Racialised and Gendered Barriers in Diverse Settings Essay

Racialised and Gendered Barriers in Diverse Settings - Essay Example That means, it not only includes the traditional categories of race and gender, but also people with disabilities, various sexual orientations, and other non-traditional categories considered having â€Å"diversity of thought† or those from different disciplines, college degrees, socio-economic backgrounds, etc. However, many organizations and professional careers still remain resolute in embracing diversity and maintain barriers for full inclusion to be carried out. This paper attempts to answer the question, â€Å"To what extent and in what sense can we say that professional and managerial careers are gendered and racialised?† It was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who inspired the concept of diversity when he advocated that character is what makes a person and not his skin color. This propelled lawmakers to come up with laws that provide equal opportunity to all (Mor Barak, 2000). These laws have been designed to protect anyone from discrimination for their gender, marit al status, cultural background, race, age, disability, religion and other factors that may point out one’s difference from the rest of the group. â€Å"Equal opportunity† is a means by which a person receives equal access in society. â€Å"Equal opportunities approach† is premised on the principle that all people can avail of certain rights or privileges such as education, employment, health care or other welfare services without any discrimination or any preference whatsoever. The evolution of the workforce to include a more diverse population has highlighted some prejudices that mark resistance to move from more stereotypical roles. Even in today’s â€Å"politically correct† environments, prejudice and stereotypes prevent the successful implementation of inclusive policies at the workplace. Such obstacles usually suffered by women, older adults, ethnic and racial minority groups, homosexuals and the disabled include lack of support in their caree r planning, guidance of these nontraditional employees that is necessary for job advancement and a lonely and unsupportive work environment (Morrison, 1992). In effect, equal opportunities are not provided for all. Although there are different organizations that apply various equal opportunity practices that provide fair conditions for all their members in the process of employment and work (Equal Opportunities, 2006), managerial positions are usually reserved for men coming from the majority cultural group. For example, in a UK organization that subscribes to diversity and inclusive work environments, British men usually hold the top management posts. This may lead one to conclude that managerial careers are gendered and racialised. One explanation for maintaining racialized top management positions may be attributed to fidelity to one’s culture. Hofstede (1994) defines culture as â€Å"the collective programming of the mind which distinguished the members of one human grou p from another†¦ Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture† (p.19). From this definition, one can perceive how much influence culture has on people. Such a definition is paralleled to ethnocentrism. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines ethnocentrism as "regarding one's own race or ethnic group as of supreme importance" (1989, p. 424). This is common especially when managers think highly of the values and level of skills their racial group upholds. Each member’s effectiveness and efficiency are dependent on social and cultural standards and skills of the group. This narrows down the group’s views to their own culture and discourages them from being

The Political And Econimical C :: essays research papers

The Political and Economical Causes of the American Revolution The revolution began after many years of unrest between England and the American colonies. England's taxes, tariffs and new acts, imposed greatly upon the new American people. Large tariffs were placed on non British imports. British goods were more expensive, but they did not carry the high taxes that were imposed on foreign goods so they seemed economical. However British goods were of a lower quality than the foreign goods which made them difficult to sell. Unfortunately the American people depended on England and other nations for all modern commodities because they had not yet set up factories to manufacture their own. The English took advantage of this fact in every way possible. It was their thirst for political power and domination over the American economy that sealed their fate. England passed many acts to entice the Americans into buying their goods. One of the first to be passed was the Molasses Act of 1733. This act stated that molasses coming from the French or Dutch sugar islands was to have on it a six pence tariff per gallon. Instead of encouraging people to buy British molasses this act bred dishonesty. Merchants, who distilled the molasses to make rum, claimed that the British suppliers could not meet their needs. The merchants then began bribing the customs agents to wave the tariffs. Many agents pocketed extra money that way. A man by the name of Grenville observed this and created an act, The Revenue Act, which was successful with Parliament. This act stated that the tax on molasses would decrease to a mere three pence tariff per gallon of molasses. After the instatement of this act Grenville put an end to the bribes. The next act was the Currency Act of 1764. This act stopped the colonies from manufacturing their own money for trade with the British. This act was followed by the Quartering Act of 1765. The Quartering Act forced colonies to provide troupes stationed in their area with housing accommodations. This imposed greatly on the people, soldiers stayed for months and with an extra mouth to feed and little financial aid times became rough. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765 was one of the "straws that broke the camels back". This act required that such documents as college diplomas, dice, legal documents, customs papers, playing cards, almanacs, and newspapers had to have a special government stamp that showed that they had been properly taxed.

Bacterial Growth Curve

Several Escherichia coli (ATCC 11229) bacterial cultures were established using serial dilutions and simple agar plate pouring. The growth of the bacterial cultures was evaluated using spectrophotometric and colony counting methods. Data collected from a two-hour monitoring using 30-minute interval sampling of bacterial suspensions were plotted against the 30-minute interval collection times on a normal and semilographic coordinates. The resulting growth curves showed that the cultures progressed from the lag to the log phase, which are typical of a bacterial growth curve.The growth curves generated by spectrophotometric analysis were similar to the growth curve created by the colony counting method. The techniques employed in this experiment may serve as basis in determining bacterial growth on both liquid and solid culture media using other types of bacterial species. The methods used in this exercise may act as a method in estimating the number of cells that are generated through different types of culture conditions.The colony counting method seems to be a more reliable method because it involves actual visual inspection of live colonies while the optical density readings involve light transmission through the turbidity of the bacterial culture suspension. The growth of bacteria pertains to a process wherein a single bacterial cell generates two identical daughter cells. This simple doubling of bacteria is observed in cultures that are classically conducted in microbiological laboratories. The quantification of bacterial growth is generally performed through the use of either direct or indirect cell counting methods.Colony counting is an example of a direct counting technique while the measurement of turbidity is an illustration of an indirect counting procedure. The progress of a bacterial curve is generally described through the use of a growth curve (Novick, 1955). Four different phases comprise a bacterial growth curve. The lag phase involves the adapta tion of inoculated bacteria to the conditions of the culture medium. This phase denotes that time that the bacteria are undergoing maturation. The logarithmic or exponential phase involves the doubling of bacteria in culture.The rate of division is observed to logarithmically increase through time. The growth conditions and the chances of survival of the resulting daughter cells influence bacterial growth rate. The logarithmic growth of the bacterial culture is dependent on the availability of nutrients in the culture medium. The stationary phase pertains to the decrease in growth rate due to the exhaustion of nutrients in the culture medium and in turn, wastes have accumulated in the culture medium. During the death phase, the cultured bacteria lose nutrient resources and die. Materials and methods. The bacterial concentration of an E.coli culture (ATCC 11229) broth culture was determined through the employment of serial dilutions and agar plate counts. Approximately 1 ml of the E. coli culture at log phase was transferred to a flask containing 100 ml of brain heart infusion broth. The suspension was slowly swirled and 5 ml was transferred to a cuvette for optimal density (OD) reading at 600 nm absorbance. Another 1 ml of the log phase bacterial culture was transferred to a test tube containing 9 ml of water. The suspension was mixed well then 1 ml of was then transferred to another test tube containing 9 ml of water.The serial dilution was performed six times, resulting in 7 dilutions. Approximately 1 ml of the 0 time point dilutions (10-4, 10-5, 10-6, 10-7) was plated with 15 ml of melted agar, swirled evenly and set aside to solidify. The optical density (OD) of the broth culture was taken every 30 minutes by transferring 5 ml of the broth culture to a cuvette for spectrophotometric reading. All plated cultures were incubated for 24 hrs at 35-37oC. After 24 hrs incubation, the colonies that emerged on each plate were counted. The collected data from the OD reading and colony counting were then analyzed and plotted on semilog paper.Calculation for generation time (g) of the bacterial culture was performed using the following equation: g = time at absorbance 0. 41 – time at absorbance 0. 21 Results. The growth of the bacterial culture based on the concentration of bacterial cells was determined using two methods. Optical density (OD) reading using the spectrophotometer showed that the number of bacterial cells in the culture increased for the 2 hours that the cultures were monitored. The optical density reading were then plotted against the 30-minute interval collection times (Figure 1).Based on the collected data, the calculated generation time is 32 minutes. The generation time was determined as follows: g = 92 minutes – 60 minutes = 32 minutes Data collected from colony counting of broth cultures were plotted against the 30-minute interval collection times on a semilographic coordinates (Figure 2). The generation growt h curve was determined to be 10. 1 minutes, indicating that the bacterial culture had grown 10 times from the start of the experiment. The exercise involving determination of bacterial concentrations over 2 hours of monitoring showed that the broth culture of E.coli showed an increase in its growth. The data showed the features of the lag and logarithmic phases of a growth curve wherein there is a slow adaptation stage that shows minimal increase in the number of bacterial cells during the first 30 minutes of inoculation and then an exponential increase in the number of bacterial cells was observed soon after until the end of the experimental period. The results generated from optical density readings and colony counting show the same increasing trend in the number of bacterial cells in culture.The employment of two methods in determining growth rates of bacterial cultures provided an opportunity for comparison of these methods. The colony counting method seems to be a more reliable method because it involves actual visual inspection of live colonies on a Petri plate while the optical density readings merely involve light transmission through the turbidity of the bacterial culture suspension and this method does not differentiate the live from the dead bacterial cells but in turn just counts the number of bacterial cells that are present in the cuvette.It should be noted that the number of viable bacterial cells serve as the source of new daughter cells hence it is better to rely on the results that are generated by actual colony counts derived from visual inspection of Petri plates.However, it also should be noted that colony counting is also associated with a disadvantage wherein one colony may be composed of at least two to several bacterial cells hence the exact number of cells can not be determined. A colony composed of more cells can thus result in a bigger number of daughter cells than a colony comprised of only 2 bacterial cells. Reference Novick A (19 55): Growth of bacteria. Annual Review of Microbiology 9:97-110.

The Biomass Energy Conversion Technologies - 1342 Words

4.3 Biomass Energy Conversion Technologies Biomass materials can be converted to various useful forms of energy such as heat, electricity and liquid fuels. The technologies used to convert biomass into energy ranged widely from the simple combustion of biomass used for cooking and heating in developing countries to a variety of technologies to generate modern energy carriers - electricity, gas, and liquid bio-fuels. Canada is using various materials including waste and residuals to generate electricity, heat and, bio-liquid fuels (bio-ethanol and biodiesel) (Defra UK et al. 2007). Biomass energy can be used at the household (-10 kW), community (-100 kW), or industrial (- MW) scale. Key biomass energy conversion technologies include thermal and thermochemical, and biological and biochemical. †¢ Thermal and Thermochemical Technologies o Combustion — convert forestry, agricultural and municipal residues into heat and power under environmentally sound conditions o Gasification — convert forestry, agricultural and municipal residues into syngas o Pyrolysis — convert forestry and agricultural residues into bio-oils and value added products o Thermal and Catalytic Processing — convert a variety of new and used vegetable oils; tall oils; waste greases and animal fats into renewable diesel fuels and diesel blending stocks †¢ Biological and Biochemical Technologies o Fermentation — convert the starch and cellulose components of biomass to bio-ethanol o Anaerobic Digestion — convertShow MoreRelatedDirect Combustion Of Biomass For Heat Generation1244 Words   |  5 PagesDirect combustion is the most common way of converting biomass to energy - both heat and electricity- and worldwide it already provides over 90% of the energy generated from biomass. 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