Leo Burnett Company LTD Essay

Leo Burnett is an advertising agency that was founded in 1935 in Chicago. One of their clients is Ontann Beauty Care (OBC), which is a leading global manufacturer of health and beauty care products. OBC has been awarding Leo Burnett’s (LB) its business for many years. OBC has been a client of LB’s Toronto and London offices since 1958 and mid-1970, respectively. OBC has centralized its global marketing campaign for a given brand and creates the communication materials as templates for local offices to follow. Local offices are then responsible for adapting these raw global materials and developing local â€Å"below the line† materials. LB also centralized its decision making to better service it original client. In 1998, OBC presented a new skin care line that would target a rapid growing population of consumer over the age of 50. This new skin care line would be called â€Å"Forever Young†, and was more expensive than other OBC skin care products. OBC awa rded its advertising and brand communication to LB. Mirroring the global OBC team structure; LB global brand team remained in London and formed satellite teams in Toronto and Taiwan. The Taiwanese Team would receive the creative templates from the LB global team and would adapt for the local market. In addition, they would have to adapt the television ads and retake photos for the print ads with an Asian model. The Toronto team would use English television ads and print advertising for the Canadian market. Furthermore, they would produce direct marketing and Web site materials. In short, the Toronto Team had less autonomy, and was not able to adapt to the Canadian market. The results showed the Forever Young launch in Taiwan was successful. While the results of the launch in Canada was below â€Å"action standards†, in spite of the success of the isolated pre-launch test. Furthermore, LB’s future business with OBC was now in jeopardy and tension raised within LB to improve the OBC brand in the Canadian market. One of the first contributing factors is the idea of Pluralism of Cultures vs. Cultural Pluralism. What should a firm pay attention to: The unique cultural characteristics of Canada or the variety of cultures within Canada? In my opinion, cultural pluralism is a contributing factor in the lack of success of the launch. Canada has many different cultures within its nation. When LB decided to use the data from a small town in the interior of British  Columbia to make a general assumption about the entire nation of Canada they should have known that one area should not be the blue print for an entire nation. The product trail and product sales indexed 120 against its objective, which had a base index of 100. This is a successful result, but that is only one area in Canada. For example, Canada is known for having a French and British influence in different areas. Canadian also has many American cultural norms. The Canadian launch indexed 50 against a base index of 100, which is not a surprising result considering the fact that LB only tested one area of Canada. Next, we have the idea of a global mindset. LB had their global team headquarters for the project in London. The reason for this was because London had experience in leading global business teams and it was closer to OBC’s global team. When dealing with Canada, LB London wanted to push English filmed television ads & print ads in the Canadian market. At the same time, LB allowed Taiwan to exercise autonomy. This proved to be unsuccessful for the Canadian market, and successful for the Taiwanese market. The reason for this is the idea that there needs to be shared views when it comes to thinking globally and locally. The ads being run in Taiwan were adapted to include a popular Asian actress, and this also allowed the product to show how effective it was on Asian skin. Taiwan is a successful example of incorporating local and global thinking. In Canada, ads featured a blond Caucasian actress as the lead in television and print ads. The Toronto team was not able to adapt the ads as they best see fit. The Canadian culture may not accept the ad because it was filmed under London assumptions and values. It did not take into consideration Canadian values. Specifically, Canadian consumers perceived the ads as violent. The case does not specify why it was considered violent, but if LB London allowed local thinking that situation might have been avoid. Another factor that contributed greatly to the events that occurred is culturally mediated cognitions in communication. Communication was very difficult in many cases for both LB Toronto and London. Teams relied increasingly on e-mails and phone calls. Although emailing is quick and easy to create, this does not help develop relationships, which does not build trust between parties involved. Also, Meta communication is not involved, which can be important in different cultures. For example, in an email you  are not able to hear the tone of a voice or the facial expression of the person sending the email. Speaking on the phone has similar weaknesses, which include not being able to visually see the person reactions. Lastly, videoconferences are personable, but may not be as convenient. This was apparent in the presentation of a creative concept to the London team which took 45 minutes and lead to frustration. The last contributing factor was poor management of global teams. One of the main problems was the inability to communicate directly to Carmichael. LB Toronto wound have to contact Annabel Forin, and then she would contact Carmichaels. Geoff spoke about the challenges he faced when working with someone else’s art direction by stating, â€Å"This would be easier if I could connect directly with Annabelle, but she’s on the road so much of the time it’s hard to catch her.† Lastly, referring to Toronto and Taiwan as a satellite may lower morale of employees because they may feel as though they are not as important as the headquarters in London. Lastly, the inability to manage global teams lead to extremely tight timeframes because the two teams would not be able to communicate effectively their desires leading to repeated changes in materials. My first recommendation is the ability to allow LB Toronto to think locally. To achieve this LB London should produce a creative template for a brand, but allow the Toronto team the adapt for the local market. The Toronto team knows what’s best, and has in-depth knowledge in their local market. The only problem that Carmichael sees with this is the fact that key executives have departed and that giving autonomy to an inexperienced team may not be a good idea, but I feel as though LB Toronto has a better grasp of the local market than LB London even with the absence of key figures. By allowing Toronto to have more autonomy this well also decrease the amount of interaction between London and Toronto because they are not using LB London’s work so the need for constant clarification will not be necessary. My Second recommendation is to improve marketing research on countries that LB plans to enter. The prelaunch test of British Columbia was not enough to make an assumption of the entire Canadian nation. Leo Burnett needs to ensure that they are identifying the different cultures and testing does  cultures. Once they have ample research on a particular company they can then enter the market. For example, if they enter US market it is important to realize that different areas of the country might value skin care products differently. In New York City skin care product may be popular, but in Seattle it may not be as popular. If emails and phone calls are still used there may be an adverse outcome between the culturally mediated cognitions in communication of two parties. With that being said, my third recommendation is to have a quick and simple training session to better understand how to effectively collaborate with another foreign team. By learning the culturally mediated cognitions in communication and communication protocol it will assist when two teams need to speak with each other on the phone or through email. The training sessions will include guidelines for communicating, and how to efficiently communicate your message to another countries team. Lastly, I recommend a better means of communication within LB through a better management of a virtual global teams. As mentioned before communication seemed very difficult especially for Geoff and Cathy Lee. Getting a hold of Carmichael was very inconvenient since they needed to first contact Annabel Forin. LB needs to create a better communication setup so that a team member can communicate directly with their supervisors, or their supervisor’s supervisor. This will allow members of team to get answers more efficiently instead of not receiving a response. The launch of Forever Young proved to be a challenge for Leo Burnett, but with the implementations of my recommendations we can insure that the losses we face in Canada are never faced again.

Resettlement Patterns in Spanish Colonialm System in the Philippines Essay

Spain and Portugal were the two superpowers who pushed through their ultimate goals to discover the rest of the world. These nations, with their greed for material wealth, set colonies in the Americas, Africa and East Asia to establish their powers to greater heights. Because of a high demand for exotic spices in Europe, Spain was forced to circumnavigate the world in search for the Spice Islands (Muruku Islands) with an ultimate goal which was to accumulate wealth through mercantilist trade and to expand the rule of Spain throughout the corners of the globe. Because of this, Spain met the islands of the Philippines. The rediscovery of our country by Magellan on March 17, 1521, marks a new age in our history. After this discovery, Spain sent various expeditions for the conquest and colonization of our country, namely the Loaisa expedition (1525), the Cabot expedition (1526), the Saavedra expedition (1527), the Villalobos expedition (1542), and the Legazpi expedition (1564). It was the Legazpi expedition which succeeded in colonizing our country and establishing Spanish rule. Spain had three aims in colonizing our country, namely (1) to spread Christianity, (2) material wealth, and (3) to acquire political glory. Under Spanish rule our country developed religiously, economically, politically, and culturally. Our land acquired a national name  ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬- Filipinas. Our people came to be known as Filipinos. Towns, cities, provinces, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions were established. New plants and animals, the Christian religion and Spanish civilization, and new industries were introduced. Domestic and foreign trades with China and Japan were fostered. Communication and transportation were improved. Our country during the Spanish reign was a crown colony of Spain, in the sense that it belonged to the Spanish crown. From 1565 to 1821, our archipelago was governed by the Viceroy of Mexico in the name of the Spanish king. All officials, royal decrees, and troops for the Philippines came from Mexico. It was also the Mexican viceroy, not the king of Spain, who sent the annual subsidy to Manila to cover up the annual deficit of the Philippine government. In 1821 Mexico won her independence from Spain, so that from this year to 1898, Spain directly ruled our country. Spain as a colonizing power was marred by certain defects such as (1) inefficiency and corruption in the colonial government, (2) abuses by the friars, (3) racial discrimination against our people, (4) denial of human rights to Filipinos, and (5) inequality of Spaniards and Filipinos before the law. These colonial defects, however, were offset by the good things done by Spain in our country. By and large, we owe her a lasting debt of gratitude. She gave the majority of the people a great religion, taught us how to build more durable buildings, roads, and trade facilities, introduced new crops and livestock and better methods of farming, and brought our people into contact with the western culture. Settlement Patterns Before and During the Spanish Period During the Pre-Colonial period, the social unit in the Philippine islands was the barangay which comes from the Malay term balangay meaning boat. They were headed by a datu or the village chief. Barangays were generally small and consisted of thirty to one hundred houses and the population varied from one hundred to five hundred persons. The largest barangay was Manila which had two thousand inhabitants at the time of the Spanish conquest. Communities were coastal, near-coastal and riverine in orientation. This was because the principal sources of protein came from the seas and rivers; people rely more on fishing than on hunting. People travelled principally by water, the movement of the population were across rivers and along the coasts. Trails followed by the streams; neither roads nor any wheeled vehicles were there. It was in the coastal communities that were more accessible to traders where a higher degree of development emerged. A higher cultural level was attained due to contact with traders from China, India and Arabia. The economy of the barangay communities deeply relied on agriculture. There was an abundance of rice, coconuts, sugar cane, cotton, hemp, bananas, oranges, and other fruits and vegetables. Land cultivation was done through the kaingin system or by tilling. Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan, noted that there was an abundant produce of the land in Cebu as well as in Palawan. Productivity was increased by the use of irrigation ditches, as evidenced by the world-famous Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao. Aside from agriculture, pre-colonial Filipinos had other industries such as animal-raising, lumbering, weaving and gold and silver mining. The absence of a political unity involving all or the majority of the people of the archipelago allowed the Spanish conquistadores to impose their will on the people step by step even with a few hundreds of colonial troops at the start. The successful voyage of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to the Philippines was a prequel to the long term colonization of t he country under the imperialist Spain. The Filipino society, split up into numerous barangay units, faced the impossibility to put up an effective armed resistance against the well-equipped and prepared conquistadores; an almost â€Å"bloodless† conquest of the Philippines was then accomplished. It was Legazpi who in 1565 and thereafter succeeded in hoodwinking a large number of barangay chieftains typified by Sikatuna in quelling recalcitrant barangays with the sword and in establishing under the cross the first colonial settlements in Visayas and subsequently in Luzon.The kind of society that developed in more than three centuries of Spanish rule was colonial and feudal. It was a society basically ruled by the landlord class, which included the Spanish colonial officials, the Catholic religious orders and the local puppet chiefs. The masses of the people were kept to the status of serfs and even the freemen became dispossessed. In the classic fashion of feudalism, the union of church and state suffused the entire colonial structure. All colonial subjects fell under friar control from birth until death. In the material base as well as in the superstructure, friar control was total and most oppressive in the towns situated in vast landed estates owned by the religious orders. In the colonial center as well as in every province, the friars exercised vast political powers. They supervised such diverse affairs as taxation, census, statistics, primary schools, health, public works and charities. They certified the correctness of residence certificates, the condition of men chosen for military service, the municipal budget, the election of municipal officials and police officers and the examination of pupils in the parochial schools. The Encomienda and Hacienda Encomiendas are grants from the Spanish crown to a Spaniard to exercise control over a specific place including its inhabitants. It is from the Spanish word â€Å"encomendar† which literally means to entrust. Thus, a definite number of â€Å"souls† or inhabitants of a territory were entrusted to the care of an encomendero. The encomienda grant can only be passed up to the third generation and was then given back as the crown’s property. There were three kinds of encomiendas: (1) the royal encomiendas, belonging to the king of Spain, (2) the ecclesiastical encomiendas, belonging to the church, and (3) private encomiendas, belonging to private individuals who were rewarded for their services to the crown. The encomienda was an administrative unit with powers to collect tribute and to use the personal services of the inhabitants of their encomiendas. In return, the encomenderos were supposed to look after the welfare of the natives and to give them some education. Theoretically, each encomendero, in whose care a native settlement, was entrusted a threefold responsibility: (1) to protect the natives by maintaining peace and order within the encomienda, (2) to support the missionaries in their work of converting the people to Catholicism, and (3) to help in the defense of the colony. In return for these services, the crown authorized the encomendero to collect a tribute of eight reales or its equivalent in kind from all 19 to 60 year old males in the encomienda. At least one-fourth of the total collection went to the encomendero, another portion to the friars, and the rest to the government. What seemed to be beneficial for the natives’ development was turned the other way around. The encomienda system was generally characterized by greed and cruelty. The encomenderos exercised their powers to the full but for the most part ignored their duties and treated the natives as slaves. They saw the grant as nothing more than an opportunity to enrich themselves and used every opportunity open to him, whether in the collection of tributes or in the unlawful exaction of numerous services. Antonio de Morga writes: â€Å"They employ the indios in building houses and large vessels, grinding rice, cutting wood, and carrying it all to their houses and to Manila and then pay them little or nothing for their labor.† Regarding the collection of tributes, the encomenderos forced the natives to pay a higher rate of tribute; they collected according to their personal whim. When gold was abundant and money was scarce, they demanded cash or reales; when the reales were plentiful and there was scarcity of gold, they asked for gold even when the poor Filipinos were coerced to buy them. Encomenderos sometimes seized the entire quantity of his rice from the Filipino without leaving him a grain to eat. Many Filipinos died of starvation, especially during famine and drought due to the scarcity of rice and they were forced to eat coconut and banana shoots. If the Filipinos resisted, they were publicly fogged, tortured or jailed. The unjust collection of tributes was one of the primary causes of intermittent uprisings in the Philippines. Haciendas grew out of the encomienda system and the hacienda system is still being used today; however, haciendas during the Spanish occupation era were given as incentives to deserving Spanish friars who will act as land lords. It has the characteristic of a feudal system which was prevalent in Europe during those times. Encomienda and hacienda system were forms of colonial appropriation but they were never the same and one did not necessarily lead to the other. The exploitative relations are based on and grow out of the ownership by the landlord of the tracts of land from which the tenants derive their livelihood. The hacendero has the right of inheritance and free disposition, two rights not covered by an encomienda grant. The exploitations of the hacenderos are more disguised than that of the encomendero through a fiction of partnership, hence the term kasamahan to denote a joint venture and the reference to the tenant as kasama or companion. Instead of tribute-paying, the system denotes sharing of the crops in terms of sharing of risks. The hacenderos will most likely require the lion’s share of the crops but in terms of the expenses for maintenance of the hacienda, the tenants are to pay more. The Center and the Periphery of the Colonial System With the pacification of the Filipino natives, Spain made a colony that will supply the crown with goods for its financial gain. Spain did this by exploitation of the natives so as to produce a product surplus. With the help of the personal greed of Spanish colonial administrators, friars, and officials, the natives, though living in subsistence, were made worse. Bureaucracy in the Philippines during the Spanish period may be divided into different levels of administration, from the national, provincial, city, municipal, and barrio levels. On the national level, with its seat of power in Manila, Intramuros, the governor general (gobernador y capitan-general) became the spokesman and the representative of the King of Spain to the Philippines. He was the commander-in-chief of the military and the navy. He was also the vice-real patron who supervises the work of the Catholic Church to spread the gospel of Christianity in the colony. His great powers were checked by the Real Audiencia (Supreme Court), the archbishop and the civil officials who denounced to the king whatever abuses the governor general might have committed. On the provincial level, heading the alcaldia or provincia was the alcalde mayor for the pacified provinces and districts. The corregimientos or unpacified military zones were headed by the corregidores. Only a Spaniard can be an alcalde mayor or a corregidor. The city government was called as the ayuntamiento and was headed by one or two alcaldes ordinarios. On the municipal level, the gobernadorcillo headed the pueblo or municipio. A Filipino or a Chinese mestizo can be head of the municipio; this was the highest government position a Filipino could attain during the Spanish regime. Barrio government rested on the cabeza de barangay whose main role was to be tax and contributions collector for the gobernadorcillo. All royal officials had the responsibility of keeping peace and order. To check the abuse of power of royal officials, two Castillan institutions, the residencia and the visita were employed. The residencia was the judicial review of a residenciado (one judged) conducted at the term of his office, a visita on the other hand was conducted by an officer sent from Spain and might occur at any time within the official’s term. Residencia and visita were supervised by juez de residencia and visitador-general respectively; its objective is to ensure faithful and efficient service on the part of the government authorities. If proven guilty of public misconduct, an official may be fined, dismissed from office, expelled from the colony, or imprisoned. However, Filipino natives still didn’t escape the exploitation of the government officials. The tribute collectors often abused their offices by collecting more than the law required and appropriating the difference. Many who did not pay, or could not pay were tortured or imprisoned. Others fled to the mountains only to have their houses burned or looted by the Spaniards in punishment for their defiance. In addition to the unjustified tribute, men between the age of sixteen and sixty were required to serve for forty days each year in the labor pool or polo, a form of forced labor. The polistas were seldom paid and death lurked to them and their families. Still another exploitative device was the bandala which was a kind of annual quota for the compulsory sale of rice, hemp and other farm products to the government usually without payment and seldom paid at very low prices. BIBLIOGRAPHY Agoncillo, Teodoro A. History of the Filipino People. Eighth edition, Quezon City: Garotech Publishing, 1990. Constantino, Renato. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Manila, 1975. The Philippine History & Government. Mobcco. Circa 1970s Riple, Simoun. Philippine Society and Revolution. 1970`

McDonald's as the Part of the Modern Culture Assignment

McDonald's as the Part of the Modern Culture - Assignment Example The researcher states that globalization is a broader term, however; the word globalization has been discussed in this article from the perspective of open markets and free entry and exit in international markets. The term in this article, therefore, indicates the expansion of McDonald’s into international markets without facing any significant challenge. The growth and expansion of globalization have ensured that the American products reach to the world markets. This was after the cold war when America became the superpower of the world which allowed American organizations to get access to the international markets. Based on the overall quality of the American products, new products were successfully launched in the international markets with more success as compared to the domestic or other international companies. The products which are going through the same problem as McDonald’s include soft drinks as well as other food products. This may be due to the fact that th ese products lack the product variety and diversification. This decline may be due to a strong emphasis on individuality and change in the Western societies as existing products may fail to provide a new change to the customers. The overall strategic response to such situations may, therefore, include the product development wherein these organizations must focus on new product development and add more varieties to their existing product lines. The most difficult aspect of doing this kind of business is the fact that despite offering low-cost products, the lack of individualism or rather excess of standardization becomes a headache. Organizations often fail to recognize the limits of their existing policies and continue to operate such policies without considering the end result.

Explain what critical analysis is and use this to evaluate 2 theories Essay

Explain what critical analysis is and use this to evaluate 2 theories of Career Guidance - Essay Example Learners are well conversant with the appropriate time and contexts to ask and answer critical questions; while reading and analyzing texts. This essay shall apply the rules of critical analysis to analyze two theories of career guidance. One of the theories of career guidance is the congruence theory or the talent matching theory. According to Swanson and Fouad (2009), this theory emanates from traits of certain individuals and the factors that lead to their choice of certain careers. In short, certain traits that are innate influence decision making by these individuals towards career choice. From the work of Swanson and Fouad (2009), it is evident that congruent theory applies diagnosis and evaluation towards attaining the best decision in regard to career choice. In this process, the concerned parties are able to derive the best course of action towards decision making. In the quest to attain the best decision making in relation to career choice, the practitioner applies the use of questionnaires that allow the interviewee come to the best conclusion regarding career choice. The interviewee also has the choice of using psychometric tests that are directed towards making the best decisions in terms of career guidance. The developmental theory of career guidance works on the basis that, in order to make the best choices towards career guidance, it is mandatory that individuals view themselves in the future careers and what their roles ought to be in their careers. According to Hawthorn, Kidd, Killeen, Law and Watts (1996), this model argues that development is an incessant and irrevocable process. As people develop, they are likely to select an occupation and develop whilst in the job. Career counseling allows individuals develop awareness in their line of career development. Individuals are also given a chance to advance in their career development as well as motivated towards getting better in making choices that relate to their careers. Career

Hervey Dunns and the Indian artwork Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Hervey Dunns and the Indian artwork - Essay Example Regarding movement, both artists have directed the viewers’ eyes across their artwork. The artists have showed direction and action in the manner through which they direct the movement of eyes across the artwork. The artists have utilised rhythm in the manner they direct the movement of the eyes across the artwork. Rhythms are displayed in the way the elements are arranged in the artwork. The artists organised the elements in an orderly manners, such that, the artists follow the elements in an orderly manner. Hervey Dunn’s art displays a unity design, where everything works, or fits together as a team. The Unity design is highlighted through continuity, where the alignment of the shape and figures ensures that a viewer moves from one part to another in a definite order. Proximity is another unity design elements, all the parts of the art are grouped together, clustered, and enclosed into sets. The art displays harmony, where related materials, colours, and textures are used. The unity design is brought about by harmony, whereby, the related colours and materials are utilised in the elements, such as flowers. In the Indian artwork, the unity is displayed through proximity; the elements of the artwork are grouped together. About the colour, Hervey Dunn and the Indian artwork utilises hue that is, they use primary colours. In chroma, the intensity of the colour in the images can be characterised as bright. The colour value of the image as light, with the intensity of the hue, such as, red, yellow, etc.

Discuss four reasons for the increase in International Joint Venture Essay

Discuss four reasons for the increase in International Joint Venture arrangements and support your analysis with specific examples from any business sector - Essay Example ventures are often formed between two entities to achieve certain economic objective and after achievement of such objectives they are often liquidated. Joint ventures are common in different industries and are formed for different purposes as all the parties to the Joint venture contribute one way or another for the purpose of achieving the objective. Joint ventures are therefore important in the sense that their formation allows companies to utilize each other’s strengths in achieving the desired strategic objectives. There are various benefits that organizations can derive from join ventures including sharing of technology and R&D facilities, developing new markets and sharing of risks spread over different markets as well as the expansion into new markets. However, despite the fact that international joint ventures offer such benefits but their failure ratio is significantly larger because most major international joint ventures failed to perform. This paper will discuss different reasons as to why international joint ventures are formed and potential benefits they provide to respective organizations by citing example from different business sectors where International joint ventures have actually been formed. â€Å"In general, a joint venture (â€Å"JV†) is an association of two or more entities (whether corporate, government, individual or otherwise) combining property and expertise to carry out a single business enterprise and having a joint proprietary interest, a joint right to control and a sharing of profits and losses.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"(Vaughan, 2009). The above definition indicates that a joint venture can be formed between different entities regardless of their legal status by taking benefit from each other’s expertise and property to perform a single business objective. However, all the entities in the joint venture also settle for gaining joint right to control the venture as well as share profits and losses arising out of taking that business activity. It

Vulnerable Population in the Rehabilitation Hospital Essay

Vulnerable Population in the Rehabilitation Hospital - Essay Example It is closely identified with spinal cord injury patients with spinal lesions above the T6 (6th thoracic vertebral) spinal cord level. It is a result of reaction the involuntary nervous system to overstimulation. It can be treated with anti-hypertensive and removal of the triggering stimuli. The condition can at most times be managed successfully (Lynne C. Weaver, Canio Polosa, 12). Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation is an acute medical and rehabilitation hospital. It is designed to provide an optimal environment to regain physical and cognitive function and reclaim the ability to live again. It has specialized physicians in physical medicine and rehabilitation, specialists therapists, and nurses. Here, spinal cord injury patients are given closely monitored attention until full recovery. It provides these victims with the opportunity to maximize their medical recovery and rehabilitation potential efficiently through dignity and self-esteem as they strive to enhance the dignity a nd quality of life of every patient. (Casa Colina Hospital for Rehabilitative Medicine Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program, 2) There are barriers to decreasing health disparity in every vulnerable population naturally and this is not different in the case of spinal cord injury patients in Casa Colina at the risk of the AD. The most evident barriers are physician actions and attitudes. This was well documented in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report â€Å"To Err is Human† by Kohn L.T Corrigan J.M., Donaldson M.S. It highlighted the problem of medical errors in the U.S. hospitals, focusing its attention on reducing error rates. It estimated that between 44,000 to 98,000 people pass on each year due to medical errors. From the report, too often errors go unreported due to the stigma such events would carry. Naturally, house officers will jitter towards confronting their errors and instead try to cover them up hence creating a bigger problem. In the report by Wu and colle agues, only 54% of the house officers interviewed in an anonymous questionnaire had discussed a mistake with their attending physician. Only a meager 24% had told patients and family (Kohn L. T. et al, 4). With this in mind, there are definitely instances where mistakes have been swept under the carpet in Casa Colina leading to the AD. Medical officers of all levels at Casa Colina have high expectations for themselves and are well trained hence it is not surprising to find that it is difficult for them to acknowledge their errors openly. There are other numerous factors that lead to hospital staff failing to report their mistakes and errors. Legal concerns are among reasons why physician attitudes and actions are barriers decreasing the health disparity in spinal cord cases hence risking AD.

Google and its Evil Face Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Google and its Evil Face - Essay Example The world declares the search engine as a mine for information, but fails to look at the down side to it since in reality Google is a corruption of the world in relation to information, privacy and security. Google states its mission as the organization of the world’s information so that it can be reached by anyone in the world. However, even when it provides plenty of information to the reader, this search engine is the worst thing to have happened to our society in relation to worsening of peoples’ reading habits, where there is no more reading in books. This is affecting comprehension of content acquired from reading books and read from Google search results. Google is a great tool to get any form of information; however, it is creating negative tendencies in our society. This is concerning Google users becoming careless on the information they search for and the safety concerns on privacy (Staff and Agencies). For this reason, searching for information on Google sho uld involve allocation of enough time in order to search for adequate information and resources, while putting into consideration privacy and security concerns. In fact, what society gets by using Google is quantity information, and not quality, which is what people instinctively want. Therefore, the public gets into a comfort zone, which it does not intend to leave due to the ease of operation for humans in that level. For instance, on a five-year research program the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, they found out that people get obsessed with looking for information once they log on (Carr). In such cases, the users search for articles and journals that they do not necessarily read or intend to read, but instead keep searching. After this, the focus lies in skimming through the articles without taking the time to understand the concept. Consequently, people do not go to libraries to find information in books or from the periodicals rooms. As a result, Goog le is affecting the society through giving them quantity and by that, people stop reading books because; with only typing in Google search what they need, it would be an instant when they get the answers and all the necessary information requested. Google as any other social network wants to control what the users do. Therefore, they would not go and join other search engines, which provide email and the location where they are. Google is controlling the users by buying new markets and expanding in new areas, they get new features, a faster search and there is no one that can compete with this search engine (Rooketix Ltd). Similarly, bringing of Chrome for Android into the market has revealed how Google is potential of remembering all our browsing history and their capacity to transfer it into the cloud (Moreni). Therefore, if anyone is logged into a Google account, it is stated in the Google privacy policy that any service used will be able to track universally by using the e-mail address and your current location. Moreover, they are able to track everything you search for, and as long as you look for that same topic repeatedly, advertisements will start to appear on the sides according to the most current topics every user searches (Davies). Google based on its mission statement has gone as far as attempting to collect as much information as it can. This is in relation to creating a form of online storage the documents and other files that people have. Following the mission statement of Google, it seeks to create a database of all the knowledge that exists in the world and place it in a central place for all to access free of charge. In light of this, Google has come up with Google Drive, which saves up to five gigabytes of user documents;

Work Perspectives PowerPoint Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Work Perspectives - PowerPoint Presentation Example Since, the leader is the one who makes the decision and major actions within a given organization; it is only applicable that he/she is adept with the right qualities and fundamental skills in order to strengthen good relationships with his/her people who will be his/her partner in achieving their goals. This paper will discuss a few Exhibits presented in the book of justice Administration and to explain each factors or concepts by giving examples. Leadership’s Bond of Trust Kokkelenberg (2010) compared the kind of leadership in the US 200 years ago with today. Before, the kind of leadership was autocratic which was based on the old military dogma â€Å"follow orders before complaining.† This implies that the employee needs to obey his or her boss instructions even though it is against his/her principles or will. Like for example: he/she follows his/her boss to falsify records for the fear to get fired. But, today leadership has transformed in many ways such leaders now tend to work with someone like for example getting the opinions and feedbacks of his/her subordinates in formulating decisions. And everyone at work has already right to voice out his/her opinion especially if the superior’s order is against his/her principles (Peak, 2010; Kooken, 1947). ... For instance, he/she was offered a big amount of money just to shut his/her mouth because he/she discovered anomalies. If this leader has integrity, without any hesitation he/she will standby for the truth no matter what happen. And in order to gain the trust of the employees a leader must be competent in everything he/she do. This means that he/she can make sound decisions, manage organization, make strategies and can interact with all the people involved in the business regardless of their position. An example showing competency of a leader is if he/she manifested the following actions: remains steady or thrive under pressure, using it to fuel productivity and efficiency; stays calm and maintain focus in turbulent, threatening, or emergency situations; makes rational decisions and continues to perform effectively; and provides direction in crisis situations through defusing potentially violent people or situations, calming others and removing them from harm. Another important chara cteristic that a leader must possess is being accountable and dependable. This means that he/she takes personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of work, and achieves results with little oversight. A leader is said to be accountable and dependable if he/she manifested the following examples: shows up to work on time, and follows instructions, policies, and procedures; meets productivity standards, deadlines, and work schedule; stays focused on tasks in spite of distractions and interruptions; makes the best use of available time and resources; balances quality of work with meeting deadlines; does not make excuses for errors or problems; acknowledges and corrects mistakes; and

Anything in business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Anything in business - Essay Example The tablet will be access beyond the Wife only. It will be able to catch Web access via simple linking it to the Blackberry. But the tablet will also function as a standalone advice. RIM’S COEE claims that the ultimate aim of this tablet is to provide a full on computer and web experience on the tablet. This means that the dependency of tablet would be very little on third party applications. On its end, the Playbook is a step taken by RIM to protect its position as the top notch provider of mobile gadgets for the business set. It will also have flash applications. On the other hand, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has voiced his restraint in allowing Flash on company’s mobile gadgets claiming that the software has too many bugs and rips apart too much battery life. RIM’s close relationship with its various corporate clients can help the company extract a certain portion of the tablet market which is originally Apple’s niche. If it moves strategically, then it can take away that portion of the market share. IDC predicts that the corporate market for tablet computer will keep growing with the growth of sales of these tablets in the next few years. It is forecasted that roughly 11 percent of the overall sales of the tablet PCs will be directed to schools till 2014. Playbook and Ipad will be at loggerheads with each other. It remains to be seen who beats whom. While Playbook will not just be work oriented, it will have video games, it looks like Ipad will take the edge in styling. And the market is not just restricted to RIM’s tablet. When Ipad came, it brought with itself, a wave of competitors, so naturally Ipad is not the only competitor out there. Even Dell is headed in this direction. It came up with its own tablet computer called Streak in August. Similarly Samsung is all set to launch Galaxy tab next month and already has four carriers in its kitty booked. The battle is on and it is only going to get

Louisiana vs. Kennedy Essay Example for Free

Louisiana vs. Kennedy Essay Louisiana vs. Kennedy was a petition to the case that involved a death penalty that was imposed to a 42 year man who had raped his stepdaughter. The petition took place on June 2008. It was a punishment that was sentenced to him by the Louisiana court for having been convicted of committing the crime. In accordance to the law, the murders are supposed to be sentenced to death but for the past three decades, only two cases that did not involve murder were registered one for Patrick Kennedy and another one. He was sentenced to death penalty by the Louisiana court on 22nd May 2007 in a case No 05-KA-1981 Louisiana vs. Kennedy. In 2008, Patrick Kennedy decided to challenge the decision by the Supreme Court that was reached in 2007 citing that the sentence was a violation of the 8th constitutional amendment which stated that depending on the rarity of the case, death penalty may not be imposed. Was it in order for the supreme court of America to sentence to death a step father who raped his 8 year old stepdaughter? This is what this research paper will discuss about. Patrick Kennedy was sentenced to death after he was convicted by the Supreme Court to have raped his step daughter who was less than twelve years old. Initially the girl had refuted the claim that he was raped by his step father but after further investigations were done, the girl changed her story and said that it was her step father who raped her and told her to say it was the two boys that were her neighbors. It was established that the victim was assaulted for three times but the last time involved sexual intercourse. Even blood stains that Patrick had tried to clean were seen in her â€Å"After police were called to investigate the rape of the girl on March 2, 1998, Kennedys stepdaughter initially told them that two neighborhood boys had raped her after dragging her from her garage to a side yard. Police, however, found evidence of blood in her bedroom that Kennedy apparently had tried to clean up. The stepdaughter testified later that Kennedy had raped her and urged her to relate a false account. † (The Supreme Court in the Kennedy case, O7. 373. PDF) Ever since the death penalty was reinstated in US about 30 years ago, justices have been looking for ways to revoke the death penalty on child rapists which according to them was unconstitutionally imposed on Patrick Kennedy. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, (2008) of about 3,350 inmates in the death row because of murder, only two cases were different and they involved rape. Patrick Kennedy could not understand which statutes were used to sentence him. In his argument, it was a violation of the 8th amendment of the constitution. In another rape case, Coker vs. Georgia, the offender was accused of raping a 16 year old lady but on this case, the Supreme Court ruled that this case was not punishable by death because the victim was more than twelve years old. In the light of the above ruling, it was asked if the stepfather who raped his stepdaughter but did not kill her was bound by the constitution to be sentenced to death. (Hamilton, 2008) According to the Louisiana state, committing such a crime was equal to killing and the only appropriate sentence was death penalty. The majority of the United States had not passed the law but five of them namely Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Carolina had already passed it and were in use for example, it was the one that was used in Louisiana to sentence Patrick to death. Though these laws existed in books, they were limited to persons who were in the past convicted of committing crime of assaulting a minor but this only applied to the four states with the exception of Louisiana. The other states were contemplating to extend the death penalty to child rapists. According to the statistics given by the Death Penalty Information Center, death sentence has been on the decline in America for the past years. â€Å"The number of executions has dropped steadily since, hitting a 10 year low of 53 in 2006. † (Lithwick, 2008) According to a survey that was done by Gallop in 2006 concerning the preference between death penalty and life without parole, it was established that more people prefer life sentence to death sentence but this was due to a number of factors for example, some people were sentenced to death judging them on their race. Despite this, majority advocated for murders to be sentenced to death. The decision to review the decision to impose death penalty on child rapists was due to Patrick Kennedy’s case and the pressure that was amounted by the National Association of Social Workers, the Louisiana Foundation against Sexual Assault, and the Texas Association Against sexual assault as well as the National Alliance to end Sexual Violence. These organizations pressurized the supreme court of America to review its ruling on the case. In Patrick’s petition, it was stated that Patrick, â€Å"is the only person in the United States who is on death row for a non-homicide offense. He has been sentenced to die for the crime of rape, an offense for which no person has been executed in this country for over forty years since Missouri executed Ronald Wolfe in 1964. † (Denniston, 2008) The arguments that were put forward by these organizations were that death penalty for child rapists worsen the problem in that many cases of sexual abuse went unreported. Secondly, they argued that no child molester would leave his victim alive to avoid being reported therefore this acted as an incentive to kill victims. The third argument was that those statutes subjected the raped child to many trials and appeals thereby keeping those memories a fresh instead of them being repressed. (Death Penalty Information Center, 2008) It is for these reasons and the appeal that was made by Patrick that led to the reviewing of the ruling by the Supreme Court on 16th April, 2008 in a case between Louisiana and Kennedy. (Hamilton, 2008) It is in this case that it was ruled that the decision to execute Patrick Kennedy for raping his stepdaughter was a contravention to the 8th constitutional amendment that bans death penalty on rare and cruel cases. The majority’s argument was that the penalty should be reserved for the few offenders who are most egregious. (Linda G. , 2008) According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, death penalty was to be imposed on murders. He also differentiated between the first degree murder which is also referred to as intentional murder and the non homicide crime such as rape. He said that the later was more devastating in terms of moral depravity but he said that murder cases due to their nature, severity and irrevocability could not be compared with non homicide. The dissenting judges led by Samuel Alito objected to this observation arguing that, â€Å"The harm that is caused to the victims and the society at large by worst child rapists is grave. †(Biskupic, 2008) In justifying its decision, the state of Louisiana in its briefs argued that raping a child under twelve years is not different from other crimes because its results are devastating and lasts for a life time but in his argument, Justice Kennedy argued that the Supreme court’s decision to nullify Patrick’s case was reached objectively by the judges and this was backed by the fact that many American states were not in agreement with the statute and that was why they had not passed it. (Richey W. 2008) In response to the conclusion reached by Justice Kennedy, Justice Samuel objected to this arguing that many judges and lawyers misinterpreted the 1977’s Coker’s decision on capital punishment. They understood that death sentence should not be applied on any rape cases but that was not the case because in that case the victim was married and had assumed the status of an adult thus she was no longer a minor. He noted that due to this reason, the state’s legislatures have not understood the societal standards in terms of decency. â€Å"Evolving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for the dignity of the person and the punishment of criminals must conform to that rule. † (The Supreme Court in the Kennedy case, O7. 373. PDF) According to the Supreme Court’s statutes, rape is said to be committed where anal sex or virginal sexual intercourse is done without the consent of the victim and if the victim is less than twelve years, lack of knowledge of her age is no defense. If convicted of having committed aggravated rape, punishment should be life imprisonment without parole, suspended sentence or probation but the offender could be punished by death if the District Attorney seeks for capital verdict. In the light of the above, Patrick Kennedy’s case was a rare occurrence and thus he did not deserve the death sentence but deserved life sentence without parole. (Biskupic, News Washington 2008). The decision to reject death penalty was greatly opposed by the conservative judges. Even the two presidential candidates were opposed to the move though no one had been executed since 1964. Justice Kennedy argued that of all the 3300 people on the death row, only two were there for the reasons apart from murder. Justice Samuel questioned this majority logic that murders are more morally depraved than child rapists. â€Å"I have little doubts that the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists-predators who seek out and inflict serous physical and emotional injury or defenseless young children are the epitome of moral depravity. † (Barnes, 2008) In conclusion of this research paper, it is okay to say that the decision by the Louisiana’s Supreme Court to execute Patrick Kennedy for raping his step daughter was harsh and was a contravention to the 8th amendment. Of all the inmates in the death row, only two inmates whose cases were not murder. Patrick’s case was one of those rare cases that were addressed in that amendment. The appeal acted as an opportunity to interpret law as it is this was because according to Justice Samuel, most legislatures misunderstood the decision that was made on Coker’s case and assumed that he meant that death penalty should not be applied on rape cases. References. The Supreme Court in the Kennedy case. Accessed at http://www. supremecourtus. gov/opinions/07pdf/07-343. pdf Linda G. 26th June, 2008. Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape. Available at http://www. nytimes. com/2008/06/26/washington/26scotuscnd. html? _r=2hpor ef=sloginoref=slogin Scotus Blog. June 25th, 2008Commentary: Death penalty options narrow. http://www. scotusblog. com/wp/commentary-death-penalty-options- narrow/#more-7553 Barnes R. June 26, 2008. High Court Rejects Death For Child Rape Penalty Reserved for Murder And Crimes Against State. Available at

Effects of UK Insurance Industry to the Economy Essay Example for Free

Effects of UK Insurance Industry to the Economy Essay The UK insurance industry is the fourth largest in the world. It comes after USA, Japan and Germany and is definitely a major contributor to the economy. The number of people employed in the insurance industry of UK is increasing day by day. The Insurance industry contributes to the economy by providing businesses and individuals risk management. There are many services this industry provides. It ranges from automobile insurance to life and health insurance. Pension and savings are yet other forms of insurance available. Almost 332,000 people are employed in this industry (Association of British Insurers, 3, 2007). Insurance is another name for risk management. Insurance helps individuals and businesses to avoid financial or other loss. We can say it acts as a hedge against unavoidable or avoidable losses. This risk of loss is then transferred to some other entity, usually the insurance company. In exchange the business or individual seeking risk management gets a premium. The company that provides this risk management or insurance is the Insurer (Mehr et la, 13-45, n. d. ). Almost one third of people working in the entire financial market of UK are employed in the insurance industry. This number is twice the number of people in the car manufacturing companies and almost thrice the number employed in the utility industry. The UK insurance industry is one of the biggest in Europe. This industry gave a record of ? 174bn premium income in the 1990s. Though in the early years of 1990s, due to economic recession the insurance industry was not doing that good, but in the second half this industry started to grow and has been giving large numbers of premium profits since then (IFSL, n. p, 2001). In 17th century trading was in its primitive stages. Industrialization was a new phenomenon. Insurance was one element that fostered the growth of these and hence helped the economy prosper. Due to insurance, businesses were able to take risks and expand themselves. In 1688, GDP of England was approximately ? 6 billion (Lindert Willamson, n. p. 1982). After 1688 to 1759, there was not much growth in the national income. Till 1800 the growth was only 1% per year. At this rate our national income should be about ? 66 billion. However, this is not the case. Today our GDP is more or less ? 1000 billion. The main help in growth of economy came from insurance. Without insurance industry, our nation would have been living in a less prosperous way. Though all of this development is not due to insurance alone but it was the driving force that pushed the economy towards this prosperity. Today, insurance has a very vital role. According to an economist: â€Å"The non-existence of markets for the bearing of some risks in the first instance reduces welfare for those who wish to transfer those risks to others for a certain price, as well as for those who would find it profitable to take on the risk at such prices. But it also reduces the desire to render or consume services which have risk consequences† (Arrow, 945 946, 1963). Insurance is important because it has the ability to transfer risk. This control of risk helps businesses to keep moving forward. Insurance might not be important to people who are indifferent to risks. Such societies might have other forms of risk transfer protocols i. e. family. Hence we can say that in order to find out how much an economy will benefit from insurance, depends upon the culture of that place. In 1990, a study was done by Outreville. He took almost 45 developing countries and found out the relationship between insurance and national income. According to him there is a non-linear relationship between insurance premium and GDP. He also specified that the relation ship might not be that clear but it certainly is a positive one. In the light of his research we can conclude that if the insurance industry generates more premiums then the country might have more income (Outreville, n. p, 1990). Another study was done in 2000 by Ward and Zurbruegg. According to them insurance definitely helps in prosperity of the economy (Ward Zurbruegg, 489-507, 2000). It is also believed that if government tries to take position of the insurance industry it can lead to increase in levels of risks. In 2003, Priest did a research and found out that if the government has a safety net this can also lead to more risks. This safety net is actually savings and loans deposits which are there for the disabled. However, more savings might lead to more claims (Priest, 71-80, 2003). There have been quite some changes in the UK’s insurance industry in the past decade. Many major companies have undergone big changes. Commercial Union and General Accident are now called GCNU. They have merged to form a new bigger company. UK’s London market is also different in its own sense. It contains almost twenty large international insurance and reinsurance companies. It is the centre of world’s insurances. Businesses from all over the world get insured here. Two of its largest insurers, Lloyd’s and the International Underwriting Association of London (IUA), also provide various services (Joe, n. p, 1998).

Research On Initial Public Offering And Underpricing Finance Essay

Research On Initial Public Offering And Underpricing Finance Essay Initial Public Offering (IPO) of firm is widely underpriced. IPO underpricing is presented as the percentage difference between the offer price and the closing price of the first-trading-day, usually in appearance of initial positive return when shares are newly issued. IPO underpricing is seen as selling shares at discount in the initial offering. The discount requires issuer to leave money on the table to compensate investors, which incur wealth loss for the issuer (Camp, Comer and How, 2006). Therefore, there are numerous theories established to explain the reason for this discount sale in IPO, which generally categorized into four branches: asymmetric information, institutional reasons, control considerations, and behavioral approaches (Ljungqvist, 2007). Among these theories, asymmetric information theory is the most studied direction in the past 40 years. Nevertheless, studies on the institutional and behavioral aspects are heating recently, especially when shedding lights on e merging IPO markets where lack of efficient institutional support and exist over-speculation behavior environment. Evidence of underpricing IPO underpricing phenomenon is firstly academic documented in 1970s (Stoll and Curley, 1970; Reilly, 1973; Logue, 1973; Ibbotson, 1975). Early findings (exclusively focused on US market) indicate that underpricing is influenced by particular periods (Ibboston and Jaffe, 1975) and particular industry, usually natural resource (oil and gas) industry (Ritter, 1984). However, these findings are challenged by Smith (1986) who claimed that underpricing occurs in the entire period of 1960s-1980s, rather than concentrates in particular periods, and underpricing level exists across all industries with average exceeds 15%. Recent study is more convincible with larger time period and sample observations. Loughran and Ritter (2004) document this underpricing discount has averaged around 19% in the US since the 1960s. Nevertheless, underpricing level (i.e. the average first-day return) tends to fluctuate, 21% in the 1960s, 12% in the 1970s, 16% in the 1980s, 15% in 1990-1998 and then exploded to more than 65% in the 1999-2000 internet bubble period, and falling back to 12% in 2001-2008 (reference). Table Empirical studies have extended the scope of research from the US to the whole world. Underpricing is internationally documented, and the level is extremely high in emerging markets. According to (reference)s research, China (1990-1996, 226, 388%); US (1960-1996, 13308, 15.8%); Japan (1970-1996, 975, 24%). Table. (Reference) provides wider research. France: 3-14%; Australia: 11-30%; Taiwan: 30-47%; Greece: 48-64%; Brazil: 74-78.5%; China: 127-950%. Table Due to its short history with strong government control characteristics, Chinese IPO market draws research interest. The average initial return of IPOs in China during 1999-2002 was 3.3 times the average emerging markets initial return (excluding China) and 6.9 times that of developed countries (Reference). Sample size Sample period Initial return (%) Mok and Hui (1998) 87 1990-1993 289.20% Datar and Mao (1998) 226 1990-1996 388.00% Su and Fleisher (1999) 308 1990-1995 948.59% Chen et al. (2000) 277 1992-1995 350.47% Liu and Li (2000) 781 1991-1999 139.40% Chi and Padgett (2002) 668 1996-2000 129.16% Su (2003) 587 1994- 1999 119.38% Chan et al. (2003) 570 1993-1998 175.40% Chan et al. (2003) 286 1999-2000 104.70% Wang (2005) 747 1994-1999 271.90% Kimbro (2005) 691 1995-2002 132.00% Li (2006) 314 1999-2001 134.62% Asymmetric information theory The cornerstone of this theory is that there is asymmetric information among parties (issuer, underwriter, and investor) in the IPO. Chambers and Dimson (2009) proved that the level of trust between investors, issuers, and underwriters plays a crucial role on the level of IPO underpricing over time in the UK. Asymmetric information leads to ex ante uncertainty among parties. Higher ex ante uncertainty results in higher underpricing. Ritter (1984) raised the changing risk composition hypothesis, which assumes that riskier IPOs will be underpriced by more than less-risky IPOs. Beatty and Ritter (1986) then extend Rock (1986)s asymmetric information model (winners curse) by introducing the ex ante uncertainty about an IPOs market clearing price. The ex ante uncertainty among investors over the value of firm determines the underpricing level of the IPO (Loughran and Ritter, 2004). The level of underpricing increases with the degree of ex ante uncertainty about the value of the firm (Beat ty and Ritter, 1986; Ljungqvist, 2007). Firms with more uncertainty about growth opportunities have higher levels of underpricing than other firms on average (Ritter, 1984; Beatty and Zajac, 1994; Welbourne and Cyr, 1999). Under the scope of asymmetric information theory, there are three models: winners curse, principal-agent and signaling. Winners curse assumes informed investors have better information. Principal-agent model argues underwriters gain better information. Signaling model emphasizes on the better information retained by issuers. Winners curse model is based on asymmetric information between informed and uninformed investors (Rock, 1986). This model assumes informed investors have better information about the new firms prospects than the issuer and its underwriters. Uninformed investors would only get unattractive IPO firms shares because informed investors have already picked up attractive firms share with better information. That is to say, uniformed investors would only expect negative return. Consequently, uniformed investors are willing to participate only if new-issue offer prices are low enough to compensate them for expected losses on less attractive issues (Rock, 1986; Ritter and Welch, 2002). Under this assumption, issuers or underwriters have to underprice their IPO shares, i.e. selling with discount, to attract these uninformed investors. Underpricing is seen as compensation to uninformed investors (Beatty and Ritter, 1986). Underwriters have the intention to underprice the IPO shares in order to keep the uninformed investors stay in the market to make offering successful. Underwriter could use underpricing to obtain full subscription in order to make the shares offering successfully. Moreover, Loughran and Ritter (2002) argue that winners curse is not the dominate explanation in IPO underpricing now. Winners curse problem and dynamic information acquisition were main explanations in 1980s in US IPO market. In 1990s US, analyst coverage and side payments to CEOs and venture capitalists (spinning hypothesis) are main reasons (ibid). Welch (1992) claims that underpricing is caused by the cascades effect in the IPO market. This Cascades effect is presented as the asymmetric information between informed and uninformed investors. Underpricing generates information momentum, which results in a higher market clearing price at the end of the lockup period (the time between share-offer day and listed day) when insiders (first buyers) typically start to sell some of their shares. These first buyers behavior would influence the following buyers perception on value of shares. Since there is selling pressure when IPO ends and the analyst coverage starts, the market price could still maintain at a high level in the first-trading-day, thus incur significant underpricing level (Bradley et al. 2003; Ofek and Richardson, 2003; Bradley, Jordan, Roten, and Yi, 2001; Brav and Gompers, 2003; Field and Hanka, 2001). Principal-agent model focuses on asymmetric information between underwriters and issuers (Baron and Holmstrom, 1980; Baron, 1982). Baron (1982) assumes that underwriter is better informed about demand conditions than the issuer, leading to a principal-agent problem. In this model, the function and role of underwriters are mainly studied. Underwriters want to underprice IPOs (Baron and Holmstrom, 1980; Baron, 1982; Loughran and Ritter, 2002/2004; Ljungqvist and Wilhelm, 2003). First of all, underwriter has to underprice in order to sell all shares, i.e. underwriters use underpricing to obtain full subscription in order to make IPO successfully. There are uninformed investors who have the money to invest in the market. Underwriters convince issuers into underpricing to prevent these uninformed investors from leaving the IPO market. Underpricing is to induce underwriters to put forth the correct level of effort (Baron, 1982). Underwriter has to balance this trade-off in the principal-ag ent problem. On one side, underpricing would incur wealth loss for the issuer and reduce commission revenue for underwriters, on the other side, Beatty and Ritter (1986) argue that as repeat players, underwriters have an incentive to ensure that new issues are underpriced by enough lest they lose underwriting commissions (especially for those uninformed investors) in the future. Empirical studies (Nanda and Yun, 1997; Dundar, 2000) claim that underwriters subsequently lose IPO market share if they either underprice or overprice too much. However, the principal-agent model is challenged by Muscarella and Vetsuypens (1989), who argue that underpricing phenomenon still exists in underwriter (investment bank) IPO itself in which there is no principal-agent problem. Second, underpricing could incur over-subsucription in an IPO, which gives underwriter the discretion to allocate IPO shares. Underwriters can decide to whom to allocate shares if there is excess demand. In this case, underwriters discretion acts like interest exchange with their clients. They want to retain the buy-side clients, thus to allocate underpriced IPOs to them. Recurrent institutional investors would get the IPO shares and enjoy a positive initial return (Loughran and Ritter, 2002). Underwriters have an incentive to underprice IPOs if they receive commission business in return for leaving money on the table. Underpricing could facilitate the loyalty between underwriter and its clients, which could in turn facilitate underwriters sale of subsequent IPOs and seasoned offerings. For example, in the late 1990s IPOs were allocated to investors largely on the basis of the past and future commission business on the other trades (Reuter, 2004). Third, spinning effect induces underwriter to underpricing. The spinning explanation describe issuers are willing to hire underwriters with a history of underpricing because issuers receive side-payments. Spinning may be used by the underwriter to acquire IPO deals and influence IPO pricing, but it can also be used as part of a long-term business strategy with a given issuer to attract future underwriter mandates. The side-payments of spinning makes issuers reluctant to change its original underwriter for subsequent offerings (Dundar, 2000; Krigman, Shaw and Womack, 2001; Burch, Nanda and Warther, 2005; Ljungqvist, Marston and Wilhelm, 2006/2009). Spinning effect was first documented by Siconolfi (1997) in a Wall Street Journal article. Specifically, underwriters set up personal brokerage accounts for venture capitalists and the executives of issuing firms in order to allocate hot IPOs to them (Siconolfi, 1997). The hot IPOs means shares those are underpriced and would gain a huge po sitive initial return aftermarket, which would increase the personal wealth of the managers of issuing firms (Loughran and Ritter, 2002). The use of hot IPOs to reward issuers created an incentive for issuers to seek out underwriters who willing to offer this hot IPO through underpricing, rather than to avoid such underwriters. Allocating hot IPOs to the issuers and their friends (through friends and family accounts) allowed underwriters to underprice even more, i.e. selling at a friendly price (larger discount) (Fulghieri and Spiegel, 1993; Loughran and Ritter, 2002; Ljungqvist and Wilhelm, 2003). Underwriters may be more inclined to give favorable allocations of shares to preferred investors (friends, family, executives, etc.) and unfavorable allocations to non-favored non-connected investors. The latter would require higher underpricing to participate in the IPO market. The outcome of this process is not due to ex ante uncertainty, but due to discretionary allocation of shares by underwriters. Furthermore, this discretion is not mitigated by strong institutional framework. During the late 1990s and early 2000, spinning was a widespread practice in the US, despite having one of the strongest investor protection rules at the same time (Liu and Ritter, 2009). Signaling model, first referred by Leland and Pyle in 1977, assumes the issuer itself best knows its prospects (possesses better information). Underpricing is a signal that the firm is good (Allen and Faulhaber, 1989; Grinblatt and Hwang, 1989; Welch, 1989). If the issuer possesses the best information about its true value, a high quality firm could use underpricing as a means to distinguish itself from low quality companies. These firms with the most favorable prospects find it optimal to signal their type by underpricing their initial issue of shares, and investors know that only the best firms can recoup the cost of this signal from subsequent issues. In short, a partial offering of shares is made initially, information is then revealed, and subsequently more shares will be sold. In contrast, low quality companies might tend to price fully (Bergstrom, Nilsson and Wahlberg, 2006). Hiring reputable underwriter with influential analysts would mitigate ex ante uncertainty, thus reduce the underpricing level. Empirical study shows the more market power of underwriter (with strong analyst team, influential and bullish, usually), the more underpricing extent (Hoberg, 2007). Hiring a prestigious underwriter (Booth and Smith, 1986; Carter and Manaster, 1990; Michaely and Shaw, 1994) or a reputable auditor (Titman and Trueman, 1986) is seen as a specific way to reduce the ex ante uncertainty. Carter and Manaster (1990) and Carter et al. (1998) argue that IPOs taken by prestigious underwriters benefit from superior certification. The choice of underwriter indicates the quality of this IPO implicitly, because the reputation of underwriter may provides certain guarantee on the value of the issuer, which in turn, mitigates the ex ante uncertainty, thus the underpricing level would be reduced. Nevertheless, empirical evidences show a mixed result. There is a negative relati on between underwriter prestige and underpricing level in the 1980s, but a positive relation in the 1990s (Beatty and Welch, 1996; Cooney, Singh, Carter, and Dark, 2001). Issuers want to hire reputable underwriters who have, not only because of this could reduce ex ante uncertainty, but also the influential and bullish analyst coverage provided by reputable underwriters (Dunbar, 2000; Clarke, Dunbar and Kahle, 2001; Krigman, Shaw and Womack, 2001). Analyst coverage is crucial on the discovery of true value of the firm, especially its impact on sequent shares offering. Ljungqvist, Jenkinson and Wilhelm (2003) prove that influential analyst could bring the businesses for underwriters (investment banks). Prestigious investment banks also tend to recruit analysts who making optimistic forecasts (Hong and Kubik, 2003). Although analyst coverage is expensive for underwriters (the largest US investment banks each spent close to $1 billion per year on equity research in 2000, for example) (Rynecki, 2002), these costs are covered partly by underwriting fee charging from issuers. Due to the information production cost, many firms would prefer later IPO. Firms d o IPO firstly could incur analyst coverage advantage (more information revelation) for other firms wanting for IPO in the same industry (i.e. free ride effect). In this case, underwriter compensate this information cost for the before Firms with underpricing to investors (Benveniste, Busaba, and Wilhelm, 2002; Benveniste et al., 2003). Moreover, issuers feel reluctant to change its underwriter for seasoned equity offering (SEO) if the underwriter did analyst coverage and the underprice effect is significant in the IPO. Cliff and Denis (2004) proved this with the example 1050 US IPO firms during 1993-2000. When initial offering shares, the issuer increases emphasis on the advertisement effect brought by analyst coverage from underwriter, rather than the level of underpricing itself. Empirical studies (Cliff and Denis, 2004; Dunbar, 2000; Clarke et al. 2007) illustrates that many US issuers accepted underpricing in 1990s since they focused more on choosing an underwriter with an influential analyst than on getting a high offer price. The underlying principal is that underpricing could attract investors attention to this firm. Issuers have the incentive to reduce underpricing, and model their optimal behavior. Firms could gain advertisement benefits from underpricing, which creates beneficial condition for sequent offering (Habib and Ljungqvist, 2001). A high quality firm is underpriced (sell shares at discount) at the initial offering in order to attract market attention through following analyst coverage, usually, massive and efficient analyst coverage would mitigate the asymmetric inf ormation among investors and present the high quality of the firm, finally, the more realization on the true value of the firm among investors could help the firm sell its sequent seasoned offering shares at a higher price (i.e. recoup the loss from the underpricing in the initial offering). This process is called partial adjustment phenomenon (Hanley, 1993). About one-third of all IPO issuers between 1977 and 1982 had reissued equity by 1986, the typical amount being at least three times the initial offering (Welch, 1989). Analyst coverage relates to the future predicted value of the issuer, thus it is important. Moreover, the development of internet and cable television extend the influence of analyst coverage on the share price. In this way, the share price aftermarket would increase, which further provides the opportunity for issuer to offer higher price for its seasoned offering. Behavior Finance Speculative bubble theory After the internet bubble collapse in the US in early 2000, the academic focus transferred to behavior finance. The asymmetric information theory is based on the efficient market hypothesis. The ex ante uncertainty leads to the difficulty on firm valuation for investors, therefore, issuer and underwriter would set higher underpricing level to attract investors. Underpricing is seen as deliberate selling strategy for an IPO, once listed in the secondary market, share price would return to its fair value. Asymmetric information theory predicts lower underpricing if information is distributed more homogeneously across investors (Michaely and Shaw, 1994). However, it is challenged by heterogeneous expectation hypothesis in the stock market (Miller, 1977), which argues this deliberated underpricing strategy of IPO (selling at discount) disrupts the market efficiency (Loughran et al., 1994). According to Miller (1977), there are two assumptions in the market: the heterogeneity expectation and restriction on short-selling. The optimistic investors buy and hold shares, whereas pessimistic investors can not participate in the trade since the short selling is restricted. Consequently, share price reflects the opinion from optimistic investors, and thus the share price is overvalued compared to its fair value. Aggarwal and Rivoli (1990) raised the speculative bubble theory to argue that IPO underpricing is caused by faddish behavior on behalf of investors. This theory reveals there is speculative environment in secondary market, which increases the market price of the first-trading-day, thus incurs severe underpricing phenomenon. The speculative bubble theory to Ibbotsons opinion that underpricing is cyclical, which could date back to 1970s. Ibbotson and Jaffe (1975) found the level of underpricing fluctuates between different time periods. One explanation for the fluctuation may be the fact that there are hot and cold IPO markets (Ibbotson et al., 2001). In a hot IPO market, the average level of underpricing is large and the amount of firms going public increases. Afterwards there is a high rate of firms going public, but the level of underpricing decreases. The following cold period starts with fewer firms going public and very low underpricing or even overpricing. There is strong empiri cal evidence for this recurrent pattern, but the existence of this pattern has not yet seen sufficiently explained theoretically (Ibbotson and Ritter, 1995). Aggarwal (2000) provides empirical evidence to prove there is positive relationship between underpricing level and market index. Faddish investor hypothesis claims that in the hot market, over-optimistic (irrational) investors overpriced the IPO. This means the high initial return of IPO is not caused by deliberate underpricing pre-IPO solely, but is overpriced by optimistic investors in the secondary market. On one side, large amount of irrational investor is the root of high initial return in IPO, because irrational investors determine the transaction price in the secondary market (Ljungqvist, Nanda and Singh, 2003). Ljungqvist and Nanda (2002) claim that personal investor is seen as irrational investor, whereas the issuer, underwriter and institutional investors are seen as rational investor. Ljungqvist and Wilhem (2003) proved that personal investors have over-optimistic expectation on stock return in the hot market and these personal investors are typical noisy traders in IPO market, who prefer to make investment decision in terms of past initial return of previous IPOs. Delong, et al. (1990) reveal the influence of noisy trader on the share price. These noisy traders in IPO market are typical positive market feedback traders. When recent initial returns are high in the IPO market, these investors would purchase new issues, thus these purchases increase the demand for following IPOs, thus raise the initial return for these following IPOs. On the other side, it is believed that inequality of demand and supply of IPO primary market causes or intensifies the speculative environment in the secondary market (Aggarwal, 2000). Inequality between demand and supply leads to speculative opportunity. The underlying reason for this inequality is that IPO mechanism is not market-oriented in some countries, which is controlled by government (China, for example) (Su, 2004). IPO supply in the primary market is not adequate because of the government control. When new issues are over-subscribed, the irrational investors (speculators), who are constrained in the primary market, would be released in the secondary market. Meanwhile, due to the restriction on short selling (in China, for instance), investors could only make money when price increases. Therefore, investors push up the price on the first-trading-day, which causes severe underprcing level. Legal framework theory Legal framework theory could explain the different underpricing level among different countries. Legal framework has significant impact on ex ante uncertainty in IPO market. Ex ante uncertainty caused by regulatory constrains, wealth redistribution, and market incompleteness, leads to the IPO underpricing phenomenon (Mauer and Senbet, 1992). Difference in legal frameworks of various countries explain the ex ante uncertainty degree and the decisions made by investors in the market (La Porta et al., 1997/1998/2002). Cross-country differences in the legal framework affect ownership structure (La Porta et al., 2002), ownership effectiveness (Heugens et al., 2009), capital structure (De Jong et al., 2008), asset structure (Claessens and Laeven, 2003), dividend policy (La Porta et al., 2000), corporate governance (La Porta et al., 2000; Mitton, 2002) and corporate valuation (La Porta et al., 2002). Legal frameworks deem to reduce uncertainty by creating a stable foundation in which subsequ ent human interactions can be grounded (North, 1994; Peng, 2009; Van Essen et al., 2009). First of all, legal framework affects issue firms value. Legal framework can influence the ex ante uncertainty about firm value in more or less the same way as ex ante firm-specific risk at the time of IPO. Firms operating in a legal environment with poor protection of intellectual property rights are unwilling to invest in intangible assets (Research and Development capability, or branding effect, for example), leading to lower firm growth and thus lower firm value. Second, legal framework affects investors decision. Stronger investor protection could reduce the investment risk (for example, lower asset volatility, lower systematic risk, lower stock volatility, higher risk-adjusted return as measured by the Sharpe and Treynor index) (Chung et al., 2007; Hail and Leuz, 2006; Chiou et al., 2010). In countries with weaker legal protection, investors will be more uncertain about realizing a return on their investment (Shleifer and Vishny, 1997). Lower levels of legal protection for investors will create more uncertainty with respect to post IPO strategies and managerial decisions that may negatively affect firm value (Claessens and Laeven, 2003). In a country with a weaker legal framework, managers or dominating shareholders have more opportunities to transfer profits or assets out of the firm at the expense of the minority shareholders. Weaker legal framework could provide opportunity for damaging firm value through transfer pricing, asset strippin g and investor dilution (Cheung et al., 2009; Berkman et al., 2009). This increased probability of ex post expropriation by management or dominating shareholders increases the ex ante uncertainty at the time of IPO (Johnson et al., 2000). The higher the expropriation risk, the more the offer needs to be underpriced to compensate for this ex ante uncertainty. There is conflicts between dominating shareholders and outside shareholders because outside shareholders require higher risk premiums (higher cost of capital) which caused by the weak legal framework (Himmelberg et al., 2004; Giannetti and Simonov, 2006; Albuquerue and Wang, 2008). Although it is argued that issuers can independently improve their level of minority investor protection by a listing on a foreign stock exchange with higher standards of investor protection (i.e. cross-listing), it is doubtful that they can fully compensate for the lack of an adequate legal framework at the country-level (Black, 2001; Reese and Weisb ach, 2002; Roosenboom and van Dijk, 2009). Third, Underpricing could avoid potential legal liability, which is another explanation theory provided by Tinic (1988). It is claimed that underpricing reduces both the probability of lawsuits if subsequently the firm does not do well in the aftermarket, because the investor is the direct recipient of the benefit from underpricing (Milgrom and Roberts, 1986; Tinic, 1988). Underwriters are unwilling to price these offerings at high level, in case that the market would concern about lawsuits and thus damage to its reputation if the shares eventually dropped in price aftermarket. The argument is based on that unsophisticated and uninformed investors were bidding up the price to unjustified levels, and the underwriters were unwilling to price the IPOs at the market price determined by these noise traders. Ownership control theory Ownership control theory is described as IPO is expected to bring in new shareholders, who would dilute the control power of original shareholders (managers), therefore, issuers have less motivation to bargain for higher offer price, and result in underpricing. Ljungqvist and Wilhelm (2003) explain this ownership fragmentation would incur underpricing through the realignment of incentives hypothesis. Logically, the issuer firms holding large proportion shares would have incentive to argue for higher offer price thus reduce the underpricing level (Barry, 1989; Habib and Ljungqvist, 2001; Bradley and Jordan, 2002; Ljungqvist and Wilhelm, 2003). Moreover, the excess demand for shares caused by underpricing enables managers to allocate small stakes of shares to many dispersed small investors. Therefore, original managers control power is strengthened since they would be the dominate shareholders. In other words, underpricing could give the managers power on control (Brennan and Franks, 1 997; Boulton et al., 2007). However, the ownership control theory is challenged. Other substitute mechanisms for retaining control such as takeover defenses, non-voting stocks and alike are more effective, because underpricing can not prevent outside investors from accumulating larger stakes of shares once trading begins in the aftermarket (Ljungqvist, 2007). Issue mechanism Fixed price Offer price = Predetermined price Bookbuilding Underwriter set the final offer price by consulting with investors Auction Offer price = lowest price which bid the final share Hybrid Bookbuilding + Fixed price; Auction + Fixed price Bookbuilding, by which underwriter has the discretion on share allocation, can induce investor to reveal their information through their indications of interest, which can reduce information asymmetry thus lower underpricing (Benveniste and Spindt, 1989; Benveniste and Wilhelm, 1990/1997; Sherman and Titman, 2002; Ritter and Welch, 2002; Gondat-Larralde and James, 2008). On one side, underwriters tend to allocate IPOs to investors who provide information about their demand (i.e. the price discovery process). Price discovery eliminates the winners curse problem, thus reduce underpricing level. On the other side, bookbuilding authorized underwriter the discretion on share allocation (so called rationing allocation). After collecting investors indications of interest, the underwriter allocates no (or only a few) shares to any investor who bid conservatively. This rationing share allocation could reduce the underpricing level. Koh and Walter (1989) found the likelihood of receiving an al location in this mechanism was negatively related to the degree of underpricing, and average initial returns fall substantially from 27% to 1% when adjusted for rationing allocation in Singapore case study. Levis (1990) and Keloharju (1993) claim Rationing share allocation mechanism could reduce the initial return in UK, and in Finland respectively. Aggarwal, Prabhala, and Puri (2002) also find that institutional investors earn greater returns on their IPO allocations than do retail investors largely in bookbuilding mechanism, because they are allocated more shares in those IPOs that are most likely to appreciate in price. However, imposing constraints on the underwriters allocation discretion can interfere with the efficiency of the bookbuilding. The quality of bookbuilding in many European and Asian countries is damaged by certain restriction on the use of bookbuilding, which leading to higher underpricing (Ljungqvist et al., 2003). Requiring that a certain fraction of the shares be allocated to retail investors, as is common in parts of Europe and Asia, reduces underwriters ability to target allocations at the most aggressive (institutional) bidders and so may force them to rely more on price than on allocations to reward truth-telling. Moreover, empirical study indicates that bookbuilding in countries outside the US only reduces the level of underpricing when used in combination with US investment banks (underwriter) and targeted at US investors. Although the functioning of the different issuing me

School Safety and the Tragedy at Columbine High School :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Unlike most of the country, I knew about Columbine High School on April 19, 1999. I knew that the Columbine Rebels had a good football team, I remembered how they beat Cherry Creek for the 1999 football championship. I knew what Columbine's building was like from when I was inside it in January for a debate tournament. I had friends that went to CHS. We had gone on a trip to Hawaii together to learn about biology. The rest of the country found out about Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. They didn't hear about their football team, the debate tournament they hosted, or my friends, though; they heard about two angry students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, that went on a killing rampage killing 12 other students, a teacher, and themselves. The nation, the media, the killers, my friends, and me all have their own view of what happened that day. Many people tried to understand how something so terrible could happen, while the killers thought that the killings were a wonderful thing , and still other students were trying to comprehend that this tragedy had actually happened so close to home. At 11:19 in the morning of April 19, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stood at the west entrance of Columbine High School preparing for the deadliest shooting in American school history. One of them yelled, "Go! Go!," and then the two pulled out their shotguns and began firing, killing two students almost immediately (Jefferson County 3). Harris and Klebold began moving through the school randomly shooting students, detonating pipe bombs, and yelling about how much fun they were having. While this was happening, Coach Dave Sanders and other heroes were frantically trying to get students out of harm's way. At 11:26, while running past the library warning students of the killers, Sanders was shot by one of the shooters. He made it into a science room where first aid was administered by students. He died several hours later in that same room. The worst killing took place in the library during a span of about eight minutes starting at 11:29. Ten students were killed and twelve others were wounded. After leaving the library, Harris and Klebold wandered around the school in movements that appeared to be "extremely random" (Jefferson County 18). They eventually returned to the library at about 12:08 and killed themselves. In 49 minutes, 14 students were left dead, one teacher was left dying, 23 people were injured, and an entire community's sense of safety and security was shattered.

Human Genetic Screening :: Science Technology Papers

Human Genetic Screening Humans, like all other living organisms, have genes. These genes instruct our bodies to make proteins, these proteins are the molecules that determine the shape and function of each cell. Each gene or set of genes encode for the production of a particular protein.What is a gene ?The term " gene "was created by Wilhelm Johanssen, a Danish botanist in 1911. He was discussing units of inheritance that Mendel called factors.T.H. Morgan's studies on fruit fly genetics led to the idea of a gene as the smallest unit of recombination. Aggregated with this idea was another that said the gene was the unit of mutation, and another that the gene is the unit of function (the smallest unit of control over the phenotype ). Modern evidence suggests that recombination can occur between any two nucleotide, which make the unit of recombination only one nucleotide long . Some mutations change only one nucleotide, so the unit of mutation could be only one nucleotide long . The unit of function is the cis tron which is about 900-1500 nucleotide long. So we can identify the gene as the length of DNA that codes for one functional product (6). DNA of the human species carries more or less the same set of DNA with some variations . Variations in the DNA sequence can be neutral, others might have positive or negative influence. Genetic screening is testing of this variation (2). Human race carries 3000-4000 diseases in it's genes, and it is important to distinguish between inherited diseases and infectious diseases. Inherited diseases are caused by mutated genes which are inherited by an individual from his or her parents (2). The faulty gene will be one of the many healthy thousands of genes we possess in our cells. To pinpoint the location of these faulty genes, scientists search for variations in larger piece of DNA called markers, these subunits lie nearby on the DNA chain, and form the basis of genetic screening. What is genetic screening ? The principle of genetic screening is based on the binding of a probe to the DNA molecule of the patient or the person to be screened. Complementary DNA nucleotide sequences bind to each other. The probe used is usually single stranded DNA, which binds to the test sample. The DNA sample can be analyzed by a technique called restriction fragment polymorphism (RFLP). In this technique the DNA sample is cut up with a mixture of restriction enzymes which cut the DNA at a specific sequences. Human Genetic Screening :: Science Technology Papers Human Genetic Screening Humans, like all other living organisms, have genes. These genes instruct our bodies to make proteins, these proteins are the molecules that determine the shape and function of each cell. Each gene or set of genes encode for the production of a particular protein.What is a gene ?The term " gene "was created by Wilhelm Johanssen, a Danish botanist in 1911. He was discussing units of inheritance that Mendel called factors.T.H. Morgan's studies on fruit fly genetics led to the idea of a gene as the smallest unit of recombination. Aggregated with this idea was another that said the gene was the unit of mutation, and another that the gene is the unit of function (the smallest unit of control over the phenotype ). Modern evidence suggests that recombination can occur between any two nucleotide, which make the unit of recombination only one nucleotide long . Some mutations change only one nucleotide, so the unit of mutation could be only one nucleotide long . The unit of function is the cis tron which is about 900-1500 nucleotide long. So we can identify the gene as the length of DNA that codes for one functional product (6). DNA of the human species carries more or less the same set of DNA with some variations . Variations in the DNA sequence can be neutral, others might have positive or negative influence. Genetic screening is testing of this variation (2). Human race carries 3000-4000 diseases in it's genes, and it is important to distinguish between inherited diseases and infectious diseases. Inherited diseases are caused by mutated genes which are inherited by an individual from his or her parents (2). The faulty gene will be one of the many healthy thousands of genes we possess in our cells. To pinpoint the location of these faulty genes, scientists search for variations in larger piece of DNA called markers, these subunits lie nearby on the DNA chain, and form the basis of genetic screening. What is genetic screening ? The principle of genetic screening is based on the binding of a probe to the DNA molecule of the patient or the person to be screened. Complementary DNA nucleotide sequences bind to each other. The probe used is usually single stranded DNA, which binds to the test sample. The DNA sample can be analyzed by a technique called restriction fragment polymorphism (RFLP). In this technique the DNA sample is cut up with a mixture of restriction enzymes which cut the DNA at a specific sequences.

Teaching Philosophy Statement Essay -- Teaching Teachers Education Ess

Teaching Philosophy Statement The world revolves around education. Without it, we would be lost. Teachers are among the most important people in the world. They are what shape our society. This takes on a very important job, but this is something that I want to do more than anything. A teacher is one that is looked up to by others, and is respected in the community. I want to become a teacher because I want to help children learn and make a difference in a child’s life. I believe that I mainly follow the idealist philosophy. Becoming a teacher is something that I have always wanted to do, so I know that I would put my all into it. I would make sure that I knew my content area very well. I also want to make sure the students know that they can come to me with any of their problems. I not only want to be a teacher, but a role model to my students. Knowing that a student trusts me would bring so much self-fulfillment. I also follow the pragmatist philosophy. I believe that they classroom is a community of learners. Pragmatists also establish classroom rules at the beginning of the year. This is important because the children are just entering the school system, and they need to know that what they may do at home isn’t permitted at school. I would rather have a non-authoritarian classroom over an authoritarian classroom. I believe I could control the students. I think there would be more respect in the classroom if I made sure the students knew at the beginning of the year what was and wasn’t allowed. Also, many kindergarten teachers have assistants to help them. Not that I’ relying on that, but that would help keep control of the classroom as well. ... ...dergartener won’t learn very much if you stand in front of the room and lecture. You ned to work with the students personally, that way they grasp what you are teaching. You need to become a leader when you’re working with a room full of young students. I feel that I can fulfill this role. I’ve worked with young children before, and if you set out rules beforehand, you have better results. I will definitely take what I’ve learned and use it in my classroom. Education reform is necessary in our ever changing world. I know that as a teacher I would be willing to change with the times. As teachers we must have a positive attitude and take on whatever is needed. Education is one of the most important aspects of the world. Teaching is something that I look forward to, and I can’t wait until I have a classroom of my own.