Dangerous and Natural Energy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Dangerous and Natural Energy - Research Paper Example However, the risk that is close to the highest magnitude and frequency lies next to areas with the highest risk. As per the map, the western seaboard experiences the highest hazard of earthquakes (USGS: Science for a Changing World, 2012). Considering that the pink color represent areas with the highest earthquake hazard, Seattle lies in the green area, which is third to the least risky area. However, there are maroon areas surrounding it meaning that earthquakes may be experienced from these areas reaching the area (USGS: Science for a Changing World, 2012). In the past seven days, according to the earthquake center, there has not occurred any seismic activity in the area. The closest earthquake activity that occurred in the past seven days was in Canada and not in the USA. There has been seismic activity in the USA that has occurred in most recently, and in some cases up to this month on the 2nd of June in California. On a global scale, seismic activity seems to occur offshore in the areas bordering the land. This is particularly so in the areas around Alaska, the west coast of the USA, as well as the West coast of South America. Among all these regions, there is consistency in the occurrence based on fault lines around the world. These are mainly to the west of Alaska, East of Australia and the western side of the South American continent. There are, also, several earthquakes occurring in continental shelves in areas such as Alaska, China and India. In addition, there are several occurrences in the Middle East, an area with not much seismic activity. In Japan, 46 kilometers East of Namie, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake occurred on 2 July 2012. It occurred in an area where two fault lines lie (USGS: Science for a Changing World, 2012). Living in a red area is difficult following the high risk involved. However, I would be willing to live in such an area as long as I know the full implication of exposing myself to such a hazard and the benefits that come with

The Role of Learner Self Assessment in the IB PYP classrooms Assignment

The Role of Learner Self Assessment in the IB PYP classrooms - Assignment Example In the wake of this discussion, researchers have suggested that effective assessment at all levels of education holds the key to realising the aim of childhood. In the school set up, there are different kinds of assessment and assessments are conducted for different reasons and at different times. Students at the early stage of education have several areas of their education that is worth assessing. These diverse areas of assessment help in giving well resourced and comprehensive reports about individual students – their weaknesses, their strengths, their progress and projections for their future. In this regard, The Cedarville University (2010) admonishes that â€Å"understanding ones' skills, interests, abilities, personality, and values is important when considering any next step after obtaining a high school diploma.† This is to say that a lot of assessment has to be carried out on the student at the very beginning so that a comprehensive data can be obtained as to who the student really when he gets to the higher level. This topic, â€Å"The Role of Learner Self Assessment in the IB PYP classrooms† has therefore been chosen to help find the relationship between childhood education and effective assessment at the primary level. As there remains diverse forms of assessment, an emphasis will be laid on self-assessment at the primary level of education to discover how the phenomenon can be helpful in producing an all round student. Defining Assessment Assessment is a very broad aspect of school education and comes with several explanations and definitions. Kizlit (2011) defines assessment as â€Å"a process by which information is obtained relative to some known objective or goal.† CyberSleuth-Kids, an online educational journal on the other hand, sees assessment as â€Å"the process of documenting, often times in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs.† The Northwestern Science Health University (2010) al so explains that â€Å"Assessment is an ongoing process of setting high expectations for student learning, measuring progress toward established learning outcomes, and providing a basis for reflection, discussion and feedback to improve University academic programs.† To sum all the definitions up, it can be deduced that assessment is the practice of gathering necessary information about a person through the use of a measurable device for decision making. The decision making in the school environment has mostly got to do with student academic standing, student behaviour, student interest, student talent, skills, and knowledge among other factors. A common device that is used to gather needed information about students is test. There are some closely linked terminologies or components of education that have some relation with assessment though these are different from assessment. As already mentioned, test is one of these components. Measurement and evaluation are the others. D rawing the distinction between these components, Kizlit (2011) notes that measurement is refers to â€Å"the process by which the attributes or dimensions of some physical object are determined.†

Product Services And Branding Strategy Essay

Product Services And Branding Strategy Essay The term marketing mix was coined in 1953 by Neil Borden in his American Marketing Association presidential address. However this was actually a reformulation of an earlier idea by his associate, James Culliton, who in 1948 described the role of the marketing manager as a mixer of ingredients, who sometimes follows recipes prepared by others, sometimes prepares his own recipe as he goes along, sometimes adapts a recipe from immediately available ingredients, and at other times invents new ingredients no one else has tried.[1] A prominent marketer, E. Jerome McCarthy, proposed a Four P classification in 1960, which has seen wide use. The Four Ps concept is explained in most marketing textbooks and classes. -Definition: Marketing mix is the combination of elements that you will use to market your product. There are four elements: Product, Place, Price and Promotion. They are called the four Ps of the marketing mix Product A tangible object or an intangible service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units. Intangible products are service based like the tourism industry the hotel industry or codes-based products like cellphone load and credits. Typical examples of a mass produced tangible object are the motor car and the disposable razor. A less obvious but ubiquitous mass produced service is a computer operating system. Packaging also needs to be taken into consideration. Every product is subject to a life-cycle including a growth phase followed by an eventual period of decline as the product approaches market saturation. To retain its competitiveness in the market, product differentiation is required and is one of the strategy to differentiate from its competitors Level 1: Core Product. What is the core benefit your product offers?. Customers who purchase a camera are buying more then just a camera they are purchasing memories. Level 2 Actual Product: All cameras capture memories. The aim is to ensure that your potential customers purchase your one. The strategy at this level involves organisations branding, adding features and benefits to ensure that their product offers a differential advantage from their competitors. Level 3: Augmented product: What additional non-tangible benefits can you offer? Competition at this level is based around after sales service, warranties, delivery and so on. John Lewis a retail departmental store offers free five year guarantee on purchases of their Television sets, this gives their `customers the additional benefit of peace of mind over the five years should their purchase develop a fault. Product Decisions When placing a product within a market many factors and decisions have to be taken into consideration. These include: Product design: Will the design be the selling point for the organisation as we have seen with the iMAC, the new VW Beetle or the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Product quality: Quality has to consistent with other elements of the marketing mix. A premium based pricing strategy has to reflect the quality a product offers. Product features: What features will you add that may increase the benefit offered to your target market? Will the organisation use a discriminatory pricing policy for offering these additional benefits? Additional features should increase the benifit offered to your target market. The firm may decide to charge more for these additional features. Branding: One of the most important decisions a marketing manager can make is about branding. The value of brands in today ¿Ã‚ ½s environment is phenomenal. Brands have the power of instant sales, they convey a message of confidence, quality and reliability to their target market.In principles of marketing by philip Kotler and gary armstrong a brand is defined as a name, term, sign symbol or a combination of these, that identifies the marker or seller of the product. A brand must stand out and be recognizable, and should help the firm differentiate itself from its competitors. Brands have to be managed well, as some brands can be cash cows for organisations. In many organisations they are represented by brand managers, who have hugh resources to ensure their success within the market. A brand is a tool which is used by an organisation to differentiate itself from competitors. Ask yourself what is the value of a pair of Nike trainers without the brand or the logo? How does your perception change? Increasingly brand managers are becoming annoyed by  ¿Ã‚ ½copycat ¿Ã‚ ½ strategies being employed by supermarket food retail stores particular within the UK . Coca-Cola threatened legal action against UK retailer Sainsbury after introducing their Classic Cola, which displayed similar designs and fonts on their cans. Internet branding is now becoming an essential part of the branding strategy game. Recently within the UK banking industry we have seen the introduction of Internet banks such as cahoot.com and marbles.com the task by brand managers is to make sure that consumers understand that these brands are banks! The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other stores have the same product pricing is one of the most important elements of the marketing mix. It is the only mix which generates a turnover for the organization. The remaining 3 ps are the varaible cost of the organisation. It costs to produce and design a product, it costs to distribute a product and it costs to promote a product. Pricing is diffiicult and must reflect supply and demand relationship. Pricing a product too high or too low could mean a loss of sales for the organisation. Pricing should take into consideration the following factors: 1.Fixed and variable costs. 2.Competition. 3.Company objectives 4.Proposed positioning strategies. 5.target group and willingness to pay. An organisation can adopt a number of pricing strategies among the following. 1.penetration price: Where the org sets a low price to increase sales and market share. 2.Skimming pricing: The org sets an initial high price and then slowly lowers the price to make the product available to a wider market. The objective is to skim profits of the market layer by layer. 3.Competition pricing: Setting a price in comparision with competitors.A firm has three options, price lower, price the same or price higher. 4.Product line pricing: Pricing different products within the same product range at different price points.The greater the features and benifits obtained the greater the consumer will pay. 5.Bundle pricing: the organisation bundles a group of products at a reduced price. 6.Psycological pricing: The seller will consider the psycology of the price and the positioning of the price within the market place. The seller with therefore charge 99p instead of  ¿Ã‚ ½1 or  ¿Ã‚ ½199 instead of  ¿Ã‚ ½200. 7.Premium pricing: The price set is high to reflect the exclusiveness of the product. 8.Optional pricing: The organisation sells optional extras along with the product to maximise its turnover. http://www.vodafone.com/etc/medialib/cr10/pdf.Par.17290.File.dat/vodafone_sustainability_report.pdf

Renissance and Reformation Essay -- Political, Economic, Social Develop

The arrival of the Renaissance in Europe brought many developments that led to an entirely new political, economic, and social structure. During the 1400s and 1500s, there was a major change that took place in all aspects of life in Italy. The Renaissance period of the 1500s was a time of artistic wonders of inspiration that emphasized individual achievements, which gave individuals their own ideals to follow. Inspiration from the ancient Greek and Roman people led to humanist beliefs and encouraged men to have achievements in many areas. Recovery from disasters of the fourteenth century such as the plague, political instability, and a decline in Church power led to interests in ancient culture. As interests grew, Renaissance arose in Italy for three reasons. First, Italy had several important cities, whereas most of northern Europe was still rural. Second, these cities included a class of wealthy and powerful merchants and bankers. Third, the ruined buildings and other reminders of classical Rome inspired Italian artists and scholars. The society also divided into three estates, or social classes. First estate was clergy, second was nobility, and third was commoners, which were peasants and townspeople. Also, marriages were arranged to strengthen political ties, and the humanism, new interest in the classical part, led to an important value in Renaissance. The ideals of the people changed . Italian writers, Machiavelli and Castiglione, began to create plays and other pieces of writing that did not hold back their true beliefs. Art, literature, math, and science greatly progressed due to humanism, and artworks became more realistic. Techniques such as fresco, developed by Masaccio, enabled the illusion of depth. Many other te... ... chief pillars were the Jesuits founded by the Ignatius of Loyola, reform of the papacy that happened in part to Protestantism, and Council of Trent that was a Reform Commission appointed in 1537 to determine Church’s ills and affirm traditional Catholic teachings. Then, Protestantism spread more the further it got from Rome. The arrival of the Renaissance in Europe brought many developments that led to an entirely new political, economic, and social structure, but it also brought a corruption in the Church. Inspiration from the ancient Greek and Roman people led to humanist beliefs and encouraged men to have achievements in many areas. The Church was no longer the center of life for many people, but it was still an important aspect. When it was brought to serious questions and political concerns, the Reformation caused Catholic responses in many areas of Europe.

Which Film Director Deserves to be voted into your personal `Movie making Hall of Fame?`

If George Lucas can be considered the father of the science-fiction blockbuster movie, Ridely Scott, a brilliant film-maker in his own right, who professes to have been deeply influenced by Lucas, might be rightly considered the father of the modern space-gothic movie. This distinction comprises only a slice of Scott's overall career, but it is a significant slice.While Lucas defined what many consider to be the epitome of America's romantic imagination and optimism, Scott at least partially defines American romanticism and optimism tempered by an existential awareness, and by an unflinching confrontation with the â€Å"real world† which exists in tandem and in conflict with the dreams-capes as represented in Scott's films. This tension is present in the four films which concern our present discussion and finds application in both genre and non-genre concepts.In this way, Scott's real world/fantasy world conflict bridges a gap between science fiction films, Alien and Bladerunn er, and â€Å"mainstream† films Thelma & Louise and Black Hawk Down. Scott's contribution to American film-making can be summarized by five central qualities which are evident throughout his film-making career and are evidenced in the four films relevant to the present discussion. These qualities are: anti-commerciality, social relevancy, strong (and violent) female characters, a blending of realism and surrealism, and an existentially driven romanticism which stresses the human capacity to overcome adversity and tragedy.Scott is often an overlooked â€Å"answer† to the grandiose films of his era. That he was inspired by Star Wars to make films of a dramatic and spectacular quality, but that he does so more with story and conflict and theme than with special effects is a testament to his boldness but it is also a centerpiece of his overall aesthetic which unites realism with ideal imagery, surrealism, and dream-scape imagery.By examining each of the points ore closely in relation to the four films, it becomes much easier to appreciate the full thematic and aesthetic accomplishments of Scott's masterpiece, Bladerunner, which can be considered a â€Å"signature† work which embodies Scott's art at its highest expression. Despite Bladerunner's poor box-office performance, Scott's anti-commercial tendencies are likely to be disputed or outrightly dismissed by many; however, a film like Thelma & Louise has little in the way of a genuine predecessor, least of all one with a track-record of enormous commercial success.Similarly, Black Hawk Down is the story of a failed American military mission in Somalia and bucks the strong Hollywood tradition of showing an heroic vision of war. Alien was released at a time when Star Wars had redefined the science-fiction genre in film, exerting a massive influence toward science-fantasy and spectacle on the screen. Scott's film is a meditative, spooky, mostly silent voyage in space. The tag-line for the film wa s â€Å"In space no-one can hear you scream.† Scott's masterwork Bladerunner was a box-office and critical flop upon its release and stood as a radical reworking of an obscure science-fiction novel titled â€Å"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? † The anti-commercial aspects of Scott's work extend beyond box-office revenue to cultural commentary and social critique. Of the four films under discussion, Scott's social relevancy is most evident in his non-genre films, Thelma & Louise and Black Hawk Down.In the latter film, Scott examines the true-life story of â€Å"the loss of a â€Å"mere eighteen soldiers†; his film is â€Å"designed to get us beyond[†¦ ] academic abstractification, to give us moral proximity to suffering, to the physicality of violence† and his searching directorial eye finds excellent use for realism in this film. Scott's movie takes the viewer into the â€Å"events, exploring the interactions between humans and technology in t he battlefield,† and this intimate view brings Scott's recurrent theme of strength beyond tragedy into hard-edged almost documentary-style focus, (Lacy, 27).While Black Hawk Down examines the impact of violence on social harmony and on the individual lives of male combatants, Thelma & Louise, no less violent nor less socially relevant than Black Hawk Down, envisions the modes of violent conflict in society from the perspective of strong female characters. Although criticized in many quarters for fashioning a tale which is not true to womens' experience, Thelma & Louise is intentionally non-realistic and represents a mode of near-fantasy, where reality and heroic myth merge.Scott's own comments on modern film-making reveal some of the logic behind his wide-ranging techniques and approaches, blending acute realistic detail with mythic fantasy: â€Å"I think movie making has just become more expert in the face of these subjects, with different camera angles and different techniq ues: they demand a more detailed way of looking at things,† (Lacy, 27). Where the violence of Black Hawk Down was received by critics and audiences as an unflinchingly realistic appraisal of the consequences (and futility) of certain kinds of military interventions , the violence in Scott's earlier film Thelma & Louise was viewed negativelyas fantasy wish-indulgence. Critics failed to recognize the film's underlying motifs; instead, â€Å"Thelma and Louise which was judged, and found wanting, as an account of women’s lives. The standards of truth against which popular films have been judged, standards which rarely admit the complexity of terms like fantasy, can also operate to silence the other stories to which they attempt to give a voice,† and this ability to fuse fantasy with realistic detail is Scott's great genuis as a filmmaker, (Tasker, 8).This fusion is evident at its most profound expression in Scott's most accomplished film Bladerunner. As in Thelma &Lo uise, Scott brings elements of the action-film to Bladerunner but like Thelma & Louise the action paradigm is given a twist by the pairing of a male-female â€Å"buddy† team in Deckert and Rachel. Similarly, there is a question as to whether Deckert is himself a replicant. To this extent, Scott's â€Å"action cinema depends on a complex articulation of both belonging and exclusion, an articulation which is bound up in the body of the hero and the masculine identity that it embodies.These dramas of belonging and exclusion mobilise discourses of national, racial and gendered identity through intimate fictional groupings such as the platoon, the police squad or the buddy relationship,† and in the case of Bladerunner and Thelma & Lousie, the â€Å"intimate† fictional groupings indicate a social awareness of those whom society may have tried to forget or overlook. (Tasker, 8). Scott's ability to weave a dream-scape of images through his â€Å"realistic† aesthe tic is brought to it greatest height in Bladerunner.This space-gothic masterpiece shows that Scott is basically what might be termed as an existentialist romantic as a film-maker, an unusual combination and one which fuels his films with unparalleled tension between wished-for fantasy and seemingly unchangeable reality. In each of the four films discussed, the line between fantasy and reality is crossed usually indicated by a tragedy or crises, so that Scott's ultimate vision includes characters heroically attempting to snatch their dreams from a dystopian or near-dystopian world, where tragedy becomes a catharsis to the attainment or partial attainment of individual happiness.

Managerial Decision Making in the Aerospace Industry Case Study

As in many other industries, the IT has changed the way of performing management process. For example, the cost management process went from hand-written and mainframe computers to sophisticated software applications that help reducing the workload, headcount, and expedite the job completion. Also, this helps improving the outcome quality and increase productivity. The managerial accounting process in the aerospace industries follows a certain steps.The success of each of the steps depends heavily on the previous step, any break of inefficiency of one or more of the steps will collapse the whole process. Organizations have to chose between operating a commercial-of-the-shelf software of invest in designing a special software. The companies that chose to operate the commercial software will be able to use it in for operations such as cost estimating, analysis, and proposal pricing.While the special designed software allows more specific operations, it requires a substantial investment to create and operate. Accurate estimation is critical for the financial success and it allows the organization to successfully propose price decision, source of investment. The Department of Defense requires contractor to have an â€Å"acceptable† estimating system. There are different estimate methods such as round table, comparison, detailed, and parametric. A combination of the four methods could be used based of the needs and timing.The pricing proposal step is one of the complexes and demanding functions that requires an analysis for alternative program plans and schedule, prospective cash flow and return on investment, satisfy internal management views, and respond to the costumers’ expectations. The project cost has been depending on applications that were designed internally to help account manager to analyze the cost. After that, some companies created software that targeted the aerospace industry to help them with project scheduling and earned value.The con tinuous change of requirement made by DOD forces the aerospace industry to accommodate the new demands and there was more application software available. The constant change of requirements and imposing new regulations by the government and implementation of the advanced software applications have greatly improved the productivity of the cost analysis managers and reduce the workload on the contractors. This resulted in having more effective cost analysis staff that performs better in satisfying the requirements in less time and cost, and provides an more accurate information.