A definition of the values and ethics in sport Essay

Principles A principle is a basic truth, law or policy. Principles are standards that define moral behaviour. A principle in sport might be that the officials teat all equally on the field of play. For example the referee in a rugby match is expected to make decisions on what has happened on the field of play, regardless of who the player is, this illustrates the principle of fair play in sport. In the premier league football it is often though that players ‘get away’ with behaviour that would be deemed unacceptable and against the principle of fair play. Values Values are ideals that form the basis of actions and beliefs. An example of a value in sport is when a player endeavours to play well for the team’s sake and not for his or her own benefit. Foe example, a hockey goalkeeper would put herself at some risk by saving a hard driven shot, this upholds the value of playing for the sake of others. In premier league football a goalkeeper may try very hard to save a shot and risk injury because he is die to gain as an individual in a forthcoming transfer deal. This is not upholding the value of playing for others. Ethics Ethics are rules that dictate a person’s conduct. They form a system of rules that groups and societies are judged on. In sport it is ethical to acknowledge that you have broken the rules of your particular game. For example, a snooker player would tell the referee that he had committed a foul shot even though the referee had not noticed, this shows ethical conduct. In athletics, a runner might take a performance enhancing drug, breaking the rules of competition this is an example of unethical behaviour. The underpinning value of these three definitions is that of fair play and abiding by the rules. Everyone involved at sport at all levels are supposed to encourage ethical considerations that will lead to fair play, it is to be encouraged at all levels of sport and towards all ages of sportsperson but particularly aspiring young athletes. The major underpinning values that are to be taught are:- * Friendship * Respect for others * Playing with a level head and a team spirit * Equal opportunities An explanation as to the importance of ethics and values for sporting organisation and the individuals who participate Individual and group development has a lot to do with the ethics and values that are learnt through life. Ethics and values are important for individuals who take part in sport because sport plays a major role in a lot of peoples lives from an early age. Players and fans that are into sport tend to devote a lot of time and effort to their favourite sport. If you look into the nature of fairplay in sport for some people it leads to their understanding of fairness in a wider social setting, this is because many of our basic values, such as playing fairly are often absorbed through athletic competition because when kids are taught about sports emphasis is often put on playing fair. The underlying importance of this is that if an individual or group do not develop a proper set of ethics and values it will make them and their club look bad. An example is a player like Roy Keane who admitted in his autobiography that he broke a fellow footballer’s leg simply because he wanted to. From this I can understand that Roy Keane did not grow up with the same sort of values that I did. He didn’t get it hammered into him when he was young that breaking someone’s leg isn’t part and parcel of the sport. This also reflects a bad image on the club and if my memory serves me right Manchester United round about that time were considered quite a â€Å"dirty† club. No proud owner of a club really wants their club to be known as an aggressive bunch of cheats. It is nobler to be like Chelsea who last year not only won the Premiership but the fairplay award as well which if you look at it really makes you think â€Å"yeah they are true champions because they won it fairly†. You could argue that they spent 100 million pounds to win the league but they still did it fairly more so than any other team in the land and I and hopefully many other football fans respect them for it. From a strong commitment to ethics and values players can achieve likeability and move onto more successful jobs. An example is Gary Linekar he never received a yellow card in his whole life ans he has since taken over from the legendary Des Lynam as the Match of the Day host. Players with bad reputations that are openly disliked by the majority of fans are unlikely to move onto other limelight jobs when their career over as well as simply being disliked by the general public. When these players careers are over they still have to do the shopping, go out to eat etc. When they go out into the public people are going to have an opinion of them based on the ethics and values that they have shown on the field of play. Who wants to be openly disliked? Clubs have a good public image to gain from having a strong commitment to ethics and values and all good businesses know that a good public image means more money. A consequence of bad ethics and values could be related to athletics. Probably the most talked about ethic in sport is the prohibition of using performance enhancing drugs in athletics. A lot of people do wonder what justifies this prohibition because why shouldn’t athletes, especially competent adult athletes be free to take risks with their bodies? The answer to this comes down to ethics and morals most of us have about sport. This is an important rule because performance enhancing drugs such as steroids have very harmful side effects as well as providing an unfair advantage. It is important that a value such is this is instilled into athletes of all ages because really we would hope that all athletes would want to compete clean not only because they should want to see how good they can become without performance enhancing drugs but hopefully the integrity of the sport should be important to them as well. I remember I myself used to be a big fan of athletics back in the day of Linford Christie and Colin Jackson but over time I began to get tired when my heroes, the people I looked up to got stripped of their gold medals because they had cheated. Incidents like these put me off the sport and I no longer watch it, this is why it is important for individuals and organisations to have a strong set of ethics and values. Children look up to and aspire to be like a lot of the athletes that are on the TV these days and a poor showing of ethics and values by a well known professional sportsperson will surely be taken in and acknowledged as ok by many young athletes. Basically fans want to trust that an athlete’s accomplishments are achieved fairly. Consequences of bad ethics and values are that sportspersons integrity is totally lost, the sports integrity itself will go down and younger athletes may lose faith in wanting to be a professional. Coaches at all levels experience the pleasures of watching young people develop sport skills and contribute to successful teams. However, coaches also have important legal and ethical obligations to their athletes. Coaches need to ensure that a strong set of values are instilled right from the start of those of whom they are coaching playing days. There are a range of ethical responsibilities for a sports coach the most common are > To encourage the development of youth into productive citizens and to develop their abilities and attitudes for further learning and success in life. > To encourage participation and involve as many people as possible in a competitive experience. > All team members, regardless of ability are to be afforded opportunities to develop their work ethic, sense of commitment, and social and athletic skills. > All coaching programmes should seek to educate athletes about community support and encourage them to return that support both now and throughout their lives. > And one of the biggest goals to be taught is that of â€Å"The goal is to win, but to win the correct way, a player should never sacrifice his character for a win† Earlier on I described the consequences of a bad set of ethics for an individual. In my opinion a coach with a bad set ethics is far worse because it is just not him or her who looks bad it is the people he/she is influencing as well. First of the importance of a proper coaching is the influential factor. This doesn’t just apply to children but to adults as well. The problem these days is that winning is everything and some coaches do actually teach that. Various coaches at the top level send their players out to win a match through diving, time wasting and fouling opposition players. So adults can be influenced as well and so can kids who are learning in much the same way that winning is everything. It is imperative that a coach instils values and ethics into a child as early as possible so that they are not so easily swayed into cheating as they get older. This once again helps keeps intact the integrity of the player, the club the play for and the sport. The benefit these players will have are that they can become an upstanding member of the public a role model that players can look up to sort of like a David Beckham figure (bad example). Consequences are that from a young age players are conditioned into thinking that winning is everything and this can spill over into real life. A sports player may cheat on a maths test or lie to get a girlfriend because the values that they learnt through their coaching apply to their real life situations. Coaches need to be a positive role model and penalise unfair play! An example I can remember when this was not done was in the final of the 1999 women’s world cup. The American women’s football team completed regulation and extra time play against china with the score drawn. The championship, viewed through the world by millions of fans, many of them young American girls captivated by the success of the American women, was to be settled by a penalty shootout. The coach had decided one of the Chinese shooters, Liu Ying, lacked confidence so said something to the American goalkeeper, Briana Scurry. When Ying made her move, Scurry took two quick steps forward, in violation of a rule of football, to cut off Ying’s shooting angle. The tactic worked. Scurry deflected Ying’s shot and the Americans won. As for as I’m concerned Scurry acted unfairly and cheated by violating a rule on her coaches advice. It set a bad example to all the aspiring young American women and for me and many other people that watched, the American victory was tainted by unethical behaviour in a deliberate violation of the rules. I see that as a major consequence of bad ethics taught and it is still happening all over the world in other sports such as boxing where fighters have cheated in a multitude of ways through their cornermen. To be honest a lot of the people that cheat in sport through advice of their coaches are remembered only for their win and not for the cheating but there are many people still out their who view these sportspeople and the people that coached them as cheats and they have to live that for the rest of their lives. The main value statements that need to be learnt in order to obtain an NVQ in sport and recreations are that people shouldn’t be discriminated against based on their age, gender, ethnic origin or if they are disabled. The reason that these value statements are in place is because in this day and age there is still a lot of prejudice in the world. Prejudice can’t be afforded in competitive sport or the sports industry. Sport in reality is supposed to be all about enjoyment and achievement and shouldn’t in anyway be anything to do with a disability, age or colour of someone’s skin. The benefits of the individuals who learn these value statements and take them in are that they will influence people to shed their differences and help understand other people’s needs and this will help to draw different types of people together. Basically differences can be buried by sport if people learn these statements then apply them to the sporting organisations they work in. An example is that they could encourage different race teams or mixed age teams or include people with disabilities. Most of the football teams that we support today have a mix of nationalities. The small minority of supporters that are racist tend to support the ethnics in their own team with the same love shown to the people in their team that are the same race’s as them. This shows that sport can bring people together at the highest level which means that it can be filtered down to lower levels like people working in leisure centres or small clubs. With regards to age sport and sports facilities should cater for all ages. Just because someone becomes older does not mean that they lose there ability or desire to play sport. Old people should be valued equally when they go to a leisure centre it’s not that they want to do a swimming lap in twenty seconds they just want to enjoy themselves and be involved. Older people might look old but some don’t feel old and contribute their knowledge and experience to those that are younger. The benefits of understanding the older people in the community are that it open doors and gives opportunities for special events such as swimming for the elderly or special classes. Old people don’t want to feel inferior or isolated and if sporting organisations can help and understand them by arranging and encouraging activities for them to take part in it can only improve the organisations overall/community image. People in the community don’t want to feel ostracised so classes such as Muslim women only classes, women only classes and free for the over 60’s classes have helped participation rates in relation to sporting activities. If all the people that are part of an organisation have a good set of ethics and morals it can only be productive for the organisation. Good examples will be set, participation rates will be met and the bank balance should show a good profit. The more types of people that are mentioned in the value statements taking part in sporting organisations can only lead to good publicity for the organisation. The consequences of an organisation not having a good set of ethics and values can be quite severe. There could be legal complications if disabled facilities are not available and possibly if there are not enough people from ethnic origins not taking part. Organisations such as leisure centre’s could lose out on financial gains and suffer loses that could lead to a cut in jobs or the leisure centre losing its contract and being taken over or shut down. As well as that with poor ethics and values there will be no community spirit regarding the sporting organisation because if it does not cater for all the surrounding people it cannot expect to be successful. Successful businesses that have made it have done so due to the fact that they catered for the elderly, disabled etc. Manchester United offer reduced rates for the elderly and disabled and this gives them a good image which is paramount for a big sporting organisation that is in the limelight. Another consequence is that the general health of a community may declines. If the staff at an organisation are showing a lack of morals and values people may not attend which means that they are not getting the exercise that they need and this is particularly important in the elderly. For a lot of people working in sporting organisations they have to realise that the public is the main reason for their existence thus they have to be treated with some respect. If an organisation wants the public to have a good attitude towards them then they have to make sure that all their staff have people skills and a high degree of customer service skills. Employees in sports organisations have very important roles to play because they are on the front lines representing the organisations that they are working for. They need to set good examples and encourage ethics and values in every aspect of their job. If they don’t it leads to customer complaints as well as tainting the image of whomever they are working for. On the management’s side, they need to make sure that they instil good customer service ethics among employees and thus create a people-focused culture. They also have to take a more serious attitude to customers’ complaints and in rewarding those employees who display positive attitudes towards customers. Setting examples at the highest level will hopefully filter down examples to the lower levels staff who won’t want to break the rules and then they should pass on these same examples to the customers they are serving. Once again this leads to increased participation rates, the business should make more money and have a decent public image. Employers and Employees have other important issues to consider such as providing high and health and safety standards. The importance of Health and safety in sporting organisations such as Leisure centres/gyms cannot be over-emphasised. This applies to employers, who must satisfy legislative requirements and employees, who work with hazardous substances. Consumers too are increasingly interested in knowing about the possible dangers of substances used in leisure centres including those that are added to their food. The public and employees stand to benefit from improved safety because effective health and safety management clearly helps reduce accidents. Obviously the less accidents there are the higher the reputation of the leisure centre/gym. A leisure centre/gym is all about reputation especially when there are so many rivals around. Health and Safety at work benefits:- Well-being at work Safety at work Quality of life Motivation Less injury or sickness Job security Good moral Low turnover Increased productivity Lower insurance premiums Increased reputation

Marketing Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Marketing Management - Essay Example A wide range of food programs and food festivals are organized in Singapore which witnesses a strong level of participation from a wide array of expert level international chefs from various corners of the world. This automatically makes the market of Singapore a birth place of various kinds of innovative food based delicacies as well as bakery products. Discussing on the lines of the bakery products, it can be said that the market of Singapore can be divided on the lines of bread based offerings, cakes, biscuits as well as breakfast cereals (Euromonitor.com, 2011). However, it also has to be said that the Singapore has a large number of Muslim population, which forms the Halal market in the region. It is highly interesting to state that the South East Asia, which includes the region of Singapore, is homes to around 250 million Halal oriented consumers. Talking about the valuation of the south east Asia market formed by the 250 million Halal consumers, it can be highlighted that the market stands at an astounding 93,000 million USD (Daganhalal.com, n.d.). It is also very important to highlight the fact that the region of Singapore, which falls under the category of South East Asia has a tremendous and growing potential for becoming one of the leading Halal based food markets, mainly because of the fact of the region being a major transhipping centre. Also, it has to be said that the Muslim presence in the Singapore region comprises to over 60% of the entire population of Muslim located all over the world (Min, Global Halal Food Industry, p. 7). Source: Global Halal Food Industry. Hence, it can be said that there exists a unique opportunity in the bakery market to cater to the inward as well as outward growth that is emerging from the Halal market of Singapore. Market Trends Discussing the trends that are currently evolving in the market of Singapore, it can be said that the trends are similar to that of the bakery market of south East Asia. It is to be mentione d that the bakery industry existing in these markets is highly dependent on the series of factors. The factors are a mixture of macroeconomic as well as lifestyle trends like strong growth of the regional economy, growing living standards of the masses, influence of western oriented lifestyle as well as busy lives of the masses (PRWeb.com, 2013). The factor of shortage of time in the hands of the masses in regards to preparation of traditional meals is playing a tremendous catalytic role in spreading the growth of the bakery industry in the market of Singapore. The bread and bakery industry of the region has a highly diversified consumer portfolio. Talking in regards to the future market trends for this particular sector in the Singapore region, it can be said that the manufacturers and retailers will try to attain a growth in the business by leveraging on the highly diversified consumers base. In order to develop a competitive edge in the business as well as for better positioning of their products, the manufacturers and retailers of the bread industry will try to introduce innovative products which will be segmented and targeted specifically to consumers on the basis of their age group. Market Growth While discussing the factors of market growth, it has to be brought in to focus that the bakery market of Singapore grew at a rate of 7.9 % on a compound annual basis between the 5 year period of 2004 to 2009 (Datamonitor.com, 2012). During this period the bread and

Zinc Finger Nucleases Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Zinc Finger Nucleases - Essay Example When mRNA or genes coding for modified ZFNs are expressed in cells they introduce site-specific breaks in target DNA, which when repaired by the cellular DNA repair machinery, result in substitutions or deletions at the cleavage site, thus introducing a site-specific mutation. 1) Cite four research papers that use this method (20%) and describe, with the aid of diagrams if necessary. 2) How ZFNs can be used to carry out site-directed mutagenesis and how the use of genome sequence data is essential to use this technique (80%). Upper Word Limit: †¦3000 RELEVANT MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Describe the different means of making targeted sets of mutations to systematically analyse gene function. 2. Be able to develop practical expertise in applying bioinformatics methods to biological problems 3. Have further developed your skills in information retrieval from library and Web site sources. 4. Have gained additional experience in critical reading of original literature. 5. Have dev eloped further your ability to study To be signed by the student I have read and understood the University regulations and the Departmental guidelines on cheating in my Degree Handbook. I confirm that, in preparing this piece of work, I have followed those guidelines. I understand that my work may be submitted for checking to the JISC Plagiarism Detection Service and that use of this Service complies with UK Data Protection Law. Word Count: †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦2730 words excluding cover page and references†¦ Signature of student†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Date†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Failure to sign and clearly identify this piece of work will result in no marks being awarded. Note: The standard turnaround time for marked coursework is four weeks. Turnaround times for coursework involving multiple and/or ext ernal markers may be longer. In these cases the module supervisor will advise when the coursework will be returned. Site-Directed Mutagenesis by Engineered Zinc Finger Nucleases Background A zinc finger refers to a secondary structural motif of certain proteins. The zinc finger folds in a manner that allows it to coordinate or hold a zinc metal. There are several zinc finger motifs; the most common is the Cys2His2 zinc finger that consists of an antiparallel ?-sheet and an ?-helix coordinated by 2 His and 2 Cys residues that bind a zinc atom. The zinc finger proteins are involved in many reactions like mediating protein-protein interactions, RNA binding, but they are most known to be involved DNA sequence-specific binding. Two or more zinc fingers comprise the DNA-binding domain. Each zinc finger domain binds to three bases on the DNA. If there are more zinc fingers, then more bases are bound. Bound regions by the zinc fingers are usually three bp apart, and bind to the major groove of DNA. The capacity of the zinc finger proteins to recognize highly specific DNA sequences for binding was exploited by researchers to produce, design, or engineer zinc finger nucleases (ZFN) that can cut the target DNA at specific sites. Usually, these zinc finger nucleases have similar motifs as that of Cys2His2 zinc finger protein. In order to cut a specific target site on the DNA, the engineered zinc finger protein was fused with the cleavage site of FokI endonuclease, which is a restriction enzyme. FokI has a strict requirement for dimerization to the DNA; this is the reason why two different ZFNs are designed in opposing direction to bind the FokI restriction site (Figure 1). One ZNF can have several zinc fingers but only one nuclease domain. Many engineered ZFNs are targeted to attach to different DNA regions. After the ZFNs specifically bind the target DNA regions, the Fok1