Construction Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Construction Practice - Essay Example In different types of procurements, the level of risk that the owner has to bear also differs. The control of the owner over the entire project also differs with the change in the method of procurement. Considering the nature of the project and the specific requirements of the owner with, I would suggest the traditional method of procurement for the purpose of constructing the specified things in the old building as well as for the parking lot on the nearby plot. The traditional form of procurement involves the appointment of a separate design team direct by the client. The team will develop the design in accordance with the client's design brief, arrange for a tender and subsequently administer the contract on site. The design and all the specifications should be completed in all aspects before the tenders from contractors are invited so that the owner can exactly understand the design and could make the desired changes as per the needs. The designer, who is specialised in the designs of architectural conservation and adaptive reuse of buildings, shall be able to comprehend the design exercise in a better manner and would there fore be able to provide appropriate design solutions that suit the structural requirements as well as the taste of the existing building. Adaptive reuse of a building requires specialised knowledge and there fore proper solution could only be achieved by appropriate designer. Since the owner has specific design requirements for the parking lot in terms of its architectural character with reference to the old building, I also suggest that the building to be designed by a specified designer so that the owner can exercise greater control over the process of design in order to achieve the desired result. For the construction purpose, a separate contractor can employed by the owner by being in consultation with the architect, to execute the design work which is normally under a standard joint contracts tribunal form of contract. Therefore in this case, the contractor and the design team shall be two separate bodies that are hired by the owner, both of them responsible to the owner. Here it is expected that the contractor exactly follows the instructions of the architect and in other words it can also be said that the architect is acting on the client's behalf to get the job completed effectively. The contractor quotes a lump sum amount for which he agrees to carry out the entire job. This also gives the client a control over the total budget of the project because once the quote is finalised, the contractor assumes the total risk of financial expenditures that are incurred during the construction part. In case of other methods of procurement like 'design and build', he would have lesser control over the design part of the building because both the duties of designing and building are been performed by a single team. Also there are fewer chances that the design team, responsible for carrying out the design for newer developments, have good knowledge of redevelopment in terms of the structure and the architectural styles of the old buildings. Since there is no division of responsibilities for designing and construction on the site, it shall be comparatively challenging for the client to achieve the de

Management Principles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Management Principles - Essay Example This report identifies the advantages and disadvantages of the lifetime employment model and offers lessons for today’s managers who are still considering using this lifetime employment system. When employees are given lifetime employment guarantees, the business must consider its responsibilities in terms of the law. Gibson and Piscitelli (1997) offer that business leaders must be careful about certain statements which are made which can be interpreted by employees to mean that their jobs will always be secure. In one large, multi-national business environment, a business manager, in passing workplace discussion, told his employee that â€Å"we will retire together†. This statement was made in an environment where no such lifetime employment guarantees were part of the business model, however the employee was able to convince the legal system that a lifetime employment contract was implied, thus imposing significant consequences for the business. Even though this was not a business where lifetime employment was being offered to employees, it tends to illustrate the importance of considering the legal responsibilities of these agreements. Repa and Stewart (1999) offer that the largest legal risk is when employees begin to perceive that contracts exist between themselves and the business entity, thus the creation of an implied contract becomes grounds for legal disputes. In a business where lifetime employment is part of the business model, companies must consider the risks of these types of agreements as employees have considerable legal resources available in the event that employees perceive breaches of these contracts, whether implied or based on written employee contracts. The business must also consider that, when offering lifetime employment guarantees, the current marketplace or economic conditions will not always, in the future, be favourable

Jazz and the influence it had on the 1920's Research Paper

Jazz and the influence it had on the 1920's - Research Paper Example Jazz originated in the 20th century in the communities of the African American in the South America. It is an amalgamation of African and European music (Kirchner, Bill 2005). Jazz is a piece of music which is difficult to define and there have been many attempts to define jazz by the help of other musical pieces. One solution to this is to define jazz more broadly and hence, Berendit defines jazz as one form of art which originated in the America through the confrontation of blacks with European music. He further argues that jazz has a special relationship to time, which is defined as 'swing’ (E, Joachim and Berendit.1981). The 1920’s is commonly referred to as the jazz age but was also an age of contradiction because there was prosperity on one hand and isolation on the other hand. As already mentioned, Jazz is a term which is difficult to define but yet there are many definitions of it. J A Rogers defines it as â€Å"A joyous revolt from convention, custom, authorit y, boredom, even sorrow from everything that would confine the soul of man and hinder its riding free on the air† (Rogers, J.A 1925).... New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz and Chicago and the Midwest were the home of recorded jazz until the late 1920s (Phillips, Damon J and Owen, David A. 2004). Jazz has always been a utilitarian music that is it is intended mostly for dancing. King Oliver’s jazz band, one of the excellent jazz bands’ recorded 40 title in the year 1923. The Jean Goldkette orchestra of 1927 which featured Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke was relegated to recording a mostly dreary group of pop songs. The great jazz numbers arranged by Bill Challis were unreleased by Victor Records which considered them commercially unacceptable. The period from 1929 to 1940 is when most of the jazz standards were originated. During this era, there were many great and excellent song writers who contributed for Broadway shows, for example, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorentz hart, Irving Berlin and Walter Dinaldson. Most of the historians agree that jazz began just prior to the turn of the twentieth century, and the most likely birthplace of this great piece of music was the city of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans is on the Mississippi River, the major waterway from the southern to northern United States which made it a conduit for music of all types, especially ragtime from Missouri and the blues from Mississippi. A person could hear a brass band playing ragtime, string trios playing popular ballads, the street musicians singing the blues and early jazz bands playing all of these things. The first Blues number, which was written as a popular song was the ‘Dallas Blues’. Tunes with the word Blues became very popular from then onwards. The decade of the 1920s was marked by huge advances in the

Managing&Leading Change Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managing&Leading Change - Assignment Example The significance of the specific article can be identified in the fact that both the literature and the empirical research have been employed in order to prove the interaction between theory and practice in the case of change management. The authors have used the concepts of change management theory along with the views of postgraduate students – currently managers – who have studied change management and had to apply theory in practice. The specific study can be therefore characterized as quite effective addressing the entire key issues using appropriate theories and empirical data; its potential use by teachers in the change management field could be considered to be one of its distinctive advantages. As in any study, weak points also exist – as analyzed below. However, they cannot be considered as having a major influence on the study’s effectiveness in the change management sector. The structure of the specific study is clear; it is also aligned with its priorities – as set by the authors. The views of the literature are presented in the first section of the study which is clearly distinguished by its second part – under the title ‘study approach’. Despite the fact that material within the study is appropriately placed - the concepts highlighted are valuable, still there is a significant weakness: the analysis of the literature presented in the first section is limited – in fact in the first section the views of the authors on the issues mentioned in the literature cannot be identified. The views of theorists are just placed one after another with no analysis of the content. In this way the interpretation of the definitions and the concepts presented in the literature section is not available to the reader of the specific article; it could be assumed that the reader is offered the chance to make his own assumptions on the mater ial presented in the literature section – especially after studying the findings of the empirical research presented in the second part of the article.  Ã‚  

Examine the treatment of children and infant mortality from victorian Essay

Examine the treatment of children and infant mortality from victorian writers with special reference to Charles Kingsleys water babies and Thomas Hardys poem To an unborn pauper child - Essay Example In fact this period is also a time when infant mortality was high and the threat of mortality facing infants was 30 times worse compared to what it is today (Garrett, 2006, p.253). Carroll captures this nature of parenting explicitly through fairy tale world known as Wonderland. In the fiction, the characters of authority are shown to be funny and rather absurd at times. The paper undertakes the treatment of children and infant mortality by Victorian authors like Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hardy. Carroll’s work is still published as a children’s classic collection and loved by young and adults alike. Lear, a rival of Carroll also published his limericks, which criticizes the social code of behavior in the Victorian society. Like Carroll, Lear also puts forth certain inevitable violent ends of the characters. The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland keeps on reminding the reader that it will be prone to losing its head if he is late to arrive at the Duchess’. (Charney, 2005, p.284) This also reveals the inevitability of social codes and none of the writers could escape that. The Duchess symbolize a typical strict parent of the Victorian age as she tosses her baby pig up into the air and sings the following lullaby to her son, ending every line with a rough shake to the baby: â€Å"Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases† (Carroll, n.d., p.44). This is also a parody to the p oem of Bates â€Å"Speak Gently†. The story also shows the coming of age of the child Alice, as she tends to forget her nursery poems and finds the characters conversing in a language unknown to her. This introduces her to a whole new world when she resides at the crossing stage from childhood to adolescence. Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies is a fairy tale, which condemns child

Technology in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Essay

Technology in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Essay Example superior to the technologically and intellectually inferior people of the medieval society he wakes up in at the beginning of the story, but in the end the technology that Morgan brings does not have the lasting impact that he had desired: â€Å"Hank Morgan wants to dominate the past with sure-fire knowledge from the future, but all he achieves is a record of events that have no historical consequence† (Mitchell 231). While Twain is critical of the medieval society that doesn’t encourage thinking, he is equally as of critical of many of the modern conventions and technological advances that Morgan brings to the court. One of the first things that Hank considered to be of utmost importance was the newspaper. News used to only travel by messengers and through people talking to each other. Messengers could only reach a limited number of people, and news that traveled from person to person could be highly inaccurate. Newspapers could solve these problems by reaching a large number of people and by remaining the same story as told to everybody, and this was the reason that Hank started the newspaper as one of his first programs. This was the important aspect of information technology that Hank felt he was bringing to King Arthur’s court: â€Å"A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, but no matter, it’s hark from the tomb the tomb for a dead nation without it, and don’ you forget it† (78). When considered on its own merits, the newspaper is an effective tool to communicate information to a large number of people. Twain seems to take issue with other aspects of the wa y that the information is communicated. Beyond merely teaching the medieval society about using the printed word as a means of mass communication, he also taught them how to use a journalistic tone in their writing: â€Å"That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence; you are a first-rate newspaper man† (Twain 458). The journalistic tone is meant to be a succinct form of

Journal Assignments Essay Example for Free

Journal Assignments Essay Topic 1 The Critical Role that Parents played in the learning and social development of Children with Disabilities The reading on this particular topic is concern about the critical role of parents towards the education of children with disabilities. The author cited that in the past and even today, parents have been blamed by teachers and professionals for their children’s learning and social problems claiming that parents are responsible towards their children’s development. In the particular research regarding the role of parents with their children with learning and social disabilities, the author cited that parents are not entirely to blame for their children’s learning and social disabilities.    Instead the author pointed out the neurological organization theory which had placed all the burdens to parents regarding their children’s learning and social problem (p. 109). This line of reasoning is challenging because most of us are used to the idea that parents are responsible for their children. Nevertheless, I would agree with the author that parents are not to blame completely especially in the context of what the author calls â€Å"reciprocal effects† wherein researchers have found that some babies, especially those with disabilities, â€Å"are born with difficult temperaments, which can influence how their parents respond to them† (p. 110). For me this is interesting because it shows how parents care for their children. It is also interesting to note that the government is doing its part in order to insure that children with disabilities are given necessary attention and care so that as they grow they will realize that despite of their disabilities they are part of the normal society. Indeed play a critical role in helping meet the needs of children with disabilities. With the enactment of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the author cited the teachers and professionals are now cooperating closely with parents as this law provides parents opportu nities to participate in activities relating to forming curriculum for their children’s learning and social development. New Learning and relevance What I have learn from this reading is that parents with children with learning and social disabilities should not be ashamed to bring them into the society as there are a lot of opportunities awaiting them. Many parents having this problem would not dare to admit their child has learning disability. But the lesson that could be drawn here is that they should not be ashamed to admit this reality, instead recognized their child’s need for special attention, special care, and special education which could be provided to them by the government through the help of special education teachers. This learning is relevant to my work with children with learning disabilities as it helped me realized my responsibility towards these special children. Topic 2 Prevention of Learning Disabilities Discussion Can learning disability be prevented? What is this all about? At first glance on the first question, this seemed impossible as we do not know the new born child will have learning and social disabilities when he or she grows up. Besides, I am used to the fact that most of the programs for children with disability are concerned about correcting if not merely to comply with the provision of No Child Left behind Act, as this law provides that all children including those with disabilities have an access to quality education. But before going into detail, let’s answer the second question. There are three types of learning disabilities prevention namely: the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary prevention. Primary prevention is concern about keeping the disability from occurring. This could be done by reducing the chances of brain injury, by improving teacher’s skills particularly in behavior management, and by providing parents necessary child-rearing skills. To achieve this goal, utmost care and protection is needed against potential causes such the one mentioned earlier. As per the reading is concern, secondary education assumes the responsibility of correcting disability after it occurs. These include keeping the disability from getting worse which could be facilitated by remedial instructions that could be provided by special education teachers.   That means that there should be close cooperation between parents and special education teachers on how their children’s disability can be corrected. The tertiary prevention which is already a higher concern goes beyond correction. It is â€Å"keeping the effects of disability from spreading to other areas of functioning† (p. 144). New learning and relevance Based on the discussion above learning disabilities are possible to occur but it can be prevented by reducing the chances of its occurrence such as brain injury, or any type of accidents during pregnancy. Learning disability can also be corrected. What is needed is utmost care, sincere effort to provide love and affection for children with disabilities, and commitment to teaching them. For, what is new here is the idea that learning disability can be prevented and corrected. My concept regarding special education for children with learning disability is to provide them education using the most appropriate instruction in order for them to be at par with normal students. I just realized that it is possible that the goal for this type of education is for corrective purpose. Given this, notion, I can develop this idea further to provide a more meaningful programs using the knowledge I just gained. Topic 3 Technology assisted instruction for Children with Disabilities Discussion What is this topic all about? The idea of technology assisted instruction for children with disabilities seemed odd because these children need somebody whom they can hold, can communicate with them, and somebody who will show them affection. But today, according to experiments computer assisted instruction or CAI is an instructional task option â€Å"that can be used with good results for teaching preacademic or basic academic skills.† Findings on the use of computer assisted instruction for children with early childhood learning impairment (ECLI) reveals that CAI can be a good tool towards the promotion of skills generalization and for motivating students to participate in the study. According to the reading, children enjoyed interaction and the control they had with the computer. It also facilitates teacher and students interaction through the items in the display which serve as an instant visual aid. In general, researchers in this type of instruction listed quite a number of benefits on the use of CAI both for teachers and students. New Learning and relevance Given this development, this study is certainly interesting and relevant because of the current trend in the use of technology almost in every realm from communication to identification, and now for learning instructions. Of course this is not really surprising given the trend of using technology, but what is surprising for me is the success that it has contributed to teaching/learning situation of early childhood learning impaired students. This is something new as we are used to see this job done by a real person skilled in teaching special education to children with learning disability. Given this findings, those who are computer literate will surely feel comfortable because they can further enhance the benefit of using their computer. In my case I can use this knowledge by creating programs in the computer that could further enhance the learning process. This is exactly the reason why I chose this topic being computer proficient my self.