Saurer: the China Challenge

The text talks about the enterprise Saurer, its history and strategy to face to the challenge of Asians competitors and at same time take advantage of the opportunities in that market. In December 2003, the management team of Saurer Twisting Systems was having difficulties with the choice of the functioning of their business. It appears a really strong competitor: Asia (specially China) who starts to hoard a big part of the market. There's a recession in the market and Volkmann (one of the brands of Saurer) realized that the sales of machines for making staple yarn for apparel are declining.Volkmann achieve to take the market segment of European and Japaneses competitors but now China competitors (specially Rifa who is the major competitor) have invested in research and development upgrading their process and lowering their costs. So now, Saurer has to face a big challenge: to produce a machine with a lower cost and good quality targeted at Asians consumers. This machine would have a lower margin in comparison with the others and for its lower costs could replace the existing high end machines. The management team would have to take some really hard decisions about: positioning, pricing, naming the product and sales strategy.And there's still the question about how the Chinese competitors would react with the launch of the new product Saurer was founded in 1853 by Franz Saurer, at the beginning it was a small foundry and engineering workshop, 15 years later it begins building embroidery machines and starts diversification with a variety of industries. Saurer acquires some enterprises like: Hamel, Volkmann, Allma, Schlafhorst, Melco and Zinser. Most of the acquisitions were in textile machinery and based in Germany. With the acquisition of Barmag and Neumag in 1999, Saurer leads the production of machines for producing and finishing chemical fibers.The enterprise creates Saurer Textile Solutions (STS), comprised by nine textile strategic business units. Its miss ion was â€Å"to be the undebated market leader for full service solutions in textile engineering and set continuously new benchmarks for efficient production. † In 2002, began the project Tempus, that pretends to change the processes and the corporate culture with the objective of satisfy more effectively the client needs and at the same time make lower the costs. In 2003, complete the program to outsource parts manufacturing (In Czech Republic and China), which allows a better capacity of adaptation at the needs of the market.But, even with all the achievements gotten by Saurer with these proyects, the CEO of the enterprise, Henry Fisher considers that there's still a lot of things that the enterprise must do in order to become a customer focused and responsive to customer needs company and he believed there's still opportunities to be a better company. Now the author proceed to describe the textile industry (that has 4 major value-added steps: fiber, yarns, fabrics and app arel and made up textile articles) and textile machinery industry (where STS is the largest manufacturer of textile machinery).He talks about the growing of the industry (by 2% to 3% per year) and the most important productors (Asia, specially China). Next, the author recall the strategic importance of China in the industry, that importance is principally because: China is a big source of textile raw materials. China has a large domestic market China has a growing position in textile exports. China's labors costs are really low Chinese infrastructure, labor market and productivity are better than in other countries. Additionally, in 2003 more than 70% of textile manufacturing investments were being made in Asia with about a half of those in China.For these reasons, success in China becomes a really important issue for Saurer, the enterprise's sales depends on Asian markets, specially China. The predecessor companies of Saurer were participants in Chinese market, Barmag was cooperati ng with some Chinese companies, establishing Joint ventures in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuxi. But, these partners in JV started to develop their own products using the knowledge received from Barmag, giving parts with low quality and destroying the image of Barmag products, there was a conflict of interests.In 2001 after the problems with their partners, Barmag liquidate the Shanghai JV and established the Barmag Textile Machinery in Suzhou. Then, Saurer decided to established a direct presence in the Chinese market, finding a really strong competition in that market. In 2003, Saurer has a good participation in the Chinese market, in 2005 planned to build a major new facility in Suzhou that would allow it to consolidate in one location much of its procurement activities. Now the author proceed to talk about one of the brands of Saurer: Volkmann.Volkmann was founded in 1904 by Volkmann Brothers in Krefeld, Germany. At the beginning, the enterprise produces machinery for the local silk a nd velvet industry. After II World War starts building machinery for the manufacture of yarns. In 1954, Volkmann developed the â€Å"two-for-one† twisting machine that was more productive and cost effective that the existent machines, this gives to the company an advantage over its competitors. Volkmann grow becoming a really good mid-sized enterprise, but there’s the need of been part of a bigger enterprise in order to grow even more.In 1990 there's a merger with Saurer, but the brand Volkmann as the Allma's were retained. In 1994 Volkmann introduces a new machine called the CompactTwister, created to satisfy the needs of the customers in the new emerging textile markets. The enterprise wanted to get a biggest segment of the Asian market, so they created the project â€Å"Dragon† that consists in create a plant in Suzhou, China in 1997 in order to produce a machine with same characteristics as the one produced in Germany but with a lower cost and price, the pla n was, to export the machine to other markets in the Far East overtime.This project has their risks, specially the quality of the final product, because it would work with some parts produced in china, what could give a low quality. As a result of this project, twisting systems was the first Saurer business unit to establish its own manufacturing operation in China. It starts producing in may 1998 and the price of these machines were 15% lower that the German-Built Machine. The product was good sold, and the degree of the CompactTwister's success were pleasant surprises for Saurer management.One of the challenges that Volkmann has to face was to understand the Asian customers needs, totally different to the occidental customer’s. They look for the lower cost local manufacturer. Given the low labor costs and the ease of replacing workers, most Chinese companies had little interest in machine ergonomics and automation. But now the old attitudes were starting to change as more C hinese managers began to appreciate the efficiency of the machines and the quality of the products they produced, that will enable them to increase revenue.Also there's a difference between occidental and oriental's about after-sales service and support. , in China, there was little interest in preventative maintenance or annual contracts. The attitude was to repair the machine when it broke down and only to replace a part when it failed. The result of these attitudes was that Saurer's after-sales spare parts and service in China were only about one third level achieved in Western countries. This is a lost opportunity to the enterprise to gets close to the customer and discover news opportunities of business by discovering new needs.In China, Volkmann, has 2 major competitors: Muratec (Japan) and Savio (Italy). Also, the domestic Chinese competitors had become important in the textile machinery market. They had a dominant position and don't respect the intellectual property of weste rn and Japanese manufacturers (for example, the CompactTwister was really imitated). By 2003 there were 3 major Chinese competitors with another 10-15 local companies in the market. Rifa Textile Machines was the largest of the three.Founded in 1993, by the 2003 it had 5 subsidiary companies producing different types of textile machines, this enterprise has good coverage all over China. The second one is Taitan, is smaller tan Rifa but its strategy is similar. Wanli is the third competitor. The panorama in India is similar to what happen in China, the strongest local competitor is Veejay Lakshmi, that captured about 70% market share in the Indian market and is exporting its machines to other countries. In Pakistan, Muratec had the dominant market but Rifa is gaining some participation.Volkmann's participation in both countries is low. In order to response to the local Chinese Challenge, Volkmann make a project to create a new twisting machine that would meet the needs of many lower-e nd customers making cotton and cotton blend yarns with medium and fine yarn counts. This machine should have a good performance and productivity and at same time be cheaper than the others. Now the question is, Should or not Volkmann launch that new low-end machine, what would be the consequences for the image of the company to produce a machine not as good as the others but cheaper than then?Is there a big market for that kind of product? How would the competitor to react if the company launch this product? If Volkmann decide to launch the new machine would be necessary to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy; The major issues that needed to be addressed was the exact value proposition that would be communicated to the target customers, the pricing of the new product, the branding and naming of the product and the sales and marketing communications strategy.

A Biographical Review of the Glass Menagerie

A Biographical Analysis of The Glass Menagerie and Tennessee Williams It’s apparent in the play and the life of Tennessee Williams that he was, in fact, writing about himself and his family when he wrote The Glass Menagerie. The Glass Menagerie was the first success of Tennessee Williams career. He says in the beginning of the play, †I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion† (Williams 47). The characters Tom, Laura, and Amanda are very much like Williams, his sister Rose, and his mother Edwina.We are able to see this when we look into Tennessee Williams’ life. Tom, the narrator, can be viewed as himself, Thomas Lanier Williams. There are many similarities between his life and his character Tom’s life. These similarities can be found in his actions, the actions in the life of his family. First we look at Tennessee Williams life, and how it is very identical to the life of the character Tom. â€Å"He is the narrator, an undisguised inventi on of the play. He takes whatever license with dramatic convention as is convenient to his purposes.I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. The other characters are my mother, Amanda, my sister, Laura. † (Williams 47). Tom is the narrator, and the narrator is the one who tells the story, we can justify that Tom resembles Tennessee Williams. This means we can also relate Amanda to Williams mother Edwina Williams and Laura as his sister, Rose Williams. Tennessee Williams dropped out of high school when his father asked him to leave school to work in a warehouse. In the play, Tom also dropped out of school to work in a shoe factory.Tom says,† Listen! You think I’m crazy about the warehouse! You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that Celotex interior! With fluorescent tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains than go back mor nings! † (Williams 56). Both Williams and Tom blamed their families for their horrible jobs and the lives they lived. Williams loved poetry and was his way of escaping the thought of his terrible job and depressing life. Tom is also a poet in our play. Jim knew of my secret practice of retiring to a cabinet of the washroom to work on poems when business was slack in the warehouse. He called me Shakespeare. † (Williams 68). Both Tom and Williams wanted to get out of their real lives by playwright and poetry. Like Tom, Tennessee Williams left home to live in New Orleans when he was 28. Moreover, Tom is a little bit younger than this in the play. Tom leaves home in the end because it is holding him back from what he wants to do. â€Å"His nature is not remorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity. † (Williams 46).The father in The Glass Menagerie worked for a phone company who fell in love with distance. †He gave up the job with the telepho ne company and skipped the light fantastic of this town. † (Williams 47). Tennessee Williams’ father was a traveling salesman. Just like in The Glass Menagerie, Williams’ father was also not home as often as his family would’ve liked. While he was growing up, Tennessee Williams and his family moved into an apartment in St. Louis. The front door of their house was opening up to look at an alley. In the play, Tom describes to the audience where his family lives.He says, â€Å"The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire-escape, a structure whose name is a bit of accidental truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation. â€Å"(Williams 46). Also, Tennessee Williams eventually spent some time at Washington University in St. Louis but ended up going to the University of Iowa instead. In The Glass Menagerie, Tom’s mother Amanda says to him, â€Å"a night-school course in accou nting at Washington-U! Just think what a wonderful thing that would be for you son. † (Williams 62).We can see how Tennessee Williams didn’t want to remain in St. Louis University to attend school. Tennessee Williams and his sister were very close. him around like a ghost through his life and his art because she was not all there with him. However, he loved her very much, like Tom in The Glass Menagerie loves his sister Amanda. Tom says to his mother, â€Å"Laura seems all those things to you and me because she’s ours and we love her. We don t even notice she’s crippled anymore. † (Williams 66). It is also true that the Character Laura in The Glass Menagerie is very much like Williams’ sister Rose.She was diagnosed clinically insane in 1938 after he graduated from the University of Iowa. It’s obvious that Laura seems very strange sometimes. Tom say’s â€Å"Laura is very different from other girls. Through the eyes of strangers, she’s terribly shy, and lives in a world of her own and those things maker her seem a little peculiar to people outside the house. † (Williams 66). Rose spent almost all of her life in sanitariums. Edwina tried to find Rose a mate by sending her to Business College, but failed her first assignment and never continued.Amanda says to Laura, â€Å"No dear, you go in the front room and study your typewriter chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! It’s almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving. (Williams 50). Amanda had also sent Laura to business school. In the play, Laura cracks under pressure and the scrutiny of her typewriting teacher and does not get a job to support her self. In Amanda and in Rose Williams’ life there was a gentleman caller in particular for Rose/Laura, who opened them up but never came back. â€Å"We are going to have one. What? A gentleman caller!Do you realize that he’s the first young man we’ve introduced to your sister? It’s terrible, dreadful, disgraceful that poor little sister has never received a single gentleman caller! † (Williams 64). Both in our play and also for the real Rose Williams, hopes were restrained on this young man whose characters referred to as Jim in The Glass Menagerie. Jim mistakes Laura’s absence of school for her sickness as Blue Roses and ends up referring to her as this through high school. This can also provide evidence that Laura is Rose Williams. In the start of The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams says this about Laura. A childhood illness has left her crippled exquisitely fragile. † (Williams 46). Rose was more mentally inept instead of having bad leg like Laura. However, they are both defected fragile young women who were abandoned by their fathers, gentlemen callers, and brothers in the end. Williams and his mother didn’t get along much and says this of her, â€Å"A little woman of g reat but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place certainly she has endurance and a kind of heroism, and though her foolishness makes her unwittingly cruel at times, there is great tenderness in her slight person. (Williams 46). This identifies description of what Edwina Williams was like. She obviously had many bad experiences with Tennessee Williams’ father that made her sad and difficult for Williams. Furthermore even though they didn’t get along, Williams loved his mother very much. His mother raised Williams almost entirely herself. She was domineering of him and very sheltering. Proof can be found during the exchange at the dinner table Amanda says to Tom â€Å"So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function! You re not excused from the table.You smoke too much. † (Williams 48). There are many instances where it is shown that, like in real life, the mother and son have a difficult time with each other. Tom is ve ry impatient of his mother but later says, â€Å"now that we cannot hear the mothers speech, her silliness is gone and she has dignity and tragic beauty. † (Williams 88). This evidence proves that, in the end, Williams loved his mother very much In the end of the play Tom says †Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, and I speak to the nearest stranger anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura and so good-bye. â€Å"(Williams 88). Tennessee Williams’ literary work was entirely in recognition and memoir to his sister, his family, and his life. Works Cited Rusinko, Susan. â€Å"Biography Of Tennessee Williams. † Critical Insights: Tennessee Williams. 8-13. n. p. : Salem Press, 2010. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. Williams, Tennes see. The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Directions, 1999. Print.

An Estimation of the Total Economic Value of a local park Essay

An Estimation of the Total Economic Value of a local park - Essay Example Total Economic Value of Kings Park is $6869.3m. Though the park authority is making much money, but they could make much more if they pay attention in terms of entrance fare, number of guides, transport services for foreign visitors, hospitality and other facilities. Having good and bad sides, Kings Park is one of the mentionable parks for its monuments that they have built for showing respect and honor to some people who have sacrificed their lives in different memorable events. Research means scrutinizing carefully of a certain topic. For this research-based project, we have told to make an estimation of the total economic value of a local public park. That means that kind of park, which is for public entertainment. For an example, the names of National Park, City Park, Mexican Forest Park, Bold Park, Central Park and many other parks of different countries may be mentioned here. As a real park, I have selected Kings Park of Western Australia as my chosen park. To do the project, I have done a questionnaire-based fieldwork (research based on questionnaire and making interviews of related groups), which made my project more reliable and easier to do. Though it is a short project, but I had to be careful in case of collecting information and applying them properly. My lack of knowledge and shortage of information were great limitations for this work, but the Park authority helped me very much by providing disc losable information. But they didn’t disc lose some confidential information, which is part of their business policy. I am very grateful to our instructor who has given me the opportunity to do the project that has enriched my knowledge, skills, and practical experiences on a mentionable place of a distinctive country. The streets of Kings Park are another symbol of peace. They are lined with individual plaques. The plaques are dedicated by Western Australian Service men and

The segmented labour market theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The segmented labour market theory - Essay Example It is evident from the study that there is a primary sector which produces jobs that have a secure tenure, good benefits, with better working conditions, while a secondary sector is full of instability, limited benefits, and hazardous working conditions with low pay. Thus, workers in industrialised nations do not want the secondary sector jobs, resulting in employers looking for recruits among immigrants to fill the rejected positions. This secondary sector has little mobility options that impact negatively on educational returns, skills, base and working experience as compared with nations. This has been evidenced by educated Mexicans with skills who have migrated internally rather than into the United States as immigrant labour thus this only changes during periods of financial crisis. The above theory can be related that throughout American history, the ambitious and unsatisfied always had an economic theme giving them reason to immigrate to another place. The first three countrie s of European settlement was evidenced by an outward mobility, i.e. getting immigrants to the continent, thereafter the frontier to develop it. After the disappearance of the frontier in the 19thC, foreign conquest continued for example acquisitions of places like Cuba, and the Philippines etc. Late 19thC i.e. from the late 1590s into 1960s due to industrialisation, internal mobility was witnessed i.e. from the rural areas to the cities beginning in the industrial worth then the South with health accumulation and plenty of white collar jobs, movements were from the cities into the suburbs. An aging population moved from the colder regions into the warmer climes. Creating attendant jobs in the construction, restaurants, retail and healthcare industries After the cold war, mobility has tended to stagnant as there has been a wide stagnation in the economic growth of the country. The previous decade witnessed the devaluation of most mortgages resulting in majority owning houses that are not worth the mortgage paid for initially. This segmented the country into the so-called I presenters against the 99ers. But in reality the segmentation has been into two classes: the immobile and mobile. This classification is due to the industrial vibrantly; in the 1870s young people want to Chicage, 1910s people want to Detroit while 1970s movement was to Housen. This were characterised by; cowboys, the auto industry and the oil industry. The cities had industries that could after both skilled and unskilled people ample work. Nowadays due to the decline in industrial activities, mobility tends to be zero. The tech industry still offers jobs to the highly skilled although recruitment in those high tech industries like Silicon Valley computers, Raleigh-Dusham-bio- tech research is global recruitment for people with specific skills (www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/.../adam-davidson-mobile-class.html) These high tech industries afford the mobile class good salaries and high bargaining po wer. The immobile class is constituted by citizens with less specialization; therefore the only jobs are the low paying ones in the declining auto-industry and green energy clusters. The difference in the immobile class now that most are educated to a degree level i.e. B.A. degree meaning a degree especially one not from the top universities does not guarantee a job, but rather with specific skills one has. This has coalesced graduates of mid level colleges into a pool defined into a secondary segment. It leaves problems

Analysis the Marine Corps hymn Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analysis the Marine Corps hymn - Essay Example the shores of Tripoli† and â€Å"To the Shores of Tripoli† which are the first two lines of the first stanza had been coined by 1850, part of the Marine Corps lore then. The Marine Corps Hymn features several literary devices that serve to emphasize its message, give its rhythm, and point to the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. I chose to analyse the Marine Corps Hymn for its place in the hearts of the Marine Corps and reassign message to U.S. nationals. The Marine Corps Hymn which has three stanzas tells the story of the pride that officers serving in the Marine Corps have in what they do for their country. While the first stanza is a proclamation of what the Marine Corps do, the second stanza is a declaration of their commitment to the service of the nation wherever and whenever they are needed. The last stanza which takes on a more celebratory tone passes a message of good will to those in service to the nation as Marines while at the same time serving as a declaration that the streets of the U.S. are always guarded by the Marine Corps. The hymn is which makes mention of different settings including the Halls of Montezuma, Shores of Tripoli, far-off Northern lands, and tropic areas is itself set in no particular place or environment. The hymn features the Marine Corpse as the main character. The Marin Corps tell of their character in the hymn. In the verse, â€Å"First to fight for right and freedom† (6), the Marine Corpse present themselves as people who are brave and committed to the good of the nation. One of the literary devices that feature prominently in the hymn is repetition. In every stanza, the phrase United States Marine is repeated. The repetition of the phrase serves to give emphasis to the fact that the Marines are proud of who they are and their service to the country and are greatly committed to their work. This is evident in the lines, â€Å"We are proud to claim the title   of United States Marine† (1). Yet another device that is evidently

Evaluation of Agency's personnel administration Essay

Evaluation of Agency's personnel administration - Essay Example Furthermore, they provide for training of labor and instill the organizations values in them so that they can conform to the requirements of the organization both within and outside environment (Leigh & Blakely, 2013). The urban planning human resource also ensures staffs awards are assured while offer punishment to those who break the policy. Therefore, the underlined factors above makes the human resource be a stronger department. Nonetheless, the committee also finds it hard to find the right personnel that provide a perfect fit for the organization. The agency is also thriving to reach the international standards of personnel management such as the level required by the United Nations labor management. This includes actions and not limited to utility theory approach. But incase the personnel department becomes inefficient, the agency outsources to provide for technical assistance (Buller, & McEvoy, 2012). It ensures that their employees are well managed, and the human resource acquires extra skills on how to deal with the staffs. As a result, global standards are maintained that makes the agency one of the best performing in the industry. The human resource department of the urban planning is tasked with hiring the right employees for the organization. The recruitment process begins by the department advertising the available opportunities that the qualified candidates will send the application to. They then review the applications and determine the best candidates who are then taken for interviews to determine their suitability (Breaugh, 2014). In doing so, they have to conduct a background check on the applicants since the personnel must be of integrity before they can be hired. The final component is the hiring criteria. The selected candidates are notified and provided with the employment contract letters. In the process, they are expected to provide to undergo medical tests to

Employee relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Employee relations - Essay Example It also includes the ongoing evaluation of performance of employees, managing it, ensuring that ‘laws and regulations’ are followed and also to solve the employees disputes (Society for Human Resource Management, 2011). Good employee relations denote peaceful, pleasant, abundant relation between labour and management. Sound relation regulates the production by minimising conflicts. It improves the worker’s strength by resolving their problems through negotiation and consultation. It improves the status of employees, evades any kind of disputes and thus, preserves ‘industrial democracy’. Employee relation is the virtual balance of negotiating influence between the employees and management. In every organisation, an efficient ER executive provides instruction about how a company can manage with the grievances, penalising process and legislative recognition process of the Employment Relations Act (1999). For managing the employee relation the managers mu st act in a reasonable and logical manner towards the employees and labour unions. It is vital for personnel authorities to ascertain standards of activities which are rational (Gennard & Judge, 2005). In this context, the study will evaluate the employee relations related challenges as faced by Royal Mail. Analysis of Organisation Royal Mail is a public limited company controlled by the government of the UK. Their annual turnover is more than ?8 billion and it has almost 200,000 employees. In the UK, Royal Mail operates under its well-known brands: Royal Mail; Post office and Parcel force Worldwide. Royal Mail has gone through a restructuring process to reduce costs, improve effectiveness to compete with other rivalries in the postal sector. It ensures delivery of sustained high quality services effectively (CSR Case Study Series, 2005). Basic Organisational Structure Royal Mail Group serves mails and parcels throughout the UK. It has almost 168,000 employees in the UK. It has 11,9 05 Post Offices and manages almost 400 million parcels per year. The network of Royal Mail includes almost 11,500 branches throughout the UK. Royal Mail Group has five non–Executive Directors and three Executive Directors who take all the managerial decisions for Royal Mail. The CMU (Communication Workers Union) is the labour union of Royal Mail which stands for non–managerial employees. The company follows the bureaucratic organisational structure. The flow of communication goes through different layers of management which causes slow decision making. With respect to employee relation, organisation can adopt unitary or pluralistic approach (Royal Mail Holdings plc, 2010). Industrial Relation Theory There are three theories of industrial employees’ relations namely unitary, pluralist and radical. Unitary: In unitary system, the organisation is a harmonious system. There is no trade union. Mangers and workers both share similar interest, purpose and objective. Pl uralistic: In pluralism, there are two parties in the organisation namely trade unions and the management. Any conflict is dealt with collective bargaining, mutual agreement or negotiation between trade union and management. Marxist

To what extent has the development of the European Security and Essay

To what extent has the development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) made the European Union (EU) a strategic actor - Essay Example s, a creation of new governmental institutions, a great exchange of ideas, policies and approaches to national and international security and defense. Webber et al. assert that â€Å"the Europeanisation of security has been the great political revolution of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries† (19). One of the outcomes of the process, which is considered to be of a great importance, is the innovative European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). This paper is aimed to discuss the role of the ESDP development process in a building of European security competence and in a strengthening the role of the European Union (EU) in the context of the world security and defense policy. During the period of the Cold War, prior to 1999, the EU played a quite passive role in the own security area. According to the terms of a settlement, made in the early 1950s between the US and the Western European Union (WEU), the EU was a civilian institution, while the responsibility to assure security in Europe was laid upon NATO and WEU (Deighton, 720). In 1990s immense changes shook the Europe, forcing the EU to adapt to these historical changes. The fall of the Berlin Wall and re-uniting of Germany, the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Iron Curtain, the collapse in Yugoslavia and the Balkan War – there are one of the major events of 1990s that changed the old European coordinate system. Since 1991 the role of NATO in the European security has been questioned, and in 1994 the European security and defence identity concept (ESDI) was developed as â€Å"a framework for combined joint task forces, coalitions of the willing for military security provision† (Deighton, 724). In 1997 the EU member states signed the Amsterdam Treaty, which provided the basis of development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), of which European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) is a significant integral part. The political push for this progress was made by France and

Why are you interested in pursuing this graduate program at the McColl Personal Statement

Why are you interested in pursuing this graduate program at the McColl School of Business - Personal Statement Example The degree would equip me the necessary skills to meet my professional goals. As such, the degree from this university becomes highly relevant in providing necessary skills and academic knowledge to become a successful professional in the field business management. Though I have no formal work experience but my four months’ training in a bank has made me realize the importance of acquiring professional qualifications in the business management. It will prepare me to face the challenges ahead of me in terms of new experiences and teach me to think strategically. I believe that it would help develop wider perspectives on relevant issues so that I could critically evaluate situations and resolve issues amicably. It would be especially relevant in the multicultural society where diverse ideologies could foster conflicts. Most importantly, the integrated business program would help me to work with confidence in global business with a global network of contacts and teach me how to collaborate as a team to meet the organizational objectives. The various modules of the course curricula are essential ingredients that provide students with a strong learning experience. I believe that the degree would hugely facilitate in meeting new challenges an d therefore significantly increase my job prospects. I have always been a highly self-driven person. I am also ambitious and would like to reach the highest level of professional excellence, both in terms of gaining knowledge and experience. The contemporary times necessitate versatility in the work ideology and functioning, thus making it vital that new skills and strategies are evolved to meet the emergent challenges with high efficiency and expertise. The new drifts in the professional areas have considerably impacted the socio-economic dynamics of the business. It has made work paradigms more competitive and at the same time more complex with the challenges of the diverse demands that have developed as a

Biography of Kate Chopin Essay Example for Free

Biography of Kate Chopin Essay Kate Chopin was an American author of short stories and novels. Considered as one of the earliest feminist authors of the 20th century, she was one of the most-celebrated female writers of her time. She wrote several short stories including The Story of an Hour (1894), Euphrase (1850), Mrs. Mobrys Reason (1891), A Shameful Affair (1893), and many others. Her literature usually described her own life, reflecting the time she lived in and the life she led. When readers look into her literature, they do not only read what is on the text but also try to understand the context. When you look through her fiction, you might notice that the contexts include the life of the author, the time it was written and the social condition during the time it was set, among others. One of her short stories, The Story of an Hour, depicts a woman’s reactions to the news of her husband’s death, upon reading which I found connections between her life and the life of the main character of the short story. Background and early life After Kate Chopin’s father was killed in a train accident, she moved into a household of women in St. Louis. As a girl she was mentored mainly by women her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother. She also had deep bonds with her family members, the sisters who taught her at school, and with her life-long friend Kitty Garasche. A lot of the fiction Kate wrote was hugely influenced by the women she grew up with, especially regarding her views about feminism, and women. In 1870, at the age of 20, she settled in New Orleans. Oscar, her husband, bought a general store in Cloutierville, but in 1882 he died of malaria and left Kate with $12,000 in debt (approximately $229,360 in 2005 dollars). Kate Chopin was widowed at 32. She attempted to run the plantation and store alone but with no success. Two years later, she sold her Louisiana business. Her mother wanted her to move back to St. Louis. The following year, her mother died. After the loss of both her husband and the mother, Kate Chopin found herself drifting into the realms of depression. Her doctor felt that writing would be a good way for her to heal this developing depression. Her doctor understood that writing could serve as a focus for her energy as well as a source of income. She thus indulged herself and became successful, and found many of her work getting published. However, some of her writings were far too ahead of their times and she faced lack of acceptance for almost 12 years. Literary works with examples Kate Chopin commented on the importance of describing human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the veil with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it† (1894). An interview on the PBS website for Kate Chopin says, I think she was much more interested in the excitement, the civilization that came in her circle of intellectual friends. That was freedom, the freedom to explore ideas† (PBS, 1999). Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted the womans ability to be strong. She came from a long line of strong women whom she loved and respected, owing to the affiliation with her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. She had strong intellectual women friends. Her lack of interest in feminism and suffrage did not have anything to do with a lack of confidence in women, nor did it have a lot to do with a lack of desire for freedom. She simply had a different understanding of freedom. She saw freedom as much more a matter of spirit, soul, and character than anything else, of living your life within the constraints that the world makes [or] your God offers you, because all of us do live within constraints. There is no indication that â€Å"she regretted her marriage, or regretted being a mother† (PBS, 1999). Early 1970s was the period thriving with womens rights movements, and Kate Chopin was one leading contributor to the said phenomenon. She contributed a lot through her writings about women, daytime dramas, the feminine mystique, women’s liberation, Mars vs. Venus, self-help and commentary on open marriages. You can see how Kate Chopin’s life event (train accident, A Widow, and Freedom for Women) influenced her fictions through The Story of an Hour. One of the main events in the story is a man’s loss, namely Mrs. Mallard’s husband. Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, brought the sad message that there was a railroad disaster and of those listed as killed included Brently Mallard, who was Mrs. Mallard’s husband. In Kate’s life, there had been a similar loss. That someone was her father who passed away in a railroad accident in 1855. Furthermore, Mrs. Mallard is in due course assumed to be a widow, but readers will soon find out that Mr. Mallard is alive. In Kate’s life, her father had widowed her mother. Both had experienced what it’s like to be a widow but of course, the response to the loss may entirely be different. In the end, before she learnt of Brently’s return from the accident, Louise died of heart disease of joy that kills. This could suggest that she had a moment of monstrous joy, which consumed her and overwhelmed her to death. Perhaps Chopin would just let Louise die instead of seeing Brently again, causing her to remain imprisoned and be confined to her husband’s hands. Lastly, in The Story of An Hour, Chopin made no suggestion to the readers that Mrs. Mallard was sorry for her husband’s loss. Instead, she uttered under her breath, â€Å"free, free, and free! † which suggests how happy Mrs. Mallard was to have lost her husband, because she now has freedom of herself. The joy she feels after regaining her freedom is something which consumes her. In Kate’s life, a lot of her work mentioned the rise in the rights of women. She experienced a period where there was a decline in those rights and women were deprived of public needs like education, the right to vote, the right to property and their children. Those events drove her to write the kind of feminist text she did instead of dedicating herself to other themes. As observed, literature can bring us to the world of the author. Literary works reflect the time, state of mind, and the life of the author. By understanding the connection between Kate Chopin and Mrs. Mallard in the short story, The Story of an Hour, it can be confirmed that the novel portrayed a reference to Kate Chopin’s life since most of the events (train accident, A Widow, and Freedom for Women) in Louise’s life are similar to, or at least greatly influenced by her own. References Chopin, K. (1894). One Story. PBS (Director). (1999). Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening [Motion Picture].

Ensuring All Stages Pipelining and Accuracy in PASQUAL

Ensuring All Stages Pipelining and Accuracy in PASQUAL Nachiket D. More Abstract GENOME is term used for genetic material of organism. It is used to encode DNA of organisms, or RNA of various kinds of viruses. Ii contains both coding and non coding parts of DNA/RNA. Now a day’s GENOME is constructed for mostly all animals, viruses, and bacteria’s. These data is mostly used in medical research and as well as to predict disease like cancer, HIV and many more. GENOME is consisting of reads, these reads are very large in amount to manipulate and also to store and maintains. Sequencing machine produce output of short overlapping substrings, these substring are called reads. The sequence assembly reconstructs genome sequence of these reads. These genome sequences are long and continuous. Assembly software for Nest Generation Sequencing (NGS) must be a very accurate, fast and have a less memory consumption. PASQUAL is tool used for faster work of NGS GENOME assembly. For address challenges of NGS assembly, parallel algorithm and compressed data structure are used in PASUQAL. PASQUAL delivers better speed of execution, less memory consumption and better solution quality. Keywords – Parallel algorithm, parallel suffix array construction, high performance bioinformatics, de novo sequence assembly, shared memory parallelism, DNA sequence, genome assembly. Introduction The term â€Å"genome† is used for represent/refer as cellular instruction set. Also it used to refer genetic material of a cell. A genome consist of chromosomes, it can be one or more individual chromosomes. Chromosomes consist of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and for many viruses it consists of ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA is made from simple unit called nucleotides (nt). Nucleotides having four types namely A, C, G, and T. In sequence start and end are denoted by 5’ and 3’ respectively. Deducing the order of nucleotides from cell and encoding it as a string of letters is called a DNA sequencing process. This process cannot read whole sequence continuously, so it breaks DNA molecules into small part, which is used in chemical reaction as templates to produce short sub-sequences called reads. Major problem is a reconstruct the original genome sequence from reads. For these purpose GENOME assembly algorithms are used. A GENOME assembly uses many automated rounds to improvements, but it inspected and edited by specialists. Assembling reads into a long contiguous sequence is called contigs. The genome sequencing is process of reading sequence of base pairs (bp). Organism genome consists of base pairs, which is derived from two stranded of complementary bases. This is a main part to the study of genomes in bioinformatics. Except Whole – Genome Shotgun (WGS) sequencing machine, no other current sequencing method is capable to read whole sequence in one pass. De novo assembly not uses any reference sequence aids to reconstruction of original sequence, because of these it is used in PASQUAL. We have to generate a large number of reads in a small amount of time, for these purpose we used a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. Due to these it greatly reduces the experimental cost per base. It helps to study organism at genome level, to deeply understanding of biological mechanism and genome regulation. Due to sequencing genome rapidly, it helps researchers to study more on evolution of viruses and bacteria. Because, bacteria and viruses can adopt behavior more easily also generate mutation easily at every step of reproduction. Next Generation Sequencings (NGS) Decoding DNA sequences is essential in all branches of biological research. For these purpose scientist uses the capillary electrophoresis (CE) – based Sanger sequencing, scientists able to manifest genetic information for any biological system. Because of these it is adopted by many research laboratories. But it has many limitations like throughout, scalability, speed and resolution to preclude in scientists research study. To overcome from these problem, these is new technology is introduced namely as Nest-Generation Sequencing (NGS), that become a reason for boost in research area in bioinformatics and genomic science. NGS is responsible for major transformation in path of retrieving information biological system, genome and epigenome of species. This gives an important breakthrough in fields like human disease and agriculture research. The principle behind NGS is similar to CE. CE generates small fragments of DNA. These fragments are sequentially identified from each fragment, which is re-synthesized from DNA template. NGS perform similar work in parallel fashion, which is population of millions of reaction rather than single or few DSN fragments. Due to this NGS produces hundreds of gigabases of data in single pass/sequencing run. NGS perform its operation as – a single genomic DNA is firstly fragmented into numbers of small segments, which is also known as library of segments. These segments are uniformly and accurately sequenced in millions of parallel reactions. These strings of bases are called as reads. Then these reads are reassembled by tow technique, first is known reference genome called as scaffold (re-sequencing) and second is without any reference genome (de novo sequencing). The output is set of aligned reads represents entire sequence of each chromosome in the gDNA. Fig. Conceptual Overview of Whole-Genome Sequencing Extracted gDNA. gDNA is fragmented into a library of small segments that are each sequenced in paralllel. Individual sequence reads are reassembled by aligning to a reference genome. The Whole–genome sequence is derived from the consensus of aligned reads. NGS output is increased as a rate that outpaces Moor’s law. A single pass can produce up to one gigabase (Gb) of data, at the time of invention i.e. in 2007. At 2011 it reaches up to terabase (Tb) of data in single pass/sequencing run. i.e. almost 1000Ãâ€" increase in four years. Because of this ability of NGS, researchers can move from idea to full data sets in few hours or days. Using CE technology sequencing of human genome takes a time around 10 years. But using NGS we can generate five human genomes at a single run. So it reduces the cost of genome projects. In NGS we can tune resolution of genome experiments. It is possible to produce more or less data, also it support zoom in particular regions of genome with high resolution or view with low resolution but it is more expansive. To do these researchers can tune coverage generated in experiments. This ability gives number of experimental design advantages. Because of various advantages of NGS has permeated in many areas of study. Using NGS, researchers can develop a broad range of application that transformed study designs and finding new information never before imaginable. PASQUAL PASQUAL can produce large data in assembly process in terms of memory consumption and running time. PASQUAL stands for PArallel SeQUence AssembLer. It uses OpenMP for shared memory parallelism, because of its good working between programmer productivity and performance. PASQUAL uses OLC approach and obtain high quality solutions with combination of tailored algorithms. PASQUAL can handle billions of bases. It uses de novo assembly, because of it does not need any reference to produce original sequence. Algorithm constructs biological sequences in parallel by suffix array, and it is good key for parallel performance and memory optimization. Index stage and string graph construction is used for finding overlaps. Misassembles of genome sequence by PASQUAL is significantly less than ny other assemblers. PASQUAL can handle billion of bases in less time, because it uses pipelined stages and compressed data. It has advantages over SOAPdenovo and k-mer like SOAPdenovo is only a tool having comparable speed and k-mer is restricted to smaller length than 128. Rather than PASQUAL produces less errors compared to any other tool. 4. Literature Survey 4.1 De Novo Genome Sequence Assembly In year 2008 to 2012 these are many sequencing techniques are developed, due to these there is major drop in cast from 1/100000th to 1/100000th of price. De novo algorithm is inherited from the SOAPdenovo2 framework. De novo sequencing involves novel genome; it requires specific assembly of reads (sequencing reads). It requires unique combination of length, depth of reads also it requires flexible paired-end insert size. Unpatrolled raw read makes confident and efficient production and long contig assemblies. De novo sequencing assembly is preferred for study of non-model organisms, because it is cheaper and easier to construct a genome. The reference-based assembly uses mapping on to reference genome, because of these it has inability to account for incidents of structural alteration of mRNA transcript. De novo assembly provides means to discover new and unknown sequence in biological research. Reading of whole sequence at once is limited, de novo methods are irreplaceable. It mostly used to discover new and unknown sequences, which is important in biodiversity in world. 4.2 Overlap/Layout/Consensus (OLC) Approach Overlap Layout Consensus (OLC) method is used in de novo assembly. It has a three steps overlap, layout and consensus respectively. In overlap stage graph is constructed, graph is made up of basic assembly. In layout stage this given graph is compressed. And in the consensus stage upon graph data, genome sequence is determined. These data is generated in previous two stapes. Overlap:- In the overlap stage, each and every reads are compared with every other read, and these is perform in both direction forward and reverse complement orientations. It is very time consuming procedure especially in set of large reads. Layout:- Finding path in OLC graph in not an easy task, because it has million of nodes and edges, and it very tedious task to find path that visit each node exactly ones. In this stage it OLC assembly graph is simplified, where assembly graph (i.e. segments) are compressed into contigs. Consensus:- This is a final stage of OLC approach, at this step assembly graph is reduced to large scaffolds i.e. single scaffold. It start from left most read of each scaffold, OLC algorithm computes consensus of all the reads composing each scaffold. Gaps in the genome may still be presents if the consensus step had insufficient mate-pair or repeat contig information. If an assembly had gaps, it would result in a fragmented genome, composed of multiple scaffolds because the gaps between the scaffolds could not be joined. 4.3 Shotgun Sequencing Sanger DNA sequencing technique work on limited distance in sequencing primer from 30 to 350 nt i.e. read length. Because of chain termination very few product can produce chain. These work at best ability to sequence maybe 500 bases a day and it is infeasible for human genome which have billions of bases. Another approach is, first divide DNA in to smaller fragments which is individually sequenced. Then these fragments are reassembled into original form based on overlaps. This strategy is known as shotgun sequencing, it also known as shotgun cloning. In shotgun sequencing, it randomly sheared into small pieces (usually about 1kb) and sub cloned into universal cloning vector. The library of sub fragments is sampled at random, and sequence reads are generated. These reads are assembled into contig. From this procedure complete sequence of clone generated. Shotgun technique can identify gaps (i.e. there is no sequence available) and single standard regions (where there is sequence for only one stand). They are targeted for additional sequencing to produce fill sequenced module. 5. Full Stage Pipelining and accuracy in PASQUAL 5.1 Motivation for this topic With an explosive growth of genome research area and in genome sequencing data, there is huge demand for tool and systems that enables researchers to more efficiently and more effectively work. NGS technology can produce shorter reads as compared to previous sequencing and delivers higher coverage. Coverage means ratio of total length of reds to genome length. Typically NGS generates reads from millions to few billion. This result is depending upon genome size and coverage. Due to high improvements in technologies, data sets to grow larger. As well as assembly become more demanding in time and memory consumption. 5.2 Selected area In NGS mainly contains DNA and RNA sequencing. I studied research paper for genome sequencing techniques. Genome sequencing techniques changes rapidly and become more and more advance over the period of time. Now a day’s genome sequencing is not used for research area also in treatments of many diseases. I am choosing full stage pipeline and more accuracy in PASQUAL because today many bioinformatics research topics uses genome sequencing, also it used for research topic in biodiversities. I have studied lots of paper where NGS is suggested for genome sequencing. I used full stage pipelining and more accuracy in PASQUAL NGS genome sequencing. 6. Problem statement Purpose of these research work is make full stage pipelining and more accuracy in PASQUAL genome sequencing. 7. Proposed Solution This system is completely new and it has different techniques to make it efficient for genome sequencing. Currently PASQUAL is not offering full all stages pipelining. Also scaffolding and support of paired-end reads uses third-party tools. It has to be improved error correction. Also acceleration in assembly process and reduce memory consumption. 8. Work done till Today Study of different types of feature PASQUAL. Code for different sequence assembler techniques. Study of different sequencing and assembly algorithms. 9. Objectives Applying full stage pipelining in all stages of PASQUAL. Improving error correction Accelerate the assembly process. Reduce memory consumption. 10. References â€Å"PASQUAL: Parallel Techniques for Next Generation Genome Sequence Assembly† by Xing Liu, Student Member, IEEE, Pushkar R. Pande, Henning Meyerhenke, and David A. Bader, Fellow, IEEE. B.H. Bloom, â€Å"Space/Time Trade-Offs in Hash Coding with Allowable Errors,† Comm. ACM, vol. 13, pp. 422-426, 1970. D. Bryant, W. Wong, and T. Mockler, â€Å"QSRA—A Quality-Value Guided de Novo Short Read Assembler,† BMC Bioinformatics, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 69, 2009. J. Butler, I. MacCallum, M. Kleber, I.A. Shlyakhter, M.K. Belmonte, E.S. Lander, C. Nusbaum, and D.B. Jaffe, â€Å"ALLPATHS: De Novo Assembly of hole-Genome Shotgun Microreads,† GenomeResearch, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 810-820, 2008. H. Dinh and S. Rajasekaran, â€Å"A Memory-Efficient Data Structure Representing Exact-Match Overlap Graphs with Application for Next-Generation DNA Assembly,† Bioinformatics, vol. 27, pp. 1901-1907, 2011. J. Dohm, C. Lottaz, T. Borodina, and H. Himmelbauer, â€Å"SHARCGS, A Fast and Highly Accurate Short-Read Assembly Algorithm for de Novo Genomic Sequencing,† Genome Research, vol. 17, no. 11, pp. 1697-1706, 2007. U. Manber and G. Myers, â€Å"Suffix Arrays: A New Method for OnLine String searches,† Proc. First Ann. ACM-SIAM Symp. DiscreteAlgorithms, pp. 319-327, 1990. www.wikipedia.com

Odyssey :: essays research papers

In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, various aspects of the ancient Greeks are revealed through the actions, characters, plot, and wording. Homer uses his skill as a playwright, poet, and philosopher to inform the audience of the history, prides, and achievements of the ancient Greeks, and, also, to tell of the many values and the multi-faceted culture of the ancient Greek caste. The Greeks had numerous values and customs, of which the primary principles are the mental characteristics of an individual, the physical characteristics of an individual, the recreations and pastimes the Greeks enjoyed, the way in which a host treats a guest, the religious aspects, and finally, the Greeks’ view on life, revealed in The Odyssey which shows and defines their culture   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the most prominent of the mental characteristics the ancient Greeks valued was the cleverness and the wit of an individual. This can be discerned from The Odyssey because of many instances and events in which Odysseus uses his brain’s wit and other tricks to get himself out of a risky situation. Examples of this are when he tells Polyphemos the Cyclopes that his name is Nobody, when he overcomes Circe’s magic with the help of moly, when he fills his men’s ears with wax and ties himself to a post so that he and his men can get by the Sirens safely, and when he disguises himself as a beggar and reveals his true identity to few. Odysseus is by “far the best of mortal men for counsel and stories'; (Bk. XIII, 297 – 298). Also, Odysseus is said to be able to match a god in wits and trickery (Bk. XIII, 291 – 295). Penelope, Odysseus’ wife also uses her wit and trickery to get herself out of situations. An example of this i s when she pretends to be weaving a shroud for Laertes, but actually undoes at night as much as she had done in the morning. Athene, the goddess of wisdom, provides another example of the usage of wit and tricks. Athene disguises Odysseus as a beggar and also surrounds him with a mist numerous times so that his former acquaintances will not see or recognize him.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Other significant mental characteristics that the Greeks valued are faithfulness and loyalty. There are many, many examples of loyalty and faithfulness in The Odyssey. The four most significant examples are Penelope, Eumaios, Philoitois, and Argos.

Roland Barthes :: Rhetoric of the Image

Roland Barthes The work of Roland Barthes (1915-80), the cultural theorist and analyst, embraces a wide range of cultural phenomena, including advertising, fashion, food, and wrestling. He focused on cultural phenomena as language systems, and for this reason we might think of him as a structuralist. In these notes, I provide a short profile of this influential figure, together with a synopsis of his seminal essay, "Rhetoric of the Image," a model for semiological analysis of all kinds. * * * * * This cultural theorist and analyst was born in Cherbourg, a port-city northwest of Paris. His parents were Louis Barthes, a naval officer, and Henriette Binger. His father died in 1916, during combat in the North Sea. In 1924, Barthes and his mother moved to Paris, where he attended (1924-30) the Lycee Montaigne. Unfortunately, he spent long periods of his youth in sanatoriums, undergoing treatment for TB. When he recovered, he studied (1935-39) French and the classics at the University of Paris. He was exempted from military service during WW II (he was ill with TB during the period 1941-47). Later, when he wasn't undergoing treatment for TB, he taught at a variety of schools, including the Lycees Voltaire and Carnot. He taught at universities in Rumania (1948-49) and Egypt (1949-50) before he joined (in 1952) the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted his time to sociology and lexicology. Barthes' academic career fell into three phases. During the first phase, he concentrated on demystifying the stereotypes of bourgeois culture (as he put it). For example, in Writing degree Zero (1953), Barthes examined the link between writing and biography: he studied the historical conditions of literary language and the difficulty of a modern practice of writing. Committed to language, he argued, the writer is at once caught up in particular discursive orders, the socially instituted forms of writing, a set of signs (a myth) of literature--hence the search for an unmarked language, before the closure of myth, a writing degree zero. During the years 1954-56, Barthes wrote a series of essays for the magazine called Les Lettres nouvelles, in which he exposed a "Mythology of the Month," i.e., he showed how the denotations in the signs of popular culture betray connotations which are themselves "myths" generated by the larger sign system that makes up society. The book which contains these studies of everyday signs--appropriately enough, it is entitled Mythologies (1957)--offers his meditations on many topics, such as striptease, the New Citroen, steak and chips, and so on.

Essay --

R.Panda et, al (2013) Examined multimodal approach to Music Emotion Recognition (MER) problem. Collect information from different sources of audio, MIDDI and lyrics. This research was introducing a methodology for automatic creation of multimodal music emotion dataset categorization to AllMusic database, that based on emotion tags used in the MIREX mood classification task. MIDDI files and lyrics matching to a subset of achieved audio samples were collected. The dataset was classified into the same 5 emotion clusters identified in MIREX. Music Emotion Recognition (MER) research was received increased attention in recent years, the field still faces many difficulties and problems exacting on emotion detection in audio music signals. Many experiments were conducted to judge the importance of various features, sources and the effect of their combination in emotion classification. Holder Shaw and Gendall (2008) Conducted research for understanding and predicting of human behavior. Attitude is unspecified to play important role in human behavior theory that what people think and what they do. May be the most fundamental statement underlying the attitude concept was the notion that attitude in some way guide, influence, direct shape or predict actual behavior Labaw’s (1980) was offered in alternative approach to predicting the behavior in which behavioral characteristic of people’s lives from the basis of questionnaire design. Recent analyses originate that Labaw’s approach to predicting behavior was corresponding in terms of predictive ability and was greater from a survey research perspective. Labaw’s research was presented a sufficient alternative to attitudinal- based approach to predicting behavior. Byeong-Jan Han et al. (2010) E... ...ed for the automated explanation of large musical collection. Such an inquiry potential would be helpful for song collection and a range of application. Vallabha Hampiholi (2012) conducted research that past decade in the field of audio satisfied analysis for takeout variety of information was the â€Å"perceived mood† or â€Å"emotions† connected to music or audio clip. This information was really useful in applications like generating or approving the play list based on the mood of the listener. This information was really helpful in better categorization of music database. In this paper author have presented a method to classify that music not just a metadata of audio clip as well comprise the â€Å"mood† feature to help get better music organization. Example audio version of the song, the person is relaxing or chill out mood strength desire to listen to this track.

English Departmnet Essay

APA REFERENCING WORKSHEET STUDENT HANDOUT (1) ? APA REREFRENCE LIST FOR BOOKS, ARTICLES FROM THE INTERENET, MAGAZINE AND THE NEWSPAPER. ? BOOKS: A. A book with one author: Last name of the author, First letter of the author s name. (Year of publication). The title of the book (Should be Italicized). The place of publication. Example: Author: Martine Stephen Title of the book: English Literature: A student guide Year of publication: 2000 Place of publication: Pearson Education, London Stephen, M. (2000). English Literature: A student guide. Pearson Education, London. M ( E L A s g P E L B. A book with two authors: Last name of the first author, First letter of the first name of the author. , & Last name of the second author, First letter of the first name of the author. (Year of publication). The title of the book (Should be Italicized). The place of publication. Example: Title of the book: Reason to write, strategies for success in academic writing Name of the authors: Robert F. Cohen and Judy L. Miller. 1 | P a g e ENGL1111/1222 MRS. UMAMA AL KALBANI ENGLISH DEPARTMNET IBRI COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCEs Year of publication: 2003 Place of publication: Oxford University Press, New York Cohen, R. , & Miller, J. (2003). Reason to write, strategies for success in academic writing. R & M J ( R t w s f s i a w Oxford University Press, New York. U P N Y C. A book with three authors. The last name of the first author, The first letter of the first name of first the author. , The last name of the second author, The first letter of the first name of second the author. , & the last name of the third author, the first letter of the first name of the third author. (Year of publication). The title of the book (Should be Italicized). The place of publication. Example: Title of the book: Writing A college Workbook Name of authors: James A. W. Heffernan, John E. Lincoln and Cindy Moore. Year of publication: 2001 Place of Publication: USA ? Write the reference of the previous book using the provided information?__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ? ARTICLES FROM THE INTERENET: It is recommended that when you search for articles from the internet to select that articles that have authors and the year of that submission date of that article. Some students only write the website name of the source that they get from the internet in which it is not enough. You need to cite the article from the internet in the correct APA format. So in your search for articles from the internet you have to select articles that have authors and date of submission. The next possibility is to go for articles that are written by well-Â ­? known organizations such as educational, scientific, governmental or 2 | P a g e ENGL1111/1222 MRS. UMAMA AL KALBANI ENGLISH DEPARTMNET IBRI COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCEs ministerial organization. The last choice is to go for articles that are writing by anonymous (No name of authors) or that may have no submission date. A. Article from the internet with one author: The last name of the author, The first letter of the first name of the author. (Submission date). Name of the article (Italicized). Retrieved month date, year, from the website. Example: The article name: The importance of the internet for teens. The author of the article: David Thelan Submission date: 2002 Website name: htt://4teachers. org/kidspeak/theland/index. shtml Retrieved Date: 3ed October 2011 Thelan, D. (2002). The importance of the internet for teens. Retrieved October 3ed, D ( T i o t i f t R O 3 2011, from htt://4teachers. org/kidspeak/theland/index. shtml. f h B. Article with two authors: The last name of the first author, The first letter of the first name of first the author. , & The last name of the second author, The first letter of the first name of second the author. (Submission date). Name of the article (Italicized). Retrieved month date, year, from the website. C. Article with three authors: The last name of the first author, The first letter of the first name of first the author. , The last name of the second author, The first letter of the first name of second the author. , & the last name of the third author, the first letter of the first name of the third author. (Submission date). Name of the article (Italicized). Retrieved month date, year, from the website. 3 | P a g e ENGL1111/1222 MRS. UMAMA AL KALBANI ENGLISH DEPARTMNET IBRI COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCEs D. Article with no author and no sponsored organization: Anonymous (No author). (Submission date). Name of the article (Italicized). Retrieved month date, year, from the website. ? Write the APA reference for the following articles from the internet: Article One: Article name: Integration of students in the teaching process. Name of authors: Jorgen Erik Christensen and Kirsten Ribu Date of submission: July 23, 2006 Website name: http:// www.icee. usm. edu/icee/conference/icee2006/papers/3387. pdf Retrieved Date: 9th October 2010 Article two: Article name: Transcript of Andrew Rawsnley s interview with the Prime Minister (BBC Radio 4 s The Westminster Hour) The name of author: No author but this article is sponsored by BBC News UK Edition. Date of submission: 6th February 2005 Website name: http://news. bbc. co. uk/go/pr/fr/i/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/4241787. stm Retrieved Date: 25th May 2005 P a g e ENGL1111/1222 MRS. UMAMA AL KALBANI ENGLISH DEPARTMNET IBRI COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCEs.

Accounting: Costs and Learning Objective

econonmMicroeconomics Review Quiz Test 2 1. When is marginal utility equal to zero? A. When TU is zero. B. When MU is at its maximum. C. When TU is at its maximum. D. When MU is at its minimum. The following table shows Mia's $ marginal utility for litres of soya milk: 2. Refer to the above table to answer this question. Suppose that Mia has a budget of $7 and the price of a litre of soya milk is $1, what is the maximum quantity that Mia might purchase? A. 0. B. 4 litres. C. 5 litres. D. 6 litres. E. Cannot be determined. 3. What is the correct formula for MCS (marginal consumer surplus)?A. $MU-price. B. Price-$MU. C. $TU-price. D. TU/price. E. TU/quantity. 4. What is the term for the difference between the consumer's evaluation of a product and the price which is paid for it? A. Price discrimination. B. Price elasticity of demand. C. Consumer indifference. D. Consumer surplus. 5. Refer to Table 5. 13 to answer this question. With the consumption of what quantity is marginal utility equal to zero. A. 1. B. 5. C. 7. D. 8. 6. You have just spent two hours studying microeconomics and this has made you very hungry. You have $10 to spend on a snack and decide to go to Taco Bell.Putting your newly acquired economics knowledge to use, you have developed the following table to assist with your purchase decision: (a) Fill in the missing values in the table above. (b) If you bought 6 tacos and 2 burritos are you maximizing your utility? Explain. Below are some financial data for the Do Drop In convenience store. The owners have put $40,000 into the business and they worked a total of 80 hours during the week. Savings accounts are currently paying 5. 2% interest and the going wage rate is $8 per hour. 7. Refer to the information above to answer this question.What is the week's economic profit for the Do Drop In? A. -$320. B. -$40. C. $280. D. $320. E. $1,050. 8. Which of the following statements about the marginal product of labour is correct? A. It may either rise or fal l as more labour is used. B. It always rises as more labour is used. C. It always falls as more labour is used. D. There is no relationship between marginal product and labour. 9. What causes marginal cost to increase? A. The advantages of the division of labour. B. The fact that ATC increases. C. Raising marginal product. D. The law of diminishing returns. 0. Which of the following statements regarding average fixed costs is correct? A. They are constant since fixed costs are fixed. B. They are equal to average variable cost less average total cost. C. When graphed, they are a horizontal line. D. When graphed, they are a straight line which comes out of the origin. E. They fall continuously as output increases. 11. Which of the following is a variable cost? A. The leasehold cost of a building. B. Insurance on the factory's physical plant. C. Raw materials. D. The cost of a marketing research report. 12.What is the sum of total variable costs and total fixed costs? A. It is equal to the sum of average product and marginal product. B. It is the sum of all marginal costs. C. It is total cost. D. It is AVC times the quantity of output. 13. Can a firm earn an economic loss and an accounting profit at the same time? Explain. 14. What is meant by the term economic capacity? A. An output level where the firm is physically unable to increase output. B. The output level where average variable cost is at a minimum. C. The output level where average total cost is at a minimum. D. Total fixed costs are at a minimum. 5. Which of the following statements is correct if a firm's capacity output increases from 300 to 600 and its total costs rise from $40,000 to $78,000? A. The firm is experiencing constant returns to scale. B. The firm is experiencing decreasing returns to scale. C. The firm is experiencing increasing returns to scale. D. The firm's long-run average cost must have decreased but its short-run average cost could have either decreased or increased. 16. The existe nce of both economies of scale and diseconomies of scale would have what effect on the LRAC curve? A. It would make it upward-sloping. B.It would make it downward-sloping. C. It would give it an inverse U shape. D. It would give it a U shape. E. It would make it horizontal. 17. All of the following, except one, are examples of pecuniary economies of scale. Which is the exception? A. A lower interest rate paid on money borrowed. B. The ability to sell the by-products of production. C. The ability to use specialized inputs such as a robotics assembly line. D. The ability to obtain lower prices by buying in bulk. 18. What is the shape of the LRAC curve for a firm enjoying diseconomies of scale? 19. Which of the following refers to the perfectly competitive firm?A. It is a price-maker. B. It is a price-taker. C. It might be either a price-maker or a price-taker. D. It is neither a price-maker nor a price-taker. 20. What is the term for the extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit? A. Average revenue. B. Marginal revenue. C. Net revenue. D. Total revenue. 21. What is average revenue? A. The price multiplied by the quantity sold. B. The total revenue divided by the price. C. The extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit. D. It is equal to the price in perfectly competitive markets. 22. What is break-even output? A.The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's total fixed cost. B. The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's total variable cost. C. The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's fixed and variable costs including normal profits. D. The output at which the firm is making zero normal profits. 23. Which of the following is the correct sequence of events following a decrease in demand for a product in a perfectly competitive market? A. A decrease in the price and in the total profits of the representative firm which causes new firms to enter the industry. B.A decrease in the price and in the to tal profits of the representative firm which causes firms to leave the industry. C. A decrease in the price but an increase in the total profits of the representative firm which causes new firms to enter the industry. D. An increase in the price but a decrease in the total profits of the representative firm which causes firms to leave the industry. 24. How is average revenue defined? A. It is the extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit. B. It is the total revenue divided by the number of units sold. C. It is marginal revenue divided by the number of units sold. D.It is the sum of the marginal revenue of all units sold. 25. Which of the following markets provide the best example of a perfect competition? A. Automobile manufacturing. B. Restaurants. C. Oil refining. D. Wheat farming. 26. Explain why a perfectly competitive firm faces a horizontal demand curve? 27. Explain why average revenue is equal to marginal revenue for a perfectly competitive firm? 28. The supply cur ve for a perfectly competitive firm is that portion of its marginal cost curve that lies above its average variable cost curve. Explain why? Micro Review Quiz Test 2 Key 1. (p. 143)  When is marginal utility equal to zero?A. When TU is zero. B. When MU is at its maximum. C. When TU is at its maximum. D. When MU is at its minimum. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 05-01 Explain the law of diminishing marginal utility. Sayre – Chapter 05 #11 Source: Text Topic: Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup The following table shows Mia's $ marginal utility for litres of soya milk: Sayre – Chapter 05 2. (p. 151)  Refer to the above table to answer this question. Suppose that Mia has a budget of $7 and the price of a litre of soya milk is $1, what is the maximum quantity that Mia might purchase? A. 0. B. litres. C. 5 litres. D. 6 litres. E. Cannot be determined. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 05-04 Provide a theoretical rationale for dow nward-sloping demand curves. Sayre – Chapter 05 #54 Source: Text Topic: Marginal Utility and Demand Type: Computation Type: Pickup 3. (p. 154)  What is the correct formula for MCS (marginal consumer surplus)? A. $MU-price. B. Price-$MU. C. $TU-price. D. TU/price. E. TU/quantity. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 05-05 Understand why consumers generally value a product more than the price they pay. Sayre – Chapter 05 #62 Source: Text Topic: Consumer Surplus Type: DefinitionType: Pickup 4. (p. 154)  What is the term for the difference between the consumer's evaluation of a product and the price which is paid for it? A. Price discrimination. B. Price elasticity of demand. C. Consumer indifference. D. Consumer surplus. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 05-05 Understand why consumers generally value a product more than the price they pay. Sayre – Chapter 05 #63 Source: Text Topic: Consumer Surplus Type: Definition Type: Pickup Sayre – Chapter 05 5. ( p. 162)  Refer to Table 5. 13 to answer this question. With the consumption of what quantity is marginal utility equal to zero.A. 1. B. 5. C. 7. D. 8. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 05-02 Derive a consumers purchasing rule that ensures satisfaction is maximized. Sayre – Chapter 05 #91 Source: Study Guide Topic: Optimal Purchasing Rule Type: Computation Type: Pickup 6. (p. 145-148)  You have just spent two hours studying microeconomics and this has made you very hungry. You have $10 to spend on a snack and decide to go to Taco Bell. Putting your newly acquired economics knowledge to use, you have developed the following table to assist with your purchase decision: (a) Fill in the missing values in the table above. b) If you bought 6 tacos and 2 burritos are you maximizing your utility? Explain. (a) The completed table: (b) By purchasing 6 tacos and 2 burritos you are not maximizing your utility. At this level of consumption you have put yourself into the following po sition: MU/P for tacos = -6 ; 9 = MU/P for burritos. You can use the rational choice rule to reallocate your $10 and increase your total utility. Rather than the above allocation, you should purchase each item until your MU/P is the same for both munchies. Doing so will result in the purchase of 4 double Decker tacos and 3 chicken burrito Supremes.To see why this is the case, think about each purchase individually, and pick the item that will give you the highest MU/P. Reasoning in this way, you would make the following decisions: First dollar spent on a taco Second through fourth dollars spent on one taco and one burrito Fifth dollar spent on a taco Sixth and seventh dollars spent on a burrito Eighth through tenth dollars spent on one taco and one burrito After this allocation, the MU/P for each item is the same (and equal to 4). Difficulty: Difficult Learning Objective: 05-02 Derive a consumers purchasing rule that ensures satisfaction is maximized.Sayre – Chapter 05 #130 S ource: Text Topic: Optimal Purchasing Rule Type: Computation Type: Pickup Below are some financial data for the Do Drop In convenience store. The owners have put $40,000 into the business and they worked a total of 80 hours during the week. Savings accounts are currently paying 5. 2% interest and the going wage rate is $8 per hour. Sayre – Chapter 06 7. (p. 182)  Refer to the information above to answer this question. What is the week's economic profit for the Do Drop In? A. -$320. B. -$40. C. $280. D. $320. E. $1,050. Difficulty: EasyLearning Objective: 06-01 Understand how and why economists measure costs differently from how accountants do and distinguish between the accountants and economists views of profits. Sayre – Chapter 06 #10 Source: Text Topic: Explicit and Implicit Costs Type: Computation Type: Pickup 8. (p. 185)  Which of the following statements about the marginal product of labour is correct? A. It may either rise or fall as more labour is used. B. It always rises as more labour is used. C. It always falls as more labour is used. D. There is no relationship between marginal product and labour.Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-02 Understand the crucial relationship between productivity and costs. Sayre – Chapter 06 #23 Source: Text Topic: Theory of Production Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 9. (p. 194)  What causes marginal cost to increase? A. The advantages of the division of labour. B. The fact that ATC increases. C. Raising marginal product. D. The law of diminishing returns. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-04 List and graph the seven specific cost definitions used by economists. Sayre – Chapter 06 #75 Source: Text Topic: Total Costs and Average Total CostsType: Comprehension Type: Pickup 10. (p. 193)  Which of the following statements regarding average fixed costs is correct? A. They are constant since fixed costs are fixed. B. They are equal to average variable cost less average total cost . C. When graphed, they are a horizontal line. D. When graphed, they are a straight line which comes out of the origin. E. They fall continuously as output increases. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-04 List and graph the seven specific cost definitions used by economists. Sayre – Chapter 06 #84 Source: Text Topic: Total Costs and Average Total CostsType: Comprehension Type: Pickup 11. (p. 190)  Which of the following is a variable cost? A. The leasehold cost of a building. B. Insurance on the factory's physical plant. C. Raw materials. D. The cost of a marketing research report. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-03 Understand the important difference between fixed costs and variable costs. Sayre – Chapter 06 #86 Source: Text Topic: Marginal and Variable Costs Type: Computation Type: Pickup 12. (p. 202)  What is the sum of total variable costs and total fixed costs? A. It is equal to the sum of average product and marginal product.B. It is the sum of a ll marginal costs. C. It is total cost. D. It is AVC times the quantity of output. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-04 List and graph the seven specific cost definitions used by economists. Sayre – Chapter 06 #119 Source: Study Guide Topic: Total Costs and Average Total Costs Type: Definition Type: Pickup 13. (p. 182-183)  Can a firm earn an economic loss and an accounting profit at the same time? Explain. Accounting profit is equal to total revenue less explicit cost and economic profits is equal to total revenue less implicit cost and explicit cost.Suppose the firm is earning an accounting profit. If implicit cost is greater than accounting profit, there will be an economic loss. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 06-05 Explain the meaning of increasing productivity and cutting costs. Sayre – Chapter 06 #158 Source: Text Topic: Explicit and Implicit Costs Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 14. (p. 210)  What is meant by the term economic capacity? A. An ou tput level where the firm is physically unable to increase output. B. The output level where average variable cost is at a minimum. C. The output level where average total cost is at a minimum.D. Total fixed costs are at a minimum. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 07-02 Understand why medium-sized firms are sometimes just as efficient as big firms. Sayre – Chapter 07 #3 Source: Text Topic: Constant Returns to Scale Type: Definition Type: Pickup 15. (p. 213)  Which of the following statements is correct if a firm's capacity output increases from 300 to 600 and its total costs rise from $40,000 to $78,000? A. The firm is experiencing constant returns to scale. B. The firm is experiencing decreasing returns to scale. C. The firm is experiencing increasing returns to scale. D.The firm's long-run average cost must have decreased but its short-run average cost could have either decreased or increased. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 07-03 Understand why big firms sometim es enjoy great cost advantages. Sayre – Chapter 07 #17 Source: Text Topic: Economies of Scale Type: Definition Type: Pickup 16. (p. 218)  The existence of both economies of scale and diseconomies of scale would have what effect on the LRAC curve? A. It would make it upward-sloping. B. It would make it downward-sloping. C. It would give it an inverse U shape. D. It would give it a U shape. E.It would make it horizontal. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 07-06 Explain what is meant by the right size of firm. Sayre – Chapter 07 #46 Source: Text Topic: What is the Right Size of Firm? Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 17. (p. 224)  All of the following, except one, are examples of pecuniary economies of scale. Which is the exception? A. A lower interest rate paid on money borrowed. B. The ability to sell the by-products of production. C. The ability to use specialized inputs such as a robotics assembly line. D. The ability to obtain lower prices by buying in bulk. Dif ficulty: EasyLearning Objective: 07-03 Understand why big firms sometimes enjoy great cost advantages. Sayre – Chapter 07 #75 Source: Study Guide Topic: Economies of Scale Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 18. (p. 215)  What is the shape of the LRAC curve for a firm enjoying diseconomies of scale? The long-run average cost curve is upward-sloping when the firm is experiencing diseconomies of scale; an increase in output will lead to an increase in the average cost. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 07-04 Understand why firms can sometimes be too big. Sayre – Chapter 07 #120 Source: Text Topic: Why Firms can be too BigType: Comprehension Type: Pickup 19. (p. 232)  Which of the following refers to the perfectly competitive firm? A. It is a price-maker. B. It is a price-taker. C. It might be either a price-maker or a price-taker. D. It is neither a price-maker nor a price-taker. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-02 Explain what is meant by perfect competition and the market system. Sayre – Chapter 08 #6 Source: Text Topic: Perfect Competition and the Market System Type: Definition Type: Pickup 20. (p. 239)  What is the term for the extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit? A. Average revenue. B. Marginal revenue.C. Net revenue. D. Total revenue. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits. Sayre – Chapter 08 #12 Source: Text Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Definition Type: Pickup 21. (p. 238)  What is average revenue? A. The price multiplied by the quantity sold. B. The total revenue divided by the price. C. The extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit. D. It is equal to the price in perfectly competitive markets. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits.Sayre – Chapter 08 #13 Source: Text Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Defi nition Type: Pickup 22. (p. 239)  What is break-even output? A. The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's total fixed cost. B. The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's total variable cost. C. The output at which the total revenue just covers a firm's fixed and variable costs including normal profits. D. The output at which the firm is making zero normal profits. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits. Sayre – Chapter 08 #26Source: Text Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Definition Type: Pickup 23. (p. 254)  Which of the following is the correct sequence of events following a decrease in demand for a product in a perfectly competitive market? A. A decrease in the price and in the total profits of the representative firm which causes new firms to enter the industry. B. A decrease in the price and in the total profits of the representative firm which causes firms to leave the industry. C. A decrease in the price but an increase in the total profits of the representative firm which causes new firms to enter the industry. D.An increase in the price but a decrease in the total profits of the representative firm which causes firms to leave the industry. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-06 Explain the effect of a change in market demand or market supply on both the industry and the firm. Sayre – Chapter 08 #100 Source: Text Topic: The Industry Demand and Supply Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 24. (p. 260)  How is average revenue defined? A. It is the extra revenue derived from the sale of one more unit. B. It is the total revenue divided by the number of units sold. C. It is marginal revenue divided by the number of units sold.D. It is the sum of the marginal revenue of all units sold. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits. Sayre – Chapter 08 #1 06 Source: Study Guide Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Definition Type: Pickup 25. (p. 261)  Which of the following markets provide the best example of a perfect competition? A. Automobile manufacturing. B. Restaurants. C. Oil refining. D. Wheat farming. Difficulty: Easy Learning Objective: 08-02 Explain what is meant by perfect competition and the market system.Sayre – Chapter 08 #111 Source: Study Guide Topic: Perfect Competition Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 26. (p. 237)  Explain why a perfectly competitive firm faces a horizontal demand curve? In a perfectly competitive market, the individual firm has no control over price. Furthermore, the individual firm only produces a tiny fraction of the total market supply. If the individual firm sells at a higher price, nobody will buy it; nor would the firm sell it at a lower price. Therefore there is only one price: the market price, at which the firm can produce as much or as little as it wishes.Difficulty: Moderate Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits. Sayre – Chapter 08 #170 Source: Text Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 27. (p. 239)  Explain why average revenue is equal to marginal revenue for a perfectly competitive firm? A perfectly competitive firm faces a perfectly elastic demand curve. It may sell as many units as it wishes at the prevailing market price, thus the revenue from the incremental sale (MR) and the revenue per unit (AR) is equal to the price.Difficulty: Moderate Learning Objective: 08-03 Use two approaches to explain how a firm might maximize its profits. Sayre – Chapter 08 #171 Source: Text Topic: The Competitive Industry and Firm Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup 28. (p. 248)  The supply curve for a perfectly competitive firm is that portion of its marginal cost curve that lies above its average variable cost curve. Explain why? If the price is below average variable cost, the firm could not cover all of its variable cost. It would therefore shut down and produce nothing.If the price is equal or greater to the average variable cost, the firm will cover all of its variable cost, thus the firm will operate. Difficulty: Moderate Learning Objective: 08-05 Explain how a firms supply curve is derived. Sayre – Chapter 08 #173 Source: Text Topic: The Firms Supply curve Type: Comprehension Type: Pickup Micro Review Quiz Test 2 Summary Category| #  of  Questions| Difficulty:  Difficult| 1| Difficulty:  Easy| 24| Difficulty:  Moderate| 3| Learning  Objective:  05-01  Explain  the  law  of  diminishing  marginal  utility. 1| Learning  Objective:  05-02  Derive  a  consumers  purchasing  rule  that  ensures  satisfaction  is  maximized. | 1| Learning  Objective:  05-02  Derive  a  consumers  purchasing  rule  that  ensures  satisfaction  is  maximized. | 1| Le arning  Objective:  05-04  Provide  a  theoretical  rationale  for  downward-sloping  demand  curves. | 1| Learning  Objective:  05-05  Understand  why  consumers  generally  value  a  product  more  than  the  price  they  pay. | 2| Learning  Objective:  06-01  Understand  how  and  why  economists  measure  costs  differently  from  how  accountants  do  and  distinguish  between  the  accountants  and  economists  views  of  profits. 1| Learning  Objective:  06-02  Understand  the  crucial  relationship  between  productivity  and  costs. | 1| Learning  Objective:  06-03  Understand  the  important  difference  between  fixed  costs  and  variable  costs. | 1| Learning  Objective:  06-04  List  and  graph  the  seven  specific  cost  definitions  used  by  economists. | 3| Learning  Objective:  06-05  Explain   the  meaning  of  increasing  productivity  and cutting  costs. | 1| Learning  Objective:  07-02  Understand  why  medium-sized  firms  are  sometimes  just  as  efficient  as  big  firms. | 1| Learning  Objective:  07-03  Understand  why  big  firms  sometimes  enjoy  great  cost  advantages. 2| Learning  Objective:  07-04  Understand  why  firms  can  sometimes  be  too  big. | 1| Learning  Objective:  07-06  Explain  what  is  meant  by  the  right  size  of  firm. | 1| Learning  Objective:  08-02  Explain  what  is  meant  by  perfect  competition  and  the  market  system. | 2| Learning  Objective:  08-03  Use  two  approaches  to  explain  how  a  firm  might  maximize  its  profits. | 6| Learning  Objective:  08-05  Explain  how  a  firms  supply  curve  is  derived. | 1| Learning  Objective:à ‚  08-06  Explain  the  effect  of  a  change  in  market  demand  or  market  supply  on  both  the  industry  and  the  firm. | 1| Sayre  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Chapter  05| 8|Sayre  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Chapter  06| 8| Sayre  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Chapter  07| 5| Sayre  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Chapter  08| 10| Source:  Study  Guide| 5| Source:  Text| 23| Topic:  Constant  Returns  to  Scale| 1| Topic:  Consumer  Surplus| 2| Topic:  Economies  of  Scale| 2| Topic:  Explicit  and  Implicit  Costs| 2| Topic:  Law  of  Diminishing  Marginal  Utility| 1| Topic:  Marginal  and  Variable  Costs| 1| Topic:  Marginal  Utility  and  Demand| 1| Topic:  Optimal  Purchasing  Rule| 2| Topic:  Perfect  Competition| 1| Topic:  Perfect  Competition  and  the  Market  System| 1| Topic:  The  Competitive  Industry  and  Firm| 6| Topic:  The  Firms  Supply  curve| 1|

Anowa- Whose Fault?

African Women Writers Tragic Responsibility Anowa is the second, last, and most accomplished play written by Ghanaian playwright, poet, short-story writer, and novelist Ama Ata Aidoo. Anowa was first published in 1970 and had it’s British premiere in London in 1991 (Enotes, 2013). It tells the story of a young African woman named Anowa. She is not like any of the other traditional women in the town. Anowa likes to make her own choices and lives by her own opinions. The elders call her stubborn, she won’t marry any of the sturdy men in the town, she laughs at her own jokes, listen to her own tales, and follows her own advice (67).They all believe her vision is clouded. Her mother, Badua, wishes to see her marry a man and her father could care less what she does. She ends up meeting a man, Kofi, in the village and falls in love with him. She irrationally runs off with him and marries him. She completely disowns her family and begins a life with Kofi. Over time, they fall away from each other do to communication issues and fertility issues. Due to the massive pain and heartache from the situation, Kofi and Anowa both kill each other in the end. There is debate within the text about who was at fault for the tragic ending.Many say that Anowa was the sole reason for their suicides. Although everyone in the society is at fault. Anowa’s parents, Anowa, Kofi, and the traditional society are at fault. Badua has spoiled Anowa for most of her life. She has allowed her daughter to act and think as she wishes. Badua states, â€Å"how can she come to any good when everyone is always gossiping about her? † (70). The mother is at fault for allowing her child to let her mind run free as a child and into her adolescence. She wanted her daughter to have control and then when she had it and chose to be with Kofi, her mother became very controlling and angry.As Badua complains to Osam, Anowa’s father, about her daughter not finding a husband, Osam writes her complaining off by saying that his only duty was to create children (71). Osam goes on to explain that he wanted her to become a priestess. Badua would not listen to him. She covered her ears and explained that priestess’ are not people; they are too much like Gods they interpret, they don’t feel and they have no shame (72). Osam is at fault because he avoids the situation. He doesn’t care what Anowa chooses and he doesn’t care to listen to his own wife.On page 78, Osam states his view about Anowa being immature. Even though he knows this, not once did he do anything to make her a more â€Å"mature† woman (78). On page 91, Badua states how she should have â€Å"taught (Anowa) to marry a man. † It is ironic considering she doesn’t have a great marriage and chose a man who doesn’t care. Badua and Osam are to blame for Anowa’s behavior. Anowa plays a massive role in the tragedy. Although she is not the only one t o blame, she is by far one of the main reasons for the suicides. There is nothing wrong with her wanting to think and choose on her own.Yet she chooses a man she met off the street; A man whom many find to be unsuitable for any woman in town. When she meets him, she has her legs and her breasts exposed (69). While Kofi and Anowa were swooning in the village, a woman looked back at them and falls over. They both laugh, finding the situation hilarious, but it shows the low maturity level they both have (69). When Kofi proposes, Anowa runs home and is screaming in the streets. Badua tells her she is marrying a â€Å"fool,† a â€Å"watery male. † Badua explains to Anowa that â€Å"marriage is like a piece of cloth†¦it’s beauty passes with wear and tear. She was trying to explain that what counts is what is on the inside, not the outside. Anowa immediately responds with, â€Å"I don’t care! † (77). She is being childish and impulsive. She isn†™t thinking about what is best for her. She is thinking about her own desires and is being selfish. No one in the story truly knows what is right or wrong. After she runs off with Kofi, she constantly argues with him. She states that she doesn’t need any protection and that she can take care of herself. She believes she can do everything on her own. She is ignorant. Kofi responds with realism but she always wants to fight him regardless.There are times when Kofi wants to enlighten her with a new concept, such as medicine, but she immediately shoots him down. She is not open-minded and isn’t willing to sacrifice anything for him (85). Yet she expects everyone else and Kofi to be open-minded. Anowa will talk to herself about Kofi rather than just talking to Kofi about what’s going on in her head. If she does not get her way, she exaggerates her emotions, like saying she was going to â€Å"cut her throat. † (90). For years, she knows she is unhappy and tha t she sees no future for herself with him.Instead of confronting that, she fights Kofi and rebels against everything he chooses. Anowa’s immaturity is seen even at the end of the book when she calls in everyone from town to tell of Kofi’s decision to kick her out of the house and to expose him of his infertility and lack of masculinity (121). You can’t blame people for not having the correct answer to everything, but it’s obvious that Anowa is partly to blame. Throughout the whole story, Kofi plays the victim. He manipulates the situation to make it seem as if he isn’t at fault for anything and that he has made all the best choices he thinks he could have made.Just like Anowa, he talks to himself often about the problems within their relationship and how he feels but they never communicate those things together. When Anowa speaks her mind, Kofi asks who told her that information, as if she couldn’t think for herself. Kofi only lives by what other people say is right or wrong, rather than listening to himself. Anowa wants to keep working but he thinks they have the right to rest. He never makes a compromise with her stating that she could work if she really wanted to. Kofi can tell that Anowa is unhappy but he could care less.He does nothing to make her feel happier. From the beginning of the story, the question of his masculinity is evolving. The old women explains how he â€Å"combs his hair too much. † (80). When Anowa begins to notice they are not able to have children, she believes she is at fault. When she offers to find Kofi another woman. This is the normal tradition for their culture, yet he becomes annoyed at her help. This is one time in the story where he chooses not to follow traditional ways. At one point, he wants to buy men and Anowa does not like this idea.She states that she doesn’t need help from other men. Kofi says, â€Å"if you don’t, I do. † (90). Which is still not a g ood explanation or reason for buying them. He explains that they will be helpers and that they won’t be â€Å"carrying† him or anything of that sort. By the end of the book, these men are carrying him. â€Å"But the Kofi of the trade in slavery, who ultimately depends on slave labor, is the Kofi of the excess that corrupts the soul. The new Kofi, who has made a pact with the devil of material success no matter at whose cost, is already dead long before his suicide† (Ngugi wa Thiong’o).Over time, Kofi begins to dress better and is always with the men he bought. He sees a doctor at one point in the story and finds out that he is unable to have children. Even though he has this information, he still blames Anowa as if it was her fault they couldn’t have children. He never tells her that he is the one with the issue. Anowa brings up the issue again towards the end of the book. She says she wants to find him another wife to have children with and he get s mad at her. Anowa has an epiphany and asks, â€Å"Are you dying? † (117).She realizes that he is the one with the fertility problem and has keeping it from her. She states that his has â€Å"exhausted his masculinity,† that he is â€Å"dead wood. † (122). She does all of this in front of everyone in the community. She humiliates him and he runs off and shoots himself. She then drowns herself soon after. Everyone in the story was blaming everyone else. They all had different reasons and different opinions about who was to blame for the tragedy. Due to Anowa’s untraditional spirit, many of the people blamed her for everything. The truth of the matter is that everyone in the story was at fault.No one wanted to communicate properly, no one was disciplined correctly, everyone had a huge ego and no one was willing to work anything out. Everyone was irrational and immature. Everyone is to blame for the suicides. Bibliography Literature of Developing Nations fo r Students,  ©2013 Gale Cengage. Retrieved at: http://www. enotes. com/anowa. Ngugi wa Thiong’0. Ama Ata Aidoo: A Personal Celebration. April, 2012. Retrieved at: http://www. newafricanmagazine. com/features/culture/ama-ata-aidoo-a-personal-celebration. Aidoo, Ama Ata, Anowa, Longman Group, 1970.