Self-Concept and Education :: Education Learning Educational Essays

Self-Concept and Education An attractive dark-skinned black child with a tall and slender body, Jewel inhabits her third-grade universe with the energetic self-assuredness of someone who is eager for the next lesson, the next week, the next grade, her future. She's eight years old-going on nine, not nineteen, and you wouldn't guess that her mother died of a drug overdose a couple of years ago. You don't have to guess because her teacher will freely share the information with you a stranger--accompanied by an expression filed with smugness about self-fulfilling prophecies--if you comment even casually about Jewel's good attendance and punctuality record, praise her consistently neat home and class work admire her excellent handwriting, one of the best cursives in the class. In a classroom of thirty third-graders, Jewel is one of two black children. The other child is racially mixed with some African-American parentage but her physical features and color blend in seamlessly and nearly anonymously with all of th e other tan, tawny, golden Latino, Filipino, white, and Asian children in the class. This is a restless bunch of third- graders, except for those half-dozen who are usually too sleepy or enervated by 9:00 or 10:00 a.rn. to do any more than put their heads down on the desk when they can. Five or six students are always extremely quiet in the class, but the behaviors of the majority range from the docile but talkative to the intensely and continually disruptive and unmanageable. Jewel is talkative but is also wary and sensitive; she watches the others, watches the teacher, and desists when necessary. She has reasonable self-control, does not appear to be incorrigible, is cooperative and tractable most of thc time, is appropriately silent and focused for stretches of time, and is considered a good student by the usual everyday measurements. On this day, Jewel is talking and laughing, almost dancing--so absorbed and delighted with her classmates' topic or the moment--with the enviable childhood balloon of rising silliness and laughter that no brow-wrinkling, long division problem can easily burst--Jewel gets louder and forgets to be watchful, but it is too late. The teacher looks toward Jewel from the other side of the room, and I can tell from teacher's expression--her mean-curved lips, the narrowing of her wide blue eyes, her reddening cheeks--that Jewel is toast. From across the room teacher yells, "Jewel, sit down and be quiet--you're acting like an animal!"

Cloning and Ethical Issues

Essay on cloning and ethical issues that immediatly Subject : cloning and ethics come up when talking about it. Completed: 8/11/2012 Due:9/11/2012 Numerous articles appeared in the newspapers about one particular sheep, born in 1996. Her name, as you may have figured out, was Dolly. She was special as she was the first sheep to be cloned entirely by humans. The cloning of this sheep raised a lot of questions. The most important ones being â€Å"why would we do clone a living animal† and â€Å"can we clone humans too†.Of course these questions do not only require a scientific answer, but also an ethical answer as we are talking about living creatures. First of all: how exactly can you clone living organisms? There are three main types of cloning. DNA cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. DNA cloning or recombinant DNA technology is to transfer one piece of DNA into something that can duplicate himself. Bacterial plasmid, viruses and also yeast chromosome s are used for this as they are able to duplicate easily.The DNA fragment containing the gene which is needed is isolated using enzymes, and after that it will be transferred to the bacterial plasmid using once again enzymes. After that the bacterial plasmid starts multiplying, and the outcome will be one certain fragment. Reproductive cloning was how Dolly came to earth: the nucleus of a donor adult cell is placed in an egg cell without nucleus. This cell will then need chemicals or an electric current to stimulate cell division. If it has indeed started dividing it will need to be placed in a uterus where it continues till the animal gives birth.Therapeutic cloning, sometimes referred to as embryo cloning, is the production of human stem cells for use in research. This isn't used at all to create cloned human beings, it's just for the research because Stem cells are quite important. Stem cells aren't specified yet so they can chance into any kind of cell depending on what scientis ts want to research on. Now you may ask what this has to do with the whole â€Å"can we clone humans† and the ethical and moral issues. Can we clone humans using the DNA cloning? No. But we can use it to create new medicines or vaccines as this method can nly be used for certain parts of DNA and not the whole of it. Reproductive Cloning could, theoretically, be used for cloning humans. In real life however this technique wouldn't be used because it's expensive and has a really low rate of success. There were hundreds of failed clones, several dead fetuses and horribly deformed animals before the scientists had Dolly. Most scientists do not feel that this is good for cloning as it is far to risky and also we do not know a lot about this technique either. Therapeutic cloning can be used for parts of the body containing the same set of cells.You could for instance and theoretically seen once again, clone a kidney. There are however a lot of risks such as the fetal tissue dying, or tissue rejection if you actually create an organ. It's not possible to clone entire human beings as there is little known about cloning and the human body is just far to complex to be created in a laboratory. So most scientists agree that it is not possible yet to clone entire human beings. Most of these scientists highly doubt that it would be possible in the near future to clone entire human beings, but there are always the â€Å"what if† questions.What if it was possible, what would happen then? The advantage would be that there are no more donors needed and everybody can live longer and happier. But killing a clone for a transplant, wouldn't that be considered murder? After all you would kill someone who is composed out of the same DNA as you. This raises another question, how would you treat the clones? The same DNA, the same needs. Should the parents of the child or teenager, or adults themselves take care of their own clone or would the clone be raised by some sort of company?These are most what if questions and to be quite honest I believe that we shouldn't clone human beings. There are always people who would want to abuse this technology. This abusing can take many forms: people who have access to all information could either sell or keep it, to create a position for themselves which may result in a lot of income inequality. But that isn't the only disadvantages. Imagine that there will be clones, it would surely narrow down the gene diversity which we have created over the years.Excessive cloning could cause a loss of the diversity and therefore we might be less resistant against bacteria, viruses etc. Not only biological but also the ethical questions show that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. The benefits of cloning (parts of) humans being that we wouldn't need any more donors, or we could do research on organs without having to use humans themselves. The disadvantages are that we would abuse the power once again. If we could clo ne entire humans that would be defying the rights to live freely. There would be loss of gene diversity which would be contradictory to all that shaped us.After all living is survival of the fittest. Victoria Smit ( 5vf) Sources: http://www. ornl. gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning. shtml http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cloning http://www. geneticsandsociety. org/article. php? list=type&type=59 http://learn. genetics. utah. edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/ http://thefarnsworths. com/science/cloning. htm Movie the fifth element ( actually not a source but wort watching! ) repo men ( about the disadvantages of cloning organs. Also not really a source but worth watching! ) Cloning and Ethical Issues Essay on cloning and ethical issues that immediatly Subject : cloning and ethics come up when talking about it. Completed: 8/11/2012 Due:9/11/2012 Numerous articles appeared in the newspapers about one particular sheep, born in 1996. Her name, as you may have figured out, was Dolly. She was special as she was the first sheep to be cloned entirely by humans. The cloning of this sheep raised a lot of questions. The most important ones being â€Å"why would we do clone a living animal† and â€Å"can we clone humans too†.Of course these questions do not only require a scientific answer, but also an ethical answer as we are talking about living creatures. First of all: how exactly can you clone living organisms? There are three main types of cloning. DNA cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. DNA cloning or recombinant DNA technology is to transfer one piece of DNA into something that can duplicate himself. Bacterial plasmid, viruses and also yeast chromosome s are used for this as they are able to duplicate easily.The DNA fragment containing the gene which is needed is isolated using enzymes, and after that it will be transferred to the bacterial plasmid using once again enzymes. After that the bacterial plasmid starts multiplying, and the outcome will be one certain fragment. Reproductive cloning was how Dolly came to earth: the nucleus of a donor adult cell is placed in an egg cell without nucleus. This cell will then need chemicals or an electric current to stimulate cell division. If it has indeed started dividing it will need to be placed in a uterus where it continues till the animal gives birth.Therapeutic cloning, sometimes referred to as embryo cloning, is the production of human stem cells for use in research. This isn't used at all to create cloned human beings, it's just for the research because Stem cells are quite important. Stem cells aren't specified yet so they can chance into any kind of cell depending on what scientis ts want to research on. Now you may ask what this has to do with the whole â€Å"can we clone humans† and the ethical and moral issues. Can we clone humans using the DNA cloning? No. But we can use it to create new medicines or vaccines as this method can nly be used for certain parts of DNA and not the whole of it. Reproductive Cloning could, theoretically, be used for cloning humans. In real life however this technique wouldn't be used because it's expensive and has a really low rate of success. There were hundreds of failed clones, several dead fetuses and horribly deformed animals before the scientists had Dolly. Most scientists do not feel that this is good for cloning as it is far to risky and also we do not know a lot about this technique either. Therapeutic cloning can be used for parts of the body containing the same set of cells.You could for instance and theoretically seen once again, clone a kidney. There are however a lot of risks such as the fetal tissue dying, or tissue rejection if you actually create an organ. It's not possible to clone entire human beings as there is little known about cloning and the human body is just far to complex to be created in a laboratory. So most scientists agree that it is not possible yet to clone entire human beings. Most of these scientists highly doubt that it would be possible in the near future to clone entire human beings, but there are always the â€Å"what if† questions.What if it was possible, what would happen then? The advantage would be that there are no more donors needed and everybody can live longer and happier. But killing a clone for a transplant, wouldn't that be considered murder? After all you would kill someone who is composed out of the same DNA as you. This raises another question, how would you treat the clones? The same DNA, the same needs. Should the parents of the child or teenager, or adults themselves take care of their own clone or would the clone be raised by some sort of company?These are most what if questions and to be quite honest I believe that we shouldn't clone human beings. There are always people who would want to abuse this technology. This abusing can take many forms: people who have access to all information could either sell or keep it, to create a position for themselves which may result in a lot of income inequality. But that isn't the only disadvantages. Imagine that there will be clones, it would surely narrow down the gene diversity which we have created over the years.Excessive cloning could cause a loss of the diversity and therefore we might be less resistant against bacteria, viruses etc. Not only biological but also the ethical questions show that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. The benefits of cloning (parts of) humans being that we wouldn't need any more donors, or we could do research on organs without having to use humans themselves. The disadvantages are that we would abuse the power once again. If we could clo ne entire humans that would be defying the rights to live freely. There would be loss of gene diversity which would be contradictory to all that shaped us.After all living is survival of the fittest. Victoria Smit ( 5vf) Sources: http://www. ornl. gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning. shtml http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Cloning http://www. geneticsandsociety. org/article. php? list=type&type=59 http://learn. genetics. utah. edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/ http://thefarnsworths. com/science/cloning. htm Movie the fifth element ( actually not a source but wort watching! ) repo men ( about the disadvantages of cloning organs. Also not really a source but worth watching! )

The personal computer industry

These latter two, comprised the most valuable component of a PC, as they were protected by repository rights of their manufacturers, whereas the various components produced by PC manufacturers were vulnerable to copying. This situation created a high competition environment of â€Å"IBM clones†, and drastically reduced the profit margins that PC manufacturers were able to achieve and maintain. The common distribution and sales strategies among PC manufacturers did little to alleviate the problem of increasingly slim margins.At the time, PC's were sold through distributors, wholesalers and resellers, who preformed additional functions (such as advising lay customers and servicing them), yet ultimately lengthened the Value Chain and thus Harlan the manufacturers' marginal profit. Vigorous price wars between competing manufacturers further diminished profit margins. Hardware components could be purchased from a multitude of worldwide suppliers in an increasingly competitive globa l market, whereas microprocessors were supplied by a handful of companies, dominated by Intel.To make matters worse, as a given generation of processor aged, the price of the computer containing it declined rapidly. This meant that PC margins were typically highest during the early days of a microprocessor generation. In addition, widespread policies such as inventory buybacks of outdated products and rice protection offered to retailers against devaluation, consumed 2. 5 cents on every dollar of revenue. Managing these policies, together with the costs of advertising to resellers and funding for market development, generated costs of 2. 5 cents more on every dollar of revenue.Question 2 Why has Dell been so successful despite the low average profitability In the PC industry? Dell's Direct Model of marketing to end customers, which was established early in the company's history, was to become the driving force behind its wild success. This Is easily demonstrated by the company's bri ef departure from Its Direct Model, In favor of the standard retail store based marketing. Resulting In a loss on products sold through retailers, this strategy was quickly abandoned and the company returned to its tried and proven direct approach.Dell had recognized that the PC industry (as described above) was inflicted with rampant inefficiency in the distribution and marketing chain. The ensuing effect was a price point for a PC unit far in excess of the value of its parts. By the time a PC reached the end client, so much time had passed and so many extra costs had been added, that a $3000 PC old. By assembling the hardware components himself and marketing the finished product directly to the end customer, Dell would eliminate the middlemen, creating added value for both himself and the customer by splitting the middleman's profit between them.The fundamental logic of Dell's position is as follows: for a certain set of customer described below, Dell manages to achieve very low c osts without sacrificing a great deal of buyer willingness-to-pay. On the end-customer dimension, Dell has focused on knowledgeable customers who want product stability, high-end performance and low total lifetime costs. On the product dimension, Dell avoids the low end of the price spectrum (sub-$1 ,OHO) and focuses on stable product lines. On the geographic dimension, Dell is more focused on the US than all of its rivals except Gateway.Question 3 Prior to the recent efforts by competitors to match Dell (1997-1998), how big was Dell's competitive advantage? Specifically, calculate Dell's advantage over the team of Compact and a reseller in serving a corporate customer. How big was Dell's competitive advantage? In a word – Big. In addition to the Direct Model, Dell pursued competitive advantages in other areas as well. Of these, several are particularly notable: ; Customer Segmentation – As the company grew it began to employ increasingly complex customer segmentations in order to maximize its marketing and customer service efficiency.Thus, a humble twofold segmentation model (large clients and small clients), evolved within a few years into a mammoth multi category model. ; Sales – As dell had grown, it subdivided its sales effort by region, and into countries within each region. In this way, Dell was able to take advantage of unique local advantages as well as improve its managerial efficiency. ; It is important to toe, that the above actions taken by Dell, while clearly improvements of service and efficiency, can truly be considered advantages only so far as they differentiate Dell from its competitors (this is not clear from the case study).If, however, these actions simply put Dell on par (not to mention sub-par) with the rest of the industry, its success cannot be attributed to them in any significant way. ; Online Services – Dells expanded its online services tremendously in 1996 with the launch of its improved website. The w ebsite offered the ability to obtain product information, configure a imputer system, check pricing, place an order and track orders of products. In addition the website allowed access to Dell's complete catalogue of service.For thousands of premiere corporate customers, Dell had designed dedicated secure pages within the website, containing pertinent information and personalized service. By 1998, sales originating from Dell's website reached a whopping 10 million dollars per day. ; Dell also ventured tentatively back into the reseller market – selling its older systems to a limited number of resellers at a 15-20% markdown from its listed price. However, Dell did not offer price protection or buybacks, thus avoiding the added costs related to these common practices, while disposing of its devaluing inventory.This activity, though limited at first, would eventually come to encompass 5% of Dell's total sales. ; Production, logistics and procurement – Dell's PC's we for b ased on actual orders, so that the company need not hold any finished goods inventory of standardized machines. Yet despite this â€Å"a la carte† ordering and manufacturing, Dell was able to produce a product, from order entry to shipping in about a day and a half!. Thanks to a streamlined assembly line production process, Dell was able to supply its products markedly faster than the competition while still holding far less inventory.In addition, Dell has found that this system leads to less defective products. Dell also leverages this system to cater to corporate customers, incorporating the loading of customers' proprietary software on the PC into the production process. The ability to quickly supply emergency rush orders as well as extremely high volume orders to corporate customers, is another advantage of Dell's superb production system. Last, but hardly least, the quality of Dell's products and customer service were of superior quality, ranking highly in most surveys r elative to its competitors.Compared to this, Compact was at a serious disadvantage in many ways, pertaining to both private and corporate customers. To begin with, Compact did not market its products directly to the end customer, but instead distributed to customers mostly through retail stores and resellers. This meant Compact would have had to share part of its profit margin with a reseller, as well as incur the significant costs of buybacks and price protection. Compact PC's were also significantly less customizable and its production process far less sophisticated. Consumer PC's were manufactured as standard units, distributed mainly through retailers.Attempts at direct distribution via a toll-free telephone number failed to take off, mainly since Compact kept its prices high in order to avoid angering its supply chain. Likewise, efforts to establish a functional website for direct distribution were abandoned in the face of objections by the distribution chain. As for corporate customers – Compact built its corporate PC's according to demand forecasts made by its supply chain. Although this allowed Compact to hold its inventory for only 30 days (still much more than Dell), reseller inventory holding periods, meant the product still took about 65 days to arrive at the customer.Question 4 How effective have competitors been in responding to the challenge posed by Dell's advantage? How big is Dell's remaining advantage? Initial measures by Compact aimed at challenging Dell's advantage, were a limited success. In 1997, Compact initiated an Optimized Distribution Model (EDM): a coordinated effort with its distributors and resellers. Under this model, private customer units were manufactured subsequent to ordering. More customized units as well as corporate orders, required a two-step assembly, shipping a striped-down PC to its distribution channel, which would complete the last 20% of assembly.Additionally, price protection was reduced to only two weeks. In spite of these extensive measures, delivery time remained in the 45-50 days range, although this was expected to eventually be reduced to as little as 25 days. This time frame, though improved, posed no significant challenge to Dell's superiority. In late 1998, Compact initiated its Directress program, selling customized units to small and midsized companies wrought the telephone and internet, at a lower price than those charged by retailers. Days on average.This last development represents a significant bite into Dells advantage, with the shipping time being equal or less. However, it is important to note that Dell still maintains a significant lead in several respects. First, the line of products sold in the Directress program is limited. Second, this program caters to small and midsized businesses, lending no improvement to Compass's big-business and private customer operations. Compact also lacked an operational website for private customer purchases and dedicated corporate customer service. IBM was among the first to recognize and respond to Dell's advantage.The company moved to an Authorized Assembly Program (PAP), shipping striped-down â€Å"model O† PC's to its distribution channel, which would finish the assembly process according to order. This allowed for greater customizable and a less depreciable inventory, alongside an improved inventory turnover rate. Despite this improvement, IBM continued to produce model Co's according to its own demand forecasts, thus maintaining a significant inventory. In 1994, IBM launched a website which allowed customers to purchase PC's directly from the company.Although a step towards combating Dells advantage, Vim's website was geared toward private customers only and was not available for corporate customers. In addition, the site did not offer the range of services available on Dell's website, nor did it enable the customer to customize the PC. A later addition of a service geared toward corporate custom ers, which allowed them to by directly from the company, further improved IBM position. Yet the limited line of products offered, together with the persistent lack of a dedicated customer service website for corporate customers marred this success.In 1997, shortly after Compact launched its EDM program, HP unveiled a similar program by the name of Extended Solutions Partnership Program (ESP.). HP would ship orders to resellers as usual, or to the end customer if the reseller so requested. The program was similar to ‘Mob's model O, with the members of the distribution channel completing the final stages of assembly. Despite this similarity, Haps attitude to direct distribution was quite different. They believed that circumventing the resellers would cause antagonism and lower sales. Thus, HP avoided selling directly to end customers initially.When the company eventually established a website in 1998, it was not based on direct sale but on delivery being done through resellers. The website was anticipated to allow the reduction of price protection to 2 weeks, reduce defects and shave 5-15% off the price. Later, HP introduced direct sale through its website, however this service was only available to private customers, while corporate customers were still confined to purchasing through resellers. These improvements, as stated above, are still a far cry from the services and products available on Dell's website.Dell also maintains its production and inventory advantages relative to HP. To combat declining operations in 1997, Gateway opened 144 Gateway stores across the United States, which served as showrooms for the company's products and where customers could order PC's. However these stores held no inventory. In tandem, Gateway abandoned their efforts to obtain large corporate customers and began focusing on small businesses. Finally, â€Å"Gateway Partner† was established as a subdivision dedicated to reseller business. As is easily apparent, Gate way made some measure of improvement in the direction Dell has dictated.However, Gateways seems destined to occupy an ever diminishing place in the PC market, targeting small businesses and private customers. As is evidenced above, Dell maintains advantages in the areas of production efficiency and customizable, inventory management, direct distribution and online service (especially as concerns corporate customers). It has no doubt lost some part of its once vast advantages (for example Compass's reduced delivery time), yet it undoubtedly still holds a superior position to its competition. Question 5 What should each of Dell's major rivals (MOM, Compact, HP, and Gateway) do now? Attempting to be more responsive to customer's needs. For example: Soliciting customer feedback, Creating a forum for customers to suggest and rate improvements to products, Co-creating products with customers. 2. Match or exceed Dells website. Create a viable platform to cater to both private and corporate customers and implement a personalized online customer service for high end customers (similar to Dell's). 3. Developing new markets in emerging economies, such as China India and Brazil. The saturation of the PC industry in developed economies has engendered ever intensifying competition.Customers have become far easier as well as demanding. Emerging economies represent a huge opportunity to take advantage of an as of yet untapped market, where Dell's advantages may not prove to be so significant. 4. Enter new technological markets, such as laptops, smart-phones etc. Where Dell's production and supply schemes do not present a particular advantage. 5. Differentiate products in terms of quality and/or design. For example designs by contemporary artists. The main question is why has it been so hard for rivals to match Dell.The Dell story illustrates a wide range of barriers to imitation: tradeoffs; complexity/FLT; preemption; organizational resistance to choice. Based on these diffic ulties, you should have provided the rivals with prescriptions, and proposed an appropriate course of action. The answer should have discussed the question should the company go wholly to a direct sales model? Would the company be better off split into focused pieces, or at least largely independent units? Grade: 15 out of 17 points Question 6 Apply the VIRGIN model to Dell and its competitors. Demonstrate your understanding of this model.Resource based view of business and strategic management, stipulates hat a company's success is determined by its unique collection of resources and competencies. Hence, strategic decisions involve creating and sustaining competitive advantages through the company's core competencies. Resource-based analysis according to the VIRGIN model dictates that a resource must have four key attributes in order to constitute a sustainable competitive advantage: ; Valuable: Creates value for the firm by taking advantage of opportunities, eliminating threats or allowing the firm to differentiate products / services. Rare: Few or no competitors posses the resource. Imperfectly Imitable: Competitors cannot easily copy or reproduce the resource. ; Non-Substitutable: Equivalent resources that may create similar value are not readily Dells chief advantage, from which most of its other strengths ensue, is its production and supply schemes. As instructed, in the final part of this paper, we shall attempt to implement the VIRGIN model characteristics on these schemes, comparing them to the parallel attributes of Dell's competitors, with the hope of determining whether or not they constitute a sustainable competitive advantage. Valuable: Dell's supply chain is valuable, but not as valuable as it used to be. Computer technology as gotten increasingly cheaper over the years, so that even under the assumption that Dell maintains its historical profit margins, thanks to its superior production and supply schemes, this margin is now taken from a lower priced product, thus decreasing the company's nominal profits. O Due to decreasing prices, Dell may be forced to make difficult compromises in other areas, such as service and product quality, in order to maintain its profitability.Putting cost before quality is a move that may prove detrimental to Dell's long term interests. O As computing power has gotten grater, he standard PC is sufficient for supplying the needs of most average users. As such, the value of Dell PC's superior customizable has decreased significantly. ; Rare: In the past, Dell's unique production scheme and streamlined direct distribution model allowed for a highly customizable product, unrivaled by its competition. Recent developments, however, have put a dent in this unique advantage.Vim's â€Å"Model O† approach (and its subsequent equivalents in Compact and HP) as well as other advances such as Compass's Directress, have offered customers added customizable. However, no other company offers either the extent or the ease of sustainability as offered by Dell through its website. ; Imperfectly Imitable: Dell's production and supply schemes are difficult, though not impossible, to copy. For the companies historically working with distributors it is quite difficult to achieve disintermediation due to supply chain conflicts.Manufacturers cannot afford to do without their distributors in the short term, and the distributors will not allow them to move gradually towards disintermediation in the long term. However, in light of Dell's staggering success, the competition is slowly but surely, converging to Dells approach. If Dell does not begin to innovate in order to counter competitors, it may prove to be a â€Å"one-trick-pony† unable to continually maintain its once vast competitive advantage. It is noteworthy however, that Dell has maintained this particular competitive advantage for a significant period of time.This may well alleviate most concerns regarding competitors' abilit y to effectively copy Dell's model. Non-Substitutable: Dell's production and supply schemes are not readily substitutable with regard to the desktop PC market. It has proven to be the by far most efficient model conceived, almost simplemindedly creating and maintaining Dell's dominance of the PC market. However, recent years have seen the rapid decline of desktop PC's as the dominant form of private and corporate computing product.Laptops, game consoles and smart-phones now occupy an ever growing portion of the computer market. With regard to these emerging products, the advantages of Dell's production and supply schemes, versus its competitors, are virtually nonexistent. Therefore, Dell's approach is not now as irreplaceable as it once was. ;Well implementation of the VIRGIN model on Dell's production and supply conclusion is that such capabilities would not provide Dell with a competitive advantage)

Immigration Essays - United States, Human Migration, Free Essays

Immigration Essays - United States, Human Migration, Free Essays Immigration For many immigration to the United States would be a new beginning during 19th to early 20th century. There were many acts and laws to limit the number immigrating to the United States. Many of these acts were due to prejudice and misunderstanding of a culture. One such act was the Chinese Exclusion Act. Form this one act many immigration laws and acts were made against foreigners. They hoped to control the number of immigrants arriving on the American shores. The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882 was just the beginning. This act was the turning point of the U.S. immigration policies, although it only directly affected a small group of people. Prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act there was no significant number of free immigrants that had been barred from the country. Once the Chinese Exclusion Act had been in acted, further limitations on the immigration of ethnic groups became standard procedure for more than eight decades. Irish catholic, Mexican, and other races were not allowed the same freedoms that others were allowed. Even after a family had been here for generations there were not given the same freedoms. Since the arrival of the first Chinese Immigrants, racist hostility towards the Chinese always existed. They were predominantly male laborers, concentrated in California. They were vital to the development of western mining, transportation, and agriculture. Other races were also discriminated against, the Irish were not allowed to get jobs or live in certain areas of the cities. By 1880, the great fear of German-speaking and Irish-Catholic immigrants was over. Employers, who still sought worker-immigrants, and not just temporary workers, looked increasingly to southern and eastern Europe. When Italians, Greeks, Turks, Russians, Slavs, and Jews arrived in the United States in numbers, however, new anxieties arose about making Americans of so many different kinds of strangers. An 1880 this act gave the United States the one sided right to mandate to limit or even stop the immigration of Chinese laborers. In effect canceling the right of the Chinese to enter the country. Congress quickly complied and made a ten-year bill that the President signed on May 6, 1882. While exempting teachers, students, merchants, and tourists the Act suspended immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The law was renewed for a second ten-year period in 1892 and then made permanent in 1902. Chinese Exclusion Act had set a pattern for many other immigration laws and acts to come. The Immigration Act of March 3, 1891 was the first comprehensive law for national control of immigration. It established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department to administer all immigration laws (except the Chinese Exclusion Act). This Immigration Act also added to the inadmissible classes. The people in these classes were inadmissible to enter into the United States. The people in these classes were, those suffering from a contagious disease, and persons convicted of certain crimes. The Immigration Act of March 3, 1903 and The Immigration Act of February 20, 1907 added further categories to the inadmissible list. Immigrants were screened for their political beliefs. Immigrants who were believed to be anarchists or those who advocated the overthrow of government by force or the assassination of a public officer was deported. This act was made mainly do to the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. On February 5, 1917 another immigration act was made. This Act categorized all previous exclusion provisions and added the exclusion of illiterate aliens form entering into the United States. This Act made Mexicans inadmissible. It insisted that all aliens pay a head tax of $8 dollars. However, because of the high demand for labor in the southwest, months later congress let Mexican workers to stay in the U.S. under supervision of state government for six-month periods. The Gold Rush in California brought a large influx of Chinese laborers and was ended abruptly by the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. In between this time Thousands of Chinese immigrated or traveled freely from China and San Francisco. They were mostly young male peasants that left their villages to become contract laborers in the American West. They were recruited to extract minerals and metals, construct a vast railroad network, reclaim

Appositive Adjective Definition and Examples

Appositive Adjective Definition and Examples An Appositive Adjective is a traditional grammatical term for an adjective (or a series of adjectives) that follows a noun and, like a nonrestrictive appositive, is set off by commas or dashes. Appositive adjectives often appear in pairs or groups of three (tricolons). Examples and Observations Arthur was a big boy, tall, strong, and broad-shouldered.(Janet B. Pascal, Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Baker Street. Oxford University Press, 2000)No Chinese emperor was more resplendently arrayed. As for the cigarette that he holds out, half smoked, to be taken and deposited by his valet, a whole civilization- urbane, authoritative, preposterous, and doomed- resides in that single gesture.(Anthony Lane, Life and Death Matters. The New Yorker, February 8, 2010)Much of the greatest poetry, ancient and modern, has been occupied with a similar image: the figure of the abandoned woman.(Lawrence Lipking, Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition. The University of Chicago Press, 1988)Since then the starless night is gone,The warm south-western showers have passed;The trees, forlorn and bare, sigh on,And shiver in the northern blast.(Caroline May, Dead Leaves, 1865)Though Sfars fantastic visual excesses distort some facts, they perfectly reflect the spirit of Gainsbourgs life and reputation- exc essive, brilliant, controversial, and tortured.(Michael Rabiger and Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics, 5th ed. Focal Press, 2013) Melrose in his skullcap, sitting sideways in his chair, his cigarette held aloft, presented a profile which might have been that of some Venetian Doge, old, withered and crafty.(Mary Augusta Ward, The Mating of Lydia, 1913) Characteristics of Appositive Adjectives Appositive adjectives, which hardly ever spring naturally to our lips, differ from regular adjectives both in placement and in punctuation. They are placed after the noun or before the determiner, and they are set off by commas. When there is no determiner, they are still set off by commas. Their functions are somewhat different, too, although the difference is hard to pin down. It should be fairly easy to feel, however, if you read these three sentences aloud, one after the other. Adjectives in normal position:The sturdy old cabin survived the hurricane.Appositive adjectives following the noun:The cabin, old but sturdy, survived the hurricane.Appositive adjectives before the determiner:Old but sturdy, the cabin survived the hurricane. In the second and third sentences, the placement and punctuation of old but sturdy lead you to place a stress on both appositive adjectives that they do not get in the first sentence... [T]he placement and punctuation of the adjectives focus special attention on the contrast. This is partly because the information is not there primarily to identify the noun. If the adjectives for cabin were old and red- The old red cabin survived the hurricane- we would not think of putting old and red in the appositive position. They describe, they modify, but they do not suggest the same idea as old but sturdy. Appositive adjectives typically suggest a relation between information found in a sentence and information carried by the adjectives themselves.Appositive adjectives hardly ever appear singly... When they do, they are almost always modified by a prepositional phrase.(Michael Kischner and Edith Wolin, Writers Choices: Grammar to Improve Style. Harcourt, 2002) A Loose Construction The Appositive Adjective. When an adjective is loosely joined, almost as an afterthought, to a substantive which has a separate existence in the mind, the construction is called appositive. It is the loosest of all constructions, as is shown by the fact that it is usually set off by commas. It resembles the noun in apposition as far as any adjective resembles a noun; i.e., it assumes a single attribute, while a noun assumes a group of attributes large enough to imply a partial identity. Example: All sizes, large and small, are sold here. (Irene M. Mead, The English Language and Its Grammar. Silver, Burdett and Company, 1896)

Virgin and Child with Four Angels Research Paper

Virgin and Child with Four Angels - Research Paper Example The dimensions are not very impressive. The artwork is relatively small. It is 63 cm tall and 39 cm wide. Wonderful use of light and shade gives the viewer a glazy feel. The painting has been developed on a wooden panel. The subject is all about Virgin Mary holding her son Jesus (in the form of a little baby). The depiction shows the mother and the child has very human-like rather than angel-like structure. The scene is that of Virgin Mary being anointed the Queen of the Heaven by four angels. Nevertheless, the artist has depicted the scene on the backdrop of contemporary cityscape (Harbison, 160-165). In this way, contemporary metropolitan environment has been admixed with the Biblical mythology. However, the facial expressions of Virgin Mary and the four angels appear to be very serious but serene and full of heavenly pity. The painting is of oil-on-panel variety, where the artist has laboured hard to create fine details. Use of several colours along with copious illumination has been accomplished with the help of brushstrokes and different oil-based shades. Medieval Europe used to be a very religious place. Religion played a key role in not only socio-cultural life, but also in the continent’s politics, municipality, architecture, military, ethics, etc. The art and architecture of Europe at that time clearly reflected this social situation. Christianity influenced the Medieval European population heavily, and the artwork Virgin and Child with Four Angels is a very important example of this reality. Common people used to buy lots of artefacts dedicated to Christianity, and many contemporary pictures and paintings depicted Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, and other historic or mythological characters (Borchert, 144). Gerard David was no exception to this tendency, and he used his artistic skills professionally. In his time, he might have earned considerable amount of money by creating and selling artworks depicting scenes from Christian texts and Biblical

Analysis of Dividend Policy Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Analysis of Dividend Policy - Literature review Example If the debt-to-equity ratio is in favor of the former the manager would have greater dispersion in determining the dividend policy. More debt means less tax liability and less dividend payout. When debt holders power increases vis--vis equity holders dividend policy becomes an instrument in the hands of the manager to play each group against the other (Pike, & Neale, 2003). The dividend policy and the capital market structure of the firm can be examined with reference to a number of theories. The Modigliani-Miller Theorem is the earliest of such theories to consider the relevance of capital structure to determine the value of a firm (Ross, Westerfield, & Jaffe, 2002). In recent times these theoretical constructs have been developed in line with an ever increasing tendency to consider the leverage issue of the company. Leveraging by managers to achieve exclusive personal goals is nothing new. In fact, it's the conflict of interests between the principals or owners (or shareholders) and the agents (or managers) that have thrust the issue of leverage to the fore. In other words, the complex issues revolving around the capital structure of the firm are basically influenced by this conflict in which managers tend to have more information about the probable outcomes of future investments than shareholders. Thus this information asymmetry leads to a series of other problems.Disagreement between managers' behavior on the one hand and the shareholders' behavior on the other gives rise to a series of other related problems, e.g. information asymmetry, agency costs, taxation and bankruptcy costs. Information asymmetry refers to the manager's ability to control the flow of information in his favor so that the principal or the owner would have less access to information (Jonathan, & DeMarzo, 2007). Agency costs are related to the principal-agent relationship. For example, when a principal hires an agent he does so with the intention that the latter would act in conformance with certain rules to bring about what the former wishes.However, the motivating factor behind such performance is monetary compensation such a good salary to the manager. Therefore such behavior on the part of the manager would not be in his best interest. His tendency to deviate from what is expected of him is common among all managers. In order to reduce such negative be havior, the manager must be adequately compensated. However, the principal does not know what the agent would do to ensure that his own interest prevails. Costs that are associated with this behavior are known as principal-agent costs or the principal-agent problem.(a). Asset substitution effect Assuming that projects are riskier, there is still a fairer chance of success against failure thus obliging both debt-holders and shareholders to condone such risky investment decisions on the part of managers. However, in the long run with new projects rising, the value of the firm is bound to decrease while a net transfer of wealth from debt-holders to shareholders is more likely.