Friday, January 24, 2020

My Childhood Memory Essay -- essays research papers

My Childhood Memory I remember it like yesterday. We were all waiting patiently for my father to come home from the race track. He promised me and my sister that if he won, he would take us all to Rye Playland. The minutes felt like hours. It was the longest hour of my life. Then finally we heard the car door shut. Me and my sister ran to the front door anxiously waiting for the news. He opened the door and walked in. We tried to read the expression on his face but of course he was looking down while taking his sneakers off. The suspense was killing us. Then he looked up. No words were spoken between us and our father. He just gave us a blank stare. I didn't know what to think. I was scared to ask because I was so worried of the response. It was that moment when he said to us, "Well kids, pick out what your going to wear to Rye playland this weekend." Excitement just jumped through out my whole body. We both ran over and gave him the biggest hug and ran upstairs to pick out what we were g oing to bring with us. I was so excited for the next two days, I probably only got about 4 hours sleep. Then the day finally came. It was Saturday. It was the only time in my life I was happy to hear the alarm clock go off. Of course I was already awake for two hours before it actually went off, but I waited anyway. I jumped out of... My Childhood Memory Essay -- essays research papers My Childhood Memory I remember it like yesterday. We were all waiting patiently for my father to come home from the race track. He promised me and my sister that if he won, he would take us all to Rye Playland. The minutes felt like hours. It was the longest hour of my life. Then finally we heard the car door shut. Me and my sister ran to the front door anxiously waiting for the news. He opened the door and walked in. We tried to read the expression on his face but of course he was looking down while taking his sneakers off. The suspense was killing us. Then he looked up. No words were spoken between us and our father. He just gave us a blank stare. I didn't know what to think. I was scared to ask because I was so worried of the response. It was that moment when he said to us, "Well kids, pick out what your going to wear to Rye playland this weekend." Excitement just jumped through out my whole body. We both ran over and gave him the biggest hug and ran upstairs to pick out what we were g oing to bring with us. I was so excited for the next two days, I probably only got about 4 hours sleep. Then the day finally came. It was Saturday. It was the only time in my life I was happy to hear the alarm clock go off. Of course I was already awake for two hours before it actually went off, but I waited anyway. I jumped out of...

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Carphone warehouse Essay

Introduction Carphone warehouse is a mobile phone retailer founded in 1989 in an era when phones were too bulky, hence being referred to as carphones. It’s based in UK and has over 1700 stores across Europe. Outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company carries on its business under the name phone house. Carphone warehouse did its initial public offering at the main market of the London stock exchange (Great Britain et. al, 2011). There has been tremendous growth in the business and this has resulted to Carphone opening many branches at home and also in Western Europe. Ways of improving operations at Carphone warehouse In its quest to provide modern services to its customers and the staffs in general, carphone warehouse has embarked on going back to the drawing board to ensure they have many of the latest mobile technologies. The strategy by this company to utilize smart technology in its stores has attracted a lot of attention and many shoppers are flocking their shops. The younger generation is so much obsessed with smart technology; the large workforce of carphone is mainly the younger generation. This strategy is very good as it portrays a positive image to those shopping in its stores (summers, 1998). Carphone partners with many well performing companies together with which they do business. By using this strategy they enhance their market position and this puts them ahead of the game. Recently it announced a possible partnership with Samsung which will see up to 60 standalone stores open across Europe. The company is well endowed with technology and many of their staffs are well equipped with the latest technology. According to the latest statistics from the stores, they have rolled out over 5000 tablets to members of their staff across all stores which is now seen as the single biggest digital workforce. The CEO of the company said in one of the tabloids that they put technology at the heart of what they do, and so practice what they preach. Carphone warehouse needs to undertake several measures to improve their business. To get at the top does not require much effort than to remain there. This company should evaluate their pricing; this should be done first by evaluating what the customer think about their prices. They should come up with prices that are not way too high out of business neither too low to bring a burden of cash flow shortage (Greasley, 1999). They should also have prices and commodities for all classes of people, both high end customers and the common shoppers. This will help bring up the profitability of the company. Carphone warehouse needs to improve on their weak spots.   There were criticism and accusation that they were slamming to win new customers, customers alleged that when they bought phones on this store their landlines accounts were subsequently switched off without their consent, a scenario like this will portray bad picture on this company. The company needs to improve their corporate image by coming with better ways of public image (Greasley, 1999). The company should also explore new markets by improving their marketing. Venturing into new demographic areas will help the company to increase its clientele which in the long run will boost sales. Carphone should spread their wings even in Eastern Europe or even in other continents. Involvement of employees in the business is vital for the growth. Although carphone has improved in this aspect by digitalizing their staff, employees should be motivated to be brand ambassadors of the company. Being up to date with the current trends in the technology will also help the company to compete actively and increase their sales. References Greasley, A. (1999). Operations management in business. Cheltenham: S. Thornes. Summers, M. R. (1998). Analyzing operations in business: Issues, tools, and techniques. Westport, Conn: Quorum Books. Great Britain., Freeman, P., & Saunders, D. (2011). The Carphone Warehouse Group plc v   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Office of Communications Case 1111/3/3/09:

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

What Causes Déjà Vu Science Behind the Eerie Feeling

If you’ve ever had the feeling that a situation feels very familiar even though you know it shouldn’t feel familiar at all, like if you’re traveling in a city for the very first time, then you’ve probably experienced dà ©jà   vu. Dà ©jà   vu, which means â€Å"already seen† in French, combines objective unfamiliarity – that you know, based on ample evidence, that something shouldn’t be familiar – with subjective familiarity – that feeling that it’s familiar anyway. Dà ©jà   vu is common. According to a paper published in 2004, more than 50 surveys on dà ©jà   vu suggested that about two-thirds of individuals have experienced it at least once in their lifetime, with many reporting multiple experiences. This reported number also appears to be growing as people become more aware of what dà ©jà   vu is. Most often, dà ©jà   vu is described in terms of what you see, but it’s not specific to vision and even people who were born blind can experience it. Measuring Dj Vu Dà ©jà   vu is difficult to study in the laboratory because it is a fleeting experience, and also because there is no clearly identifiable trigger for it. Nevertheless, researchers have used several tools to study the phenomenon, based on the hypotheses they’ve put forward. Researchers may survey participants; study possibly related processes, especially those involved in memory; or design other experiments to probe dà ©jà   vu. Because dà ©jà   vu is hard to measure, researchers have postulated many explanations for how it works. Below are several of the more prominent hypotheses. Memory Explanations Memory explanations of dà ©jà   vu are based on the idea that you have previously experienced a situation, or something very much like it, but you don’t consciously remember that you have. Instead, you remember it unconsciously, which is why it feels familiar even though you don’t know why. Single element familiarity The single element familiarity hypothesis suggests you experience dà ©jà   vu if one element of the scene is familiar to you but you don’t consciously recognize it because it’s in a different setting, like if you see your barber out on the street. Your brain still finds your barber familiar even if you don’t recognize them, and generalizes that feeling of familiarity to the entire scene. Other researchers have extended this hypothesis to multiple elements as well. Gestalt familiarity The gestalt familiarity hypothesis focuses on how items are organized in a scene and how dà ©jà   vu occurs when you experience something with a similar layout. For example, you may not have seen your friend’s painting in their living room before, but maybe you’ve seen a room that’s laid out like your friend’s living room – a painting hanging over the sofa, across from a bookcase. Since you can’t recall the other room, you experience dà ©jà   vu. One advantage to the gestalt similarity hypothesis is that it can be more directly tested. In one study, participants looked at rooms in virtual reality, then were asked how familiar a new room was and whether they felt they were experiencing dà ©jà   vu. The researchers found that study participants who couldn’t recall the old rooms tended to think a new room was familiar, and that they were experiencing dà ©jà   vu, if the new room resembled old ones. Furthermore, the more similar the new room was to an old room, the higher these ratings were. Neurological Explanations Spontaneous brain activity Some explanations posit that  dà ©jà   vu is experienced when there is spontaneous brain activity unrelated to what you’re currently experiencing. When that happens in the part of your brain dealing with memory, you can have a false feeling of familiarity. Some evidence comes from individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy, when abnormal electrical activity occurs in the part of the brain dealing with memory. When the brains of these patients are electrically stimulated as part of a pre-surgery evaluation, they may experience dà ©jà   vu. One researcher  suggests that you experience dà ©jà   vu when the parahippocampal system, which helps identify something as familiar, randomly misfires and makes you think something is familiar when it shouldn’t.   Others have said that dà ©jà   vu can’t be isolated to a single familiarity system, but rather involves multiple structures involved in memory and the connections between them. Neural transmission speed Other hypotheses are based on how fast information travels through your brain. Different areas of your brain transmit information to â€Å"higher order† areas that combine the information together to help you make sense of the world. If this complex process is disrupted in any way – perhaps one part sends something more slowly or more quickly than it usually does – then your brain interprets your surroundings incorrectly. Which Explanation is Correct? An explanation for dà ©jà   vu remains elusive, though the hypotheses above appear to have one common thread: a temporary error in cognitive processing. For now, scientists can continue to design experiments that more directly probe the nature of dà ©jà   vu, to be more certain of the correct explanation. Sources Tip-of-the-tongue states and related phenomena. Ed. Bennett L. Schwartz and Alan S. Brown. Cambridge University Press. New York, NY 2014. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/psychology/biological-psychology/tip-tongue-states-and-related-phenomena?formatHBC. Moulin. The cognitive neuropsychology of dà ©jà   vu. Part of the Essays in Cognitive Psychology series. Psychology Press. New York, NY 2018. https://www.routledge.com/The-Cognitive-Neuropsychology-of-Deja-Vu/Moulin/p/book/9781138696266Bartolomei, F., Barbeau, E., Gavaret, M., Guye, M., McGonigal, A., Rà ©gis, J., and P. Chauvel. â€Å"Cortical stimulation study of the role of rhinal cortex in dà ©jà   vu and reminiscence of memories.† Neurology, vol. 63, no. 5, Sept. 2004, pp. 858-864, doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000137037.56916.3f.J. Spatt. â€Å"Dà ©jà   vu: possible parahippocampal mechanisms.† The Journal of Neuropsychiatry Clinical Neurosciences, vol. 14, no. 1, 2002, pp. 6-10, doi:10.1176/jnp.14.1.6. Cleary, A. M., Brown, A. S., Sawyer, B.D., Nomi, J.S., Ajoku, A.C., and A. J. Ryals. â€Å"Familiarity from the configuration of objects in 3-dimensional space and its relation to dà ©jà   vu: a virtual reality investigation.† Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 21, no. 2, 2012, pp. 969-975, doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.12.010.A. S. Brown. The dà ©jà   vu experience. Part of the Essays in Cognitive Psychology series. Psychology Press. New York, NY 2004. https://www.routledge.com/The-Deja-Vu-Experience/Brown/p/book/9780203485446A. S. Brown. â€Å"A review of the dà ©jà   vu experience.† Psychology Bulletin, vol. 129, no. 3, 2003, pp. 394-413. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.394.Bartolomei, F., Barbeau, E. J., Nguyen, T., McGonigal, A., Rà ©gis, J., Chauvel, P., and F. Wendling. â€Å"Rhinal-hippocampal interactions during dà ©jà   vu.† Clinical Neurophysiology, vol. 123, no. 3, March 2012, pp. 489-495. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2011.08.012