Wednesday, December 26, 2012

5 crowd-pleasing holiday specials

No matter what your beliefs, these five holiday specials will win over everyone in the vicinity. Try one out on the family this year ? or if you've seen them before, they're always worth another watch.

- Molly Driscoll,?Staff Writer

1. 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'

"Charlie Brown" first premiered on CBS in 1965 and still regularly wins its time slot when it's aired during the holidays. The story follows hapless Chuck, who worries that he's missing out on the true meaning of the holiday season until he encounters a tiny, needle-shedding tree. CBS executives originally hated the moment when Linus takes the stage and quotes a passage of the Bible which describes Jesus' birth, but "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz was adamant that it be kept in.

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Monday, December 17, 2012

What To Do When You're Stuck In A Mansion

What To Do When You're Stuck In A Mansion

You're a supernatural and you've been invited to spend a week in the countryside, so you can learn about other non-humans for college credits, of course. Only... Something isn't quite right about that creepy mansion.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

10 Ways to Prepare Your Community for Economic Collapse ...

AP

As economic collapse approaches, the only question is whether it will remain in slow motion or take a dramatic turn for the worse. If we?re lucky it will remain in slow motion to give people and communities enough time to prepare as much as possible.

We only need to look at the chaos that occurred during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy where hardly anyone was prepared for weeks without power, and they even had some forewarning. Unfortunately most people are still blind to the coming economic storm. They?re frogs in slowly simmering water getting ready to boil.

It?s one thing to prep for yourself, but if the economic collapse is sustained for a long period of time, it will take a tribe to survive as comfortably as possible. The bigger your extended survival group the easier it will be, and if you can encourage your greater community to move more toward self-reliance the better off you all will be.

If you?re a prepper who understands the severity of the coming events, now is the time to get your community involved. You don?t have to convince everyone the sky is falling, only the importance of more self-sufficiency just in case there is an unforeseen emergency.

Here are ten ways to?help your community prepare:

Meet Your Tribe: This starts with forming your core group of local prepper friends. These people will share your understanding, have great ideas, and can share the burden of prepping. Then, at the very least, meet all of your immediate neighbors and size them up as to their mindset and ability. Organize fun and educational block parties to demonstrate and encourage the solutions outlined on this list. Finally, take some of your ideas to town hall meetings to seek broader?cooperation and more?volunteers.

Alternative Water Sources: Water is the most important element for survival. If the grid goes down, public water will be sure to follow. Locate private wells that can be switched to hand pumps or generators, or streams, rivers and ponds that can be piped and stored near your community. Create a map of these resources for everyone in your group of volunteers to keep safe if crisis strikes. Educate your neighbors with flyers or demonstrations at block parties about having back-up water supplies, rainwater and greywater use, and water purification methods. Encourage your neighbors to keep at least 3 days of drinking water stored in their homes.

Garden Projects: ?Encourage and help neighbors with their individual gardens and they?ll help you with yours.?Hold neighborhood workshops with experts on composting, permaculture,?aquaponics,?small livestock, seed preservation, and canning. Stress the importance to the greater community of gardens in public spaces that are being wasted on grass that must be mowed at the taxpayer?s expense. With more of the local landscape turned into an edible landscape, the easier the community will be able to absorb the impact of economic collapse, particularly rapid inflation of food prices.

Local Food Co-Ops: Another very important element to local food self-sufficiency is becoming involved with your local food cooperatives. These typically include many of your local artisan farmers and organic gardeners. You may be surprised by how big the local food movement already is in your area, but it needs to be much bigger when severe economic crisis hits. Support them with your business and whatever skills you can bring to the table. Encourage your neighbors to join and participate as well. Not only will this help expand local commerce and food production, it also helps build a healthier community. A great resource to find local farmers in your area is LocalHarvest.org.

Barter Systems: If the dollar collapses (which most people predict will be the trigger of economic collapse), having a local system of trade will soften the impact tremendously.?Even if you just begin with trading services with your neighbors, get the idea barter to spread. You may already have a local grassroots currency or barter exchange in your area. Many food co-ops already have them as well. If they don?t, there are plenty of resources that teach you how to start one yourself. The importance of laying the groundwork for such an exchange cannot be understated, and if the collapse miraculously evaporates, the barter system will still encourage local trade so the community flourishes. This is also a great way to identify team players with vital skills needed during collapse situations.

Alternative Energy: ?This is perhaps the most challenging issue facing any individual prepper as well as a small community as a whole. Virtually all areas are beholden to large interconnected electric grids and multinational oil companies for their energy. But as we saw recently with Hurricane Sandy, people without fuel or power go crazy after just a few short days. Imagine weeks and months without power or fuel. For personal preparation, it?s wise to at least have a generator, and perhaps some solar panels for refrigeration and electronics. Encouraging your neighbors to do the same may be the best you can hope for community involvement, but present ideas like?generators?for all essential services to prevent a breakdown of law and order. Work on implementing?a community or co-op biodiesel refinery for used cooking oil, or a windmill or solar station for the back-up water supply, etc

Neighborhood Watch: All communities are unique and will require different levels of security in times of crisis. As we saw with Katrina and Sandy, the National Guard and the local police were no match for keeping the looters at bay. And, again, these were just temporary setbacks. A sustained economic crisis could bring many desperate people or worse ? organized gangs ? to your neighborhood. The cops will likely be preoccupied with much bigger concerns than your community assuming the locality can still afford their salaries. Start with a simple neighborhood watch to create a basic plan for deterring invaders. Make note of neighbors who are former military or hunters to recruit should things get dicey enough to require some firepower.

Food Bank: ?Everyone should have their own personal supply of survival foods. But you may also consider grouping with your tribe of preppers or a few neighbors to create a food bank where you can combine funds for bulk food storage. This food bank should consist of the most basic of foods like wheat, rice, and beans. ?This can serve as an ?open only in case of an emergency? cache. Beyond that, helping out with your community food bank or other food programs for the less fortunate is also a way to help keep your community stable during the crisis.

Communications: Don?t underestimate the importance of maintaining open communication with your community. ?If the power goes off, it may not be long before phones and Internet are gone too. Emergency radios are great to monitor the ?official? activity outside the community, but being able to speak to each other is vital to survival. ?Back up systems can be as small as your core group using walkie talkies, or as large as creating an alternative Internet connection. You can have one person get satellite Internet and they can beam it with a simple line-of-sight microwave panels to other hubs, perhaps a school. ?This sounds complex, but it?s not that difficult or expensive. Additionally, you could set up a community intranet that can at least communicate with each other if not the outside world. When meeting neighbors, don?t discount their skills if they?re a tech geek or working for the phone company, as they will be needed in a collapse situation. Again, having individual solar chargers for laptops and this system would have to be considered as well.

Medical:?Big hospitals will likely be overtaxed during a crisis and they?ll certainly be a target of drug addicts who have nowhere else to get their fix.?It may be unrealistic to form a small clinic in your community prior to a collapse situation, however, identifying the doctors, nurses, EMTs, veterinarians, and holistic healers in your neighborhood will go a long way in preparing. Additionally, encouraging all households in your neighborhood to keep a month or more of essential medications stored in their homes will be crucial to get through difficult times. If you?re lucky enough to find a few doctors who share your prepper mindset, creating a bank of strategic medicine (insulin and antibiotics)?would be ideal as well. And don?t write off the hippie who knows how to grow quality cannabis?.

These are all realistic preparations that you can do in your communities. They shouldn?t be motivated by fear of some potential apocalypse. Rather, it should be fun and joyful to get to know your neighbors and encourage the strengthening of your community.

Source: http://www.survivalandbeyond.net/10-ways-to-prepare-your-community-for-economic-collapse/

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Clinical trial tests rice bran to prevent cancer

Clinical trial tests rice bran to prevent cancer [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 5-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Garth Sundem
garth.sundem@ucdenver.edu
University of Colorado Denver

Bioactive small molecules work synergistically, like a drug

A recent University of Colorado Cancer Center review in the journal Advances in Nutrition shows that rice bran offers promising cancer prevention properties. Meanwhile, an ongoing clinical trial is testing the effectiveness of rice bran in preventing the recurrence of colon cancer.

"While I have been trained as a molecular toxicologist, I am excited about the opportunities to deliver bioactive, cancer fighting compounds with food, and this has led to my focus now primarily on the multiple drug-like characteristics of rice bran," says Elizabeth P. Ryan, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at the CSU Animal Cancer Center, and the review's senior author. "There's a delicate balance of bioactive components in rice bran that together show anti-cancer activity including the ability to inhibit cell proliferation, alter cell cycle progression and initiate the programmed cell death known as apoptosis in malignant cells," Ryan says.

Ryan and colleagues show that bioactive rice bran derived small molecules include, but are not limited to polyphenolics, ferulic acid, tricin, ?-sitosterol, ?-oryzanol, tocotrienols/tocopherols, and phytic acid.

"We're working now to tease apart the ratios of these active molecules required for bioactivity and mechanisms. Previous attempts to isolate one or another compound have been largely unsuccessful and so it looks now as if rather than any one compound giving rice bran its chemopreventive powers, it's the synergistic activity of multiple components in the whole food that should be studied."

Work with cancer cell lines and animal models shows that the bioactive components of rice bran act not only within cancer cells but around the cells to create conditions in the surrounding tissues that promote the function of healthy cells while inhibiting the function of cancer cells. This tissue microenvironment activity includes mediating chronic inflammation that provides a ripe landscape for cancer. Ryan and colleagues including Tiffany Weir, PhD, and Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, are collaborating to evaluate how rice bran may also help to promote an anti-cancer immune response and modulate gut microbiota metabolism for protection against cancer.

"There are well over 100,000 varieties of rice in the world, many with their own unique mix of bioactive components and so one major challenge is to discover the optimal composition for chemoprevention. Another challenge is ensuring that people consistently receive the required daily intake amount or 'dose' needed to demonstrate these chemo-protective effects. That said, rice is an accessible, low-cost food in most places of the world, and so work with rice bran as a dietary chemopreventive agent has the potential to impact a significant portion of the world's population," Ryan says.

Ryan has taken the next step in the evolution of rice bran from diet to prescription, in the form of an ongoing clinical trial testing its chemopreventive effectiveness in a population of colon cancer survivors.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Clinical trial tests rice bran to prevent cancer [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 5-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Garth Sundem
garth.sundem@ucdenver.edu
University of Colorado Denver

Bioactive small molecules work synergistically, like a drug

A recent University of Colorado Cancer Center review in the journal Advances in Nutrition shows that rice bran offers promising cancer prevention properties. Meanwhile, an ongoing clinical trial is testing the effectiveness of rice bran in preventing the recurrence of colon cancer.

"While I have been trained as a molecular toxicologist, I am excited about the opportunities to deliver bioactive, cancer fighting compounds with food, and this has led to my focus now primarily on the multiple drug-like characteristics of rice bran," says Elizabeth P. Ryan, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at the CSU Animal Cancer Center, and the review's senior author. "There's a delicate balance of bioactive components in rice bran that together show anti-cancer activity including the ability to inhibit cell proliferation, alter cell cycle progression and initiate the programmed cell death known as apoptosis in malignant cells," Ryan says.

Ryan and colleagues show that bioactive rice bran derived small molecules include, but are not limited to polyphenolics, ferulic acid, tricin, ?-sitosterol, ?-oryzanol, tocotrienols/tocopherols, and phytic acid.

"We're working now to tease apart the ratios of these active molecules required for bioactivity and mechanisms. Previous attempts to isolate one or another compound have been largely unsuccessful and so it looks now as if rather than any one compound giving rice bran its chemopreventive powers, it's the synergistic activity of multiple components in the whole food that should be studied."

Work with cancer cell lines and animal models shows that the bioactive components of rice bran act not only within cancer cells but around the cells to create conditions in the surrounding tissues that promote the function of healthy cells while inhibiting the function of cancer cells. This tissue microenvironment activity includes mediating chronic inflammation that provides a ripe landscape for cancer. Ryan and colleagues including Tiffany Weir, PhD, and Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, are collaborating to evaluate how rice bran may also help to promote an anti-cancer immune response and modulate gut microbiota metabolism for protection against cancer.

"There are well over 100,000 varieties of rice in the world, many with their own unique mix of bioactive components and so one major challenge is to discover the optimal composition for chemoprevention. Another challenge is ensuring that people consistently receive the required daily intake amount or 'dose' needed to demonstrate these chemo-protective effects. That said, rice is an accessible, low-cost food in most places of the world, and so work with rice bran as a dietary chemopreventive agent has the potential to impact a significant portion of the world's population," Ryan says.

Ryan has taken the next step in the evolution of rice bran from diet to prescription, in the form of an ongoing clinical trial testing its chemopreventive effectiveness in a population of colon cancer survivors.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/uocd-ctt120512.php

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Kerry balances refocused devotion to Senate, talk of Cabinet nomination (Washington Post)

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How moral intensity and ethical decision making differs between uk ...

As a result of major scandals within the business world such as Enron, WorldKom, Kmart and more recently the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the importance of business ethics has increased, consequently there has been great concern that business professionals do not have correct ethical values.? Waddock (2005).?? It has been suggested by Jones et al (2003) that many scandals could have been prevented if professionals had better ethical decision-making processes and in the case of Enron, could have produced a different audit opinion.? Freidman (1970) believed that ?The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits? and in some cases unlawful methods have be used to insure this resulting in lengthy jail sentences and expensive lawsuits.? If ethical behavior is to be improved it is vital that the components involved in the process of making ethical decisions is understood and according to Jackling et al (2007), education in accounting ethics would help cure the professions ethical collapse.? Ahadiat and Mackie (1993) suggested that if accountants and business professionals are to have the ethical standards expected of them in the industry, university business schools and places that offer professional training, must insure graduates are given the correct training to effectively deal with any ethical dilemmas they may come across in the

industry.?

Ethical decision making models show variables that have an impact on ethical choice and create a foundation for how ethical decisions are made within organisations.? Rest (1986) formed a model consisting of four stages that an individual is subjected to when making an ethical decision.?? The process begins with an individual identifying a ethical dilemma, making an ethical judgment, their intention to act ethically or unethically and finally the ethical action taken as a consequence.? Jones (1991) provides the ?most comprehensive synthesis model of ethical decision making? Loe et al (2000) pp-186.? Jones (1991) combines in his model, previous ethical decision making models, with a particular focus to Rest?s (1986) model of ethical action, using it as a bases to introduce the concept of moral intensity. Many educational programs can be designed using the components of moral intensity, as Leitsch (2006) makes clear, further empirical research using Jones?s (1991) model is imperative as it would increase our knowledge of the ethical decision making process.? The purpose of this dissertation is to incorporate Jones?s (1991) theoretical model into the ethical decision making process of UK business students and accounting professionals, using different ethically challenging scenarios.? The understanding of the ethical decision making process of business students and accounting professionals will help recruiters identify areas that may need further attention in teaching courses, ensuring graduates are well trained and subsequently thwart the escalation of more headline scandals within the business world.

Background Literature

Early ethical studies were based around normative models that stated what should take place in an ethically challenging situation.? Thorne and Ferrell (1993) criticised these early approach?s to business ethics, as they assumed strict rules that had to be adhered to when making ethical decisions in an organisation.? Hunt (1991) agreed with the thoughts of Thorne and Ferrell (1993) expressing that positive models provided a guide that helped to improve our understanding of business phenomena hence positive ethical decision making models were fashioned.? Hunt and Vitell (1986) produced a model on the general theory of ethics that concentrated on personal, organizational, industrial and cultural factors.? The contingency framework of Ferrell and Gresham (1985) focused on individual, cultural and opportunity factors, whilst Trevino (1986) produced a situational-individual model directed on job and organizational factors.

The Jones (1991) moral intensity model, incorporates the factors that effect ethical decision making used in the previous models mentioned above, Loe et al (2000) makes clear that Jones?s (1991) model, represents the overall agreement regarding the variables embodying the ethical decision making process, by including the concept of moral intensity.? Both Ford and Richardson (1994) and Loe et al (2000) in their reviews on the empirical literature concerning the ethical decision making process, recommended that there be further testing.? In agreement with the reviews, Ming et al (1998) acknowledged that there had been ?limited empirical literature pertaining to Jones?s model?, hence further empirical testing of the moral intensity model is desirable.? Similarly empirical studies that have looked at education, years of education and differences between students and professionals, were described by both, Ford and Richardson (1994) and Loe et al (2000) to have mixed results and deemed inconclusive.? As a result of these non-significant or mixed results and a lack of empirical studies on the Jones?s (1991) model, the variables used in this investigation have been produced.

Processes involved when making an ethical decision

Rest (1986) believed that when making any form of ethical decision an individual goes through four key steps shown bellow.? The first step is the identification of an ethical dilemma, Larkin (2000) states that the ?ability to identify ethical and unethical behavior is essential in all professions?, he goes on to add that when a person acknowledges the moral aspects of an issue there opinions, choices and goals are influenced.

After noting an ethical dilemma, Rest?s (1986) model moves on to the second stage, ethical judgment. Blasi (1980) states in his critique, ?without judgment, an action, no matter how beneficial, would not be moral?.? It is for this reason that the second stage to Rest?s (1986) model is vital because without ethical judgment, a decision can?t be deemed right or wrong.? Kohlberg (1969) formulated the concept of cognitive moral development (CMD), this is an important factor in Rest?s (1986) model, as much of ethical judgment is determined by an individual?s moral development.? According to Wyld et al (1994) ?Relating Kohlberg?s model to business decision making and behavior has been central to the building of theoretical frameworks?, particularly Jones?s (1991) model.

Once an ethical judgment has been made the individual then decides whether to act ethically or unethically.? This third stage in the model demonstrates the individuals ?intention to act, which is determined by the value an individual places on the ethical course of action versus the value of other courses of action?, Sweeney et al (2010).

Research by Laczniak and Inderrieden (1987) and Chonko and Hunt (1985) found that this stage was vital in understanding ethical behavior as it had a profound effect on the ethical action taken by the individual, in the final stage of Rest?s (1986) model.? Rest (1986) put forward the question, ?why then would one ever chose the moral alternative, especially if it involves sacrificing some personal value or suffering some hardship? What motivates the selection of moral values over other values?? (pp. 13-14). ??Various theories have made an attempt to answer this question.? Staub (1989) implied that that majority of moral motives depended on the individual?s personal aspirations.? Bandura (1990) theorised two sources of intent, self-sanctions, which are supportive of Staub?s (1989) findings and social-sanctions.? Social Sanctions enthused people to base their intention to act ethically or unethically on the approval of others, to prevent censure within the organisation.? These theories suggest that moral intentions are influenced by personal aspirations and social-sanctions from others.? It can be seen that in answer to Rest?s question people use moral alternatives because the choice shows who they are and how others view them.

The final stage in Rest?s model is performing the ethical action; there has been little research into this due to problems measuring and observing behavior, Jones et al (2003).? Critics of Rest?s (1986) model such as White (1999), found that in some extreme situations individuals may act immorally even if they are capable of moral reasoning.? As a result of these skeptics, Jones (1991) introduced his own independent variable of moral intensity, which he found influenced the ethical decision making process initiated by Rest?s (1986) four stage model of ethical action.

Moral Intensity

Moral intensity relates to the issue itself and to every unique situation Shaub (1997).? Consequently Jones (1991, p372) described moral intensity as being ?a construct that captures the extent of issue-related moral imperative in a situation?.? Ethical dilemmas tend to be evaluated within the context of the situation; hence an evaluation of the situation is imperative in understanding if a situation is ethical or not Dewe (1997).? The conception behind moral intensity has often been related to the criminal justice system; in that your punishment is proportionate to the severity of the offence you commit Davis et al (1988).? According to Jones (1991) moral intensity is a multidimensional construct and he identifies six characteristics that make up the moral intensity model.

Magnitude of consequences is defined by Jones (1991, p374) to be ?The sum of the harms (or benefits) done to the victims (or beneficiaries) of the moral act in question?.? The idea is brought about from the basic mechanics of human nature; some moral issues have much harsher consequences and in turn, are more morally intense than an action with less serious consequences Barnett and Valentine (2004).

Social consensus is labeled by Jones (1991, p375) to be ?the degree of social agreement that a proposed act is evil (or good)?.? It does however bring up the question of whether a person knows what is deemed good ethics or bad ethics in a situation.? A strong level of social consensus against behavior that was unethical would help an individual understand when a behavior was wrong or right.? Empirical testing by Laczniak and Inderrieden (1987) found that illegal decisions were rejected on more occasions than unethical decisions, implying that people had a strong social consensus against illegal decisions, as the impact to them would be much greater than unethical decisions. Laczniak and Inderrieden (1987) concluded that for a subject to respond appropriately in a situation they needed to have a consensus of what originally was the right course of action to take.?? Previous studies that have concluded social consensus to be the key dimension have used student samples, where as studies finding magnitude of consequences to be the key dimension used managers and professionals Barnett and Valentine (2004).

The probability effect is defined to be a ?Joint function of the probability that the act in question will actually take place and the act in question will actually cause the harm (benefit) predicted? Jones (1991, p 375).? The lower the probability the lower the moral intensity.? Research by Singer et al (1988) has found that the probability dimension is a significant factor of whistle blowing.? Studies by Kahneman et al (1982) found that individuals were not good estimators of probabilities.

Temporal Immediacy was explained by Jones (1991, p376) to be ?the length of time between the present and onset of consequences of the moral act?.? The shorter the length of time the greater the immediacy of the act in question.? Jeanette et al (2009) states that Jones (1991) has included the construct of temporal immediacy for two reasons.? The first being that people tend to disregard the impact of events that happen in the future and that people are generally more worried about events that effect the short term, than those that effect the long term.?? The second is that large differences in time, increases the probability that the act in question will cause harm or benefit, reduces.

According to Jones (1991, p 377)? ?The concentration effect considers the inverse function of the number of people affected by an act of given magnitude.?? In other words it corresponds to the amount of people affected by a given act.

When there is a low concentration of effect it can be assumed that in the case of accounting professionals, a greater number of people will be affected by earnings management decisions.? This would result in accountants being more likely partake in acts that involve earnings management.? Studies by Carlson et al (2002) and Chia and Mee (2000) found that the concentration of effect had no effect on the ethical decision making process, however as there is limited information surrounding the implications of the concentration effect on moral intensity it will be included in this study.

The last component of the moral intensity model is known as the proximity factor.? Jones (1991 p376) defines this as ?the feeling of nearness (social, cultural, psychological or physical) that the moral agent has for victims (beneficiaries) of the evil (beneficial) act in question?.? It is natural for people to be more concerned about those who are close to them; a simple example is comparing an individual?s relationship with their family to that of a stranger.? Frey (2000) therefore identifies that with higher levels of proximity moral intensity increases.

Concordant with Jones (1991) all six components of the moral intensity model represent the characteristics of a moral issue and are interlinked with each other.? In general his theory insinuates that as any component of the model increases so too does the overall level of moral intensity.

Hypotheses and Research Methods?

Identification of an Ethical Dilemma

All four stages in Rest?s (1986) model of Ethical Action will not be investigated in this paper as previous studies by Hunt and Vitell (1986) and Trevino (1986), found that measuring actual behavior was extremely difficult.? Jones (1991) suggested that issues with high moral intensity well be identified by individuals as being a moral issue much more frequently than issues of low moral intensity.? Marshall and Dewe (1997) found that ethical dilemmas that are more salient will appear less casual and therefore be more likely to lead to an ethical predicament.? Studies that have found an association between moral intensity and the identification of an ethical dilemma have been mixed.? Singhapakdi et al (1996) identified that moral intensity and the identification of an ethical dilemma were strongly related in all of the scenarios used.? In contrast, Marshall and Dewe (1997), Chia and Mee (2000) and May and Pauli (2002) found that a positive correlation between moral intensity and the identification of an ethical dilemma was not always related to all of the components of Jones?s (1991) model.? Research by Marshall and Dewe (1997) and Chia and Mee (2000) found that out of the six characteristics forming the model, only social consensus and magnitude of consequences were found to relate to the identification of a moral issue.? In the case of May and Pauli (2002) moral intensity was strongly related to the identification of an ethical dilemma but in only one of the two scenarios they used.? It is clear from the lack of consistency in results from the various studies conducted further testing is needed.

H1??? From previous findings it can be hypothesised that as moral intensity increases so too will the identification of an ethical dilemma.

Ethical Judgment

The relationship between ethical Judgment and moral intensity has been researched extensively and is the component of Rest?s (1986) model that has received the most amount of attention empirically.? In general most studies such as those by Barnett (2001), Harrington (1997), Morris and Mc Donald (1995) and Singer and Singer (1997) have found supportive evidence that there is a strong relationship between magnitude of consequence and social consensus in regard to ethical judgments.? The above studies have found that in most cases if an act is deemed to have very severe negative consequences for example imprisonment, they are in most instances considered more unethical than acts believed to have less serious consequences.? Singhapakdi et al (1996) found that not only the magnitude of an action?s consequences and social consensus to be positively related to ethical judgements but also temporal immediacy and the probability of harm to be notably related to ethical judgement.? Jones (1991) found decisions that are identified to have high moral intensity (more unethical), require and individual to take more time gathering facts, information and key values surrounding the issue.? Situations that are less unethical would not require so much attention.? For this reason it can be suggested that,

H2 As moral intensity increases so too will the level of ethical judgement.

Ethical Intentions

When making an ethical decision, Hunt and Vitell (1986) found that an individual?s intention to act ethically is based on the probability that he or she will engage in a particular action.? The ethical decision making models of Dubinsky and Loken (1989) and Hunt and Vitell (1986) as with the models of Rest (1986) and

Jones (1991), incorporate the formation of intentions as a component to the ethical decision making process.? Jones (1991, p387) proposed that ?moral intent will be established more frequently where issues of high moral intensity are involved than where issues of low moral intensity are involved? and studies by Harrington (1997) identified significant associations between ethical intentions and magnitude of consequences.?? It was also noted that when proximity and social consensus was high individuals may try and avoid situations of negative responsibility by forming behavioral intentions that we more ethical Fisk and Taylor (1991).

H3 Ethical intentions and moral intensity will be positively linked

The effect of moral Intensity being issue related

It is known that the components of moral intensity and the effect they have on the ethical decision-making process are influenced by the type of situation.? Sweeney and Costello (2009).? Wright et al (1998) established that the recognition of an issues moral characteristic along with the moral intensity of an issue was greatly influenced by the type of situation.? Silver and Valentine (2001) found that undergraduate students understood the moral intensity of the situations presented to them and acknowledged differences between the different scenarios.? Leitsch (2004) also found that the type of situation influenced the students in the studies awareness of the moral intensity components, as well as their moral judgment.? From Leitsch?s (2004) study, it was concluded that accounting students judgments towards the ethical nature of issues, as well as their perceptions of moral intensity varied depending on how unethical an issue was deemed to be.? Other researchers such as Barnett and Brown (1994) established differences in ethical judgments depending on the situation an individual found themselves in, where once again differences were recognised to be between less unethical and more unethical issues.? From these findings it the following hypothesis could be established.

H4 The nature of the situation presented to accounting professionals and business students, will influence how important they perceive the moral intensity components and the ethical decision making process to be.

Demographic Variables

Flory et al (1992) found that demographics had no relationship to ethical decision making although others disagreed with this.? According to Ford and Richardson (1994) gender was investigated in more empirical studies than any other single variable.? The majority of studies such as those conducted by Vitell and Singhapakdi (1990), Callan (1992) and Serwinek (1992) found that there was no relationship between gender and ethical decision making.? Other studies by Chonko and Hunt (1985) and Ferrell and Skinner (1988) found that females were more ethically sensitive than males.? Loe et al (2000) articulates that although gender is the most highly researched area of business ethics, research in the area still remains inconclusive.? Further developments on methodology are needed when conducting ethical research in this field hence, as part of this study gender will be observed.

Prior research by Lysonski and Gaidis (1991) found that students were good assistants to managers as particularly those in their final year of study, were able to think and make ethical decisions similar to that of their more experienced counterparts.? Lysonski and Gaidis (1991) concluded that students had similar ethical sensitivities to managers as there were no significant differences in their reactions to ethical dilemmas.? Contrasting to the views of Lysonki and Gaidi (1991), Borkowski and Urgras (1988) observed that there was no connection between the ethical attitudes of major and non major business students.? Silver and Valentine (2000) found that the moral intensity component of social consensus was substantially different between major and non-major business students.? Examinations by Kidwell et al (1987) recognised that those with more years of employment exhibited responses that were more ethical than those with less years of employment.? In addition to these studies, Arlow and Ulrich (1980) along with Stevens (1984) found that professionals were more ethical than students.? By analysing the various research studies around the education and employment backgrounds of individuals, Loe et al (2000) identified that research investigating the differences between the ethical decision making processes of professionals and students produced mixed results.? He produced similar conclusions to that of Ford and Richardson (1994), realising that a clear understanding of the relationship between professional experience and level of education required further analysis.? In this study the impact being an undgraduate business student or accounting professional on moral intensity and the ethical decision-making process will be scrutinised in this study.

Other demographic variables that have been investigated include personality, beliefs and values, organisational effects and Industry type.? Once again these are areas requiring further empirical testing as evidence has proved to be inconclusive, however the components of ethical decision making used in this study are not suitable to include these factors.

Research Method

Quantitative analysis was deemed to be the best way to evaluate the hypotheses brought forward in the study. Questionnaires allow large quantities of information to be collected quickly and economically Brennan (1998)Sweeney and are a good source to quantify data from.? As previous studies examining the ethical decision making process used quantitative analysis it was beneficial to repeat the process as it allowed for better comparability of results.

Questionnaires were self administered to business students within the University of Hull and given to two university students from two other institutions within the UK (Queen Mary University of London and Leicester University) who handed out and collected questionnaires from fellow business students within their departments.? Another selection of questionnaires were emailed to the HR departments of various accounting firms within the UK and personally given to one accountant working at a commercial firm to hand out to accounting professionals within two of their offices.? The sample used therefore consisted of undergraduate business school students from three UK universities and professional accountants.

Those administered questionnaires were assured that participation was entirely voluntary and both students and professionals were promised that results would be kept confidential.? It was also reiterated that it was not necessary to put any form of identification on the questionnaire, just an acknowledgement of what course you were studying for university students.? Accounting professionals were given a slightly different questionnaire that did not include the option previously mentioned for administrative purposes when collecting results.

Research Instrument

Scenarios, vignettes and questionnaires were used by Singer et al (1998) and Cohen et al (2001) to recreate ethical situations individuals may find themselves in at work.? The majority of studies on the ethical decision making process used these methods and they have thus far been proved the most effective way of testing the ethical decision making process.? The scenarios used in this study have been adapted from those previously used by Leitsch (2006), Flory and Phillips (1992) and of Dabholka and Kelarris (1992) where each scenario recreated a business dilemma that may occur in the workplace.? The first scenario-based questionnaire administered to students included a scenario that the majority of business students from a non-accounting background and even some who were from an accounting background could not understand.? This resulted in many students simply guessing an outcome they thought appropriate or many simply left the question blank, due to the issue needing an in-depth knowledge of business that many hadn?t acquired yet.? To rectify this, scenarios were altered to represent business issues of which both business students and accounting professionals could fully understand.

Scenario one is developed from Dabholka and Kelarris (1992), in their ethical scenario a sales person booked tickets with a particular air line because they were given promotional vouchers which they could use for their own personal use.? The individual did this this knowing that ticket prices for that airline were higher than its competitors.? Respondents were required to evaluate the situation and asked whether the actions posed an ethical dilemma.? Flory et al (1992) produced a scenario that addressed similar ethical issues found by Dabholka and Kelarris (1992) however they incorporated an accounting focus to the issues presented.? Flory?s et al? (1992) study included scenario?s based on videotape footage produced by the Institute of Management Accountants.? The video included five ethically challenging situations that the authors believed could be encountered within the workplace.? Flory et al (1992) formed scenarios that were roughly 200 words in length and attempts were made to ensure the ethical complexities from the videotape were transferred to the written forms.

At the end of each scenario was an action taken in response to the ethical dilemma ensuring that all respondents were acting in response to the same stimulus.

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Tags: business ethics, free essay

Category: Business, Free Essays

Source: http://writepass.co.uk/journal/2012/12/how-moral-intensity-and-ethical-decision-making-differs-between-uk-business-students-and-accounting-professionals/

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Best Food Blog 2012 - NeverSeconds

Dear Martha,

We are students of the 7th class of the basic school in Chomutov. We are 12-13 years old. Chomutov is a town in the north-west of the Czech Republic ? how detailed is your globe? (Not detailed enough. I found Czech Republic in 21s- VEG)

It?s very interesting to read your blog about school food and to see what pupils eat at various places in the world. We think you have done great work with Mary?s Meals. Congratulations to the Liberty Human Rights Awards!

In our school, some children go home for lunch and some eat at the school canteen. We
have a choice of two meals except of Tuesday. Every day there is always a hot soup, a main course and a drink. Sometimes there is a dessert, salad or fruit. The price of the meal is 24 Czech crowns, that means ? 0.75.

Some children like school food and some not. Some children don?t like vegetables or meal they don?t know. School food is regularly controlled by state authorities. We learn about proper food at school and this year we have lessons of cooking.

Czech meals are very tasty, but not always healthy. The most favourites meals in our country
are:
- beef with cream and vegetable sauce and dumplings
- roast pork, dumplings and cabbage
- fried steak (it?s covered in flour, beaten eggs and breadcrumbs and then fried) and
potatoes or potato salad
- fried potato cakes with garlic
- white dill sauce or soup with boiled eggs
- potato soup with vegetables and mushrooms
- garlic soup with potatoes or fried bread
- sweet dumplings filled with fruit (strawberries, apricots or plums) served with sugar,
cottage cheese and cream
- special cakes filled with jam, cottage cheese or poppy seed

We wrote the school menu and took photos of the meals during one week at our school
canteen. We voted on how we liked the meals and how we think they were healthy (we are
sorry we weren?t able to count mouthfuls). We hope that it will be interesting for you and
for all your readers.

With best greetings,

Anicka, Petra, Karolina, Adela D., Adela V., Marketa, Magda (these are the girls ? their names usually end ?a in Czech), Lukas, Honza J., Honza S., Filip, Premek, Honza H. (these are the boys, the last two named are two of the quadruplets) and our teacher Jarmila

Here is our school menu for last week:


Thursday:
semolina and vegetable soup with egg
beef with garlic, potato dumplings with chickpea, spinach
or pork with leek, red lentils (it isn?t on the picture)
orange
tea

Food-o-meter- 7/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Friday:
caraway and vegetable soup with small dumplings
stewed fish, mashed potatoes, chickpea and tomatoes
or mexican rice salad with beans and corn

canned pineapple and peaches
water with lemon

Food-o-meter- 6/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Monday:
fish and vegetable soup with fried bread
beef with tomato sauce, pasta (it isn?t on the picture)
or fish baked with cheese, potatoes
kiwi fruit
vitamine drink

Food-o-meter- 5/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Tuesday:
beef soup with noodles and vegetables
fried steak, potatoes, beetroot and celery salad
hot fruit drink

Food-o-meter- 8.5/10
Courses- soup/main/salad/drink
Health rating- 6.5/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Wednesday:
goulash soup with meat and potatoes
potato rolls with sugar and poppy seed
or pasta and chicken salad

apple
milk

Food-o-meter- 7/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 5/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Thursday
bean soup with cauliflower
meat and zucchini mixture with mushrooms, rice
or roast pork and kuskus, lettuce
yoghurt
fruit drink

Food-o-meter- 8/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7.5/10
Pieces of hair- 0

(The photos are taken by our teacher so the portions are a bit larger than for the pupils)

Source: http://neverseconds.blogspot.com/2012/12/dear-martha-we-are-students-of-7th.html

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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

BYOD Security Challenges: Control And Protect Your Most Sensitive ...

Several new trends in information access are impacting organisations? ability to control and secure sensitive corporate data. The increase in web applications, cloud computing and SaaS services and the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon means employees, business partners and customers are increasingly accessing information using a web browser on a device not owned or managed by the organisation.

According to a recent survey by Harris Interactive and ESET, more than 80 percent of professionals use some kind of personally owned electronic device for work-related functions. One of the primary advantages in allowing employees to use their personal devices for work is that it increases efficiency and flexibility.

By giving access to the corporate network and information, work can be achieved anywhere and anytime, using any endpoint. It also provides cost savings to organisations, since personal device usage means they don?t need to provide or manage mobile devices for their employees.

The survey also highlighted that 47 percent of employees use personal desktop computers to access or store company information, while 41 percent do this with personal laptops, 24 percent with smartphones and 10 percent with tablets. However, with less than half of these devices being protected by basic security measures, organisations should be concerned that the security challenges associated with BYOD far outweigh the benefits.

BYOD: beyond smartphones

Corporate data is delivered to devices that are not managed by the IT department, which has security implications for data leakage, data theft and regulatory compliance and therefore is a major challenge for organisations. With unmanaged devices, enterprises have less control, visibility, and mitigation options. BYOD includes more than just smart phones.

It also includes employees logging into web applications such as Outlook Web Access and SharePoint, SaaS applications such as CRM systems or healthcare billing applications hosted in cloud services from a home desktop or laptop computer. Laptops, smart phones and tablets that connect to corporate networks significantly increase threats to sensitive data.

Organisations should therefore be concerned about the security state of endpoint devices and the risks to which they are exposed. Keyloggers, malware and cyberattacks have greatly increased the potential for unauthorised access to, and information theft from, endpoints. The potential consequences such as such as data leakage and malware reinforce the need to enhance the security of corporate data.

A malicious employee can easily steal company trade secrets, intellectual property or sensitive customer information by saving it locally or to a cloud service, sending it through accounts in Dropbox and YouSendIt or emailing it via a personal Webmail account. Organisations must control the data after it?s delivered to the device in order to prevent accidental or intentional loss by careless and malicious end users.

Futhermore, with the combination of web, cloud-based and SaaS applications with BYOD, web browsers have become the common interface for accessing information that drives business activity. Many organisations may not be aware of how pervasive the use of browser-based file sharing applications has become. And therefore organisations need to also establish a strong security strategy to embrace this web browser-based information access model in a suitable manner.

Mobile device vulnerabilities

Malware is increasingly being written to collect information and users who are installing a variety of applications, including games and social networking apps, on their mobile devices, can potentially be putting their data at risk. With access to the corporate network through unmanaged devices, a careless employee can inadvertently leak information simply by saving a file opened from Webmail or SharePoint to their local file system, which can then easily be stolen by a malware application designed to access the SD card on the mobile device.

Malware written for mobile devices is an increasing threat, mainly for Android but also for jail broken iPhones. In much the same way Windows? larger market share attracts a greater number of threats than Apple or Linux, Android?s growing market share is attracting an increasing number of mobile malware threats. And unlike the iPhone?s proprietary system, Android?s open platform makes it much easier for developers to write malicious applications.

While most organisations would agree that allowing employees to use mobile devices is critical to helping them meet their business objectives, they must handle the data security challenges that come with BYOD. To safeguard corporate data from both external and internal threats, organisations need to take proactive steps to ensure that every mobile device that accesses the corporate network has the appropriate security controls installed.

Traditional versus new

It?s no surprise IT professionals are struggling to secure corporate data. Nearly every enterprise today has a range of security technologies, such as authentication, SSL and TLS encryption, firewalls, identity and access management and intrusion prevention systems to control and protect information traveling to and from the data center and endpoint device. Yet these traditional security strategies are increasingly under attack.

For example, the recent Flame malware, whose purpose is to steal data, keystrokes and record conversations, had a fake certificate and used a technique called hash collision to impersonate Microsoft?s update servers. Other technological problems with SSL, such as the challenge of picking random numbers to generate certificates, makes it easier to compromise security. Enterprise web, cloud and SaaS applications are delivering sensitive data securely through this SSL-encrypted tunnel, but upon delivery at the endpoint the data is decrypted and vulnerable to internal and external threats from malware and end users.

IT professionals need visibility into endpoint security to ensure all security gaps are covered. For example, even if antivirus software is current, it?s not effective against malware such as man-in-the-browser (MitB) attacks. MitB malware sits in the web browser between the user and the website, altering and changing information without the user or standard security software detecting any problems. This malware has spawned a variant known as man-in-the-mobile, which operates on mobile devices in a similar manner. MitB and MitM malware can also steal user login and password credentials, putting web-based corporate data at risk.

Protect your most sensitive data

It is clear organisations need to educate their end users. Many data leaks caused by insiders are due to careless, not malicious users. Ensure that employees understand security policies and take the proper security precautions.

To counter sophisticated threats, organisations should also employ a layered security strategy that provides access to corporate information, reduces risk and maintains compliance. When it comes to sensitive information, the focus must go beyond authorised and unauthorised users and extend data protection from storage through transport to delivery on the endpoint to prevent sensitive data loss.

Organisations need to stop making a distinction between devices in the corporate network and devices outside of it, and focus instead on protecting their information. They must compartmentalise access to sensitive information, employ better audit logging and log analysis, and deploy security solutions that are designed to support current BYOD strategies, such as those that can control the replication of data.

The best of BCWPLUS EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

Bill Morrow

Bill Morrow is executive chairman and CEO at Quarri Technologies. Bill has more than 20 years of business foundation and leadership experience. In 2006 he founded CSIdentity, the leading wholesale provider of ID Theft services across the globe, and served as CEO and Chairman of the Board into 2011. Previously he founded and served as Vice Chairman of the Board, Director and CEO of Grande Communications. Bill was the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner for Central Texas.

Bill Morrow is executive chairman and CEO at Quarri Technologies. Bill has more than 20 years of business foundation and leadership experience. In 2006 he founded CSIdentity, the leading wholesale provider of ID Theft services across the globe, and served as CEO and Chairman of the Board into 2011. Previously he founded and served as Vice Chairman of the Board, Director and CEO of Grande Communications. Bill was the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner for Central Texas. ...less info

Source: http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/byod-security-challenges-control-and-protect-your-most-sensitive-data/

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MIT's Reconfigurable Robots Are Tiny Transformers That Will Turn Into Anything

The idea of transformers is cool even when they just turn from one thing to another, so how much cooler would they be if they could form into anything? That's the goal MIT aims to achieve with their tiny reconfigurable chain links that could be the Swiss Army knife of robotics. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/oaMSBm_s0-4/mits-reconfigurable-robots-are-tiny-transformers-that-will-turn-into-anything

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