Marketing & Sales for Dreamworld theme park Assignment

Marketing & Sales for Dreamworld theme park - Assignment Example The Australia-based wildlife experience offers guests with an opportunity of cuddling the koalas, feeding kangaroos and drawing near to the crocodiles along with the Tiger Island being home to two cougars, eight Sumatran tigers and Bengal tigers charged with the duty to entertain guests alongside the trainers. Moreover, the company includes entertainment facilities like the Australia Animal Facility which takes place on a day-to-day routine therein (James Cook University of North Queensland & National Centre for Studies in Travel & Tourism, 1990). Furthermore, the company organizes for annual events like New Year’s Eve amp for adults and the ultimate single’s day often scheduled for February 13th every year. For a while, brand has proved to be a crucial tool in Dreamworld. For the past 5-8 years, the company has embraced strategies aimed at associating the company with brands with different appeals and capable of remaining relevant event in middle of varied demographic segments. To this end, the company has remained committed to improving its attractions and growing further whilst keeping up with the state of being a top-edge draws within the big Gold Coast. From 1981, the company has been able to develop individualized customer experiences by integrating products and customer initiatives in order to benefit both local and international guests (Australian Tourism and Hospitality Research Conference& Australia, 1990). Besides, the company offers support to local cultures and communities by sponsoring and taking part in charity organizations. The two cases present opportunities that Dreamworld could use to channel promotional messages to its target clients in order to increase its customer base along with the revenue stream (Parsons, 2002). Also, the Company has more opportunities to improve its target customers. More specifically, the company should diversify its customer base to encompass

Performance Appraisal Essay Example for Free

Performance Appraisal Essay Performance appraisal is a universal phenomenon with the organization is making judgement about one is working with and about oneself. It serves as a basic element of effective work performance. Performance appraisal is essential for the effective management and evaluation of staff. It aims to improve the organizational performance as well as individual development. Performance is an employee’s accomplishment of assigned work as specified in the critical and as measured against standards of the employee’s position. The term â€Å"Performance Appraisal† is concerned with the process of valuing person’s worth to an organisation with a view to increasing it. EXERCISE : STEP 1: Divide participant in group of 3. STEP 2 : Let them to select upon themselves a manager, an employee and an observer. STEP 3 : Assign each group with one scenario to begin with. STEP 4 : Each scenario will take approximately 5 min to play. STEP 5 : manager and employee has to take part in play and observer has to write down the Observations. STEP 6 : Observer has to focus on following questions – †¢ What worked? †¢ What didn’t? †¢ How did the â€Å"manager† shows caring during the play? †¢ How did the â€Å"employee† react to a caring approach? †¢ Was the manager candid with the employee? How? †¢ How did the employee react to the candid approach? †¢ Did a collaborative effort surface? Describe it? Different scenarios are : Scenario 1 : Was it that important? Manager : You’ve missed the three of those meetings during the last two quarter. Employee : But I thought they were optional. I’ve been missing meetings all week. I never realise it as a problem Manager : Well I am telling you now your attendance is mandatory. But that’s not the only reason you scored low in this category.. You also been consistently coming to work late. Employee : But I am always here by 8:15. The switchboard doesn’t even open until 8:30. Manager : ( Ad lib from here, and see where it takes you! ) Employee : ( Ad lib from here, and see where it takes you! ) Scenario 2 : Are you done yet? Manager : I know you are working hard on this report I assigned, but you keep getting them to me late. I can’t prepare next year’s budget unless I know exactly how much money each contract brought in this year. So you are going to have to get them into me by tomorrow afternoon, Okay? Employee : Sorry, sometime I have trouble prioritizing.. I didn’t realised they were that important. Manager : Well, they are important, and I need your report on time from now on. Okay? Employee : ( Ad lib from here, and see where it takes you! ) Manager : ( Ad lib from here, and see where it takes you! ) In that manner we can assign different scenario to different groups. STEP 7 : Now the manager and employee are going to provide with a paper and they were asked to write down the behaviour of one other in role play. ( In this way manager appraise their employees performance and employee appraise their managers performance. ) STEP 8 : Finally observer has to share his observation with others.

Mad Cow Disease is Not a Large Cause for Fear :: CJD MCD BSE Prion Diseases Bovine Spongiform

Mad Cow Disease: A Cause for Fear? Abstract: Mad Cow Disease, a disorder well known and well feared, is not as deadly as most people believe it to be. In fact, most people know little of this disease and what little they know usually turn out to be false facts. MCD is a prion-based disease where an infected protein converts healthy proteins into the infectious state. There is no cure and the disease is fatal but to this year, there have been little over 150 cases of the human version of the disease, variant Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease, world-wide. Thus, MCD does not deserve the fear and attention that it commands. Although the name, Mad Cow Disease is instantly recognizable by everyone today, few people know it for what it actually is. However, no matter how little they know about this disease, everybody acknowledges the deadly capabilities it possesses. Personally, I find it interesting and feel it only natural that, as humans, we fear what we do not entirely understand simply because we know what will happen. It is only natural that we feel threatened at the first sign of danger. Thus, it is important to inform others about Mad Cow Disease so that they will at least know what they fear. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, commonly known as Mad Cow Disease, first appeared around 1985 in Great Britain as a result of the special animal feed that consisted of ground up sheep fed to the cattle. Between the years 1992 and 1995, a major BSE outbreak occurred in Great Britain, which caused the country's beef industry to suffer. Since 2003, the United States have only had three reported incidents of mad cow disease in humans[8]. A prion is a disease-carrying agent that is composed entirely of proteins. It is the cause of numerous diseases in mammals, all of which target the brain specifically. Also note that all prion-based disorders are fatal and that there are currently no known cures for any of them. All known prions induce the formation of an amyloid fold, in which the protein polymerizes into an aggregate consisting of tightly packed beta sheets[3]; thus, converting into its infectious state. BSE is a prion-based disease where the infectious protein causes other prion proteins in the brain to misfold and change into the infectious state. This process continues until it forms protein aggregates, which are large clumps of mis-folded proteins which in turn form plaque, giving the appearance of â€Å"holes† in the brain. Cows with this disease show signs including changes in mental state and abnormalities in posture, movement and sensation[4].

A Comparison of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Fight Club Essay

The purpose of my essay is to compare and contrast the novel titled Fight Club, written by Chuck Palahniuk, and the story, dated back to the Victorian age, known as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson. I will compare these two works by evaluating how these two authors represent the theme of dual/split personalities within a specific character found in within each of their respective stories. Each author portrays the idea of dual personalities, and as you read my argument, you will encounter the similarities and differences in the way they described the character’s appearance of their alter ego and the process of their transformation. I will also touch on how the author portrays each character with their own personal views on the world and how those very views caused the creation of their own, â€Å"Tyler Durden†, or â€Å"Mr. Hyde. † My comparison will also include the destructive nature of each character’s alter persona, as well as their personal views on reality and society that revolves around them. To close my argument, I will compare the process of each character’s inner confrontation and embracement of their other persona. This essay is purely a comparison of the two stories and will not touch on the psychological standpoint of dual personalities, other than comparing how the author portrays this theme and the ideologies of the characters, which they use to justify their actions in the story. Now the novel Fight Club was publish in 1996, and continues to be one of the most cult related novels of its time. So it is very recent in comparison to the short story, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, however they both dwell in the same region of dark settings and grotesque styles of writings. The novel Fight Club follows an individual, whose name is never revealed throughout the novel, and deals with his obsession of having all the finer things in life, along with the struggle of dealing with insomnia. He realizes that his existence means nothing in this world, despite his hard work and determination, and that one day he will die and the world will forget him as if he never existed. He attends support groups to earn a sense of satisfaction of being able to cry and release his inner feelings, regardless of the fact that he is not suffering from any illness or fatal disease. From these emotions, one can assume this sparked the creation of his other persona known as Tyler Durden who starts a â€Å"Fight Club† where men can establish their dominance and where they can truly embrace who they are. However the main character soon finds that what Tyler wants is not necessarily what he wants, which begins the confrontation between himself and his inner persona. Now within the novel of Fight Club, the story follows an individual whose name is never disclosed throughout the novel; therefore for the sole purpose of this essay I will reference this character as Joe. The reason being that as you read the story, the main character discovers a copy of Readers Digest, where he discovers an article in which they personify a human organ to explain functions and the medical needs that each organ needs. An example of this is, â€Å"I am Joe’s Raging Bile Duct† (Fight Club pg. 70), and continues to reference this throughout the story to express the emotions by personifying them in the same fashion. An example of this done by the main character is, â€Å"I am Joe’s Grinding Teeth† (Fight Club pg. 70), as well as, â€Å"I am Joe’s Inflamed Flaring Nostrils† (Fight Club pg. 70). The moments where he identifies himself in this fashion are the only moments where he gives himself any form of an identity; therefore in my arguments, as well as the conclusion of my essay I will reference this character as Joe. The second part of this comparison is the short story known as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Now this short story was published in the year 1886, and was written during a time when the author, Robert Louis Stevenson was very ill and suffering from several hemorrhages within his lungs. Therefore, one can assume that during the writing process of this short story, the author was plagued with a multitude of thoughts that centered on dark themes. He created a monster story disguised as a detective story, which left the audience in awe at the climax in the story where they discover the truth. The way the author simulated the setting in the novella is very reminiscent of how Palahniuk set up the climax in Fight Club. The audience is given the image of individual who has altered persona. Now this story does not follow Dr. Jekyll through his journey of creating his evil alter ego. Moreover he is not even the first initial character that we are introduced to in the novella; we are first introduced to a man named Mr. Utterson. He is actually the lawyer of Dr. Jekyll and he takes an interest in his newfound protege who is referred to as Mr. Hyde. His negative feelings towards Mr. Hyde, beget a personal investigation into his life and his connection to Dr. Jekyll. Sadly he does not realize the truth behind the mystery of Dr.  Jekyll and Mr. Hyde till the end of the novella, where he finally discovers the secret from reading Dr. Jekyll’s last words written in a letter addressed to him after Dr. Jekyll’s untimely death. Although the story is not from the point of view from Dr. Jekyll himself, I was still able to receive a good assertion of his mentality and reason behind the creation of Mr. Hyde. This luckily was all explained within the note that was addressed to Mr. Utterson. We were also given enough details on the both characters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was shared over the whole span of the short story. So now that you have been given a brief introduction of the 2 books and the main characters that I will mention in the argument, then I will now proceed to carefully analyze and terms of measurements that I disclosed in the first paragraph of the introduction. Argument Appearance of Each Other’s Persona One of the main things within these two stories is the appearance of each character’s alter ego. It plays as one of the most important aspects of their persona. Now the way it is displayed within The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde appears as the direct opposite of Dr.  Jekyll, which is also the case within the novel Fight Club. The appearance of Mr. Hyde can only be described within the following statement, â€Å"I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 43)? Mr. Hyde’s appearance engulfs what is completely known as the pure evil of Dr. Jekyll’s being, he also described him as, â€Å"something displeasing, something downright detestable† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 43). These feelings are constantly mentioned throughout the masses of individuals who cross paths with Mr. Hyde. However Dr. Jekyll’s feelings towards Mr.  Hyde are much different than the public opinion. This brings me to the appearance of Joe’s alter ego in Fight Club, Tyler Durden, who presents himself in the exact opposite deposition of his creator. Now oddly enough, despite the evil nature of these individuals, both characters seem to have great admiration towards their alter persona’s personality as well as physical appearance. Joe, on some level is extremely infatuated with Tyler, he craves the same knowledge that Tyler contains. There are even moments in which he shows extreme jealous for the attention of his companion, â€Å"How could I compete for Tyler’s attention† (Fight Club pg. 5)? He truly wanted to embody all the characteristics of Tyler Durden; â€Å"Tyler and I were looking more and more like identical twins. Both of us had punched out cheek bones, and our skin had lost its memory, and forgot where to slide back to after we were hit† (Fight Club pg. 147). Now the differences between the characters appearances towards their alter ego’s are different in both stories. Now in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde appears repulsive and disdainful to look at, whereas the famous Tyler Durden is everything that other men want to be, as seen within the main character’s (Joe) mind. This is due to the fact the each character’s persona is an exact depiction of what they want, Joe desires to be a leader and to be a man known and recognized, whereas Dr. Jekyll wants to embrace his pure evil side with no regret of guilt feelings. Now it can also be said that Joe’s desires to spawn anarchy, resulted in the creation of Tyler Durden due to the fact that he felt the people would respond more to Tyler than himself. Transformation (Mental vs. Physical) Now the author portrayed Dr. Jekyll as a man who was born into wealth and with humility as well as respect for his fellow man. However, Dr. Jekyll had his demons, along with an urge to commit misdeeds. He had an evil side that was ready to flourish; he would always say, â€Å"that man is not truly one, but truly two† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 104). Sadly, any time he would commit a misdeed, a sense of horrible guilt would befall on his soul. Dr. Jekyll would state that he could see, â€Å"the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 104). Now this is when Dr. Jekyll decided to dedicate his research to the idea the one could separate into two personalities. Therefore, he would then be able to commit misdeeds with no guilt and to live a virtuous life without the temptation of evil. Now Dr. Jekyll had to achieve this over a physical means, whereas in the novel Fight Club, the main character achieved this split and separation of personalities within a mental means. Mainly the creation of his persona, Tyler Durden, was created from his own mind, of his own free will; to change the person he is and to become the person that he always wanted to be. Now unlike Dr. Jekyll, Joe’s process of transformation occurred, not from a vial of his own concoction, but from the condition known as Insomnia. The main character describe the condition as, â€Å"Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you† (Fight Club pg. 21). He is describing as if were in an out-of –body experience, and sure enough as its revealed later in the story, when he enters in a state of insomnia, in which he is actually under the control of Tyler Durden. As stated by Tyler, â€Å"Every time you fall asleep I run off and do something wild, something crazy, something completely out of my mind† (Fight Club pg. 148). Tyler explains that the longer and longer that Joe remains awake, the less will he will have to fight back to reclaim his mind. This means he starts becoming Tyler more and more often without his knowledge or free will any longer. Now the idea and theme of waking up as your alter ego is present in both short stories. Now in Fight Club, the only time that the main character transforms into Tyler Durden is when he slips into sleep and then awakens in a semi insomniac state. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll creates an elixir in which he can choose to become Mr.  Hyde. When challenged by Mr. Utterson concerning Dr. Jekyll’s control over Mr. Hyde he states, â€Å"The moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 58). However Dr. Jekyll is overestimating the amount of the control he actually has over the beast within. At times he tries to prove that he does not need to become Mr. Hyde any longer, but he surely gives into temptation causing the beast to get stronger each and every time. That concept is similar to how Joe embraced Tyler within himself, and how he desired to be one with Tyler. Now both stories come full circle when they both realize the power that each of their persona has over them, so much now that they are transforming more and more often. This is seen in the moment when Dr. Jekyll awakes as Mr. Hyde without the aid of his elixir; he states, â€Å"Yes, I had gone to bed as Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde† (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg. 112). Now both stories share a common factor, which is that each character has lost so much control and has gone too far to regain whatever control they have left of their body. One quote comes to mind as one witness these occurrences and that is said by Joe, â€Å"If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person† (Fight Club pg. 24)? This question completely foreshadows the endings of both stories and in the process creates a huge similarity. Confrontation of One’s Self Now that the story is ending, the main character of each has to deal with the task of somehow liberating themselves from the clutches of their inner demon. In both stories, it seems almost near impossible to defeat their own mind. Tyler Durden is a separate personality I’ve created and now he’s threatening to take over my life† (Fight Club pg. 237). In this situation both characters have a sense of being trapped from the pure fact that they cannot run away from their own minds. For example, in the novel Fight Club, the main character attempts to remain awake with the help of another individual to prevent the awakening of his counterpart. Now this is only temporary for the pure fact that Joe can only remain awake for a certain amount of time. He is then forced to confront Tyler Durden in his mind, and only one persona will remain after the confrontation. His final confrontation can be described in the following quote, â€Å"To God, this looks like one man alone, holding a gun in his own mouth, but its Tyler holding the gun, and it’s my life† (Fight Club pg. 279). Now the character in the Fight Club actually prevails against his alter ego, by realizing fully that as long as it’s his body, he holds the power. â€Å"This is like a total epiphany moment for me. I’m not killing myself, I yell. I’m killing Tyler† (Fight Club pg. 281). Sadly the same outcome did not occur within the short story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The confrontation that occurred between Dr. Jekyll and Mr.  Hyde was simply a battle between achieving a sense of normality before his very reputation was ruined. He searched for ingredients that could possibly help his metamorphous back to his own self. This did not work out as plan and to which it ended with Mr. Hyde’s suicide, which was committed to save him the embarrassment of being revealed or to face the pains of facing trial and being thrown to the gallows. Now these two different confrontations occurred in two different fashions due to the fact that the manifestation of Tyler Durden was the result of a mental need that the main character felt at the beginning of the novel. I felt trapped. I was too complete. I was too perfect. I wanted a way out of my life† (Fight Club pg. 263). He created him in his mind and Dr. Jekyll created Mr. Hyde out of physical manifestation of the evil within himself. Now a physical transformation is a lot harder to overcome a mental transformation, therefore the ending to the novella ended with a suicide attempt to end both personas whereas the main character of Fight Club shot himself in the attempt of killing, not himself, but the idea of Tyler Durden, in which he succeeded. Conclusion  Now the results of my essay have shown the similarities between the novel and the novella. The novel known as Fight Club, written by Chuck Palahniuk, showed the process of how a man, whose life was so perfect and yet found no happiness, embarked on the path of creating an altered persona of himself that was everything he ever desired and wanted to embody. Now the novella known as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, told a very similar story involving a man who grew up into wealth and was praised as humble and respectful man. However he yearned to embrace his dark side, through the means of a physical transformation with the help of a chemical concoction that he spent his life to develop. His goal was to completely separate his good and bad sides to achieve the best of both worlds. Now one can see why these two stories ended up going their own paths involving dual personalities. Dr. Jekyll embraced his own manifestation of evil from the start; he even centered his research on the idea that he could separate his dark from his light side. However Joe never looked for Tyler Durden, his body craved it, and once the time came when Joe realized that he did not want to embody Tyler Durden, he retaliated by taking control of his mind, which then lead to him taking back control of his own body. The ill fate of Dr. Jekyll befall upon him due to the fact the he tried to silence one side completely, which ended in Mr. Hyde retaliating back and taking full control of his body. Very similar in how Joe was pushed to the limits and how, in the last second, took control and completely repelled Tyler Durden out of his body. Now even though Mr. Hyde, as well as Joe, took total control, the story did not end well for either of them. Mr. Hyde ended his life while Joe continued to live the rest of his life in an insane asylum. It seems that neither of the characters could have proceed on living without the other side of their persona present. The thought that a single moment in time can dictate the nature of history and the way that it is conveyed to the masses from that moment in time.

Faculty of Economics and Business Science Essay

Introduction – How the American Low-Cost Airline Industry Looks Like? In the post World War II the federal government heavily regulated period, commercial air travels in the US. As a result, the nation was reliant on a few leading airline companies. Competition was permitted only within individual states. California and Texas were the only two states that had both the geographical and demographic advantage to make air travel attractive. Since 1938, the U.S. Congress formally regulated air transportation through the Civil Aeronautics Act. This Act created a board to control the entry and exit of air carriers, to regulate fares, and to control mergers. These new findings led to the deregulation of the airline industry in 1978. Deregulation was premised on the idea that an unregulated market would approximate a perfectly competitive industry, one that had numerous carriers, no significant economies of scale, and no significant barriers to entry. As a result, many new entrants tried to establish on the airline market, although most of them get bankrupt due to the fierce competition on prices which made a profit margin too low to stay in the game. Besides, financial crises in 1983 and 1990 made many low-cost airlines leave the market. As an example, over 200 airlines stopped operating from 1983 to 1988. However, few significant airlines were born at that time: Spirit Airlines (1964) and Southwest Airlines (1967), Sun Country Airlines (1982). The relatively new low-cost carriers include Allegiant Air (1997), Frontier Airlines (1994), JetBlue (1999) and Virgin America (2004). In 2006 the low cost carriers have a market share of 30% in the Unites States, compared to 7% in 1990. One of the reasons for such an escalating increase could be a raising traveling demand in the US: total number of passengers in 2012 reached 800 million! We assume that such a significant market share should be understood as a separate industry. We would like to analyze the environment of the US low-cost airline industry by applying following tools: PESTEL analysis, Porter’s five forces framework and Strategic Groups  analysis. The Macro-Environment We will start with the analysis of the largest layer of the business environment. In order to investigate the macro-environment we will apply PESTEL analysis to understand to which extent the following six main factors have an impact on the whole industry. Political Factor Thread of terrorism: The airline industry has never really recovered from the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. This situation leads to more invasive security procedures at the airports and customers dissatisfaction even before taking a flight. September 11, 2001 has put a long-term shadow on the whole airline industry leading to significantly higher operating costs. The airline industry is highly regulated by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, primarily in areas of flight operations, maintenance and other safety and technical matters. Stricter regulations on aircraft safety maintenance, for instance, are placing new burdens on operators of older aircraft. Average aircraft operating age in the industry is 11 years. The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act partially shifted control over air travel from the political to the market sphere. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which had previously controlled entry, exit, and the pricing of airline services, mergers, and consumer issues, was phased out under the CAB Sunset Act and expired officially on December 31, 1984. The economic liberalization of air travel was part of a series of â€Å"deregulation† moves based on the growing realization that a politically controlled economy served no continuing public interest. U.S. deregulation has been part of a greater global airline liberalization trend. Economic Factor This economic part of the airlines industry has already struggling the airlines to contend with declining passenger traffic, competition from low cost carriers, high aviation fuel prices, labor demands, and soaring maintenance and operating costs. All these factors have made the airlines to get in bankruptcies because they can no longer afford to run their operations profitably. Fuel is the airline industry’s second largest  expense, exceeded only by labor. The major U.S. airlines spend more than $10 billion a year on fuel, which is approximately 10 percent of total operating expenses. As a result, increased fuel efficiency has been a top industry priority for many years. Significant changes appeared in the US economy between 1983 and 1988; the airline industry experienced a massive wave of bankruptcies, mergers, and acquisitions. Over 200 carriers left the market, leaving nine airlines (United, American, Continental, TWA, US Air, Pan Am, Delta, Northwest, and Eastern) to share 92 percent of domestic revenue. Contrary to initial expectations, deregulation actually led to a decrease in competition. Airlines’ profitability is closely tied to economic growth and trade. During the first half of the 1990s, the industry suffered not only from world recession but the Gulf War further depressed travel. In 1991 the number of international passengers dropped for the first time. The financial difficulties were exacerbated by airlines over-ordering aircraft in the boom years of the late 1980s, leading too significant excess capacity in the market. Mergers and acquisitions are seen to be one of the most important trends in the low-cost airline industry. Many carriers make efforts to purchase small regional aircraft operating companies or even fuel suppliers of the local level. This leads to lower operating costs and will result even into higher ticket prices in the future. The expectation for the US economy for the next years is that the growth rate will increase for 1.6% to 2.4%. Growing economy means an increase in buying power of the customers. For this reason, the traveling demand is expected to increase in the future as well. Social Factor The profile of the passengers has changed with more economically passengers and less business class passengers. Now with more information and social media the customers have high expectations in the low price sector of the tickets because the expected standards of the services have increased. Even for a low price passengers expect to have clean seats, smiling crew, no delays etc. Moreover, customers are ready to complain if the service does not meet their expectations. Technological Factor Though it is a fact that the airline industry uses technology extensively in its operations, they are limited to the aircraft and the operations of the  airlines excluding the ticketing and the distribution aspects. This has prompted many experts to call on the airlines to make use of the advances in technology for the front office and the customer facing functions as well. In other words, the technological changes have to be adapted to include mobile technologies as far as ticketing, distribution, and customer service. Technology media now is necessary, for their promotion and for the customers that can buy their tickets in a safe and a quicly way. An example is that Southwest Airlines uses the technology extensively and it is a fact that the 75% of its profits the company gains due to the online sales. Such technologies as mobile phone applications, homepages, online reservations and others are not necessary just to be successful in the market – they are an absolutely a  ¨must have ¨ for the airline to even start to make sales. Environmental Factor The social responsibility initiatives are becoming more pronounced in the airilines industry. As consumers and activists turn a critical eye towards the airlines and their corporate social responsibility. Many people do not associate noise with pollution. But in the last decades the noise produced by jets has become one of the airlines biggest environmental challenges, the one the companies have spent billions of dollars to address. Key to their noise reduction efforts has been the development and introduction of new technology over the years. The airlines have implemented a recycling program to reduce the amount of solid waste they send to landfills. These are the most commons: aluminum can recycling by flight, greater use of metal utensils and ceramic dishes, paper recycling of airline offices. Legal Factor The number of lawsuits against airlines from both customers as well as workers has gone up. In other words, the regulators are being stricter with the airlines, which mean that they are now increasingly their strategies, and actualizing their strategies only after they are convinced that they are not violating any laws. For the airlines industry the customers are the priority beacuase they know thath having an airplane accident will have legal issues and can destroy a whole airiline. The legal system became intolerant of delays, safety issues, and other aspects has only served to increase the fears among the airlines as each and every move of theirs is being checked. In the restrictions on mergers the U.S. Department of Justice approves a certain number of airline mergers, but also blocks a number of them because they fear a trend towards monopolization which would mean less competition and could lead to higher ticket prices. Airlines then sometimes file in lawsuits to defend their proposed merger and tend to succeed. Open Skies Agreement was signed in 2008, the intention of this U.S. and EU aviation pact was to allow greater access to U.S. markets by non-U.S. carriers. This means a greater competitive pressure for U.S. airlines. Conclusion from the PESTEL analysis: Key drivers from the macro-environment include political, economic and legal factors. In order to analyze the next layer of the environment – industries and sectors – we will use Porter’s five forces framework. This tool was developed to estimate the industry’s attractiveness. Another purpose of our analyze is to recognize dynamics of the US low-cost airline industry. Bargaining Power of Suppliers The suppliers of airline companies are fuel supplier, foods supplier, aircraft supplier and airport facilities. It should be mentioned that the US supplier market for the airlines is quite limited. There exist only two possible suppliers for the airplanes – Boeing and Airbus. There is a large investment required to purchase the airplanes. Thus, it makes it very difficult to switch between these two suppliers (for instance, to switch from Boeing vehicles to Airbus) as the switching costs will be unavoidably high. Another issue which is worth mentioning – in the case of switching to another supplier all mechanics and pilots should be retrained according to the standards of a new supplier. In the past, low-cost carriers tended to operate older aircraft purchased second-hand. Since 2000, however, fleets generally consist of newer, more fuel efficient aircraft. These are extremely efficient aircraft in terms of fuel, training, maintenance and  crew costs per passenger. Airlines are also highly dependent on Boeing’s and Airbus’s innovation strategy – especially low-cost carriers have little bargaining power to negotiate with the suppliers and order special custom-made vehicles (for example, airlines cannot make an order to Boeing/Airbus to produce special airplanes with more seats/less fuel costs in order to maximize airline’s profits). Thus, the power of the suppliers makes the airlines to adopt their strategies to a new fleet and the other way round! Fuel market is quite monopolized as well (PDVSA, Venezuela; Petrobras, Brazil). Moreover, price of aviation fuel is directly related to the cost of oil. It implies difficulties to the airlines as oil market is very unpredictable and tend to increase. For this reason airlines prefer to sign long-term contracts with the fuel suppliers in order to negotiate fuel prices for the future as well. Foods suppliers do not cause any specific difficulties for the low-cost airlines due to two main points. Firstly, many low-cost carriers do not serve a warm/cooked food for the passengers. Secondly, foods suppliers have little bargaining power as their market is highly competitive as well. This makes it very easy for the airline to switch to another foods supplier. Large airports charge very high prices for renting or buying the gates. Thus, they are seen as a big challenge for the airlines. On the other hand, regional airports have little bargaining power as they are heavily dependent to make their profits from a regionally dominant airline. It is worth mentioning that it is very important for the low-cost airlines to dominate on the regional level. But in this case, low-cost carriers do not challenge fees of regional airports – they rather compete with other low-cost airlines to get the airport gates. Conclusion: In general, bargaining power of suppliers in US low-cost airline industry is very high, although there can be some differences between the national and regional level of operating. Regional low-cost airlines are not so much dependent on airports’ bargaining power, but even this issue does not affect the whole picture of the industry. Bargaining Power of Customers Customers seem to be very price sensitive. According to the survey conducted in 2010, 36 percent of travelers ranked price as their top consideration while choosing a airline. The second most valued factor, with 32 percent respectively, is particular schedules and routes the airline can offer to a  passenger. Surprisingly, on-time performance and star rating all gathered seven percent or less. Thus, customers’ behavior towards prices makes low-cost carriers participate in a fierce competition on low prices for the flights and invite special sales offers and promotions to gather new customers. The next problem which low-cost companies face is low switching costs for the passengers. The opportunity to compare prices from different airlines online allows the customers to make a best-choice decision. According to the survey mentioned above, only less than two percent of travelers mentioned brand loyalty to be a crucial factor of choosing an airline to fly with. Increase in customers’ awareness about building the prices also puts some limits on the airlines’ strategies: modern travelers know exactly how much their flight tickets should cost! They are aware that most low-cost carriers try to promote online sales in order to shorten their costs by not renting offices and not establishing call centers with call agents. Today’s customers also understand that online check-in allows the airline to cut its costs for renting check-in desks at the airports etc. As a result of this awareness, customers become more suspicious about the price and have higher expectations for the services. Conclusion: Price became for the customers the most crucial factor to decide what airline they want to use. No switching costs and customers’ awareness define as well that customers possess a huge bargaining power towards low-cost carriers in the US. Threat of New Entrants Deregulation law of 1978 had a great impact on the whole US airline industry. The idea of deregulation changed the airline business into a perfectly competitive industry with numerous carriers, no significant economies of scale, and no significant barriers to entry. After plenty of mergers and acquisitions in the airline industry in the 1980s were executed, over 200 carriers left the market. Thus, US deregulation created a more concentrated airline market with no specific barriers for the new entrants on the other hand. Historically, it has been seen very prestige to owe an airline – for this reason a lot of investors tried to enter the industry despite of its low attractiveness. Most of them, however, left the market as the airlines declared themselves being bankrupt. In general, airline industry has one of the highest turnover rates – over 60% of all new entrants leave the market  in the first five operating years. There is a high capital investment required to ente r the industry. Moreover, investors cannot change the existing prices in the industry. Most costs for the airline are built from its fixed costs (renting or purchasing fleet, renting airport gates, fuel costs, salary paid to the personnel, trainings). This makes it very difficult to reduce the costs when needed – fixed costs cannot be reduced in the emergency case. Restricted slot availability makes it even more difficult for the new entrants to find suitable airports. Especially in the low-cost sector of the US airline industry it causes extremely high challenges for the new entrants to have enough basis to set low fares for the flight tickets. By setting very low and competitive ticket prices a new entrant should take a risk to stay unprofitable for the first operating years as a new company has a lot of debts from the investment and no customer base to make enough profits. On the other hand, as we analyzed before no close customer relationship is possible within a low-cost airline industry. Hence, if a new entrant is able to catch customers’ attention by setting low fares this airline can expect the profits in a short time. Conclusion: Although the new entrants will face a fierce price war immediately after entering the market, there are some key factors (low prices, different routes) that can save the company from going bankrupt. Nevertheless, the thread of new entrants in the industry tends to be low. Competitive Rivalry As mentioned before, the low-cost carrier market in the USA is highly competitive due to heavy pressure on prices, margins, and hence on profitability. Besides, the industry is characterized by the following specifics: Most cost advantages can be copied immediately. Low chances to participate in the competition for the national market as the two major low-cost airlines (Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines) have avoided direct head to head competition by choosing different routes to serve. Existing rivalry is competing on the regional and local level. Not much differentiation between services. Price is the main differentiating factor. The pricing policy of the low cost carriers is usually very dynamic, with discounts and tickets in promotion. A new tendency towards prices: the  prices steadily rise thereafter to a point where they can be comparable or more expensive than a flight on a full-service carrier. Conclusion: highly competitive environment. Threat of Substitutes Historically, airlines have satisfied the demand for a speedier travel experience with faster aircraft. Travelers choose air for a variety of reasons; chief among them are costs and time. But in the future airlines can be on the edge of losing this advantage if high-speed rail will be improved. In this case more travelers will re-evaluate this alternative, and many will quit flying because of the reasons they dislike air travel: check-in/security hassles, lost productive time, lower-than expected reliability on in-time departure and arrival, and negative environmental impact. Rail is not a complete substitute for air travel in all markets because longer distances magnify the effects of slower travel speeds. But for travel distances of less than 1,200 kilometers, high-speed rail can be seen as a viable choice. It is worth saying that after the Deregulation law in 1978 the American railway was quite â€Å"abandoned† as most travelers switched to the air travel due to the low fares offered for the tickets. Thus, American railway has hardly introduced new rail destinations and can be barely seen to be a substation for the air travel today. Nevertheless, the situation can change if investment in the improvement of American rail destinations will be made. Buses are not a substition for the US low-cost carriers as their prices (even for the regional destination) are comparable to the prices for the flight tickets. Conclusion: Low-cost carriers are not threatened by the substition by railway/buses. The summary of the Porter’s five forces analysis can be represented by the following graph: Conclusion from the Porter’s five forces framework: The U.S. low-cost airline industry is not an attractive industry to enter because of the heavy competition, large turnover rates and high fixed costs which results in one of the lowest profitability of all industries. Now we came to the most immediate layer by which the companies are surrounded – layer of competitors and markets. We will conduct the analysis of this layer by dividing the airline industry into particular Strategic Groups. We decided to define Strategic Groups by following terms: by geographic coverage (national, regional, international) and by customer satisfaction (measured in the airline industry by a scale from 1-1000 points). Conclusion to the Strategic Groups: The most direct competitors of low cost-carriers are very often other low-cost carriers. There is a strong competitive rivalry both within the strategic group of low cost carriers like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, but also there exists a competition between strategic groups. For instance, a big low cost-carrier Southwest also competes with Delta Air Lines who is the largest legacy/major U.S.airline who operates in both a domestic and an international network. According to our research, critical success factors for the low-cost airline industry include: ticket fares, waiting times for flights, safety measure, customer-oriented service and comfort, special sales offers (for example, frequent-flyers programs), airport fees, number of destinations, costs of airplaines, fuel price conditions, online ticket booking, high-frequency flights.

Waggle Dance essays

Waggle Dance essays In every bee hive there are three types of bees, a queen, drones, and many workers. The lone queen honeybee is a fertile female, while the drone honeybees are males that are exclusively used for reproduction. It is the many worker honeybees, infertile females, that are responsible for foraging for food. For hundreds of years biologists and naturalists have noticed that the worker honeybees do not all go out to search for food at the same time, but rather send out scouts ahead. These scout honeybees locate the food, return to the hive, and then the rest of the workers go to collect the rest of the food. Many scientists, dating back to Aristotle, have been baffled by how the worker bees are able to locate the food sought out by the scouts. How do the scout and worker honeybees communicate in the hive to alert each other where to forage for the food? In 1943, an Austrian entomologist, Karl von Frisch hypothesized that the scouts were able to communicate the necessary information to the other worker bees by moving in specific patterns after returning to the hive. He called this movement the waggle dance. Karl von Frisch said that the waggle dance of the honeybee was able to communicate the distance, the direction, and even the type and amount of food to the other worker honeybees. He published his findings in a book called The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees, and later received the noble prize in 1973 for his breakthroughs in animal behavior. Before he published his findings, Karl von Frisch spent years experimenting and recording observations to try and solve the mystery of honeybee communication. He started by placing a dish filled with sugar water a short distance from a bee hive. He noticed that immediately after placing the dish outside, the dish was swarmed with many honeybees. As the dish continued to empty, increasingly less honeybees came to it. However, if he refilled the dish and one of the bees...

How Making My Book Available in Print Landed It In The Guardian

How Making My Book Available in Print Landed It In The Guardian How Making My Book Available in Print Landed It In "The Guardian" When Katja Meier set out to write  about the joys and challenges she encountered when running a refugee home in Tuscany, she had only planned to publish an ebook. Little did she know, her memoir had other (bigger) plans, that hinged on being available in print as well. This is how she found herself desperately searching for a typesetting solution in the middle of the night, with a launch date looming... Saved by the Reedsy Book EditorI discovered the Reedsy Book Editor late one night when desperately raking the internet for a solution to my haphazard typesetting attempt. I signed up for a free account immediately, started to upload the 23 chapters of my manuscript at midnight, and by 2 AM, I downloaded the print-ready PDF.It looked great but had one issue I couldn’t sort out myself: Across the Big Blue Sea includes an excerpt of a research article which focuses on little-known facts linked to human trafficking in Europe. I had the author’s permission to include the text but only if it was formatted differently from the rest of the book. Since the excerpt is several pages long, simply putting it in cursive wouldn’t do.I sent Reedsy an email at 3 AM, trying hard to come across as a calm, seasoned professional (and not as the freaked-out, first-time author who had set herself the wrong launch date). In the morning, I woke up to a message from Matt Cobb (Reedsy co-f ounder and designer), who promised to investigate the issue. And that very same week, I received a new version of my manuscript with the excerpt beautifully set apart in a sans-serif font and the comforting knowledge that I’d be able to make my launch date.From self-published memoir to Guardian â€Å"best summer book†Some things you can plan, others you can’t. I had sent an email to The Guardian’s book-reviewing team a couple of months before the book was published. Not surprisingly, especially for an indie author, I never heard back.Luckily, a few months earlier I had taken marketing advice from Jesse Finkelstein of pagetwostrategies.com and written to some of my favorite authors asking for endorsements. This is not an easy thing to do - it takes courage to ask time from authors who are probably already flooded with similar requests. But it's well worth asking, especially if you feel the author might be truly interested in the topic of your book.By seem ing-providence, at the same time that The Guardian wasn’t getting back to me, one of the writers I had contacted for endorsements wrote back and said she’d be happy to receive a copy (and four more followed suit!). Taiye Selasi, author of the wonderful Ghana Must Go, didn’t just write an insightful endorsement for me to use, she also remembered Across the Big Blue Sea when The Guardian asked her for her favorite books of the summer. And unknown to me, Taiye had already mentioned my book a few months before in The Guardian’s â€Å"Books That Made Me† series.I got lucky twice, and I’m afraid I’ll have to contradict Louis Pasteur’s famous quote here: it turns out that chance doesn’t just favor the prepared mind, it also favors the well-prepared book and the courageous author. (Hell, it takes guts to contact your favorite writers for endorsements)!Print is far from deadFrom the day the book was first published in February 20 17, I have been selling more print books than ebooks. I wouldn’t want to miss out on the ebook version - after all, I care about people who live in forlorn places without a reliable postal service. But my sales would look dire if it wasn’t for the print edition. Whatever retailer I look at, the paperback fares better.And when I meet the American students whose universities use Across the Big Blue Sea as a textbook for their study abroad programs in Italy, I’m each time surprised and honored anew that they travel with a print copy in their backpacks.Back to the Reedsy Book Editor once moreWith Italian and German translations in the pipeline, I’ll be back for a few night-time dates with the Reedsy Book Editor early next year (beware Matt, more desperate 3 AM emails coming your way). But being able to easily update my book proved useful and necessary for the already-published English edition too. I already updated the manuscript once to add two pages of end orsements at the beginning of the book. And while we’re working on the film adaptation of Across the Big Blue Sea, I’m planning to keep readers jour of the progress there too.But being able to amend the manuscript doesn’t just mean I can shamelessly brag about film rights and cool reviews in The Guardian: more importantly, I can update the information on how to support the migrant women mentioned in my book. And that is, after all, why I sat down to write it in the first place.How has publishing print copies of your book affected your publishing experience? Leave any thoughts or questions for Katja in the comments below!

The History of Mechanical Clocks

The History of Mechanical Clocks During most of the Middle Ages, from roughly 500 to 1500 A.D., technological advancement was at a virtual standstill in Europe. Sundial styles evolved, but they didnt move far from ancient Egyptian principles.   Simple Sundials   Simple sundials placed above doorways were used to identify midday and four tides of the sunlit day in the Middle Ages. Several types of pocket sundials were being used by the 10th century one  English model identified tides and even compensated for seasonal changes of the suns altitude.   Mechanical Clocks In the early to mid-14th century, large mechanical clocks began to appear in the towers of several Italian cities. There is no record of any working models preceding these public clocks that were weight-driven and regulated by verge-and-foliot escapements. Verge-and-foliot mechanisms reigned for more than 300 years with variations in the shape of the foliot, but all had the same basic problem: The period of oscillation depended heavily on the amount of driving force and the amount of friction in the drive so the rate was difficult to regulate. Spring-Powered Clocks   Another advancement was an invention by Peter Henlein, a German locksmith from Nuremberg, sometime between 1500 and 1510. Henlein created  spring-powered clocks.  Replacing the heavy drive weights resulted in smaller and more portable clocks and watches. Henlein nicknamed his clocks Nuremberg Eggs. Although they slowed down as the mainspring unwound, they were popular among wealthy individuals because of their size and because they could be placed on a shelf or table instead of hung from a wall. They were the first portable timepieces, but they only had hour hands. Minute hands didn’t appear until 1670, and clocks had no glass protection during this time. Glass placed over the face of a watch didn’t come about until the 17th century. Still, Henleins advances in design were precursors to truly accurate timekeeping.   Accurate Mechanical Clocks   Christian Huygens, a Dutch scientist, made the first pendulum clock in 1656. It was regulated by a mechanism with a natural period of oscillation. Although Galileo Galilei  is  sometimes credited with inventing the pendulum and he studied its motion as early as 1582, his design for a clock was not built before his death. Huygens pendulum clock had an error of less than one minute a day, the first time such accuracy had been achieved. His later refinements reduced his clocks errors to less than 10 seconds a day.   Huygens developed the balance wheel and spring assembly sometime around 1675  and it’s still found in some of todays wristwatches. This improvement allowed 17th-century watches to keep time to 10 minutes a day. William Clement began building clocks with the new anchor or recoil escapement in London in 1671. This was a substantial improvement over the verge because it interfered less with the motion of the pendulum.   In 1721, George Graham improved the pendulum clocks accuracy to one  second a day by compensating for changes in the pendulums length due to temperature variations. John Harrison, a carpenter and self-taught clockmaker, refined Grahams temperature compensation techniques and added new methods of reducing friction. By 1761, he had built a marine chronometer with the spring and a balance wheel escapement that had won the British governments 1714 prize offered for a means of determining longitude to within one-half  a degree. It kept time aboard a rolling ship to about one-fifth of a second a day, nearly as well as a pendulum clock could do on land, and 10 times better than required.   Over the next century, refinements led to Siegmund Rieflers clock with a nearly free pendulum in 1889. It attained an accuracy of a hundredth of a second a day and became the standard in many astronomical observatories. A true free-pendulum principle was introduced by R. J. Rudd around 1898, stimulating the development of several free-pendulum clocks. One of the most famous, the W. H. Shortt clock, was demonstrated in 1921. The Shortt clock almost immediately replaced Rieflers clock as a supreme timekeeper in many observatories. This clock consisted of two pendulums, one a slave and the other a master. The slave pendulum gave the master pendulum the gentle pushes it needed to maintain its motion, and it also drove the clocks hands. This allowed the master pendulum to remain free from mechanical tasks that would disturb its regularity. Quartz Clocks   Quartz crystal clocks replaced the Shortt clock as the standard in the 1930s and 1940s, improving timekeeping performance far beyond that of pendulum and balance-wheel escapements.   Quartz clock operation is based on the piezoelectric property of quartz crystals. When an electric field is applied to the crystal, it changes its shape. It generates an electric field when squeezed or bent. When placed in a suitable electronic circuit, this interaction between mechanical stress and electric field causes the crystal to vibrate and generate a constant frequency electric signal that can be used to operate an electronic clock display.  Quartz crystal clocks were better because they had no gears or escapements to disturb their regular frequency. Even so, they relied on a mechanical vibration whose frequency depended critically on the crystals size and shape. No two crystals can be precisely alike  with exactly the same frequency.   Quartz clocks continue to dominate the market in numbers because their performance is excellent and they are inexpensive. But the timekeeping performance of quartz clocks has been substantially surpassed by atomic clocks.   Information and illustrations provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Product reassessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Product reassessment - Essay Example Definite measure to sustain the project is thru distributorship or partnership as specific form of entry to the China market. Picture of the product is shown in Annex 1, while profile of the company may be downloaded in its company website. Discussion . Life cycle of the fax machines in the United States have reached maturity and declining stages. It has been overtaken by fast technology changes in communication. At this stage, manufacturers are left with three options: to look for new markets, to accept its fate, or to upgrade features of its products to present a new appeal. While it seems that US market is saturated and has reached maturity, other foreign markets are still on a developing stage. One such country is China, that despite for its being big in terms of economic development, has low usage of Fax machines. According to CIA Factbook, (2013) China has a population of 1,349,595,895 and is considered the most populous country in the world. It has a literacy rate of 92.2% whi ch is a very good segmentation target for the product. Repositioning needs a risk management plan that involves a market research. Since there are issues why the fax usage is low in this country, and before entry, a market research should be conducted in order to ascertain acceptability of the product. Market research helps the company understand the customer and its relative situation. The branch of research ideal for repositioning is market profiling or segmentation survey to know following conditions: to identify who are the customers, why are they or not customers. The survey may also include questions about purchasing decisions in order to know motivational factors from interest to actual purchase. This section opens up with the idea of major factors that lead to the level and rate of adoption of new products. Fax machines are not a totally new product, but the idea is to reintroduce it to a new market, which is China. A method that could be used to check on adoption rates is t he concept testing or test marketing. Concept testing gives an idea of customers reaction before funds are spent for it, wherein â€Å"A cross-section of the general public could be asked to respond to this product idea and may be able to comment on the intrinsic appeal of the idea and, more especially, could make suggestions as to where it would best be positioned in the market† (‘Agricultural and Food Marketing Management† n.d.). Two Test marketing advantages outlined in the study of FAO stated that it provides an opportunity to obtain a measure of a product's sales performance under reasonably natural market conditions. Market share can be estimated and used as the basis of the decision as to whether or not the product is launched nationally. Test marketing also offers an opportunity for management to identify and correct product or marketing strategy weaknesses before a national launch takes place. An idea that could be carried out in the launch is product ser vice or component that could complement the product. Fax machines are one of the products carried in the portfolio of Canon. Copiers would be the best complement for Fax machines. It could be offered as a combined package at a discounted price. After sales service could also be an attractive proposal. In every product category, service or warranty is provided. So that sales and service would be maximized, on-line system of ordering or servicing should be in place so that customers can

Marketing plan for Air Canada Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Marketing plan for Air Canada - Coursework Example SWOT analysis of Air Canada has been conducted in this paper. With the help of SWOT analysis strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the firms are highlighted. Air Canada performs its business operations and functions in a very competitive industry. Many strong players are present in the airline industry of USA. The study highlights that the competitor companies are creating strong pressure on Air Canada. For this reason Air Canada is developing its business processes and services for holding its positing in the competitive market. Company analysis has been done in this paper. The customer base of Air Canada has been discussed in details. Upcoming product and marketing objectives of the Air Canada have been analysed in this study. Air Canada is one of the largest airline companies in Canada. This airline company was founded in 1936. Air Canada deals with charter and scheduled air transport. It covers 178 destinations of the world. At present Air Canada is ninth largest passenger airline based on fleet size. The company has its headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. This firm is the founding member of Start Alliance. Air Canada was initially owned by the federal government of Canada. The airline market of Canada was deregulated 1980s. In 1988 the company Air Canada was privatised. The major accusation done by Air Canada is acquiring Canadian Airlines which enhanced the growth and development of the company. Presently Air Canada serves 35 million passengers throughout the year. It has a strong air transport network through the world. With strong mission, vision and values the company is able to perform its business activities and functions efficiently. The mission of Air Canada is to connect Canada with the world. The company facilitates the people in moving from one place to another by bringing them together and enriching their experiences. The firm aims to establish connection

Dynamic Content Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Dynamic Content Management - Essay Example The basic operation of a Web content management system was set out clearly in the 1990s by the then MIT (now Harvard) database expert Philip Greenspun (2003). CMS is defined as those: â€Å"principles and practices around developing, managing, maintaining, and deploying (web) content in an organization† (Nakano, 2002) CMS concerns itself with the organizational tasks, goals and roles which lead to high quality content and accurate, attractive, useful websites which are easy to use. The average organisation's Web site or intranet has anywhere between one thousand and one million pieces of content. By the time the organisation has reached this size, it has a substantial Web content management challenge. What is a Web Content Management System? From Cascading Style Sheets through XML, has now evolved into the web CMS environment, where USD6.4 billions is expected to be spent by 2007 according to IDC. In a Web Content Management system the design and presentation of content on a Web page is separated from the content creation process. This is because Web pages and links can be dynamically generated from information held in a database. TerminalFour’s Site Manager is an example of a commercial off the shelf product which has found favour with commercial, public and academic sectors. By making use of XML (extensible Mark up Language), a CMS can also allow content that is stored in the database to be repurposed for different devices such as mobile phones, handheld computers, kiosks and Web TV as well as PCs.

Genetic Predisposition to Alcoholism Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Genetic Predisposition to Alcoholism - Assignment Example It is a mysterious fact that some people begin to drink alcohol and become dependent to an extent that they cannot perform tasks or feel comfort without taking alcohol, while others begin to drink but remain independent. According to Hart and Ksir (2011), most individuals who begin to take alcohol and develop serious dependence do so because of some genetic connotations that depend on alcohol for proper coordination. However, there are also individuals who become dependent on alcohol even when their genetic programming is negative towards drug dependence. Since there is no clear relationship between alcohol dependence and genetic programming of individual drinkers, many scientists conclude that predisposition to alcohol largely depends on the surrounding environment. This means that one can have genetic predisposition to develop dependence, but may not do so if the surrounding environment does encourage easy access to alcohol. The finding that certain individuals develop dependence even without a genetic predisposition to alcoholism also disqualifies the power of genes in inclining an individual towards dependence on alcohol. From the above discussion, it is conclusive that environment rather than genes determine predisposition of an individual to alcohol dependence. With this understanding, the best treatment choice for a person who depends on alcohol is counseling and guidance by a psychiatrist. In fact, there is no viable and provable way that health professionals can treat the problem of genetic predisposition to alcoholism. This is because effective treatment would require manipulation or erase of particular genetic coding, which is impossible and impractical. This understanding leaves counseling and guidance as for the only viable way that can also regulate, influence and various environmental factors to achieve recovery of an individual addict.     

Business organisation and policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Business organisation and policy - Essay Example ............................................. 6 5. Discussion of Merger Seeking...................................................................... 7 6. Conclusion..................................................................................................... 9 References / Bibliography Business organisation and policy 1. Introduction Many businesses attempt to improve their revenue stream or maintain a higher competitive advantage through the process of acquiring or merging with other successful companies. Corporations believe that they can gain a considerable growth potential, improve overall service delivery or produce better and more innovative products by consolidating talents that exist within the business being acquired and amidst the new business entity acquired. However, many board members and executives at these companies do not fully understand the realities of what affects successful acquisition and merger philosophy, with most of these driven by the external marke tplace and external stakeholders. In order to understand what causes failures in merging and acquiring other firms, it is necessary to explore real-life case histories of two different companies with radically different success and failure outcomes after merger. Air France merged with KLM and found a considerable growth potential and synergy development, whilst Daimler-Chrysler suffered substantial loss of business competitiveness and capital growth after the merger. It is likely that board members and executives, despite such a high margin of failed mergers and acquisitions, continue to seek out these opportunities for a variety of financially-based rationales, for the potential benefits achieved with shareholders and stakeholders, and as a generalised strategic methodology to improve efficiency, productivity, and cultural development. This report examines the two merged company case studies and comes to a determination as to why businesses continue to seek merger and acquisition o pportunities despite numerous failures in this process. 2. The case of Air France and KLM Air France and KLM were both highly successful airline carriers that found independent revenue growth in their home markets of France and the Netherlands respectively. Both airlines agreed that a merger would improve their competitive position in the airline marketplace and could develop long-lasting synergies that would ultimately lead to sales growth and cost reduction in key divisions of operations. The Air France and KLM merger should be considered a significant success in merger philosophy. Why is this? In key markets, Ryanair and other low cost carriers were beginning to expand their fleets by using lean models of operations that allowed for cost reduction to be passed on to consumers in the price of lower fares. This was impacting the profitability bottom line of both major carriers which had higher overhead costs and administrative costs associated with labour payments to maintain their broad hub networks. These low cost carriers were using dynamic pricing and were able to reduce marketing and advertising costs; thus, it was becoming more attractive to multiple target market consumers (Malighetti, Paleari and Redondi, 2009). Because of regulatory restrictions, Air France and KLM, separately and in their host countries and markets, could not adjust their costs of operations to successfully compete with Ryanair and other growing low cost carriers using penetration or dynamic pricing models. Together, however, it gave

Compare two moving image texts the genere gangster flims Essay

Compare two moving image texts the genere gangster flims - Essay Example The main story line of the film is Dick Tracy's efforts to bring down Big Boy Caprice's gangster empire and the search for a mystery assassin known as The Blank. A secondary storyline follows Tracy's romances with Tess Trueheart and Breathless Mahoney. The third sub-plot is Tracy's rescuing a young orphan boy, The Kid, who looks up to Tracy as a father figure. All this becomes quickly tangled when Tracy finds himself framed for the murder of Chicago's beloved (although corrupt) District Attorney, and Caprice's empire begins to take over the city itself. Classical Hollywood cinema has traditionally presented its viewer with a unified narrative. The Untouchablesis a perfect example of this. The film's narrative deals with Treasury Officer Elliot Ness's quest to get criminal Al Capone behind bars. This is a goal that is clearly and explicitly delineated from the start, and most scenes follow the protagonist's actions from that point on. At first he tries to achieve this goal by himself, which leads to failure when he finds out that the rest of the police force is corrupt. As he walks home, depressed about his embarrassing failure, the character of Maloneis introduced. The death of Malone not only has the plot function of strengthening Ness's resolve to catch Capone, it also functions structurally as reinforcement of the audience's sympathy for his quest. When

Business organisation and policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Business organisation and policy - Essay Example ............................................. 6 5. Discussion of Merger Seeking...................................................................... 7 6. Conclusion..................................................................................................... 9 References / Bibliography Business organisation and policy 1. Introduction Many businesses attempt to improve their revenue stream or maintain a higher competitive advantage through the process of acquiring or merging with other successful companies. Corporations believe that they can gain a considerable growth potential, improve overall service delivery or produce better and more innovative products by consolidating talents that exist within the business being acquired and amidst the new business entity acquired. However, many board members and executives at these companies do not fully understand the realities of what affects successful acquisition and merger philosophy, with most of these driven by the external marke tplace and external stakeholders. In order to understand what causes failures in merging and acquiring other firms, it is necessary to explore real-life case histories of two different companies with radically different success and failure outcomes after merger. Air France merged with KLM and found a considerable growth potential and synergy development, whilst Daimler-Chrysler suffered substantial loss of business competitiveness and capital growth after the merger. It is likely that board members and executives, despite such a high margin of failed mergers and acquisitions, continue to seek out these opportunities for a variety of financially-based rationales, for the potential benefits achieved with shareholders and stakeholders, and as a generalised strategic methodology to improve efficiency, productivity, and cultural development. This report examines the two merged company case studies and comes to a determination as to why businesses continue to seek merger and acquisition o pportunities despite numerous failures in this process. 2. The case of Air France and KLM Air France and KLM were both highly successful airline carriers that found independent revenue growth in their home markets of France and the Netherlands respectively. Both airlines agreed that a merger would improve their competitive position in the airline marketplace and could develop long-lasting synergies that would ultimately lead to sales growth and cost reduction in key divisions of operations. The Air France and KLM merger should be considered a significant success in merger philosophy. Why is this? In key markets, Ryanair and other low cost carriers were beginning to expand their fleets by using lean models of operations that allowed for cost reduction to be passed on to consumers in the price of lower fares. This was impacting the profitability bottom line of both major carriers which had higher overhead costs and administrative costs associated with labour payments to maintain their broad hub networks. These low cost carriers were using dynamic pricing and were able to reduce marketing and advertising costs; thus, it was becoming more attractive to multiple target market consumers (Malighetti, Paleari and Redondi, 2009). Because of regulatory restrictions, Air France and KLM, separately and in their host countries and markets, could not adjust their costs of operations to successfully compete with Ryanair and other growing low cost carriers using penetration or dynamic pricing models. Together, however, it gave

How does new technology affect education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

How does new technology affect education - Essay Example Currently, the education sector is experiencing a rapid transition whereby different disciplines are embracing Tablet PCs as well as similar pen-based gadgets. This is to enhance both teaching and learning processes, which is contrary to the past whereby their respective modes encompassed physical interaction between the student and tutors. Evidence of the emerging impact of new technological knowhow was quite evident in 5Th workshop held in Virginia in 2010. This was through varied presentations by different intellectuals whose information comprises this book. For the past eight decades in 20Th period before 1980s, educated worker’s curve depicted an upward trend. However, the demand for them was not that high as compared to the current state, which is the contrary. Due to high education before 1980s, this prompted to the emergency of numerous people who were well off, hence becoming the richest region globally. However, that trend currently has ceased whereby due to the rapid technological change states are facing the shortage of skilled labour force. Introducing technological knowhow to children is of great importance in ensuring they are ready to tackle other varied aspects during their education. This is especially in tackling varied subjects as well as doing researches at a later period, which is more beneficial compared to when they learn of using technology later. However, this takes the effort of well trained tutors in the mode of implementing technology as per the children or student’s capability, which Casey outline in this book. Implementing in this case encompasses considering 90 activities, which Casey advocates in this research for each child starting from as early as three years. The source offers detailed information meant to equip any learning person with necessary studying and leadership skills. The former skills encompass confidence, creativity and being able to navigate the constantly evolving environment due to emergent

Hospitals and Long-Term Care Facilities Essay Example for Free

Hospitals and Long-Term Care Facilities Essay Abstract Hospitals can be set up as nonprofit or for-profit facilities. The differences between the nonprofit and for profit hospitals will be discussed. Hospitals have experienced different trends in the last thirty years. This paper will identify at least three major trends that have occurred within the hospital sector. Three examples that describe and differentiate the roles of hospitals and nursing homes are providing long-term care. The conclusion of this paper will be a brief critiquing of the current state of long-term care policy in the United States. Hospitals and Long-Term Care Facilities The differences between nonprofit and for-profit hospitals: A characteristic as stated by Williams and Torrens (2008) of nonprofit hospitals is that these hospitals do not function under the realm of regular corporate law but under a special provision of the corporate law in each state. It is also noted that nonprofit hospitals also function under special federal and state tax provisions because of recognition of their community service function. Other characteristics of nonprofit hospitals are they do not have owners and their governing body is a community based board that has complete authority over operations. Nonprofit hospitals, in general, are not required to pay most of the taxes at federal, state and local levels. Under section 501C (3) of the federal tax code, the non-profits are exempt. Due to this exemption status donations made by individuals are tax deductible. Nonprofit entities are not only expected to care for the destitute and poor but they are also expected to provi de a variety of services to the community (Williams Torrens, 2008). Now that the characteristics of the non-profit have been outlined the for-profit entities make-up will be discussed. For profit entities, unlike nonprofit ones, have owners. The owners are issued stocks and these stocks reflect the owner’s equity position. â€Å"For- profit  entities, including hospitals, may be publicly or privately held† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 186). Stocks for entities for-profit that are publicly held are made available for anyone to purchase. Publicly held for-profit entities are plagued with various accountability and regulation rules that are supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission at both federal and state level. Williams and Torrens (2008) state that privately held for-profit entities issue stock but the difference in public versus private issuing of stock is that the private for-profit stock is not available for purchase by the general public. For-profit hospitals, in the past, have been owned by the physicians who work in them but due to the astronomical costs of such expenditures as: building, maintaining and operating a hospital in today’s market the trend of physician owned for-profit hospitals is almost extinct. The majority of for-profit hospitals in the United States are part of a large multihospital chain. The multi chains of hospitals as stated by Williams Torrens (2008) are publicly traded. For-profit hospitals do not serve only the community but they are also expected to operate at a profit so that the equity investors receive a return on their capital (Williams Torrens, 2008). Three major trends that have occurred within the hospital sector. One of three major trends that have occurred within the hospital sector is the increase in specialty hospitals. The specialty hospitals focus on such areas as cancer and heart disease as well as profitable fields like orthopedic surgery. The specialty hospitals as stated by Williams Torrens (2008) show an increase of being owned partially by the physicians who practice in them. Some would make the argument that the specialty hospitals provide the best care while others see these hospitals as entities that â€Å"siphon off insured and relatively healthier patients leaving the less profitable and more complicated cases to community general ho spitals† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 194). Concerns raised by the physicians’ ownership of the specialty hospitals include but not limited to are that the financial incentives will affect the treatment decisions (i.e. diagnostic services) and also that the physicians will treat the less complicated but yet more profitable health care cases and leave the biggest burden of caring for the less fortunate, financially challenged and uninsured individuals to the community and public hospitals (Williams Torrens, 2008) Another trend that has occurred within the hospital sector  is in the field of technology. â€Å"Technology has shaped the physical and operational structures of hospitals, has affected the lives of patients and families, and has provided a delivery vehicle for physicians in clinical practice† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 195). It is technological research that allows for the services hospitals provide for example anesthesia and antisepsis laid the ground work for surgical care and imaging technology h as impacted effective intervention for individuals seeking care in a hospital atmosphere. Technology has affected a vast array of individuals: obstetric patients, those in need of pediatric care and terminally ill patients just to name a few. Advanced technology has led to development â€Å"increased specialization, clinical practices, expansion of specialized services, new medical and surgical specialties, and treatments for many diseases for which little curative or other care could be provided† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 195). While continued advance technology leads toward continuous improved health care it also brings along with it problems, especially for the hospitals. The hospitals are immensely gratified by the increased technology and its application to improve overall general health but along with the benefits comes complications. Hospitals are expected to provide the most up to date technology but at the most effective pricing to please their customers, patients and physicians. This presents a major challenge to hospitals (Williams Torrens, 2008) Academic medical centers are another trend that has occurred within the hospital sector. Academic medical centers are composed of medical schools and their primary teaching hospitals. The â€Å"academic medical centers provide tertiary, secondary, and primary care but have a principal focus on biomedical research, teaching of medical residents and medical students, and often an array of other professional training, research, and services activities† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 196). Unlike other hospitals, the academic medical center does not have top priorities of financial efficiency and customer satisfaction. Great demands are placed on these facilities by physicians and researchers to provide the latest technology and staffing for the assurance of teaching and clinical investigation. According to Williams and Torrens (2008) the long-term strengths and successes of our health care systems depends largely on the success of the academic medical centers to achieve their mission. Three examples that describe and differentiate the roles of hospitals and nursing  homes in providing long term care. The nursing home facility is for patients who need extended care because they are very sick or unable to function without continued nursing and supportive services in a formal health care facility. These patients are sick and/or are in need of assistance but they are not ill enough that they require the intense treatment and care offered at a hospital. According to Will iams and Torrens (2008) about forty-seven percent of all nursing home facility care is paid for by Medicaid and residents and their families pay approximately one-third of the cost for the facility services. In recent years the length of time one stays at a nursing home has greatly decreased. Even with the decrease in stay there is still a fifty percent chance of an individual in his/her lifetime having to spend some time in a nursing facility. Both of these previous mentioned trends is reflective of the nursing facilities moving toward becoming more technologically sophisticated as well as being able to function as more of a short term temporary residence for patients in between the hospital and going home (Williams Torrens, 2008). Hospitals are designed to take care of the more acute problems and emergencies. Hospitals provide a wide array of outpatient services. The outpatient services range from â€Å"rehabilitation to mental health counseling to outpatient surgery† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 205). Unlike the nursing home facility the primary source of payment for hospital stay and services is Medicare and private insurance and very little payment comes from individuals. The current state of long-term care policy in the United States. Medicare provides financing for medical care for nearly all elderly Americans and others with certain disabilities but this does not hold true for long-term care. The majority of individuals needing long term must depend on family and friends and sometimes the community they live in. There is a lot of work to be done in the United States as it relates to the financing of long term care for every needy individual (Williams Torrens, 2008). There is no clear and precise policy in the United States for long-term care but there are different provisions within Medicare and Medicaid that provide for long-term services for some (not all) individuals in need of it. While the financing of long-term care has been and continues to be a challenge for the United States there have been strives in the care coordination of long-term patients. The care coordination that has emerged through the years for long  term care patients appears to be relatively effective. â€Å"Quality is enhanced when information is communicated among all the professionals caring for a person, and efficiencies are achieved when duplication of services is avoided† (Williams Torrens, 2008, p. 211). Case management, which is a process that encompasses the following: case identification, assessment, care planning, service arrangement, monitoring and reassessment enables one professional individual to work with the family to coordinate and obtain all of the services that the long term care patient may need. Case management has proven to have one of the most positive effects of improving long-term care (Williams Torrens, 2008). References Williams, S. J., Torrens, P. R. (Eds.). (2008). Introduction to health services: 2010 custom edition (7th ed.). New York: Cengage Delmar Learning.

Plagiarism :: Cheating Essays papers

Plagiarism When we think of plagiarism the word criminal comes into mind. Contrary, one does not often intentionally mean to take an already written and published thought. However, the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that to plagiarize is â€Å"to commit literary theft† that is, to take ones â€Å"idea[s]† that are written down and â€Å"pass† theirs off as your own work. Nevertheless, the question- what if I did think and create that idea in my own mind- always pop up. The only way to explain the frequency of students plagiarizing is to blame the schools for not enforcing and teaching the rules. Therefore, when we educate others and ourselves the rules of copying and cheating there will not be any cases of accidental plagiarism. Society nowadays is flooded with online-websites, self help lines, and novels about the dangers of plagiarism and how to avoid it; yet students continue to steal others work for their own. With the over abundance of technological support and the vast variety of reference books and novels it is almost a temptation for students to plagiarize. All the same, students would not feel compelled to plagiarize if teachers would bring all the rules of citation into light. If we educate students at a young age that plagiarism is not the way to go then maybe the amount of plagiarism would drop. Furthermore, if there was a mandatory class that students took in their late elementary and throughout secondary schooling plagiarism would not be a major problem like it is today. Similar to the ignorance shared in the 1960’s because of the lack of knowledge about minorities, plagiarism is an issue that most people do not feel entirely confident and comfortable with due to their shortage of education.

Joy Luck Club :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club brings forth many characteristics of new world and old world traditions into the reader’s sight. Old world traditions are the customs and beliefs practiced in one’s native country. The novel introduces the reader to the hardships that one encounters when the environment and the neighbors change. The American customs, or new world traditions, seem to prevail in the thoughts of the Chinese-American daughters; thus, encouraging the mothers to stress the old world traditions onto their children. The mothers also try to bring the best of both worlds to their children to make their children’s lives better. As the children mature, they realize the true worth of their Chinese heritage and try to retain to the Chinese characteristics that they have. In The Joy Luck Club, old world and new world traits are gained and lost by the characters in the novel to benefit themselves and make their strength of mind stronger.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The children in The Joy Luck Club gain many characteristics of the old world and the new world that compose new people. The novel introduces us to characters that have lost their inner soul spirits that contain their Chinese heritage. The mothers know that their Chinese traditions and language are a necessary factor in dealing with their everyday life. The mothers also know that the new American traditions are needed to succeed in their new home. The mothers encourage English speaking, but also want to preserve their Chinese language. The major new thought that is gained by the children, and the mothers is the â€Å"American Dream.† They believe that anything is possible in America, and their dreams can be fulfilled trough their children. â€Å"My mother believed you could be anything you wanted in America†¦You could be instantly famous.†(Tan 141). The children gain pride for their native country also; raising their self-esteem and bringing abou t new strength in them. People cannot be accepted in society without accepting themselves. One has to accept their heritage and have pride for their heritage for other people to respect them. The mothers in the novel try to teach this lesson to their children. The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with familiar old pain. And I think, My mother was right.

Allegory of the Cave Summary and Response Essay

Marlo Diorio Dr. Mishra – College Writing I â€Å"Allegory of the Cave† â€Å"Allegory of the Cave†, written by Plato, is story that contrasts the differences between what is real and what is perceived. He opens with Glaucon talking to Socrates. He has Glaucon imagine what it would be like to be chained down in a cave, not able to see anything other than what is in front of him. He tells a story of men that were trapped in a cave and were prisoners to the truth. These prisoners have only seen shadows. But because of their ignorance, these slaves to the cave believe that the shadows are real. The story goes on to say that one of the men has been dragged out of the cave. He is not happy to see the real world, yet upset because he is being taken away from all that he knows. As he approaches the outside, he is blinded by the sunlight that he has never seen. The sunlight can be interpreted as actual sun or as knowledge, making the journey rather painful in mental and physical ways. The prisoner wants to return to his life as a peasant inside of the cave. When he is outside of the cave, he only wants to look at shadows and reflections, but later proceeds to look at actual objects surrounding him. Lastly, he looks at the sun itself, as he realizes that is what created this beautiful nature. The climax of the story is when the ma realized that he no longer has to worry about reality and reasoning, because he achieved the understanding of it. Eventually, he goes back to the cave. He is not greeted nicely back at the cave because he is seen to have taken a meaningless trip. The man who had seen the outside world took it upon himself to teach the others and lead them into understanding the truth of reality. The story finished by Socrates saying that the most qualified and wise people are the best options for leading in government, like the prisoner who discovered truth. Throughout the reading of this symbolic narrative, I found it easy to relate to my own life. This story can be taken as an extended metaphor with a great meaning. I took this story as, the hard path to take out of the cave, was like the pattern of life. It would never be an easy path to walk down, and it would take a lot of struggling. Only certain determined people will actually make it to the opposite side. Socrates says these most qualified people should be the ones to lead the public. I believe this is also true in today’s society. I say this because when it comes to election time, we as a country are not going to vote for an uneducated lunatic. I believe that the president should be someone intelligent with good morals and very qualified. In order to reach that high point, you must go out of your comfort zone, like the prisoner did. In life, people go out of their comfort zones all of the time. I’ve always believed that in order to achieve something you’ve never had/done, you must do something you’ve never done before, such as stepping out of your comfort zone. Only the best can be found when you make an attempt to extend yourself as a human being. I relate the cave in this story to the social norm. No one wants to step out of it because I their life, the norm is all there is. I believe the shadows would represent all of the other things that could be out there, but they have no desire to go find out what they are. They are too comfortable with what they have and haven’t gone looking for more. The cave is a comfort zone for the prisoners in Plato’s time and for teenagers today. Without the outside world, there is no curiosity, no questioning. I believe it is important to question everything, because with questions come answers. And when you find out something you didn’t know, you’re learning. Yes, ignorance is bliss, but ignorance won’t make you president.

Effective Study Skills Are the Sole Foundation of a Sound Education Essay

There are several factors that need to be taken into consideration when analysing the above phrase. According to the Oxford Dictionary ‘Effective’ is defined as ‘Successful in producing a desired or intended result’. Individuals tend to adopt their own strategies for learning, as we can see below. The studies of Peter Honey and Alan Mumford in the late 1970’s, identified four different ways in which people learn. An Activist likes to takes a ‘hands on’ approach and experience what is being studied. A Pragmatist wants to have a go and experiment with the results. A Theorist needs to understand why and what are the underlying reasons for the result. Finally, the Reflector, observes and considers the various outcomes before putting into practise. The study leads us to understand that there is not a singular effective study skill but study skills, that vary according to an individual’s preference and style. ‘Effective study depends on your state of mind, space, time and materials organised in the ways that best suit your learning.’ Stella Cottrell. The Study skills handbook 3rd edition pg67. Social and cultural beliefs regarding education may also affect the foundation of an individual’s education. Gender bias may place additional limitations on a student with regards to expectations, some individuals are placed under pressure to achieve good academic qualifications whilst others may be left to their own devices and will have to find their own motivation for study. Parental involvement and inspirational role models also have a strong influence on our ability,motivation and willingness to learn. Source: www.gov.uk research brief, institute of learning, University of London, Sabates and Duckworth, July 2009. Let us consider ‘sound education’. In the 1980’s it was considered a reasonable achievement to gain 5 O levels. Today employers have much higher expectations, many will not consider a potential employee without a degree. It is reasonable to conclude that ‘sound education’ fundamentally changes with time. Environment can also have a significant effect on educational achievement. A student at school can concentrate solely on studies whilst others may study from home on a part time basis if they work full time and have a family. Age also affects the way individuals approach study, for example older people who have not studied for many years will find it much harder to go back to study than someone who has just left school. We can conclude from the above that individuals need to adapt their style of study for it to be effective. Students of all ages also need to be willing and motivated to learn. This will have a significant impact on success even when outside influences can disrupt the foundation of our study. Whilst effective study is extremely important it is not the sole foundation as we adapt to suit our requirements and ultimately achieve what we consider to be our own interpretation of a sound education.