The Importance Of Freedom In Ernest Clines Ready Player One

All Americans know and believe in freedom for all, but when put into perspective, are we really free? We have the freedom to go where we want, choose what we desire, and do what we please, as long as we stay within the limited freedoms given to us by society. The question arises, are these restrictions necessary? Jean-Jacques Rousseau once stated in The Social Contract, â€Å"Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains† I happen to agree with that statement, that people are given freedom from birth, but are restricted by the rules of todays beliefs. However I do not believe it is the right thing for society to do, and neither does the main character, Wade Watts, in Ernest Cline’s dystopian novel Ready Player One. This quote can also be†¦show more content†¦This leads to users around of the world rebelling against The IOI. This relationship shows the stark contrast between how a freedom confined world and freedom filled world function together. In The Necklace, the setting of Paris in the late 19th century is a world of elegance and wealth. If not born into a wealthy family, one would have two options: marry into a wealthy family, or stay in their social class. That is just the case for Mathilde Loisel, who is endowed with beauty but born into a family of clerks. She was born free and could have had a plentiful life because of her beauty. However, she was held back by the chains of her social status and forced to marry her wealthy husband Monsieur Loisel. Together they have an awkward relationship consisting only of their need for marriage. Monsieur Loisel and Mathilde Loisel have little interaction physically within the story, however their relationship can be described through their dialogue. Monsieur Loisel often sees Mathilde’s bodily expressions and attempts to make conversation. This usually ends in Mathilde ranting about her envies and â€Å"needs†. Monsieur Loisel ends up trying to buy her happiness, but nothing is ever enough for her. Her social class is holding her back from happiness, and nothing he can say or buy fills the gap that she has for joy. The only visible moment of happiness we see of her is during the

The Code Of Chivalry Value Honesty, Honor, Valor, And Loyalty

The knightly code of chivalry value honesty, honor, valor, and loyalty; however, each era adapt and manipulate the code. The dark ages of King Arthur adopted the code along with the conduct aligned with the Christian religion. Knightly chivalry is means to fear God serve, pledge your loyalty to their lord, live honorable, tell the truth, respect women, never refuse a challenge, eschew unfairness, meanness, and deceit, protect the weak and defenseless, and it goes on (Alchin). The reality of true knightly hood is impossible. You cannot successfully abide by them all without breaking one. The duty of the knight is a task of utter perfection. The knight has a responsibility to protect all, but it is depicted time after time in all forms of media of those who value riches and power. Sir Gawain of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is about a knight of King Arthur usually fabled in many stories of the times. Sir Gawain in this version is well known throughout many Arthurian stories for his loyalty, humility, and chivalrousness. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, these qualities are clearly manifested as Gawain undergoes many trials which put his character to the test, for he is knightly, to a fault. During this time period it isn’t easy to disobey this code. The medieval period the Lord of the land is supreme rule. The Lord are their providers, so you cannot bite the hand that feeds you. Gawain is a knight who values loyalty above all. Sir Gawain’s tale begins withShow MoreRelatedSir Gawain And The Green Knight Code Analysis824 Words   |  4 PagesKnight, Sir Gawain obeys a code of knightly conduct that revolves around a few key principles. Today, these principles do not carry the same importance and influence as they did in 14th century Middle England. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a chivalric romance story, representing the importance of the chivalric code. Sir Gawain always keeps his promises, obeys his lord, and enters combat to uphold his reputation of bravery. These comprise part of the code of chivalry, the principle of utmost importanceRead MoreChanges to Knighthood throughout the Years942 Words   |  4 Pagesadvanced instructions in military subjects and morals. The original medieval nights were originally servants who kept their lords lands after they served in their lords armies. With time christian values were added to knighthood â€Å"involving respect for the church, protection of the poor and the weak, loyalty to one’s feudal or military superiors, and preservation of personal honour† (Knight 3). These became known as the knights orders they followed to achieve greatness. The first recognized

Genomic Disease Resistance to Late Blight of Tomato-myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theGenomic Disease Resistance to Late Blight of Tomato. Answer: Tomato or Solanum lycopersicum is a very vital vegetable crop in the world. According to the recent estimation, about 4.6 million ha of tomatoes are grown per year around the world, producing over 126million mt (Straquadine, Baig and Mukhtar 2017). Apart from being the second most important vegetable crop, tomatoes are also considered as a model species of plant for many of the genetic studies associated with stress tolerance, fruit quality or several other psychological traits. Furthermore, to meet with the demands for tomatoes, they are also grown in the greenhouse. Due to great economic contribution of tomatoes in the field of agriculture, there is plentiful interest in making use of the genomic tools in order to ameliorate the tomato and grow more new varieties of it. May times, the production of tomatoes are hindered by several fungal diseases such as late blight, fusarium wilt, early blight, verticilium wilt, septoria leaf spot, etc (Ohara et al. 2015). Among all; the late blight is the most critical one. It is one of the most vital foliar fungal disease in tomatoes. It is the same fungus, which created the destructive loss of potatoes in the year 1845 in Europe. It limits the tomato production. Late blight of tomato is considered as one of the most infamous diseases in the field of agriculture (Jung et al. 2015). It is acclaimed as the root of the famous Irish potato famine of the mid nineteenth century that has resulted in the demise of more than two million people in Ireland. The disease in fact spurred the exposure of the study of plant pathology. During his studies to understand the root cause of late blight, Anton deBary, the botanist demonstrated that a fungal-like growth on the blighted plants was the reason behind it. This had led other scientists and botanists to investigate on other bacteria and fungi that were related to plant diseases and along with the expansion of the Kochs postulates for initiating pathogenicity, causal pathogens of several plant diseases have been identified. The late blight is originated by oomycete pathogen called the Phytophthora infestans (Zuluaga et al. 2016). It in fact is fundamentally a pathogen of tomatoes and potatoes. However, it has also been known to infect the other adherents of the plant family of Solanaceae. It is also significant for having both sexual and asexual life. However, the disease is also referred to as community disease as it has the ability to circulate or spread speedily from one field to another under right weather conditions. It is mostly favored by humid, foggy or raining conditions and cool temperature. It quickly ruins the entire crop and supplies a good source of infections for the other plants. Hence, it is very important for the gardeners to understand the fact that the disease of tomato late blight is not like the other usual tomato diseases. The other diseases causes very limited damage but Late blight in fact, kills the plants completely and is highly infectious and communicable. Late blight is one of the known destructive diseases of tomatoes in the world. Because of the emergence of the very new and aggressive isolates of Phytophthora infestans, identification of new genomic diseases resistance to Late Blight is a top most priority in breeding of tomatoes. The term phytophthora is a Latin term, which means plant destroyer (Lazebnik et al. 2017). The tissues of the infected plants die and the outbreak grow and spread rapidly as the pathogen has the ability to produce a large number of wind-dispersed spores. If once a plant gets infected, it is bound to destroy. Its occurrence in a garden may even affect the other gardens as well and this is due to wind dispersion of the spores. From the popular Irish famine, there has been a high amount interest of the researchers in the disease of late blight. At first, it they studied the affect of the same in potatoes but later the study was held in tomatoes as well. The three major genetic disease resistances against LB include Ph-1, Ph-2 and the Ph-3 (Luan et al. 2018). These resistances have been charted to the tomato chromosomes 7, 10 and 9 respectively. The Ph-1 is a single dominant gene that provides resistance in order to trace the race T-0, but it was speedily mastered by the new races of pathogen. It was portrayed to the very distant end of the chromosome 7 by making use of morphological markers but it has been reported that there was no molecular marker that was related with this resistance gene. The Ph-2 on the other hand is a single insufficient-dominant gene that was portrayed to the very lower end of the prolonged arm of the tomato chromosome 10. It supplies limited resistance to various isolates of the rac e T-1. Ph-3 was primarily discovered in the accessions of S. pimpinellifolium- L3708 and L3707 in Taiwan (Siedl Johnson, Jordan and Gevens 2014). At present, Ph-3 is the most useful among the three major genetic disease resistances. It benefits insufficient dominant resistance against wide array of Phytophthora infestans tomato isolates including the ones that overcomes both Ph-1 and Ph-2. It has been portrayed to the very lower end of the prolonged arm of the tomato chromosome 9 and near the RFLP marker- TG591. Ph-3 has been portrayed in the 0.5cM genomic area of the long arm of chromosome 9 in between the P55 and Indel_3 molecular markers. In addition to these, there are several reports on the quantitative resistance to the late blight as well as the QTLs (Quantitative trait loci) that are related to it. In a study, the reciprocal backcross (BC) populations that are derived from the Solanum habrochaites x Solanum lycopersicum were evaluated by using three kinds of copied disease essays i.e. whole-plant, field and detached-leaflet (Haggard, Johnson and Clair 2015). The linkage maps were developed for each of the BC population by making use of RFLPS. The resistance QTLs was spotted on all of the twelve tomato chromosomes by using interval mapping. Someof the Phytophthora infestansresistance QTLs were identified in the tomato tallied with the chromosomal locations of earlier charted QTLs and the R genes in potato for resistance toPhytophthora infestans, which suggests functional conservation of the resistance in theSolanaceae. Tomato is the one of the most consumed vegetable crops in the world but the emergence of the late blight is considerably limiting its production worldwide. The QTL analysis and the molecular markers analysis works that are executed so far has been very competent for detecting the resistance gene or genes on the genome of the tomatoes and to accomplish marker-assisted choice for few fungus related diseases. As the whole genome succession of tomato is available now, it will be very useful for advancing the molecular breeding through smoothing the positional cloning and marker-assisted selection. References: Haggard, J.E., Johnson, E.B. and Clair, D.A.S., 2015. Multiple QTL for horticultural traits and quantitative resistance to Phytophthora infestans linked on Solanum habrochaites chromosome 11.G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics,5(2), pp.219-233. Jung, J., Kim, H.J., Lee, J.M., Oh, C.S., Lee, H.J. and Yeam, I., 2015. Gene-based molecular marker system for multiple disease resistances in tomato against Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, late blight, and verticillium wilt.Euphytica,205(2), pp.599-613. Lazebnik, J., Tibboel, M., Dicke, M. and Loon, J.J., 2017. Inoculation of susceptible and resistant potato plants with the late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans: effects on an aphid and its parasitoid.Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata,163(3), pp.305-314. Luan, Y., Cui, J., Li, J., Jiang, N., Liu, P. and Meng, J., 2018. Effective enhancement of resistance to Phytophthora infestans by overexpression of miR172a and b in Solanum lycopersicum.Planta,247(1), pp.127-138. Ohara, T., Ishida, Y., Kudou, R., Kakibuchi, K., Akimitsu, K., Izumori, K. and Tajima, S., Kagawa University and Mitsui Agro Chemicals Inc, 2015.Plant disease control agent comprising D-tagatose as active ingredient, and plant disease control method. U.S. Patent 9,125,409. Seidl Johnson, A.C., Jordan, S.A. and Gevens, A.J., 2014. Novel resistance in heirloom tomatoes and effectiveness of resistance in hybrids to Phytophthora infestans US-22, US-23, and US-24 clonal lineages.Plant Disease,98(6), pp.761-765. Straquadine, G.S., Baig, M.B. and Mukhtar, M., 2017. Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences.Journal of Experimental Biology. Zuluaga, A.P., Vega?Arregun, J.C., Fei, Z., Matas, A.J., Patev, S., Fry, W.E. and Rose, J.K., 2016. Analysis of the tomato leaf transcriptome during successive hemibiotrophic stages of a compatible interaction with the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora infestans.Molecular plant pathology,17(1), pp.42-54.

British Airways Cabin Crew Strikes

Question : A presentation covering the following points should be prepared: Provide a brief introduction to the organisation (it is acceptable to withhold the name of the organisation). 1. Describe the problem, as much as possible in terms of the observable or measurable symptoms it manifests, for example: employee unrest, frequent industrial action, high absenteeism, workplace bullying/harassment, low morale, loss of profit, sabotage etc. 2. The issue/problem should then be considered and analysed in terms of concepts/models/theories drawn from any two topics studied as part of this subject. To give some examples, your group may choose to adopt different negotiation tactics, change the existing recruitment and selection method, or re-design jobs, or arrange special training program and so on. Try to choose the topic that seems to offer the most useful insights into the problem. Topics must be taken from HRM course. 3. Design a change program or set of activities and procedures utilising some a spect or aspects of your analysis (actual action plan). The change program should beintended to solve or improve the situation. Answer : Introduction The British Airways (BA) is mainly comprised of British Airways Plc and other subsidiaries such as the British Airways Holidays Limited. At present, it is one of the leading airlines with a massive network across the globe. BA is catering to the needs of passengers and freight services in more than 72 countries through 149 destinations. The airlines carried up to 70 million passengers and almost 2000,000 tonnes of cargo. The UK based airline network recruits up to 85% of its employees from its own country. Details of the Cabin Crew Strike at British Airways An industrial dispute broke out in the spring of 2010 between the airlines and Unite. The latter is UK general union comprising more than two million members. Apart from the employers and employees, this dispute also involved political parties, media, government and the customers. Till today these strikes have been a concern for the company and is currently dealt by its management. An effective solution for the same has not been settled but the magnitude and occurrences of these strikes has reduced considerably. The review below shows an analysis of how the entire story started and how it has been going on till today. The British Airways has 13500 flight attendants out of which 12000 are Unite members. A whopping 81% of the cabin crew staff who were the members of Bassa, Unites cabin crew branch voted for industrial action. It occurred in February 2010 to oppose the proposed staffing cuts and change of working conditions. This entails a former ballot towards the end of 2009 that advocated 12 days of strike action. It was challenged by BA in the high court that granted the request for an injunction against this strike. It was based on a balloting error that violated the Trade Union Act of 1992 (The Guardian 2014). The mentioned ballot was basically a reply to the unilateral decision of the airline in reducing cabin crew by one person on long haul flights. It was to lower down costs based on a last year pre tax loss of 401 million. Unite replied to cabin crew with the claim that such ruling marks that extent to which law is used against the interests of the working population. It shows how a determined employer with limitless resources frustrates your actual right by withdrawing labour at the last moment in an effort to make sure your voice is heard. Despite large scale negotiations, no further progress touched the ballot in Feb 2010 for resolving such disputes (The guardian 2010). Analysing the key issues and fallout of the strike During March 2010, seven days of strike action occurred during two different occasions. The airline responded by taking a number of steps. Firstly, it withdrew the perks of discounted travel for air stewards that were a substantial benefit. Secondly, cabin crew from different airlines, used volunteer crew and chartered jet were borrowed. Some of BA pilots substituted for the striking cabin crew. After such actions, BA reported of the bill likely to be 45 due to the strike action. There also reports of carrying up to almost 400,000 less passengers compared to a year ago during same period which shows a decline of 15%. Another airline Ryanair reported a rise of 23%. BA hired planes and crew staff from rivals for operating 79% of long haul flight schedule and 58% of short haul trips during the seven days strike period (BBC 2011). The main cause of the dispute is related to the managements efforts in lowering the operating costs. It is due to fall in demand, rising competition and increasing non labour charges such as fuel prices. Labour costs form a major cost in the airline industry and is one of the key reasons for making profit. The cabin crew forms the biggest part of the workforce. For lowering the cabin crew costs by up to 140 m annually, BA management suggests on employing newer crew on minimal favourable terms and conditions. Theyll be on a separate fleet freed from costly and unaccommodating demarcation lying between cabin crew hired for short haul and long haul services. Reportedly, Unite grew insecure that new workers would be excluded from collective bargaining with existing employers. Thus, the workforce could be divided despite the permission to join the union. Theyve also suspected the new workforce of facilitating the integration of low paid workers, work intensification. There was also an insecurity that new fleet is a plan to occupy the best profitable routes for marginalizing existing workforce (Afed 2010). Even though these plans could be significant for workers, Unite wont participate in discussions on new fleet suggestions. This is due to fears of pre emptive strike likely to be inducted and serve a basis for legal action by the airline. BA also made further proposals for cutting down the operation costs. It includes doing away with seniority mechanism of promotion and reshuffle of cabin crew functionality. They also have plans to bring payment structure in line with their competitors who as per reports pay cabin crew less than BA (Eprints 2011). The claims and counter claims on the result of the strike action stood as a distinctive feature of the dispute. For example, BA had claims of support weakening for supposed industrial action. It was based on their observation that during the second of these two strikes, more of the cabin crew was busy working and more flights were also operating. Chief Executive of BA, Willie Walsh claimed that the airline had over 60,000 passengers across 470 flights on Saturday during the second strike. On previous Saturday, the numbers were 43,000 on 350 flights. Len McCluskey responded to such claims marking them a grand con trick of British Airways. He further said that BA is making these claims after spending millions of pounds bay dumping passengers on other carriers. Passengers expecting to go on their trustworthy BA airline will be transferred to carriers theyve probably never heard of. Theyll be serviced by a group of low graded pilots and managers pretending to be a crew. BA inflicts a trash on its brand in its desperation to divide the workforce, expressed McCluskey (Constant Contact 2011). The media has played a role here in structuring mass opinion. It has acted as an outlet where these claims and leaks of confidential information were pitched to solidify the position of respective parties. This strike also received the attention from the political quarters. It took place in a run to a general election in UK where Conservative Party chief David Cameroon attempted to gain political mileage. He expressed that PM Gordon Brown has displayed a weak point in his attitude to deal with a dispute. It is a failure to come in the aid of the non strikers and supporting the unions (WSWS 2010). Brown responded by calling the strike as deplorable and unjustifiable. He observed it not in the interest of the masses and urged to call off proposed strike action. As per some reports, the government was also afraid of the political consequences springing from this industrial action and their impact on election results. This was particularly with reference to the climate of rising unemployment .The vulnerability of job losses was clouding the public sector during the subsequent months. Due to these conditions, Brown had been reportedly desperate in his attempts to settle the dispute. An intriguing build up to the dispute was the claims of certain commentators. They said that the plans of the airlines management in terms of second fleet, responding to strike and approach to further negotiations lead to a planned effort to divide Unite by macho management. It was seeking to dissolve the strength of the union which has been a feature of fraught history of industrial relations in BA (Reuters 2010). BA was particularly accused of being forcefully intervening in their refusal to restore pre-strike peace offer. Unite said that it could have been forming the basis of a deal to finish the dispute but they provided a worse offer in order to regain the money lost in dispute by the new revised deal. According to BA, these claims are unacceptable. They are of the belief that Unite and their cabin crew branches had many opportunities to reach an agreement on cost reducing programme. Unnecessarily, theyve opted to pursue strike actions, said BA. Unite floated warnings that the clash was watering the seed of a lengthy internal conflict in British Airways. After the settlement of the recent dispute, Unite expressed that a sense of mistrust and ill feeling will penetrate within the management, their members and within the employees. Similarly, it will also take place between the strikers and the ones who decided to pass the picket lines. This will also not spare the pilots who were filling in as the cabin crew during the industrial strike (Daily Mail 2010). Change Program or a set of activities to fight the Cabin Crew dispute In order to deal with this problem, the management has deployed several policies and underwent through various changes as per mutual agreed standards between the management and the cabin crew members. In order to ensure that the company does not get into similar problems in future, some of the possible recommendations to be abided by would include: Involve Cabin Crew in the decision making process: Management of British Airways has many a times been criticized for their rigid stand against the policies and implementation of changes without the consent of their employees. In order to ensure that they do not face stiff opposition to any changes which they wish to implement within the organization, the airline would need to take the cabin crew on board. Giving importance to the cabin crew and getting them in confidence for the decisions the management proposes would be very important (Socialist Party 2010). Empathy: British Airways would need its management to consider the qualities which make great executives and have the characteristics of being aggressive, tenacious personality which can create resolutions to all the labour disputes. It would need to create an environment where the cabin crew members are given the confidence that the management cares for their causes and addresses them with prime importance. Empathy can serve as a great touch for preventing strikes and the trained mediators would serve the organization well. Conclusion After evaluating the case of British Airways and the cabin crew strikes which had been a concern for the airline for many years now, it is well understandable that labour relations are a critical element for profitability of an organization. If organizations do not pay heeds to worker interest and try to enforce their decisions, it is more than likely to impact their progress and business efficiency. Further, British Airways seems to have responded in a stronger manner and has better measures in place today. The rate of such unrest have been brought down to the minimum and the company is constantly working on ensuring that such situations do not arise again. References The Guardian 2014, British Airways Strike Action Threat Pay Claim, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/22/british-airways-strike-action-threat-pay-claim-ba The guardian 2010, British Airways Cabin Crew Strike, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/mar/20/british-airways-cabin-crew-strike BBC 2011, British Airways cabin crew vote to strike again, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12882499 Afed 2010, BA Cabin Crew Strike Again, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.afed.org.uk/res/resist123.pdf Eprints 2011, Creating a Sustainable Work Environment in British Airways: Implications of the 2010 Cabin Crew Dispute retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/6144/1/Upchurc-Creating_a_Sustainable_Work_Environment_in_British_AirwaysFINAL.pdf Constant Contact 2011, Working Together A Joint Settlement Between British Airways and Unite the Union, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1103933565912-9/Final+Joint+Agreed+Settlement+Stoke+Place+110511.pdf WSWS 2010, High court outlaws strike at British Airways, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/05/brit-m19.html Reuters 2010, British Airways battles cabin crew strike, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/20/us-ba-strike-idUSTRE62J01E20100320 Daily Mail 2010, BA suspends union militants for Facebook and email 'intimidation' of strike-breaking pilots, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250377/BA-suspends-union-militants-strike-intimidation.html Socialist Party 2010, The truth behind the British Airways cabin crew strike, retrieved on 13th January 2015 from https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/9006/12-03-2010/the-truth-behind-the-british-airways-cabin-crew-strike