Political Correctness Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Political Correctness - Assignment Example Protecting the rights of minorities is important due to external factors such as gender and race in relation to the use of offensive words. Moreover, not everyone reacts to situations, in the same way. Some people are more irritable than others (Uelmen 1). Sometimes, things get out of hand leading to dangerous fights or bitterness that leads to revenge. Choice of words should be based on the relationship between individuals and the situation at hand. While some people might entertain jokes, some may interpret them as being offensive. The dynamics of choosing words vary depending on the situation. It is better to avoid offensive words because the mood in which people might be in is sometimes unpredictable. On the other hand, maintaining a stand in terms of being able to say yes or no is usually the right thing to do. Saying no can and should be accompanied by the right choice of words. Disagreeing with something does not imply that people should offend others. Being fearful on the choice of words is not a sign of weakness as some may interpret. It is an implication that besides being mindful and respectful, people regard others with high

Visual Basic Programming Language Essay Example for Free

Visual Basic Programming Language Essay A computer program is the set of instructions a computer follows to execute a specific operation that includes to input, process, output and store data to meet unique information needs. Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz of Dartmouth College as a tool to train students in computer programming created the original basic programming language in the 1960s. (Voon Kiong, 2008) The word basic stands for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The latest advancement of basic; visual basic programming language has incorporated a graphic interface and event-driven programming. Features of current system It includes several components; first a graphic user interface which provides a fully integrated development environment for easy access to all visual basic development tools. Secondly it incorporates a set of objects such as labels and buttons that can respond to a wide variety of user-initiated events. Thirdly it consists of a vocabulary of statements, methods, and a set of rules for the construction of program codes. Lastly it has the ability to compile stand-alone executable Windows programs. (Mabbutt, 2008) Benefits and uses This programming begins with a form on which the programmer draws all the objects necessary to support the needs of the application and user for example data can be displayed on the in labels that are placed in the form and keyboard input is typically entered via text boxes where command buttons provide access to activities such as printing or exiting the applications. All these are controls which contain both a purpose and a set of predefined events to which they can respond. The programmer writes modules of code called procedures associated with an event of a command button. This approach to programming is a departure from traditional programming that required execution in a top-down manner sequence, which had to be pre-defined. An event-driven program gives the user control over the order in which actions occur. Work cited: Dr. Liew Voon Kiong (2008, 5th November) visual basic tutorial. Retrieved 9th May 2008 Accessed from: http://www. vbtutor. net/ Dan Mabbutt (2008, 7th May). Guide to visual basic. Retrieved 9th May 2008 Accessed from: http://visualbasic. about. com

Medea - the conception of drama within theatrical production :: essays research papers fc

â€Å"The Conception of Drama within Theatrical Production†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Euripides’ tragic play, Medea, the playwright creates an undercurrent of chaos in the play upon asserting that, â€Å"the world’s great order [is being] reversed.† (Lawall, 651, line 408). The manipulation of the spectators’ emotions, which instills in them a sentiment of drama, is relative to this undertone of disorder, as opposed to being absolute. The central thesis suggests drama in the play as relative to the method of theatrical production. The three concepts of set, costumes, and acting, are tools which accentuate the drama of the play. Respectively, these three notions represent the appearance of drama on political, social, and moral levels. This essay will compare three different productions of Euripides’ melodrama, namely, the play as presented by the Jazzart Dance Theatre ¹; the Culver City (California) Public Theatre ²; and finally, the original ancient Greek production of the play, as it was scripted by Euripi des.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The two contemporary productions of Medea were selected for this essay in an effort to contrast the ancient Greek version of the play with two modernized versions, which would demonstrate a wide distinction between the styles of production. Furthermore, both modernized versions of the play add their own innovation to the production, making for an even broader dissimilarity among the plays. Moreover, both recent productions are fashioned within cultures which have borrowed their political, social, and moral ways of life from Ancient Greek society, specifically, South Africa ¹ (British Colonies), and The United States ².   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Jazzart Dance Theatre is known today for its distinctive style and ingenuity in extending the boundaries of South African dance. Contrarily to the original production of Medea, Jazzart’s unique approach uses dance (as opposed to music) to articulate emotion to the viewers. The dancers reinvent Greek tragedy, harbouring no artistic safety net.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The set plays a central role in dramatizing the theatrical experience of this particular production. As you can see in both figures 1 and 2, the set is purposely designed to resemble a metropolitan alleyway. This dramatic ambiance is created in an effort to parallel the harshness of the unforgiving streets of any particular conurbation. Normally, the audience would tend to construe this setting as a symbol of turmoil in the kingdom of Corinth. Thus, the set itself works as a device in developing a sense of political drama.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The costumes which are used for this particular production are also essential in dramatizing the on-stage action.

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams :: A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the restless years following World War Two, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is the story of Blanche DuBois, a fragile and neurotic woman on a desperate prowl for someplace in the world to call her own. After being exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi for seducing a seventeen-year-old boy at the school where she taught English, Blanche explains her unexpected appearance on Stanley and Stella's (Blanche's sister) doorstep as nervous exhaustion. This, she claims, is the result of a series of financial calamities which have recently claimed the family plantation, Belle Reve. Suspicious, Stanley points out that "under Louisiana's Napoleonic code what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband." Stanley, a sinewy and brutish man, is as territorial as a panther. He tells Blanche he doesn't like to be swindled and demands to see the bill of sale. This encounter defines Stanley and Blanche's relationship. They are opposing camps and Stella i s caught in no-man's-land. But Stanley and Stella are deeply in love. Blanche's efforts to impose herself between them only enrages the animal inside Stanley. When Mitch -- a card-playing buddy of Stanley's -- arrives on the scene, Blanche begins to see a way out of her predicament. Mitch, himself alone in the world, reveres Blanche as a beautiful and refined woman. Yet, as rumors of Blanche's past in Laurel begin to catch up to her, her circumstances become unbearable. Characters: Blanche Dubois: Blanche Dubois is the older sister of Stella Kowalski who visits them in New Orleans and stays throughout the summer. She was a schoolteacher of English in Mississippi and presents herself as very prim, proper, and prudent. Her name is French and she says, 'It [Dubois] means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring!' (Act III, pg. 177). She was married to a young man named Allan, who committed suicide when she was very young. She drinks and smokes and tells lies. She suffers from continual delusions of hearing polka tunes and gunshots. Stella loves her dearly, but Stanley is in direct opposition to her false appearance and selfish attitude. Blanche cannot be around direct light and is overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing, and age. She has a brief romance with Mitch and is later committed to a mental institution. Stanley Kowalski: Stanley is Stella's strong and good-looking husband.

Lehman Brothers

Research a failure that occurred at a large organization such as Tyco, Chrysler/Daimler-Benz, Daewoo, WorldCom, or Enron. In an APA formatted paper that is no longer than 1,050 words, describe how specific organizational behavior theories could have predicted or can explain the failure of the company. Compare and contrast the contributions of leadership, management, and organizational structures to the organizational failure. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the fourth largest US investment bank, succumbed to the sub prime mortgage crisis in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history. The 158 year old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the great depression in the 1930s, & the collapse of long term capital management a decade ago, filed a chapter 11 petition with US bankruptcy caught in Manhattan on September, 15. The following day, its investment banking & trading divisions were acquired by Barclays plc along with its New York headquarters building. In the biggest reshaping of the financial industry since the Great Depression, Wall Street’s most storied firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. , headed towards extinction. The 158 year old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the great depression in the 1930s, & the collapse of long term capital management a decade ago, filed a chapter 11 petition with US bankruptcy caught in Manhattan on September, 15. The following day, its investment banking & trading divisions were acquired by Barclays plc along with its New York headquarters building. The collapse of Lehman, which listed more than $613 billion of debt, dwarfs World Com Inc’s insolvency in 2002 & Drexel Burnham Lambert’s failure in 1990. What happened that weekend was that the Fed got a bunch of bank presidents together and asked them to invest in Lehman (basically loan Lehman money). The bank CEOs, knowing the risk of such a loan (they could see Lehman's finances), refused to do so without some kind of assistance from the government (whether it be loss-protection, the government paying half of the loan, etc etc). Hank Paulson, the Secretary of Treasury, refused to do this, saying that he didn't want to saddle the taxpayers with paying to save a private company that screwed up. Breakup process IMIDIATE AFTER EFFECTS- US stocks tumbled, more than $300 billion in market value, pummeled by the developments. Lehman plunged 95%; AIG retreated 42% on funding concerns while Bank of America Corp slumped 14% after agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. for $50 billion. The bankruptcy filing represents the end of a 158-year-old company that survived world wars, the Asian financial crisis and the collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, but not the global credit crunch. Financial institutions globally have recorded more than $500 billion of write-downs and credit losses as the U. S. subprime mortgage crisis has spread to other markets. {text:bookmark-start} {text:bookmark-end} Bankruptcy also represents a bad end to Chief Executive Dick Fuld's four-decade career at Lehman. Fuld, who piloted the investment bank through prior crises with aplomb, was widely seen as too slow to recognize Lehman's need to raise capital and shed bad assets. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy because they failed to raise enough capital to secure their debts. The next logical question is why did they have so much debt? This is a two-fold answer: second, Lehman had a ton of what is called â€Å"leveraged assets†. Basically what happened (the non-basic is for another question) is Lehman took their assets and took out loans secured by those assets (for instance, using their on-hand cash as down payments on loans) and then invested those loans in the aforementioned property derivatives. So, not only did those investments lose value, but Lehman had to pay the interest on the money they borrowed (and subsequently lost). In short, Lehman was a casualty of the credit crunch due to exposure to bad debt. In August 2007, the firm closed its subprime lender, BNC Mortgage, eliminating 1,200 positions in 23 locations, and took an after-tax charge of $25 million and a $27 million reduction in goodwill). Lehman said that poor market conditions in the mortgage space â€Å"necessitated a substantial reduction in its resources and capacity in the subprime space†. At the end of August ‘07, Lehman had $600 billion of assets financed with just $30 billion of equity. Having so little capital meant that a 5 percent decline in assets would wipe out the value of the company, which investors saw as a real risk due to the company's billions of dollars of mortgage securities. In 2008, Lehman faced an unprecedented loss to the continuing subprime mortgage crisis. Lehman's loss was apparently a result of having held on to large positions in subprime and other lower-rated mortgage tranches when securitizing the underlying mortgages; whether Lehman did this because it was simply unable to sell the lower-rated bonds, or made a conscious decision to hold them, is unclear. In any event, huge losses accrued in lower-rated mortgage-backed securities throughout 2008. In the second fiscal quarter, Lehman reported losses of $2. 8 billion and was forced to sell off $6 billion in assets. In the first half of 2008 alone, Lehman stock lost 73% of its value as the credit market continued to tighten. In August 2008, Lehman reported that it intended to release 6% of its work force, 1,500 people, just ahead of its third-quarter-reporting deadline in September. On August 22, 2008, shares in Lehman closed up 5% (16% for the week) on reports that the state-controlled Korea Development Bank was considering buying the bank. Most of those gains were quickly eroded as news came in that Korea Development Bank was â€Å"facing difficulties pleasing regulators and attracting partners for the deal. † It culminated on September 9, when Lehman's shares plunged 45% to $7. 79, after it was reported that the state-run South Korean firm had put talks on hold. On September 17, 2008 Swiss Re estimates its overall net exposure approximately CHF 50 million to Lehman Brothers. Investor confidence continued to erode as Lehman's stock lost roughly half its value and pushed the S&P 500 down 3. 4% on September 9. The Dow Jones lost 300 points the same day on investors' concerns about the security of the bank. The U. S. government did not announce any plans to assist with any possible financial crisis that emerged at Lehman. The next day, Lehman announced a loss of $3. 9 billion and their intent to sell off a majority stake in their investment-management business, which includes Neuberger Berman. The stock slid 7 percent that day. Lehman, after earlier rejecting questions on the sale of the company, was reportedly searching for a buyer as its stock price dropped another 40 percent on September 11, 2008. Just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, executives at Neuberger Berman sent e-mail memos suggesting, among other things, that the Lehman Brothers' top people forgo multi-million dollar bonuses to â€Å"send a strong message to both employees and investors that management is not shirking accountability for recent performance. † Lehman Brothers Investment Management Director George Herbert Walker IV, second cousin to U. S. President George Walker Bush, dismissed the proposal, going so far as to actually apologize to other members of the Lehman Brothers executive committee for the idea of bonus reduction having been suggested. He wrote, â€Å"Sorry team. I am not sure what's in the water at Neuberger Berman. I'm embarrassed and I apologize. † In its Chapter 11 filing, Lehman named Citibank and Bank of New York Mellon as trustees for about $138 billion of senior Lehman bonds. It said Citi's Hong Kong affiliate had made a $275 million bank loan to Lehman. Among Lehman's other unsecured creditors are Japanese banks Aozora Bank, Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Shinsei Bank and UFJ Bank. France's BNP Paribas is also on Lehman's list of its 30 largest unsecured creditors. The firm said that as of May 31, it owed about $110. 5 billion on account of senior unsecured notes, $12. 6 billion on account of subordinated unsecured notes, and $5 billion on account of junior subordinated notes. Lehman also disclosed that it owned stakes of 10 percent or more in a number of companies, including Imperial Sugar Co , Lpath Inc, Derma Services, Flagstone Reinsurance, GLG Partners, Ronco Corp , Pacific Energy Partners, Blount International , Pemstar Inc and Transmontaigne Inc. The investment bank, once the fourth-largest in the United States, had hoped to raise capital by selling off a stake in its investment unit, and use that capital as well as other funds to spin off some of its toxic assets to shareholders. But that plan did not satisfy investors, who punished Lehman's share price, or rating agencies, who pressed the company to find a stronger partner. Lehman said the uncertainty, particularly among banks through which it clears securities trades, ultimately made it impossible for it to continue to operate its business. The bankruptcy filing comes after a weekend of heated negotiations among regulators and Wall Street firms about Lehman's fate. The U. S. government refused to backstop Lehman's worst assets the way it backstopped Bear Stearns Cos Inc's sale to JPMorgan Chase. Government officials told banks to support Lehman or else be prepared for more investment banks to lose investor confidence and fail. But prospective bidders refused to buy Lehman without government support, people briefed on the matter said. In the end, Lehman was allowed to fail, and Bank of America Corp agreed to buy what was seen as the next weakest U. S. investment bank, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. For many of Lehman's 26,000 employees the outlook is likely to be gloomy, with job losses expected to be substantial even if significant parts of the business can be sold. At Lehman's headquarters in midtown Manhattan on Sunday afternoon, men dressed in suits came and went, while some employees entered the building with what appeared to be empty duffel bags, then left with them full. Others emerged with accordion files, binders stuffed with papers and full valises. On Sunday night, hundreds of Lehman employees were still in the office to clear their desks and pack personal belongings, according to an employee. Several money-market funds and institutional cash funds had significant exposure to Lehman with the institutional cash fund run by The Bank of New York Mellon and the Primary Reserve Fund, a money-market fund, both falling below $1 per share, called â€Å"breaking the buck†, following losses on their holdings of Lehman assets. In a statement The Bank of New York Mellon said its fund had isolated the Lehman assets in a separate structure. It said the assets accounted for 1. 3% of its fund. The drop in the Primary Reserve Fund was the first time since 1994 that a money-market fund had dropped below the $1-per-share level. About 100 hedge funds used Lehman as their prime broker and relied largely on the firm for financing. As administrators) took charge of the London business and the U. S. holding company filed for bankruptcy, positio ns held by those hedge funds at Lehman were frozen. As a result the hedge funds are being forced to de-lever and sit on large cash balances inhibiting chances at further growth. In Japan, banks and insurers announced a combined 249 billion yen ($2. billion) in potential losses tied to the collapse of Lehman. Mizuho Trust & Banking Co. cut its profit forecast by more than half, citing 11. 8 billion yen in losses on bonds and loans linked to Lehman. The Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said â€Å"Most lending to Lehman Brothers was made by major Japanese banks, and their possible losses seem to be within the levels that can be covered by their profits,† adding â€Å"There is no concern that the latest events will threaten the stability of Japan's financial system. † During bankruptcy proceedings a lawyer from The Royal Bank of Scotland Group said the company is facing between $1. billion and $1. 8 billion in claims against Lehman partially based on an unsecured g uarantee from Lehman and connected to trading losses with Lehman subsidiaries, Martin Bienenstock. After Constellation Energy was reported to have exposure to Lehman, its stock went down 56% in the first day of trading having started at $67. 87. The massive drop in stocks led to the New York Stock Exchange halting trade of Constellation. The next day, as the stock plummeted as low as $13 per share, Constellation announced it was hiring Morgan Stanley and UBS to advise it on â€Å"strategic alternatives† suggesting a buyout. While rumors suggested French power company Electricite de France would buy the company or increase its stake, Constellation ultimately agreed to a buyout by MidAmerican Energy, part of Berkshire Hathaway (headed by billionaire Warren Buffett). The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation or Farmer Mac said it would have to write off $48 million in Lehman debt it owned as a result of the bankruptcy. Farmer Mac said it may not be in compliance with its minimum capital requirements at the end of September. 2008). economies. Furthermore, such wealth effects tend to play out gradually. The 158 year old Lehman Brothers’ move to file for bankruptcy wiped off more than Rs2000 crore from the market valuation of those Indian companies in which the US financial major made equity investments. Major stocks held through participatory notes issued by Lehman Brothers Investment Management, a SEBI- registered foreign institutional investor, saw their prices nosedive. Participatory notes are derivative instruments through which foreign investors that are not registered in India can trade on the Indian markets. In addition to its equity holdings in listed companies, Lehman had also invested in various projects of Indian companies, especially in real estate. In India, Lehman also acquired BRICS Institutional Equities business of research analysts and sales and trading professionals and bought a 26% stake in Edelweiss Capital Finance , a non banking financial company, recently. The investment banking major has also been involved in several Indian initial public offers. IT SECTOR- The meltdown in US had a huge impact on indian IT & IT companies as a large chunk of their revenues is from US. Thus, the crisis had definitely delayed various new projects. Market sources revealed that the companies affected by the crisis such as Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch and AIG have been outsourcing work to wipro, Tata Consultancy Services & Infosys. There was a direct impact on the revenues of this companies. As more & more consolidation, acquisition & mergers took place in the US, the number of companies in this space came down & shrunk the addressable market for the Indian IT services companies. Consolidation also led to consolidated IT resources & reduction in IT spending, which had negative effect on the IT companies. The slowdown also had an jmpact on the hiring practices of Indian IT services companies, who had to now focus on just-in-time hiring, rather than advanced hiring practices like campus recruitment. Thus, w. r. t. Lehman, as much as 60% of the revenue of India’s software firms comes from the global financial sector, so the fallout of Lehman’s bankruptcy on India’s IT sector cn be well imagined. REAL ESTATE- The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bailout of Merrill Lynch, the global financial behemoths, affected Indian realty companies that were in the process of raising fresh funds. Many leading realtors, already facing a paucity of funds due to a slowdown or a correction in prices, found it more difficult to raise resources even at the project level. Merrill Lynch & Lehman Brothers had exposure to more than a dozen realty companies, including, Ansal Housing, Anant Raj Industries, Unity Infrastructure, the Puravankara group and J Kumar Infrastructure, among others. The Indian companies are not only unable to raise fresh capital but they are also finding it difficult to sell the inventory of housing stock as demand & prices both have fallen. BANKING- ICICI Bank said that it might need to make an additional provision of $28 million (Rs. 188 crore) on its exposure to bonds issued by Lehman. It had already made provisions of $12 million on these bonds. Indian IT major Wipro Technologies has expressed interest in bidding for the Indian back office business of Lehman. The bankrupt investment banking firm is expected to close its captive unit in Mumbai by the end of this month. The unit’s 1200 employees, who work on equity research and analytics support for the mergers and acquisitions business, have been asked to quit by September end. Unlike employees in Lehman’s investment banking business who have been receiving feelers from domestic banks, employees in the captive BPO are unlikely to find alternate jobs quickly because the IT and IT- enabled services industries have already begun downsizing, owing to the global financial crisis. The RBI had moved quickly to improve liquidity. Still there could be some impact on credit availability. That implies more expensive credit (even public sector banks are said to be raising money at 11. 5%, so that lending rates will inch up to 16 % and higher). For companies looking to raise capital, the alternative of funding through fresh equity is not cheap, either, since stock valuations have suffered in the wake of the FII pull out. Capital has suddenly become more expensive. There is a risk that projects underway will suffer from delays and cost overruns as cost of credit shoots up. Real estate could be most affected sector. Builders may have to resort to dropping prices to find customers for housing projects nearing completion. Another worry is impact on job creation in the country. There could be downsizing in companies in sectors impacted by high cost of credit and fall in demand. The layoffs in IT sector may be a fair portent of things to come. The crisis does have a silver lining. The falling rupee(against the dollar) will mean that exporters affected by the earlier rise of the currency can breathe easy. However importers would be at the receiving end. Importers of oil and other commodities’ prices will neutralize the impact of the dollar’s decline against the rupee. Prices of stocks and real estate, which had appreciated by too much, will come down to realistic levels. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing indicate that as of their May 31, 2008 financial statement that the firm has $639 billion of assets and $613 billion of debt. At that time the firm had about $110 billion in ordinary bonds, and about $17. 6 billion in subordinated bonds. The composition of the other debts is hard to determine, in part, because of a bad cross reference in that part of the filing. As of the last financial statement, accounts payable were about $71 billion, short term debt was $163 billion, other current liabilities were about $29 billion, and long term debt was about $350 billion. As of the filing date, the listing of the top 30 outsider creditors of the firm mentioned $138 billion of ordinary bonds (managed by two bond trustees), $17 billion of subordinated bonds (managed by one of the two ordinary bond trustees), and about 3 billion in bank loans and letters of credit ranging in size from $463 million to $10 million from 23 different institutions (a few of whom appear to be related entities of each other). This leaves about $485 million of debts owed to creditors in amounts less than $10 million and insider debtors. This would suggest that $71 billion+ is made up of trade credit in small amounts per creditor, while $414 billion is made up of financial creditors in amounts less than $10 million and insider debt, with insider debt probably making up the bulk of the debts, as investment banks don't generally take deposits from millions of households the way that commercial banks do. There don't appear to be any significant (i. e. more than $10 million) secured creditors or trade creditors, although this might not include financial rights of setoff. There are more details in an Affidavit of the CFO, which is honestly rather dubious and unsatisfying. I find it very hard to believe that Lehman Brothers is incapable of providing much, much more information than it has to date with only modest effort. While it might not be able to provide ever single creditor in a matter of weeks, it ought to be able to publicly account for more than a third of its outstanding debt. These folks are in the financial analysis business and live and die on their own ability to be highly leveraged without becoming insolvent. Equity The most recent financial statement listed the aggregate value of preferred stock at $7 billion (and did not include it as a debtor in the petition). The aggregate redemption value of the preferred stock based upon the rights of each class of preferred stock, the number of preferred shares identified in the petition (presumably the number of authorized preferred shares in each class), and assuming that preferred stock dividends aren't grossly in arrears, is about $237 billion. This is calculated as follows: 5 million shares, $500 each, $2. 5 billion 4 million shares, $5000 each, $2. billion 12 million shares, $2500 each, $30 billion 5. 2 million shares, $2500 each, $12. 5 billion 66 million shares, $2500 each, $165 billlion 12 million shares, $25 each, $0. 3 billion 12 million shares, $25 each, $0. 3 billion 16 million shares, $25 each, $0. 4 billion 8 million shares, $25 each, $0. 2 billion 4 million shares, $1000 each, $4 billion 2 million shares, $1000 each, $2 billion But, this appears to grossly overstate the amount of preferred stock shares outstanding. There are 694,401,926 common shares outstanding according to the petition. Assets The source balance statement listed the company's assets as $314 billion in cash, $42 billion in net receivables, $4. 3 billion in fixed assets, and $279 billion in non-current assets. Presumably, this number is lower now, due to market losses, particularly in mortgage based securities. Some breakdown on the nature of those assets is available: Sanford Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz estimates that 55% of Lehman's balance sheet can be quickly liquidated, particularly such assets as receivables and short-term loans known as repurchase agreements. There are about $269 billion in securities that are â€Å"another story,† Hintz wrote in a report released Monday. He estimates 27% of the $269 billion is in mortgages, 17% in derivatives, and 8% in real estate. Analysis The two primary bond trustees seem likely to be the dominant voice on behalf of creditors in this bankruptcy on the creditor's committee. This could be a 100% payout liquidity failure bankruptcy, and failing that, could be one in which common stock shareholders, preferred stock shareholders, and perhaps subordinated debtors bear the brunt of the impact, while general creditors are held harmless or nearly so. Indeed, if the company adopts a plan that holds harmless all preferred and general unsecured creditors, and all secured creditors, then only the holders of subordinated debt would have any right to object. Since all of the subordinated debt appears to be represented by a single bond trustee, this might mean that the plan could be confirmed in a one on one negotiation with the representative of that bank. Equity and subordinated debt together are capable of absorbing a $43 billion loss between May 31, 2008 and the bankruptcy filing, and pre-bankruptcy loss estimates had been in the vicinity of $7 billion. Barclays Bank is discussing buying the brokerage and investment banking operations including the headquarters out of bankruptcy for about $8 billion (presumably the usually highly profitable brick and mortar part of the operation which probably also counts for most accounts payable and accounts receivable), and assuming that this is a market value for that operation by some reasonable measure, the market losses that other creditors would have to bear would remain unchanges, but greater liquidity could speed up the payout. The bankruptcy filing covers only Lehman’s holding company. Its brokerage and money-management units are not in Chapter 11 † employees still have their jobs, customers still execute transactions on accounts, and portfolio managers still manage mutual funds. The relative independence of these subsidiaries from the bankruptcy process is what enables Barclays, the U. K. -bank that walked away from a Lehman rescue over the weekend, to consider purchasing part of Lehman. Another interesting possibility would be a plan that allocated good, short term assets to outsider creditors as payment in full, while allocating securities of uncertain value, like the mortgage backed securities, to the insiders. Outsiders can't object if they get quick cash in exchange of the debts owed to them, so this plan could be imposed on them, leaving insiders with any windfalls resulting from market undervaluation of Lehman Brothers' complex financial assets. The biggest overall risk is that the derivatives market, and in particular, the credit default market, will be screwed up by the freezing of the positions of a major market player, although recent bankruptcy law reforms are designed to minimize this impact. Financial crises are terrifying when underlying economic fundamentals are out of line with established theory, leading to bursts of unjustified optimism and/or pessimism. It is the responsibility of the powers that be to bring sense to the market. Every financial crisis is different, but they do all end. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch’s acquisition by Bank of America is yet another stage in the progression of the financial crisis that had its roots in the US sub-prime mortgage market. The initial stage of the crisis took a toll on direct mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial. In a subsequent stage, guarantors of mortgage-backed securities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae came under attack. This culminated in their going into US government ‘receivership’ (effectively nationalization) a few weeks ago before the bankruptcy was actually filed. Lehman’s demise marks the stage where banks with indirect but large exposures to the US mortgage market, principally through derivative instruments, bear the brunt. This is not necessarily the final stage and the worst is perhaps not over. A key feature of this crisis that started in the middle of 2007 has been the lack of clarity on both the nature and number of financial institutions that have indirect exposure to subprime assets, as well as, cross-product problems involving movement from subprime to prime mortgages with final spillover into derivatives, structured products and counterparty risks. We could see another set of intermediaries coming under severe pressure. The decision by the US Treasury and the Fed not to guarantee Lehman’s financial liabilities is a clear signal to the market that they believe that no institution is ‘too big to fail’. Going forward, a government-funded bailout is likely to be the exception, not the norm. Besides, with Lehman’s bankruptcy, the fate of its counterparties hangs in balance. It is not clear whether a fire-sale of Lehman’s assets will be adequate to pay off its creditors. Besides, apprehensions of other banks meeting Lehman’s fate will keep inter-bank lenders on edge. This could lead to a huge squeeze on inter-bank liquidity and trigger another bout of turbulence in credit markets. Finally, the Lehman episode has ramped up the level of risk-aversion in the global financial system. These are days of extreme and often irrational pessimism. The way to survive this crisis is to stay focused on the fundamentals. From a fundamental perspective, India’s financial system has a lot going for it. Indian banks have no direct exposure to G-7 mortgage markets and their ndirect exposure is minuscule relative to the size of their balance sheet. This has protected us in the past and will continue to insulate us to a significant degree from the turmoil in global markets. As this phase of extreme pessimism abates a bit, global investors are likely to reward India for the robustness of its system. Thus, at last, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings I nc, was mainly caused by the fall in house prices & the easy finance provided for housing at vary low interest rates which made the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall 500 points. The treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had been sending warning signals to Lehman Brothers ever since the firm announced its second quarter losses of $2. 8 billion. Experts were also quoted as saying that the 158-year-old bank was just living off the brand name that it had nurtured over the years. The Lehman bankruptcy had a great impact on INDIA. The undercapitalization of financial houses that was at the core of the financial meltdown in the US & developed markets became a problem in Indian Financial System, too.

Should the Legal Drinking Age be Changed to 18

Should the Legal Drinking Age be Changed to 18 One of the hottest topics of debate in today’s world is the legal drinking age. The reason why this topic is much debated nowadays is because of the fact that many people are of the opinion that a person is grown up at the age of 18 and has a clear understanding of what is wrong or right at this age. Most people in the United States, do not regard the legal drinking age as the right one, in other words, they do not agree with it.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Should the Legal Drinking Age be Changed to 18? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Many citizens strongly argue that the legal age to buy, possess or purchase alcohol drinks should be 18 years rather than 21. Taking into consideration that the American citizens are allowed to vote at the age of 18 years, this seems to be quite a valid point of argument, however, drinking age is not changed to 18 years as teenagers are considered not to be capable of getti ng over alcohol at such tender age. The current age limit is the correct age as a person is matured enough at the age of 21 and knows his/ her social responsibility.   Lowering the age to 18 years old would only bring about chaos in the life of a teenager as it is the age when they are careless and reckless. â€Å"The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it,† says Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology. â€Å"It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them† (Ruder par. 2). Legal drinking age should not be changed to 18 as teenagers still do not understand their mental hardwiring, thus it would only lead to much chaos in their lives which will result in more drinking problems as teenagers are more subjected to some of alcohols effects than the adults are. Teenagers neither understand nor have a complete control of their life. â€Å"Teen brains, for example, are more susceptible than their adult counterparts to alcohol-induced toxicity. Jensen highlights an experiment in which rat brain cells were exposed to alcohol, which blocks certain synaptic activity. When the alcohol was washed out, the adult cells recovered while the adolescent cells remained â€Å"disabled.†Ã¢â‚¬  (Ruder par. 9). Teenagers are more prone to addiction than adults and if they are given the license to drink it would only result in numerous teenagers becoming alcoholics. Their brains are still not developed and they are more vulnerable to bad influences from the outside. Many people are of the opinion that lowering the age is desirable as we are just suppressing the young people and it makes alcohol more desirable for them as they are not allowed to drink it by the law.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More On the contrary, lowering the age would not in any way be beneficial for them as it would rather increase their ability to obtain alcohol freely which in turn would produce countless teenage alcoholics. â€Å"The adolescent brain is still undergoing several maturational processes that render it more vulnerable to some of the effects of substances† (Tapert par. 4). Teenagers are not in a position to make right judgments. Human and animal studies, as Jensen and Urion note, have shown that the brain grows and changes continually in young people- and that it is only about 80 percent developed in adolescents† (Ruder par. 5). Therefore, the legal age of drinking should be not lowered as it is irresponsible as well as immoral to hand over alcohol to teenagers who are mentally unstable at their age. Lowering the drinking age would only lead to chaos in teenagers’ lives which would also result in more drinking problems. â€Å"Adolescence is a time of transition, physically, socially, and emotionally. The adolescent brain is in transition as well (Giedd et al. par. 2). Despite the fact that all vital functional and structural changes happen in the brain all through the childhood to adulthood, it is during the adolescent period that such changes mostly occur. (Alcohol and Adolescent Brain Development par. 2). Teenagers are easily influenced; they are not in that stage of life when judgments are correct and their acts are conscious. If the age is lowered, many teenagers would be trapped as they are more prone to addiction to alcohol than adults. It would, in its turn, impact the choices the teens make, which would often be wrong that will negatively influence their whole lives. Teenage years is the period when it is impossible to have a complete control of things as the brain formation has not been completed yet. If teenagers are addicted to something, it becomes very difficult for them to give up bad habits. â€Å"During adolescence, the brain undergoes a major remodeling involv ing the formation of new connections between nerve cells, as well as the pruning of existing synaptic connections. These changes affect the processes involved in planning and decision making, impulse control, voluntary movement, memory, and speech production, among others† (Rubia et al. par. 3). Therefore, it is not right to treat teenagers as adults and give them the responsibilities those of adults.   It would also be highly irresponsible to give them the freedom to drink as 18 is not the right age to make mature decisions in life.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Should the Legal Drinking Age be Changed to 18? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More â€Å"Research also suggests that adolescents are less sensitive than adults to some of alcohols effects. For example, adolescent rats, on their first exposure to alcohol, are less susceptible than adult rats to alcohols sedative effects, as well as its effects on ba lance and motor coordination† (Little et al. White et al.). Teenager’s brain is not fully developed which makes it more vulnerable to alcohol-induced toxicity than an adults brain. They should be protected from making the wrong choices in life so basically alcohol is definitely not the right thing to do. From the above discussion it is clear and evident that the legal drinking age should not be changed to 18. The legal drinking age should not be lowered as teenagers of 18 still do not understand their necessities; it would only lead to bigger chaos in their lives resulting in more drinking problems since teenagers are less stable and resistant to some of the alcohols effects. Alcohol and Adolescent Brain Development. 2008. AddictionInfo.org. 2008. Web. Ruder, Debra Bradley. The Teen Brain. Harvard Magazine. 2008. Web. Tapert Trudeau, Michelle. Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage. NPR. 2007. Web.

Management Practices Traditional vs Modern Innovative Essay Example

Management Practices Traditional vs Modern Innovative Essay Example Management Practices Traditional vs Modern Innovative Essay Management Practices Traditional vs Modern Innovative Essay Essay Topic: The Man Of Mode In last many old ages, few direction accounting inventions has been developed. Directors have to do determination on a day-to-day footing every bit good do determinations sing the hereafter and how to last and turn in an energetic market topographic point with of all time turning unsure fortunes. Traditional or modern direction accounting system give relevant information to all degrees of direction, fiscal and other information to do determinations about planning, control of operations and placing chances to add value. The modern direction accounting pattern are typically different from that of traditional direction accounting as they enable directors to do sound determinations to minimise cost every bit good in the same clip add value to the merchandises and services by bettering the quality of merchandises, which is required by the clients, and cut down waste. In add-on, the modern direction accounting systems allow the administration as whole to develop the advanced capacity of the administration and flexibleness so that it can continually alter and better public presentation financially every bit good in its non fiscal countries of public presentation. Traditional vs. Modern Innovative Traditional will concentrate on cost control and, in peculiar, what is recognized as variance analysis and which involves measuring forecast results with existent results for illustration for costs such as stuffs and labor. The types of activity, hence, that direction comptrollers have traditionally involved themselves with include: Cost analysis Cost control Budget readying Budgetary control processes Cost/benefit analysis Investment assessment. More modern, innovative attacks include enterprises such as: Business procedure re-engineering: This is about rethinking and re-designing concern procedures as a agency of cut downing costs and bettering bringing Zero-based budgeting: re-thinking budgets in a manner that engage warranting and prioritizing all points of outgo Activity-based direction: looking at what really causes costs to be incurred, and being better able to calculate and command costs Life rhythm costing: sing a merchandise s costs over its full life rhythm ( instead than merely, for illustration, the initial edifice costs ) Total quality direction: the procedure of uninterrupted quality betterment beyond budgeting : a challenge to traditional budgeting techniques via the usage of more flexible and broad ranging procedures Balanced scorecards: the usage of cardinal public presentation indexs within four different positions fiscal, client, internal concern procedure and learning/growth. Non fiscal public presentation measuring approached gained impulse as a consequence of dissatisfaction with the traditional techniques such as balance sheets and income statement, as engineering increasing and increasing planetary competition, companies able to acknowledge better their mistake and might to better their bing capablenesss and make new 1s the most successful of these being Economic Value Added ( EVA ) . Initially Return on Investment ( ROI ) was used to enhancement the intuition and penetration of directors. It was used to direct down the end for division directors to run into from corporate office. Since directors reward and endorsement chances depended on the ability to run into marks, these nucleus directors has a strong inducement to set their information consequently. Some concerns have built accounting instruction faculties for their directors that help them acknowledge the elaborate information they get. Management comptrollers have a critical duty in fixing and administering preparation stuffs. Nowadays multifaceted managerial milieus proficient maps, peculiarly accounting, need to go more than providers of information. They must turn into a sort of an educating where directors can obtain preparation. So far in legion organisations, comptrollers are excessively feverish to turn out to be teachers and internal wages systems likely depress such public presentations. As the scope of direction accounting messages enlarge to incorporate non-financial presentation indexs, direction comptrollers get an extra challenge. Many directors have complexnesss visualising the cause and ensue relationships that connect cost drivers to fiscal returns. Yet this is the cardinal information needed to pull off value, and instruction is on a regular basis required to assist directors acknowledge improved the ground and consequence dealingss that cause stockholder value. Increasing functional country means that directors are of all time more degage from stockholder values. Many directors are strongly devoted to the association without being dedicated to the fiscal purpose that drives it. Management comptrollers have a duty to take portion in transfusing fiscal control and delegating fiscal values to non-financial directors. One technique is to necessitate operating directors ( instead than comptrollers ) to consistently form and show the fiscal survey of their industry unit. At the similar juncture that the direction accounting function must pay great sum of attending to the efficiency of its interior substructure procedures, other demands are happening. There is lifting force per unit area to diminish on the whole cost of the finance map as a fraction of grosss. There are bit by bit more clip devouring demands for more comprehensive external coverage. While these concluding ends are critical and must be achieved, puting the precedency there merely hike the hazard that internal accounting communications will be unsuccessful to acquire their aims and that direction accounting system modify will be farther postponed. Decision As discussed above, the modern direction accounting relevant to modern organisational direction issues as good rectify and reform the traditional direction accounting patterns to do determinations and specialized determinations based on relevant fiscal and non-financial information depending on the nature of activities, size, external fortunes and market conditions, client profiles, organisational human resource issues, structural issues. Even the modern direction accounting is non extra but can be wholly different. As good, some are more appropriate to assorted organisations and some are non, given the internal direction patterns, size of organisations, top direction support, human resource patterns. Organizational structural issues, employee motivational factors, centralisation decentalisation issues. In other words, before sing implementing modern direction accounting patterns the direction must hold a feasibleness survey sing the above issues and measure the cost and benefit of the systems in fiscal and non-financial footings. Otherwise the benefits are applied without through rating and committedness by top direction, therefore the benefits of these patterns will non be realized to the full. If carefully considered based on adequate facts and non on emotions, so the modern direction accounting with other schemes will surely helpful for direction to do sound determinations and hence contribute to the success of th e organisation than the traditional direction accounting patterns.

Singing Spoon Dry Ice Project

Singing Spoon Dry Ice Project The singing spoon or screaming spoon is the name of a dry ice project in which you cause a spoon to make a singing or screaming sound. Heres how to perform the singing spoon project and an explanation for how it works. You may also watch my video of the singing or screaming spoon. Singing Spoon Materials metal spoondry ice Make the Spoon Sing Dip a spoon in hot water.Remove the spoon from the water and press the warm spoon against the cold dry ice. The spoon will cause the dry ice to sublimate into carbon dioxide vapor. Youll hear the spoon emit a sharp vibrating sound sort of like it is singing or screaming. How the Singing Spoon Works When you press the warm spoon against the dry ice, the sublimation speeds up. The carbon dioxide gas that is released presses against the spoon at the same time you are applying pressure to push the spoon into the dry ice. The oscillations in pressure occur very rapidly, producing sound waves. Although youll usually see this demonstration done using a spoon, it works with any metal object. Metal works best because of its high thermal conductivity, but feel free to experiment with other materials.

Audiovisual critical theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Audiovisual critical theory - Essay Example He has developed the modern society and in it he has replaced the authentic social life with his interpretation of representation. He has thus, written about the traced of this modern society. He also argued through his book that the social life history should be understood by the â€Å"decline of being into having, and having into appearing†. This is the history where the commodity is finally recognized as colonization of the modern social life. This is the overall idea of the degrading of the human life. Debord has used the term spectacle in his title which is also closely related to the confluence in the society of advance capitalism. The word has been specifically used in the sense to describe the mass media and the kinds of governments who have favored the phenomenon. In his book that followed Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, Debord mentioned the spectacle as the period coming to the existence in the 1920s. He introduced this period as the coming to the existence in which the modern techniques of advertising were introduced, more innovative techniques and ideas were initiated to being used in which the campaign of Edward Bernays for the industry of tobacco was keenly highlighted (Debord,  1998, p. 87). The spectacle is thus described as the image of the modern society where the relations between the commodities have taken place by the relations of the people amongst themselves. This society is the one in which the genuine activity is seen and identified with the spectacles. But the spectacle is not merely taken to be the collection of images; it is rather the relation of the people amongst each other which is reflected by the images. Throughout his analysis of the spectacle society, the writer has regarded that the quality of life is getting poorer. He highlights some of the major points that can be influenced in these aspects such as the lacking in authenticity, the effects on the human perceptions,

Ethical dilemmas facing multinational corporations in their marketing Essay

Ethical dilemmas facing multinational corporations in their marketing of goods and services abroad - Essay Example The best thing is that the benefits and disadvantages are determined even before the organization goes the global way and thus it saves itself from embarrassment which it might face without having proper knowledge and adequate research within it. The significant thing here is to get prepared and be ready for what is to come in the future as concerns to the organization that we are talking about here. (Beckman, 1967) The ethical concerns rose in the wake of marketing of goods and services abroad remains one of the most talked about concerns and this is highlighted within the length of this paper. The ways and means that are usually taken care of whilst managing the goods and services abroad are aplenty and it is only up to the top management within a company that the same can be handled in a several different methods. They are the ones to decide as to what is the real manner in which the firm’s goods and services would be handled as well as who will head the respective departments, lead the business strategic units and act as legal and media representatives of the said business. The business, as marketers say, exists to satisfy its target audience through fulfilling a need courtesy its products and/or services or a combination of the both, the same being true in case of a retail outlet which sells gasoline to local consumers, thus giving in petrol plus extra services in the form of window cleaning, fuel gauge checks and so on and so forth. (Kelley, 1973) A company or an organization needs sound management framework at its top so that the staff and the employees workin g at different levels feel at ease with the job as well as the working environment. This indeed is very important as it builds long-term credibility of the organization that it cares about its employees and not just the customers and in cases profits and revenues only. (Korzeniowski, 2001) International businesses with regards to

Market failure and what government can do Essay

Market failure and what government can do - Essay Example Market failure is the failure of the market to yield efficient outcomes. Elaborating further, Stiglitz said that there are six situations in which markets are not efficient and these are referred to as market failures that provide a rationale for government activity.The six conditions in which markets fail to lead to efficient outcomes are those in which competition fails, situation in which public goods are involved, market situations in which there are externalities, situations in which markets are incomplete, situations in which information is imperfect, and situations in which there are macroeconomic disturbances (Stiglitz 2000, p. 77-85). For markets to lead to efficiency, markets must be perfectly competitive (Stiglitz 2000, p. 77). This means that there are no constraints for competition to prevail in the market. Examples of situations in which competition does not prevail are those involving monopolies and oligopolies. Monopolies are market situations in which there is only o ne seller while oligopolies are market situations in which there are only few sellers. Both monopolies and oligopolies can charge consumers prices that are higher than those which can prevail in perfectly competitive market settings.1 Public goods are those whose consumption is non-rival and non-excludable as opposed to private goods whose consumption are rival and excludable. Non-rival means consuming the good will not deprive others of the good. Road services or city lighting services, for example, are goods or services that are not deprived to others when an individual consume or use the good or service. They are also non-excludable in consumption because it is costly, feasible, or impractical to exclude others from consuming or using the good or service. In the literature of economics, economists usually use the term pure private goods and pure public goods to refer to pure cases but they recognize that there are goods in-between or public goods that have private goods character istics as well as private goods that have public goods characteristics. Sometimes, these goods are also referred to as mixed goods.2 Externalities refer to effects on third parties other than the consumer or producer of the product. For example, consumer may use gasoline but parties other than the producer or consumer of the product receive the pollution. Externalities can be positive or something good such as the benefits to the environments of a certain car that does not use fossil fuel or it can be negative like that in car that pollutes the environment. Economic literature holds that when markets are competitive, prices almost equals costs and goods are produced at costs. However, because of externalities, markets can lead to situations in which goods may be overproduced or under-produced, depending on their effects to society.3 Incomplete markets refer to situations in which although the cost of providing the good is less than what consumers are willing to pay, the good is not produced just the same (Stiglitz 2000, p. 81). The situation of incomplete markets implies that there are things missing in the market because otherwise the good or service would have been produced if there is nothing that is missing in the market (Stiglitz 2000, p. 81). Incomplete markets can emerge when complementary services are lacking, transaction costs are too high, and the like (Stiglitz 2000, p. 81-82). It is possible that incomplete markets are one of the least studied market situation in the academic literature. The literature on the topic does not seem many. Information asymmetry or imperfection in information is also another cause for market failure to happen. For example, borrowers can know their risks as borrowers but lenders may not know the risks of lending to the borrowers. In another scenario, investors want to invest but they do not know the potential returns and possible risks in investments and, thus, they are constrained from investing. Finally, many scholars i nterpret

Physics lab A Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Physics A - Lab Report Example Then timing of 50 oscillations followed together with recording of the attained results. Second step entailed repetition of the initial step but with varying lengths (0.8m, 1.0m, 1.2m, 1.4m and 1.6m) coupled with recording oscillations after every 25 vibrations instead of 50 as it was in the first procedure. This experiment entailed hanging the spring instead of string from the support with varying masses at its base (0.1kg, 0.2kg, 0.3kg, 0.4kg and 0.5kg). Then displacing each mass in turn from their middle positions, measuring their displacements and tabulating them in a table. The application of these experiments is immensely in the fabrication sectors where engineers construct diverse models to come up with refined designs meant to construct real machines and objects. This is to minimize losses, which could have occurred if the specialists ignored small tests in determining how the real design will

International business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words - 2

International business - Essay Example general manager of Lincoln Electric (Shanghai) Welding Company, Ltd., Jeffrey Kundrach sensed that the right time has come to evaluated the circumstances and start concentration on the management and labour practices of the corporation (Sparrow, Brewster & Harris 2004). The objective of this study is to review and analyse Lincoln Electric’s international human resources (HR) practices as are affected by the decision to establish a subsidiary in China. Early outcomes and future issues or problems will be discussed. Lincoln initiated a new attempt at expanding in Asia in the mid-1990s, after the shutting down of the Japanese company. This followed the 1995 opening of a new management organisation for the company involving new executive positions and complementary personnel to supervise each of the five major strategic locations: Asia, Latin America, Russia-Africa-Middle East, Europe, and North America (Business Week 2003). Michael Gillespie, being a British national and having associated with Lincoln from ESAB, the major competitor of Lincoln in Europe and Asia, was assigned head for the Asian region. Asia was at present a primary target of the company and Gillespie was summoned by Massaro to develop an innovative and competitive approach for the region (Business Week 2003). The plan of Gillespie was to build regional competencies and create a unified manufacturing business and sales with Asia (Briscoe & Schuler 2004: 428): The intention was to stop regarding Asia Pacific as a market to which we could export, to which we could sell our surplus production. So what we tried to do was to bring Lincoln to Asia rather than just sending American or Australian products into Asia, and decided that the right thing to do was to produce within the region for the region, products that were appropriate to the region, rather than simply trying to sell products that were right for the US or Europe. A regional administrative centre was launched in Singapore. The regional

Physics lab A Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Physics A - Lab Report Example Then timing of 50 oscillations followed together with recording of the attained results. Second step entailed repetition of the initial step but with varying lengths (0.8m, 1.0m, 1.2m, 1.4m and 1.6m) coupled with recording oscillations after every 25 vibrations instead of 50 as it was in the first procedure. This experiment entailed hanging the spring instead of string from the support with varying masses at its base (0.1kg, 0.2kg, 0.3kg, 0.4kg and 0.5kg). Then displacing each mass in turn from their middle positions, measuring their displacements and tabulating them in a table. The application of these experiments is immensely in the fabrication sectors where engineers construct diverse models to come up with refined designs meant to construct real machines and objects. This is to minimize losses, which could have occurred if the specialists ignored small tests in determining how the real design will

I phone5 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

I phone5 - Research Paper Example Featuring of an architectural website, Dezeen, in the launch video of i phone5 focuses on the variance and depth of new promotional partnerships between different category products such as Apple Inc. and Dezeen, an architecture, interiors and design company website. Apple Inc. has given huge promotional leverage to Dezeen in the videos, thus, marking a new chapter of relational linking by entering into collaboration with the architecture magazine. It highlights how LTE technology offers â€Å"really fast downloads over your cellular network†. Marketing of Apple has always been a hush-hush matter. Apple contacted Dezene a year back for a customised version of its website with no advertisements and social media links without disclosing its strategy to the management of Dezeen (Golson, September 2012). The tie-up between Apple i phone5 and Dezeen magazine on architecture, interiors and design by showing the home page of the company website on the promotional videos, on the occasi on of the launch of its latest i phone5 version has huge management and functional implications for the architectural company. It offers a trade-off to the viewer of purchasing a superior quality product although it won’t be a decision taken at once, as the ad viewer would analyse the future cost and quality trajectory of the magazine in the category it belongs to. If the consumer wants to replace the product, as in this case, the decision will be taken by comparing it with the currently owned and subscribed magazine and other available magazines on architecture and design in the market. If after visiting the Dezeen company website through the Apple i phone5 link given on the email of the user, it reveals that the difference in quality is tangibly and intangibly significant relative to the cost of the architectural magazine, the possibility of replacing the current magazine with Dezeen increases. It means increase in the sale of Dezeen product. Thus, purchase decision depends , as per general modelling related to replacement. In the case of i phone5 and Dezeen, both the products are not complimentary as they are un-related. Therefore, the purchase decision in one category, i.e., the Dezeen, would not be impressed by the purchase decision in another category, i.e., the Apple company’s newly launched i phone5 (Sriram et al., 2010). Nevertheless, if the products in both the categories have been purchased, the incentive to replace them with the latest versions, as in the case of Apple i phone5, the consumer decision is going to be taken on the quality parameter only; the higher the quality, the more inspired the decision for replacement. Consumer leverage would be more if both the products are replaced relatively to a single category product replacement (Sriram et al., 2010). Anyways, the great thing for an architecture website is that a technology giant like Apple has contacted it for sharing business leverage mutually through an email link to the we bsite address for the visitor to surf the pages of the magazine compelling the viewer to take a better decision after analysing the trade-off. As per the general model for replacement, if two

The Sun Case Essay Example for Free

The Sun Case Essay The sun is the center of solar system. All the eight planets in the solar system revolve around the sun. It is responsible for the day and the night we experience. It gives light and heat to the planets that revolve around it. Our Earth is the third closest planet to the Sun which is about 92 million miles from here to the sun (Myron, 2007). It may be far, but the Sun still provides enough light for plants to grow and enough heat for the people to be warm. This is made possible by the Sun’s very large size. The sun’s diameter is about 864, 938 miles. It is 10 times bigger than Jupiter, the biggest planet in the Solar System. Compared to the Earth, the Sun is 109 times bigger than our home planet (How Big is the Sun?, 2007). The Sun, even if it is very big, is mostly composed of gaseous elements like hydrogen and helium. It has a very hot temperature on its outer layer, and an even hotter inner layer. On the surface, it is about 5,515 degrees Celsius or 9,940 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of this very high temperature, the planets revolving around the sun receive heat and light even though they are very far apart. Why is the sun yellowish-white in color? We see the sun as yellowish-white because of its very hot temperature. The color is also scattered when the light passes through the atmosphere. What is left of the scattered is just the yellowish-white color which we see as the color of the sun. This is why we see a different color of the sun during the afternoon, when the sun is positioned very low in the sky (Dorn, 1999). The sun is a very magnificent body in space. It plays a very important part in our lives. We should be happy and proud that we have the Sun here in our Solar System. Reference: Dorn, E. (1999). What color is the sun in space? Retrieved September 25, 2007, from http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-12/945169710.As.r.html How Big is the Sun? (2007). Retrieved September 25, 2007, from http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/bobalien99/sunsize.htm Myron, H. (2007). Distance from the Earth to the Sun. Retrieved September 25, 2007, from http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasci/1995/astron/AST045.HTM

The Factors That Affect Global Warming Environmental Sciences Essay

The Factors That Affect Global Warming Environmental Sciences Essay The affects of global warming are vast and spread across and the dangers are several. This paper aims at understanding the factors that affect global warming. A discussion of human impact on global warming has also been made. This will permit to bring out an evaluation strategy to sustain the current situation and to find a strategy to devise a solution for the problem. The Problem: With the growing levels of irresponsible behavior on the part of humans and several other factors, the biggest issue in hand is Global Warming. The term global warming is used to describe the changes, more specifically the increase in the temperature of the Earth. The issue has been studied over several years and one of the major attributes to the issue is the increase in the greenhouse gases (Houghton, 2009). A few facts from the National Geographic show that the World is being faced with this issue and Earth has already begun showing a number of signs in terms of the worldwide climate change. A few of these signs include: According to the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, there has been an increase in the average temperature and since 1880, the average temperatures have raised by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The level of warming has been noted to be increasing to a great extent. As per the National Geographic website, The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th centurys last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850 (National Geographic, 2007). The Arctic Circle has been faced with the highest changes. The average temperatures in regions like Alaska, Canada and Easter Russia has risen to an extent almost double of the global average. Also, studies have shown that the Arctic ice has been disappearing and the region is expected to have an ice free summer by 2040 or earlier. The various glaciers and mountain snow have also been impacted by the global warming and one of the best examples for this is that Montanas Glacier National park now has only about 27 glaciers when compared to 150 in 1910 (National Geographic, 2007). Experts have also pointed that an upsurge in extreme climate events like wildfires, heat waves and also strong tropical storms are major contributors to the climate changes. The world famous Coral Reefs have also been affected because of the high temperatures. The Coral Reefs are highly sensitive to the slightest changes in the water temperature and the increase in temperatures has led to bleaching, and even die off of this beautiful formation (Houghton, 2009). Factors Affecting Global Warming: There have been several factors that affect the global warming. Under normal circumstances the process that is occurs as explained by Environment Canada is that, under normal circumstances, the Earth intercepts radiations from the sun. These radiations are the ones that help derive the climate and the weather of the Earth. What normally happens is that one third of the radiations are reflected back into space, while the rest of it is absorbed by the various forms of life, land, ice and the atmosphere. Furthermore the Earth re radiates several long waves of radiation which are sent out into space. Of these a part of it is absorbed as energy while the rest is left into space. This remission is referred to as Greenhouse Effect (Environment Canada, 2010). It is necessary for Earth to be able to maintain a balance between the amounts of radiation that is outgoing versus the amount of solar energy incoming. Any change in this balance can lead to the process of global warming (Singer Avery , 2007). Another factor that has also been explained by the Environment Canada is the changes that have been noted in the Earths Orbit. The changes in the orbit leads to changes in the amount of energy received on earth, and there is also a direct impact on the energy that is absorbed and reflected as well. Also another essential factor that affects the global warming is the aerosols. Environment Canada has explained this factor as, these are fine particles and droplets that are small enough to remain suspended in the atmosphere for considerable periods of time.   They both reflect and absorb incoming solar radiation.   Changing the type and quantity of aerosols in the atmosphere affects the amount of solar energy reflected or absorbed (Environment Canada, 2010). Global Warming: Human Impact: Several studies over the years by numerous scientists across over 130 countries have led to the conclusion that almost all or major part of the global warming is due to humans. The global warming that is caused due to humans is referred to as anthropogenic climate change. There are several things that humans have done which have led to the situation of global warming. Some of these include factors like industrialization, deforestation, and pollution which have impacted the levels of water vapor, carbon di oxide, methane gas, and also nitrous oxide. This leads the greenhouse gases to be a trapped near the Earths surface thereby making the level of heat much higher (Singer Avery, 2007). Also, it is seen that humans have poured in higher levels of carbon di oxide into the atmosphere compared to that which can be absorbed by the plants and oceans. It is also essential to note that Carbon di oxide takes as much as 100 years to be absorbed into space, hence with the levels of this gas that is being emitted there are very low chances of stopping global warming immediately (Environment Canada, 2010). Experts have also pointed out that the orbital shifts that have taken place over the past hundred years are normally one which would take at least centuries to occur. This increases the possibility of the heating and cooling of the earth. Evaluation of Strategies: In the current period several experts and channels like National Geographic try to explain to the general public the several ways that they can help improve the world and help save the planet. Things like using more eco friendly items, eating organic foods, changing to become vegetarians to help reduce the harmful gases are emitted into the atmosphere. The experts also suggest using different types of products to help reduce the emission of harmful elements into the atmosphere and thereby assist in sustaining the earths heat at the current level. However irrespective of how much the governments or the experts have tried the conscious efforts to help reduce the emission of harmful elements, yet the rate at which the emission of harmful gases have been present is quite high (Singer Avery, 2007). The governments and the society together will need to work hand in hand to save the world and to at least be able to retain the world at the current level. In order to be able to develop a pla n which might help increase the awareness among all the people in the world a brief sustainability plan has been designed. Sustainability Plan: Action Items Action Steps Timeline Conduct a thorough research of the effects of global warming and how the daily activities affect global warming Several journals, articles, and websites need to be analyzed and studied. The main causes for global warming can be listed based on this. Furthermore, surveys can be conducted and details of the possible daily activities can be made to bring out the activities that affect and contribute to the global warming. 2 3 month Develop a plan to encourage and raise the awareness among people across the world A presentation can be made to provide population with a detailed understanding of what causes global warming, the effects of global warming and how each individual can individual can help reduce the contribution of harmful chemicals and harmful gases as well. 1 1.5 Month Distribute and extend the knowledge to all A copy of the presentation can be sent out to various organizations which will in fact allow the knowledge to be spread across the countries. Distribute a copy of the presentation across the country to as many colleges, universities, movie theatres, industries, manufacturing companies, offices, schools. The movie theatres can play the presentation before every movies and this will help at least reach out to a small set of people worldwide. 3 month Evaluation of Plan: The above mentioned plan might sound outrageous and very demanding and expensive; however it will allow the people across the world to be aware of the various problems and issues that are being faced due to being ignorant or simply not aware. Using a presentation to be sent out slowly to all countries and the presentations to be distributed within each country will help in reaching out to a major part of the population. The main benefits of the plan is that it will help build awareness and will also help in changes simple things in the daily routine that can assist with doing the bit to help prevent global warming. Also playing the presentation in schools and colleges and movies will help the younger generation be more aware of what they do and also assist in correcting the mistakes of not only themselves but also those around them. Required Support: Global warming is a global issue and it is not one which will affect only a few countries. If we aim at saving out planet, it is essential that a form of unity and commitment is formed within each one of us and a form of unity among countries is also essential. The support of the government is necessary here to help ensure that countries can have cordial and helping nature so that we can also work together to resolve this issue. Similar to how the entire world is ready to take up a new technology and enjoy the benefits, it is necessary that the world works together to build a safer planet (Spencer, 2010). Companies can help by passing the message, governments can help by keeping cordial relations with other countries, so we can help one another in times of difficulties. Most importantly, it is up to each individual on the planet to their bit to help reduce the emission of the gases and prevent global warming. The world is our own, and irrespective of which country we belong, or which religion we belong, we need to understand that ignorance or not taking up responsibility is not an answer here and we all lose if global warming continues to grow as it is currently.

Magical Realism :: Latin American Literature Essays

Magical Realism It is a long and unusual journey. I still wonder what it really is. I read the selections of four wonderful authors and I am still a little confused about the real history and theory of magical realism. I do know that before a person gets into this idea of magical realism, he or she really has to have a big imagination and willingness to learn about it. I guess what I am trying to say is that magical realism depends on who a person is and what a person is willing to believe. I thought that Franz Roh's selection was brief on magical realism. I see where Roh compared Magical Realism to Expressionism. He came up with different theories about how to look at certain things in the world. This essay was definitely deep and way out there. He talked about the different ways to represent something. "We recognize this world, although now-not only because we have emerged from a dream-we look on it with new eyes"(Roh 17). It was not just an everyday word, it had to be mystical, magical, fantasized etc. I really do not see how somebody could come up with such an idea. The whole point is he mixes reality with fantasy. In his selection, he talks about the supernatural, things such as aliens that really move some people. Magical Realism plays a major role in issues such as this. People have to go beyond the world and look just a little further. One's imagination will take them places of which they have never dreamed before. Some people swear up and down that aliens, UFO' s, and foreign space ships are not real. How do they know? I guess I will have to stick with Roh on believing in the existence of the supernatural, the magical, and the freaks of nature. Whether I understand completely or not, I think it is really neat how someone can go beyond the unthinkable. That is exactly what Roh does. Some things he talks about I cannot interpret, but I see his outline of it. I do not think there would be any interesting things to look forward to if someone did not use one's imagination and research on things that are mind boggling to the world today. Maybe if more people knew about this "magical realism, they would look at things differently. Angel Flores wrote about magical realism in a way that was hard for me to understand.

The Manhattan Project :: essays research papers

The Manhattan Project   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nuclear research all started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered into World War II. When the United States realized that Germany attempted to build an atomic bomb, Americans began to concentrate on their research about creating an atomic bomb more heavily. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Manhattan Project, which included a group of top scientists, under General Leslie R. Groves, who worked around the clock to try to develop an atomic bomb within three years (Bondi 493). The Americans and the British combined their efforts to research the development of the bomb and created plants and factories to work in (â€Å"The Atomic Bomb†¦Ã¢â‚¬  257). They created plants for three separate processes: electromagnetic, gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion. These plants helped create the plutonium and uranium 235 needed to manufacture the atomic bomb (Gerdes 142). The secrecy of the Manhattan Project was essential in order to develop the atomic bombs to end World War II. The United States and Great Britain kept the development of the atomic bomb a secret (Bondi 493). In order to keep the secret, Groves spread the work out between laboratories so that the people working on the bomb could not figure out they were manufacturing. The members of the Manhattan Project asked the scientists questions about the bomb, and they gave answers back, but they did not know what the responses were for. The project consisted of so many restrictions for the employees in order to keep the secrecy of the project. They could not hold private conversations about the material they were working on because after awhile, people might have been able to put it together and determine that they were creating a bomb. Employees worked on tasks that had nothing to do with what the others around them were doing. Even the officials on the War Production Board remained unaware of the bomb (â€Å"The Atomic Bomb†¦Ã¢â‚¬  258). As with everything, problems occurred during the development process. The plutonium needed for the bombs was only in microscopic sizes, which was very difficult to handle. Plutonium’s properties were unknown, and scientists knew very little about uranium 235. The plants needed to be run by machinery because the materials were â€Å"radioactive, poisonous, violently corrosive, or all three† (Gerdes 143). After scientists studied and became familiar with plutonium and uranium 235, they were able to begin the manufacturing process (Gerdes 91).

A Review and Analysis of Ryanair and Flextronics Operations

It will discuss the four stages In the Hayes and Wheelwright's model of operations contribution. This will take Flatirons as an example. Ryan Ryan is one of Rupee's largest low cost airlines, which operates more than 1,400 flights per day from 44 bases across 27 countries with a fleet of 272 Boeing 737 aircrafts. They operate with a team of 8,000 personnel and have carried around 73. 5 million passengers during 2011 with the average fare of 39 Euros. (Ryan official website) The below chart, figure A, from Ryan official website shows the passenger growth in millions from 1995 to 2007.Operations Strategy In every organization, operation strategy provides a framework to determine how the organization should pretzel and utilize Its resources to achieve Its performance objectives and gain advantage to Its competitors In the pre-defined market place. In another word, once a company defines it's role in business and identifies its performance objectives then it needs a set of framework and guiding principles for decision makers, to ensure that all the objectives are met. These frameworks and guidelines are the principles of what is known as operations strategy.In today's easiness world, operations managers are faced with various challenges regarding development of effective strategies in line with organization's -mission and vision- and to properly implement those strategies. Ryan Operations Strategy As a low cost airline, Ryan overall framework is to provide air travelers the option of flying to vast number of destinations with the minimum fee possible. To attain that In the costly business environment Like the allure business, Ryan needs to carefully adopt operations strategy to malignant It's basic services while lowering the costs as much as possible in different operation areas.It is important to understand Market qualifiers, in order to survive in the market. The terms Order-winning and qualifying objectives will be discussed later. Hence in general the efficien cy of the Ryan operations should support it's market positioning, as a low-cost airline, and the following are some key elements on how RA manages the processes and implements the operational factors to deliver its results. * Keeping turnaround time at minimum.This has been achieved partly due to improved employee productivity, which could be the result of intense staff training and development, and partly because there are no meals and sees luggage to be loaded on to the plane. * Aircraft equipment cost. Using identical aircrafts (Boeing 737) in large quantities helps Ryan to reduce significant cost in repair, services and storage of aircraft parts. It also gives the company the advantage to negotiate the price of purchasing aircrafts and parts coming all from single supplier.Apart from those, using identical aircrafts offer reduction in staff training cost as well as flexibility in the scheduling of crew and equipment. * Airport access cost. Airport landing and services fees are m uch lower in secondary airports and could save the airline a lot of none by diverting flights to these airports. Also diverting passenger traffic to these airports gives Ryan the advantage to negotiate costs with airports by providing high passenger flow. * Customer services costs.Ryan has developed its own Internet booking service facility, which sells tickets directly to the costumers, offering lower prices by cutting travel agency commissions. Using electronic services will give an advantage to management to access a range of data for future planning and service enhancement. Apart from that, Ryan has entered into agreements with third party contractors at certain airports for assenter and aircraft handling, ticketing and other services that can be provided in a more cost efficient way by third parties. Personnel productivity Ryan endeavors to control its labor costs by continually improving the productivity of its already highly productive work force. Compensation for employees e mphasizes productivity-based pay incentives, including commissions for on-board sales of products for flight attendants and payments based on the number of hours flown by pilots and cabin crew personnel, within limits set by industry standards will stem to higher personnel engagement and productivity.Apart from the mentioned bullet points Ryan air's management, reviews the day-to-day experience of the company regularly to modify and refine their strategic decisions in order to abide to the company's policy on customer services. SOOT Analysis Strength Ryan has been known as Rupee's first low cost airline, which is the company's strongest selling point. Adopting low cost strategy helped Ryan to rapidly increase of customers and expansion of their operations. Addressing to the marketing trends by adopting Internet services like booking and ticketing has changed the customer behavior and has provided wide range of clients for them.Last but not least, rapid expansion of flight routes and aircrafts, has provided more frequent flights and destinations to air travelers. Weaknesses weaknesses too. Restricted customer service, deceiving advertisement and low quality services are among those weaknesses, which has lead to bad publicity for the company. Opportunities Ryan, according to its strength, has opportunities to still dominate the European airline industry in term of providing more quality service standards and maintain its positioning as a low cost airline.By determining the latest trends in airline industry and meeting the up to dated demands of customers they are capable of gaining more customers to be the number one airline company in the whole region. Threats Given the competitive nature of airline business, Ryan is faced with the inevitable threat of competition. To tackle that, Ryan needs to constantly provide highly effective and efficient new products with higher quality services comparing to competitors. Strengths: Rupee's first low-cost airline IT Servic es Rapid Expansion Strengths: Weakness: Restricted customer servicesLow quality service Also to maintain the advantage, Ryan needs to increase its destinations to cover more customers by flying to new regions and at the same time increase its customer service to ensure passenger's satisfaction. Opportunities: Providing quality service standards Defining new IT service standards Expansion to more destinations Opportunities: Competition Reduction of passengers in airline market Threats: Figure B: Ryan operations Strategy SOOT Analysis ‘Market qualifiers' and ‘order winners' Qualifying and order-wining factors are ways to distinguish a company from its imitators within the market.Order winning factors are mainly those aspects, which contribute to promote the service or product to the highest level of costumer satisfaction and help the business to stand ahead of other competitors in the market. On the other hand, qualifying factors are those aspects of the service provider, which should be met to attain the consideration from costumers for business. Costumers needs and wants along with competitors market standards define weather a factor is a qualifier or a winner.Market qualifiers and order winners that would apply to a owe-cost airline market are as follow: Qualifying Objectives I Order winning objectives I Low cost fares I Free minimum luggage services I Covering wide destinations I Variety on-board service (food, beverage, pillow, blanket) I Reasonable quality ; comfort I Priority boarding I Safety ; emergency protocols I Free on-board entertainment I Direct booking ; ticketing services I Pre-assigned seats for passengers I High-frequency flights I Ground services on departure (bus services to airport) I In-flight food ; beverage availability with charge I Ground services on arrival (car hire, I Luggage services with charge I More comfortable seating I transportation) I Internet and communication services on board I Flatirons Flatirons is an electr onics manufacturing services provider, which specializes in supply chain services such as packaging and transportation, as well as design, engineering and after sales services within several markets including automotive, computing, consumer, industrial, infrastructure, medical and mobile.Based in Singapore, Flatirons is behind well-known brands like -but not limited to- HP, RIM, Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, Sony Ericson and IBM. (Flatirons official Website) Flatirons Operations Strategy As one of the global leaders in design, manufacturing and distribution and after sales market services, Flatirons operations strategy must be designed in a way to address the needs for low-costs, responsive and flexible product and services. To achieve this Flatirons has adopted the following strategies: * Extensive network of design, manufacturing and logistics facilities. These extensive networks are placed in the world's major electronic markets helping Flatirons to address each customer's th at simplify global product development and supply processes.Through his, Flatirons is able to go through the life cycle of the products from its initial design to volume production, test cycles, distribution and post sales services in a more efficient manner. * Integrated industrial parks. These industrial parks are positioned in low cost regions close to the Flatirons costumers and world markets, giving them the advantage of delivering the products and services in a very large scale and as cheap as possible. Also Flatirons encourage its own suppliers to position in these industrial parks for easier access. Through this strategy Flatirons reduce major cost of shipping, handling and storing products.Hayes and Wheelwright's four stage of operation contribution Professor Hayes and Wheelwright developed a four-stage model to evaluate the role and contribution of operations function. These stages are as follow: 1. Internal Neutrality: Lowest level of contribution by operations function. It does not react upon competitive success and the aim is to avoid mistakes. 2. External Neutrality: At one level higher, in this stage the company begins to look outside and compare itself with its competition. The objective may not be to be the best but at least to implement the best practice with regards to other market players. . Internally Supportive: Operations at this stage are among the bests in their market. Developing appropriate operations resources to support company's strategic goals is at the most priority. 4.Externally Supportive: At this stage the operations functions are designed to provide a foundation for competitive success. Adopting a long-term view, considering the future changes in the market and consumer behavior helps the company to be one step ahead of the market. The four-stage model of operation contribution Looking at Flatirons and considering the four stages of operations contribution, it is Lear that the operations function of Flatirons is a very good example of stage 4 â€Å"externally supportive† Operations. As mentioned earlier, through an extensive network of design, manufacturing and after-sale services, Flatirons can deliver its services at the most appropriate locations, which shows in depth knowledge of costumer behavior understanding.

Beyond the Ordinary Bloody Hell Drama Essay

Beyond all human endeavors to attain their highest human potential; be it during grief, war, abundance, injustice, among others, is the rule that no matter what, â€Å" always do the right thing. † In this particular paper, I have chosen William Shakespeare’s work â€Å"Hamlet, Prince of Denmark† as well as Oscar Wilde’s â€Å"The Importance of Being Earnest† as the two main plays for my essay. I have a particular interest in these two plays by two different authors, because the two radiates social and moral themes, which I think is more interesting. â€Å"Hamlet† for example, conveys the message of revenge as evil and could result to unintended consequences. â€Å"The Importance of Being Earnest† posits an emphasis on the importance of being Earnest (since this was paramount during the Victorian era), which I would later on mention in my succeeding discussions. However, I have chosen the two plays because of its contrasting theme-satire vs. tragedy. I was particularly interested in the way the two plays (in different themes) could stir up moral-social values and messages. ‘Hamlet† is a story of oozing portrayal for vengeance (Shakespeare as cited in The Literature Network, 2000). Hamlet accidentally killed Polonius, after he thought that it was Claudius (the new King of Denmark). Look more:  satire in the importance of being earnest essay He intended to avenge the death of his father on Claudius. However, after the accidental killing of Polonius, Ophelia (the daughter of the latter who loved Hamlet despite the hatred she felt for him) and Laertes (son of Polonius, brother of Ophelia), were especially furious on him and planned to kill him to avenge the death of their father. It was the latter who carried on the plan since Ophelia was prevented by her love for Hamlet. On the course of their pursuit for revenge, all Hamlet and Laertes gain was the unintended consequence of their actions. The first accidentally killed Polonius instead of the king, as cited by Shakespeare (n. d): Hamlet: â€Å"How now? A rat? [draws] â€Å"Dead for a ducat, dead†! Polonius: [Behind the Arras] â€Å"O, I am slain†! [Fall and Dies]. (Shakespeare p. 150) Laertes, on the other hand, instead of killing Hamlet, was killed by his own sword as mentioned by Shakespeare (n. d): Laertes Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric; I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery. (Shakespeare p. 246) The message however of the play conveys that, revenge is not always the right thing to do, no matter how badly you’ve been hurt by someone. This is conveyed in the play of Shakespeare (n. d), when Laertes spoke to Hamlet: It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good; (Shakespeare p. 247) On the other hand â€Å"The Importance of Being Earnest† portrayed the story of two characters (Jack and Algernon) that had employ deception for their convenience; Jack using the name Ernest and Algernon having an imaginary friend named Bunburry. The two employed deception to attain their ends (for Jack to be engaged to Gwendolyn and Algernon used Bunburry as an excuse to leave the country). Later on, Algernon also made-up a story that he was Ernest, to propose to Cecily. It was found out later on in the story that smoke has its way of escaping; the deception did not last long, it was soon discovered by the girls including Lady Bracknell (Gwendolen’s mother) that Ernest was just an imaginary person whose name was used by two persons (The Importance of Being Earnest, 2000). To cover all these mistakes, the two men were told to do the right thing to redeem themselves from the wrath of their fiancees. The two plays had some common grounds. Firstly, both plays were guilty of committing the â€Å"law of unintended consequence† of their actions. Hamlet is a story about revenge, but people who seek revenge for the death of their loved ones (Hamlet and Laertes), were not prepared for the unintended consequence of their actions. As the tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark it says: â€Å"A villain killed my father†¦I his sole son, would do the same villain†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Shakespeare as cited in etext. library, n. d). However, it was not anticipated by Hamlet that the man he killed was not the King. Clearly, Hamlet had mistaken Polonius as King Claudius. Moreover, when Laertes avenges the death of his father, he was killed by his own sword. The result of their plans was different since they were not familiar with the possible consequences of their actions, because experience wise, they’re not raised to slay somebody out of hatred and vengeance. As was mentioned previously, Jack and Algernon also did not expect the law of unintended consequences of their deception. It had evoked a lot of fantasies from the women, and led to conflict when both women assumed that they were both engaged to the same man named Ernest. One of the lines in The Importance of Being Ernest (2000) showed this conflict: Gwendolen. [Quite politely, rising. ] My darling Cecily, I think there must be some slight error. Mr. Ernest Worthing is engaged to me. The announcement will appear in the Morning Post on Saturday at the latest. Cecily. [Very politely, rising. ] I am afraid you must be under some misconception. Ernest proposed to me exactly ten minutes ago. [Shows diary. ] (p. 43) A â€Å"civilized war† in which flaring emotions were dealt not through aggression, but tensions over words and manners exist between Cecily and Gwendolen when they unmistakably thought that they were engaged to the same man named Earnest. The next comparative point for the play is the emphasis on doing the â€Å"right thing. † If King Claudius respected the life of the former King, Hamlet would not have thought of revenge, same as Polonius. However, they neglect to pay respect to the lives of these people, hence, one mistake leads to another. Vengeance could not be the right thing to do; since social laws are present (this is the function of law in every society-to ensure harmony and control towards equilibrium). The other play (†¦Being Earnest) was in fact clear about choosing the â€Å"right thing† to do. First, being morally right is the â€Å"right thing† to do. Take for example the line of Algernon after his conversation with Lane. The first stated that, what use the lower class would be if they don’t set good example; when they are in fact a class to have no sense of moral responsibility. Gwendolen believes that style, not sincerity is more important (The Importance of Being Earnest, 2000). This was depicted in the story when the Gwendolen and Cecily, instead of pouring out their hatred and contempt to each other, chose to have a â€Å"civilized war† because it is the â€Å"right† thing to do-impression management is more important than sincerity. Respect was also of significance in Hamlet. The play conveyed that whatever wrong a person has caused on you, it is still wrong for you to wish for his death, much more kill him. Killing someone had never been right, much more, seeking vengeance and putting the role of law on your own hands as what Hamlet and Laertes did. The third point of comparison for the two plays is their similarity in portraying conflict. Conflict usually occurs over the competition of highly valuable scarce resources. While Hamlet was a tragic play, it evoked conflicting interest between King Claudius and Hamlet’s father. Shakespeare (n. d) illustrated this scene through the following lines: Ghost: A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown (Shakespeare p. 14) The two were in conflict over the reign of the thrown in Denmark. It should be noted that conflict would either result to a positive or a negative consequence. Take for instance the case of King Claudius and Hamlet’s father; their conflicting interests enable King Claudius to kill his brother to take over to his thrown as the King of Denmark. On the other hand, The Importance of Being Earnest posits a deeper conflict between classes. In the way upper classes looked at marriage, wealth and the importance of superficial personalities to retain their pleasant status. Despite any wrong done, upper classes have their ways of doing the â€Å"right† thing, which they themselves have imposed. Lady Bracknell touches on the issue when she states, that: â€Å"pleasant or not, an engagement should be given to a girl through a surprise† (The Importance of Being Earnest, 2000: p. 43). Upper class has a standard way of looking at marriage-in fact they looked at it as a business transaction. Hence, marriage for the upper class is a way of showing social position, character and â€Å"taste† for marriage. This was however seen in the words of Gwendolen when she said sugar is being out of fashion and cake is not in best houses where it used to be seen (The Importance of Being Earnest, 2000). Cecily put sugar and cake on Gwendolen’s plate as otherwise requested by the latter. The two girls were actually insulting each other, but chose to do it in a more subtle and superficial way; that nobody could hint they were relatively furious with each other. Always doing the right thing is the best way to deal with hatred, happiness, and conflict, and extreme emotions. I have proved this right when Hamlet chose to revenge the death of his father instead of trusting the law of society to punish King Claudius. His revenge leads one way to another when other person was being killed, living the latter’s family in grief and the son to be also planning for revenge. On the other hand, I had also proved that doing the right thing is the best way to settle misunderstandings and feud. In Being Earnest, deception was used at first, and it was soon found out that it could create great complication; not only, people doing the deception gets into trouble but also the people in whom they had applied their deception as in the case of Gwendolen, Cecily and Lady Bracknell. Also, doing the right thing could be the best way to avoid negative consequences of conflict (e. g following the rule of transition to the throne in the case of Hamlet). Above all things, the two plays were great, since, errors were recognized and even if the right thing to do was not done immediately, the characters came into their senses and recognized that what they have done might be corrected. With the right attitude towards things as well as with the values that guide human character, one might not go wrong if s/he just lived with these and chose to always do what is â€Å"right† for everybody. â€Å"Hamlet† is indeed a great play, depicting many facets of the test of character amid hatred and betrayal. In the Importance of being Earnest, it was personal volition to use deception, but in the end, the choice to be â€Å"right† for the sake of harmony prevailed. References Hamlet. (2004). TeachWithMovies. com, Retrieved, January 20, 2008, from http://www. teachwithmovies. org/samples/hamlet. html The Importance of Being Earnest. (2000). CliffsNotes. com. Retrieved, January 20, 2008, from http://www. cliffsnotes. com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Importance-of-Being-Earnest. id-29,pageNum-31. html (IMPORTANT)