Omar Khayyam The Enigma :: essays research papers fc

PROLOGUE   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Omar Kahyyam was primarily a mathematician and an astronomer. He was an extremely intelligent individual who wrote many theories in physics and metaphysics. He is also attributed with the reformation of the Persian calender with seven other great intellects to create a calender more accurate than the Gregorian calender. Ironically he is known to the world today for his translated collection of lyrical quatrains called the Rubaiyat. His life and works are somewhat of a mystery because he was rather unpopular until after his death. Yet the work he is most known and beloved for is considered to have been a gross mistranslation of both character and content.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This paper will be divided into six sections. The first is the prologue. The prologue was used to introduce Omar to the reader. Next there will be a brief biography of his life and major influences of his work. Following this will be a section on his magnum opus and only work, The Rubaiyat. This will include literary criticism of his famous work. After this there will be a brief conclusion to sum up the overall paper followed by an epilogue with my opinion on Khayyam. Finally in my bibliography the reader will see my sources for research and my opinion on those books.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I. OMAR KHAYYAM, THE ENIGMA   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the history of world literature Omar Khayyam is an enigma. No poet of any time period has received greater recognition and fame through such a enormous misreading of his work. Known today world wide, Khayyam’s works would undoubtable be unheard of in modern day literature in they were not translated by English writer Edward FitzGerald. The paradox is that FitzGerald misinterpreted both Khayyam and his works in his translation to start an unending conflict1.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   FitzGerald added to his editions of the Rubaiyat a biographical sketch entitled â€Å"Omar Khayyam: The Astronomer Poet of Persia.† In this he wrote his opinion that Khayyam was an anti-religious materialist who believed life’s only meaning was to be found in wine, song, and worldly pleasures:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, and any world but this, he set about making the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the soul through the senses into acquiescence with things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be.... He takes a humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the gratification of sense above that of intellect, in which he must have taken great delight, although it failed to answer the questions in which he, in common with all men, was most vitally interested2.

Ballot or the Bullet

People would come from all over the country to Harlem, New York in the year 1964 to listen to Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X, give his speeches about having more civil rights for the black community. He claimed that they should try to spend money inside of their community to help it prosper and prevent it from becoming a slum or a ghetto. He compared their situation many times to when America was first starting and how they had to fight for their freedom from Britain.Malcolm X talked about Patrick Henry and how he said, â€Å"Give me liberty or give me death† and was saying that they need to stand up for what they want. He said that there can not be a revolution with blood shed but America is in a position right now where they can be involved in a â€Å"Bloodless revolution. † One thing that he repeated throughout his speech was that it would be the â€Å"ballot or the bullet† (Malcolm X). This meant that they would either get what they asked for or th ey would have to fight for it.In Malcolm X’s speech he addressed different rhetorical strategies to convey his message to the people of Harlem. One way the speaker attempted to sway his audience to feel the way that he did was by telling the people that he was educated about how the white people felt when they were suppressed by Britain. The white people of the time were being taxed without representation. He learned who Patrick Henry was and how he would rise up and say â€Å"Liberty or death† which is the equivalent to what Malcolm X’s slogan was, ballot or the bullet.He said that, the statement â€Å"Liberty or death† brought freedom to the white people in this country and that if they could do it, so could he and his supporters. He also talked about how he knew the new generations of black people in this country didn’t care how far the odds were against them; they wanted to fight for their rights to be equals to the white people of America. The y would ignore the odds altogether until they had succeeded in what they have come to do.Later, Malcolm uses emotion to get his message across to his audience when he talks about how America right now could be the only place to have ever had a bloodless revolution by simply succumbing to what the black population wanted and give them their civil rights. He said that usually you aren’t in a position where you love your enemy but here is a time where they love America but just would like to be treated as equals along with the rest of the population.Malcolm also said that Uncle Sam was the one that created this problem in the first place and going to his court expecting him to fix the problem would do absolutely nothing because he is the criminal and he is the one that needs to be fixed. A little bit later he talks about how Afro-American churches are being bombed, little girls getting murdered, and leaders of the black population getting shot in broad daylight. He asks why this isn’t being brought to the UN when these sorts of things that happen in other countries go directly to the UN. Then Malcolm says that it is their turn to take their case to the UN.He says that there he will have the support of all different ethnicities, including the 800 million Chinese people out there. Malcolm also talks about how Uncle Sam is able to stand up and represent himself as the leader of the free world when he is violating the human rights of over 22 million Afro-Americans. Malcolm used different methods to try to get his feelings across to his audience but they all were directed towards the same purpose; to try to get the civil rights of the black population in America at the time. This worked to a degree, it got people all riled up to fight for their civil rights.He first talked about how when America was first starting they didn’t like it when their civil rights were suppressed and that the Afro-Americans feel the same way they want their rights. Then Malcolm talks about how this revolution doesn’t have to include any death as long as America listens to the black communities requests. He purposes that it is time to go to the UN and have them help sort this out with the help of other countries. He sums up his whole speech in four words and those words are â€Å"ballot or the bullet† they will get what they want or they will fight for it.

GE Healthcare Essay

As is known to all, most successful medical equipment manufacturing companies like GE Healthcare satisfy customers’ need as possible as they can and they are still on the way to improve their supply chains to attract more customers and make themselves more competitive. From this, we can see that customer value which can be defined as â€Å"the customer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product based on perceptions of what is received and what is given† (Zeithaml, 1988, p. 14) plays a very important role in supply chain. In order to analyze the role of customer value and how this puts pressure on the supply chain, this paper will use GE Healthcare as an instance to specifically illustrate the market segment it targets, the nature of customer value, its market qualifiers and order winners and current pressures on the supply chain. GE Healthcare whose general headquarters in the United Kingdom is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company. GE Healthcare with about 46,000 employees is committed to serving healthcare professionals and its patients in more than 100 countries and it is always looking for innovations to cut down costs, increase access and enhance quality around the world. (GE Healthcare, 2012) GE Healthcare’s market target is roughly divided into two parts, namely medical products and service. This paper will mainly focus on its product market. GE Healthcare produces a wide range of products which can be specifically set off four primary parts. These are Diagnostic & Clinical Equipment, Information Technology, Life Sciences and Medical Diagnostics. Furthermore, each primary product is divided into several different kinds of functional products. For instance, Diagnostic & Clinical includes diagnostic imaging, clinical products and home health. The diagram below shows the other three primary parts of its product market. (Dineen, 2010) As we can see from the diagram, with different kinds of medical products GE Healthcare targets on not only the high-end market but also the low-end market. Therefore, it is able to take up more market share than its competitors. GE Healthcare is a medical equipment manufacturer, so its customer is more likely to be medical retailers rather than individual consumers. Customer value is related to quality, service, cost and lead time, so medical retailers want high-quality products, good service, low cost and short lead time. GE Healthcare improves its quality by reducing medical errors, enhancing diagnostic and remote monitoring and its quality level raised 15% from 2008 to 2010. (Dineen, 2010) Its products have been widely praised by medical retailers. Besides, â€Å"According to the 2010 ServiceTrak Imaging survey for PET systems, GE Healthcare has received a No.1 ranking in overall service performance in IMV’s annual ServiceTrak survey.† (GE Healthcare, 2010) This shows that GE Healthcare provides excellent service to its customers. In addition, the base cost of GE Healthcare decreased by 7% from 2008 which is $5.7 billion to 2009 which is $5.3 billion. (Dineen, 2010) The company is able to reduce its costs while maintaining profit. Thus, medical retailers get price reduction from GE Healthcare. For the purpose of shorting lead time, GE Healthcare optimizes its manufacturing supply chain constantly and keeps efficiency at a high level. So retailers receive products from GE more shortly than before. Among many medical equipment manufacturers, GE Healthcare’s main competitors are Johnson&Johnson, Siemens Medical Solutions and Philips Medical System. After looking for their common qualifiers, I find that these companies all possess strong financial support, advanced production lines, successful manufacturing supply chains, talent pools and mature innovation teams. For example, â€Å"in May 2009, General Electric announced that over the next six years it would spend $3 billion to create at least 100 health-care innovations that would substantially lower costs, increase access, and improve quality.† (Immelt etal, 2009, p.3) So we can regard these factors as market qualifiers in the medical equipment manufacturing field. Compared to other companies, GE Healthcare has its own unique ways to win business—order winners. The GE company has an in-depth understanding of end-user requirements and can also respond them efficiently. Besides, it optimizes its production line by means of leveraging products with the different prices and feature points required by the market. The GE company enhances its supply chain by optimizing packing, delivery, manufacturing and other value-added services. (GE Healthcare, 2008) It also invests in growth geographies and innovates disruptive technologies. These beneficial ways make a great contribution for GE Healthcare to winning business. GE Healthcare manufacturing supply chain consists of several processes. First of all, the company selects high quality raw materials around world. Secondly, before being used in biomedical applications, raw materials which are altered need a synthesis process. Thirdly, many individual components of different medical equipments are produced by using raw materials. This process requires specialized skills and procedures. Fourthly, components are shipped to different functional assembly point and finished products are ready to go here. Finally, after being packaged and sterilized, medical equipments are shipped to distributions or consumers. (Gevaert, 2009, p.5) Though GE Healthcare holds a successful manufacturing supply chain, it is still facing pressures. As consumers prefer to buy high-quality medical devices with less money, GE Healthcare has to cut down costs in supply chain while producing high-quality products. When GE buys raw materials, it takes much more time to look for cheap ones with high quality and purity than before. This results in increasing lead time directly. In order to enhance quality to meet consumers’ needs, GE has to use more specialized and skilled workers or more advanced machines in manufacturing. But this conflicts with its purpose of reducing costs. Besides, in the competition with other companies, GE has to make its supply chain more efficient and faster continuously and this is very difficult to achieve. Bibliography: Dineen,J.(2010). Healthymagination Investor Update. Lecture presented as part of GE Healthcare meeting,24/06/2010. GE Healthcare.(2008). 2008 European Cardiology Information Systems Product Line Leadership of the Year Award Recipient. GE Healthcare.(2010). You can’t put a number on trust. But IMV can. GE Healthcare.(2012). About GE Healthcare[online] Available at: http://www.gehealthcare.com/eueu/msabout/msabout.html [Accessed 13/11/12] Gevaert,M.(2009). Upstate South California’s Medical Device Cluster. New California, p.5. Immelt,J,R.Govindarajan,V. and Trimble,C.(2009). Harvard Business Review. How GE Is Disrupting Itself, p.3. Zeithaml, V.A.(1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing 52, p.14.