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Major categories of insurance purchased by businesses or individuals include liability, property, life and health insurances.

Liability Insurance It refers to insurance covering losses resulting from damage to a person or property. From the early 1970s through the 1980s, a kind of revolution took place with regard to liability. Who was responsible for damages in the case of accidental or deliberate harm to individuals and other property? Of particular concern was who should be financially responsible (liable) for the medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering endured by an individual who was temporarily or permanently disabled due to the actions of another.

As courts and juries began to hold defendants financially responsible for their actions, more and more people want liability insurance. It is important to realize that everyone — a surgeon, a driver, a property owner, an insurance agent, or a judge — can be held financially responsible for his or her actions.

To meet this growing need, insurance companies now offer a wider variety of liability insurance policies. A liability policy offers two basic types of coverage. First, the insurer promises to defend the policyholder in a court of law when the subject of the suit is covered by the policy. Second, the insurer promises to pay damages assessed against the policyholder if the policyholder is held to be legally liable.

Property Insurance This refers to insurance covering losses resulting from physical damage to real estate or personal property. Property losses may result from fire, lightning, wind, hail, explosion, theft, vandalism or other destructive forces. Property insurance may include fire insurance, marine insurance, title insurance, business interruption insurance and credit insurance.

Life Insurance Life insurance means insurance that pays benefits to survivors of a policyholder. Insurance companies accept premium from policy holders in return for the promise to pay a beneficiary after the death of the policyholder. Life insurance is a very profitable business, which can be divided into whole life insurance, term insurance and endowment.

Health Insurance Health Insurance refers to insurance covering losses resulting from medical and hospital expenses and/or from loss of income because of injury or disease.

Commercial insurers provide a variety of policies to cover expenses incurred due to sickness or injury. Specific examples of these policies include:

• Hospital expenses: pays for medical expenses incurred while in the hospital such as room and board charges, lab charges, tests, and prescription.

• Surgical expenses: pays for physician fees for surgery received in the hospital or elsewhere.

• Physical expenses: pays for non-surgical care provided by a physician in the hospital, at home, or in the doctor's office.

• Comprehensive medicare: provides a variety of coverage such as those listed above. This policy is usually characterized by a deductible and by a percentage participation provision that requires some contributions by the policyholder.

• Disability: income insurance — provides income payments to the policyholder when the policyholder is unable to work due to a non-occupational sickness or injury.

Most policies reimburse the disabled policyholder up to a certain percentage of earned income.

China has been a united multi-ethnic country since ancient times.

In 221 B. C. , the first united, multi-ethnic, centralized state—the Qin Dynasty— was founded in China. Today's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yunnan Province, where minority peoples are concentrated, were prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of the united Qin regime. During the Han Dynasty (206 B. C. - 220 A. D.), the centralized feudal state became even more powerful by inheriting the Qin system. The Han Dynasty set up a Frontier Command Headquarters in the Western Regions (a general term for today's territory west of Dunhuang, Gansu Province, since the Han Dynasty) and added 17 prefectures governing the people of all ethnic groups there. In this way, a state with a vast territory embracing the ancestors of the various peoples living in Xinjiang today emerged. In the course of the frequent communication between the Han Dynasty and the surrounding minority peoples, the people of the Chinese nation were called the Han by other ethnic groups, and the most populous ethnic group in the world, the Han, emerged. China as a united multi-ethnic country was created by the Qin Dynasty and consolidated and developed by the Han Dynasty.

The central governments of all dynasties following the Han developed and consolidated the united multi-ethnic entity. The central governments of the past dynasties were established not only by the Han people but also by minority peoples. In the 13th century, the Mongolians established the united multi-ethnic Great Yuan Empire (1206-1368). The Yuan Dynasty practiced a system of xingsheng (province, or branch secretariat, a paramount administrative agency in a provincial area) across the country and appointed aboriginal officials or tu guan (hereditary posts of local administrators filled by chiefs of ethnic minorities) in the prefectures and subprefectures of the southern regions where minority peoples lived in concentrated communities. It established the Pacification Commissioner's Commandery in charge of military and administrative affairs in Tibet, whereby Tibet has became thenceforth an inalienable part of Chinese territory, as well as the Penghu Police Office for the administration of the Penghu Islands and Taiwan. Ethnically, the Yuan Empire comprised most of modern China's ethnic groups. The rise of the Manchu in the 17th century culminated in the founding of the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Qing Dynasty set up the Hi Generalship and Xinjiang Province in the Western Regions, appointed resident officials in Tibet and established the historical convention of conferring honorific titles on the two Living Buddhas Dalai and Panchen lamas by the Central Government. In addition, the Qing Dynasty carried out a series of policies, including a system of local administrators in minority areas appointed by the Central Government, in southwestern China.

Although there were short-term separations and local divisions in Chinese history, unity has always been the mainstream in the development of Chinese history.

During the long process of unification, economic and cultural exchanges brought the people of all ethnic groups in China closely together, giving shape to a relationship of interdependence, mutual promotion and mutual development among them and contributing to the creation and development of the Chinese civilization.

Due to their interdependent political, economic and cultural connections, all ethnic groups in China have shared common destiny and interests in their long historical development, creating a strong force of affinity and cohesion.

The unity and cooperation among the various ethnic groups have helped to safeguard China as a united multi-ethnic state. In particular in modern times, when China became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and the Chinese nation suffered from imperialist invasion, oppression and humiliation and was reduced to the status of an oppressed nation, in order to safeguard the unity of the state and the dignity of the Chinese nation, all the ethnic groups united and fought unyieldingly together against foreign invaders and ethnic separatists. In the 19th century, the people of all the ethnic groups in Xinjiang together with the Qing troops wiped out Yakoob Beg's reactionary forces and defeated the British and Russian invaders' plot to split China. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Tibetan people and troops dealt a heavy blow on the British invaders at the Mount Lungthur and Gyangze battles. During the eight-year war of resistance against Japanese imperialist aggression (1937 - 1945), the Chinese people of all ethnic groups shared bitter hatred of the enemy and fought dauntlessly and unflinchingly. It is well known that many anti-Japanese forces with ethnic minorities as the mainstay, such as the Hui People's Detachment and the Inner Mongolia Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Contingent made great contributions to China's victory in the War of

Resistance. The people of all ethnic groups fought unswervingly and succeeded in safeguarding national unity against acts aimed at splitting the country, which went counter to the historical trend and the will of the Chinese nation, including plots for the "independence of Tibet", for the setting up of an "Eastern Turkestan" in Xinjiang and the carving out of a puppet state of "Manchoukuo" in Northeast China, hatched or engineered by a few ethnic separatists with the support of imperialist invaders.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the central governments of the various periods in China each had a sequence of policies and systems of its own concerning ethnic affairs, but under all of them, whether set up by the Han people or an ethnic minority, there was no equality to speak of among ethnic groups. The founding of the People's Republic of China opened up a new era in which all ethnic groups in China enjoy equality, unity and mutual aid. In the big, united family of ethnic groups in the People's Republic of China, on the basis of equality of all rights, the people of all ethnic groups unite of their own accord for mutual promotion and common development and dedicate to the building of a strong, prosperous, democratic and civilized New China.

Six men have been trapped in a mine for seventeen hours. If they are not brought to the surface soon they may, lose their lives. However, rescue operations are proving difficult. If explosives are used, vibrations will cause the roof of the mine to collapse. Rescue workers are therefore drilling a hole on the north side of the mine. They intend to bring the men up in a special capsule. If there had not been a hard layer of rock beneath the soil, they would have completed the job in a few, hours. As it is, they have been drilling for sixteen hours and they still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, a microphone, which was lowered into the mine two hours ago, has enabled the men to keep in touch with the closest relatives. Though they are running out of food and drink, the men are cheerful and confident that they will get out soon. They have been told that rescue operations are progressing smoothly. If they knew how difficult it was to drill through the hard rock, they would lose heart.

The Olympic Games will be held in our country in four years' time. As a great many people will be visiting the country, the government will be building new hotels, an immense stadium, and a fine new swimming pool. They will also be building new roads and a special railway-line. The Games will be held just outside the capital and the whole area will be called 'Olympic Qty'. Workers will have completed the new roads by the end of this year. By the end of next year, they will have finished work on the new stadium. The fine modern buildings have been designed by Kurt Gunter. Everybody will be watching anxiously as the new buildings go up. We are all-very excited and are looking forward to the Olympic Games because they have never been held before in this country.

When British and American troops moved into Jordan and Lebanon in the summer of 1958, Khrushchev fired off a series of threatening notes to Western capitals warning that this action had pushed the world to the brink of war. Thai the British and U.S. governments remained unperturbed was due in great part to a unique service provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation; their methodical eavesdropping on broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain intended only for local consumption. 284

At the height of the crisis the BBC monitoring service reported that Khrushchev had gone on a speech-making tour of central Russia. His subject: "How to Grow More Corn, Wheat and Potatoes. ()n domestic Russian stations events in the Middle East were dismissed briefly. Since no attempt was being made to prepare the Russian people psychologically for a possible major test of strength in that area, it seemed obvious that Khrushchev was using one of his favourite weapons: bluff.

Britain is well placed to keep its ear to all the keyholes of Europe and of Soviet Russia in particular. And there is very little the BBC does not hear. Its monitoring service, operating from an old mansion at Caversham Park near London, provides global coverage every hour of every day, and is the only Western listening post covering every broadcast made behind the Iron Curtain.

The world's biggest ear consists of more than 300 translators, news evaluators and radio technicians, a forest of aerials, 26 miles of cables, scores of receiving sets and recorders, and numerous teleprinters and radio teletype machines. Each day it listens to, and records, between three and four million words in 30 languages from 40 countries.

Caversham instantly registers anything unusual or unexpected, even an unfamiliar inflection in an announcer's voice. In October 1956, Marie, a Hungarian-speaking monitor, noted the suppressed excitement in a broadcaster's voice during a program from Budapest describing a youth demonstration in the streets. She sensed that the voice was trying too hard not to give itself away.

The next news bulletin, shorter than usual, made no mention of the demonstration. Later that evening scheduled programs were announced one by one without explanation, until finally Radio Budapest broadcast nothing hut recorded music. Tin- same aria from Madame Butterfly was played five times in a row. At 3:30 a.m. came the dramatic announcement Marie's sixth sense had told her to expect: "Fighting has broken out in Budapest. Order has not yet been restored . '

For 48 hours Owersharn remained the only source of news of the Hungarian uprising. Hungarian authorities has cut off all communication with the outside world. But every appeal they made on the radio, every instruction they issued, every station that went over to the rebels was noted by the monitors.

The basic components of an AS/RS system are:

" storage medium, e. g. pallet racking, or shelving for small item such as tote bins;

• storage and retrieval machines that operate in the storage medium;

• in — feed and out — feed systems, e. g. fork — lift truck, conveyors,

AGVs;

• controlling computer.

The controlling computer monitors the status of all the components of the system and, based on the warehouse stock and movement requirements, plans the work to be carried out within the system and instructs the equipment accordingly (see Figure 18. 1).

This can provide online communication between designated warehouse workstations and warehouse management computer package, and as such as has application in order picking.

Bar codes

Bar codes are increasingly used in warehousing. One use is to identify uniquely every storage a picking location in a warehouse, and of course to identify products and product information such as batch identification. In picking operations this can be used to verify pick locations and the items being picked.

In some situations it may be appropriate to make use of a combination of two or more of the above picking regimes within one picking system. A typical warehouse order will require just one or two slow — moving products, but a large quantity of fast - moving popular products. In this situation the picking area may be laid out with popular products near the dispatch area to minimize movement, with the less popular products, which require fewer picking visits, further away. If consignee picking is used because of order size, the slow - moving products could add significantly to the distance traveled by the pickers. In this situation, the possibility of consignee picking for the most popular products could be considered, with less popular slow — moving products for a group of orders batch - picked.

This chapter has reviewed the principal types of handling system encountered in warehousing and distribution center operations, leads i. e. industrial trucks, cranes and conveyors.

The factors to be considered when deciding on the appropriate type of handling system for a system for a particular application include:

• types of load being handled including the unit load characteristics;

• quantity of material being handled;

" frequency of movement;

• distances to be traveled, horizontal and vertical;

• numbers and locations of pick - up and drop points;

• adjacent activities;

• nature of terrain;

• flexibility required.

The principles governing the design and use of handling systems include;

• control of position and movement;

• elimination of unnecessary movement and minimization of the necessary movement;

" selection of the most appropriate handling method to meet the system requirements;

• provision of adequate handling capacity;

• integration of handling with the storage and other adjacent operations;

• thorough of handling with the storage and other adjacent operations;

• effective equipment maintenance for operational availability and safety;

• safe methods of handling and working practices.

Powered mobile racking is effectively single deep APR, with the racking, except the end or outer rows, mounted on electrically powered base frames, which move on rails set into the floor. Typically only one fork truck access aisle is provided, and the rack sections are moved to open up access as required to any specific pallet location. Floor loadings are high. Operationally it has similar characteristics to APR, but is slower in use, and the pallet position utilization is likely to be similar to APR at 90 to 95 percent. Safety trips are fitted to each side of each mobile base frame to cut power in the event of any obstruction.

This type of system is expensive in equipment and floor costs, and it tends to be slow in operation. However it gives very dense storage, and is suitable for the typically large number of product lines forming the "Pareto tail" of a product range where individual product lines have low stock and low throughput. It also finds use in cold - store applications where space costs are especially high, and where temperature variations are reduced by cutting the air space in the area.