Gun control Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Gun control - Research Paper Example Even the women also bear license for guns and uses them2. Guns maybe either shot-guns or hand guns. Generally people use the hand gun more as it is easy to carry and becomes handier. In recent times the issue of gun control has turned out to be very controversial, especially in US, as a lot of crimes and accidents are taking place due to licenses which are being given away to commoners. Crimes Guns are a potential threat to a person’s life security. Crimes are more likely to take place in the presence of guns. All people who bear license for keeping guns are not potential threats to the society. People who own only handguns typi ­cally own the guns for protection against crime. There is a two-step linkage between gun control and crime rates: (1) the impact of gun control on the availability and accessibility of firearms, particularly handguns, and (2) the effect of the prevalence of guns on the commission of crimes. The course of the outcome moves from gun control to crime r ates3. In fact, high crime rates generate political support for the implementation of more severe gun controls4. The rates of crime are bound to increase as people are freely permitted to use guns. Sometimes thieves can also burgle the gun from the house or even kill a person. Gun control proponents often point out those countries such as Britain and Canada, which have strong gun control laws have lower rates of violent crimes5. Gun violence has unevenly impacted the African American society. While overall crime rates, including gun-related crime, have come down among the general population during the past decade, gun violence has increased among African Americans. African Americans youths, especially young males, have been particularly affected by gun violence. In addition to higher rates of violent crime, suicide rates among the African American have also increased. This has compelled community leaders to decry the self-destruction of younger generations and call for increased gun control measures6. According to the Department of Justice, nearly 58 percent of gun crimes took place in large cities over the past 30 years, and disproportionately by black males between the ages of 14 and 24. Despite composing only 1 percent of the population, these young African-American males represent 16 percent of homicide victims and 27 percent of all homicide offenders7. But, certainly one cause that so many Americans are concerned about guns is that guns signify and indicate individualism and self-reliance, two characteristics in which Americans outdo the rest of the industrial world8. People sometimes may not be criminals and do not have intentions of killing someone. Those who want to show their vengeance towards someone can show it through other methods also, but it is a natural thing that when a person has better options in front of him, he will definitely make use of it. So gun is always a better option than knife or any other sharp weapon. For instance, â€Å"Adam L anza, an honors student with no criminal record, murdered his mother, stole four of her guns, and—for reasons we may never know—decided to rob the world of the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was a murder of unarmed innocents on a scale with few precedents in American history, the second deadliest school shooting in history, and the worst massacre in an elementary school since the 1927 bombings at the Bath School in

Revenue Recognition and Corporate Governance

Revenue Recognition and Corporate Governance Revenue recognition is one of the most important accounting concepts to organisations across the globe. Basically, there are two main ways in which an organisation can account for revenue as part of their financial accounts. A company can either use cash based accounting or accruals based accounting. Cash based accounting requires the company to recognise the revenue and to put the figure into their accounts at the point when the cash is received, regardless of how or when the money has been earned. On the other hand, with accruals based accounting the figures will feature in the accounts when the revenues are realised, or when the amount is earned, not necessarily when the cash actually enters the company[1]. Countries across the world deal with the issue of revenue recognition very differently and, as such, it is particularly difficult to compare international businesses. The way in which revenue is recognised will have an impact on the perceived financial health of an organisation and different approaches can make it extremely difficult for analysts and investors to make a fair comparison. In October 2002, the International Accounting Systems Board (â€Å"IASB†) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (â€Å"FASB†) began a joint project to deal with these differences. The original overall aim of the revenue recognition project was to establish a single coherent way of revenue recognition that can be used, globally. Fundamentally, this required the convergence of US GAAP and international standards. One of the main problems facing FASB and IASB is that the US does not have a general accounting standard relating to revenue recognition. Instead, different sectors and industries have developed their own ways of dealing with revenue recognition in line with their individual requirements[2]. As a result, there is no consistency. Moreover, revenue recognition in the US is seen as particularly complex and is based largely on the discretion of the individual finance teams. Originally, the project suggested that a fair value asset based approach should be followed. However, it is currently thought that it will not be possible to establish one universal approach. The basic concept of the fair value asset and liability approach is that when a company enters into a contract, it creates rights (assets) and obligations (liabilities). The difference between these assets and liabilities at any point in the contract is the revenue generated by this contract and should be the figures used at the point in which the accounts are drawn up. This started as a fair value approach to the difference in assets and liabilities, but has now shifted more towards the customer consideration approach to valuing the difference between assets and liabilities[3]. The FASB and IASB have since recognised that enforcing one standard on a global level will be impossible and have, since 2006, decided to take a more bottom-up approach by conducting an international study of how the above model would work and the way in which it would interact with the cultural differences across the globe[4]. It is this cultural difference and historical freedom that presents the greatest challenge to the success of the project. Without a detailed understanding of how the proposed models will work, practically, with reference to the various different families of transactions, it will be impossible for the project to reach any definitive conclusion. For this reason, gaining a greater understanding has now become the first and most important priority of the FASB and the IASB when conducting their study relating to revenue recognition. Corporate governance is absolutely vital in the administration and control of companies. Essentially, corporate governance refers to the principles, policies, customs, laws and any other factors that deal with the way in which a company is managed. It is key in the way that the relationship with the company directors and the stakeholders in the company interacts. As a general rule, strong corporate governance results in a good level of confidence in the company itself and the wider industry[5]. The aims of corporate governance are multiple but are mainly in relation to accountability of the key individuals within the organisation and, in particular, the way in which the company deals with the principal – agent problem[6]. It is also about establishing economic efficiency and ensuring the best and most appropriate use of available resources. As the way in which companies are run varies so dramatically from country to country, it is unsurprising that the way corporate governance is managed is equally diverse. In 2002, the United States took the approach of regulating the way in which corporate governance should work with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This Act was drawn up as a rule based approach to corporate governance, following several accounting scandals which hit the headlines in the US, the most notable being the collapse of ENRON. As part of the legislation, eleven heads of rules were created and the Securities and Exchange Commission was required to make compliance a condition of admission to the exchange. The rules have been criticised as being highly prescriptive and not allowing for flexibility based on organisational differences[7]. Contrast this with the principles based approach taken in the UK and the US. Although both countries follow the Anglo-American approach, which is considered liberal and as giving priority to shareholders, the way they go about achieving this aim is substantially different. The UK takes a principle based approach with a ‘comply or explain’ policy[8]. This means that a list of principles and best practices has been developed in relation to corporate governance whereby public listed companies must either comply with this best practice or explain why it is not thought necessary in their particular circumstances. In the US, there are statutory rules with which all accompanies must comply. The UK government felt that it was not possible to create one set of rules that would capture the needs and issues of every type of company; for this reason, it has continued to favour this principle based approach. Divergences in the way that corporate governance is dealt with across the globe and even across sectors and industries is a natural part of the way business is conducted. All companies have their own issues and structures which require different approaches to control and accountability. The level of prescription that the US government has placed on corporate governance has resulted in a one size fits all approach which is simply impractical. Failure to allow a degree of flexibility and adaptability will result in a difficult to manage and ineffective system of corporate governance. Footnotes [1] Sondhi, Ashwinpaul C., Taub, Scott, Revenue Recognition Guide, Cch Inc, 2006 [2] Benston, George J., Bromwich, Michael, Litan, Robert E., Wagenhofer, Alfred ,Worldwide Financial Reporting: The Development and Future of Accounting Standards, Oxford University Press US, 2006 [3] Sondhi, Ashwinpaul C., Taub, Scott, Revenue Recognition Guide, Cch Inc, 2006 [4] Glover, Jonathan C., Ijiri, Yuji, Levine, Carolyn B., Jinghong Liang, Pierre, Separating Facts from Forecasts in Financial Statements, Accounting Horizons, Vol. 19, 2005 [5] Colley, J., Doyle, J., Logan, G., Stettinius, W., What is Corporate Governance ? McGraw-Hill, December 2004 [6] Clarke, Thomas (ed.), Theories of Corporate Governance: The Philosophical Foundations of Corporate Governance, London and New York: Routledge, 2004 [7] Monks, Robert A.G, Minow, Nell, Corporate Governance, Blackwell, 2004 [8] Arcot, Sridhar, Bruno, Valentina,d Faure-Grimaud, Antoine, Corporate Governance in the U.K.: is the comply-or-explain working?, FMG CG Working Paper 001, December 2005

America’s Mergence of Personal and Public Realms in Arendt’s The Human

America’s Mergence of Personal and Public Realms in Arendt’s The Human Condition America is a superpower, irrefutably the most dominant nation in the world. Underlining this supremacy, however, is the fact that America's society is facing several problems. Among these problems is what Hannah Arendt calls the emergence of society through the mergence of both the personal and public realms. This major problem has spawned numerous other problems, so has been chosen as the underlying cause for the tribulations of modern American society. Hannah Arendt, author of The Human Condition, has provided relevant analysis that applies to this major problem facing American society today. Modern American society intertwines the personal and public realms of its citizens into one, called the social realm. It follows then that, while in public, one's personal life has a serious effect on their position in society. The most prominent measure of one's status is wealth. Many of the influential voices today are of wealthy citizens. It appears that although everyone is entitled to their own opinion,...

The Two-Minute Speech

Lasting roughly over two minutes, the Gettysburg Address is one of the best known speeches in American history. In the Gettysburg Address, author Abraham Lincoln puts hope into the hearts of Americans of a new nation brought up from the ashes of the American Civil War and the noble men that fought to preserve its belief in liberty and the equality of all men.Lincoln’s words deliver a sense of unity and wholehearted purpose among Americans in his Gettysburg Address. In the first paragraph, Lincoln states his belief that â€Å"all men are created equal†, an allusion to the Constitution. He is asserting that freedom of all men, including slaves, is backed by the law of the land. Lincoln never uses the words â€Å"I† or â€Å"you† to address his audience, but instead uses â€Å"we†, â€Å"our†, and â€Å"us†, to establish ethos and connect with the crowd before him and Americans in general–the North and the South.Moreover, he repeat edly says â€Å"we† throughout his speech to emphasize his goal for unity. In the third sentence of the third paragraph, Lincoln uses parallelism in â€Å"little† vs. â€Å"long† and â€Å"we say† vs. â€Å"they did† to make a point that the fight to defend their country’s values of liberty and freedom from their soldiers will not be forgotten. Again he reveres their nobility in the first sentence of the same paragraph , repeating â€Å"we cannot† in front of â€Å"dedicate†, â€Å"consecrate†, and â€Å"hallow† (â€Å"this groundâ€Å"), using hyphens between each statement to create emphasis. Lincoln builds up to his ultimate message, the climax of the paper: That Americans shall make it their duty to see that the rights of man which Union soldiers so righteously defended shall never again be neglected.He goes on by addressing â€Å"the great task remaining before [them]†, which is â€Å"that†¦weà ¢â‚¬  give as much devotion to the cause as those who died for it, â€Å"that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain†, and â€Å"that this nation†¦shall have a new birth of freedom†, creating, with this use of anaphora, and intensity that makes his listeners feel proud while also giving them a sense of purpose/cause. Finally, Lincoln uses asyndeton to close off his speech by affirming that government â€Å"of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth†, promising a  brighter future. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address reassured Americans that their soldiers did not die in vein, for the freedom and liberty of man would never cease to be defended.

Project Report on “Malnutrition” Essay

For its sustenance on the earth, every living organism requires food, which is quite essential for carrying out its physical and mental activities, growth and development. For normal growth and development, man requires some specific nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, roughage and water in right proportion and sufficient quantity, which he gets through the food he eats. The food, which provides all these essential nutrients in proper amounts, is called balanced diet. The deficiency or even excess of any of these in a person’s diet results into disorders regarding nutrition, which may be collectively, called malnutritional disorders. The condition in which the people become weak and sick because of insufficient and unbalanced food is called malnutrition. A large no of people in our country and other developing countries suffer from malnutrition because of poverty, lack of education, wrong notions and frequent pregnancies. The main cause of malnutrition is poverty. The deficiency diseases are of three types: 1. Protein energy malnutrition (PEM)-the condition of being nourished on low protein and low energy diet is called Protein Energy Malnutrition or PEM.So, deficiency of carbohydrates, fats and proteins in PEM. It is the most important nutritional disorder affecting Indian children, in the age of period 1-3 years. The symptoms of PEM are: (A) Loss in weight and height (B) Poor muscular development (C) Susceptible to many diseases of respiratory and gastro intestinal systems. 2. Mineral deficiency disease (Anemia, Goiter and Rickets): these are caused due to the deficiency of either iron or iodine. The symptoms are: either he will feel tiredness easily or there will be swelling in his throat region of neck. Goiter is an endemic disease (the diseases, restricted to a given reason and arising from its specific environmental condition are called endemic diseases) which is more common in hilly areas because soil of hilly areas is poor in iodine. Due to this the drinking water as well as food grown in this area is deficient in iodine. So, it leads goiter among them. 3. Vitamin deficiency disease: the diseases which are caused due to the deficiency of Vitamins in diet are called Vitamin Deficiency diseases. Some of the diseases that are caused due to the deficiency of Vitamins are Night blindness, Exophthalmia, Beri-Beri. (A) Night Blindness and Xerophthalmia: these are caused due to the deficiency of Vitamin A (retinol). (B) Beri-Beri: the deficiency of vitamin B1 causes beri-beri. Vitamin B1 is also called anti beri-beri or antineuretic factor Types of Malnutrition In human beings, these disorders may be classified into three categories-UNDER NUTRITION, which means the malnutrition, caused due to the availability of less food for a long period. For example slow starvation, which is found most in extremely poor or low income group people. Excessive nutrition that means disorders developed due to overfeeding or over-eating for a long time. For example obesity (or motapa). Such disorders are more evident in the families belonging to the middle class families or rich category. Deficiency disease which are caused due to the lack of a specific nutrient in our diet. For example protein energy malnutrition, mineral deficiency diseases like anemia etc. such diseases may be found in nearly every family-rich, middle class or poor. It is thus evident that the problem of malnutrition is not confined to poor families alone but is spreading fast even in the middle and rich class families. If the increasing level of diseases in children due to the malnutrition is not taken care off than this may result into excessive weakness or obesity after a few years. We must not forget that malnutrition affects the immune system of a child which may cause frequent sickness, increase the possibility of infections from communicable diseases like cold and cough etc. So, malnutrition must be checked in the childhood itself. Importance of studying malnutrition Today we are living in computer age. The work that required a long time to be completed can now be done with in a few seconds. In other words man is progressing in his mental abilities, but if we measure the physical standards, we will find he is becoming physically weak and now he is not so able as he used to be. Now, the question arises what is the cause behind this physical disability, that even after attaining complete independence in the field of agriculture, children of our country are suffering from malnutrition. Malnutrition in children can prove as an obstruction in the progress of any country because today’s children are tomorrow’s future. Therefore for the progress of a country it is necessary that its children are healthy. Malnutrition is found in rich and middle class families also. Although, the type and level is different from the one found in poor families still it is a serious problem. Causes and solutions There are two reasons for Malnutrition in middle and high class families – 1.Inbalanced diet 2.Ignorance of wrong food habits in children by parents. It is also found that some parents are totally unaware of what a balanced diet should consist of. They don’t know the importance of balanced diet. They only care that their children eat adequate diet. If child wants to eat chips,samosas,maggi,chowmin,pastries, their parents do not resist. parents themselves also eat junk food and allow their children also. Children don’t want to eat green vegetables. They only prefer food items made of potatoes which increases their weight. Cold drinks, chocolates, coffee etc. that give sufficient calories but don’t give nutrition. Therefore, parents need to improve food habits of their children. They should take balanced diet. Earlier boys and girls were treated differently. So, girls were found to suffer from malnutrition. But, today that is not the case. Suggestions for preventions Malnutrition in children is a major obstruction in progress of a nation. In our country about 60% children are suffering from malnutrition. Therefore, it is very important to eradicate this problem completely. After working on this project we suggest the following ways to prevent malnutrition: 1.Guardians, themselves must change their food style, as children learn their food habits from their home. 2.Mothers should breast feed their children for adequate period. 3.Children should be provided medical check up from time to time. 4.Teachers must give information to students on how to prevent disease from malnutrition. 5. All the people should eat the food which is sufficiently boiled. What we came to know after preparing this project All the data collected for the project revealed that most of the children suffer from malnutrition due to their wrong food habits and eating imbalanced diet. If the parents show a little concern towards their children, this problem can also be eradicated. Meetings between parents, teachers and child specialist doctors would be of much help in solving this problem. All these steps should be taken in a hurry because today’s children are tomorrow’s future. Collected data In a survey which was held in our own school last year, it came to light that : 1.only 5% students in the age group of 3-7 years like green vegetables. 2. 3% students like pulses. 3. only 2% students like milk. 4. 5% students like fruits. 5. 40% students like maggi /chowmin. 6. 40%students like cold drink. 7. 5% students like juice. In this survey study of malnutrition in students was done according to the weight of the children. It was found that 15% children are weighing above the normal weight, 70% children are weighing below the normal weight and only 15% children are found with the normal weight. Also in this survey it was found that 20% students have low frequency of infection while 80% students have high frequency of infection. Also the activities of the children were examined and were observed which revealed that 35%children were lazy while 65% were found active.