Extraction and Characterization of Bacterial DNA - Free Essay Example

ABSTRACT: In this experiment, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was extracted from Micrococcus lysodeikticus, a bacteria with a high guanine and cytosine content. The standard method of chloroform-isoamyl alcohol extraction was used, and the DNA was solubilized in Tris buffer. The DNA was then quantified and qualified using UV spectrophotometry. The DNA was determined to have been extracted in relatively high amounts, but the purity was lacking, especially in regards to ribonucleic acid contamination. The hyperchromic effect was utilized to gauge the purity of the DNA. Future studies will focus on the ecologically safer and more efficient methods of DNA extraction. Key Words: Ribonuclease, RNA, DNA, DNA structure, bacteria. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material inside of a cell. The code of nucleotide base pair sequences allows for the cell to translate messages into proteins that can be used in all parts of the cell. DNA is a double helix that is composed of rungs being the base pairs that are hydrogen bonded together, and a sugar phosphate backbone that is covalently bound together1. This structure gives the DNA the strength yet flexibility it needs in order to be able to unzip so that the genetic material it holds can be accessed2. The complementarity of the DNA molecule is truly what sets the molecule apart from others. Even if the DNA is denatured and the hydrogen bonds come undone, because each base pair binds to only one specific type of other base pair, this phenomena allows the DNA to spontaneously come together again. The base pairs will line up with their respective pair due to the energetic favorability of having as many hydrogen bonds as possible2. Because of DNAs importance as a biological storage molecule, accessing the DNA trapped inside of the cells has become a main avenue of research for scientists. Depending on the organism, different solvents and methods can be used to yield the highest amounts and most pure DNA. Even within the same types of organisms, there may be different challenges that arise from a specific species. Specifically in bacteria, different strains can have higher or lower G+C content3. Because the guanine and cytosine nucleotides are bound together by three hydrogen bonds as opposed to the 2 that bind adenine and thymine together, the G+C bonds are more difficult to pull apart. This means that harsher solvents may have to be used in order to adequately extract and solubilize the DNA. When the DNA is extracted, it can be denatured as a way to assess its purity. The hyperchromic effect is a phenomena that occurs when DNA is denatured so that the two strands of the double helix come apart and assume a formation that is random and coiled4. Because there is much more surface area in the randomly coiled DNA than the uniform and compact double helix form, the DNA will absorb substantially more UV light at a wavelength of 260nm. In this experiment, the DNA of Micrococcus lysodeikticus was extracted using a chloroform-isoamyl alcohol method and was precipitated using cold ethyl alcohol. Following this partial purification of the DNA, the DNA was quantified and qualified using UV spectroscopy. The hyperchromic effect was employed to ascertain the purity of the DNA by denaturing the molecule using high tempertaures. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES The experiment was conducted as described by Boyer2. To begin the experiment, a set amount of freeze dried bacterial cells of the species Micrococcus lysodeikticus were massed out and suspended in a set volume of saline-EDTA in a 50mL Erlenmeyer flask. An aliquot of 10mg/mL lysozyme was added to the bacterial solution and was incubated at 37? °C for 30 minutes. After the incubation, an aliquot of 25% sodium dodecyl sulfate was added to the mixture and was heated at 60? °C for 10 minutes, after which the mixture was cooled to room temperature. The mixture was then added to a Nalgene centrifuge tube. An aliquot of 5M sodium perchlorate solution was added to the solution, followed by a generous portion of 24:1 chloroform-isoamyl alcohol. This mixture was then gently shook for 20 minutes with gloves on so that the proteins in the mixture could be separated out. The solution was then placed in a refrigerated centrifuge at 7800rpm for 5 minutes. The aqueous upper layer of the mixture was then carefully transferred into another container, where ice cold ethyl-alcohol was gently poured over it in generous amounts in order to precipitate the DNA. The nucleic acids were then spooled and transferred to a set volume of Tris buffer. Once a sufficient amount of DNA had been spooled, the aqueous DNA mixture was split into two portions. In one sample, RNAse was added and inverted to mix. Both samples were then stored in a 4? °C refrigerator for one week, and the rest of the procedure was conducted. Both the DNA with and without RNAse were used to make separate dilutions so that the Absorbance at 260nm was approximately 0.400. From both of the dilutions, 2mL aliquots were added to microcentrifuge tubes, and the two different types of DNA solutions were treated in the same fashion. One sample was kept at room temperature, one tube was denatured in boiling water for 10 minutes and then left to cool to room temperature slowly, and the other tube was denatured in boiling water for 10 minutes and then placed in an ice bath to cool to room temperature quickly. Absorbance values were gathered from the room temperature samples at 260nm and 280nm. The absorbance for the room temperature sample at 260nm was recorded again at the end of the experiment. The sample that was heated and allowed to cool slowly had the first absorbance recorded immediately after it was taken out of the boiling water. Another 260nm absorbance value was taken after the sample had cooled down to room temperature. The sample that was heated and cooled in an ice bath had its absorbance measured after it was at room temperature. To analyze the data gathered from this experiment, the following two equations were used to determine how much DNA was isolated. Equation 1. Determining the concentration of the DNA solution. Equation 2. Determining the amount of DNA isolated. As a point of comparison, the theoretical amount of DNA that could be isolated from the mass of cells used was determined using the following. Equation 3. Determining the theoretical mass of DNA. Next, the following equation was used to determine the percent of the cells weight that is composed of DNA. Equation 4. Percentage of cell weight that is DNA Then the purity of the DNA could be determined given the ratio of absorbance at 260nm to the absorbance at 280nm.This also lends insight as to what possible impurities could be in the DNA, such as protein or RNA (ribonucleic acid). The following equation demonstrates the change in the absorbance values at 260nm to reflect what occurred in terms of the hyperchromic effect. Equation 5. Percentage of change in the absorbance values. DNA mass (g) Theoretical DNA mass (g) Percent Cell Weight (%) A260/A280 Percent Change A260 for Hot RT (%) Percent Change A260 for Hot-RT RT (%) Percent Change A260 for Hot-Ice-RT RT (%) DNA 1004 1787 0.75 2.71 12.5 -4.44 6.77 DNA with RNAse 794 4.51 31.2 -6.98 25.9 Table I. Summary of results from the spectrophotometry data collected regarding the DNA and DNA with RNAse. Equations 1 through 5 were used to determine the values listed in the table below. RESULTS The results of the experiment are listed in Table I. The calculations were performed for both the DNA samples and the DNA with RNAse samples. DISCUSSION In this experiment, various quantities surrounding the DNA sample were determined so that the amount of DNA and the purity of the DNA could be assessed. This was possible due to the scientific knowledge of the structure of DNA. The theoretical and actual masses of the DNA were very close to each other, indicating that a sufficient amount of DNA was isolated and the isolation process was performed accurately. Additionally, the percent cell weight was the same as the theoretical cell weight of 0.75%. However, the ratio of A260/A280 values lend insight as to the purity of the DNA, and the ratio is much higher than the pure DNA value of 1.90. This suggests that the RNAse was ineffective at removing an adequate amount of the RNA. However, the A280 value used seems to be skewed, so that it unnecessarily inflates the ratio. Further spectrophotometry would have to be done using the same DNA in order to determine the most accurate ratio for the sample. The hyperchromic effect took hold for both the sample that was boiled and quickly cooled and the sample that was boiled and the absorbance value was immediately taken. There appeared to be a large effect from the speed cooling versus the slow cooling, which makes logical sense considering that the more time given to the DNA to arrange itself back into its complementary sequence, the more precise and accurate job that the intermolecular forces will do. However, if the DNA is cooled quickly, it does not have time to rearrange precisely. Rather, the DNA could get stuck in tangles and therefore absorb more UV light that the normal double helix. While the chloroform isoamyl procedure that was used in this experiment was effective, it is important to always strive for more efficient and/or more ecologically friendly alternatives to hazardous chemicals. In a study by Cheng and Jiang, the researchers developed a method of DNA extraction that allowed to cut the time it takes to extract DNA from microbes in more than half, and also eliminated the need for a separate cell wall lysing agent5. Another reason to be on the lookout for different procedures for DNA extraction is due to the blossoming field of microbiome research. In a study by Knudsen et al, the choice of DNA extraction methods influenced the data that was garnered about the population in the microbiome6. Therefore, microbiome researchers must be cognizant of how experiments early on in the project could affect assumptions down the line. Reasons such as these mean that science must always be advancing into newer and better techniques. REFERENCES (1) Yakovchuk, P.; Protozanova, E.; Frank-Kamenetskii, M. D. Nucleic Acids Res. 2006, 34 (2), 564â€Å"574. (2) Boyer, R. Modern Experimental Biochemistry, 3rd ed.; Roberts, B., Lake, J., Prescott, M., Eds.; Benjamin/Cummings: San Francisco, 2000. (3) Sanders, C. A.; Yajko, D. M.; Hyun, W.; Langlois, R. G.; Nassos, P. S.; Fulwyler, M. J.; Hadley, W. K. J. Gen. Microbiol. 1990, 136 (2), 359â€Å"365. (4) Lara Castellazzi, C.; Orozco, M.; Amadei, A. J. Phys. Chem. B 2013, 117, 8697â€Å"8704. (5) Cheng, H. R.; Jiang, N. Biotechnol. Lett. 2006, 28 (1), 55â€Å"59. (6) Knudsen, B. E.; Bergmark, L.; Munk, P.; Lukjancenko, O.; Prieme, A.; Aarestrup, F. M.; Pamp, S. J. bioRxiv 2016, 1 (5), 064394.

The Problematic of Postcolonialism in Margaret Atwoods Surfacing, Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, and Anita Desais Fire on the Mountain - Literature Essay Samples

As a field of study dedicated to surveying countries which have undergone a period of colonial takeover, often by Britain or France, Postcolonialism is thought to have its first roots in the seventies. During this period, the world, more specifically the third one, was on the verge of witnessing its independence. Several countries in the Caribbean, South Asia, and Africa were leading some revolutionary movements, not always by means of force, as a sort of showing their resistance to their colonizers. Regarding this point, that of how literature was a proficient means of reflecting people’s attitudes and decisions in these countries started to take place, but with an indecisive date of its emerging origin. Several critics are in reality doubtful about the beginnings of the applicability of postcolonial theory in literature. Some believe that its outset was with the publication of both â€Å"Orientalism† by E. Said and â€Å"the empire writes back† by Bell Ashcroft . Whereas others go further to state that the emerging of its roots in the field of literary writings is older than that. This dichotomy about its exact date represents solid evidence that asserts the diversity, the specialty and the different amount of aspects this field of study encompasses[1]. Accordingly, this paper tackles the applicability of the postcolonial theory in literature. It is in fact an exploration of the problematic of Poscolonialism in three postcolonial novels by three different authors. The first one is Surfacing by the Canadian feminist author Margaret Atwood. The novel is an exploration of a period of time, exactly 1970, when Canada was, as Atwood calls it, under the threat of Americanism. She, in fact, writes this novel as a kind of warning against the type of deterioration the Canadian identity, embodied in its culture and wilderness, might be exposed to. Added to that, the novel is also extremely feminist as it vividly portrays the harsh life of a young female who is rendered unknown by the writer. Following the course of its counterpart, Fire on the Mountain by Anita Desai is another narrative that evokes the scope of postcolonial discourse by portraying the secular life of a female character in the high mountains of India, or rather the colonized India. The novel, also feminist at its core, relates the story Nanda Kaun who wishes to have an isolated life. Her harsh past obliges her to retreat from her current world, her husband, her children and her everything to have a life of her own, away from any earthly disturbances. As to the last novel, it is written by a very famous Nigerian writer, and bears the title Things Fall Apart. The latter, as its title designates, implies the destruction of nation, more specifically a powerful clan by the white imperialist colonizers. It is therefore set within a colonial framework and portraying a heatedly clash between the Africans and the British, tradition and modernity, or to put it simply between the others and the us. As a Canadian critic, Laura Moss starts one of her essays by positing one of the most important questions regarding Canada. Her question sounded like: is Canada a postcolonial country. In fact, to answer this question and to fully have a deep knowledge about this issue, one must have to look, as Margaret Atwood puts it, at the literature of its land, more specifically that of Canada because it is a map, a geography of the mind that will easily light up things for every Canadian reader[2]. Surfacing is a distinct example that we can take into account in order to clarify this issue. As said before, it is an antithesis to the western infiltration of Canada, not especially by France and Britain, but by The USA. To be clear, Canada, as Laura Moss states, is not a traditional colony of Britain and France. It was colonized, as it the case with Australia and New Zealand, peacefully as compared to countries from Africa. It also witnessed its independence at an early date, exactly at 1867. How ever, Laura Moss asserts that Canada, as it is the case of India, is also liable to the ideological and sociological aspects of postcolonial theory. In her view, Canada’s main purpose, as India or Australia, was to build a nation on a common model that is predominantly British. Furthermore, Moss continues that Postcolonialism is not only concerned with cultural imperialism and the emergence of nationalism. Its focus also extends to cover some issues as those of the process of decolonization, the critique of hierarchies of power, violence and oppression which are, in her view, components not only of this field of study but also of Surfacing as a literary work by Margaret Atwood. The theme of identity, namely the lost one, is undoubtedly the main engine that stirs the events in this novel. Therefore, being put within a postcolonial background, the search for identity as a main objective in Atwood’s novel is shaped by a sense of binary opposition between the people from the British origin against those of French one to a lesser extent, and that of the indigenes versus the USA, or what Margaret Atwood calls the Monsters on a larger one. The nature of the first opposition is in fact wrapped with some historical causes and fortunately the novel presents us with some aspects of this animosity. Therefore, in one of its passages, the author brings into surface one of the incidents where the narrator is driven to have a sort of skirmishes with some girls from the province of Quebec. This illustrates very clearly the tense relationship that those from a British origin still have with those from a French one. Even though things might have changed now and Canada has finally become a melting pot where different people from various nationalities can leave together in peace, Margaret Atwood’s assertion of this fact is with paramount importance regarding the split that Canadian identity witnessed during the seventies. This, to a large extent, is reminiscent of Homi Bhabha’s concept of the luminal space. Therefore, knowing that the island where the narrator stands now is set between two big provinces in Canada; the first one is Ontario and the second one is Quebec. The first is purely British while the latter is highly French. As a result, the space that lies between these two places, or as Margaret calls the space on border designates the island in a lesser extent, and Canada in a large symbolic way[3]. The narrator hence is overcome by a sense of isolation and loneliness as being put within two different, opposing cultures, that of her origin and one which is socially imposed on her. In fact, no critic can deny the reality that Atwood’s central concern about identifying the Canadian identity is related to Americanism, that cultural and ideological power that started to invade Canada. The latter, in her view, has become a spot where Canadians are outnumbered by the Americans. They, as swarms of ants, have got scattered throughout the whole country; they are benefiting from the land’s natural resources as well as spoiling the Canadian wilderness with their technological development. Added to this, the novel is rife with several instances where the author clarifies this American infiltration. A clear example would be that when the unnamed narrator warns her friends about not saying a word about a lake where great resources of fish were hidden. â€Å"I warned them not to say anything about the fish: if they do, this part of the lake will be swarming with Americans, they have an uncanny way of passing the word, like ants about sugar, or lobsters.† (Surfacing, 65) As a way to support the uniqueness of Canadian identity, she also portrays one of her characters whose name is David and one of the narrator’s friends as a person who is filled with a great loathing and hatred towards the Americans. He, all over the book, expresses his great desire of having the Americans banished out of Canada. So, through several passages, we come to notice this kind of latent feeling that David tends to publically show sometimes.† It wouldn’t be a bad country if only we could kick them out the fucking pig Americans, eh? Then we could have some peace.†(83). He says in one of his conversations with the unnamed narrator. Actually, the way Americans approach Canada is regarded by Margaret Atwood as a sort of colonial takeover that these people wish to launch. As the former passages point to, the Americans started to view Canada, that wide and large space, as a plunder. It not only serves as a place where their ideology can be transmitted, but also as a large place where they can benefit lavishly from all of its resources. This, for the author, has led to the deterioration of one of the most significant aspects of Canadian identity which is the wilderness. The latter is no longer put at ease. It is approached by the Americans via technology. It, in reality, has become a wide space fully exploited and damaged by the American greed. In this regard, Margaret Atwood does not put too much blame on Americans for this damage that doomed Canadian wilderness. She believes that even Canadians have their share in this deteriorating state which is represented in their neglect of their wilderness. Therefore, Margaret Atwood believes that she â€Å"is just as much an alien invader [of) Canada as the Americans†. Following this, Eleonora Rao states clearly that this realization indicates the pointlessness of splitting the world into discriminatory categories and opposites.[4] As a postcolonial novel, Surfacing, on the tongue of its author, aspires to convey the message that Canadian identity is to be built by Canadians themselves, not by a bunch of aliens. She believes that Canadians should keep in touch with their wilderness. They must explore it and get fully knowledgeable about it since it is the symbol of their identity. In her view, literature represents the sole weapon through which Canadians can have full access to their Canadian identity and wilderness for literary works are a sort of map that will always light the path for every reader. On the ideological level, Canada has become a wide spot where the American ideology has been greatly popularized. This undoubtedly leads our attention to Homi bhabha’s concept of mimicry. This concept is fully dedicated to deal with the ideological and cultural changes brought to any culture by another more powerful one. In this case, we are specifically within the equation of Canada as being versus the USA. Therefore, Margaret Atwood portrays this horrific mimicry displayed by Canadian characters in several incidents all over her book and no wonder that of the two girls that the narrator meet while being in the island along with that boat she sees in a lake are two clear examples that illustrate this issue. The former example is that of the two girls whom the unnamed narrator meets in a store during her short sojourn in the province of Quebec. The first thing that the unnamed narrator notices is that those girls are not longer impressed by their local way of dressing, a way of dressing which is draws on the Christian religion and almost encouraged by their priest. They hence resorted to a new fashion of cloths that is complete alien to their culture and undoubtedly imported from a closer culture, that of the USA. Added to this, the example of the big boat that the narrator encounters along with her friends is a very clear example that further illustrates this mimicry. This boat, as depicted by the narrator, is decorated with an American flag that is drawn on its centre. So, through the first sight the narrator is driven into thinking that it is another American boat which is full of American monsters as she calls them. In that moment she expresses her absolute fear as those people are there to only benefit from its land and leave away. However, this fear presently turns into a sense of shock and anticipation after she knows that those who were on the boat are Canadians as much as she is. In fact, the aim behind this mimicry, as Bhabha asserts, is to get a sense of power, similar to that of the empowered but in the long run, this power which is obtained will not, by any means, be compared to that of the imitated. However, it is to be said that this mimicry implies a sense of awareness on the part of the colonized to the colonizer. Therefore, to imitate someone, you must have enough knowledge about him. Hence, this absolutely allows the Canadian imitators with a certain amount of power. So in brief, to mimic Americanism is to disavow its authority and power over you. In brief, Memmi, in her book the colonizer and the colonized, sums things up when she say: â€Å"The first attempt of the colonized is to change his condition by changing his skin. There is a tempting model very close at hand the colonizer. The latter suffers from none of his deficiencies, has all rights, enjoys every possession and benefits from every prestige . The first ambition of the colonized is to become equal to that splendid model and to resemble him to the point of disappearing in him†.[5] Even the title, surfacing, can match the novel’s central theme which points to this lost identity. As many critics have noted, to surface is to emerge out from something. This is very clear in the novel as we are encountered with the narrator’s surfacing from the lake where she dives to look for her father’s old Indian paintings. Several critics state that her diving into the water can be regarded as a postcolonial journey for it bears within it the hope of the narrator to find her father, or in other words her origin. It is believed that her diving was not completely for the sake of finding her father, yet the need for recovering her origin or identity is above all. The fight for asserting Canadian identity did not start with the publication of Surfacing. Atwood has already started this task in one of the novels that preceded her current one. Consequently, her masterpiece â€Å"Survival† is considered as the fountain hit where the issue of lost identity has emerged from and in which the trope of survival was set by Atwood as a metaphor pointing to the rise of a kind of literature which is unique, different from those of Britain and USA. This can be regarded as a way of asserting Canadian identity in all its manifestations.(p 11). Therefore, Surfacing, as its counterpart survival, is a national narrative that projects the situation where lack of a consistent image in the Canadian identity flows into surface. In fact, Atwood stresses the power of literature as being able to constitute communities and spread national awareness via shared imaginary beliefs disseminated through these works. This has no wonder affected the situation in Canada a t that time, and the amount of the novel selling shows this. As survival, surfacing portrays the trope of victimization as a solid one further asserting the Canadian national identity. The inclusion of a character that is unknown is so similar to the state of Canada. The unknown character is abused socially, historically, and psychically as it is the case with Canada as a whole. She is lost and doomed with a sense of hybridity. The author portrays the narrator in surfacing as a victimized one. The unnamed narrator was exposed to several social and psychic traumas. She is first fiercely shattered by her abortion which was forced on her by her past lover. Added to that, the unnamed narrator loses her mother and comes back looking for her father only to find him dead. Furthermore, her five days ordeal in the jungle can designate a return to her origin, mainly human one. Therefore, she perfectly embodies the prototype of a victimized character. Hence, she is in the view of a large numbe r of critics, the representation of Canada which is victimized, a colony of the British and the French, and further threatened by the Americans. It is thus regarded as a postcolonial survivor. This analogy is made clear at the end of the novel when the unnamed narrator confesses that she no longer have a name. She abandons language and considers herself as a space. â€Å"I no longer have a name†, and â€Å"why talk when you are a word†, and she also states, â€Å"I am not an animal or a tree, I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow. I am a place† ( 198, 212, 213). Things Fall Apart is a novel by the very famous Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. The novel action takes place within a colonial framework, exactly during the period of the British conquest of Nigeria. Throughout this period Africa was a prey for several imperial European countries, and no wonder that Britain was one of them. During and after its colonial stay in Nigeria, several novels and works of literature were written by a number of authors, mainly westerners where they disseminated into the world a plethora of stereotypical ideas about the African people. They also depicted them in a multitude number of ways that belittle their status. Among such works is that by Joseph Conrad which distinctly reflects a grim picture about Africa and its culture. Thus, as a critic believes, Conrad describes Africa as a wild, dark, and uncivilized continent. However, with the rise of modern African literature, a large number of literary scholars whose leading task was to redefine Africa in the eyes of the West emerged from the depths of their colonized countries. Among such writers are Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, and Chinua Achebe. The latter’s novel Things fall apart, which constitutes a section of my paper’s concerns, is in reality a reaction to the bleak reputation the black continent has been doomed with since a long time ago. Achebe’s main end behind the writing of such literary work is to endow the reader with all the positive aspects about the African continent and about him as an African citizen. The novel starts with the portrayal of the Igbo society and their clashes with the British missionaries. The novel actions take place in the Umofia villages where tradition and old beliefs are highly preserved by its inhabitants. In fact, the novel is a description of the perfections and imperfections of these people. Therefore, Achebe epitomizes their beliefs in a set of doctrines that are shaped by a deep credence in some of their ancestral gods, the killing of twins and the sacrifice of young boys. The latter is obvious in the novel when a neighboring clan offers the soul of two of its people as reparation for the sort of affront they caused for Umofia. These two innocent souls are sacrificed on the spot mercilessly as a sort of ritual having the aim of satisfying Umofia’s gods. However, it is until the arrival of the missionaries that the novel starts to merge within a colonial sphere; these missionaries, British as said before, had the aim as any other colonizers in disguise, the pretext of civilizing these backward people. So, as an inception of their task, they embarked on reshaping the religious system of Umofia by building churches and asking people to convert to Christianity. This, undoubtedly, was one of the bloody reasons that corroborated to the rise of a heatedly binary opposition between the two. In this regard, it is to be said that â€Å"Things fall apart is about the collapse, breaking into pieces, chaos, and confusion of traditional Igbo culture that suffers at the hand of the white man’s arrival in Umuofia along with his religion†.[6] The views about life that the white men have are totally different from those that the Igbo have then. The British missionaries regarded so many aspects of the traditional and ritual life of these people as unnatural, irrational and acceptable, but what they ignored is that these aspects constitute a very important part of these people’s life. Their unreasonable decision of changing it completely and suddenly under the umbrella of Christianity is, for Achebe, an unforgivable mistake. Fo r example, polygamy was one of the most notable tenets that characterized the Igbo culture. Men, as it is the case with wkonow, were supposed to have more than one wife. The act of having several wives represented a sort of pride and richness that the man can exhibit. More ironically is that women were glad to get married to a man with two or three wives. This was hugely opposed to the western religion which emphasized the necessity of fighting the polygamous thinking. Despite this refusal by a large number of people belonging to Umuofia, some minorities, among them society outcasts, started to convert into Christianity. Their convert was in fact the consequence of the firm and solid conventions of the Igbo culture and religion. Several women began to believe that joining the new religion that of the Europeans would save their future children, as it is known that children must be sacrificed in the Igbo culture. Added to such type of women who have succeeded to change, Nwoye, the son of Okonkwo also expresses his desire to follow their course. He, later on, converts to the Christian faith, and this causes a sort of animosity between him and his father. The reason behind the son’s convert was his unsatisfied attitude towards his native culture, the one that deprived him of a true and newly-made friend, Ikemefuna, who was to be beheaded as a sort of reparation to the affront caused by a neighboring clan. Actually, through the portrayal of Ukownko, it becomes clear that he is the embodiment of a communal spirit which simultaneously refuses and faces colonialism. This manifests clearly when this character kills one of the messengers sent by the British missionaries. In addition to that, he was among the most courageous inhabitants to arrange meetings against the colonial enemy. However, he is highly shocked by the reaction of the other villagers whom he thought brave to help him achieve h is purpose, that of banishing the white men from his village. They let the other messengers escape in ukownko’s sight. Shuttered and dumbfounded by this sort of surrender by the villagers, ukowkwo hangs himself before the British missionaries take hold of him. In fact, the situation that the villagers were deep down in is to be closely put within the framework of Hyprididty as it is referred to by the famous Indian postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha in his book the dislocation of culture. This is evident when a group of people feel a sense of loss and in-betweeness as they are set between two different cultures, mainly that of the colonizer and their native one[7]. They are hence fascinated by the former one as a result of its progression and development, yet they feel unable to get free from their mother culture as the latter is very important and closely tight with them. This is central to the Igbo society. Some of its inhabitants feel an aversive desire to convert into the new religion which is Christianity. Hence, several outcasts along with women opt for this religious alternative so as to get a high status in society, or to break free from the rigid conventions of their culture. The Europeans made them believe that all people are equal and with the same status so as to facilitate their colonial project. On the other hand, some of these people, apart from outcasts, still have a sense of nostalgia for their native culture. Some of them are only fascinated by the British changes, while others though they converted to Christianity still hide a feeling of proximity and tenderness towards their mother culture. As a result of this, the Igbo society is placed in a maze where some of its people are fully overcome by the western influence whereas others still, to an extent, conceal some warm feelings that might establish a possible return to their own culture. As a way of resisting the British colonial infiltration, Achebe makes use of a language which deepl y draws on proverbs and poetry. It is in fact used as a way to preserve the Igbo culture and society, as well as to render it with a high status. †Most of the text in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart chiefly features in the use and explanations of the complicated Igbo myths and proverbs that the Europeans fail to acknowledge. Throughout the novel Achebe craftily uses his characters to speak in proverbs when they address one another. The use of proverbs is very important in conversations as the Igbo believe them to be a fountain of wisdom and of respect.†[8] He chooses to base his text not fully on English, but on a proverbial language as a way to introduce his culture to the world. It is a very subtle way through which he constitutes a good image about Nigeria and its popular culture. Nowhere in his novel does the writer deny the countless occasions of oppression and suppression that the people of the Igbo society were exposed to. One clear example of this is undoubtedly the way the British underestimated the judicial system in Umuofia. Therefore, setting a new court where convicted native people can be judged was something somehow good, yet the way their lawsuits were held reflects a sense of complete power exhibited by the British system at the time. In fact, the former judicial system which composed old wise men from the Igbo society was more fairer than its western counterpart given the fact that convicted people are listened to before they are judged. But, within the new imperial judicial institutions, people are not even listened to. They are treated with complete prejudice and tyranny[9]. In this regard, the Igbo society, as several critics have noted, appears to be more civilized than the Europeans themselves. The former, though regarded as being very back ward in the eyes of the western colonizers, have at least succeeded to develop a more stable and a fair judicial system as compared to that of the British which is highly corrupt and stripped of any human considerations. By asserting some of the good purposes that are latent behind the colonial projects of the British missionaries, Achebe proves to be one of a few authors who treated this subject in their writings fairly and with no traces of prejudice. Therefore, the novel points to the reality that the Europeans, apart from benefiting from the natural resources that the African countries were full of, had a latent desire to drag them from the grips of decline. They for example built schools and hospitals for them. They also encouraged the people of Umoufia, as the novel shows, to learn English as the latter is the only solution through which they can communicate with the British missionaries on the one hand, and with the world on the other hand. Despite this, several native inhabi tants refused this idea. Even the protagonist of the novel worked his best to stop his eldest son from learning English. This apart from designating the stubbornness and the persistent decision of these people also asserts their patriotic stance of not letting the language of the colonizer overcome their native one. For them, refuting the process of learning English language will make their society unified and coherent, not split up and hybrid by the complete hegemony of the western language. By focusing on Nanda Kaul, more specifically, her psychological state, Fire on the Mountain is hence one of the few and earliest feminist novels in India. Set in a space largely affected by the aftermaths of Colonialism, mainly the British one, Fire on the Mountain, apart from focusing on feminist isssues, actually embraces a postcolonial aura. In fact, critical analysis of this kind suggests that women may be subordinated in different senses. They may, for example, be a segment of the subject people in a classic colonial society, or they may be part of a migrant/immigrant group denied full status within a host society. At the same time, they are characteristically subordinates within a patriarchy. As women within a patriarchal system, they are again in some sense colonized; they share with colonized races and peoples an intimate experience of the politics of oppression and repression [10]. In addition to that, Walby asserts that the reason behind women’s struggle for obtainin g an identity is the fact that they are economically underprivileged and exploited. As such, Fire on the mountain represents this truth blatantly via the most wretched past of Nanda Kaul with her deceased husband. Indeed, she is highly overcome by the male power which renders her as a marginalized entity with no voice. In his regard, Castro asserts that â€Å"they became trained to accept a man’s world in which a patriarchal image of women is transmitted into them† [11]. As such, the novel is an exploration of Nanda’s struggle to obtain an identity within a society which is dominated by males. As a marginalized woman, Nanda Kaul is certainly portrayed as the embodiment of a powerless lady, or to put it simply a voiceless lady. Her harsh past was a period of affront mixed with subjectivity. Married to an Indian dignitary, her whole life was mainly confined for him, the households, and the bringing up of her children. She never thought about herself, her privileges or her rights. In brief, she was an entity by whom her husband enjoyed life. Actually, her movement to the mountain to have a secular life bears within it a symbolic implication as it is a movement towards asserting her identity. It is a way by which this character elicits her refusal to have a life of the mainstream, a life molded on a model of femininity where women must conform to this model and hence forget all about themselves. She regarded this model as an impediment of her free growth, of her purposes and hence it is discrepant with her desire to build her identity. As such, Critic Anita Myles affirms that Desai’s literature allows an exploration of these themes: Desai’s novels constitute together the documentation, through fiction, of radical female resistance against a patriarchally defined concept of normality. She finds the links between female duality, myth and psychosis intriguing; each heroine is seen as searching for, finding and absorbing or annihilating the double who represents the socially impermissible aspects of her femininity. [12] Additionally, Literary critic Ashok Kumar adds that in Anita Desia’s novels there is â€Å"the world of radical female resistance against a defined concept of normality and in her psychological novels; she has created the image of a suffering woman preoccupied with her inner world, her sulking frustration and the storm within – the existential predicament of a woman in a male-dominated society† (26)[13] The symbol of fire, used in the title, is very implicative as it is closely related to the psychology of N anda Kaul’s psychic trauma. The latter is inexorably the result of her vicious past in which she was only an object fulfilling other people’s desires. Hence, â€Å"The fire embodies the violence of feelings and a strong resolution to end such a life. But fire is also a powerful light, used to find meaning in a dark existence, and a strong purifier. It destroys in order to annihilate certain traditions and to leave space for new values For this purpose, R.S Sharma rightly states that the Raka’s words are expressive of her resolve to destroy a world where a woman cannot hope to be happy without being unnatural.†[14] Added to its above designation, the symbol of fire comes to imply a destructive force. Apart from the already mentioned implication of fire as a symbol of hope and opposition to male’s hegemony, this symbol seems to foreshadow a sense of fear and total anticipation as it is closely related to the destructive mentality of men, the devastative fire that burns female nobility. In relation to Nanda this manifests clearly by her will to obtain a certain share of recognition by opting for a secular life. Thus, â€Å"fire symbolizes the self-esteem, the feminine ego that is for years surpassed and crushed by social norms, duties, responsibilities imposed by male dominated society†. This fire symbolizes effectively the tragic events in the womb of time as Indira rightly says, The them atic image of fire with its connotations of violence and urgency occur at regular intervals, warning the reader of impending tragedy.[15] As any postcolonial work having the aim of debunking the existence of the colonizer, â€Å"Fire on the Mountain†, though not completely, seems to follow this course. Thus, Anita Desai comes to shed light on some of the negative aspects of the British colonization. Firstly, Fire on the Mountain renders space with much significance as the latter seems to have been hugely affected by the British imperial cupidity. The latter, as she notes, has degenerated Indian nature and forests by transforming them into military camps, not to mention the endless number of deforestations. Hence, she critically reproaches the aliens for deteriorating the Indian environment. Added to that, the inclusion of a British character, the colonel Macdougall after whom Nanda Kaul takes her house in Carignano, is with paramount importance as far as the western representation of the Indians is concerned. Therefore, this, to a large extent, symbolizes the fact that Indians are only aliens within their land. This fact is closely attached to the issue of identity as the Indian people, through the character of Nanda Kaul, appear to lack a unique one. The profuse use of nature in h er novel represents a weapon by which Anita Desai challenges the British Colonialism. More accurately, it is a symbolic device through which she opposes the British’s extravagant use of technology. Therefore, it is a way to assert the closeness of Indians to their nature and to reflect a pure and authentic life as compared to the mechanical life the westerners. The latter, as the novel designates, has brought a very negative aspect to their nature and environment in general. Their greed and their excessive use of such things have reduced India to a mere spot exhaustively devastated by the British Colonizers. Ultimately, Surfacing, Things Fall Apart, and Fire on the Mountain are three examples of feminist novels where always the female character is the one who bears the task of representing a bleak and grim society. The latter, as the three feminist writers elicit, is not only shaped by the full male hegemony, but deep inside it, there lies a western colonizer. The latter, undoubtedly, seems to deprive not only the female protagonists in these works, but their whole nation from an identity, mostly an individual one, by which these people can have a unique existence. Bibliography Primary resources: Atwood Margaret. Surfacing. Toronto: McClelland Stewart Ltd, 1972. Achebe Chinua. Things fall apart. New York: ANCHOR BOOKS, 1958. Desai, Anita. Fire on the Mountain. London: Penguin Book, 1977. Secondary resources: Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity. Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, (1997). Kenaleman, Lame Maatla, Things Fall Apart: An Analysis of Pre and Postcolonial Igbo Society, (2013). Dar, D.R. Ab. Majeed, Isolation in the Wilderness: A Protest against Social Norms in Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain. Indira S. Anita Desai as an Artist, New Delhi creative books 1994. [1] Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity. [2] Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity. [3] Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity. [4] Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity. [5] Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, (1997). [6] Kenaleman, Lame Maatla, Things Fall Apart : An Analysis of Pre and Postcolonial Igbo Society,(2013). [7] Laura Wight, This Is Border Country†: Atwood’s Surfacing_ and Postcolonial Identity . [8] Kenaleman, Lame Maatla, Things Fall Apart: An Analysis of Pre and Postcolonial Igbo Society, page: 10, (2013). [9] Kenaleman, Lame Maatla, Things Fall Apart : An Analysis of Pre and Postcolonial Igbo Society,(2013). [10] Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, P: 2 (1997). [11] Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, P: 4 (1997). [12] Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, (1997). [13] Katrina Marnel, On the Periphery: the Female marginalized in Five Post-Colonial Novels, (1997). [14]Dar, D.R. Ab. Majeed, Isolation in the Wilderness: A Protest Against Social Norms in Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain. [15] Indira S. Anita De sai as an Artist, New Delhi creative books 1994.

Professional Workplace And Tattoos - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1814 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/05/06 Category Culture Essay Level High school Tags: Tattoo Essay Did you like this example? Tattoos have long struggled to climb the ladder of social acceptance, previously thought of as exclusive to low class groups such as whores and sailors†they are now moderately acceptable in western society. Unfortunately, this newfound acceptance of tattoos in society is not universal; historical stigmas continue to be pervasive in the professional world. Many heavily tattooed professionals are required to cover up their artwork as a part of maintaining their perceived professionalism, but at what cost to themselves? Research shows that tattoos are strongly linked with a sense of self identity in those individuals, therefor it is an issue when the identity of these individuals, and in turn, their authenticity, is threatened. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Professional Workplace And Tattoos" essay for you Create order False stigmas regarding heavily tattooed individuals in the professional workplace have a negative effect upon the sense of identity of those individuals and may even cause them to be perceived as less professional by their peers. One issue that tattooed individuals face in the workplace is managing their perceived professionalism, to quote Forbes, Tattoos are no longer a kiss of death in the workplace (Forbes Magazine, 2013). However, this does not mean that tattoos are no longer a kiss of injury in the workplace. While having tattoos may not immediately disqualify one from being hired in the white collar world, it does affect the way peers, customers and even supervisors perceive the professionalism of the tattooed individual. In a survey conducted by Workopolis, 327 employers were asked, Would a candidate having tattoos affect your decision to hire that person?. The results confirmed what the researchers had hypothesized, false stigmas associated with tattoos really do affect ones chances of being hired: Fourteen percent said they would be less likely to hire someone with tattoos, 23% said it would not affect their decision, and the rest said it would depend on the number and location of the tattoos and/or the role being filled. The rest, that is, except for one lone individual who answered that they would actually bemorelikely to hire a person with tattoos. This means that a total 77% of employers will or might be less likely to hire you if you have tattoos. We invited respondents to write in comments, a sample of which are posted below, and what many said was that tattoos might affect their decision if the tattoos were offensive or racist, or if the role was customer facing. This all makes perfect sense, the latter because even if the employer doesnt mind the tattoos, a customer might, and it is the customer who keeps the business going (Workopolis, 2014). To understand the perception of tattoos by society as a whole, Workopolis conducted another survey with five thousand respondents in the general population, the results from this survey yielded that society as a whole is more accepting of tattoos than the professional setting is, but there is still a significant disdain for tattoos in the eyes of the public: Turning to the general population, we asked nearly 5,000 people â€Å" not necessarily in hiring positions â€Å" if they take a person less seriously if the person has tattoos. Forty-nine percent said No, leaving half (51%) of respondents who either do take someone less seriously for having tattoos, or might, depending on the situation and how many tattoos the person has (Workopolis, 2014). Although tattoos have become more socially acceptable as of late, the findings in the previously mentioned studies suggest that tattoos are still struggling to climb the ladder. According to statistical data from 2017, 4 in 10 U.S. adults have at least one tattoo (Statista, 2017). Considering the large percentage of tattooed Americans, it is quite contradictory that the overwhelming majority of society still hold these negative prejudices against tattoos. Many people understand that tattoos are thought of as low class, trashy, or even a sign of low intelligence; however, the origin of these false beliefs are less discussed. Tattooing stigmas have a lot to do with the issue of perceived purity in the eyes of the public, this is demonstrated in a quote from a 2006 publication; If the black face is a failure to be a white face, and the female to be male, a tattooed body fails to be the base-level zero of non-inked skin (McCormick, 2006). Although most people understand that tattoos are not a stamp of criminality, subconsciously these prejudices still remain. Tattoos have a rocky history when speaking in regards to social acceptance; until the late 19th century tattoos were seen as a trend. The tattoo machine was first introduced in the 1890s which made them more accessible than the previous hand poked tattoos, causing a dramatic increase in the trend of tattoos. Now that tattoos were more easily accessible, it was no longer only for the wealthy and as a result interest in tattooing shifted to the lower classes. We can assume this is where the societal association of tattoos with poverty began. At the bottom step of the social acceptance ladder, tattoos were linked to criminality, and mental illness. These false ideas about tattooed individuals are pernicious in todays society, but it may not all be a conscious prejudice in the minds of the majority. Researchers have found, skin prejudices have been long ingrained in our society, even before tattooing: Within Western societies, the aesthetic ideal has long been light, unblemished skin, and knowingly eschewing that ideal aesthetic is an appearance violation: within conventional American society, light, clear skin is a long enduring beauty ideal in addition, blotchy, blemished, and marked skin in American society is seen as unhealthy, impure, ugly, or low class. In fact, light skin is highly correlated with psychological, occupational, educational, and economic advantage (Irwin, 2011, p.35). It is not unreasonable to come to the disheartening conclusion that negative connotations linked to tattoo culture may even be part of a more primitive issue: skin stigmas. Appearances are what humans use to create impressions of people, so it makes sense that there are a lot of stereotypes and prejudices dealing with skin. It seems as though the same thought process behind racism, colorism, and negative ideas about skin conditions may be the same issue that causes the societal disapproval for tattoos and body modifications. What can be done to prevent the spread of these false stigmas? At what age do people develop these kind of prejudices? What causes a person to know that generalizing a stigmatized population is illogical, but still subconsciously do so? More psychological research is being conducted every day, maybe eventually some of these remaining questions will be answered. False generalizations about tattoos are actually fairly complex, one interesting facet of this issue is referred to as the ?threshold of indiscretion. Defined as, a subjective limit to body modification, which when crossed casts the wearer as an outsider, too far gone to return to polite society (McLeod, N/A). In a study conducted in an attempt to research how tattooed individuals perceive the issue, tattooed lawyer Alana says, up to a certain point people can write it off as a foolish mistake I get the impression that people think I have poor judgement (Interviewee Alana, McLeod, N/A). Society is more than willing and able to assume a small tattoo was an impulsive mistake, however they are less accepting of a string of mistakes (heavy tattooing). This concept of the ?threshold of indiscretion allows society to accept lightly tattooed indivudals as people who have once made a bad mistake, but still distance themselves from the heavily tattooed person. Too deep in the threshold of indiscretion and people will begin to assume that the mistakes are part of a larger character flaw. The heavily tattooed body still stands out as severely more foreign than the lightly tattooed body. Now that it has been established that tattoo stigmas are indeed still pernicious in todays society, it is crucial to understand what effect this may have upon the tattooed population. One of the main reasons why this is such a controversial issue in society, is due to the nature of permanent body art. Tattoos are heavily linked to a sense of identity, and authenticity for individuals who have them. This hypothetical water becomes pretty murky when deciding how tattoos should be regarded in the workplace, since they are a permanent physical manifestation of self-identity. Identity and perceived professionalism both correlate to tattoos. Tattoos can communicate a number of traits, which include: (1) personal identity, (2) cultural values and practices, and (3) membership in sub-societies that are rebellious, peripheral, marginalized or otherwise set apart from the ?mainstream. Due to the high visibility and often symbolic nature of tattoos, they can be easily misunderstood. To the outsider, analyzing a tattooed body only further distances perceptions of self, to perceptions of other. Non tattooed persons may use their interpretations of a tattooed individuals artwork to discern information about them, and as most know; ones interpretations of others based solely upon first impressions or appearances are often far from accurate. Many people offer the solution of covering up tattoos in the workplace, but the answer to this issue may not be so simple. An issue is created when one associates their tattoos with their identity, and in turn authenticity. In the postmodern world, self-identity and authenticity have become of upmost importance, partially due to the dislocation of current society. This poses the question of where the line can be drawn, what level of personal authenticity should one promote in a professional setting? Identity management is a crucial skill in todays workforce, and research suggests that this may hold the answer to the heavy question regarding authenticity of tattooed professionals. The professional workplace has many face demands in terms of demeanor and appearance that do not allow for mismanagement of interactions. Naturally given the amount of time spent at work and the importance that employment plays in modern survival, our workplaces have become our central identity management setting; we require the greatest degree of management at work because we have the most riding on our character there (McLeod, N/A). While it may be easy for some to suggest long sleeves or scarves as a method of cover-up, this is not a real solution. As explained above, the workplace is one of the most crucial atmospheres for self-identity management. By not allowing the authenticity and management techniques to occur in the workplace, employers may be unknowingly be causing long term psychological issues. Often times, identity suppressing can cause severe issues of low self-worth, confidence issues, which can both lead to feelings of insecurity in other areas of the individuals life: not just the workplace. In conclusion, while tattoos may be considered a mainstream practice in society today; tattoos are still rejected in many professional atmospheres. Although, the stigmas do not necessarily cause significant issues in the lives of the tattooed; they are still held in the mind of the majority. In the workplace, tattoo discrimination can have a massively negative impact upon the psychological wellbeing of the individual.

Butler Lumber Case - 952 Words

BUTLER LUMBER CASE REPORT The Butler Lumber company is facing cash difficulties due to the buyout of Henry Stark’s share and because it is operating a high growth rate. Thus, it is imperative to analyze the various options available to Mark Butler in order to meet the cash needs of the Butler Lumber Company. In order to support the reasoning for our recommendation, we constructed a ratio analysis (Appendix I; Exhibit 1). Even though the firm has realized increasing sales and decreased its operating and cash cycle, other factors were found to have contributed to the shortage of funds. From the analysis, we were able to conclude that the main reasons for the firm’s insufficient funds were due to its slower collection of accounts†¦show more content†¦In addition to the requirements stated above, Butler will have to put up collateral to obtain the loan. We are not worried of his capability to do so because he can put up his house (assuming he convince his wife) at a market value of $110. As well, he can put up his life insurance which is worth $70. In order to maintain the sustainable growth rate Butler must adopt more conservative policies. For example, more conservative marketing, restrict credit terms to clients, and reduce the amount of employees. Lastly there are few restrictions to the recommendation provided. To begin, it would hinder the potential growth of the firm and it would not be sustainable in the future years because the firm will lack the ability to factor accounts receivables once they are completely depleted. On the contrary, the benefits largely outweigh the cons. Firstly Butler will foster greater relationships with his suppliers as he pays them within the discount period. Furthermore, the new loan comes with a number of covenants that would considerably affect the growth of the company such as limits on investments in fixed assets and net working capital. 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System Thinking Example - 1502 Words

Introduction to Systems Thinking Daniel Aronson Systems thinking has its foundation in the field of system dynamics, founded in 1956 by MIT professor Jay Forrester. Professor Forrester recognized the need for a better way of testing new ideas about social systems, in the same way we can test ideas in engineering. Systems thinking allows people to make their understanding of social systems explicit and improve them in the same way that people can use engineering principles to make explicit and improve their understanding of mechanical systems. The Systems Thinking Approach The approach of systems thinking is fundamentally different from that of traditional forms of analysis. Traditional analysis focuses on the separating the†¦show more content†¦This leads to a population explosion of insect B, to greater numbers of insect B damaging crops, and to greater numbers of insects damaging the crop, exactly the opposite of what was intended. 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Thomas Aquinas Creator Of The Five Ways - 1230 Words

Thomas Aquinas: Creator of the Five Ways A revolutionary name in philosophy, Thomas Aquinas began his career as a Benadictine monk, following his father’s wishes. However, Aquinas would not be long in this profession, as the Dominican Order would snatch him from his studies. Besides this, Aquinas would be deeply impacted by his mentor, Albertus Magnus. Aquinas would become a forefather of Scholasticism, an idea that through intense, careful study, he could start from the truth and find support in Christian values, rather than being â€Å"free† to discover truth, as many philosophers of the time did (Soccio 228). As he developed his ties with the Orthodox church, Aquinas would be given a tall order. He would be asked to knit together the philosophy of Aristotle and the Catholic church’s idea of God into one, new, Orthodox approved philosophy (Soccio 227). In time, Aquinas would develop five ways to explain God, each linked to the teachings of Aristotle. 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Scheduling and its Relation with Operations Management

Question: Discuss about scheduling and its relation with operation management. Answer: Introduction Kerzner (2013) opined that scheduling is the process to arrange, control as well as optimize workloads within the production processes. It is used to allocate the machinery resources, plan for the human resources, and plan the processes of production as well as purchase materials. Scheduling is an important tool gives a major impact on the productivity of the process. The goal of scheduling is to minimize the time of production as well as costs. Pinedo (2015) stated that as per the concept of operations management the organization schedule their activities to meet the requirements of customers on time as well as improve the operational efficiency. The research report is based on scheduling and its relation to the concept of operation management. The importance of operation scheduling is reflected in its current trends. Apart from this, current challenges of operations scheduling are identified with its particular solutions. Recommendations are also given to cope up with those identified challenges. Scheduling and its relation with operation management Under the functions of operations such as manufacturing as well as services, scheduling relates to the use of equipment, scheduling the human activities as well as receiving of materials. Scheduling compacts with allocations as well as supply allocation for manufacture of quantity. The planning of operations is done to be part of the short-term planning (Schroeder, Goldstein Rungtusanatham, 2013). The high-level purpose of the operation planning is to choose the best method of allocation of labor as well as equipment in order to discover a balance between the time as well as the utilize of limited resources in the organization. Importance of Operations Scheduling With the help of the operations scheduling, two of the important factors of the resources in the organization is considered such as allocation of the resources in the organization and setting up of timetable. In the current competitive world, the orders are placed from the side of the customers (Jacobs Chase, 2013). Operation management is the area of the management that is concerned to design as well as control the process of production. It redesigns trade operations within the manufacture of goods as well as services. It involves ensuring that the operations of the business are efficient in order to meet the requirements of the customers. It concerns to manage the process that converts the inputs into the outputs (Schwalbe, 2015). With using the operations scheduling, the orders are finished on or before the deadline. In order to complete this, operations scheduling plays a vital role to ensure that the dates should be convened. It helps in confirmation as well as revision of the delivery date that are promised (Krajewski, Ritzman Malhotr, 2013). The scheduling helps to keep the cost down as well as allow operating as per the scheduled budget. The importance of operations scheduling is that it ensures continuous scheduling of a job, removes the scheduling bottlenecks, ensures feedback in order to make an adjustment and enhances the product as well as a process. Scheduling helps in the capacity planning to reduce the bottlenecks, streamlines the order production based on due date, sequencing in different job works. Scheduling reduces the delays during the individual jobs that allow the supervisors to assign jobs (Schwindt Zimmermann, 2015). The principle of scheduling is to obligate jobs plan in order to estimate labor hours as well as construct the skill levels. It encourages interrupting jobs in progress through proper prioritization of the work. It commits the crew leaders in order to forecast the labor hours (Amiri Barbin, 2015). Scheduling establishes the importance to measure the process of schedule. It measures the outcomes in order to help that the management plans, as well as schedules, does take place. Current trends of scheduling in operation management Operation management is the process in which the resources are converted into useful products. The scheduling has many current trends in the operation management that have involved with an impact on the manufacturing industries as follows: Flexibility: The ability to change in volume, delivery schedules as well as design of products becomes a competitive advantage to the industries (Binder, 2016). Reduction of schedule: Reduction in the manufacturing cycle of the new product provides a competitive advantage (Karthikeyan et al., 2015). When the industries are providing products at the same price as well as quality, then it takes short lead-time in order to provide the product to the customers. Business process re-engineering: It involves with measuring the improvement in order to improve the scheduling operations of the industry (Khanna, 2015). It consists of clean state approach in redesigning of the business processes. Lean production: This production system has a minimal amount of resources in order to produce a high volume of quality of goods with some variety (Christopher, 2016). It is flexible for the manufacturing systems as well as a workforce to have an advantage of mass as well as job production. Just in time production: Actual order provides the production system when the product is manufactured. Demand-pull enables that the product is produced in the correct quantity as well as within correct time. It means that the stock levels of the products, work in progress as well as finished goods are kept the minimum. Therefore, it requires a scheduling as well as a flow of resources through the process of production. Enterprise Resource Planning: The enterprise wise information system is designed to coordinate the resources, schedule the time of operations as well as activities that are required to complete the business processes such as fulfillment of order or billing (Leach, 2014). Challenges of scheduling in operation management Operation scheduling is critical for the industries as it is a complicated task. Sometimes, it is seen that during the scheduling operations of the work order, the delivery date originally promised is not met. It is due to the challenges such as materials that are necessary are not accessible at the particular time (Schwindt Zimmermann, 2015). The problem occurs due to increase in the plant loading. The operations scheduling has a direct effect on the effectiveness of the function of production. If the scheduling of operations is accepted out in a competent manner, then it occurs significant improvement within the performance in the delivery (Jacobs Chase, 2013). It assists in attainment of the goals that put by the company. In order to reduce the production lead times, operation scheduling acts as a vital part. The scheduling of the services encounters the problems within the manufacturing industries. The challenges occur due to nature of the service operations such as intangibility of the services as well as an inability to inventory services (Karthikeyan et al., 2015). The demands of the services are random. The random demand makes the labor scheduling difficult within the manufacturing industries. Since the customers are not waiting, the labor must schedule such that the waiting time of the customer is minimized. Solutions of scheduling in operation management Queuing theory is used to estimate the arrival as well as service rates in order to measure the optimum staffing plan. Flexibility builds into the service of operation using labor, cross training as well as on-call employees (Amiri Barbin, 2015). Scheduling of the services is also becomes complicated when it is required to coordinate as well as schedule more than one resources. Even other operational techniques such as Gantt chart and queuing analysis are used to schedule the operations of the service. The random natures of the services are moderated by using the reservation system. The system is designed in order to enable the services system to formulate the accurate estimation of the demand on the system for some period (Christopher, 2016). It is also used to minimize the dissatisfaction level of the customers generated by waiting or inability in order to obtain service. Therefore, late arrivals can disrupt the system. Scheduling hourly work times is done where more and more workers are required for specific times of the day. The supply chain management is an advanced scheduling strategy (Krajewski, Ritzman Malhotr, 2013). It facilitates the supply services as well as information flow through the supply chain. It manages the production between the company, manufacturers, distributors, and the customers. Recommendations The following are the recommendations that are suggested: In order to schedule the tasks properly, it is required to estimate the potential sales with reliability. Most of the businesses do not have firm numbers on the future sales. The sales forecast is to be done on the historical information, a trend in the market as well as established orders. An inventory system should be placed to estimate the proper schedule time. It is recommended to determine the production step in order to map the processes. it is required to incorporate the average time in order to complete the work. After the completion of the process map, it is easily estimated that total time required completing the entire process. When the task is repeated, then it is best to standardize the task as well as the time involved. The industries should use service execution system in order to link the schedules, tracks the order, monitors as well as controls the customer's encounter with the service organization. Use of supply chain management system is used to facilitate the supply services as well as information flow. It manages the production between the company, manufacturers, distributors, as well as the customers. Conclusion It is concluded that the operations scheduling is designed to meet with due dates such as delivering the products to the customers on the deadline. It also minimizes the lead-time of the product in order to minimize the inventory levels as well as respond to the customers as quickly as possible. The scheduling is done to minimize the work in process inventory as well as maximize the machine utilization. Using the scheduling principles, there is a direct equivalence among the workflow as well as cash flow. The standard measures of the schedule performance are to meet with minimizing the flow time, minimizing the work in progress inventory as well as minimizing the time that machines are idle. The challenges occur due to nature of the service operations such as intangibility of the services as well as an inability to inventory services. The challenges have occurred due to effectiveness of the production functions. The scheduling functions are performed by the industries to allocate the orders, determine the sequence of the order performance, and initiate the performance of the schedule as well as shop floor control. References Amiri, M., Barbin, J. P. (2015). New approach for solving software project scheduling problem using differential evolution algorithm. Binder, J. (2016).Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. CRC Press. Christopher, M. (2016).Logistics supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed. Jacobs, R., Chase, R. (2013).Operations and supply chain management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Karthikeyan, S., Asokan, P., Nickolas, S., Page, T. (2015). A hybrid discrete firefly algorithm for solving multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problems.International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation,7(6), 386-401. Kerzner, H. R. (2013).Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley Sons. Khanna, R. B. (2015).Production and operations management. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.. Krajewski, L. J., Ritzman, L. P., Malhotra, M. K. (2013).Operations management: processes and supply chains. New York: Pearson. Leach, L. P. (2014).Critical chain project management. Artech House. Mahadevan, B. (2015).Operations management: Theory and practice. Pearson Education India. Pinedo, M. (2015).Scheduling. Springer. Schroeder, R. G., Goldstein, S. M., Rungtusanatham, M. J. (2013).Operations management in the supply chain: Decisions and cases. Schwalbe, K. (2015).Information technology project management. Cengage Learning. Schwindt, C., Zimmermann, J. (2015). Project Management and Scheduling.Handbook on Project Management and Scheduling,2, 640.