Communication Problems in Relationships :: Couples Relationship Marriage

Communication One of the major problems that affect couples is communication. It is hard to listen to the other person when you think you are right. Couples seen to blame, criticize, and give the silent treatment among other things. There are struggles over power and lots of conflict. With so many things to fight about it’s good to be able to know how to fight in a way that’s healthy. Some of the things couples may fight about are gender roles, fidelity, sex, money, and power. With so many women working there is a conflict of who does everything at home and since they both have incomes then there is a struggle of who makes financial decisions. Fidelity is a big issue along with violations of trust and commitment. If the relationship is not going well, women seem not to want sex. This is because they tie emotional feeling with sex. Men don’t seem to do this. Next, couples cope with these conflicts in many different ways. One may finally give over to the other person. They can compromise, witch is the best method. They may agree to disagree or just stop talking about the issue. Denying conflict can ruin a relationship. Some Couples yell, humiliate, embarrass, and demoralize each other. These are not affective ways of fighting. There are ways to improve your communication skills. When your partner is upset don’t be defensive. A lot of the time its not a right wrong situation. It’s a different perspective that ur partner is coming from. Being caring and supportive increases the desire to talk. An important thing is to be honest with each other. Lying will make the conflict worse. Listening is probley the most important thing you can do. Lastly, there are rules for fighting fair. You should never attack your partner. It will only make them defensive. No one likes to be backed into a corner. Like I wrote before, be honest. Do not belittle or threaten your partner. Its better to focus on the problem not the person. Avoid fighting dirty, its not fair to your

Essay on Mathematics - The True Universal Language :: Graduate Admissions Essays

Mathematics - The True Universal Language The true universal human language is not punctuated by accents or vowel intonations; it does not spring from any particular continent; it rises above ink on paper, scratches on the earth or daubs of paint on the wall of a cave. No, I am a firm believer that the true universal human language is composed of numbers. For while numerical characters may vary across the globe, the logic they convey transcends borders, localities, and customs. The "language" of numbers flows from the inherent human capacity to reason. It is my love for the reach and power of numbers that started my career in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering and has inspired me to pursue graduate work in Database Management Systems. In my native Hungary, I was the winner of the national mathematics competition award before going on to study Mathematics at MIT. My academic career at MIT was immensely enriching, and my hard work landed me at the top of my classes. I was awarded the _____________ Scholarship and was on both the Computer Science National Dean's List and the MIT University Dean's List. But just as important as my awards and honors was the assistance and support I received from my professors, who not only taught but nurtured me. As an undergraduate Teaching Assistant under Dr. __________, I graded papers and worked with the students-an experience that encouraged me to think about a future teaching position. And in my independent research study project in Complex Systems Theory, completed under the direction of Dr._________________, I was able to learn in a creative, exploratory fashion. This project cemented my decision to venture into postgraduate studies. My past projects centered around analyzing, formulating and delivering solutions in every stage of providing Microsoft-format software for major Fortune500 companies. I have also designed a database system (implemented in SQL Server) and developed front end applications in Visual C++ and Visual Basic that used ODBC and DAO to access the server. This work piqued my interest in doing research in the field of database systems, and I started to think more analytically about the limitations of relational databases. I became interested in object-oriented databases, particularly their flexibility and their ability to meet the requirements of more complex structures. In my graduate studies, I plan to focus my research on optimizing queries and improving the performance of complex systems such as image, engineering, or scientific database systems. Essay on Mathematics - The True Universal Language :: Graduate Admissions Essays Mathematics - The True Universal Language The true universal human language is not punctuated by accents or vowel intonations; it does not spring from any particular continent; it rises above ink on paper, scratches on the earth or daubs of paint on the wall of a cave. No, I am a firm believer that the true universal human language is composed of numbers. For while numerical characters may vary across the globe, the logic they convey transcends borders, localities, and customs. The "language" of numbers flows from the inherent human capacity to reason. It is my love for the reach and power of numbers that started my career in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering and has inspired me to pursue graduate work in Database Management Systems. In my native Hungary, I was the winner of the national mathematics competition award before going on to study Mathematics at MIT. My academic career at MIT was immensely enriching, and my hard work landed me at the top of my classes. I was awarded the _____________ Scholarship and was on both the Computer Science National Dean's List and the MIT University Dean's List. But just as important as my awards and honors was the assistance and support I received from my professors, who not only taught but nurtured me. As an undergraduate Teaching Assistant under Dr. __________, I graded papers and worked with the students-an experience that encouraged me to think about a future teaching position. And in my independent research study project in Complex Systems Theory, completed under the direction of Dr._________________, I was able to learn in a creative, exploratory fashion. This project cemented my decision to venture into postgraduate studies. My past projects centered around analyzing, formulating and delivering solutions in every stage of providing Microsoft-format software for major Fortune500 companies. I have also designed a database system (implemented in SQL Server) and developed front end applications in Visual C++ and Visual Basic that used ODBC and DAO to access the server. This work piqued my interest in doing research in the field of database systems, and I started to think more analytically about the limitations of relational databases. I became interested in object-oriented databases, particularly their flexibility and their ability to meet the requirements of more complex structures. In my graduate studies, I plan to focus my research on optimizing queries and improving the performance of complex systems such as image, engineering, or scientific database systems.

Icici Bank and Bank of Rajasthan Merger Essay

Meaning : A general term used to refer to the consolidation of companies. A merger is a combination of two companies to form a new company, while an acquisition is the purchase of one company by another in which no new company is formed. Basic information of icici bank (Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Bank): ICICI Bank was established by the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, an Indian financial institution, as a wholly owned subsidiary in 1994. The parent company was formed in 1955 as a joint-venture of the World Bank, India’s public-sector banks and public-sector insurance companies to provide project financing to Indian industry.[10][11] The bank was initially known as theIndustrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Bank, before it changed its name to the abbreviated ICICI Bank. The parent company was later merged with the bank. Current information: Based on 2013 information, it is the second largest bank in India by assets and third largest by market capitalisation. It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customer through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries in the areas of investment banking. life and non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management. The Bank has a network of 3,350 branches and 10,486 ATM’s in India, and has a presence in 19 countries. ICICI Bank is one of the big four banks of India, along with SBI,PNB,CANARA BANK BANK OF RAJASTHAN : It was set up at Udaipur in 1943 with an initial capital of Rs.10.00 lacs. An eminent Industrialist Late Seth Shri Govind Ram Seksaria was the founder chairman. It was classified as the Scheduled Bank in 1948. The Bank also established a rural (Gramin) bank Mewar Anchlik Gramin Bank in Udaipur District in Rajasthan on 26 January 1983. The bank’s central office is located at Jaipur, although its registered office is in Udaipur. Presently the bank has 463 branches, in 24 states, with 294 of the branches being in Rajasthan. †¢ 1. Merger of ICICI and BoR Submitted †¢ 2. About BoR and Merger private sector lender Bank of Rajasthan on 18 may 2010 agreed to merge with ICICI Bank, India’s second largest private sector lender Bank of Rajasthan has a market value of $296 million The acquisition of Bank of Rajasthan by ICICI bank is the first consolidation of country’s crowded banking sector since 2008.ICICI Bank and Bank of Rajasthan (BoR) boards on Sunday cleared their merger through an all-share deal, valued at about 30.41 billion rupees. †¢ 3. ICICI offered to BoR ICICI offered to pay 188.42 rupees per share, in an all-share deal, for Bank of Rajasthan, a premium of 89 percent to the small lender’s closing price on Tuesday, valuing the business at $668 million .ICICI is offering the smaller bank’s controlling shareholders 25 shares in ICICI for 118 shares of Bank of Rajasthan. †¢ 4. The Big Deal The deal, which will give ICICI a sizeable presence in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, values the small bank at about 2.9 times its book value, compared with an Indian banking sector average of 1.84.Bank of Rajasthan has a network of 463 branches and a loan book of 77.81 billion rupees ($1.7 billion). †¢ 5. Why MergerIn March, the Reserve Bank of India appointed consulting firms to conduct a special audit of the books and accounts of Bank of Rajasthan .The government has called for consolidation in the banking sector in order to make lenders more competitive but there has been little activity.RBI had imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on Bank of Rajasthan for various violations. †¢ 6. Totals of BoR F or the nine-month ended December’09, the bank had net loss of Rs 9 crore with total income of Rs 1,086 crore. For the year ended March’09, Bank of Rajasthan had net profit of Rs 117 crore with total income of Rs 1,507 crore .Operating income fell 11% to Rs 373.78 crore in Q3 December 2009 over Q3 December 2008. †¢ 7. Advantage for ICICI and BoR ICICI Bank will gain marginally from the merger as Bank of Rajasthan has a reasonable penetration in its home state. As of March’09, it had 463 branches across the country. The deal will also help ICICI tackle increasing competition by HDFC Bank. the deal values BoR at about 2.9 times its book value, compared with an Indian banking sector average of 1.84. †¢ 8. Comparison OF ICICI and BoRICICI bank added CASA deposits totaling over 210 billion rupees in the year ended March 2010, compared with 41.63 billion rupees of BoR .ICICI recorded a business per branch of 3 billion rupees compared with 47 million rupees of BoR for fiscal 2009.For the quarter ended Dec 09, BoR recorded 1.05 percent of advances as NPA’s, which is far better than 2.1 percent recorded by ICICI Bank. †¢ 9. Why is RBI allowing the merger of this bank? This is very intriguing factor; when RBI claims that there is corporate governance. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee claims that there is corporate governance prevailing in SEBI, RBI and Finance Ministry. †¢ 10. Hurdles To protest the Bank of Rajasthan’s management plan to merge with the ICICI Bank, more than 4200 employees of Bank of Rajasthan went on a two-day countrywide strike .SEBI maintains that Tayals hold 55% in the bank and that would make them owners of nearly 1.87 crore ICICI Bank shares from new dilution by ICICI Bank, amounting to around 1.75% stake in the bank .ICICI Bank found it economic as always to invest in this deal on a 100% stock swap basis. †¢ 11. Impact of the Deal The deal is very expensive The proposed amalgamation would substantially enhance branch network and presence in  northern and western India for ICICIBank of Rajasthan has a network of 463 branches and a loan book of 77.81 billion rupees ($1.7 billion).As on March 2009, BoR had 463 branches and 111 ATMs, total assets of Rs 17,224 crore, deposits of Rs 15,187 crore and advances of Rs 7,781 crore. †¢ 12. ICICI After merger PE ratio22.97 10/06/10EPS (Rs)36.10 Mar, 10Sales (Rs crore)5,826.98 Mar, 10Face Value (Rs)10 Net profit margin (%)9.74 Mar, 09Last dividend (%)120 26/04/10Return on average equity7.58 Mar, 09 1 millions = 10 lakhs 1 billions = 100 crores 1 trillions = 100,000 crores

Basic Concepts in the Law of Contracts

LGST 612 Prof. Kevin Werbach BASIC CONCEPTS IN THE LAW OF CONTRACTS Contracts are essential to business. They are a legal mechanism used in every industry and every part of the world to structure relationships among firms, and with customers, partners, and suppliers. Over several centuries, the law governing contracts has developed a large number of doctrines. Most are consistent with common sense, but unless you know what the rules are, you can easily make a mistake. This document introduces the fundamentals of contract law most relevant to businesspeople.Important legal terms are italicized. What is a Contract? And what is Contract Law? Legally, a contract is a set of promises that the law will enforce. We make promises all the time. Only some of them – the ones that meet the contract formation requirements listed below – are legally enforceable. That means the legal system, in the form of courts, can step in to order some action or payment for violation of the contra ct. Contracts are therefore private deals with the possibility of public (governmental) enforcement.Of course, there are many reasons to fulfill promises other than legal obligations. Reneging on promises may be unethical, or may result in a loss of goodwill or reputation as costly or more so than anything a court can impose. The general principles of contract law are fairly universal around the world. However, specific rules vary from country to country. In common law countries such as the United States and Great Britain, most of the legal doctrines governing contracts have been developed by courts over the centuries.In civil law countries such as those in Continental Europe, most of the terms of contract law are specified through comprehensive legislative codes. Even in the U. S. , some aspects of contract law are regulated by legislation. Certain classes of contracts involving employment, securities transactions, health care, and consumer financial transactions are subject to reg ulations that supersede the general principles of common law. Commercial contracts for the sale of goods (as opposed to services like consulting) are covered in virtually every state in the U. S. y the Uniform Commercial Code, which imposes specific statutory requirements. And certain contracts are made unenforceable by the Constitution: for example, a provision that a house may not be sold to a certain racial or ethnic group. Parties negotiating a contract each believe they will benefit from the agreement. For example, a corporation purchasing a license for enterprise software believes the benefit from the software will exceed the price it pays, and the software vendor believes the price will exceed sum of expected costs for providing access to its product.When parties enter into a contract, therefore, they generally do not expect it to be breached (violated), or to resort to the legal system. However, they recognize that sometimes a partner may make a promise with good intentions, and later fail to fulfill it, or that circumstances may chance in some way. When evaluating contracts, courts will generally not consider whether the deal was a good one for either side. The standard view is that no one forced the parties to enter into the contract; they should be held to the bargain they struck.Another way to think of a contract is as a legal hedge against uncertainty or risk. The contract gives each party confidence that if the other fails to perform, they can receive compensation through the courts. It also allows parties to specify how specific situations in the future may be addressed. For example, in the software license described above, what happens if the buyer decides to modify some of the software code and resell it? Rather than wait for the confusion if that happens, the parties can specify ahead of time how the situation will be handled, by adding provisions to the contract.LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 2 Contemporary legal systems focus on two things i n contracts cases: intent and reliance. If the evidence shows that all parties acted as though they intended to be legally bound to a contract, and the plaintiff (the one filing the lawsuit) reasonably relied on the defendant to follow through with the contract, the courts will generally enforce it. To do otherwise would be unfair to the party that was harmed by honoring their commitments. In modern contract law, intent and reasonable reliance often trump formalities.A contract may generally be enforced even if it not signed, written, or even expressly made. For example, if a fishmonger delivers fresh fish to a restaurant every Monday for a year and receives the same payment each time, there may be an implied contract even if the parties never explicitly spoke about it. The plaintiff still needs to convince the judge or jury in court, which is much harder to do based on oral testimony than documentary evidence. Unwritten contracts also leave significant gaps for courts to fill in.Th e implied contract between the restaurant and the fishmonger, for example, could be terminated at any time by the parties, because there is no explicit term guaranteeing how long it will last. Remedies What a court awards to a successful plaintiff for breach of contract is known as the remedy. In contract law, the sole purpose of the remedy is to adequately compensate for the breach. You cannot receive additional â€Å"punitive† damages to punish someone for breach of contract, as you might under a tort claim such as products liability. The same facts, however, might give rise to both kinds of claims, as when a party deliberately breaks a contract in order to harm the other party’s business. ) In most contracts cases, the remedy is a payment of money, known as damages. There are three main ways that courts may calculate the level of damages: †¢ Expectation is the preferred formula. Whenever possible, this is what courts will use. Expectation means that the plainti ff (who did not breach the contract) gets the â€Å"benefit of the bargain. † In other words, they receive compensation to put them in the position they would have been in, had the contract been performed.For example, if an airline enters into a futures contract to purchase jet fuel in one year at $4/gallon, and at the time of performance the fuel company breaches because the spot market price is now $7/gallon, the expectation remedy would be $3/gallon times the number of gallons. In other words, it is the difference between the market and contract price. That way, the airline can buy the fuel from someone else at the market price, and still get the benefit of the contract. Reliance is used when expectation damages cannot be calculated because the amounts are too uncertain, or there is some other reason not to give expectation damages.Under this formula, the plaintiff gets back any costs he or she has expected by relying on the contract, so they are no worse off than before t he agreement. Generally, this will be a smaller amount than the expectation remedy. Restitution is used in rare situations where even reliance damages are not feasible to determine. Under this formula, the defendant (who breached the contract) must give back whatever benefit he or she received from the plaintiff, even if this does not fully cover the plaintiff’s reliance.For example, if the plaintiff paid money to the defendant for some services, the defendant must give it back. †¢ †¢ Courts may also consider awarding incidental and consequential damages. These are other costs the plaintiff can demonstrate, which go beyond his or her expectation under the contract. For example, imagine a factory owner contracts for a $50,000 piece of machinery to power a production line, and LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 3 the supplier breaches the contract. It takes a month before the factory can obtain an equivalent machine from another supplier (also for $50,000).As a result, the factory loses one month of production, which produces financial losses of $500,000 and causes its customers to terminate future orders worth several million dollars. All those costs are considered consequential damages. Whether they can be recovered depends on how foreseeable they were, and on the terms of the contract itself. On the one hand, those are actual losses the plaintiff suffered; on the other hand, was it reasonable to think the defendant took on millions of dollars of potential liability when it sold a $50,000 machine?In limited situations, monetary damages are not sufficient to give the plaintiff an adequate remedy. In such cases, a court may order an injunction (forbidding the defendant from some course of action) or specific performance (affirmatively ordering the defendant to go through with the transaction). Specific performance is only available for unique objects, where the money to purchase a similar object is not considered sufficient. This includes things such as works of art and real estate. Breach Failing to follow through on the legal obligations of a contract is called a breach.A breach might mean one party totally ignored its contractual obligations, or that it failed to perform some of them (such as completing the contracted-for services within a specified time), or that it did so in an inadequate manner. Whether something constitutes a breach is a factual decision for the court. The decision may be easier if the contract itself specifies conditions for breach, or whether a failure to perform specific responsibilities constitutes a breach of the whole agreement.As mentioned above, breaching a contract is not the same thing as breaking a promise, because law and ethics are not identical. In particular, sometimes a breach is, economically at least, a good thing. Imagine that an architect contracts with a cabinetmaker for custom-designed built-in furniture in a renovated house. However, the owner of the house changes her mind before f inalizing her contract with the architect, and he loses the commission. The cabinetmaker has not yet started to manufacture the furniture.It would be wasteful to force the architect to go through with the contract, when he knows the cabinets will be useless. It is more efficient for the architect to breach the agreement. So long as the architect pays sufficient compensation to the cabinetmaker (voluntarily or in the form of monetary damages or a voluntary payment), there is nothing unethical in his breach. Contract Formation There are five required elements for a legally binding contract. In other words, a plaintiff suing for breach of contract must first show that all five were met. Then they must show the contract was breached, and they are entitled to a remedy. ) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Offer Acceptance Consideration Legality Capacity The first two requirements, offer and acceptance, are sometimes lumped together and called â€Å"mutual assent. † They are typically the most difficu lt and important elements to establish. LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Offer Page 4 An offer is a proposal that manifests intent to enter into a contract. It is distinguished from an invitation, which is merely a proposal to enter into negotiations and therefore not legally binding.The party that makes an offer is called the offeror and the party that receives it is called the offeree. For the offer to be valid, the offeror must: 1. Manifest the intent to enter into a contract 2. Be definite and certain regarding the essential terms of the proposed contract 3. Communicate the offer to the offeree Suppose you are at a used-car dealer's lot. You see a care you like with the price listed as $9,995. You ask the salesperson what he’d take for the car; he doesn't answer you, but responds by asking you what you would offer.If you then say, â€Å"I wouldn't pay the list price, but I might pay $8,000 if I could finance it,† have you made an offer? In considering questions of this typ e, courts will look to â€Å"objective† manifestations of intent. Would a reasonable (ordinary, average) person, listening to your conversation in context, think that you intended to bound into a contract if the salesperson accepted? Again, reasonable reliance is what the courts look to protect, so your subjective mental state, even if it could be reliably determined, is irrelevant. Courts do, however, consider the context.You might offer to purchase a candy bar simply by holding out a dollar bill to a cashier, but an offer to enter into a multi-million dollar merger agreement might require significantly greater formalities. Similarly, if it would be clear to a reasonable observer that a statement was made as a joke, or in a social setting that does not involve contractual obligations, such as a wedding invitation, there is no binding offer. All these, however, are factual questions that courts might assess by hearing witnesses, looking at evidence, and listening to experts.A cceptance An acceptance is the mirror of an offer. If the offeree (the one receiving the offer) objectively manifests intent to be bound, the other elements below are met, and the offer is still valid, a contract comes into being at that moment. Intent is evaluated the same way for acceptance as for the offer. For the acceptance, however, courts are more sensitive to situations where someone takes actions that indicate acceptance (such as signing a document), but does not in fact understand the obligations they are undertaking.In such cases, courts generally look to whether this is the sort of contract that is typically accepted in that manner, and whether the offeree had a reasonable opportunity to analyze the contract but chose not to. Many business-to-consumer agreements are so-called contracts of adhesion or form contracts, where the consumer has no real opportunity to negotiate the specific terms – think of a rental-car agreement – but acceptance is still generall y considered valid because there are other means to protect the consumers and the alternative would be extremely inefficient and cumbersome.There are four ways that an offer may no longer be valid: 1. The offeror may generally revoke the offer by communicating that to the other party at any moment before acceptance. 2. If the one receiving the offer rejects it, which includes making a counter-offer, the original offer is considered no longer binding. 3. After some reasonable period of time, determined by the court based on the context, offers lapse. You cannot walk into a used-car dealer and say you are accepting the list price of a car advertised two years before. 4. Death or incapacitation of an offeror generally cancels an offer.One exception to the rule about revocation of offers is the option contract. This is essentially a contract that binds only one party. For example, a property owner might grant a real estate investor LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 5 an option to purchase a building for $15 million within a period of 90 days. If the investor comes forward with the $15 million, the owner must sell the building. The investor, however, is under no obligation to do anything. (Options on stocks operate the same way; the price for the put or call is the payment for the option. ) Under U. S. aw, there must be a separate payment for holding open the option, even if it is specified in the same document as the purchase terms. In other words, in the real estate example, if the building owner promised to keep the offer open for 90 days, but received no compensation for that promise, it would technically be free to sell to someone else. In many other countries, a party that promises an option must keep it open for a reasonable period of time, even without payment. The acceptance must mirror the offer. That means the offeree must comply with any conditions the offeror placed on the offer.If, for example, the offer states that payment must be made in cash, or that t hose wishing to accept the offer must show up in person at a certain location, those conditions must be met for a valid acceptance. If the offeror does not specify, the offeree may use any reasonable means. This may even include actions rather than words. If I ask a friend to bring me a sandwich from the cafe downstairs, which I’ll pay for, and she immediately goes to purchase it without saying a word, her actions would likely be a sufficient manifestation of intent.As always, context matters. In a complex commercial negotiation, it may be reasonable to exchange numerous very specific drafts, which are not formally accepted until the final version is signed off on by senior executives. Consideration Consideration means that each party has committed to giving up something of value to induce the promise or action of the other party. It is the way the law distinguishes an enforceable contractual bargain from a gift. If someone promises to give you a gift, and then reneges on the promise, you cannot sue them for breach of contract.There was no contract to begin with, because you did not have to give anything up in return for the gift. In most contracts, consideration will be money in exchange for some goods or services. However, it can be anything of legal value, including property or voluntarily giving up a legal right to act in a certain way. In a famous case, a court held that an uncle’s promise to pay money to his nephew if the nephew gave up smoking and drinking was enforceable, because the nephew stopped doing something he was legally entitled to do. The consideration must, however, be needed to induce the promise.If your action or inaction wasn’t what motivated the other party, there is no consideration. The amount of consideration need not match the value of what the party receives in return. A contract to pay $100 for a computer worth $1,000 may be a bad deal, but it has sufficient consideration. The main question is whether there is something of value exchanged to demonstrate the agreement is not a gift. In business agreements, this sometimes means a recital (a contractual provision that simply states a fact) along the lines of, â€Å"in exchange for good and valuable onsideration of one dollar†¦Ã¢â‚¬  to ensure consideration is found. Legality Contracts that are made for an illegal purpose will not be enforceable in a court of law. An agreement with a hit man to kill a disfavored relative may meet all of the formalities of a contract, but it should be obvious that you could not sue him for failing to go through with it. More realistically, an agreement to engage in bribery or to restrain market competition in violation of antitrust laws would be unenforceable.Capacity All parties to a contract must have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement. In other words, they must have what the law considers sufficient mental fortitude to understand and commit to LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 6 the obl igations involved. Two main classes of people who do not have capacity are children and those under significant mental disability or impairment. Children are generally not allowed to become legally bound by contracts. (The specific age cutoff and other considerations vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. If an adult contracts with a child, the child can void the contract at will, but the adult is still bound if the child wishes to enforce the agreement. The other situations in which capacity becomes an issue are when a party either has a significant disability that prevents them from understanding contractual obligations, or they are too severely impaired by drugs, alcohol, or another factor. Capacity is judged objectively: would a reasonable observer think the party was in a state that made it impossible to express intent to contract?If so, the party at that moment lacks the legal capacity. It is important to note that capacity is not the same thing as capability or authority. A bank may not actually have the financial wherewithal to provide the financing that it contracts for, but this does not mean it is incapable of entering into any contract. If it fails to provide the financing that the other party reasonably relied on, it is in breach of contract, whether or not it actually has the resources needed to perform. Similarly, an agent may or may not have the legal authority to speak for a firm.If a sales representative (or someone claiming to be a sales representative) commits a company to an agreement with a customer that the company does not in fact wish to honor, that has no bearing on the legal capacity to contract. In that situation, the court must determine whether it is appropriate to bind the company. If the salesperson did not in fact have actual authority to sign off on such contracts, courts would look to whether it was reasonable for the customer to think that they did, especially without communicating with corporate headquarters.Whether a Cont ract Must be in Writing (â€Å"Statute of Frauds†) As mentioned above, there is no general requirement that contracts be in writing. It is generally a good idea to write contracts down, because that provides clear evidence of their existence and terms if they are ever breached. Fundamentally, though, an oral agreement, or an unsigned written agreement, is a valid contract, except in two broad cases. The first is when there is a statutory or regulatory requirement to put a certain agreement in writing. This is often the case, for example, with financial and healthcare agreements.The second is if the contract is under the statute of frauds. The Statute of Frauds was a 17th century English law that required some contracts to be in writing, because otherwise there would be too much risk of witnesses lying (the â€Å"fraud†) in their oral testimony in court. Today, the term refers mostly to common law principles that impose a writing requirement, plus provisions of certain modern statutes (such as the Uniform Commercial Code) that impose similar obligations. Saying that a contract is â€Å"under the statute of frauds† means that it has to be in writing.There are several categories of contracts that fall under the statute of frauds, including suretyship (promising to pay someone else’s debts) and contracts in consideration of marriage (such as prenuptial agreements). The three categories most likely to arise in a business context are: †¢ †¢ Sale of land. This also includes interests in land, such as a mortgage. Sales of goods worth $500 or more. Note that contracts for services, such as consulting or financial advice, are not covered under this provision. The $500 figure comes from the Uniform Commercial Code, and is an arbitrary figure, not pegged to inflation.LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 7 †¢ Promises not performable in one year. In other words, there is no way the contract could be successfully performed within a year. If the contract does not specify a term of longer than a year, and there is come conceivable scenario in which both parties would discharge their responsibilities before the end of the year, it need not be in writing. If a contract falls under the statute of frauds, a sufficient â€Å"writing† is a document that identifies the parties, describes the basic obligations of the contract, and is signed by the party to be charged.As with any written contract, if there are specific details not set out in the document, the court can interpret the language or fill in reasonable terms as necessary to enforce it. If, however, the writing is missing a material term – for example, the price in most sales contracts – it is not enforceable. Basically, the court needs enough information to determine a remedy. If the contract is not under the statute of frauds, the courts can look to other written evidence or oral testimony to find a material term. However, if the parties simply failed to agree on such an essential point, the contract is unenforceable.Note that when the statute of frauds applies, only one party is required to sign the agreement: the party who is being sued to enforce it (the defendant). The signature of the other party may still be useful to prove there was intent to enter into a binding agreement. Excuses to Performance In some circumstances, a party will not be held to an agreement, even when it met all the legal requirements for a valid contract. The most common excuses to performance are: Fraud. If one party induces a contract by lying to the other party, it is not enforceable even when the form of the contract is perfectly good.Duress. If a party felt it was forced to enter into a contract against its will, it can claim the contract is unenforceable due to duress. This means something more than a difficult situation or a tough negotiating partner on the other side. For example, if there is only one supplier for an important input with sufficient production capacity, buying from that supplier is not duress. There must generally be some misconduct, involving threats to engage in illegal conduct or breach other obligations, which convinces the other party it has no choice. Unconscionability.As noted above, a contract will not be considered unenforceable because it is unfair, or because there is unequal bargaining power (as is typically the case in business-to-consumer interactions). However, if one party has no reasonable opportunity to understand the obligations they are undertaking, or there are terms in the agreement so manifestly unfair that they â€Å"shock the conscience,† courts can declare specific provisions or whole contracts as unconscionable. This doctrine is successfully invoked infrequently, and then typically when there is unfairness in the process, rather than the substantive terms.Mutual mistake. If both parties were mistaken about the fundamental subject matter of the contract, such that th ey never truly had an agreement, the contract can be declared unenforceable. If the mistake is simply a bad business decision, such as an assumption that the price of a good will not increase substantially, it will not excuse performance. Impossibility/frustration of purpose. If circumstances change so dramatically that either a contract is effectively impossible to perform, or it would be pointless to complete it, courts can excuse performance.As with the other doctrines, courts will not release parties from their obligations if performance is merely more difficult or costly than they expected. – – – – LGST 612 (Prof. Werbach) Page 8 These excuses are considered by courts after the fact. In such situations, there is a contract, but there is no legal remedy for a breach. Sometimes, the result is merely to sever a problematic provision of the contract. For example, a contract may be enforceable minus the specific term the court considered unconscionable.Re covery Outside of Contract (â€Å"Promissory Estoppel†) Modern contract law makes it relatively easy for parties to enter into contracts, to specify the terms of those contracts, and to be excused from contractual obligations when fundamental fairness dictates. Consequently, the legal system generally focuses on whether the procedural obligations of contract law described above have been met, rather than on whether the outcome is just. After all, the parties were free to act differently, yet chose to structure their agreement in a certain way.Why should the courts interfere with their decisions? In a host of cases, this freedom-based view of contracts fails to account for reality. Inequalities in access to information or bargaining power may so warp the relationship between parties that the formal structure of an agreement may not actually reflect the intent of at least one of them. Or there may be significant public policy concerns, such as avoiding mistreatment of patients or retail investors, which counsel for heightened obligations beyond those of common-law contract doctrines.Another category cuts in the opposite direction. Sometimes the un-enforceability of an agreement is unfair. If one party reasonably relies on the other party, yet has no remedy because the agreement is unenforceable, it can create a situation in which the courts view themselves as parties to an injustice. The legal doctrine known as promissory estoppel arose to allow for recovery of damages in court, even when there is no enforceable contract between the parties.The Restatement (Second) of Contracts, a collection of â€Å"best practices† in contract law written by leading legal experts in the field, describes promissory estoppel as follows: â€Å"A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only b y enforcement of the promise. The remedy granted for breach may be limited as justice requires. † Most commonly this doctrine is invoked for charitable gifts.For example, imagine that a donor to Wharton promises the school $100 million for a new building bearing her name, the school builds the building in reliance on the gift, and the donor then reneges on the promise. There is no enforceable contract, because there is no consideration. (The school’s expenditure in building the building was a response to the promised gift; it is not what induced the promise, as required for consideration. ) In such a situation, if a court feels it would be an â€Å"injustice† that Wharton receives no compensation, it can award damages on a promissory estoppel theory.Courts have applied promissory estoppel in other situations where, because of some legal quirk, a party reasonably relies on a contract and yet has no adequate remedy. Note that promissory estoppel is a distinct legal claim, not a lawsuit based on a valid contract. One consequence is that damages are generally limited to reliance. In the donation example in the previous paragraph, this means that Wharton might recover the amount it spent on constructing the building, but not the full $100 million that was promised. And remember that the court can decline to award anything if it does not feel that an injustice has occurred.

Amnesia – Memory Loss

Amnesia: Memory Loss Outline Thesis: Amnesia is a condition involving memory loss, which can cause people to lose their ability to memorize information and/or could cause people to be unable to recall information. I. General amnesia A. Types of amnesia 1. Anterograde 2. Retrograde B. Symptoms II. Causes of amnesia III. Diagnoses C. How to determine D. Treatments IV. Prevention of amnesia Amnesia: Memory Loss Memory loss can be associated with many different conditions in today’s medical fields such as amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, different forms of dementia, depression, or even a brain tumor.These conditions have similarities yet differences to define each one as a different illness. Amnesia is a well-known condition that is associated with memory loss in today’s medical world, which can cause people to lose their ability to memorize information and could cause people to be unable to recall familiar material. Amnesia comes in various forms of memory loss; the tw o most frequently seen forms of this are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is when the brain gets damaged and new information after the incident cannot be stored.The patient that has had this happen to him can remember aspects of life that has happened before the incident (Nordqvist 2). New information that is gained after the occurrence cannot be stored. The International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation describes this condition: Anterograde amnesia refers to a deficit in encoding new information subsequent to a given and specific event in time, for instance trauma due to an accident or the onset of brain damage. Consequently, new information cannot be or is partially retained by the individual, which leads to a learning disorder.This type of amnesia can be partial (some of the information is forgotten), and often underlies the individual's subjective complaints; or total, and is therefore characterized by the individual's inability to recall daily life activities or progressive loss of information (1). Retrograde amnesia is contrary to anterograde amnesia. After a traumatic event, the individual cannot remember certain things that happened before it took place but can normally remember anything that takes place after the incident.The degree of how much that can be remembered before the incident all depends on the amount of damage to the brain (de Guise 1). Amnesia comes with diverse symptoms. The two main symptoms are â€Å"impaired ability to learn new information following the onset of amnesia† and â€Å"impaired ability to recall past event and previously familiar information† (Mayo Clinic Staff 2). Other signs consist of confusion, disorientation, false recollections, uncoordinated movements, inability to identify the current president, and many others.Any head injury that causes any of these symptoms could be a sign of amnesia. The brain is a complex operating system that controls the body. The brain also contro ls memory. Damage from â€Å"accidents, encephalitis, or conditions that interrupt blood supply from the brain† can result in amnesia (Thompson and Madigan 119). Additional causes of amnesia can be but are not limited to such things as stroke, lack of oxygen to the brain, long-term alcohol abuse, and brain tumors. Lenore Terr, a clinical professor of psychiatry, states that a very common cause of retrograde amnesia is a concussion (67).Amnesia can also come about from emotional shock. This dissociative amnesia can be associated with being a victim of a crime, sexual abuse, child abuse, combat, and any other â€Å"intolerable life situation, which causes severe psychological stress and internal conflict† (Nordqvist 6). When a person thinks that he has amnesia, he should take several steps to determine what it is and what should be done about it. The first step is to seek help from a doctor. An appointment should be made to determine what the patient’s symptoms ar e indicating.In most cases, the patient takes a family member with them to their appointment to be able to help answer questions that the patient may not know or remember. At the appointment the doctor is very likely to ask questions such as â€Å"Were you involved in any trauma? †, â€Å"When did you first notice your memory loss? †, and â€Å"Does anything help to improve your memory? † (Mayo Clinic Staff 5). The doctor will do an evaluation to dismiss other possible causes of memory loss like Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, depression, or a brain tumor (Mayo Clinic Staff 5-6).Harvey S. Levin, Ph. D. , Vincent M. O’Donnell, M. A. , and Robert G. Grossman, M. D. developed an amnesia test of their own. This test consists of 15 questions. For each question the patient gets wrong, a number is deduced in the error score column. After all questions are completed, the doctor adds up the error score column and subtracts it from 100. Scores that range from 100-76 strengthens that the patient is normal, 75-66 implies the patient is borderline amnesia, and anything below 66 confirms the patient is impaired.Another exam that will be done is a physical exam. This will test reflexes, balance, and other components that deal with the brain or nervous system. It may be necessary to do imaging tests as well to look at the brain. This could include an MRI, a CT scan, or an EEG scan. These tests will determine if there is any physical damage to the brain or identify if something is abnormal about it. Once amnesia is diagnosed there are few things to be done to help the patient. Medical News Today states that in most cases amnesia resolves itself without treatment (8).Even though there are no current drugs to help the restoration of memory, different types of therapy may help to reestablish recollections. These can include psychotherapy, hypnosis, and occupational therapy. Some people are turning to technology for assistance; PDA’s or oth er hand held devices are helping patients to remember their everyday tasks more easily. The most important factors to treating amnesia is family support. Families can help â€Å"nudge patients back into their environment† if they are surrounded by familiar objects and people (Nordqvist 8).Amnesia can be prevented if the right precautions are taken. Any damage to the brain can cause amnesia, so a person needs to take any step they can to protect it. For instance, wearing a helmet while riding a bike will shield the brain from any injury in case there is a blow to the head. Avoiding excessive alcohol use is another precaution (Mayo Clinic Staff 8). Another great preventative measure to take is to make sure to treat any infection quickly (Mayo Clinic Staff 8). By doing this it will secure the infection from being able to spread to the brain.Protecting the brain in any form that is possible is the best prevention of amnesia. Memory loss is a very serious condition that can come i n many different forms including amnesia. A sign of amnesia is when people lose their ability to memorize information and are unable to recall facts. Even though there is no medical drugs to treat this condition as of now, the importance of seeking help from a medical expert to confirm if it is amnesia or not is very high. With other forms of treatments available, this condition could be reversed or fixed with a coping method.The brain controls every part of our body in some form or another. Protection of the brain is the key essential to preventing amnesia due to it controlling one’s memory. If taking care of the brain and shielding it can prevent amnesia, why would someone not take the proper steps to do so? Works Cited de Guise, Elaine. 2012. Amnesia. In: JH Stone, M Blouin, editors. International Encyclopedia of Rehabilitation. Web. Levin, Harvey S. , Vincent M. O'Donnell, and Robert G. Grossman. â€Å"The Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test. † UTMB Health | The University of Texas Medical Branch | UTMB. du. N. p. , n. d. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. Mayo Clinic Staff. â€Å"Amnesia – MayoClinic. com. † Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. Nordqvist, Christian. â€Å"What Is Amnesia? What Causes Amnesia?. † Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl. , 14 Jul. 2009. Web. Terr, Lenore. Unchained memories: true stories of traumatic memories, lost and found. New York, N. Y. : Basic Books, 1994. Print. Thompson, Richard F. , and Stephen A. Madigan. Memory: the key to consciousness. Washington, D. C. : Joseph Henry Press, 2005. Print.

A Young Mans Song

Take a Chance The poem, The Young Man’s Song by William Butler Yeats creates an encouraging tone to convince people in taking a chance with love. The poem creates a symbolic meaning of taking a chance when the poem says, â€Å"Wherefore I threw a penny to find if I might love. † This line describes that people need to take a chance at love otherwise they may not get another chance. You have to throw the penny in order to take a chance. Go and love, go and love young man, If the lady be young and fair,† shows that the young man should go after this lady if she seems to be worth the effort. The young man should go after this lady before someone else does. This poem depicts the subject of love. The poem has an encouraging tone for people in love because it gives people hope that there is a chance for them to love. The mood is also similar because it is hopeful for the young man to gain love.These two help show the subject of the poem is love. This subject is shown in the theme by explaining that if you wait too long to go for love, then it may be too late. It is better to take a chance then to wait until it is too late. The poem describes how love cannot be understood fully by anyone so the goal should be to not become worried about love and to take a chance even if you’re not sure how it will end up.The poem says that a person would be thinking of love until the stars had run away which is describing how people may wait too long to express their love. This may mean that if you don’t take a chance now, then you may not get another chance in the future. The very end of the poem emphasizes this point when it says, â€Å"One cannot begin too soon. † This specific line gives the idea of throwing all your worries away and taking a chance because it is never too early to love.

The Art of Slow Reading

The art of slow reading Patrick Kingsley If you’re reading this article in print, chances are you’ll only get through half of what I’ve written. And if you’re reading this online, you might not even finish a fifth. These are the two findings from two recent research projects, which both suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion. The problem doesn’t just stop there: academics report that we are becoming less attentive book-readers, too. So are we getting stupider?Is that what this is about? Sort of. According to The Shallows, a new book by technology sage Nicholas Carr, our hyperactive online habits are damaging the mental faculties we need to process and understand lengthy textual information. Round-the-clock news feeds leave us hyperlinking from one article to the next – without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content; our reading is frequently interrupted by the ping of the latest email; and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.Because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of information, but we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other. Still reading? You’re probably in a dwindling minority. But no matter: a literary revolution is at hand. First we had slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a slow-reading movement – a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals who want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading.They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with printed texts, and the ability to process them fully. Lancelot Fletcher, the first present-day author to popularise the term â€Å"slow reading†, argues that slow reading is not so much about unleashing the reader’s cr eativity, as uncovering the author’s. And while Fletcher used the term initially as an academic tool, slow reading has since become a more wide-ranging concept.Slow reading, like slow food, is now, at root, a localist idea which can help connect a reader to his neighbourhood. Slow reading is a community event restoring connections between ideas and people. The continuity of relationships through reading is experienced when we borrow books from friends; when we read long stories to our kids until they fall asleep. But our era’s technological diarrhea is bringing more and more slow readers to the fore. Keith Thomas, the Oxford history professor, is one such reader.He doesn’t see himself as part of a wider slow community, but has nevertheless recently written about his bewilderment at the hasty reading techniques in contemporary academia. â€Å"I don’t think using a search engine to find certain key words in a text is a substitute for reading it properly,â €  he says. â€Å"You don’t get a proper sense of the work, or understand its context. † â€Å"The words of the writer,† suggests sage Nicholas Carr, â€Å"act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, associations, and perceptions. And, perhaps even more significantly, it is only through slow reading that great literature can be cultivated in the future. As Carr writes, â€Å"the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer’s work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. † The internet is probably part of the problem. It accustoms us to new ways of reading and looking and consuming. It fragments our attention span in a way that’s not ideal if you want to read.The real issue with the internet may be that it erodes, slowly, one’s se nse of self, one’s capacity for the kind of pleasure in isolation that reading has, since printed books became common, been standard. What’s to be done, then? Most slow readers realise that total rejection of the web is extremely unrealistic, but many felt that temporary isolation from technology was the answer. Some people have advocated turning their computer off for one day a week. But, given the pace at which most of us live, do we even have time? Some people think the iPad might just be the answer.It’s pleasant and fun, and doesn’t remind people of work. But, for the true slow reader, there’s simply no substitute for particular aspects of the paper book: the binding of a book captures an experience or idea at a particular space and time. And even the act of storing a book is a pleasure. Personally, I’m not sure I could ever go offline for long. Even while writing this article I was flicking constantly between sites, skimming too often, absorbing too little; internet reading has become too ingrained in my daily life for me to change.I read essays and articles not in hard copy but as PDFs, and I’m more comfortable churning through lots of news features from several outlets than just a few from a single print source. I suspect that many readers are in a similar position. But if, like me, you just occasionally want to read more slowly, help is at hand. You can download a computer application called Freedom, which allows you to read in peace by cutting off your internet connection. Or if you want to remove adverts and other distractions from your screen, you could always download offline reader Instapaper for your iPhone. If you’re still reading, that is.