Friday, November 29, 2019

How Important Was Andrew Young to American History free essay sample

Andrew Young is an American politician, diplomat, rights activist and church minister. He was active in fighting for the rights and economic empowerment of the Black American people. Young’s influence went beyond the borders as he also advocated for liberation and economic development in African and Caribbean states Early life and education Church ministry Rights activism and SCLC Service in Congress Ambassador to the United Nations Works Awards Early Life And Education Andrew ? Andy† Young was born on March 12, 1932, in New Orleans Louisiana. His father, Andrew Jackson Young, was a dentist and his mother, Daisy Fuller Young, was a teacher. From a young age he noticed that Whites and Blacks were not treated the same. Blacks were not allowed to go to the same schools, restaurants or use the same public washrooms as the whites. His father hired a boxer to train him and his brother Walter, so that they could defend themselves; however Young did not subscribe to this idea as he believed that disputes should be settled peacefully. We will write a custom essay sample on How Important Was Andrew Young to American History? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He believed that the most powerful weapon you have is your mind (Young 1996 p24) He went to school in Gilbert Academy in New Orleans where he graduated at the age of fifteen. He went to Dillard University, New Orleans for a year before he transferred to Howard University, Washington D. C. , in 1947. From Howard, he graduated with a bachelor of science in pre-dentistry at the age of nineteen. Church Ministry After his graduation, he took up voluntary work in the Christian Youth Movement. It? while he was in this service that he discovered his calling was in ministry. He enrolled in Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut in 1952. He learnt a great deal about religious leaders like Mohandas Gandhi. In the summer of 1952, as part of his ministerial education, Young was assigned to preach to the community of Marion Alabama. This is where he met with Jean Childs, whom he courted briefly and married in 1954. He received his bachelor of divinity degree in 1955 from the Hartford Theological Seminary. Young accepted to be pastor in Bethany Congregation Church, Thomasville, Georgia in 1955, where he began preaching religion throughout Georgia visiting the poor in their rural communities. Rights Activism and SCLC Black Georgians were effectively denied the vote, segregated in most areas of daily life and were subjected to discrimination and violence. This forced Young to confront the issue of voting since Blacks in the south were not allowed to vote. He spearheaded his campaign with the slogan ? we are as we dare to be? Young 1996). Young decided to settle in Atlanta Georgia with Jean and their three daughters. He joined the National Council of Churches and became the first director of the Voter Registration Project. He also joined South Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); a church centered, Atlanta based civil rights organization led by Martin Luther King Jr. he worked with King? s staff including civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. Young became a strong leader, organizing marches and planning demonstrations, alongside Martin Luther King Jr. e assisted in the organization of ? Citizenship schools for the SCLC, which were workshops that taught non-violent organizing strategies to local people. Young was named executive director in 1964. He showed his exemplary skills as a key strategist and negotiator during the civil rights campaigns in Birmingham, 1963, ST. Augustine, 1964 and Selma, 1966. These campaigns resulted in the passage of civil rights and voting acts which he helped draft (The Civil rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965). Andrew Young? activities in the voting registration of blacks increased the number of black voters in the Atlanta district to almost 40%. Thousands of African American candidates were elected to higher office in the following decades, including him and politicians such as Mayor Sam Massell and future Mayor Maynard Jackson came to rely upon. Young was with Martin Luther King Jr. at the time of his assassination in Memphis. Tennessee on April 4, 1968. After King? s assassination, he was made executive vice president of the SCLC where he began the Poor People campaign whose goal was to help the poor. Service In Congress Young saw that venturing into politics would give him more leverage in his quest to make a difference. He ran for congress as a Democrat for Georgia and lost. Not discouraged, he ran again in 1972 and this time round, he won, becoming the first black representative from Georgia since Long? s election, a century earlier. Young and Barbara Jordan were the first two blacks from the south, since Reconstruction to be in congress. While in Congress, he became a member of the Congressional Black Caucus which was an organization representing the black members of the United States Congress. Young improved public education and the social infrastructure in his district when he served in the committee on banking and currency and its sub-committee in housing, transportation and finance. One of his early initiatives was the urban mass transit systems such as MARTA in Atlanta. In July 1973, Young and some southern republicans successfully lobbied for a foreign bill provision that authorized the president to cancel aid that Portugal would use for military action in its African colonies. Young rejected cuts in domestic spending for the poor while supporting an increase in wages for workers in the public sector. He was reelected again for two more terms as a result of his fight for the rights of Black Americans and other minorities during his first term. In the 94th congress (1975-1977) he became the first black representative appointed to the House Committee on Rules. Young sought ways of improving the lives of his constituents by sponsoring bills that outlined comprehensive health care plans and testified on behalf of the bills that preserved food stamp programs and economic development in his districts. Ambassador To The United Nations During his third term in office, the president of the United states, Jimmy Carter asked Young to be America? s ambassador to the United Nations, a post which he accepted becoming the first African American to serve in that capacity. Whilst in office, Young helped transform America ? s foreign policy, making human rights a central focus and pushing for economic development in the third world, especially Africa. He called for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, fought for U. S. Recognition of communist Vietnam. Young was also involved in several debates regarding foreign relations, including the decision to stop supporting the attempts made by the Portuguese to hold on to colonies in Southern Africa. This was a clear demonstration of young? s role as Carter? s point-man in foreign policy in Asia and Africa. He actively played the role of articulating Carter? s position on human rights and liberal capitalism in Rhodesia, South Africa and Angola. Andrew Young resigned from his ambassadorship post due to mounting criticism of his meeting with an observer of for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Young As Mayor Of Atlanta In 1981 Young ran for Mayor of Atlanta. He was elected later that year with 55% of the vote. He succeeded Maynard Jackson. As Mayor of Atlanta, he brought billions of dollars worth of new private investment. The mayor? s Task Force on Education established Dream Jamboree College Fair that tripled college scholarships given to Atlanta public school graduates. Young was reelected mayor in 1985 with more than 80% of the vote. He expanded programs for including minority owned businesses in city contracts. It? during his tenure, that Atlanta hosted the 1988 democratic National Convention. As the co-chair of the Atlanta Committee for 1969 Olympic Games, he led the efforts of Atlanta bidding to host that summers’ Olympic Games which it won. Works In 1996 he wrote A Way Out Of No Way: The Spiritual Memoirs of Andrew Young, Published by Thomas Nelson. During the same year, Young and Carlton Masters co-founded Goodworks International, a consulting firm that offers international market access and political risk analysis in key emerging markets within Africa and the Caribbean. Awards Andrew Young has received numerous awards and honors including the presidential Medal Of Freedom, the NAACP Spingarn medal in 1978 and more than 45 honorary degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, Notre Dame, Clark Atlanta, Emory and The University of Georgia in 1993. Morehouse College, Atlanta, established the center for international studies which was later named Young center for international studies. Andrew Young is currently a professor at Georgia state University? s Andrew Young school of Policy Studies. His importance cannot be understated as he, evidently, was one of America? great leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He strongly felt the need to address the plight of Black Americans and Championed for rights among all Americans, irrespective of race or color. His preferred addressing problems peacefully love and not hate or violence. The economic contribution he made was immense, Georgia but also outside the United States.

Monday, November 25, 2019

Emily Dickinson Quotes - Beloved Poems and Selections

Emily Dickinson Quotes - Beloved Poems and Selections Emily Dickinson, reclusive during her lifetime, wrote poetry which she kept private and which was, with few exceptions, unknown until its discovery after her death. Selected Emily Dickinson Quotations This is my letter to the world This is my letter to the world,That never wrote to me,The simple news that Nature told,With tender majesty.Her message is committed,To hands I cannot see;For love of her, sweet countrymen,Judge tenderly of me. If I can stop one heart from breaking If I can stop one heart from breaking,I shall not live in vain:If I can ease one life the aching,Or cool one pain,Or help one fainting robinUnto his nest again,I shall not live in vain. Short Quotes We meet no Stranger, but Ourself The soul should always stand ajar. Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. I believe the love of God may be taught not to seem like bears. The Soul selects her own society Im Nobody! Who are you? Im Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then theres a pair of us! Dont tell! theyd advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell ones name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog! We never know how high we are We never know how high we areTill we are called to rise;And then, if we are true to plan,Our statures touch the skies.The heroism we reciteWould be a daily thing,Did not ourselves the cubits warpFor fear to be a king. There is no frigate like a book There is no frigate like a bookTo take us lands away,Nor any coursers like a pageOf prancing poetry.This traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of toll;How frugal is the chariotThat bears a human soul! Success is counted sweetest Success is counted sweetestBy those who ne’er succeed.To comprehend a nectarRequires sorest need.Not one of all the purple hostWho took the flag to-dayCan tell the definition,So clear, of victory,As he, defeated, dying,On whose forbidden earThe distant strains of triumphBreak, agonized and clear. Some keep the Sabbath going to church Some keep the Sabbath going to church;I keep it staying at home,With a bobolink for a chorister,And an orchard for a dome.Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;I just wear my wings,And instead of tolling the bell for church,Our little sexton sings.God preaches, - a noted clergyman, - And the sermon is never long;So instead of getting to heaven at last,I’m going all along! The brain is wider than the sky The brain is wider than the sky,For, put them side by side,The one the other will includeWith ease, and you beside.The brain is deeper than the sea,For, hold them, blue to blue,The one the other will absorb,As sponges, buckets do.The brain is just the weight of God,For, lift them, pound for pound,And they will differ, if they do,As syllable from sound. Faith is a fine invention Faith is a fine inventionWhen Gentlemen can see - But Microscopes are prudentIn an Emergency. Faith: variant Faith is a fine inventionFor gentlemen who see;But microscopes are prudentIn an emergency. Hope is the thing with feathers Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me. Look back on time with kindly eyes Look back on time with kindly eyes,He doubtless did his best;How softly sinks his trembling sunIn human nature’s west! Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?Not death; for who is he?The porter of my father’s lodgeAs much abasheth me.Of life? ‘T were odd I fear a thingThat comprehendeth meIn one or more existencesAt Deity’s decree.Of resurrection? Is the eastAfraid to trust the mornWith her fastidious forehead?As soon impeach my crown! The right to perish might be thought The right to perish might be thoughtAn undisputed right,Attempt it, and the Universe upon the oppositeWill concentrate its officers - You cannot even die,But Nature and Mankind must pauseTo pay you scrutiny. Love is anterior to life Love - is anterior to Life - Posterior - to Death - Initial of Creation, andThe Exponent of Earth. The last night that she lived The last night that she lived,It was a common night,Except the dying; this to usMade nature different.We noticed smallest things, - Things overlooked before,By this great light upon our mindsItalicized, as ’t were.That others could existWhile she must finish quite,A jealousy for her aroseSo nearly infinite.We waited while she passed;It was a narrow time,Too jostled were our souls to speak,At length the notice came.She mentioned, and forgot;Then lightly as a reedBent to the water, shivered scarce,Consented, and was dead.And we, we placed the hair,And drew the head erect;And then an awful leisure was,Our faith to regulate. A word is dead A word is deadWhen it is said,Some say.I say it justBegins to liveThat day. Short Selections Of shunning Men and Women - they talk of Hallowed things, aloud - and embarrass my Dog - He and I dont object to them, if theyll exist their side. I think Carlo would please you - He is dumb, and brave - I think you would like the Chestnut Tree, I met in my walk. It hit my notice suddenly - and I thought the Skies were in Blossom - For my companions - the Hills - Sir - and the Sundown - and a Dog - large as myself, that my Father bought me - They are better than Beings - because they know - but do not tell. Behind Me - dips Eternity - Before Me - Immortality - Myself - the Term between - Susan Gilbert Dickinson to Emily Dickinson in 1861, If a nightingale sings with her breast against a thorn, why not we? Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality.We slowly drove, he knew no haste,And I had put awayMy labor, and my leisure too,For his civility.We passed the school where children playedAt wrestling in a ring;We passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun.We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the ground;The roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound.Since then ’t is centuries; but eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses’ headsWere toward eternity. My life closed twice before its closeor, Parting is all we know of heaven My life closed twice before its close;It yet remains to seeIf Immortality unveilA third event to me,So huge, so hopeless to conceive,As these that twice befell.Parting is all we know of heaven,And all we need of hell. About These Quotes Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.

Friday, November 22, 2019

SHORT LISTENING ASSIGNMENT FORMAT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

SHORT LISTENING ASSIGNMENT FORMAT - Essay Example The saxophone and the trumpet both provided smooth and consistent ride patterns for most parts in the song (www.youtube.com/watch). Cool jazz is evident because this song smoothed out a combination of swing and bop tones. Furthermore, dynamics and harmonic elements were softened in this song. The classic jazz style is also evident because the musical instruments that have been used e.g. the saxophone, drums and double bass, show the classical style of jazz music. The musical arrangement incorporates many solos, which substantially embellished the rhythm and melody with ornaments that improvise jazz music. Both the saxophone and the trumpet provided smooth swings at some points within the song. The jazz group technique that I can hear in this song is the riffs, and trading in some parts within the song. The drum in the song was significantly effectively because beat can not be filled without the rhythm of the drum. In some parts of the song where there was some silence, the drum added beats which kept the band with a better feeling. The stylish integration of the double bass and the drums also provide a consistent ride pattern all through the song (ccnmtl.columbia.edu). The song was introduced by the trumpet and saxophone which brought a pleasant feeling to the whole song. Syncopation was provided by both the piano and the drum at some points within the song. I choose to the drum because its effects were the most noticeable throughout the song. Its effects were highly noticeable all through the song, and towards the end of the song, the drum brought a conclusive touch and feel into the song. It was remarkably successful because it served all its purposes in the song effectively. I loved how the drum effects were integrated in the song.  The song is pleasing to me. I appreciate the manner in which it was delivered. The thing that I liked was the way in which the instrumentalists played their roles. One

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Disney World Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Disney World - Assignment Example Disney World Walt Elias Disney, who is the founder of Walt Disney Company, had a vision of creating the best innovating and globally recognized company in the field of entertainment (DIS, 2012). This is carried forward in the present situation as well. The company has diversified the business into five main segments i.e. Media networks. Studio Entertainment, Consumer Products, Interactive Media and Parks and Resorts (Disney, 2012). The foremost reason that Walt Disney Company enjoys the reputation of providing exceptional experience of magic to all its guests in all areas of operations i.e. theme parks, resorts, restaurants, retail stores etc. is the vision and mission of the company. According to Lang (2012), the vision and mission of the company can be best described as â€Å"The Company has mission of becoming the top-ranked producer and provider of information and entertainment across the globe. We strive to create differentiation by making a portfolio of brands that have the relevant content, consumer products and services that our customers are looking for and appreciate. The main aim of the company is to constantly develop innovative, profitable and creative sources of entertainment and similar products internationally†. Among the most successful creations by Walt Disney Company is Walt Disney World. The theme park was founded on October 01, 1971 in Florida and it was originally called Disney World.

Monday, November 18, 2019

Establish and Maintain Quality Customer Relations for a Small Business Assignment

Establish and Maintain Quality Customer Relations for a Small Business Enterprise - Assignment Example Research customer needs and preferences a) Briefly outline what your business does, what your products and services are, your target market and how your business operates on a day to day basis. Our company sells a dual SIM handheld mobile device that can go online simultaneously. This celphone has also the functionality of T.V. and is capable of running video games in JAVA. It is coupled with a service center that could also serve as an after sales support if our customers will have an issue with their phones. The primary market for our celphones are the business people and professionals because they are the heavy users of mobile phones and needs to be connected all the time. We believe that our dual SIM celphones will be attractive to them, as market research showed, because they have the convenience of dual connectivity without the inconvenience of carrying an extra phone. We will sell our dual SIM celphone through our outlets located strategically in technology hubs where potentia l customers frequent to avail a celphone. Daily operations involves selling our dual SIM celphones, entertaining inquiries and complaints and servicing defective celphones. b) Part A: Identify the types of formal and informal research and communication channels you will use to identify customer needs and preferences. Ensure both quantitative and qualitative data are obtained. Explain how the research will be carried out. Type of research How will it be carried out 1. Survey 2. Market Research 1. Select randomly from the representatives of the market through a form of a questionnaire where such market samples will be asked for their inclination towards a dual SIM celphone. Answers will then be tabulated to determine if indeed the market has an inclination towards our products. 2. To determine the extent and size of the market, a market research has to be done to determine the celphone usage which will serve as our market. The rate of celphone usage will determine the size of our mark et. The data of the number of celphone users can be done by collating data from the mobile phone carriers. Part B: Collect and analyse the data Findings: Formal research: The answers from the survey will be tabulated to determine our hypothesis that there is a market for a dual SIM celphone. The survey conducted indicated that the market is willing to try a dual SIM celphone and this willingness to try a dual SIM celphone can be cultivated from a growing to a full market to sell our phone. Informal research Our market research indicated as there is almost 100 % subscription to mobile telephone carriers (Vodafone:Â  2,465,000 (46.71%), Telecom:Â   2,192,000 (41.54%), 2degrees: 580,112 (10.99%). Deducing from this, it means that we have a huge market for our dual SIM celphone as almost everybody are celphone users. If we can capture enough market share to this mobile users, our business venture can prove to be profitable. SOUTHERN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY National Certificate in Smal l Business Management Assignment 2 Communication channels: The communication channel will be in a form of the traditional pen and paper where data will be collected by asking market representative to answer the survey objectively. In the case of informal research, this can be done by obtaining annual

Saturday, November 16, 2019

A computed tomography

A computed tomography 1. Introduction One of the most used techniques in the imagiology field is called Computed Tomography (CT), a method to acquire slices of the body based on the attenuation of X-rays. This monograph will try to compile the most important information about CT, namely its history, physical principles, fundamental instrumentation, data acquisition and processing techniques, as well as its applications. Firstly, a brief tour through the history of the technique will be taken, while some of the most important achievements will be referred. The starting point will be the discovery of the X-rays, then passing through the creation of the first CT scanner and the development of data analysis and processing algorithms. Then, a concise revision of the evolution of the scanners will be done, delineating the different generations of scanners and the key features of each one. In order to understand how an object can be scanned by this technique, a review of the physical concepts that constitute the basis of CT will be done. More precisely, we will discuss the attenuation of radiation while passing through objects. A short description of how X-rays interact with matter and the concept of linear attenuation coefficient will be discussed. The instrumentation needed for CT will shortly be referred, in particular the most important components of a CT scanner will be briefly explained. As data acquired by the scanners are not displayed in the way they are obtained, we will afterward explain the most used methods to process and analyze the great amount of information acquired by the CT detectors. The process of creating a scale to represent data the CT numbers will subsequently be overviewed, in order to understand how images are created and shown to the doctors. A description of how CT allows to distinguish different anatomical structures and how it permits to see just the structures we want will also be done. After that, an enumeration of some of the many clinical applications of CT will be done, knowing at the start that it will be impossible to list all the applications, reason why just a few will be referred. Besides, it is not the main goal of this monograph, although it is essential to understand the crucial importance of CT in the medicine field. Finally, we will try to conjecture about the future of CT, specifically what it can be improved and what are the actual challenges for this technique and how it can be overcame. This monograph is part of the Hospital and Medical Instrumentation course and pretends to be an overall view of CT, reason why there is not exhaustive detail in each section (for more detail in the approached topics, please read the references). 3-Dimensional reconstruction techniques will not be discussed because it is the topic of another group. Incisive instrumentation will not be exploited because it not exploited in the course as well. 2. Historical Background The history of CT started with the discovery of X-rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, which gave him the Physics Nobel Prize in 1901. During 1917, the Austrian mathematician Johann Radon developed a study in which he demonstrated that making several projections in different directions of a material and recreating its associated pattern, it was possible to obtain a slice where one could characterize different densities of the material. The idea of using these mathematical methods to create images of slices of the human body in radiographic films was proposed by the Italian radiologist Alessandro Vallebona in 1930. Between 1956 and 1963, the physicist Allan Cormack developed a method to calculate the distribution of absorbed radiation in the human body based on transmission measurements, which allowed to detect smaller variations in absorption. [2], [3], [4] In the year of 1972, Sir Godfrey Hounsfield (who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1979, shared with Cormack) invented the first CT scanner in United Kingdom when he was working at EMI Company, which, at the time, was actually best known for its connection to the music world. The original prototype, called EMI Scanner, recorded 160 points for each projection in 180 different angles (with steps of 1 °) and each slice took 5 minutes to be acquired. A 180160 matrix was then constructed with these data, which took 2 and half hours to be analyzed until the final 2D-images could be visualized. The first types of scanners required the patients head to be immerged in a water-filled container in order to reduce the difference of X-rays attenuation between the rays that crossed the skull and the ones that only crossed the environment, because the detector had a small range of intensities that it could measure. [5], [6] During the subsequent years, CT scanners increased its complexity, and based on that evolution, we can distinguish five generations of machines that will be discussed in the next section (Section 3). Later, in 1989, it was developed a new technique in which data acquisition was done continuously the spiral CT scanning using the movement of the platform where the patient was lying. [4] Nowadays, CT machines have obviously superior performances than the prototypes of the 70s. In fact, several rows of detectors have been added which now allows registration of multiple slices at the same time the multislices scanners. These improvements allowed to represent data in 10241024 matrixes, which have a 1 megapixel pixel resolution. [7], [8] 3. Evolution of CT Scanners Over the time, the fundamentals of data acquisition and the key characteristics of the machines changed in many ways. This fact, allow us to split the evolution of the CT scanners in five generations. 3.1 First Generation Parallel Beam The first technique implemented in CT commercial machines consisted of the emission of a parallel X-ray beam that passed through the patient until it reached a detector located on the opposite side. Both X-ray and detector were place in the edge of a ring with the patient as the center. The X-ray source, as well as the detector, suffered a linear translation motion to acquire data from all maters directions. Then, the X-ray tube and the detector, was rotated about 1 °, having the patient as isocenter, and a new beam was emitted and the movement of translation restarted. This process was repeated until it reached 180 ° and, for each cycle of emitted beams, 160 projections of the material on analysis were recorded. The highly collimated beam provided excellent rejection of scattered radiation in the patient. At this point, the most used image reconstruction technique was the backprojection. Later in this work (Section 6) we will explain the techniques used in reconstruction. The ti me needed for data acquisition was extremely long (5 minutes per slice), due to technological limitations. [8] 3.2 Second Generation Fan beam In the second generation, the collimated beam was replaced by a fan X-ray beam and the simple detector was replaced by a linear array of detectors. This advance resulted in a shorter scan time, although this technique still continued to use a coupled source-detector translation motion. At the same time, the algorithms used to reconstruct the slice images became more complicated. Because of the vast amount of time needed to acquire data, both the first and second generations of scanners were limited to head and extremities scans, because those were the regions of the body that could remain immobilized during the long scan time. [9], [2], [8] 3.3 Third generation Rotating detectors The third generation of scanners emerged in 1976. In this generation, the fan beam was large enough to completely contain the patient, which made the translation movement redundant and the scanner commenced to execute only the rotational movement. Such as the fan beam, also the detectors became big enough to record all data of each slice at a time. The detector consisted of a line with hundreds of independent detectors that, like as in the second generation, rotated attached to the X-ray source, which required up to 5 seconds to acquire each slice. The power supply was now made by a slip ring system placed on the gantry, which allowed to continually rotate it without the need to reverse the rotating motion to untwist the power cables used before, as it was needed after each rotation in first and second generations. [2], [8] 3.4 Fourth generation Fixed detectors This generation was implemented in the late 70s and its innovation was a stationary ring of detectors that surrounded the patient. In this case, only the X-ray beam had movement. The ring consisted of a 600 to 4800 independent detectors that sequentially recorded the projections, so detector and source were no longer associated. However, detectors were calibrated twice during each rotation of the X-ray source, providing a self-calibrating system. Third generation systems were calibrated only once every few hours. In the fourth generation systems, two detectors geometries were used. The first one consists of a rotating fan beam inside the fixed ring of detectors and the second one has the fan beam outside the ring. These technological advances provided a reduction of the scan times to 5s per image and slice spacing below 1 mm. Both third and fourth generations are available in market and both have success in medical activities. [8], [2] 3.5 Fifth Generation Scanning electron beam The innovation of the fifth generation of CT scanners (early 80s) was a new system of X-ray source. While the ring of detectors remains stationary, it was added a new semicircular strip of tungsten and one electron gun which is placed in the patient alignment. By directing this electron beam to the anode of the tungsten strip, the release of X-ray radiation is induced. This method results in a no moving parts system, i.e. no mechanical motion is needed to record data because the detectors completely surround the patients and the electronic beam is directed electronically. The four target rings and the two detector banks allow eight slices to be acquired at the same time, which reduce the scan time and, consequently, the motion artifacts. This fact led to the reduction of scan time to between 33 and 100 ms, which is sufficient to capture images of the heart during its cardiac cycle, reason why it is the most used in diagnostic of cardiac disease. For that reason, this is also called U ltrafast CT (UFCT) or Cardiovascular CT (CVCT) Because of the continuous scan, special adjustments in the algorithm are needed to reduce image artifacts. [2], [8], [9] 3.6 Spiral Scanners The idea of creating a spiral CT came with the need for scans of 3-Dimensional images. This system to acquire 3-Dimensional CT images was born in the early 90s and consists of a continue translation movement of the table which supports the patient. This technique is based on the third generation of machines and allows scan times of the abdomen to be reduced from 10 minutes to 1 minute, which reduces the motion artifacts. Besides, a 3-Dimensional model of the organ under study can be reconstructed. The most complex innovation of this technique consists of the data processing algorithms, because they must consider the spiral path of X-ray beam around the patient. Technically, this was possible only due to the slip ring system implemented on the third generation of scanner. [9], [8], [10] 3.7 Cone beam After the development of new techniques, detectors, methods and algorithms, nowadays the question is: How many slices can we acquire at same time?. The answer to this question lies in the placement of several rows of detectors and the transformation of a fan beam X-ray to a 3-Dimensional cone beam. Nowadays, manufacturers have already placed 64 rows of detectors (multislice systems) and the image quality reached high levels. Moreover, the completely scan of a structure takes now about 15 seconds or even less. [2] 4. Physical Principles The basic principle of CT is measuring the spatial density distribution of a human organ or a part of the body. It is similar to conventional X-ray, in which an X-ray source of uniform intensity is directed to the patient and the image is generated by the projection of the X-rays against a film. The X-rays are emitted with a certain intensity I0 and they emerge on the other side of the patient with a lower intensity I. The intensity decreases while crossing the patient, because radiation interacts with matter. More precisely, X-rays used in CT are of the order of 120kV and, with that energy (120 keV), they interact with tissues mainly by photoelectric (mostly at lower energies) and Compton effects (at higher energies), although they can also interact by coherent scatter, also called Rayleigh scatter (5% to 10% of the total interactions). Photoelectric effect consists of the emission of an electron (photoelectron) from the irradiated matter caused by the absorption of the X-rays energy by an inner electron of the medium. In Compton effect, a X-ray photon interacts with an outer electron of matter and deviates its trajectory, transferring part of its energy to the electron, which is then ejected. In coherent scatter, the energy of the X-ray is absorbed by the tissue causing the electrons to gain harmonic motion and is then reradiated in a random direction as a secondary X-ray. [10], [11], [12], [13], [14] CT X-rays are not monoenergetic, but for now, to simplify the understanding of this concept, we will consider them monoenergetic. When an X-ray (as well as other radiation) passes through a material, part of its intensity is absorbed in the medium and, as a consequence, the final intensity is lower than the initial one. More precisely, the Beers Law states that intensity transmitted through the medium depends on the linear attenuation coefficient of the material  µ if we consider that we are in presence of a homogeneous medium and the thickness of the material x according to the following expression: The problem with conventional radiographs is that it only provides an integrated value for  µ along the path of the X-ray, which means that we have a 2-Dimensional projection of a 3-Dimensional anatomy. As it can be easily understood, all the structures and organs at the same level will appear overlapped in the image. As a consequence, some details cannot be perceived and some organs may not be entirely seen. For example, it is very hard to see the kidneys in a conventional radiography because the intestines appear in front of them. [15], [16], [11] Moreover, as there are many values of (typically one for each point of the scanned part of the body), it is not possible to calculate their values with one singe measure. However, if measures of the same plane by many different directions are made, all the coefficients may be calculated, and that is what CT does. As Figure 4 shows, a narrow X-ray beam that is produced by the source in the direction of a detector, which means that only a narrow slice of the body is imaged and the value of intensity recorded by the detector depends on all the material crossed by the X-ray in its way. That is the reason why it is called tomography it derives from the Greek tomos which means to cut or section. Many data of X-ray transmission through a plane of an object (an organ or a party of the body) from several directions are recorded and are then used to reconstruct the object by signal processing techniques. These techniques will be discussed later in this monograph (Section 6). The tightly colli mated X-ray beam ensures that no significant scatter is present in order to assure a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a necessary premise to obtain a faithful image of the scanned object. For that reason, unlike conventional tomography, in CT, patients structures located outside the area that is being imaged do not interfere. [17], [9], [12] 5. Instrumentation The X-ray system is composed by an X-ray source, collimators, detectors and a data-acquisition system (DAS). X-ray source is undoubtedly the most important part, because it is what determines the quality of the image. [10], [8] 5.1 The X-ray source The basis of the X-ray source (called X-ray tube) is to accelerate a beam of electrons between two electrodes against a metal target and is shown in Figure 5. The cathode is a coiled tungsten filament, which is crossed by a current which causes the filament to heat up. At high temperatures (2220 °C), the tungsten releases electrons, a process called thermionic emission. A 15 to 150 kV potential difference is applied between the cathode and the anode, which forces the released electrons to accelerate towards the anode. [10] When the electrons hit the anode, they produce X-rays by two ways. On the one hand, when an electron passes near the tungsten nucleus, it is deflected by an attractive electric force (because the nucleus is positively charged and the electron has a negative charge) and loses part of their energy as X-rays. As there are an enormous number of possible interactions and each one leads to a partial loss of kinetic energy, the produced X-rays have a great range of energies, as Figure 5 shows. This process is called bremsstrahlung (i.e. braking radiation). On the other hand, if an electron from the cathode hits and penetrates an atom of the anode, it can collide with an inner electron of it, causing the electron to be ejected and the atom to have a hole, which is filled by an outer electron. The difference of binding energy of these two electrons is released as an X-ray. This process is called characteristic radiation, because its energy depends on the binding energy of the electrons, which is characteristic of a given material. [10], [9], [15] The tube current represents the number of electrons that pass from the cathode to the anode per unit of time. Typical values for CT are from 200 up to 1000 mA. The potential difference between the electrodes is generally of 120 kV, which produces an energy spectrum ranging from 30 to 120 keV. The tube output is the product between the tube current and the voltage between the electrodes and it is desired to have high values because that permits a shorter scan time, which reduces the artifacts due to movement (such as for heart scans). [10], [8] Production of X-rays in these tubes is an inefficient process and most of the power supplied to the tube is converted in heating of the anode. So, a heat exchanger is needed to cool the tube. This heat exchanger is placed on the rotating gantry. Spiral CT in particular requires high cooling rates of the X-ray tube and high heat storage capacity. [8] 5.2 Collimators The electron beam released from the source is a dispersed beam, normally larger than the desired field-of-view (FOV) of the image. Usually, the fan beam width is set for 1 to 10 mm (although recent CT scanner allow submilimetric precision), with determines the width of the imaged slice. The collimator is placed between the source and the patient and is composed by lead sheets to restrict the beam just to the required directions. An X-ray beam larger than the FOV leads to a larger number of X-rays emitted than the ones needed to the scan and that has two problems: the radiation dose given to the patient is increased unnecessarily; and the number of Compton-scattered radiation increases. [10], [8] 5.3 Antiscatter grids An ideal CT system only with primary radiation (x-rays emitted from the source) reaching the detector does not exist and Compton scatter is always present. As this scatter is randomly distributed and has no useful information about the distribution of density of the scanned object, it just contributes to the reduction of image contrast and should be minimized to the maximum. This, because unlike photoelectric effect, Compton effect has a low contrast between tissues. As referred above, collimators are useful to limit the X-ray beam to the FOV. However, even with a collimator, 50% to 90% of the radiation that reaches the detector is secondary radiation. To reduce the Compton scatter, antiscatter grids can be placed between the detector and the patient. [10] An antiscatter grid consists of strips of sheets oriented parallel to the primary radiation direction combined with a support of aluminum, which drastically reduces the scatter radiation that has not the direction of the primary one, as illustrated in Figure 6. In order to not lower the image quality because of the grid shade, the strips should be narrow. There is, however, a tradeoff between the reduction of scatter radiation (that improve the image contrast) and the dose that must be given to the patient to have the same number of detected X-rays. [10] 5.4 Detectors At the beginning, single-slice CT scanners with just one source and one detector were used. However, these took much time to acquire an image, reason why the evolution brought us single-source, multiple-detector machinery and multislice systems. The third and fourth generations added a wider X-ray fan beam and a larger number of detectors to the gantry (typically from 512 to 768), which permitted to acquire more information in a smaller time. The detectors used in CT must be highly efficient to minimize the dose given to the patient, have a large dynamic range and be very stable over the time and over temperature variations inside the gantry. Three factors contribute to overall efficiency: geometric efficiency (fraction of the total area of detector that is sensitive to radiation), quantum efficiency (the fraction of incident X-rays that is absorbed to contribute to signal) and conversion efficiency (the ability to convert the absorbed X-rays into electrical signal). These detectors can be of two types (shown in Figure 7): solid-state detectors or gas ionization detectors. Solid-state detectors consist of an array of scintillating crystals and photodiodes, while gas ionization detectors consist of an array of compressed gas chambers to which is applied a high voltage to gather ions produced by radiation in inside the chamber. The gas is kept under a high pressure, to maximize interactions between X-rays and gas molecules, which produce electro-ion pairs. [10], [8] 5.5 Data-Acquisition System The transmitted fraction of the incident X-ray intensity (I/I0 in equation 1) can be as small as 10-4, reason why DAS must be very accurate over a great range. The role of DAS is to acquire these data and then encode it into digital values and transmit these to computers for reconstruction to begin. DAS make use of many electronic components, such as precision preamplifiers, current-to-voltage converters, analog integrators, multiplexers and analog-to-digital converters. The logarithmic step needed in equation 3 to get the values of  µi can be performed with an analog logarithmic amplifier. Data transfer is a crucial step to assure speed to the whole process and used to be done by direct connection between DAS and the computer. However, with the appearance of rotating scanners in third and fourth generations, these transfer rate, which is as high as 10 Mbytes/s is now accomplished by optical transmitters placed on the rotating gantry that send information to fixed optical receivers. [8] 5.6 Computer system The data acquisition of the projections, the reconstruction of the signal, the display of the reconstructed data and the manipulation of tomographic images is possible by computer systems used to control the hardware. Current systems consist of 12 processors which achieve 200 MFLOPS (million floating-point operations per second) and can reconstruct an image of 10241024 pixels in less than 5 seconds. [8] 6. Signal Processing and Analyzing Techniques As data are acquired in several directions (e.g. with increments of 1 ° or even less) and each direction is split in several distinct points (e.g. 160 or more), at least 28 800 points are stored, which means that there must be efficient mathematical and computational techniques to analyze all this information. A square matrix representing a 2-Dimensional map of the variation of X-ray absorption with the position is then reconstructed. There are four major techniques to analyze these data, which we will discuss subsequently. [12] 6.1 Simultaneous linear equations As it was referred above (Section 4), there is a measure of for each pixel, which means that modern CT scanners deal with 1 048 576 points for each slice (nowadays the matrixes used are 10241024). As a result, to generate the image of one single slice, a system of at least 1 048 576 equations must be solved (one equation for each unknown variable), which means that this technique is totally unusable. In fact, imagine that in 1967, Hounsfield built the first CT scanner, which took 9 days to acquire the data of a single slice and 21 hours to compute the equations (and by the time, the matrix had only 28 000 entries). Besides, nowadays CT scanners acquire about 50% more measures than it would be needed in order to reduce noise and artifacts, which would require even more computational resources. [16], [11], [8] 6.2 Iterative These techniques try to calculate the final image by small adjustments based on the acquired measures. Three major variations of this method can be found: Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (ART), Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT) and Iterative Least-Squares Technique (ILST). These variations differ only in the way corrections are made: ray-by-ray, pixel-by-pixel or the entire data simultaneously, respectively. In ART as an example, data of one angular position are divided into equally spaced elements along each ray. Then, these data are compared with analogous data from another angular position and the differences between X-ray attenuation are added equally to the fitting elements. Basically, for each measure, the system tries to found out how each pixel value can be modified to agree with the particular measure that is being analyzed. In order to adjust measures with pixel values, if the sum of the entries along one direction is lower than the experimental measure for that direction, all the pixels are increased. Otherwise, if the sum of the entries is higher than the measured attenuation, pixels are decreased in value. By repeating this iterative cycle, we will progressively decrease the error in pixels, until we get an accurate image. ART was used in the first commercial scanner in 1972, but it is no longer used because iterative methods are usually slow. Besides, this method implies th at all data must be acquired before the reconstruction begins. [9], [16] 6.3 Filtered backprojection Backprojection is a formal mathematical technique that reconstructs the image based only on the projection of the object onto image planes in different directions. Each direction is given the same weight and the overall linear attenuation coefficient is generated by the sum of attenuation in each X-ray path that intersects the object from different angular positions. In a simpler manner, backprojection can be constructed by smearing each objects view back trough the image plane in the direction it was registered. When this processed is finished for all the elements of the anatomic section, one obtains a merged image of the linear attenuation coefficients, which is itself a crude reconstruction of the scanned object. An illustration of this technique is represented in Figure 8. By its analysis, it is also clear that the final image is blurred, which means that this technique needs a little improvement, which is given by filtered backprojection. [12], [9], [16] Filtered backprojection is therefore used to correct the blurring resultant from simple backprojection. It consists of applying a filter kernel to each of the 1-Dimensional projections of the object. That is done by convolving a deblurring function with the X-ray transmission data before they are projected. The filter removes from data the frequencies of the X-ray responsible for most of the blurring. As we can see in Figure 8, the filter has two significant effects. On the one hand, it levels the top of the pulse, making the signal uniform within it. On the other hand, it negatively spikes the sides of the pulse, so these negative neighborhoods will neutralize the blurring effect. As a result, the image produced by this technique is consistent with the scanned object, if an infinite number of views and an infinite number of points per view are acquired. [16], [9] Compared with the two previous methods this process has also the advantage that reconstruction can begins at the same time that data are being acquired and that is one of the reasons why it is one of the most popular methods nowadays. [9] 6.4 Fourier reconstruction The last signal processing technique that will be discussed in this monograph is the Fourier reconstruction which consists of analyzing data in the frequency domain instead of the spatial domain. For this, one takes each angular orientation of the X-ray attenuation pattern and decomposes it on its frequency components. In the frequency domain, the scanned image is seen as a 2-Dimensional grid, over which we place a dark line for the spectrum of each view, as Figure 9 shows. To reconstruct the image, one has to take the 1-Dimensional Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Then, according to the Fourier Slice Theorem, each views spectrum is identical to the values of one line (slice) through the image spectrum, assuring that, in the grid, each view has the same angle that was originally acquired. Finally, the inverse FFT of the image spectrum is used to achieve a reconstruction of the scanned object. 7. Data Display As it was said earlier (Section 6), linear attenuation coefficients give us a crude image of the object. In fact, they can be expressed in dB/cm, but as they are dependent on the incident radiation energy, CT scanning does not use the attenuation coefficients to represent the image, but instead it uses integer numbers called CT numbers. These are occasionally, but unofficially, called Hounsfield units and have the following relation with the linear attenuation coefficients: where  µ is the linear attenuation coefficient of each pixel and  µw is the linear attenuation coefficient of water. This CT number depends clearly on the medium. For human applications, we may consider that CT number varies from -1000 for air and 1000 for bone, with CT number of 0 for water, as it is easily seen from equation 5. [9], [13], [4], [12] The CT numbers of the scanned object are then presented on the monitor as a grey scale. As shown in Figure 10, CT numbers have a large range and as human eye cannot distinguish so many types of grays, it is usually used a window to show a smaller range of CT numbers, depending on what it is desired to see. The Window Width (WW) identifies the range of CT numbers and consequently alters the contrast (as Figures 11 and 12 show), whereas Window Level (WL) sets the centre of the window and, therefore, select which structures are seen. The lowest CT number of the window, which corresponds to the lowest density tissue, is represented in black and the highest Ct number (highest density tissue) is represented in white. 8. Radiation Dose As it can easily be understood, radiation dose given to the patient is dependent on the resolution of the scanner and its contrast, as well as

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors Essay -- essays research papers

Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s first plays. The minor characters, in the play, Egeon and the Duke, set up the framework of the play. Egeon, at the request of the Duke, describes his adventures and relates his life story. This provides the history of The Comedy of Errors, and helps keep track of the confusion, which unfolds during the play. There are several themes that Shakespeare uses which are only loosely related to the actual comedy. The conflicts between burden and freedom, rule and compassion, loss and rebirth all form a critical undertone within the play. There is also the serious effect time. Shakespeare requires that all the action end at five o'clock, the time of Egeon's execution, Antipholus of Syracuse's meeting with the merchant, and the moment when Angelo must pay the Second Merchant his money. There are also several coercions within the play. The comedy opens with Egeon unintentionally breaking the law, for which he is sentenced to death. In addition to this very real danger of death, there is also the risk that the play will end too soon. At various times the reader could assume the characters are close to revealing the entire plot and ending the play. These occur when Antipholus has the chance to demand payment from his father at the beginning, and also when both Dromios are on opposite sides of the door at Adriana's house. The characters are meant to gain knowledge of something. For instance, the Duke claims th...

Monday, November 11, 2019

Cultural Diversity in Organizations Essay

â€Å"Diversity† has arrived as a descriptive word for the American lifestyle in the modern world. With increasing immigration of people from many countries, many races, and many cultural backgrounds to the United States, the country has become a nest of diversity. Several factors shape the fact that the workforce is becoming increasingly culturally diverse: women represent an increasing percentage in organizations; the difference in age is becoming more evident on all levels; due to continuously changing demands organizations are employing more and more people with diverse professional and specialist backgrounds; there is a growing number of immigrants having different customs, religions and cultures and finally, the ongoing globalization is causing an influx of a large number of expatriates, who comes from various countries in the world, also contributing with different values and cultures. This increasing cultural diversity is both an opportunity and a challenge. Diversity brings with it a wide range of creativity and fresh thinking into the system. Diversity is here, in the population, in the workforce and in the marketplace. Racism, discrimination in the workplace, social stratification, and conflicts in social lifestyles are all negative byproducts of diversity. Thus cultural diversity in America is a highly debated issue because of the numerous problems arising due to it. One of the most serious and explosive issues in the United States today is meeting the business goals within an environment of multicultural diversity. When companies fail to create a culture of diversity and inclusion effectively, the costs can be high – costs arising due to ‘diversity training† and settlement of discrimination lawsuits. Many well-known companies have spent millions of dollars on â€Å"diversity training,† after settling discrimination lawsuits totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, diversity also raises issues of interpersonal relations and communications among employees. This fact is underlined by increasing discrimination and class action lawsuits. Diversity impacts every person, every project, and every transaction in today’s business world. Some companies approach it in terms of the noticeable differences among people. What many fail to realize is that diversity is really about personal interaction and emotions, and creating a corporate culture that welcomes all kinds of differences. Managing Diversity: Managing diversity is all about approaching the issue proactively as a business opportunity. There needs to be a culture of diversity within the organization. One of the major obstacles in managing diversity is that many companies view diversity as a problem that needs to be solved. They just take a reactive approach. Supposing there is a lawsuit brought under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, they just take an initiative that would solve the problem in the short run. Though this approach seems to be successful, in the long run, there is likely to be no impact on the corporate culture in a positive way. Such reactive approaches can negatively impact the workforce morale as they don’t appear to be a genuine commitment to diversity. The path to diversity is not always an easy one. One of the most common obstacles is resentment from white male managers who see diversity as threatening to them. â€Å"Since diversity is typically framed to be about white women and people of color, the focus is rarely on examining what it means to be white and male,† say Bill Proudman and Michael Welp, Partners at White Men as Full Diversity Partners LLC, a consulting firm based in Portland, Oregon. â€Å"White men, and sometimes others, thus conclude that diversity is not about them† (Goffney, 2005) Another obstacle that can arise in a multicultural business environment is resistance to change. When new diversity programs are introduced, it is essential that the employees view it as a genuine effort. Hence, these diversity programs should be tailored to meet the needs of the company’s workforce and integrated into the daily environment. Any diversity initiative should be tied to the company’s bottom line. Even though top management may make the commitment to diversity, if the initiative is not tied explicitly to the company’s bottom line, it does not become a priority for middle managers. The diversity initiative should be integrated into the tools and processes they use to manage employees, including orientation, training and education, and interpersonal communication. If not, existing employees will not accept the diversity initiative and new employees are likely to get disillusioned with a taste of it. Top management must ensure that the commitment to diversity has buy-in at all levels of the organization by making diversity an integral part of company success. Yet another obstacle to managing diversity is that the diversity initiatives might be restricted to training alone and is left as an ‘HR issue†. This narrow focus results relegation of diversity to a single department and companies thus miss out on opportunities to improve and integrate the diversity initiative into other areas of the company. Any corporate initiative should be feedback based, dynamic and flexible. Else, there is the danger that the initiative will remain static. Too often diversity initiatives begin and end with the first efforts undertaken. Diversity and inclusion are part of company culture, and like the culture, diversity must continue to evolve (Adams and Ruch, 2006). Managing all these obstacles require the ability to value a diverse world. This means there should be individual assessment of beliefs about work values. People from differing backgrounds having different experiences bring to work the biases and â€Å"veils† as well as the strengths that arise out of cultural differences. To work effectively with persons from diverse backgrounds, it is necessary to understand others– people from other racial, ethnic and cultural heritages, and people whose values, beliefs and experience are different. This involves learning to recognize when new competencies are needed, knowing how to develop the requisite new competencies, and implementing the competencies effectively. Companies need to assess their state of diversity: What is the state of diversity in our company? Are we making the most of diversity? Do we speak with one voice with respect to diversity? Companies that ask these questions on a continual basis, set strategic goals, measure their progress and evolve their programs in sync with their overall organizational change will be the ones to leverage the full potential of diversity (Adams and Ruch, 2006). Individual Reactions to Diversity: Diversity may be viewed positively or negatively depending on the individual reaction to diversity. In a culturally diverse workplace, there is likely to be prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination. This is because of self-fulfilling prophecies. The perceiver develops false belief about a person from a different cultural background. He then treats the person in a manner consistent with that false belief. Ultimately, the person responds to the treatment in such a way to confirm the originally false belief. Other negative reactions of individuals to diversity may include: tension among staff, distrust of anything new, gossip and rumor, open hostility or bullying, absenteeism, tarnishing of the agency’s reputation, low staff retention rates, lack of response to customers and falling standards of service quality (NSW, 2006). In the positive sense, diversity that brings with it community language skills and cultural competencies can be seen as valuable assets to an agency (MSASS, 2006). Customer service improves when employees are able to tackle customers from a range of backgrounds. When employees are encouraged to learn from one another, their skills and knowledge are also enhanced. Diversity can reduce skill shortages at specific times. In a business, diversity gives the advantage of utilizing the language, international expertise and cultural knowledge of staff to identify successful export opportunities. When employees are encouraged to work in their areas of strength and capability, they are happier, more productive and more likely to stay with the agency. Productive diversity is based on the concept that there are potential economic benefits to be gained from valuing different experience, perspectives, skills and the cross-transfer and integration of these into the agency and local economy. Productive diversity makes good business sense in an environment where local diversity and global interconnectedness play a critical economic role (Muhr, 2006). Diversity effects on groups and teams: In the context of working in groups or teams, diversity seems to cause contrasting goals, miscommunication or inter-group anxiety, thereby prohibiting teamwork creativity. Miscommunication and the lack of a common language make it difficult for team members to engage in an exchange of ideas and questions, an exchange, which is essential for effective teamwork (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). If individuals carry out negative stereotyping of outgroups it can prevent them from trusting and engaging with others and can threaten communication patterns within organizations. This is mainly due to a lack of common context and language usage. Anxiety in the team occurs when people identify themselves as placed among people belonging to different diversity categories. Thus, diversity will in this situation make it difficult for the individuals to identify with the team, since there is no unified perception of what values the team represents (Muhr, 2006). In a diverse work team, the values and perceptions of different diversity categories may be contrasting or even mutually exclusive, which is likely to bring about incongruence in goals. Incongruence in goals can limit communication, which is fundamental to the creation of interpersonal relationships and trust. Furthermore, goal incongruence may also prevent individuals from sharing and combining knowledge all together, if they are not able to reach agreement on common goals for pursuing such knowledge processes (Muhr, 2006). On the positive side, it has been shown that diversity in fact improves creativity by promoting variations, thinking out of the box and avoiding ‘groupthink’. Several analyses have shown that teams made up of people with different cultural and educational backgrounds, different personalities, different professional backgrounds and different skills are potentially more creative and innovative than relatively homogeneous teams. This is because diversity creates variations – variations in perceptions, values, ideas, opinions, and methods, which are highly essential for developing a stimulating creative environment (Mohr, 2006). Conclusion: In the global economy today, most companies operate globally. Diversity of thought, culture, geography, race, and gender enables companies to deliver the best solutions to their customers and markets. Diversity pays off both internally and externally. A company that embraces diversity can offer a challenging and creative work environment, and as a result, can attract and retain top talent with diverse backgrounds. There is also a connection between diversity and increased productivity. Diversity also fosters organizational creativity. But despite these benefits of diversity, work teams will not truly benefit from diversity unless sufficient communication, trust and openness are nurtured in the organizational climate. The powerful advantage of embracing diversity in organizations is best brought out by the words of Ted Childs, IBM’s vice president of global workforce diversity. In a recent issue of Fast Company magazine, in a feature article was entitled: â€Å"Difference is Power†, Ted Childs suggests that, â€Å"No matter who you are, you’re going to have to work with people who are different from you. You’re going to have to sell to people who are different from you, and buy from people who are different from you, and manage people who are different from you. This is how [companies] do business. If it’s (diversity) not your destination, you should get off the plane now† (Meisner, 2006). Bibliography: Adams, Brandon and Ruch, Will (2006). Diversity as a core business strategy. http://www. versantsolutions. com/knowledgecenter/EB_DiversityAsACoreBusinessStrategy2. pdf NSW (2006). What is Diversity? http://www. eeo. nsw. gov. au/diversity/whatis. htm Muhr, Louise Sara (2006). Openness to Diversity –Turning conflict into teamwork creativity. Paper submitted for the 10th International Workshop on Teamworking. http://www. mau. se/upload/IMER/Forskning/Diverse/Muhr%5B1%5D. pdf Nahapiet, J. , & Ghoshal, S. 1998. Social Capital, Intellectual Capital and the Organizational Advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2). MSASS (2006). Valuing a diverse World. http://msass. case. edu/downloads/academic/diverse. pdf Goffney, Phyllia (2005). Champions of Diversity. Essence. May 2005. http://www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_1_36/ai_n13660850 Meisner, Lora (2006). The American Quilt – Workplace Diversity. http://career. thingamajob. com/general-career. aspx/The-American-Quilt-Workplace-Diversity. aspx

Saturday, November 9, 2019

The effect of Vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer risk

Abstract The impact of vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer prevention and diminishment has become a matter of sustained debate. This study proposes to utilize a combination Post-Positivism approach to assess the practice. With emerging studies both upholding and decrying the efficacy of Vitamin D in relation to breast cancer, there is a need pursue this study in order to clarify the potential. Introduction Breast Cancer and vitamin D supplementation have become a substantial topic of debate as a drive to find a solution continues. This study fills a gap in existing research by assessing what impact the addition of Vitamin D has on the prevention and diminishment of Breast Cancer.1.1 BackgroundThe efficacy of Vitamin D supplementation in order to prevent or diminish Breast Cancer has become a matter of sustained debate. The Mohr, Gorham and Alcaraz (2012) study argues that there is a direct benefit to the reduction of breast cancer by adding Vitamin D both before and after a cancer diagnosis. Others cite the impact of Vitamin D on Breast Cancer as only negligible (Prentice, Prettinger and Jackson 2013). Still others cite the early stage of research as an obstacle to fully embracing the value of Vitamin D (Yin, Grandi and Raum 2010). Yet, further studies link Vitamin D and the method of ingestion as a pivotal issue (Prentice et al 2013). The goal of this study would be to further det ermine the role of Vitamin D in relation to breast cancer in women.1.2 Aims and ObjectivesIn this section, the research aims, objectives, and research questions will be outlined. Firstly, the aim of this research is as follows: The following research objectives have been determined: What is the effect of vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer risk What is the vitamin D status, determined by 25-OH vitamin D levels, among women diagnosed with breast cancer 1.3 Research QuestionsThe research question is: What are the known associations with Vitamin D supplementation and breast cancer What are the key factors that have been impacted by Vitamin D supplementation of cancer Do the means of Vitamin D ingestion have an impact on effectiveness What is the potential emerging research teaching 2 Literature Review 2.1 Factors that contribute to Breast CancerDeficiencies in all forms have long been credited with the increasing the probability for cancer of all varieties (Pearce and Cheetham 2010). Factors including the lack of Vitamin D have been linked to breast cancer diagnosis in women (Chung, Lee and Terasawa 2011). With lifestyle choices and long-term habits playing a pivotal role in a cancer diagnosis, the impact of a single element is debateable (Brasky, Lampe and Potter 2010). Diseases including Rickets and osteomalacia are directly tied to vitamin D deficiency, making a breast cancer link plausible (Pearce et al 2010). The presence of or lack of vitamins are argued to impact a breast cancer diagnosis.2.2 Vitamin D and Breast Cancer supplementation in WomenA wide array of professionals ranging across clinical applications, autoimmunity, cardiology and cancer fields agree that the Vitamin D supplementation is a benefit to the effort to increase breast prevention efforts (Souberbielle, Jeanjacques Body and Lappe 2010). Yet, Prentice et al (2013), while maintaining the moderate value of the supplementation practice, argue that the reduction in breast cancer occurrence due to this factor is only suggestive, not conclusive.2.3 Vitamin D and Breast Cancer Prevention OptionWolff and Guiliano (2011) have found that Vitamin D as a supplement is superior to a dietary intake of vitamin D. This study charts a correlation between the incidents of breast cancer prevention and the dietary method of vitamin intake. It is insufficient to rely on any single indicator in as a prevention mechanism (Thacher and Clarke 2011). Further, the benefits of vitamin D are only at the obse rvational stage and cannot be fully accredited (Ibid).2.4TrendsThe combination of Calcium/Vitamin D is providing an avenue for research towards a diminished rate of breast cancer (Bolland, Grey, Gamble and Reid 2011). Conversely, Brunner, Wactawski-Wende and Cann (2011) illustrate that there is no substantial reduction in breast cancer among their studies participants employing this combination. 3. Methodology The methodology focuses on an explanation of the approaches considered: What is the effect of vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer risk What is the vitamin D status, determined by 25-OH vitamin D levels, among women diagnosed with breast cancer3.1 ApproachPositivism, quantitative method, provides solutions resting in math, producing empirical data (Yin 2003). Interpretivism or qualitative uses the interpretive approach utilizing instruments like coding. Post-Positivism, a combination of the two is best suited to determine the impact of Vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer in women (Bryan and Bell 2007). Both inductive and deductive approaches were considered. Bryan et al (2007) view both approaches as ‘connected’ with distinct elements, but the connection are not fixed. Therefore settled the use of a mixed method or post-positivism method was chosen as the best approach.3.2 Research StrategyThis study will collect and analyse empirical data (Biggam 2012). The utilization of both primary and secondary research material will provide depth and fundamental clarity to the study (Yin 2003). The empirical research in this study deals with an in-depth review of breast cancer cases, survivors and relevant medical professionals. Primary data will be accumulated through the creation and utilization of a survey directly transmitted to breast cancer survivors and oncological professionals (Ibid). Prior and existing case studies will be evaluated utilizing secondary sources alongside the application of a primary source survey issued to the breast cancer survivors and members of t he oncologist community (Yin 2003). This research strategy is best suited to facilitate a well rounded evaluation of issues that promote various perspectives in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the link between Vitamin D supplementation and breast cancer (Lock, Silvermand and Spirduso 2010).3.4 Data Collection Methods and InstrumentsThe collection methods used in this study were: Primary data using Surveys from survivors and medical professionals (Saunders et al 2007). Secondary breast cancer data via journal and peer reviewed article The primary disadvantages rest in the limited capacity to check answers or develop further details. Further, obtaining primary data may be very high (Yin 2003). 7. References Biggam, J. (2012) Succeeding with Your Master’s Dissertation. 2nd ed.Berks. McGraw-Hill Boll, Grey, A., Gamble, G. and Reid, I. 2011. Calcium and vitamin D supplements and health outcomes: a reanalysis of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) limited-access data set. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 94 (4), pp. 1144–1149. Brasky, T., Lampe, J., Potter, J., Patterson, R. and White, E. 2010. Specialty supplements and breast cancer risk in the VITamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) Cohort. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 19 (7), pp. 1696–1708. Brunner, R., Wactawski-Wende, J., Caan, B., Cochrane, B., Chlebowski, R., Gass, M., Jacobs, E., Lacroix, A., Lane, D., Larson, J. and Others. 2011. The effect of calcium plus vitamin D on risk for invasive cancer: results of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) calcium plus vitamin D randomized clinical trial. Nutrition and cancer, 63 (6), pp. 827–841. Bryan and Bell, (2007)Buisness Research Methods Oxford. University Press Chung, M., Lee, J., Terasawa, T., Lau, J. and Trikalinos, T. 2011. Vitamin D with or without calcium supplementation for prevention of cancer and fractures: an updated meta-analysis for the US Preventive Services Task Force. Annals of Internal Medicine, 155 (12), pp. 827–838. Locke L. F., Silverman S J and Spirduso, W, W (2010, pg 198) Reading and Understanding Research. 3rd ed. Mohr, S., Gorham, E., Alcaraz, J., Kane, C., Macera, C., Parsons, J., Wingard, D. and Garl. 2012. Does the evidence for an inverse relationship between serum vitamin D status and breast cancer risk satisfy the Hill criteria?. Dermato-endocrinology, 4 (2), pp. 152–157. Pearce, S., Cheetham, T. and Others. 2010. Diagnosis and management of vitamin D deficiency. Bmj, 340 p. 5664. Prentice, R., Pettinger, M., Jackson, R., Wactawski-Wende, J., Lacroix, A., Anderson, G., Chlebowski, R., Manson, J., Van Horn, L., Vitolins, M. and Others. 2013. Health risks and benefits from calcium and vitamin D supplementation: Women’s Health Initiative clinical trial and cohort study. Osteoporosis International, 24 (2), pp. 567–580. Serrano, J., De Lorenzo, D., Cassanye, A., Mart’In-Gari, M., Espinel, A., Delgado, M., Pamplona, R. and Portero-Otin, M. 2013. Vitamin D receptor BsmI polymorphism modulates soy intake and 25-hydroxyvitamin D supplementation benefits in cardiovascular disease risk factors profile.Genes & nutrition, 8 (6), pp. 561–569. Souberbielle, J., Body, J., Lappe, J., Plebani, M., Shoenfeld, Y., Wang, T., Bischoff-Ferrari, H., Cavalier, E., Ebeling, P., Fardellone, P. and Others. 2010. Vitamin D and musculoskeletal health, cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity and cancer: Recommendations for clinical practice.Autoimmunity reviews, 9 (11), pp. 709–715. Thacher, T. and Clarke, B. 2011. Vitamin D insufficiency. 86 (1), pp. 50–60. Yin, L., Gr, I, N., Raum, E., Haug, U., Arndt, V. and Brenner, H. 2010. Meta-analysis: serum vitamin D and breast cancer risk. European Journal of Cancer, 46 (12), pp. 2196–2205. Yin, R. 2003. Case study research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Pallant, J. (2010) SPSS 8. Gantt Chart

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Supply Chain Automotive Industry Essay Example

Supply Chain Automotive Industry Essay Example Supply Chain Automotive Industry Paper Supply Chain Automotive Industry Paper Abstract While sometimes characterized as â€Å"stable† the World automotive industry continues to experience dynamic change- change that sweeps across national borders. These changes have struck in particular, the U. S and the Japanese automotive industries. To succeed, auto manufacturers must manage large and complex supply chains, spanning many geographic regions, and pursue opportunities in diverse national markets. While national policies play an important role in shaping the environment for local manufacturing operations and resulting products, cost competition increasingly drives the industry toward global product offerings. This report explores several important dimensions of the forces of change facing the U. S. and the Japanese auto industry. We will present a comparison between the Asian and North American automobile manufacturing practices and in particular, the two companies, Ford and Honda Motors. A comparison will be made between the two markets on how each handles product varieties, their delivery methods from the factory to consumers, as well as the markets channels used. A comprehensive study is made to compare the automobile product varieties in the two regions and explain how customer choices and the effect of competition have led to this diversification in the products. The importance of marketing channels has gone largely unnoticed. For this purpose, marketing channel strategies will be discussed in detail. The relationships among suppliers, customers and logistics service providers will also be analyzed, in other words, the sourcing and the in-bound supply strategies. North America Asian ? Ford Motors â€Å"Ford Taurus† ?Honda Motor â€Å"Honda Accord† Table 1: North American and Asian automakers to be analyzed in this project These two models have been chosen based on the annual report posted at the corporate sites for both companies. Honda Corporate site shows that Honda Accord achieved its highest sales recently. The choice of Ford Taurus comes from the many similarities it has with Honda Accord concerning its size, price and de mands. iii 1. Introduction U. S. Sales of Honda Automobiles (by Model) Worldwide vehicle production ability is growing today more rapidly than it has in the last 20 or 30 years, and this has interesting implications for the world’s auto makers. Clearly most automobile manufacturers are very optimistic about the willingness of consumers to buy up this capacity. While environmental issues exist, they are not being factored into investment decisions about increases in car production capacity. At present, the world has the capability of producing 15 to 20 million more vehicles than it is currently buying. The last four years have been extraordinary for U. S. auto companies, earning them every year between 13 and 14 billion dollars. This is not bad financial performance for an industry that was viewed as dead in 1990, when both GM and Chrysler were on the verge of filing bankruptcy. This year again will be an outstanding year both for Ford and GM. In examining how the Japanese and U. S. auto industries have changed and adjusted to adversity, we find that the turnaround of the Japanese industry has had more to do with the value of the currency than it has had to do with fundamental change for several companies. While Japanese automobile companies have suffered fairly staggering losses over the last few years, both 2001 and 2002 showed improvement because of the stronger dollar. What happened to Japanese manufacturers during the bubble economy? First, all had huge, very unrealistic expectations about where the Japanese market was going. Japan is as saturated with motor vehicles as the United States, and yet during the last few years virtually every Japanese automaker built another factory to expand capacity and maintain market share. Companies rationalized this massive increase in capacity by believing that somehow their company’s market share would grow and another company’s market share would shrink. But that theory works only if there are other companies around willing to give up market share. This, of course, is no longer the case; the world has changed and it has changed very dramatically. ?1 In the case of the U. S. industry, however, substantial fundamental changes have occurred within the automobile companies themselves, allowing them to reduce excess capacity and in the process adjust their break-even points. Over the last decade and a half, for example, Ford has closed enough capacity and start to invade the Japanese markets. In terms of productivity in the factory, Japanese also have benefited from very close relationships with suppliers. In fact, they were able to get new cars on the market every four years, mainly because their suppliers were linked to the automobile company in familial relationships that entrusted the supplier to do a great deal of the engineering work for the manufacturer. In effect, the Japanese shifted a lot of their fixed costs onto their suppliers and became variable cost assemblers. That has been hard to replicate outside Japan because U. S. automobile companies were very highly vertically integrated. But companies such as GM and Ford are no longer as vertically integrated. The company is getting rid of this business, pushing the engineering responsibilities onto their suppliers. In sum, supplier relationships in the United States are firming up and look very much like the structure in Japan. Parts manufacturers now have specific expertise and technical capability to absorb engineering work from the auto companies. As a result, companies are now looking to five-year product cycles. Suddenly what factors things that have distinguished Japanese auto manufacturers in the past and enabled them to gain market share are being matched by U. S. and European companies. So what constitutes competitive advantage? For a long time the Japanese were able to offset their excess capacity at home with higher exports throughout the world but that export potential is no longer there, especially with regard to the developed markets of North America and Western Europe. And in most markets of the developing world, the growth of home auto industries has hampered the ability of Japanese manufacturers to shift surplus capacity away from Japan. Even though exports are up substantially this year because of the weak yen, they are no where near the levels of a few years ago and certainly not high enough to absorb the excess capacity. Another trend influencing the automotive industry is consumer preference for certain features. Consumers are choosing safety (e. g. , airbags, antilock brake systems) with amenities (e. g. air conditioners, powerful engines, power steering, and compact disc players) over vehicles whose primary appeal is size and interior space. Factors influencing customer choices are performance, suitability to personal needs, and family lifestyle, safety, comfort, and appearance. Consumers are showing a taste for the practical, as embodied in the Toyota Camry and the Ford Taurus, both top sellers in the medium price range. Japanese automaker s, however, have 2 increased market share in the United States through new â€Å"luxury† nameplates: Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura. In addition, previously â€Å"compact† models such as Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord have become larger and more luxurious. One of the most critical issues for the automotive industry today is competitiveness in cost, quality, and product offerings. Companies cannot survive in today’s market if they neglect any of these areas. Since that time, differences between the United States and Japan in productivity and quality have shrunk and effectively disappeared in new product development lead time, pointing to a dramatic overall improvement in the competitive position. Trends in the practices of the foreign competitors show an important part of the overall picture. Japanese trends show a strong emphasis on total product quality (e. g. , Honda, Infiniti), perhaps at the expense of lead time and development productivity (total engineering hours per development project). However, in part because of the rise in the value of the yen, the pendulum between â€Å"cost is no object† quality and cost-effectiveness is rapidly swinging toward the latter. Nevertheless, the Japanese demonstrate a strong command of the link between product design and lean production. The automobile is one of the most complex consumer products in existence. The automotive manufacturing process serves as the â€Å"moment of truth† for the entire design, development, supply chain, and manufacturing process. If the parts do not fit when the manufacturer attempts to put them together, the system has a defect that must be tracked down and eliminated. Thus, auto companies focus a great deal of attention on understanding and improving the manufacturing process. Across the world auto industry, the differences in regional averages in quality, productivity, and diversity are declining. Within regions, however, the variance in performance is high, with large gaps between the best and worst plants. Quality performance trends are similar to those for productivity. Much of the quality gap between Japanese companies and their American and European competitors has been closed. However, the variation among plants in each regional group is large. The greatest improvement is shown by European plants and by Ford plants in North America. While this improvement closed much of the quality gap with Japanese competitors, Japanese plants improved in Japan and in North America. The North American transplants have eliminated any gap in quality performance with their sister plants in Japan. As far as talking about the flexibility in manufacturing, the strategic advantages (the ability to assemble multiple product lines in a single plant) have been widely discussed over the past 3 decade. Companies that are able to produce a variety of products in their manufacturing plants have a number of advantages. Such plants are an important resource for a company with a product development strategy of high variety. In addition, flexibility enables plants to respond more effectively to changes in their competitive environment. The manufacturing plants with the highest levels of product variety have typically been those that produce many different models for export- Japanese plants in Japan and European plants. Ford plants in North America have typically been dedicated to one or a few models. The Japanese transplants started their operations in North America with low product variety while they established their production system philosophy and have slowly increased variety over time. The Japanese and U. S. utomotive industries operate differently. Japanese manufacturers typically ask suppliers regardless of location or national origin-to assume more responsibility for engineering design. In many cases, the Japanese automakers do not own patent rights to the designs for the parts they use, so that the parts suppliers must be quite specific. By contrast, American automakers usually provide detaile d designs and ask suppliers to bid on a part. We come here to the most important point in our project; the supply chain policies. The world’s automotive manufacturing sector consists primarily of about 20 very large multinational corporations. The automotive supply sector, however, comprises thousands of firms ranging in size from a few employees to more than 100,000. Drawing conclusions about such a large and diverse sector is much more difficult than for the manufacturing sector. Best practice in automotive supply chain management involves close, trusting relationships with long-standing suppliers that are intimately involved with the development and production of the components and subsystems they provide. In the past five years, Chrysler has aggressively incorporated those findings into its modus operandi, GM has largely rejected that hilosophy, and Ford has settled somewhere in between. On the surface, the advice to improve partnerships along the supply chain, drawn largely from Japanese practices, seems to have significantly helped Ford on its return to growth and profitability. At the same time, Honda insists on exerting extreme price pressure on its suppliers and aggressively negotiating division of the returns to innovations in supplied parts and subsystems. Automotive distribution and retailing were once given little attention because they were viewed as adjunct to the core business of engineering and manufacturing vehicles. However, in the past several decades, the pressures on the industry to make its factories and product development processes more efficient have spilled over into the distribution and retailing (post manufacturing) sectors- cutting profit margins and causing significant restructuring in the 4 distribution and retail industry base. This restructuring, although quite significant, has attracted much less attention than the manufacturing sector’s changes because it involves no dramatic dislocation of people, jobs, or economic base. These downstream segments of the supply chain are experiencing a shift from being capital intensive (focused on inventory investment) and people intensive (sales forces) to being more information intensive (having the right vehicle in the right place at the right time). Due to greater flexibility of labor and capital in the post manufacturing markets, this conversion from physical logistics to information logistics is shifting the power and leverage in the supply chain toward economic agents that are highly entrepreneurial and flexible. These economic forces have reduced the number of dealers in the United States (now approximately 22,000) and are expected to continue doing so. More important than the absolute dealer count is the trend toward segmentation of the many industries that make up distribution. Unlike the small group of relatively tightly organized supply chains, the post manufacturing sector is a much looser collection of organizations that are not so centrally focused around the automaker. The combination of high national productivity and the relative decrease in value of the dollar against the yen and the deutsche mark has made the United States a more attractive manufacturing site for foreign automakers. This development has provided a new source of investment, jobs, and training for Americans. Moreover, the transplant assemblers are significantly influencing the U. S. automotive supply base, both by encouraging traditional Japanese and German suppliers to set up transplant operations and by inciting the traditional U. S. suppliers to become more competitive. These improvements to the supply base, driven in part by the Japanese transplants, in turn benefit the American automobile manufacturing companies. The Japanese-transplant assemblers in North America have continued to expand their production and are now approaching a volume of three million cars and light trucks per year. The transplants represent an enormous positive economic impact for the United States, compared with having that many vehicles imported from Japan, for example. These investments have helped the Japanese companies as well, which would be in far deeper trouble had they not diversified their manufacturing base outside the high-priced labor and parts markets in Japan. The displacement of the automobile manufacturing industries employment and production with transplant production is more difficult to assess. In the main, it has decreased the financial and market dominance of the American auto industry, although none are currently threatened with survival concerns. It has also affected the geography of automotive employment within the United States. The combination of high national productivity and the relative decrease in value of the dollar against the yen and the deutsche mark has made the United States a more attractive 5 manufacturing site for foreign automakers. This development has provided a new source of investment, jobs, and training for Americans. Moreover, the transplant assemblers are significantly influencing the U. S. automotive supply base, both by encouraging traditional Japanese and German suppliers to set up transplant operations and by inciting the traditional U. S. suppliers to become more competitive. Japanese companies have constructed manufacturing facilities in many industries in the United States, including the automobile and electronics industries in recent years. However, it is the automobile parts industry that is currently perceived as being under siege. Nearly 50 Japanese automotive parts suppliers have constructed facilities here since 1979, most of them clustered around new Japanese automobile assembly plants in California, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Hundreds more suppliers are reportedly planning American plants in the next few years and local governments throughout the United States are competing vigorously for them. Local government officials view the Japanese plants as a major source of investment, employment, and tax revenues for their communities. However, despite the warm welcome given the Japanese parts manufacturers by local communitiesand especially by the unemployed in those communitiesthey are resented by some of their American competitors. A subgroup of American auto parts manufacturers feels it is being discriminated against by U. S. -based Japanese automakers that prefer to purchase some of their parts from Japanese suppliers. In short, the industry subgroup feels it is being discriminated against because it is American, not because it cannot produce auto parts as well as Japanese companies can. In America, Honda introduced just-in-time parts delivery and rolling-model changes, which allows production of the old model right up until production of the new model begins. This approach continues to put customers first. The truth is that the customers will not just drive Hondas – they will drive Honda with their expectations. Another Honda difference is their flexibility. Honda plants have always been able to build more than one model on the same line. Recently Honda implemented an even more flexible manufacturing system that increases the speed and efficiency when introducing new models. Honda’s New Manufacturing System does this by standardizing production capabilities among its plants worldwide. This makes the shift within a plant to new model production less complex and more cost efficient.

Monday, November 4, 2019

Evaluate Sainsbury plcs financial strategy Essay - 1

Evaluate Sainsbury plcs financial strategy - Essay Example In spite of these speculations, it has risen to be the leader for the last two decades. Sainsbury has relied heavily on equity capital to finance its operations in the recent past. The management consists of the contributors of the needed capital. Being a company based in United Kingdom, where a company with more than 50% of its capital is considered highly geared, the management made a move in the year 2006 to incorporate high level gearing for the following reasons: This is another significant source of funds for Sainsbury Company. This dividend reinvestment plan allows stakeholders to reinvest their cash dividends through purchasing more shares in the market through a significant prearranged share dealing service. No new shares are allotted under this plan. It involves adding more value to the existing ones through a systematic way in order to achieve a balanced portfolio. The price and value of these shares fluctuate in response to the market waves. Stakeholders are fore warned of this possibility because the reinvested dividends in the form of shares may end up with a value or price that is less than the anticipated. Shareholders may then end up getting less than what they invested. Past performance is a guide to clear shareholders doubts and for those who are not sophisticated enough to understand the fir past performance are advised to seek the assistance of professional financial advisors. To aid in understanding of Sainsbury dividend policy, this paper acknowledges the importance of reviewing theories on dividend policies. With empirical research continuously being conducted by scholars on dividend policy, no consensus has ever emerged has scholars continuously keep disagreeing about the same empirical evidence. They all agree that dividend policy refers to management practices in making decisions on the criteria and amount of dividends to be paid to shareholders overtime. However, three dividend policy