4 best 3d animated films for kids Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

4 best 3d animated films for kids - Essay Example The chief Director of this film is Uri Shizer (Squidoo 2010). This movie was released in 2003 by Pixar Studios and Disney. Its remarkable box office draw kept the movie at the top. The movie is a story of a clown fish and his son, who lost all their family members to thieves leaving them alone in the world. Nemo is caught up by a scuba diver during his first day of school, turning him into a pet in a fish tank that belonged to a dentist. Consequently, Nemo’s father decides to go hunting for him in the ocean, where he happened to meet an absentminded fish called Dory. The story narrates about their encounters and attempts by Nemo to flee from the fish tank (Squidoo 2010). In this film, three strange bedfellows are encountered with, including Diego the saber tooth tiger, Sid the Sloth, and Manny the mammoth. The three accomplices have partnered in an attempt to return a hunter father, his human baby. When Diego, Manny and Sid return, they are joined by another character known as Ellie a mammoth who thinks she is a possum. They seek to flee from their dwelling valley to avoid drowning in case a melting glaciar blocked down. This comedy with great taste has been produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It is a story of a rat that wants to become a chef, but his family looks down upon his ideas. Consequently, Remy finds himself in a sewer, where he wants to meet a youthful cook who is fighting to retain his job. The union of the two makes them the best chefs in Paris. This entertaining movie keeps the funs wondering whether their trick will be discovered. The role of a 3D animation director is to make sure that the vision of the film rhymes with all parts of the production course. This includes the film’s color palette, style, as well as tone. Unlike the directors of live-action films, those of animated movies have high control responsibility. In other words, the directors of animated films are responsible for micromanaging the whole

The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure

The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure Introduction Paediatric is a field which comprises of many complex and interesting issues which always related with child development. The development of child that begins from simple to complex that revolves on each of components such as physical, sensory, psychological, cognitive and social issues have always being discuss by many researcher who always doing their studies to understand more about the earliest stage of mankind in the world. Many researchers have used a lot of approaches and practises to evaluate and understand about the human development. One of the professionals who always take advantage on researching the child is Occupational Therapy. Occupational Therapy is one important professional in the rehabilitation process. In occupational therapy, a lot of efforts have been made to implement and improve client centred practice which defined as an approach to providing occupational therapy which embraces a philosophy of respect for, and partnership with, people receiving services (Eyssen, Beelen, Dedding, Cardol, Dekker, 2005). The concept is focused on respect for the clients and their families, who have the ultimate responsibility for decisions about daily occupations and who should be provided with information emphasising person-centred communication (Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004). This concept can be useful for all client-centred rehabilitation to evaluate and give intervention to the clients. Paedi atric rehabilitation seems to focus increasingly on client-centred care. (Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006). Client-centred care implies addressing the problems that an individual experiences (Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006; Law M., 1998; Sumsion, 1999). These problems might concern a broad spectrum of areas, including the performance of daily activities. (Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006; Hendriks, De Moor, Oud, Franken, 2000). Earlier studies have suggested that a client-centred approach leads to an improvement in client satisfaction, functional outcome and better compliance (Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006). Due to that, there are similarities that present in the field of researching of the paediatrics with client centred approach. The similarities make it suitable for the use of Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. This especially design evaluation form from Occupational Therapy is now widely used throughout the world. As the data that this assessment provides are credible, outcome based and accepted as evidence throughout the world (Pendleton Schultz-Krohn, 2006). Mainly, it is also can be used by multidisciplinary teams to understand and identifies the needs and priorities of the child and their parents by expanding the focus of the interview (Siebes, Ketelaar, Gorter, et al., 2007). Although that, there are research done to make COPM have the ability to evaluate child below the range of previous version (Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004) to make it more user friendly and sensitive towards the clients situations. Thus, the modified version of COPM is born and refers as Modif ied COPM which researcher now being extensively done studies on it (Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004). Description As stated by Law, Baptiste, Carswell, McColl, Polatajko, Pollock in 2005, the original COPM is an individualized measure that is specially design to detect any changes in clients self perception on their occupational performance over time as this assessment is based on Canadian Model Of Occupational Performance. It is an Occupational Based Assessment Model which uses a client centred approach and have criterion referenced measure (Pendleton Schultz-Krohn, 2006). COPM also have its concepts as it emphasized more on its standardizations and its effectiveness. As stated (Pendleton Schultz-Krohn, 2006), the concepts of COPM are based on: The primary priority is given towards the client and then later on their condition. Choices and supports are offered to clients as it directly directed in Occupational Therapy Process. Clients needs, satisfactory and importance towards their occupation have to be treated in acceptable, flexible and accessible manner during providence of interventions. Interventions contextually are given in appropriate and relevance. It have clear respect on the differences and varieties towards the clients as in Occupational Therapy Process As stated by Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen in 2004, Modified COPM have undergoes two major modifications that were made to ensure its avaiability and effectiveness towards assessing children. First, it relates on working with children (and their parents) by reframing of occupations as the things children need to do, want to do and are expected to do in their daily lives are important. Parents and caregivers are the best to knows on their child performance as they are the most close person thats directly relates with the child. Issues, priorities, abilities, problems and importance towards the child occupational performance are some of the topics that can be share and discuss between parents and multidiciplinary teams to identify the most realistic intervention goals. Second, the substitution of occupational area Productivity/Work with Communication/Behaviour have been done as the children from two to four years do not engage and involve in formal school activities. Parents were asked to consider and identify how their childs communication and behaviour difficulties impacted on the childs ability to engage in their daily occupations. This to ensure that it can helped parents consider communication, behaviour, play, self-care, routines and transitions, as well as family socialisation among their children. Purposes Mainly, COPM is used to identify problems in clients performance area with regards to their occupational performance, to gives rates on clients priorities towards their occupational performance, to evaluate performance and satisfactory levels that is related with their occupational performance problems area, measuring the changes in clients perception of their occupational performance over the courses of occupational therapy intervention programmes and its mainly to measure any changes in clients self perception of occupational performance which have variety of disabilities comprises of all developmental stages. Suitable Condition For Using COPM Pervasive Developmental Disorders which are Aspergers Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder (Phelan, Steinke, Mandich, 2009). Congenital Syndrome And Deformities (Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006) Developmental Delayed (Rezze, VirginiaWright, Curran, Campbell, Macarthur, 2009) Acquire Brain Injury (Rezze, VirginiaWright, Curran, Campbell, Macarthur, 2009) Cerebral Palsy (Nijhuis, et al., 2008). This is due to the requirement of these children towards their needs and problems in order to achieve their goal in their rehabilitation programmes. The studies done by Nijhuis, et al. in 2008 shows there is no optimal of the integration of child with their rehabilitation programmes. Note that, COPM have been accepted and approved its effectiveness on these conditions as these conditions have the most obvious proof by researcher. COPM can still be use to all disability groups and conditions (Law, Baptiste, Carswell, McColl, Polatajko, Pollock, 2005). This is refers to the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance as stated in Law, Baptiste, Carswell, McColl, Polatajko, Pollock on 2005 which shows that the results between interaction of persons, environment and occupation will affect their occupational performance. Domains The test consists of three divided area which have been further subdivided as follows: Occupational Performance Self care, Functional Mobility, and Community Management Productivity/Work Paid/Unpaid work, household Management, Play/School Leisure Quite recreation, active recreation, socialization While the Modified COPM comprises of Self Care, Communication/Behaviours, and Leisure. The domain for Modified COPM (Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004): Communication: To ask before going to the fridge. To increase ability to make needs known. To communicate need for toilet. Requesting food and toys. Responding to come here. Social Interaction: To improve eye contact. To join in more with Mum and siblings. To share and take turns with sibling. To improve tolerance of others engaging in play. Behaviour: To express frustration in appropriate ways. To reduce the frequency of unusual behaviour. To sit down for snack time at kindy. To react calmly when mess/spills made. To reduce amount of time spent selfstimulating. Play: To stay beside parents when walking in open spaces. To play by him/herself for five minutes. To play with nominated friend for five minutes. To play calmly alongside sibling. To engage in functional play with a doll. To increase play skills with other children. Self-care: To tolerate hair-brushing (tolerate parting and bunches) To sit on toilet for five minutes. To tolerate sitting on toilet properly. To establish a regular toilet routine Age Range The minimum age range of person who can be assessing with COPM is 8 years old. But, according to Law, Baptiste, Carswell, McColl, Polatajko, Pollock, 2005, the age can be as young as 5 years old to 6 years old as during this age, the child are able to be self assessing, self awareness and self understanding. In other words, the children are able to express their feelings and thoughts towards their occupations (Case-Smith OBrien, 2010). But if the child is unable to be assessing by their own, parents and caregivers can help therapist to assess their child. The recognition of family roles in the development of child with respect to the child occupational goal outcomes during early intervention should be implemented and concentrated on (Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004). Procedures and Scoring The administration of COPM is following on 4 major steps which important on obtaining the correct, reliable, valid and understandable data. The steps are: Problem Definition Rating Importance Scoring Reassessment COPM Cover Page The cover page consist of Clients Name, Age, Gender, Identification Number, Respondent (if assessment is done with people who relate with client), Date of Assessment, Planned date of Reassessment, Date of Reassessment, Therapist Name, Facility or Agency the Therapist situated, and Program that offers to the client. Therapist should complete the cover page as it used for identifying the client or the respondent as well as to provide some demographic information with respect to the rehabilitation that administered to the client. Other than that, some therapist use this initial information gathered from client to encourage and help clients to discuss issues relates with their disabilities and the effects towards their daily functioning. Law M. , Baptiste, Carswell, McColl, Polatajko, Pollock in 2005, are encouraging therapist to performing these interviews as it can assist in the COPM interview process and the back page of the COPM can also be used to record the information that gathers at the COPM. Step 1: Problem Definition The first step is essential as COPM is relatively unstructured assessment process. The steps are begins with interview the clients about their latest occupational performance with regards to their disability or current conditions. Intensive skills of interviewing, probing for the full response of client, validating assumptions and motivates the clients or respondent is the most essential skills that therapist have to care most as it requires to obtain the most thorough and comprehensive assessment. The therapist have to make this step crucial during assessing the clients as its can make clients indentify their occupations that they want to do, need to do and expected to do in their daily life. Encouraging the clients to think about a typical day and describe their occupations that they are typically do, also have to be taken care of by therapist. Therapist then asks the clients about their ability and satisfactory towards performing those occupation that they have stated early. In simpler words; Knows about clients needs, performance and satisfaction. At this stage, it is important for therapist to identify the areas of occupational performance that make difficulties to the client by administering the COPM with as comfortable as therapist and client as can with regards to any style that therapist considers appropriate with the interview. The test consists of three divided area which have been further subdivided that is simple and helpful for the therapist during interview process that only provide some structure and ensure therapist to covers all the required areas and not put the effort to the clients itself. However, therapist needs to review each area to ensure all occupational performance problems are identified. Follow the clients lead when deals with different areas as they may response in their own manners of telling during the interview Note that, not all of the areas have to be cover by therapist as it is use for ensuring the importance of certain occupation for the client have been discussed with them. Some areas may present during reassessment, so, take note on that area too. Step 2: Rating Importance This is the important steps in this assessment. Clients have to rate on their occupational problems that they have chosen in previous interview in terms of the occupational importance in their life. The importance is rated on a ten point scale and enters it on the score sheet at beside of the defined problems. By doing this, it gives immediate understanding on the engagement of the client in the setting of providing and facilitating the intervention and the priorities that should be taking care of. Example: IMPORTANCE How important is it to you to be able to do this activity? Not important at all Extremely Important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Step 3: Scoring Based on step 2, assist client to find and choose the top 5 most problematic and important occupations. Therapist may assist on showing the highest rates on importance of the occupation that they have chosen recently and help to identify and understand the relations of the occupation, problems and issues for intervention the client. This allow client to get opportunities to confirm and agreed with their most important problems or to choose other problems that is less important if they wish to focus on the intervention that relates with the problems. The top 5 chosen problems is suggested to be enters in the scoring section which will be the basis for the intervention goal that later then implemented towards client. Contrarily, those target goals are not the only outcomes that therapist have to work with. In fact, therapist has to covers beyond the goals to achieve the maximum ability of the client. Simplify, at this step, the client should have complete their self evaluation towards their current performance in that area as well as complete their self evaluation towards their satisfaction towards their current performance. The scoring rating for performance and satisfaction on each problem are easy, but it is not necessarily to do it first and move to the next problem. Gains of at least 2 points on the COPM are considered clinically important (Rezze, VirginiaWright, Curran, Campbell, Macarthur, 2009). Example: PERFORMANCE How would you rate the way you do this activity? Unable to do at all Extremely Well Do 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Example: SATISFACTION How satisfied are you with the way you do this activity? Not satisfied at all Extremely Satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Therapists have to enter the clients score in appropriate box. Then, therapist has to follows the rules below: Total Score=Total Performance Score / Number of Problems OR Total Score=Total Satisfaction Score / Number of Problems The data obtained is then enters on the TOTAL section. Step 4: Reassessment Reassessment is done at appropriate time interval such as in between initial assessment and therapeutic intervention. The time interval is varied which depends on the agreement and judgement that have been done by therapist and client. During reassessment, the Performance and Satisfaction have to be evaluating again by following the previous ways and enters it on reassessment sections. Then, therapist has to follows the rules below: Change In Performance=Performance Score 2-Performance Score 1 OR Change in Satisfaction=Satisfaction Score 2-Satisfaction Score 1 Then, in order to get total change in performance or satisfaction, therapists have to calculate based on rules at below: Total Change In Performance=Total Performance Score 2-Total Performance Score 1 OR Total Change in Satisfaction=Total Satisfaction Score 2-Total Satisfaction Score 1 The Administration for Modified COPM also have four steps which is same as the previous, but in this modified version, the steps is mainly refers to interviewing parents and caregivers. The steps are: Parents asked to identify occupations that were difficult for their son/daughter with regards to self-care, play, rest and relaxation. Parents rated these difficulties using a 10-point scale to identify priorities for intervention. Parents rated current performance and satisfaction of their son/daughter on three to five of the priority areas using a 10-point scale. Parents rated performance and satisfaction post-intervention. Administration Time 15 minutes to 30 minutes depends on the experience of the therapist to gain information. Psychometric Properties Reliability Based on the research done by Eyssen, Beelen, Dedding, Cardol, Dekker, 2005, The ICC for the mean scores for performance and satisfaction were respectively 0.67 (95% CI 0.54-0.78) and 0.69 (95% CI 0.56-0.79). The limits of agreement for the mean values of performance and satisfaction were in the range of respectively -2.5 to 2.4 (d -0.05, SD 1.2) and -2.3 to 2.7 (d 0.01, SD 1.4). Cohens weighted kappa for each of the five problems ranged from 0.37 to 0.49 for performance scores and 0.38-0.49 for satisfaction scores. Inter Rater Reliability For original COPM, Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet, 2006 have stated that, The comparison between two interview was done which the first COPM interviews identified 392 prioritized problems and the second 390. In the first COPM only two problems were prioritized for one child, four problems for five children and five problems were identified for 74 children, while in the second COPM interview only three problems were prioritized for three children, four problems for four children and five problems for 73 children. Of the 392 prioritized problems identified in the first interview, 290 were prioritized again in the second interview. Of the problems that were prioritized at the first assessment, the median percentage that were also prioritized at the second assessment was 80. No systematic differences were found in the mean scores for performance and satisfaction of the problems that were prioritized in both interviews. The limits of agreement for performance scores were -2.4 to +2.3 (d ¯_/0.7, SD 1.2) and for satisfaction scores -2.3 to +2.6 (d ¯ 0.18, SD 1.2). For Modified COPM, Rodger, Braithwaite, Keen, 2004 shows that, Inter-rater agreement for goal domain classification was 92.2 per cent. For specific domains, inter-rater agreement was 100 per cent for self-care, 97.3 per cent for communication, 94.7 per cent for behaviour, 91.7 per cent for play, and 69.2 per cent for social interaction. No goals were classified as Other. Parents identified between three and six goals. The mean number of goals was 4.09. The domain of communication represented the highest priority area of goals identified by parents. Validity Construct Validity Research of Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet in 2006 have found that, For 196 (50%) problems prioritized in the first COPM there was a comparable item in the PEDINL and for 151 prioritized problems (39%) there was a comparable item in the TAP(C)QOL; and 144 (95%) of these corresponding items were also ticked by the parents on the TAP(C)QOL. For 142 (36%) prioritized problems in the COPM no comparable item could be found in either the PEDI-NL or the TAP(C)QOL. These problems concerned a great variety of activities, the majority of which were play activities, preschool skills, outdoor activities and activities which were not formulated specifically enough in the PEDI-NL or the TAP(C)QOL. Criterion Validity Verkerk, Jeanne, Wolf, Louwers, Meester-Delver, Nollet in 2006 also have found that, A total of 157 (71%) of the 221 problems reported in the replies to the open-ended question matched the prioritized problems reported in the COPM. However, 66 (30%) of the 221 matched problems concerned temperament or impairments and behaviour of the child, but not activities. Case Study Clients Name: MH Jr. Age: 5 years Gender: Male Id #: 123456 Respondent: Mrs. NH (mother) Date of Assessment: 31st August 2010 Planned Date of Reassessment: September 2010 Date of Reassessment: 14th September 2010 Therapist: Mrs. NB Facility/Agency: Dept. of Occupational Therapy Program: Step 1: Identification of Occupational Performance Issues Step 2: Rating Importance Step 1A: Self Care Personal Care: Dressing Feeding Functional Mobility: Sitting Standing Community Management: IMPORTANCE 8 8 9 8 Step 1B: Productivity Paid/Unpaid Work: Household Management: Play/School: Play with peers Drawing 7 5 Step 1C: Leisure Quite Recreation: Active Recreation: Socialization: Emotional outburst when play 7 Step 3 and 4: Scoring Initial Assessment and Reassessment Initial Assessment: Reassessment: Occupational Performance Problems Performance 1 Satisfaction 1 Performance 2 Feeding Dressing Sitting Standing Drawing 4 3 5 3 5 2 1 3 3 4 5 4 5 4 6 Scoring: Total Score = ÃŽÂ £Performance @ Satisfaction # of problems (4+3+5+3+5) 5 = 4 (2+1+3+3+4) 5 = 2.6 (5+4+5+4+6) 5 = 4.8 Change In Performance = Performance Score 2 (4.8) Performance Score 1 (4) = 0.8 Change in Satisfaction = Satisfaction Score 2 (5) Satisfaction Score 1 (2.6) = 2.4 Additional Notes and Background Information Initial Assessment: This child have mild Spastic Cerebral Palsy with affected all four limbs. Reassessment: This child have motivation to do the activities provided although may sometime present frustration and emotional outburst. Appendices

From the second reich to the wiemar republic :: essays research papers

From the Second Reich to the Weimar Republic The Second Reich The constitution of the second Reich: The Kaiser was hereditary for life and he was the Supreme Commander of the army The Chancellor was chosen by the Kaiser and was also usually the chairman of the Bundesrat. The Bundesrat was the upper house of parliament. Members were chosen by the State Government. The 17 Prussian representatives could veto any law. The Reichstag was less important than the Bundesrat in making laws. They could only approve the laws proposed by the Chancellor and the Bundesrat. The Reichstag was the lower house of parliament, with members elected by all men over the age of 25, fewer could vote in Prussia This was very undemocratic as people had little say over the passing of laws. The Reichstag, the house of parliament that the people voted for, had very little power over the creation of laws. The Kaiser was almost a dictator. Ludendorff realised that Germany was going to be defeated in 1918. He told the Kaiser that the war must end. In October, the Germans asked President Woodrow Wilson to organise an end to the fighting. He agreed but demanded that the Kaiser must go. Starvation and riots spread though Germany and on 30th October, the German Navy refused to launch a desperate attack on the British Navy. The Kaiser finally agreed to abdicate and on the 11th November an armistice was signed. This was the end of the Second Reich. The Weimar Republic The new government wanted to introduce a parliamentary democracy. This was because President Wilson refused to offer peace to the Germans until it had a government which wanted democracy. However, this meant that some Germans felt that democracy was being forced upon them by their enemies. The constitution of the Weimar Republic: The President was in power for 7 years and was elected by all adults over the age of 21. He was the Supreme Commander of the army and he chose the Chancellor. The Chancellor had the support of a majority of the Reichstag. The Reichstag was the lower house of parliament, elected by all adults over the age of 21. It was more important than the Reichsrat and could make laws. The Reichsrat was the upper house of parliament and could only approve laws proposed by the Chancellor and the Reichstag. Weaknesses of the new constitution: †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Proportional Representation – this meant that if a party received 5% of the votes, they would also receive 5% of the seats in the Reichstag.

A Walk in the Night by Alex La Guma Essay

Born in 1925 Cape Town, Alex La Guma is a writer, a leader of the South African Coloured People’s organization and a Defendant in the Treason Trial. Graduated High school and then joined the Young Communist League in 1947. He then became a member of the Communist Party a year later. He wrote for the new age from 1955. He wrote many articles for fighting talk in which he captured the atmosphere of the trial proceedings. He was placed under 24 hour house arrest in 1962, and was detained again in 1963. In 1966, he eaves Africa and wrote novels and short stories and received the 1969 Lotus Prize for Literature. In 1972, he edited the Apartheid: A collection of writings on South African Racism by South Africans. He was considered one of the most South African’s major twentieth century writers. A walk in the Night was his first book based on a nature of District sex, Cape Town. La Guma was an important political figure as well. Being charged with treason, banned, house arrest ed and eventually forced into exile, he was chief representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Caribbean at the time of his death in 1985. South Africa is a country blessed with an abundance of natural resources including fertile farmlands and unique mineral resources. South African mines are world leaders in the production of diamonds and gold as well as strategic metals such as platinum. It was colonized by the English and Dutch in the seventieth century. The English domination of the Dutch descendants resulted in the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State ad Transual. The diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion which sparked the Boer War. Until the 1940’s, an uneasy power sharing between the two groups held sway when the Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority. Strategists in the National party  invented apartheid as a meaning to cement their control over the economic and social system. The aim of the apartheid was to maintain while domination while extending racial separation. Beginning in the 1960’s, a plan of Grand Apartheid was executed, emphasizing territorial separation and police repression. The Enactment of Apartheid law in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition between marriage, between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of â€Å"whites only† jobs. The Population Registration Act required that all South Africans are racially classified into one of three categories: white, black (African), and or Coloured (mixed decent). In 1951, the Bonto Authorities Act established a basis for ethnic government in African reserves known as homelands. The homelands were independent states to which each African was assigned by the government. All of the political rights, including voting was held by an African who was restricted to the designated homeland. The idea was that they would be citizens of homeland and lose their citizenship in South Africa and any right involvement with the South African parliament. The homeland administration refused the nominal independence, maintaining pressure for political rights within the country as a whole. Nevertheless, Africans living in the homelands needed passports to enter South Africa. So they were basically considered aliens in their own country. Alex la Guma, very first novel presents the struggle against oppression by a group of characters in Cape Town’s toughest district and the moral dissolution of a young man who is unjustly fired from his job. Being published in 1962, La Guma has a high reputation that is based on his vivid style, his Coloured dialogue, and his ability to present sympatically and realistically people living under sordid and oppressive circumstances. This book reflects the plight of the South Africans and American blacks, a plight which has â€Å"symptoms† racism, segregation, and injustice. The novel depicts on a conflict between two main races; whites and blacks in 1950’s South Africa respectively. Being set in Cape Town in District Six, in one night in the late 1950’s, the time setting represents Apartheid in South Africa and depicts the abusive attitudes and methods of white South Africans against  their black compatriots. With the obnoxious system going on, there are ha rsh attitudes which the black community has to endure and on the hand it is a little opportunity given to blacks to lead normal lives. Michael Adonis and Willie boy are two main characters and they are set as the epitome of the unfortunate black youth; unemployed, apparently uneducated, and exposed at any moment to the abusive methods of police. Both of them try to find their way out to freedom but can’t they are stuck in delinquency. In the book, there are a lot of negative images of the Negro represented in the perception of the whites. Whites feel that they have the right to treat the blacks in any type of way they want regardless of what anybody says. Whites being the oppressor and the blacks being oppressed. This comes as a reflection of the attitudes of whites which express the feeling of exclusion, alienation, injustice, oppression, violence, humiliation and anything else that is biased in Apartheid of South Africa. Michael Adonis; a young man who gets off a tram and entering what later becomes the setting of the story: District Six. In the beginning, La Guma gives a strong description of what Michael looks like before telling us that he is an angry man. He is viewed as a young man who is easy to anger but is aware of his right to perform a natural function and is willing to work and does not indulge in theft and thugery as others might peg him for. As well he is a man with violent inclinations who nurses anger at length and is therefore prone to explode. Michael Adonis is a young man who is annoyed because he had lost his job for trying to use the restroom. African right to strike and trade union the white employers managed to secure cheap African Labor. In the novel, it depicts the poverty of the Coloured including the employed one. This was meant to perpetuate the African plight and improve the economic situation of the white employer and employee by guaranteeing them the African cheap labor and eliminating the African potential competition as though black South Africans didn’t share the same citizenship with the white South Africans. After being fired from his job, Michael enters a dirty Portuguese restaurant where he finds Willie boy. Willie boy, being another similar character that La Guma explains how he exposes the evil of apartheid. At the restaurant, he  also meets with three youths who inquire about another character called Foxy. Walking out of the cafà © Michael forgets about Willie boy and went about on his own. The psychological torture that blacks and Coloured in South Africa go through, they resort to alcohol, crime and prostitution. Here the characters are doomed because there is nothing they can do about their predicament. Michael stops at the cafà ©, hoping that by so doing he will purge himself of the shame and humiliation of his encounter with the white oppressors. At the same time he throws his cigarette down the pavement and immediately, there are two slum boys who are wearing ragged shirts and have horny feet scramble over it and the details that are described is important because it tells us about the squalor and it is an indication of juvenile delinquency. In contrast of this young boys, there are two policemen who stopped Michael down the street and demanded to know where he was heading to. They search him irrespectively and Michael goes off once more angry and frustrated. He was already in a state of anger because when talking to Willie boy, Willie boy rambles off about why he doesn’t work for white people. While searching Michael, they think he is bhang (drugs) on him. In this scenario, you can see that this is a clear case of police intimidation and harassment of the inability of a person of Michael’s caliber to have the freedom of walking without being stopped. After being stopped, Adonis enters the pub in District Six where a Jew called Mister Ike and he sells behind the counter. Michael orders wine to soothe his rage. Here you also see that Adonis relies on wine to control his temper which describes him as a volatile and unpredictable man. Leaving the pub, Adonis heads home and passes through dirty slums with narrow alleys. At this tenement he stops to watch a cat struggling with a dead fish. He is a man who hates the squalor but has no choice but to live in it. He meets a young lady name Hazel which is the â€Å"lady of the twilight†. He tried to grab her but fails and is left alone on the steps feeling lonely. Again here, he produces more anger and is feeling malicious. At the same time he encounters Uncle Doughty. During this time he helps the old man into his room, drinks his wine, tortures him to unleash his anger, frustration and loneliness, and then kills him. Doughty represents the whites because of his skin color, we can’t forgive Michael for hitting the poor old man who had done no harm to him. Here this is an example of inhumanity and a victim of dehumanization.  With this going on, Adonis sobers up and realizes what he has done and is feeling guilty. At this moment, he is afraid and bolts out the door being unsure of what to do next. Thoughts run through Adonis mind like â€Å"well, he didn’t have no right living here with us colors.† Adonis is a character who is not aware that skin pigmentation doesn’t matter and he equates color with privilege. Willie boy a character who is presented to us a flighty not too serious youth who does not care for work because he refused to work for whites. Also, he is a young man who loves to play the jukebox. Unlike, Michael Adonis, Willie boy strikes out as a layout. Willie boy does not hesitate to point out that he does not work for any white man and yet still survives. Willie boy visits the cafà © to drink cheap wine on credit and at the cafà © there are black girls who messes with the foreigners, in particular sailors of low breed, bringing to the fore the issues of prostitution. He sees one of the sailors fondling of the girls and him objects â€Å"These Jubas. They just messing our girls†¦I don’t like them messing our girls†¦to hell with them†. While we encounter Willie boy again, he is contemplating on getting a loan from Michael. Meeting Foxy’s group who likes ghosts keep turning up and finds Michael door locked. Willie boy try to see if he is in Doughtry’s room and there he finds the old man dead. At this moment, this is the beginning of his running although he is innocent of the circumstances. Through the realistic mode, the author advances the â€Å"cycle of violence† in South Africa that Willie boy has suffered from. Willie boy was beaten by Miss Gypsy and he has been in that type of violence since childhood. â€Å"His mother beat him at the slightest provocation and he knew that she was wreaking the experience upon him for the beating she received from his father†. Another major character is Constable Raalt. A police officer whose present duty is to patrol District 6. He is a Boer policemen who holds a humiliating estimation of the blacks and considers them primitive. Andries his partner is a man who is full of responsibility but is affected by the white collective unconscious that considers the white race as being the superior. So this makes him worried about the white reputation to be affected by the brutality of the white people like constable Raalt. Raalt drive around in a  police van with Andries and is bragging about the problems he has with his wife. Raalt hides his anger at his wife and it like a hard steel under camouflage paint. A guy who is very annoyed at Andries because he does not have similar marital problems. Constable Raalt is a malicious man who likes contemplating others people pains and he is unstable at home who cannot be stable on the job. Andries, the other driver of Raalt wishes that Raalt would transfer to a white are a to avoid his abuse of power against the Coloured. The violence that characterizes South Africa is shown through the character here. He is depicted as a very ruthless man who represents the South African society of white oppressors. Later on, when Willie Boy dies, he considered himself superior to blacks because of the terms he uses such as bastard. To quote Raalt: â€Å"no hotnot bastard gets away with murder on my patrol†. A close reading of A Walk in the night reveals the abusive methods of constable Raalt on the black citizens. Raalt has no respect for Coloured people and could kill them at will. He terrorizes the life of the Coloured people everywhere he goes. He went into the Club House with the aim of intimidating and extorting money from the Coloured man, Chips who runs the place. After Willie boy death, we witness two confrontations. The crowds accuses of Constable Raalt of cold blooded murder, but that is all they can do because Raalt is the law. The overbearing Raalt, the law with his gun, has had his taste of blood and does not care. He loads the wounded Willie boy into the back of the can and continues with his patrol. As Willie boy lies at the back of the police van, pain and nausea wracking his body, Andries is anxious to get the boy to the hospital, Raalt does not bother. Raalt was so concerned that he had his partner stop at a convenience store so he can buy some smoke. Here is where Willie boy traces back to his childhood of his bitter purposeless life all mingled up with his present situation and then dies. Another character that is introduce in the story is Joe. Joe is a poor person with hardly anything to eat. Michaels sees Joe and offers him a bob which is slang for beer. Joe turns down the offer and offer Michael some fish that he had picked up off the beach. One thing to understand about Joe is that he is an open handed person with a good heart even though he is poor. Alex la Guma sees him as a clean heart human being. Michael and Joe also have a  conservation about the segregation of beaches. The curse of segregation also inflicted nonwhites on a large scale; districts and even towns were not allowed for nonwhites to go to without having permits. The frequent absence of Jimmy La Guma at home when Alex was a little child, can be paralleled with the description of Joe’s Father for his family. Joe’s father’s description caused Joe to feel miserable and frustrated. However, the specificity of Joe’s peaceful character makes him able to accept his bitter re ality without resorting to violence. The environment of Black district is placed in sharp contrast with the conductive area where the whites live. The black majority live in the ghettos, in squalors, and in bad housing conditions. The contrast in racial desegregation is brought to the fore as the white oppressors segregate themselves from the Coloured people by living in cozy environments. La Guma presents the degrading conditions of the Lorenzo family who live in one room: â€Å"Four of their children lay sleeping in the narrow single bed against the wall on the side of the room. They slept under the one threadbare, worn, sweaty, blanket, and fitted together like parts of a puzzle into the narrow sagging space, two at each end of the bed.† Grace, Franky Lorenzo’s wife had to use â€Å"the tap in the latrine† to get water to make tea for her husband. This underscores the level of realism in South Africa. Also, here we have Franky Lorenzo who expresses his feelings of whites. On pg. 34, he quotes â€Å"They say, mos, it is us poor people’s riches. You got no food in your guts, and you got no food for your children, but you’re rich with them. The rich people got money but they got one, two kids. They got enough to feed ten, twenty children and they only make one or two. We haven’t got even enough for one kid and we make eight, nine-one a year. Jesus.† Being said, he said this because his wife Grace has an unborn child on the way and they cant even afford for the children they already have. He took his anger out on Grace and hurting her because he made it seem like it was her fault she is pregnant. During the pub scene, we are introduced to the taxi driver. A Coloured taxi driver who wants to awaken the consciousness of his community by conveying the idea that the white capitalist system is responsible for racism and  segregation in the country. The taxi driver represents the communist conviction of the author. He cannot explain it well because he is apparently illiterate, but his conviction is deeply rooted in him. When speaking about the violence of the whites against blacks all over the world, he puts the blame on the capitalist system. The last chapter of the novel is a cinematic rendition of what happens all over district 6 concerning the events and characters that are mentioned. Foxy and his gang go on to their mission, a cockroach waits for darkness to eat up the mess in Doughtry’s room and John Abraham tosses over, unable to bear his guilt; Frank Lorenzo snores peacefully as Grace contemplates the future life she is carrying and Joe heads for the sea. It is a sweep at the characters life and their hopes. Since 1948, The Policy of â€Å"Apartheid† of the South African Government has been one of the most publicized racial policies in the world, that both within and without the union just what the policy is all about has led to some confusion, misunderstanding and controversy. These advocates of apartheid see the separate development of the two major racial groups (European and Bantu). Apartheid has come to be a comprehensive social policy and it touches upon every sphere of social life in South Africa: politics, education, economics, religion, and so far on. The 1960 Sharpeville Massacre was the result of a peaceful protest regarding racist South African policies of apartheid. The enforcement of Pass Laws and the reissue of laws that restricted the movement of Black Africans in White areas in South Africa initiated a protest in Sharpeville. Pan African Congressional Leaders assembled close to 5,000 protesters to bring attention to such unfairness. The intent of the protest was for the South African government to rethink their Apartheid policies and abolish such practices. The protest mood was more â€Å"festive than belligerent† as the crowd moved towards the police station. It is here in which the response moved into the realm where the massacre was evident. The police response to the protest became the primary cause of the massacre.  The police assembled and used disproportionate responses to the protest. The use of low flying aircraft to seek to break the crowd up would be one such measure. The police’s response to the stone throwing of the crowds was the use of armored cars and shooting on protesters. Many of the protesters were shot in the back, indicating that they were trying to run away from the police and were still pursued. The reports of men, women, and children running from the police presence â€Å"like rabbits† only feeds the imagery of their being gunned down in such a callous and cruel manner. This brutality is only emphasized by the police commissioner’s statements about what happened in Sharpeville: â€Å"It started when hordes of natives surrounding the police station†¦If they do these things, they must learn their lessons the hard way.† In this statement, one can see the lack of regard for the life of Black South Africans, one in which state sanctioned violence can lead to massacre so easily. The setting of this novel is important because it brings out the social and moral decay of the society. The realistic depiction of gloom, rot, filth, and neglect is a powerful indication of the destructiveness of the Apartheid black environment of District Six, which affects the moods of people’s lives. The characters here are overwhelmed by the environment and are doomed to â€Å"walk the night† in frustration, uncertain of their destination, ambition, destinies, and purposes in life. Blacks of District Six cannot find a way out of their situation except unlawful behavior. Willie boy engages in petty crimes and violent acts in order to survive. Michael was illegitimately dismissed from his job and resorts to the membership of the gang of Foxy, Hendricks and Toyer, who specialize in robbery and petty crimes as well.

Adelphia Fraud

Among other things, the money was reportedly used to pay off debts, build a Thirteen million dollar golf course, buy expensive condos, and flying In private Jets. These SIX members of the scandal were accused of hiding liabilities In off balance sheets. Along with hiding liabilities, they overstated their cash flow statements by One-hundred and sixty million dollars in 2000 and by two-hundred dollars in 2001. Delphic executives also falsified operations statistics and inflated their subscribers list by three million subscribers.Earnings were also inflated to meet forecasts by Wall Street analysts. (2004), â€Å"Corporate scandals are now staples of front-page news as shareholders demand accountability for billions of dollars lost. Still, the U. S. Government says the Irrigates' case is one of the worst ever of financial fraud† (Para. 3). Delphic scandal consisted of six members, John Riggs, Timothy Riggs, Michael; Riggs, James Riggs, James R. Brown and Michael Mulched. These m embers of the scandal committed many crimes based on selfishness, greed, and power.Their management of Delphic costs billions of dollars to Investor and destroyed the corporation. According to Yuk (2006) â€Å"Decision processes are Likely to be characterized more by confusion, disorder, and emotionality than by rationality. Instead of careful analysis of likely outcomes in relation to predetermined objectives, information is often distorted or suppressed to serve preconceptions about the best course of action or a self-serving interest in a particular choice. † The men were not thinking rationally and were taking money for self-serving reasons.Balance sheets and accounting practices were manipulated In order to pay for their lavish lifestyles. At the time of the crimes Call time was most likely In the back of their minds. Repaying lost money to investors that was stolen was also not thought out. When managers make extremely bad decisions such as these the repercussions are v ast. Investors were hit hard with the news of the Delphic scandal. Stock prices reached an all time high in 1999 peaking out at eighty-seven dollars per share.This was due to the oncoming sales and assets that were falsely recorded by the executives, After news of the Delphic scandal broke In 2002, the stock plummeted to Just fourteen cents per share. The NASDAQ removed Dahlia's stock in June 2002. Another consequence of the scandal and the executive's decisions was lawsuits. The behavior of the executives and their behavior in the Delphic Corporation ultimately brought down the company. I believe that in order for a company to survive, ethical leadership and management must exist.

Definition and Examples of Hasty Generalizations

Definition and Examples of Hasty Generalizations A hasty generalization is a  fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence. Its also called an  insufficient sample, a converse accident, a faulty generalization, a biased generalization, jumping to a conclusion,  secundum quid, and a  neglect of qualifications. Author Robert B. Parker illustrates the concept via an excerpt from his novel Sixkill: It was a rainy day in Harvard Square, so the foot traffic through the atrium from Mass Ave to Mount Auburn Street was heavier than it might have been if the sun were out. A lot of people were carrying umbrellas, which most of them furled inside. I had always thought that Cambridge, in the vicinity of Harvard, might have had the most umbrellas per capita of any place in the world. People used them when it snowed. In my childhood, in Laramie, Wyoming, we used to think people who carried umbrellas were sissies. It was almost certainly a  hasty generalization, but I had never encountered a hard  argument  against it. (Sixkill. Putnam, 2011) A Too-Small Sample Size By definition, an  argument  based on a hasty generalization always proceeds from the particular to the general. It takes a small sample and tries to extrapolate an idea about that sample and apply it to a larger population, and it doesnt work.  T. Edward Damer explains: It is not uncommon for an arguer to draw a conclusion or generalization based on only a few instances of a phenomenon. In fact, a generalization is often drawn from a single piece of supporting data, an act that might be described as committing  the fallacy of the lonely fact....Some areas of inquiry have quite sophisticated guidelines for determining the sufficiency of a sample, such as in voter preference samples or television viewing samples. In many areas, however, there are no such guidelines to assist us in determining what would be sufficient grounds for the truth of a particular conclusion. (Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 4th ed. Wadsworth, 2001) Generalizations as a whole, hasty or not, are problematic at best, anyway, though a large sample size wont always get you off the hook. The sample that one wants to generalize needs to be representative of the population as a whole, and it should be random. For  example, the polls  prior to the 2016  presidential election missed segments of the population who would come out to vote for Donald Trump and thus underestimated his supporters and their potential impact on the election. Polls knew the race would be close, but by not having a representative sample to generalize the outcome, the polls got it wrong.   Ethical Ramifications Stereotypes come about from trying to make generalizations about people or groups of them. Doing it is at best a minefield and at worst, has ethical considerations. Julia T. Wood explains: A hasty generalization is a broad claim based on too-limited evidence. It is unethical to assert a broad claim when you have only anecdotal or isolated evidence or instances. Consider two examples of hasty generalizations based on inadequate data:- Three congressional representatives have had affairs. Therefore, members of Congress are adulterers.- An environmental group illegally blocked loggers and workers at a nuclear plant. Therefore, environmentalists are radicals who take the law into their own hands.In each case, the conclusion is based on limited evidence. In each case the conclusion is hasty and fallacious. (Communication in Our Lives, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2012) Critical Thinking Is Key Overall, to avoid making, spreading, or believing hasty generalizations, take a step back, analyze the opinion, and consider the source. If a statement comes from a biased source, then the point of view behind it needs to highlight your understanding of the stated opinion, as it gives it context. Look for evidence, both supporting and opposing a statement, to find the truth, because, as the adage says, there are two sides to every story, and the truth often lies somewhere in the middle.

Updated PC Industry Essay Example

Updated PC Industry Essay Example Updated PC Industry Paper Updated PC Industry Paper Since the emergence of PCs primarily as desktops in the ass and ass, the industry has seen reduce expansion innovation, in the form of laptops, notebooks, and net books. Growth was increased by lowered prices and expanding technology and the industry roared through the early sass. 2010 saw the arrival of the pad which gained significant ground for tablets which actually have been In the PC market since the ass. In 2011 came another category of laptops called ultra books which were ultra- thin, lightweight, and high-performance. It has yet to be seen how the market will shift again In coming years based on new Innovations as well as substitutes Like marathoner. So just how competitive has the PC industry been globally over the years? The total shipments (in millions) by PC manufactures from 2000 to 2011 have increased greatly. In 2000, we saw total shipments of PCs increase from 128. MM to 352. MM in 2011. That is a 174. 2% growth over that time span. Worldwide PC revenue has increased in that same period from $251 billion in 2000 to $329 billion in 2011. With the PC industry expected to grow as new innovations and products come along, the 201 5 estimate in global revenue for the industry is around $383 billion. On the reface, these numbers look very attractive and appealing to potential competitors. But, Its Important to take In account the costs the industry Incur and how revenue and volume growth have slowed down. The PC Industry Is very price competitive. Firms and manufactures are looking for ways to lower prices and lower costs while increasing volume growth. The industry has a very low average profitability. By 2011, the average PC manufactures net profit margin was 5%. For example, in 2009 Hips PC business was the lowest operating business segment in the entire company. Selling at an average price of $1323. 0 per Mac, Apple gained a profit of $370. 55 for every Mac sold. Compare that to the average selling price per PC for HP of $650 with a gained profit of only $52. Even though HP sold 5 times as many PC units as Apple in IQ of 2009, Apples price discipline proved to be superior to that of HP which has led to Apple becoming one of the most valued companies. The PC industry is very competitive and cutthroat. In Just the 21st century alone we have seen the market share leader change four times. Compact led the sass market until HP acquired the company In short time after. HP led the market share In 2002 at 16%. A back and forth fight occurred over the next couple of years between HP and Dell eventually leaving HP as king of the Hill. That is of course until the most recent years have seen ten reels AT Leno. I en essences Dates company NAS a 1 % market snare as AT 2 slightly better than HP. Dell and Acre account for the other two top PC vendors as these four companies combined to make up 53. % of the worldwide shipments in 2011. China became one of the largest and fastest growing PC markets in the world. The fact that Leno has a 35% share in this market can explain its increasing presence in the world market. The Leno market share leadership doesnt come as a surprise when one looks at the statistics for PCs in-use for the main regions of the world. The sass showed North America with a slig ht lead in units of PCs in-use with just fewer than 200 million. That quickly changed in 2008 through 2011 as Asia-Pacific became the outright leader in PC units. Estimations have the Asian Pacific region to use more than 800 million units by 2015. That is more than twice the next leading region. How attractive is the PC industry? Early Years An analysis of the PC industry requires the use of Michael Porters Five Forces model o help understand the profit potential of the PC industry and how firms can position themselves to gain and sustain competitive advantage. The rule of thumb is that that stronger the forces, the lower the industrys profit potential. This makes this industry less attractive. Lets take a look at the PC industrys early years related to the first force, Threat of Entry. Threat of Entry In the early years of the PC Industry, IBM was the dominant force. The threat of entry was low at this time. But, as the combination of Windows SO and the Intel microprocessor became the standard (Winter), the threat of entry increased attracted. Vims system was relatively open and easy for producers to copy. This was seen when the thousands of manufactures built their own PCs. Capital requirements to enter were low because of the standard model. Michael Dell formed Dell in the early ass out of his dorm room. The products were also not differentiated. There were relatively little exits barriers as well. In the early years when a company wasnt profitable, it had no problem dropping out of the market as seen with the thousands of manufactures funneling only to a handful. Finally, no dominate brands or players were established yet. IBM PC like clones controlled most of the market share in the ass. For these reasons there was a moderate threat of entry. The Power of Buyers The power of the buyer in early years was moderate to high. The sass brought more knowledgeable PC consumers including individual and group buyers. One of the main buyers are corporate buyers, or buyers buying for large companies. These consumers were very price sensitive meaning they were usually looking for good deals and the lowest price. These types of buyers plus large businesses, governments, and schools buy computers in large volumes which gave them a lot of rower to Darnel on prices. Selecting costs Ana Drain loyalty to Tells Like Apple were in the early stages of being established. Also direct sale to consumer from manufactures and the white box channel became popular and increased the power or the buyer. The Power of Suppliers Suppliers to the PC industry were either those that made products with many sources or those that made products with few sources. The latter type of suppliers, producers of microprocessors and operating systems, had a high bargaining power. The two chief firms that produced these products were Intel and Microsoft, especially. Intel commanded almost 80% of the PC CPU market share. In the early years, they had a lot to say on setting prices, costs, etc. Even with emerging competitors, Intel has remained the market leader in microprocessors with a recognizable brand, economies of scale, and state of the art technology. Like Intel, Microsoft has dominated the SO market. About 85-90% of all PCs ran on some version of Windows in the late 20th century. Both Intel and Microsofts dominating presence in the early years started with MOM, but quickly shifted to the Winter era of the ass. With thousands of manufactures using these two companies mainly, its easy to see why the bargaining power of these two suppliers is so high. Substitutes were few and their product was important to the input of the buyers product. Threat of Substitutes The threat of substitutes in the PC industry during the early years was relatively low. PCs as desktops were innovative and monumental for their time. There was nothing else quite like it. The demand for the Internet, lower prices for products, and expanding capabilities for PCs all supported the fact that threats of substitutes for he PC industry was low. With this technology and innovation being relatively new, it isnt often that substitutes start being produced in the early years. Its when the market is in the mature stage that substitutes become popular. This is seen with Smartness and other SEC today. Though, the PC industry did adapt to changes by creating new products themselves such as the emergence of laptops. Rivalry Among Competing Firms With almost every industry comes intense and cutthroat competition. Especially in the early years, companies are Jockeying for strategic position and competition advantage. From the thousands of manufactures using the cloned IBM PC emerged a select few firms who went on to be the market leaders that found a winning formula. As we will see later though, that formula may not always be profitable in the long- run. The competition is cutthroat because of the slow growth, lowering of prices, and innovation of products from certain firms. Its the competition of price that especially makes the competition in this industry so intense. PC Analysis In ten Later stages As time went on, the industry seemed to be slowing down a little bit. The decade starting in the early sasss saw a slowing volume growth, which was followed by a slowing revenue growth. As mentioned in the case, the average selling prices (ASP) of the PCs declined by a compound annual rate of 8-10% per year from the early sasss through 2005 (page 5). Most of the companies in the industry had to reduce costs in other places, most of them turning to reduced R funding to combat the tougher times. To move further in the industries age, the ASP for the PC dropped 25% in a 3- year span from 2008-2009. Http:,/. NP. N. R. N. Satanist. Mom/chart/1766/global- PC- mind gusty-continues-downward rd-trend/ This downturn forced companies to start looking outside of the box for new and improved products that would drive revenues up and get consumers once again excited for portable computers. Right around the time of the economic downturn in 2009, lightweight mini notebooks were made. They made a huge first impression, as more than 40 million notebooks sold in 2009(peg. 5). However, these notebooks didnt lead the market for too long, as in 2010 the pad was released and dramatically reduced the sale of the mini notebooks. Threats of Outside Competition During the later stages of the PC industry, the outside competition has decreased dramatically. Many of the smaller companies that were trying to succeed in the early days realized they wouldnt be able to cut it, and that is why now you only have your handful of companies that are still on top of the industry. Leno, Dell, HP, and Acre accounted for over 50% of the shipments in 2011, showing that most of the market space Is already occupied Dye ten Log cogs. Apple only NAS roughly AT ten market shares as a PC manufacturer in 2011, showing how difficult in can be. Threat of Substitutes There are many threats that have popped up when looking in the later stages of the industry. Instead of only having online capabilities on a PC,you can now browse the web on your phone, Pad, or even small gaming systems. Anything can be used to search the web, therefore making for the number of substitutes to rise. If the price of one PC is too high for a consumer, there are multiple ways of which he can accomplish what he needs. Whether you need to take notes for a class or stream a movie, almost any smart device in todays world will have the capabilities. There is definitely a rivalry between the big PC producing firms. In this cutthroat environment, everyone is trying to come out with the magic formula that will increase efficiency, lower costs, and ultimately produce a better product for the consumer. The follow the leader system seems to be in place, as companies routinely copy the past successes and try to make small adjustments to make their product rare and hard to imitate. The Power of The Buyer The buyer continues to have much power when it comes to the PC industry. Consumers know what they want as well as what price they are willing to pay. As reviewed in the substitute part, consumers can find what they need almost nowhere, so in order for a company to be profitable in this industry, it must come out with innovative items at a reasonable price that consumers feel is fair. The competitive advantages that companies create verses others are the reasons as to those companies that succeed rather than fail. Firms Profitability in the PC Industry As seen in exhibit 5 below, the main operating measures seem to be varied between the different companies. Apples gross margins have increased from 21% to 41% during the period between 1997 and 2011. However, Dell and Hips gross margins have decreased during that same time. As apple grows, the other competitors seem to be falling behind. We believe this is because of the innovation that Apple has compared to the rest of the industry. The new ideas partnered with the following of the company allow for a great combination. The PC profits grow with apple because of the brand name along Walt ten complicatedly AT ten PC Witt toner apple evolves Tanat consumers nave. Example, everything that you do on you Apple PC can be synced with you phone. Apples Other Industries MPH Players In 2001, Apple had entered the MPH market by introducing the pod as part of their haft towards a digital hub strategy. The introduction of the pod set Apple on its explosive progression in the growth of the company. The pod separated itself from other MPH players due to its sleek and simple design and large storage. The first pod has the ability to store up to 1 ,OHO songs in your pocket while the competitors products only stored about an hour of music. The next year Apple introduced the second-generation pod which had an increased storage that could hold up to 4,000 songs. Over the next several years, Apple continued to introduce new designs and products to their pod family. By partnering their innovating pod products with their exclusive tunes library and App store they have been apple to control more than 70% of the U. S. MPH market. The market for Amps is a much more attractive market compared to the PC market due to the PCs cutthroat competition. Within the PC market, Apple is in competition with four large competitors which accounted for almost 54% of shipments worldwide. These four PC vendors are Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Leno, and Acre. They all have well-established positions in the market. When Apple entered the MPH market, no competitor had strong hold. Apple was able to preferential themselves with innovative products and strategies. By producing pod accessories, pod was able to sell $1 dollar in add-on products for every $3 dollars spent on an pod. Another feature that helped Apple emerge itself to the top of the MPH market was the compatibility with Windows along with its own ISO software. This compatibility helped launch the tunes Music Store which has over 10 billion songs sold as of 2010; completely changing the way music is purchased. Although the MPH market is not as competitive as the PC market, we see less total gross sales per year as other technology materializes. Smart Phone Along with entering the MPH market, Apple had entered the smart phone market in 2007 by launching the first phone. The industry for mobile phones at the time were dominated by short life cycle products with sophisticated technology that Apple had not experienced. Although the outlook to enter the mobile phone market seemed risky, Apple was able to revolutionize the entire phone market with a differentiated product. Steve Jobs was quoted saying in January of 2007 Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Today, were introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widespread pod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device. These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it phone. In over five quarters, the original phone had over 6 million units sold with their exclusive network operator, AT. Apple would continue to develop and introduce new versions of their phone, along with changing agreements with network operators so that the phone could expand its market capacity. Four years after the first phone was launched, the reduce attributed to 44% of Apples total revenue. Parallel to the PC industry, competitors quickly gaunt on to ten revolutionary trends AT smart phones Ana software systems. Manufacturers such as Samsung, LEG, Motorola, and ETC all created their own operating systems and designed their own hardware giving them the opportunity to be considered by consumers. In 2012, the greatest threat to the Apple in the smart phone industry was developed by Google. This threat has become known as the Android platform, a platform that is open and free for other manufacturers to use. This gave Apple competitors a chance to compete with the Apples differentiated App Store. Manufacturers, such as ETC and Samsung, were able to develop phones that were very competitive and in some aspects superior to the phone all while using the Android platform. Http://commons. Wakefield. Org/wick/File:World-Wide-Smartened-Market-Share. Pang Above is a chart showing the trends of operating system market share worldwide from 2007 to 2011. In 2007, we can see the ISO market share start to increase as the phone was introduced. Recent trends have shown that the Android operating system is increasing in market share each year since Google has developed the platform. In Quarter 3 of 2011, the android platform has climbed to roughly 53% of the market. This is due the capabilities of open and free platform able to collaborate with smart phones manufactured by Apples competitors. Over the years, the intense competition within the smartened industry has led to lawsuits based on design and intellectual properties. Steve Jobs has become one of the most aggressive Coos in terms of legal action. He is quoted in saying l will spend every penny of Apples $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. Im going to destroy Android, because its a stolen product. Im willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Tablet I en Tanta revolutionary product Apple Ana producer silence ten Macintosh Is Known as the pad. The pad was another Apple innovation that had uncertainty in market demand before its launch. In 2010, when apple released the pad, an entirely trivial market had emerged into one of the most demanded technological markets. The market is referred to as the tablet market, which was led by the pad. In the first week on the market, the pad sold over 450,000 units. In February 2012, over 55 million nits of pads had been sold. Similar to the PC industry, Apple had an early Jump on competitors, but it was only a matter of time before competitors would catch on. In late 2010, Android based tablets had been introduced to the market to compete with Apples pad. Three main threats to the pad are manufacturers using Googles Android, Amazon using an open Android version, and Microsoft-based tablets. Amazons tablet had been able to grab 14% of the market by quarter 4 in 2011. Competition in the tablet market in 2012, is similar to the cutthroat competition seen in the smartened and PC industries.

Economy and Trade of the Ancient Mayans

Economy and Trade of the Ancient Mayans The Ancient Maya civilization had an advanced trade system consisting of short, medium, and long trade routes and a robust market for a range of goods and materials. Modern researchers have made use of a variety of methods to understand the Maya economy, including evidence from excavations, illustrations on pottery, scientific â€Å"fingerprinting† of materials such as obsidian, and examination of historical documents. Currency The Maya did not use money in the modern sense. There was no universally accepted form of currency which could be used anywhere in the Maya region. Even valuable items, such as cacao seeds, salt, obsidian, or gold tended to vary in value from one region or city-state to another, often rising in value the farther away these items were from their source. There were two kinds of goods commercialized by the Maya: prestige items and subsistence items. Prestige items were things like jade, gold, copper, highly decorated pottery, ritual items, and any other less-practical item used as a status symbol by upper-class Maya. Subsistence items were those used on a daily basis, such as food, clothing, tools, basic pottery, salt, and so on. Subsistence Items Early Maya city-states tended to produce all of their own subsistence items. Basic agriculture - mostly production of corn, beans, and squash - was the daily task of the majority of the Maya population. Using basic slash-and-burn agriculture, Maya families would plant a series of fields which would be allowed to lie fallow at times. Basic items, such as pottery for cooking, were made in homes or in community workshops. Later on, as the Maya cities began to grow, they outstripped their food production and food trade increased. Other basic necessities, such as salt or stone tools, were produced in certain areas and then traded to places that lacked them. Some coastal communities were involved in the short-range trade of fish and other seafood. Prestige Items The Maya had a bustling trade in prestige items as early as the Middle Preclassic period (about 1000 B.C.). Different sites in the Maya region produced gold, jade, copper, obsidian, and other raw materials. Items made from these materials are found at nearly every major Maya site, indicating an extensive trade system. One example is the famous carved jade head of sun god Kinich Ahau, discovered at the Altun Ha archaeological site in present-day Belize. The nearest source of jade to this monument was many miles away in present-day Guatemala, near the Maya city of Quirigu. The Obsidian Trade Obsidian was a precious commodity to the Maya, who used it for adornments, weapons, and rituals. Of all of the trade items favored by the ancient Maya, obsidian is the most promising for reconstructing their trade routes and habits. Obsidian, or volcanic glass, was available at a handful of sites in the Maya world. It is much easier to trace obsidian to its source than other materials like gold. Obsidian from a particular site not only occasionally has a distinct color, like the greenish obsidian from Pachuca, but an examination of the chemical trace elements in any given sample can nearly always identify the region or even the specific quarry from which it was mined. Studies matching obsidian found in archaeological digs with its source have proven very valuable in reconstructing ancient Maya trade routes and patterns. Advances in the Study of Maya Economy Researchers continue to study the Maya trade and economy system. Studies are ongoing at Maya sites and new technology is being put to good use. Researchers working at the Yucatan site of Chunchucmil recently tested the soil in a large clearing long suspected of having been a market. They found a high concentration of chemical compounds, 40 times greater than in other samples taken nearby. This suggests that food was extensively traded there. The compounds can be explained by bits of biological material decomposing into the soil, leaving traces behind. Other researchers continue to work with obsidian artifacts in their reconstruction of trade routes. Lingering Questions Although dedicated researchers continue to learn more and more about the ancient Maya and their trading patterns and economy, many questions remain. The very nature of their trade is debated. Were the merchants taking their orders from the wealthy elite, going where they were told, and making the deals they were ordered to make  - or was there a free market system in effect? What sort of social status did talented artisans enjoy? Did the Maya trade networks collapse along with Maya society in general around 900 A.D.? These questions and more are debated and studied by modern scholars of the ancient Maya. The Maya and Trade Maya economy and trade remains one of the more mysterious aspects of Maya life. Research into the area has proven tricky, as the records left behind by the Maya themselves in terms of their trade are scarce. They tended to document their wars and the lives of their leaders much more completely than their trading patterns. Nevertheless, learning more about the economy and trading culture of the Maya can shed much light on their culture. What sort of material items did they value, and why? Did extensive trading for prestige items create a sort of middle class of traders and skilled artisans? As trade between city-states increased, did a cultural exchange - such as archaeological styles, worship of certain gods, or advances in agricultural techniques - also take place? Sources McKillop, Heather. The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives. Reprint edition, W. W. Norton Company, July 17, 2006. Wilford, John Noble. Ancient Yucatn Soils Point to Maya Market, and Market Economy. The New York Times, January 8, 2008.

I dont know yet Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

I dont know yet - Assignment Example For the purpose of making a similar investigation, this study used data involving 500 cases. Data are available on market-to-book-value (MBV), identity of the largest owner, â€Å"concentration of ownership† assessed in terms of the percentage share of the largest owner, size in terms of the total assets of the company, return on capital in percent (ROCE), and industry type. Therefore, there were six variables. However, because this investigation is limited to the relationship between ownership structure and company performance, there were only four relevant variables: MBV, identity, concentration of ownership, and ROCE. The relevant independent variables for the study are â€Å"identity of the largest owner† and the â€Å"concentration of ownership† assessed in terms of the percentage share of the largest owners. In contrast, the relevant dependent variables or company performance variables appropriate from the data set are MBV and ROCE. There was no need to use the variable â€Å"industry† because it is irrelevant for the focus of our study. Of course, our study can also cover whether the effect of the independent variables differ in each type of industry or whether the specific effect of the independent variables vary depending in manufacturing, services, and primary industries. However, we need not do this. Similarly, we do not have to cover firm size based on asse ts because firms can be small or large but asset size does not imply performance. Of course, we can also construct empirical investigations that differentiate the effects based on asset size but, again, we do not have to do this. We focus in this section on variables that may indicate a possible presence or absence between firm ownership structure and firm performance. In Figure 1, we investigate the scattergram pattern if we have the percentage share of the largest owner of a firm and market to

Letter on the desire to become a college coach Essay

Letter on the desire to become a college coach - Essay Example I have for this reason been following their games and training sessions and I am informed of their potentials, to be exploited, and their weaknesses that should be managed for success in competitions. Besides my personal interest in the college team and my passion for its success, I have extensive and outstanding skills and qualities that meet the college’s expectation of a football coach. I am a trained coach who meets the national coaching standards for a national league team. My experience as a coach also establishes confidence in my performance potentials. Based on my training, I have the capacity to ensure the student’s physical fitness through offering safe training. This guarantees mitigation of the college’s liabilities that would arise from student’s injuries while on sporting duties, either in trainings or in competitions. I have successfully achieved this as a high school coach, a position in which I served for six years. My experience also includes coaching special team’s ‘runningbacks’, wide receivers, tight ends, and offensive coordination. My personal attributes include a firm belief in positive coaching, and respect and discipline among team members. I am also a hard worker who ensures motivation of my team for effective preparations before each game. Further, I am a self-motivated individual, self reliant, positive, a self-starter, energetic, trustworthy, and a team player. My skills and experience, therefore, identify my qualification as the best candidate for this job. This is because my intrinsic motivational features and my long-term passion for the team have already established a commitment towards a high-leveled leadership and management that will not depend on external environmental factors. My successful coaching experience also guarantees success with the college team. Similarly, my leadership potentials will ensure a good relationship between the team and the school

Effect of Internet on Fraud and Identity Theft Essay

Effect of Internet on Fraud and Identity Theft - Essay Example The number of adult Americans with Internet access was expected to increase from about 88 million in mid-2000 to more than 104 million at the end of 2004. (Claburn, 2004)The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce approximated that in the fourth quarter of 2000, online retail sales amounted to $8.686 billion, a boost of 67.1 per hundred from the 4th quarter of 1999. (Haeberle, 2004) Total e-commerce sales for 2000 were an approximated $25.8 billion, accounting for 0.8 percent of all sales. Bankers, for instance, who conduct online banking transactions are particularly vulnerable to fraud and identity theft (Sullins, 2006). Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the rise in e-commerce has become fertile ground for fraud, resulting in a loss of billions of dollars yearly worldwide (Bolton & Hand, 2002). Apparently, the fraudsters are quick to realize the potential of a new technology or system to propagate deception and identity theft, and early on exploit it to their benefit. Long-distance telemarketing became the channel of such criminal activity when it was first introduced in the 1970s. So too the pay-per-call service when it became accessible in the late 1980s. Internet technology is the newest attraction for opportunistic fraudsters who take advantage of it for personal gain. The problems facing law enforcers is the rapidly evolving techniques used by the fraudsters (Acoca, 2008). The rapid increase in the number of complaints associated with online deception and fraud bears this out: in 1997, the Commission obtained less than 1,000 Internet deception complaints; the following year, the number had expanded eight-fold. Although most Internet deceptions arise from customary scams, the variety of techniques ingeniously devised to exploit the new technology is quickly proliferating.  

Tlatelolco Massacre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tlatelolco Massacre - Essay Example The incident clearly violated the human rights of this century as it killed many innocent people of the subcontinent. Massacres have taken place through out the world at different instances. At some instances the governments of states itself has been involved in carrying out the massacres. In other words massacres can also be defined as the mass killing of people without any concrete reason. Furthermore the causes of some of the mass massacres which have taken place in the history of this world are yet to be known. One of the massacres of such intensity is known as Tlatelolco Massacre. This took place in the city of Mexico on the date of October 2, 1968. It is known to be the deadliest of massacres which took place over a century in the city of Mexico. This essay would further analyze the massacre from all view points and would further examine the role of CIA in response to the massacre which happened. The incident of Tlatelolco took place in October 1968 at Plaza de las Tres Culturas. It was an armed incident which took place in the response of student demonstrations in Mexico. The year 1968 marked different demonstrations of students taking place all over the world which inspired the Mexican students also. Furthermore the students started having different rallies all over the city to get some of their demands accepted. The students further started to threaten the authorities of dire consequences if their demands were not met. The students had different demands which in totality wanted abolition of certain authorities and wanted to get some officers dismissed. The students also had other demands which were not being accepted by the government. At that time the President of Mexico was Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. He was determined to end the student demonstrations through out Mexico through different means and he even took aggressive methods to end it up. Till October the demands of the st udents were yet not met and they threatened the event of Olympics which were to take place in Mexico 1968. This took the authorities with surprise and it is reported that the government asked for support from the US to stop any mishap from happening in the Olympics. The rallies of the students extended to such a number that it became alarming for the authorities and on the eve of October 2 at Plaza de las Tres Culturas aggressive means of methods were used against these students to make them finish their demonstrations. However after the massacre it was till 2003 not established as to who was responsible for the massacre. The government at that time claimed that some of the students hiding in other buildings had started firing on the security forces and in response the security forces did the same. Although different stories have been put up by the State department, FBI and CIA the view points of CIA would be emphasized more in this essay. The State department which was being informed by different sources about the incident is still not having clear claims as to how the incident occurred all the authorities have contradictory views as to from the first shot took place. The army is not blamed at by the authorities as the general of army was trying to disperse the crowd when the first shot was fired. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also had no prior knowledge as to how the inc

Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose - Essay Example The essay "Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose" overviews the main objectives and principles of accounting and the process of auditing that help an auditor in reporting the financial condition and working result of the organization. During auditing, the auditor may come across some errors and frauds although that is not the primary objective of the auditor. The auditor can also disclose whether the accounting system adopted by the company is efficient enough, during which time he may mention some several glitches in the system. The auditor has to examine books of accounts and any other relevant document so that they can report the financial condition of the firm. During the process, the auditor may come across some errors or frauds which can be in the form of clerical errors or errors of principle. Clerical errors can be divided into errors of commission, errors of omission, and compensating errors. Some frauds can be so damaging that they lead to the company bankruptcy. A good example is The Enron scandal that led to the bankruptcy of the corporation that was a result of audit failure. There are the following principles in auditing: planning, honesty, impartiality, secrecy, evidence, consistency and legal framework. The auditor has to plan before starting their work. The auditor decides to account about the internal control procedure and the accounting. Honesty and sincerity are the second most important principles of auditing. The auditor should exhibit a high degree of loyalty and professionalism.

Credo essay Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Credo essay - Coursework Example Although we might not always be able be in a position to see the foundations of grand skyscrapers, we know that there has to be one because without it, the tall skyscraper would collapse when faced with the smallest gust of wind. For me, my family is essentially this foundation, it is my biggest supporter when I need to be encouraged and assured, and it is where I run to when things do not work out and I feel insecure. Family is of great importance and has an influence on the individuals we turn out to be, we cannot hide our true feelings from our families as they can always see right through us. My family has been instrumental in teaching me how to relate and interact with others. From my family, I have managed to gain a number of strong role models, ranging from my father who is always strong in the face of any calamity and never runs away from bravely confronting any challenges in life, to my grandmother whose special brand of affection is truly one of life’s greatest treas ures, my small sister whose openness and vivacity is quite infectious to my mother endless love that we constantly draw upon. There is nothing as good as the joy that is shared all round when a family sits down to enjoy each other’s company and laugh together. At times families do tend to experience difficulties that cause them to close ranks and cry, but this is ultimately overshadowed by the certain morning that is sure to eventually breakout as the family overcomes the challenges in their paths and are able to once again able to enjoy the joy of sunshine after a dark moment and laugh together. My family comforts and helps me to deal with life’s challenges; whether it is something as relatively small as not finding a favorite pair of shoes to wear when I want to go out, or something as monumental as the cold touch of death. I go through life with the quite assurance that in the face of calamities and challenging situations, I can always look up to my family for support and

Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose - Essay Example The essay "Analysis of the Auditing Report Purpose" overviews the main objectives and principles of accounting and the process of auditing that help an auditor in reporting the financial condition and working result of the organization. During auditing, the auditor may come across some errors and frauds although that is not the primary objective of the auditor. The auditor can also disclose whether the accounting system adopted by the company is efficient enough, during which time he may mention some several glitches in the system. The auditor has to examine books of accounts and any other relevant document so that they can report the financial condition of the firm. During the process, the auditor may come across some errors or frauds which can be in the form of clerical errors or errors of principle. Clerical errors can be divided into errors of commission, errors of omission, and compensating errors. Some frauds can be so damaging that they lead to the company bankruptcy. A good example is The Enron scandal that led to the bankruptcy of the corporation that was a result of audit failure. There are the following principles in auditing: planning, honesty, impartiality, secrecy, evidence, consistency and legal framework. The auditor has to plan before starting their work. The auditor decides to account about the internal control procedure and the accounting. Honesty and sincerity are the second most important principles of auditing. The auditor should exhibit a high degree of loyalty and professionalism.

Evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Evaluation - Essay Example In order to fathom the restaurant’s attributes, an insightful evaluation of the atmosphere, service offered, food and bar is necessary. As one approaches the Olive Garden Restaurant in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the architectural design of the building heralds a traditional Tuscan inspired farmhouse. The sight itself presents an aura of the traditional home that preconditions your mind to what lies within the walls. The articulately manicured lawns and the landscape design present a picturesque environment that is truly magnificent. I am truly impressed with the serene environment and the welcoming aura so far. However, the meticulousness in the landscape may scare one into thinking that the restaurant is exclusive to the rich in society. As one enters the waiting lounge, the lobby is complete with comfortable seats for waiting guests. Furthermore, the wall decor is filled with bright colors that portray the ambience of an Italian market. The familiar and delectable aroma of I talian dishes is ubiquitously present in the air. The ambience in the dining area is accentuated by the presence of a fireplace and dining booths with arched entrances. Furthermore, the dining area is decorated with flowers in strategically located flower vases. Certainly, the atmosphere set so far appeals to the senses and makes any guest feel at home. The quality of service exhibits itself when a waiter soon approaches me and warmly welcomes me to the restaurant. The waiters are smartly dressed in black trousers and white shirts. Moreover, the aprons are uniquely magnificent due to the golden color. All the waiters are engaged in an orderly rush serving the guests who are dotted in almost all the tables. Clearly, they are efficient in their service as they seek to attend to all the guests as soon as they arrive. The restaurant is full of guests in almost every table. The crowd puts off the homely feeling of the restaurant and brings one to the realization that it is a business joi nt favored by many customers. From the adverts posted in the restaurant’s website, the information states that the waiters and chefs are sent to the culinary Institute of Tuscany in Italy. The purpose is to enable them to get better insight into the Italian culture of cooking and winery. I set out to establish if the fact holds any water. Consequently, as the waiter patiently waits for me to place my order, I decide to ask him the best Italian appetizer for lunch. The waiter does not fail in his mastery of the Italian cuisine and recommends that I start with choice appetizers or antipasti such as Bruschetta, Caprese flatbread, the Grilled chicken flatbread or the Lasagna fritta (Olive Garden). I opt to order the grilled chicken flatbread for a start. The silverware set up in my dining table has been meticulously arranged complete with cutlery, plates and napkins. Five minutes later, the waiter returns withan appetizer dish of grilled chicken flatbread that neatly served on ex quisite plates. As the waiter leaves me with the appetizing dish, my personal views on his services so far is hospitable, patient, time conscious, neat and knowledgeable. The grilled chicken flatbread is an Italian appetizer made with ingredients of chicken, basil, roasted chili peppers, garlic spread and alfredo. The meal is warm, and the aroma emanating from the meal is enough to whet anyone’s appetite. After having a slice of the flatbread, I am not quite impressed by it.

Carbon Nanofoam Structure and Functions

Carbon Nanofoam Structure and Functions Abstract Carbon nanofoam is the fifth allotrope of Carbon after graphite, diamond, fullerene (e.g., C-60 molecules), and Carbon nanotubes. It was discovered in 1997 by Andrei V. Rode and his team at the Australian National University in Canberra, in collaboration with Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St Petersburg. The molecular structure of Carbon nanofoam consists of Carbon tendrils bonded together in a low-density, mist like arrangement. This paper talks about the physical structure, chemical properties, preparation methods and applications of Carbon nanofoam. The most unusual property of Carbon nanofoam is its ferromagnetism; it gets attracted to magnets, like iron. At a temperature as low as -183 ÃÅ'Ã…  C, Carbon nanofoam behaves like a magnet. Also, the foam is a semiconductor, making it attractive for device applications. The reason for the foams magnetic property has been explained in the paper. Carbon nanofoam is hence the first pure-Carbon magnet and also one of the lightest known solid substances (with a density of ~2 mg/cm3), when used along with aerogel. The Carbon nanofoam is believed to remove magnetic prejudice among the known elements, the idea than an element should be stereotyped as either magnetic or nonmagnetic. 1. INTRODUCTION Carbon nanofoam was discovered by  1Andrei V. Rode  and co-workers, in collaboration with Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St Petersburg at the  Australian National University  in  Canberra in the year 1997. It is the fifth allotrope of Carbon after graphite, diamond, fullerene and Carbon nanotubes. The molecular structure of Carbon nanofoam consists of Carbon tendrils, bonded together to form a cluster- like assembly of low density in a loose three- dimensional web pattern. The width of each cluster is about 6 nanometers, consisting of about 4000 Carbon atoms. These Carbon atoms are linked in the form of graphite- like sheets but consist of heptagonal structures included among the hexagonal patterns, giving it a negative curvature, (Figure 1(a)) unlike the Buckminster fullerenes [1] in which the inclusion of pentagonal structures gives the Carbon sheet a positive curvature. The density of Carbon nanofoam is approximately 2 mg/cm3, which makes it one of the lightest known solid substances, the other being aerogels whose density is about 100 times more than that of Carbon nanofoam [1]. According to Rode and his colleagues [1], nanofoam contains a number of unpaired electrons due to the Carbon atoms with only three bonds, found at topological and bonding defects. This gives rise to the most unusual feature of Carbon nanofoam, which is that it is attracted to magnets. Moreover, below ˆ’183 °C Carbon nanofoam acts as a magnet itself. Another property of Carbon nanofoam is that unlike aerogels, Carbon nanofoam is a poor conductor of electricity. The clause for the magnetic property of Carbon nanofoam is that only freshly produced Carbon nanofoam is ferromagnetic; Carbon nanofoam is strongly attracted to a permanent magnet at room temperature, initially. This room temperature ferro- magnetic behavior disappears after a few hours of preparation of the Carbon nanofoam, when the temperature eventually fluctuates to go above the room temperature. However, the ferro-magnetic property persists at lower temperatures. Depending on the pressure of the ambient Argon gas inside the chamber where high- pulse, high- energy laser ablation [3] [4] [5] and deposition of Carbon vapors is performed, different Carbonaceous structures are formed. At a pressure of 0.1 Torr*, diamond- like Carbon films are formed. As the pressure is increased to greater than 0.1 Torr, diamond like Carbon- nanofoam is produced. The density of the Carbon nanofoam depends on the density and the polymerization chemistry used during the sol-gel process [3] [4]. The particle diameter of low-density foams is the largest, which is up to 100 nanometers, with a pore size of at least 500 nanometers. The high- density Carbon foams have pores of size less than 1000-Angstrom Units and the particles are ultra-fine, the density being approximately 0.8 grams/cubic centimeter. Electrically conductive Carbon nanofoams are also under production, which has many properties of the traditional aerogel material. Prepared by sol- gel methods, these mate rials are available in the form of monoliths, granules, powders and papers. The foams prepared by these methods are typically of low density, continuous porosity and high capacitance. The most intriguing property of Carbon nanofoam is its Ferro magnetism (Figure 1(b)). The reason for the existence of this unusual property attributed to an allotrope of Carbon, which is conventionally believed to be a non- magnetic element, is due to the complex microstructure of the nanofoam. Few researchers claimed that the ferromagnetism is due to the presence of traces of iron and nickel impurities in their foam. Later they calculated that the small amounts of these magnetic materials could only account for 20% of the strength of the ferromagnetic fields in the foam and concluded that the ferromagnetism is an intrinsic property of this allotrope of Carbon. The unpaired electron that does not form a chemical bond in the 7- corner, 7- edged polygons present in the structure of Carbon nanofoam has a magnetic moment, which is suspected to be the reason of its magnetism. *1 Torr is approximately equal to 1 mmHg; 1 Torr = 133.322368 Pascal Due to the magnetic properties of Carbon nanofoam, it can be used in a number of applications namely, medicine, optics, fuel cells and other electronic devices. They are also being used as lightweight, high temperature insulation materials, absorbents and coating agents and as electrodes for water deionization cells. In biomedicine, Carbon nanofoams are used as tiny ferromagnetic clusters, which could be injected in blood vessels, in order to increase the quality of magnetic resonance imaging. Another application of Carbon nanofoams is in spintronic devices, whose operations are based on the materials magnetic properties. The researchers also have preliminary indications that the novel magnetic behavior also occurs in another nano-compound made of boron and nitrogen, two other elements that are ordinarily non-magnetic. The following parts of this paper discuss in detail, the Molecular Structure Synthesis methods Properties, and Applications of Carbon nanofoam. 2. STRUCTURE OF CARBON NANOFOAM Carbon nanofoam consists of Carbon atoms bonded by both sp2 and sp3 hybridizations, unlike the other allotropes of Carbon such as graphite and diamond which have only sp3 hybridization and C60 and Carbon nanotubes that have only sp2 hybridization [7]. Around 4000 such Carbon atoms are bonded together in the form of a cluster-like assembly of low density. In other words, these Carbon atoms are bonded in the form of graphite-like sheets but consist of heptagonal structures included among the hexagonal patterns, giving it (Carbon nanofoam) a hyperbolic pattern, as proposed for schwarzite[6] The percentage distribution of the sp2 and sp3 hybridizations can be controlled by during the synthesis of the nanofoam. High pulse-rate Laser Ablation method for the synthesis of Carbon nanofoam by A. V. Rode et al [1] demonstrates that there are two types of particles in the foam and that here is a small amount of particles with a high sp2 fraction (~0.9) of graphite-like bonds, due to crystalline graphite used in the experiment. Particles with a fraction, generally lower than 0.8 sp2 are inferred to consist of amorphous Carbon with a mixture of sp2 and sp3 bonding. Particles with lower sp2 content and a higher Plasmon energy are more diamond-like, as they have higher density and a higher fraction of sp3 bonds. Upon measurement, it has been observed that these is a high sp3 content at the edges of the foam and at the edges of the cluster, which is a clear indication that the sp3 bonding atoms are located at the surface of the clusters and that the connections between the clusters a re due to the sp3 bonding. 3. SYNTHESIS OF CARBON NANOFOAM The synthesis of Carbon nanofoam is done on a laboratory scale and is not produced industrially, in bulk. Two methods are adapted for the preparation of Carbon nanofoams, depending on different types of requirements such as particle size, density, resistivity, etc. The two methods are listed and explained below. 3.1. Laser Ablation Laser ablation is the process of removing material from a solid (or occasionally liquid) surface by exposing it to radiation with a laser beam. Depending on the flux density of the laser, the effect of laser ablation varies. For a more clear description; at low laser flux, the material is heated by the absorbed laser energy and evaporates or sublimates. At high laser flux, the material is typically converted to plasma. Usually, laser ablation refers to removing material with a pulsed laser, but it is possible to ablate material with a continuous wave laser beam if the laser intensity is high enough. High-repetition-rate laser ablation and deposition of Carbon vapors results in the formation of quite different Carbonaceous structures depending on the pressure of the ambient Ar gas in the chamber. Diamond-like Carbon films form at a pressure below 0.1 Torr whereas a diamond-like Carbon nano-foam is created above 0.1Torr. The creation of particular molecular structures involves atom-to-atom attachment in appropriate physical conditions at an appropriate rate. 3.1.1. Experimental Setup The experimental setup of the experiment conducted by E.G. Gamaly and piers is as follows: a 42-W, 120-ns pulse-width Q-switched Nd: YAG laser (ÃŽÂ » = 1.064 mm) with variable repetition rate of 2-25 kHz was used. Laser of intensity approximately 109 Watts/cm2, averaged over the pulse duration was created on the glossy Carbon target, keeping the repetition rate fixed at 10 kHz and focal spot scanned over a 2X2 cm area of the target surface. 3.1.2. Formation of Carbon Nanofoam in Ar ambient temperature The diamond-like Carbon (DLC) films is deposited in vacuum of approximately 106 Torr. Transformation to a different form of Carbon material occurs in an Ar-filled chamber at a pressure around 0:1Torr. At this pressure, the mean free path for collisions of the evaporated Carbon atoms is in the order of 1 cm. Thus, Carbon-Carbon and Carbon-argon collisions in the chamber start to play a dominant role in the formation of Carbonaceous structures in Ar-filled chamber. The high-repetition-rate laser evaporation of a Carbon target in a 1-100 Torr Ar atmosphere produces a higher evaporation rate of Carbon atoms and ions than conventional laser ablation techniques. The resulting increased average temperature and density of the C-Ar mixture in the experimental chamber increases the probability of the formation of higher energy Carbon-Carbon bonds. The resulting increased collision frequency from the above deposition conditions encourages diffusion-limited aggregation of Carbon atoms into fractal structures, and the formation of low density Carbon foam. Figures 3.1.2. (a) and 3.1.2. (b) show the scanning and transmission electron microscope images respectively, showing the free-standing Carbon foam. These images are scaled to 1 mm and 100 nm respectively. The analysis of these images reveal that the foam represents a fractal-like structure which consists of Carbon clusters with the average diameter of 6 nm randomly interconnected into web-like foam. The foam looks like a capricious mixture of strings of pearls. [3] Initially, the flow of atomic Carbons is created by the laser ablation near the target surface. After the chamber is filled with an inert ambient gas, it results in the collision of Carbon atoms with the ambient gas atoms, as the Carbon plume expands. Hence, the Carbon atoms collide, diffuse through the gas, exchanging their energy, and finally cool down to the average Carbon-gas temperature. 3.2. Sol Gel Process The sol-gel process, also known as chemical solution deposition, is a wet-chemical technique widely used in the fields of materials science and ceramic engineering. Such methods are used primarily for the fabrication of materials (typically a metal oxide) starting from a chemical solution (or sol) that acts as the precursor for an integrated network (or gel) of either discrete particles or network polymers. Typical precursors are metal alkoxides and metal chlorides, which undergo various forms of hydrolysis and polycondensation reactions. Carbon nanofoam is also prepared from the pyrolysis of organic precursors, such as organic aerogels produced through sol-gel processes (such as resorcinol formaldehyde sol-gels) (Figure 3.2.). The sol-gel solution is cast into the desired shape and after the formation of a highly cross-linked gel the solvent is removed from the pores of the gel. The remaining rigid monolithic shape consists of covalently bonded, nanometer-sized particles that are arranged in a 3-dimensional network. Precursor RF gels can be applied to a fine Carbon felt which is Carbonized to form Carbon nanofoam electrodes [9]. The Carbon nanofoam thus prepared usually has low density and very high specific surface areas (up to ˆÂ ¼1200m2 g-1), and they can be produced in different forms, such as monoliths, fine particles or films. The final shape and properties depend strongly on the sample history, as is the case with all amorphous Carbons. 4. PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOFOAM Many of the properties of Carbon nanofoams match with those of the traditional aerogel materials. Carbon nanofoams are available in the form of monoliths, granules, powders and papers. They are electrically conductive, synthetic and lightweight foams in which the solid matrix and pore spaces have nanometer-scale dimensions. Prepared by sol-gel methods, nanofoams typically have low density, continuous porosity, high surface area, and fine cell/pore sizes. The foams are also electrically conductive and have a high capacitance. Standard densities of Carbon nanofoams range from 0.25 to 1.00 g/cm3. Carbon nanofoams precursors can be infiltrated into a Carbon fiber mat that, when Carbonized, will result in paper-like electrode material 0.007 to 0.050 inches thick. Morphology examination by scanning electron microscope shows an open cell structure and continuous porosity. The particle size and pore spacing is a function of density and the polymerization chemistry used during the sol-gel process. Low density Carbon nanofoams (~0.25 g/cm3) have the largest cell/pore size with particle diameters of up to 100 nm and pores at least 500 nm. High density Carbon foams (abt. 0.8 g/cm3) have ultra-fine particles and pores of less than 1000Ã…. The nanofoam contains numerous unpaired electrons, which Rode and colleagues propose is due to Carbon atoms with only three bonds that are found at topological and bonding defects. This gives rise to what is perhaps Carbon nanofoams most unusual feature: it is attracted to magnets, and below ˆ’183  °C can itself be made magnetic. 4.1. Ferro magnetism of Carbon nanofoam It is a well-known fact that Carbon and its allotropes are among those materials which do not get attracted to magnets. Although, it has been discovered that Carbon nanofoam is attracted to magnets, and below ˆ’183  °C can itself be made magnetic. This behavior of Carbon nanofoam is unusual as against the magnetic property generally attributed to Carbon. However, at room temperature, the nanofoams magnetization disappears a few hours after the material is produced. The reason for the magnetic behavior of Carbon nanofoam is discovered to be its molecular structure; it consists of a number of unpaired electrons due to the Carbon atoms with only three bonds that are found at topological and bonding defects. The unpaired electrons contribute towards the existence of magnetic moment in the nanofoam, which is believed to be the reason for its ferro magnetic character. Detailed explanation Speaking in terms of magnetic susceptibility, in general, all known Carbon allotropes exhibit diamagnetic susceptibility in the range of à Ã¢â‚¬ ¡ =ˆ’(10ˆ’5-10ˆ’7) emu/g Oe with the exception of: Polymerized C60 prepared in a two-dimensional rhombohedral phase of à Ã¢â‚¬ ¡= +(0.25ˆ’1.3)*10ˆ’3 emu/g Oe (depending on the orientation of the magnetic field relative to the polymerized planes) which shows ferromagnetism The disordered glass-like magnetism observed in activated Carbon fibers due to nonbonding à Ã¢â€š ¬-electrons located at edge states, and The unusual magnetic behavior observed in single wall Carbon nanohorns ascribed to the Van Vleck paramagnetic contribution. Although ferromagnetism in polymerized C60 is noteworthy, the exceptionally large magnetic signal in Carbon nanostructures such as Carbon nanofoam remains a case of special interest. In order to study the ferro magnetism of Carbon nanofoam, an experiment was conducted by Rode and his colleagues. They prepared Carbon nanofoam by high-pulse-rate laser ablation of an ultrapure glassy carbon target in a vacuum chamber made of stainless steel, filled with high-purity (99.995%) Argon gas, inside a 2 inch cylinder made of fused silica (SiO2). This setup results in the formation of carbon nanofoam, with a combination of sp2 and sp3 hybridization. The reason for the magnetic character of Carbon nanofoam was then discovered to be the ferromagnetic interaction of the spins of the unpaired electrons, separated by sp3 centers. [6] A possible mechanism for magnetic moment generation would be a simple indirect exchange interaction through conduction electrons located on the hexagons. Low temperature magnetization curves indicate a saturation magnetization of approximately 0.35emu/g at 2 K. [10] 5. APPLICATIONS OF CARBON NANOFOAM Carbon nanofoam is one of the lightest known solid substances till date. Hence, it finds its application in a number of fields. Although there are no immediate applications of Carbon nanofoams, a few of the possible areas where there can be applied are as follows: They could be used in spintronic devices, which are based on a materials magnetic properties. In biomedicine: the Nano metric scale ferromagnetic clusters could be injected into blood vessels to enhance magnetic resonance imaging. It could also be implanted in tumors, where it could turn radio waves into a source of heat that would destroy the tumor but leave surrounding tissue unharmed. Carbon nanofoam can replace the nanofoams of other metals because of its low density, high conductivity, light weight and also its ferro magnetic property. As coatings or absorbents in specialty optics As flexible electrodes for deionization and fuel cells Carbon nanofoam paper Making of High-Sensitivity Ultrasonic Transducer in Air High-performance metal-air batteries Spintronics, meaning spin transport electronics is also known as magnetoelectronics. It is an emerging technology which, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, exploits both the intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment, in solid-state devices. Spintronic devices find their application in perhaps the most important computer subsystems: random access memories and high density non-volatile storage media. Hence in order to develop large memories on a small chip, making the chip as light weighted as possible is also very important. This is where the use of carbon nanofoam gives the desired result. Carbon nanofoam paper is another interesting application of carbon nanofoams. Due to its composition, carbon nanofoam paper has proven very difficult to cut using traditional methods such as metal blades. It was found that using 100 W of power at a speed of 250 inches per minute (IPM) the 0.0075-inch thick carbon nanofoam paper was cleanly cut. [11] For a high-sensitivity ultrasonic transducer in air, nanofoam can be considered to be applied to its acoustic matching layer. Since nanofoam has extremely low acoustic impedance, it is effective for the acoustic matching layer of an ultrasonic transducer in air. The sensitivity of the developed ultrasonic transducer can be made up to about twenty times higher than that of a conventional ultrasonic transducer in air. [12] The desirable structural characteristics of carbon nanofoams can be exploited to design and produce electrocatalytic structures for O2 reduction that will enable high-performance metal-air batteries. While the native carbon nanofoam structure exhibits modest activity for O2 reduction, further functionalization of the nanofoam is necessary to achieve technologically relevant performance. [13] 6. CONCLUSION In conclusion, this term paper throws light on a recently discovered allotrope of carbon called as Carbon Nanofoam, whose molecular structure and properties are different from the other allotropes of carbon such as graphite, diamond, C60, amorphous carbon, carbon nanotubes and fullerene. Carbon nanofoam is found to be one among the lightest known solid substances, which gives it an advantage over other substances in a number of varied applications. The most intriguing feature of carbon nanofoam is its magnetic property. This novel magnetic behavior found in carbon nanofoam has made many renowned scientists and researchers rethink about what makes a material magnetic, since ferro-magnetism is not one of the attributed properties of carbon in any of its forms. Furthermore, this ferro-magnetic characteristic of carbon nanofoam, along with its other characteristics such as extremely low acoustic impedance, low density, continuous porosity, high surface area, fine cell/pore sizes, electrical conductivity and high capacitance is believed to have wide applications in the developing current technology whose motto is The smaller the better!