped off of it. I think she used to take a medication. Sometimes it would make her a little sleepy, you know and she used to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I think that maybe when she went back she may have missed the bed for some reason. I dont know how she did it, but she was OK, so I called my husband, I called my job and I called the doctorfrom then on it just seemed that things just went very quickly Another adult daughter talked about the time she realized that it was no longer safe for her mother to live alone. What happened one day, my mother stayed with them, they had a house and what happened was my mom she went to the dentist and they gave her some anesthesia and I think it just made her more confused and she was lost, we couldnt find her. She had left the house about ten oclock that morning and everybody was wondering where is mother, where is mother and we couldnt find her. So I think around like ten oclock or something like that we called the police and eventually we found her. She was over in the old neighborhood where she used to live prior to staying with them. So, I just took her at my house and I kept her like six months because I Experiences of Adult Offspring Making Care Decisions Experiences of Adult Offspring Making Care Decisions In normal aging, decline in mental skills is modest with no consequential decrease in ability to care for oneself. Normally, older adults are able to maintain activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, transferring, and toileting, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), which include shopping, cooking, housekeeping, laundry, and handling money (Schaie, 1989). Nevertheless, one in 10 persons over 65 and nearly half of those over 85 have Alzheimers disease, a form of dementia (The Alzheimers Association, 1999) and, thus, have problems with IADLs, ADLs or both, and need assistance with care decisions. Often these decisions are left to adult offspring who are ill prepared to cope with role changes and parent-caring responsibilities (Archbold, 1980; Brody, Johnsen, Fulcomer Lang, 1983; Brody, Kleban, Johnsen, Hoffman Schoonover, 1987; Cantor 1883; Stoller, 1982). What is the experience of these adult children as they negotiate their way through the their own internal voices, their family of origin and the healthcare system? Have we been asking the right questions when we assume that all is reduced to family obligation and responsibility? This project was designed to elicit and understand the experience of those adult offspring who are making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. Chapter I includes background and significance of the project, the philosophical framework in which the project question is poised, the project question, and definition of terms. Background and Significance of the Project Although almost half (47%) of persons 85 and older will have mental impairment (Schaie, 1989), many elderly do not make plans for dealing with possible changes in mental status. As elderly â€Å"age in place†, it is frequently left to family members to decide about care and living arrangements. For most family members these care decisions about the care of elderly parent are difficult at best (Pfeiffer, 1995), and the number of people involved in making these decisions will increase as life expectancy increases and the population of the United States continues to age. Life expectancy is the average number of years people born in a given year are expected to live based on a set of age-specific death rates. At the beginning of the 20th century, life expectancy at birth was 47.3 years. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the average life expectancy has increased dramatically at birth to nearly 77 years. In addition, life expectancy for every age group has also increased during the past century. â€Å"Based on todays age-specific death rates, individuals aged 65 years can be expected to live an average of 18 more years, for a total of 83 years. Those aged 75 years can be expected to live an average of 11 more years, for a total of 86 years† (http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/Document/HTML/Volume1/goal.htm, August 14, 2000). Persons older than 65 now comprise 12.7% of the population of the United States (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1999, http://www.census.gov/statab/www/states/md.txt, August 14, 2000). By the year 2020, 20% of the population will be older than 65 years (US Bureau of the Census, 1996). The largest percentage of growth is in elders 85 and over, a group at high risk for mental disorders such as Alzheimers disease. Almost 19 million Americans report they have a family member with Alzheimers, and 37 million know someone with the disease (The Alzheimers Association, 1999). Since 7 out of 10 people with Alzheimers live at home, lost productivity of caregivers is estimated to cost American businesses $26 billion a year plus $7 billion annually related to costs for health and long-term care (The Alzheimers Association, 1999). Other estimates put the cost of informal caregiving at $18 billion. In a project of 7, 443 of elders seventy and over taken from a national representative sur vey, the cost of informal care for mild dementia at $3,630 per person with double the cost for moderate dementia relatives and almost five times the cost for severe dementia (Langa, Chernew, Kabeto, Herzog, Ofstedal, Willis, Wallace, Much, Straus Fendrick, 2001). It is not surprising that the public is starting to ask for help with this complex issue. Previous research sought to identify predictors of placement decisions by family caregivers with dementia (Colerick George, 1986) when care options were few and rational mental models of decision making were thought to be superior to the human mind. At the turn of the 21st century, however, the healthcare environment offers multiple models of care for mentally impaired patients (Abraham, Onega, Chalifoux Maies, 1994). Decision making needs to be informed by the context of continuity of care, which now ranges from home and home-like environments to part time respite or adult day care to long term care services in nursing homes. Indeed, â€Å"patients and families are often surprised if not shocked about the actual services they may receive from various community-based or institutionalized services† (Abraham, Onega, Chalifoux Maies, 1994, p.165). In addition to the increasing complexity of choices, rational mental models of decision-making are in question and giving way to a more naturalistic project of how real world decisions are being made (Sloan, 1996). Rational standards, in which it is assumed people merely choose among options, do not take into consideration most contextual factors that impact on decision-making in real-world situations (Beach Lipshitz, 1993; Cohen, 1993). There is a stark contrast between the assumptions of rational decision-making and naturalistic decision-making. In the naturalistic decision making paradigm, problems are seen as ill structured rather than artificial and well structured. Solutions to these problems are made in uncertain, dynamic environments rather than static, simulated situations. Goals are shifting, ill defined or competing rather than clear and stable. There are action/feedback loops to decision-making process not one-shot decisions. Time stress is a factor and stakes are high i nstead of the presumed luxury of leisurely deliberation and absence of true consequences for the decision-maker (Orasanu Connolly, 1993; Zsambok, 1997). Research on the experience of making care decisions for mentally impaired parents needs to take into account the way decisions are made in the real world and the numerous opportunities for care assistance that are available today. The majority of middle aged, and even young-old Americans, will be faced with making decisions about care for a mentally impaired parent at a time in life when they are dealing with their own transitional issues, as well as those of the generations before and after them. Given the resulting emotional and financial cost, it would be wise to develop health policy about mentally impaired elder citizens and their offspring based on an understanding of the experience of making decisions about the care of a mentally impaired parent. Understanding what these care decisions mean to the increasing number of persons who must make care decisions for mentally impaired parents would lay the foundation for addressing issues in getting adequate assistance for these famili es. It would also help to provide a framework for policy decisions about the fragmented care system for the mentally impaired elderly, and decrease the cost to society in lost productivity. Clearly, the experience of making these decisions needs to be reexamined. Since the definition of naturalistic decision-making is â€Å"the way people use their experience to make decisions in the field setting† (Zsambok, 1997), it is incumbent upon the researcher to go into the field. Qualitative methodologies, which involve fieldwork can help build knowledge of the enormously complex and profound issue of making care decisions for mentally impaired family members. CHAPTER III METHODS Methods Design of the project Personal Reflections Part of the process in analyzing data during a qualitative project is the use of field notes. I have to admit that the process of recording field notes after each visit was a tiresome one for me. I choose to incorporate my thoughts and feelings about the phenomenon at hand, the relationships with my respondents, and the data, in the form of tape recorded field notes immediately after each visit, which were later transcribed. I have never considered myself disciplined enough to be a consistent and in-depth journaler but do consider myself a very reflective person. I guess what happens to me is once I start to put down thoughts and feelings into a very personal form, I dont know when or if I can stop. I also wanted to keep some of my personal issues private and did not initially understand who might be reading these notes. In addition, the interviews were so intense and so moving that I thought I would never forget one word, one thought, one emotion, or one observation that I had experienced before, during and after the encounter with each respondent. Well I guess it easy to imagine that, indeed, I have forgotten some of my reactions. I have been impressed and surprised by how valuable reading my field notes were during this project. When I was growing up, I was exposed to several close relatives who either had dementia or a type of mental illness where they were experienced delusions. My own grandfather experienced delusions and hallucinations when I was about 11 and was hospitalized in a mental institution for some time. I do remember some of his erratic behavior, he stayed right next door to our house, which enabled us to visit him anytime, so I had experienced being around a relative with mental conditions. I was surprised to learn that many of the respondents who had taken a mentally impaired parent into their home stated that they did not feel particularly close or even liked their parent while growing up or in subsequent adulthood. On the other hand, many family that their parents had had hard times during their lifetimes and wanted to make this part of their lives easier. Indeed, many family the parent had become part of the nuclear family and took them everywhere with them. I couldnt help but wonder, how ever, that the parents dementia might make things somewhat easier for these adult children regarding painful memories. One of the difficulties I encountered during this project was role change. I was the listener, the interpreter, and the one becoming vicariously part of their experiences. It was hard not to intrude and offer some input and advice when I family it was being solicited or challenge assumptions when needed. I was surprised and shocked about how deeply this affected me. Another challenge was the feelings I had to deal with after each interview. It was difficult sort out at first what my feelings were versus what I had ‘empathized during the interview and hadnt let go of. After many interviews I family tired, very tired and fatigued, sometimes depressed, sometimes overwhelmed and some times angry. On the other hand, some interviews energized me and where I had gone to the interview very tired after a busy day at work, I drove home feeling great until my real fatigue actually caught up with me. One helpful strategy was to have one of my committee members review some of my field notes. I learned from that feedback to pay attention to my feelings and use them to inform myself about how that particular respondent interacted with the world. Although there were many personal issues that came up during interviews which held personal meanings for me and from which I had to distance my own reactions from the respondents, there were also professional issues which got to me. When the ‘system, be it healthcare, political or whatever let these informants down, I took it personally. It made me very angry that in our very rich, very evolved society we do not offer supports and safety nets for those who are dealing with such difficult and challenging isse4s such as making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. I am hoping my anger will drive me to work on legislative issues and to continue research in this area. CHAPTER IV RESULTS The five themes and nineteen categories (see Table 1) presented in this chapter emerged from sixty-seven codes rendered from the raw data. Raw data consisted of nineteen transcripts from interviews with twenty-two adult offspring who self-identified as primary decision-makers for mentally impaired parents. Findings collapsed into five main themes: Level of Contact ; Interpersonal Conflict; Personal Sharing; Providng Assistance; and Giving Gratitude. These themes suggest that, indeed, adult offspring in this project did go through a reiterative decision-making process when making care decisions for a mentally impaired parent. At various times during the course of numerous decision-making processes, adult offspring struggled to find that Level of Contact internally, as reality set in that parents were no longer able to make effective and safe care decisions. There was the need to Interpersonal Conflicty as they contemplate where they, as adult children, fit into this picture and what r esponsibilities they will accept while negotiating with other siblings. Other phases of the decision-making process involve: Personal Sharing as they stepped up to the plate and made and implemented decisions; inevitably having to alter course as circumstances and levels of energy changed (Providng Assistance); and Self Sufficiency where they reinforced their decisions by being thankful that their situation (or perception of their situation) was more tolerable than others in similar circumstances. Nineteen sub-themes or categories flowed from the five themes. Level of Contact consisted of Defining Condition, Safety Concerns, and Role-Reversion. Interpersonal Conflict involved a Conscious Choice, Strained Family Relationships, Sharing the Load and Sole Responsibility. A Thread of Memory on the part of the parent sustains adult offspring in the Personal Sharing stage of the decision-making process. In this stage, the adult offspring would be Guessing Needs of the parent, Getting Information, looking at Finances, and Expressing Goals. Caregiver Wear and Tear, Time Constraints, and Problems with Care triggered a Providng Assistance phase. Adult offspring would respond to these stressors by Dealing with It and Becoming Assertive with the parent. Finally adult offspring would use mental coping strategies to confirm their decisions and the accompanying hardships by Comparing with Others and turning to Spirituality (Self Sufficiency). Theme I. Level of Contact Category 1. Defining Condition All but three of the interviews contained a category of Defining Condition of the parent. Adult offspring went through a process where they had to let go of their past preconceptions of parents capabilities and put their own words to the startling fact that the parent needed help with care decision making. Sometimes this became much clearer after the parent was in the household a number of years. One respondent who had taken his mother in before the onset of dementia was able to describe her condition after several years of living with her. She used to get on the bus and run around and all that stuff. When she took that fall she developed this what I call this old persons syndrome. She became so deathly afraid of falling again that her movements became choppier and choppier and tighter and tighter and the tighter they got the more prone she was to kind of losing her balance a little bit and then she would get scared more. She has physically gone down hill a lot since then. Mentally, well mentally shes gone down a lot too. Dementia, as I understand, is about a ten-year disease and she is probably three to four years into it. She probably had some symptoms of dementia four years ago, but it has gotten significantly worse since then. I think it has been four years. Although this respondent was able to clearly acknowledge symptoms of dementia, he still had difficulty accurately defining which symptoms were pertinent to the dementia and to the type of dementia involved. I said well my mother doesnt have Alzheimers, my mother has dementia. She said oh it is the same thing. I said well no its not, it is a significantly different thing. Alzheimers is a variation of dementia, dementia is a much broader category. If my mother has Alzheimers it wouldnt be safe to leave her alone because Alzheimers, as I understand it, is a spatial disorientation to where they can feel they are not where they need to be and they need to go where they want to go. Now they may be right there, but they dont feel it and so they go. My mother doesnt have Alzheimers. She plants, she is right where she wants to be and she knows it. But she does have dementia, that mental sense of connection to what just happened. And the gal said well we treat them both the same. Well how can you do that, they are both two separate issues and for one you should do this and for the other you should do that. Its frustrating. This adult son as he was trying to define the condition to himself, limited his conception to physical components of Alzheimers however inaccurately. How he defined his mothers condition to himself influenced what decisions he made and implemented in the Personal Sharing stage. Indeed, he had recently undergone an investigation by the Department of Aging (from which he was cleared of all charges) for leaving his mother alone and for cleanliness issues. Another respondent described how she was able to put words to the deteriorating condition of her mother. This respondent was a registered nurse with her masters degree and chose to define the condition through objective tests and outside opinions. No, she was not. She was totally independent and totally well until about the age of 82. So, that is getting to be close to five years now, she is 86. Then she began to get lost driving and not to be able to do what you and I would do if we were lost to stop and find out where we were, draw a map and follow it home, she couldnt do it anymore. At that point I took her toI had a wonderful physician who was a geriatric specialist and she got us in touch with some psychological testing services and we went through a battery of those and came up with the fact that what she should for her level of functioning prior to that date, she was losing an awful lot of executive ability. You probably know better than I exactly what that encompassed. So that is the point at which somebody had said to me she truly has some dementia developing, it is not just normal forgetfulness, it is dementia. Then I began to intervene with things like finances and make sure that she got to doctors. You know, just gradually taking on more and more responsibility. Note how this daughter accurately describes and defines her mothers condition, relying on her own observations and objective tests, a method of assessment which she probably is familiar with through her professional nursing career. Once the diagnosis was established, she got on with Personal Sharing phase by examining finances and making and keeping doctors appointments. This was an only child, born of parents who were also only children of which only the mother was living. These circumstances necessitated that the daughter did not have the luxury of dealing with siblings and determining her place in all of these decisions for her mentally impaired mother. Another adult daughter defined her mothers condition by the things she was still able to observe and how she functioned. Yeah. She is so observant. On the way home from [the daycare facility] the other day she said you know I am just intrigued by the cloud formations. She said I look up and I see all these configurations in the cloud. Coming down 29 she said have you ever thought about the laying of asphalt on that road, that is such a steep hill. How did they lay all that asphalt without it trickling down hill? So I mean shes not out of it. And every Sunday morning I dont know what triggers it she wakes up at six oclock and says is it time to go to mass. The other mornings of the week she will say what day is today. But somehow Sunday she knows it is Sunday. She will say now what time is it. Be sure to fast long enough to go to communion. She is a big help to me with her hands. She folds all the laundry. She cleans up all the plates and Sunday afternoon she took the fern and gave it a haircut all afternoon, it took quite a while to do it. She cuts up the salad, she makes fruit salads, she will wash ve getables, she will wash beans, anything she can do with her hands. Focusing on the positive might impact on this respondents ability to acknowledge continuous regression and might negatively influence the Personal Sharing phase when the inevitable physical decline begins and nursing home care must be considered. I mean if the time comes when she can no longer go to the Center or she is so feeble I would then have to make the choices to whether I was going to have somebody come in during the day to care for her and then I would be the caregiver until I got home from school until the next morning or put her in assisted living. I doubt that she will ever need nursing care, although one never knows. I mean nursing home care. She would be more likely to go into an assisted living. And as to where I would take her I dont know. Two other respondents defined their mothers and mothers-in-law mental impairment by attributing it to being taken advantage of by a preacher. Respondent: I truly believe that the religious aspect of this deteriorating her rather than helped her. Ive had extensive kinds of confrontations on her about she and God. This man always prayed with her and just a week ago did she say I believe in God. I think this man was her avenue and had her believing she was an avenue to God. Wife: And shes been in church all of her life and taught Sunday school. Respondent: I think it was a brainwash. I think this lady right now could still be playing the piano and doing everything she wanted to do if she hadnt of gotten too involved with him. Interviewer: So you think some of her thinking difficulties have to do with being involved with the church. Respondent: I know so. Three years, two years or more before this happened she always raised money for the preacher. She was the league chairman. She was going to give him this appreciation and I told her I was not taking her back there for her to take a bunch of money a thousand dollars or so out of the bank to give to some preacher. She said if you dont take me Ill catch the bus. It took her fourteen hours to go to West Virginia. It almost killed her. They continued talking about their journey to define in their own words what was happening to their parent despite what others were telling them. Wife: Then the people told us that she had gotten to the point where she was not bathing, had weird stuff on her hands, dirty, nasty stinking and he was steadily draining her and the neighbors and the church people had been telling us this and of course we didnt believe it not as strong a woman as momma was. But, they said she was even begging in the church for money for him and she would call us here and people kept sending bank statements to them that checks were bouncing. And he found out because he asked about a savings account and she said what savings account and we know that his father left her plenty of money. She doesnt have a dime except for money that she gets Respondent: And we have a beautiful house like this in West Virginia and we have borrowed on it. We go there and live four weeks out of the year. Two months out of the year we are there, we just came back. But, yeah I really think that this man really deteriorated her mind. Any time something would go wrong for himI hadnt paid attention to it. She would tell Wife that she called the preacher and he prayed with her and things were okay. I think that can happen to an old person and its called brainwash. Brainwash is a strange thing. The respondents kept coming back to the fact that their mother was taken advantage of by a preacher but incorrectly attribute this as a cause of her mental impairment rather than a consequence of it. On the other hand, they were able to seek out a doctors opinion and had some understanding of dementia. And I started questioning him about her and he said why dont I just get the chart and discuss it with you. I said because I am going to be taking her away from here and she can not get over here to see you properly. She has to pay somebody for everything that they do. So, he started out with dementia and I said what is dementia. I said is that Alzheimers what is it. He said a form of it. He said she will do well for a good while and I cant tell you how long, but he said she will start deteriorating and this will take over and it will appear to be almost like Alzheimers. He said she always has some deficiencies here in the spine at the base and that is going to be crippling and she would be wheelchair bound. He said other than that there was some enlargement of the heart which is normal for this age, 95 or 96. That is how we found out. There was always no problem everything is all right. Because we never went to see her business because she took care of everything. But when we found i t out that is when we made the decision. She had always said she would come and live in her room at the right time and the room was fixed, it was all ready Of course she has been unhappy many, many times in the beginning when we brought her here. She always wanted to send money back to the preachers wife, which she used to always buy her clothes all the time and making commitment always for that group. I guess people like who they like. I think they took advantage of her, I know so. This man was also an only child and it is evident that he moved into the Personal Sharing phase with the support of his wife while short-circuiting the Interpersonal Conflict stage due to his clear place in the family and no siblings with whom to negotiate. Category 2. Safety Concerns As adult children moved through the Level of Contact phase, they inevitably encountered issues about the safety of the parents behavior. They were often still unsure about whether these safety concerns were real since many times at the beginning of the course of the mental impairment, they were being told of these behaviors by others and not directly observing them for themselves. Thus presented quite a dilemma. The adult offspring were still struggling with defining the parents condition and not believing that the parent they knew could no longer be counted on to behave in an appropriate and safe manner. Looking back on being told of his mothers erratic behavior about finances and being drained of her life savings by a local preacher, one adult son remarked: Well it really was at a point that something I should have addressed ten years ago when I was told by distance relatives and friends and classmates there in the town that he was doing this. I just came to grips to where I just didnt believe it and you all told me and I didnt do anything about it. You all were right. I should have called this guy on the carpet way back. Hey man what are you doing. As I tell Wife Im not sure that would have been right either because then it is hearsay. This respondent was much more comfortable intervening in the situation once he had concrete evidence of the unsafe manner in which his mother was handling her finances and ability to live on her income. What happens is I have fact. I have the canceled checks. I know things that hes done. I have people that have seen him take her to the stores where she can cash checks and wait on the money, all of that. Safety Concerns whether they were about finances, getting lost in familiar surroundings, leaving appliances on such as stoves, falling or being unable to perform routine activities of daily living particularly eating regularly were effective at helping the adult offspring to move through the Level of Contact phase only when they were real to the adult son or daughter. The implications of seeing a formerly competent parent falter at taking care of themselves in an appropriate and safe manner seemed to be almost impossible until unsafe behaviors were personally observed. One adult daughter put it this way: Um, so it went on like that and then, what really brought it to a head was one morning I knew she needed milk. She could get her cereal but for some reason that was the thin that she really wanted so thats what she did, um, and I thought, well Ill drop the milk by and shell have milk for her cereal and then Ill come by at lunchtime and see, you know, see whats going on. So ordinarily, my mother slept very well and slept a little bit later in the morning, so I thought, well, you know, I let myself in and put the milk in the refrigerator and then thought, well, Ill just take a little peek, maybe shes awake, and I went around the corner and my mother, yeah she was awake but she was also on the floor surrounded by her covers, didnt know how shed gotten there, didnt know who she was, didnt know who I was at first, but she was so upset and you know, didnt have any idea how long shed been there, so I got her back up on the bed. She didnt hurt anything, cause the bed was low and she just sor t of slipped off of it. I think she used to take a medication. Sometimes it would make her a little sleepy, you know and she used to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I think that maybe when she went back she may have missed the bed for some reason. I dont know how she did it, but she was OK, so I called my husband, I called my job and I called the doctorfrom then on it just seemed that things just went very quickly Another adult daughter talked about the time she realized that it was no longer safe for her mother to live alone. What happened one day, my mother stayed with them, they had a house and what happened was my mom she went to the dentist and they gave her some anesthesia and I think it just made her more confused and she was lost, we couldnt find her. She had left the house about ten oclock that morning and everybody was wondering where is mother, where is mother and we couldnt find her. So I think around like ten oclock or something like that we called the police and eventually we found her. She was over in the old neighborhood where she used to live prior to staying with them. So, I just took her at my house and I kept her like six months because I

Computer Ethics Essay -- Ethics Morals Morality

Computer Ethics A Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics (see Appendix A) was first presented by Dr. Ramon C. Barquin's in his paper for the Computer Ethics Institute of the Brookings Institution entitled, "In Pursuit of a 'Ten Commandments' for Computer Ethics" in May of 1992. Computer ethics is about principles related to behavior and decisions made by computer professionals and users, including software engineers, operators, managers, policy makers, as well as educators and students. This means all these people involved should be supported with some "policies for ethical conduct" i.e. policies that guide their actions and increase adequacy of the decisions they make. (Szejko par. 1) With the rapid infusion of computers, software and related technologies into homes, schools and businesses, we initially focused our energies on learning about the technologies and how to use them. We now need to focus our attention on the ethical issues surrounding technology to insure that we and our children understand and practice values important to all of us; respect for others, their property, ownership, and the right to privacy. (Alden par. 4) There are various interpretations of the term "computer ethics." Computer ethics might be understood in one sense as the efforts of professional philosophers to apply traditional ethical theories and concepts to issues regarding the use of computer technology. However, it is possible to construe computer ethics in another sense to include standards of professional practice, codes of conduct, and aspects of computer law, public policy, and corporate ethics. Information technology has affected our home life, our business life, and our relationships with others. It has also affected us in regards to ... ... Respect For Your Fellow Humans. Works Cited Alden, Sally B. Myths and Misperceptions on Computer Ethics. 1990. Computer Learning Foundation. Retrieved 26 Jan. 2007 http://www.computerlearning.org/articles/respmyth.htm Barquin, Ramon. The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics. 1992. Computer Ethics Institute. Retrieved 22 Jan. 2007 Davis, Michael. "Thinking like an Engineer: The Place of a Code of Ethics in the Practice of a Profession". Philosophy and Public Affairs 20.2 (1991): 150-167. Luegenbiehl, Heinz C. "Codes of Ethics and the Moral Education of Engineers", Business and Professional Ethics Journal 2 (1983): 41-61. Rpt. in Ethical Issues in Engineering . Ed. Deborah G. Johnson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991. 137-154. Szejko, Stanislaw. Patterns of Ethical Behaviour and Decision Making. 2004. Ethicomp 2004. Retrieved 24 Jan. 2007

Literary Analysis Term Paper for Tom Sawyer: A Classic Novel Essay

Mark Twain’s book is a novel that follows the juvenile life of a small boy. You will see how much fun the main character, Tom, and his friends have by skipping school, fishing, swimming, and using with their imaginations to have a good time. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a classic novel for many reasons. The plot gives us an idea about how people lived in the era the book takes place in. Readers enjoy the book because they can relate to Tom and enjoy his fun experiences. Tom is always into having a good time with his friends. It is a classic because it is enjoyable to readers of all ages, no matter what century, place, or gender you belong to. Tom’s experiences really draw the reader into the book, making it a fun read. Twain did a really good job at expressing the way Tom felt about things. In chapter four Twain makes going to church seem endless by making the chapter endless. He just talks on and on about the Superintendent and about what happens in church. The book shows really well how people felt in that time. Tom and his friends were very superstitious. Twain stated, â€Å"He crossed a small ‘branch’ two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit,† (62). Throughout the book there is a lot of prejudice towards African Americans and slavery. This gives us more of an idea about what life was like for Tom and other people that lived during that era. Some readers enjoy the book because they can relate to Tom and his friends and how the characters feel. Tom is very mischievous and sneaky. And readers enjoy that. Some kids don’t like school and like Tom would try really hard to get out of having to go to class. In chapter six Tom wakes up and said he has a sore toe. When that doesn’t work he complains and says that he can’t go to school because of a loose tooth. All of this just to get out of going to school. Have you ever pretended that you were a pirate and had a treasure hunt or imagined you were a cowboy? Well Tom did and many other readers have too. Connecting the reader to the books main character really draws them in even more. In chapter thirteen Tom and his friends, Huck and Joe, decide to run away to Jackson’s Island and become pirates. On this adventure the reader might feel like he is there with the characters, making the book even more interesting to the reader. Tom is considered a hero in the book. And we all know being a hero is a big deal. This might make the reader want to be just like him, putting himself in Tom’s place. This makes the book even more popular, because the readers might enjoy the good-guy bad-guy scenario. Mark Twain’s book takes surprising turns and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, pushing the reader to keep going, and making it exciting to read. Some books are packed full of mystery. Tom Sawyer is not one of them but does have an exciting plot. During chapter 9 the boys witness the murder of Dr. Robinson. During that chapter you are excited to find out what happens next. And Twain made it somewhat suspenseful making the book even more popular for a reader that likes mystery. Twain wrote, â€Å"†¦ not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding a candle, appeared from behind a rock! † (229). If Tom and Becky stuck in a cave wasn’t enough then finding another person right in there with you ought to be! This is just one more example where Twain adds a little mystery to the life of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain was really good at adding romance, mystery, adventure, etc. into the book making it appealing to just about everyone. As I have shown you, Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is a classic novel. It is special to all readers because we can relate to Tom in different ways. The plot reflects real situations of that time. And the book has surprising twists pulling the reader into the book. Classical books are, among other things, enjoyable for people of all ages and timeless.

The U.S. Cities in the Late 1800’s: Major Problems and Their Solving

The cities have played an important role in the development of the United States since the founding of the nation. Many historians agree that the Revolution itself and the rise of the Confederation of 13 independent states were nurtured exactly in the cities of America (Green, 1957, p. 2). Urban life in the late 19th century, perhaps more largely than today, when rural isolation has been broken down by the modern miracles of transportation and communication, formed the substance of American civilization (Light, 1983, p. 96).City enterprise, backed by city money, looking for new products to sell and new markets to sell to, was a powerful force in peopling the country (Jackson & Schultz, 1972a, p. 6). The purpose of this study is to explore the major problems which the American cities faced in the late nineteenth century and how their dwellers resolved them. Toward this end we will discuss the tendency of fast cities’ growing in late 1800s and in what way it conditioned the urba n problems, analyze the economical and social factors contributing to emergence of such problems, and consider the successful examples of their solving.The city is justly regarded as the handmaiden of industrialization. By 1890, a century after the first national census, the number of city dwellers was 139 times larger than the 1790 figure, although the American population as a whole had multiplied only sixteen fold (Jackson & Schultz, 1972a, p. 1). The influence of cities on American life had been mounting steadily throughout the 19th century. With land everywhere available and transport the chief problem to consider, commercial centers had arisen where good harbors provided safe anchorage for ocean-going ships.Due to this tendency, in 1980s the cities scattered along the coast were necessarily the focus of national economic life (Green, 1957, p. 242). In 1890 the nation's population was already 1/3 urban and the population in the Northeast was well over 1/2 urban. With 2 million i nhabitants New York was the 2nd largest city in the world, and Chicago and Philadelphia each contained about a million inhabitants. Places like Minneapolis, Denver, and Seattle, which hardly existed in 1840, had become major regional metropolises (Goodall & Sprengel, 1975, p. 2).The enormous growth of American cities at that time is attributed largely to the quickening pace of the industrial revolution which harnessed technological innovation and scientific inquiry to more productive uses of energy and new uses of materials, but also to the political revolution which enshrined individual rights and democratic process in law, and the demographic revolution which increased the size of the population.Organized means of production led to larger factory complexes and to larger urban centers; in turn, the building of homes and offices and streets and sewers in those centers fueled the industrialization trend (Jackson & Schultz, 1972b, p. 177). Such rash economic development and fast growi ng of urban population stipulated emergence of many serious problems in urban communities not known earlier. Poverty of the city-dwellers, overcrowding of housing, transportation and environmental pollution were among the most critical problems (Light, 1983).Rising crime rates, increasing pauperism, and spiraling juvenile delinquency signaled a moral dislocation in cities undergoing commercial and industrial transformation. Swarms of foreign immigrants challenged their capacity to accommodate and assimilate newcomers, as did the influx of white and black native migrants from the countryside and small towns. Everywhere the orderly patterns of existence appeared interrupted; the cities seemed to be overwhelmed by the rush of social change (Ward, 1972, p. 164).Cities lacking institutionalized systems of orderly government (police departments, fire departments, centralized governmental bureaucracies) had to forge new tools to hammer out an urban discipline (Schultz, 1972, p. 308). A gro wing and ever more diverse population; new industrial demands on the time and energy of citizens; cities bursting at the seams of their former boundaries; and social institutions like the family and the church dissolving in the heat of economic progress – all these disparate elements of urban life had to be adjusted and accommodated to each other.Of the various disorders in urban life, the most evident was poverty. To resolve this problem many city leaders championed education to secure social order in a disorderly age. While American cities always had known the poor, urban leaders of the past had believed in the transience of poverty. But in the late 19th century, these attitudes shifted dramatically. City officials began to suspect, that urban poverty was not a passing phenomenon but a permanent condition.A growing number of urban paupers presaged a day when cities might be divided sharply along class lines; when foreign indigents might threaten the hegemony of native Ameri cans; and when public financial resources might be devoted more to charitable relief, to workhouses, and to prisons than to other needed public services. Many urban leaders saw in public education a form of social insurance against a possible tomorrow when the poor might dominate city life (Schultz, 1972).The problems of poor city-dwellers were intensified by lack of sufficient habitation. During the three generations of sustained and heavy European immigration into the United States, which preceded the immigration restriction legislation of the early 1920s, congested ghettoes of foreign immigrants assumed substantial dimensions within the residential structures of American cities. Most immigrants settled near the sources of unskilled employment, and the majority of newcomers concentrated on the margins of the emerging central business districts. To solve this problem vacated houses were converted into tenements and rooming houses, while vacant lots and rear yards were filled with c heap new structures (Ward, 1972, p. 164).One more solution for this housing problem was found in so called filter process that is creation of vacancies in standard housing for families of lower incomes. Filter process describes the way in which the normal housing market should work. As new housing is built, families who can afford to pay more vacate older units which then become available to families of a somewhat lower income who are on their way up the economic ladder and who in turn move out of still less desirable quarters (Green, 1957, p. 138).Another vital problem was transportation. Associated with urban population rise was a nascent suburban movement; many wealthy families gave up residential locations close to the noisy and crowded marketplaces, opting instead for houses in smaller peripheral towns. These suburbanites maintained their connection with the larger population center by water ferry and steam railroad, or they assumed the expense of providing their own carriages to conduct business and friendships in the city. Thus the residential movement away from the city center and into suburban areas predates the development of mass transit (Green, 1957).Out of the period of dynamic urban growth between 1820 and 1860 came the development of the omnibus, the first mass-transit innovation used in the U. S. At first, the conveyance was merely a long-distance stagecoach used within the city or an enlarged version of a hackney coach. Within a decade, though, it had taken a fairly standard form: a rectangular box on wheels containing two lengthwise seats for from twelve to twenty passengers (Jackson & Schultz, 1972b, p. 180).The conducted study proved that whether a given city grew and prospered or stagnated depended on its locational advantages and on the foresight of its civic and business leaders. The speed growth of the U. S. cities was stipulated by the industrial revolution which encouraged cities’ prosperity, but at the same time conditioned th e problems they faced such as overcrowding, poverty and lack of local transportation facilities. Anyway, technological innovations and wise ruling of municipal authorities allowed solving these problems and achieve sufficient balance in the cities’ development.ReferencesGoodall, L. E. , & Sprengel, D. P. (1975). The American Metropolis. Columbus, OH: Merrill. Green, C. M. (1957).American Cities in the Growth of the Nation. New York: John De Graff. Jackson, K. T. , & Schultz, S. K. (1972a).The City in American History: Introduction. In K. T. Jackson & S. K. Schultz (Eds. ), Cities in American History (pp. 1-8). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Jackson, K. T. , & Schultz, S. K. (1972b).Immigration, Migration, and Mobility, 1865-1920. In K. T. Jackson & S. K. Schultz (Eds.), Cities in American History (pp. 177-184).New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Light, I. (1983). Cities in World Perspective. New York: Macmillan. Schultz, S. K. (1972).Breaking the Chains of Poverty: Public Education in Bos ton, 1800-1860. In K. T. Jackson & S. K. Schultz (Eds. ), Cities in American History (pp. 306-323).New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Ward, D. (1972). The Emergence of Central Immigrant Ghettoes in American Cities, 1840-1920. In K. T. Jackson & S. K. Schultz (Eds. ), Cities in American History (pp. 164-176). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Was the Conservative party essays

Was the Conservative party essays In the aftermath of the First World War British politics faced a seismic change in the new electoral system that the 1918 General Election represented. In truth the first genuinely universal election of MPs across the UK was not until this year - when the franchise was vastly, and far more thoroughly than say the 1867 Reform Act, extended; not only this, but for the first time women over the age of 30 were also allocated voting powers. What this effectively meant was that the working class were finally granted an electoral voice for the first time in British history. Thus, we might presume, the Labour Party - the voice of the progressive and self-proclaimed representatives of the workers - would seize power at the cost of the Conservatives - who many see as merely the voice of the landed gentry. In fact, this was not the case: not only did the Tories manage to survive the advent of class politics (much at the expense of the middle-class Liberal party), but it also came to dominat e the new political arena. In fact, bar a brief ten months during 1924, a Conservative Party leader was Prime Minister of the country or a Conservative majority sat in the House of Commons, or both, from 1918 until the Tories humiliation at the second post-war election of 1945. Thus we can easily deduce that the Conservative Party did indeed survive the advent of class politics. What we must thus consider is why this happened. Why did the party of the upper classes so persuade the working class vote so as to win (at least some of) their vote? In examining this we shall indeed see that a combination of factors attributed to this - good fortune and political skill on the part of the Conservative hierarchy together with the nature of the working class vote in the inter-war period. Once we have evaluated these three factors, we shall conclude that in truth not one single dynamic stands out as being of singular importance, but ra...

7 Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Yours

7 Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Yours Content calendars can make or break the successful implementation of your content strategy. Why? Because they help keep your team on track, let them see what’s coming next, and help them avoid the panic of having to write something at the last minute. In this post, we took seven companies across a variety of industries and reconstructed their blog and social media posting schedules  (based on manual research) to create example content calendars. Then, after you’ve seen each example, we’ll show you how to establish your own publishing frequency, and build a content calendar to keep it organized. But First, Who Are We, Anyway?: is an industry-leading marketing calendar software platform. Curious to learn how you can manage your content + social media (and all your other marketing projects), all in one place? Start here. Download Your Content Calendar Template Kit Before you continue reading, download your content calendar template kit. It contains: A social media scheduling calendar  to plan, write and organize all your social media messages. A content calendar template  to organize and plan your content in advance. A printable marketing calendar  for your desk so you can always keep an eye on what’s coming next. A best times to post on social media infographic  to take the guesswork out of when you need to be posting. A how often to post on social media infographic  to know the baseline amount that you should post on your social media pages. A best times to publish blog posts infographic that lets you see the best times to publish your blog posts to gain the most eyeballs.7 Content Calendar Examples From Awesome Brands to Inspire Your OwnWhat Is The Purpose of a Content Calendar? The purpose of having a content calendar is to make sure your content team stays organized and on top of your publishing schedule. Some specific benefits include: Keeping track of deadlines. Giving your whole team visibility on what you’re working on. Making it easier to plan ahead. Let's Look At 7 Content Calendar Examples From These Leading Brands We chose the following companies to reconstruct their publishing schedule. Each one of these organizations had an active blog and a regular social media presence. Red Bull: Red Bull is a publishing company that just happens to sell an energy drink. This makes them interesting because they publish a large amount of high quality content. Reverb.com: An e-commerce business that carries musical instruments and accessories. They create content that makes it easy to see and hear what you’re getting before you buy. Modcloth: An e-commerce vintage clothing brand. They publish a mix of promotional content that helps sell clothes and content that shows their audience how they might look when wearing their product. Disney Parks: An estimated 150 million people visit Disney parks every year. Their content helps those visitors have the best time. BMW: BMW is the most popular car brand  on Instagram. Their messages promote an aspirational lifestyle that people strive to achieve. Whole Foods: Whole Foods curates content that’s valuable to people who want to live a healthier lifestyle. They also share their own recipes. Concordia College:  The marketing department at Concordia uses the story of their current students to attract new prospective students. Each one of these organizations span a variety of industries and company sizes. No matter what your organization does you can see a variety of schedules to inspire your own. Red Bull Red Bull is a massive media powerhouse that just happens to sell an energy drink. As you can see from their content calendar, they publish a lot of stuff whether it’s blogs, social media messages, videos and more. What conclusions can we draw from Red Bull’s content calendar? Post your content where your audience is most active.  Red Bull’s audience of 20 to 30 year old males is most active on Facebook and Instagram. Therefore it makes sense that Red Bull would publish a larger amount of content on these channels. Reuse video content on social media.  Red Bull is known for their incredible video content. Much of that gets shared on Facebook and their other social platforms. You might not be able to shoot the same kind of video, but if you have video content at all, repackage it for social media for maximum mileage. Create content that looks and feel authentically like the non-branded content that your audience seeks out. Red Bull is so successful because it looks like content from a publishing house. They don’t feel like they are being sold too. Takeaway: Organic social media content doesn't always need to sell directly in order to be successful. Take a look at Red Bull's content and social media publishing schedule.Reverb.com Reverb.com is an e-commerce website that sells pretty much any music related instrument you could think of. They know their audience well and have a created a reliable and consistent publishing schedule that’s jam-packed full of content about musicians, new and old instruments and techniques their fans would find interesting. What conclusions can we draw from Reverb’s content calendar? If you’re going to publish a lot of content make sure you do it well.  One of the reasons that Reverb.com is so successful with their content is because of their ability to tailor it to their audience. They publish a lot of information, but all of it is executed well. Establish trust with your audience. By talking to industry experts, popular musicians and more they are able to establish a sense of trust with their audience. People can drop a lot of money on their sites because they can trust what they find. Create content that makes it easy to understand how to use complex products.  Reverb does a great job explaining what their product does and how to use it. Their product base can get overwhelming and stressful so Reverb makes it easy to understand and find the dream product their audience is in search of. Takeaway: Earn your audience’s trust through the content you create. Take a look at Reverb's content and social media publishing schedule.ModCloth ModCloth is another e-commerce website that sells women’s vintage style clothing. ModCloth caters to a very niche market place as the demand for vintage clothes falls to a unique group of buyers. What conclusions can we draw from ModCloth’s content calendar? Put your audience’s interests first.  Modcloth’s audience is interested in fashion. They aren’t satisfied with what they can find at the mall. By creating content that gives their audience fashion ideas by itself, it’s okay that the copy tells them where to find it. This is an exception where direct selling can work for a retail brand. Start small and grow.  You don’t need to publish 67 blog posts and 123 social media messages right off the bat. ModCloth’s publishing schedule is small but that’s what works for them. You have to walk before you can run and that includes your content creation. Your blog doesn’t have to be your main focus. Blogs are great, but they’re also time-consuming. If your team doesn’t have the resources or the time to publish a ton of blog content, that’s okay. Focus your efforts on creating great content on your social media pages,e-books or landing pages and slowly grow your blog. Takeaway: Organic social media content should not always look and feel like an ad. Take a look at Mod Cloth's content and social media publishing schedule.Disney Parks Disney is a behemoth in the hospitality and service world and needless to say they publish a lot of content. The Disney Parks blog is just one of several blogs, Facebook pages and more that Disney runs. What conclusions can we draw from Disney Park’s content calendar? Create content that creates FOMO. Disney has many massive theme parks that are packed full of attractions and fun family things to do. Their content creates a FOMO or feeling of missing out on all the fun. This move creates a sense of urgency and longing for your audience hopefully promoting them to take action. Show them what they will experience. Create content that shows your audience what they will get or experience when they purchase your products. Instead of letting them guess what will happen, show them instead. Help them have the best time when they do business with you. Disney’s content focuses a lot on the experiences that their customers have. You can do this as well by letting your content show them how working with you creates the best possible experience they’ll ever have. Takeaway: Show your audience how to create an experience when they visit you. Take a look at Disney Park's content and social media publishing schedule.Whole Foods Whole Foods is a natural grocery store that was recently acquired by Amazon. They’re blog integrates the products their selling with fun easy to read content. What conclusions can we draw from Whole Foods content calendar? If you don’t have enough blog content to supplement your social media messages, curate it from other sources.  Whole Foods doesn’t publish a ton of blog content throughout the month so to supplement some of its social media posts it will scrape content from other related blogs, news sources and even their own customers. Try publishing themed content. One thing that Whole Foods does well is post themed content. Whether that be new Halloween recipes or ways to used seasoned fruits and vegetables Whole Foods finds a way to make their content timely and themed. Don’t publish blog content just to fill your content calendar. If you’re experiencing gaps in your content calendar don’t randomly publish blog content trying to fill it in. Your blog content should always be strategically written. Takeaway: Everything that Whole Foods publishes is high-quality content that their audience cares about. They might do well to publish a little more but you don’t have to have a publishing schedule like Red Bull to be successful. BMW BMW is a world-renowned luxury vehicle maker. Their designs are timeless, classic, and out of reach for many pocket books. Their content marketing strategy however, is not. What conclusions can we draw from BMW content calendar? Use your blog to show behind the scenes stuff about your product.  People love seeing what makes a product tick. Use your blog to show them information that they may not get by seeing advertisements or use cases of your product. If you sell an expensive product, use social media to reinforce your brand not make a direct sale. People know who BMW is and how it makes them feel. Their product is out of reach for many of their audience members meaning that a link to a dealership in a post probably isn’t going to result in a sale. If your product has a pretty hefty price tag use your social media to reinforce the luxury idea of your brand. Make people feel like they’re part of the community.  BMW is great at making their audience feel included when they buy their product. They’re not just purchasing a car, they’re also becoming part of a community. Takeaway: If your product is a hard direct sell, create content that caters to your audience’s aspirations. Take a look at BMW's content and social media publishing schedule.Concordia College Concordia College is a small liberal arts college in Moorhead, Minnesota. Like many colleges Concordia keeps and active blog and social media presence to attract prospective students. What conclusions can we draw from Concordia’s content calendar? Reshare your blog content.  Concordia shares one blog post  multiple times on one social media channel. This can help ensure that as many people see your content as possible. Let current customers tell your story. Concordia uses their content to show potential student see what it would look like if they were to attend the college. Word of mouth is more powerful than what you could say about yourself as a brand. Once you’ve publish your content respond to what people have to say. Your content publishing schedule is not complete once it’s live. You need to be able to continue that conversation about your content with your audience. Find out what they think and take the time to show them that you care about what they have to say. Takeaway: Reinforce the idea that your organization creates a community. Take a look at Concordia College's content and social media publishing schedule.How Can You Build Your Own Calendar Like a Leading Brand? You’ve seen seven  different examples. The next step in your process is to create a content publishing schedule and a social media promotion schedule. So how do you do that? Step One: Figure Out Content Types and Publishing Schedule The very first step in developing your content calendar is deciding what types content you’re going to be publishing. Some common options are: Blog Posts E-Books Landing pages Podcasts Videos Social media posts Email newsletters There’s no limit to the types of content that your team can publish but remember to start small and grow into more types later down the road. Once you’ve decided what types of content you’re going to publish, you need to decide how often you’re going publish each type of content. For example it could look something like: Publish two blog posts a week. Publish one podcast a week. Publish one e-book each quarter. The publishing schedule that your company decides on can grow or shrink depending on For every content piece you publish you should include the following information in your content calendar: The date it publishes. The topic it covers. The content format you’ll create. In your content calendar template it would look something like this:

Beazer Homes Case

Investors were lead to believe that the company financials were healthier than they actually were, as evidenced by the changes noted when the financial statements had to be restated. As a result of doing this, investors who were under the impression of a healthier position, continued to invest in an organization that was essentially doing nothing more than stealing their money; money which could have been invested into a different enterprise rather than padding the pockets of executives that didnt earn it. As a result of having to restate financial statements, the per share price of Beazer Homes dropped from the $35/share price level in may, to approximately $11/share by the end of July. This is a significant loss in wealth for investors. In addition to the allegations against Mr. Rand for possible accounting fraud, allegations were also brought against Beazer Homes for mortgage fraud. To address the question as to which is a more serious offense, it would be our opinion that both would carry an equal weight of seriousness. On the one hand, investors were misled, as noted above, and this led to a significant loss of wealth for many, especially those individuals and/or institutions that may have held a large position. On the other hand, to address the issue of mortgage fraud, new homeowners were oftentimes cheated out of money that they paid to Beazer Homes. A example of this is when Beazer Homes would require purchasers to pay a fee for interest discount points at closing. Then Beazer Homes would keep the cash received and not lower the interest rate. This is just one example, but it can be an extremely costly one when you look at how much a . 25 percent or . 5 percent reduction in an interest rate can be over the life of a 20 or 30 year fixed rate mortgage; thats if Beazer Homes wasnt trying to convince people that an adjustable rate or hybrid mortgage would be better for their situation. Additionally, Beazer Homes ignored income requirements when making loans to unqualified purchasers, which not only put the purchaser in jeopardy of having the income needed to make their ayments, but in the event of default or foreclosure, it can have a significant impact on the home values of the neighborhood. As a result of these legal issues with Beazer Homes, the SEC issued a notice to the Beazer Homes CEO called the Wells notice. The Wells notice was created under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which states that if a firm has to restate their financial statements, the SEC can require the CEO and CFO to return any and all bonuses that were received during the period of restated financial statements. Additionally, the CEO and CFO do not need to have any knowledge of errors. The SEC issued the Wells notice to the Beazer Homes CEO, Ian J. McCarthy, on 13 November 2009, indicating that the SEC would be brining a civil case against him to collect incentive compensation. In the notice issued to the CEO, there was no indication or allegations of cover-up, or misconduct, on the part of Mr. McCarthy with respect to the financial statements or other disclosures that were published during the period in question.