Bringing Bias into the Light Essay Example

Bringing Bias into the Light Essay Example Bringing Bias into the Light Essay Bringing Bias into the Light Essay Essay Topic: The Breadwinner In the first part of this article it talks about a strong woman named Jennifer Allan and how she embraces her womanhood and breaks the stereotypical notion of women being houses wives. She got a degree from Harvard Kennedy School and has served as an HER consultant to Fortune 500 companies and is leading diversity efforts for PricewaterhouseCoppers ALP. She is doing very well for a Vivian but even with all her accomplishments Jennifer still associates women with families and men with careers. This is known by the Implicit Associate Test she took. Jennifer goes on to say she was eased in a family where her father was the breadwinner and her mother stayed at home. Cabmen Hire explains that having these ideas doesnt make you a bad person just normal and after you accept that it will be easier to look at things differently. The article also talks about skin color, gender and age being the only things considered biases, but there are a lot more Including height and weight, introversion and extroversion, martial and parental status, disability status, foreign accents, where someone attends college, and hobbies and extracurricular activities. All of those characteristics and many there can influence how people treat you and who gets hired for what job. None Are Immune In this section of the article there is a discussion of the fact that no one is immune to biases and lists the number of biases that people that have taken the TAT test have had. Some are just flat out ridiculous. The reason the TAT was created was to give people the realization that they are making unconscious judgments even though they are trained not to, for example HER professionals and recruiters. When the article mentions married men, single women, people with a southern accent the biases came to mind and it astonished me that I thought that way as well. Having these hidden biases can have legal repercussions and are dangerous for employees and employers if they are not handled right away. Millions of dollars of suits have been filed against companies for disparate impact and biases. Retraining Your Brain In this section Hire talks about what she did at the Royal Bank of Canada to retrain people on biases. Since 2013 1,000 people from corporations, academia, government, and diversity advocacy have attended the hidden bias training. The bank also has internal social media platforms that allow employees to talk about unconscious biases. This training has helped a lot of high up executives and recognize the biases they commit daily and correct them. Allan now even sends reminders to her managers to be on guard for prototype bias and affinity bias. There is also a suggestion to conduct blind reviews of resumes and see the outcome. For Smaller HER Shops This last section discusses what smaller companies can do to train their employees to watch out for theses biases. What one HER director did was create questions for her employees to see that it was more important to see the company and culture fit rather than allowing managers to ask biased questions. Janet Harding a director of cultural awareness uses role playing to train her employees at a hospital in Maryland. This goes to show that no matter how big the company there are always options of training for biases to not only protect the company but also the current and future employees. 2. I took the gender TAT test and I was a little surprised but the results but the way the test was set up made it seem as if they expected you to make a mistake. I took a gender communication class last semester and learned about many biases and how men and women see each other and themselves ND I learned a lot of about my definition of gender. I also took a diversity and cross cultural management class that helped me remove a lot of biases had and hope to better the way I see people. 3. The statistic that surprised me most from the article was that 7% of salaries for blonde women are higher than women that are brunette and redheads. To me the idea of hair color affecting how much anyone gets paid is just stupid. Someones hair color should never affect the amount of money they get paid period.

Habits and Traits of Rove Beetles, Family Staphylinidae

Habits and Traits of Rove Beetles, Family Staphylinidae Tiny rove beetles are everywhere, yet most people rarely notice these beneficial insects. Rove beetles, which belong to the family Staphylinidae, inhabit a variety of interesting ecological niches, including ant nests, fungi, decaying plant matter, dung, and carrion. What Do Rove Beetles Look Like? Most rove beetles make their living after sunset when they emerge from hiding to pursue insect prey. You’ll find rove beetles by looking in moist environments crawling with maggots, mites, or other even springtails. Some rove beetles react to perceived threats by tipping their abdomens up, as scorpions do, but this gesture is all bark and no bite. Rove beetles can’t sting, but the larger ones can inflict a nasty bite if mishandled. Adult rove beetles rarely top 25 mm in length, and most measure considerably less (under 7 mm or so long). Their elytra are noticeably shortened, though they can fly quite well thanks to functional hindwings tucked carefully underneath. In most rove beetles, you can see several exposed abdominal segments because of this diminished wing structure. Rove beetles have mouthparts modified for chewing, often with long, sharp mandibles that close sideways across the front of the head. Because many species sport a pair of short projections at the end of the abdomen, people often mistake them for earwigs. Rove beetle larvae have elongated bodies and appear slightly flattened when viewed from the side. They’re usually off-white or beige, with a darker head. Like the adults, the larvae often have a pair of projections alongside the tip of the abdomen. How Are Rove Beetles Classified? Kingdom - AnimaliaPhylum - ArthropodaClass - InsectaOrder - ColeopteraFamily - Staphylinidae What Do Rove Beetles Eat? The large family Staphylinidae includes many rove beetle genera with eating habits as diverse as the group. Most rove beetles are predatory as adults and larvae, feeding on other, smaller arthropods. Within the family, however, you’ll find rove beetles that specialize on a diet of fungal spores, others that eat pollen, and still others that feed on the regurgitated food from ants. The Rove Beetle Life Cycle As all beetles do, rove beetles undergo complete metamorphosis. The mated female deposits a cluster of eggs near a source of food for her offspring. Rove beetle larvae typically inhabit moist environments, such as in soil covered by decaying leaf litter. The larvae feed and molt until they are ready to pupate. Pupation occurs in moist leaf litter or the soil. When the adults emerge, they are very active, especially at night. How Do Rove Beetles Behave? Some rove beetles use chemicals in clever ways to their advantage. Those in the genus Stenus, for example, live around ponds and streams, where they can find their favorite prey, springtails. Should a Stenus rove beetle suffer the unfortunate mishap of slipping into the water, it will release a chemical from its hind end which magically lowers the surface tension behind it, effectively thrusting it forward. Paederus beetles defend themselves by emitting the toxic pederin chemical when threatened. More than one entomology student has borne the blisters and burns from handling Paederus rove beetles. And at least one male rove beetle, Aleochara curtula, applies an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone to his female partner, rendering her undesirable to any future suitors. Where Do Rove Beetles Live? Rove beetles inhabit moist environments throughout the world. Though the family Staphylinidae numbers well over 40,000 species worldwide, we still know relatively little about rove beetles. The classification of rove beetles and related groups is ever-changing, and some entomologists estimate that Staphylinids may eventually number well over 100,000. Sources: Borror and DeLong’s Introduction to the Study of Insects, 7th Edition, by Charles A. Triplehorn and Norman F. JohnsonInsects: Their Natural History and Diversity, by Stephen A. MarshallKaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, by Eric R. Eaton and Kenn KaufmanRove Beetles, by Carol A. Sutherland, Extension and State Entomologist, New Mexico State University, accessed November 28, 2011

Product Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Product Assessment - Essay Example Considering the storage, it can offer a storage space of 5 times greater than the DVD’s. The disc was jointly developed by Blu Ray Disc Association (BDA) with companies that are the leading manufacturers in consumer products and computers. Blu ray uses a blue laser instead of red which is present in DVD’s and CD’s for much greater focus and precision. The concept had also been supported by Hollywood studios and planned to release their movies on blu ray discs instead of DVD’s (Taylor, Zink, Crawford, & Armbrust, 2009). The target market for Blu ray disc are the people who wants to store excessive amount of data or the market that has likes for watching movies in high definition with clear pixels. The corporate are also considered to be their target market considering different Hollywood studio who agreed to release their movies in blu ray discs. The U.S census data highlights that the total penetration of Blu ray devices in United States is 40.8 Billion. The total spending on the blu ray disc in 2012 has been $2.22 Billion (Prange, 2012). In today’s world, technology is changing at a rapid pace and so are the consumer preferences. The company develops a product on the basis of preference for consumers and their interest. However, if a consumer finds right and suitable in adopting a technology which is much cheaper than the current idea then the new technology has chances of failure. Similarly, in the same context consumers preferences are changing and cheaper versions technology is being adopted. The U.S census data reports that the market for blu ray has declined from $2.6 Billion to $2.4 Billion (Edwards, 2012). The main reason being for this change is known to be an economic downturn. The age of digital download has arrived and customers are diverted to these preferences instead of buying a blu ray disc and storing the data. Digital download is a cheaper option and does not require money