Institutional investments- the pension schemes Essay

Institutional investments- the pension schemes - Essay Example 18). These are retirement plans made by insurance companies, the government and other institutions put in place to assist their employers after retirement period. Pension is usually made by the employer’s body in order to enable their employees sustain themselves after retirement as they are not able to be paid their normal salaries after retirement. Through this they will be able to benefit and support themselves. In addition to this, they can be funded by labor unions as well as the government, among other organizations. Pension schemes can be divided into defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension scheme. Differences between Defined-benefit and Defined-contribution Pension Schemes A defined benefit pension scheme is dependent on the final salary of an employee depending on the member’s length of service and based on a fixed formula (Mathis & Jackson 2012, pg. 11). It can be either funded defined benefit pension scheme or unfunded defined pension scheme whereby the benefits are paid up by the sponsor or the employee. The funded benefit pension scheme is dependent on the contribution from the plan members and the employer, as well others in the contribution to the pension scheme. A defined contribution pension scheme can be termed as an investment fund at retirement, and which depends on the level of contribution prior to the retirement. This depends on how much each contributor releases to the pension scheme and also on the money contributed in the investment after retirement. The contributions are invested in the stock market where it can succeed or fail. An example is the Australian superannuation system and the United States section 415, 401 limits among others. A defined benefit pension scheme growth is slow especially at the early years and tends to grow in the mid-work period. This leads to an increase in its costs to older employees as compared to the younger employees, aided by the flat accrual rate and also the decreasing period f or interest discounting as retirement period approaches (Redhead 2003, pg. 51). This therefore only favors the companies and not the younger people, making it unpopular among many people. This leads to the risk of spending a lot of cash and also gets a higher interest led by the time period as it is not funded by the government. The funding makes it to be risky and thus less trusted by most people as it may not be well funded in the future and may also be terminated. Defined contribution pension scheme is a better way or form of investing money as it is put in the stock exchange and through this it is possible to see how one’s portfolio grows. This leads to competition and through this the person or the company can increase its share values and also choose how to can invest. This is different in the defined benefit pension scheme as the amount or pension paid is not invested as the contribution is fixed. Contributions are also made annually or monthly causing them to get a lo wer retirement amount as compared to those in defined contribution pension schemes, and thus making people prefer contribution pension schemes over defined benefit pension schemes. Why Defined-contribution Pension Schemes are becoming more important Defined benefit pen

Shell Group Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Shell Group - Case Study Example ns, but business sector-led, one which each operation along the supply chain works to be competitive and accountable in its field (Grant 2002 p. 16). While Shell has diversified into other businesses, such as petrochemicals and renewable energy, the former is a natural extension of its involvement in oil, while forays into renewable energy forms are quite negligible to the company's overall investment and assets pie. And yet, Shell by starting to invest in cleaner, non-hydrocarbon energy will be one with among with first mover advantage, in terms of technology and know-how should the time come when such energy forms become affordable for the market, and thus, profitable, for the company. Today, Shell, operating in 140 countries, with revenues of US$318.8 billion in 2006 makes it the third biggest multinational corporation in the world and with profits of US$26 billion, the second most profitable - has stuck to its main business of exploration of oil and gas, that serves the downstream sector of the industry, including its own operations in production, processing, transportation and marketing (Royal Dutch Shell, Wikipedia entry, 2007). Shell's total oil market share as of 2004 stood at 11.6% and which in combination with those of other oil majors such as ExxonMobil, BP (British Petroleum), TFE (TotalFinaElf) and Chevron Texaco control almost 60% of the world's oil and gas markets (The Energy Insider, July14, 2004). The group seeks to capitalize on what it calls its current business strategy of "more upstream and profitable downstream" which basically sees that it would continue to look for and pursue sources of gas and oil all over the world while it considers the demand side covered by the growing appetite for oil by the developing countries, especially Asia Pacific (Shell.com 2007). Honed by 100 years of experience in oil and gas exploration, with its technological expertise, Shell's viability on both ends of the supply chain remains due very much to the continuing demand for energy mainly coming from China's growth as a manufacturing behemoth, still mainly, oil and gas. This is the reason why Shell, despite the giant mergers that occurred in the oil industry in the recent years resulting in bigger rivals, remains very much profitable. Since oil, a fuel whose sources could be depleted anytime and only found only in certain parts of the world - its supply has been subject to political forces that companies engaged in oil production naturally must build economies of scale to recover high costs of investment. At the end of the supply chain, markets are expanding in developing economies especially China which has only begun its manufacturing stage of development in which oil and gas are necessary fuels. Thus for a corporation with an international scope of operation like Shell, vertical integration remains a viable strategy. In recent decades, however, the Shell Group responded to the changes in the industry by focusing to maintain its foothold on the upstream, while downstream operations were

The challenges of Interoperability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The challenges of Interoperability - Essay Example The migrating path for the Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a complex processing that needs efficient planning before a hospital administration plans to introduce interoperability for unifying its numerous operating systems. Being a CIO of a hospital with numerous computerized data entering systems, I would consider issues of higher expense, maintenance of the major operating system providing interoperability to other operating system of the hospital. There are other issues that a CIO of a healthcare organization must focus on. It could involve the training of the officials to enter the specifications of the records focusing on the type of nomenclatures. It should be noted that the continuous research and development in the field of health care has made it quite complicated for the transmission of interoperability migrating path. In this paper, I would take the position of a CIO of a health care organization to discuss the challenges of interoperability. I would stress on the signif icance of the migration path for the Electronic Health Record (EHR) acquisition and propose the managers of the organization to pass the clauses to take the acquisition underway by following the following criteria: Challenges of Interoperability: I. Electronic Health Records (EHR) Vendors: It is quite evident that a newer setup by connecting different leverage of information operating systems in the hospital for information management would need training of the professionals. Traditionally, it has been noted that EHR Vendors are a special approach for this purpose. By acquiring an EHR vendor, it would be much easier for the professionals to get used to the electronic record system. Once the EHR information systems are easily connected to numerous other data recording systems, they will automatically help the professionals to use it on a continuous basis. The operating technical training can actually act as a factor of making information systems successful (Amatayakul). II. Connectio n and Nomenclatures: I would suggest that the organization follows the information categories to make it certain for data delivery methods in order to connect to other departments. This will need coding and nomenclatures to be added. Considering numerous operating systems being used in the organization which I am working for, it comes as a challenge to actually share information among different departments, because each department has a different set of requirements for data specification. For instance, the operating system, namely Laboratory Information System (LIS) within the organization, is dealing with the information consumed by the internal departments. It has to be used externally by other health organizations as well to make sure the commutative statistics of the disease is observable. This will help in the process of providing assistance to the patients with technologically advanced interface (Amatayakul). By providing interoperability among the different operating systems used for entering disease specifications and health records, it will be much easier for the organization to link up the nursing and administration department. But it should be noted, that currently Healthcare Information System (HIS) of the organization is only linked with Laboratory Information System (LIS). Connecting it with other operating systems would be a step-wise process. Hospital Information Management (HIM) has quite a limited role in the organization in terms of its connectivity with other operating systems such as HIS. It is thus, equally important for me to allow this department to share the number of records under the coding and nomenclature (Amatayakul). III. Virtual Assistance: It has been noted that the installation of EHR in healthcare industry has ultimately led to failures, because the hospital administration and the medical professionals were not able to get along with the newer ways of reporting medical cases. Thus, I would suggest t

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT LESSON 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT LESSON 1 - Essay Example According to Glidden and Hill (2008, pg. 1), â€Å"The people elect public officials to represent them in free and frequent elections. People start voting to tell the government what they need at the age of eighteen.† An example of this is the upcoming presidential election. Anyone who is eligible to vote can cast a ballot for whom they wish to be president. The principle of limited power was born out of the fear that Americans had at the time since they had just gained independence. They now had their own power and freedoms and were not about to hand it over fully and freely to the government. Essentially, tyranny was their greatest fear because of the circumstances. According to Glidden and Hill (2008, pg. 1), â€Å"Many states pressured the framers of the constitution to add a Bill of Rights, or a list of the basic rights of citizens. The framers also made the national and state governments share power. But whatever the power, the people gave it to the government and they could take it away.† An example of this in today’s world is the rules governing equal opportunity rights. The next principle for discussion is the sharing of power. According to Glidden and Hill (2008, pg. 1), â€Å"Americas government was based on Federalism, where power is divided between the Federal (national) and state governments. The constitution states what powers the Federal government has and leaves the rest for the states. Whenever a dispute arises the constitution is the â€Å"supreme law of the land.† An example of this is gambling. Some states allow it, and some do not. There is no federal law outright forbidding it, though. The fourth principle to discuss is separation of powers. As it stands today, the federal government consists of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. According to Glidden and Hill (2008, pg. 1), â€Å"The legislative branch includes the congress and House of

Technology and Human Resources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Technology and Human Resources - Essay Example These laws clearly stipulate that the applicant’s proposal to be included among those being evaluated for placement as front desk position be justly considered without focusing on age or disability; but on similar requirements and qualifications (educational background, skills, work experiences, etc.) noted for the identified position. In no way should be employer disregard the applicant’s intention to apply due to neither age nor disability. Likewise, if the position expressly require escorting visitors to identified departments within the hospital setting, the reasonable accommodation clause addresses any challenging concerns by making sure that despite being confined in a wheelchair, the applicant could, in fact, escort visitors since the hospital has been designed to ensure that â€Å"existing facilities used by employees (are) readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities† (U.S. EEOC, n.d., p. 1). Therefore, the applicant’s application should be handled based on qualifications deemed essential in undertaking â€Å"the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires† (U.S. EEOC, n.d., p. 1) without disregarding the application due to age nor

Fuel cells Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fuel cells - Essay Example This is then used to run a turbine to produce electricity. Thus there are many intermediate steps each with certain efficiency (always less than 100%) associated with each of them. This is because thermal energy is the worst form of energy with maximum entropy and therefore can never be converted fully into useful work. Now the overall efficiency of chemical potential energy to electricity conversion is a product of efficiency of each of the intermediate steps and therefore is much smaller. The best thermal power plants operate at maximum conversion efficiency of about 40%. Also, the combustion products are highly polluting adding to carbon emission and global warming. Fuel cells on the other hand convert the chemical potential energy directly into electricity and thus have very high conversion efficiency which is typically 70%. Besides, the reaction products are relatively harmless and in many cases completely harmless. Thus fuel cells are being seen as power plants of future and a tangible potential solution for containing the menace of carbon emission and therefore, global warming. These are already into many specialized and high end applications. In this report the basic principle, related developments and current and potential applications of fuel cells are briefly discussed. A fuel cell is like a galvanic cell. It directly converts chemical energy into electricity and is highly efficient. It is now possible to make such cells in which reactants are fed continuously to the electrodes and products are removed continuously from the electrolyte compartment. Galvanic cells that are designed to convert the energy of combustion of fuels like hydrogen, methane, methanol, etc. directly into electrical energy are called fuel cells. Such a fuel cell was used for providing electrical power in the Apollo space program. The water vapors produced during the reaction were

Write 1. a research question ( with detail) 2.The purpose of your Paper

Write 1. a question ( with detail) 2.The purpose of your 3.PICOT (well structured, and feasible) 4.A critic of the literature review of at least three reseach manuscripts 5.A proposal 6.Conclusion - Research Paper Example This results in additional costs for patients, caregivers, and the overall healthcare system. For instance, the UK spends between 1.4 and 2.1 billion pounds to treat pressure ulcers while in Australia, it costs approximately AUS $61,000 to treat a stage four pressure ulcer (Frantz, Gardner, Harvey, & Spetch, 1991). In the US, treatment cost per ulcer can range between $10,000 and $86,000. Although various interventions have been implemented in the prevention and treatment of ulcers, there is little research data regarding the effectiveness of measures adopted. The research will be conducted in government, institutional and private hospitals that handle inpatients as most cases of ulcers are reported among inpatients. Nursing personnel will be trained on how to assess risk among patients and mitigation measures that can be taken to prevent pressure ulcers. The staff will also be trained on early detection of the injuries. Data on patients at risk from developing pressure ulcer will be collected before and after training. The data will also include the number of patients who will develop ulcers over a four-week period before and after the training intervention. Data collected after nursing staff have undergone training will be compared to that collected before the training using various statistical analyses to determine whether there was a significant decline in the number of patients at risk of developing ulcers. Results of the analysis will also indicate whether training of nursing personnel is effective in reducing the number of patients developing pressure ulcers. The study will run for a period of three months. Clinical studies have shown that development of pressure ulcer during hospitalization can be alleviated by adopting appropriate mitigation measures (Severens, Hobraken, Duivenvoorden, & Frederiks, 2002; Vanderwee, Clark, Dealey, Gunningberg, & Defloor, 2007). These measures can include the development of methods and ways of