Definition of Cloning Essay Example for Free

Definition of Cloning Essay Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an original. It is a single cell or multi-cellular organism that is genetically identical to another living organism. Cloning can also occur when two genetically identical individuals are produced by accident like identical twins, but in common scientific language the clone is an identical copy by some conscious design. Cloning an organism is to create a new organism with the same genetic information as an existing one. This can involve the transfer of a cell nuclear in which the nucleus is removed from an egg cell and replaced with a nucleus extracted from a cell of the organism to be cloned. AS the nucleus contains all of the genetic information of life, the receiving egg cell will develop into an organism genetically identical to the original nucleus. Brief history II Cloning started with frogs and toads back into the 1970s. Experiments have been long performed with plants and animal embryos. The Dolly is the first fully grown mammal to be cloned in 1996. The dolly was developing by using the process call somatic cell nuclear transfer which consists of DNA coming from a single cell taken from her mother egg, which is fused with the mammary cell. The fused cell then develops into an embryo, which is implanted in a surrogate sheep. The embryo grows into a lamb, which is genetically identical to the donor sheep (Dr.Lee Silver, Human Cloning, 1998).After the dolly, cows was being clone in 1998, pigs in 2000. The first cat was cloned in2001and in2004 a bull was cloned. With this successful process of the dolly scientists believe that human cloning may be possible. The first human cloned embryos were not until 2001. Currently there are a lot of problems of getting Human clones. It is still not proven that scientists could successfully clone a human; still it will take a lot of trial to even be successful in the case of animal cloning 277 sheep died before the dolly was born. There so many questions about human fertility, scientists could not be sure that an identical human clone will ever be possible.

Sustainable competitive advantage

Sustainable competitive advantage 1. Introduction to the Topic: Over the years, the understanding of how a firm can attain and maintain sustainable competitive advantage is major area of research in the field of management. Sustainable competitive advantage is an edge a firm enjoy over its competitors by offering superior values to customer that result in superior profit and growth. Building on these underlined assumption this dissertation the link between a firms success and the competitive advantage. The paper examine the role human resource strategies that leads an organization to enjoy competitive advantage that are sustainable, non-imitable, substantial and that adds superior values to the organization by providing opportunities to the organization to reap the benefits of super profit and market growth. An organisation is regarded as a unified organism that constantly learns and adopts to find better ways of doing its business processes in response to the dynamic environment it faces. Human resource management is a critical area of concern in today dynamic business environment, due to increased competition. It now more difficult to hire and retain highly qualified associates as the growth and profitability of the organization depends on how well the organization managed it human resources. According to Newman and Hodgetts, â€Å"human resource management is the process by which organization ensure the effective use of their associates in the pursuit of both organizational and individual goals† (Newman Hodgetts, 2005). In this paper efforts are made to analyze the varied human resource functions that an organization perform in pursuits of its goals and missions, and how these efforts might lead an organization to competitive advantage, as the success or failure of the organi sation depends on how best the organisation performs its functions as compared to a competitor (Competitive Advantage). In fact the long-term survival of the organisation depends on how best the HR department of the organisation performs its various functions that leads towards creating a competitive advantage over its rivals and how it sustains it. 2. Literature Review: Coff argues that human capital is the key to sustainable advantage because of causal ambiguity and systematic information creating them incomparable (Coff, 1994). According to Boselie and Paauwe (2004), top performing firms has HR professionals who have the main input in the strategic planning. These professionals make possible the change management, shape and manage organisation wide culture, contribute to strategic level decisions, and create market led connectivity of the business process (Boselie Paauwe, 2004). Researchers in the field of strategic HR have emphasised that human resource practices result in superior organisational performance and create sources for continued competitive advantages (Wright, Dunford, Snell, 2001). As the world has become a global village, competing in todays confused environment have posed additional challenges to the HR function in creating the anticipated value to shape and uphold competitive advantages. For effective functioning, HR executives must possess the necessary competencies. That is the possession of HR knowhow which comes from knowing the concepts, communication skills, judgment, research, and practices ofHR (Brockbank, Ulrich, Beatty, 1999) Du Plessis states that HR can play a vital role in the future of an organisation by enacting organisational change to get competitive advantage (Plessis, 2007). He is also of the opinion that resistance to change can serve as an obstacle for successful execution of planned changes, as it encompasses behaviours that may slow down or even terminate a planned organisational change. If the organisation uses an appropriate HR strategy during the period of change, an employee may feel that he is being treated and looked after by the organisation. If such sort of feelings arouse in employees it can change the employees attitude and their resistance towards the planned change. Peters and Waterman in their book â€Å"In search of excellence† says that all the excellent organisations that they have surveyed made efficient use of their HR, by employing sound HR strategies (Peter Waterman, 1982). According to Losey technology is advancing so rapidly that it is forcing organisations to c hange their strategies, in respect to product mix and the way HR is organized and delivered (Losey, 2005). 3. Overview of the Organization: Crossroads Inc. has been formed as a result of merger between Tradco and Hardpharm is a pharmaceutical company that is dedicated to the productions and marketing of quality pharmaceutical products. The merger that we have just is the largest transformation in the history of the organization and provides us with a platform, in terms of capital and other resources, to compete at a higher level. Crossroads Inc. is a medium-sized organisation, with 1,500 workers employed at three sites: one in Scotland, County Durham, and Kent. Crossroads Inc. develops and produces medicines for the global market in competition with industry giants such as Bosch, Pfizer, Lilly, gsk etc. 4. HR Planning Forecasting Planning forecasting in the modern age is a matter of life death for organizations of modern age. The same is true for pharmaceuticals industry. Each every consecutive day new research product is developed, deployed for trails testing. All these effort require skilful, trained and experienced workforce. It is for this reason organization plan and forecast for human resource so as to remain competitive. The HR manager of Crossroads Inc should use the planning forecasting procedures to cope with human resource requirement. The propose HR planning process for Crossroads Inco has been depicted Crossroad Inc can use the process for both short-term as well as long-term basis. Crossroad Inc should continuously monitor the availability of skill workers. For this purpose Crossroad Inc should scan internal environment to find out suitable employee and promote to fill the vacancy, if there are no such employees available, then HR Department should scan external environment for skilled and experienced employees. Once the internal environment along with external environment is scanned, a draft forecast should be prepared. 5. Recruitment and Selection: Once the forecast is developed and approved by the top management, the HR department of Crossroads Inc should start recruitment and selection process to fill the vacancies. Like all good plans, HR Manager of Crossroad Inc should builds employment plans on premises basic assumptions for employment requirement by forecasting three things: The supply of inside candidates; Personnel needs; The supply of outside candidates according to their company requirements. The HR department should first check that either there is any job placement or company is expanding their business so that new jobs are open for new candidates. These issues should be tackled by the HR Manger. If staff is required then the company should try to find them inside the company by upgrading their employees if it not possible then new jobs are created and fill by the outside market. The overall aims of the recruitment and selection process in Crossroad Inc should be to obtain, at minimum cost, the number and quality of employees required to satisfy the needs of staff requirement. The three stages of recruitment and selection in Crossroad Inc should be: Defining requirements: Preparing job descriptions and specifications; deciding terms and conditions of employment; Attracting candidates: Reviewing and evaluating alternative sources of applicants, inside and outside the company, advertising; Selecting candidates: Sifting applications, interviewing, testing, assessing candidates, offering employment, obtaining references; preparing contracts of employment. 6. Training and Development: Training is one of the most important tool any organization using to cope with the rapid change in technology and way of doing business. According to Newman and Hodgetts, â€Å"training is the process of providing associates with specific skills or helping them correct deficiencies in their current performance (Newman Hodgets, 2005). HR department of Crossroads Inc should be responsible for the training and development of existing as well as new coming employees. When a new employee is selected, an orientation of the new employees should be conducted Orientation is basically a one to two hour activity in which the new employees should be informed about the organizational structure, term conditions of employment, the duties of incumbent, the ethical behavioural requirement for the new employee and the so. New or existing employees are trained in HR department via three methods. Employees Handbook Training by concerned department Manager. Training visits to other pharmaceuticals. Tradco tends to largely focus on the needs of the technicians and scientists, and give them right to make decision of employ. However the training programs that HARDPHARM has traditionally used have some problems. In order to reduce the cost, employers are trying to hire labour in with low wage, and then what they have got is low quality staff. Ignoring the development of technology is the main problem. All these people will get together in the future, for the sake of the new company. The period of training should not be specified and should depend on individual circumstances. In some cases it should cover a week and sometimes it should be extended up to 6 months. The process of training should be initiated by first going through the process of training need assessments. The training needs assessment find out the deficiency in the current level of skills the employee possessed and the skills that a job required. For filling up the gape an organization designed its training and development programmes. A planning process is being implemented in which Crossroads Inc can ensure the proper training, awareness and competence development of people. The objective is to provide people with knowledge and skill, which, together with experience, improve their competence and capabilities. Crossroads should establish and maintains a procedure to ensure proper capabilities of personnel working. This includes: Identification of competency needs for personnel performing activities affecting quality. Providing training or take other actions to address identified needs. Evaluating effectiveness of the training provided. Ensuring that employees are aware of the relevance and importance of their activities and how they contribute to the achievement of the quality objectives. Maintaining appropriate records of education, experience, training and qualification. Training needs for Crossroads Inc should be based on the following different methods: Performance Analysis: What tasks the analyst is currently performing? how can the current performance be improved? Is training the best method? Job Task Analysis: What is the best way to do analysis? How can analysis process are broken down into small steps? According to Newman and Hodgetts development is the process of â€Å"providing associates with the experience and attitudes needed for success in the future† (Newman Hodgetts, 2005). The management of Crossroads Inc should constantly monitor the latest development in the field of pharmaceuticals and should design its various development programs accordingly. By this was the HR department will not only transmit the needed knowledge and skills to various employees but will also pave the way for the change management process. Training and development should serve as an investment in the form of human capital for Crossroads Inc. The process will not only facilitate the goal achievement but will also serves as potential source of loyalty across the organization. The new company should understand that the training and development program should be designed by utilizing the latest available methods that has proved its efficiency in the pharmaceutical firm. 7. The Pay and Reward: The pay and reward system of Tradco that was a family-owned business by MacHutton, was largely focus to meet the needs of staff, so the workforce regard as main stakeholders in the company, and to be an important role in the company as well. However, HaedPharm is a company that established as a facility of a group of venture capitalists. This firm put more attention to its various stakeholders including employee and management. They are trying to get maximum return and lowest cost. It is clear that these two organizations are stand on the different side of the point of view of benefit of staff. In the interest of the new company, all of these two should change their pay and reward system. The Crossroads Inc should use the proper remuneration system that is fair to both the company and employee. The organization should variety of remuneration system including monthly salaries, straight commission, combination of salary and commission coupled with monthly, quarterly and annual bonuses. When the organization will have a fair remuneration system it will ensure the proper motivation across the organization and the organization will be able to achieve its goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. 8. Union Relation: Unions serve important purpose by working as a link between the labour and the organization. Generally, trade unions are recognized for collective bargaining purpose, and communication between employer and employee. In Tradco, unions playing a good role between employer and employee, more than 50% workers are members of labour union. In the past 15 years, only one sympathy walk-out happened. On the contrary, unions in HardPharm are not as popular as Tradco. A very small number of employees are members of the unions as the company discourage unionization. After merger the unions will serve an important role in the new firm. Like what happens in former companies, if managers want corporation to manage the affairs of the company in appropriate manner, they have to adjust the relationship between unions and staff. The top management of the newly merged company must admit that union is a necessary and vital component of the organization process, they should talk with unions. If the organization failed to admire the role and relationship between the organization and union, the hostile relationship will serve as impediment for the company development. Contemporary, if there are no unions, or company does not recognize unions, then leaders would not know the needs of staff, they could not adjust the management detail. It will affect the development of company in the long run and the company will not be able to achieve its goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. 9. Career Management: Crossroads Inc should consistently monitor its employees and should proper strategic plan through which it increases the skill level of its employees. To achieve this objectives the company should arrange workshops, seminars, visit of key employees to other pharmaceutical industries training courses which will focus on injecting skills and professionalism into employees. These courses will help Crossroads Inc to improve the skills of their employees so that not only company can get maximum out of them but also employees can enrich their nature of job and life standard as well. Along with these training programs, Crossroads Inc should make their employees fully aware of their job requirements by mean of job descriptions so that they can develop a clear picture about at what are necessary requirement of their job and want are not. Indirectly the promotions, transfer to other department also plays a key role in employees job satisfaction. 10. Performance Appraisal: Employees job performance is an important issue for all employers. A performance management system consists of the processes used to identify, encourage, measure, evaluate, improve, and reward employee performance at work. Every functional department of Crossroads Inc should be responsible for carrying out and preparing its performance appraisal report. However these reports must be submitted to HR Department. The performance appraisal system in the company will help the organization to better focus its efforts on the attainment of the organizational goals and objectives by giving timely feedback regarding an individual employee that how best he is going to achieve his objectives. This will also help him to rectify his shortcoming. Moreover the use of appropriate performance appraisal system that is just, equitable and timely serve as a motivating factors and one of the vital component of the successful organization. 11. Conclusion: The Crossroad Inc is taking turning point towards a bright future in which a lot of opportunities might be available for the organization; however the organization still faces a lot of challenges. Crossroads Inc should focus on finding incremental change in its organizing process. The incremental change is change that the Crossroad Inc will undergo through in the natural evolution process. For Crossroad Inc the incremental change process may take the form of introducing new HR system and process (as proposed above) that will augment the organization performance further and help the organization to get competitive advantage over its competitors. But in order to experience this incremental change the organization must be able to constantly monitor and evaluate the environmental forces and take actions in response to change that will provide opportunities to the organization and minimizes its threats. The organization must possessed the needed intellectual capital (Human Resources), who should be able adapt the organization policies according to the demand of the environment. These manager and leaders are known as change agent. According to Robbins Judge, â€Å"change agents are individuals and groups who lead and support the change process by taking responsibility for changing the existing behavior patterns of other people or the social system (Robbins Judge, 2005)†. Furthermore Crossroad Inc should established fair paying and reward system that best on justice and efforts. The organization should also facilitate the creation and execution the labour union approach that will serve as joining link between the organization and its workers. Moreover the Crossroad Inc should invest in its corporate cultures that are going to be form through the merger of two opposite culture. The organization should see this as opportunity to form a strong culture by initiating the proper change. Though training and development could be in progress in short term, the purpose is difficult to achieve at once. Therefore Crossroad Inc should adapt the medium or long-term training and development program for various functional department of the organization. Crossroad Inc can create a positive impact due to the fact that formation of the organization is the result of merger between two different companies who have two different management styles, corporate culture, traditions and workforce management system. Hence, the HR department assume a leading role in shaping the values of employees by creating an organization-wide culture that is based on shared values that will help the organization to realize its mission in the most coherent way. Works Cited Boselie, P., Paauwe, J. (2004). Human Resource Function Competencies in European Companies. Journal of Management , 120-122. Brockbank, W., Ulrich, D., Beatty, R. (1999). The Professional Devlopment: Creating the Future Creators at the University of Michigan Business School. Human Resource Management 38(2) , 111-118. Coff, R. (1994). Human Assets and organziation Control: Implication of the resource-based view. John M. Olin School of Business , Washington University. Losey, M. (2005). Future of Human Resource Management: Leaders Explore the Critical HR Issues of Today and Tommorrow. New Jersy: John Wiley Sons . Newman, D. R., Hodgets, R. M. (2005). Human Resource Management: A Customer Oriented Approach. USA: Prentice Hall Publishers. Newman, D. R., Hodgetts, R. M. (2005). Human Resource Management: A Customer Oriented Approach. USA: Prentice Hall. Peter, T. J., Waterman, R. (1982). In Search of Exchellence. New York: Waner Books. Plessis, D. (2007). Change, Organziational Devleopment and Culture: Human Resource Managements Role in the Future of South Africa. International Review of Business Research Papers 3(1) , 1-10. Robbins, Judge. (2005). Organizational Behavior. USA: Pearson. Wright, P., Dunford, B., Snell, S. (2001). Human Resource and the Resource Based View of the Firm. Journal of Management 27 , 701-721.

The Yellow Wallpaper and The Chrysanthemums -- Comparative, Allen, St

Restraints are set by parents on their children to aid with the developmental process and help with the maturity level. Restrictions and the ability to control exist in our society and our lives. We encounter restraints daily: job, doors, people, and the most frequently used and arduous become intangible. In the following stories tangible and intangible scenarios are presented. Autonomy, desires, and talents spurned by the husbands in John Steinbeck’s â€Å"The Chrysanthemums and Charlotte Gilman’s â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper.† The authors share views regarding a similar theme of male domination and imprisonment. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† involves the treatment of a depressed woman who is driven insane in a male imposed detention in her own room. On the other hand, Elisa Allen in the â€Å"The Chrysanthemums† struggles internally to find her place in a fully male dominated society with definite gender roles. The mirror-like situations bring upon a different reaction for both the women in different ways. The importance of symbolism, control from their husbands, and the lack of a healthy marriage will be discussed in this paper in two stories. Elisa Allen and the narrator of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† are both trapped in various ways and the sexuality leads to this entrapment. Elisa feels confined and limited; â€Å"the high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world† (226). Trapped inside the house and feels isolated from the world outside. The chrysanthemums symbolize her scope of life where she devotes most of her time with this activity. The chrysanthemums, strong and thriving, portray Elisa’s current physical condition. She treats the chrysanthemums like her children; â€Å"she held the flower po... ...e husbands possess a male ego of power that leads to lack of understanding in their marriages. The wallpaper symbolizes the trapped narrator and the structure of the tradition. Also, Elisa’s chrysanthemums are discarded and the narrator’s feelings are disowned which portrays the rejection of women. Elisa ends up â€Å"crying weakly like an old woman† and settles for wine (233). The narrator’s actions lead to her husband fainting â€Å"but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time† (447). The narrator is insane and causes faintness in her husband, hoping that she now has an escape. To conclude, John Steinbecks â€Å"The Chrysanthemums† and Charloette Perkins â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† show two different outcomes mainly arisen due to being trapped inside an isolated house or a garden and having a limited life under a husband's control.

Essay on Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness -- comparison compare

The Tragic Fall in Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness      Ã‚   In Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Conrad Heart of Darkness, the role of Africa is intertwined. It is seen as extremely primitive and the African's belief system is belittled. The two heroes in the novels also are very similar, and most especially in one aspect. They both experience a downfall. This is a vital theme throughout both books. Aristotle would say it is the fall of two "tragic heroes". However, even though these two characters share these similar incidences, the readers are given several different perceptions of one event. The colonization of the Europeans paid a heavy toll on the Africans and their way of life. The Europeans are consistently portrayed at the outsiders. Okonkwo is also quite familiar with Africa, yet Marlow was not. In his eyes, the Africans are seen as the outsiders. Okonkwo's father, Unoka, was seen as a person who was very lazy and who made no contribution to their society. This made Okonkwo hate him and any trait of any kind that correlated wit h that of his father. One way that this is displayed is that "Okonkwo never showed emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show emotion was a sign of weakness, the only thing worth demonstrating was strength" (Achebe 28). Okonkwo's greatest weakness was fear, yet this a contradiction in it's own terms. His fear of fear played such a big part of his adult life that it came back to haunt him. He never wanted to be considered a victim. Yet, ironically, he was only setting himself up to self-destruction and tragedy. Because of fear, it drives him pull his machete and strike a blow, first killing Ikemefuna and later the Court Messenger. Finally, this drives him to be physically abus... ...d, but instead because he could have been so great. Instead, he becomes cruel, unfeeling, and greedy. The true tragedy is that Kurtz did not become the great man that he could have been. Okonkwo and Kurtz were two men from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Their beliefs did not coincide, but they did have one aspect in common. They both brought themselves to the point of a tragic fall. For some reason or another, they both had to leave their homes. This is the marking of their fall. As soon as they do leave, the downfall begins, and it does not stop until there is nothing else to lose.    Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1959. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988. Daniel, Patsy J. ConradÕs Heart of Darkness. Explicator. 54(3):164-165.      

Mixed :: Personal Narrative Racial Papers

Mixed "Did your real mom die or something?" The boy with the snot-streaked face asked me on the playground, next to the jungle gym. He wore a striped blue shirt open at the neck and his eyes were so dark I couldn't see his pupils. "W-what do you mean?" I stared hard at him, my voice already taking on a defensive edge. I gripped the edge of my red corduroy jumper with my grubby hands. "I mean, what happened to your real mom? The one that's not a gaijin." Then I understood. Gaijin. Foreigner. I looked down at my clenched hands, too dirty to rub my face with if I started to cry. The boy wasn't trying to be mean, he was just curious. But I was sick of it-the teasing, the questioning, the staring. When I hit him hard in the face, he looked more stunned than hurt, his eyes so wide open that I could see white all around the iris. Back in those days, I told many stories about myself. One of them was about why my eyes were golden-greenish-brown and not dark brown due to an illness I'd had. Another was about how I dyed my hair to make it reddish-brown instead of black. The most absurd one was about how my mom really was Japanese, but had lived in America all her life and that's why she looked white. Most of them made no sense. I don't know if the kids ever believed me. No matter how many lies I told about myself, I knew deep down that I could never imagine away who I was. I would always be "Half," not whole. In Japan, people would identify me as "haaf"-the Japanese bastardization of the English word, "half"-used to connote someone of mixed race. My dad would get angry again and again when strangers tried to touch my hair when we went out in Tokyo. And my mom would be asked, "where did she adopt those adorable Vietnamese children?" every time she brought my brother and me back to the States to see my grandma in Florida. Most of my memories of growing up in Japan can be divided into two groups-my interactions with adults and those with children. Having grown up in a house with five adults until I was 5-years old, I naturally preferred the company of older people.

Local and State Education Agencies Essay

Dear Colleagues, The purpose of this document is to provide a stand-alone guide for local and state education agencies faced with the task of designing a new or upgrading an existing automated student information system. While based on a chapter from the Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education, this guide contains additional information from a variety of resources, most of which are cited in the text. Included in the contents are guidelines, checklists, and real-life examples. This document was commissioned by the National Education Statistics Agenda Committee (NESAC) of the National Forum on Education Statistics (a part of the National Cooperative Education Statistics System) and funded by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education. Through contract with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and NCES funding, this document was developed by Barbara S. Clements of Evaluation Software Publishing, Inc. It is an adaptation of the chapter, Building a Student Record System, contained in the Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education: 2000 Edition. Beth Young of NCES and Oona Cheung of CCSSO provided overall guidance to and management of this activity. Comments on the text were gratefully received from state and local education agency staff including Raymond Yeagley, Rochester (NH) School District, Lee Tack, Iowa Department of Education, Bethann Canada, Virginia Department of Education, and Carol Hokenson,  Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning. Design assistance was provided by The Creative Shop. The original Student Data Handbook was developed in 1994 by NCES. It was the result of the collaborative effort and work of NCES staff and contractors, the NESAC Student Data Task Force, local, state and federal education representatives and researchers from around the country. We hope this document will provide you with useful and interesting information to aid in designing your automated student record system. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries. NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public. We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our success in communicating information effectively. If you have any comment or suggestions about this or any other NCES product or report, we would like to hear from you. Introduction The national focus on student outcomes has placed an additional burden on our nation’s schools, school districts, and state education agencies, for they must monitor the achievement of individual students, as well as groups of students, and show that all students are meeting high standards for learning. An education organization’s ability to meet this challenge is affected by the organization’s access to complete, accurate, and timely information about its students. This booklet has been developed to help education organizations plan and implement efficient systems for maintaining and using individual student records so that effective decisions can be made for the benefit of the students. Many schools, school districts, and state education agencies already collect and use data effectively. However, the proliferation of new reporting requirements and dramatic changes in technology have had a profound effect on the need for student data and the education community’s ability to manage student records. Purchase of more powerful computer hardware and software and the reconfiguration of information systems have become essential components in efforts to meet the needs of all students. There is probably no single best information system solution that can meet the needs of all 90,000+ public schools, 16,000+ school districts, 27,000  private schools, and 57 education agencies in states and outlying areas. However, there are certain steps that could help all education organizations to determine the best solution for their particular situations. This booklet can lead education organization decision-makers through the process of making the best and most cost-effective decisions about information management systems devoted to individual student records. Building an Automated Student Record System describes steps that are useful for education organizations to follow when planning for, designing, and implementing an automated student record system. This booklet should be particularly useful if your school or district is moving from paper records to automated student records or if you are revising or replacing an existing system. In addition, you may find information that is useful if your state education agency is building a new student record system or expanding the collection of individual student records. Contents of this Booklet Included are twelve steps to consider when developing and  implementing an automated student record system. Many of these steps are relevant to the implementation of any administrative record system, but our focus here is on the special considerations relating to student records, including confidentiality and access. After a general discussion about student records and student record systems, each step is described. Examples, case studies, and checklists are included to help you work your way through the steps and make crucial decisions. Related resource documents will be described for some of the steps. It should be noted that this book is derived from a chapter that appears in the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Student Data Handbook for Elementary, Secondary, and Early Childhood Education: 2000 Edition. In addition, information from other documents developed or sponsored by NCES and the advisory group, the National Forum on Education Statistics, are referenced and parts included in this booklet. Each of these documents is described in the Resource List at the end of the booklet, along with ways to obtain copies of the printed documents or the online versions. Student record is, by definition, any written information about a student. Student records can be described in terms of their contents (e.g., courses taken, grade point averages), use (e.g., identifying students eligible for the free lunch program), and storage medium (e.g., a manila file folder). The maintenance of extensive, accurate, historical, and current data about individual students is essential to the functioning of schools and school districts, and can promote effective educational practices at all levels of the education system. The contents of the student record are determined by the uses of the records. Typical contents may include family information, courses taken and grades, special program participation information, immunization records, assessment scores, extracurricular activities, and other information that is used by the education system to promote student success and provide appropriate services. Some of this information should be standard across classrooms, schools, districts, and states, while other information can be unique to the particular classroom, school, or district. Student records are used for many important educational purposes, including instruction and guidance decisions; monitoring compliance with attendance and health laws; and administrative purposes, such as determining tuition status, scheduling students into classes, planning school bus routes, monitoring program completion, and completing reports for local, state, and federal authorities. The student record usually contains the information necessary for each of these purposes at the school or district level.  Instructional management systems are frequently linked to student record systems to provide more analytical capability for teachers and administrators. These systems allow for student learning plans, individualized education plans (IEPs), portfolios, and other student products to be stored and retrieved for instructional decision-making and achievement monitoring. A student record may be kept on file in a classroom, school office, school district office, intermediate agency, state education agency, or other approved location. The record may contain information collected from the student (or family); from teachers and other school staff; and from other sources outside the school, such as health care providers or testing companies. The record for a student may be stored in a central location (such as a school computer) for the convenience of anyone with authorized access and a need to obtain information; or there may be a separate paper or computer record maintained by each person who has contact with a student. Some parts of the record may even be stored outside the school, as happens when student health records are stored and maintained by the local public health service, or when state test scores are stored and maintained at the state education agency. No matter where the student records are stored, procedures must be in place to ensure that access is granted only to authorized individuals and that only authorized individuals have the capacity to maintain (update) the records. Student records traditionally have been kept only at the school or district level. In recent years, however, many state education agencies have begun to collect individual student records. State-level records typically consist of data about student characteristics, program participation and assessment results––a subset of the data usually maintained at the school and district levels. The purposes of state-level databases are to promote continuous improvement in schools, plan for program changes to help students achieve high standards, distribute funds, and hold schools and districts accountable for student achievement. Most of the information included in state-level databases comes directly from schools and districts, and the information may be transmitted electronically among levels of the state’s school system. In summary, a complete student record may be a single file, or it can be made up of several separate records, each with specific content or uses and each stored and maintained in a different way.

Is it ethical to feed live food to reptiles

Is it ethical to feed live food to exotic pets? Abstract Live food items are often fed to exotic pet species whether they be birds, amphibians, reptiles or mammals. This raises issues of welfare, both of the animals fed live prey Items and the prey Itself. Concerns over live food welfare are particularly marked In the feeding of vertebrate prey Items and evidence presented here shows the prolonged time taken for rodents to die, this fuelling these concerns.And yet the welfare of all exotic pets relies both on providing optimal nutrition and ensuring, as such as possible, that their natural behaviors can be expressed. Does that mean that predatory species must be fed live prey? This paper discusses this problem and seeks potential solutions. Introduction Many of the â€Å"exotic† species that are kept as pets (companion animals) or for study, or which form part of a zoo or rescue centre, are wholly or partly carnivorous and therefore require food of animal origin.Many omnivores also feed In part on live or dead animals and some essentially herbivorous/carnivorous species, such as finches (Freeloading), require invertebrate food when they are nestlings. In this paper emphasis is on the provision of still living food, but brief mention will be made of dead animals. The discussion relates mainly to live food given to captive exotic animals but it must be remembered that free-living Individuals also kill and eat live prey. The use of live food Food comprising live animals or their derivatives is widely considered to serve two main purposes.First, from a nutritive perspective, It contains important, sometimes essential, amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients; secondly, from a behavioral viewpoint It provides captive animals with stimulation, especially when It Is resented to them in an imaginative way, providing a very important form of environmental enrichment. The subject of â€Å"live-feeding† of animals in zoos and private collections has become a specialist topic, with numerous papers in the literature about how best such diets should be chosen and presented. These include precautions to minimize damage to the prey species by attacks from the animals provided as live food. O be well-substantiated; as noted above, it provides behavioral enrichment and represents a natural or near-natural method of providing essential nutrition . There s, however, another important consideration, which is sometimes forgotten or ignored. This is the question of the wellbeing of the live food that is being offered. After all, the food consists of living animals which, regardless of their taxonomic status, may be subjected to and affected by stresses, including pain during the period before and during being eaten. There are several stages at which the prey species may be subjected to stresses.The first of these is during production or collection. Live food is either bred in captivity or collected in the wild and in many cases such breeding or c ollection may involve stress for the animals involved. When offered as food, prior to being devoured the live food prey item is often in what for it is an unusual, an â€Å"alien† environment. It may, for example, be exposed to abnormally high temperatures or bright lights, rendering the individual, by definition, vulnerable to attack/apprehension by the animal to which it is being fed.The key welfare issue for many animals provided as live food will be when they are being devoured. Some live food is killed almost instantaneously by the predator, using physical or chemical means from trauma to veneration, both of these potentially rendering the prey immobile while losing consciousness. In such circumstances there may be little in risk of poor welfare. But often death takes much longer – for instance, a rodent constricted and thus killed by suffocation by a snake, or a cockroach dismembered while it is still alive.Some prey items may be swallowed whole and are therefore still alive – and presumably conscious – for some time until they die of asphyxia or the effect of the predator's gastric Juices; If not immediately devoured uneaten prey may be taken and consumed abstinently, perhaps on another day, but in the meantime it has to survive in an alien environment, often without water, food or appropriate shelter. Sometimes the prey item is never eaten, either because the predator is no longer hungry or because the prey escapes.As a result, it may die as a result of starvation, dehydration, hyperthermia or hypothermia in the predator's cage. It may, alternatively, establish itself in that cage or escape into the home/zoo environment. Here crickets (Grilled) are the best example. The debate Vertebrate food Some decades ago concern began to be voiced by some individuals and certain institutions about the practice of feeding live vertebrates to captive mammals, birds and reptiles. The methods employed began to be subjected to greater scruti ny and criticism as a greater understanding of, and sensitivity to, issues of animal welfare evolved.Society of London) introduced a ban on the feeding of living vertebrate food to its captive reptiles and instead to train the latter to take freshly-killed prey or items (for example, a freshly dead rabbit) that could be moved to simulate life or placed in an unusual environment, such as a hollow tube, to interest the hungry predator. In Britain, at any rate, many other zoos and herpetologists followed suit and by the late asses the use of dead, not living, prey was considered to be â€Å"good practice†.During the decade of the asses claims were regularly made by animal welfare groups that live-feeding was â€Å"illegal† in the I-J but these assertions were countered in lectures and articles (1). The point was made that there was no specific legal ban on live- feeding but that such a practice might lead to a prosecution under the Protection of Animals Acts (2). Herpetol ogists who still wanted to feed live food to their charges ere encouraged to take steps to minimize suffering in various ways – for example, by not leaving live food in the various for long periods of time and by providing shelter and water for it.Those recommendations in Britain were in a large part a modification and refinement of the approach taken by the senior author nearly a decade beforehand, when, in an attempt to encourage a more humane approach to live-feeding of snakes in East Africa, a document was drawn up by the Kenya Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (KAPPA). This is reproduced as Appendix A. Force-feeding† of non-living food is also a possibility, particularly used for ‘difficult' species such as Royal pythons (Python argues) but this can be stressful.Another argument used on both sides of the Atlantic, to dissuade reptile-keepers from feeding live vertebrate food was that the latter could easily attack and damage the predator speci es. Thus, for instance, live rodents put in Bavaria as food can cause severe skin lesions in snakes (3, 4, 5). Having said that, a casual glance through online video clips, as detailed further below, shows that live vertebrate prey are still fed to pitiless by a number of keepers. Invertebrate food Questioning the feeding of live invertebrates to captive animals is less common even today .In the asses an â€Å"animal rights† group based in Scotland lobbied for more awareness of the welfare needs of invertebrate animals and included in their concerns the use of crickets, maelstroms and other species as food items for captive mammals, birds and reptiles. In the past two decades interest amongst veterinarians and others in the health and welfare of invertebrates has grown (6, 7). In its wake, discussion and studies on whether or not invertebrates â€Å"suffer† pain have become reverent (7), including some limited analysis and discussions of the ethical considerations of u sing these animals as live prey.A problem, of course, is that the term â€Å"invertebrate† is very broad, covering around 30 distinct phyla, and the ability of such animals to react to a noxious stimulus varies greatly between, say, a coelenterate that has no generalized nervous system and a cephalic with a well-developed nervous system and pain responses (7). The main groups of invertebrate that are used as food for other animals are arthropods, phyla produce endorphins and may, therefore, be able not only to respond to pain by appropriate escape behavior but be aware of it.Research on the nematode Conservationist elegant, for instance, has shown that activation, an invertebrate homologue of morphogenesis, together with improprieties, modulates aversive activity that mimics behaviors associated with chronic pain in vertebrates (9). While such primitive species can exhibit inception, it would be questioned by many as to whether they feel pain, defined as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage' (italics added) (10).Even a single- led amoeba moves away from a noxious stimulus, but cannot be said to have an emotional response – so where on the evolutionary ‘ladder' does such a response occur? Certainly there are behavioral indicators of pain in several crustacean species (11) and some mollusks (12). In some situations such as the use of live insects in biomedical research, the approach advocated by certain authors has been â€Å"to give them (invertebrates) the benefit of the doubt† and therefore (for example) to employ an anesthetic agent when a procedure to be performed that might cause pain (13).Such a precautionary Renville has not apparently, however, been applied to the use of these same species as live food for mammals, birds or reptiles – and probably would not be realistic. We are, after all, here in a situation where the benefits of one species, the predat or, must be weighed against those of the prey species. Such is the very essence of nature. Hopefully, wherever possible, in a captive environment the welfare needs of both predator and prey can be considered and predator species trained to accept dead prey rather than live. ‘ A preliminary study of welfare of live prey speciesPerhaps a start on such a Journey is to ask for evidence regarding the welfare of prey species when being fed to a predator species. For that reason, we present here a preliminary study using online You Tube videos of various captive reptiles as the predator and mice, rats and crickets as live prey items. Clearly this cannot be a controlled study, but the videos were sampled by accessing the first ten adequate clips defined by ‘reptile eats live mouse', ‘reptile eats live rat', and ‘reptile eats live locust' and recording the time taken from apprehension of the prey item to death as determined by the time of last movement of prey item.It could be argued that the prey species may not lose consciousness until after that period and, in some cases, vivification by the prey item may occur after the last obvious movement, but in those documented in Table 1 this was not the case. The time to death as estimated by cessation of any movement was 62Ð’Â ±29 seconds for mice, 54Ð’Â ±21 seconds for rats and 18Ð’Â ±17 seconds for locusts, with ranges from 38 to 120 seconds for the mice, 24-82 seconds for the rats and 5-62 seconds for the locusts .These figures are clearly influenced by the size of both prey and of predator. Euthanasia of laboratory rodents by carbon dioxide may take 2-3 minutes (14) while cervical dislocation successfully killed animals apparently instantaneously in 79% of animals in one study (15). In another study electroencephalographic activity during the 30 seconds immediately (at 5 to 10 s), 10-15 seconds after exposure to 100% CO, 15-20 seconds after decapitation and at 20-25 seconds with cardi ac arrest caused by KC injection but not after administration of 70% CO (15).A painful and fear-provoking death taking p to 2 minutes as seen in many live food subjects would not, we argue, be acceptable in any circumstances. Interestingly, few if any rodents seemed aware that a predator shared the various with them, many mice actively investigating the snake until the moment of attack. Other rodents in the enclosure did not appear to show behavioral evidence of fear even when other rodents in the same various were attacked, constricted and killed.On the other hand, the fear and pain indicated by rapid movements and vacillations of the prey item, was clear in many of the cases as noted in Table 1 . These author found it disturbing to watch the video clips in many cases and we would argue that the suffering of prey species in many of these video clips and in many is contrary to the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act (2006) in the United Kingdom, as discussed further below. Discus sion There can be no hard-and-fast rules about the feeding of live food to captive animals.However we advocate that, if it is not necessary to sustain the life of the prey species in order to stimulate the predator to pretend and swallow, live-feeding should not take place.. When such a feeding practice is necessary – and is not De facto in intervention of legislation – it should be carried out with care and sensitivity and follow a code of practice. As noted at the beginning of this paper, there are two elements to live-feeding – the predator and the prey – and these both warrant a humane approach.Although reptiles have attracted particular attention in the debate about live-feeding, other carnivorous tax have also come under some scrutiny, especially in Europe. The feeding of large felid such as lions, tigers and cheetahs with live vertebrates, such as rodents or alligators, has long ceased to be accepted practice in zoos in cost of Europe. The use of l iving animals, such as mice or quail, to encourage falconers' birds and wildlife casualties to perfect their hunting skills has, likewise, been officially phased-out.Some of the practices alluded to above have stopped because of public attitudes but legislation has also, indirectly, had a result. Thus, for example, the I-J Animal Welfare Act 2006, while not specifically outlawing the feeding of live food to carnivorous species, puts an onus of responsibility on keepers on a duty of care to all animals in their possession and thus an obligation to ensure as far as possible that ere species are killed before being offered as food.