Friday, March 20, 2009

Gardening.

Gardening is the practice of growing ornamental or useful plants. Ornamental plants are normally grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance. Useful plants may be grown for consumption (vegetables, fruits, herbs, or leaf vegetables) or for a variety of other purposes, such as medicines or dyes.
Gardening ranges in scale from fruit orchards, to long boulevard plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants, to residential yards including lawns and foundation plantings, to large or small containers grown inside or outside. Gardening may be very specialized, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a large number of different plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants and tends to be labor intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.
Residential gardening takes place near the home, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a window box, or on a patio or vivarium.
Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and garden hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens

Supervisors.

A supervisor is first and foremost an overseer whose main responsibility is to ensure that a group of subordinates get out the assigned amount of production, when they are supposed to do it and within acceptable levels of quality, costs and safety.
A Supervisor is responsible for the productivity and actions of a small group of employees. The Supervisor has several managers like roles, responsibilities, and powers. Two of the key differences between a Supervisor and a Manager are (1) the Supervisor does not typically have "hire and fire" authority, and (2) the Supervisor does not have budget authority.
Lacking "hire and fire" authority means that a Supervisor may not recruit the employees working in the Supervisor's group nor does the Supervisor have the authority to terminate an employee. The Supervisor may participate in the hiring process as part of interviewing and assessing candidates but the actual hiring authority rests in the hands of a Human Resource Manager. The Supervisor may recommend to management that a particular employee be terminated and the Supervisor may be the one who documents the behaviors leading to the recommendation but the actual firing authority rests in the hands of a Manager.
Lacking budget authority means that a Supervisor is provided a budget developed by management within which constraints the Supervisor is expected to provide a productive environment for the employees of the Supervisor's work group. A Supervisor will usually have the authority to make purchases within specified limits. A Supervisor is also given the power to approve work hours and other payroll issues. Normally, budget affecting requests such as travel will require not only the Supervisor's approval but the approval of one or more layers of management.

Textile.

A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibers often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw wool fibres, linen cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands known as yarn Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting or pressing fibers together (felt).
The words fabric and cloth are used in textile assembly trades (such as tailoring and dressmaking) as synonyms for textile. However, there are subtle differences in these terms. Textile refers to any material made of interlacing fibres. Fabric refers to any material made through weaving, knitting, crocheting, or bonding. Cloth refers to a finished piece of fabric that can be used for a purpose such as covering a bed.
The production of textiles is a craft whose speed and scale of production has been altered almost beyond recognition by industrialization and the introduction of modern manufacturing techniques. However, for the main types of textiles, plain weave, twill or satin weave, there is little difference between the ancient and modern methods.
Incans have been crafting quipus (or khipus) made of fibres either from a protein, such as spun and plied thread like wool or hair from camelids such as alpacas, llamas and camels or from a cellulose like cotton for thousands of years. Khipus are a series of knots along pieces of string. They have been believed to only have acted as a form of accounting, although new evidence conducted by Harvard professor, Gary Urton, indicates there may be more to the khipu than just numbers. Preservation of khipus found in museum and archive collections follow general textile preservation principles and practice.

Certified management accountants.

The title Certified Management Accountant is a professional designation awarded by various professional bodies around the world. The CMA designation is a post-nominal award issued to individuals who have achieved peer-based criteria of professional competency in the field of Management Accounting. Management accounting qualifications differ from those such as the ACA or CPA "Chartered" or "Public" accounting qualifications in a number of ways. Management accountants are primarily focused on internal cost measures and accounting for management review, whereas ACA/CPA specialists are focused on reporting financial results to external bodies such as tax departments, capital markets, investors and others.
The CMA qualification is offered in Australia, Canada, the United States, and many other developed countries. CMAs are granted a certificate from a professional body like the Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA), the Institute of Management 0Accountants (IMA), provided that they pass a rigorous examination, and meet the necessary educational and practical experience requirements. Due to their non-statutory status in the United States, CMAs in that country generally provide their services directly to their employers rather than to the public. American CMAs may also provide services to the public, but do so to a much lesser extent than a Certified Public Accountant(CPA).
In the United States, the CMA credentials differ significantly from the CPA designation. More than 80% of accounting professionals in the U.S. work within organizations, building quality financial practices into the organization through decision support, planning, and control over the organization’s value-creating operations. For these managerial finance and accounting professionals, the CMA may be more appropriate as a best selection. Many professional accountants hold both CPA and CMA designations.
The profession of accounting in Canada also includes a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) designation. Canadian CMAs belong to the Society of Management Accountants of Canada a similar title, Chartered Management Accountant, exists in the United Kingdom and is awarded to members of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. Other professional organizations which specialize in management accounting include the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan

Finance.

An entity whose income exceeds its expenditure can lend or invest the excess income. On the other hand, an entity whose income is less than its expenditure can raise capital by borrowing or selling equity claims, decreasing its expenses, or increasing its income. The lender can find a borrower, a financial intermediary such as a bank, or buy notes or bonds in the bond market. The lender receives interest, the borrower pays a higher interest than the lender receives, and the financial intermediary pockets the difference.
A bank aggregates the activities of many borrowers and lenders. A bank accepts deposits from lenders, on which it pays the interest. The bank then lends these deposits to borrowers. Banks allow borrowers and lenders, of different sizes, to coordinate their activity. Banks are thus compensators of money flows in space.
A specific example of corporate finance is the sale of stock by a company to institutional investors like investment banks, who in turn generally sell it to the public. The stock gives whoever owns it part ownership in that company. If you buy one share of XYZ Inc, and they have 100 shares outstanding (held by investors), you are 1/100 owner of that company. Of course, in return for the stock, the company receives cash, which it uses to expand its business; this process is known as "equity financing". Equity financing mixed with the sale of bonds (or any other debt financing) is called the company's capital structure
Finance is used by individuals (personal finance), by governments (public finance), by businesses (corporate finance), as well as by a wide variety of organizations including schools and non-profit organizations. In general, the goals of each of the above activities are achieved through the use of appropriate financial instruments and methodologies, with consideration to their institutional setting.

Lab works.

Inventing a better future" is the theme of the Media Lab's work. A current emphasis of Media Lab research, which encompasses the work of several research groups, is on human adaptability. This focus was highlighted by the May 9, 2007 symposium h2.0: new minds, new bodies, and new identities. The event was hosted by John Hockenberry and featured Oliver Sacks, Michael Graves, Aimee Mullins, Michael Chorost, Susan Hockfield among other speakers. The day-long program featured work that is blurring the distinction between "able bodied" and "disabled," demonstrating technologies at the neural-digital interface.
Work represented emphasized the merging of technology with bodies and minds, altering the conceptions of human capability. New research initiatives were discussed, such as techniques to treat conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or depression, to sociable robots to monitor the health of children or the elderly, to the development of smart prostheses that can mimic—and even exceed the capabilities of—biological limbs.
This symposium provided many examples of work that is the next step in the so-called "digital revolution." Research projects at the Media Lab aim to have a deep impact on humanity at large. This work, while initially intended for those considered to be "disabled," will ultimately improve life for all humanity.
One of the founding focuses of the Media Lab was technology for the developing world, work that continues with projects such as the One Laptop per Child project and other work. Current projects at the Media Lab continue with this core value, which is expanded and enhanced by increased collaboration within the Media Lab itself, as well as across MIT and with the world at large

Reporters.

The development of the Internet created the opportunity for courts to publish their decisions on Web sites. The relatively low cost of this publication method, and the importance of making court decisions freely available to the public — particularly in common law countries where court decisions are major sources of law. Because a court can post a decision on a Web site as soon as it is rendered, the need for a quickly printed case in an unofficial, commercial reporter becomes less crucial.
Decisions of courts from all over the world can now be found through the WorldLII Web site, and the sites of its member organizations. These projects have been strongly encouraged by the Free Access to Law Movement.
Many law librarians and academics have commented on the changing system of legal information delivery - brought about by the rapid growth of the World Wide Web . Professor Bob Berring writes that the "primacy of the old paper sets [print law reports] is fading, and a vortex of conflicting claims and products is spinning into place. In theory, court decisions posted on the Web expand access to the law beyond the specialized law library collections used primarily by lawyers and judges. The general public can more readily find court opinions online, whether posted on Web-accessible databases (such as the Hong Kong Judiciary public access site, above), or through general search engines (e.g., Goggle Yahoo etc.) that continually index Web-published documents.
Questions remain, however, on the need for a uniform and practical citation format for cases posted on the Web (versus the standard volume and page number used for print law reports). Furthermore, turning away from the traditional "official-commercial" print reporter model raises questions about the accuracy, authority, and reliability of case law found on the Web. The answer to these questions will be determined, in large part, through changing government information policies, and by the degree of influence exerted by commercial database providers on global legal information markets.