ALL STATE INSURANCE COMPANY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

ALL STATE INSURANCE COMPANY - Essay Example That is why goals must, simultaneously with being challenging, be possible to reach. Unrealistic goals can only be counterproductive. How can goals serve as an unifying force in organizations? Having goals put in front of all people in the organization makes them all equal regardless of their particular position within the structure. Managers and regular employees alike, are challenged to meet certain expectations. Most importantly, the role of goal setting is to provide a challenge. Without a clear, specific and reachable goals organization members are more likely to a) work slower, b) perform poorly and c) lack interest in changing a) and b). If we compare model of goal setting offered in the textbook and one in place at Allstate Corporation we find that they are similar in many aspects. By placing the simplified version of the model developed by Locke and Latham side by side with the description of Allstate’s particular example, the first observation is that many key words from the former are clearly repeated in the latter. Allstate has been working on developing goals for decades now and it is clear that they came a long way in that regard. Key words, such are feedback, goal clarity, direction, rewards and satisfaction are integrated masterfully in Allstate’s goal setting program, making it very effective and, also, still innovative. Two components that contribute to this effectiveness are the fact that 40,000 employees of Allstate are evaluated in terms of performance on regular basis. This makes the challenge a constant in the process, not only a one time thing. The other interesting aspect comes from t he fact that company’s executives and managers draw a large portion of their compensation (25%) from Allstate’s Diversity Index. That way they are committed in implementation of the program. Allstate recognized the importance of mediators and moderators in goal setting schema and keeps making them accountable for programs success. Diversity Index

Reading Response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 25

Reading Response - Essay Example This leads us to two critically important questions. Is the modern liberation movement heading in the right direction or too much assertion is used to bring a change? Also, how long will it take to eradicate gender stereotypes from society? Feminist artists have contributed a lot to revolutionize the image of women. They have asserted through their works that a woman’s personality cannot be defined by men, rather she is herself the maker of meaning. This means that the status of women in society cannot be labelled submissive. It is important for a woman’s body to be seen through a woman’s eyes because this effectively disrupts the centuries old concepts held and promoted by men. Conventional femininity reinforces this male idea that women are delicate and docile (Frueh 194). So, modern feminist art has definitely focused on female body a lot in myriad different ways. This leads us to important questions. Does concentrating focus on female nudity in art contribute much to changing patriarchal views? Does feminist art play a significant role in emancipating

Abraham Lincolns Second Inaugural Address Essay Example for Free

Abraham Lincolns Second Inaugural Address Essay The United States Civil War was initially clashed to bring the rebellious South back in to the Union according to Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. In his speech Lincoln says, â€Å"..to saving the Union without war,† he means here that at his first inaugural address, everyone was trying to desperately avoid a civil war, but still would do anything to help their cause. Lincoln then goes on to say, â€Å"..accept war rather than let it perish.† Here is talking about how the North changed in the sense that they would do anything to help their cause, even if it means war. Lincoln’s reason for why the war was originally started was the fact that the North knew war was the only option to preserve the Union See more: Satirical essay about drugs Although President Abraham Lincoln originally said the cause of the war was to defend the Union, he then states that the new purpose of the war was to free the slaves. He says, â€Å"These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.† Lincoln specifically states here that slaves have all always been one of the greatest controversies of his time, and they ended up being the true purpose of the Civil War. Freeing slaves had always been an issue in America, only now, bloodshed was being cast in order to defend or uphold it. Lincoln’s post war plans for the Union are evident in this line, â€Å"let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him†¦to achieve†¦everlasting peace.† Abraham Lincoln brilliantly writes here that even if he beats up or wounds the South, he wants them back, as a part of the country. Also, not only does he want the South back, but he wants them to come back right away. Lincoln’s main goal was keeping the Union together, and he made sure his post-war plans continued this idea.

Midified Bunnell Suture in Achilles Tendon Injuries

Midified Bunnell Suture in Achilles Tendon Injuries I. Samota, R. Necula, Florin Sabou, Radu Vaidahazan, I. Szava, Alina Pascu. SUMMARY The treatment of Achilles tendon lesions is still controversial. Even the usual Bunnell technique of suture is appreciated to be a good ones, it is steel associated with a low rate of reruptures. In order to improve the suture strength, we modified the original Bunnell suture by using two sutures in Bunnell manner, one starting from the superior and the other from the inferior tendon stumps. The manner of fixing the knots is in double points and realizes a superior tight fitting than the usual Bunnell suture. We used this suture in four cases of accidental section and in 11 cases of acute rupture, with no reruptures. Based on our own experience, we consider this modification of Bunnell sutures increases the strength of the sutured tendon and generates a low rate of reruptures. BACKGROUND The Achilles tendon is the largest and the most frequently injured tendon of the human body (1, 2, 3). In cases with accidental section, the only surgical treatment is accepted. Treatment protocols for patients with acute Achilles tendon rupture include surgical and nonsurgical management, but they are constantly being modified (4, 5). The rerupture following acute lesion is the most frequent major complication and it is higher in nonsurgical treatment than in surgical one (6). In surgery the rates is lower, but it is still up to 3% (7, 5). Various surgical methods have been described including open, minimally invasive and percutaneous repair (8, 9). In chronic ruptures of Achilles tendon, most authors consider the surgical treatment to be the only satisfactory one (12, 13, 14). In chronic ruptures, we never used any type of suture but the angmentation only. Each surgeon chooses one surgical techniques because considers it to be associated with a low rate of complication. Base on our experience, we consider, in the acute Achilles tendon ruptures, the surgical treatment has some advantages. We present our experience with Bunnell modified suture surgical of Achilles tendon lesions and discus the used techniques in accidental sections and acute ruptures. We believe our modified Bunnell suture to be associated with a lower level of rerupteres than the original one. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study is a retrospective evaluation of patients with accidental section or acute Achilles tendon ruptures treated by a modified Bunnell suture. Every patient who underwent a modified Bunnell suture of an Achilles between January 2010 and December 2014, was identified and information was abstracted from the medical records. All the patients with Achille lesions operated in this period by a modified Bunnell suture were included. It was a number of four patients with section and 11 with acute rupture. In cases with accidental sections the diagnoses was established by clinical examination, and in all cases an immediate surgical repair were performed. It was three male and one female, between 37 and 42 years old. In all of them an end-to-end modified Bunnell suture was done. In acute ruptures cases the diagnoses was based on history and physical examination. In some cases, an ultrasound or MRI examination was added. All the patients accepted for surgery had to present a palpable depression on the tendon, a positive Thompson test and disability to stand on their tiptoes on the injured side. The duration of ruptures from injury to surgery was from a couple of days to five weeks. The patients group comprised 11 men and two women ranging in age from 24 to 59 years. The majority of the ruptures were at about 4 to 6 cm proximal to the calcaneal insertion. All the patients were treated by the same technique, a modified Bunnell suture. SURGICAL TECHNIQUES With the patient under anesthesia, tourniquet control and in prone position, the surgery started by a posteromedial incision from 4 cm. up to 4 cm. down to the rupture site. The incision is without dissection, sharply through the skin, subcutaneous tissue and fibrous tendon sheath. Then, the synovial sheath is carefully dissected and then longitudinally incised on both side of tendon section or rupture, and protected in order to be easy sutured at the end of tendon repair. The ragged ends of the ruptured tendon are limited excised and with the ankle plantarflexed up to 35Â ° a direct modified Bunnell suture is done. Fig. 1. Original Bunnell suture (from Coughlin MJ, Schon LC. Disorders of Tendons. In: Surgery of the Foot and Ankle. Eighth edition, Mosby, Inc. 2007.) Fig. 2 Modified centrally running Bunnell suture with two distal knots fixation. This initial variant was not used in cases included in this study. Fig. 3 Modified Bunnell with two laterally sutures. This is our technique which was used in all cases of the study. Fig. 4. Our technique – detail. In our technique, instead of one centrally running suture as in original Bunnell (Fig. 1), two laterally sutures on both sides of each stamp, were used (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). One of the sutures starts from the superior and the other from the inferior tendon stumps. Each of the two sutures is passed through the level of section or rupture and then is fixed in the opposite tendon stump. This fixation is by four knots, two in the end of the proximal stump and two in the end of the distal stump in the manner described in fig. 2. In some cases, especially in cases of tendon sections, the tendon repairing was supplemented with interrupted circumferential sutures. After tendon repairing, we pay special attention to the synovial sheath suture. It is carefully sutured to cover as long as possible the repaired tendon. Postoperatively, a series of three casts a used. First is a long cast with the knee in 20 degree of flexion and the ankle in 30 degree of plantar flexion is applied. After three weeks another below-knee with the ankle in 15-20 degree of plantar flexion is applied. The patient is encouraged to move his knee. Five weeks after surgery the third below-knee walking cast with the ankle in neutral position or slight flexion is applied. The last cast is for another two weeks and the progressive weight-bearing is commenced. After cast removal the patient is advised to wear shoe with high heel for another three month and increased activity and physical therapy are begun. RESULTS In the cases of section the average follow-up was 6 months and ll of them have had the evolutions with no major or minor complications. In the cases of acute ruptures the average follow-up was 12 months. In all cases, no surgery related major complications, such as tendon rerupture or necroses, sural nerve injury, skin necrosis, wound infection, or deep infection. As minor complications, there were two tendon contracture and one superficial wound infection which were conservatively treated. In all patients with minor complications, no supplementary surgical treatment was done. None of them had tendon adhesion to the skin and the skin over the tendon was movable. Two patients had cosmetic complaints concerning the scar but without affecting the ankle function. All patients were able to stand on their tiptoes and single affected side leg hopping was possible one year postoperatively. Active range of motion was found to be reduced with limited dorsiflexion in two cases with acute rupture, and the difference was less than 10Â °. At the last follow-up, there had been no cases of rerupture and the subjective satisfaction was excellent or good in all the patients. DISCUSSION In accidental section of Achilles tendon, an end-to-end tendon suture is usually done but simple interrupted suture are not sufficient. In these cases, we consider Bunnell suture to be the method of choice. Initially, we modified centrally running Bunnell suture in the manner depicted in fig. 2. This initial variant was not used in cases included in this study. Then, in order to improve the suture strength we used two running suture of the original Bunnell, in the manner depicted in fig. 2. This surgical variant was used in all patients of this study. In acute ruptures of the Achilles tendon the treatment options include nonsurgical and surgical variants. The nonsurgical one avoids the surgical risks but it is associated with a high risk of rerupture (15). Despite the surgical risks, a number of authors consider surgery as a common treatment of Achilles acute ruptures (16, 17, 7). Although, in acute cases, percutaneous procedure increases in popularity, surgery is commonly performed as an open technique (16). The most usual techniques for primary open repair are Bunnel, Kessler and Krackow sutures (6, 19). Although there were reported reruptures after a Bunnell suture, we consider this method and used a modified Bunnell one in the majority of our patients with direct primary sutures. This modified Bunnell is a preference of the main author (IS). Our manner of fixing the knots realizes a superior tight fitting than the usual Bunnell suture. In this variant, instead of two knots both of them placed in the level of section or rupture, there are four knots, two in the end of the proximal stump and two in the end of the distal stump. These four knots are not in the level of section, but two up and two down, proximal to the level of section. Our results suggest this modified Bunnell suture improve the suture strength and is associated with a low rate of reruptures. We consider to be important the protection and dissection of the synovial sheath. At the end of the tendon repairing, a carefully synovial sheath suture has the advantage to create good biological conditions for tendon healing. Based on this special attention to the synovial sheath, in our series none of them had tendon adhesion to the skin. Conclusions The results of this study suggest the modified Bunnell suture in our manner has some advantages. In Achilles tendon section or acute ruptures, it is associated with good functional results and a low rate of complications. We consider this type of suture increases the strength of the sutured tendon and generate a low rate of reruptures.

Defining Blackness in How it Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston :: How it Feels to Be Colored Me

Defining "Blackness" in Terms of "Whiteness" in How it Feels to Be Colored Me  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wald argues that any social critique must work to divest the rhetoric of the dominant discourse of its co-optive power. American rhetoric readily co-opts stories of Black selves through an incorporating language of difference that obscures the actual nature of that difference. Writers of slave narratives and, later, Black autobiographers, countered charges of racial inferiority with testimonies to their industry, ingenuity, and Christian virtues, adopting precisely those terms of the Protestant work ethic through which the culture justified its domination and thereby mitigated their differences(Andrews, 95 ). Defining "blackness" in terms of "whiteness" (reference to the concept of binary opposition in which one term negates the other) submits to the authorization of the dominant discourse and enters into the cultural subjectivity implicit in language. The altemative is equally problematic, however, since the American democratic idealism ensured that any assertion of difference that could not be incorporated into the pervasive national rhetoric was systematically excluded (Wald, 80). Perhaps because of her anthropological training and her doubly marginal status as an African-American woman, Hurston invented a strategy that enabled her to speak from the margins. She employed an African-American language, a symbolic system that reconstituted representation itself and disrupted the dualism of the dorninant discourse. "The Negroes...very words are action words... the suggestiveness of African-American art transforms the spectator into an actor who participat[es] in the performance himself carrying out the suggestions of the performer" (Hurston, 49). Blackness becomes experiential rather than essential, a "quality that permeates and suffuses rather than defines"(Wald, 87). The vitality of the language blurs oppositional boundaries and whatever the meaning of 'blackness' is, the performer and spectator are mutually involved in a relationship that undermines the representation of blackness as sin against a moral white background (Wald, 87). Hurston draws us into the dynamics of"coloration" by redesignating "color" as performance. She inverts her experience of feeling different in a white environment by setting "a white person ...down in our mist," and, again, her "color comes"(Anthology, 1985). Hurston represents the difference in the context of a jazz performance, in which the orchestra "plunges into a number ...constricts the thorax and splits the heart... grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rendering it, clawing it until it breaks through to a jungle beyond"(Anthology, 1985).

Pollution Essay: Effects of Global Warming :: Climate Change

An issue that has been stirring up controversy all over the news and in the current presidential debate is global warming. The effects have been seen all over the world and global warming is quickly becoming a major topic of concern. Global warming is the increase of the earth’s temperature. When the earth’s temperature increases, we have a climate change. When this climate change occurs, so do the changes in the sea level, rainfall, wildlife, and this obviously affects humans. (Globalwarming) It is caused by the release of carbon dioxide also known as Co2. Carbon dioxide is released by the use of man made fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and naturals gasses. Co2 traps heat inside the earth’s atmosphere that would usually be in outer space, which causes the Greenhouse Effect. As the earth’s surface heats it becomes too warm to live in and many people, animals and plants will suffer. (EPA) The earth’s temperature naturally changes over the years, but over the last half of century, the record high temperatures drastically increased. Scientists have even warned us that in the last ten years we have had record high temperatures, which means the average temperatures in the United States could increase up to nine degrees. (NDRC) A major result of global warming that I have noticed by living in Florida is that it is making the hurricanes stronger and more treacherous. Every year, Florida gets hit by hurricanes and tropical storms, but during the last five years the damages have really increased. There has been lots of damage done to my home and neighborhood. As a resident of Florida, I have to take more precautions when these storms hit, because I never know how strong they can become. We have had our roof blown off, flood damage and trees falling over in our home. Global warming makes the ocean water warmer, which makes the storms much more powerful. They can easily jump from a category 2 to a category 4 storm. Again, there has been lots of damage done to my home and my neighborhood. (NDRC) Another frightening effect of Global warming is the rising of the sea levels. Scientists have discovered that this could eventually lead to coastal flooding. Areas in the United States that could be heavily affected are all of the eastern sea board, areas of Gulf of Mexico, and almost all of Florida.

Increasing Crime Rates in India and Ways to Curb It Essay

Human society is gradually but surely criminalised.Everyday the newspapers report ghastly murders, sensational robberies , rapes , thefts and kidnappings. Naturally , the graph of crime in today’s society is sharply on the rise . Living has become quite risky , unplesant and unsafe . Women and old people are the worst suffers. Our cities have become the dens of smugglers and criminals . The capitals of India , new delhi , has earned a rare notoriety in this respect . It is not only political capital but also the crime-capital of India . Growing unemployment and lacks of motivation among the educatedyoungmen have drawn many of them to the world of crimes . Thefts and way-layings are no more the monoply of illiterate ruffians . Gradustes in jeans are now the active members of the crime-world . The new wave of consumerism has added only fuel to the fire. craze for the foreign goods , cars , bikes , dresses , and cosmetics has fuelled their ambition . They need fats money to fulfil their never dying desires. Another main reason is broken families or single parenthood. here children will not get any attention neither from the family nor from the society; feels alone and makes them engage in crimes. For instance , Children those have unpleasant past experiences would be rebellious to society. Medias like internet, and detective novels also plays a tangible role in making them worse. There are no short cuts to reduce the growing crime rate in society ofcourse , it is the duty of the police to maintain law and order in public . Efficent and impartial fuctioning of the police can help in curbing the crime rate in society . But the health of society depends om many other factors. The army of unemployed youngmen is sweling . Naked materialism and consumerism have overpowered their minds and morals . Moral education in school can quite helpful in bringing down the crime rate effectively. To put it in a nutshell, todays children are tomorrows law abiding citizens. Everything should start from the root level. Government and society are equally responsible to make them perfect and to avoid crimes.