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The Many Meanings of Mean

The Many Meanings of Mean The Many Meanings of Mean The Many Meanings of Mean By Maeve Maddox A reader from Brazil wonders about the word mean: It has many meanings, such as as evil or significant. Could you help me and others with this word? It’s not surprising that a non-native English speaker would have difficulty assigning a sense to this word. Apart from many discarded definitions, mean continues to be used in numerous senses. Ignoring the word’s use as noun or verb, I’ll look at mean as an adjective. How can mean denote both median and unkind? The word comes from two etymological sources that have jostled together through the years. From its Anglo-Norman source, mean has the sense of intermediate, middle, middle-sized. Our adverbs meantime and meanwhile come from the sense of something occurring between two points of time or between two events. Later on, from the idea of being â€Å"in the middle,† the word took on the sense of ordinary or mediocre. Scientific language yields these terms with mean in the sense of median: Astronomy mean moon mean solar day mean time Ballistics mean point of impact Mathematics mean diameter mean distance mean motion mean temperature mean-value theorem Physics mean free path Statistics mean deviation mean square Typography mean line From its Germanic sources, mean had the meaning â€Å"possessed jointly,† â€Å"belonging equally to a number of persons.† We all know that a Rolex has more cultural value than a Timex; it was only a matter of time before the meaning of â€Å"common ownership† evolved–as did the Anglo-Norman word–to mean ordinary. From ordinary it came to mean â€Å"inferior in rank or quality,† â€Å"of low social status,† â€Å"inferior in learning or ability.† The sense â€Å"of low social class† took on the added sense of â€Å"characterized by poverty, shabby.† Everyday speech gives us these uses of mean: inferior in rank: â€Å"Leave him. He’s but a mean clerk; I demand to speak to his superior.† of low social status: Catherine I of Russia came of mean origins. inferior in ability, learning, perception: â€Å"The truth of my statement ought to be clear to the meanest intelligence!† characterized by poverty: â€Å"Down these mean streets a man must go† vicious or hard to control: â€Å"Don’t make me ride a mean horse.† violent: â€Å"He’s nice enough ordinarily, but he’s a mean drunk.† stingy, miserly: Scrooge was mean with his money. unkind: That boy is mean to his little sister. Finally, as if all these uses weren’t challenging enough, mean can also indicate that something is admirable: He plays a mean saxophone. (i.e., He plays saxophone extremely well) He packs a mean punch. (i.e., He hits really hard.) Winning the Iditarod three years running is no mean achievement. (i.e., Winningis an admirable achievement.) For the non-native English speaker, mastering the many meanings of mean is no mean feat. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Words with More Than One SpellingTry to vs. Try andWriting a Thank You Note

The Recent Global Financial Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Recent Global Financial Crisis - Essay Example The current study focuses on a discussion and analysis of the recent global financial crisis and the consequent credit crunch in an international financial perspective, including the events leading up to the crisis, the economic and financial consequences, as well as the government responses and lessons to be learnt. Events Leading to the Incidence of the Global Financial Crisis: The global crisis was initiated in the mortgage lending market in the US, the problem arising with the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation deciding not to pay for mortgages that involved high risks. Secondly, the bankruptcy filed by New Century Financial Corporation that remained a primary lender of mortgages for customers who were riskier in nature. With the occurrence of these incidents, the house prices started dripping down and foreclosures started increasing. With the increases in the risk factors and the fall in asset prices, the financial institutions feared the payments of interests and apprehensi on of severe losses prevailed. Although Federal Reserve had taken some initiatives in this context to assist the financial firms, however, the fall in prices of the assets could not be held back. Gradually the crisis affected the banking industry in the nation reflected by the bankrupt conditions of Lehman Brothers as well as purchase of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America in the midst of government not prepared to bail out all banks. The financial markets gradually became highly unstable with severe fall in stock markets (Marshall, 2009, pp.7-8). Some of the primary events leading to the global crisis can be outlined as follows: August 9, 2007- The intimation of liquidity crisis followed by addition of capital by Fed and European Central Bank. March 2008- Bear Stearns was rescued by the Fed. September 8, 2008- Fannie and Freddie were nationalized by the treasury. September 15, 2008- Bankruptcy filed by Lehman Brothers (assets of $600 billion being the largest in the history of the US). September 16, 2008- Fed made bridge loans to the largest insurance company in the world, A.I.G. October 3, 2008- Bailout policy passed out by the government; Treasury was given the authority to spend $700 billion. With all these above mentioned events gradually occurring, the stock prices fell rapidly accompanied by fall in real housing prices by about 30 percent from 2006 to 2008 (Historical Context, n.d.). Economic and Financial Consequences of the Global Recession: The severity of the global recession has had its impacts on the prices of assets, the productions as well as the employment. These effects were not only restricted to the US but spread across the world with differences in the levels of their impacts. The most significant of these has been the impact on the debts and creditworthiness of companies and that the crisis led companies to encounter difficulty in performing exports and earn gains following their settled plans (Reinhart, 2009). Three particular consequenc es could be realized from the global recession. These included: (i) the rising debt, the household debt in particular; (ii) the possibility of a comeback to an insecurity with respect to international

International Financial Market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Financial Market - Essay Example 008 because most of the investors are big institutions like the pension fund, investment funds, sovereign states, and banks. The sovereign states have significant strategic and economic considerations that inform the willingness to buy the treasury bills (Grabbe, 2006). Additionally, treasury bills are not purchased for their contribution and returns, but because they are the safest method for holding reserves. Although most people believe the risk in the financial system, the investors are ready to accept less return for the protection of reserves (Grabbe, 2006). Task 2: a) Development in the rate of inflation. Inflation in the United Kingdom experienced growth in the value of consumer services and retail sales. The two elements rose slightly during the 6 months of year, but it remained modest. Also, the housing market strengthened continuously. The intentions of investments continued to greatly aim at increasing efficiency, with minimal large expansion capacity underway. Also the m anufacturing exports grew at a moderate level (Dufey & Giddy 2008). In recent months, the output in manufacturing grew for the domestic market. Consequently, there was a modest development in the turnover of business services. The annual rate of construction output declined as the building of houses increased. Generally, the output in the industry changed significantly on previous years. Additionally, the corporate credit conditions continued to improve gradually, but various companies reported the urge to dwell on the non-bank or internal funding. The intentions in employment edged higher over the recent months but were flat for the services of consumers (Grabbe, 2006). Also, the capacity utilisation remained below normal in both services and manufacturing. The labour costs for each employee grew modestly but in stable rates over the earlier months. Material costs’ inflation fell to lower levels and remained in stable conditions for the prices of finished goods (Dufey & Gidd y 2008). The business services prices and manufacturer’s increase rate remained subdues, though the rate of profitability edged high with rise in output. Finally, the consumer price inflation rate remained unchanged. Bank of England Prospects for inflation: The Bank of England has foreseen a sustained output expansion, although the upturn pace is more likely to be tempered by financial crisis legacy. The spare capacity degree is expected to be constant for some time. The economic slack persistence is expected to continue dampening domestic inflation. Although Consumer Price Index is scheduled to remain at 3%, it is more likely to fall to a target of 2% over the prospected

An Inconveniente truth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

An Inconveniente truth - Essay Example Ice melting has a huge impact on nature and the humanity. If we pay attention on the fact that Gore presents, we will see that the giant ice shelves retreat every year, for example from Mount Kilimanjaro, Columbia glaciers and so on. The amount of CO2 is extremely rising nowadays, despite during 650000 years it did not raise above 300 ppm. So, Gore states, the overall trend of warming is clear and intensified. 2005 year, for example, has brought the record point of temperature of the 14 years for more than 200 countries all over the world. Gore proves that the ocean temperature rises, which causes the stronger storms and hurricanes, which America and Japan felt on their own skin. The ecosystem of river is also suffering. The effects of human`s activity are of a planetary importance. As our planet is like a big engine, flora and fauna are suffering from the climate changing, for example, polar bears and pine trees. It was noticed that the giant ice missives become sicker (for 40% of 4 0 years). It has caused not only environmental problems, but also an appearance of new illnesses (more than 30 new diseases, including SARS) distributed of intensified insects, rising to the top of mountains. The other related problem is the flooding, which can happen if the big body of ice land melts. It would become a great disaster for coastal territories, for example, the large part of Florida, Shanghai, Calcutta, Manhattan and so on will be covered with water. The technical revolution has posed the humanity on the edge of disaster; it is time pay for the mistakes. As we can notice, Gore widely discovers the truth of the problem, showing it is not imaginative. However, he is optimistic – his opinion is that humanity has both ability and will to secure its future, to pay attention on what is used (thing, cars and so on) and how it can be

Nursing Research Methods: Article Critique Essay

Nursing Research Methods: Article Critique Essay Title: Factors related to academic success among nursing students: A descriptive correlational research study Samina Iqbal Kanji The article under critique is a quantitative research study titled as â€Å"Factors related to academic success among nursing students: A descriptive correlational research study†; published in the year 2013. I will be critiquing this article according to the provided guideline. Title of the study under concern is unambiguous, thus capturing the population and phenomenon of interest. Additionally, the abstract is structured and is providing information under separate headings. The problem: The described problem is of great importance to nursing, because increased nursing shortage is posing a threat to the health industry in terms of competency and quality of care by the nursing staff. The researcher has critically analyzed the significance in terms of the relation between the academic success and its effects on the replacement of existing nursing staff The purpose of the research has been explained and the study will fulfill its purpose by providing an insight to the nursing education system to bring changes in curricula for improved results. As prior knowledge about the variables has already been discussed with other students therefore to precede the level of inquiry a quantitative approach is used as the purpose is to know about the correlations. There was no operational definition mentioned explicitly about the research variables; however their correlation with academic success has been given in other contexts. There was no explicit problem statement present in the introduction; however, linkages were made following the broad to narrow approach. Thus, provide an insight in to the nursing practice. The researcher has acknowledged the limitations of the study in terms of sample bias, low generalizability and different results at times due to the spiritual component. There were no explicit assumptions described; however one can infer from the introduction that giving an answer to the factors affecting academic success can in long run help in combat the effects of nursing shortage. Review of the literature: The review provided in the study was comprehensive, logical and critically analyzed, hence gave sequential information ranging from the admission of the nursing students, factors important for their academic success, associations between different factors and academic success and finally the itch of the study i-e correlation of factors with academic success of nursing students. The relationship of the literature review to the research purpose is unambiguously evident by using a funnel approach. In addition, most of the references were taken from the year 1982-2012. Those with old references were explicitly supported by their presence in the latest literature. The review consists of almost all of the theoretical work, though if empirical support could have made this review stronger. Besides, almost all of the researches were from primary sources and were paraphrased adequately. The information provided in the review clearly gives a way for conducting a new research; moreover, research er has also acknowledged this gap at the end of the literature review i-e there is a gap of researches done for the improvement of academic success of nursing students. Protection of human rights: The proposed study has been designed to lessen the effects of issues occurring as a result of nursing shortage i-e decreased quality of care, decreased number of competent nurses, and increased rates of nursing student’s turnover. Besides, the results of this study will not only affect the whole health care system, but it will affect the professional growth and academic success of individual nursing student. The evidence of voluntary informed consent has been mentioned explicitly that was sent to participants via electronic medium. There was no evidence present explicitly for coercion. As the sampling was done conveniently, therefore, participants were not invited during periods of high stress; rather they were asked to fill the research questioners in their own time. There was no way to identify about the identities of study participants as their data was incorporated anonymously on survey monkey software and also provided with numerical codes.. There is an explicit evidence of study review by Institutional Review Board (IRB). Theoretical/conceptual Framework: The researcher has not acknowledged the use of any theoretical / conceptual framework. According to Burns and Grove (2010), descriptive studies do not require any theoretical framework as the purpose is still to explore and describe phenomenon. The researcher may have conceptualized by looking the effects of different variable on the academic success. According to Burns and Grove (2010), at times elementary concepts about the variables make the conceptual frameworks and are present at the start of the study but are not acknowledge by the researcher and are referred as implicit frameworks. The research problem flows from the background knowledge. Concepts such as nursing shortage, student attrition, and academic success are briefly described. Hypothesis: The researcher has not stated hypothesis explicitly. However, there absence is justified in Polit and Beck (2012) that the purpose of descriptive correlational design is to describe the nature and relation between different variables and hypothesis generation; rather than concluding about casualty. However, on the other hand, Coughlan, Cronin and Ryan (2007) suggest that correlational designs approaches the relationship either via hypothesis testing of answering research question. But, researcher has not explicitly mentioned about his study research question also which could be a negative critique. Academic success in this study serves as the dependent variable, however emotional intelligence; psychological empowerment; resilience; and spiritual wellbeing plays the part of independent variables respectively. As it as a non-experimental design, therefore predictions can’t be made about the intervention or control group. Sampling: The researcher wants to generalize the study findings to all the nursing students, and has described it well. The target population is appropriate according to the research problem and resource limitation, as it would have been very difficult to cater all nursing students keeping in mind the cost constraints, human, and material resources. The researcher has clearly defined the selection process that is convenient sampling and snowballing via professors of the universities. The sampling method used fits very well with the level of inquiry and research design. This point was supported by Polit and Beck (2012) that in descriptive correlational studies; the purpose is to explore the initial relationships between variables without knowing about the conclusions therefore, self-selection or convenient sampling methods are use. Moreover, as the researcher is unaware about the existence of relationship in nursing students therefore choosing this sampling strategy would be cost effective. The re are no potential sampling biases explicitly described in the study. However, according to Rebecca (2010) one of the limitation of convenient sampling is selection bias itself, therefore potential biases could have been existed. The researcher has used power analysis to calculate sample size. However, according to Rebecca (2010), the acceptable standard for calculating power analysis is alpha 0.05, moderate effect size, and power of 0.80. The researcher has used very small power therefore; sample is not sufficiently large to generalize it to the whole population. The generalizations can be made cautiously to the nursing students. There were no control groups present, however, exclusion criteria is used to ensure a representative sample. There is no evidence of minimizing sampling error; yet if large sample size was used then it could have been minimized. Research Design: The design used for this study is a non-experimental design named as â€Å"descriptive correlational study†. This design comes under the category of level II studies and according to Rebecca (2010), correlational studies are used when the researcher wants to answer about the relationship between the variables whose nature has been described either by prior researches or literature synthesis. After going through the article and other literatures, researcher has selected an appropriate study design. One could say that researchers have already been done on students in addressing the relationship of this variable as the researcher acknowledged its absence in nursing students therefore it was a wise decision because stressors could be different for students with different programs. There is no discussion about the effects of extraneous variables and their control, however he has discussed the application of regression to analyses unique predictors however he was not successful with the regression models. The information provided in this study can permit the study replication in other nursing universities. Moreover, as this was a religious university, therefore replicating the research in non-religious universities could give better understanding about the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and academic success. Data Collection: The data collection instruments used by the researcher were Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), and the background information of the participants. There were selection reason described, they are explained sufficiently. The research instrument by their characteristics showed congruency with the research question.. The researcher has described the use of different types of validity (face, content, discriminant, incremental, convergent) for each of the instruments where possible. Moreover, to ensure the reliability, the researcher has run reliability coefficients. According to Polit and Beck (2012), ensuring the validity and reliability of an instrument is important for the quality and results accuracy of the study results. The results of these tests of validity and reliability are enough for their usage as they are analyzed for both showing stronger correlations separately. Since the reliabilities of the instruments were stronger ranging from 0.85 to 0.91 respectively and they were valid; therefore they were suitable to for use with the study sample keeping in mind the four factors to be analyzed via them. Quantitative Analysis: The researcher has used descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and percentages) and Pearson’s correlation using the PASW statistics 18 to analyze the data. According to Coughlan, Cronin and Ryan (2007), descriptive studies results are analyzed via descriptive statistics. Moreover, according to Polit and Beck (2012), correlation between two variables is described through correlation procedures mainly through correlation coefficient. Therefore, the analysis methods fit with both the level of inquiry a research design. The level of measurement in this study for all variables is quantitative ratio in nature. According to Polit and Beck (2012), Pearson’s correlation coefficient are used when the variable under study either belong to interval or ratio level of measurement. The link between the data analysis and findings has been made clear unambiguously by the researcher. Moreover, the researcher has used Pearson correlation(r) and p value to show the degree of r elationship and statistical analysis for each variable, and described them very clearly altogether to show the relationship logically. At times researcher has gone beyond the data to interpret the result, for example in measuring emotional intelligence; the researcher has analyzed the differences between graduate and undergraduate students by the type of stressors. The statistical result is very well presented in the text but numerical presentation could have been better in the form of showing all results and statistics altogether. The provided results by correlation coefficient and p value are giving enough evidence about the correctness of the results. There were no graphical displays shown by the researcher, however according to Polit and Beck (2012), correlation relationships can be shown through scatter plots. Conclusions and recommendations: The results of the data analysis were unambiguously explained in terms of the research purpose for undergraduate and graduate students separately. Through this the reader can make decisions about the correlation between different factors affecting academic success easily. The generalization of these findings can be questionable due to small sample size and convenient nature of the design, thus posing a threat to external validity. The results of the findings can indirectly affect our patients as such factors could lead to student’s retention thereby welcoming more qualified nurses to provide competent care to the patients. There are no risk identified by the study findings; however, such results could provide an insight to the nursing educators in renewing the curriculum to bring positive long-term results. In the discussion section; the researcher has given recommendation in the light of literature and study findings for improving teaching strategies. Moreover, future researc hes for academic planning has also been proposed, however no such discussion has been made about nursing practice. Though the study needs cautious generalizations in terms of small sample size, still can give insight for replication, experimental studies for future policy making References: American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American psychological association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Burns, N., Grove, S. K. (2010). Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice. Elsevier Health Sciences. Coughlan, M., Cronin, P., Ryan, F. (2007). Step-by-step guide to critiquing research. Part 1: quantitative research. British Journal of Nursing, 16(11), 658-663 Keele, R. (2010). Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice. Jones Bartlett Publishers. Polit, D.F. Beck, C.T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (9th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams Wilkins

Essay --

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS There are great insights to the managers. As the research is conducted to find out the three main objectives which are as follows: 1.) To investigate how socio-demographic (age, income and occupation) affect consumers attitude towards online shopping. 2.) To probe how the pattern of online buying (types of goods, e-commerce experience and hours use on internet) influence consumers attitude towards online shopping. 3.)To examine how purchase perception (product perception, customer service and consumer risk) influence consumers attitude towards online shopping. As the level of significance is taken as 5% throughout the full research; The results of the research on the basis of gender are as follows: 1.) Gender is independent of weekly usage of the internet because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.666 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, gender is not responsible for the weekly usage of the internet. 2.) Gender is independent of intention of the online purchase because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.910 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, gender is not responsible for the intention of the online purchase. 3.) Gender is independent of frequency of purchases because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.457 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, gender is not responsible for the frequency of purchases. 4.) Gender is independent of online product purchase because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.566 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, gender is not responsible for the online product purchase. 5.) Gender is independent of internet experience because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.401 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, gender is n... ... income is not responsible for the weekly usage of the internet. 2.) Income is independent of intention of the online purchase because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.893 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, income is not responsible for the intention of the online purchase. 3.) Income is independent of frequency of purchases because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.901 which is greater than 0.05. Hence, income is not responsible for the frequency of purchases. 4.) Income is dependent of online product purchase because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.037 which is less than 0.05. Hence, income is responsible for the online product purchase. 5.) Income is dependent of internet experience because the result of hypothesis testing for this is 0.012 which is less than 0.05. Hence, income is responsible for the internet experience.