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According to IBM’s “2014 Cyber SecurityIntelligence Index” 95 percent of all securityincidents involve human error. A lot of the security incidents are dueto social engineering. Examples of this arehumans clicking on links (phishing), openingunknown attachments or entering personalor confidential information into a seeminglyfriendly and familiar account.

Social engineering is a technique used byhackers and intruders to access data orother critical information. This techniquetakes advantage of the weakest link in theinformation security, the humans. Usingthe trusting nature of humans the hackeror intruder gain access to data or a se-cure building. Either by a phishing email ortailgating someone inside the secure building. ”Social engineering is essentially the artof gaining access to buildings, systems ordata by exploiting human psychology, ratherthan by breaking in or using normal hackingtechniques”.

No matter how much security your organiza-tion have, social engineering will always be athreat. This is due to the human’s mind andhow we always want to trust others. Oneway to describe us would be naive, especiallyus Norwegians who in 2009 were named themost naive in Europe by a survey funded bythe European Commission. Only 10 percentare considered to be in general “skeptical” ofother people.

Chris Nickerson is a consultant who performs1red team testing for his clients using socialengineering techniques. In one of his tests hebought a Cisco shirt and tried to tailgate hisway in. When he came to the building hejust asked one of the smoking employees tohold the door for him and posed as a Ciscotechnician. He got full access to the buildingand even managed to get his team inside. This is just an example showing how easy itis to play someones naivety and willingnessto trust other people. Therefore it is important to educateyour employees on social engineering tomake sure they are aware of the differenttechniques that can be used and the dangersthese techniques can lead to. Social engi-neering will continue to grow and change upit’s approach and discover techniques thatwork better, this means that updating youremployees on the dangers and techniques ofsocial engineering regularly is essential.

Luckily there are techniques that helpmitigating the dangers of social engineeringsomewhat. To mitigate the danger we haveto eliminate the dependency on human intel-ligence. One way to do this is a technologycalled Remote Browser Isolation. Remotebrowser isolation isolates the users webbrowsing activity away from the endpointdevice, thus excluding most of the browserrelated attacks such as phishing whileensuring accessibility and productivity.

Humans in general are way to trusting, evenwhen they know they work at a facility wheresecurity is of the utmost importance. Consul-tants like Chris Nickerson prove how easy itis to use social engineering, and thus makingtheir clients more aware of the possible dan-gers and exploits. We have also seen that byusing Remote Browser Isolation we can avoidsome of the human error by isolating activityaway from the endpoint device.

Table of contents

1. Key Points and Detail of the Study
Study CritiqueNext Step and Implications

The world-spread epidemic of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV) infection and a huge number of deaths and financial loss it causes every year remains it to be a major public health issue. The distribution of infections around the world is largely differentiated, with more than 80% of 36.7 million people currently living with HIV and more than two-thirds of 1.8 million newly infected people coming from Sub-Saharan Africa in 20161. Notably, more than half of the currently-infected are female, and women aging 15 to 24 years old in this area had an up to eight folds higher rates of HIV-1 incidence of infection and an up to 3.3 folds higher prevalence of HIV compared with their male counterparts.1 This indicates that women, especially young women, are much more vulnerable and susceptible to the HIV-1 acquisition; effective prevention strategies targeted on them are desperately needed.

Limitations of present prevention strategies call for more effective ways to curb the transmission speed in generalized epidemic religion. Condom use depends largely on if women have the negotiation power with their male partners about using it. The percentage of using condoms to prevent HIV infection is found to be much lower in regular partnerships than that in commercial sex workers2. One common situation in regular partnerships in South Africa is that in order to sustain emotional and material support from male partners, a young girl will not obey their partners’ willingness and choose not to use a condom or other prevention measure even if knowing the existence of risk3. Therefore, high coverage of free condom distribution does not guarantee a high frequency of use in a defined situation due to a combination of social and personal reasons. Voluntary testing, which proved to be effective in informing people of their infection status, also gained less-than-expected support by local people because of discrimination and fear towards the disease2. Another example is male circumcision. In many countries in Africa, poor sanitation condition and scarce medical resources make it inaccessible to normal people male circumcision so the achievement of proposed HIV prevention effect is unavailable. Barriers to realistic situation propel medical and public health workers to think about more direct and effective options.

Both oral pre-exposure prophylaxis and vaginal microbicides have become new candidates in clinical trials in the late decades. Oral prophylaxis has been found to be able to reduce the hazard of HIV-1 infection by 50% or more among several groups, including a man having sex with a man, drug users and heterosexual men and women in different areas in the world4. However, subsequent trials of some pre-exposure prophylaxis, including oral pills and vaginal gel, showed no evidence of preventing HIV-1 type acquisition in intervention groups compared with placebo groups1, 4. These trials required the subjects to take the pills on a daily basis or apply the gel each time before the coitus during the whole follow-up period, usually lasting for over 2 years. Under such onerous rules, it is understandable that the percentage of participants who can insist on the principles would decrease over time. Low adherence of participants was the main reason why some trials were interrupted, and also the primary barrier in accurately assessing the efficacy of the intervention4; the willingness of applying vaginal gel or taking oral pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs was inconsistent before and after initiation of the study. These indicate that even though gel or oral pre-exposure drugs have the potential to protect women from acquiring the HIV-1 infection, their daily use and coitus-dependent requirements largely restrict their impact among African sex-active and reproductive women. Consequently, a more convenient and acceptable product of pre-exposure prophylaxis is still scarce and needed.

Based on the enlightenment of previous trials, vaginal ring was selected as an optimal carrier for HIV-1 prevention drugs as it can be used in an easy and non-coitus dependent way. Once the ring is placed on the vagina, it does not need to be adaptor administered within a month, and it does not disturb coitus and cause no uncomfortable feelings to the users. These characters endow the ring the potential to perform a higher adherence in subjects. It became a promising candidate in clinical trials rapidly.

Outcomes of phase I and phase II clinical trials have shown that intravaginal rings can deliver dapivirine to the vaginal area for one month at concentrations over EC50(the concentration of a drug that gives a half-maximal response) for the HIV-1 type. There are no adverse events confirmed or possible to be related to the ring, which indicates it was safe and well tolerated in healthy HIV-negative women5. Basic pharmacokinetics of dapivirine, which is a non-nucleoside HIV-1 reverse-transcriptase inhibitor, was also clarified. This helps us judge if one person has used the ring as instructions by plasma concentration of dapivirine and residual amount in the returned ring. In addition, in vivo experiment, dapivirine was proved to be effective in protecting issues from acquiring HIV-1 infection6. These earlier trials support further development and research on dapivirine vaginal rings for pre-exposure prophylaxis in healthy women. Therefore, whether the ring can still work in phase 3, randomized, double-blind trials are of great importance to its final application in its targeted population. All of the results listed above made good preparations for the study and after receiving the financial support from the foundation, the trial was initiated.

Key Points and Detail of the Study

When it comes to the detail of the study, investigators enrolled over 2600 women aging 18 to 45 in 4 high incidences of HIV infection African countries. Subjects were divided into intervention and placebo group by block randomization and followed-up for over 30 months. The vaginal ring containing dapivirine was placed and was expected to remain for a whole month. A new ring would be distributed after the monthly visit and the used ring would be collected to be tested on the residual amount of dapivirine to assess if the ring was used continuously in the past month. Another method to evaluate the adherence is to test if the plasma level of dapivirine of subjects reached some threshold value. The primary ending point is the infection of the HIV-1 virus.

Based on the person-years of each participant before ending or withdrawn points, Cox regression was used to analysis if there was any difference between groups in the probability of acquiring an infection during the nearly 3-year follow-up period. The hazard ratio between the groups was estimated and further analysis in the subgroups of age was conducted. There were two analysis patterns: one included all the data from the 15 sites and another abandoned data gathered in two of the 15 sites due to low adherence rate. According to the data from all sites, women in the intervention group had 27% (95%CI: 1%-46%, P=0.046) lower incidence rate of HIV-1 acquisition than that in the placebo group; this figure becomes 37%( 95%CI: 12%-56%, P=0.007) in analysis excluding 2 low-adherent sites. Among different age groups, women aging 21 years old or over were observed having much better prevention effectiveness than younger females with a hazard ratio of 0.44(95%CI: 0.29-0.69, P<0.001) compared with 1.27(95%CI: 0.69-2.33, P=0.45) in the younger group.

Generally, the study results reveal that the dapivirine vaginal ring was safe and acceptable by most participants; it was effective in protecting seronegative, sexually active women from being infected by HIV-1 in high prevalence areas. The effectiveness of prevention effect increased with the adherence and retention rate increasing. Besides, lacking protection in young women below 21 may be the result of both biological and behavioral characteristic, which needs to be further clarified.

Study Critique

The study has its strengths and limitations. Randomization created a balanced distribution of characters that may be related to trial in both groups, making the results in two groups comparable; double-blind design reduced bias from both subjects and investigators due to knowing experiment status, as participants usually behave differently from what they are if knowing their true status, and investigator would tend to conduct the trial in a way that deduces positive results. Besides, Participants are the most vulnerable population for potential HIV-1 infection and they are from nearly the most prevalent area, which constitutes the very same background as the future application setting of the vaginal ring. Consequently, the results here are very informative in helping us to accurately assess the very true potential performance of the intervention. Furthermore, the whole process of the study was conducted in an organized and restricted way so the data quality can be regarded as high and reliable. Researchers used two methods to confirm adherence of subjects, the residual amount in the returned ring and the plasma concentration of papaverine. They also compared the separate result of the two methods with the combinative result of them about adherence to examine the consistency, making sure the legitimacy of the chosen ways. In addition, 4 weeks after the last visit, subjects were required to finish a final questionnaire to test if they are HIV-1 positive, considering the delay of the seroconversion. This step avoided the underestimation of a number of infection. These design and details make the study a rational and reasonable one.

On the other hand, some limitations in designing and conducting were observed in this study. The authors mentioned that the primary objective of the study is to investigate the efficacy and safety of the ring, however, the subjects were also receiving routine HIV-1 prevention package during the follow-up time. This may mask the effect of the intervention if the degree of using the normal protection services was different between the two groups, which means the observed protective effect may be due to less frequent use of normal services in the placebo group or more use of them in the dapivirine group. The minimum plasma concentration of papaverine is 95pg per milliliter for acknowledging the continuous use of the ring during the month, however, this level can be reached even though the users use the ring for only 8 hours. The possibility of removing the ring during the month or during coitus period still exists. As a result, the adherence of the subjects may be overestimated. Besides, there was a discrepancy in some samples in results of the two methods, with low plasma dapivirine levels and low residual amount at the same time or high plasma levels and high residual amount of dapivirine simultaneously. This indicates that either the subjects pretend to be adherent or the methods used to evaluate adherence are not sensitive and reliable enough. Besides, according to the description, women were instructed how to insert and extract the ring, so the position and angle of the ring in the vagina may very possibly vary due to lack standardization. Some participants may place the ring wrongly, or violently insert or removing as to damage the tract, which would undermine the effectiveness of the ring and can increase the risk of being infected. This can distort the overall assessment of the intervention if the percentage of participants who do not know how to correctly apply the ring is different between the two groups. Finally, the statistical results of the study were not adequately convincing. The P value in survival analysis in 15 sites is 0.045, just below the threshold of a statistically significant value. The lower limit of 95% confidence interval is 1%, which means the true population hazard decline in intervention group can be very low. Even though the figure from only 13 sites was more satisfied, randomized trial tends to value more on “intention-to-treat” analysis result. Considering the trial has emerged sufficient numbers of new infection to satisfy the statistics power requirements7, the little tricky P value undermines the degree of the efficacy of the intervention.

The biggest innovation of the trial comes from the type of the intervention, a continuously drug-releasing non-coitus dependent vaginal ring. Considering the strength and limitations of the study, we can summarize that the study involves a few selection and information bias and confounding; the positive result is unlikely to be given by chance. With restricting implementation of the protocol, reliable data, careful analysis, and cautious interpretation, the final conclusion of the study was justified.

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Next Step and Implications

Based on the outcome of the study, there are several questions worthy of being further explored. The primary one is to investigate if the dapivirine ring can protect young women when the adherence becomes satisfied. Then we will know if lacking protection effect in young women is due to low adherence or the intervention lacking influence in this age group, which can guide us to find the right direction in trying to apply the vaginal ring better in them. The vaginal ring containing antivirus drugs is not only more user-friendly, lasting and non-coitus dependent, but also has a lower requirement in its transportation and storage than other pre-exposure prophylaxis microbicides like oral tenofovir and tenofovir gel7, which are great disadvantages when considering its application. Together with the positive result of the study, another further step can be comparing the cost-effectiveness of currently available pre-exposure prophylaxis microbicides to assess its practical use potential. This measure becomes critical in achieving the defined value of the ring as many low-income countries cannot afford to provide enough coverage for the targeted population of antivirus intervention. Targeted population of the vaginal ring is sexually active females aging 18 to 45 years old in Africa. However, the need to prevent HIV-1 infection is only one of the health needs of these people. Avoiding unplanned pregnancy, preventing and treating other sexually transmitted diseases infection are more relevant considerations. Further development with the ring could think about making the ring carry more than one drugs, so a comprehensive effect of contraceptives and disease prevention can be achieved simultaneously.

Table of contents

1. Burning of Fossil Fuels
2. Land Use and Land Cover Change
3. Consequences That Occur When Human Actions Interact With the Carbon Cycle
AtmosphereOceanLand
4. Works Cited

Carbon is critical to sustain a huge range of Earth’s functions. It is abundant in the atmosphere (air), biosphere (living and dead organisms), hydrosphere (oceans, rivers, and lakes), and lithosphere (soli and rocks). These act as storage areas or reservoirs of carbon. Processes such as erosion, evaporation, photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition constantly move carbon between these reservoirs. Carbon enters, is stored, and leaves the different spheres of the Earth through different methods, and in different quantities. The carbon cycle is the term used to describe the ways in which carbon moves between them.

The flow of carbon is now strongly influenced by human activity. The most important human impact on the carbon cycle is the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.

Burning of Fossil Fuels

Under natural conditions the release of carbon from fossil fuels occurs slowly, as they are subducted into the mantle, and CO2 is released through volcanic activity. However, humans are heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and extract it from the lithosphere in great quantities. Fossil fuels, which include petroleum, natural gas, and coal, are used in nearly every aspect of the global economy. Automobiles are the most visible example, but more carbon dioxide is actually produced by coal and natural gas plants which produce electricity for both industrial and residential use. Industrial agriculture also runs on fossil fuel energy. All artificial fertilizers are synthesized by a process which burns fossil fuels – usually natural gas. Burning coal, oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels removes the carbon from them and emits it as CO2 into the atmosphere.

Another important human impact lies in changing the Earth’s land covers such as clearing forests or abandoning agricultural areas – which can release or take up atmospheric CO2.

Land Use and Land Cover Change

Large amounts of carbon are stored in living plants. Therefore, land use changes, especially the clearance of forests (which are very densely inhabited by plants, and therefore contain a large amount of carbon), can influence the carbon cycle in two ways. Firstly, the removal of vegetation eliminates plants which would otherwise be capturing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, which is the process by which plants and some bacteria use the energy of sunlight to build carbohydrates out of carbon dioxide. Secondly, as dense forests are replaced by crops/pasture land/built environments, there is usually a net decrease in the carbon store, as smaller plants (and worse, concrete) store far less carbon than large trees. Deforestation also allows much more soil to be eroded, and carbon stored in the soil is rapidly taken into rivers. Though some areas have been set aside as wildlife preserves, far more are vulnerable to burning and clear-cutting for the purposes of timber harvest and the clearing of agricultural land.

Consequences That Occur When Human Actions Interact With the Carbon Cycle

Because of the cyclical nature of the carbon cycle, the impacts humans cause can lead to a number of amplifications and feedbacks. The changes in the carbon cycle impact each reservoir.

Atmosphere

All of this extra carbon needs to go somewhere. So far, land plants and the ocean have taken up about 55 percent of the extra carbon people have put into the atmosphere while about 45 percent has stayed in the atmosphere. Eventually, the land and oceans will take up most of the extra carbon dioxide, but as much as 20 percent may remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.

The main concern about increasing carbon dioxide levels comes from the fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide, methane, and halocarbons are greenhouse gases that absorb a wide range of energy—including infrared energy (heat) emitted by the Earth—and then re-emit it. The re-emitted energy travels out in all directions, but some returns to Earth, where it heats the surface. This is known as the greenhouse effect. The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, believes that humans are upsetting the carbon cycle enough to drastically change the global climate, with potentially huge consequences for biodiversity, agriculture, weather, and the overall health of every ecosystem on the planet.

Carbon dioxide molecules provide the initial greenhouse heating needed to maintain water vapor concentrations. When carbon dioxide concentrations drop, Earth cools, some water vapor falls out of the atmosphere, and the greenhouse warming caused by water vapor drops. Likewise, when carbon dioxide concentrations rise, air temperatures go up, and more water vapor evaporates into the atmosphere—which then amplifies greenhouse heating. Carbon dioxide is the gas that sets the temperature. Carbon dioxide controls the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and thus the size of the greenhouse effect. At the same time that greenhouse gases have been increasing, average global temperatures have risen 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880.

Ocean

About 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that people have put into the atmosphere has diffused into the ocean through the direct chemical exchange. Dissolving carbon dioxide in the ocean creates carbonic acid, which increases the acidity of the water. Or rather, a slightly alkaline ocean becomes a little less alkaline. Since 1750, the pH of the ocean’s surface has dropped by 0.1, a 30 percent change in acidity.

Ocean acidification affects marine organisms in two ways. First, carbonic acid reacts with carbonate ions in the water to form bicarbonate. However, those same carbonate ions are what shell-building animals like coral need to create calcium carbonate shells. With less carbonate available, the animals need to expend more energy to build their shells. As a result, the shells end up being thinner and more fragile.

Second, the more acidic water is, the better it dissolves calcium carbonate. In the long run, this reaction will allow the ocean to soak up excess carbon dioxide because more acidic water will dissolve more rock, release more carbonate ions, and increase the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. In the meantime, though, more acidic water will dissolve the carbonate shells of marine organisms, making them pitted and weak.

Warmer oceans—a product of the greenhouse effect—could also decrease the abundance of phytoplankton, which grow better in cool, nutrient-rich waters. This could limit the ocean’s ability to take carbon from the atmosphere through the fast carbon cycle.

Land

Plants on land have taken up approximately 25 percent of the carbon dioxide that humans have put into the atmosphere. The amount of carbon that plants take up varies greatly from year to year, but in general, the world’s plants have increased the amount of carbon dioxide they absorb since 1960. Only some of this increase occurred as a direct result of fossil fuel emissions.

With more atmospheric carbon dioxide available to convert to plant matter in photosynthesis, plants were able to grow more. This increased growth is referred to as carbon fertilization. There is a limit to how much carbon plants can take out of the atmosphere, and that limit varies from region to region. So far, it appears that carbon dioxide fertilization increases plant growth until the plant reaches a limit in the amount of water or nitrogen available.

The biggest changes in the land carbon cycle are likely to come because of climate change. Carbon dioxide increases temperatures, extending the growing season and increasing humidity. Both factors have led to some additional plant growth. However, warmer temperatures also stress plants. With a longer, warmer growing season, plants need more water to survive.

Dry, water-stressed plants are also more susceptible to fire and insects when growing seasons become longer. In the far north, where an increase in temperature has the greatest impact, the forests have already started to burn more, releasing carbon from the plants and the soil into the atmosphere. Tropical forests may also be extremely susceptible to drying. With less water, tropical trees slow their growth and take up less carbon, or die and release their stored carbon to the atmosphere.

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The warming caused by rising greenhouse gases may also “bake” the soil, accelerating the rate at which carbon seeps out in some places. This is of particular concern in the far north, where frozen soil—permafrost—is thawing. Permafrost contains rich deposits of carbon from plant matter that has accumulated for thousands of years because the cold slows decay. When the soil warms, the organic matter decays and carbon—in the form of methane and carbon dioxide—seeps into the atmosphere.

Works Cited

1. Friedlingstein, P., Jones, M. W., O'Sullivan, M., Andrew, R. M., Hauck, J., Olsen, A., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Sitch, S., Le Quéré, C., Bakker, D. C. E., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Anthoni, P., Barbero, L., Bastos, A., Bastrikov, V., ... & Stocker, B. D. (2019). Global carbon budget 2019. Earth System Science Data, 11(4), 1783-1838.
2. Ciais, P., Sabine, C., Bala, G., Bopp, L., Brovkin, V., Canadell, J., ... & Thornton, P. (2013). Carbon and other biogeochemical cycles. In Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 465-570). Cambridge University Press.
3. Canadell, J. G., Le Quéré, C., Raupach, M. R., Field, C. B., Buitenhuis, E. T., Ciais, P., ... & Young, O. (2007). Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(47), 18866-18870.
4. Le Quéré, C., Raupach, M. R., Canadell, J. G., Marland, G., Bopp, L., Ciais, P., ... & Peylin, P. (2009). Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geoscience, 2(12), 831-836.
5. Houghton, R. A., Hall, F., & Goetz, S. J. (2009). Importance of biomass in the global carbon cycle. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 114(G2).
6. Schimel, D. S., Stephens, B. B., & Fisher, J. B. (2015). Effect of increasing CO2 on the terrestrial carbon cycle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(2), 436-441.
7. Koven, C. D., Chambers, J. Q., Georgiou, K., Knox, R. G., Negron-Juarez, R., Riley, W. J., ... & Randerson, J. T. (2017). Controls on terrestrial carbon feedbacks by productivity versus turnover in the CMIP5 Earth system models. Biogeosciences, 14(9), 2333-2349.
8. IPCC. (2018). Summary for policymakers. In Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change.

A Cup Of Tea by Amy Ephron is a tragic romance.this story takes place in new York City. The Time Period of this story is between 1917 and 1918. this is a story of love and betrayal.

Rosemary fell is from a wealthy family that spoiled her.growing up in luxury and then marrying into wealth, Rosemary had to keep up an image of class and suffixation. Do to her way of life Rosemary never knew what life was really like, therefor she never knew what it was like to live without a man maintaining her. Philip Aslop was Rosemarys husband. He was a very wealthy man who owned his own business. Not only was he a wealthy man but an officer in the army. He was a very formal man with a very formal marriage arrangement.

Eleanor smith is poor. She also is very modest, she knows that to have somthing in life she must work harder then most, do to the life she was born into.working hard made her very down to earth and self-assured. being with Eleanor, philip Aslop would become a differint person. He would become very informal and open.

Rosemary, Elaeanor and Phillip all met for the first time when Rosemary saw Elaenor on the street and brought her home. Rosemary saw this as a chance to do something good for the sisiter hood of women. Right away when Phillip saw Eleanor he was captivated by her. After Rosmary helped Eleanor, Eleanor found a job making and selling hats. Eleanor aslo starting living at a bording house for young ladies. Phillip found out where she worked and lived and didn't hesitate to go after her. Little by little Eleanor feel in love with Phillip. When Phillip would go look for Eleanor he made her feel special like she was the only one. This feeling came to an abrupet end when she saw the wedding announcment of Phillip and Rosemary on the newspaper. Eleanor broke it off with Phillip not beacuase she was the other women, thid she knew all along, but because she folish for falling for a taken man.

Phillip, from the moment he met Eleanor he grew distant from Rosemary. Phillip recieved his oders and bumped up the wedding so he could go to war the next day. Phillip was confused with not having Eleanor, going to war, and his arrangment with Rosemary but with no choice in the matter he just went to war. While at war Eleanor found out she was pregnant. Eleanor moved into an apartment with her firend Josie beacuse they couldnt say who she was pregnant by. Both Josie and Eleanor would say that she was getting married to Josies brother who was off at war. Eleanor did not know this. when Rosemary was tolled about Phillip being MIA she was tolled he died but a body was never found. Rosemary refused to believe it and an unease Rosemary became irrational. Some time later Rleanor found out about Philli, she cried became sad but let it go and moved on. When Rosemary was at her worst and had hired a psychice to see if Phillip spirit was on the other side Phillip knocked on the door. It didn't take Phillip to long before he went to go see Eleanor. She was pushing her baby in a stroller when when Phillip got there. Right away he knew that the baby was his. Phillip couldn't be without Eleanor no longer. He tolled her to wait for him, that he would be back for good, that he would tell Rosemaryhe was leaving her. When Phillip arrived home he asked Rosemary to the bedroom and tolled her he was leaving to be with Eleanor. Rosemary couldn't take this news and went crazy telling him that if she could't have him no one would, and stabbed him in the throat. Phillip died and Rosemary went to prison. Eleanor who had made dinner for herself and her new man was left waiting. It was not until later she saw in the newspaper that Phillip was killed.

The author's purpose in writing this story was to show how in most elegant stories human nature is not that. Also that if the person is not honest and treturouse, love could be cruel and hurtful. She wants people to understand how beautifu; being in love is when there is no games betrail or lies.

The best aspect of this novel is heartbreak. Heartbrake makes this novel good because every one goes through it at least once in there life time. One example of heartbreak is when Eleanor finds out that Phillip died at war and she is left without the person she loves and her baby's father. Another example of heart break in this novel is when Phillipcame back from being in a pow camp to tell Rosemary he is leaving her for Eleanor and she kills him for it.

Okonkwo is a character in Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” who attempts to conform outwardly while questioning inwardly, although he definitely might not appear to be at first glance. Okonkwo’s inner conflict caused by the tensions of conformity and personal questioning add to the work by demonstrating that in any culture, there are customs which are not wholly accepted, proving, like human nature, no society is perfect and no rule goes unquestioned.

When Okonkwo adops the young boy Ikemefuna, Okonkwo becomes very fond of him. Inwardly, Okonkwo enjoys Ikemefuna’s manliness and his affect on his other son, Nwoye, as Nwoye looks up to Ikemefuna as a more masculine figure and Nwoye attempts to live up to Ikemefuna as a man, something Okonkwo can truly appreciate and openly take pride in. Okonkwo favors Ikemefuna, taking Ikemefuna on journeys with him. Outwardly, however, Okonkwo believes affection to be a weakness, and so shows none of this emotion. When the tribe orders they have decided to kill Ikemefuna after three years of him living with Okonkwo and his family, Okonkwo is conflicted. He truly cares for Ikemefuna, but joins the party which carries out his killing out of feeling the self-induced pressure of conformity to promote his own success and the success of the tribe. When a party member strikes the first blow and Ikemefuna calls out ‘father they are killing me’ Okonkwo immediately jumps in and finishes Ikemefuna off with his machete, terrified of being seen as weak.

While it appears in the moment Okonkwo wholeheartedly agreed with the elders decision, afterwards, Okonkwo can't eat or sleep for nearly three days. He is bedridden, his eyes are red, presumably from crying and dealing with intense emotional repercussions of his actions. Outwardly Okonkwo eagerly conforms to the tribes wishes, even too enthusiastically. Debating with his friend Obierika reveals Okonkwo's inner questioning hidden by his swift, outward conformity. Eager to showcase his strength out of fear of inadequacy, Okonkwo questions why Obierika was not in the killing party. Obierika tells Okonkwo he simply didn't want to, and counters by telling Okonkwo “If the spirits had ordered my son be killed, I would not have disobeyed, but I would not have done it myself either.” (57). Despite having a strong, masculine, wrestler of a son and a strong suitor for his daughter, (a very outwardly conformist and successful family) Obierika also later questions why Okonkwo the tribe ordered be banished for seven years for an accident which was out of Okonkwo’s control, in much the same vein as Okonkwo painfully inwardly questions why he had to be the one to strike the blow.

This prompts an inner questioning of not necessarily just the spirit’s wisdom or tribe’s wisdom, but why it had to be done, and what makes the spirits so wise. These two instances of questioning by Obierika and Okonkwo prove that Okonkwo’s questioning has found traction and part of the reason ‘things fall apart’ in the tribe was the steep traditions in place were not beyond questioning, because these traditions are not wholly explained and logically agreed upon in a way that appeared fair. While the killing of Ikemefuna is carried out according to a tribal runling, the supposedly absolute decision left room for ambiguity in the form of what action Okonkwo should take, and thus his own imperfect actions left him questioning the imperfections of the decision and his society as a whole. The ruinous masculinity that compels Okonkwo to commit the act is also a product of such an imperfect society as well as Okonkwo’s own inferiority complex, stemming from his father’s ‘failure’ in the tradition of the tribe, proving not everyone can conform. On some level perhaps Okonkwo had the wisdom to inwardly question why his father did not succeed other than his foolish laziness. Perhaps another reason for Okonkwo’s father’s failure was the society he was a part of not offering him the path he needed to succeed.

Okonkwo is outwardly a conformist to the tradition of the tribe he is a part of to the death. But inwardly, he questions the validity of the tribal traditions he so fervently seeks to master better than everyone else and holds sacred above all else. Okonkwo’s questing with other members of the tribe solidify the fact that no tradition, practice or custom, no matter how sacred, goes unquestioned because no no tradition, practice or custom is perfect. Any society, no matter it's ethnicity or ‘development’ is perfect, because we, as we cannot escape our imperfect human nature.

References

1. Iyasere, S. O. (1992). OKONKWO'S PARTICIPATION IN THE KILLING OF HIS" SON" IN CHINUA ACHEBE'S" THINGS FALL APART": A STUDY OF IGNOBLE DECISIVENESS. CLA Journal, 35(3), 303-315. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44322495)
2. Foley, A. (2001). Okonkwo's fate and the worldview of Things Fall Apart. Literator: Journal of Literary Criticism, Comparative Linguistics and Literary Studies, 22(2), 39-59. (https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC61636)
3. Strong-Leek, L. (2001). Reading as a woman: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and feminist criticism. African Studies Quarterly, 5(2), 29-35. (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Reading-as-a-Woman%3A-Chinua-Achebe%27s-%27Things-Fall-Strong-Leek/4fb16b0dd52ece8b7427a40ae875be17823d33f3)
4. Friesen, A. R. (2006). Okonkwo's suicide as an affirmative act: do things really fall apart?. Postcolonial Text, 2(4). (https://www.postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/453)
5. Hodges, H. (2012). Beasts and Abominations in Things Fall Apart and Omenuko. ariel: a review of international english literature, 43(4). (https://cjc-rcc.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/35288)

Table of contents

1. Hinduism
2. Buddhism
3. Daoism

When asked to imagine something perfect, like a perfect circle, people across the globe imagine a concentric round figure fulfilling a set of standards. The term perfection, however, loses its static nature when applied to such concepts as the perfect human being. Throughout history people have created standards for what the perfect person should be like. What a particular society sees as good or bad can be a main factor in influencing the idea of human perfectibility. A perfect person in a caveman society might be a strong aggressive bison hunter, but his mangy appearance and lack of acquaintance with a toothbrush might make him very imperfect today in a lawyer's suit in downtown New York. The same idea holds true for any other cultural tradition, including different religions. By taking a closer look at the three major eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism, the idea of human perfection can be better understood.

The purpose of each religious tradition is the attainment of some ultimate goal. It is the achievement of this goal that characterizes the perfect human in that particular religion. This absolute is what Mircea Eliade refers to as "the sacred" (Eliade, 1959). For Hindus it is transcendence; a perfect Hindu is one who has transcended the world. In Buddhism "the sacred" is enlightenment; the perfect Buddhist is one who is enlightened. For Daoism it is harmony; the perfect Daoist is one who is in harmony with the people and things around him. By examining the importance of "the sacred" and how it can be achieved, we can better understand each religious tradition and their different views on perfection.

Hinduism

The Hindu religion is comprised of many different sects. Some of the concepts differ slightly between the different forms. The most basic ideas, however, are widely accepted. Transcendent means, "being above and independent of the material universe" (Radhakrishnan and Moore, 1957). In Hinduism this term can be thought of as a means of becoming free from the restraints of the world and entering into a kind of heaven. This transcendence is often associated with the deity Brahman. Brahman represents the Supreme Reality for Hindus (Shattuck, 1999). When one attains the capacity to place the consciousness out of the cosmic dimension, it is believed that one can enter into transcendence, which is an upholding or all-encompassing Consciousness. This consciousness is not involved in the flux and flow of material creation and hence is untouched by the ravages of time and decay and death that appear to be the principal features of our universe (Radhakrishnan and Moore, 1057). Methods of escape into this "transcendent Brahman" were thus devised in order to grant solace to the troubled human spirit (Iyer, 1992). This state of peace, by virtue of its static quality, is able to liberate the seeker from any further involvement in the torment of life and death.

The way to achieve transcendence is through the practice of good karma. Karma is the law of consequence with regard to action, is the driving force behind the cycle of reincarnation or rebirth. According to karma theory, every action has a consequence, which will be felt in either this or a future life (Shattuck, 1999). Therefore, morally good acts will have positive consequences, and bad acts will produce negative results. Rebirth in this instance is accepted only as a means to achieve liberation from the reincarnation cycle. Ultimately one must go beyond all karma, good or evil. This is to place our sense of reality in our true self, not in the effects of our actions. We must eventually renounce the fruit of all our actions. In that alone is freedom and transcendence (Iyer, 1992). Hence the greatest virtue does not seek to change the world or improve ourselves, but to rest in harmony with the peace of what is.

One of the major Hindu deities, Lord Ganesha, is exemplary of the characteristics a perfect Hindu follower must possess to achieve transcendence (Grimes, 1995). He has a human form with the head of an elephant, and the blend of human and animal parts represents many of the ideals of perfection. The left tusk of the elephant represents human emotion, and the right tusk human intellect. The left tusk is slightly broken, showing that a perfect person is one who has conquered his or her ego. A purified or controlled ego can live in the world without being affected by worldly temptations. This can be accomplished by surrendering pride to attain humility and conquering emotions with wisdom. By controlling the ego, one's wisdom can shine forth. A controlled ego allows for other qualities of a perfect human to be attainable, namely wisdom and understanding, as represented by the elephant's large head, as well as kindness and compassion toward all, represented by the human heart. In addition, the large elephant ears denote a great capacity to listen to others (Grimes, 1995). The perfect human is strong enough to face the ups and downs of the external world, yet delicate enough to explore the subtle realms of the inner world. Therefore, a perfect individual must be able to face all pleasant and unpleasant experiences of the world. In short, a perfect Hindu performs all duties in the world with purity, peace, and truthfulness. With theses practices of perfect karma a Hindu will be able to escape the karmic wheel and achieve transcendence.

Buddhism

Like Hinduism, Buddhism is also comprised of many sects. A focus on the ancient practice of Buddhism, Theravada, best illustrates the idea of the perfect Buddhist. Most Buddhists believe that people are responsible for their actions (Lopez, 2002). All acts committed by a person will impact their lives at one time or another. If a person commits a harmful act to another, a harmful act will be committed against them at some later time. The system by which this occurs is karma (Gethin, 1998). The benefits or punishments that result from each action or decision may not be immediately felt, it may take several incarnations or lifetimes. With Karma, past actions affect one's present and future incarnation. As each soul is reincarnated and learns the lessons of the eight fold path, it is brought closer to a state of perfection. The eight-fold path is right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (Aitkin, 1994). When an individual has given up the selfishness of personal identity and merged with the entire universe, he is thought to have achieved enlightenment, the ultimate goal of any Buddhist (Larkin, 1997). This is a final state for most. A fully enlightened human being has no selfish inclinations and understands everything as it is. They are no longer attached to the world of ignorance; they have transcended the world, no longer clinging to it. A perfected human being is one who has wisely reflected and transcended the world, but still lives in the world and works in the world for the welfare of other beings.

Dharma, literally meaning "the course of right conduct", is the path or the way to enlightenment. Dharma is used to refer to the teachings of the Buddha and the theology that surrounds Buddhist doctrine (Lopez, 2002). Buddha is a title, not the name of a person. Buddha literally means "to wake" and become enlightened (Gethin, 1998). It is a term that denotes a person who has attained supreme truth and wisdom. Meditation helps Buddhists understand that Buddha should be treated as their example of how to become unattached from things and how to cope with the feelings of unselfishness and desire (Larkin, 1997). One can learn to practice meditation and learn to be decreasingly less selfish, so that what one does have, he or she is willing to share with others. At this point the follower finds the joy of sharing as the reward, but it is not an expected reward. The follower lives his or her life thinking about the responsibility for action and speech. He or she lives in a way that is not harmful to other creatures by refraining from violent actions and speech. Life is also free from exploitation, and from all that causes division, confusion, anguish and despair in the lives of other beings. He or she avoids actions or using speech that causes suffering in the minds of others.

These characteristics are all described in the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism (Khena, 1987). The listings are of the rajadhammas, the virtues and duties of a wise ruler. These characteristics do not only apply to Theravada followers, but are a general description of the perfect Buddhist. The first virtue is dana, which means generosity. The second is sila, or high moral conduct as described by the five precepts. Third is pariccaga, or self-sacrifice, giving up personal happiness, safety, and comfort for the welfare of the nation. Ajjava, which is honesty and integrity, is the fourth. Next is maddava, which means kindness or gentleness towards oneself and towards others. The sixth is tapa, which means austerity or self-control, giving up what you don't really need. Akkodha, which is non-anger, non-impulsiveness, calmness is the seventh. Eight is avihimsa, or non-violence, non-oppression. Then comes khanti, which is patience, forbearance, and tolerance. Avirodhana, non-deviation from righteousness, or conformity to the law, is the tenth. Lastly is dhamma, knowing what is right, what is appropriate to time and place (Khena, 1987).

Daoism

In Daoism the path to perfection is to follow the Dao, the way. The goal of the Daoist is to harmonize with the Dao and thereby become one with the cosmos, with nature, with all things (Lopez, 2002). This principle of Dao is divided into two principles that oppose one another in their actions, yin and yang. Together yin and yang represent all the principles one finds in the universe; it is the Chinese perspective of balance and continual change (Kohn, 2001). The ancient Chinese philosophers believed that all things in the universe contain elements of both yin and yang. Within each element of yin and yang is the seed of the other, and when yin and yang work in harmony together all is good in the world. When one is stronger than the other, however, the balance of the harmony and power changes and life is unpredictable. In accordance with these ideas, the perfect Daoist must live in harmony and achieve balance of the yin and yang. He or she accepts the imperfections in this world, but tries to live with them knowing this life has its pains and also its pleasures.

In order to achieve complete harmony with the universe one must follow the method of "non-action". Non-action, or wu wei, is often likened to the behavior of water, naturally flowing and non-obstructive (Allan, 1997). Water benefits all things without actively doing anything, just as Daoists should do. Non-action occurs when a person or thing acts in natural and spontaneous concordance with its inner principle (Kohn, 2001). It is the opposite of all that is arbitrary, learned and artificial. By practicing non-action, all things are allowed to occur naturally, in harmony and according to the Dao.

The requirements for the following the Dao and achieving harmony are outlined in nine forms (Allen, 1997). First, to keep harmony. Everything under heaven connotes Yin and Yang and the vital breaths of Yin and Yang keep acting upon each other, and thus things keep unifying themselves. Secondly, keep to the spirit. This means to guard one's spirit and prevent it from chasing external things and getting exhausted. Thirdly, keep to the Vital Breath. Blood and the Vital Breath are the essence of human beings. When one is tied down by desires, his spirit will be exhausted and his inner Vital Breath will consequently be insufficient. He who cultivates Dao must purify his heart, reduce his desires and protect and nourish his Original Vital Breath in order to prevent calamities or invasion of harmful breath. Fourth, to keep benevolence. Those who cultivate Dao regard the human world as unimportant. This in turn creates a regard for all worldly things as trivial so they will never be confused. Also life and death are equal, making the Daoist fearless, and because they are indifferent to changes they are wise and won't be dazzled. Fifth, keep to simplicity. One should get rid of filth and worries, and understand the way of balance and harmony in nourishing one's life. One should never be greedy. Sixth, keep to constancy. It is inevitable that people become powerful, lowly, poor or rich, but those who have secured Dao will not change their original intention no matter how their conditions change. Seventh, keep to pureness. One should have his mind as pure as water, have no greedy or filthy ideas, and shouldn't indulge in his desires. Eighth, keep to fullness. The sun and moon will begin to wane when they reach the full. One should not attempt to be perfect, but should never be self-satisfied. He must increase his virtues every day, and not dare to be violent. Ninth, keep to gentleness. Only being gentle can conform to the way of simplicity. To be specific, one should have no happiness, anger, joy or bitterness, regard all things as mysteriously identical, and make no distinction between right and wrong, harmonize and soften his Vital Breath, and balance his body so as to drift along with Dao (Allen, 1997).

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In each of the religions being examined, the idea of what constitutes a perfect human being is based on what the main purpose of that religion is. The specific traits of the perfect human are different in respect to different religious traditions. However, the idea of prescribing a way of life in order to reach an ultimate goal is shared by all three religions. It is only by becoming the personification of perfection that anyone can hope to achieve his or her goal, whether it is a Hindu's transcendence, a Buddhist's enlightenment, or a Daoist's universal harmony.

For improving the effectiveness of the people resource, people are to be aligned to the mission, vision , strategic goals and the processes. People are to integrate with the organizational culture. In case they do not integrate then they will be frustrated in no time. Further, it is very important to match the ability of the people with the requirements of that process to which they are attached. Regardless of the organizational structure, people are to be attached to those processes which they understand, they have qualification and skills needed for the process and where they can contribute based on their experience and knowledge. But the above criteria are not the only considerations. In many cases, people can be trained for the intricacy and specifics of a job, provided they have the basic skills needed and the right attitude for the learning. If they do not have the right approach and personal culture, it is much more difficult to teach them to be friendly to customers, cooperate with their team mates and accept change.

Another important aspect of people strategy is that the organization cannot afford to ignore the fairness in its decision making. Equal opportunities regardless of race, sex, creed or colour are required to be given while managing its people. It is always in the interest of the organization to ensure fairness and transparency when dealing with its people since it minimizes suspicion, envy and the consequential loss of motivation amongst the people. There are six basic components of a people strategy. These are principles, policies, plans, processes, programmes, and parameters of success. Principles lead to policies. For fulfilling policies there are processes which are to be planned and which are to be supported by programmes. Successful implementation of processes and programmes helps the organization to achieve the parameters of success.

People strategies cannot be common to different organizations though they aim to establish best practices in each of the human resource (HR) policy area. There is no one single type of people strategy that is coherent with the HR policies and practices which can be adopted off the shelf by an organization seeking excellence. Each organization has to develop its own people strategies and manage its people more strategically following six basic components of the people strategy. A successful people strategy has three dimensions. They are namely (i) vertical alignment, (ii) horizontal alignment, and (iii) the action dimension.

Vertical alignment is the alignment of people strategy with the organizational goals. The people strategy of the organization must suit the environment under which it is operating. The key issues are the organizational goals and strategies. In order to play a strategic role in the organization, the policies and practices that make up the organization’s people strategy of the organization are to reflect, reinforce, and support the organizational aims and objectives. A strong linkage is needed between the overall vision of the organization and the aims, objectives, and underlying philosophy of the organization’s approach to managing people. This linkage ensures that people strategy interventions can become a creator, and not an inhibitor, of sustained competitive advantage. This link between people strategy and the organizational strategy is termed as the vertical alignment. This alignment allows for variation and flexibility and not just mechanical matching between the organizational strategic objectives and people strategies. Vertical alignment process is evolved based on an understanding of what the organizational goals are, the people implications, and the translation of these into an overarching people strategy that can be used as a basis for detailed policies.

Horizontal alignment is the internal alignment between the set of policies making up the people strategy. Vertical alignment though a crucial dimension of a people strategy, is not sufficient. The horizontal alignment operates at the level of individual policy areas. The aim here is the achievement of a coherent and consistent approach to managing people that permeates the entire activities of the HR function and other organizational functional areas. This is carried out at the policy level, not the practice level. This distinction is important, since putting people strategies into action is a separate dimension. Achieving a high degree of horizontal alignment implies that the organization has embraced the value of developing and articulating clear people related policies that consistently relate to one another. At a more fundamental level, the organization is able to communicate consistent and reinforcing messages to employees.

The third dimension is action or implementation of the people strategy. It is the degree to which the policies are enacted and put into practice. It is judged by the employee experience and the management behaviour and values. The vertical and horizontal dimensions are not sufficient unless the policies framed under people strategy are put into action with all seriousness only then the results are obtained in the area of people management. This requires a comprehensive measuring and monitoring system besides the complete involvement of the top management. The action dimension results into the people experiencing the benefits of the people strategies.

From Aristotle to modern times, the faculty of human reason has been the subject of contrasting depictions in literature. In Crime and Punishment, for example, Fyodor Dostoyevsky emphasizes the tragic outcome of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov's obsession with rationalization; in the end, the protagonist rejects his intellect and embraces religious faith. With The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand presents an opposing viewpoint - that human reason is the foundation for achievement and happiness. The fictional world of the novel includes the rare few who use their capacity for rational thought, and the masses who, according to Howard Roark, do not want reason on their side. Though Roark never doubts the power of rationality, Dominique Francon and Gail Wynand partially surrender to the reign of absurdity, and Ellsworth Monkton Toohey and his lackey Peter Keating represent the forces of complete irrationality. This spectrum of attitudes serves to dramatize the philosophy outlined in The Fountainhead, or the essential difference between first-handers like Roark and second-handers like Keating.

Society in The Fountainhead is remarkably averse to truth and reason. The New York Banner is most successful when it ignores logical evidence in favor of emotionally-charged content. For instance, the Banner attempted to help two individuals, a struggling young scientist and a pregnant chambermaid: "One story was illustrated with scientific diagrams; the other - with the picture of a loose-mouthed girl wearing a tragic expression and disarranged clothes" (408). The logically articulated plea yields less than ten dollars in aid, while the lurid pictures of the pregnant chambermaid attract over a thousand dollars. Wynand shows this disparity to his staff because he wishes to demonstrate what holds more sway among readers: pure emotions and gut-level thinking. The content of the Banner is "without any necessity for an intermediary process of reason, like food shot through the rectum, requiring no digestion" (409). The fact that the young scientist is far more likely to make a significant, beneficial impact on society is immaterial; rational decision-making requires a conscious effort people are unwilling to make.

But irrationality has far deeper roots than simple mental lethargy and irresponsibility, especially for members of the New York elite. It provides an excellent escape route from reality. People like Peter Keating depend on others for their existence, because their self-confidence derives entirely from their public image. When Keating meets Guy Francon, they get along fabulously precisely because they do not value each other based on rational criteria, as evidenced by Francon's demeanor toward Keating: "The approval, together with that wise half-smile, granted him a grandeur he did not have to earn; a blind admiration would have been precarious; a deserved admiration would have been a responsibility; an undeserved admiration was precious" (53). The admiration is undeserved - in other words, without reason. Keating subconsciously knows that he prefers to not be judged by his professional abilities or his personal integrity, but rather in his ability to expropriate the work of others and unquestionably affirm every statement Francon utters. Keating does not want to look in the metaphorical mirror and see his incompetence and dishonesty. Rather, he wants to have his cake and eat it, too - he craves the admiration earned by brilliance and sincerity but does not wish to act accordingly.

Characters that subscribe to the perversion of rationality can be divided into two groups: those who understand the implications of their actions, and those who do not. Keating blindly embraces irrationality without understanding that it makes him a hollow man; public adulation never translates into true self-respect and happiness. In contrast, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey understands exactly how he manipulates reality, and the implications thereof. His use of irrationality is a means to a different end, however - one that is far more sinister than wealth and fame. Toohey sees reason as the only threat to his quest for power. Only individuals who possess an independent, uncorrupted mind can succeed in foiling his plan to utterly control public opinion and the masses. He writes in "One Small Voice" that he would rather be kind than right, and merciful than just. Determining what is right and just require the faculty of reason, which Toohey opposes. Instead, Toohey asks that people be kind and merciful, and trust their hearts, not their minds: "Speaking anatomically - and perhaps otherwise - the heart is our most valuable organ. The brain is a superstition" (304). Without reason to guide them, the public is easily manipulated, allowing collectivist propaganda in the form of "One Small Voice" to exert great influence in molding public opinion. In making reason irrelevant, Toohey wants to crush the men of ability; he wants a world flattened to the lowest common denominator, a world of mediocre men and insignificant relationships. The Council of American Builders shows his progress in this direction; the meetings are listless, without rational purpose. The Council of American Writers, too, reflects Toohey's purpose. Chairman Lois Cook writes in a stream-of-consciousness style that has no profound meaning whatsoever, resembling gibberish more than literature. Toohey knows that with the death of reason will come a new world order, one in which he is superlatively prepared to take control.

Compared to other architects and most of his potential clients, Roark's respect for reason is unimpeachable. He hires his workers not based on their family names or appearances, but their ability: "[I]f a man worked well, he needed nothing else to win his employer's benevolence: it was granted, not as a gift, but as a debt" (309). Competence at the job is the only logical criterion when it comes to hiring, and thus the only reason Roark considers. Roark also applies his intellect to designing buildings such as the Heller house, which spring organically from the surroundings, with form supporting function, instead of irrationally imposing an arbitrary Classical or Gothic look. Roark also understands that no compromise can exist between reason and anti-reason: the result is always the latter - an abortion of a building, of a life.

Similar to Roark, Dominique acknowledges the virtue of rationality. But she finds herself unable to bear the expression of beauty among ugliness - the work of a pure, uncompromising mind in a world of chaotic hypocrisy. She eloquently declares her position at the Stoddard Temple trial: "When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return - it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck" (356). Dominique would rather destroy all genuine artistic achievement than see it unrecognized and scorned. She would rather sink her statue into the ocean than see it accumulate insulting graffiti. For most of the novel, her philosophy can be summarized as thus: if the world is irrational, commit intellectual suicide and conform to it.

The architect, not of buildings, but of a massive media empire, Gail Wynand is a could-have-been. Early on a member of a street gang, he shows an adept command of his mental faculties, exemplified by his strategic choice of time in looting the barges and his determined self-education. But he commits a fatal error when he chooses power in exchange for lowering himself to the level of the public and founding his paper on irrationality. A leash is truly a rope with a noose at both ends, and Wynand hangs himself. To please his readers, he must allow his papers to praise mediocrity simply because the mediocrity is created by well-liked people like Peter Keating; he fires Dominique for attempting to uphold the truth. He contemplates suicide when he first understands that true power comes from within, from an uncorrupted ego and intransigent rationality, but it is already too late. His attempts to assert himself over the issue of Howard Roark and the Cortlandt case result in failure, because he has never controlled the public; the public controls him and breaks him. He surrendered his ability to fight them - an unsoiled mind - long ago.

Speaking to Wynand in the yacht, Roark identifies disrespect for reason as one of the key characteristics of a second-hander, one who lives not in himself, but in others. Roark affirms, "When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness... second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another" (606). Roark speaks in absolute terms because there can be no compromise. One plus one cannot equal anything except two. Furthermore, Roark knows that reason cannot be distributed and contracted out. Speaking at the Cortlandt case, he states that "there is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise... a secondary act" (679). The primary act must be carried out by each man himself, because to relinquish an independent mind is to leave the ego defenseless; to ignore the sanctity of the ego is to become a second-hander, doomed to self-doubt and unhappiness.

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Only through perceiving reality as it is and making rational choices can freedom be achieved, ethics followed, and purpose in existence gained. Howard Roark regards reason as critical to architecture as well as life - to him, ignoring reason is tantamount to building with only straw and glue. As glass and steel are to skyscrapers, thus is reason to man. As Dominique rises to meet Roark at the end of The Fountainhead, Roark does not appear dwarfed and weak - the girders of the Wynand Building are made of the same material as Roark's mind and spirit.

Rose’s Borders

People create fences in everyday life that either would have a positive effect or a negative effect, meaning keeping away from his or her enemies or keeping her loved ones within close distance. In Fences, by August Wilson, Rose builds three fences that separate and keeps people close to her. The fences that Rose builds around Bono, Cory, and Troy affect how she maintains or changes her relationship with them.

Rose builds her fence in her friendship with Bono to keep him inside it. Whenever Rose and Bono encounter each other, they treat each other with respect and courtesy. For example, when they encounter each other in the beginning, Rose offers Bono to stay over for dinner. Rose says “Bono, you gonna stay for supper”? Bono politely declines when he says, “No, I thank you Rose. But Lucille say she cooking up a pot of pigfeet”. Bono mentions that Rose wants Troy to build the fence because “Some people build fences to keep people out...and other people build fences to keep people in” (61). This shows why Rose wants to build the fence, but also let Bono know that Rose’s fence is built because she wants to keep Bono as one of people in the fence.

Rose’s second fence is when she and Cory encounter each other towards the middle and end. They tend to have an affectionate mother-son moments, which happens when Cory returns from the marines for Troy’s funeral. At that moment when Cory arrives at his home, Rose, who is glad to see him back, says, “I’m glad you made it”. But when Cory says, “Mama...I got something to tell you...I’m not going to Papa’s funeral”, it makes Rose doubtful about why Cory cannot attend his own father’s funeral. Rose argues back that “You standing there all healthy and grown talking about you ain’t going to your daddy’s funeral” (96)? As a result of Cory saying that he cannot attend the funeral, Rose gets upset about this and lectures about how she had met Troy until she has lost touch with him once Raynell came into the house.

Rose’s final fence with Troy changes since the beginning of the play. Rose acts very faithful Troy in the beginning. She is cautious when Troy is drinking too much, “You gonna drink yourself to death. You don’t need to be drinking like that” (10). This mainly gives an idea that Rose really cares about Troy and how she loves him. But Rose gets feisty when Troy talks about when Alberta has the baby after Rose told him the news. Rose gets upset and says, “I am your wife. Don’t push me away”, because Troy is focused on Alberta instead of her. Seven years later, Troy passes away and Rose has some grief, but not too much because of Raynell coming into the house after she is born seven years ago. Rose’s fence with Troy shows that their relationship begins with affection but comes to a miserable end.

Building fences are what people would metaphorically do in life. Rose has three fences that she either keeps them close to her or wants to be far away from them as possible. Her relationships with Bono, Cory, and Troy show that her relationship with all three of them can have a positive effect or a negative effect on her life.

Table of contents

1. Review
2. Restructure
3. Retrain
Redeploy
4. Reorganise
5. Sourcing Strategies

As the world and the security industry are undergoing a tectonic shift, we are moving away from our traditional and narrow focus on product innovation to digital, software and services innovation aimed at providing more comprehensive customer experiences to our customers.

We (HR) recognise this change and the importance of formulating the correct, optimal and align our human resource strategies to support the business needs, growth and strategies. In order to achieve this, we created and adopted the 5Rs as follows:

• Review
• Restructure
• Retrain
• Redeploy
• Reorganise

Review

Firstly, we adopt the Resource Based View (RBV) to analyse and assess our Company’s existing internal resources and capabilities. This helps us to identify the available amount of strategic assets and focus on formulating a strategy to achieve sustainable competitive advantages.

At the same time, we will identify the weaknesses and gaps that exists in our HR processes and controls. We will take the necessary measures to improve on the weaknesses found.

Restructure

The change in the business strategies will result in major shifts in our HR function and policies. Within the major shifts, a wide diversity of policy options for worker-management relations exist. We will conduct an audit on our HR department to reveal the current status. In order to align with the business strategies, we will restructure and streamline our HR system to fit into the new business and environment.

Retrain

We have three primary resources, information, technology and people. All of the resources are important but the most important one is our people. We invest heavily in our people and provide them with opportunities for growth and development .

We make use of the HR data that is available in our system to identify (1) key competencies of our staff, (2) key competencies that our Company requires now but absent at the moment and (3) key competencies that our Company requires in the near future and we have to start sourcing for them now.

Next, we will identify the selected individuals for training and re-training according to the needs of the role, department and our Company.

Redeploy

We believe that Change is the only constant in our Company. There is a need for our staff to always plan for and be ready for change in their role and function. The training and retraining of our staff will enable the management to prepare our staff for redeployment to take on new role across the departments (horizontal move). On the other hand, our Employee Development Programmes will prepare the selected individual to take on higher role within the organisation (vertical move).

Reorganise

In the ever-changing landscape in the defence and security fields, when new opportunities will present themselves, our Company must be ready to seize the opportunities. To achieve this, we must prepare our staff now and increase the capacity of our staff through streamlining our operations and processes, training and development of our staff to acquire key competencies such as problem solving skills and listening and communication skills, and prepare our staff for possible reorganisation of our Company structure for example setting up of a new department for overseas venture where we can deploy our existing staff to lead the new team and hiring new and local staff to complete the positions. This would allow our Company to preserve our culture and bring technical and knowledge know-how to train and develop the local people and the hiring of new and local staff would help the team to integrate into the country and its cultural quickly and effectively.

Sourcing Strategies

Attracting top talent is essential to the future of our Company. We are proactively searching for and engaging qualified talent to fill our Company’s current and future positions. We found that it is important for our HR partners to understand the needs of the Company, respective departments and hiring managers and be on the same page with them about what a strong candidate looks like.

We deploy our HR partners to the respective departments to work with the line managers and their team. It allows us to understand their operations and needs and enable us to make HR recommendations and proposals that suit the needs of the department, line managers and their team.

We have also made changes and improvement to our hiring process and increase the quality of the communication with the hiring managers. They are as follow:

Hold a kickoff meeting with the hiring manager as soon as we receive a hiring request to learn about the role and be aligned with the hiring manager on the must-have and good-to-have requirements of the candidates. Keep in constant contact with the hiring manager throughout the process to check on the quality and quantity of candidates, and fine-tune our search with their feedback.

Re-engage past candidates from our HR system. We leverage on our past efforts by beginning every search with the candidates that we have already invested time in and deemed qualified to work at your organization through our database.

Expand our online and offline sourcing channels. It is important for our HR partners to understand the target candidates and know where to source them online and offline, for example, LinkedIn and attend industry-specific conferences and workshops.

Leverage on staff’s networks and referrals. Statistics have shown that organisations can expand their talent pool effectively and efficiently by 10 times by recruiting through their employees' networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Proactively sourcing for positions that will be available in future. Our HR partners must know the Company’s business growth plans well and be ahead of the curve. The deployment of the HR partners to the respective departments will enable us to build a responsive workforce hiring strategy that gives us insight into when hires need to be made across the year to sustain our Company's vision and cost model. Using the insight, we can help the line managers to identify or forecast upcoming key competencies that the team requires for the near future.

Build a strong employer brand name.