Leo Tolstoy :: Essays Papers

Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author, one of the greatest authors of all time. Leo Tolstoy was born at Yasnya Polyana, in Tula Province, the fourth of five children. His parents died when he was young, and he was brought up by relatives. In 1844 Tolstoy started to study law and oriental languages at Kazan University, but he never earned a degree. Dissatisfied with the standard of education, he returned in the middle of his studies back to Yasnaya Polyana, and then spent much of his time in Moscow and St. Petersburg. After contracting heavy gambling debts, Tolstoy accompanied his older brother to the Caucasus in 1851, and joined an artillery regiment. In the 1850s Tolstoy also began his literary career, publishing the autobiographical trilogy Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth. During the Crimean War, Tolstoy commanded a battery, and was at the siege of Sebastopol . In 1857 he visited France, Switzerland, and Germany to learn more about society and how to improve it. After traveling for a time, Tolstoy settled in Yasnaja Polyana, where he started a school for poor children. He saw that the secret of changing the world was in education. He investigated during his travels to Europe educational theory and practice, and published magazines and textbooks on the subject. In 1862 he married Sonya Andreyevna Behrs, and they had 13 children. Sonya also acted as Tolstoy’s secretary. Tolstoy's fiction originally came out of his diaries, in which he tried to understand his own feelings and actions so as to control them. He read avidly, both in literature and philosophy. In the Caucasus he read Plato and Rousseau, Dickens and Sterne; through the 1850s he also read and admired Goethe, Stendhal, Thackeray, and George Eliot. Tolstoy was convinced that philosophical principles can only be understood in their concrete expression in history. Tolstoy's major work, War and Peace, appeared between the years 1865 and 1869. The epic tale depicted the story of five families against the background of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical, others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. War and Peace reflected Tolstoy's view that destiny controls everything, but we cannot live unless we imagine that we have free will.

Comparing Carol Ann Duffys Havisham and Robert Brownings The Laborato

Comparing Carol Ann Duffy's Havisham and Robert Browning's The Laboratory In the poem â€Å"Havisham†, Carol Ann Duffy presents the subject as an old, embittered woman with â€Å"ropes on the back of her hands†. In â€Å"The Laboratory† by Robert Browning the subject is a strong and determined, but very jealous and embittered, young woman. Both poems are written in the first person in the form of a dramatic monologue. Carol Ann Duffy writes about the feelings of rejection, isolation and desolation that a woman who has been jilted at the alter by her husband might feel. I think that feelings such as this in both of the poems have been based on either literature or historical events, for example â€Å"Havisham† was most likely based on Miss Havisham, a rich lady in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and â€Å"The Laboratory† was probably influenced by the celebrated French murderess (who has been said to have poisoned her family). Oxymoronic phrases are used throughout the poem â€Å"Havisham† such as â€Å"Beloved Sweetheart Bastard† and â€Å"Love’s/hate† to express the ambivalence that this woman ...

Parmalat Accounting Scandal Essay

Summary After eluding financial analysts and investors for a long time, Parmalat went bankrupt later in December, 2003 and many of their board of directors have been arrested since then. Here is a brief summary of the events: In the late 1980’s, Parmalat’s financial situation was poor due to investment in side businesses. i.e. TV network, Parmatur, football teams (Palmeiras, Parma, etc). Cash siphoning through these companies was estimated to be total of â‚ ¬ 10 Bn. In 1990, Parmalat went public which enabled them to tap into the capital markets. Early 1990’s, the company began to acquire dairy producers around the world in order to try to hide the growing debt. Parmalat entered into a series of bond issuances and securitization of receivables to generate cash. A series of other fraudulent accounting practices occurred during the following years. In December 2003, Parmalat was not able to make a U$ 150MM bond payment and raised the attention of the entire market. When the fraud was brought up, Calisto Tanzi (Parmalat founder) and Fausto Tonna (CFO) was arrested along with another 10 individuals. Grant Thornton and Deloitte & Touchà © were Parmalat’s accounting firms during the last 2 decades. Partners of both firms were charged for fraudulent activity. Case analysis From the analysis we made, there are several items that can be appointed as accounting principle violation: A) Overstatement of Assets Assets Selling: Parmalat sold firms to private entities and individuals to re-buy it later in a fake operation, as the money came from other offshore entities just to create liquidity in the books; thanks to that, they could keep issuing bonds to cover their debts Accountable Receivables recognition: Double billing the Italian supermarkets and other retail customers Fake bank accounts: false document have been created to prove the existence of â‚ ¬ 3,9 Bn cash at Bank of America. Again, with more liquidity, more easily got the loans B) Overstatement of revenues Revenue Recognition: False income sales through its offshore companies C) Understatement of liabilities Debt eliminating: Parmalat reduced approximately Euro 3.3 Bn of debt. Misclassification of liabilities: describing sales of receivables as non-recourse, when the company maintained obligation to ensure payment. Proper accounting practices that should have been used A) Assets The firm recognizes revenue when the transaction meets both of the following conditions: 1. Completion of the earnings process: the seller has done all (or nearly all) that is promised to do for the customer. That is, the seller has delivered all (or nearly all) of the goods and services it has agreed to provide 2. Receipt of assets from the customer: The seller has received cash or some other asset that it can convert to cash, for example, by collecting an account receivable Accountable receivables recognition (billing twice) In this case, Parmalat generated double accounts receivable for the same operation billing both, their distributors and the final customer. The revenue from the final customers was recognized on the books, but the billing for the distributors were considered as transfer and accounted for credit owed. Revenue recognition What happened here is that the seller never done what was written in the books, as the operation never existed and customer never received the goods. B) Liabilities Debt Eliminating Parmalat eliminated paid down debt by a series of capital market transactions, mainly bond issuances and sale of receivables. These financing transactions were made possible by overstating their assets. Misclassification of liabilities Parmalat misclassified the financing transaction of selling their receivables. Although, Parmalat sold its receivables (assets) to financial institutions/investors, they were not a true non-recourse sale and Parmalat maintained obligation to ensure that the receivables were ultimately paid, therefore Parmalat should have classified this financing as a liability.

Oil Purification

Oil used in cooking foods is commonly derived from vegetables. Cooking oil is commonly used for frying and oil used for frying is usually thrown away. The recycling of cooking oil also provides a form of revenue for restaurants, which are sometimes compensated by cooking oil recyclers for their used deep fryer oil. Cooking oil recycling also results in less used oil being disposed of in drains, which can clog sewage lines due to the build-up of fats. The Procedure This procedure for filtering and reusing cooking oil requires the oil to be heated, so avoid using anything made of plastic throughout the procedure.Another important precaution to observe is to make sure none of the things used during the procedure are moist or wet. To begin with, strain the cooking oil once using a strainer to catch and remove any coarse food particles. Heat the oil to a temperature of about 170 -200 degrees Fahrenheit, and put in the ginger slices. Turn off the heat after about two or three minutes, and let the ginger slices remain in the cooking oil while the oil cools naturally. Ginger will absorb most of the odor and taste of the foods that were cooked in the oil.When the cooking oil has cooled down to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which will be approximately 10-15 minutes afterPurified Cooking Oil for Reuse turning off the heat, it’s time to filter the oil. To make the filter, line the conical strainer with the paper towel, making sure that there is no place from where the oil can leak out without passing through the towel. Next, line it with the cheese cloth in the same fashion. Place the filter on some container that is big enough to hold the amount of oil being filtered, and pour in the heated oil into the filter.Since the filter we’ve made is really fine, it may take up to 15 minutes for one liter of oil to pass through it. When the filtered oil reaches room temperature, you can transfer it to the storage jars. Close the lids tightly and store them in the refr igerator. This procedure for filtering and purifying cooking oil for reuse is fairly simple. And making it a habit to reuse cooking oil can be your small step towards greener living. This procedure can be repeated three to four times before you finally need to discard the fryer oil, which means a little effort can save you some goodly amount of money too.

A Study on Religious Believes of Anglo-Saxon Society based on The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wifes Lament

A Study on Religious Believes of Anglo-Saxon Society based on The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife's Lament Synthesis Essay on the Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a religious group of people as other generations of people were. Religion played a role in the Anglo-Saxon people’s lives and as a result it reflected in their writings. Poems written by the Anglo-Saxons have shown significant signs of religious influence including â€Å"The Seafarer,† â€Å"The Wanderer,† and â€Å"The Wife’s Lament.† Each writer of each poem gives their own testament regarding God’s influence on their situation. The Anglo-Saxon practiced their belief beyond religious establishments by writing of them within their poems. The Anglo-Saxons seemed to have correlated their everyday lives to their religious beliefs as shown in â€Å"The Seafarer.† The poem is written by a man fond of the sea and mentally drained by dwelling on the land. He understands the hardships of travelling by sea but simply cannot stay away. â€Å"Grown so brave, or so graced by God, That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The writer is fearless of what the sea offers and correlates his bravery to being graced by God. Religion may have motivated many actions amongst the Anglo-Saxons as they believed to be protected and thus fearless. The Anglo-Saxon people being religious had no conflicting ideals of evolution instead pointing to God for it all. The writer goes on to talk about how God essentially created the Earth and life itself. â€Å"We all fear God. He turns the Earth, He set it swinging firmly in space, Gave life to the world and light to the sky. Death leaps at the fools who forget their God.† Scientific beliefs such as evolution may have been non-existent to the Anglo-Saxons as the writer of â€Å"The Seafarer† notes on how everyone fears God and how He gave life to the world. Religion played a key role to everything the Anglo-Saxons believed in from their everyday activities to basis of life itself. The Anglo-Saxon’s often looked to religion and God in times of distress to mediate the best of a bad situation. As shown in â€Å"The Wanderer,† the writer finds himself alone following the slaughter of many people he had once knew. With nowhere else to turn, the speaker turns to his religion for comfort. â€Å"This lonely traveller longs for grace, For the mercy of God†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The speaker falls to God in his lonesome travels to remedy the hardships he had just experienced. The Anglo-Saxons believed and stood by God’s impact on their lives despite what they’ve been through. The Anglo-Saxon people went to God and religion as a reason behind everything they do. â€Å"It’s good to find your grace In God, the heavenly rock where rests our every hope.† The speaker goes on to state how giving your life despite hardships to God is good as religion holds all the hope in the world. â€Å"The Wanderer† gives example of one dweller of many who may have found themselves in a lonesome situation who in turn, turned to God. The Anglo-Saxon people believed in religion greatly as their only source of hope through hardships such as war. As supported by â€Å"The Wanderer† speaker, the Anglo-Saxon’s sought after religion during times of distress. â€Å"The Wife’s Lament† is a poem written by the ‘wife’ of a man who seemingly is exiled himself and the speaker seeks him. The speaker in the poem however is exiled herself and forced by her husband’s kinsman to remain in the woods â€Å"in the den of the earth.† â€Å"Blithe was our bearing often we vowed that but death alone would part us two naught else.† The speaker motions towards her marital vows towards her husband to counteract his decision to hold her in the woods against her will. Marriage often seen as a lifelong relationship established by God, the speaker feels her Lord betrayed both her and God by abandoning her and their commitments. As with all religions, the Anglo-Saxons consisted of individuals who had went against their beliefs. â€Å"May on himself depend all his world’s joy.† The speaker wishes upon the â€Å"curse† that her husband depend on everything given to him on Earth rather than what awaits him later in the afterlife. The speaker in â€Å"The Seafarer† notions at how the wealth of the world does not reach the Heavens nor does it remain important when you die and thus the wife wishes her husband depends heavily on the joys he experiences now. Religion to the Anglo-Saxon’s explained every aspect to their life including marriage and those who opposed it were seen as deserters as noted in â€Å"The Wife’s Lament.† Religion explained many aspects within the Anglo-Saxon’s lives through the three poems, â€Å"The Seafarer,† â€Å"The Wanderer† and â€Å"The Wife’s Lament.† The three speakers of the poems noted God’s ability to guide them through times of distress and as a result gave their life to their faith. The three poems reflected the impact of religion to Anglo-Saxon people’s lives and thus this was reflected in their writings.

Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 - Essay Example It is also configured to support Hyper-V virtual machines. Windows 7 has an expanded security. It has a BitLocker-to-Go that brings the BitLocker encryption power to storage devices that are portable as external storage devices and USB drives (Krebs, 2009). It has an App-Blocker that allows the Information Technology administrators to control applications used by individuals. It has remote access methods such as direct access that allows mobile users to access remotely resources with no need of using a VPN. This operating system has been designed in powering the next generation of web services, networks and applications. It is 45 times faster than Windows Server 2003 and comes with security enhancements, virtualization technologies, management utilities and web tools that assist in reducing costs and saving time (Rubens, 2007). This operating system has the capability of reducing attack surfaces by running least installations, and specific features such as the NAP and BitLocker. This operating system has Address Space Load Randomization that does not enable attackers to conduct buffer overflow attacks on the system by altering the location of different system services every time the system is running. The new virtualization feature found in this operating system enables users to create development environments easily and test them without using various resources, therefore, reducing costs (Rubens, 2007). Rubens, P. (2007, December 12). 10 Coolest Features in Windows Server 2008. Server Watch. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from

Managing People and Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Managing People and Organisations - Essay Example A corporate ethics program comprises a code of ethics, education and training of employees for ethics, a reporting and audit system, and an investigation system. In different corporations, the managers emphasize upon different components to different extent. In a vast majority of cases, the corporate ethics programs are designed and control by the senior management in a corporation. According to alpha.fdu.edu (n.d.), 84 per cent of the general counsel, 77 per cent CEOs, and 75 per cent senior human resources executives write the codes of ethics, whereas 58 per cent of the chairmen write the codes of ethics. This speaks of the magnitude of control exercised by the executives on the codes of ethics whereas employees are just required to comply with them as part of their job. A demand of blind faith upon the corporation on the part of the employees clearly reflects from these statistics. Although the conflicts between these roles are not experienced on the daily basis, yet the employees hope to find some clash or even the simplest decisions become too difficult to take in this world where the goals and interests of the corporations and the stakeholders are so diverse and variant, that conflicts are simply inevitable. In spite of the governmental regulations and legal frameworks within which the corporations have to remain and do the business, we cannot rely on corporations to be ethical and responsible. Ethical decision making processes have reportedly been found to be important always throughout the past many years. â€Å"The language of ethics and responsibility seems to be here to stay, and is claiming a degree of centrality as the necessary conscience of managerial capitalism† (Parker, 2002, p. 92). One of the fundamental reasons why we cannot expect corporations to be ethical and responsible is that there is no definitive answer to every ethical question. In order to find the right answer to every ethical question, we need to have the right tools. The bad aspect about this bleak situation is that workforce is left to deal with the consequences when ethical requirements are not fulfilled. Employers also get affected in myriad ways like not being able to achieve maximum cooperation of the employees raises much concern for many corporations when it comes to maintaining the productivity level. Employees find themselves unable to cooperate with employers on more levels when many ethical requirements get crushed under the employers’ feet. Now the conditions are much better but such a situation of less cooperation due to lack of ethical consideration particularly developed abruptly when economic recession spread globally. Organizations began to fire even the responsible staff members due to not being able to ensure reasonable salaries to every employee. Lay offs became very common and ethical rights of employees began getting severely violated too. This shows that corporations cannot be always trusted to carry out all their funct ions ethically and responsibly since nothing can be perfect and certain sacrifices have to be made by the employees within a workplace in favor of demanding employers who rush after meeting certain goals in this age of excessive competitiveness. Nevertheless, lack