Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The Epidemic Of Africa And The Abduction Of The 200 Chibok

â€Å"I m hearing only bad news from Radio Africa, I m hearing only sad news from Radio Africa†, sang the pop group ‘Latin Quarter’ in their song â€Å"Radio Africa† released in 1985. ‘Radio Africa’ refers to all the news you hear about from the Western press and sadly, this quote still holds truth with the reportings of Africa by the Western press. The situation is made even worse by the fact that the ‘bad news’ is not even reported until it becomes a disaster of epic proportions. We have just recently witnessed the reporting of the Ebola Crisis in West Africa and the abduction of the 200 Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria by terrorists Boko Haram. These events were barely covered until they became a crisis. With reference to the reporting of the genocide in Rwanda, it â€Å"claimed the spotlight only after there were indisputably ‘lots of dead bodies’† (Carruthers, 2011, p.166). Western press collectively ignores A frica at best and at worst report only ‘bad news’ creating the impression that Africa is at best irrelevant and at worst barbaric. The Western press refers to the press of many developed countries and continents such as Europe and in addition, countries that have been colonised by them such as America. Peter Adamson, founder and author of UNICEF’s annual State of the World’s Children report observed that â€Å"western audiences dramatically over-estimate the problems and dependency of people in the developing countries† (Diane Publishing, 1995, p.31). He argues that Western news’

Monday, December 23, 2019

Traumatic Stress And Stressor Related Disorder - 1512 Words

According to the DSM-5, Post-Traumatic Stress is a trauma and stressor-related disorder characterised by psychological and physiological symptoms emerging from direct or indirect exposure to a traumatic stressor. Examples include combat, rape or abuse. Moreover, the event itself elicits overwhelming emotional responses including fear, helplessness, or horror that threatens the psychological integrity of the individual. Notwithstanding the actual trigger, the individual s response is of such severity that it leads to clinically significant distress or impaired functioning. Traumatic symptomology often plagues the individual’s experience, manifesting in recurrent flashbacks, night terrors, somatic memories and hyperarousal. This†¦show more content†¦In line with this, not all who experience traumatic events go on to develop PTSD, which provides further inquiry into risk factors that increase vulnerability and predisposition. Risk can broadly be separated into pre- , peri- and post-trauma factors which influence the likelihood of PTSD. A history of prior trauma greatly increases susceptibility to PTSD, particularly when past traumas have been unresolved. A study by Breslau et al (1999) found that the experience of assaultive violence in childhood was consistent with the incidence of PTSD manifesting from trauma in adulthood. This may be due to decreased capacity for coping and the re-emergence of maladaptive coping skills, alongside increased responsivity, sensitivity, and reactive recall of previous traumas. Research highlights other major risk factors such as mental illness, chronic stress and inadequate social support (Halligan Yehuda, 2000). Post-trauma risk factors such as social support, secondary victimization and lack of treatment greatly impact on the resilience of the individual. For example, a rape victim is likely to feel worse about the event if her family view her as ‘shameful’ or ‘dirty’. Sociological studies by Chivers-Wilson (2006) presented a link between modern cultures of victim blaming/shaming and the onset of PTSD. Undoubtedly judgmental and unsupportive

Sunday, December 15, 2019

B.I.C. Ca 100 †Research Project †Charlie Trotter Free Essays

100 Jonathon Roehl September 30, 2010 Charlie Trotter Charlie Trotter specializes in Degustation, which is a careful, appreciative tasting of various foods and focusing on the senses. His inspiration came while he was in college and his roommate, Joel Fish, prepared various courses for his friends to taste. Trotter became interested in what Joel was doing, and soon found himself immersed in the world of cookbooks and preparing meals as a way of entertainment for his friends and roommate. We will write a custom essay sample on B.I.C. Ca 100 – Research Project – Charlie Trotter or any similar topic only for you Order Now Mid way through his college tenure at The University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI, he decided to take a year off and read every book he could, this included cookbooks. As a way to make a living while on this break from school, he took a job as a waiter. Not long after he returned to college, he earned his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Political Science, then began once again cooking and actually doing small catering parties. Upon graduating from college, Charlie traveled around the U. S. and Europe to dine at only the finest restaurants. He wanted to learn how the â€Å"best† gained that title, and see what the future could possibly hold for him. Charlie actually never went to culinary school, he completely taught himself. Soon he returned to the States and began doing catering parties for his friends and families. His first cooking job was at a restaurant in the North Shore area of Chicago called Sinclair’s where he was a cook there and worked under many now well-known chefs including Norman Van Aken. After doing this for just over a year, he decided to open Charlie Trotter’s with his now deceased father, Robert Trotter, as his partner. Charlie’s cuisine now comes from the finest foodstuffs available. Networks provide the fresh, healthful ingredients which inspire him to create his masterpieces. From the naturally raised meat and line caught seafood to the organic produce, every component of each dish is the most pure available. Bobwhite quail from Indiana, petite greens from Farmer Jones, heirloom tomatoes from Illinois, buffalo from North Dakota and gindai from Hawaii are just a few of the products that arrive each day for him to crafts his menus. Trotter rather ave sauce with vegetable juice-based vinaigrettes, light emulsified stocks, and purees as well as delicate broths, and herb-infused meat and fish essences then sauces that have a lot of butter or cream. According to the Mobil Travel Guide, Charlie’s restaurant was giving 5 stars back in 1996 and remains that way even now. For his wine Charlie was awarded The Best Restaurant in the World for Wine and Food in 1998, The Best Restaurant in the Un ited States back in 2000, America’s Best Wine-Driven Restaurant in 2006 as well as The Grand Award in 1993, which he still holds. From the International food Manufacturers Association he was earned both the Silver and Gold Plate award in 2008. Trotter has been awarded many more other then these. I feel that Trotter is an excellent example of chefs with imagination and how you really do need to use your head and alter and expand anything from simple recipes to your whole cuisine choice considering this man NEVER went to a culinary arts school. How to cite B.I.C. Ca 100 – Research Project – Charlie Trotter, Essays

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Professional Communication Practice for Fuji Xerox - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theProfessional Communication Practice for Fuji Xerox. Answer: Introduction Established in 1997, Fuji Xerox got the certification from Australian Quality Class for the excellence standard in their business. Their main objective is to understand the documents. They are focussed in building knowledge, based on which the business decisions can be taken. Their understanding helps the clients for leveraging the expectation from paper as well as the electronic media (Fujixerox.com.au/Company/Overview, 2017). The workflows and the document expertise from the company assist in working in smarter way and streamline the procedure of business. Further, they offer various business solutions required by the client for focussing on their business efficiently. Management Accounting Issues The Australian business of Fuji Xerox was getting out of control as the warnings regarding fraudulent behaviour of the company went unnoticed and unsolved, bad behaviours were not only ignored, rather promoted and irregularities with regard to major accountings were simply covered up (Wagenhofer, 2016). The issue that started with Fuji Xerox, New Zealand (FXNZ) and soon spread over Fuji Xerox Australia (FXA) led to global consequence for the company and the technology giant, who turned over the revenue amounted to A$ 26 billion. The organization was forced for delaying their annual report owing to inappropriate accounting at the regional subsidiaries (Fuji Xerox restructures Australia and New Zealand leadership after accounting scandal, 2017). Various top offices of Fuji Xerox were closing down and others were facing cut off of bonuses and wages by 20 to 50%. Further, the recent report of investigation includes the details that were not included in the initial report that was publish ed dated on 21st June. It was revealed by the company that knock six years net profit worth amounted to A$ 451 million that was frozen out from the government contract of New Zealand. The report of investigation included the details regarding how the top level executives continuously bringing the revenue forward to achieve the target. Moreover, they were avoiding the recognition of losses so their subsidiary Red Ink will not reach to the bottom and fabricated the monthly numbers of accounting as well as chalked up the sales of assets as revenue for covering up the missing values. The report alleged that the major individuals from the leadership team and blamed sales at any cost principle of the company under Neil Whittaker, the managing director of FXA as well as FXNZ that enabled the employees to get huge amount of commissions and bonus from the year 2011 (Agrawal Cooper, 2017). It was also mentioned in the report that provided overcompensation to the favoured workers and they involved the family members and paid them six-figure salaries that was three times more than the market rate. Moreover, they were paid gift bonuses and used the corporate expenses for pock et money and lavish meals. Main Reason Behind the Issue The root cause for the issue generated from the exercise of overstating of revenue on the managed agreement of service that had the variable pricing on the basis of utilization and sometimes that too with no minimum value, still it was transacted as the upfront revenue. Further, abusing the managed agreement of service became so common that the inappropriate recognition of revenue was approximately 30% of the total sales. Moreover, the inappropriate accounting included the fictitious transactions apart from the advance recorded revenues. Further, the cumulative amount for sales recorded inappropriately at the earlier period amounted to NZ$ 90 million during 2016 January. Out of that NZ$ 90 million, fictitious sales amounted to NZ$ 35 million and the rest amount was not fictitious but recorded inappropriately (Van der Stede, 2016). Further, recording the revenue inappropriately became the regular practice of the company and took place for 70% of the contracts over the duration of six year. The abusive accounting further overlooked that early recognition of revenue. Further, instances found for advance sales that were recorded twice and fictitious sales recording for achieving the target of monthly performance. Moreover, the promotional giveaways and free products were recorded as sales. Lack in credit policies assisted in green light orders from the risky clients as the credit investigation performed for 10% only of the total transactions. While the financial figures were found to be incorrect, they were just ignored. Further, to clean up the issues and avoid the detection, the company transacted the non-operating transactions and sales of the assets as revenue for minimizing the inappropriate accounting impact that were susceptible to accounting audit at closing of the period. This led to the external appearance as the financial condition and financial activities improved during the fiscal year and the company reported higher revenue as compared to the actual revenue (Bebbington, Unerman O'Dwyer, 2014). It further led to the establishment of disastrous culture and the report claimed that the employees and the executives of the company lacked the sense of honesty and ethics while preparing the annual report of the company. Financial Issues Associated with the Company The auditor of the company, Ernst Young were removed in 2016 July and replaced by the KPMG. The payout to the managing director amounted to million dollar came in focus irrespective of various allegations regarding impropriety by the director, who used the pressures for rebelling and creating the circumstances where the opposition was next to impossible. The scrutiny of the corporate credit card revealed that the director and various other members repeatedly used the credit card for the payment of dinner and lunch at various high-end places. Further, over the time period of 10 months 3 executives from the company spent huge amounts that amounted to $ 50,000 over 41 dinners that averaged $ 1,233 per dinner. Further, it was alleged during the corporate trips that the managing director withdrew an amount of $ 10,000 through cash in the local currency from his corporate credit card and did not submit the receipts as the supporting documents for withdrawals (Drury, 2013). The report furt her alleged that company paid an amount of $ 43,704 for the purpose of private trip of the director and his family members between the periods of June 2015 to April 2016. It was also highlighted in the report that the sales employees brought by the director from FXA were highly compensated. Further, five out of nine employees those were transferred from New Zealand were getting salaries that were higher as compared to the benchmark of normal pay scale. The annual salary of the Business development manager, E amounted to $ 1.1 million, out of which the remuneration based on incentives were 3 3.4 times more as compared to the level of benchmark. Further, the son of the managing director was paid annual salary amounted to $ 749,000 that included bonus amounted to $ 420,000. The functions over control were not efficient and there were lack of transparency as the reporting lines with the parent company as well as with other subsidiaries were limited to the managing director only that were centralising the information flow (Soin Collier, 2013). In such circumstance and lack of efficient supervision by the director, the business easily went out of control. Recommendation Looking at the above accounting issues faced by Fuji Xerox, Australia following recommendations is suggested Using the systems of balances and checks to assure that the duties of financial transactions are properly segregated Require finance, purchases and distributions to be approved by an assigned individual. Isolate taking care of stores and receipt capacities from record keeping capacities (recording exchanges and accommodating records). Further, the purchasing capacities must be segregated from payables capacities and assure that a similar individual isn't approved to compose and sign a check. Reconciling the bank accounts every month Reconciliation shall be completed by the independent person who is not responsible for accounting or does not involved with reconciliation review. Cancelled checks from the vendors must be checked appropriately and reconciled with bank accounts regularly Revenue management the revenues shall be double checked with the records and the duties for recording the sales and receipt of payments for sales shall be properly segregated among different person. Further, the sales account shall be reconciled with the inventories to measure the closing inventories or the goods available for sales. Remuneration and payment remuneration and salaries shall be fixed based on their individual performance and shall not be paid based on the performance of the company. Remuneration policy shall be clearly mentioned in the annual report so that there can be transparency regarding the remuneration and salary of the executives and employees. Usage of corporate credit card the corporate credit card shall exclusively be used for official purpose and the card shall not have the facility for personal use. In this way, the company will be able to save big amount with regard to the misuse of the corporate credit card. Reference Agrawal, A., Cooper, T. (2017). Corporate governance consequences of accounting scandals: Evidence from top management, CFO and auditor turnover.Quarterly Journal of Finance,7(01), 1650014. Bebbington, J., Unerman, J., O'Dwyer, B. (Eds.). (2014).Sustainability accounting and accountability. Routledge. Drury, C. M. (2013).Management and cost accounting. Springer. Fuji Xerox restructures Australia and New Zealand leadership after accounting scandal. (2017). Financial Review. Retrieved 3 September 2017, from https://www.afr.com/technology/fuji-xerox-restructures-australia-and-new-zealand-leadership-after-accounting-scandal-20170806-gxqiel Fujixerox.com.au/Company/Overview. (2017). Fujixerox.com.au. Retrieved 3 September 2017, from https://www.fujixerox.com.au/Company/Overview Soin, K., Collier, P. (2013). Risk and risk management in management accounting and control. Van der Stede, W. A. (2016). Management accounting in context: Industry, regulation and informatics.Management Accounting Research,31, 100-102. Wagenhofer, A. (2016). Exploiting regulatory changes for research in management accounting.Management Accounting Research,31, 112-117.