The Factors Of Media, Body Satisfaction, And Gender On...

The factors of media, body satisfaction, and gender on weight biases Crista Benton University of Tampa INTRO The stigma against obese indivuduals is now global. It happens at the playground, during job interviews, while applying for graduate school, in court and even at the doctors office. (1-5) There are already well documented differences between weight bias and gender. Aruguete, Yates and Edman found that women tend to internalize their anti fat attitudes, meaning they value thinness within themselves more than others. They become fearful of gaining weight, and tend to have a stronger desire than men to lose weight. Aruguete s sample of women had desires 3 times higher to lose weight than the men. Due to the internalization, women tend to be more dissatisfied with their body and are more likely to engage in risky dietary behaviors. Interalizing antifat attitudes is not related to the dislike of obease individuals. Men externalize their anti-fat attitudes; even overweight men are more likely than women to have a bias against overweight individuals. â€Å" Men value thiness in other people more than they do in themselves. â€Å" A previous study shows that watching 40 minutes of The Biggest Loser increases weight bias. The contestants on the program showed deciation and hard work which contributed to the idea the weight is contorollable which leads to a higher fat bias. When they measured the fat biases, they found that overweight participants displayed aShow MoreRelatedThere is a stigma in our society about obesity in our culture. This issue has increased over the3100 Words   |  13 Pagesreport feelings of obesity mostly as a strong automatic preference for thin people compared to fat people. This stigma is influenced by several different factors, including gender, the media, and attitudes about ones own body. Attitudes toward obesity are different among genders. In a study completed by Aruguete, Yates, and Edman, they found that body dissatisfaction was greater among women than men. They found that women indicated more food limitations than men including dieting more, because of theirRead MoreSocio-Demographic Profile and Problems Encountered by the Heads of Lupong Tagapamayapa in the Municipality of Bayambang6072 Words   |  25 Pagestraits, performance, attributes and individuality they manifest, when recognized and harnessed, can promote peace and reconciliation at the local level where they build consensus through dialogue which promote trust among the members of the governing body and the community. The central feature of the system is the Lupong Tagapamayapa, a community-based conflict resolution effort that is highly supportive of the notions of social ordering and human development. While the speedy administration of justiceRead MoreResearch Report on Impact of Time Management11320 Words   |  46 Pagesthe public to focus on either police processes or outcomes. The person answering this question could in good conscience choose both, neither or perhaps something else entirely. And without additional information, we are unable to determine how much weight the survey respondent gives to specific aspects of police performance. Such questions are like those that ask the public to indicate whether they approve of the job that the president of the United States is doing – without specifying any particularRead MoreAppearance Discrimination in Employment22039 Words   |  89 Pagesâ€Å"beautiful†. Originality/value  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ This is an original and comprehensive paper by the authors. 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The Two Families That I Chose For This Assignment

The two families that I chose for this assignment are the Poteats’ and the Reitans’ because they each embody a different type of sense making. There are three different types of sense-making, there is the family-unit sense-making which I will explain in detail later, there is the Individual sense-making which I will also explain further in detail later, and there is the incomplete sense-making. Incomplete sense making by definition is when no clear understanding emerges at either the family or individual level, it characterizes in one or more members not being engaged in story-telling, active participants attempt to seek out other’s perspectives, but often do not succeed, less development of explanations or interpretation of experiences and lastly minimal participation by one or more members means less turn-taking. (Comm 478 lecture, Oct 9, 2015) The Poteats’ seem to be an individual sense-making family which means that family members participate in storytelling by sharing separate versions of the story and reaching individual conclusions about its meaning. (Comm 478 lecture, Oct 9, 2015) As Tonia and her parents share their story they are not fully engaged, Tonia’s parents seem to engage more with each other than with their daughter. As Tonia explains on how she process and when about telling her parents about her sexual orientation and their reaction to it, it portrait a picture of different perspectives not been quite accept it. Out of the four families shown theShow MoreRelatedMy First Year Of High School1135 Words   |  5 Pagesschool. In my first two years of public school, I found that I didn’t like my teachers and classes. I started ditching to avoid the boredom, hanging out with friends instead of doing schoolwork. 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Simulation of Personal Emotion Experience Free Essays

string(90) " feeling of happiness or of resentment, depending on the relationship between the agents\." Reeves NAS (1996) showed that humans like to communicate with computers as they do with people. Software applications which include models of emotional processes are needed to model the social and emotional aspects of human-machine interaction. Extending classic AAA and logic by adding simulated emotions can be useful to improve the user’s experience in many ways. We will write a custom essay sample on Simulation of Personal Emotion Experience or any similar topic only for you Order Now This chapter will provide a brief overview of existing solutions and models used for artificial emotions (AWE) and present a novel model of emotion simulation (SIMPLEX). Empirical data will be reported on its performance, especially the occurrence of emotions, in a game environment. This chapter concludes with a comment on the usefulness of separating AAA and AWE engendering recent advances in cognitive neuroscience. 2. Models for artificial emotions 2. 1 Historical roots The ass saw what might have been the first debate about emotions and artificial intelligence. The main and – as we know now – most important point was that purely cognitive systems lacked emotions, which strongly influence human thought processes.. Two of the models that emerged at that time will be described here. Simony’s interrupt system Herbert Simon was the first to propose that emotions should be part of a model of cognitive processes (Simon, 1967). His intention was to provide a theoretical inundation for a system incorporating emotions and multiple goals. Within this system, important processes could be interrupted so that more attention went into satisfying important needs (e. G. Hunger, safety). Herbert Simon imagined two parallel systems, one designed to achieve goals (cognition, planning) and one observing the environment for events that require immediate attention (emotions). Indeed, the possibility of interrupting current cognitive processes is 2 Name of the book (Header position 1,5) vital for survival, as it makes it possible to react to threats, but also to pay more attention to one’s surroundings when a threat is expected. Today’s Fungus Eater Another step towards a theory for the computer modeling of emotions was made by the psychologist Mason Toad (Toad, 1982) between 1961 and 1980, with a model called the Fungus Eater. This model resulted in the design of an autonomous robot system and partial implementations. At first, Toad only wanted to create a scenario for a cognitive system that would require concentrating on multiple issues at the same time. In this scenario, the task was collecting as much ore as possible with the help of a mining robot. Operating his robot required energy that could only be gained by collecting a special fungus. Additionally, different Fungus Eaters were competing for the same resources, thus making the scenario more complicated. Toad came to the conclusion that in order to survive on their own, these Fungus Eaters would need to have emotions and to be partially controlled by them. However, Toad named them â€Å"urges† instead of emotions and on closer examination, it is apparent that some of these are actual emotions like joy or anger, while others are needs, goals or motives (e. G. Hunger). 2. 2 Theoretical approach and recent models There are roughly three areas where emotion models are applied. Artificial emotions (AWE) can be used to improve problem-solving in complex environments, as in the early approaches mentioned above. Emotion models can also be used to test psychological emotion theories in experiments using controlled scenarios. Finally, emotions are essential to make computer characters more believable. Emotion models which synthesize and express emotions are necessary to make AAA characters more human- like. These models will be the focus of the next sections as they have inspired our own emotional model. The most influential theoretical approach, COCO, will be presented in detail, as it is the basis of many computational models of emotion. Then, three interesting recent models are briefly described. COCO – a theoretical approach to simulate emotions The COCO model by Retort, Color and Collins is an emotion theory based on appraisal which was explicitly developed to offer a foundation for artificial emotion systems (Retort, Color, Collins, 1988). Its authors succeeded as it inspired many modern models and approaches to artificial emotions. The basis of the model is that emotions are reactions to the attributes of objects, to vents or to actions. Note that internal events (like bodily sensations or memories) which are a part of most modern emotion theories are neglected in the COCO approach. Objects, events and actions are evaluated in an appraisal process based on specific criteria, and result in multiple emotions of different intensities. Figure 1 gives an overview of the COCO approach. Appraising the aspects of objects requires the agent to have attitudes (tastes or preferences) in order to decide whether the object is appealing or not. This appraisal process results in either love or hate. Chapter Title (Header position 1,5) 3 Fig. 1. The COCO model Events, or rather consequences of events, are appraised by analyzing their impact on the agent’s goals. This determines the desirability of events. The degree of desirability depends on how much closer to or further away from achieving the goal the agent will be after the event. The emotions of Joy and distress are direct results of desirable and undesirable events, considering the consequences they have for the agent himself. Some emotions, like for example pity, are triggered when processing events that have consequences for other agents. An open issue is whether this appraisal should be based upon the agent’s own goals or rather the other agent’s goals. How much should an agent be empathic if another one looses something that is not important to the first agent? In an attempt to solve this issue, abstract goals were introduced (such as for example, not losing property). It eventually became clear that it is very important to keep the goals general and abstract, to avoid having to define too many specific goals. The emotions triggered by reacting to other agents’ good or bad fortune depend on how well-liked they are. Another agent’s bad fortune can trigger pity or gloating, while happy events can result in either feeling of happiness or of resentment, depending on the relationship between the agents. You read "Simulation of Personal Emotion Experience" in category "Papers" Appraising an event also means evaluating its prospects – hoping or fearing that something will or will not occur. Prospect-based emotions include disappointment and relief. The intensity of these emotions is usually based on the intensity of the preceding hope or fear. The criterion used to appraise the actions of agents is their praiseworthiness, which is based on the agent’s standards. Generally, praiseworthy actions cause pride and blameworthy actions cause shame, if the agent himself is the one acting. When the actions of other agents are 4 appraised, the emotions triggered are admiration or reproach. Standards can be as complex as attitudes (aspects of objects) and goals (consequences of events), and are almost as subjective and individual. Again, the problem of listing them was solved by describing actions in an abstract way. An interesting phenomenon is the ability of feeling proud or ashamed of someone else’s actions. Simply put, the closer an agent feels related to the acting agent(s), the more he will identify with him in appraising is actions. Examples of this phenomenon (called the strength of the cognitive unit) can range from parents being proud of their child to soccer fans being ashamed of their team’s performance. One of the many practical implementations of COCO is the model by Stapler PETA (1999). They constructed a virtual agent which emotion architecture links discrete emotions categories to 14 action response categories, comprising a large range of individual actions. The COCO emotion model is also partly congruent with Nice Fried’s renewed theory of emotions (Afraid, 1986). For more details on emotion theory, see Trace Kessler (2003). Artificial Emotion Engine The aim of the Emotion Engine (E) is to control the behavior of an artificial agent in complex scenarios. It is made of three layers- emotions, mood and personality (Wilson, 2000). If an emotion is triggered, the actions will be based on this emotion. When emotions are not triggered, the engine bases its actions on the current mood; when no mood is activated, then personality serves as a basis for behavior. The emotion engine is based on the FEE model, which is a three-dimensional space, describing personality traits in terms of Extroversion, Fear and Aggression. Within this space, an area around the point representing an artificial agent’s personality is determined and all traits located inside this area are considered to be available to the specific character. For Wilson, the FEE is congruent with the three central systems of the human brain which according to Gray (Gray McLaughlin, 1996) determine behavior: the Approach system, the Behavior Inhibition system and the Fight/Flight system. These three basic dimensions are intuitive, which makes programming easy. Different personalities trigger some moods more frequently than others: extroversion s linked to good moods, and fear to negative moods. Aggression affects the speed of mood changes. Reward and punishment signals work as the main inputs, and this is comparable with the desirability of events in COCO. Inputs are adjusted based on personality, but also on how often this input occurred before. An agent can get used to a certain input, and this lowers the impact it will eventually have (habituation). On the contrary, a rare or unprecedented input will have more effect (novelty). Needs are organized hierarchically. Physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst, and the need for warmth and energy are the most important. Each of these needs can become a priority, as when for example a very hungry agent will consider eating as his most important goal. Safety, affiliation and esteem needs are the remaining layers. While physiological needs are the most important, the order of the other layers can vary, depending on what is more important to the agent. Memory is very limited; an agent only remembers how much he likes the other agents. In the same way, in COCO, sympathy is used to cause different emotions for liked and disliked entities. Only the six basic emotions of fear, anger, Joy, sadness, disgust and surprise can be triggered. This might appear like a limited selection compared to the 24 emotions of COCO, but given the reactive nature of emotions in this model (working without inner events and 5 triggers) and since some emotion theorists consider the broad spectrum of emotions as mixtures of these basic emotions, this is quite a sensible choice. Personality is used to adjust the intensity or the frequency of the occurrence of emotions, so that a character with personality that is â€Å"low in Fear† will simply not experience as much fear as others. FLAME The Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) is partially based on COCO, but hat differentiates FLAME from other models is the use of fuzzy logic. This results in a relatively simple appraisal process. FLAME can integrate multiple emotions at the same time (in a process called emotional filtering), as emotions at times inhibit one another. For example, imagine an agent feeling Joy and pride because he Just obtained a new position, but who at the same time feels anger, because a relative of the boss of the company was given a higher position than himself. At this point, his anger may prevent him from feeling joy any longer. When opposite emotions occur, FLAME lets the stronger emotion inhibit the weaker one(s), giving a slightly stronger weight to negative emotions. Another way to handle conflicting emotions is through mood, which is determined by comparing the intensities of positive and negative emotions over the last few steps. If the summed up intensities of positive emotions are higher than that of the negative emotions, then the mood will be positive. If a positive and a negative emotion of comparable intensities occur at the same time, the mood determines which of these emotions will inhibit the other one. As there is little research about the decay of emotions, FLAME uses a simple constant cay, though positive emotions decay faster than negative emotions. FLAME does not make it possible to implement an agent’s personality; instead, differences in behavior are created through learning. For example, an agent may learn that reacting in an angry way will enable him to reach his goals, thus enticing him to be more choleric. FLAME implements multiple types of learning, such as classical conditioning (associating expectations with objects) which occurs in many situations, triggering fear or hope. Another type of learning is learning about consequences of actions or events. This is simple whenever an action directly causes a result. For example, learning that eating will result in feeling less hungry is rather trivial. In the case of more complex causal relations over time, FLAME is using Q-learning, a form of reinforcement learning. Another form of learning, quite similar to model learning, is the ability to recognize patterns in the behavior of a user by observing sequences of actions. For this type of learning, FLAME simply counts the occurrences of sequences. The last type of learning in FLAME, but one of the most important, is learning about the value of actions. Remember that COCO relies on the praiseworthiness of actions, which is based on the agent’s standards. In FLAME, these standards are not predefined knowledge, but they are learned from the interaction between users. Using learning instead of predefined knowledge seems like a very sensible way to avoid most of the troubling issues that come with using COCO. Additionally, learning allows agents to adjust, which makes them all the more believable. ALMA The intention in designing A Layered Model of Affect (ALMA) was to control agents in conversational scenarios. In interactive game or learning environments, the artificial harassers display facial expressions of emotions and moods through their postures to 6 appear more believable. Emotions, moods and personalities are implemented and interact with each other. Events and actions are described in terms of abstract tags which are then evaluated during the appraisal process and describe things like for example the expressed emotion or gesture accompanying an action or simply if something is a good or bad event. As ALMA is aimed at conversations, an action is often a statement. Hence, there are tags to describe the kind of statement, for example if it was an insult or a compliment. In addition, ALMA requires defining personality profiles for each agent. Essentially, these profiles already contain the desirability and praiseworthiness the agent assigns to certain tags. Since our own emotion model shares some features with ALMA (see below) a key difference should be pointed out. In SIMPLEX we considered it impractical to explicitly specify this information, as this would have limited the model to a small number of agents. So instead of using tags, our model requires to specify goals and their priorities for an agent, where generic goals can be used for all agents. Events still need to be scribed in a special way, but this is reduced too relatively objective list of which agents goals are affected and in which way. All other information like praiseworthiness is automatically derived from this and the agent’s personality. Although this approach is providing less control over an agent’s appraisal process, it is better suited for a generic system meant to be used with minimal extra effort. 3. SIMPLEX – Simulation of Personal Emotion Experience 3. Overview SIMPLEX is a context-independent module to create emotions as a result of primary application (environment) events. Goals, emotions, mood-states, personality, memory and relationships between agents have been modeled so they could interact as in real life. Figure 2 shows an overview of the model. SIMPLEX is based on the COCO model by Retort, Color and Collins (1988) in that it creates discrete emotions by appraising events based on the desirability of their consequences and the praiseworthiness of the actions of agents. The appraisal process was modified by including the personality of virtual agents. The personality component is based on the Five Factor Model (FM) introduced by psychologists McCrae Costa (1987), which includes extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neurotics and openness. The personality module influences the emotion module on multiple levels during appraisal processes and in the development of mood-states. Other important aspects of the model are mood-states and relationships. Mood- states are represented in a three-dimensional space which dimensions are pleasure, arousal and dominance (Bradley Lang, 1994), and they are based on active or recently experienced emotions (implemented by pull-functions). In the absence of motions, a mood state will slowly gravitate back to a default mood-state based on the agent’s personality. A mood-state also functions as a threshold to determine whether an emotion is strong enough to become active at a given time. Relationships are handled as if they were mood-states towards other agents (for instance a player in a game scenario): they are based on emotions caused by other agents and they can be considered as a simplified way to store memories of experiences with these agents. They are used as thresholds as well; for example, an agent will be more likely to become angry at another agent towards when their legislation is in the range of negative valence. 7 Fig. 2. The emotion module SIMPLEX Personality (long-term), mood-state (mid-term) and emotions (short-term) thus represent three levels of the emotion module that interact with each other in order to create believable agents. Events from the scenario serve as the model’s inputs. They are appraised according to the COCO algorithm (see figure 1). This appraisal is influenced by the agent’s goals, his personality and his relationships with other agents. At the end of an appraisal one or several discrete emotions are generated. These emotions and the current mood-state are represented in the same three- dimensional PAD space: on the one hand, the emotion(s) serve(s) as an attractor for the recent mood-state position (pull function). On the other hand, the closer an emotion is located to the current mood-state, the more probable it will be that the emotion will be activated. The speed at which the mood-state changes, is influenced by the agent’s neurotics (a personality variable). Additionally, emotions that are caused by other agents will influence another mood-state representation (stored on another PAD space) representing the relationship with that agent. Thus, every agent has specific relationships with other agents, which influences his behavior towards others. Emotions, mood-states and relationships with other agents are the outputs of the model and can be used by the AAA application. Originally, the PAD space was designed to represent emotions in a dimensional rather than a discrete way (Russell, 1978). In our model, PAD is used as a common space where three different constructs (discrete COCO emotions, continuous mood- states and personality), are represented in order to be handled together by the SIMPLEX algorithm. An agent’s current mood-state is thus the result of a mathematical function which takes into account the default mood (defined by personality), the pulling behavior of COCO emotion(s) triggered by appraisals, and weighed factors influencing movement speed (see equation 1). Mood-state = f(PADDED, Paternosters, Filter) 8 3. 2 Basic components Mood-state represented in the PAD-Space (Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance) Beyond discrete emotions, which are typically short-term, mood-states are a powerful way to model emotional shifts and explain affective influences over longer periods of time. To implement mood-states in our model, we chose to use Russell three-dimensional space to describe emotions (Russell, 1978) and Meridian’s concept of how emotions are linked to personality traits (Meridian, 1996). The dimension of Pleasure encompasses valence ranging from very positive to very negative. Arousal is an indicator of how intensely something is perceived, or of how much it affects the organism. Dominance is a measure of experienced control over the situation. For example, a different degree of dominance can make the difference between fear and anger. Both of these emotions are states of negative valence and sigh arousal, but not feeling in control is what differentiates fear from anger. When an agent is angry, it is because he believes he can have a potential influence. Although emotions are triggered by COCO appraisals and are therefore discrete, they are handled in a continuous three-dimensional space by SIMPLEX. The advantage of treating emotions in this way and not Just as a fixed set of possible emotions is that it makes it possible to represent emotions that do not even have a name. It also creates the possibility to combine emotions, mood-state and personality in one space. First, a ordinate in PAD space can obviously represent an agent’s mood-state. But emotions and personalities can also be described in terms of Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance values. For example, the value of arousal can be not only the degree of arousal associated with a specific emotion, but also the restorability of a person. Meridian (1996) gives specific names to the resulting different octants in PAD-space and describes the diagonally opposite octants as Exuberant/Bored, Dependent/ Disdainful, Relaxed/Anxious, Docile/Hostile. Thus mood-states are not points but octants of the Bedspread. However, positioning a personality (based on FM) within a PAD-space could have been a rather difficult task, since there is no mathematically- correct way to make the conversion. Luckily, this transformation can be based upon empirical data. Meridian provided such a conversion table from FM to PAD after correlation analyses of questionnaires measuring both constructs in healthy subjects (Meridian, 1996). Five Factor Model of Personality (FM) The implementation of personality is a key factor when creating believable agents that differ from each other. COCO already offers a few possibilities: different goals, tankards and attitudes automatically result in differences during the appraisal process. However, since personality goes beyond preferences, it was necessary to find a model of personality that made it possible to adjust the appraisal process, to shift the agent’s perception and to influence mood-states. The model chosen for SIMPLEX was the Five Factor Model (McCrae Costa, 1987). After years of research, an agreement emerged that five groups of traits are sufficient to describe a personality. Using self-report questionnaires with multiple items, a personality profile can be provided for each individual scoring high or low in each of he five factors (this approach is called â€Å"dimensional†). In the case of our model, the value for each factor can be typed in when defining the artificial agent. 9 Agreeableness refers to a tendency to cooperate and to compromise, in order to interact with others in an agreeable way. High agreeableness often means having a positive outlook on human nature, assuming people to be good rather than bad. Low agreeableness is essentially selfishness, putting your own needs above the needs of others and not caring about the consequences your actions might have for others. Conscientiousness is usually high in people who plan a lot, who think everything through, and who are very tidy or achievers. Extreme cases can appear to be compulsive or pedantic. The opposite personality trait includes sloppiness or ignoring one’s duties. Extroversion can be a measure of how much people experience positive emotions. An enthusiastic and active person that enjoys company and attention is extroverted, while a quiet individual who needs to spend more time alone is introverted. Neurotics is partly an opposite of Extroversion in being a tendency to experience negative emotions. However, being neurotic also means being more sensitive in general, and reacting emotionally to unimportant events that wouldn’t usually trigger a response. Neurotics can be prone to mood swings and tend to be more negative in their interpretation of situations. Low neurotics means high emotional stability and describes calm people who are not easily upset. Finally, those scoring high on Openness to Experience are creative and curious individuals, interested in art and more in touch with their own emotions than others. Those scoring low on that dimension are conservative persons with few interests, hey prefer straight and simple things rather than fancy ones, and they do not care about art or science. It is suspected that Openness can be influenced by education. 3. 3 Technical implementation The appraisal process and the generation of emotions There are three categories of inputs to the appraisal process of the emotion model: consequences of events, actions of agents and objects (see the COCO model in figure 1). The following section will describe the respective mechanisms applied when mapping each type of input to emotions. Each event handled by a character is first adjusted according to the agent’s rationality. First, the consequences are adjusted based on the agent’s neurotics. As neurotic people tend to see things more negatively, consequences are rated worse than what they actually are. The factor by which neurotics can reduce the desirability of events is adjustable. Note that all personality traits are in the range [-1; 1], so that negative neurotics actually makes consequences more positive. In real life, positive people could think â€Å"it could have been worse†. The desirability of events is determined by (predefined) goals during the event appraisal. A goal consists of two aspects: relevance [O; 1] and state of realization [O; 1], which means to which percentage the goal is already achieved. Afterwards, the praiseworthiness of actions is determined. Basically, the more positive consequences an action has, the more praiseworthy it is considered to be. Sympathy plays a role in this process, as it is added to positive values and subtracted from negative ones. Consequences for self are considered to be more important than consequences for others, which are currently factored in at 50% of their value. 0 After the adjusted values for all consequences have been summed up, unconsciousness is used to obtain the final result, by being scaled and subtracted. Thus the more conscientious an agent is, the harder it will be to commit an action positive enough to be deemed praiseworthy. This applies to both actions of other agents and actions of the agent himself. Agreeableness works the opposite way, but only for the actions of others. This is based on the psychological notion that agreeable people tend to be more forgiving in order to get along with others. Apart from having a different weight, factoring in agreeableness has the same results as active conscientiousness. The remaining factors serving as parameters for the action (responsibility, unexpectedness, publicizes) are averaged and used to scale the result of the above calculations. Finally, as cost is attempted to be derived from consequences for self, it is subtracted, before the calculated praiseworthiness is averaged over the number of consequences or rather the number of affected agents. The resulting value of praiseworthiness is used as the intensity for admiration or reproach, depending on whether it is positive or negative. If the agent is appraising his own actions, the motions are pride or shame instead of admiration and reproach. Once the praiseworthiness has been calculated, a search is conducted through the list of prospects for all the ones that are active and that match the name of the event. For each, the prospect appraisal function is called, which determines the net desirability by multiplying it with the affected goal’s relevance. This value will be compared to the expected desirability for this event. The simplest situation is when a positive consequence was expected but a negative one occurs. This would obviously cause disappointment. However, this is also the case if a very high desirability was hoped for and the actual consequences are less positive, but still not negative. Having a hope fulfilled results in satisfaction. If an event has exactly the expected consequences, it results in the full intensity for the emotion. The intensity of emotions is the product of the determined quality of the event and of the intensity of the prospects. For example, if there was very little hope, there cannot be strong satisfaction. Which emotion is created depends on the kind of prospect and on the sign of the quality value. Hope and positive quality result in satisfaction, hope and negative quality in disappointment, fear and positive quality in fears-confirmed and fear and negative quality in relief. After the prospect appraisal is done, short term or one-shot prospects (only valid for one round) are removed. Appraisal concerning Joy and distress is done for each consequence affecting the agent himself, while appraisal for pity/gloating and happy-for/resentment is done for the remaining consequences. How to cite Simulation of Personal Emotion Experience, Papers

Enternal nutrition in icu Essay Example For Students

Enternal nutrition in icu Essay Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition in the Critical Care Setting Management of patient nutrition has long been a topic of controversy. Questing of timing, route of administration and composition of feeding solution constituents are several variables that share a lack of consensus. There is a 50% rate of malnutrition cited in hospitalized patients. Many states associated with critical care admissions have altered metabolic rates. Some examples of increased catabolism are multiple injury trauma, sepsis, organ failure (CHF, ARF, RF), and ventilator dependent status. It is important to assess for a history of such hyper- or altered metabolic states like Diabetes Melitus, Alcoholism, Renal Failure, and COPD. Over feeding is associated with: immunosuppression, hyperglycemia, liver dysfunction and refeeding syndrome. EnteralNo associated immune suppression, no associated infection complications, easier to maintain electrolyte balance. ParenteralImmune suppression (the converse is also true- malnutrition also causes immune suppression), fatty liver, potential for pneumothorax, line infections, loss of gut barrier, hyperosmolality, refeeding syndrome Feeding tubes great option, if the gut works, use it. Prealbumin (2-3 day t1/2) Transferrin (8-10 day t1/2) Albumin (14-20 day t1/2) Nitrogen balance studies can aid in the clinical picture of nutrition status although there is not any clinical evidence of their effect on morbidity and mortality BMI = (weight in kg) / (height in meters) MEE (measured energy expenditure) 104.67 146. 54 kj/kg can be used to estimate the avg. daily caloric requirement Mifflin-St Jeor formula REE = 9.99 x weight + 6.25 x height 4.92 x age + 166 x sex (males, 1; females, 0) 161. Simplification of this formula REE (males) = 10 x weight (kg) + 6. 25 x height (cm) 5 x age (y) + 5; REE (females) = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) 5 x age (y) 161. Harris-Benedict equation Males BEE (kcal) = 66.5 + 13.8 x weight (kg) + 5 x height (cm) 6.8 x age (yrs) Females Males BEE (kcal) = 655. 1 + 9.6 x weight (kg) + 1.8 x height (cm) 4.7 x age (yrs) Indirect calorimetry (metabolic cart) measures the CO2 produced and the O2 consumed. Also gives the RQ (respiratory quotient) a value 1 suggests carbohydrate oxidation and overfeeding. Specific Requirements in TPN Protein In the ICU a stressed patient can tolerate 1-1. 5 g/kg of protein per day at 4 kcal/g Carbohydrates Allocate 40-55% of total calories as Dextrose in TPN solution 3.4 kcal/g Lipids 0.5-1 g/kg per day or 20-30% of total calories per day at 9 kcal/g Fluids An estimate of fluid needs in TPN solution is 30 ml/kg to begin Renal Failure Vitamin D Alcoholism Thiamine, Folate, Niacin, B12 Liver Failure A, E, K Although research has not shown evidence for the use of BCAA (Branched chain amino acids their use in liver failure, and other protein intolerant states can be justified. References: Mifflin MD, St. Jeor ST, Hill LA, Scott BJ, Daugherty SA, Koh YO. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals. Am J Clin Nutr. 1990; 51:241 -247 Ireton-Jones Carol, Robbyn Kindle, Effects of Home Parenteral Nutrition on Resting Metabolic Rate: A Case Study. Nutrition in Clinical Practice , Vol. 19, No. 6, 637-639 Stone Sue MD, Nutritional Support of the Critically Ill and Injured Patient, Crit Care Clin 01-JAN-2004; 20(1): 135-57 ASPEN Board of Directors. Guidelines for use of parenteral and enteral nutrition in adult and pediatric patients. J Parenter Enteral Nutr 2002;26(1 Suppl):1SA- 138SA .

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintaintenance Essay Example For Students

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintaintenance Essay The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values is a novel that makes you really reflect on life. If the reader is not fully engaged in the book all they will notice is the one narrator who tells stories about his journeys on his motorcycle. However, if the reader actually focuses on the writing they will realize that the book has actually two narrators and explains life more thoroughly. The book actually points out other things rather than just telling the somewhat boring stories of a man, his son, and his motorcycle. The author expresses his thoughts in a different way, the narrator tells the story from actually two different points of view. The narrator speaks from his current self while telling his motorcycle stories, but also from the mind of his pre electroshock therapy personality, which he calls Phaedrus, who was previously a teacher and a very intellectual man. Throughout the majority of the book the reader is led to believe that Phaedrus was insane, however, after resuming reading the story he really is not. We will write a custom essay on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintaintenance specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now This causes some confusion and leads us to question the reliability of the two personalities: which is more reliable? The novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing the world as he experiences it from his motorcycle journeys. He describes what the experience of riding on a motorcycle is like and how you can make full use of all senses. The narrator feels like you are more connected to nature when freely riding on a motorcycle rather then crammed into a car and stressed. Not long after the beginning we are informed of a â€Å"ghost† named Phaedrus, who spent so long hunting a ghost, â€Å"that he became a ghost himself†. At first we assume Phaedrus was an old friend of the narrator, however, we soon learn all about how Phaedrus is actually the name the narrator has given to his pre electroshock therapy self also known as his other personality. It is at this point the reader feels some inaccuracy and confusion in the reading. What the narrator is saying doesn’t always add up or necessarily make sense. Basically what I am saying, he is unreliable. Though the novel the narrator says that Phaedrus is the one who was insane but I feel it is actually the other way around. Based off of the narrator’s view of Phaedrus may, at first, seem absolutely crazy. His ideas are quite different from the norm including his obsessive attitude. He obsesses over things such as quality and theories and the scientific method, and focusing on the littler things in life. Phaedrus’s ideas are just different, not crazy. In our society the terms are often confused to mean the same thing. Phaedrus wasn’t insane; he just had ideas that were different and told everyone about them even if they thought he was crazy. Phaedrus said what he felt and wasn’t afraid of what other people thought because he stuck to what he believed in. his ideas were similar to the ideas of Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton but people could not understand what Phaedrus was â€Å"preaching. † His theories were so far out there that people could not understand them and that is why he was assumed to be crazy. He was known as this because we are afraid of change so society was afraid of Phaedrus’ ideas that were crazy and different. This is what was evident in the end of the book. Phaedrus wasn’t crazier than any of us are; he just had some different ideas. Others couldn’t understand his philosophies, which is what led him to eventually believe he was insane. Phaedrus was actually completely reliable; it was those around him that were not. The story leads us to believe that Phaedrus was the crazy one, while the narrator was supposedly a completely different person. .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .postImageUrl , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:hover , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:visited , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:active { border:0!important; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:active , .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69 .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uaf1d7ca1dfe748df26aa7323c455fe69:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Art: The Ultimate Expression EssayThe truth is actually that it was not Phaedrus who was crazy, but the narrator. The narrator was completely unpredictable and unreliable and at times he seemed perfectly sane and normal, but would have random episodes where he just became absolutely obsessed with what and who Phaedrus was. He became consumed with it and believed things that were false. His body had been altered to basically depend on Phaedrus, which is what led to his unreliability. But Phaedrus was a normal person who happened to have some amazing ideas that were â€Å"different† which made him very reliable.

immigrants essays

immigrants essays Why the immigrant group chose to leave their homeland Many Europeans decided to immigrate to the United States. Most Europeans left their home countries because of crop failure, land and job shortages, rising taxes, or famine. They came because they believed the United States was the land of economic opportunity. While other Europeans came seeking personal freedom or relief from political and religious persecution. The immigrants journey was terrible; they had to endure weeks of being on the deck of a ship even when it rained. They had to bring their own food and make it last because sometimes the trip took longer than expected. And if they did run out of food the ship would have food for sale but it would be real expensive. And some people couldnt afford it because they spent their last penny on the boat ride. When they first seen the statue of liberty they were filled with joy because for them that statue stood for freedom and opportunity. Experiences when they first arrived Most Europeans came in trough the east coast in Ellis Island and had to pass a physical to be allowed into the United States, those that didnt pass were deported back to their home countries. Many states, especially those with small populations, attracted immigrants by offering jobs or land for farming. But a lot of immigrants wanted to settle where there were other settlers from their homeland. They wanted to do so because many didnt know the language and others wanted to feel like they were at home. Once settled immigrants needed to find a job, but there were never enough jobs and employers often took advantage of them. The men immigrants were paid less then the other workers and the women immigrants were paid less then the men immigrants. Social tensions were also a part of the immigrant experience. The immigrants were stereotyped and discriminated, and many immigrants su ...

Exploring the need for Department of Homeland Security in USA Essay

Exploring the need for Department of Homeland Security in USA - Essay Example This directorate is responsible to bring the operations of the major border security and transportation under one command , including: office of the domestic preparedness, Us customs service, immigration and naturalization service, federal protective service, federal law enforcement training center and animal and plant health inspection service. This directorate was made responsible to overseeing the preparedness for domestic disaster training and coordinating government response to disasters. This directorate was also responsible to bring the federal emergency management agency, the national disaster medical system and strategic national stockpile under unitary command. This directorate was made responsible to seek and utilize all scientific and technological benefits when the need for securing the homeland of USA is felt. The following assets accrued to this directorate included from the Environmental Measurements Laboratory (Energy), National BW Defense Analysis Center and Plum Island Animal Disease Center of Agriculture. This Directorate is made responsible to analyze intelligence and other relevant information from agencies, including the CIA, FBI, DIA and NSA. That involved threats to homeland security. This directorate was to bring together the federal computer incidence response centre, national infrastructure protection centre, national security and assurance program and critical infrastructure assurance office. Directorate of Secret Service and Coast GuardThis directorate had to be located in the headquarters of the department of homeland security and to remain directly reporting to the secretary of the department. The coast guards were responsible to protect the US maritime boundaries. The Secret Service had to remain intact and its fundamental mission would remain to be the safeguarding the President and other key government officials. The Secret Service was also to continue to consistently provide security for important national events. This is interesting to know that the DHS is a strong bureaucracy within itself. The functions performed by the directorates within DHS have to go through a lot of red taps. The emergency response and preparedness, remains, so often, questionable (Noam, Chomsky, 2005).The mission statement, objectives and real functions can only be realized, when there is democratic decision making process and, swift and easy response process. After establishment of the DHS, no

The Kite Runner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Kite Runner - Essay Example Amir always keeps up his dignified position of being the master’s son where as Hassan is as loyal as one can be. Their relationship is bound to several social factors associated with the culture prevailed during that period in Afghanistan. The love and care of two fathers namely Baba and Ali highly influences the relationship of Amir and Hasan. The objective of this essay is to critically analyze the relationship between Amir and Hasan. The essay tries to identify the elements which are influential in their relationship. The changing living environments that the characters face in the story are considered closely while analyzing the relationship status of the characters .The cultural factors has been considered as a background for the analysis. Their characters are totally contrasting yet justifiable owing to the social system of that time. This contrast is confirmed by Clapssadle (2005), as Amir has been described as a Protagonist and Hasan as a Protagonist. The dominating behaviour of Amir is quite natural as he is born and brought up in the lap of luxury. This should be read together with the fact that Baba, the father of Amir, lived almost like a king of the area. Added to this is the fact that Hassan was a Hazara, one of the socially marginalized communities in Afganistan. The author of the story has ensured to add background information on the social setup of the period and has explained in detail the evolutionary facts on the Hazara community. These facts has been confirmed by authentic literatures on Afghanistan’s history (ACS, 2009) With this information, the loyal nature of Hassan is justified. Adding to these is the fact that Ali, has an obligatory nature and had been the servant of Amir’s family f or long. Many instances it has been found in the story that Ali insists Hasan to be obliged and loyal to the family. Hassan is expected to do the will of his

English Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

English - Research Paper Example In this paper, I will seek to prove that Franz Kafka’s work has been to some extent influenced (directly or indirectly) by A Thousand and One Nights (Kafka, The Metamorphosis 67). The Research To come up with this, I had to do a lot of in depth research on all books and writers. This required me to re-read the book, A Thousand and One Nights, first. Next, I researched on the themes of the various books and the stylistic devices employed by the two writers in their books. I read reviews, journals, documentaries and watched movies made from all of the books mentioned above. While most of what I read seemed to confirm my idea, most materials did not share this idea, and I had to differ from them. The main challenge I encountered in my research is that no previous material has been written regarding this topic. As such, I had to start my research from scratch to confirm my ideas. This required extensive and intense reading which kept me awake for days. Luckily, the two books have many reviews on themes and stylistic devices, and I was lucky to refer to them (Foulkes 23). The comparison Transformation as the main theme In my research, I discovered that transformation has been employed in changing the behavior and attitude of the characters. In A Thousand and One Nights, the story of The Merchant and Hind has transformation as a major theme. This is observed when the witch’s wife goes on a journey leaving his witch-wife with the adopted son. The witch-wife, who is extremely ungrateful, uses her witchcraft to transform the adopted son into a calf. She also goes ahead to transform her husband’s other wife into a cow. When the husband returns, the witch informs him that his adopted son disappeared while his slave woman passed on. In the next eight months, the woman remained in the state of a cow without the husband having any idea about it. During the feat of Bairam, the husband asked the servant to choose any fat cow for their sacrifice. The cow he chose turned out to be her beloved wife. Although the woman was now transformed into a cow, she still possessed human consciousness. She lowed piteously in a bid to beg for mercy. â€Å"With eyes streaming with tears†. The husband tried to kill her but was unable. The servant killed her. Upon slaughtering her, they discovered that she was nothing but bones and skin, despite looking so fat. In Metamorphosis, the main character, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into an insect (Kafka 13). This transformation serves to change his entire family. Prior to this, they all depended on him for their financial needs. However, when he becomes an insect and can no longer work, they are forced to start working to earn their own money. The similarity between this transformation and the transformation of the woman in the story above shows that Kafka borrowed from A Thousand and One Nights (O'Neill Pp. 408-409). Use of animal characters One of the aspects used in poetry is t he use of animal characters. This helps to criticize human characters in a more acceptable and friendly way (Sperling Pp. 70-84). â€Å"The Husband and The Parrot† is one of the stories in A Thousand and One Nights that uses animal characters. In the story, the wife offends her good husband. The parrot is aware of this and tells the husband of this offence. The husband scolds the wife. To revenge this act, the woman lies to the parrot that it was raining. The parrot informs the

Discussing The Challenges Faced In Business

Discussing The Challenges Faced In Business Most top management executive today are faced with challenge of creating better ways of doing business in doing this , the customers have becomes the direct focused .In fact ,most organisation today, opine that a companys success depend effectively on managing relationship with customers . In achieving this companies have adopted distinct electronic business application that would generally suit its mission and objective, E-business OBrien state is the use of the internet and other network application, to process data of customers and business partner within a new worked enterprise (OBrien, 2005) .Customer relationship management application has becomes a key element within e-business system which most organisation have already adopted. The Customer relationship management application has been developed by most software companies like oracle, Sales force ,SAP and Seibel .The focused of this paper though is greatly on CRM application called SAPCO developed by SAP and how a UK top home improvement companies ,BQ has been able to use it to develop that relationship with customers . 1.1 AIM AND OBJECTIVES The analysis is this paper will show amongst other thing, how this application has accounted in many ways for the success and grow of customers loyalty of BQ over the years ,it will also look at the business challenge associated with the use of the system within BQ and by extension, the use of similar Customer relationship management systems supports by SAP in other organisation and importantly too, analyzing the ethical issues associated with technology. 1.2 METHODOLOGY A lot of recent articles and text books played a significant role in this work .Internet sources too ,cannot be underestimated alongside comments ,by way of interview conducted with some with some BQ staff who were there when the system was introduced and other who have been using the system for years now. 2.0 CRM TECHNOLOGY AND SAP Customer relationship management technology can up in the mid twentieth century as a result of the most management executive identifying the need to improved relationship with customer and in that way improve business efficiency. The general maxim that the customers are always right seemed to take a more descriptive place as companies were now committed on doing whatever it takes to deliver the promise made (Nguyen et al 2007) .This is where technology comes into pay to create this needs business value. This is also where to business executive brainstorming on aborting the best application that would enhance better control over their operation. Customer relationship management application help organisation assess customers loyalty and profitability on measures such as repeat purchase, dollars spent and longevity (Popovice et al 2003) It is important to note that Customer relationship management is like other E-commerce application, a combination of people, process and technology that seek to understand a companys customers . (Chen et al 2003) SAP happens to be one of the leading vendors for enterprise resource planning system, ERP. ERP systems are software package that permit companies to have more actual control over their operation. A typical CRM application will encompass the entire element in the diagram in figure 1 below Sale Market and fulfillment -Cross sell -Up-sell Customer Service and support Contact and Account Management Fax e-mail Telephone web Prospect or customer sales (OBrien, 2005) The diagram in figure 1 above show clearly that indeed ,the customer is the focus and all other aspect revolved around it ,aimed at marking the customer happy and by extension the business gaining repeat visit through customer loyalty . Now, in this SAP major strength in this application, includes the extensive capability of the softwares functional these and many other reason may have formed that reason why a large organisation like BQ picked sap to provide application . 2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1.1 NEED FOR CRM As the power of the seller shifts to the buyer (Watson, 2002) organizations are realizing that competing with cheaper, better or different products is not sufficient, and competitive advantage cannot be achieved by purely differentiating products alone, but through enhanced customer relationships .At the same time, customers are experiencing low switching costs and could easily redirect their loyalty from one company to another (Holcom, 2001). Their expectations have also risen in recent years, making Customer relationship management a necessity in todays customer-driven business environment (S.L. Pan, J.N. Lee, 2003). Previous research has shown that it costs more to attract new customers than retain customers because of advertising and marketing costs .This means that, instead of differentiating products, organizations should differentiate customers (M. Nykamp, 2001) and they should shift their emphasis on market share to customer share (M. Rogers, 1993). Research has also indicated that organizations must not only retain their customers but also expand the useful lifespan of customers with the organization ( Zeithaml, 2002 ) by means of IT. Through such technologies, one-to-one relationships (D. Peppers and M. Roger, 1993).Value creation (Barnes, 2001) customer value analysis, product and website customization are possible on a scale that was not possible in the past (M. Nykamp, 2001). According to the 80/20 rule, 20% of customers provide organizations with 80% of sales (Ryals and Knox, 2001). This further emphasizes the need for organizations to retain and engage in long-term relationships with profitable customers to maximize profits (J. Galbreath, 1998). SAP IN BQ. SAPCO is an acronym in BQ that stands from SAP Custer ordering system .it is a system being used by BQ to process customers orders, monitor customer transaction and enhance better customer relationship. BQ China, part of Kingfisher Group plc, is one of the top three global decorations and building materials groups. The group employs the equivalent of more than 10,000 full-time staff, serving a marketplace worth around $40 billion. Just like all customer relationship system, SAPCO enable BQ to answer question around: what product or service are customer? How should we communicate with our customers? What are my customers favourite colours or what is my customers size? (Popovvich, 2003). With SAPCO these question would be answered within minutes from customers transaction histories and processes. Businesses and individuals working on refurbishment projects are prime sales opportunities for the Decoration Centers service at BQ China. However, the workflow designed to track these opportunities relied on paper-based notes of project requirements, status, sales and value, and staff kept diaries to make follow-up calls. Total contract sales data was collected and collated manually, a process that took months, before central departments could analyze the results of marketing campaigns (http://www-01.ibm.com). Before BQ introduced SAPCO, orders where made via paper and ink .And when I interviewed BQ staff they confirmed that it was and herculean task. Mistake and long queues were that order of the day the employees found it very difficult with the stress associated with manual way of taking order from customers. The introduction of SAPCO has made all this problem history, customer can now go any of B Q store through to the UK and have their orders complete within a few minutes. 3.1 THE SAPCO PROCESS A potential customer who wants to buy goods from any BQ stores across the UK come in to the shop and meet with a customer adviser who will help the customer to look for what hi want and help the customer to process the order in the system .before the can be done the customer must have a user name and password unique to the individual alone this what the employer will us in logging into the SAPCO application .in the case of the first time customer the customer adviser with request the customer to provide some personal details like name in full, house address, postcode, phone number these information will be keyed into the system after that ,the item number or the barcode number is keyed into the system and an order places . SAPCO will run through the system and identify where the item is, if it is in stock or needs to be ordered from outside the store and if so this process begins immediately. At this point again, the customer is asked about the quantity of goods to be ordered which i s entered into the system. A quotation is also prepared by SAPCO if required by customer. Once the order has been done successfully, the order is checked by both the BQ staff and the customer to make sure the order is correct. The place of delivery of the item is then confirmed from the customer. The charges of delivery are automatically calculated by SAPCO. Then after the customer is issued a sales advice note which he takes to the checkout stand to make payment. If the item is not in store, SAPCO automatically orders the item and also states the date of delivery. This most times takes between four to six weeks (www.diy.com). It also uses the sales confirmation to control its finances effectively. This is done by clients payment for items in BQ can automatically and payments to supplies are included in the central cash flow furcating reports generated by the SAPCO financial application. Again, if the customer had done business with BQ before then and wants information about his earlier order or make a new one the staff need just ask for the postcode and customer number which would be used in locating the transaction history of the customer. Queries if any are spotted and sorted. Another angle to this system is once the order has been picked up, the BQ staff must go back to the system, click on the item across the individuals name. He then goes to the collection section and confirms after which he prints two copies of the collection note. A copy of the collection note is kept by BQ and the other unsigned is given to the customer. This affirms to both BQ and the customer that item has been picked and transaction completed. One of the key benefits of SAPCO is that it links up all the departments in BQ so a customer can walk to any sales advisor and ask about an order. The necessary information is taken off the customer at the nearest computer system available and the order is immediately displayed. 3.2 BENEFIT OF SAPCO AS A CRM TOOL It has greatly improved the ordering system in BQ. The ordering of products is done faster thereby enhancing business. It has also enabled BQ to measure its customers loyalty better through the awareness of the history of customer transaction. It also manages customers documents better as it is fully integrated in the companys business system. Prior to the use of SAPCO customer details were held on paper records, with key project milestones used as the triggers to remind customers to return to the stores. It was difficult to share information between different departments, such as keeping a record of product recommendations and noting project status, and potential opportunities are not always pursued. Angela Dong, Senior Project Manager, comments, A customer usually spends some time consulting with BQ staff, and may visit other shops to compare prices or consider alternatives. With customer information held on paper, it was all too easy to miss the follow-up sales opportunity to invi te them to select BQ. Through this system and via the internet, customers have 24 hours access to their account. This enables them easily assess their account anytime. This has also helped reduced cost for the company. The usual logistics of making orders manually has been greatly reduced. Delivery of items and tracking of goods has improved greatly improved. This system works in a way that staffs handling delivery immediately see an order has been made and paid for; hence they are aware that there is another order waiting to be delivered. With all customer and project data captured electronically, BQ is able to identify the right time to follow up with customers and maximize sales opportunities. BQ central management is able to adjust marketing campaigns in response to actual sales made, respond to demand for specific products, and monitor payments and cash flow. The result is that BQ is able to tailor its business more closely to the needs of customers, creating a genuine competitive advantage. It also a solution that that would serve customers better by providing detailed knowledge of stock levels and replenishment times, and, of course, accurate pricing, across all our stores. Customers are the most valuable assets of any company especially during this present economic situation and which SAPCO helps improves the volume of customers. According to Ian Anthony, Technical Infrastructure Programme Manager, BQ the customer ordering system in particular we have seen a huge increase in the volume of customer orders going through since the systems been implemented. The data gathered from SAPCO helps BQ to track projects status and ensure high quality which ultimately helps to improve customer satisfaction level. Due to the implementation of SAPCO information is completely transparent and managers are able to adjust sales and marketing strategies depending on actual data from current purchasing trends rather than having to wait for data to be complied by hand at the store level and later sent to the head office which normally take up to three months. (http://www-01.ibm.com). There is also an immediate visibility of the number of orders or contract which in other words means that SAPCO has improved both management and customer efficiency. 3.3 CHALLENGES OF SAPCO IN BQ The challenges of SAPCO differ from staff to staff. While some staffs believe is to be a total disaster others feel that there are ups and downs associated with its effective use. Some of which are listed below: The speed of the internet which mainly depends on the network providing the connection as been identified as one of the major challenges. There are some times a completion of order could prove a difficult task as it could take up to ten minutes to move from one page to another. This customer is made in this instance to wait for an undue period of time. For the system to work efficiently a stable and secure internet network must be available. Another big issue is the human side associated with it. Most have not come to properly appreciate the system so sometimes information is incorrectly entered. This is properly due to lack of enough training on the system or the staffs personal decision not to imbibe proper procedure. Data Collection And Processing Management Perspective Business management most times is centred on decision making. However, this aspect within most organisations is the central role of managers. Managers are faced daily with the challenges of coming up with processes that would enhance the effective running of the business. The use of information systems like the CRM technology has formed a critical role of this responsibility and to a large extend has improved this role. Most of the decisions managers have to make now have become web based either through the internet or networking applications which foster the information processing. According to Loudon, managers can now automate certain decision procedure (for example , determining the highest price that can be charged for a product to maintain market share or the highest amount of materials to maintain in inventory to maximise efficient customer response and product profitability). Loudon Loudon 2002 pg. 404). Organisations have a hierarchy of decision makers. This hierarchy in many ways enhances the smooth running of companies. Within the organisation there are the following: Strategic Management The manager here are concerned with decision around the long time value of the company and most times described as unstructured (George Steiner). Tactical Management- Managers here are concerned with medium term planning. They monitor the performance of the organisation, control budget, allocate resources and set budget (Bocij 2003 pg.18). Operational Management- Manager here directly handles the running of the business. Decisions here are highly structured as they affect the business directly and are felt at the moment it is taken. Managers here implements budget and apply them to business. For instance the decision by BQ to adopt SAPCO as a customer relationship management tool for such a large organisation would have been exclusively strategic. However, setting out the budget and planning ahead for the system would have been tactical and implementation would have been by the operation managers. Most CRM application has failed due to poor business management. However, BQs SAPCO has been in use for more than seven years and it is still recording success on a daily basis. Managers can now ascertain the items that are in great need and hence proactively stock them. SAPCO greatly supports operational and tactical decisions in BQ. This SAP enabled system also provides report, giving managers a comprehensive view of the firms performance. It also features corporate performance metrics, simulations and planning tools. (Loudon Loudon 2002 pg 423). Through this system, management can easily view their performance level and also the areas that need to be improved upon. As an enterprise resource planning system, SAPCO brings all the units together into one entity and thereby having a better control of operation. This ultimately provides a better link with their supplier and distributors hence the main goal of servicing the customer is achieved. The integration of business systems has enabled management reach beyond their own corporate walls to better connect with suppliers, distributors and end customers. (Gupta 2000). Sales are better managed especially with the use of the internet although this could also be a shortcoming since it means the system is dependent on the internet connection which it has no power over. However, the internet greatly supports the application. Managers at different levels can track sales at different locations and this gives them a better understanding of the business irrespective of how large the organisation maybe. The rewards of an effective CRM technology like SAPCO are indeed enormous. Steve Gilman, BQI director and BQ UK board director BQI has described the benefits of adopting SAP Retail as better customer availability and cost reductions. Gilman says, We can record sales and margin accurately and as a result have boosted our margins. We have given ourselves a lead over our competitors.(www.ciber.com.au/). Business chief executives can now stay ahead of the competition with greater focus on the customer than the competitors. On the management side cost are reduces and more revenue is made from increased sales. Ethical Challenges In Customer Relationship Management When a new technology is introduced into a business, it comes with its challenges. Its use even creates more challenges which in many ways affect its users. Ethics is one area of great concern to effective business management and information technology most effectively. Ethics refers to the principles of right and wrong that individual, acting as free moral agents, can use to make choice to guide their behaviour. (Laudon Laudon 2002 pg 468) Business ethics is crucial especially to management. It is something managers confront with everyday and have to deal with as the situation presents itself. OBrien speaks of a situation in which he states that as a business professional, you have a responsibility to promote ethical uses of information technology in the workplace. (2005 pg.380). In todays business world, issues of ethics range around privacy, intellectual property, security and even safety issues. Managers must make sure that its stakeholders interests are well protected when issues of this sort arise. 5.1 Information Systems And Ethics 5.1.1 Privacy- The issues of privacy have become one of growing concern as regards information systems in todays business environment. Alter identifies two crucial areas in this: personal privacy, which talks about the ability of an individual to avoid unwanted instructions into personal time. Space and property (2002, pg.287), and the information privacy which deals with the the ability of the individual to determined when, how and to what extent personal information is communicated to others (2007, pg 287). Privacy issues generally can be spotted in a lot of areas, today organisations, through use of the intranet within offices, can monitors mails that staff send across the organisation and also find out the sites they are visiting. This in a lot of ways infringes on their rights of privacy as individuals. That is why most individuals how prefer to send all private mails from their homes. However, the CRM technology is one area that this becomes very crucial. Companies in the process of conduction business with customers, gather a lot of personal information of its customers, for instance BQ, with its SAPCO system. Most of customers personal details are taken by the system. It now dwells on managers and staffs alike to make sure that this information of customers are well protected from abuse. However, over the years there had been codes like the code of fair information practices (Alter 2002, pg.290) created in the US to ensure that customers are to large extent in control of information released from being used for other things without their consent. 5.1.2 Health Issues- This is a very critical issue especially as information technology in the work place raises a variety of health issues. Heavy use of computer is reportedly causing health problems like job stress, damaged arm and neck muscles, eye strain radiation exposure and even death by computerised caused death. O Brien 2005, pg 395). There are times when placing an order for customers on the system can take ages and these in cases are linked to a slow system of internet and how voluminous the order is. In tackling this issue, what BQ has done is making sure that staffs have at least two breaks within a particular working day to ease of the stress that could be associated with this. A day off in the week is also given to staff. In this way, they probably foreseen the issues greatly minimised. 5.1.3 Property Issue- In information technology, this is often referred to as intellectual property which literally links to ownership of an idea or a product. This is very important in business. However, the internet raises some new challenges (Rowley 2002, pg. 244). Issues to be considered in terms of this include trade secrets, copyright and patents. a. Trade secrets- These are very crucial corporate issues as most times. They are associated with companys brand image and identity. They are often regarded as assets that if infringed upon can be sued in the court of law. In 2007, Oracle sued and accused SAP of hacking into its computer networks and stealing vital product information (BBC News 2007). Prevention this now, companies who own products must find ways of making sure that employees protect these from competitors and public generally. b. Copyright- These refer to a law or statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property from having their works copied by others for any purpose for a period of 28 years. Laudon Laudon 2002, pg. 479). Despite the fact that companies like Oracle, Siebel, Sap, Salesforce all developed CRM. However, there are particular areas which are unique to this companies that cannot be taken from them. Also companies that use SAP products like BQ (SAPCO) and Virgin cosmetics (MYSAP) all have customised products which are peculiar to their companies which must be protected. 6.0 Security Management In Information System It is not enough to create systems within organisation, management must put certain measures in place to ensure that these information are well secured.

Animal Testing Essay -- Science Experiments, Animals, Guinea Pigs

Canary in the kitchen detects carbon monoxide! Animal testing must be banned for unnecessary tests. Animals should not be guinea pigs. Animals still feel the pain when they are injected with medicine just like humans. Humans can defend themselves and stop the pain, but the animals get strapped down and cannot move. It is better to have tests run on animals because animals will help find cures faster. Animal testing must be banned for unnecessary tests because a lot of animals are dying for no reason. Ninety-four percent of animal testing is done to determine the safety of cosmetics and household products (Animal Testing 1). That only leaves six percent for medical research (1). Ninety percent of all animals used in research are rats and mine (Animals Used in Experiments 4). Cosmetic testing is banned in Belgium, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (1). The United States has many companies that continue to legally perform horrible tests on animals (1). The United States Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission do not require animal testing for cosmetics or household products (1). The Animal Welfare Act is the only federal law to require basic standards of care, housing and treatment to the animals that are kept in the labs for testing (4). The LD50 test is one of the worst tests that was developed back in 1927 and is still used today (1) . Groups of animals are dosed with different amounts of a test substance in order to determine the does which kills half of the animals (1)! Animals are force-fed this substance (1). Why would we want to put poor animals in this kind of pain for no reason? Animals to the society can be their world. Animal lovers in the society would probably g... ...and are just like humans (3). Scientists on the other hand feel like there is a need to endanger the animals because they are trying to find a cure for the human population to all the diseases that are out in the world(3). Animal testing should be banned for unnecessary tests because why would the government want to put human through the same thing that the animals go through. Animals should not be guinea pigs to the horrible tests that the scientists run on them. The animals should be able to be free and not have to be strapped down and forced-fed. Animals feel the pain just as well as a human would, but a human can walk away from the pain and say â€Å"no†. Sometimes it is better to run tests on animals to find a cure for cancer, HIV, and other diseases but the government and the scientists should find a different way to do this with out killing so many animals.

Succubus Heat CHAPTER 27

While I'd been pretty confident in telling Seth that Dante had likely skipped town, I nonetheless stopped by his shop the next day. It had never been very prosperous looking to begin with, but now the signs of abandonment were clear. The neon PSYCHIC sign was gone. The blinds were also gone, showing a room even barer than before. The FOR LEASE sign on the door was probably the most telling clue that Dante was gone for good. In the wake of what had happened with Seth, it was hard to know what to think about Dante. My heart almost didn't have the energy for it. I had cared about him, absolutely. He'd suited my decadent phase, and despite his blackened soul, there were parts of him that were likeable. And above all, it appeared that he'd cared about me, misguided or not. I wasn't happy about the deal he'd made with Grace, but I was glad he hadn't been there to face Jerome and Mei's punishment. No one deserved that, not even Dante. I hoped wherever he was, he'd try to start a new life-maybe one that could lighten his soul a little. I well knew, however, that humans with damned souls rarely recovered. Later that evening, I drove over to Capitol Hill. Peter and Cody were hosting a cocktail party to celebrate Jerome's return, though I half-suspected they simply wanted to drink away the sorrows of losing the sun. â€Å"How can we celebrate Jerome being back when he's not even here?† Tawny wanted to know. She was back to her normal, Amazonian blond self and was holding her martini glass in a precarious way. Peter couldn't take his eyes off it. I was nursing a gimlet out of politeness. The vampires had gone out of their way to get Grey Goose and fresh lime, but truthfully, I was a little burned out on alcohol. It seemed like I'd been perpetually drunk these last four months. I was not burned out on cigarettes yet, but I was trying very hard to break the habit once more. â€Å"Jerome's got plenty to keep himself busy,† I said. â€Å"We're just drinking in his honor.† â€Å"But he is staying, right?† asked Cody. We all turned to Hugh. Like the rest of us, Hugh'd had his abilities restored, and I'd honestly expected him to be a lot happier having his imp vision back. Instead, he seemed very serious, and I could have sworn he was watching me when I wasn't looking. â€Å"Yep. He and Mei schmoozed the corporate guy pretty good and pulled in enough favors to get backing from others. Cedric and Nanette both swore up and down that no one else was better qualified to run Seattle than him.† â€Å"Nanette finally caved, huh?† I swirled the ice around in my glass. â€Å"Of course, knowing Jerome owes her now probably makes her feel secure in her territory.† Cody shook his head. â€Å"Still. Grace went through an awful lot to try to pull this off, between the Canadians and all the wheeling and dealing. And Dante.† He shot me an apologetic look that I waved off. â€Å"I don't know,† said Peter. He finally seemed convinced that Tawny wasn't going to ruin his upholstery. â€Å"She's a middle management demon with so-so power. Doing what she did-seizing the opportunity when she thought Jerome looked weak-was probably the closest she'll ever get to ruling over an area like this.† â€Å"What do you mean? Would she be stuck forever? Never have her own domain?† asked Tawny, frowning. â€Å"She might have eventually gotten assigned control of some nonexistent town in middle America, but I doubt much more.† Hugh still looked oddly speculative. â€Å"Clearly, she didn't want to. Neither does Mei, from the looks of it.† â€Å"So much for it being better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,† I said, pleased with my own wit. â€Å"Of course, I think we're going to see a lot more in Mei's career. She might be so-so in power, but she's got a plan.† â€Å"Have you noticed how she's a lot less scary alone?† asked Cody. â€Å"It was the matching clothes,† said Peter sagely. â€Å"When they dressed alike, it was too much like those girls from The Shining .† More laughter and conversation ensued, though I eventually grew quiet and simply listened. Maybe I could be the life of the party, like Seth had said, but this group could do okay without me. I took a certain amount of contentment by being back with them and having our lives returned to normal-such as they were. I could never be human again, but these were the people I wanted to be damned with. At one point, I got up to trade my empty glass for water and discovered Hugh had followed me into the kitchen. He still looked troubled. The others were laughing and talking, providing cover for our conversation. â€Å"What's going on?† I asked. â€Å"I thought you'd be happy.† â€Å"I am, I am,† he said. â€Å"Believe me, I am. God, that was miserable.† I couldn't help a smile. Hugh had hit his stride with being a lesser immortal. He was past the novice stages of Cody and Tawny and could fully reap the benefits of his position. However, he wasn't old enough to have acquired all the jaded centuries Peter and I had. Out of all of us, I didn't doubt that Hugh had suffered the most. â€Å"Then what's going on?† He hesitated, and again, I was struck by how out of character he was behaving. â€Å"Georgina, has Seth done anything†¦bad lately? Rob a bank? Cheat on taxes?† â€Å"Of course not,† I said, more confused than ever. â€Å"Has he†¦or well†¦did he do anything, uh, bad with you?† To my chagrin, I blushed. You'd think nothing would make a succubus self-conscious, but I still tried to maintain that line between my private and business sex lives. My silent response was enough for Hugh. â€Å"Fuck.† â€Å"What?† I asked. â€Å"We did it when I was in stasis. I didn't take any of his energy. I didn't shorten his life. And we haven't done it since Jerome came back. It's over. He's back with Maddie.† Hugh raised an eyebrow. â€Å"Oh?† â€Å"I realized how impossible it was for us and convinced him to go back to her. I really laid on the guilt.† Just mentioning what had happened made me ache all over again. â€Å"I'm sure you did,† Hugh said dryly. â€Å"What do you mean?† â€Å"Georgina†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He sighed. â€Å"There's no easy way to explain this. When I first met Seth, his soul was like†¦a supernova. It lit up a room. That guy had such a generous spirit, it was insane.† Had. â€Å"And now?† The answer was slowly creeping in on me. â€Å"Now, there's a shadow on him. A stain on his soul. He cheated on Maddie with you†¦and is back with her, keeping that from her†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The room started swaying, and I forced myself to focus on Hugh. â€Å"What we did, it wasn't sleazy. We are†¦were†¦in love. It was sweet-that is, it meant something.† â€Å"Maybe it did, sweetie. Maybe the planets aligned when you made love. But regardless of what happened between you, he wronged her-and he feels it now. That sin is darkening his soul.† â€Å"How dark?† I asked, my voice almost a whisper now. â€Å"If he were a hit by a car right now†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Hugh's face was both hard and sad. â€Å"He'd head right to Hell.† â€Å"Oh my God.† I collapsed back against the counter. â€Å"I didn't think†¦didn't realize†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Since I hadn't been a succubus, I hadn't been thinking like one. I hadn't worried about shortening his life or exhausting him because there was no need. While I'd known we were both deceiving Maddie and had felt a fair amount of guilt over it, I'd never considered it in terms of damnation. I'd turned off that part of my life, the part of being a succubus that counted and tallied souls-the main part of my job. Which was stupid of me. Humans didn't need us to sin. They did it all the time on their own and did just as good a job-if not better-than we could. I didn't have to be a succubus to make Seth sin. I could have been any woman, any woman he'd had an affair with. Sin was subjective, too, and different people would feel it differently. For someone like Seth, doing what he did would leave a harsh mark-and me making him feel guilty about it hadn't helped. â€Å"This is worse,† I said. I laughed, but it was the kind of hysterical laughter that could segue to tears at any moment. â€Å"It would have been better if we'd had sex when we were dating. I'd have taken years off his life, but his soul would have stayed pure-and that's what matters in the long run. Instead, I was so adamant about refusing to do it†¦and now look. Look what I did.† Hugh caught my hand and squeezed it. â€Å"I'm sorry.† â€Å"Is there†¦is there any way he can undo it?† â€Å"You know the answer as well as me. Sure, he can eventually swing the pendulum the other way. But it's hard. Very hard.† â€Å"He's a good person,† I said stoutly. â€Å"Maybe, but that may not be enough anymore.† â€Å"He'd need a deal with God,† I muttered. I stared at the floor, studying the tiles absentmindedly. What had I done? How could I have been so stupid? Had I been so blinded by love and lust that I'd been oblivious to the principles that had dictated my immortal vocation these long centuries? â€Å"Georgina,† Hugh said hesitantly. I looked at him. â€Å"There's something else†¦just a heads up. You know this as well as I do. When upright people screw up like this†¦they do try to rebound in their way. The guilt's got to be eating him. People like that try to do things to make up for it. Rash things. Something tells me he'll be like that.† â€Å"Thanks for the warning,† I said. â€Å"Though I can't imagine he'd do something that could make this any worse.† The imp cut me a look. â€Å"Sweetie, he's human. Don't underestimate him.† Hugh was right. The next day, I went to the condo builder's office and talked more in-depth with the real estate agent that handled their sales. We chatted for a while and talked numbers, though I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was doing this without thinking it through. The pictures were nice, the floor plan was nice, and the options were nice. Yet, I didn't know if this was just some impulsive reaction to the ups and downs in my life. Then, when he took me to the unit itself and showed me the balcony, I knew. It was a beautiful day, one that wasn't true summer yet but could give us enough hope that winter was just about finished. Puget Sound was deep blue, and the downtown skyline gleamed in the sun against a cloudless sky. To the west, the Olympic Mountains were visible for the first time in over a month, their peaks still heavy with snow. As often happened with this kind of weather, people turned out in droves, treating it like it was high summer. Families came out, shorts came out. This part of Alki didn't have a true beach-that was at a park a little farther down-but the water was still just a stone's throw away from my building, separated only by the small road and narrow strip of grass. I watched the waves break against the shore and realized this was where I needed to be. â€Å"I want to make an offer,† I told him. I knew Maddie would want to know, so I made sure she was the first one I told when I ended up back in Queen Anne later that night. It was early evening, my last day before returning to a real full-time schedule, and I swung by the store to catch her and tell her. Only, she sought me out first, with news of her own. â€Å"Georgina!† I'd barely entered when she grabbed my arm and pulled me off into the cookbooks. â€Å"Hey,† I laughed. â€Å"Glad you're in a good mood. I've got news.† â€Å"Me too!† Her face was radiant, and after all that had happened, it made me happy to see her like this. I couldn't help a return grin. â€Å"What's up?† She glanced around covertly, then lowered her voice. â€Å"You were right.† â€Å"About what?† â€Å"About Seth needing time-about him being preoccupied.† Oh lord. He'd finally slept with her again, now that things had ended with us. I can't say I was happy to have this news delivered to me, but for her sake, I was at least glad she could stop worrying. â€Å"Wow, that's great, Mad-â€Å" â€Å"He was waiting to propose!† She shot her hand up to my face so quickly that for half a moment, I thought she was going to punch me. But, no, there was no impact-unless you counted the brilliant glitter of the engagement ring dazzling my eyes. â€Å"Oh my God. But it†¦it's so soon†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I know,† she said, breathless from her excitement. â€Å"I can't believe it. And I mean, yeah, we've only been going out for about four months, but Seth says we can have a long engagement, that he just wanted to commit things between us.† Of course he did. When upright people screw up like this†¦they do try to rebound in their way. The guilt's got to be eating him. People like that try to do things to make up for it. Rash things. How could I be surprised? I'd become a succubus because I'd cheated on my husband and been caught. I'd sold my soul in an effort to blot that act out, to make him and everyone else I knew forget me. Why was this any different? â€Å"You don't think†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Maddie turned uneasy, once more seeking my approval and advice. â€Å"You don't think it's too fast, do you? Have I made a mistake? I mean, even if we wait awhile for the wedding†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I kept smiling. â€Å"It's fine, Maddie. There's no time frame that's set for everyone. If it's what feels right to you, then you've got to do it.† Her grin lit back up. â€Å"Oh, thank you. I'm so glad to hear you say that. I mean, I said yes, and I've been excited†¦I just didn't want it to seem like I was rushing in.† She glanced back down, admiring the ring. I realized something. â€Å"It's a diamond.† She gave me a curious look. â€Å"Of course. Why wouldn't it be? Most engagement rings are.† Last year, I'd teased Seth about getting married, and he'd said that if he ever did, he'd give his bride-to-be a ruby because he thought diamonds were ordinary, and getting married was extraordinary. I stared into the stone's glittering facets, puzzled. â€Å"Did you pick it out? Had you told him you wanted a diamond?† â€Å"Nope. It had never come up. He just got it for me. Why?† I shook my head and tried to look happy for her. â€Å"No reason. It's beautiful. Congratulations.† I turned to leave. â€Å"I'll see you tomorrow.† â€Å"Georgina, wait.† I paused and looked back. â€Å"What was your news?† â€Å"Wh-oh. Yeah. I'm buying the place in Alki.† â€Å"Seriously?† I swear, she almost seemed more excited about that than the engagement. â€Å"When will it be done?† â€Å"July.† â€Å"Oh, wow. That's great. You could have such great summer parties.† â€Å"Yep. Let's hope it gets finished on time.† She sighed happily and gave me a quick hug. â€Å"Isn't this a great day? Good news for both of us.† â€Å"Yeah,† I agreed. â€Å"Great.† I walked home, too stunned over the engagement news to process it much. Considering Hugh's prediction, there wasn't much to process. I'd convinced Seth that he and I were a fantasy, that he needed to settle into reality and take what good he had with Maddie. Seth had believed me and tried to make it up to her-make it up to himself, even-with this hasty engagement. He was not a rash person usually, but the extreme circumstances had turned him into one. My phone rang about half a block from the store. I could recognize Vancouver's area code by now, but I didn't know the number. For all I knew, Evan wanted me to smuggle them some spray paint across the border. To my relief, it was Kristin. â€Å"Hey,† I said. â€Å"How's it going?† â€Å"Fine. Well, better than fine. Great actually.† There were a few awkward seconds of silence. â€Å"Me and Cedric†¦we're†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The first spark of enthusiasm I'd felt in a while leapt up in me. â€Å"Really? You guys are a†¦thing?† â€Å"Yeah.† There was wonder in her voice, like she could hardly believe it. â€Å"He told me that you were the one who said that he should go out with me.† â€Å"Oh, well. I†¦just suggested he was looking in the wrong places.† â€Å"Georgina, there is no way I can thank you enough for this.† Her voice was brimming with emotion, something I wouldn't have thought possible of the businesslike imp. â€Å"This is†¦I've wanted this for so long. Loved him for so long. And he never noticed me until you made him just pause and look. That's exactly how he said it too. That he'd been so busy chasing everything else that he'd never seen what was in front of him.† I thought I might get choked up too. â€Å"I'm glad for you, Kristin. Really. You deserve it.† She laughed. â€Å"Most would say us damned souls don't deserve anything.† â€Å"We're like anyone else, deserving both good and bad. I'm not sure being damned has anything to do with it.† She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was low, almost hard to hear. I actually stopped walking and stepped off down a side street to get away from the din of traffic. â€Å"It's funny you mention that,† she said slowly. â€Å"Because†¦well, I did something for you.† I suddenly had an image of Tim Horton's donuts showing up on my doorstep. â€Å"Er, that's really not necessary. I didn't do that much.† â€Å"You did, though. To me, at least. And so†¦I wanted to do something just as big for you. I, uh, went and looked at your contract.† I caught my breath. â€Å"What?† â€Å"We've had a lot of paperwork to file, and I managed to work in a corporate trip.† â€Å"Corporate trip† was a nice way of saying she'd visited the inner offices of Hell. â€Å"Kristin†¦if you'd been caught†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I wasn't,† she said proudly. â€Å"And I found your contract and read it.† I'd come to a complete stop now. The world around me didn't exist. â€Å"And?† â€Å"And†¦nothing.† â€Å"What do you mean nothing?† â€Å"I mean, there's nothing wrong with the contract. I went over and over it. Everything's in order.† â€Å"It can't be! Niphon was trying so hard to mess with me†¦to get me recalled. Hugh was certain it meant he was trying to shift attention from the contract.† â€Å"I don't know about any of that,† said Kristin, sounding truly sympathetic. â€Å"All I know is what I read. You sold your soul and took on standard succubus servitude in exchange for every mortal you knew forgetting who you were. That sound right?† â€Å"Yeah†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"That's what it said. All the language was exactly as it should be.† I didn't really have any response, so I gave none. â€Å"Georgina, are you still there?† â€Å"Yeah†¦I'm sorry. I just thought†¦I'd been so certain†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It had been a foolish hope, that maybe somewhere there was a loophole for me. But then, I seemed to fall for those things all the time, just like I had with Nyx's dream and the impossible chance of getting pregnant while in stasis. I was as naà ¯ve as Dante had said. â€Å"Thanks. I really appreciate you looking.† â€Å"I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted. If there's anything else I can do for you-that doesn't involve breaking into records-let me know.† â€Å"Thanks. I will.† We disconnected, and I stared bleakly at my surroundings, at the quiet residential block I'd stepped off onto. â€Å"There is no way,† I said out loud, â€Å"that this day can get any worse.† A rustle behind me made me jump, and I spun around. I had thought I was alone and now felt like an idiot getting caught talking to myself. I saw no one, though. Then, a bush by the sidewalk twitched a little. I took a few steps toward it and knelt down. Yellow eyes peered out at me, followed by a piteous meow. I made the clicking sound that's universal to cat owners, and after a few moments, my observer emerged. It was a cat, a very scraggly one-and a cat I was pretty sure I'd seen before. It was smaller than Aubrey, maybe younger, and I could see its ribs poking out underneath the fur, which was matted and dirty. When I petted the cat's head, I noticed a dry texture to the fur that often indicated fleas. The cat seemed unsure of me-but not enough that it ran away. It mostly seemed curious for now, like it was trying to figure me out-and maybe score some food. Which was fine, because I was trying to figure it out too. Clearly, this cat had no owner, or if it did, that ownership needed to be revoked. I studied its yellow eyes and every frail line of its body. The cat looked so different and yet†¦I was certain it was the one. And in a musing that was worthy of Carter, I suddenly wondered if the universe might not be done with me after all. I let the cat sniff my hand a bit longer, and then I reached out and picked it up. It was a she. She didn't fight me as I held her to my chest and walked home. In fact, she started purring. Maybe she knew me. Maybe she was just weary of fighting all the time too. When I shouldered open my door, Aubrey's head immediately jerked up from where she'd been napping. She made no noise, but all the fur on her back stood on end as she studied our new visitor with narrowed eyes. Roman, lying on the couch as usual, also studied us. He looked at the cat, taking in her orange and brown patched coat. Then, he looked up and met my eyes. I'm not sure what he saw, but it made him smile. â€Å"Let me guess. That's a tortie.† â€Å"Yes,† I agreed. â€Å"This is a tortie.†