Managing Decision Making and decision support Essay - 2

Managing Decision Making and decision support - Essay Example c) The inability of Morse to handle its end-user computing is a structure problem. There company understands the problem and it is recurrent occurrence. There are solutions and potential paths the company can choose to solve the problem if they are willing to invest resources to obtain the solution to the problem. a) The communication model Morse adopted with its SPMT management is a wheel communication model with the SPMT serving as hub control mechanism. There is small liberty to make decision, but the managerial staff in particular the CEO has a lot of power over the decision making. b) The communication and decision making model at Morse has not worked because at times people without the knowledge are getting involved in matters they do not understand. The IT department is a perfect example how defective the decision making model is at Morse. c) Groupthink was not effective at Morse because the staff did not listen to each others ideas and the head of the managers were too confrontational. This caused bad decision making in this organization. d) Group think can have detrimental effects at the ability of a group arriving at a decision because it ignores the objectives, limits the alternatives, reduces the ability to identify and incorporates biases into the decision. a) Process losses of group decision making include: unequal verbal contribution, coordination problems, airtime fragmentation, attenuation blocking, concentration blocking, power relationship issues, socializing, domination and information overload. Information overload means too much data is entering into a meeting without any real evaluation. Unequal verbal contribution means one or two member utilize all the time to expose their ideas while other are not contributing anything. b) At Morse various process losses occurred. Domination occurred against the initiatives of the IT staff as well as information overload from the IT staff to the rest of the managers. There

The Fencing Problem | Mathematics Problem

The Fencing Problem | Mathematics Problem The Fencing Problem. A farmer has exactly 1000 metres of fencing and wants to fence off a plot of level land. She is not concerned about the shape of the plot, but it must have a perimeter of 1000m. Which shape, with a perimeter of 1000m has the maximum possible area? Let us start off with a isosceles triangles. The area of an isosceles triangle can be computed by using the Area=  ½ base x height formula.   Let us start of with the equilateral triangle. Then each side has length 1000/3=333.4. We need to calculate the height. For this we use trigonometry. The height(h) divides the triangle in two identical right angles. All the angles are equal and add up to 180 ° so angle C is 60 °. Then,   since, tan C= height/adjacent we have that height=tanC x adjacent So area of triangle is  ½ x 166.67 x 333.34 x tan 60 = 48114.4 Next suppose we shorten the base so that it’s 300 m in length. Then the other two sides are 350 m each.   Here we don’t know the angles but we can use Pythagoras’ theorem to obtain the height. We get 150^2+h^2=350^2 which means h^2= 350^2-150^2=100000 and h=316.2 So area of triangle is  ½ x 300 x 316.2=47434.2 Next we shorten the base consecutively another four times and perform the same calculation. The results are displayed in the table below. Base m Side m Area m^2 334.34 333.34 48114.4 300 350 47434.2 250 375 44194.2 200 400 38729.8 150 425 31374.8 100 450 22360.7 It is clear from the table that the area decreases and that the equilateral triangle has the largest area. Next we consider rectangles. A square with a perimeter of 1000 m has sides of length 250 m and thus the area   250250=62 500 squared meters. Let us stretch the square by 25 meters to 275. To keep the 1000 m perimeter the horizontal sides shorten to 225. The area is 275225=61875. We repeat this procedure and show the results in the table below. Hight m Width m Area m^2 250 250 62000 275 225 61875 300 200 60000 325 175 56875 350 150 52500 375 125 46875    We can see that the squre has the greatest area and that the area decrases as the square is stretched. We can see that the area would eventually be zero as the wiidth gets smaller and smaller and close to zero. Also we see that the the square has a greater area than the triangle. Let us examine shapes with more sides to see if the area increases. Thus we should calculate the agrea of a   regular pentagon.   It can be divided into 5 isosceles triangles with each of the sides as a base. Using the same procedure as when we calculated the area of the equilateral triangle we can calculte the area of the triangle in the pentagon. Multiplying by 5 we get the area of the pentagon. Each side has length 1000/5= 200. The angle at the centre is 360/5=72. As this is an isosceles triangle we get that the other two angles are (180-72)/2=54. So height=tan54 x 100 and the area of the triangle is  ½ 200 x tan 54 x 100=13763.8. Now we need to multiply by 5 to get the area of the triangle. We get Area= 68819.1 m This is bigger than the square. Let us construct a formula for the general n-sided polygon. The length od each side is 1000/n. The central angle is 360/n. So the other two angles are (180-360/n)/2 which simplifies to   90 –180/n. That gives the formula for the height h=tan(90 –180/n) x (1000/2n) and the area of triangle is    ½ 1000/n x tan(90 –180/n) x (1000/2n). We need to multiply the number of sides which gives Area=500 x tan(90 –180/n) x 500/n. Using this formula we calculate areas for a n sided polygon as n increases. The results are shown in the table below. Number of sides Side length Area 5 200 68819.1 6 166.7 72168.8 7 142.9 74161.5 8 125 75444.2 9 111.1 76318.8 10 100 76942.1 11 90.1 77401.9 15 66 78410.5 30 33.3 79286.4 1000 1 79577.2 It is clear that as the number of sides increases so does the area. But as the number of sides increases we get closer and closer to the shape of a circle which can be thought of as the an infinitely sided polygon. Thus the shape with the largest area is the ciscle. What is the area of a circle with perimeter of 1000m? 2x Pi x radius=1000 so radius=159.2. From the formula for the area of a circle, Pi x r^2, we get the area 79622.53 The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002: Overview and Impact The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002: Overview and Impact Sarbanes Oxley Companies Abstract The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 was passed on July 30, 2002 and only the public companies are now feeling its impact. This act frequently called the â€Å"most significant accounting or auditing legislation since the securities exchange Act of 1934†. After the implementation it has established its demands to the companies for proper management and disclosure of risk. Nortel networks is a giant corporate in telecom industry and as it is expected they also have faced the challenges come from the SOX act. Some of them are in favor and some are against the Nortel. ‘SOX’ has manipulated a larger impact on Nortel internal employee and external customers as well as their financial statement. The outcome of the Nortel is clearly different from before implementing the SOX. This paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the SOX, how it governs the public corporate, financial disclosure and practice of public accounting in general sense. Besides this it will focus on the outcomes of Nortel network after implementation of SOX and its financial statement. Introduction There have been found a number of corporate financial scandals (e.g. Tyco International) that provides various type of weakness in the governance and auditing practice in the organization. It represents the failures in controlling the reliability and integrity to the stock markets. The scandals cost billions of dollars for the investors when the affected companies were collapsed. As a result, these scandals make upset the public confidence in the nation’s security markets. The Sarbanes–Oxley Act was passed in positive response by the American congress on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals and these scandals in result of decreasing the investors or shareholders confident on investing on the share market. To restore their confident, a new regulation from SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) is implemented. The act was granted by a vote of 423-3 by the House and by the Senate 99-0. So, it can be said that the act had not to face approving challenges. The Sarbanes–Oxley Act gives the government a strong control. This act is commonly known as Sox or Sarbox act and it consist of eleven titles. Each title contains different sections and setting from further corporate board tasks to criminal penalties. The Sarbanes–Oxley Act was named after senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael G. Oxley. President George W. Bush signed it into law, stating it included, â€Å"the most far reaching reforms of American business practice since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt†. The established legislation is applicable for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. This new legislation is an enhancement to standardize the process for all US public companies; the companies will become more transparent on company board, Management and public accounting firms. For example, the Tyco International case reduced the confidence and shocked the investors in the listed companies in the share market and the liable reporting authorities. So, the purpose of the act was to recover the confidence and make tight the government rules and regulations on the companies to keep them under control. The consistent financial reporting process is ensured by this act. Consequently, the reliability to the public in accordance with disclosure is increased. The telecom professionals found themselves under the force to fulfill the regulation within a short time. By doing this they can keep away from any criminal accusations. The most important provisions of  the  Sarbanes–Oxley Act include: Accelerated reporting of trades by insiders Public reporting of CEO and CFO compensation and profits. Auditor independence and a prohibition on audit firms offering value-added services. Companies are now required to have an internal audit function, which must be certified by external auditors Certification of financial reports by CEOs and CFOs. This paper presents a real understanding on the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and its impact on the telecom industry. It also provides the controls adopted by the authority to maximize the financial reporting process. Besides these, it would give a clear idea that will act as a guideline on what possible interface control may need to implement to the telecom governance and accounting process. Literature review From a number of financial scandals the act Sarbanes Oxley has been evolved. This act provides some important and practical provisions for the public companies. There are eleven titles under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 and these are: Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Auditor independence, Corporate responsibility, Enhanced financial disclosures, Analyst conflicts of interest, Commissions resources and authority, Studies and reports, Corporate and criminal fraud accountability, White collar crime penalty enhancement, Corporate tax returns, Corporate fraud accountability. All these titles provide fifty seven sections overall. The public accounting, public corporate or financial disclosure, all these are the boundary of Sarbanes–Oxley Act. The impact of Sarbanes Oxley 2002 on the Nortel networks in the telecom industry in regarding to its internal employee and external customer. Moreover, the outcomes of the Nortel telecom after the implementation of Sarbanes–Oxley Act. Some implied recommendations from this act and also some limitations of different sections. An overview of SOX act Public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB) Title one has nine section and it establishes public company accounting oversight board. This public company accounting oversight board is to provide independent oversight of public accounting firms providing audit services. It also deals with the auditors registering, defining the specific process, subject to the securities laws, and related matters. It is to ensure the public confidence in the preparation of informative, accurate and independent audit reports. The board will be termed as a body corporate, operated as a nonprofit organization. Auditor independence Title two also consists of nine sections and it establishes the independence of the auditors. This act provides a standard for the external auditors which limit the conflicts of interest. Furthermore, it also refers the approval requirements for the new auditors. Partner rotation policy, conflict interest issues, auditor reporting programs are in this boundary. According to the section 201, it is not approved to do other kind of business for the auditing companies, which are apart from with the same clients. Corporate responsibility Title three consists of eight sections and it emphasizes on the responsibility of the senior executives. The senior executives will be responsible for the accuracy and validity of corporate financial reports. It also establishes the responsibility by the corporate officers about the accuracy and completeness of the corporate financial reports. Besides this, the interaction between external auditors and corporate audit committees has been specified through this act. There would be no improper manipulation on conduct of audits. Forfeiture of certain bonuses and profits, officer and director bars and penalties, insider trades during pension funds blackout periods, fair funds for investors, all these will be treated as the corporate responsibility. For example, according to the section 302, it is implied that the company should be responsible for approving the integrity of their company financial reports. Enhanced financial disclosures There are nine sections in the title four and it mandates the requirements for financial transactions, such as off balance transaction. In addition, pro-forma figures and stock transactions of corporate officers are described under this act. The accuracy and validity of financial reports and disclosures is dependent on the internal controls to be ensured. There is the possibility of material change in financial condition. It enhanced conflict of interest provisions of personal loans to executives. This act provides the disclosures of transactions involving management and principal stockholders. Management assessment of internal controls, exemption, code of ethics for senior financial officers, disclosure of audit committee financial expert, enhanced review of periodic disclosures by issuers, real time issuer disclosures are the section included in this title. Analyst conflicts of interest This title consist only one section and it emphasizes on to restore the confidence of the investors in the reporting of securities analyst. This title defines the code of conduct that is applicable for the securities analyst and it emphasis the disclosure of knowable conflict of interest. Commissions resources and authority This title six consists of four sections and provides practices to recover the confidence in securities analysts. It also defines the authority of Security Exchange Commission to censure or bar securities professionals from practice. It also provides the information about which person can and cannot be barred from practicing as a broker, advisor or dealer. Studies and reports Title seven consists of five sections and enhances the conducting research to prevent the violence that may occur by the SEC registrants and auditors. Effects of consolidation of public accounting firms or role of credit rating agencies in the operation of securities market or securities violations and enforcement actions, and whether investment banks assisted and others to influence earnings and obfuscate of true financial condition are the boundary of this title. Corporate and criminal fraud accountability Title eight ‘corporate and criminal fraud accountability’ consists of seven sections and it is referred to as the â€Å"corporate and criminal fraud act of 2002†. Specific criminal penalties for fraud manipulation and destruction or alteration of financial records or other interference with investigation all these are provided by this act. White collar crime penalty enhancement Title nine â€Å"white collar crime penalty enhancement† consist of two sections and this section is also known as â€Å"white collar crime penalty enhancement act of 2002†. This section of title nine defines the criminal penalties that associated with white collar crimes and conspiracies. It provides the more reliable guidelines and specially adds failure to certify corporate financial reports as a criminal offense. Corporate tax returns Title ten â€Å"corporate tax returns† consists of only one section which states that the chief executive officer should sign the company tax return. Corporate fraud accountability Title eleven â€Å"corporate fraud accountability† consists of sevens sections. According to the section 1101 it has been recommended that this title can be named as â€Å"corporate fraud accountability act of 2002†. This act is to find out the corporate fraud and records which could temper the criminal offenses. It identifies these offenses and joins those offenses to specific penalties. This not only provides this description but also revises sentencing guidelines and strengthens their penalties. Conceptual framework of this study This paper conducts a study about the impact of SOX act on the telecom company. The Sarbanes Oxley 2002 act is to present a detailed report on a company’s internal controls over the SEC. in addition, the overall review of SOX in a short way to understand deeply is the framework of this study. It would be difficult to get the right information from the respondents. The respondents may be unaware about the significance of the survey. Besides this, complexity in data collecting system may hamper the study paper. Multifaceted questions and difficult language is an obstacle to get the proper records. So, easy and understandable language will be used. Sarbanes–Oxley Act 2002 and the practice of public accounting According to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act 2002 all public accounting firms who wish to provide auditing function for the purpose of publicity traded companies need to register with the board. This act provides the scope of audit practice and reports, details investigation and defines conflict-of-interest prohibition. The SOX itself has changed or affect the practice of public accounting system of Nortel. Nortel believes that all adjustment is necessary for presenting a fair financial statement. It expected to everyone that the practice of public accounting will be fair in a manner. Before the Sarbanes–Oxley Act passage, the firms did not have to usually disclose stock-opinion grants to the Security and Exchange Commission unless the close of the business year. The firms had to disclose the stock-opinion within two business days after issuance. Sarbanes–Oxley Act has become now a law. Accounting, financial reporting and tracking of sales activities all these are affected by this act. Sarbanes Oxley is to be said as a mandatory which is applicable for all listed companies in the U.S. whether foreign or not and compliance is not an option. In case of Nortel the effects of SOX has begun. Like much of the business community, the public financial report is very crucial to present in a systematic way. The growing number of restatement and so many other certain public accounting practices which shake the public confidence in the financial reporting system has been seen for a long time. Although it is difficult to measure the effect of accounting issues on the investor confidence, various efforts to find out investor confidence have been made. For example, a survey based index provides the public opinion in regarding to the accounting practice. Public cite public accounting practice as a difficult and complex issue, which has negative impact on the stock market. Some surveys indicate that after implementation of Sarbanes–Oxley Act in July 2002. â€Å"Other sources such as empirical research studies and academic experts generally suggest accounting issues have negatively affected overall investor confidence and raised questions about the integrity of U.S. markets†. (GAO October, 2002). According to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act 2002 in the audit committee at least one member would be financially literate. The audit committee consists of minimum three members. However, SOX puts a strong emphasis on audit committee function with respect to the company’s relation with an external auditor. As a result the audit committee of each issuer becomes directly responsible appointment, compensation and oversight of the work of any registered public accounting company employed by that issuer. (Didenko Pavel) At first Sarbanes–Oxley Act creates a nonprofit corporation that is â€Å"public company accounting oversight board† or PCAOB. Its â€Å"five SEC-appointed members (of whom two will be CPAs), financed by new public company fees, will register, inspect and discipline public accounting firms, including foreign firms in certain cases, as well as establish and enforce auditing, quality control, and independence standards.†(McTamaney, Aug 9 2002). Because of the new Sarbanes–Oxley Act the audit firm itself now will turn around its guide audit partner every five years. Hence, the sec 103 of the Sarbanes Oxley enhances public accounting firms to prepare, maintain and continue a period of time which is not less than 7 years. Section 104 allows the advisory board to maintain and review all audit papers for a period of 5 years from the end of the fiscal period. The section 105 of SOX provides the authorization to the oversight board to perform a wide investigation of auditing firms. Besides the auditing firms associated persons are to be conducted through broad investigation and the act authorizes the board to â€Å"require the production of audit work papers and any other document or information in the possession of a registered public accounting firm or any associated person thereof.† (Patzakis John, 2003). Accounting did not cause the recent corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. Unreliable financial statements were the results of management decisions, fraudulent or otherwise. To blame management’s misdeeds on fraudulent financial statements casts accountants as the scapegoats and misses the real issue. Reliable financial reports rely to a certain extent on effective internal controls, but effective internal controls rely to a large extent on a reliable management system coupled with strong corporate governance. (A management system is a process of planning, executing, and control for all business processes in an organization.)

Educations Importance :: Teaching Education

Educations Importance An Institution of Thinkers Education is one of the most important things in modern America, but the reasons why learning is so important today is un-clear. Every modern country has a state run education system, which carries children in to there mid to late teens. The systems around the world are all quite similar, focusing on writing, math and reading, with other courses often being a second language and art. Though the systems are alike people from country to country and from town to town differ on the reasons why education is needed. Opinions range from a place to baby-sit the kids, to a needed key in the pursuit of a successful life and job. The simple un-clarity of today’s school systems is sad. An institution with so many employees and customers (students) should have a mission statement that screamed it’s meaning and lead students on a path to where they need to go. Gardner says â€Å"†¦students who have been well trained†¦do not display adequate understanding of the materials†¦Ã¢â‚¬  but what is unclear is what they should show knowledge in. Should students be able to recite the periodic table or simply know what it is? Should students know all the presidents or know where to find out about them? These questions need to be detailed before we can ever expect for the students to achieve well. Gardner speaks of seven different intelligences, which leads to a question of how is it possible to have 32 people in front of you, all programmed differently and teach them all the same thing. School can’t be designed to fit everyone in, but the institution we currently have tries to. A simple understanding of Gardners Intelligences by the people who created the current system might have drastically changed it. We need to fit all people into a system of education, but what we are currently doing is fitting all people into a cookie cutter mold, which is metaphorically cutting off there legs and arms just to fit them in it. Children are all in school to learn, but we need to isolate why they are there and work from that. I believe schools are meant as simply places to give people a start in life, have them all reading, knowing simple mathematics, history and science. Schools to the 8th grade should be molds, everyone should be taught the same things, maybe not in the same way, but they should walk out knowing the same basics.

Introduction to Integrated Christian Apologetics Essay

Over the past centuries, many religious beliefs have been criticized by many philosophers and critics. Christian faith has never been saved from these criticisms. In fact it has received one of the major blows of disparagement. This criticism of the Christian faith has caused damage to the Christian believers. Due to the criticism of Christianity, Christian believers were also criticized and were questioned by their fellow human beings. And because of these, Christian believers were caught unaware and did not know what to do. Furthermore, this also caused believers to have weak faith in Christianity. There were even others who lost their faith because of these attacks. Due to a lot of criticisms, it was seen by many school of thought in Christian Theology that a solution must be provided to the arising problem. According to the scholars, apologetics is the solution to the dilemma. Christian Apologetics is a branch in Christian Theology that defends the Christian faith. It tries to answer the question â€Å"is Christianity believable? †. It originated from the Greek word â€Å"apologia† which means ‘making a defense†. Attacks of the Christian faith coming from the outside of the church are mean dealt with apologetics (Philip and Cherian). Presently an integrated approach in apologetics has been developed which sees apologetics in a holistic perspective. A person who is studying or has background on Apologetics is called a Christian Apologist and can help inquirers about their question in Christianity. A Christian Apologist can teach and help the person having doubts on Christian beliefs to see and find the answers to the problems and questions that he is facing. The Apologist can also teach the inquirer the humanistic philosophy which can help them overcome their doubts and will help them find the root causes of the problem. These also give the inquirer capability to deal effectively with the questions being raised to them. The basis of Christian Apologetics could be traced back to the bible. According to Philip and Cherian, Apologetics is a biblical activity which has been advised and demonstrated in the Bible at various places. One of the example is the verse from 1 Peter 3:15 which goes â€Å"always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls your account for that hope is in you†. Many verses in the bible give a good definition of the character of Apologetics. According to Philip and Cherian, almost all of the books of Jobs are an Apologetic to justify to God’s dealings with mean. Furthermore, they also mentioned that verses in Psalms 14 and 19are apologetic in character. Romans 1:20 is also another verse in the bible that describes the character of Apologetics. With this few examples it can be said that all activities in Apologetics is referred from the Bible. An important role of Apologetics towards the Bible is that it answers inquiry of people who have been attacked by nonbelievers. Base on the module written by Philip and Cherian entitled â€Å"Introduction to Integrated Christian Apologetics†, the Bible places a great deal on faith and belief, though I condemns deliberate skepticism and unbelief, it does not speak against reason and investigation. The Bible encourages the use of reason and investigation when they are done sincerely and is an aid to honest inquiry. This is where Apologists play an important role, providing answers to honest inquirers. Furthermore, Apologetics is also related to Polemics which deals with attacks originating from within the church (Philip and Cherian) which is a bit unusual. Attackers from within the church includes everyone who teach perverted doctrines which could take in two forms. The first form is in the form of distorted bible and the second is through those of false cults who claim that they are a true Christian group. Apologetics and Polemics have the same purpose, which is to refute error and to establish truth in Christianity (Philip and Cherian) though they are two different activities. However, with the various forms of attacks that the Christian Church has undergone and undergoing, both polemics and apologetics has to know hw counter all the forms of attack which means that if you’re an Apologetic you should have knowledge on Polemics and vice versa. In this way, the person is well prepared for the things that will come his way. Attacks of the word of God are no just recent. Apologetics has its roots in the Bible. The Old and New Testament gives enough evidence of this (Philip and Cherian). The attacks can be rooted back to the Old Testament. It can be noticed that during the old times many people have already questioned the existence of God which had form doubts on the Christian Church and has never ceased up to the present date. Thus, from then on Apologetics has been part of history. During those days, it is the Jewish Fathers and leaders that have to face so much opposition from non-believers. The non-believers published a lot of written works to question and discard the Christian faith. At this point also, the Jewish fathers and Leader also wrote some books to counter the attacks and one famous apologetic works is Contro Apion which was written by the first century army officer and historian name Flavious Josephus (Philip and Cherian). During the rise of the New Testament, the attacks to Christian faith were a little different compared to the Old Testament. The attacks to the Christian faith were a lot faster because of the new technological advancements on this time. Aside from the advancements, Philip and Cherian stated that during this time the availability of the New Testament itself cause the rise of many critics, heretics and heretical movements. However, this was countered by the authors of the New Testament. Majority of the readings in the New Testament is an opposition to scornful people and heretics that distrust biblical truths. To make the truth heard, the writers of the New Testament wrote extensively to expose errors abut the attacks that has been made (Philip and Cherian). The existence of the New Testament has caused more damage to the Christian faith since the teaching found in the New Testament were in contrary to the beliefs of the heretics, criticizers and rebel Christians (Philip and Cherian). In addition, the New Testament insists of Bible alone, Christ Alone, Grace Alone, and faith alone which further provoked the doubtful believers. These non believers were also afraid that Christianity would spread very fast that they tried to stop it by destroying or saying things against the Bible, Jesus Christ and Christianity. However, this has not shaken Christian Apologist at that time, instead of giving in, they fought the non-believers of Christian faith by producing volumes of Christian Apologetics and Polemics. However, during the recent years, the fight of Christian Apologist became dormant when the Roman Catholic Church ruled the Christian world stiffly. The roman Catholic Chruch at this time (fourth century to the 14th century) indulged in a great struggle for ecclesiastical as well as temporal power that they tend to silenced, torture, and killed millions of dissenting people (Philip and Cherian). So instead of fighting back, Christian Apologists tend not to speak because of the life threatening situation. When the dictatorial rule of the Catholic Church was over, Christianity was rejected by many people since the didn’t understand the difference between Roman Catholic Church, the true church of Christ, and the Christ of the Bible. This was coupled with the rise of a lot of anti-Christian thinkers, philosophies and movements. A lot of anti-Christianity group arise during the 19th century and there common goal is to oppose to the Bible and to Christianity as well. They also believed that Christianity could be challenged but they haven’t got sufficient information to do so (Philip and Cherian). During this time, Charles Darwin, a scientist who proposed the Theory of Evolution for the first time in a theory of science united all the dissenting movements. This Theory of Evolution had greatly affected Theology by the end of the 19th century. Many theologians from Europe and America accepted the Theory of Evolution and convinced other theologians especially German Theologians. However, these German Theologians began to act as mercenaries and destroyed the belief in the Bible. And one of their major goals is to destroy Christianity. They published lots of books that were spread worldwide. But despite the eagerness of German Theologian to destroy Christianity, many still don’t agree with them. Many were interested in keeping both beliefs together. However, this did not give Christianity a positive light. Instead, it created more conflict especially on the creation. Defenders then of the doctrine became so few. Belief on Christianity and the Bible, was risen during the fifties were in a group started writing aggressively on themes defending the historical and scientific reliability of the Bible which gave birth to the modern interest in Apologetics and Creation (Philip and Cherian). In India, the theological situation is the same with the West. Thus, it was expected that is would turn out the same with what had happened in the West. However, there were few people who stood up against these teachings. One of the first was Prof. H. Enoch, during the 60’s he published a book entitled â€Å"Evolution or Creation† which has influenced a lot of young Indians (Philip and Cherian). During the 60’s and 70’s in India it was only Cross and Crown, a Pentecostal Magazine that publishes articles defending the history of the Bible and creation. This magazine was edited by Dr. Thomas Mathews from Udapair, Rajasthan (Philip and Cherian). In the 70’s A. K. Skariah, a secretary of the fellowship of scientist known as FOCMOS or Fellowship of Christian Men of Science, which was later called Creation Scientist Fellowship (CSFI), became a tireless campaigner for creation and Apologetics even if their organization is not functioning anymore (Philip and Cherian). Another important person in India who studied apologetics is Dr. Johnson Philip who founded a project namely Creation Research in 1970’s. The objective of his research is to publish articles about apologetics and creation. Currently, the book has more than 1500 articles and is publish in six different languages. This movement is now known as Calvin School of Apologetics and Theology (Philip and Cherian). This man also, Johnson George, born in Kerala is another person who palyed a significant role in Christian Apologetics. He has contributed writing on apologetical themes in several languages. Other people such as Dr. Ezhamkulam Samkutty, J. C. Dev, E. S. Thomas and Paul K. Ramakrishan also played a role in apologetics. Recently an apologetics organization entered India known as RZIM which was founded by Dr. Ravi Zacharias from the U. S. A. (Philip and Cherian). Through the years, apologetics has been very important in the everyday living of many people. Together with the constant change that humanty is facing, approaches used by Christian Apologetics has also been changing with time. However, certain puposes of Apologetics has never changed with time which includes: a) to refute all the accusations that are brought against the Bible and the Christian faith; b) to demonstrate that only the Bible and the Christian way of life work in the actual life and that only the Bible and Christian faith provide permanent peace and happiness; c) to remove the sincer doubts in the hearts of believers and unbelievers, so that the hindrances to the growth and establishing their faith are eliminated and; d) to provide sufficient evidence for achieving the above goals. Thus, t is necessary for the apologist to understand the difference between sufficient and total proof (Philip and Cherian). In Christian apologetics, everything is decided on the basis of proof. However, there are still people who think of it differently. There are many people who views Christian Apologetics through skepticism, Christian Rationalism, Local Christianity and through faith (Philip and Cherian). Apologetics is a fast changing and fast growing field in Christian Theology. Thus, people who want to study this field should not misunderstand its role, purpose and contributions. It should be noted that Apologetics is a â€Å"manward operations† (Philip and Cherian) which means that its main purpose is to help those who are confused and in anguished due to doubts. It does not defend the bible a though it were a helpless book. In apologetics, the bible is defended to those who have doubts about it so that they will have a clear belief about the bible. Apologetics is not there to preserve the Bible but it there to preserve the faith of the doubting believer. For this to take effect, the apologist should b able to briefly understand the aim and goals of apologetics because only a person with proper understanding of apologetics can do his job properly. It should also be taken into consideration, that though the main purpose of apologetics is to defend the Christian faith, it also has limits. One of its limit which is crucial is that it should never be use to prove that the Bible is the word of God. It can only point to the unusual character of the Bible in matters of unity, accuracy, consistency, historicity and life-changing power. At this point an apologist should take note that it’s purpose is to aid a person to see that the attacks bought up against the bible are not valid (Philip and Cherian). Another purpose of apologetics is to remove the barrier that hinders faith (Philip and Cherian). The removal of these barriers helps accepts Christian faith whole heartedly. It also helps them make deeper commitments to the church. With this, the Christian faith and church becomes stronger with believers that have a complete trust to it. In addition to the purpose of apologetics is to inform honest inquirers on how reliable the rational content of the Bible is and that the Bible is not for rationalist. However, the demands of rationalists have been a benefit to Christian apologist because it formed an excellent standard to evaluate the statements of apologists (Philip and Cherian). To help a person who wants to abandon his unbelief that has been there due to his lingering but sincere and honest doubts is another purpose of apologetics (Philip and Cherian). It is not a treatment for deliberate unbelief but it is meant to serve as a cure for sincere doubts. Apologetics is not there to prove the divinity of the Bible instead it is there to point to the uniqueness of the scriptures which places the scriptures in proper sequence (Philip and Cherian). It should also be noted that apologetics is not scientism. They are of two different schools. Scientism is the belief that ultimately everything has to be explained with the help of science which is a false belief (Philip and Cherian). It should be taken into consideration that not all things happening in this world can be explained by science. There are certain things that happen what cannot be explained by science and it in manner faith is strongly given emphasis. Moreover, studying Christian apologetics has many practical values. Studying apologetics conserves the faith of an individual which means that he is ready to face the questions that will bombard him in his everyday living. Individual who is ready for such will not be able to loose his faith because he already knows what to do to the attackers. Ability to combat a foe is also improved when one is studying or has a background in Christian apologetics. He becomes better in answering the questions of unbelievers. Aside from this he can provide believable answers to the inquirers and wile main composed in circumstances. In addition, apologetics can also aid the youth in there sincere queries about Christian faith. In this manner apologists serves as a guide to the young minds. It should also be taken into account that there are also people who are not interested in Christian apologetics. This people became uninterested in apologetics due to their misconceptions and misunderstandings of the study. These people are categorized by Philip and Cherian into six categories which are: a) those people who never had any doubts in Christian faith; b) people who never had to face questions and attacks from scornful people; c) people who have indeed faced personal doubts and external attacks but who have been running away from facing the challenge; d) people who have lost sensitivity towards the pains and problems of other and pseudo-apologists who love prestige, but who have never mastered the subject. These six categories of people do not have any sufficient evidence to object or question Christian apologetics. Most of their objections are base on their personal views on how they view the subject. They are not sincere inquirers but rather they only want to impose what they believe and think is right. They believe that the bible contains errors and are insensitive to other people. Aside from non-believers, there are also people who oppose to Christian apologetics. These people who oppose to apologetics do not agree that reason and faith should be placed in the same dominion. They believe that the human understanding is not capable in the spiritual realm. This belief is highly in contrast with the Christian approach to truth wherein one has to accept that faith and reason do mix with each other in many realms of spiritual truth (Philip and Cherian). In addition to distrust, fear of being attack or questioned about faith is another reason why people oppose to apologetics (Philip and Cherian). They are afraid to face attacks because they feel that they aer capable of doing such things. So instead of facing the problem, these people tend to run away from the problem. Ignorance is also another reason why people are opposing to Christian apologetics (Philip and Cherian). They are completely ignorant about the things that are happening that when they are faced in certain problem or situation they tend to react to things because of their ignorance. Due to the much opposition of apologetics, an apologist should be very careful in handling situations. A debate is a big no in apologetics except when the crowd is mature enough and is made up of small number of seekers (Philip and Cherian). If engage in a debate, the apologists should still be very careful and should bot deliver the debate in a form such as speaker-to-audience. Apologists should bear in mind that they should always take control of the situation they are in. Apologetics is such a very complicated topic and because of it’s complexity, many apologists tend to make compromises to patch some things that cannot be resolved. However, this kind of act is not advised by Christian apologists as it can cause more damage to the truth. Compromise is like a slow poison that attacks the Christian faith which can be more destructive than the fiercest direct attack in the Christian faith. When opposing systems are synthesized into one, it is the truth that always suffers (Philip and Cherian). In the integrated approach to Christian apologetics, the following statements are the benchmark: Bible alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, Christ alone, to God alone be Glory. Christian apologetics shall always stand in favour of truth, total truth and truth alone (Philip and Cherian). The truth will always be the truth and should always be separated from error. Reference Philip, Johnson and Cherian, Saneesh. Introduction to Integrated Christian Apologetics. A Calvin Research Group Academic Resource, Module 001A1. Retrieved on 22 January 2007.

Corporate Parenting Essay

Children’s homes operate under the directorate of â€Å"Corporate Parenting† meaning that when a child is placed in the children’s home on an interim or full care order or even if the child is voluntary placed by the trust ( once they become looked after), the staff within the home have responsibilities which include safeguarding the young persons welfare when their needs are being considered by the courts and also taking into consideration when making decisions the views of the child, parent and any other person involved with the young person. As a corporate parent the child’s religious identity, racial origin, cultural and linguistic background all need to be considered, also your role includes preparing the young person for life when they will no longer be â€Å"looked after† by the trust. Staff in residential care have a legal responsibility to each young person as directed by the â€Å"Children’s Order (NI) 1995. Under the directorate of corporate parenting social care staff with in children’s homes are obliged to look after and treat any young person as any other good parent would look after their own child. Social workers in residential care strive to involve the child’s parent in the decision making process of the child’s life; and work in partnership with parents, however there can be occasions where a parent does not act in the best interests of their child and the trust as a corporate parent can limit a decision made by the parent. Professional Carer Professional Carers can be employed within the statutory, voluntary and private sector, again professional carers (i.e) foster parents/ fee paid carers or emergency foster carers have a responsibility to provide a duty of care to safeguard and protect the welfare and well being of each child placed with them. Professional carers are also governed by policies and procedures and legislation which are a requirement by law.