Charities Oxfam Essay

Charities Oxfam A Charity is a foundation created to promote the public good. It doesn’t keep profit, but to expand. It relies on money given from the public voluntarily, it is a non-profit organisation. A charity is all about fundraising and giving to causes, it is a type of business because it does make profit, which is given to charitable causes. Many companies/people set up charities because they may want to promote and encourage a cause that may need money. The people behind the organisation may only set up the charity, investing it towards its continuity but not to gain profit. Different stakeholders who can influence the purpose of Oxfam. The people who donate to the charity Oxfam are major stakeholders as Oxfam would not be able to be a successful charity without the donations as they are the key to the money that is raised. Donators are major stakeholders as they’re also the largest investors to charities like Oxfam and influence it greatly. Without this suppor t network; work would be limited, goods would not be sold from Oxfam shops and business would be lost. Employees are stakeholders within the company as the business provides them with a livelihood or, if the organisation is a non-profit organisation, then this provides a sense of generosity for those who work for free. They seek security of employment, promotion, opportunities and good rates of reward. shareholders  it is not easy to balancenthe needs of stakeholders in order to best achieve this balnce shell recognises five areas of resposiblities to shareholsers, customers, employers and society. Shell resolves and minimises conflicts between its activities and its stake holders trough its clear strategies and commitment to corporate values. through balancing social, economic and evironmental considerations shell seeks to make decisions that maximise values.

Prometheus and Gaea

Prometheus and Gaga: Any Rand's Choice of Characters Throughout Greek mythology Prometheus Is known as the fire bearing Titan who rebelled against Zeus and saved the world from his curse of a hatless and lightness punishment. Like wise, Equality In Anthem also rebels against his government in response to seeing the corruption within it. These similarities show how their lives exemplify the Ideal of individualism. Furthermore, Gaga, the goddess of earth, is comparable with The Golden one from Anthem; both would be seen as the beginning of a new race.In particular, Prometheus and Equality trails and experiences correlate to each other and elicit the motives behind their audacious actions. Ultimately, Any Rand changes the names of her characters to Prometheus and Gaga as their lives parallel the lives of Equality and the Golden One both with similar trials and sacrifices for the sake of mankind. Prometheus and Equality rebellion are similar. They both passionately desire prosperity for their human race and are willing to rebel against a higher power to achieve it.Initially, their rebellion against a higher power is quite similar: â€Å"The rebel Prometheus, who had taken such a arsenal risk for mankind, now was faced with getting the fire back down to earth. † (Pontoons; Prometheus; Mythology's Original Rebel). Furthermore, Equality rebelled against the higher power that threatened his humanity: † You fools! ‘ we cried. You fools! ‘ You thrice-damned fools! † (Rand, page 75). Here Equality calls the highest power, the Council of the Scholars, â€Å"Thrice-damned fools† because they reject his offering to humanity.Later, Equality vows to protect his chosen brothers and start a new rebellion race that would be based off Individualism and loyalty. He wanted to rate a new race of humans, a race that would be superior to the people that he grew up with. He would add things that would make them like gods relative to that of the past humans, such as individualism and reverence for there own spirit. Here, Rand displays Equality plans for mankind, â€Å"Our son will be raised as a man. He will be taught to say ‘I' and to bear the pride of it.He will be taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught reverence for his own spirit† (Rand, page 100). Likewise, Pontoons also describes Prometheus' view on the creation of humans when e writes, â€Å"Prometheus had created humans in the likeness of gods† and also when he says, â€Å"Prometheus, the wise Titan, made man stand upright like the gods to be noble and conscious and to hold his head high, looking up at the heavens† (Pontoons, Prometheus; Mythology Original Rebel).These similarities regarding rebellion and recreation of humans between Equality and Prometheus elicit their motives and exemplify how their lives are parallel. Throughout Greek mythology, Gaga Is known as Mother Earth, the creator of life, and the goddess of E arth. The characteristics of others during the creations of Gaga and The Golden One are the overarching theme between Anthem and Saga's myths. These characteristics correspond with how Any Rand describes The Golden One, â€Å"Let this be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods† (Rand, 99).Thus the Golden one Is described as the mother of a new kind of race. Ironically, a motif throughout Anthem as we came to the northern road, we kept our eyes upon Liberty 5-3000 in the field†¦ Then one day they came close to the hedge, and suddenly they turned to us†¦ They stood still as a stone† (Rand, Page 39, 40). The Golden One is associated numerous times with nature and defined by it. An example of this is when the Golden One feeds Equality water from the stream; the love that they share is bridged through mother-earth.The numerous displays of nature exhibited through the Golden one emphasizes how their live are comparable and import antly parallel. Another aspect of Prometheus and Equality lives that are consistent includes their experiences. Firstly, both accepted severe torture for the sake of mankind. In Prometheus' case, he angered Zeus by fooling him and stealing the fire from the Palace of the gods and rough it back to earth, where Zeus prohibited it. This angered Zeus so much that he put Prometheus through excruciating torture for up to 30,000 years.Parallel to Prometheus, equality was whipped and tortured because of his disobedience to answer to the Council of the Home. Likewise, both Prometheus and Equality were forced into questioning, but both refused: † Where have you been? But we Jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, and bit our lips† (Rand, page 65). And also in Prometheus' story: â€Å"Zeus offers Prometheus a chance to free himself by veiling information that Prometheus knew' This idea of endurance is relevant in both situations and it underscores the willing passi on that both characters possessed for their human race.Gaga is also known for yielding offspring with Uranus, the god of the sky, and showing sheer courage in ordering her son Crocus to decapitate his genitals: â€Å"Uranus was afraid that one of his Titan children would end up overthrowing him†¦ The Titans were thus imprisoned by Uranus in Tartar's, a region of the Underworld†¦ From the blood of Uranus that fell on her, Gaga conceived Eeriness†¦ Gaga may have saved Zeus from a fate similar to his father's Crocus]† (Pontoons; â€Å"Gaga?Mother Earth†). With passion, The Golden One abandoned her former life of slavery to follow Equality.The Golden One showed courage by escaping the city and vowing herself to Equality for life; this step of faith would lead her to produce offspring Just as Gaga did. The similarities in their beliefs and their willingness to take action in time of despair are Just another aspect of how these characters are parallel. On the whole, the ultimate name change of Any Rand's characters?Greek gods Prometheus and Gaga?are symbolic representations of the ivies of Equality and The Golden One. They willingly submit their lives for the greater good of creation.Overall, Any Rand's choice of Prometheus is Justified through the rebellions, tortures, and goals for humanity that parallel Equality. Any Rand's choice of Gaga is relevant as well because of the courage and traits that The Golden One and Gaga share. In conclusion, Any Rand saw the personalities of Prometheus and Gaga and viewed them as perfect matches for Equality and The Golden One. Thinking in the here and now, how would today's world fare without brave leaders such as The Golden One and Equality?

Marketing Channels

Running head: DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS Distribution Channels and Their Impact on Marketing Strategies Name: Institution: DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS Abstract This paper discusses the importance of choosing appropriate channel members and also identifies and discusses criteria that should be used by the car compact disc player manufacturer when evaluating potential intermediaries for the firm’s distribution channel. This is important for this firm since it’s only through these marketing channels that their product is going to reach the consumer. The customer in this case is the auto makers who are intended to buy the newly developed compact disc player to fix them in the automobiles. The method for marketing this product is therefore crucial. In our study it is specified that the manufacturer uses two distribution channels. In one case he distributes the CD player directly to the auto makers and in another case he distributes the product to electronic stores. Key words: Channel members, criteria for choice CHANNEL DISTRIBUTION Distributions Channels and Their Impact on Marketing Strategies Distribution channels are the key determinants of how any manufacturing company reaps from the products that come from their manufacturing plants. Characteristically, approximately half that price paid for merchandise by a purchaser is engrossed by activities involved in delivering that product to the consumer (Julian, 2008). Channel members are particularly important since directly affects certain factors such as customer service, product delivery and availability. Julian (2008) argues that the cost of marketing any product has increased over the past 15 years while production cost has reduced. This is because the market has segmented and media and distribution channel have multiplied. As a result, the choice of a channel member is based on value analysis, same way consumers do when they analyses products before purchasing. This paper focuses on choice of appropriate channel member and the criteria that we should use to chose the best channel member. Discussion The choice of a channel member is of paramount importance. A marketer has to determine the benefits reaped from utilizing a certain channel partner and compare this with the cost incurred for using this service. Some of benefits of choosing an appropriate channel member include cost saving in specialization. Rolnicki (1998) argues that specialist members of distribution perform the task more efficiently and at reduced cost than companies, who lack the experience in this field. Next is reduction of exchange time whereby the products reach the intended final consumer in time, since the channel member is experienced in what they do. The third benefit is customers want to convenience shop for variety. Julian (2008) stresses that customer CHANNEL DISTRIBUTION will always prefer distributor outlets that have a variety of products, in order to reduce the time they spend shopping. Therefore resellers have to purchase different products from different distributors and stock them in one centre so that the customer can access these commodities from one location. Fourthly the resellers have to sell the commodities in small quantities so that the consumer can manage the price. This is known as bulk breaking as described by Rolnicki (2004). The reseller also creates sales when there is demand for the product. Sometimes they perform active selling role using persuasive techniques (Gorchels, Chuck & Marine, 2004). They also offer financial support to consumers whereby they sell goods to them on credit, purchasing using payment arrangement, delaying launch of payments and allowing trade in or barter trade. Resellers also provide information on the product and therefore help market the product. The channel members who handle the producers’ product to the end user are most important. This is because the customers will always associate these products with the last person who sells the product to them. If the channel does not match the customer’s needs, it is likely that the manufacturer is going to lose customers and the sales volume is going to reduce (Rolnicki, 2004). Bert (1998) explains that the best channel that any manufacturer should prioritize on is one that makes the end product user happiest, so that they are always willing to buy again the same product from the same channel member. So it’s up to the manufacturer to select a marketing channel that best serves the interests of the customer. There are various criteria that are used by the manufacturers to evaluate potential intermediaries for firm’s distribution channel. Among this criteria include 1. Lot size 2. Waiting time DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL 3. Spatial convenience 4. Product variety 5. Service backup I will discuss each of the above criteria which should be used by the compact disc manufacturer to evaluate for an appropriate distribution member Lot size: – this refers to the number of units a typical customer is allowed to buy by a marketing channel in a particular buying occasion. When the lot number is small, then grater output service should be provided by the channel (Kotler, 2000). In our case above, if the compact disc player manufacturer selects a channel member that offers small number of CD players to buying customers, this means increased costs for the manufacturer, and an alternative channel member should be sought. Waiting time and delivery time:-this refers to the length of time that the customer waits, for the receipt of goods. Customers always prefer delivery channels that are fast and efficient. Fast delivery of services requires output levels of great services (Kotler, 2000). The CD player manufacturer needs to engage a channel member that provides fast services at convenient time to the customer. Spatial convenience:-This expresses the extent to which the marketing channel simplifies the purchasing of the products by the customers (kotler, 2000). Customers will always prefer to purchase the products which do not involve so many formalities and that are easy to buy (Bert, 1998). The CD manufacturer should involve a channel that meets this requirement. DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS Product variety:-this refers to the breath of assortment that the particular marketing channel provides. Customers always prefer a marketing channel that offers grater assortment breath because this will most likely meet their exact needs (Kotler, 2000). In regard to this the CD Player manufacturer should consider also incorporating an installation kit alongside this product so that the customer buys the whole package from one place. Service backup:-This refers to other services that are provided by the channel. Such services include installation, repairs, credit and delivery. A channel that’s provides more backup services is considered to do more work (Bert, 1998). In such a case therefore the channel is more costly. In the CD player manufacturing firm the marketing manager should understand the output services required by the target customer, provided the increased output services means increased costs for the channel and higher prices for the customers. In conclusion with review of the importance of channel distribution and criteria for evaluation of distribution channels discussed above, the company can market its compact disc in a smart way meaning that all criteria used should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS Reference Bert, R. (1998). Marketing Channel. Olorando: Harcourt Brace College Publisher. Dent, J. (2008). Distribution Channels: Understanding and Managing Channels to Market. London: Kogan Page Limited. Gorchels, L. , West, C. , Marine, J. E. (2004). Managers Guide to Distribution Channels. New York: McGraw Hills Companies. Kotler, P. (2000). Selecting and Managing Marketing Channels. New York: Prentice-Hill. Rolnicki, k. (1998). Managing Channels of Distribution . New York: Amacom Division America Management. Marketing Channels SUMMARY REPORT What is marketing channel? Are sets of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a product or services available for use or consumption? They are set of pathways a product or service follows after production, culminating in purchase and use by final consumer. The importance of channels: One of the chief roles of marketing channels is to convert potential buyers into a profitable order. Marketing channels also represent a substantial opportunity cost. Different consumers however have different needs during the purchase process. Nunes and Cespedes argue in many markets, buyers fall into four category 1. Habitual shoppers- purchase from same place in the same manner over time. 2. High value deal seekers-know their needs and channel surf a great deal before buying at lowest possible price. 3. Variety-loving shoppers-gather information in many channels take advantage of high touch services and then buy in their favorite channel, regardless of price 4. High-involvement shoppers-gather information in all channels, make their purchase in a low-cost channel, but take advantage of costumer support from high touch channel. The role of marketing channels Delegations mean relinquishing some control over how and to whom the products are sold. Producers do gain several advantages by using intermediaries: 1. Many producers lack the financial resources to carry out direct marketing. 2. Producers who do establish their own channels can often earn a greater return by increasing investment in their main business. 3. In some cases direct marketing simply is not feasible. Channels functions and flows: It will be discussed one by one. Using a chart Channel levels: It will be discussed one by one. Using a chart Marketing Channels The shifting of the flow as per the example that Is given in the question will be by making he distribution of the product in the department stores or the drug stores or even from the distributors directly by selling to the customers but this will make the sale of the Independent Beauty Consultant decrease because most of her customers will have many other ways to purchase the product that they are used to buy and this will let the beauty consultant not have the ownership of the product. N the other hand all the department stores and the other stores selling the products to the customer will face a high selling as most of the customers will be shifted to them because of he new distributors that has Join the marketing flow. Many other customers will go and buy the products directly from the company as they will be selling the product directly to the customer and it will be with less price then all the other distributors because it will be a direct from the owner of the product. C.Nine customers role In all n s Tow w Titter Trot Dulling Lyreco Trot ten Death consultant or the other shops because each business is targeting their own benefits and it will be the best way for the customer to buy the product directly from the tatty consultant as they will buy only the products that they really need and the ones that suites them. The beauty consultant will be able to recommend to her customer the products that they need because of the knowledge and experience that she has gained. Her main target will be gaining the customer satisfaction to build a long term relationship with them to improve her business.But on the other hand all the other stores will focus on the percentage of selling the item because there main purpose will be increasing the percentage of sales in their business. Page 30 – Question 6 Selling and Servicing an Ultrasound Machine I I Hospital Emergency Room I Academic Medical Researcher on a tight government-funded budget using the machine for lab oratory research I Descriptor I Service Outplacement Level I Descriptor I Service Outplacement Level I Bulk-breaking I Emergency Room Needs very high qualification machines that meet all the needs.I High I The Lab needs a machine that fulfills the researchers need. I Medium I Spatial Convenience I Search for the best quality and brand machine that is offered by the companies and distributors. I Medium I Search for the lowest cost machine that is found in the market based as the government budget. I High I Waiting and Delivery Time I Emergency room cannot wait because always the machines have to be ready for any emergency that may happen anytime.I High I After getting the machine the Lab can start to continue their researches. I Low Assortment animadvert I The Emergency Room needs the best quality and brand to suit all the needs of the hospital. I High I The Lab needs a simple machine for the use of the researches only. I Low Customer Service I The distributor has to give their recom mendation for the best brand and quality that will satisfy the need of the Emergency Room.

Psychology essay - human motivation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Psychology - human motivation - Essay Example That is why; fear, positively, lead people to undertake challenges, to create order from chaos, to regulate their drives, or to become involved in interesting activities. For instance, if a man feels anxious to drive in a freeway, he could be compelled to conquer his fear by practicing freeway driving. Meanwhile on a negative note, the fear that the same man felt could motivate the non-self-determined behavior of yelling obscenities at someone who drove up beside him unexpectedly. In contrast to external motivation factors such as the use of food as a reward, fear, as with other intrinsic motivation factors, there are no rewards separate from the internal, spontaneous states that accompany or immediately follow the behavior. Here the â€Å"reward† is intangible because it takes the form of a certain set of feelings. Finally, the role of fear in motivation is best illustrated in the way behavior reinforces the responses that terminates fear. This analogy, which was set forth by Roderick Wong, is said to explain the incidence of compulsions in human behavior. According to Wong, â€Å"such behavior is assumed to be motivated by fear, and maintained by fear reduction.† (p. 192) 2. The theory that learning has something to do with human motivation falls in the realm of behaviorist approach, which argues that motivation is a result of factors generated by the environment more than arising within an individual. Here, a person’s current actions are determined by the successes or failures of past actions. To cite an example: My motivation to attend musicals is determined by the fact that my first and succeeding outings to the theater were pleasurable and it did reduce my stress, therefore the increasing frequency of my attendance to musicals was reinforced. Socialization hence is very important in learning as these provides a good amount of experiences – both good and

Business and Corporate Law Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Business and Corporate Law - Coursework Example Therefore, the study covers advice to a director on issues of legal implication of incorporating a company, the duties of a director, consequences of breach of duty by a director, the doctrine of ultra vires, the raise of capital by a Company, and types of capital and the naming of a Company. Rather than a partnership, which pertains to a business carried out by two or more individuals after coming into existence through registration under the UK Partnership Act of 1980. The partners have individual liability; an incorporated private company limited by shares means a company with two to fifty shareholders whose liability to the company debts becomes limited to the shares they contribute to the Company (Charlesworth 2005, p. 43).The Company must be registered under the UK Companies Act of 2006, an Act that regulates the governance of incorporated Companies. Therefore, the promoters of Dart Company operate now under a different act with different roles and responsibility distinct from those of partnership. Once incorporated or registered, Oliver M.S &Marshall, (1994) argue that the Company from the date of incorporation, mentioned in the certificate of incorporation becomes an artificial legal person or body corporate capable of the following: having a separate legal personality where the company acts solely rather than dragging the names of the shareholders in to the dealings; having limited liability, now the shareholders of Dart Company have liability to the Company debts limited to the shares held in the Company; having the ability to own property; having locus standi of suing, so legal suits come under the name Dart Limited Company rather than the share holders names (Oliver M.S &Marshall, 1994, p. 104). Similarly, having perpetual succession where the company cannot die naturally but legally, therefore, even if the shareholders of Dart Company where to die the company could survive and the shares be vested on the heirs. In

Cost-Benefit Analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Cost-Benefit Analysis - Assignment Example The company should limit access to sensitive information and, as a result, prevent any leakage (Gantz & Philpott 4). Another threat is software attacks. The company may produce software that is vulnerable to certain software. People may decide to purchase alternative software if the problem persists. Trojans, worms and viruses that significantly affect the working of the software, may attack the software. Operating system update is instrumental in dealing with malicious software. Hardware encompasses the threat of theft. The theft of the hardware may be through employees or strangers who visit the various companies. The theft can occur during civil disturbances where there is no guarantee of security. Hardware can also be damaged when in transit or at the shops. Checkpoints and increased surveillance of premises are necessary where any suspicious activity is not instantly and dealt with immediately (Gantz & Philpott 4). The assumptions on asset value were based on their current values in the market, value to competitors, the replacement of an asset if lost and any compromising issues arising from external forces. The effects of liabilities in case of a compromised asset were put into consideration. I had to make the assumptions because hard data is not easily available though one could quantify the assets efficiently based on the expensive technological products. The frequency of the threats would be a challenge though in the technical business companies deal with similar products and therefore software violations can occur. The challenges were many as the determination of the many controls in the market and their differing prices. The choice of an effective control like setting up firewall was challenging since most of the products offer similar services but have different prices. The choice of an effective control like setting up a

TLMT313 WEEK 7 FORUM Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

TLMT313 WEEK 7 FORUM - Assignment Example The flow of goods includes both incoming goods and outgoing goods. Mr. Canil assures its global partners the supplies will arrive on time. Further, the PPG Industries manufacturing headquarters is strategically located in Pittsburgh, USA (PPG, 2014). The company’s products include paints, glass products, optical supplies, coatings, and fiber glass items. Mr. Camil monitors and resolves delivery bottlenecks and delays. Consequently, the goods arrive on time. Furthermore, the Supply Chain manager and other officers of PPG Industries responsibly implement global health, safety and quality standards (Smith et al., 2013). The same manager ensures the production process as well as the final products comply with all environmental protection standards. Similarly, the supply chain manager complies with the global safety health standards. The Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) Industries continually sets into motion a feasible global supply chain management plan. The company’s global supply chain is grounded on complying with global health and safety standards. The same entity delivers high quality environmentally compliant supply chain products. Evidently, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG) industries company implements timely effective and efficient supply chain delivery

MBA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

MBA - Essay Example To manage change is tough but the actual problem lies on the fact that there is no or little agreement regarding the factors which transforms the initiatives in organization (Metre, 2009, p. 1). There are authors who have stressed upon the fact that the main reason for failure of initiatives is due to resistance to change. Resistance to change often tends to include delays as well as cost into the change process. But resistance is also considered as useful source of information which helps in the development and learning process of the organization in a successful way. It has been proved that resistance to change is one of the key subjects in managing change in an organization (Val & Fuentes, n.d). Also with an increasing globalization, change in technology and deregulation along with a shift in the socio cultural trends, thus few would like to dispute that the most important task for the management is the leadership of managing organizational change (Todnem, 2005, p.2). Therefore in this context it becomes increasing necessary to reflect on the type, extent and change both for small and big organization in order to survive and thus sustain themselves in the changing business environment (Sengupta & Bhattacharya, 2006, p.1). Objectives The main objective in conducting the study is to find out whether change is important in the process of the development of the organization in the era of globalization. The following objectives will be discussed in order to confirm that the review of literature supports the given objectives. To determine why change is necessary The need for organizations to change and the forces of change To determine to what extent are the initiatives proposed are successful Description of the research The research on managing change in the organizations in the 21st century has been mainly taken from secondary sources especially books and other academic sources. Apart from books and academic sources some journals were also used. Mostly books wer e used because journals were not available at an ease like books. Some of the books and academic source includes, Metre, C. (2009). Deriving Value From Change Management. Griffin, R. W. (2011). Fundamentals of Management. Cengage Learning Zeffane, Rachid. (1996). Dynamics of strategic change: critical issues in fostering positive organizational change. Smith, Ian. (2005). Achieving readiness for organizational change. Key Findings The report mainly focuses on analyzing the fact that managing change is essential for organization in the 21st century in order to success and stay ahead of its competitors and achieve a competitive advantage. GE has managed to apply changes in its organization by following the process by Lewin’s notion (1947) which includes unfreezing, refreezing and movements were some of the essential components of change. The model primarily focused on the role of the leader in the process of creating change as well as communicating and crafting the vision, lead ing it and finally measuring progress of the change implemented across the dimensions of is organization. Figure 1: GE 7 step change model (Source: Metre, 2009) In addition to GE, the changes that has helped P&G reached at the top level is also been discussed (ICMR, 2004). Part B Summary of

A factor that effect normal speech development Essay

A factor that effect normal speech development - Essay Example At 2 years of age, the child is able to utter 2- word phrases. By 3 years, the child is able to form sentences, uses plurals and past tense, can make sentences with 3 to 5 words and 90% of the talk is understood by strangers. At 4 years of age, the child can make sentences with 6 words, can converse and tell stories. At 5 years of age, the child can make sentences with 6- 8 words, can name 4 colors and can count ten pennies correctly (Schwartz, 1990; qtd. in Leung & Kao, 1999). Delay in the development of speech is a major concern to both parents and pediatricians. Speech delay can occur with or without delay in other milestones. A child is considered to have delay in the development of speech when the speech milestone attained is significantly lower than that which is normal for that age. It is important to identify, investigate and institute appropriate intervention in speech delay because; this can have significant impact on the social, academic, personal and vocational life of th e individual. There are many causes for delayed development of speech. The most common cause of speech delay is mental retardation. Infact, it accounts for more than 50% cases of speech delay (Leung & Kao, 1999). Most often, speech delay occurs due to inadequate stimulation of the child. An older dominating sibling may steal all the attention of the elders of the house. Various hereditary factors can affect speech development. Delayed speech in parents can result in delayed speech in the offspring also. Many genetic diseases which lead to global developmental delay or mental retardation can contribute to delayed speech. Exposure to many languages at a time or frequent changes in the childs environment can contribute to delayed speech. Chronic ear infections, effusions and impacted wax can lead to hearing debility and hence delayed speech. Intact hearing is vital to speech and language development in the first few years of life.

(Bank) Case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

(Bank) - Case Study Example For instance, the bank can have tellers available 24/7 to answer banking questions, or to aid in banking process. By operating at the front of the curve in these situations, the industry can be perceived to have the most successful customer service, as other banking operations struggle to catch up to their innovations. Similarly, increased options for online banking can be introduced, such as tracking investments or other aspects that were previously the entity of in-house banking alone. Another prominent concern is interest rates. As noted earlier, it is recommended that that Westpac decrease their interest rates a substantial amount. This way Westpac can still benefit and prepare for future problems whilst still providing Australians with the possibility to successfully loan money. While in-large part it’s clear that this is a question of prudent investment, another major concern must be the bank’s interest rate relative to its competition. The major area of concern, in these regards, is that while customers have experienced increased hardship as a direct result of the economic recession, all banks remain under the same financial constraints. While banks face these constraints, this particular bank in question has differentiated itself on charging higher interest rates. As a means of increasing customer loyalty, the bank was base their interest rate not on internal profit concerns, but as a relative function of market competition. The final area of concern is in terms of advanced uses of technology. As considered in terms of customer service concerns, it’s clear that advanced uses of technology are essential for the continued success of the banking industry. In terms of technological change, the bank must implement this on a need based structure. The bank would determine strategic initiatives not based on simply incorporating new modes of technology, but determined

Using nanotechnology for new drug discovery Article

Using nanotechnology for new drug discovery - Article Example Drug discovery is a growing paradigm that is increasingly in need of better technologies to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and cost effectiveness of the various processes involved in the drug discovery processes. For example, it is currently estimated that the full process of new drug discovery typically takes a period of not less than 10years and costs approximately $800 million. Many researchers however agree that a number of nanotechnology applications have a potential to address some of the challenges commonly met during the drug development process. One of the potential uses of nanotechnology in new drug discovery is the analysis of signaling pathways using various nanobiotechnology techniques such as proteomics which enable researchers to gain new insights regarding the disease processes. In this regard, nanotechnologies not only help drug scientists to identify more efficient biomarkers, but such techniques can also enhance their understanding of the drug action mechanisms during their drug discovery processes. Refining the application of proteomics using nanotechnologies is particularly play a critical role in the identification of drug targets as well validation phases during the drug discovery process. For instance, nanodevices such as nanotube electronic biosensors are increasingly being used in proteomics to enhance the investigation of protein –protein and surface protein binding as well as in the development of highly accurate electronic biomolecule detectors (Lynn, 128). Consequently such devices provide effective alternatives of detecting important biomolecules such as antibodies during the drug discovery process. Another important use of nanotechnology for new drug discovery involves the application of nanoparticles such as quantum dots (QDs) in tracking single drug molecules. Although the tracking of single drug molecules has been previously been done using the old

Monopoly and marginal cost Essay Example for Free

Monopoly and marginal cost Essay Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly The following questions practice these skills: ? Explain the sources of market power. ? Apply the quantity and price affects on revenue of any movement along a demand curve. ? Find the profit maximizing quantity and price of a single-price monopolist. ? Compute deadweight loss from a single-price monopolist. ? Compute marginal revenue. ? Define the efficiency of P = MC. ? Find the profit-maximizing quantity and price of a perfect-price-discriminating monopolist. ? Find the profit-maximizing quantity and price of an imperfect-price-discriminating monopolist. Question: Each of the following firms possesses market power. Explain its source. a. Merck, the producer of the patented cholesterol-lowering drug Zetia b. Chiquita, a supplier of bananas and owner of most banana plantations c. The Walt Disney Company, the creators of Mickey Mouse Answer to Question: a. Merck has a patent for Zetia. This is an example of a government-created barrier to entry, which gives Merck market power. b. Chiquita controls most banana plantations. Control over a scarce resource gives Chiquita market power. c. The Walt Disney Company has the copyright over animations featuring Mickey Mouse. This Is another example of a government-created barrier to entry that gives the Walt Disney Company market power. Question: Skyscraper City has a subway system, for which a one-way fare is $1. 50. There is pressure on the mayor to reduce the fee by one-third, to $1. 00. The mayor is dismayed, thinking that this will mean Skyscraper City is losing one-third of its revenue from sales of subway tickets. The mayor’s economic adviser reminds her that she is focusing only on the price effect and ignoring the quantity effect. Explain why the mayor’s estimate of a one-third loss of revenue is likely to be an overestimate. Illustrate with a diagram. Answer to Question: A reduction in fares from $1. 50 to $1. 00 will reduce the revenue on each ticket that is currently sold by one-third; this Is the price effect. But a reduction in price will lead to more tickets being sold at the lower price of $1. 00, which creates additional revenue; this is the quantity effect. The price effect is the loss of revenue on all the currently sold tickets. The quantity effect is the increase in revenue from increased sales as a result of the lower price. Question: Consider an industry with the demand curve (D) and marginal cost curve (MC) shown in the accompanying diagram. There is no fixed cost. If the industry is a single-price monopoly, the monopolist’s marginal revenue curve would be MR. Answer the following questions by naming the appropriate points or areas. Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly a. If the industry is perfectly competitive, what will be the total quantity produced? At what price? b. Which area reflects consumer surplus under perfect competition? c. If the industry is a single-price monopoly, what quantity will the monopolist produce? Which price will it charge? d. Which area reflects the single-price monopolist’s profit? e. Which area reflects consumer surplus under single-price monopoly? f. Which area reflects the deadweight loss to society from single-price monopoly? g. If the monopolist can price-discriminate perfectly, what quantity will the perfectly price-discriminating monopolist produce? Answer to Question: a. In a perfectly competitive industry, each firm maximizes profit by producing the quantity at which price equals marginal cost. That is, all firms together produce a quantity S, corresponding to point R, where the marginal cost curve crosses the demand curve. Price will be equal to marginal cost, E. b. Consumer surplus is the area under the demand curve and above price. In part a, we saw that the perfectly competitive price is E. Consumer surplus in perfect competition is therefore the triangle ARE. c. A single-price monopolist produces the quantity at which marginal cost equals marginal revenue, that is, quantity I. Accordingly, the monopolist charges price B, the highest price it can charge if it wants to sell quantity I. d. The single-price monopolist’s profit per unit is the difference between price and the average total cost. Since there is no fixed cost and the marginal cost is constant (each unit costs the same to produce), the marginal cost is the same as the average total cost. That is, profit per unit is the distance BE. Since the monopolist sells I units, its profit is BE times I, or the rectangle BEHF. e. Consumer surplus is the area under the demand curve and above the price. In part c, we saw that the monopoly price is B. Consumer surplus in monopoly is therefore the triangle AFB. f. Deadweight loss is the surplus that would have been available (either to consumers or producers) under perfect competition but that is lost when there is a single-price monopolist. It is the triangle FRH. g. If a monopolist can price-discriminate perfectly, it will sell the first unit at price A, the second unit at a slightly lower price, and so forth. That is, it will extract from each consumer just that consumer’s willingness to pay, as indicated by the demand curve. It will sell S units, because for the last unit, it can just make a consumer pay a price of E (equal to its marginal cost), and that just covers its marginal cost of producing that last unit. For any further units, it could not make any consumer pay more than its marginal cost, and it therefore stops selling units at quantity S. Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly Question: Bob, Bill, Ben, and Brad Baxter have just made a documentary movie about their basketball team. They are thinking about making the movie available for download on the Internet, and they can act as a single-price monopolist if they choose to. Each time the movie is downloaded, their Internet service provider charges them a fee of $4. The Baxter brothers are arguing about which price to charge customers per download. The accompanying table shows the demand schedule for their film. Price of download Quantity of downloads demanded $10 0 $8 1 $6 3 $4 6 $2 10 $0 15 a. Calculate the total revenue and the marginal revenue per download. b. Bob is proud of the film and wants as many people as possible to download it. Which price would he choose? How many downloads would be sold? c. Bill wants as much total revenue as possible. Which price would he choose? How many downloads would be sold? d. Ben wants to maximize profit. Which price would he choose? How many downloads would be sold? e. Brad wants to charge the efficient price. Which price would he choose? How many downloads would be sold? Answer to Question: a. The accompanying table calculates total revenue (TR) and marginal revenue (MR). Recall that marginal revenue is the additional revenue per unit of output Price of download Quantity of downloads TR MR demanded $10 0 $0 $8 1 $8 $8 $6 3 $18 $5 $4 6 $24 $2 $2 10 $20 $-1 $0 15 $0 $-4 b. Bob would charge $0. At that price, there would be 15 downloads, the largest quantity they can sell. c. Bill would charge $4. At that price, total revenue is greatest ($24). At that price, there would be 6 downloads. d. Ben would charge $6. At that price, there would be 3 downloads. For any more downloads, marginal revenue would be below marginal cost, and so further downloads would lose the Baxters’ money.e. Brad would charge $4. A price equal to marginal cost is efficient. At that price, there would be 6 downloads. Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly Question: Suppose that De Beers is a single-price monopolist in the market for diamonds. De Beers has five potential customers: Raquel, Jackie, Joan, Mia, and Sophia. Each of these customers will buy at most one diamond—and only if the price is just equal to, or lower than, her willingness to pay. Raquel’s willingness to pay is $400; Jackie’s, $300; Joan’s, $200; Mia’s, $100; and Sophia’s, $0. De Beers’s marginal cost per diamond is $100. This leads to the demand schedule for diamonds shown in the accompanying table. Price of Diamond Quantity of Diamonds Demanded $500 0 $400 1 $300 2 $200 3 $100 4 $0 5 a. Calculate De Beers’s total revenue and its marginal revenue. From your calculation, draw the demand curve and the marginal revenue curve. b. Explain why De Beers faces a downward-sloping demand curve. c. Explain why the marginal revenue from an additional diamond sale is less than the price of the diamond. d. Suppose De Beers currently charges $200 for its diamonds. If it lowers the price to $100, how large is the price effect? How large is the quantity effect? e. Add the marginal cost curve to your diagram from part a and determine which quantity maximizes De Beers’s profit and which price De Beers will charge. Answer to Question: a. Total revenue (TR) and marginal revenue (MR) are given in the accompanying table. Price of Diamond Quantity of Diamonds TR Demanded $500 0 $0 $400 1 $400 $300 2 $600 $200 3 $600 $100 4 $400 $0 5 $0 MR $400 $200 $0 -$200 -$400 The accompanying diagram illustrates De Beers’s demand curve and marginal revenue (MR) curve. b. De Beers is the only producer of diamonds, so its demand curve is the market demand curve. And the market demand curve slopes downward: the lower the price, the more customers will buy diamonds. c. If De Beers lowers the price sufficiently to sell one more diamond, it earns extra revenue equal to the Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly price of that one extra diamond. This is the quantity effect of lowering the price. But there is also a price effect: lowering the price means that De Beers also has to lower the price on all other diamonds, and that lowers its revenue. So the marginal revenue of selling an additional diamond is less than the price at which the additional diamond can be sold. d. If the price is $200, then De Beers sells to Raquel, Jackie, and Joan. If it lowers the price to $100, it will also sell a diamond to Mia. The price effect is that De Beers loses $100 (the amount by which it lowered the price) each from selling to Raquel, Jackie, and Joan. So the price effect lowers De Beers’s revenue by 3 ? $100 = $300. The quantity effect is that De Beers sells one more diamond (to Mia), at $100. So the quantity effect is to raise De Beers’s revenue by $100. e. The marginal cost (MC) curve is constant at $100, as shown in the diagram. Marginal revenue equals marginal cost at a quantity of 2 diamonds. So De Beers will sell 2 diamonds at a price of $300 each. Question: Use the demand schedule for diamonds given in the previous question. The marginal cost of producing diamonds is constant at $100. There is no fixed cost. a. If De Beers charges the monopoly price, how large is the individual consumer surplus that each buyer experiences? Calculate total consumer surplus by summing the individual consumer surpluses. How large is producer surplus? Suppose that upstart Russian and Asian producers enter the market and the market becomes perfectly competitive. b. What is the perfectly competitive price? What quantity will be sold in this perfectly competitive market? c. At the competitive price and quantity, how large is the consumer surplus that each buyer experiences? How large is total consumer surplus? How large is producer surplus? d. Compare your answer to part c to your answer to part a. How large is the deadweight loss associated with monopoly in this case? Answer to Question: a. The monopoly price is $300. At that price Raquel and Jackie buy diamonds. Raquel’s consumer surplus is $400 ? $300 = $100; Jackie’s is $300 ? $300 = $0. So total consumer surplus is $100 + $0 = $100. Producer surplus is $300 ? $100 = $200 for each diamond sold; 2 ? $200 = $400. b. In a perfectly competitive market, P = MC. That is, the perfectly competitive price is $100, and at that price 4 diamonds will be sold—to Raquel, Jackie, Joan, and Mia. c. At the competitive price, Raquel’s consumer surplus is $400 ? $100 = $300; Jackie’s, $300 ? $100 = $200; Joan’s, $200 ? $100 = $100; and Mia’s, $100 ? $100 = $0. So total consumer surplus is $300 + $200 + $100 + $0 = $600. Since the price is equal to marginal cost, there is no producer surplus. d. Under perfect competition, the sum of consumer and producer surplus is $600 + $0 = $600. Under monopoly, the sum of consumer and producer surplus is $100 + $400 = $500. So the loss of surplus to society from monopoly—the deadweight loss—is $600 ? $500 = $100. Question: Use the demand schedule for diamonds given in the previous questions. De Beers is a monopolist, but it can now price-discriminate perfectly among all five of its potential customers. De Beers’s marginal cost is constant at $100. There is no fixed cost. a. If De Beers can price-discriminate perfectly, to which customers will it sell diamonds and at what prices? b. How large is each individual consumer surplus? How large is total consumer surplus? Calculate producer surplus by summing the producer surplus generated by each sale. Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly Answer to Question: a. If De Beers can price-discriminate perfectly, it will charge each customer that customer’s willingness to pay. That is, it will charge Raquel $400, Jackie $300, Joan $200, and Mia $100. De Beers does not want to sell to Sophia since she will only buy at a price of $0, and that would be below De Beers’s marginal cost. b. Since each consumer is charged exactly her willingness to pay, there is no consumer surplus. De Beers’s producer surplus is $400 ? $100 = $300 from selling to Raquel; $300 ? $100 = $200 from selling to Jackie; $200 ? $100 = $100 from selling to Joan; $100 ? $100 = $0 from selling to Mia. So producer surplus is $300 + $200 + $100 + $0 = $600. Question: Download Records decides to release an album by the group Mary and the Little Lamb. It produces the album with no fixed cost, but the total cost of downloading an album to a CD and paying Mary her royalty is $6 per album. Download Records can act as a single-price monopolist. Its marketing division finds that the demand schedule for the album is as shown in the accompanying table. Price of album Quantity of albums demanded $22 0 $20 1,000 $18 2,000 $16 3,000 $14 4,000 $12 5,000 $10 6,000 $8 7,000 a. Calculate the total revenue and the marginal revenue per album. b. The marginal cost of producing each album is constant at $6. To maximize profit, what level of output should Download Records choose, and which price should it charge for each album? c. Mary renegotiates her contract and now needs to be paid a higher royalty per album. So the marginal cost rises to be constant at $14. To maximize profit, what level of output should Download Records now choose, and which price should it charge for each album? Answer to Question: a. Total revenue (TR) and marginal revenue per album (MR) is shown in the following table: Price of album Quantity of albums TR MR demanded $22 0 $0 $20 1,000 $20,000 $20 $18 2,000 $36,000 $16 $16 3,000 $48,000 $12 $14 4,000 $56,000 $8 $12 5,000 $60,000 $4 $10 6,000 $60,000 $0 $8 7,000 $56,000 -$4 b. If the marginal cost of each album is $6, Download Records will maximize profit by producing 4,000 albums, since for each album up to 4,000, marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost. For any further albums, marginal cost would exceed marginal revenue. Producing 4,000 albums, Download Records will charge $14 for each album. c. If the marginal cost of each album is $14, Download Records will maximize profit by producing 2,000 albums, and it will charge $18 per album. Practice Questions and Answers from Lesson III-3: Monopoly Question: The movie theater in Collegetown serves two kinds of customers: students and professors. There are 900 students and 100 professors in Collegetown. Each student’s willingness to pay for a movie ticket is $5. Each professor’s willingness to pay for a movie ticket is $10. Each will buy at most one ticket. The movie theater’s marginal cost per ticket is constant at $3, and there is no fixed cost. a. Suppose the movie theater cannot price-discriminate and needs to charge both students and professors the same price per ticket. If the movie theater charges $5, who will buy tickets and what will the movie theater’s profit be? How large is consumer surplus? b. If the movie theater charges $10, who will buy movie tickets and what will the movie theater’s profit be? How large is consumer surplus? c. Now suppose that, if it chooses to, the movie theater can price-discriminate between students and professors by requiring students to show their student ID. If the movie theater charges students $5 and professors $10, how much profit will the movie theater make? How large is consumer surplus? Answer to Question: a. If the movie theater charges $5 per ticket, both students and professors will buy tickets. The movie theater will sell to 1,000 customers (students and professors), at a price of $5 each. Since the movie theater’s cost per ticket is $3, its profit is $2 per ticket for a total profit of 1,000 ? $2 = $2,000. Students will experience no consumer surplus, but each of the 100 professors will experience consumer surplus of $10 ? $5 = $5 for a total consumer surplus of 100 ? $5 = $500. b. If the movie theater charges $10 per ticket, only professors will buy tickets. The movie theater will sell to 100 customers (professors) at a price of $10 each. Since the movie theater’s cost per ticket is $3, its profit is $7 per ticket for a total profit of 100 ? $7 = $700. Students experience no consumer surplus since they do not buy any tickets. Each of the 100 professors experiences no consumer surplus since the price is equal to their willingness to pay. So consumer surplus is $0. c. If the movie theater charges students a price of $5, it sells 900 tickets at a profit of $5 ? $3 =$2 each for a profit from selling to students of 900 ? $2 =$1,800. Charging professors $10, it sells 100 tickets at a profit of $10 ? $3 =$7 each for a profit from selling to professors of 100 ? $7 =$700. So the theater’s total profit is $1,800 + $700 =$2,500. Since each customer is charged exactly his or her willingness to pay, there is no consumer surplus. Question: A monopolist knows that in order to expand the quantity of output it produces from 8 to 9 units that it must lower the price of its output from $2 to $1. Calculate the quantity effect and the price effect. Use these results to calculate the monopolist’s marginal revenue of producing the 9th unit. The marginal cost of producing the 9th unit is positive. Is it a good idea for the monopolist to produce the 9th unit? Answer to Question: The quantity effect is $1 (the increase in total revenue from selling the 9th unit at $1). The price effect is 8 ? (? $1) =? $8 (the decrease in total revenue from having to lower the price of 8 units by $1 each). So the marginal revenue of producing the 9th unit is $1 ? $8 =? $7. Since marginal revenue is negative, producing the 9th unit is definitely not a good idea: it lowers revenue (since marginal revenue is negative), and it increases the total cost (since marginal cost is positive). So it will definitely lower profit. Instead, the monopolist should produce less output.

Overview of Steven Pinkers Theories

Overview of Steven Pinkers Theories Introduction and brief biography Steven Pinker is a well-known psychologist who writes, researches and lectures on language and cognition. As well as being an experienced and widely published researcher in the academic field he is also well known to non-scientists for his easily accessible popular science books covering evolutionary psychology and language development. He is arguably responsible for bringing the complex field of cognitive psychology to the layperson and a short analysis of his work and ideas should provide insight into why he is so popular and successful both to academic and lay readers. Steven Pinker is Canadian American, born in 1954 and educated at McGill University and the Ivy League colleges of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His official biography describes him as an experimental psychologist, currently Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family professor in the Department of Psychology (Pinker 2003). He is a teaching as well as research scientist and writes for the academic press and popular press as well as his own books. He credits his interest in science to a teenage present of science books on the mind (Pinker 2004b). In interviews Pinker is often self deprecating, indicating that scientists don’t always choose a specific field due to overwhelming interest, rather due to circumstance and being in the right place at the right time (Pinker 2004b). Despite being an immensely successful author with his most recent book being ranked at number 624 in the bestseller list of Amazon.com[1], he does not seek to either overawe or be condescending to the regular lay reader, instead treating them, in his own words, as an â€Å"old college room mate† and respecting their intelligence (Pinker 2004b). Pinker’s ideas and impact Pinker is often known for his debates with fellow scientists such as Steven Rose in which the nature versus nurture concept is discussed. Pinker is described as the leading spokesman for the view that we are made by nature as well as nurture (Appleyard 2007). Pinker is a firm believer that our genes dictate how we act our lives through the mind being the critical determiner of who survives and passes their genes on to their offspring; whereas Rose believes that all living systems are radically indeterminate and continually construct their own futures (Brockman 1998). One of the reasons for the controversy of Pinker’s ideas is the echoes of Nazism as, by saying that we are a product of our genes, it suggests that some are genetically programmed to be inferior to others. Pinker addresses the idea that humans develop purely based on their experiences in the book The Blank Slate, thus called because of the common belief that the mind is a blank slate and the way a person develops is purely a product of culture and socialisation (Rakoff 2002). He points out that anyone having children can see that they are born with identities and the fact that children are affected by upbringing is not proof of causation, rather being merely correlation. However he is also able to argue the other side, as it were, when he explains that, whilst genes can have something to do with behaviour, the study of behavioural genetics is, in his words, ‘a paradox’ (Pinker 2003). In particular the influence of culture will affect many lifestyle choices, with serious effects on development. He exhorts everyone to ‘try to reach the best point in the range [of temperament and talent]’ (Pinker 2003). He protests that the biology of consciousness offers a bette r explanation for how people ‘work’ than the existence of an, un provable in his view, immortal soul (Pinker 2007a). He suggests that we all develop as a product of our brains, and other people have similar brains so all have a similar capacity. He further develops his view by stating that the soul is in fact the information-processing activity of the brain and that all emotion can be tied to specific neural activity (Pinker 2004a). This is a controversial view as many philosophers and sociologists would not like to believe that our freedom of thought is not in fact freedom at all, rather an automatic response from our genes. One of Pinker’s key ideas is his words / rules account of language in which he suggests that there is a contrast between the regular and irregular inflection of words and this is due to there being 2 distinct computational mechanisms for the processing of these words (Berent, Pinker Shimron 2002). He set this out in his oft cited[2] piece entitled Rules of Language published in 1991 in the journal Science (Pinker 1991). The language processing of the brain was described as modular and independent of real-world meaning suggesting a genetic basis to the development of language, presumably because logically language would only be processed in connection with the meaning of that language. Pinker has more recently written about human nature in a wider context than language. One such example is where he explains that romantic love has a paradoxical logic, where in fact there is not a neat matching of mates according to the rules of shopping – eg matching purely on the grounds of features and quality (Pinker 2008). He also commends other people on their influence, with one such account being his 2007 commendation of Paul Allen’s contribution to the scientific world (Pinker 2007b). An individual must be well respected and influential in his own right to be asked to comment upon the influence of others. However he has been subject to controversy, with people suggesting that his book The Blank Slate denies the existence of sex discrimination. However he defends his position, indicating that he has merely shown empirical evidence about the differences in talents, temperaments and life priorities between men and women (Pinker 2006). He describes how he lost sleep over the gender chapter yet also points out that in the first 2 years post publication no one had any problem with that chapter (Quixote 2006). It was only later that Pinker’s work was used out of context by Larry Summers, then president of Harvard University, who said that innate [genetic] differences were the reason why fewer women succeeded in maths and science (Bombardieri 2005). Thus the message of the book reached a greater audience, but the audience misconstrued what had been said originally. He often has to defend his work, or clarify it to others who misinterpret e.g. (Pinker, Ullman 2003, Pinker, Ullman 2002) and the much longer opinion article (Pinker, Ullman 2002). No doubt, though, if a researcher or author has to defend their work it means that others are noting what they say enough to criticise, and then publishers care enough to seek the rejoinders. It is possible to obtain impact factor trend graphs for published articles. This provides an indication of the journal’s relative impact, thus the consequent impact that the article within that journal may have. Analysis of the 3 most cited articles from Pinker provides the data for table 1 below. Obviously the most cited articles are older but the journals in which the articles are published have high impact. Table 1 An analysis of the journal impact and number of times cited for the 3 most popular Pinker articles[3] In a profile published last year the Sunday Times refer to Pinker’s ideas as ‘incendiary’ and describe him as a global science celebrity (Appleyard 2007). Despite the possible Nazism connotations that could be attributed to his ideas, there is also a clear logic to the brain containing the blueprint to our development. If there are genes that decide our hair colour and skin colour then why not other features? No one would deny that genetic malfunctions such as occur in Downs Syndrome clearly show the effect that defective genes can have from birth. Why should only defective genes be influential? Pinker says that it hard to judge his own influence, but that more people of more cultures and races are [now] open to the idea that biology can have some answers to human life and its workings (Quixote 2006). He also suggested the topic for the annual question for The Edge Foundation for 2006 as ‘My Dangerous Idea’. His account of his 2005 includes instances such as the Summers’ speech mentioned above, as well as other research which endeavoured to show that race and intelligence do not exist. The lasting influence of these ideas (and his own work and reputation) is that people perceive Pinker as propounding dangerous ideas that fuel bigotry (Brockman 2006). However bigotry isn’t created by the influence of one scientist. Pinker’s work may be used as evidence to support existing bigotry but support is not the same as initiation. References Appleyard, B. 2007, Steven Pinker knows what’s going on inside your head, October 14th 2007, The Times, London. Berent, I., Pinker, S. Shimron, J. 2002, The nature of regularity and irregularity: evidence from Hebrew nominal inflection, Journal of psycholinguistic research, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 459-502. Bombardieri, M. 2005, Summers remarks on women draw fire, January 17th 2005 edn, Boston Globe, Boston. Brockman, J. 2006, 01/01/2006-last update, Edge: The World Question Centre 2006 [Homepage of The Edge], [Online]. Available: http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker [accessed 30/10/2008] . Brockman, J. 1998, 25/03/1998-last update, Edge: PINKER VS. ROSE-A DEBATE (PART I) [Homepage of The Edge], [Online]. Available: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/pinker_rose_p1.html [accessed 30/10/2008] . Pinker, S. 2003, , Steven Pinker About- long biography [Homepage of Harvard University], [Online]. Available: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/about/longbio.html [accessed 30/10/2008] . Pinker, S. 2008, Crazy love, Time, vol. 171, no. 4, pp. 82-83. Pinker, S. 2007a, The mystery of consciousness, Time, vol. 169, no. 5, pp. 58-62, 65-6, 69-70. Pinker, S. 2007b, Time 100 scientists thinkers. Paul Allen, Time, vol. 169, no. 20, pp. 112. Pinker, S. 2006, The gender debate: science promises an honest investigation of the world, Nature, vol. 442, no. 7102, pp. 510. Pinker, S. 2004a, How to think about the mind, Newsweek, vol. 144, no. 13, pp. 78. Pinker, S. 2004b, Steven Pinker, Current biology : CB, vol. 14, no. 21, pp. R909. Pinker, S. 2003, Are your genes to blame?, Time, vol. 161, no. 3, pp. 98-100. Pinker, S. Bloom, P. 1990, Natural-Language and Natural-Selection, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 707-726. Pinker, S. Prince, A. 1988, On Language and Connectionism Analysis of a Parallel Distributed-Processing Model of Language-Acquisition, Cognition, vol. 28, no. 1-2, pp. 73-193. Pinker, S. Ullman, M. 2002, Combination and structure, not gradedness, is the issue, Trends in cognitive sciences, vol. 6, no. 11, pp. 472-474. Pinker, S. Ullman, M.T. 2003, Beyond one model per phenomenon, Trends in cognitive sciences, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 108-109. Pinker, S. Ullman, M.T. 2002, The past and future of the past tense, Trends in cognitive sciences, vol. 6, no. 11, pp. 456-463. Pinker, S. 1991, Rules of Language, Science, vol. 253, no. 5019, pp. 530-535. Quixote, D. 2006, July 4th 2006-last update, 10 questions for Steven Pinker [Homepage of Gene Expression], [Online]. Available: http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/07/10-questions-for-steven-pinker.php [accessed 30/10/2008] . Rakoff, D. 2002, Questions For Steven Pinker, 15th September 2002, The New York Times, Ney York. Tarr, M.J. Pinker, S. 1989, Mental Rotation and Orientation-Dependence in Shape-Recognition, Cognitive psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 233-282. 1 [1] Data obtained from www.amazon.com at 09:20 on 30/10/2008 [2] 318 citations as at 30/10/2008. Data from ISI Web of Knowledge [3] Citation information obtain from ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation reports for social science journals on 30th October 2008 available at http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com/JCR/JCR?RQ=HOME.

Strategic Decisions for Sustainable Competitive Advanatage

Strategic Decisions for Sustainable Competitive Advanatage Introduction Competitive Advantage According to Daft, strategy is the plan of action that allocates resources and activities and aims at dealing with the environment, achieving a competitive advantage and attaining the organisations goals. Competitive advantage refers to what sets the organisation apart from others and provides it with a distinctive edge for meeting customer needs in the marketplace (Daft 2006, p.274). The choice that will make the organisation different is the essence of formulating strategy (Porter 1996). In order to remain competitive, companies need to focus on core competencies, develop synergy and create value. According to Kotler, competitive advantage is a companys ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot or will not match (Kotler 2006, p.150). A competitive advantage is said to be sustainable when it has the means to edge out rivals when competing for the favours of customers (Porter 1980). Although sustainability is the ideal case for advantages, the most common competitive advantages are leverageable, which means that a company can use them as a catalyst to new ones. The competitive advantages that companies develop will fail if the costumers do not value them as important. Therefore companies must focus on building customer advantages. Porter argues that competitive advantage results from a organisations ability to perform the required activities at a collectively lower cost than rivals, or perform some activities in unique ways that create buyer value and hence allow the organisations to command a premium price (Porter 1991, p.102). This report will try to investigate the strategic decisions to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Four different theories will be examined: The SCP paradigm, Porters generic strategies, the resource-based approach and the core competences model. These theories, along with the the compliance and choice paradox will be tested through application in practice at the industry of gaming consoles. The SCP framework In the structure conduct performance (SCP) framework (Anonymous 2007), the way in which the organisation acts is determined by external forces in the industry (market or industrial structure). This school of thought argues that the structure of an industry will determine the strategies (conduct) and that this in turn will determine performance. Market structure: the degree of market concentration, product differentiation, barriers to entry and exit, vertical integration and diversification. Conduct: goals of the organisations, strategies, anti-competitive practices, research and innovation, advertising etc. Performance: a number of performance indicators, output growth, sales revenue growth, profitability, technical progress, employment, efficiency, added shareholder value, added economic value. Therefore, the structure of the industry is the key parameter in the formation of strategy. Not all strategies are appropriate for all industries, Successful strategies may fail (not produce the intended outcome) if applied as-is in a different environment. However, this linear paradigm proves itself too deterministic. When strategic managers apply this approach, they take the industrial structure as a given. In this way, their job is to respond to the external forces and plan their strategies in an automated way by analysing the competitive environment. However in many industries the environment follows turbulence change. Strategists tend to change the environment by designing strategies that will shape it to their needs and their advantage, instead of being spectators to the change. In these cases, the industry structure is being shaped by the strategies, and not the other way round as the SCP paradigm argues. Five Forces and Generic Strategies Michael Porters (Porter 1980) work is organisationally rooted in the SCP paradigm. According to his approach, two factors underlie the choice of competitive strategy. Industry attractiveness and the factors that determine it. The determinants of relative competitive position within an industry. In order to analyse the industry attractiveness, Porter developed the Five Forces model. According to that, in any industry competition is mutually influenced by five forces: The entry of new competitors, the threat of substitutes, the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the rivalry amongst the competitors. Although the Five forces model roots within the SCP approach, Porter differentiates in that he argues that an organisation is not a prisoner of its industry structure. Through their strategies, organisations can shape industry by influencing the competitive forces. For example, industry leaders can influence buyers, suppliers and other competitors, and subsequently shape the underlying industry structure. Competitive strategy is also influenced by the specific relative position within the industry. Through positioning, organisations can possess two basic types of competitive advantage: low cost and differentiation. These types of competitive advantage result from the ability to cope with the industrial forces better than the competitors. Porter introduces three generic competitive strategies for achieving above-average performance in an industry. Cost leadership, when the organisation tries to become the low-cost producer or operator of the industry. Risks associated with cost leadership include: Changes in technology allow new entrants to become themselves the cost leaders. This risk is minimised by constant research and development, but obviously such investments require rise of costs. Margins fall when costs rise (by internal or external factors). In such scenarios, the differentiation advantage may overcome the cost leadership one. Differentiation, when the organisation seeks to be unique within the industry along some dimensions that are valued by buyers (higher quality, more functions etc). If it succeeds, it is then rewarded for its uniqueness with a premium price. However, when choosing to differentiate, companies should seek appropriate ways that lead to a price premium greater than the cost of differentiating. Risks of this strategy include: Costumers may choose another differentiated product which they value more, or their needs change over time. Costumers may choose the low-cost products, especially when the price difference tends to be high. Other competitors may imitate the chosen differentiation. Focus, which rests on the choice of a narrow competitive scope within an industry and the optimisation of the strategy for the target segment. In cost focus an organisation seeks a cost advantage in the target segment. In differentiation focus, the organisation seeks differentiation in the narrow segment. Risks associated with focus are: The focus strategy is imitated. In order for this to be avoided, entry barriers are required (e.g. assets valued by the costumers such as customer care services, reputation, etc). The target segment becomes unattractive. Broadly targeted competitors dominate the segment. Again, entry barriers will sustain the competitive advantage experienced. Organisations that try to position on more than one generic strategy but fail to achieve any of them are stuck in the middle. Not only they do not possess a competitive advantage, but they are in a disadvantage situation, since the cost-leader, the differentiators or the focusers are already better positioned. Although Porters positioning framework is an industry standard for more than twenty years, Mintzberg (1998) argues that it constrains creative thought. Strategists do not think outside the box and the given options (cost leadership, differentiation and focus) tend to minimise the process of strategic thinking. Resource-based view According to Barney (1991), the environmental models of competitive advantage have assumed that organisations within an industry are identical in terms of the resources they control and the strategy they pursue. Further, they assume that if resource heterogeneity develops within an industry, it will not last long since strategic resources are highly mobile (they can be bought and sold). The proposed resource-based view substitutes these assumptions. The model assumes that strategic resources can be heterogeneous and that these resources may not be perfectly mobile. Organisations resources include all assets, capabilities, processes, attributes, information, knowledge, etc, controlled by an organisation that enable it to implement strategies that promote efficiency. In order for a resource to hold the potential of sustained competitive advantage, it must have four attributes. It must be valuable, exploiting opportunities and neutralising threats. It must be rare among existing and potential competitors. A valuable resource cannot be considered as a source of competitive advantage if it is shared amongst a large number of organisations, because all organisations will have the capability to exploit it and will be lead to a common strategy It must be imperfectly imitable. Valuable and rare resources can only be sources of sustained competitive advantage if competitors that do not possess them cannot obtain them. There cannot be strategically equivalent substitutes. Organisation resources are strategically equivalent when they can be exploited separately to implement the same strategy. That is, an organisation may be able to substitute a similar resource that enables it to conceive and implement the same strategy. Further, very different resources may also be strategic substitutes. The proposed framework reasons that resources heterogeneity and immobility within an industry allow organisation resources to be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and not easily substitutable. Such resources will then lead to exploiting opportunities and neutralising threats, in order for sustained competitive advantage to be achieved. It should be noted that a distinction is drawn in the literature between resources (tangible) and capabilities (less tangible) (Anonymous 2007). The framework of Barney unites both resources and capabilities under the umbrella of resources. Core competences There are some capabilities that are much less visible and they are more difficult to imitate and establish competitive advantage. These are referred to as core competences (Anonymous 2007). Phahalad and Hamel (1990) take the resource-based approach one step further, through the notion of core competencies. They argue that in the long run, competitive advantage depends on the ability to build core competencies at lower cost and more speedily. Management should consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt promptly to environmental changes. Three criteria are being used in order to categorise a capability as a core competence. A core competence should provide potential access to a wide variety of markets. It should make a significant contribution to the perceived customer benefits of the end-product. Finally, it should be difficult for competitors to imitate. Examples of core competencies include Apples ability to create from scratch and innovate and Sonys ability to miniature. According to this framework, the common mistake that companies do is to outsource and finally lose their core competences, led to this by the strict perception of competitiveness in terms of price/performance. Although a more competitive product may result, competitiveness cannot be sustained as core competences will be surrendered. Another common mistake is that companies often miss opportunities to establish competences that are evolving in existing business. At the Strategic Business Unit level, existing core competencies are often being sabotaged by underinvestment and improper allocation, which may result in atrophy and missing opportunities. Case study: Seventh Generation of video gaming consoles The seventh generation of video gaming consoles is a competition between Sonys Playstation 3, Microsofts Xbox 360 and Nintendos Wii and started on November 2005 with the release of Xbox 360. Although gaming is the main characteristic and attribute of these products, the war of High-Definition (HD) video formats between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, two incompatible formats that tried to improve and replace the DVD standard, affected the industry (ref: wikipedia HD war). Microsoft and Sony approached the market with cutting-edge graphics and expensive technology as well as HD video capabilities. Both consoles target hard-core and casual gamers. Microsoft, being a member of the HD-DVD alliance chose to offer the HD-DVD option as a peripheral for its device, while Sony, a founding member of the Bly-ray alliance chose to integrate the Blu-ray player within PS3. On the other hand, Nintendo chose to differentiate. Nintendo did not take any sides at the format war. Wii targets a broader demographic than that of Microsofts Xbox 360 and Sonys PlayStation 3, as Nintendo planned to attract current hard-core and casual gamers, non-gamers, and lapsed gamers by focusing on new gameplay experiences and new forms of interaction with games. The differentiating feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect acceleration and orientation in three dimensions. Positioning of the rivals Competitive Scope: As analysed before, Microsoft and Sony both targeted the hard-core and the casual gamers. Nintendo on the other hand targeted broader demographic including non-gamers and lapsed gamers. According to Porters framework, the generic strategies can be divided into two categories in terms of the competitive scope: Broad Target and Narrow Target. Therefore, in the console industry Nintendo can be positioned within the Broad Target while Microsoft and Sony are positioned within the Narrow Target. Cost: The choices of the competitors regarding their hardware shaped their manufacturing costs to a great extent. Indeed, Sony chose to compete using a new cpu processor (Cell) with a high production cost as well as by integrating the newly arrived Blu-Ray technology. Thus, Sony became the high-cost producer of the industry, with each console costing around $800 to produce (ref:Joystiq). Microsoft utilised industry standard high-end CPUs and GPUs and although they strongly supported the success of the HD-DVD format, they decided to offer the HD-Dvd option as a peripheral component. This resulted in Microsoft being the low-cost producer of the Narrow Market (Cost Focus). Nintendo managed to keep the manufacturing costs very low by not following the path of high-end graphics. Wii (ref: Kotaku) is not only the console with the less production cost, but it is the only one that has an actual profit from every unit sold (Cost leadership). Differentiation: In the Narrow Target, Sony is the company that differentiates its products with the integration of the Blu-Ray drive, which enables the consumers to enter the High Definition video era (Differentiation Focus). In the Broad Target, Nintendo differentiates the whole idea of gaming experience and fun by installing the Wii Remote (Broad Differentiation). The success on the Nintendos case is that the company differentiated the attributes but the costs did not rise. What is clear from this table in combination with the actual sales numbers is that Nintendo managed well in positioning in more than one generic strategy. That of course was a risk, as Porter (1985) claims that achieving cost leadership and differentiation is usually inconsistent, and may lead to stuck in the middle situations. Also, it should be pointed out that the type of Differentiation that Sony chose (Blu-Ray integration) involved high risks. At the time of the launch the battle for the domination of a new HD format had just started. In the case of a possible win of the HD DVD format, it is obvious that Sony would lose that differentiation competitive advantage and would need to re-plan its strategy. On February 2008 Toshiba, HD DVDs creator, announced plans to cease development, manufacturing and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders, giving an end to this war and announcing Blu-Ray as the winner (ref:wikipedia HD war). Its obvious that Sonys differentiation policy will start to pay-off from now on, but until Toshibas announcement the differentiation policy was not valued highly by the consumers, thus not constituting a competitive advantage. Compliance and Choice: The Nintendo case A question is raised on whether or not an organisation should attempt to shape its industry. If an organisation can lead industry developments, the results will be attractive. If the industry norms that are being questioned prove themselves immutable, the attempt might prove suicidal. When the structure of the industry cannot be influenced, compliance to the industry norms is the strategic rule and managers should adapt the organisations to the industry context. On the other hand, when they have the ability to influence the industry structure they should break industry norms by exercising their freedom of choice. In this case managers efforts should be on the direction of changing the terms of competition on their own advantage (De Wit 2004). Up to the seventh generation of video gaming consoles, the industry rules dictated that the consoles should compete in a range of different characteristics such as graphics power, cpu power and exclusive game titles. If a company could top these characteristics, their console would dominate the industry. Sony dominated the sixth generation taking advantage of their ability to have a wide variety of anticipated exclusive game titles. At the seventh generation, Sony and Microsoft compete by following the industry recipe of cutting-edge graphics and exclusive titles. Nintendo tried to shape the rules, by choosing not to compete on the graphics war, but instead pushed the industry to another direction. The Wii Remote controller makes games more fun and gamers experience new forms of interaction (ref: wikipedia 7th generation). The reception of the console by the press was a great success. The console received many different awards, including an Emmy for Game Controller Innovation by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a Golden Joystick for Innovation of the Year 2007 at the Golden Joystick Awards and the award in breakthrough technology by Spike TVs Video Games. The reception by the market was even greater. Wii is the best selling 7th generation console worldwide. It even outsold Microsofts 360, which launched a year earlier (ref:wikipedia Wii). Nintendos choice of not following the industry recipe paid off. This move granted a competitive advantage because consumers valued the industry shift. If Nintendos estimations regarding the perception of the value were wrong, the company would have failed in this generation. But since they proved correct, they can claim that they are the 7th generation industry leaders. Microsofts Resources and Core Competences Microsoft decided to seek competitive advantage in the industry by utilising their capabilities and competences. One of the main capabilities of Microsoft is creating operating systems and software. Therefore, they developed the Xbox Live service (ref: wikipedia Xbox Live), a unified online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service which integrated many different features that added value to the console, including Friends list and Recent player list Windows Live messenger integration Voice and Video Chat Video Chat Multiplayer online gameplay Parental controls, limiting childrens exposure to other users (Family Settings) This capability of Microsoft is a core competence because it fits the description: It provides potential access to a wide variety of markets (software market, services market, gaming industry). It makes a significant contribution to the perceived customer benefits of the end-product. Finally, it is difficult for competitors to imitate, since neither Sony nor Nintendo have software expertise. They both developed online services through outsourcing but they still have not managed to make them as unified and full of features as the Xbox Live. Competing with Sony for the hard-core and casual gamers, Microsoft used its core competences and resources and finally managed to gain competitive advantage. The task was not so easy because the brand name of Playstation was almost a synonym for gaming console in the previous generations. However, the sales numbers indicate that Sony is far behind Microsoft in the 7th generation consoles war. Conclusion The search for competitive advantage is of great importance for every organisation. This report investigated the strategic decisions to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through the examination of four different theories. The SCP framework is a deterministic approach. It is argued that the structure of an industry will determine the strategies and that these in turn will determine performance. Porter, although routed in the SCP framework, recognises that an organisation is not imprisoned by the structure. He introduces the Five Forces framework to analyse the industry attractiveness which plays an important role, but also argues that an organisations competitive success depends on the competitive position within the industry through three generic strategies: Cost Leadership, Differentiation and Focus. However, Mintzberg criticises in that the given options of generic strategies minimise strategic thinking. The resource-based view and the core competences models argue that sustained competitive advantage resides on the development and usage of resources, capabilities and competences. In the 7th generation of video gaming consoles the three competitors tried to gain competitive advantage through different ways. Microsoft utilised its core competences (software development) and resources and established an online environment to support its Xbox 360 console. On the other hand, Nintendo achieved competitive advantage by positioning at both Cost Leadership and Differentiation. In addition to that, Nintendo risked by choosing not to comply with the industry norms of high-end graphics but to try to shape the industry towards innovative gameplay experience. As the numbers indicate the competitive strategies chosen by both Nintendo and Microsoft have paid-off. Sony risked by choosing to differentiate with the integration of the Blu-Ray optical drive. If the format war had ended in favour of HD DVD, Sonys differentiation would have been vanished. In addition, the differentiation introduced by Sony was not highly valued by the consumers while the war was in progress, and th e numbers indicate that Sony has already fallen behind. The application of the theories in practice revealed that differentiation strategies involve high risks. However, if successful, the rewards can be enormous. Not following the industry norms is again risky, but managing to finally shape the industry will show the way to the market leader position. References Anonymous (2007), Strategic Analysis and Choice Module Book Edition 12, Management Centre, University of Leicester Barney, J. B. (1991), Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage, Journal of Management, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 99-120. Daft, R. L. (2006), The new era of management, International Edition, South-Western, London De Wit, B. and Meyer, R. (2004), Strategy: Process, Content Context 3rd edition, Thomson Learning, London Joystiq, http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/18/playstation-3-estimated-to-cost-900-per-unit/, [25 February 2008] Kotaku, http://kotaku.com/gaming/wii/wii-autopsy-discovers-manufacturing-cost-221736.php, [25 February 2008] Kotler, P. and Keller, K. L. (2006), Marketing Management 12e, Pearson Prentice Hall Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B. and Lampel, J. (1998), Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Strategic Management, Simon Schuster, New York, NY, 1998, p. 119. Phahalad, C. K. and Hamel, G. (1990), The core competence of the corporation, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 68, No. 3, May-June, pp. 79-91 Porter, M. E. (1980), Competitive Strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors, Free Press, New York Porter, M. E. (1985), Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance, Free Press, New York Porter, M. E. (1991), Towards a Dynamic Theory of Strategy, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 12, 1991, pp.95-117 Porter, M. E. (1996), What is Strategy?, Harvard Business Review, November December 1996, pp.61-78 Seekingalpha, http://seekingalpha.com/article/34357-game-console-wars-ii-nintendo-shaves-off-profits-leaving-competition-scruffy, [25 February 2008] Wikipedia 7th generation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28seventh_generation%29, [25 February 2008] Wikipedia HD war, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high_definition_optical_disc_formats [25 February 2008] Wikipedia Xbox Live, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live, [25 February 2008] Wikipedia Wii, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii, [25 February 2008]

Australopithecus Afarensis :: essays papers

Australopithecus Afarensis The species A. afarensis is one of the better known australopithecines, with regards to the number of samples attributed to the species. From speculations about their close relatives, the gorilla and chimpanzee, A. afarensis’ probable social structure can be presumed. The species was named by Johanson and Taieb in 1973. This discovery of a skeleton lead to a heated debate over the validity of the species. The species eventually was accepted by most researchers as a new species of australopithecine and a likely candidate for a human ancestor. Australopithecus afarensis existed between 3.9 and 3.0 million years ago. The distinctive characteristics of A. afarensis were: a low forehead, a bony ridge over the eyes, a flat nose, no chin, more humanlike teeth, pelvis and leg bones resembled those of modern man. Females were smaller than males. Their sexual dimorphism was males:females; 1.5. A. afarensis was not as sexually dimorphic as gorillas, but more sexually dimorphic than humans or chimpanzees. A lot of scientists think that Australopithecus afarensis was partially adapted to climbing the trees, because the fingers and toe bones of the species were curved and longer than the ones of the modern human. A. afarensis is classified as an ape, not a human. It is a Hominid, which is an ape closely related to human beings. The first fossils of a skeleton were found at Hadar; a site in northeastern Ethiopia. The team named the skeleton â€Å"Lucy† after the Beatles song, â€Å"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.† In terms of overall body size, brain size and skull shape, "Lucy" resembles a chimpanzee. However, A. afarensis has some surprisingly human characteristics. For example, the way the hip joint and pelvis articulate indicates that "Lucy" walked upright like a human, not like a chimp. This means that upright posture and bi-pedalism preceded the development of what we would recognize as human beings and human intelligence. All non-human primates sleep in the trees at night. So, it would seem to be that A. afarensis slept in trees also. Their skeletal structure agrees with their arboreal lifestyle. â€Å"The large premolars of A. afarensis suggests they were frugivores, and the thick enamel on the teeth suggests they may have eaten nuts, grains, or hard fruit pies† (Boyd and Silk, p.

Mary, Queen of Scots by Gordon Donaldson Essay -- Mary, Queen of Scots

The biography that is being reviewed is Mary, Queen of Scots by Gordon Donaldson. Mary Stuart, was born at Linlithge Palace on December 8, 1542, sixs days later she became Queen of Scotland. Mary became Queen of France and soon her greediness grew and she wanted to take over England. Mary was unwilling to stay in France, so she went back to Scotland. There her second husband died and she was imprisoned in England for the suspicion of the murder. Mary had a bad ending to her life. Mary got caught in attempting an assassination of Queen Elizabeth for which she was beheaded on February 8, 1587. In conclusion, Mary had a hard life trying to keep her thrones. The first chapter in the book discusses the reign of King James V, father of Mary Stuart. He became King of Scotland at the age of one after his father’s death at the Battle of Flodden. His marriage to princess Madeleine ended after her sudden death, and James then married Mary of Guise-Lorraine in 1538. This marriage cemented the Alliance between Scotland and France but worsened relations with England leading to the war with Henry VIII, which ended in Scottish defeat in 1542. James V died in Falkland Palace, on December 14, 1542, â€Å"As a worn-out, desperate man, at the age of thirty years†. His daughter Mary, just six days old, was his successor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In chapter two Mary, Queen of Scots was being educated in France, where she was sheltered from the danger of Scotland, England and France and their constant bloodshed. During Mary’s childhood, France, England, and Scotland fought over religious decisions and particularly over who should control the church. At the end of the chapter, the â€Å"Book of Discipline†, comes into effect on setting up a regional organization for the Church. In the beginning of chapter three, Mary is eighteen years old, married and then widowed, and she is Queen of Scotland and France. The King of England, Francis, is dying, and Mary has the thirst for more power by trying to become Queen of England. Mary’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth, also finds the idea of being Queen tempting but by being illegitimate by birth, Mary feels she has the upper hand. She marries Lord Darnley, her English cousin, and is infatuated with him in the beginning, but she soon starts to dislike him and refuses his demands for crown matrimonial. Darnley becomes jealous of Mary’s most trusted fri... ...itness the execution of Sir John Gordon in 1562, faced her own end with calm, courage, and dignity†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The strengths of the book are very apparent. The book provides an in depth description of Mary Stuart from her appearance, to the sports in which she liked to play. Also, the book shows pictures of the castles in which Mary stayed in and also of Mary and her first husband, Francis II. In addition, this book can creatively make you visualize specific events that occurred in Mary’s life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The one major weakness of the book was that it was a to informative for the average reader. By describing the many ruling families of England, France, and Scotland, this book proved to be quite confusing in recognizing which family belonged to which country. Also, the author seemed to jump from one time period to the next without any flowing text.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I feel that this book should mainly be read by above-average reading level students in high school/ college or by people interested in that particular time period. I enjoyed reading about Mary Stuart and her troubled life. It was sometimes hard to grasp the content, however, when I did comprehend the material, it was quite interesting.