English thematic essay

During a celebration Cassia begins to drink Sago uses the situation to his diva mintage. He begins to use subtle actions to get Cassia progressively drunk, for example he sings to excite Cassia and make him gullible and he says subtle things in his song like â€Å"Drink ho! † in Act II Scene Ill. This provokes Cassia to drink more and because of hubris when he is called drunk he denies the statement, becomes enraged, and attacks Ordering and Montana no.Othello hears the commotion and asks what happened, Sago pretends like he doesn't want t o betray Cassia and â€Å"accidentally† gives up Cassias name when he says, â€Å"l had rather have this t unguent cut from my mouth then should it do offence to Michael Cassia. † By saying this, his owe n reputation is still intact and actually seems more noble for what he said, Othello responds by saying â€Å"Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter, making light to Cassia. Cassia love thee but nevermore and officer Of m ine. TO Othello it appears that his lieutenant had a drinking problem and his actions caused him to lose respect for Cassia, but in reality I ago had manipulated Cassia in order to get him fired. After Cassia had been fired his reputation had been tainted. He felt that his re tuition was who he was, it meant everything to Cassia and it had been taken away from him. H e feels too ashamed to face Othello but wants to be reinstated knowing this Sago tells hi m â€Å"My wife must move for Cassia to her mistress I'll set her on.Myself the while to draw the m or apart. † He was basically saying for Cassia to go speak with Desman about his job and he would got Desman alone to speak to. While Cassia is speaking with Desman, lag o and Othello are walking together so Sago brings Othello to where Cassia and Desman are and when Cassia see's Othello he runs away. Sago then says â€Å"Ha! I like not that! â€Å"Len act Ill scene II As to say that Cassia had been caught, Sago had manipula ted the appearance in order t o cause Othello to become suspicious of Desman and Cassia.After this in act IV scene I Sago then further causes Othello to be suspicious when he told Othello he heard Cassia crying o UT Adhesion's name in his dream and after he sees Cassia heading in their direction he tells Othello to hide in some nearby bushes. Cassia and Sago begin to have a conversation about Bib NCAA but Sago mentions Desman to make Othello think it was about Desman. Othello o becomes enraged after this because Cassia says â€Å"I marry her? What a customer? † To To hello it had appeared that Cassia had been with Desman and even called her a custom mere (prostitute) but in reality Cassia was speaking of Bianca.Society has an extensive amount of expectations for people, in this case have Eng people defined by their reputation (appearance) in there feat to be civil and gain rep taxation they ironically become savage and are ignorant to that fact. They are also ignorant to the fact that it changes them and they become the person that there reputation describes w ICC is not always who they really are and for the people that have their true feelings (the reality of how the feel) concealed and lost by reputation, once that is lost they have nothing left.Once e their reputation is destroyed they begin to question whether they are civilized or savage, this is demonstrated after Cassia loses his position and says â€Å"Reputation, reputation, reputation O, ha eve lost my reputation! Have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is beastie Othello has developed a good deal around the themes of civility vs.. Savagery and appearance v. S reality.When he is first introduced Othello is very calm and co Elected but as you go further into the play the themes influence him to do certain things for ex. ample the reason why Cassia, Othello very close friend who introduced him to Desman, was PU noshed so severely was because Othello is insecure about himself bei ng a savage which is why he became a general because people would be forced to respect his authority and reputation, but what good is his authority if his close friend and second in command was a drunken idiot.Also when Othello was tricked into believing that Desman was having an affair with Cassia, he ha become incredibly enraged at one point having an epilepsy due to anger as stated to C assai by Sago â€Å"No, forbear. The lethargy must have his quiet course, if not he foams at the mouth h, and by, and by, breaks out to savage madness†. Basically he was telling Cassia Othello needs t mime to cool down or he'll turn savage. Also compared to how Othello treated Desman with c are, calling her his sweet.Though in act IV scene I she is treated very much different for example e after Desman says ‘h,'Vhf sweet Othello? † He strikes her and calls her â€Å"Devil†. The reasons why I feel appearance v. Reality is such an important theme in O Othello is because Sag o uses the appearance and people reputation and uses it to main palate them as he us BTL does when he gets Cassia to drink more and more leading up to a fight then using that to get Cassia fired.It is also used when Sago starts getting Othello suspicious of Cassia when Cassia has pure intentions. It also especially affects the lives of all the people at that time because reputation meant everything to them, it defined who they were, soma e examples include Cassia saying â€Å"Once reputation is lost what remains is beastie† and Othello chi sing to fire Cassia because he needed his reputation to stay undamaged to keep people from 10 Going down on him like he was a savage.

Family Observation Paper Essay

Adolescence, the period after middle childhood, is a very crucial time in the life of an individual. Adolescence (age eleven through nineteen or twenty) is the time between childhood and adulthood and is accompanied by major physical, cognitive, and psychosocial changes. For this observation, I will be observing my roommate, Amore, who is eighteen-years-old. Physically, I will be investigating puberty and health. Cognitively, I will be examining Kohlberg’s view on moral reasoning and influence on school achievement. Psychosocially, I will be analyzing identity and commitment. My roommate, Amore, also happens to be my best friend. We met in high school and both made plans to begin our adventure by attending FSU. For this paper, I observed her talking to one of our friends about her faith. It was a Friday evening and one of our friends had just broken up with his girlfriend and was very down about it so he had come over for some advice. She sat with him in the living room and took advantage of the opportunity to present Christ to him a real and powerful way. Amore is eighteen-years-old, about five foot two, and was wearing jean shorts and a plain white tee. Under the strenuous situation, she took the initiative to pray for him upfront, before she gave her personal advice. She spoke very maturely, but what stood out most about her conversation with out friend was how genuine everything she said was. As opposed to advice that seemed scripted and edged, you could tell that she was speaking from experience. Her eloquence and confidence seemed to greatly ease the pain and disdain that very evidently clouded the room. Her mannerisms and speech were so simple, yet so impacting. It was very clear that, after speaking with her, our friend felt at much better ease and was beginning to look at his situation from a different perspective. Physical development refers to the body’s development of different skills. Included in physical development are puberty and health. Puberty is the process by which a person attains sexual maturity and, thus, the ability to reproduce. Amore began menstruation at the very young age of ten. According to the book, factors present in her life at the time could account for such an early start. For example, statistics show that young girls who have absent fathers in their lives are likely to begin puberty at a much younger age than a child who had a present father. Similarly, girls whose mother’s are strict (many times, because they have to take on the role of both mother and father) are also more likely to menstruate earlier. Both circumstances were evident in Amore’s life and could thus account for premature puberty. Health is defined as a state of complete physical, emotional, and social well-being. In adolescence, physical activity decreases throughout high-school years. However, the opposite was true in Amore’s life. She began karate in middle school and, as the years progressed, her training intensified. Consequently, her high school years had the most intense physical activity. Poor sleep patterns, which include going to sleep late and oversleeping, are evident in adolescent years. This is true in Amore’s life. She goes to sleep very late, sleeps well into the later afternoon, and takes naps throughout the day. Memory, thinking, language, and perception are all components of cognitive development, a field of study in neuroscience and psychology. Included in cognitive development are postconventional morality and active engagement. Kohlberg’s levels of morality described three levels of moral reasoning, the last of which is postconventional morality. It is in this third level of morality that people follow internally held moral principles and can decide among conflicting moral standards. Amore shows that she has reached the third level of Kohlberg’s theory because she is able to recognize conflicts between moral standards and makes her own judgments accordingly. For example, when she was advising Edgar, she recognized that it isn’t okay to lie to your significant other, but given his situation, his actions were justified. Active engagement is defined as the attention, interest, investment, and effort students expend in the work of school. Amore definitely exemplifies active behavior in her secondary work-studies. Coming from a low-income family, she was taught the value and importance of going to school and making something of yourself. She is very attentive in class, punctual, and exerts maximum effort. Psychosocial development involves an individual’s interaction with their environment and their peers. Included in psychosocial development are identity and commitment. Identity is defined as a coherent conception of the self, made up of goals, values, and beliefs to which a person is solidly committed. Typically, one’s search for identity comes into play during the adolescent years. At eighteen years of age, it is clear that Amore is steadfast in her identity, knowing exactly who she is. As a committed Christian, Amore is able to identify herself as a child of God, confidently seeing herself through His eyes. Commitment is Marcia’s term for personal investment in an occupation or system of beliefs. According to Marcia’s identity status, Amore has reached identity achievement. There was a time of crisis where she gave much thought to what she aspired to be in life and how she could use God’s gifts and talents to reach others. She made the decision to use her life to help fight human-trafficking and has made steps to strongly commit to such an involvement. All in all, Amore displays a very healthy and mature standpoint in her adolescent stage. Physically, cognitively, and psychosocially, she excels in all areas. It is evident that her actions are very much in line with her developmental age. I believe she is developmentally on target and is on schedule for normal developmental growth.

Sensitivity Analysis

Linear Programming Notes VII Sensitivity Analysis 1 Introduction When you use a mathematical model to describe reality you must make approximations. The world is more complicated than the kinds of optimization problems that we are able to solve. Linearity assumptions usually are signi? cant approximations. Another important approximation comes because you cannot be sure of the data that you put into the model. Your knowledge of the relevant technology may be imprecise, forcing you to approximate values in A, b, or c. Moreover, information may change.Sensitivity analysis is a systematic study of how sensitive (duh) solutions are to (small) changes in the data. The basic idea is to be able to give answers to questions of the form: 1. If the objective function changes, how does the solution change? 2. If resources available change, how does the solution change? 3. If a constraint is added to the problem, how does the solution change? One approach to these questions is to solve lots of l inear programming problems. For example, if you think that the price of your primary output will be between $100 and $120 per unit, you can solve twenty di? rent problems (one for each whole number between $100 and $120). 1 This method would work, but it is inelegant and (for large problems) would involve a large amount of computation time. (In fact, the computation time is cheap, and computing solutions to similar problems is a standard technique for studying sensitivity in practice. ) The approach that I will describe in these notes takes full advantage of the structure of LP programming problems and their solution. It turns out that you can often ? gure out what happens in â€Å"nearby† linear programming problems just by thinking and by examining the information provided by the simplex algorithm.In this section, I will describe the sensitivity analysis information provided in Excel computations. I will also try to give an intuition for the results. 2 Intuition and Overvie w Throughout these notes you should imagine that you must solve a linear programming problem, but then you want to see how the answer changes if the problem is changed. In every case, the results assume that only one thing about the problem changes. That is, in sensitivity analysis you evaluate what happens when only one parameter of the problem changes. 1 OK, there are really 21 problems, but who is counting? 1To ? x ideas, you may think about a particular LP, say the familiar example: max 2Ãâ€"1 subject to 3Ãâ€"1 x1 2x 1 + + + 4Ãâ€"2 x2 3Ãâ€"2 x2 + + + + 3x 3 x3 2x 3 3x 3 + + + x4 4x 4 3x 4 x4 x ? ? ? 12 7 10 0 We know that the solution to this problem is x0 = 42, x1 = 0; x2 = 10. 4; x3 = 0; x4 = . 4. 2. 1 Changing Objective Function Suppose that you solve an LP and then wish to solve another problem with the same constraints but a slightly di? erent objective function. (I will always make only one change in the problem at a time. So if I change the objective function, not onl y will I hold the constraints ? ed, but I will change only one coe cient in the objective function. ) When you change the objective function it turns out that there are two cases to consider. The ? rst case is the change in a non-basic variable (a variable that takes on the value zero in the solution). In the example, the relevant non-basic variables are x1 and x3 . What happens to your solution if the coe cient of a non-basic variable decreases? For example, suppose that the coe cient of x1 in the objective function above was reduced from 2 to 1 (so that the objective function is: max x1 + 4Ãâ€"2 + 3Ãâ€"3 + x4 ).What has happened is this: You have taken a variable that you didn’t want to use in the ? rst place (you set x1 = 0) and then made it less pro? table (lowered its coe cient in the objective function). You are still not going to use it. The solution does not change. Observation If you lower the objective function coe cient of a non-basic variable, then the solution does not change. What if you raise the coe cient? Intuitively, raising it just a little bit should not matter, but raising the coe cient a lot might induce you to change the value of x in a way that makes x1 > 0.So, for a non-basic variable, you should expect a solution to continue to be valid for a range of values for coe cients of nonbasic variables. The range should include all lower values for the coe cient and some higher values. If the coe cient increases enough (and putting the variable into the basis is feasible), then the solution changes. What happens to your solution if the coe cient of a basic variable (like x2 or x4 in the example) decreases? This situation di? ers from the previous one in that you are using the basis variable in the ? rst place. The change makes the variable contribute less to pro? . You should expect that a su ciently large reduction makes you want to change your solution (and lower the value the associated variable). For example, if the coe cient of x2 in the objective function in the example were 2 instead of 4 (so that the objective was max 2Ãâ€"1 +2Ãâ€"2 +3Ãâ€"3 + x4 ), 2 maybe you would want to set x2 = 0 instead of x2 = 10. 4. On the other hand, a small reduction in x2 ’s objective function coe cient would typically not cause you to change your solution. In contrast to the case of the non-basic variable, such a change will change the value of your objective function.You compute the value by plugging in x into the objective function, if x2 = 10. 4 and the coe cient of x2 goes down from 4 to 2, then the contribution of the x2 term to the value goes down from 41. 6 to 20. 8 (assuming that the solution remains the same). If the coe cient of a basic variable goes up, then your value goes up and you still want to use the variable, but if it goes up enough, you may want to adjust x so that it x2 is even possible. In many cases, this is possible by ? nding another basis (and therefore another solution).So, intuitively, t here should be a range of values of the coe cient of the objective function (a range that includes the original value) in which the solution of the problem does not change. Outside of this range, the solution will change (to lower the value of the basic variable for reductions and increase its value of increases in its objective function coe cient). The value of the problem always changes when you change the coe cient of a basic variable. 2. 2 Changing a Right-Hand Side Constant We discussed this topic when we talked about duality. I argued that dual prices capture the e? ct of a change in the amounts of available resources. When you changed the amount of resource in a non-binding constraint, then increases never changed your solution. Small decreases also did not change anything, but if you decreased the amount of resource enough to make the constraint binding, your solution could change. (Note the similarity between this analysis and the case of changing the coe cient of a non-bas ic variable in the objective function. Changes in the right-hand side of binding constraints always change the solution (the value of x must adjust to the new constraints).We saw earlier that the dual variable associated with the constraint measures how much the objective function will be in? uenced by the change. 2. 3 Adding a Constraint If you add a constraint to a problem, two things can happen. Your original solution satis? es the constraint or it doesn’t. If it does, then you are ? nished. If you had a solution before and the solution is still feasible for the new problem, then you must still have a solution. If the original solution does not satisfy the new constraint, then possibly the new problem is infeasible. If not, then there is another solution.The value must go down. (Adding a constraint makes the problem harder to satisfy, so you cannot possibly do better than before). If your original solution satis? es your new constraint, then you can do as well as before. I f not, then you will do worse. 2 2 There is a rare case in which originally your problem has multiple solutions, but only some of them satisfy the added constraint. In this case, which you need not worry about, 3 2. 4 Relationship to the Dual The objective function coe cients correspond to the right-hand side constants of resource constraints in the dual.The primal’s right-hand side constants correspond to objective function coe cients in the dual. Hence the exercise of changing the objective function’s coe cients is really the same as changing the resource constraints in the dual. It is extremely useful to become comfortable switching back and forth between primal and dual relationships. 3 Understanding Sensitivity Information Provided by Excel Excel permits you to create a sensitivity report with any solved LP. The report contains two tables, one associated with the variables and the other associated with the constraints.In reading these notes, keep the information i n the sensitivity tables associated with the ? rst simplex algorithm example nearby. 3. 1 Sensitivity Information on Changing (or Adjustable) Cells The top table in the sensitivity report refers to the variables in the problem. The ? rst column (Cell) tells you the location of the variable in your spreadsheet; the second column tells you its name (if you named the variable); the third column tells you the ? nal value; the fourth column is called the reduced cost; the ? fth column tells you the coe cient in the problem; the ? al two columns are labeled â€Å"allowable increase† and â€Å"allowable decrease. † Reduced cost, allowable increase, and allowable decrease are new terms. They need de? nitions. The allowable increases and decreases are easier. I will discuss them ? rst. The allowable increase is the amount by which you can increase the coe cient of the objective function without causing the optimal basis to change. The allowable decrease is the amount by which y ou can decrease the coe cient of the objective function without causing the optimal basis to change. Take the ? rst row of the table for the example. This row describes the variable x1 .The coe cient of x1 in the objective function is 2. The allowable increase is 9, the allowable decrease is â€Å"1. 00E+30,† which means 1030 , which really means 1. This means that provided that the coe cient of x1 in the objective function is less than 11 = 2 + 9 = original value + allowable increase, the basis does not change. Moreover, since x1 is a non-basic variable, when the basis stays the same, the value of the problem stays the same too. The information in this line con? rms the intuition provided earlier and adds something new. What is con? rmed is that if you lower the objective coe cient of a non-basic ariable, then your solution does not change. (This means that the allowable decrease will always be in? nite for a non-basic variable. ) The example also demonstrates your value wil l stay the same. 4 that increasing the coe cient of a non-basic variable may lead to a change in basis. In the example, if you increase the coe cient of x1 from 2 to anything greater than 9 (that is, if you add more than the allowable increase of 7 to the coe cient), then you change the solution. The sensitivity table does not tell you how the solution changes, but common sense suggests that x1 will take on a positive value.Notice that the line associated with the other non-basic variable of the example, x3 , is remarkably similar. The objective function coe cient is di? erent (3 rather than 2), but the allowable increase and decrease are the same as in the row for x1 . It is a coincidence that the allowable increases are the same. It is no coincidence that the allowable decrease is the same. We can conclude that the solution of the problem does not change as long as the coe cient of x3 in the objective function is less than or equal to 10. Consider now the basic variables. For x2 t he allowable increase is in? ite 9 while the allowable decrease is 2. 69 (it is 2 13 to be exact). This means that if the solution won’t change if you increase the coe cient of x2 , but it will change if you decrease the coe cient enough (that is, by more than 2. 7). The fact that your solution does not change no matter how much you increase x2 ’s coe cient means that there is no way to make x2 > 10. 4 and still satisfy the constraints of the problem. The fact that your solution does change when you increase x2 ’s coe cient by enough means that there is a feasible basis in which x2 takes on a value lower than 10. 4. You knew that. Examine the original basis for the problem. ) The range for x4 is di? erent. Line four of the sensitivity table says that the solution of the problem does not change provided that the coe cient of x4 in the objective function stays between 16 (allowable increase 15 plus objective function coe cient 1) and -4 (objective function coe cie nt minus allowable decrease). That is, if you make x4 su ciently more attractive, then your solution will change to permit you to use more x4 . If you make x4 su ciently less attractive the solution will also change. This time to use less x4 .Even when the solution of the problem does not change, when you change the coe cient of a basic variable the value of the problem will change. It will change in a predictable way. Speci? cally, you can use the table to tell you the solution of the LP when you take the original constraints and replace the original objective function by max 2Ãâ€"1 + 6Ãâ€"2 + 3Ãâ€"3 + x4 (that is, you change the coe cient of x2 from 4 to 6), then the solution to the problem remains the same. The value of the solution changes because now you multiply the 10. 4 units of x2 by 6 instead of 4. The objective function therefore goes up by 20. . The reduced cost of a variable is the smallest change in the objective function coe cient needed to arrive at a solution in which the variable takes on a positive value when you solve the problem. This is a mouthful. Fortunately, reduced costs are redundant information. The reduced cost is the negative of the allowable increase for non-basic variables (that is, if you change the coe cient of x1 by 7, then you arrive at a problem in which x1 takes on a positive 5 value in the solution). This is the same as saying that the allowable increase in the coe cient is 7.The reduced cost of a basic variable is always zero (because you need not change the objective function at all to make the variable positive). Neglecting rare cases in which a basis variable takes on the value 0 in a solution, you can ? gure out reduced costs from the other information in the table: If the ? nal value is positive, then the reduced cost is zero. If the ? nal value is zero, then the reduced cost is negative one times the allowable increase. Remarkably, the reduced cost of a variable is also the amount of slack in the dual constraint associated with the variable.With this interpretation, complementary slackness implies that if a variable that takes on a positive value in the solution, then its reduced cost is zero. 3. 2 Sensitivity Information on Constraints The second sensitivity table discusses the constraints. The cell column identi? es the location of the left-hand side of a constraint; the name column gives its name (if any); the ? nal value is the value of the left-hand side when you plug in the ? nal values for the variables; the shadow price is the dual variable associated with the constraint; the constraint R. H. ide is the right hand side of the constraint; allowable increase tells you by how much you can increase the right-hand side of the constraint without changing the basis; the allowable decrease tells you by how much you can decrease the right-hand side of the constraint without changing the basis. Complementary Slackness guarantees a relationship between the columns in the constraint table. The di? erence between the â€Å"Constraint Right-Hand Side† column and the â€Å"Final Value† column is the slack. (So, from the table, the slack for the three constraints is 0 (= 12 12), 37 (= 7 ( 30)), and 0 (= 10 10), respectively.We know from Complementary Slackness that if there is slack in the constraint then the associated dual variable is zero. Hence CS tells us that the second dual variable must be zero. Like the case of changes in the variables, you can ? gure out information on allowable changes from other information in the table. The allowable increase and decrease of non-binding variables can be computed knowing ? nal value and right-hand side constant. If a constraint is not binding, then adding more of the resource is not going to change your solution. Hence the allowable increase of a resource is in? ite for a non-binding constraint. (A nearly equivalent, and also true, statement is that the allowable increase of a resource is in? nite for a constraint w ith slack. ) In the example, this explains why the allowable increase of the second constraint is in? nite. One other quantity is also no surprise. The allowable decrease of a non-binding constraint is equal to the slack in the constraint. Hence the allowable decrease in the second constraint is 37. This means that if you decrease the right-hand side of the second constraint from its original value (7) to nything greater than 30 you do not change the optimal basis. In fact, the only part of the solution that changes when you do this is that the value of the slack variable for this constraint changes. In this paragraph, the point is only this: If you solve an LP and ? nd that a constraint is not binding, 6 then you can remove all of the unused (slack) portion of the resource associated with this constraint and not change the solution to the problem. The allowable increases and decreases for constraints that have no slack are more complicated. Consider the ? rst constraint.The informa tion in the table says that if the right-hand side of the ? rst constraint is between 10 (original value 12 minus allowable decrease 2) and in? nity, then the basis of the problem does not change. What these columns do not say is that the solution of the problem does change. Saying that the basis does not change means that the variables that were zero in the original solution continue to be zero in the new problem (with the right-hand side of the constraint changed). However, when the amount of available resource changes, necessarily the values of the other variables change. You can think about this in many ways. Go back to a standard example like the diet problem. If your diet provides exactly the right amount of Vitamin C, but then for some reason you learn that you need more Vitamin C. You will certainly change what you eat and (if you aren’t getting your Vitamin C through pills supplying pure Vitamin C) in order to do so you probably will need to change the composition of your diet – a little more of some foods and perhaps less of others. I am saying that (within the allowable range) you will not change the foods that you eat in positive amounts.That is, if you ate only spinach and oranges and bagels before, then you will only eat these things (but in di? erent quantities) after the change. Another thing that you can do is simply re-solve the LP with a di? erent right-hand side constant and compare the result. To ? nish the discussion, consider the third constraint in the example. The values for the allowable increase and allowable decrease guarantee that the basis that is optimal for the original problem (when the right-hand side of the third constraint is equal to 10) remains obtain provided that the right-hand side constant in this constraint is between -2. 333 and 12. Here is a way to think about this range. Suppose that your LP involves four production processes and uses three basic ingredients. Call the ingredients land, labor, and capi tal. The outputs vary use di? erent combinations of the ingredients. Maybe they are growing fruit (using lots of land and labor), cleaning bathrooms (using lots of labor), making cars (using lots of labor and and a bit of capital), and making computers (using lots of capital). For the initial speci? cation of available resources, you ? nd that your want to grow fruit and make cars.If you get an increase in the amount of capital, you may wish to shift into building computers instead of cars. If you experience a decrease in the amount of capital, you may wish to shift away from building cars and into cleaning bathrooms instead. As always when dealing with duality relationships, the the â€Å"Adjustable Cells† table and the â€Å"Constraints† table really provide the same information. Dual variables correspond to primal constraints. Primal variables correspond to dual constraints. Hence, the â€Å"Adjustable Cells† table tells you how sensitive primal variables and dual constraints are to changes in the primal objective function.The â€Å"Constraints† table tells you how sensitive dual variables and primal constraints are to changes in the dual objective function (right-hand side constants in the primal). 7 4 Example In this section I will present another formulation example and discuss the solution and sensitivity results. Imagine a furniture company that makes tables and chairs. A table requires 40 board feet of wood and a chair requires 30 board feet of wood. Wood costs $1 per board foot and 40,000 board feet of wood are available. It takes 2 hours of skilled labor to make an un? nished table or an un? ished chair. Three more hours of labor will turn an un? nished table into a ? nished table; two more hours of skilled labor will turn an un? nished chair into a ? nished chair. There are 6000 hours of skilled labor available. (Assume that you do not need to pay for this labor. ) The prices of output are given in the table below: Produ ct Un? nished Table Finished Table Un? nished Chair Finished Chair Price $70 $140 $60 $110 We want to formulate an LP that describes the production plans that the ? rm can use to maximize its pro? ts. The relevant variables are the number of ? nished and un? ished tables, I will call them TF and TU , and the number of ? nished and un? nished chairs, CF and CU . The revenue is (using the table): 70TU + 140TF + 60CU + 110CF , , while the cost is 40TU + 40TF + 30CU + 30CF (because lumber costs $1 per board foot). The constraints are: 1. 40TU + 40TF + 30CU + 30CF ? 40000. 2. 2TU + 5TF + 2CU + 4CF ? 6000. The ? rst constraint says that the amount of lumber used is no more than what is available. The second constraint states that the amount of labor used is no more than what is available. Excel ? nds the answer to the problem to be to construct only ? nished chairs (1333. 33 – I’m not sure what it means to make a sell 1 chair, but let’s assume 3 that this is possible) . The pro? t is $106,666. 67. Here are some sensitivity questions. 1. What would happen if the price of un? nished chairs went up? Currently they sell for $60. Because the allowable increase in the coe cient is $50, it would not be pro? table to produce them even if they sold for the same amount as ? nished chairs. If the price of un? nished chairs went down, then certainly you wouldn’t change your solution. 8 2. What would happen if the price of un? nished tables went up? Here something apparently absurd happens.The allowable increase is greater than 70. That is, even if you could sell un? nished tables for more than ? nished tables, you would not want to sell them. How could this be? The answer is that at current prices you don’t want to sell ? nished tables. Hence it is not enough to make un? nished tables more pro? table than ? nished tables, you must make them more pro? table than ? nished chairs. Doing so requires an even greater increase in the price. 3. What if the price of ? nished chairs fell to $100? This change would alter your production plan, since this would involve a $10 decrease in the price of ? ished chairs and the allowable decrease is only $5. In order to ? gure out what happens, you need to re-solve the problem. It turns out that the best thing to do is specialize in ? nished tables, producing 1000 and earning $100,000. Notice that if you continued with the old production plan your pro? t would be 70 ? 1333 1 = 93, 333 1 , so the change in production plan 3 3 was worth more than $6,000. 4. How would pro? t change if lumber supplies changed? The shadow price of the lumber constraint is $2. 67. The range of values for which the basis remains unchanged is 0 to 45,000.This means that if the lumber supply went up by 5000, then you would continue to specialize in ? nished chairs, and your pro? t would go up by $2. 67 ? 5000 = $10, 333. At this point you presumably run out of labor and want to reoptimize. If lumber supply decreased , then your pro? t would decrease, but you would still specialize in ? nished chairs. 5. How much would you be willing to pay an additional carpenter? Skilled labor is not worth anything to you. You are not using the labor than you have. Hence, you would pay nothing for additional workers. 6. Suppose that industrial regulations complicate the ? ishing process, so that it takes one extra hour per chair or table to turn an un? nished product into a ? nished one. How would this change your plans? You cannot read your answer o? the sensitivity table, but a bit of common sense tells you something. The change cannot make you better o?. On the other hand, to produce 1,333. 33 ? nished chairs you’ll need 1,333. 33 extra hours of labor. You do not have that available. So the change will change your pro? t. Using Excel, it turns out that it becomes optimal to specialize in ? nished tables, producing 1000 of them and earning $100,000. This problem di? ers from the original one because t he amount of labor to create a ? nished product increases by one unit. ) 7. The owner of the ? rm comes up with a design for a beautiful hand-crafted cabinet. Each cabinet requires 250 hours of labor (this is 6 weeks of full time work) and uses 50 board feet of lumber. Suppose that the company can sell a cabinet for $200, would it be worthwhile? You could solve this 9 problem by changing the problem and adding an additional variable and an additional constraint. Note that the coe cient of cabinets in the objective function is 150, which re? cts the sale price minus the cost of lumber. I did the computation. The ? nal value increased to 106,802. 7211. The solution involved reducing the output of un? nished chairs to 1319. 727891 and increasing the output of cabinets to 8. 163265306. (Again, please tolerate the fractions. ) You could not have guessed these ? gures in advance, but you could ? gure out that making cabinets was a good idea. The way to do this is to value the inputs to th e production of cabinets. Cabinets require labor, but labor has a shadow price of zero. They also require lumber. The shadow price of lumber is $2. 7, which means that each unit of lumber adds $2. 67 to pro? t. Hence 50 board feet of lumber would reduce pro? t by $133. 50. Since this is less than the price at which you can sell cabinets (minus the cost of lumber), you are better o? using your resources to build cabinets. (You can check that the increase in pro? t associated with making cabinets is $16. 50, the added pro? t per unit, times the number of cabinets that you actually produce. ) I attached a sheet where I did the same computation assuming that the price of cabinets was $150. In this case, the additional option does not lead to cabinet production. 10

WK7 Research Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

WK7 Research Design - Essay Example This research extensively purposes at obtaining new knowledge of the drastic depreciation in performance of university students through significant utilization of relevant concepts. The attained results will assist in the description of the problem, development of countering alternatives and provision of knowledge and skill useful in decision-making for the university managements. Furthermore, the results will make it possible to make future performance predictions hence contributing to the possibility of controlling university performances. A research design simply includes a strategy applicable for a specific study and the plan of actively exercising the strategy. The research methodologies in use will include quantitative designs as well as qualitative designs individually thus resulting to a combination of both. Qualitative research design mainly involves techniques and measures, which do not eventually produce discrete numerical data (Creswell, 1997). Qualitative data collection incorporates such methods as direct observation by the researcher, active participation or interviews. Qualitative research illustrates relevance in this research as it aims at achieving an in depth understanding of the factors contributing to the depreciation in university students’ performance. Inclusion of arrays of interpretative techniques to describe and translate the data collected will further improve the quality of the data (Maxwell, 2007). Subsequently, after collection of data through the qualitative research design, the d ata analysis will involve; content analysis of written or recorded data as well as data drawn from the participants’ expressions and behavioral observations. On the other hand, quantitative research design utilizes techniques and measures that in turn produce discrete numerical thus quantifiable data. Hence, this design will integrate computer analysis

Top entrepreneurs and their modern comparisons of leadership styles Research Paper

Top entrepreneurs and their modern comparisons of leadership styles and traits - Research Paper Example Indeed, several types of leadership have been advanced in the study of management as ways and means through which organizations can grow. However, it is normally very difficult to explicitly state whether a particular type of leadership is better than another. In this regard, the success of any leadership style largely depends on the leaders and their perception about the whole subject of management. Proper organizational leadership is best exemplified by the success of Southwest Airlines through its founder and Chief Executive Herb Kelleher. At best Kelleher can be described as a charismatic leader who normally seeks to achieve more. The growth of the airline over the years in the turbulent industry is certainly a clear demonstration of proper leadership at play. The airline has posted profit for a record 26 years which is a clear illustration of the type of proper leadership that Kelleher has always exhibited (Hesselbein & Cohen, 2009). It is imperative to realize that Kelleher has always largely focused on his employees as the greatest determinants of success for the organization. In this regard, he considers the employees as his greatest assets and hence is always at the forefront in addressing employee concerns. The employees at Southwest have therefore developed a sense of warmth and determination that normally originates from the CEO. Southwest is an organization that is basically driven by a very strong organizational culture that focuses on personality and charisma. Unlike many leaders, Kelleher has created an organizational culture that puts employees and not customers as the most important aspect for the organization. In response to many questions why he puts the employees first and not the customers, Kelleher simply argues that when the employees are treated well and are satisfied, they will eventually treat the outside world well. In this regard, the customers, shareholders and other stakeholders of the organization will subsequently benefit from t he ripple effect (Mayo, Nohria & Rennella, 2009). It is fundamental to stress the fact that Kelleher is certainly a charismatic leader. Charismatic leadership normally arises from the ability to command and win the favor of large masses of people. Charismatic leaders normally exhibit some types of popular traits that enable them to command a lot of popular support from the people. Such traits are normally inborn characteristics that enable some people to stay ahead of the park and thereby become good leaders. Max Weber in his study of management basically described three types of authority as normally realized in management. These include rational-legal, traditional and charismatic. He further described charismatic authority as the type of leadership that is mostly driven by the personality of the individual. Kelleher has always taken a form of unique orientation is his style of leadership which serves to demonstrate a clear sense of peculiarity in the way the Southwest has managed to stay profitable even in the face of global challenges that have faced many large corporations across the world (Bennis et al., 2003). No single term can simply describe the style of leadership that has always been exhibited by Kelleher through his years at Southwest. In a way, Kelleher is a clear demonstration of servant-leadership in the way he serves his stakeholders and addresses organizational concerns. In many organizations, the top

CURRENTS EVENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

CURRENTS EVENT - Essay Example The market domains are largely run by supply and demand dynamics which have a long lasting role on the economic angles (Beattie, 2012). Similarly, costs and benefits need to be understood as well as these remain pivotal towards gaining an understanding of the economic studies. Also the incentives are spoken of once the costs and benefits are already discussed and when rational expectations are formulized. Their examination is much required from an economic viewpoint. Profit sharing remains the key as far as the modern day economic realms are concerned as these give a better idea of how things shall be sequenced alongside one another. Putting it together in such a fashion that there is harmony of sorts is the way to achieve success in the long run scheme of things as far as the economic concepts is related. This will essentially underline the need to remain head-on with the economic entities which have come about with the passage of time and which shall receive attention from all and sundry within the economic

The manufacturing process of Claires Antiques Case Study

The manufacturing process of Claires Antiques - Case Study Example This is a very critical area since non-value adding processes require company resources like people, equipment, and time which drives up the expenses. However, if these processes do not add to the value of products being manufactured, Claire is just wasting these resources which could have been channeled to processes that will generate value to the products. Thus, it is recommended that Claire focus on streamlining its production processes in order eliminate these non-value adding processes or sub-processes. In so doing, the company can also minimize costs and maximize the value and satisfaction delivered to customers. In doing this, Claire should list out all the activities in its manufacturing plant together will all the sub-processes involved. Afterwards, it should determine which processes are value adding and non-value adding. To further the analysis, the company can also possibly assign dollar values added by an activity. From this, Claire can then cross-out and eliminate non-v alue adding activities while retaining and enhancing those which are not. Also, another important consideration is the arrangement of the processes and the assigned personnel to it. The company should also devise a strategic plan on how to arrange processes to maximize its resources and to equip the workforce with adequate knowledge and skills to enable them to accomplish their tasks most efficiently.

Systems programming-Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Systems programming-Research - Essay Example In other words, the operating system serves as an intermediary component between the user and the application-programs as well as between the application-programs and the hardware of the computer system. Thus, being an intermediary between the users of computer applications and the resources of the computer systems, the OS offers the following three fundamental services to the users: 1. Accepts user requests and processes them from the user’s program-applications and generates or displays the desired output results. 2. Loads, manages, as well as executes programs. 3. Manages the computer hardware resources such as the interfaces to networks and to other peripheral components of the computer system. The figure 1 given below schematically shows the correlation that exists among the various components of a computer system. Figure 1: The relationship of the Modern Operation System to other integrated components of the computer system. ... Management System (FMS)  ¦ Memory Management  ¦ Process Control Management and Inter-process Communication  ¦ Scheduling and Dispatching  ¦ Communication Support, Network Management, and Communication Interfaces  ¦ Secondary Storage Management  ¦ Support for System Administration  ¦ System Protection Management and Security Some OS also offer a program called system manager that is also commonly referred as a monitor or supervisor that not only deals with the competing requests or conflicts but also serves as a general controller and arbiter for the overall computer system. Although some other system functions are oftentimes handled as separate blocks, such as the accounting and error handling, however they are more likely to appear under the blocks already listed. Many modern operating systems offer some features that combine computer commands into pseudo-programs that are known as shell scripts. Moreover, the batch-oriented systems possibly combine the individual comm ands into a set of control statements that are to be executed and interpreted without user intervention one at a time for the purpose of controlling the process of a multi-step ‘‘task.’’ Every step in the task executes an individual job. As for instance, on large IBM systems, the sequence of commands employed for this purpose, developed a language called Job Control Language (JCL). Furthermore to the standard OS commands, the shell scripting languages are conventionally used for providing branch and loop commands as well as for providing other features of the computer language. Shell scripts are used as if they were actual programs. It provides the following common features:  ¦ A way to redirect input/output data to a device that is different from the one used normally such as a disk file rather

Walt Disney Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Walt Disney - Assignment Example Steve Jobs who is blessed with an innovative brain is the co-founder of Apple Inc; whereas, the Disney has already gained a good stature among its customers across the globe. Hence, Disney’s repute and Jobs’ technical expertise together would assist the Walt Disney to achieve infinite heights in market. It is known to everyone that Jobs’ relentless effort was the only factor that lifted Pixar and Apple sky-high. If he can bring his innovativeness to this new venture, he will uplift the staid company to a leading laboratory for media convergence (case study, p.269). The success of Jobs’ all ventures can be attributed to his thoughtful strategies and product differentiation. He believes that product/service quality is an essential element for business success. With the creative application of multimedia and computer animation, Jobs could knock out six blockbusters. Similarly, Jobs’ stance at Pixar while competing with Apple was appreciable. Jobs never feared rivals’ products; instead, he deeply concentrated on improving the aesthetic appeal and quality of his products while pursuing his business. Evidently Jobs’ successfully experimented business ideas would contribute to the profitability of the Disney.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Essay

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) - Essay Example Consequently, the overall financial cost in the health care sector will reduce. With this in mind, PPACA has different modes by which it hopes to achieve the dream. This includes tax credits, mandates and subsidies (Feldman 26). In addition, individuals or employers are receiving the rate of coverage. Logically, this reform aids with the improving of health care programs and also the delivery of health care services. Moreover, PPACA states that insurance companies need to offer equal rates in spite of the conditions in existence and cover every applicant (Feldman 33). As a result, there will be few deficits and less expenditure within the Medicare. In summary, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cause several reactions especially from the conservatives who consider it bogus. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has existed since 2010 after being signed by President Barack Obama. However, this reform affects several policies that have been in existence. The reasons includ e disregarding of policies or conditions (Feldman 33). This means that every member of the community will undergo the same rating. Therefore, the premiums ought to be the same regardless of the geographical position, gender or other conditions. Therefore, there is a guarantee of issues. Additionally, there is sharing of the responsibility unless one belongs to a religious group (Feldman 35). Therefore, an individual that is not covered under a health care plan should receive a waiver when he or she is experiencing some hardships. Moreover, this will position the small scale businesses to compare their premiums and policies with those of the government. In addition, the government will subsidize the premiums of people living below the poverty line. This also applies to small scale businesses. Moreover, the same favors should extend to the members of that particular family. In addition, there should be a modification of the policies that state the minimum standards of coverage. Additi onally, the insurance companies need to cover their employees with the same policies as it is a government requirement. In summary, these changes enable people to access affordable health care services since they will handle the payment. Arguably, this reform has led to several reactions. This is because it seems to suppress the insurance companies. Consequently, this issue found its way into the courts. However, the Supreme Court of America states that it is constitutional since it has the President’s signature. Consequently, it is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (McDonough 57). It is also important to note that millions of people within America cannot afford to buy medical premiums because they are expensive. Additionally, the reform seems to force every individual to buy an insurance cover. Consequently, some people feel that PPACA interferes with their civic right, which is liberty (McDonough 62). In summary, the insurance companies feel th at the reform interferes with their businesses while other people feel that they need their liberty to choose whether to buy the insurance cover or not. The Supreme Court did consider that it has the power to ignore the ruling until 2014 (McDonough 77). This is because an act prevents the court from making a decision until 2014. This is because the federal mandate has not yet taken effect. Therefore, the court cannot consider a tax constitutional before

How should the International Financial System be changed (legally and Essay

How should the International Financial System be changed (legally and politically) so that the burden of the dollar as the main reserve currency for the world d - Essay Example The financial markets went into a tailspin recently when it was rumored that Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was looking at alternative to dollar for pegging its currency. Iran has tried unsuccessfully to exhort OPEC countries look for alternatives to dollar, but has announced that it would diversify its foreign reserve portfolio to include Euro as well. It will not create much dent in US armor yet it has strong political message for USA. Malaysia has also tried to establish gold dinar for settling bilateral trade with Iran. Experts feel that it would not be as widespread as these two countries hope as gold would be too cumbersome to be traded and exchanged. Similarly some South American countries are also trying to establish alternatives to IMF and World Bank to cut the dependence on USA and its interfering policies as they see them. They are all small steps yet they show that countries are looking at alternatives to the US dollar. US dollar is not the most preferred currency with the common man too; there are reports that now a days people prefer to be paid in their local currencies by foreigners rather than dollars for the fear of devaluation of dollar something unimaginable a couple of years ago. This shows that the confidence on dollar cross the globe is ebbing slowly but surely. Jean-Claude Trichet President ECB has as far back as 2005 called for structural changes in the international financial system to take care of financial crisis which calls for greater financial transparency, more systematic approach to the future growth and greater global ownership. Apart from these three measures, inclusiveness of emerging economies and economies in transition in international financial architecture and greater cooperation of central banks of emerging economies and economies in transition would help in systematic development and correction of financial system. This shows that not only Europe and Japan have are going to have greater say in international financial system but emerging economies like BRIC and other South East Asian counties too will need to be included. A significant departure from the fact that USA called the shots after the downfall of USSR and end of cold war. USA is grappling with huge current account deficit, Japan as current account surplus where as Europe is balanced. Erosion of value of dollar and erosion of political supremacy of USA is linked together. It is time now for USA to share the burden of dollar with Europe. Edwin M Truman (2007) in his speech has said, "The United States and Europe have huge stakes and responsibilities in the stability of the international economy and financial system. How their authorities manage their economies and develop their financial systems is key. The challenge is to promote healthy, and to minimize unhealthy, competition between the euro and the dollar and their associated financial systems and economies." He calls for climb down of US and European claim to ownership on IMF and World Bank and include emerging and developing countries in the position of management rather than recipients. He even calls for changing the voting pattern to give greater weight age to other countries of the world to ref lect their growing economic stature. The "advanced" countries would need to give up their share by at least 10 basis points and might call for increase in the fund size by 50 percent. This would mean acknowledging the political and economic advancement of the so called developing nations by USA and its allies. There are reports

Capital Market Essay Example for Free

Capital Market Essay ~ Capital market is the market for leading and borrowing of medium and long term funds. ~ The demand for long-term funds comes from industry, trade, agriculture and government (central and state). ~ The supply for funds comes from individual savers, corporate savings, banks, insurance companies, specialized financial institutions and government. *SIGNIFICANCE: ~ A sound and efficient capital market is extremely vital for the economic development of a nation. ~ So, the significance of capital market has increased. ~ The following points clearly bring out the role and significance of capital market in India. i)CAPITAL FORMATION: ~ Capital market encourages capital formation as it ensures speedy economic development. The process of capital formation includes collection of saving effective mobilisation of these savings for productive investment. ~ Thus three distinctive inter-related activities i.e. collection of savings, mobilisation of savings and investment lead to capital formation in the country. ~ The volume of capital formation depend s on the efficiency and intensity with which these activities are carried on. ii) ECONOMIC GROWTH: ~ Capital market plays a vital role in the growth and development of an economy by channelising funds in developmental and productive investments. ~ The financial intermediaries channel funds into those investments that are more important for economic development. iii) INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT: ~ Capital market promotes industrial development and motivates industrial entrepreneurship. ~ It provides cheap, adequate and diversified funds for industrial purposes such as expansion, modernisation, technological upgradation, establishment of new units, etc. ~ It also provides services like provision of underwriting facilities, participation in equity capital, credit-rating, consultancy services, etc. vi) MODERNISATION AND REHABILITATION OF INDUSTRIES: ~ Capital markets also contribute towards modernisation and rehabilitation of industries. ~ Developmental financial institutions like IDBI, IFCI, ICICI, etc provide finance to industries to adopt modern techniques and new upgraded machinery. ~ They also participate in the equity capital of industries. v) RIVIVAL OF SICK UNITS: ~ Commercial and financial institutions provide adequate funds to viable sick unit to overcome their industrial sickness. ~ Bank and FIs may also write off a part of the loan or re-schedule the loan to offer payment flexibility to weak units. vi) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: ~ The financial intermediaries in the capital market stimulate industrial entrepreneurship by providing technical and advisory services like preparation of feasibility reports, identifying growth potential, and training entrepreneurs in project management. ~ This promotes industrial investment and leads to economic development. vii) DEVELOPMENT OF BACKWARD AREAS: ~ Capital markets provide funds for projects in backward area and facilitate their economic development. ~ Long-term funds are also provided for development projects in backward / rural areas. viii) EMPLOYMENT GENERATION: ~ Capital markets provide Direct Employment in capital market related activities like stock markets, banks and financial institutions. ~ Indirect Employment is provided in all the sectors of the economy through various funds disbursed for developmental projects. ix) FOREIGN CAPITAL: ~ Capital markets make it possible to generate foreign capital by enabling Indian firms to raise capital from overseas market through bonds and other securities. ~ Such foreign exchange funds have a great impact on the economic development of the nation. ~ Moreover, foreign direct investments (FDIs) also bring in foreign capital as well as foreign technology that leads to greater economic development. x) DEVELOPMENT OF STOCK MARKETS: ~ Capital markets lead to development of stock markets by encouraging investors to invest in shares and debentures and to trade in stocks. ~ FIIs are also allowed to deal in Indian stock exchange. xi) FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: ~ Financial institutions play a major role in capital markets. ~ They provide medium / long term loan to industrial and other sectors and also undertake project feasibility studies and surveys. ~ They refinance commercial banks and rediscount their bills of exchange. ~ They provide merchant banking services. ~ They subscribe to equity capital of the firms. xii) INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY: ~ Capital markets provide various alternative sources of investment to the people. ~ People can invest in shares and debentures of public companies and earn good returns. xiii) INVESTMENT IN INDUSTRIAL SECURITIES: ~ Secondary market in securities encourage investors to invest in industrial securities by providing facilities for continuous, regular and ready buying and selling of these securities. ~ This facilitates industries to raise substantial funds from various sectors of the economy. xiv) RELIABLE GUIDE TO PERFORMANCE: ~ Capital market serves as a reliable guide to the performance of corporate institutions. ~ It values companies accurately and thus promotes efficiency. ~ This leads to efficient resource allocation and economic development. *CONCLUSION: ~ Thus we can say that capital markets play a crucial role in the economic development of a nation. ~ A sound and efficient capital market is one of the most instrumental factors in the development of a nation.

Price collusion in oligopolies

Price collusion in oligopolies   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An oligopoly market exists when a few large firms dominate the industry. This form of market structure lies in between the realms of the unattainable structure of Perfect Competition to the structure of Monopoly. Each firm competes in order to maximise its market share. Oligopolies are defined as per their behavioural aspects rather than their market structure. As a result oligopolies are characterised upon two fundamentals; high barriers to entry and interdependence. Even though each firm competes with one another, each firm is still tied with each other, in the sense that each firm is interdependent. When faced upon decisions, the firm must take into consideration the likely reaction of rival firms, as one wrong move can end with a devastating consequence; the loss of market share. Incumbent firms are protected by barriers to entry; however each industry varies in terms of contestability. The goods and services that firms produce within an oligop oly are differentiated, in the sense that similar goods vary in terms of its branding, quality and after-sales services etc. A few good examples of firms competing in oligopolistic markets are the car industry, supermarket chains and banks etc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Oligopolies tend to behave either competitively or collusively. In accordance with the kinked demand curve theory, homogeneous oligopolies are fairly restricted in terms of price competition, as shown by the following diagram. Each firm must take into account the reactions of rivals; hence if a firm decided to raise prices, with the hope of gaining extra profits, from point P1 to P2. Other firms anticipate this increase, therefore keep their prices untouched. Quantity sold would plunge from point Q1 to Q2. This fall in sales is greater than the increase in price, and so leads to an overall fall in revenue; hence the elastic demand curve (curve A). However if this firm chose as an alternative, to lower its prices from point P1 to P3, other firms would follow suit, with the intentions of not losing market share to its rival. Consequently quantity sold would only increase from point Q1 to Q3. The fall in price would have to be larger for it to accommodate the increase in sales, hence the inelastic demand curve (curve B). Again this decision would result in a reduction in revenue, bearing in mind a fall in market share. Thus firms are reluctant to change prices due to the effects mentioned. Therefore, price stability is imposed under oligopoly markets; in turn firms focus on aspects of non-price competition. Such practices may include extra after-sales services, longer opening times, extended warranties and extensive advertising campaigns etc. Non-price competition would therefore shift the demand curve or the firm successfully makes the price elasticity of demand for the product less elastic, thus developing brand loyalty amongst consumers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Price/non-price competition involves firms behaving interdependently. Seeking to eliminate market uncertainty is a key desire for a market dominated by a few large firms. Thus businesses are keen to collude with competitors to reduce the effects of interdependence, either collude openly (formal agreements), or tacitly (informally under the radar). Formal collusive agreements bring forth the formation of a cartel. The advantages of such cartels, is that firms are able to achieve joint profit maximisation. Each member of the cartel is given an output quota usually depending upon each firms market share, which as a whole will maximise the cartels profits at the profit maximising price. Cartels therefore act as if they were a monopoly, taking control of the whole industry, whereby it is able to restrict output and raise prices (disadvantages of a monopoly structure). Consumer surplus is restricted and producer sovereignty exploited. As an assumption, there are a total of five firms in the industry, each agreed to be a member of the cartel. For the members to achieve joint profit maximisation, the cartel thus has to produce at its profit maximising level at point where marginal costs (MC) equals marginal revenue (MR). Thus the cartel, therefore the industry produces 4000 units which are then sold at the price of  £6. Assuming that each firm shares an equal amount of the market, for that reason each firm is given an output quota of 800 units. By analysing each firm independently (figure 3), the quota of 800 units does not lie at their profit maximising level. For this reason, the firm is likely to cheat, maybe undercut the cartel price or increase output to maximise its utility. Assuming the firm agrees not to change the price, for the firm to maximise its profits, it would have to increase output to 2400 units at the point where the cartels price (MR) equals the firms MC curve. At the cartel output, it would ac hieve revenue of  £4800. By increasing output to 2400 units it can boost revenue to  £14400; a good 200% increase in revenue. This would only occur if the firm can control total market share, taking the other members out of the equation. In turn if the firm wished to profit maximise using its own curves, it would therefore sell 1600 units at a price of  £4 at where MC=MR. By undercutting the cartel price the firm can attract extra customers, therefore increase supernormal profits. Interestingly, other member firms are also likely to lower their prices in the midst of cheating, which could lead to a price war, eventually leading to the breakdown of the cartel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For the reasons mentioned above, i.e. cartels behaving as a monopoly and the breakdowns of the cartels can lead to increased price fluctuations; in the interests of consumers, cartels are deemed illegal in many countries including the UK. Cartels, being against the public interest, its in the interests of the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to investigate such cartel behaviour and counteract the cartels intentions. Bearing in mind that cartels are against the public interest, there is one cartel being in favour of consumers and the economy as a whole. It is not formed by a group of member firms, but formed with member countries; OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). As stated, OPECs mission is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of Member Countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital to those investing in the petroleum industry (OPEC, http://www.opec.org/home/ ). Assuming OPEC keeps to its mission, it is truthful to say that OPEC aims to strengthen the global economy, bringing price stability in the commodity market. However other firms caught with price fixing have not had the same treatment. Just recently the New York Times has published LCD makers fined $585 million for price fixing (New York Times, Published; November 13 2008, by Steve Lohr). LG Display, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes were investigated and pled guilty of fixing the price of their liquid crystal display panels and were fined a total of $585 million by the U.S. Justice Departments antitrust division.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The difficulties faced with open collusion, and the consequences (the Competition Commission can fine the firms involved in cartel behaviour 10% of their worldwide turnover), means that firms are often reluctant to form cartels, therefore take the chances to collude tacitly. There are a few methods of tacit collusion, the popular being Dominant-firm Price Leadership. In simple terms the dominant firm in the industry becomes the price leader, at which the other firms tactically follow the dominant firms price changes, yet also keeping a close eye on their rivals. There is some evidence linking the supermarket industry to this method of dominant-firm price leadership, whereby Tesco being the dominant of all supermarkets. As published by TNSGlobal, for the 12 weeks ending 1st November 2009 show that Tesco has grown its market share from 30.6% a year ago to 30.7% now. TNSGlobal claims that, Tescos growth rate of 4.7% year-on-year beats the market avera ge of 4.4% (TNSGlobal, www.tnsglobal.com ). Being the dominant in the industry, it therefore acts as a price setter, resulting in the other firms following the price changes. However this strategy has been a prime condition of Tesco (to control the market), up until the moment one of the supermarket firms cheats by undercutting the price and not following the price leadership strategy. This has been the case recently (from personal experiences), that Asda is the better value supermarket, and may be voted as the credit crunch climate favourite. Asdas main advantage for the consumer is that there are a wide range of discounted products, that even Tesco and other supermarkets cant match. Instead of the price leadership tactic, oligopolies may indulge in price parallelism, whereby each firms price movements are parallel with their rivals. Such a policy requires no dominant firm imposing price changes. Besides firms who dominate the industry being the price leader, firms may become a barometer of market conditions, whereby firms engage in the tactic of barometric price leadership. This form of approach unfolds when a firm can successfully anticipate future market conditions in the short run, applying their knowledge to price changes. Firms neither have to be dominating the industry nor be a large firm. Price changes thus reflect changes in market demand or supply, where the firm who predicts such changes in the market becomes the barometer in the industry in which fellow competitors follow. From such a policy, it is important to note that firms frequently switch between the roles of a price leader to a price follower. As a precaution, following firms may delay their price changes in order to be sure that the price changes by the barometer is consistent with the results obtained of the current market situation. Therefore a time lag may arise, or firms may decide that results are inc onsistent with the barometer, thus leave their price unchanged, undercutting the price leader. In the interest of each firm, costs may rise as a result of marker research, therefore in order to minimise the costs, firms may just follow the price changes of the price leader without undertaking research, in the hope that the barometer is correct about current or future market conditions. Firms may compete in terms of the Bertrand model. This model assumes that there are two firms in the industry (duopoly). Both firms aim for price stability in order to reduce menu costs. Hence both firms set their prices at where it would have been in a perfectly competitive market, usually making normal profit. This point refers to the Nash equilibrium. This ensures that neither firm can undercut the price, avoiding any price wars.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To conclude, it can be suggested that there is some correlation between the policies in which oligopolies compete at, and the contestability of the industry in which they operate in. A highly contestable market in which barriers to entry are low, pressurises firms to compete more aggressively, whereas if incumbent firms have successfully erected high barriers to entry, whether natural or man-made barriers; the industry becomes less contestable, providing incentives to collude to maintain market share. There is a high probability that the formation of cartels will inevitably lead to the breakdown of the cartel, for reasons of cheating. Price fixing or other forms of agreement never maximises each firms benefit. However, this statement only relates to the short term, but an agreement with other firms does reduce uncertainty, therefore benefiting firms in the long run to maintain supernormal profits. Member firms must find ways to restrict other membe rs from cheating on the cartel price. Therefore the profit loss incurred by deviating from the cartel should exceed the profit loss by remaining in the cartel. As shown by figure 3, this is difficult to achieve. Theoretically, it is easy to form a cartel when approached via the text-book assumptions. However in the real world, it is difficult without perfect information being available. Research suggests that, differences in product life cycles and fluctuations in demand create instability among agreements, which naturally fractures the cartel (Haltiwanger and Harrington (1991)). Collusion to mimic operations as a monopoly allows investment in research and development to be funded collectively via joint profit maximisation, benefiting consumers in the long run. In essence, firms who compete without any form of collusion or agreements, have greater scope to maximise personal utility, by developing brand loyalty among consumers, thus being able to successfully increase market share. T his would be the best policy to approach benefiting both the firms and the consumer, yet avoiding any government intervention. References Garner, E. (2009). Tesco Share Turnaround. Available: http://www.tnsglobal.com/_assets/files/worldpanel_marketshare_oct2009.pdf. Last accessed 03/12/2009. Haltiwanger, J. and J. Harrington (1991), The impact of cyclical demand movements on collusive behaviour, Rand Journal of Economics, 22:89- 106. Lohr, S. (2008) LCD makers fined $585 million for price fixing, New York Times, 13 November. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/technology/13iht-13panel.17777580.html?_r=1scp=1sq=LCD%20makers%20fined%20%24585%20million%20for%20price%20fixingst=cse. Last accessed 03/12/2009 OPEC. (n.d.). OPECs Mission. Available: http://www.opec.org/home/ . Last accessed 02/12/2009.

Impacts of Dehydration on the Body

Impacts of Dehydration on the Body Helen McHugh Why is dehydration and electrolyte imbalance a danger? Dehydration is described as ‘an excessive loss of water from body tissues’ (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) and it also affects an imbalance of electrolytes in the body. It can be very dangerous and even fatal as most of the physiological systems in the body are dependent on water levels and the changes in concentrations of the electrolytes will disturb almost every vital function of the body. (Martini Nath, 2009) How have the functions of the skin been impaired? The body’s first line of defence has been breached, allowing pathogens and bacteria to penetrate the body as well as impairing its ability to regulate temperature, synthesis Vitamin D and loss of some senses i.e. touch, pressure. How will the body try and repair the areas that have been burnt? This will happen in three stages, Inflammation, Reconstruction and Maturation. Inflammation – this stage takes approximately 3 days and happens immediately the wound occurs. The inflammation causes an increased blood flow to surrounding tissues which produces erythema, swelling, heat and discomfort. As a defence response, different types of white blood cells called polymorphonuclear leucocytes arrive at the wound and are involved in the immune response to fight infection. Reconstruction This stage can take from between 2 – 24 days and is a time of cleaning and temporary replacement of tissue. Polymorphs kill the bacteria and phagocytic macrophages digest the dead bacteria and clean the wound. Epidermal cells start to activate, new blood capillaries are developed and granulation tissue is laid down. Epithelial cells move over the granulation from the edges of the wound. When the wound is covered the epithelium thickens to 4-5 layers, forming the epidermis. The wound would then start to contract reducing in size. Maturation – This stage can take between 24 days to 1 year. This is the remodeling stage where collagen cells are reorganized and strengthened. The wound is still at risk during this stage and protection is necessary. (Koutoukidis, et al., 2013) What could impede the body from successfully achieving this? Think of internal and external factors when you answer this. Intrinsic- (Internal) Health Status – Illnesses/Conditions/Diseases can affect healing, i.e. anaemia, immune disorders, cancer, diabetes. Age – Older people take longer to heal due to slower metabolism, thinner skin and less elasticity of skin. Bodybuild – Both Obese and Thin people can have various issues related to healing Lifestyle factors – Smoking, Alcohol can have contraindications to healing Nutritional status Extrinsic (External) Mechanical stress Debris – scabs, necrotic tissue, and excess slough can all impair epithelial migration and supply of nutrient. Also prolongs inflammatory stage. Temperature – Extremes can cause tissue damage Desiccation or maceration – Both dryness and excess moisture can slow healing Infection – Bacteria slows wound healing Chemical stress (Lumsden, 2014) Mary undergoes debridement of the burns. What does this mean? Debridement is the first step in cleansing. It is to remove dirt, foreign objects, damaged tissue and cellular debris from wound/burn which promotes healing and helps prevent infection. (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) The burns were subsequently grafted with a split skin graft. What layers of the skin are used for this graft? A split thickness skin graft is a tissue transplant using both the epidermis and part of the dermis layer. (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) 3.1 Admission Form Acute Pain Observation Chart Observation chart Fluid Balance Chart Medication Chart Neurovascular Chart Intravenous Drug Chart Care Plan Progress Notes 4.2 Define Hypertension and Arteriosclerosis Hypertension – Elevated blood pressure consistently over 140/90 Arteriosclerosis A thickening/ calcification of arterial walls and loss of elasticity in arterial walls. The result of this is reduced blood supply. (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) How are they often related? High blood pressure (hypertension) can cause a build up of the muscular and elastic tissues of the arterial walls – hypertensive arteriosclerosis (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) Why is hypertension called the ‘Silent killer’ Hypertension is called the silent killer because it can often be asymptomatic, i.e. no symptoms are apparent. There is no single cause but there are possible risk factors. (Mosby Elsevier, 2009) Name three changes in your lifestyle that may help prevent cardiovascular disease in old age. Do not smoke, Eat healthy and exercise more. Undesirable clot formation can occur as a result of endothelial damage due to arteriosclerosis. How does the body form undesirable clots within intact blood vessels? If the endothelium of a blood vessel is rough it can encourage clinging of platelets which can be a risk factor for blood clotting (Thrombus) The legs are particularly prone to the formation of blood clots and can be caused by blood pooling in the legs or slowly flowing blood especially in immobilized patients. (Marieb, 2003) 5.2 At handover you are told a patient is cyanotic. What would you expect to observe? Define tissue hypoxia. Three conditions where this could occur. Cyanosis presents as a bluish discolouration of the skin and mucous membranes caused by not enough oxygen in the blood and excess of deoxygenated blood. I would expect to see a bluish colour on the skin of the patient, possibly on lips, nailbeds, tip of the nose, external ear and underside of the tongue. Three conditions where this could occur are Asthma Emphysema Heart failure 5.3 Describe the difference between tracheostomy and endotracheal intubation. An endotracheal intubation is a flexible cuffed tube inserted via the mouth or nostril through the larynx into the trachea, whereas a tracheostomy is a surgical creation of an external opening into the trachea. (Koutoukidis, et al., 2013) 5.4 Why will a patient who is anaemic complain of shortness of breath? Being anaemic means that you do not have enough red blood cells in your body. The red bolos cells carry oxygen around the body and remove carbon dioxide. Fewer less red blood cells equals less oxygen which equals shortness of breath. (Koutoukidis, et al., 2013) 5.5. What type of allergic reaction is suspected? Anaphylaxis is suspected. This condition may be fatal. Why has this caused problems with his breathing? The upper respiratory tract is often involved with nasal congestion or sneezing and tightness in the throat may occur with significant airway obstruction. The patient can have bronchospasm or upper airway swelling (S Shahzad Mustafa, 2013) 6.1 Sever appendicitis, what would be result if left untreated? The appendix can perforate spilling the contents into the abdominal cavity causing peritonitis. (Koutoukidis, et al., 2013) 6.2 Why does a lack of fibre in the diet encourage the formation of diverticula? Faeces usually move along the large bowel with gentle peristalsis; however when there is insufficient fibre in the diet the faeces may become dry and is more difficult to move along with peristalsis. The intestinal muscles then have to perform strong contractions and generate high pressure. This high pressure may cause bulging pouches in the intestinal mucosa and these are called diverticula. (Murtagh, 1995) 6.3 Explain why obstruction in the common bile duct causes interference with the digestion of some foods? An Obstruction would prevent bile from entering the small intestine. The bile is needed to aid digestion and is needed to breakdown large fat globules into small ones. When the food is not digesting properly bile can back up into the gallbladder. It then becomes concentrated by removal of water and the cholesterol it contains may crystallize and form gallstones. Blockage of the common bile duct can also stop bile entering the small intestine and backing up into the liver and bile salts and bile pigments will begin to enter the bloodstream and as this circulates through the body the tissues will become yellow or jaundiced. (Marieb, 2003) 6.4 What nursing observations of their skin, faeces and urine would support the diagnosis of an obstructed bile duct? Where would these observations be recorded? Bilirubin levels will increase in the blood and this can cause yellow, jaundiced skin, dark urine and pale coloured faeces. Itching of the skin may also occur. Recorded in progress notes, fluid balance and bowel chart and observation chart, care plan and urinalysis. (Marieb, 2003) 8.2 Adrenaline affects the sympathetic nervous system. Explain the effect on blood pressure, heart beat, breathing and the liver. Blood Vessels – Constricts blood vessels In viscera and skin, increases blood pressure Heart – Increases rate and force Liver – Causes glucose to be released to blood. All of these effects are part of the fight or flight response. The body alters its normal state to one of optimum performance in order for us to take flight (run faster) the heart beat starts to pound, our breathing gets deeper, driving oxygen around the body and glucose is released into the blood stream to give us energy. (Marieb, 2003) 9.1 Explain why someone who is haemorrhaging, i.e. has falling systemic blood pressure/volume will have a decreased urine output. When there is significant blood loss the blood pressure falls and the blood pressure in the renal artery will also fall. The body tries to raise the blood pressure by preventing further water and electrolyte loss. To do this the kidney secretes the hormone ‘renin’ which stimulates other hormones to cause vasoconstriction (Marieb, 2003) References: Koutoukidis, G., Stainton, K. Hughson, J., 2013. Tabbners nursing Care Theory and Practice. 6th ed. NSW: Elsevier. Lumsden, S., 2014. Wound Management Class Notes. Adelaide: s.n. Marieb, E., 2003. Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology. 7th ed. San Francisco: Pearson Education Ltd. Martini, F. Nath, J. L., 2009. Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology. 8th ed. San Francisco: Pearson Education Inc. Mosby Elsevier, 2009. Mosbys Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing and Health Professions. 8th ed. s.l.:Mosby. Murtagh, J., 1995. Diverticular Disease. [Online] Available at: http://www.nevdgp.org.au/info/murtagh/general/Diverticulardisease.htm [Accessed 25th February 2014]. S Shahzad Mustafa, M., 2013. Anaphylaxis Clinical Presentation. [Online] Available at: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/135065-clinical [Accessed 25th February 2014]. 1

Television Programing Essay -- Technology, TV, Internet

In the beginning, television programming was free for anybody with a television set and an antenna. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many channels to choose from and they were all loaded with ads. Later, cable companies found success for themselves by charging consumers to pipe an ever increasing number of channels into their homes. But it still seemed like there was never anything good, and it was all still loaded with ads. Now advanced telecommunications technology enables consumers to access television and video content on demand via the internet, provided they have a broadband, or high speed, connection. The increasing market penetration of broadband internet service may be leading consumers to abandon traditional television in favor of internet based on-demand video distribution, and forcing traditional television content producers to find new ways to maintain profits in the wake of this change. Watching high quality video content on a television screen via the internet has become easy for the average consumer. Streaming video players, which connect televisions to the internet and allow someone to easily navigate the vast sea of internet video content, are readily available for purchase in electronics stores. One such product, the Roku 2 HD, retails for about $60 and allows access to hundreds of online video channels without subscription fees over a broadband internet connection (â€Å"Choose your Roku†, 2011; â€Å"Roku channel store†, 2011). Meanwhile, Cox Communications charges about $20 per month for a very basic programming package consisting of 23 channels (â€Å"Cox Communications†, 2011). Since the Roku only costs the equivalent of three months worth of the most basic cable television service and does not require a subscription ... ...ly $734 million of that is from video (Perren, 2010, p. 74). While the advertising revenues are still small for online video, the number of people that are viewing is large, and it is getting larger quickly. In November 2010, The Washington Post published an article that that noted Netflix’s video service alone made up roughly 30% of all consumer internet traffic during the busiest times (as cited in Kang, 2011a). With so many consumers shifting over to online viewing, it is apparent that the industry will have to find a way to make it work. The consumer trend towards broadband internet connections and internet based on-demand video services is clear. Cable companies will continue to lose their once dominant positions unless they are able to leverage these new technologies to improve their customers’ experiences while increasing value of their advertising space.

The Character of Esteban in The House of the Spirits :: House of the Spirits Essays

The Character of Esteban in The House of the Spirits Allende portrays Esteban as having a strong and harsh character in the novel, The House of the Spirits. Yet, after leaving, his mother and sister, and starting a new and independent life, Esteban changes much. For the first time he is successful and wealthy. He feels as if he has no problems, mainly because he does not have a family to weigh him down. Trueba's move to Three Marias seems to appease his hunger temporarily, before his monstrous, demanding, and ever growing needs overwhelms him. The type of lifestyle achieved by Esteban Trueba in Three Marias far surpassed that of living with his mother and sister, however only brief moments of satisfaction are incurred. These, previously mentioned, moments created a hunger for perfection and greed that would continue perpetuate at any cost. Receiving a letter from Ferula brings back memories for Esteban of his sad life with her and his mother, which forces him to endure his memories of poverty and pain. He even remembers the smell of medicince, which had encompassed their home. These memories force Esteban to reflect on the reasons why he left them. He reminisces on that portion of his life, occupied by the deterioration of his family. Ferula endured many burdens as well, due to their father's drinking, then his death, their mother's age, her chronic sicknesses, and Esteban's childho od care. A direct result of these chaotic years is the siblings inability to relate. When Esteban bought a luxury, an elaborate coffee with his money she scolded him for "spending Mama's medicine money on [his] private little whims" (Allende 43). Eventually Esteban tires of this oppressive way of life and goes to search for a "destiny that was bright, free, and full of promise" (Allende 44). At Tres Marias he hopes to find his Eden. All this cargo from his past is called to his attention by the letter he receives from Ferula. The letter does result in inflicting guilt on Esteban, for his lack of morals and complete selfishness. Ferula tells Esteban, in the letter, that their mother wants to see her son again before she dies. "Esteban had never really loved his mother or felt at ease in her presence," but he knew that resisting this visit to pay his last respects would be unethical (Allende 71).

Dry White Season Summary Essay

Summary – â€Å"Dry White Season† Adam Simon – CGW 4U1 Dry White Season was what I felt to be an exemplary interpretation of how native South Africans truly condemned the immoral Apartheid political system of the mid 1900’s. Though the film was quite graphic, explicit nature seemed necessary to prove how racial brutality towards the black community really did exist. I enjoyed the whole idea of a narrow-minded white man making the transition from a life of socially superior racial prejudice to become a devoted supporter of black rights. I found this really helped create a strong liberal message to aid viewers in understanding the sick intolerance of the majority of white South Africans at that time. Racial separation was clearly evident to me while watching this video, as I noticed blacks being forced into their own â€Å"homelands† which retained a much more compact living than the whites, as well as Afrikaans being sub-divided into smaller ethnic groups to make whites appear to be the largest authority in South Africa. Blacks outnumbered whites 6 : 1) I think A Dry White season illustrated very well how the whites compromised such a small portion of the country, yet ultimately dominated the South African government, recourses, and economy. I really liked the use of indirect symbols to cleverly make points throughout the movie. For example, the white boy and the black boy happily playing together in the beginning was a interesting way to foresee an ideal future for South Africa that was obviously non-existent at that time. Also, Susanne slipping on her sunglasses was a clever way to show how whenever she was given opportunity to contradict the Apartheid, she simply ignored it. This represented her blindness from the truth well, and how she was ultimately hiding from the light of reality. The film became somewhat predictable as we were given more and more insight into each character though. All main characters seemed to follow the generic arrangement that is seen in various other stories that result in a strictly complete and final moral. Benjamin is the hero; the incoherent individual that learns an unpleasant lesson due to one event that changed the course of all events prior, (Gordon’s death) Captain Stoltz was the villain; the sadistic, power hungry oppressor with manipulative ways that ended up determining his fate, Johan represented the loyal and resourceful character that led the viewer to believe there was a shed of hope throughout any struggle, and Stanley was the character I’ve seen way too often, the random bystander that provides the cathartic release by ultimately giving the villain what he deserved. Despite some predictable qualities, the characters were still interesting. I thought Donald Sutherland played the part of Benjamin superbly. His air of seriousness and integrity really keep me interested in his character. Sure, he was naive before the death of Gordon, and it was â€Å"best to just let it go† at first, but he grew from being pessimistic and cynical, to an entirely optimistic, likeable person to me the end by going neck deep into the mystery of Gordon‘s disappearance. My favourite character of all though, was no doubt Mr. McKenzie. Though he only was vaguely present, he absolutely dominated the screen during the courtroom trial. I found his use of sarcastic remarks in the courtroom hilarious, yet so fittingly applicable to his realist character. He clearly is a trail blazer in the sense that he is a white man fighting for black rights, yet he does so anyways, just to wittingly prove his point so well. This film helped me see how cynical the South African government really was. Their response to any criticism was basically that they had their own right to pursue its own domestic policy as it sees fit. I though it was interesting how South Africa was also quick to point out how blacks in South Africa had the highest standard of living amongst all blacks in Africa. It’s ironic that they do not admit that this is still an absolute garbage living standard, and blacks here were still innocently imprisoned and couldn’t even educate themselves in English to gain better chances at surviving in the workforce. Countries like Canada could do a number of things to show their unacceptance of Apartheid policies. First, they could employ trade sanctions against South Africa and refuse to remove these sanctions until all Apartheid policies were destroyed. Also, they could remove South Africa from major events such as the Olympics (recently in Vancouver, Canada) and furthermore decline their entry until these policies are abolished. Canadian business people, activists and clergy also played parts in bringing about all-race elections in 1994, and a surprisingly peaceful end to apartheid. I think Canada is also involved in major discussion at UN and related meetings, which allows them to converse with other countries along with adding innovating suggestions of their own, to help diminish racist policies altogether. As a whole, after seeing this movie for the second or third time now, I can honestly say I have a sincere appreciation for what black South Americans went though in the apartheid times, and that I entirely oppress any association with these obscene policies.

American Colonies in Early 1600 and 1700.

America’s colonial history can be described in terms of the economic, political and social events of the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The two centuries came with two sets of societies altogether. No historian will contest the fact that the start of the 1600 and its formative years marks the starting point of the American colonies’ history of existence. The American native society had a tight hold of their territories albeit without any form of a structured government but had a well organized defense outfit to check  intruders (Adams, 1921).The invasion by the English and other European giants and subsequent formation of the thirteen colonies was characterized by tribal and cross culture fights pitting mainly the native tribes against the colonizing English between 1600-1650. This points to an era of cultural disorientation and societal instability. Disease, poor weather and tribal warfare made it impossible for meaningful political, social and economic e ndeavors to materialize. Small-scale farming was the main economic activity in this era. The introductionof tea and tobacco in early 1600 gave the American colonies the opportunity of agriculture for trade and subsistence. The 1700 came with a different social, economic and political arrangement (Adams, 1921). The thirteen colonies each had an elaborate governance structure. The American colony of Pennsylvania had its first constitution in1701, no doubt then that the society already had a sense of respect for human rights and freedoms as they would call it ‘the Charter of Privileges’. This new set of laws guided governance and people’s conduct within and without the society (Schlesinger & Arthur, 1993).AMERICAN COLONIES IN EARLY 1600-1700Agriculture took a new angle during this era. Large scale farming replaced the old fashioned small scale and subsistence farming of the early 1600. Big plantations were put up by wealthy landowners of the southern colonies who al so engaged in hunting. This agrarian culture effectively put to an end the perennial hunger of the previous decade. There is a marked difference in the educational setup of the two eras. The early sixteenth century saw nothing much of formal education.Public schools were established and grammar schools became common place between 1700 and 1750. College education gained value and in effect Yale College was founded in 1701. Later, a pioneer journal was published and the freedom of the press and liberties was enacted (Schlesinger, 1993). The era of 1600-1650 had witnessed a culture of ignorance and disenfranchisement coupled with religious and cultural intolerance. Impunity went unpunished resulting in many killings and murders with anti-establishment figures being banished or executed.The society of the 1700-1750 era led a different lifestyle compared to that of 1600-1650. These people were a lot more economically stable (Gipson, 1936-1970). A pointer to this is their love for fashion and big life contrary to their early sixteenth century counterparts where starvation and hard labor punctuated their lives. The former had enough to spend and spare and even dress well owing to a healthy economy while the latter barely managed to scrape through life. The Great Awakening movement by Jonathan Edwards in the 1730s and 1740sdemonstrates a great difference in religious faiths of the two eras as he calls his group ‘new lights’ and the previous religions ‘old lights’. With this evangelistic movement, the religious and social orientation changes and differs greatly from that of the 1600 – 1650 era.REFERENCESAdams, Truslow. J [1921]. The Founding of New England. Atlantic Monthly Press. New York.Gipson, L [1936-1970] The British Empire Before the American Revolution (15 volumes) Pulitzer Prize.Schlesinger, Jr. , Arthur M. [1993] The Almanac of American History. Nobles Books, Greenwich, CT.