Dimensions of national culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Dimensions of national culture - Essay Example Music, theatre, fine arts, language and literature are developed in order to add some color and entertainment in everyday living, as well as improve on communication. Sports and educational syllabuses are also developed for entertainment and improvement of skills. All these facets of life among others keep on changing from one form the other thus enriching culture (Marcus, 1995). All of these developments are recorded for future references in different symbols including writing, drawings, cave paintings or passed from one person to another orally. As this culture is passed on it is modified through innovation, borrowing from others. Elements like language therefore constantly improve and diversify as time goes by (Cohen, 1985). This paper sets out to analyze the development of national culture and to explain why people within a certain nationality or region typically develop traits that are unique to themselves. The paper looks at how different cultural backgrounds affect persons wor king within an organization. It also explains the effects impede or support the realizations of the objectives of the said organization. Elements of Organizational Culture Every nation is renowned for certain things. For instance the vast majority of people of Britain enjoy association football [also known as soccer] whose rules were founded in that country in 1863; very much. This is different when compared to Americans who prefer their own version of football which is closer to the Rugby that is also loved a lot in Britain (Maccambridge, 2004). This same case applies to organizations. According to Hofstede(1980), national culture directly influences organizational culture. Organizations exist within countries and are therefore influenced by the prevailing culture within them. In his study of national cultural influences he identified four dimensions of culture. These he classified as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism vs individualism and masculinity vs femininity (Hofstede, 1980). The first dimension, power distance, refers to the difference of power allowed by the society between the highest and lowest echelons of power. A high power difference score means that there is a great difference between the power wielded and the privileges enjoyed by people high ranking individuals and their lower ranking counterparts within the organization (Schein, 2005). A low score on the other hand means that everybody in the organization enjoys almost equal rights to anybody else (Schein, 2005). The measure of power distance in different nationalities revealed that countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark and Israel had some of the lowest power distance levels while sub-Saharan African and Malaysia among others had the highest (Hofstede, 1980). The second one uncertainty avoidance refers to extent of anxiety about the unknown in a society. In cultures where there is strong uncertainty avoidance, people prefer operating with explicit rules and laws that govern labor and social relations. Employees in this system tend to keep the same job for long since they feel less uncertain about the future and feel strongly that the rules guarantee their rights. The societies with weak

Errors of metabolism (newborn screening) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Errors of metabolism (newborn screening) - Essay Example (CPSP, n.d.) (Rinaldo, 1988) Various findings also suggets that this disease is genetically inherited via autosomal recessive pattern. Going deep into the molecular mechanisms of this enzyme’s expression, it was found that MCAD enzyme is expressed by ACADM(alias MCAD) gene located on chromosome 1p31. Due to a point mutation at position 985 on the gene, results is swapping of an adenine by a guanine, that results in replacement of a lysine by a glutamate residue in the protein leading to onset of disease. (Grosse, 2006; Wang SS, 1999; Matsubura, 1990). Around 80% of European individuals have at least two copies of this mutation. (Wang SS, 1999). Considering high mortality rate of 20 to 25% in undiagnosed cases, this disorder was included in the list of newborn screening programmes. (Wilson, 1999) Variation in Symptoms and Prognosis The deficiency of this enzyme is characterised by symptoms such as hypoketotic hypoglycaemia, vomiting (Egidio RJ, 1989) and hypotonia progressing t o coma. (BPSU, 2006). Other symptoms include seizures, coma, residual neurological deficits. No symptoms are exhibited at birth, except for the case when newbron screening is conducted. The symptoms show up any time between teh age of three to twenty-months; in some cases, it may show up much later. Once it is successfully diagnosed, prognosis becomes much effective by administering the patient with adequate treatment regimes (Matern, 2013). Diagnosis Prenatal-testing: Prenatal testing includes molecular genetic testing that helps in early diagnosis of the disease and thus enable the parents to be mentally aware and cautious of their child’s health. The first test includes the testing of analyses that include plasma acylcarnitines, urine organic acids and urine acylglycines. Biochemical diagnoses include the measurement of fatty acid ?-oxidation in fibroblasts as well as measurement of MCAD enzyme activity in fibroblasts and other tissues (Leydiker, 2011). Molecular Genetic t esting comprises of two methods that include Targetted Mutation Analysis and Sequence Analysis. Targetted mutation analysis a.k.a Allele specific mutation analysis involves the testing of the mutations p.Lys304Glu (985A>G) and p.Tyr42His (199C>T). Sequence analysis involves the testing of sequence variants may also include other mutations such as splice site mutations, non-sense and mis-sense mutations as well as small deletions/ insertions. This method does not target mutations identified by Targetted mutation analysis. Newborn- Screening: Newborn Screening differs from Pre-natal testing such that pre-natal testing is carried out during pregnancy and before the child’s birth, whereas the former involves the testing of the child’s health condition within first few days of birth (Matern, 2013). Tandem mass spectrometry was developed by Millington et al, for analysis of acylcarnitines in blood collected from umbilical cord as well as neonatal blood. This method proved to efficient diagnostic tool to diagnose MCAD deficiency. The simplicity and speed of the method enabled its use in everyday neonatal screening of infants (Millington, 1990; Kennedy, 2010) This tool has been widely used for screening of MCAD and has proved to be a robust, efficient tool. Newborns who are MCAD deficient have higher octanoylcarnitine levels than normal individuals; this forms an effective screening test, and has helped to decrease mortality and