International Movie Revenues: Determinants and Impact of the Financial Crisis

Institute of Economic Studies Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University in Prague Empirical Project Assignment — Econometrics II Due on Friday, 13 January 2012, 11. 00 International movie revenues: determinants and impact of the financial crisis Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Table of Contents Abstract Keywords Introduction Literature survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data analysis variables used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion References primary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . secondary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Residuals versus ? tted values plot . . . . . Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Residuals versus ? tted values plot . . . . . . Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity . The correlation matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 6 6 6 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 13 13 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 1 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Abstract This empirical project examines the determinants of international box o? ce revenues for movies produced in United States during 2006 – 2010. Our sample consists of 424 ? lms released in this period. We also test the hypothesis if the world ? nancial crisis had any signi? can t impact on the international box o? ce revenues. Keywords the ? ancial crisis, movie international box o? ce revenue, movies produced in the United States, budget, rating, Academy Awards, Introduction When choosing a topic of our empirical paper we were considering di? erent suggestions. As we both are pretty much interested in movies we ? nally decided to exit a viewer seat for a while and perform an empirical study on the movie industry. While being newcommers in sophisticated movie data analysis, we needed ? rst to get acquainted with important theoretical concepts and empirical papers concerning this topic. Literature survey When going down the history, [Litman, 1983] was the ? st who has attempted to predict the ? nancial success of ? lms. He has performed a multiple regression and found a clear evidence that various independent variables have a signi? cant and serious in? uence on the ? nal success of a movie. Litemans work has been gradually getting developed, [Faber & Oâ₠¬â„¢Guinn, 1984] tested the in? uence of ? lm advertising. They proved, that movie critics and word-of-mouth are less important then movie previews and excerpts when explaininng movie succes after going on public. [Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997] explored the impact of restricted-rating labeled movies on their box o? e performance. [Terry, Butler & De’Armond, 2004] analysed the determinants of movie video rental revenue, ? nding Academy Award nominations as the dominant factor. [King, 2007] followed their research and used U. S. movie data to ? nd the connection between the criticism and box o? ce earnings†¦ Many other authors has extended the initial work of [Litman, 1983], but none of them has focused on the key factors of the international box o? ce revenues as we planned to. So we ? nally decided to use [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] as our primary source. Their object of interest is very much similar to our resarch.Therefore we studied their metodology the most and we u se their results in the analytical part as a primary resource of comparison. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 2 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Data We got quickly stucked realising that the strong majority of movie data on the internet are not free available. It was quite a surprise because there are many movie-oriented sites with seemingly endless data access. But when there is a need of more profound, well structured and complete set of random data everything gets little bit tricky.After hours of searching, we luckily got to a 30 days free access to this kind of databases [opusdata. com] and got the core data for our analysis. Then we wanted to add some interesting or usefull variables just as the movie rating or the number of AcademyAwards to complete our dataset. It has been done using well known and free accessed databases [imdb. com], [numbers. com] and [boxo? cemojo. com]. Thanks to our literature survey we discovered a model which we have thought would be interesting to test on di? erent or new data. The most interesting would be to test it on our domestic data but these are quite di? ult to obtain (as explained before). Anyway, it would be possible to get data for the highest grossing ? lms but that would violate the assumption of random sample. Therefore we decided to use data from U. S. and Canada which we considered the most likely to obtain. We also wanted to test whether the ? nancial crisis have had an impact on movie box o? ce revenues and whether the world ? nancial crisis made people less likely to go to the cinema. Model We considered several models and in the end we used two models. The ? rst one is just the same as the one used in paper [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010], but it is slightly modi? d by using di? erent data plus setting the crisis variable. We considered it as a dummy variable, which was 1 if the movie was released during crisis (2008-2009), otherwise it is equal to zer o. As it was proposed before, this model has been used as a comparison to the original model [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] wihle we wanted to test whether their inference holds up with slightly di? erent and newer data. In the second model we tried to use a slightly di? erent approach. We used a time series model with year dummies and we also used all the variables which we obtained and were statistically signi? ant. Our ? rst model is basic linear regression with cross-sectional data. Our data are a random sample thanks to [opusdata. com] query which was capable of selecting a random sample of movies. We have tested all the variables for multicollinearity with the correlation matrix and there is no proof for multicollinearity in our used variables. The only high collinearity is between domestic and budget variables, which is about 0. 75. After running the regressions we have used the Breusch-Pagan test for heteroscedasticity and the chi squared was really high therefore showing s igns of strong heteroscedasticity.Even after looking at the graph of residuals against ? tted values it was clear that the heteroscedasticity is present. Therefore we had to run the regressions with the heteroscedasticity robust errors. We therefore tested in both models for presence of these: †¢ the variables which have an impact on movie international box revenues †¢ any signi? cant impact of ? nancial crisis on these revenues Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 3 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Data analysis Here we list all the used variables in both models and their a description. ariables used academy awards . . . . . . . . . number of Academy Awards a ? lm earned action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in action genre animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in animation production method budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the estimated pr oduction and promotion cost of a movie comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in comedy genre crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dummy variable for movies released during crisis domestic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . omestic box o? ce earnings horror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in horror genre international . . . . . . . . . . . . international box o? ce earnings kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies for children rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . average user rating from the [imdb. com] source ratingR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . is a categorical variable for movies with a restricted rating romantic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in romantic genre sequel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies derived from a previously released ? lm y06 ? y10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dummy vari able for movies released in a year The list of variables is followed by both model equations and reggression table comparism, while model 1 and model 2 mean the original [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] model and our new model respectivelly. model 1 international = ? 0 + ? 1 domestic + ? 2 action + ? 3 kids + ? 4 ratingR+ + ? 5 sequel + ? 6 rating + ? 7 academy awards + ? 8 budget + ? 9 crisis model 2 international = + + ? 0 + ? 1 academy awards + ? 2 budget + ? 3 domestic + ? 4 sequel + ? horror + ? 6 romantic + ? 7 comedy + ? 8 action + ? 9 ratingR + ? 10 animation + ? 11 y06 + ? 12 y07 + ? 13 y08 + ? 14 y09 Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 4 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Table 1: Model comparison model 1 domestic action kids rating R sequel rating academy awards budget crisis horror romantic comedy animation y 06 y 07 y 08 y 09 Constant Observations t statistics in parentheses ? model 2 1. 025 (13. 31) -18. 56? (-2. 29) 1 . 028 (12. 70) -13. 43 (-1. 79) 48. 33? (2. 10) 5. 922 (1. 52) 26. 91? (2. 06) 0. 309 (1. 42) 6. 978? (2. 33) 0. 68 (5. 48) -5. 320 (-1. 01) 9. 259? (2. 36) 28. 74? (2. 16) 7. 097 (2. 59) 0. 508 (4. 73) -9. 867? (-2. 23) 13. 41 (1. 79) -17. 77 (-3. 31) 52. 02 (2. 87) -7. 962 (-1. 24) 1. 182 (0. 17) -6. 748 (-1. 01) -11. 79 (-1. 30) -43. 25 (-3. 05) 424 -15. 11? (-2. 41) 424 p < 0. 05, p < 0. 01, p < 0. 001 Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 5 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Results model 1 After running the ? rst regression we get quite similar results as [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010], so their inference holds up even under our data.The similar results we get are that one dollar in revenues in US makes $1. 02 in international revenues, therefore succesful movie in US is likely to be similarly succesful in international theatres, if movie is a sequel it adds to revenues about $26 mil. , every academy award adds about $7 mil. and every additional dollar spent on budget adds about $0. 57 so there is about 57% return on budget. We also have similarly insigni? cant variables which are whether is movie rated as restricted and how great or poorly is movie rated by critics or other people.That means that international audience is not in? uenced by age restrictions and critical movie ratings. When we look at our and theirs results regarding the genres then we get quite di? erent results. They say that when a movie is of an action genre then it adds about $26 mil. whereas we obtained results that revenues for an action movie should be lower about $13 mil. and our result for children movies is two times larger and it says that a children movie should make about $48 mil. more. It could be explained that movie genre preferences shifted in the last two years.But more likely explanation is the di? erence in our data in labeling the movies. In our data we have had more detailed labeling and movies which they had labe led as action movies, we had labeled adventure movies etc. Therefore the strictly action movie genre is not so probable to make money as it would seem. Action movies are usually of low quality and many of them could be labeled as B-movies which usually are not very likely to have high revenues. The children movies could be getting more popular and taking children to the movies could be getting more usual thing.Our last and new variable is the crisis dummy which is not signi? cant and therefore we have no proof that the ? nancial crisis had any e? ect on movie revenues. Our model has quite high R2 which is about 0. 83, that is even higher then [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] have. But the main reason behind this high R2 is that most of the variation in data is explained by US revenues. If we regress international revenues on domestic alone we still get high R2 which is about 0. 59. model 2 In our time series model we get quite similar results as in the ? rst one. We have there ? e ne w variables which are genres comedy, romantic and horror, animation dummy, which tells us whether the movie is animated or not and year dummies. Our model implies that when a movie is a comedy it will make about $17 mil. less in revenues, when horror about $10 mil. less, when romantic about $13 mil. more and when animated it will add about $52 mil to its revenues. The restricted rating is now also statistically signi? cant and it should add to the revenues about $9 mil. which is quite unexpected. Y ear dummies are statistically non-signi? cant and even when we test them for joint signi? ance they are jointly non-signi? cant. Therefore even in this model there appears no reason to believe that the ? nancial crisis or even year makes di? erence in the movie revenues. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 6 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Conclusion The inferences from our models are quite like we expected. We expected that people ar e more likely to go to cinema to see movies that had won academy awards, that were succesful in U. S. theatres and that are some kind of sequel to previous succesful movies. The resulting e? cts of di? erent movie genres could be quite puzzling but these e? ects depend highly on quality of the movies released these years and on the mood and taste of current society. If we had had larger sample with data from many years then it is possible that we would have seen trends in the di? erent movie genres. The insigni? cance of the ? nancial crisis on movie revenues was also likely because the severity of the crisis and impact on regular citizen has not been so large that it would in? uence his attendence of movie theatres. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 7 of 14International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Reference primary [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] Terry, Neil, John W. Cooley, & Miles Zachary (2010). The Determinants of Foreign Box O? ce Reven ue for English Language Movies. Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies, 2 (1), 117-127. secondary [Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997] Eliashberg, Jehoshua & Steven M. Shugan (1997). Film Critics: In? uencers or Predictors? Journal of Marketing, 61, 68-78. [Faber & O’Guinn, 1984] Faber, Ronald & Thomas O’Guinn (1984). E? ect of Media Advertising and Other Sources on Movie Selection.Journalism Quarterly, 61 (summer), 371-377. [King, 2007] King, Timothy (2007). Does ? lm criticism a? ect box o? ce earnings? Evidence from movies released in the U. S. in 2003. Journal of Cultural Economics, 31, 171-186. [Litman, 1983] Litman, Barry R. (1983). Predicting Success of Theatrical Movies: An Empirical Study. Journal of Popular Culture, 16 (spring), 159-175. [Ravid, 1999] Ravid, S. Abraham (1999). Information, Blockbusters, and Stars: A Study of the Film Industry. Journal of Business, 72 (4), 463-492. [Terry, Butler & De’Armond, 2004] Terry, Neil, Michael Butler & D e’Arno De’Armond (2004).The Economic Impact of Movie Critics on Box O? ce Performance. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 8 (1), page 61-73. data sources [opusdata. com] Opus data – movie data through a query interface. 30-days free trial. http://www. opusdata. com/ [imdb. com] The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). The biggest, best, most award-winning movie site on the planet. http://www. imdb. com [numbers. com] The numbers. Box o? ce data, movies stars, idle speculation. http://www. the-numbers. com [boxo? cemojo. com] Box o? ce mojo. Movie web site with the most comprehensive box o? ce database on the Internet. ttp://www. boxofficemojo. com Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 8 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Appendix Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 9 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis model 1 Regr ession of the original model published in [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 10 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Residuals versus ? tted values plotBreusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 11 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis model 2 Regression of our model Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 12 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Residuals versus ? tted values plot Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 13 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis The correlation matrix Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 14 of 14 International Movie Revenues: Determinants and Impact of the Financial Crisis Institute of Economic Studies Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University in Prague Empirical Project Assignment — Econometrics II Due on Friday, 13 January 2012, 11. 00 International movie revenues: determinants and impact of the financial crisis Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Table of Contents Abstract Keywords Introduction Literature survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data analysis variables used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion References primary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . secondary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Residuals versus ? tted values plot . . . . . Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity . model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Residuals versus ? tted values plot . . . . . . Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity . The correlation matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 6 6 6 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 13 13 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 1 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Abstract This empirical project examines the determinants of international box o? ce revenues for movies produced in United States during 2006 – 2010. Our sample consists of 424 ? lms released in this period. We also test the hypothesis if the world ? nancial crisis had any signi? can t impact on the international box o? ce revenues. Keywords the ? ancial crisis, movie international box o? ce revenue, movies produced in the United States, budget, rating, Academy Awards, Introduction When choosing a topic of our empirical paper we were considering di? erent suggestions. As we both are pretty much interested in movies we ? nally decided to exit a viewer seat for a while and perform an empirical study on the movie industry. While being newcommers in sophisticated movie data analysis, we needed ? rst to get acquainted with important theoretical concepts and empirical papers concerning this topic. Literature survey When going down the history, [Litman, 1983] was the ? st who has attempted to predict the ? nancial success of ? lms. He has performed a multiple regression and found a clear evidence that various independent variables have a signi? cant and serious in? uence on the ? nal success of a movie. Litemans work has been gradually getting developed, [Faber & Oâ₠¬â„¢Guinn, 1984] tested the in? uence of ? lm advertising. They proved, that movie critics and word-of-mouth are less important then movie previews and excerpts when explaininng movie succes after going on public. [Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997] explored the impact of restricted-rating labeled movies on their box o? e performance. [Terry, Butler & De’Armond, 2004] analysed the determinants of movie video rental revenue, ? nding Academy Award nominations as the dominant factor. [King, 2007] followed their research and used U. S. movie data to ? nd the connection between the criticism and box o? ce earnings†¦ Many other authors has extended the initial work of [Litman, 1983], but none of them has focused on the key factors of the international box o? ce revenues as we planned to. So we ? nally decided to use [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] as our primary source. Their object of interest is very much similar to our resarch.Therefore we studied their metodology the most and we u se their results in the analytical part as a primary resource of comparison. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 2 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Data We got quickly stucked realising that the strong majority of movie data on the internet are not free available. It was quite a surprise because there are many movie-oriented sites with seemingly endless data access. But when there is a need of more profound, well structured and complete set of random data everything gets little bit tricky.After hours of searching, we luckily got to a 30 days free access to this kind of databases [opusdata. com] and got the core data for our analysis. Then we wanted to add some interesting or usefull variables just as the movie rating or the number of AcademyAwards to complete our dataset. It has been done using well known and free accessed databases [imdb. com], [numbers. com] and [boxo? cemojo. com]. Thanks to our literature survey we discovered a model which we have thought would be interesting to test on di? erent or new data. The most interesting would be to test it on our domestic data but these are quite di? ult to obtain (as explained before). Anyway, it would be possible to get data for the highest grossing ? lms but that would violate the assumption of random sample. Therefore we decided to use data from U. S. and Canada which we considered the most likely to obtain. We also wanted to test whether the ? nancial crisis have had an impact on movie box o? ce revenues and whether the world ? nancial crisis made people less likely to go to the cinema. Model We considered several models and in the end we used two models. The ? rst one is just the same as the one used in paper [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010], but it is slightly modi? d by using di? erent data plus setting the crisis variable. We considered it as a dummy variable, which was 1 if the movie was released during crisis (2008-2009), otherwise it is equal to zer o. As it was proposed before, this model has been used as a comparison to the original model [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] wihle we wanted to test whether their inference holds up with slightly di? erent and newer data. In the second model we tried to use a slightly di? erent approach. We used a time series model with year dummies and we also used all the variables which we obtained and were statistically signi? ant. Our ? rst model is basic linear regression with cross-sectional data. Our data are a random sample thanks to [opusdata. com] query which was capable of selecting a random sample of movies. We have tested all the variables for multicollinearity with the correlation matrix and there is no proof for multicollinearity in our used variables. The only high collinearity is between domestic and budget variables, which is about 0. 75. After running the regressions we have used the Breusch-Pagan test for heteroscedasticity and the chi squared was really high therefore showing s igns of strong heteroscedasticity.Even after looking at the graph of residuals against ? tted values it was clear that the heteroscedasticity is present. Therefore we had to run the regressions with the heteroscedasticity robust errors. We therefore tested in both models for presence of these: †¢ the variables which have an impact on movie international box revenues †¢ any signi? cant impact of ? nancial crisis on these revenues Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 3 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Data analysis Here we list all the used variables in both models and their a description. ariables used academy awards . . . . . . . . . number of Academy Awards a ? lm earned action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in action genre animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in animation production method budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the estimated pr oduction and promotion cost of a movie comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in comedy genre crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dummy variable for movies released during crisis domestic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . omestic box o? ce earnings horror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in horror genre international . . . . . . . . . . . . international box o? ce earnings kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies for children rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . average user rating from the [imdb. com] source ratingR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . is a categorical variable for movies with a restricted rating romantic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies in romantic genre sequel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . categorical variable for movies derived from a previously released ? lm y06 ? y10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dummy vari able for movies released in a year The list of variables is followed by both model equations and reggression table comparism, while model 1 and model 2 mean the original [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] model and our new model respectivelly. model 1 international = ? 0 + ? 1 domestic + ? 2 action + ? 3 kids + ? 4 ratingR+ + ? 5 sequel + ? 6 rating + ? 7 academy awards + ? 8 budget + ? 9 crisis model 2 international = + + ? 0 + ? 1 academy awards + ? 2 budget + ? 3 domestic + ? 4 sequel + ? horror + ? 6 romantic + ? 7 comedy + ? 8 action + ? 9 ratingR + ? 10 animation + ? 11 y06 + ? 12 y07 + ? 13 y08 + ? 14 y09 Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 4 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Table 1: Model comparison model 1 domestic action kids rating R sequel rating academy awards budget crisis horror romantic comedy animation y 06 y 07 y 08 y 09 Constant Observations t statistics in parentheses ? model 2 1. 025 (13. 31) -18. 56? (-2. 29) 1 . 028 (12. 70) -13. 43 (-1. 79) 48. 33? (2. 10) 5. 922 (1. 52) 26. 91? (2. 06) 0. 309 (1. 42) 6. 978? (2. 33) 0. 68 (5. 48) -5. 320 (-1. 01) 9. 259? (2. 36) 28. 74? (2. 16) 7. 097 (2. 59) 0. 508 (4. 73) -9. 867? (-2. 23) 13. 41 (1. 79) -17. 77 (-3. 31) 52. 02 (2. 87) -7. 962 (-1. 24) 1. 182 (0. 17) -6. 748 (-1. 01) -11. 79 (-1. 30) -43. 25 (-3. 05) 424 -15. 11? (-2. 41) 424 p < 0. 05, p < 0. 01, p < 0. 001 Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 5 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Results model 1 After running the ? rst regression we get quite similar results as [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010], so their inference holds up even under our data.The similar results we get are that one dollar in revenues in US makes $1. 02 in international revenues, therefore succesful movie in US is likely to be similarly succesful in international theatres, if movie is a sequel it adds to revenues about $26 mil. , every academy award adds about $7 mil. and every additional dollar spent on budget adds about $0. 57 so there is about 57% return on budget. We also have similarly insigni? cant variables which are whether is movie rated as restricted and how great or poorly is movie rated by critics or other people.That means that international audience is not in? uenced by age restrictions and critical movie ratings. When we look at our and theirs results regarding the genres then we get quite di? erent results. They say that when a movie is of an action genre then it adds about $26 mil. whereas we obtained results that revenues for an action movie should be lower about $13 mil. and our result for children movies is two times larger and it says that a children movie should make about $48 mil. more. It could be explained that movie genre preferences shifted in the last two years.But more likely explanation is the di? erence in our data in labeling the movies. In our data we have had more detailed labeling and movies which they had labe led as action movies, we had labeled adventure movies etc. Therefore the strictly action movie genre is not so probable to make money as it would seem. Action movies are usually of low quality and many of them could be labeled as B-movies which usually are not very likely to have high revenues. The children movies could be getting more popular and taking children to the movies could be getting more usual thing.Our last and new variable is the crisis dummy which is not signi? cant and therefore we have no proof that the ? nancial crisis had any e? ect on movie revenues. Our model has quite high R2 which is about 0. 83, that is even higher then [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] have. But the main reason behind this high R2 is that most of the variation in data is explained by US revenues. If we regress international revenues on domestic alone we still get high R2 which is about 0. 59. model 2 In our time series model we get quite similar results as in the ? rst one. We have there ? e ne w variables which are genres comedy, romantic and horror, animation dummy, which tells us whether the movie is animated or not and year dummies. Our model implies that when a movie is a comedy it will make about $17 mil. less in revenues, when horror about $10 mil. less, when romantic about $13 mil. more and when animated it will add about $52 mil to its revenues. The restricted rating is now also statistically signi? cant and it should add to the revenues about $9 mil. which is quite unexpected. Y ear dummies are statistically non-signi? cant and even when we test them for joint signi? ance they are jointly non-signi? cant. Therefore even in this model there appears no reason to believe that the ? nancial crisis or even year makes di? erence in the movie revenues. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 6 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Conclusion The inferences from our models are quite like we expected. We expected that people ar e more likely to go to cinema to see movies that had won academy awards, that were succesful in U. S. theatres and that are some kind of sequel to previous succesful movies. The resulting e? cts of di? erent movie genres could be quite puzzling but these e? ects depend highly on quality of the movies released these years and on the mood and taste of current society. If we had had larger sample with data from many years then it is possible that we would have seen trends in the di? erent movie genres. The insigni? cance of the ? nancial crisis on movie revenues was also likely because the severity of the crisis and impact on regular citizen has not been so large that it would in? uence his attendence of movie theatres. Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 7 of 14International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Reference primary [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] Terry, Neil, John W. Cooley, & Miles Zachary (2010). The Determinants of Foreign Box O? ce Reven ue for English Language Movies. Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies, 2 (1), 117-127. secondary [Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997] Eliashberg, Jehoshua & Steven M. Shugan (1997). Film Critics: In? uencers or Predictors? Journal of Marketing, 61, 68-78. [Faber & O’Guinn, 1984] Faber, Ronald & Thomas O’Guinn (1984). E? ect of Media Advertising and Other Sources on Movie Selection.Journalism Quarterly, 61 (summer), 371-377. [King, 2007] King, Timothy (2007). Does ? lm criticism a? ect box o? ce earnings? Evidence from movies released in the U. S. in 2003. Journal of Cultural Economics, 31, 171-186. [Litman, 1983] Litman, Barry R. (1983). Predicting Success of Theatrical Movies: An Empirical Study. Journal of Popular Culture, 16 (spring), 159-175. [Ravid, 1999] Ravid, S. Abraham (1999). Information, Blockbusters, and Stars: A Study of the Film Industry. Journal of Business, 72 (4), 463-492. [Terry, Butler & De’Armond, 2004] Terry, Neil, Michael Butler & D e’Arno De’Armond (2004).The Economic Impact of Movie Critics on Box O? ce Performance. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 8 (1), page 61-73. data sources [opusdata. com] Opus data – movie data through a query interface. 30-days free trial. http://www. opusdata. com/ [imdb. com] The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). The biggest, best, most award-winning movie site on the planet. http://www. imdb. com [numbers. com] The numbers. Box o? ce data, movies stars, idle speculation. http://www. the-numbers. com [boxo? cemojo. com] Box o? ce mojo. Movie web site with the most comprehensive box o? ce database on the Internet. ttp://www. boxofficemojo. com Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 8 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Appendix Descriptive statistics for the dependent variables Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 9 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis model 1 Regr ession of the original model published in [Terry, Cooley & Zachary, 2010] Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 10 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Residuals versus ? tted values plotBreusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 11 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis model 2 Regression of our model Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 12 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis Residuals versus ? tted values plot Breusch-Pagan test for heteroskedasticity Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 13 of 14 International movie revenues : Determinants and impact of the ? nancial crisis The correlation matrix Marek Kre? mer, Jan Mati? ka c c Page 14 of 14

Case Analysis Raisio Group And The Benecol Essay

1. Problem Originated from a grain-milling company in Finland, the 57-year-old Rasio Group developed a substantial export business which accounted for 39% of its sales by 1996. Its main products including margarine, pasta and other food products were manufactured, sold locally and exported. In 1995, a blockbuster product Benecol, cholesterol-lowering margarine, attracted the interest of food processors and supermarket groups throughout the world and fueled a surge of investor interest. Stanol ester is the active ingredient that provides the lower cholesterol benefit. There was huge marketing potential and profit opportunity for Raisio. However, its limited production capacity, limited supply of stanol ester, few facilities, limited experience outside Finland, different product formulation requirements, different marketing channels and complicated regulations in different countries challenged its further strategy. 2. Analysis and assessment of strategy to date for commercializing the innovations A largely self-sufficient strategy/a strategy of vertical integration: Raisio had fabricated stanol ester itself in its own plant using its own technology. Its stanol ester was used only in its own branded margarine, Benecol, which was produced in its own factories and marketed and distributed through its own sales and distribution system. This strategy enabled Raisio to have control over the technology, reduce transactions costs of market contracts and maintain superior coordination through the value chain, but it failed in meeting market demand home and broad due to limited production capacity and limited supply of raw material. Besides the demand, it would take a long time for Benecol to fully market in other countries. That would be risky, as it only had 18- to 24-month lead time over its competitors. It’s impossible to open all markets by acquisition which entails high cost and various management issue. Therefore, the strategy won’t allow Raisio to realize the international launch of Benecol during the lead time, or help it meet the worldwide demand. 3. Assessment of Raisio’s competitive position in January 1997 Supplier power: high. The raw material for producing stanol ester was limited, many companies similar to its current supplier hadn’t had the system in place to collect the plan sterols.  Buyer power: low. Because of the new technology’s significant effect on reducing cholesterol, Benecol margarine was priced about six times the price of regular margarine, even so the demand was still very high. Threat of entry: low within 18- to 24-month. The patent bought them that much lead time over its competitors. Substitutes: high. A number of competing products were available for reducing cholesterol such as naturally available plant sterols. The possibility of using plant sterols as a food additive increased the risk of being substituted. A growing array of cholesterol-reducing drugs was available on the market. There are also a number of natural food products that have the effect of reducing cholesterol within the blood, including fish oil, garlic, flax seed, dietary fiber, policosanol, and guggulipid. Industry rivalry: temporarily low. It maintained leading position for Benecol because of the innovation. But the product was single, not diversified. The profit margin was very low, only 4.1%.  In short, Raisio had a favorable competitive advantage over its competitors, but would only within the lead time if it couldn’t figure out a suitable strategy and feasible plan. 4. The alternative strategies available to Raisio in 1997 (1) To establish partnership with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to utilize its extensive experience worldwide. According to the case, it would be exclusive partnership. Considering J&J’s experience which was exactly Raisio needs, the partnership was feasible for its international launch of Benecol. (2) To focus on its key ingredient, stanol ester and exploit its innovation more widely so as to produce and supply to a number of suppliers and food processors. As the key competence of Benecol margarine was the key ingredient, the innovation would diversify the usage of stanol ester in more kinds of drinks  and food so as to increase Raisio’s competence. However, I won’t suggest Raision to provide the ingredient to more suppliers and food processor, as it would weaken Benecol products’ uniqueness. (3) To keep its production of stanol ester in-house or license this technology. As mentioned above, this technology was the key to its success. I wouldn’t recommend license it out. 5. Summary/Proposed Strategy Based on the analysis and assessment, firstly I would recommend Benecol product be diversified and defined as functional food. The diversification and raw material shortage would require more R&D. This not only reflected Raisio’s technical ingenuity, but also was key to its success. In 1996, R&D only accounted for 2.2% of its revenue. Through R&D, Raisio would probably find more ways to produce stanol ester. It would also be beneficial if Raisio started nourish more suppliers of plant stenols to increase its bargaining power as well as get stable supply of the raw material. Secondly, I would suggest Raisio establish exclusive partnership with J&J to produce, market and distribute diversified products with the new innovation in other markets other than Finland, the nearby markets and the markets which already had joint ventures. Two important provision should include (1) all products should be under the brand of Benecol to ensure the increase of the brand value. Once Raisio wants to buy it back, the established brand would be value-added for Raisio, like what many international companies have done to enter a new market with complicated regulations and laws, different marketing channels and culture, etc.; (2) J&J involves Rasio in the value chain of the brand to enable Raisio gain experience/learning opportunity from J&J. The strategy would solve the problems of production capacity, lack of marketing and distribution experience in many countries, and would help avoid complicated regulatory issues. (3) Regarding different regulations and market conditions, the marketing plan should be promoted progressively. Marketing stage 1: The markets for the first stage should include the US and European Union which were the biggest potential markets for Benecol products and the regulation situation of the two markets were relatively clear and efficient. In US, it allowed the product to gain approval as a dietary supplement. It was the  simplest path which only took 60 days file notification with supporting evidence before commercial rollout. In European Union, it was possible to go through fast-track approval, as it had already been marketed in Finland. Marketing stage 2: J&J would probably start bring the products into the markets with huge potential simultaneously, as it would take a longer time to gain approval. Last but not least, based on the revenue breakdown in 1997, Raisio would allocate more recourses to the business unit of animal feeds, as the markets for animal feeds would be promising. For chemicals, though it represented 34% of its total sales, I would suggest Raisio take it as byproduct of its R&D. No detailed recommendation for those two units would be made due to limited information.

Cell Phones Essay Example for Free (#2)

Cell Phones Essay Cell phones are the way of life today. In the US, little kids are carrying around the newest iPhone versions. Closing the digital divide requires studying and learning about the country’s needs and capabilities of upgrading to the digital world. There are countries that are financially unable to afford a cell phone, but it should be the cell phone companies that should be able to work around various prices for cell phones. For example, in the U.S. the iPhone is taking over and consumers require the latest technologies. As the phones get older, companies should send those phones to less developed countries in an effort to grow the digital market and close the digital divide. As the article mentions, India leads the way with 756 million subscribers, while being a developing country. All it takes is an introduction to the country and cell phones begin to spread like wildfire. They market themselves once introduced in a country at a reasonable price. If the price is too much for a single family to afford, the family can set goals to attain a cell phone in the future. Either way, cell phones sell themselves. â€Å"To get a sense of how rapidly cell phones are penetrating the global marketplace, you need only to look at the sales figures. According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000† (Corbett, 2008). In 2008, these statistics show that cell phone market was on a rise. Since iPhone’s introduction in 2007, the cell phone market has grown even more substantially, especially in the U.S. I can speak for the ever-increasing mobile service in India as even rickshaw drivers who make about 50 rupees (about $1.25) in two hours are carrying a cell phone. Companies such as Obopay and Moka are transforming the service provider payment plan to pay as to go in various countries. â€Å"Obopay, for instance, is enabling third-world countries including India to receive and send payments via text message, while Moka provides language translations, such as English to Chinese† . This is a way to close the divide. If a family cannot afford to pay a consistent wage every month for a cell phone, companies such as Obopay are able to provide the pay as you go plan. Families and individuals in India pay as they go, they utilize their cell phones, as they need to, according to how much they are able to afford. Through these payment plans, cell phone companies can sell their phones to a mass audience in large countries like India and China. One company that has millions of customers in third world countries is Nokia. â€Å"There are entire chunks of the planet where Nokia has a virtual monopoly because no other manufacturer even wants to compete† . With the iPhone and Android dominating the U.S. market, Nokia has found its niche in third-world countries. The countries where consumers cannot yet afford the newest iPhone are turning to Nokia. They have positioned themselves as #1 ahead of Samsung, Apple, Motorola and anyone else. This is because they saw a market opportunity and are utilizing the need for cell phones around the world. The U.S. may be looking for new technology, but to the third world countries, simple Nokia phones are new technology. Corbett, S. (2008, April 13). Can the Cell Phone Help End Global Poverty. Retrieved April 18, 2012, from NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13anthropology-t.html?pagewanted=all Openshaw, J. (2009, May 24). Mobile Phones: Key To Developing Nations. Retrieved April 18, 2012, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/mobile-phones-key-to-deve_n_190809.html Raby, M. (2012, January 30). Nokia still top mobile phone maker. Retrieved April 18, 2012, from TG Daily: http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-brief/61102-nokia-still-top-mobile-phone-maker Cell Phones. (2017, Jan 19).

James Baldwin Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

James Baldwin - Research Paper Example His narratives and productions novelize essential subjective queries and quandaries amidst multifaceted societal and psychosomatic burdens discomforting the reasonable incorporation of not only blacks however also of male homosexuals, portraying as well some adopted disablements to such personages' expedition for recognition and rightly approval, specifically in his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956), printed well in advance the equivalence of homosexuals stood extensively promoted in America. Baldwin's superlatively recognized novel is his first, Go Tell It on the Mountain. In 1953, Baldwin's principal novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman, was printed. Baldwin's principal assortment of dissertations, Notes of a Native Son give the impression two years later. Baldwin persisted to investigate with fictional procedures during the course of his career, disseminating poems and theatres as well as the literary and fiction essays for which he was known . Baldwin's subsequent novel, Giovanni's Room, stimulated a polemic disagreement when it was first issued in 1956 outstanding to its unambiguous homoerotic material. Baldwin remained once more repelling brands with the publication of this book: regardless of the interpretation of society's potentials that he would print workings allocating with the African American knowledge, Giovanni's Room is entirely about white characters. Baldwin's succeeding two narratives, Another Country and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, are extensive, investigational works distributed with black and white characters and with heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual typescripts. These novels brawl to enclose the commotion of the 1960s: they stand inundated with a sagacity of ferocious turbulence and atrocity. Baldwin's prolonged paper down at the Cross (habitually called The Fire Next Time subsequently the name of the book in which it was printed) correspondingly presented the bubbling disgruntlement of the 1960s in an innovative method. The thesis was at first printed in two large productions of The New Yorker and affluence Baldwin on the cover of Time magazine in 1963 whereas Baldwin was remaining in the South, speaking nearby for the disconcerted Civil Rights crusade. The dissertation communicated about the uncomfortable rapport amongst Christianity and the mushrooming Black Muslim program. Baldwin's next book-length essay, No Name in the Street, also debated his individual understanding in the setting of the late 1960s, precisely the killings of three of his own friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin's literatures of the 1970s and 1980s obligated to remained principally unnoticed by faultfinders, however even these transcripts are beginning to receive attention., Eldridge Cleaver's malicious homophobic outbreak proceeding Baldwin in Soul on Ice, and Baldwin's reoccurrence to southern France subsidized to the intelligence that he was not in sou pcon with his audience. Continually accurate to his personal persuasions somewhat than to the sensitivities of others, Baldwin sustained to inscribe what he sought to write.

Project Management Methodology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Project Management Methodology - Essay Example This is captured significantly in Project Methodology Framework. For this reason, process groups and knowledge areas are essential. This paper seeks to address why project management methodology is a practical way of implementing organizational change. It exposes the reason why organizational change in itself is a project. A part from dealing with the nine project knowledge areas it illuminates the role of process groups in project implementation processes. It also seeks to relate the Project Implementation Methodology to Kotter’s eight-steps in leading change. Project Management Methodology Framework in Implementing Organizational Change Why Organizational Change is viewed as a project Evidently, Project Management Methodology is relevant in implementing organizational change. Organizational change should be viewed as a project and therefore applying project management methodology would be appropriate. The reasons why organizational change qualifies as a project are many. On the whole, often times, the design of the organization doubles up as one of a project’s particular goal. For instance, there may be a need for reducing the number of employees needed, or introduction of new technology or part of a business change procedure. Specifically, numerous issues that relate to the organizational change management are supposed to be dealt with when a project is starting (Richman 2006). This ensures that needed activities become part of plan to pave way for assigning roles and responsibilities. Further, this may mean that issues such as sponsors change and their effectiveness, participatory methods, and change of communication in view of the targets are examined. When changing work culture, project management framework helps to break down the project into logical and more manageable steps. Organizational culture consists of the beliefs, values, and norms that are shared by people within an organization. The process of changing culture can be a costly an d time consuming project that involves implementing many of the processes, groups and bodies of knowledge that project management methodology consist of. Richman (2006) reckons this when he asserts that organizational policies may require change in its formal and informal culture that affects a project. According to him, this could be in quality management which would involve continued project improvement and auditing, or changing employee’s performance evaluation frameworks and dismissal guides. It could also involve streamlining of work reporting time and contract provisions (Richman, 2006) Process Groups and Knowledge Areas in Relation To Kotter’s Leading Change Model Because of the reasons aforementioned, project management methodology is a good tool for implementing an organizational change because it is proven to be a structured and a logical methodology for managing projects. In a way it maps well with John Kotter’s model of Leading Change. Kotter’ s model of eight-stage process, offers a more practical strategy to leading the implementation process of, and not merely managing change. Richman (2006) notes that, essentially, a successful project originates from an effectively planned and executed project management methodology which is ‘‘a system of interrelated phases, procedures, activities and tasks that define the project

The performance of Saudi Aramco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The performance of Saudi Aramco - Essay Example Analysis of Saudi Aramco Against Major Performance Structures Abdullah Adnan Algamdi, 220078861 MM324, Organisational Leadership and Performance Length: 2,563 Dr. ... The research therefore employs the model prescribed by Hillgren & Morse to analyse the internal systems and structures of Saudi Aramco that enables the company to maintain its current capacity of producing 12 million barrels of petroleum (Saudi Aramco Annual Report, 2010 p6) each day and also refine, transport and market a similar volume of oil each day. The paper draws on information from the Saudi Aramco website accessed on the date of completing the paper. The main source of information for the analysis was taken from the Saudi Aramco Annual Report of 2010 which is available on the Saudi Aramco website. Research Question: What elements of high performance as prescribed by Hillgren & Morse are employed by Saudi Aramco to maintained sustained high performance in their operations and strategy? 2- Hillgren & Morse Model Hillgren & Morse (1998 p2) identify that there are some common elements of high performance businesses. In other words, they appear to have identified some common stru ctures and systems that exist universally in consistently high performing businesses. These structures, according to them are responsible for the generation of high results and the sustained generation of high performance year after year. In defining high performance, the areas of high performance they identified were â€Å"financial results, employee morale and customer care & satisfaction† (Hillgren & Morse, 1998: 2). This shows that in order to attain positive financial results and other stakeholder needs, particularly the needs of employees and customers, the structures they identified in their studies will have to be employed to ensure that optimum results are attained and maintained

Please See Order Instructions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Please See Order Instructions - Research Paper Example The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of the company. It is important to consider the changes that have occurred over the years so the paper also discusses the basic changes that have occurred throughout the previous years. Of course, it is equally pertinent to consider the situation in the market place because the market determines our progress. Therefore, the paper also deals with the significance of the market in relation to the company. The falling status of the company is a well known fact by now. To some extent the company’s inefficiency is itself responsible for this current state of the company. However, this paper also reiterates how the exogenous factors, not directly under the control of the company; have led the company to its present state. The latter part of the essay deals with a personal assessment of how critical the situation is for the company. Also, the measures that are deemed necessary at this point in time are highlighted so that the important propositions could be understood. Overall, the paper will help get an idea of the current situation and would inform about the steps that need to be taken to save the company from bankruptcy. Before moving onto the discussion of why the current situation has arisen, a brief overview of the history of the company in the last few years is necessary.

Leda and the Swan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leda and the Swan - Essay Example The basic story of the events as per Greek mythology describes the events which led to the conception of Helen and other children, the event mentioned in the story are violent perhaps because beauty is often born from past violence. Leda was married to the king of Sparta i.e. Tyndareus and Zeus took the form of a giant swan to mate with Leda on the same night as she had sex with her husband (Beyst, 2002). Intertextual analysis can show us quite clearly that the artists who covered this particular theme gave their own focus to the images regardless of the media being sculpture, painting or as per Yeats, poetry. Essentially, the poem and other artistic mediums which are based on this motif are presenting a loving couple which is entwined with each other. Sensibilities in art often prevent a complete visual description of a sexual act therefore there are certain aspects which are not shown. For example, Michelangelo’s Leda has her privates covered with the tail feathers of the swan while da Vinci’s Leda seems to be more or less hugging a giant swan rather than engaging in any sexual act (Beyst, 2002). On the other hand, the images presented by Yeats quite clearly describe the sexual act and if a person who is familiar with the background story reads this poem, s/he can clearly know where the point of climax comes within the poem along with the orgasm of the characters. In fact, Yeats words have a certain power which can not be felt in paintings because of a difference in medium. For example, it is rather difficult to empathise with Leda if one simply views the painting but upon reading the poem a person can place themselves in Leda’s position and experience what she felt (Beyst, 2002).

Context of Workplace Education and Training Essay 2 (3000words)

Context of Workplace Education and Training 2 (3000words) - Essay Example rced to restructure, augment and reshape their economic and labor strategies as investors turned more and more to underdeveloped countries to bring their capital where labor is less costly. The Australian government was compelled to grapple with these new realities as unemployment rate rose from 1.6% in 1970 and peaked at 10.1% in 1992. The workforce had to be retrained to be more competitive. It was in this context that Australia adopted and implemented the Vocational Training and Education system. VET is a system of education incorporated into school curricula and workplace trainings that aims at preparing the student or the worker with the necessary competency that will hone them into competent members of the workforce able to compete in the global arena. The Australian VET is characterized by its nationally unified system, Competency-Based Training (CBT) and Work-Based Learning (WBL). Globalization, the VET and other related concerns have impacted even on established Australian i ndustries like Travelex. Travelex is one of the world’s biggest foreign exchange companies. It was founded by Lloyd Dorfman of London in1976 which initially made a breakthrough into the airport scene in 1986 in Heathrow Airport, an arena used to be monopolized by clearing banks. In 1989, it set up foreign exchange units in Australian airports under permission from the Ansett Airlines, operator of the Australian airport terminal. Today, the company operates in 93 airports around the world, has presence in about 30 countries in the world and employs about 6000 people. Australia is its third biggest market (History of Travelex). The Travelex business has three divisions. The Global Business Payments division accepts commercial and personal clients’ requests to service payments in almost all parts of the globe in their preferred currencies. The Retail Division, the largest in the world, which has 700 branches all over the world, sells banknotes and foreign exchange in most currencies

States with Stricter gun laws don't have a dramatic difference in gun Term Paper

States with Stricter gun laws don't have a dramatic difference in gun violence crimes compared to States with less laws - Term Paper Example Statistics have it that in the year 2010, the murdering of more than 358 people were carried out using rifles. A total of 6,009 people were killed by the use of handguns and others 1939 people were murdered by firearm. It is rather absurd to note that states with the highest increased gun ownership have the largest rates of violent crimes. More than thirty one states have implemented such laws commonly referred to as â€Å"shall issue laws†. These laws permit the adults to handle concealed handguns on condition that they do not have a criminal record or a bad history of vital mental illness (Stephen, 2000). This goes beyond odds to disapprove common sense that implies when most people carry guns the crimes involving guns will be greatly reduced. This can be looked at from the perspective that criminals are given huge penalties because a higher arrest and conviction of criminals reduces the rate of crime. This has been considered to imply that someone committing a crime will se ek the help of another person who is in a position to help him or her. Surprisingly there is a high negative relationship between the number of law –abiding citizens who have permits and the number of crimes committed (Stephen, 2000). These occurrences are taken to imply that as more people get gun permits, the rate of crimes related to guns reduces greatly. It has also been observed that murder rates keep on reducing by 3 per cent , rape cases by 2 per cent and robberies by above 2 per cent for every year that handgun law has been in place (Dowlut, 2002). Violent crimes are believed to have reduced by concealed handgun mainly because they lower the occurrence of attempted crimes now that criminals are not sure which possible victims can safeguard them and also victims who poses guns can easily secure themselves at most times. Stricter laws are seen in Connecticut in terms of gun ownership than most states (Dowlut, 2002). Contrary Opinion Some recent studies by a pro-gun cont rol the San Francisco organization gives an opposite view with regards to the gun laws and the rates of crimes related to guns. The study has it that the firm restrictive laws as witnessed in California and Connecticut experience lower rates of gun-related killings while states with less restrictions on firearms have an increased rate. California was regarded as having the firmest laws on gun controls in the entire nation as per the Law Centre to Prevent Gun Violence which is behind the firearms regulation promotion. Connecticut comes fourth when it comes to states with the strongest gun laws and the impact was seen when it recorded the sixth -lowest gun deaths. States with less strict laws like Alaska, Louisiana and Montana recorded the highest number of deaths resulting from gunfire doubling the number witnessed in California. The federal Centres for Disease Control report had it that California experienced 7.88 gun deaths for every 100,000 residents in comparison with the 20.28 r ate in Alaska (Burton, 2010). Another research conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham on states in need

Presentation Ansognosia Essay Example for Free

Presentation Ansognosia Essay Slide 1 (Wait for the cartoon character to appear) Slide 2 My job   is to speak on the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation   and the pognosis of Anosognosia. Questionnaires and diagnostic methods insuffiecient Slide 3   Let us talk about the assessment of insight and awareness. Slide 4   Assessment is a problem as results depend on what the patients says. There is no yardstick by which the doctor can assess. Slide 5 I have displayed a few assessment techniques that are practised even though the system may not lead to perfect conclusions. Self   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The patient himself can give you certain details voluntarily. You may have to select the information that is relevant to diagnosis of anosognosia or neglect. The primary condition that accompanies the anosgnosia must be assessed too. i.e.   hemiplegia, hemiparesis, schizophrenia , Alzheimer’sDisease etc. By the time the patient comes to you, there is a chance that some other doctors may have seen and diagnosed the condition. You may have to just confirm. Slide 6   Interview   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   You may have to ask leading questions.    Slide 7   The assesment has to cover various aspects of assessing awareness Slide 8 Screening question asking the patient to elaborate his difficulties. Follow-up questions may also be necessary to elicit more inormation Slide 9 Further questions that would give a picture of the emergent awareness. Slide 10 These question give informtion on the anticipatory awareness. Slide 11 This question will further tell you whether the patient has accepted his problem and is willing to be compliant to treatment. Slide 12 The patient’s frame of mind and his future cooperation may be asessed. His willingness to accept treatment and his plans to have his condition improved will further inform you about possible treatment strategies. You may plan accordingly allowing some space for his plans. Slide 13 He will be telling you what he does presently to get over his difficulty and whose help he gets . Has he adopted a new hobby that helps him? These should give an insight into his capacity and aim of reaching success in overcoming anosgnosia . Slide 14 He will give information as to the effectiveness of his techique and whether he appears to have responded. Slide 15 The scroes obtained from the questions qould help to identify the extent of the anosognisia or impairment of awareness in the patient. A high score would be 0. 10 would be the low score Slide 16 We still have to elicit more information about his primary condition. Information about previous treatment should be elicited. Slide 17   Do cognitive problems disturb his progress? How   his friends see the problem according to him is also important. Slide 18 I   shall now speak on rehabilitation. Many studies have been done on this subject. Slide 19 Orfei et al described a hemiplegic patient as one who will not report a deficit, may overestimate their abilities and may deny that they are unable to move a paretic limb. He said that the hemiplegic patient is unable to detect or report his unawareness. Slide 20 He suggested that there is a need for multidimensional assessment and some directions for furture research. Slide 21 Feinberg et al studied 2 groups of patients , one with anosognosia and the other without. The relationship between hemiplegia and visuoverbal confabulation was assessed. Slide 22 His conclusion states that verbal confabulation is an important determinant in anosgnosia. Slide 23 Another study of his confirms a strong relationship between anosognosia for hemiplegia and confabulations the movement og the plegic limb. Slide 24 What exactly are we trying to rehabilitate? We would be working on the anticipatory awareness, emergent awareness and intellectual awareness. Intellectual awareness would include the awareness and the understanding of the problem. Slide 25 Approaches to rehabilitation (Read the slide) Slide 26 Approaches to rehabiltitation explained with model We increase anticipatory awarenes by strategy identification, practice,monitoring and feedback. For emergent awareness we do monitoring of self and staff , get feedback and then work on attention strategy To initiate intellectual awareness, we resort to education, feedback from self ans staff monitoring and video clipping of the patient’ responses. Slide 27   Our education process can involve all or some of the approaches mentioned here. (read the slide.) Slide 28 About the prognosis. Anosognosia does affect rehaibilitation or plays a role in it Slide 29 Gialanella et al’ article â€Å"The Rehabilitative Role of Anosognosia†Ã‚   speaks about his study. He concluded that the presence of anosognosia worsens the rehabilitation prognosis in hemiplegic subjects who also have neglect. Slide 30 Appelros’ study showed that both neglect and anosognosia influenced disability and prognosis Slide 31   Hartman-Maier in a study found that anosognosia for hemiplegia has a high risk for negative functional outcome in stroke rehabilitation. appelro et al found that both neglect and anosognosia affect rehabilitation. Slide 32 Slide 33 (Read the conclusions) Slide 34 Signing off.

Butler Lumber Company Essay Example for Free

Butler Lumber Company Essay I. Statement of Financial Problem Butler Lumber Company is facing the internal risk of not having enough borrowing power to continue operations as desired. The owner of the company has established a relationship with a new bank to increase their borrowing power, however, based on Butler Lumber Company’s past Operating Statement and Balance Sheet, the company is expecting to continue substantial growth without considering external risks that may affect their business. Currently the company requires debt to maintain daily operations and growth. II. General Framework for Financial Analysis A company should maintain higher liquidity ratios that will sustain operating activities and desired growth, as well as allow the company to pay any short-term debt obligations. One way to maintain higher liquidity ratios is to collect on receivables timely, and use cash obtained to take advantage of discounts offered on inventory purchases. Additionally, a company’s inventory should turn several times per year. As sales are forecasted a company should increase their inventory to accommodate forecasted sales on a monthly basis, but keep as little as possible on hand. Ideally, inventory would turn 10-12 times per year. III. Application of the Financial Framework Butler Lumber Company has experienced significant growth over the last few years. Their pricing has remained competitive compared to similarly available product. The company expects to continue growing at this level and to do so, requires the availability of credit from their bank to maintain current and increased inventory levels and to cover operating expenses. Butler Lumber Company maintains a high level of inventory. Essentially, the company is leveraging their credit and using that to maintain their high inventory levels. As the company grows, their inventory purchases should be  based on their forecasted monthly sales. In 1990 their inventory was turning 4.67 times per year, or every 2.5 months. While continued growth may make this feel necessary, the company has failed to consider external risk factors that could affect their business drastically. While they’re sales are driven by not only new home construction, but home repairs as well, in the event of an economic crisis home repairs would likely decrease. As a result, Butler Lumber Company would have a substantial amount of wasted inventory on hand. Butler Lumber Company’s sales have increased, however so have their receivables. With receivables sitting uncollected for 42 days, the company is unable to use that cash to pay their outstanding payables with discounts or cover their operating costs without incurring debt. Finally, the company’s liquidity ratios support their need for better cash management. Their current ratio suggest the company is solvent and would be able to cover their short-term liabilities if needed. However, the quick ratio for the company is very low year after year. Their cash on hand would not cover their short-term liabilities. IV. Assumptions and Special/Mitigating Circumstances No assumptions were made in this analysis. The company’s financial statements clearly state their condition. Recommendations are based on that information. V. Conclusions and Recommendations Butler Lumber Company should monitor their inventory levels closely and maintain only the inventory required to get them through 1 to 1.5 months of sales. They should also employ an aggressive collections team to assist with collecting within the terms of payment outlined in customer agreements.

Extraction of GAPDH Gene from Grass Species

Extraction of GAPDH Gene from Grass Species The extraction of the GAPDH gene from grass species, for sequencing, to determine which grasses will be most suitable for the stimulation of hydrocarbon-degradation Introduction: Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate gehydrogenase gene (GAPDH) is a house keeping gene for a crucial enzyme which catalyses an important step in glycolysis, found in all phylogeny. This gene can be extracted and isolated from plant gDNA through the use of PCR. Once cloned, the GAPDH gene will be sequenced and ultimately analysed through bioinformatics for further research. The grasses that will be investigated throughout this experiment are as follows. Cymbopogon Ambiguous, also commonly known as lemon scented grass, mainly grows in NSW, QLD, NT and WA. This grass is a tufted perennial, which has thin dark green coloured leaves, growing 60-100cm tall approximately. As the common name for this grass states, when this grass is crushed it gives off a distinct lemon smell, allowing it to be easily identified. This grass is also quite a hardy grass, it is very tolerant to wind, drought and frost conditions, allowing it to be grown in a variety of different areas. Themeda Triandra, known as Kangaroo Grass is native to Australia, found to be growing in every state and territory (Unkown, n.d. Native Seeds). This grass is a tufted perennial, growing up to 1.5 m tall and 0.5 m wide. This particular grass is quite coarse, with a grey/green leaves, which produce a very distinct red/brown spikelets (Jennifer Liles, 2004) with the head containing the seeds. Themeda Triandra is considered a good grass for occasional grazing; however it does not tolerate heavy or continuous grazing. Meaning it can be a good indicator for the level of animal activity in a certain grassland area, as if grazed too frequently, the grass has been known to disappear, and not re-grow. Dicantheum Carrisium, known as Queensland Blue Grass is a native Australian Grass, grown not only in Queensland, but all parts of Australia. This Grass was originally very popular in Southern Queensland, due to its optimum performance in the weather conditions of the area. Dicantheum Carrisium is a perennial, with an upright tufted appearance. Growing from 30-80cm tall, and 10-15cm wide with flat broad leaves, It is quite a soft texture with typically blue/dark green colour, making it quite distinguishable from many other grasses. Microlaena Stipoides, known as Weeping Grass, is native to Australia and is found in many of the damper regions from Cape York Town to Tasmania (Unknown, n.d. Native Seeds). Microlaena Stopoides is a slowly spreading perennial, growing to approximately 70cm tall, with weeping seed heads. This is a very tough and tolerant grass, suited to many different pH soil levels

Power in Construction of Law Essay -- Politics Political Science

How does power contribute to the construction of law, both on the books and in action? Power, the ability to influence others and the course of events, affects laws and shapes cultural beliefs in society. In our society, power is said to be equally distributed throughout the people, and there is a democratic belief that collective action is able to create change. However, collective power is heavily influenced by the wealthy. Those with power have the resources to influence the creation and termination of law, both on the books and in action. Power, ultimately controlled by the wealthy and elite, shapes the construction of laws to benefit them and their values, in order to maintain the dichotomy between themselves and the less powerful. While some of the more obvious, tangible foundations of power include money, capital and property, Galanter discusses additional aspects of power in its definition and its benefits. Galanter explains the differences between the â€Å"haves†, or the repeat players, and the â€Å"have-nots†, or the one-shotters. In this analogy, the former is equivalent to the powerful, and the latter to the powerless. The repeat players, according to Galanter, have the advantage because they know the rules, have previous experience, have both legal and financial resources, and have much less to lose than the one-shotters. All of these assets together demonstrate the â€Å"superior opportunities† (Galanter 82) of the powerful repeat players over the powerless. Galanter explains, â€Å"To the extent that rules are evenhanded or favor the ‘have-nots’, the limited resources for their implementation will be allocated, I have argued, so as to give greater effect to those rules which protect and promote the tangible inte... ...John J. Bonsignore, Ethan Katsh, D'errico Peter, Ronald M. Pipkin, Stephen Arons, and Janet Rifkin. Ed. Katherine Meisenheimer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 81-89. Hilbink, Thomas. â€Å"Who makes the law? The people? Which people?† Legal Studies 250: Introduction to Legal Studies. Herter Hall, Amherst. 6 Feb. 2007. Hilbink, Thomas. â€Å"Who makes the law? To what extent is law shaped by those in power?† Legal Studies 250: Introduction to Legal Studies. Herter Hall, Amherst. 8 Feb. 2007. MacKinnon, Catherine. â€Å"A Rally against Rape.† Introduction to Legal Studies. Ed. Thomas Hilbink. 2007. 81-84. "Proposition 215: the Compassionate Use Act of 1996." Before the Law. Comp. John J. Bonsignore, Ethan Katsh, D'errico Peter, Ronald M. Pipkin, Stephen Arons, and Janet Rifkin. Ed. Katherine Meisenheimer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 172-173. Power in Construction of Law Essay -- Politics Political Science How does power contribute to the construction of law, both on the books and in action? Power, the ability to influence others and the course of events, affects laws and shapes cultural beliefs in society. In our society, power is said to be equally distributed throughout the people, and there is a democratic belief that collective action is able to create change. However, collective power is heavily influenced by the wealthy. Those with power have the resources to influence the creation and termination of law, both on the books and in action. Power, ultimately controlled by the wealthy and elite, shapes the construction of laws to benefit them and their values, in order to maintain the dichotomy between themselves and the less powerful. While some of the more obvious, tangible foundations of power include money, capital and property, Galanter discusses additional aspects of power in its definition and its benefits. Galanter explains the differences between the â€Å"haves†, or the repeat players, and the â€Å"have-nots†, or the one-shotters. In this analogy, the former is equivalent to the powerful, and the latter to the powerless. The repeat players, according to Galanter, have the advantage because they know the rules, have previous experience, have both legal and financial resources, and have much less to lose than the one-shotters. All of these assets together demonstrate the â€Å"superior opportunities† (Galanter 82) of the powerful repeat players over the powerless. Galanter explains, â€Å"To the extent that rules are evenhanded or favor the ‘have-nots’, the limited resources for their implementation will be allocated, I have argued, so as to give greater effect to those rules which protect and promote the tangible inte... ...John J. Bonsignore, Ethan Katsh, D'errico Peter, Ronald M. Pipkin, Stephen Arons, and Janet Rifkin. Ed. Katherine Meisenheimer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 81-89. Hilbink, Thomas. â€Å"Who makes the law? The people? Which people?† Legal Studies 250: Introduction to Legal Studies. Herter Hall, Amherst. 6 Feb. 2007. Hilbink, Thomas. â€Å"Who makes the law? To what extent is law shaped by those in power?† Legal Studies 250: Introduction to Legal Studies. Herter Hall, Amherst. 8 Feb. 2007. MacKinnon, Catherine. â€Å"A Rally against Rape.† Introduction to Legal Studies. Ed. Thomas Hilbink. 2007. 81-84. "Proposition 215: the Compassionate Use Act of 1996." Before the Law. Comp. John J. Bonsignore, Ethan Katsh, D'errico Peter, Ronald M. Pipkin, Stephen Arons, and Janet Rifkin. Ed. Katherine Meisenheimer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 172-173.

Me and the Moon :: Something Corporate Me and the Moon Essays

Me and the Moon Music has always been a crucial part of the way society views the world. Some songs have hidden messages that can change’s one’s life and opinions. Today many songs become popular without having meaning. Something Corporate is a fairly new band, which sings, â€Å"Konstanine†, â€Å"You’re gone†, â€Å"Only Ashes†, and â€Å"Me and the Moon†. Being a new band in the music scene, they have caught many listeners attention through their lyrics. One of their more interesting songs is, â€Å"Me and the moon†. Something Corporate’s song â€Å"Me and the Moon† succeeds because it makes you think about relationships through subliminal messages. Obviously, the author of the song â€Å"Me and the Moon† is the new and up coming band Something Corporate. This song brings in an audience of women who have difficult relationships with their significant other. Many of their songs tell their listeners real life experiences. â€Å"Me and the moon† appeals to people in relationships because it describes someone in a relationship that is suffering. Being alternative music, it appeals to people who are interested in rock music or like different kinds of music rather than the popular music. Most songs use pathos because of their emotional lyrics. We realize that this song is pathos because of the extremely personal experience represented in this song. Throughout the song, he uses emotional lyrics that touch your heart. Many people in unhealthy relationships can identify with this song In the beginning verse of the song, the first line â€Å"It’s a good year for murder. She’s praying to Jesus. She’s pulling the trigger. There’s no tears, cause he’s not here. She washes her hands, and she fixes dinner, but soon they’ll be coming to rush her away. No one’s so sure if her crime had a reason†. This lyric tells us that a woman is trying to kill her husband. We can infer this because they describe the presence of a gun and her committing a crime. We can tell that they are married because they state activities that would be associated with being a house wife. The murder would be considered a crime because no one knew the pain her husband caused her. She has no feelings because she does not cry after she murders her husband. After killing her husband she has no remorse because of the damaged he caused. In the next verse, Something Corporate tells us that â€Å"Reasons like seasons.

The Physics of Basketball Essays -- Physics Essays

The Physics of Basketball Introduction Any child can pick up a basketball, bounce it a few times, and throw it at the hoop without realizing the complex physics he is involving himself in. However, a greater understanding of the sport can be gained by applying the principles of physics to these actions. Through this paper I will be examining the physics of dribbling and shooting. For the equations, I will use a standard men’s basketball with a mass of 25 oz. (0.7 kg) and a diameter of 9.39†. Dribbling If the basketball was simply dropped from a height of 1 meter with no initial push from the dribbler and rebounded from the floor in a perfectly elastic collision, Mechanical Energy for the system would be conserved (1). However, the collision is not completely elastic and the dribbler pushes the ball with an initial force to ensure that it returns to his hand. To simplify the process I will first consider a situation in which the ball is allowed to fall freely from a height of 1 meter and has a perfectly elastic collision with the floor. After that I will take the true nature of the collision with the floor and the force applied by the dribbler into consideration. Because Mechanical Energy (ME) is equal to Kinetic Energy (KE) plus Gravitational Potential Energy (GPE) and Mechanical Energy is conserved, I know that the initial KE + GPE at 1 meter equals the KE + GPE just before it impacts the ground. If KE =  ½ mv2 and initial velocity is zero, then the initial Kinetic Energy is zero. GPE would equal mass X gravity X height. Assuming mass is 0.7 kg, gravity is 9.8 m/s2 , and the height is 1 meter, then GPE is equal to 7.0 kg * m2/s2. Conversely, the GPE would be zero just before impact because height is zero but KE wo... ...with no spin (1). Therefore, giving the ball backspin decreases the force necessary to propel a basketball a certain distance because it will not fall as quickly. Understanding the physics of shooting and dribbling a basketball may not increase the enjoyment of watching the NBA finals, but it may help improve a basketball player’s skill. If he can find the right force necessary to propel the ball back to his hand when dribbling and realizes the importance of giving the ball a chance to fall down into the rim, he will be better off for the next game. Works Cited 1.Kirkpatrick, L. D., & Wheeler, G. F. (2001). Physics: A World View. Orlando: Harcourt College Publishers. 2.How Things Work. Louis A. Bloomfield. Retrieved April 2003. http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/bouncing_ball.html 3. Spalding basketball - http://www.spalding.com/faq/basketball.html#Q7

Supplier Selection for the Contract of GH’S Hazardous Waste Disposal

As indicated in UoL, (2013) Assignment study case General Hospital (GH) forecasts producing an estimated average of a daily waste equal to 5 Kg per day and the GH operates 52 weeks/year, 7 days/week so the estimated waste per year 5*356 = 1780 Kg per Year.Due to poor forecasting process 7 data of GH as per their historical data, the forecasted accuracy is 80% per year, therefor suppliers must consider in his calculations the risk of having 20% increase in the wastes quantities 1780*20%= 365 Kg/Year = 1 Kg/Day as a result of that suppliers must include a prices List for Extra services in their offers. Three suppliers responded to bid to GH tender invitation and gave the best offers they have as per below schedule:Quality.In our study case the mentioned activities are simple and not complicated, so based on the above steps that I will be using to choose the best supplier and offer. And as per the above schedule GH procurement department of (GH) analysis and evaluation of two elements p rice and service, the analysis results for the main three suppliers A have got the best service, supplier B have the best price, and the supplier C is out of the competition because his offer is not clear about the price and limited delivery ability.Analysis of the Price:A and B suppliers gave a detailed price for their operation charge and their waste quantities pick-up capacity the primary evaluation result reflects that the supplier B has the lowest price = 1,157 and the supplier A price =1673. 2 a different of 516. 20 â‚ ¬ between both prices, supplier C could not have a final price for unclear information. Service analysis: As per the forecasted estimate of the waste generated daily by the GH is approximately 5 kg per day, suppliers A and B gave a proposal of container’s capacity 100 kg for A and 50 kg for B.  suppliers A and B also gave an On-Call option for the pick-up, replacement, and disposal operation. (UoL, 2013)Suppliers need to understand the requirement of GH and the amount of risk for keeping the waste inside the container and what is the suitable duration to keep the waste without disposal. A and B suppliers have given a competitive offers, supplier A shows the readiness to negotiate regarding his offer in order to reach to the best settlement. (UoL, 2013) Negotiation Process: GH will conduct a negotiation meeting with the Supplier A.According to Sollish et al. (2011, pp. 136-140) it is important to define the elements that you will negotiate about it before conducting the negotiation and establish suitable and collaborative environment for the client and the supplier. Some of the main elements that the GH procurement department need to discuss as follows The capacity of the container: According to the daily estimation of the waste 100 Kg is too much and GH need to convenes supplier A to reduce the cost of the pick-up operation charge by utilizing less capacity containers.Safety and Environment procedures need to be discussed and h ow and what is the best way to collect such type of waste with optimum quality performance without endangering the health of the people and the environment. Win-win is one of the main features of collaborative negotiation. The main target is to reason with supplier A and reduce the total cost of his offer. All the negotiation activities and results need to be documented in case needed in the future.In the end if the negotiation did not went well with supplier A one of the negotiation tactics that need to be ready even before starting the negotiation what called Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATANA) McGraw-Hill (2006, p. 21 stated that â€Å"Alternatives are also important because they give negotiators the power to walk away from any negotiation when the emerging deal is not very good† and also it is better to have your BATNA ready to compare it with the available proposal to â€Å"see whether it better satisfies your interests† .  (Fisher et al. 1999, p . 51)My best alternative is to give the contract to supplier B which has much better price and less capacity containers which will add value in the logistic operation and gives less time to keep the waste around the hospital for environmental issues, with the estimated 5 KG waste per day the container will be moved every 10 to 11 days.

Philosophy Essay

1. How do philosophical questions differ from scientific or factual questions? – Philosophy specializes in questions that cannot be answered scientifically, mainly because there are not elements of the question that can be measured or tested empirically. Philosophy questions things and the answers are sought to be more opinionated and based on certain points of view. Philosophy focuses on questions similar to â€Å"how does this work. † A philosophical question that is beneficial is anything that has to do with life, death, or the universe. Philosophical questions do not possess definite answers, and they do not require measurements. For instance, a question could read, â€Å"What makes a great dad? † One person may answer the question saying, qualities that make a great dad would include spending one on one time with the child, always attending school functions and events, and always making time for the children. While this answer could be true for that individual another individual could answer the question saying, a great dad is one who provides all necessities for the family through financial stability, and actions that prove he cares. Both of these answers can possess the capability of being correct because the question is based on personal opinions and there is no definite way to define this. The science approach attempts to answer all the questions that it can empirically, but this is sometimes not possible. The reason some of the times it is not possible is because the questions increase over time and with the advances in technology. As technology expands the more questions that it rises to science and the more questions that are left without a scientific answer. The specific feature of science is to measure and weigh everything. Factual is evidence in themselves and are therefore established. Philosophy and science have much in common. Many of the greatest philosophers were also scientists, or possessed the quality to be categorized as one in his or her time period. Philosophers approach questions similarly to the way scientists do with his or her critical thinking. Scientists formulate theories and then test them against what they can observe or reason. Scientific questions implies that an individual is inquiring about the world around him or her and expecting precise answers. A scientific question possesses an independent variable and a dependent variable in it. A factual question is a question about a fact, â€Å"where did this event happen? † is factual because it is asking for facts. But a scientific or factual question are ones that possess the ability to be answered through verification which will produce some types of definite answers that are measurable and concrete proof. An example of this type of question would include, â€Å"how tall is sally? † The answer that an individual comes up with will be accurate because he or she takes the scientific measurements to answer the question to eliminate speculations. However, speculations could occur while answering how tall Sally is because one could say well is that Sally’s accurate height, because when an individual first awakens they are taller than they are in the evening. When an individual first awaken his or her body has had time to relax and stretch out for the evening sleep, and if measurements were taken during the day or at night the body has not maintained the ability to stretch out causing the individual to be shorter. Personally the way around this would be to measure Sally three times once in the morning, the middle of the afternoon, and finally in the evening. 2. How did the approaches to philosophical inquiry progress from the Pre-Socratics to Socrates, Plato, and finally to Aristotle? How do these changing approaches reflect cultural influences that affected the philosophers of ancient Greece? – The philosophical inquiry process during the pre-Socrates era was based mainly on metaphysics which asks what the nature of being is. The Socrates era began to question viewpoints that began asking and answering questions to stimulate an individuals’ critical thinking and in turn illuminating ideas, this began to form a debate and inquiry between individuals’ opposing this view. The dialectical method is a process that the Socrates began and involves oppositional discussions. This method involves oppositional discussions that defend one point of view against another point of view. One individual may lead others to contract his or her point of view in turn strengthening the inquirer’s view point. Plato began to challenge the paradox dialectical method of education upon examining it, â€Å"if one knows nothing, then how will one come to recognize knowledge when he or she encounters it? † The Socrates of Plato came to a different conclusion. The Socrates began to use a slave boy and demonstrate through geometry lessons that every individual acquires even the smallest amount of knowledge, and the knowledge serves as a window into the individual’s eternal and omniscient soul. By communicating with the slave the teacher could contest the student’s false opinions until he came to a true opinion that withstood severities of critical examination. Although the individual’s soul is the warehouse of the knowledge each individual must learn how to access the knowledge and recall it. Plato began to dwindle from the Sophists by Plato distanced himself further from Sophists by separating knowledge from opinions. The scientific method came around after the introduction from Aristotle. The scientific method is the development and explanation of rules for scientific investigation and reasoning that is not clear-cut. The scientific method is a hot topic for many severe and frequent debates throughout the science’s history. Many of the natural philosophers and scientists argue for the primary of a single approach that will establish scientific knowledge. Many debates that surround the scientific method is centered on rationalism. Empiricism is the main component of scientific tradition according to Aristotle. Aristotle felt that individual can gain the knowledge of universal truth through particular things such as induction. In some measures Aristotle brings together abstract thought with observations. Aristotelian science is not empirical in form, and many individuals commonly mistake this implication. Aristotle denies that individuals develop knowledge through induction and possesses the ability to be considered scientific knowledge. The main preliminary to scientific business enquiry is induction, this provides the preliminary grounds for scientific demonstrations. The main job of philosophers was to examine and discover the truths causes and to demonstrate universal truths. Even though induction was satisfactory for discovering universals by simplification, it lacked the ability to successfully identify the causes. Aristotle sought after identifying the causes and began using deductive reasoning in the form of syllogisms. Using the syllogisms, scientists possessed the capability of inferring new universal truths from ones that have previously been established by other philosophers. Personally upon learning about these different philosophers. I think the different inquiry processes empowered each philosopher to think out of the realm of normality and not except the norm which enabled Greece and even other cultures to answer questions and in turn gain more knowledge. 3. How are philosophical opinions justified? – Epistemology contains the theory of justification and struggles to nderstand justifications of proposals and beliefs. Philosophical opinions are justified because of epistemology, which is associated to philosophies including justification, beliefs, and truths. Epistemology deals with the means of the production of knowledge. According to Plato, justification is the final component of knowledge and without it individuals only have a true opinion. Belief is a state of mind on which an individual can often fickle and liable to change. Justification is the factual rationalization of true opinions, reality is the thing that grounds it (Baker, 2013). Justification based theories of knowledge are categorized into two subsections, irrationalism and panrationalism. Irrationalism is something that draws to irrational principles and authorities, including an individual’s feelings. Panrationalism is rational criteria and principles including reasoning and observation. I believe that philosophical opinions are justified in various ways. Philosophical opinions not necessarily justified but are guided by personal experiences and religious beliefs. When beliefs are justified there is always a justifier or something that justifies the belief. Different things can be justifiers for example the following three items are suggested, the first is solely beliefs, beliefs that are together with other cognizant mental states, and finally beliefs, cognizant mental states, and other realities about individuals and his or her surrounding and the environment, which individuals may or may not possess the access to. As with every philosophical ideas there is criticism following the theory of justification. Held by critical rationalists W. W.  Bartley, David Miller, and Karl Popper, non-justificational criticism is the major opposition that is against this theory. Criticism to the justificationism is trying to prove that the claims lack the ability to be reduced to the influence or criteria that it influences appeals to, it states that justification is a primary claim and the claim itself is secondary. Nonjustificational criticism strives to attack the claims themselves. The first being guided by personal experience is because individuals tend to associate his or her philosophy on the basis of experiences they have encountered. An example that one can contribute to this is old policies that an individual has seen work effectively and as a result an opinion or philosophy is developed believing that it is the only way or best way because it worked for the individual. Another way philosophical opinions are justified is through religious orientation and is believed to be the most significant majority of the time. From birth individuals are drilled about right and wrong according to his or her religious views. Religious orientation affects an individual in all philosophical areas. Some include what to eat, creation and what is acceptable or not and because it is based on faith instead of facts, religion really shapes and individuals life because it effects ones choices in life. I think that justifying an individual’s ethical and moral beliefs is unnecessary, I think that individuals are entitled to believe and have certain opinions on what they choose. If these individuals try to justify his or her moral beliefs then they are clarifying an issue and answering a question.