Training Blog » Kirsty

Capital Punishment

Kirsty — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 07:28:43 +0000

One of the most heavily debated topics, capital punishment was used in the UK from 1707 until 1969 and is still used in other countries one of the most notable is America. For all the facts about capital punishment see Wikipedia’s page on the subject. With there being stories about overcrowding in prisons, as well as there being stories of horrific murders people are often heard saying “I wish that they would bring capital punishment back.” I don’t know if people are looking back with rose tinted glasses, but society was not perfect then, it was just different problems. They also believe that it would reduce taxes because you wouldn’t have as many people being detained in prisons, however they don’t take into consideration the fact that it is probably no cheaper to impose the death penalty. There are still approximately 50% of the world that still use the death penalty. There are more specific statistics on the internet however Wikipedia has the most concise version Capital punishment by country.

I personally don’t feel that capital punishment is the answer:

In some cases people are wrongly convicted, if they are executed there is no way to put it right.
Isn’t ending someone’s life essentially making you as bad as the person who committed the crime in the first place?
There is also the fact that if you end that person’s life they don’t have to live with what they have done
Most executions are done publicly which to me seems like a barbaric spectators sport.

I think this is going to be one of those topics that is never going to be resolved one way or the other.

Love Film Vs Sky Movies

Kirsty — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:54:23 +0000

I recently signed up for Love Film on a free 30 day trial, I decided that to try it to see if it was any better than Sky movies. At present I’d say Love film is better because it enables you to receive both games and films plus it is films you actually want to watch rather than those set by Sky. The only downside is the fact that you have to wait in between you posting them back and receiving the next films/games. You can keep the films for as long as you want with out getting late charges, unlike other film rental places. For others the fact that as far as I am aware you can have a maximum of 3 discs out at a time maybe considered a problem.

Overall I have to confess that I prefer Love Film to sky movies because I think that it is better value for money and you choose the titles it is really simple and would definitely recommend it, there are hundreds of promotional packages available so you can try it for FREE! The initial trial I took out was 30 days free and £15 Amazon voucher.

Have only had to contact the customer service team once as there had been an error in the postal address so the 1st 2 discs were sent to my next door neighbour instead. I spent less than 5 minutes on hold and the woman who answered the phone was both friendly and efficient and the problem was resolved instantly, I was also offered and extra 14 days free by way of an apology. Unlike where we have had to contact Sky and spent a long time on hold and then to be told that it will cost you to have an engineer out or that it can take up to 28 days for them to resolve an issue.

The best thing since sliced bread

Kirsty — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:37:18 +0000

Fifty years ago the first plastic wrapped sandwich loaf was created in Chorleywood. Since then it has spread across the world; David Sillito is now asking if this was a design classic or a crime against bread.gn classic or a crime against bread, asks David Sillito.

It is estimated that more than 80% of all loaves in Britain are now made the Chorleywood way. The work of the scientists at the Chorleywood Flour Milling and Bakery Research Association laboratories in 1961 led to a new way of producing bread, making the average loaf in Britain 40% softer, reducing its cost and more than doubling its life. The bread scientist, Stan Cauvain, who worked with the original inventors and has written the definitive work on the Chorleywood Process says they knew from the beginning they had changed baking forever.

Its origins lay in the late 1950s and the need to try to find a way for small bakers to compete with new industrial bakeries. The light brown “national loaf” during the long years of rationing had, for many consumers, outstayed its welcome. Soft, springy, white bread – that did not go stale quickly – was what the public wanted.

Already, thanks to the Chorleywood process, nearly half the wheat in our bread is British. The industry’s current development programme could bring about a situation where British bread is made from an even higher proportion of British wheat – thus making the British loaf even better value for money in relation to world bread prices.

The research bakers at Chorleywood discovered that by adding hard fats, extra yeast and a number of chemicals and then mixing at high speed you got a dough that was ready to bake in a fraction of the time it normally took. It allowed bread to be made easily and economically with low protein British wheat.
But with industrial bakers quickly adopting the process, rather than helping small bakeries, the research at Chorleywood helped put thousands of them out of business. For some bread lovers, particularly the “artisan bread movement” anything Chorleywood is simply not real bread. “This stuff is like cotton wool,” says Paul Barker, who himself used to work as an industrial baker and sold the emulsifiers, enzymes and other chemicals used in modern baking.

The classic white loaf – how it is made and what people think of it

The issue he says is about both taste and digestion. “Modern bread doesn’t taste of bread,” he says. “If it’s not allowed to rise and prove naturally then it doesn’t develop the proper taste.” There is also the matter of health. The Chorleywood loaf has twice the amount of yeast of a traditional loaf, it has enzymes and oxidants added and while certain chemical additives such as potassium bromate have been banned, Paul Barker and other bread campaigners believe it is behind the growth in the number of people who struggle to digest bread.

“Every day I have people who say they have given up eating bread and then find they don’t have a problem with bread that’s been allowed to develop slowly. My sourdough takes more than 70 hours to make.” Proving this, however, is another matter. Prof John Warner at Imperial College in London says there has been a marked increase in allergies and intolerance of wheat and bread over the last 50 years, just as there has been an increase in allergies to dust, nuts and dozens of other items.

1928: First bread slicing machine, invented by Otto Rohwedder, exhibited at a bakery trade fair in the US
1930: Large UK bakeries take commercial slicers and sliced bread first appears in shops
1933: Around 80% of US bread is pre-sliced and wrapped. The phrase “the best thing since sliced bread” coined
1941: Calcium added to UK flour to prevent rickets
1942: The national loaf – much like today’s brown loaf – introduced to combat shortage of white flour
1954: Conditions in bakeries regulated by the Night Baking Act
1956: National loaf abolished
1961: The Chorleywood Bread Process introduced

However, three-quarters of people who believe they have an allergy or medical intolerance to bread show no signs of any symptoms in blind testing. He, himself, though is wary of what sort of bread he eats. “We have several pounds of bacteria in our guts and there have been marked changes in this gut flora in affluent societies over the last 50 years.” While producers are not obliged to say what enzymes are added to the bread, Polson says there is no evidence that it is any harder to digest. “There are some additional additives to give it a bit more shelf life, a bit of extra softness – but all it’s doing is augmenting what is happening in the natural process.” So, the Chorleywood process has its critics but its success with consumers is undeniable. Even in France some stick loaves are now made the Chorleywood way, although not the classic “baguette”.

The process is now used in more than 30 countries with Colombia and Ecuador taking it on in the last few years. Britain’s white bread market is worth about £1bn a year, and most of that is Chorleywood bread. It’s cheap, filling, soft, long-lasting and, because it can turn low-protein British wheat in to palatable bread, a boon to British farmers. While it’s considered by researchers at the food technology research institute in Chipping Campden to be a marvel of food engineering – the public does not seem to value it too highly.

Almost a third of the bread bought in Britain – 680,000 tonnes a year – is thrown away.

Colin Firth brain research credit.

Kirsty — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:58:56 +0000

When guest-editing Radio 4′s Today Programme in December 2010, Colin Firth commissioned a studyd as one of four co-authors of an academic paper into human brains. He asked scientists to scan the brains of politicians to see if there was any difference dependent on political leaning. Publish is the the journal Current Biology the paper was hailed as a “useful contribution”.

Initially the brains of Conservative Alan Duncan and Labour’ Stephen Pound were scanned by Geraint Rees, from University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. The research was continued with replicationanother 90 participants; the scan showed an association between thicker areas within the brain and Liberal and Conservative attitudes. Following a repeat of the study researchers found that they were able to predict political leaning from a brain scan with 72% accuracy.

“It is a useful contribution because it builds on and extends previous work.” This is is a quote from New York University’s Professor John Jost, one of the world’s leading authorities in political psychology.”It will probably be several years before we understand the full meaning of these results. In the meantime, the field of political neuroscience could do worse than having Colin Firth as a scientific ambassador.”

Cadbury’s latest drama

Kirsty — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:16:59 +0000

This week chocolate maker Cadbury made the headline when they had to apologise to supermodel Naomi Campbell after one of its adverts “caused upset” to the supermodel. The advert that “upset” Campbell was part of a print campaign for Dairy Milk Bliss which featured the tagline “Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town”, next to a bar of chocolate standing in a pile of diamonds.

The company released the apology on their website when Campbell suggested that she may sue Cadbury. They said that they were “sincerely sorry” and that it was not their intention to cause offence to “Naomi, her family or anybody else.” Cadbury have also confirmed the advert had been withdrawn and the model’s solicitors had accepted the apology on her behalf.

Campbell told campaign group Operation Black Vote she was “pleased” with the public apology. She is quoted as saying: “The advertisement was in poor taste on a number of levels. It is also a shame that it took so long for Cadbury to offer this apology.”She continued: “I hope they and other multinationals can learn from this… Better still they should avoid causing offence in the first place, which is best achieved by having greater diversity at board and senior management level.”

The Advertising Standards Authority says it has received four complaints about the adverts and is in the early stages of deciding whether to launch a formal investigations. To be honest this all seems a little bit insane, the advert was merely a light hearted way to promote a new chocolate bar why it is being made into a big scandal I don’t know.

Finance – How much do you know?

Kirsty — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:04:00 +0000

I have recently started a course with the Open University called, You and your money: personal finance in context (DB123). I started doing this course because I want more control over my money and wanted more knowledge about the various options, in simple terms from an impartial source. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t really understand all the financial jargon, and this was confirmed when some of the news headlines reveal that the younger generations don’t really have a clue when it comes to finances.

It would seem that now it is more important than ever due to the current economic climate. Also understanding finance and how to make the most of your money could potentially help you get out of debt….assuming that you have any. It can also help you save for both a rainy day and for when you retire.

Minutes not Years

Kirsty — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:28:29 +0000

Smoking damages the body in minutes rather than years, according to research in the US. A report, published in Chemical Research in Toxicology, shows that chemicals which cause cancer form rapidly after smoking. Scientists involved in the small-scale study described the results as a stark warning to people considering smoking. Anti-smoking charity Ash described the research as “chilling” and as a warning that it is never too early to quit.

The long term impact of smoking, from heart disease to a range of cancers, is well known. This study suggests the damage begins just moments after the first cigarette is smoked.The researchers looked at the level of chemicals linked with cancer, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), in 12 patients after smoking. A PAH was added to the subject’s cigarettes, which was then modified by the body and turned into another chemical which damages DNA and has been linked with cancer.

The research shows this process only took between 15 and 30 minutes to take place. Professor Stephen Hecht, from the University of Minnesota, said: “This study is unique, it is the first to investigate human metabolism of a PAH specifically delivered by inhalation in cigarette smoke, without interference by other sources of exposure such as air pollution or the diet. The results reported here should serve as a stark warning to those who are considering starting to smoke cigarettes. Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at Ash (Action on Smoking and Health), said: “Almost everybody knows that smoking can cause lung cancer.

“The chilling thing about this research is that it shows just how early the very first stages of that process begin – not in 30 years but within 30 minutes of a single cigarette for every subject in the study. “The process starts early but it is never too late to quit and the sooner you quit the sooner you start to reduce the harm.”

Hospitals ‘fiddling’ A&E waiting times

Kirsty — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:05:32 +0000

Hospitals are fiddling a four-hour A&E wait target by using other wards as dumping grounds, the Conservatives say. Data from 114 NHS trusts in England found many patients faced long waits in assessment units which did not count towards the waiting time. Over a fifth of units reported keeping patients longer than the recommended 24 hours with the average wait being 17. Doctors agreed the system was being abused in places, but the government said the research was “misleading”.

The Conservatives asked hospitals to provide data on their use of these wards under the Freedom of Information Act.We expect assessment units to be used to improve patient care, not as a ‘holding area’ or to avoid breaching the A&E four-hour standard. The units are commonly known as emergency assessment or clinical decision units. They effectively act as a half-way house between A&E and hospital to allow patients to continue to be monitored before a decision is taken to continue treating them or discharge them.

Many are mixed-sex and do not have proper beds, leaving patients to rest on trolleys. Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: “Labour complacently claim that they have abolished long waits for patients being admitted to hospitals, but these figures show that all they have really done is fiddle the figures.

It is not the first time the way the target is being met has been criticised. Both the British Medical Association and academics at London’s City University have raised concerns over the last few years about the use of assessment units. John Heyworth, from the College of Emergency Medicine, said the four-hour target, introduced in 2004, was not working as well as people believed it was. “There is a continuing amount of gaming going on,” he said. “We know these areas are being used frequently purely to admit patients to meet the target and quite often they are not properly equipped or staffed.” He adds doctors would like to see more flexibility in the target to allow them to continue monitoring patients for longer than four hours when appropriate.

Nigel Edwards, policy director of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospital trusts, said it was likely patients were being moved to provide more time for tests, as the four-hour target did not give medical staff “very much leeway”.

Health minister Gillian Merron pointed out before Labour came to power patients were facing long waits. She said the Tory figures were “misleading” as some of the units were observational wards which had been designed and equipped to care for patients for a while. But she added: “We expect assessment units to be used to improve patient care, not as a ‘holding area’ or to avoid breaching the A&E four-hour standard.”

It would seem that the NHS is under so much pressure to change to many things at once, no wonder they are overstretched due to the sheer number of people they have to see when they have a mountain of paperwork to complete. So we shouldn’t blame them for attempting to modify procedure so that they appear to conform to the standards set by the government as they are aware that they risk funding being reduced if they don’t conform.

Information Overload!!!

Kirsty — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:00:39 +0000

Recently I took over the job of email marketing in addition to my other responsibilities. At first I thought that it would be a breeze until I got the email with all the information needed…boy was I wrong. There was so much information that I didn’t know where to start. Eventually I got the idea after going over and over it with a little bit of help from my partner.

It seems that everyone has the need to be thorough but is there anyway we can be thorough but keep simple? Before anyone suggests that cheesy advert from Bing.com; that’s not helpful. The trick is to break it down into smaller chunks, which makes it a whole lot easier but don’t forget to read the whole thing first.

Business Structure Types

Kirsty — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:39:25 +0000

Issues about structure are recurring matters of debate and dispute in most businesses. This is because they include matters relating to departmental and sectional groups, the pattern of reporting relationships, the cycle of meetings, information systems, and rules and procedures. A business might be structured in various ways: by function, by product, by service or by geography.

As is the case with most aspects of business, it is unlikely that there is any one ‘best’ model for structure. You would not expect businesses with a professional orientation, such as a legal or medical practice, or a not-for-profit business such as a church or theatre company with a strong values base, to have the same business or management structure as a supermarket or high street bank. The structure of a co-operative would enable the broad-based participation and involvement of its members, while a legal practice would need a more collectivist or collegiate structure. The challenge facing all types of businesses is to develop a structure that recognises what is required while still achieving an efficient use of resources and providing effective services to customers.

Whatever the business, however, structure is pivotal in the relationship between task (what the business does) and process (how the business does it). It is through the medium of its structure that the values, commitments, purposes and aspirations of the business are implemented. Structure has to translate values and processes into a practical, working reality – and to do this while delivering profit to its owners and value to its customers. Functional structures might work best when departments need regular communication with each other. However, a disadvantage may be that functions and the people who work in them may become rather insular.

Structuring by product or service can help to achieve better responsiveness to customer needs, although it might mean professional or functional expertise becomes fragmented. A geographic structure has advantages for a large international business because there are likely to be differences between the markets it serves. There are also likely to be language and cultural differences. However, structuring by location may be problematic in terms of communication and information flows, and support functions such as finance and ICT may have to be duplicated.