Ethics Essay

1. Frame the ethical issue Should Giles and Regas have a serious relationship while working on a same case or within the same accounting firm? 2. Gather all the facts: The couple spends personal time together during the workday Regas is having a three hours long lunch break Regas is being distracted from work Team members are aware of the relationship between two Regas and Giles have tried to be discreet about their relationship 3. Identify the Stakeholders and their obligations Mark Sax, the controller of CAA Industries, has the right to know the hours that were billed was applied correctly and the work was done efficiently. Giles should be responsible for billing the hours and work process since he is the supervising partner on the engagement. Team members on the engagement have the right to expect the co-workers do their part of the work and have a fair treatment. Regas should consider the consequences of her actions on others. Saduga & Mihca (the firm) has the right to expect their employees to perfom their work on a professional level. The client (CAA Industries) has the right to expect the work being done correctly. Herb Morris, the managing partner of Saduga& Mihca, has a right to be told about the relationship between Giles and Regas. 4. Identify the relevant accounting ethics standards Honesty – Fully disclosing about the relationship between the employees and hours being billed to the client. Integrity – Billing the client the correct hours and acting in accordance with principled behavior. Due care in the performance of professional responsibilities Fairness – Each team members on the engagement should be treat equally and openly. 5. Identify the operational issues Is that an Human Resources policy existed which prohibited dating between two members of the Firm who were of different rank, and that policy appears impotent Should Giles act as the supervising partner on the engagement point out the unprofessioness performance by Regas? Should the team members on the engagement communicate about the problems with the supervisor? 6. Identify the accounting, auditing and/or taxation issues Since the case does not deal with financial reporting per se, these issues are limited. The hours that billed to the client. 7. What are the alternatives? Do nothing. Wait to see what happens and then decided what to do next Talk to both Regas and Giles about the problems and concerns from the client. 8. Compare and weigh the alternatives Do nothing – it is legal to do so, however it does not consistent with professional standards because there is an actual policy pointed that employees in different ranks should not be dating with each other within the firm. Wait to see what happens and then decided what to do next – Since Giles and Regas have come to an conclusion to set the personal matter aside until this particular engagement ends, it probably could wait until the project is over. However, dating is still not allowed when the employees are from different ranks. Talk to both parties – It is the company’s responsibility to ensure that the client’s work is done properly and in a timely manner. Whether or not Regas and Giles have billed extra hours to the clients because of their relationships, the company should be responsible for their employees’ behavior and let the employees aware of the policy and execute it. Also, because the fact that the team members are aware of the r elationship and they deserve to be treat fairly according to the justice theory. Egoism – Defines right or acceptable behavior in terms of its consequences for the individual Utilitarianism – follow a relatively straightforward method for deciding the morally correct course of action for any particular situation. Justice Theory – respects your rights and treats you fairly and gives each person what she or he deserves. Virtue Theory – apply both to the decision maker and to the act under consideration by that party. 9. Decide on a course of action Talk to both Regas and Giles about the problems and concerns from the client. Both of the employees should know that the company expects them to perform on a professional level during work and follow the human resources policy. 10. Reflect on your decision Be professional and perform as a professional. Since Giles are aware that Regas is having a hard time putting herself back to work because of the relationship, they should put their personal pleasure after the work. If the relationship is getting serious, one of the parties should be resign from the firm. Questions: 1. I think both parties have the responsibility to perform the work. However, Ed Giles is the supervising partner on the engagement team, he should be more aware of being professional and perform client’s work to the standard. 2. If Giles were a person of integrity, he would tell Herb Morris he would set aside his relationship with Regas until the engagement is over. Furthermore, they should not be in a same audit team anymore since they both have personal feelings for each other. If Giles thinks that their relationship is getting serious, one of them will be resign. 3. Everyone would have one or two weak moment in a relationship. However still, a professional accountant should not bring their personal pleasure into work or even prolong the process of the client’s work. Herb Morris should still meet with Giles and talk about the client’s (CAA Industries) concerns and make it clear with the client and the relationship would not affect anything on the engagement. Since both Giles and Regas have been working on the CAA industries audit team for a while, it is not wise to replace both of them at this moment. Herb Morris, as the managing partner of the firm, has the right to inform Regas and Giles their responsibilities and expects them to perform the work within the expectation. If Regas and Giles decide to process their relationship further, then they should follow the Human Resources policy and one of them should be resign from the accounting  firm in the future in order to avoid conflicts of interests.

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple Essay

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple takes place in the 1920’s-1930’s during the times of segregation and women’s suffrage. In this passage Celie’s step-son confides in her one night sitting on her front porch steps. Read the following passage from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Then, in a well-organized essay analyze how the author’s style exposes the tone towards the unequal treatment of women by the use of literary elements such as appeal to emotion, syntax, and irony. Harpo sitting out on the steps, crying like his heart gon break. Oh, boo-hoo, and boo-hoo. He got his head in his hands, tears and snot running down his chin. I give him a hansker. He blow his nose, look up at me out of two eyes close like fists. What happen to your eyes? I ast. He clam round in his mind for a story to tell, then fall back on the truth. Sofia, he say. You still bothering Sofia? I ast. She my wife, he say. That don’t mean you got to keep on bothering her, I say. Sofia love you, she a good wife. Good to the children and good looking. Hardworking. Godfearing and clean. I don’t know what more you want. Harpo sniffle. I want her to do what I say, like you do for Pa. Oh, Lord, I say. When Pa tell you to do something, you do it, he say. When he say not to, you don’t. You don’t do what he say, he beat you. Sometime beat me anyhow, I say, whether I do what he say or not. That’s right, say Harpo. But not Sofia. She do what she want, don’t pay me no mind at all. I try to beat her, she black my eyes. Oh, boo-hoo, he cry. Boo-hoo-hoo. I start to take back my hansker. Maybe push him and his black eyes off the step. I think bout Sofia. She tickle me. I used to hunt game with a bow and arrow, she say. Some womens can’t be beat, I say. Sofia one of them. Besides, Sofia love you. She probably be happy to do most of what you say if you ast her right. She not mean, she not spiteful. She don’t hold a grudge. He sit there hanging his head, looking retard. Harpo, I say, giving him a shake, Sofia love you. You love Sofia. He look up at me best he can out his fat little eyes. Yes ma’am? he say. Mr.___ marry me to take care of his children. I marry him cause my daddy made me. I don’t love Mr.___ and he don’t love me. In this passage from The Color Purple, the author’s opinion of the way  men treat women is clearly displayed through the tone of the text and style of her writing. Alice Walker exposes her strong disapproval of the mistreatment of women through literary elements such as syntax, appeal to emotion and irony. Walker uses specific syntax in order to emphasize the importance of the points that Harpo’s companion makes. The word â€Å"Hardworking.† is treated as a sentence in itself, and the neighboring phrases such as â€Å"Good to the children and good looking.†, â€Å"Godfearing and clean.†, and â€Å"Sofia love you, she a good wife.† are short and punctuated like sentences in the same way. The author does this to point out that amongst all the dialogue written, these phrases are the most significant text in the scene because they demonstrate her opinion that men, including Harpo, should not mistreat women, and especially women who take care of themselves, behave according to religious teachings, and are good to their families and husbands. She also uses this same sentence structure to emphasize the ways Sofia doesn’t act; for example, â€Å"She not mean, she not spiteful.† and â€Å"She don’t hold a grudge†. This shows that So fia’s behavior does not deserve punishment, and therefore she and other women of similar character should not be harmed. The passage contains emotional appeal which serves the purpose of pointing out the author’s opinion of the mistreatment of women. Sofia’s redeeming qualities are plainly stated: characteristics such as hardworking, loving, religious, and loyal to family. When the reader learns that Sofia’s husband tries to beat her despite her mannerisms, sympathy is evoked. The appeal to emotion continues when a briefing on the lady companion’s past is supplied. The reader learns of the woman’s misfortunes including beatings that take place regardless of her actions, and a forced marriage that leads to her upbringing of another woman’s children. Imbedded deeper in the text, is situational irony. Walker uses imagery like â€Å"He got his head in his hands, tears and snot running down his chin.† and onomatopoeic words such as â€Å"sniffle† and â€Å"boo-hoo† to point out Harpo’s exaggerated reaction. Harpo feels that his inability to beat his wife puts him in an unfair situation. These examples are used to point out the reality  of the situation; women such as his companion [Celie] are the unlucky ones because they are forced into unjust relationships in which they are beaten and mistreated. The imagery and onomatopoeia making fun of Harpo’s actions, serve the purpose of pointing out his hypocritical ridiculous behavior. Throughout the passage provided, Walker uses stylistic techniques such as syntax, emotional appeal, and situational irony to illuminate her critical opinion of the mistreatment of women. Her particular methods provoke reflection and contemplation in the reader once the passage has been comprehended. As a result, this increases the value of her work as a whole.

As Ict

Edexcel GCE Applied Information and Communication Technology Unit 3: The Knowledge Worker January 2013 Scenario Paper Reference 6953/01 The scenario should be distributed to candidates at least three working weeks before the examination. Practice files: whitecaps_practice. xls, fixtures_practice. txt, haway_practice. txt This scenario should be used for the purposes of preparing candidates for the examination. This copy must not be taken into the examination. The information contained in the scenario will be included in the examination paper.Further details are in the Instructions of the Conduct of Examinations (ICE), available from the Edexcel website for this qualification. Edexcel will not accept any request for special consideration should candidates be given the incorrect scenario for the examination they are sitting. Turn over W41049A Â ©2013 Pearson Education Ltd. 6/ *W41049A* Scenario Havering Whitecaps Maddy Wright and Katy Parrish have supported Havering Whitecaps since th eir boyfriends played for the team. Their boyfriends’ careers and the teenage romances are now very much in the past but their support of the team remains as strong as ever.Until 15 years ago the Whitecaps were a struggling non-league team with little support. There were times, on wet and cold November afternoons, when Maddy and Katy were the only supporters. In 1999 a magical thing happened to the Whitecaps. At that time the team’s position, both in football terms and financially, was perilous to say the least. However, a financial backer appeared in the form of Harold Adenyi. Harold had studied at the local college and even played a few games for the Whitecaps. His progress as a footballer was hampered by a lack of ability.He gave up on a career as a footballer to concentrate on what he was good at, which was IT and mathematics. He made a large amount of money by creating an online accountancy website called lesstax. com. Harold was looking for things he could offset against a huge tax bill and a loss-making football club seemed to be a good start. He bought the Whitecaps from the previous owners for ? 1 and immediately started to spend money on it. Harold’s flair for business meant that the loss-making football club did not stay loss-making for long.Harold signed a talented former football league manager and with his advice, spent money on players who all turned out to be good investments. The way the manager had the team playing soon started to increase its fan base, so Harold built a new stadium. The team continued to be successful and the new stadium was soon filled at every match, putting the club on a healthy financial footing. Financial success and playing success went hand-in-hand and, in 2001, Havering Whitecaps was elected to the Football League. After a few seasons, when the Whitecaps struggled to establish themselves, there followed a eriod of gradual success including promotion to the 1st Division and two years later the Cha mpionship. Last season the Whitecaps won the Championship and are currently looking forward to their first season in the Premier League. Throughout this period of development, Maddy and Katy have been screaming encouraging words to their team (and the occasional discouraging one to the opposition) and they have hardly missed a match. It was inevitable that as the Whitecaps’ two most dedicated supporters they would become the chairman and secretary of the supporters’ club.One of their main tasks is to organise away trips for fans. This involves buying the tickets, booking the coaches and deciding what to charge for the ticket and transport packages. With 14,678 registered supporters, organising the away trips is not an easy task. With the possibility of over 400 coaches travelling to an away match, the number of transport firms the pair could use was limited. Since the Whitecaps were promoted to the Championship Maddy and Katy have used ‘Rubicon Transport’ whose rates are reasonable and who can supply enough coaches on a match day. 2 W41049ARubicon charge a fixed sum of ? 350 per coach, plus a ? 1. 50 fuel surcharge for every 100 miles travelled. In addition, Rubicon’s regulations state that a driver cannot be in charge of the coach for more than 9 hours a day. Should the whole trip last more than 9 hours (including the match time) a second driver would be required. There is a charge of ? 75 for the second driver. Premier League ticket prices vary greatly and Maddy has been quoted a range of prices varying between ? 30 and ? 54 by the Premier League clubs. Maddy and Katy do not need to make an overall profit.Their main aim is to get as many fans as possible to away matches. Although they can afford to make a loss on individual trips, they cannot afford to make a loss overall. Therefore an accurate prediction of the number of people who will want to go to a particular match is vital. They are also aware that more people will wan t to go to some matches than others. To help find out how many people are likely to go to each match they ran an online survey. This was completed by 94% of their registered supporters. To make data analysis easier, Katy has classified the teams as shown in the table.EG Teams fighting for European glory MT Mid-table teams RD Teams likely to be involved in the relegation dogfight PR Newly promoted teams In addition to the classification of the team, she found that other things affect the number of people likely to go to away matches. Fewer people would go if the match was played on a weekday rather than a Saturday (or Sunday). The longer the travelling time, the fewer supporters were prepared to travel. Finally, the overall cost of the package would discourage some from attending certain matches. W41049A 3 Turn over Description of the modelMaddy and Katy have to be as accurate as they can when setting the prices as they don’t need to make a profit but cannot afford to make a l oss. Maddy and Katy need a model to help them decide on prices. Therefore, Maddy has persuaded her brother Kieran, who works in IT, to create a model. Kieran wanted to make the model reusable so that he could sell it to other supporters’ clubs. Unfortunately, before he could finish the model, the company Kieran worked for sent him to Dubai on a three-year contract. Maddy has asked you to complete the model and use it to suggest prices for the next season’s away matches.Kieran has left you these notes. Worksheet Description Teams This is the worksheet that will be used to set the package prices. I have listed the teams in the Premier League along with Katy’s classifications. For ease of viewing I have included information from other worksheets and have calculated the total costs, revenue and profit. There is a profit for each trip and a total profit for the season. The worksheet will also calculate the total number of supporters going to away matches. Cell B2 con tains a drop-down box to choose the team you support. FixturesThis worksheet is a calculated page which lists the dates of the home and away fixtures. Lookups This worksheet contains a number of lookup tables. There are two blank areas, these will contain the fixture information provided by the Premier League. There are other tables to look up the day of the week, the likely support based on the teams’ classification, the number of registered supporters and the ticket costs for the various clubs. Distances, Times These worksheets contain the distances between the grounds and the average times it would take a coach to travel those journeys.I got these from a very helpful man at the RAC. Customer This worksheet is incomplete. Once completed it will predict the number of supporters who would travel to each away match. This is based on the number of registered supporters and then adjusted according to the home team classification, then package price and finally the travel time. I haven’t finished the analysis of the survey yet so I cannot put in formulae to take into account the travelling time and the overall cost. A friend of mine is doing the analysis for me and he will forward the results to you as soon as he has them. TransportIn this worksheet I calculate how many coaches are needed, the cost per coach and the overall transport cost for the trip. Transport Rates In this worksheet I have entered the transport rates as quoted by Rubicon Transport. I hope you find it easy to understand my notes. Good luck completing it. Kieran Wright 4 W41049A Some cells in the model are password protected. Should you wish to experiment with the model, the password is edexcel. Be aware that if you change the contents of any protected cell the model may not work. Please note that the Football League and Premier League referred to in this scenario are fictitious. W41049A 5

Project Management Process Group - Project Monitoring and Essay

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Land Ethics and Land Aesthetics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

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Effect of the American Revolution on Native American groups Research Paper

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Zara Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

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Review of Aphrodite And The Gods of Love Exhibit at the MFA in Boston Essay

Review of Aphrodite And The Gods of Love Exhibit at the MFA in Boston - Essay Example These inspirations were drawn from religious entities, which had been, the inspiration that presented multiple meanings within the societal setting. The Aphrodite as presented by the sculptor Praxiteles is no exception and through the visit at the Boston Museum, the life-size sculpture stands tall depicting the image of the relived story of this famous goddess. The visit had been to articulate the impacts of variable works and heir contribution to the modern visual studies. The sculpture has had significance in depicting the life of the ancient Greek society and their relation to the supernatural. Inspiration behind the sculpture Ancient Greek artifacts and art pieces had been developed based on the belief that they had been in connection with the supernatural. These beliefs led to the creation of numerous pieces, mostly based on the gods who they had given responsibility to represent variable nature compositions. The sculpture’s position at the MFA was significant because it drew the class closer to the ancient mythology that relied on the value of the piece. Though not fully composed, the structural composition of this art form suggested that it had been pieced to withstand the generations to depict Aphrodite as immortal. Aphrodite had been the god who held meaning and inspiration to the emotional composition of the society and had been referred to as Venus. The nude figure of the form suggests the powerful implication that the piece presented to the society, with the seduction entity involved (Smee). This idolization had been relayed to be self-explanatory with the piece strategically placed, to fit within the context as one that contributed to the entity that women in the royalty of Greek mythology generated. The museum has centered the piece with other exhibition of women who made an impact within the Greek mythology like the piece on Degas and the Nude. Setting at MFA The arrangement of the pieces in the MFA is placed to complement the period and g enerate the knowledge required in the pieces that presented similar meanings. The curators and art directors presented the displayed in a careful organization to complement Aphrodite’s piece to regulate on any flaw that may be witnessed in telling the story. The vases and the mirrors connecting to the piece had been stationed to lead the viewers’ eyes to the presented sculpture. The piece is witnessed as incomplete with parts of her limbs, and head chopped off. However, it can be articulated as a masterly piece due to the viewer’s ability to recognize its symbolic identity instantly. The museum has a presentation to enlighten inspiring artists to create the environment and organize a brief explanation of the pieces to present a brief on what each had been built to hold. Accompanying the artifacts are tags that present the pieces to the viewers with most pieces containing their name, artist and identity of the work. This is vital to limit confusion and help in ex plaining the works to the viewers who need a brief description of the composition that they visit the MFA to conduct their research. Aphrodite Sculpture The ancient Greek society travelled to the mountains to present their adoration of Aphrodite in the sculpted forms in the subsequent time. Today, Aphrodite stands tall in the MF museum and critics can access the beauty of her image through the sculpture. The sculpture helps the modern society explain the mythology through

Virtuoso Teams Essay Example for Free

Virtuoso Teams Essay Bill Fischer is Professor of Innovation Management. He began his work-life as an apprentice electrician in the New York City building trades and his professional life as a development engineer in the steel industry. He served for two years as a lieutenant in the US Army Corps of Engineers; and has also worked with the World Health Organization for more than fifteen years on strengthening research and development institutes in developing countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Bill also was the Executive President and Dean of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), in Shanghai. Bill writes a blog entitled The Ideas Business for Forbes.com and has recently author two books relating to innovation: Virtuoso Teams in 2005, and The Idea Hunter, in 2011 [both co-authored by Andy Boynton]. Andy Boynton is Dean of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, one of the world’s leading business schools, the author of several books and co-creator of DeepDiveâ„ ¢, the world’s leading methodology for helping executives harness the power of teams to significantly improve problem-solving speed, innovation and results. Boynton was a professor of strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland for 10 years. Boynton has recently launched new research projects to explore how distinguished experts from a variety of knowledge-domains work with ideas to achieve professional success and improve their effectiveness in social networks. His latest book, The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen (Jossey-Bass), is based on this research and is co-authored with Bill Fischer and William Bole. A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso, Latin virtus meaning: skill, manliness, excellence) is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The term evolved with time, simultaneously broadening and narrowing in scope as interpretations went in and out of fashion and debates unravel. What words characterizes them best? This article is about these kind of teams which are so different from the ordinary, average teams. The Idea in Brief Imagine these high-stakes scenarios: Your company must enter an untested new market. Or reorganize to take advantage of a new IT platform. Or avert a public relations crisis brought on by product tampering. To manage such feats, you need virtuoso teamsgroups of top experts in their fields. But superstars are notorious for being temperamental and egocentric. You worry that forcing a group of them to work together will create a fatal explosion. So youre tempted to settle for an ordinary project team instead. Dont do it. Ordinary teams may play nice, but they produce results as unremarkable as themselves. Assemble your virtuoso teamand manage it with counterintuitive strategies, advise Fischer and Boynton. For example, instead of emphasizing the collective, celebrate individual egos by creating opportunities for solo performances. Then build group ego by encouraging a single-minded focus on the goal, your teams members will forge their most brilliant ideas. The Idea in Practice Fischer and Boynton suggest these principles for leading a virtuoso team: Assemble the stars. Hire only members with the best skills, even if they have little experience with the problem at hand. After investing heavily in a site promising a big oil find, Norsk Hydro discovered the site was dry. Team leader Kjell Sunde assembled a virtuoso team to avert an investor-relations crisis. The team included the best technical people from across the company. Its goal: Analyze reams of data, pinpoint what went wrong, and convince stakeholders such an outcome wouldnt occur again. Build the group ego. As your teams project progresses, help stars break through their egocentrism and morph into a powerful, unified team with a shared identity. Sunde initially broke with Norsk Hydros consensus-driven culture by publicly celebrating his team members and putting them squarely in the spotlight. He established a star mentality by nicknaming them the A-team. Then he built the teams group ego by protecting members from intrusive scrutiny from above, giving them unlimited access to resources, and treating their  conclusions as definitive. Make work a contact sport. Use face-to-face conversations in designated spaces to foster impassioned dialogue. Sunde established a dedicated team room and filled it with computer workstations and other scientific and communications equipment. The space functioned as a workroom and meeting place for candid, intense discussions that let members bounce ideas off each other. Respect the customers intelligence. Foster the belief that your teams customers want more, not less. Youll encourage them to deliver solutions consistent with this higher perception. For Norsk Hydros A-team, customers were equity market analysts. The teams job was to manage the markets reaction to news of the dry site. If its explanation was slapdash or incomplete, the companys market value would nosedive. The team provided thoughtful explanations that left market analysts impressed with the firms ability to respond convincingly and quickly to market concerns. The company received kudos in the press and was spared serious financial erosion. Herd the cats. Use time management strategies to balance team members needs for individual attention and intellectual freedom with the uncompromising demands and time lines of your high-stakes project. Sunde forced A-team members to keep presentations to 15 minutes. That encouraged members to use this allotment to maximum effect and discouraged aggressive members from imposing their viewpoints on others. The strong adherence to time made everyone aware they had to dance to the same rhythm.

Amazon Database Essay Example for Free

Amazon Database Essay Amazon.com is developing a system to gather and keep massive amounts of intimate information about its millions of shoppers, including their religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity and income. The database, which would combine information disclosed voluntarily by customers with facts gleaned from public databases, conceivably would give Amazon a larger or more detailed profile of its customers than any other retailer. The Seattle-based company, with 59 million active customers, said it has no immediate plan to implement such a program. Its ability to do so emerged in a detailed patent application with the U. S. Patent Trademark Office, disclosed Thursday. A privacy expert said customers should be wary about Amazon having the capability to gather such a large amount of detailed information. She said the data could end up in the hands of the myriad retailers that do business with the company, or with government officials or hackers. Amazon never ceases to amaze me, said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. If they create this database, it will be used for other purposes. They are really creating something worth a great deal of value that will help their company. The patent disclosure comes at a time of heightened awareness over online security and a rash of recent security breaches. AOL recently published a list of more than 650,000 user queries that revealed names, addresses and Social Security numbers, and the company this week apologized and removed the data, but its unknown how many copies of the sensitive information were made. Amazons pending patent, which would bar competitors from replicating the companys process for gathering information, details how it could compile data from customers to create a profile of products that a person might want to buy. Such a database would include the gender, date of birth, interests, occupation, education, income level, residence, race and ethnicity of customers for Amazons gift clustering program. Customers already willingly disclose some personal information on the site to create a wish list of desired products, for example. The larger potential database would go beyond that. Even if a customer does not know demographic information or interests of a possible recipient, the system may be able to access such informatio n from a user profile for the recipient, from past ordering patterns of the recipient, or from publicly accessible databases, the patent application said. Company spokeswoman Patty Smith said Amazon.com has no current plans to implement such a system. Not every company uses a patent it has in its name, but it may have a patent in portfolio, Smith said. Who knows 10 years down the road or five years down the road? It might be good to implement. We want to protect our intellectual property. Smith said the document released Thursday is an addendum to a patent Amazon sought in October 2000 and received in February of this year. She said much of what was in the original patent was also disclosed Thursday, but she didnt have details on what was new. Smith said that six years ago Amazon was trying to figure out ways to make it easier for customers to find information on the companys wish list feature for gifts. Amazon is always careful how it uses customer data so the customer experience will be as good as it can be, she said. The system described in the patent would give shoppers, with the click of a mouse, additional detailed information at the discretion of the gift recipient. Amazon already groups or clusters gifts, such as camping items or back-to-school goods, and then suggests them to buyers based on generic factors such as price, the relationship between the giver and receiver or the recipients age or gender. The patent disclosure also comes at a time when Amazon, originally an online bookseller in 1995, is moving into new ventures to boost profits. The companys stock took a huge hit last month after Amazon reported disappointing second-quarter earnings and company executives said there would be continual heavy spending on technology. Amazon recently started its own toy and food stores. The patent application, filed Dec. 9, 2005, by Amazon inventor Amit Agarwal but made public Thursday, could take years to be approved, according to Brigid Quinn, a Patent Trademark Office spokeswoman. Quinn said theres a backlog of more than 700,000 patent applications, and the agency reviews about 300,000 a year. Its in the early stages. Its not even on an examiners desk yet, Quinn said. But they could use it without it being patented. The patent only prevents others from using it. Greg Linden, a former technology team leader at Amazon, said it sounds to him like Amazon is just protecting its wish list feature. Linden, founder of Findory.com, an online news site, also warned not to read too much into a patent application because lawyers throw in everything they can think of to keep competitors from copying an idea. Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Amazon-database-would-put-shoppers-intimate-1211419.php#ixzz24rlGoBic http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/amazon-oracle/ AWS Case Study: Amazon.com Oracle DB Backup to Amazon S3 Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer. In 2011, Amazon.com switched from tape backup to using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for backing up the majority of its Oracle databases. This strategy reduces complexity and capital expenditures, provides faster backup and restore performance, eliminates tape capacity planning for backup and archive, and frees up administrative staff for higher value operations. They were able to replace their backup tape infrastructure with Cloud-based Amazon S3 storage, eliminate backup software, and experienced a 12X performance improvement, reducing restore time from around 15 hours to 2.5 hours in select scenarios. The Business Challenges As Amazon.com grows larger, the sizes of their Oracle databases continue to grow, and so does the sheer number of databases they maintain. This has caused growing pains related to backing up legacy Oracle databases to tape and led to the consideration of alternate strategies including the use of Cloud services of Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Some of the business challenges Amazon.com faced included: Utilization and capacity planning is complex, and time and capital expense budget are at a premium. Significant capital expenditures were required over the years for tape hardware, data center space for this hardware, and enterprise licensing fees for tape software. During that time, managing tape infrastructure required highly skilled staff to spend time with setup, certification and engineering archive planning instead of on higher value projects. And at the end of every fiscal year, projecting future capacity requirements required time consuming audits, forecasting, and budgeting. The cost of backup software required to support multiple tape devices sneaks up on you. Tape robots provide basic read/write capability, but in order to fully utilize them, you must invest in proprietary tape backup software. For Amazon.com, the cost of the software had been high, and added significantly to overall backup costs. The cost of this software was an ongoing budgeting pain point, but one that was difficult to address as long as backups needed to be written to tape devices. Maintaining reliable backups and being fast and efficient when retrieving data requires a lot of time and effort with tape. When data needs to be durably stored on tape, multiple copies are required. When everything is working correctly, and there is minimal contention for tape resources, the tape robots and backup software can easily find the required data. However, if there is a hardware failure, human intervention is necessary to restore from tape. Contention for tape drives resulting from multiple users’ tape requests slows down restore processes even more. This adds to the recovery time objective (RTO) and makes achieving it more challenging compared to backing up to Cloud storage. Advantages with Amazon Web Services Amazon.com initiated the evaluation of Amazon S3 for economic and performance improvements related to data backup. As part of that evaluation, they considered security, availability, and performance aspects of Amazon S3 backups. Amazon.com also executed a cost-benefit analysis to ensure that a migration to Amazon S3 would be financially worthwhile. That cost benefit analysis included the following elements: Performance advantage and cost competitiveness. It was important that the overall costs of the backups did not increase. At the same time, Amazon.com required faster backup and recovery performance. The time and effort required for backup and for recovery operations proved to be a significant improvement over tape, with restoring from Amazon S3 running from two to twelve times faster than a similar restore from tape. Amazon.com required any new backup medium to provide improved performance while maintaining or reducing overall costs. Backing up to on-premises disk based storage would have improved performance, but missed on cost competitiveness. Amazon S3 Cloud based storage met both criteria. Greater durability and availability. Amazon S3 is designed to provide 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability of objects over a given year. Amazon.com compared these figures with those observed from their tape infrastructure, and determined that Amazon S3 offered significant improvement. Less operational friction. Amazon.com DBAs had to evaluate whether Amazon S3 backups would be viable for their database backups. They determined that using Amazon S3 for backups was easy to implement because it worked seamlessly with Oracle RMAN. Strong data security. Amazon.com found that AWS met all of their requirements for physical security, security accreditations, and security processes, protecting data in flight, data at rest, and utilizing suitable encryption standards. The Business Benefits With the migration to Amazon S3 well along the way to completion, Amazon.com has realized several benefits, including: Elimination of complex and time-consuming tape capacity planning. Amazon.com is growing larger and more dynamic each year, both organically and as a result of acquisitions. AWS has enabled Amazon.com to keep pace with this rapid expansion, and to do so seamlessly. Historically, Amazon.com business groups have had to write annual backup plans, quantifying the amount of tape storage that they plan to use for the year and the frequency with which they will use the tape resources. These plans are then used to charge each organization for their tape usage, spreading the cost among many teams. With Amazon S3, teams simply pay for what they use, and are billed for their usage as they go. There are virtually no upper limits as to how much data can be stored in Amazon S3, and so there are no worries about running out of resources. For teams adopting Amazon S3 backups, the need for formal planning has been all but eliminated. Reduced capital expenditures. Amazon.com no longer needs to acquire tape robots, tape drives, tape inventory, data center space, networking gear, enterprise backup software, or predict future tape consumption. This eliminates the burden of budgeting for capital equipment well in advance as well as the capital expense. Immediate availability of data for restoring – no need to locate or retrieve physical tapes. Whenever a DBA needs to restore data from tape, they face delays. The tape backup software needs to read the tape catalog to find the correct files to restore, locate the correct tape, mount the tape, and read the data from it. In almost all cases the data is spread across multiple tapes, resulting in further delays. This, combined with contention for tape drives resulting from multiple users’ tape requests, slows the process down even more. This is especially severe during critical events such as a data center outage, when many databases must be restored simultaneously and as soon as possible. None of these problems occur with Amazon S3. Data restores can begin immediately, with no waiting or tape queuing – and that means the database can be recovered much faster. Backing up a database to Amazon S3 can be two to twelve times faster than with tape drives. As one example, in a benchmark test a DBA was able to restore 3.8 terabytes in 2.5 hours over gigabit Ethernet. This amounts to 25 gigabytes per minute, or 422MB per second. In addition, since Amazon.com uses RMAN data compression, the effective restore rate was 3.37 gigabytes per second. This 2.5 hours compares to, conservatively, 10-15 hours that would be required to restore from tape. Easy implementation of Oracle RMAN backups to Amazon S3. The DBAs found it easy to start backing up their databases to Amazon S3. Directing Oracle RMAN backups to Amazon S3 requires only a configuration of the Oracle Secure Backup Cloud (SBC) module. The effort required to configure the Oracle SBC module amounted to an hour or less per database. After this one-time setup, the database backups were transparently redirected to Amazon S3. Durable data storage provided by Amazon S3, which is designed for 11 nines durability. On occasion, Amazon.com has experienced hardware failures with tape infrastructure – tapes that break, tape drives that fail, and robotic components that fail. Sometimes this happens when a DBA is trying to restore a database, and dramatically increases the mean time to recover (MTTR). With the durability and availability of Amazon S3, these issues are no longe r a concern. Freeing up valuable human resources. With tape infrastructure, Amazon.com had to seek out engineers who were experienced with very large tape backup installations – a specialized, vendor-specific skill set that is difficult to find. They also needed to hire data center technicians and dedicate them to problem-solving and troubleshooting hardware issues – replacing drives, shuffling tapes around, shipping and tracking tapes, and so on. Amazon S3 allowed them to free up these specialists from day-to-day operations so that they can work on more valuable, business-critical engineering tasks. Elimination of physical tape transport to off-site location. Any company that has been storing Oracle backup data offsite should take a hard look at the costs involved in transporting, securing and storing their tapes offsite – these costs can be reduced or possibly eliminated by storing the data in Amazon S3. As the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon.com continuously innovates in order to provide improved customer experience and offer products at the lowest possible prices. One such innovation has been to replace tape with Amazon S3 storage for database backups. This innovation is one that can be easily replicated by other organizations that back up their Oracle databases to tape.

Light Microscope to Determine Scale of Object

Light Microscope to Determine Scale of Object Light Microscope Syed Ibrahim Introduction The development of the microscope has been vital to much scientific advancement in biology (Kriss Kriss 1998). Microscopes allow humans to see objects that would otherwise be unseen by the naked eye. The light microscope uses a series of three lenses to magnify an object. The condenser lens align and focus the light from the illumination source through the stage, onto the specimen. (Murphy, 2001) After passing through the specimen, the light goes to the objective lens which collect diffracted light and magnify the image of the specimen, typically 4X, 10X, 40X, or 100X (Murphy, 2001). The light finally reaches the ocular lens. The ocular lens also focus and magnify the image, but this is typically 10X or 15X (Murphy, 2001). After passing through the ocular lens, the light reaches the observer’s eyes. Microscopes do not just magnify the image of an object, but also increase its resolution (Heidcamp et al., 2014). Magnification is the increase in the dimensions of an image, while resolution is the ability to distinguish two components of the image (Alberts et al., 2008). In other words, the magnification is the size of the image while the resolution is the clarity or quality of the image (Heidcamp et al., 2014). There is no limit of magnification because the size of an image can be increased indefinitely, but there is a limit of resolution because of the properties of light (Alberts et al., 2008). Due to diffraction, the limit of resolution for light microscopes is close to half the wavelength of light divided by the numerical aperture. (Hell, 2007). The numerical aperture is a measure of the number of light rays collected by the objective lens of a microscope, and it is dependent on the refractive index and the sine of half of the cone angle (Heidcamp et al., 2014). These can be c ombined to give the following equation (Heidcamp et al., 2014): Where: = wavelength of light = refractive index = half of the cone angle Based on the above equation, decreasing the wavelength of light, increasing the refractive index, or increasing the cone angle will decrease the limit of resolution, thus increasing the resolution of an image. The smallest limit of resolution of a light microscope is 0.2ÃŽ ¼m (Alberts et al., 2008). Microscopes can be used to examine microorganisms. In this lab Spirogyra, Paramecium and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were examined. Spirogyra are filamentous algae that are typically 10 µm-100 µm wide and their filaments may be a few centimeters long (Parmentier, 1999). Spirogyra are often found in freshwater are distinguishable by their spiral chloroplasts (Fathima et al., 2007). Paramecium are unicellular protists with cilia that are typically found in aquatic habitats and are usually 100 µm-3500 µm (Morgan, 1999; Wichterman, 1986). Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeasts) are unicellular fungi that are typically 3 µm-6 µm in size (Schneiter, 2004). Since the naked eyes limit of resolution is 100 µm, these organisms are too small to be observed by the human eye alone (Heidcamp et al., 2014). Light microscopy was used to increase magnification and resolution so that the individual organism as well as their internal structures may be clearly observed. The purpose of this lab was to use a bright field microscope to determine the scale of each objective, to examine Spirogyra, Paramecium, wild-type yeasts and fab1Δ mutant yeasts under a microscope, as well as to learn the essentials of micropipetting. Results Part A: Lab 1 Report Sheets Please refer to attached sheets. Part B: Answers to Assigned Questions When the dimensions for the letter â€Å"e† using 4X, 10X or the naked eye were compared in Exercise 1.2, they were all approximately the same, as seen below. Using the light microscope gave more precise dimensions as compared to the naked eye. When comparing the different magnifications of the light microscope, they had percentage differences of 4% and 8% in the length and width respectively. Overall, it makes sense that all three measurements gave roughly the same dimensions as they were all measuring the same specimen. Dimensions of the letter â€Å"e† Naked Eye: Light Microscope (4X): Light Microscope (10X): Percentage difference between 4X and 10X Based on the observations from Exercise 1.3, it was apparent that Spirogyra have cell walls while Paramecium do not. As well, Paramecium have cilia while Spirogyra do not. After pipetting as required for Exercise 1.4, a minute amount of water remained in the Eppendorf tube, and there was no air gap in the tip of the pipette. This means that slightly more than 50ÃŽ ¼L of water was pipetted into the Eppendorf tube. For this reason we practiced again, and this time no liquid remained. For future labs, we must ensure that we are extra attentive to ensure we pipette the correct amount of liquid. During Exercise 1.5, it was observed that fab1Δ mutant yeasts appeared to have a thicker cell membrane than the wild-type yeasts. This thicker cell membrane may have been an enlarged vacuole within the cell that was pressing up against the cell membrane. Part C: Research There are many types of light microscopes, including bright-field microscopes, dark-field microscopes and phase-contrast microscopes (Alberts et al., 2008). Phase contrast microscopes rely on the phase-shifting of light as it passes through parts of the specimen of different relative thickness and density (Zernike, 1942). Search Engine: Web of Science Search Terms: phase contrast microscopic [filtered by date from 1900 to 1950] Reference: Zernike, F. (1942). Phase contrast, a new method for the microscopic observation of transparent objects.Physica,9(7), 686-698. After researching, a microscope was found with the following specifications and price (Cole-Parmer, 2014): Microscope: Phase Contrast Microscope with Digital Camera (3 megapixels), Binocular, 115 VAC, 60 Hz Distributer: Cole-Parmer Model Number: RK-48925-04 Approximate Price: $2,932.46CND/EACH Search Engine: Google Search Terms: Phase Contrast Microscope with Digital Camera Reference: Cole-Parmer. (2014). Phase Contrast Microscope with Digital Camera.Cole-Parmer. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.coleparmer.ca/Product/Phase_Contrast_Microscope_with_Digital_Camera_Binocular_115_VAC_60_Hz/RK-48925-04 References Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K., Walter, P. (2008).Molecular Biology of the Cell(5th ed.). New York: Garland Science. Cole-Parmer. (2014). Phase Contrast Microscope with Digital Camera.Cole-Parmer. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.coleparmer.ca/Product/Phase_Contrast_Microscope_with_Digital_Camera_Binocular_115_VAC_60_Hz/RK-48925-04 Fathima, M., Shantha, N., Rajagovindan, N. (2007).Botany(Revised ed.). Chennai: Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation. Heidcamp, W., Antonescu, C., Botelho, R., Victorio-Walz, L. (2014).Laboratory Manual: Cell Biology BLG311(Fall 2014 ed.). Toronto: Ryerson University. Hell, S. W. (2007). Far-Field Optical Nanoscopy.Science,316(5828), 1153-1158. Kriss, T. C., Kriss, V. M. (1998). History of the Operating Microscope: From Magnifying Glass to Microneurosurgery. Neurosurgery,42(4), 899-907. Morgan, M. (1999). Paramecium. Microscopy-UK. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ponddip/paramecium.html Murphy, D. B. (2001).Fundamentals of light microscopy and electronic imaging. New York: Wiley-Liss. Parmentier, J. (1999). Spirogyra. Microscopy-UK. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ponddip/spirogyra.html Schneiter, R. (2004).Genetics, Molecular and Cell Biology of Yeast. Fribourg : University of Fribourg Switzerland. Wichterman, R. (1986).The Biology of Paramecium(2nd ed.). New York: Plenum Press. Zernike, F. (1942). Phase contrast, a new method for the microscopic observation of transparent objects.Physica,9(7), 686-698.

The Scarlet Letter Freely Adapted as a Movie :: Movie Film comparison compare contrast

The Scarlet Letter Freely Adapted as a Movie      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The gods and goddesses of Greek mythology had temples erected in their names. They were worshipped and most times adored. The people brought offerings to these gods in the form of food, drink, and gold. Today’s gods and goddesses don’t sit high on Mount Olympus. They sit high on or behind the movie screen. We visit their temples in record numbers and bring food, drink, and the mighty dollar. But what do they offer us in return? Voyeurism, titillation, narcissismà ·all in a rebirth of classical American literature, which through their filters becomes sappy love stories with politically correct happy endings. In this way, their gifts are made more palatable for an audience they feel is not quite ready for films dealing with bitter social controversy, such as sin, hypocrisy, spiritual crisis, and guilt.    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the classics that is experiencing this renaissance. Director Roland Joffe has enlisted the aid of writers Michael Mann and Christopher Crowe to produce a body of work also entitled The Scarlet Letter. The effort to introduce the American audience to this classical piece of literature was undertaken, as the film’s star Demi Moore asserts, because "not many people have read the book" (qtd. in Mr. Showbiz, par. 4). However, in doing so, Joffe has taken away the essence of Hawthorne. "It [is] sorrowful to think how many days and weeks and months and years of toil [have] been wasted on these musty papers [of Hawthorne’s] never more to be glanced at by human eyes. But, then, what reams of other manuscripts - filled [ ·] with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts - [have] gone equally to oblivion" (Hawthorne 46; The Custom House).    In film, the viewer sees a story from the director’s perspective. When experiencing a novel, the reader is drawn into the authorà ¢s story and relates to the characters and events created by the author. He is allowed to bring forth his own imagination to recreate the characters and events by visualizing what the writer describes. He chooses the voice of each character, pictures how the character looks, and brings his own personal experiences forth to enhance the written word. He has an opportunity to be one-on-one with the author, hear his words, and experience for myself the charactersà ¢ emotions.

Method Of Communication And Different Uses Of Communication Essay

Method of Communication and Different Uses of Communication With the development of civilization and written languages came the need for more frequent and reliable methods of communication allowing messages to reach longer distances. This was essential to the control of trade and other affairs between nations and empires.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Early man used cave walls as the media on which messages could be transcribed, this was common for many years, until the Egyptians discovered a special kind of rush (Papyrus) that could be woven to form a portable writing material. In about 105AD the Chinese discovered a way to make a similar substance from wood pulp.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Over the next few centuries printing techniques advanced rapidly, especially through the use of steam power. The first typesetting machine, the Linotype, was patented in 1884 by the German-American Ottmar Mergenthaler. In the meantime, postal services and moved from being privately to nationally owned, and long distance postal services became an affordable option. For the first time, an ordinary person could correspond with people in other countries. A visual semaphore system was also implemented in both Europe and the United States, providing a way of ‘echoing' messages nationally via large towers placed in strategic positions; however this proved slow as each method had to be verified to ensure message accuracy. Following the discovery and partial understanding of electricity in t...

Alienated People :: essays research papers

The Oxford dictionary defines alienation as; to estrange, isolate, detach, distance, to put a distance, to turn away from another person. Alienation, like a lot of other social attitudes and concepts, can give a wide variety of interests. I have found six main points in The Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis that have gotten the most attention and things written about alienation; A) Powerlessness: The feeling, belief, or expectancy that a persons behavior can't control some events whether positive or negative, B) Meaninglessness: The person feels incomprehensive in his/her social life and feels the "absurdity of life", C) Normlessness: High expectancies for, or commitment to socially unapproved ways to achieving a goal, one will go about achieving a goal in a not normally excepted way, D) Cultural Estrangement: person's individual values rejected by society, the image that the alienated value's not being standard to that of the environment around him/her, E) Social Isolation: The individuals low expectancy for inclusion and social exceptance, being lonely and commonly found a member of a minority or physically disabled, F) Self Estrangement: This focuses on the discrepancy or differences between one's ideal self and one's actual self. In the novel, The Metamorphosis, Gregor wakes up one morning as a giant insect and feels out of place. When Gregor sees his father and his attitude to him, Gregor feels alienated in that fact that his father yells and shows his anger and frustration to his son and throws an apple which gets stuck in his slimy backside. His father feels Gregor has not become successful and a failure. He probably also feels that he has let his sister down along with his mother for not being supportive enough as the father was not. Continuing with the same concept of Mr. Samsa not being a good father, Gregor felt alienated again by his mother and sister by not filling in the father role while his father was out or doing whatever. His mom and sister took things out of his room and the only thing left was a picture of a woman who he probably felt was the only thing close to him. His boss surely wasn't and his family was sure not there either. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya gets an incredible toothache and is taken to the dentist who refuses to work on her because of her race.

A day in a Cave in the Rocky Mountains Essay

The soft morning breeze blew over the peaks and through the tall fragrant evergreen forest. Just outside the small mountain town of Idaho Springs, Colorado on a warm mid-summer morning back in 1991 I stood on my porch watching the wildlife busily starting the day. I stepped back into my little trailer house and picked up the land line and dialed the Hunt brothers’ number. Dan picked up the phone with a cheery â€Å"Hello.† â€Å"Hey bud† I said, â€Å"are you and Devan ready to head out on this weeks spelunking adventure?† He laughed loudly and replied â€Å"We’ve been waiting for you. Let’s go.† â€Å"Okay,† I stated â€Å"I will meet you two at the bottom of the hill in fifteen minuets† and we hung up. I got my things together and hustled out the front door. I heard barking up the hill behind the house and called â€Å"Coda come.† And my four-legged Chow-mix buddy came charging down the hill full of vibrancy and joy. Coda and I walked on down the road and met up with Dan and Devan at a clearing on the other side of Clear Creek, which was the local river that eventually furnished the Coors brewery in Golden. The four of us headed up the hill through a valley to a tailing pile that laid in front of the entrance that awaited us. See more:  Perseverance essay The entrance beckoned our arrival with a musty damp scent from years of still life in darkness. We had explored this mine a few times before and found it to be the biggest one accessible to adventurers like us needing to fulfill our desire of adrenalin brought on by the many aspects of danger that lie within. Coda led the way and I carefully ducted through the low overhead opening of rock and stone that was the entry to the bowels of this mountain. The feeling of the cool damp air on my exposed skin ran a shiver down my spine as I moved forward leaving the morning sun and safety of the outside world behind. The sound of crushed rocks under our feet echoed off the solid stone walls stretching far into the distance before fading away in silence. After about 200 feet the passageway turned to the left and the day light from the outside was lost. With the flick of a switch my three-cell Mag-Light broke the darkness and the sparkle of mica and pyrite reflected off the narrow walls and ceiling. In previous journeys through this mine we had found and traveled several levels and what seemed like miles of tunnels. Coda  was leading the way and every once in awhile I would call him, â€Å"Coda come.† And a moment later his soft brown eyes would reflect in the glow of our flashlights. After about 30 minutes of travel we came to the main shaft that led to the upper levels, It was about fifteen feet in diameter and had an old wooden ladder on the left side with its rugs full of crushed rock from years of deteriation and on the right side was a chute that ore from the upper levels was dropped down and loaded into the ore cars then taken out of the mine. We decided to take a water and smoke break here and sat ourselves down on the cool rocky floor in a small circle. Dan pulled out the water bottle, took a drink and passed it around while following our traditions I lit a candle and placed it in the middle of our circle. Devan then pulled out a joint and Dan’s Bic-lighter flicked as he lit up the joint and we passed it around heightening our experience with the mind altering effects of natures own. We absorbed the stillness hearing only our own breathing and the rustle of Coda’s feet investigating the tunnel around the next corner ahead. It wasn’t long and I became aware that I could no longer hear the noises of Coda up ahead. I called out his name, â€Å"Coda† waited a moment for the sound of his paws coming down the tunnel but in return all we heard was the sound of a few stones falling and a splash. We all looked at each other in the glimmer of the candle light with the same thought. Ahead in that tunnel there was a large hole in the stone floor going down too far to see with a light. It was one of the few spots we had not ventured yet because on a previous tunnel quest we had tossed some rocks down and after watching them bounce their way down beyond the reach of the lights we heard the splash of water from below. The light of the candle was overwhelmed then extinguished as our flashlights came to life and we moved toward the hole to a lower un-traveled existence. I called for Coda again after we rounded the second corner where the cavern opened up wider, about twenty feet wide by ten feet high and there was merely a two foot wide ledge that gave access to the tunnel ahead. The rest of the ground gave way to what looked liked the throat of Hell ready to swallow its victims. What I feared was true and we could hear from below the whimpering of a  scared friend. I shined my light down the hole and to my hearts content I could see the small figure of Coda just at the last reach of my light. Behind me I heard the sound of a zipper as Devan got into the back-pack and pulled out a rope that was always kept in our survival bag. One end of the rope was tossed to Dan and he quickly tied it to one of the ore car tracks running along the floor. We all knew that this time in this mine we would see what lied beyond our view. Devan tossed the other end down the shaft and when it reached Coda he tried to catch it like a bone, lol. I called down to Coda to ensure him I was on my way down. Then I grabbed the rope in my hands turned around and began a decent down the hole as Dan shown his light below me so I could see where I was stepping. After the first hundred feet the degree of decent decreased and I was able to release one hand off the rope without slipping down to join Coda. I turned my light back on and shown it in Codas direction and another 30 feet away he was excitingly hopping up and down like a lottery winner. I moved closer towards him and when I reached the 3 foot ledge that kept him at bay from jumping on me I hopped down and praised, and cuddled him in a loving nurturing way â€Å"You are such a brave dog† I told him. Devan called down inquiring as to the plan and I hollered back that everything was ok but I would need some help getting Coda back up. Devan started carefully back stepping down the shaft and I decided I would take a quick look around. This was the level we never seen so no since in wasting the trip. The tunnel was about three feet wide by six foot tall. The walls were very damp and the splash we heard was a stream of orange rusty water running right down the middle of the floor. Devan reached the bottom and I directed his attention toward the liquid rust flowing on the floor and the view of the unexplored tunnels in both directions. Our thoughts were on the same path as usual and we called up to Dan telling him to grab the bag, he had to see this! Upon his arrival we made a mutual decision to travel to the right, the direction the flow was coming from. We followed the flow about 70 feet till the tunnel ended abruptly. The sight at the end was something we had never seen before. The whole back wall was covered with an orange, brown and black buildup that looked like it was oozing out of the wall. From the  ceiling there were stalagtites of iron rust hanging down, some of them all the way to the floor. Water dripped from the ends of each of them and a stream came from out of the wall and flowed evenly over the rusty buildup there. We took a couple pictures of this unique and different scene that was in front of us. We poked around there for a few and turned down the other way to see where this flow of water was headed. As we passed our rope leading back up the shaft the flow path of water widened on the cavern floor gradually from the 12 inches to 18 inches and 50 feet further it covered the entire floor. We stood there a moment looking down at our boots submerged in the water past our toes. The decline was gradual and within another 100 feet the water was up to our ankles and rising. Coda stayed behind not wanting to get in the water, and 50 feet further we were knee deep in water. Again we all thought the same and decided that we wouldn’t go any further with out our inflatable raft and it was time to conclude our adventure and return ourselves to the reality of the outside world and allow the sun to shine upon our skin again. When we got back to the rope and Coda was anxiously waiting to get out so we daisy chained our way back up the shaft, pushing and pulling on him till we crested the top and pulled our little friend over the edge. After a short rest and the re-coiling of the rope I led the way back toward the outside world. We halted at the main shaft going to the upper levels were there was another opening on the side of the mountain but with careful consideration the decision was made that we had had enough adventure for one day and we should just head out the way we came. Around the last bend the afternoon sun burst into view and Coda was making a break for it. I stepped out into the hot afternoon sun and looked to the clear blue sky. I thanked God for keeping us all safe one more time. When Dan and Devan came out we headed down the hillside trailing behind Coda till he spotted a rabbit and took off after it. We never made it back down to that lower level to sail forward and see where it led because soon after that trip something happened in that cave and the county department had blocked off both entrances and posted no trespassing signs on them. It’s been awhile now since I’ve made the opportunity to travel back to that community and indulge in a spelunking  adventure, but I to keep in touch with the Hunt brothers via land line and again someday soon, I will make the time to experience that thrill again.

Dell 4p’s of the Marketing Mix Essay

Introduction of Dell Inc. Dell Inc. is a multinational technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells, and supports personal computer and other computer related-products. Dell Inc. based in Round Rock, Texas. Dell Inc. employs more than 82,700 people worldwide. Dell Inc. grew during the 1980s and 1990s to become (for a time) the largest seller of PCs and servers. As of 2008 it held the second spot in computer sales within the industry behind HP. The company currently sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software and computer peripherals. Dell Inc. also sells HDTVs that are manufactured by other brands. In 2006, Fortune Magazine ranked Dell Inc. as the 25th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list, 8th on its annual â€Å"Top 20† list of the most admired companies in the United States, In 2007 Dell Inc. ranked 34th and 8th respectively on the equivalent lists for the year. A 2006 identified Dell Inc. as one of 38 high-performance companies in the S&P 500 w hich had consistently out-performed the market over the previous 15 years. History Background and Origins While a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, Michael Dell founded the company as PC’s Limited with capital of $1000.[5] Operating from Michael Dell’s off-campus dorm-room at Dobie Center [1], the startup aimed to sell IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Michael Dell started trading in the belief that by selling personal computer-systems directly to customers, PC’s Limited could better understand customers’ needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs. Michael Dell dropped out of school in order to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family. Dell Inc.’s Marketing 4P From the successful selling of the range of products being offered by Dell Inc, especially the rapid increase of the sales of Dell Laptop, other than the established brand name and the reputation of Dell Inc. worldwide, part of the success factors can be attributed to the successful marketing effort by Dell Inc. In this assignment, we will be doing a research on the Marketing 4Ps Mix (product, promotion, price, place) being implemented by Dell Inc to market the range of home users’ laptops. [pic] PRODUCT As for the case study of Dell Inc, the point on product worth highlighting is that, the vision and mission of setting up the company itself, is to solve and fulfill IT consumers’ needs, want, and demands. The original idea of setting up the company by Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Inc, is â€Å"to eliminate the retailer and sell directly to the consumer†. To quote Michael Dell, he said this before, â€Å"as a customer, I was disappointed that when I  went to a computer store, the salespeople didn’t really know about computers†. This shows that Michael Dell has had the vision and commitment of satisfy the IT consumers’ needs, wants and demands, which is the essence of a product means to consumers. The above paragraphs summed up the commitment of Dell Inc.’s to solve IT consumers’ needs, wants and demands, which in and of itself is an excellent product marketing. Dell’s Laptops/ Notebooks From the above diagram, it shows the each category of Dell’s laptops for home users caters for different home users’ with different needs and wants. Guides and Assistance Provided by Dell Inc. In Purchasing its Laptops For the potential buyers of Dell’s laptops, they are provided with guide and assistance in the process of selecting and purchasing laptops. Below are the guides and assistance being provided by Dell Inc for its potential  laptop buyers: (1) â€Å"Customize Yours† feature Dell Inc offers the â€Å"Customize Yours† feature, this feature help with the laptop buyers to build their own laptops, yes, literally building their own laptops, they can choose on their own the notebook colour kit, processor, operating system, warranty and service, display size, memory, hard drive, optical drive, video card, audio solution, wireless network card, Bluetooth device, USB cable for printer, batteries, power option, keyboard, service, Datasafe Backup Service. The options for each feature and accessory come with a stated price, while the basic feature is imposed no extra charges, as they are already included in the quotes price. Only upgraded and added-value features and accessories come with extra charges. After the laptop buyers built the laptops that fit exactly what they are looking for, they can review the laptop, there will be a list shown on every specification of the laptops they have built before adding to the cart. Also, the price for every component, feature and specification being picked by the buyer are stated clearly when the buyers are reviewing the laptop they built. This â€Å"customize yours† feature in and of itself is an effective marketing, as the buyers can buy exactly what they are looking for, without buying something that â€Å"comes with the package† that they are actually not looking for, but they have to pay for it just to buy the package. This â€Å"customize yours† shows that the home users’ laptops Dell Inc offers provide solutions to consumers’ needs and wants, which is the essence of a marketing offering. (2) â€Å"Help Me Choose† feature The picture above shows the â€Å"Help Me Choose† feature being offered to assist with laptop buyers on the Dell Online Store. As we can see the this feature gives detailed information to buyers in order to guide them through the purchasing process by furnishing them the information regarding the products, the specifications of the products, the financing and payments options, the access to Dell stores and retailer, the term of laptops, the awards won by Dell laptops, the reviews by Dell laptops’ customers, and also the online buying guide. This feature ensures the potential buyers can buy  exactly the laptops that fit their needs, at the same time, this feature also makes the potential and actual buyers know more in-depth of the laptops Dell Inc offers, this in turn would make the buyers patronizing Dell Inc in future when they need another type of laptops, as they already have the information on the wide range of features and specification being offered by Dell Inc. (3) â€Å"Narrow Your Selection† feature This â€Å"Narrow Your Selection† feature helps with the buyers to be more specific with what they want. When comes to a broad array of selection, buyers are often being not able to make up their mind in choosing which model to purchase. This is when this â€Å"Narrow Your Selection† comes into help to the buyers. The buyers can have a look on the each range of product that are being categorized into a more specific that might interest them rather than being confused on which one to purchase. Conclusion From the above information regarding the commitment of Dell Inc in offering laptops that fit each and every user’s needs, the features and specifications of Dell’s home user laptops, and also the purchasing process guides and assistance. These all come to one conclusion: Dell Inc custom-builds a laptop that fits each and every customer’s needs, wants and demands. This effort in and of itself is a brilliant product marketing strategy. PROMOTION In terms of promotion, Dell Inc. not only launches and implements one-time event such as road-show or advertisement when new products come out, but Dell Inc commits to continuously promote and make-known its products to the market. Dell Inc. does not practice aggressive selling in order just to increase sales transactions, but focuses on long-term promotion effort through (1) supporting its customers continuously, (2) giving effective and efficient after-sales services, and (3) conducting a customer review and feedback mechanism. (4) Contributing in charities. (1)Dell Inc.’s Continuous and Long-Term Promotion Long-term customer support system and feedback mechanism in and of itself are  the best promotion tools. The followings are the customer support systems and feedback mechanism being run by Dell Inc in its long-term effort in giving its customers value and satisfaction. (a) Dell Connect In mid 2007, Dell Inc introduced a new tool and technology, named Dell Connect. Dell Connect is an online technology that enables the tech staff to connect to the customer’s computer and fix problems on the spot or show the customers how to do it. For IT products such as laptops, after-sales service would be one of the primary concerns to customers, as laptops need regular and frequent services, updates, and upgrades. Hence, Dell Connect would be an attractive feature in promoting its laptops to the market. (b) Idea Storm On February 16, 2007, the company rolled out IdeaStorm, which is a forum for users to brainstorm what works, what does not and what new features they would like to see introduced. Here to quote Michael Dell: â€Å"We take the customer’s input and design the products and services.† Rather than telling the customers and the market what new products and ideas that Dell Inc has come out with, Dell Inc gives the customers and the market to have a say on the input and design. When the customers and the market have some say, they will feel being considered and treasured, which in turn Dell Inc succeeds in delivering customer delight. This in and of itself is a promotion of Dell Inc. (c) Customer Product Reviews For each and every model of Dell’s laptops, there will be a forum for its existing customers who bought the particular laptop model to write their own product reviews, they can also rate the laptop model in terms of quality, features, and value. Other than that, they can comment on the pros and cons of the particular laptop model. The customers are also allowed to give any additional thoughts that they have regarding the laptop model. This â€Å"customer product review† in and of itself is similar to word-of-mouth marketing. This marketing approach is many times powerful than any marketing  plans. As what a customer says is has much more influence and carries more impact on the company’s reputation and image rather than what an advertisement says. How the previous and existing customers perceive a company and product can influence a company’s position in a marketplace to a large extent. As so, Dell Inc’s decision of allowing the customers to write the product reviews shows that Dell Inc is confident on its laptops and proves Dell Inc’s integrity and transparency, at the same time, hence, the customer product reviews written by the customers act as a marketing tool itself. (2) Dell’s effort on charity contribution (a) Dell participation in PRODUCT (RED) Scheme PRODUCT RED is a worldwide charity scheme that runs with the vision of eliminating AIDS in Africa Continent. This charity concept operates by getting the contribution from the sales of signature products of top brands in the world, like American Express, Apple, Converse, Emporio Armani, Gap, Hallmark, Starbucks, and etc. And Dell Inc. is one of the participants among them. Dell will be selling computers as part of the PRODUCT (RED) scheme. According to the press release, â€Å"one hundred percent of the funds contributed† from the purchase of a Dell (RED) computer under the scheme goes to the Global Fund, the charity supported by PRODUCT (RED). The amount of money contributed depends on the product purchased: $80 is donated for each desktop purchased, $50 for each notebook and $5 for each (relatively inexpensive) printer. Dell Inc.’s participation in the PRODUCT (RED) actually proves 2 things: (1) Dell Inc. is concern for the world and social’s well-being, Dell Inc.’s effort in its social marketing campaigns is a promotion of Dell Inc. itself. (3) Collaboration With Local Newspaper Press for Brochure Distribution Locally in Malaysia, Dell Inc distributes its brochures through the Tuesday Star In-Tech, which is a weekly issue on latest news and updates on technology that comes with every The Star newspaper bought. This approach of distributing the brochures to the public is an effective and efficient strategy for the following reasons: (1) The Star newspaper is the best-selling English Newspaper in Malaysia, (2) The brochure comes with the  Tuesday Star In-Tech, which is the favorite for regular IT consumers, is more specific in targeting markets with higher potential of purchasing its products, (3) The brochure distribution through the sales of newspaper is one of the most effective way of reaching the mass public, thus creating an product awareness in the market once a new product being introduced into the market. The above points show that Dell Inc.’s promotion effort in letting the mass public and the market in getting know about their products in an effective yet not a cost-consu ming approach as the brochures printing and distribution costs would be insignificant to a giant corporation like Dell Inc. Conclusion From the above observation and research on Dell Inc.’s overall promotion effort, it is shown that Dell Inc. has established promotion channels which connects with its existing customers, also, reaches out to the entire market. And those promotion channels are being implemented successfully. PRICE When comes to the price of Dell’s marketing offering, it is worth once again touch on the founder of Dell Inc, Michael Dell’s authentic vision. At the time that he founded PC’s Limited (now Dell Inc), IBM personal computers sold in stores for about $3000, after Michael Dell taking them apart and rebuilding them, he realized that the components could be purchased for one-fourth the price. Even with added memory, bigger monitors and faster modems, the PCs could still be sold at a handsome profit. The philosophy of Dell Inc on pricing decision is simple yet powerful: give more benefits with lower prices than others. Means purchasing Dell’s laptops is a value-for-money and added-value experience. Dell’s Home Users Laptops Pricing In the research of Dell Inc’s pricing decisions on its home users laptops, the following points worth highlighting: (1) Online Price (discounted)   For all the laptops, buyers get a discount if they were to purchase the laptops online. This is a win-win situation for both the customers and Dell Inc. As online selling saves up the retailing costs for Dell Inc, as for the  customers, other than getting discounted price for their laptops, online purchase is hassle free to them, the customers need not to visit the physical Dell Stores to check out the models available, by visiting the Dell Online Store, the customers can check out all the models available at one glance, only a-click-away. (2) Buy and Pay for only what you want ( â€Å"Customize Yours† feature) The â€Å"Customize Yours† feature that allows the buyers to decide on the almost every specification of the laptops they are going to buy is also a good pricing decision by Dell Inc. A case study has been done to prove the pricing decision of Dell Inc that commits to accommodate consumers’ needs and wants. Case Study 1: The rationale of conducting this case study is to prove Dell Inc makes its effort to offer more different models for even a same price. From the comparison between Dell Inspiron 14 and Dell Inspiron 1525, the price are the same for these two models. Both of the models are more or less the same in terms of performance, the difference is that the size of the screen. As  for Dell Inspiron 14, the monitor is 14.1† WXGA Display with AntiGlare. As for Dell Inspiron 1525, the monitor is 15.4† widescreen WXGA TFT Display. That means these two models accommodate different customers’ needs, for those customers that are particular with laptop memory and hard drive space would forgo a bigger screen size and go for Dell Inspiron 14, on the other hand, for customers that looking for a laptop with bigger screen size would not mind buying smaller hard drive space. Hence, both segments of customers can purchase what they want at the price they are willing to pay. This solve one of the biggest marketplace and market offerings problem, some companies offer only one model for one price range, assuming that â€Å"one size fits all† strategy would work, in the end, causing the customers paying for what they are not willing to purchase for the sake of purchasing something that â€Å"comes with the package†, for Dell’s laptops buyers, this situation would not happen. Hence, the price being paid by customers to buy Dell’s laptops match with the benefits that the customers demand. This pricing strategy saves up customers’ money at the same time delivering customer satisfactions and expectations. (3) 0% Installment Scheme Buyers that purchasing Dell’s laptops can choose not to make one-off payment but an installment scheme. The good thing about Dell’s laptop installment scheme is that is a 0% interest scheme. This scheme is consider an assistance to the consumers and contribution to the society as well, as the scheme availability allows those customers that are not able to make full payment upon purchasing to own a laptop by paying through an installment scheme. Conclusion Viewing Dell Inc from the perspective of marketing 4Ps in terms of price, one conclusion can be drawn, buying Dell’s laptops is a value-for-money experience, as Dell Inc offers more benefits for less price, also, customers pay for only what they want exactly. In a nutshell, Dell’s pricing strategies and decisions make a good marketing plan in terms of price marketing. PLACE Dell Inc.’s Online Store Among the giant IT companies and manufacturers, Dell Inc. is the company that  is the most successful with online selling, facts and figures show that its online sales make up a significant number from its total sales, meaning that Dell Inc sells more through the internet than the traditional retailing method. The online selling and purchasing concept is popular with the young generations and also the tech-savvy. The concept of online store, online selling and purchasing not only penetrates virtually the every corner of the world, so long as there is internet-access, there is access to Dell Inc.’s Online Stores. Plus the fact that the purchasing enquiry, the models and specifications selection, and payment methods can be done online, in brief, the A-Z of the purchasing process can be done without the customer physically present at a physical Dell Store, makes Dell Inc reaching out to a worldwide market, and relating with its customers and potential customers directly. According to a survey, alone in the United States, some 65% of American online users now use the internet to shop, and the growth of online shoppers is rapid. Since the rapid development of the digital age and the invention of internet, direct marketing is being highly valued, as some marketers have hailed direct marketing as the â€Å"marketing model of the next century†. They envision a day when all buying and selling will involve direct connections between companies and their customers. And what should be highlighted here is that Dell Inc is already on the right track, and being established on the right track. This online store concept give Dell Inc. advantages over other laptops and PCs manufacturers which still operating a traditional retailing or agent distribution. The main advantages include (a) Operating an online store costs much less compared to traditional retailing and agent distribution. (b) The access to online store is always available at anytime and anywhere, so long as there is internet-access. Dell Kiosks Although the concept of online buying and selling is popular and being used by the wide market, it may still be unappealing to some customers. Some customers are still prefer the idea of visiting a physical retailer store, talk to the salesperson, seeing and touching the products physically, â€Å"get the feel† of the products, in short, a traditional purchasing process rather than purchasing the products directly online and have it sent to the door.  Dell Inc. is aware of this too, although the company is making huge revenues from it online selling. This means that Dell Inc. is a customer-oriented company, which strives to cater for every customer needs and wants, also, accommodates the exchange experiences which are comfortable to each customer. Dell Inc.’s effort in setting up the Dell Kiosks, employing the required staffing, and maintaining the operations of the Dell Kiosks show that Dell Inc. is committed to make its customers feel at home and their preferences a re being valued and not taken lightly. Conclusion In a nutshell, from the operations of both Dell Online Store and the physical Dell Kiosks, they are successful in terms of customers’ access, enquiry availability, and customers’ convenience. These show Dell Inc.’s success in its place marketing strategy. CONCLUSION Dell Inc.’s strategies on it marketing mix 4Ps are in good alignment and working cross-functionally, all the areas are synergizing and supporting one another in term of product, promotion, price and place. Product A good product is a marketing offering that comes it ways to solve consumers’ problems and satisfy consumers’ needs. Dell Inc. not only makes quality products, but the products are also being designed to fit each and every customer’s needs and want. Promotion Dell Inc.’s effort on promotion is not only profit-oriented or with the sole aim of boosting sales transactions, but also to make Dell a name that equals to quality product. Thus, Dell Inc.’s promotion not only very successful in generating revenues, but also created a lasting impact and an established name in the IT market. Price Dell Inc.’s price marketing and pricing decision has fulfilled the premise of a successful pricing strategy, which â€Å"giving customers the most by charging them the least†, this is one of the most important factors that attributes to Dell Inc. success. Place Dell Inc.’s place marketing gives its customers the most convenient and  comfortable ways to shop with Dell’s products. Dell Inc. caters for all kinds of shopping experiences that its customers demand for. In overall, Dell Inc.’s marketing 4Ps has been very successful, and that there is a point that worth mentioning, its marketing 4Ps is a continuous effort and it continues to make a lasting impact for its company success.