Punishment in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Hebrew Bible

Not everyone has the same idea in mind about punishment, and nor did other countries from other times. The following books: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Hebrew Bible, entitling instances of cheating, kidnapping and murder, insulting and their punishment. Very rarely would you get away with something unseen because the Gods saw everything, and they could do just about anything known on earth to mankind or even to each other. Anything was punishable whatever time ear it was, and the Gods would cease the chance to take seeked revenge upon another. In many of the Greek based books, there was a lot of cheating going on. In the Hebrew Bible, there are severe punishments for cheating. In book I of The Iliad, Agamemnon had stated: â€Å"the daughter of Chryses. I have set my heart on keeping her in my own house, for I love her better even than my own wife Clytemnestra, whose peer she is alike in form and feature, in understanding and accomplishments. † In this statement, Agamemnon rathers Breisis, over his very wife because she is similar in looks, therefore would cheat instead of going back to his wife over some foolish love for a girl! Within the Odyssey, book III, one example is about how Nestor explains to Telemachus, – â€Å"†¦ ut we were over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus who was taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled (consoled? ) Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra with incessant flattery. † In the Hebrew bible, it states, Leviticus 20:10 â€Å"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. † So if caught cheating, followed by what the Hebrew bible says to do, you will be put to death. So if you are the one putting someone to death for adultery, doesn’t that make you the murder? To take away a living being’s life? Throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, there are many points where women are given as prizes. So if the women are given as a prize, is it counted as cheating? In the Iliad, punishment to Agamemnon’s adulterous wife, Agamemnon kills her. In the Odyssey, Clytemnestra tries to take her love, Aegisthus for revenge. Soon enough, he is also put to the death, and she as well. In the Hebrew bible, one quote that represents well is Deuteronomy 22:22 â€Å"If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. So the average punishment for adultery, or cheating, was the death penalty. Kidnapping was also a big theme in the Iliad, in which Breisis, daughter of the priest Apollo, was kidnapped by Agamemnon, whom professes his love for her and does not want to give her up for life itself. Helen to was kidnapped by Paris, in order to fulfill their love, but making things worse. In the Odyssey, Persephone is kidnapped by Hades, and brought to the underworld six months of the year. s Exodus 21:16: â€Å"Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. † So is there a pattern for death at this time back then? Yes, indeed! In the Iliad, many people like Ajax the greater and Ajax the lesser and Agamemnon both insult Achilles for not fighting, but then Achilles also takes his prize of Breisis. Being insulted was part of the shame culture and many of the men would rather die than shame their village or family. In the Odyssey, book XVIII, Cached  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  SimilarYou +1'd this publicly. Undo after suffering enough insults from the servant-girl: Melantho, Odysseus is taunted by Eurymachus, who also hurls a footstool, though missing. Insulting could get charges put on them. When you have insulted someone, due to what the Hebrew bible says, they are to be stoned to the death, even for the first offense. Punishment pretty well was all the same in the Hebrew bible, with even the first violation being stoned to death, but also anything that may not even be a violation tied together with another one. They all come out with the same outcome of death, usually stoning. In the Iliad, many of the punishments too were death, and so to also in the Odyssey. Between these three books, they had just a different timing on things. Now days with cheating or adultery, it is taken pretty well lightly. Kidnapping is still yet not light, but it is taken more serious to find the kidnapped. Insults even now these days doesn’t compare with how minor they may be to any of these books, because they were not taken lightly, but in today’s society, things like that are okay. This is my essay over punishment and the comparison between The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Hebrew Bible. ttp://messagenetcommresearch. com/myths/bios/pose http://www. fjkluth. com/clytem. html idon. html http://books. google. com/books? id=qdDrwupM0dUC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=where+is+there+kidnapping+in+the+odyssey? &source=bl&ots=oaVyOz5jgk&sig=3tsZ-Meye2UftnfMoDMQoMCZYAk&hl=en&ei=14qSToj5MOHJsQLu7Y2LAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false http://ww w. twopaths. com/faq_CapitalPunishment. htm http://ancienthistory. about. com/cs/troyilium/a/helenoftroybasc_2. htm

Levi’s Strauss: a case study from an organizational plan point of view Essay

Levis is undoubtedly one of the most recognizes brand of jeans on the planet. The business found by the Strauss family in 1875, initially manufactured jeans for miners out of tent fabric and canvas. However they later shifted to manufacturing jeans from denim which gained popularity amongst miners during the California gold rush. Strategic elements of an organisational plan The process of developing strategic elements of an organisational plan involves three broad categories. Analysing: Levi’s Strauss analysed its visions, mission objectives and external environments. This meant evaluation of the current market share and its segmentation, product range of competitors and what the company may want to do about it. Decision: From the findings of the analysis, the company had to decide on two main factors. What industries to try and expand into and how to be competitive in those industries. As such Levi commissioned market research agencies to carry out survey and research on the habits and attitudes of its customer base. This was all done with the idea of moving into the higher price clothing market since up until now Levi has mostly produced casual wear of the low price category. After such quantitative surveys the target market was selected. This target market comprised of Independent consumers with expensive tastes looking for classic designs which are not massed produced and rely on individual styling and fitting. It was then decided by Levi to carry out analysis of its target market in order to study their attitudes and behaviour in details so that further plans to enter the specific market segment can be made. It was decided by Levi to avoid direct price wars and as a result Levi decided to charge 10% above the prices of it closest competitors. In order to cater to the classic independent nature of the target market segment, Levi also decided to distribute through quality departmental store chains. The final stage of the decision making process involved carrying out tests for acceptability. This was done through the use of consumer discussion panels led by psychologists and were targeted at seeking out the real motivations behind the way the target market behaved. This led to the understanding that Levi was not just ready to produce classic suits because of the affiliation of its brand identity and value with casual standardised clothes and its strong ties and origins to jeans related clothing. This in turn led to the marketing team to focus on jackets and trousers rather than suits so that it can first overcome its image for casual apparel. Actions : The final step in the process for developing strategic elements for organisational plan involved the process of bringing all that planning and decision making to reality. The decision was made by levi to emphasise mainly on jackets and trousers in its new Tailored Classics line and so the initial idea of suits was dropped before the new line was launched. The organisational plan developed by Levi in order to move into new market segments, mainly the higher priced clothing market when put into effect, showed signs of underperformance. This was mainly because of the decision to abandon the manufacturing of suits based on its acceptability test findings. Those findings convinced the marketers in Levi to accept that Levi was too closely associated with casual only wear and customers were not favourable of the idea of Levi producing classic natured suits of non standardised but custom shape and taste. It was later evident that Tailored Classics failed to achieve its sales targets in the consequent months after its launch. Strategic effects on an organisational plan The implementation process of the organisational plan drawn up by Levi involved implementing its various quantitative and behavorial reseach findings in its final execution of the organisational plan. This meant moving away from its initial decision to produce what the target customer segment wants and manufacturing jackets and trousers instead. The decision was made on the basis of accpetability test results. In order to overcome the underperformance of the Tailored Classics line in its inital few months prices were reduced to meet sales targets which failed critically. The effects of these on the stakeholders was reduced returns for the investors, and a lack of faith in the brands ability to cater to the custom independent classic demand andconseuquential underperformance of the brand hindering its brand expansion. Strategy to communicate organisational plans to key stake holders To come up with an workable plan, the Levi public relations had to work through a sequence of steps. The first of such steps was setting out a communication objective. Ideally, whatever the objective is , it is best effective if its specific, measurable,achievable and realistic. The communications objective for Levi was to convey to the customer that levi is able to make a good suit when they put their mind to it despite its origins being in the jeans manufacturing industry and its past history of mostly casual only clothes. Secondly The Levi staff had to come up with a key message to its stake holders. The most important stakeholders group, the consumers themselves were made aware of the message with the help of the name for the new line â€Å"Tailored Classic†. This conveyed the idea that Levi is engaging in the manufacturing of non standardised custom classic wear that were more tailored to the customers individual need. Having decided upon the overriding key message each seprate group of stakeholders were prioritised and a seperate key message was set for them in order to make sure that most of the stakeholders were addressed and no one felt left out despite the aim of targetting the new line at the higher prices market. Different communications tactics had to be developed for each of the stake holders groups, ranging from the consumer, the media, the investors and the donors and volunteers involved with Levi. Finally the budgets and responsibilities were decided upon by the Levi directors based on their surveys and were allocated amongst its different departments and staff. Evaluation: Following all the steps regarding implementation of the strategic elements of the organisational plan and the process of communicating with the various stakeholders, Levi had to ensure that it was wrking to achieve the objective set. And depending on the results of the various surveys and research, starting from the consumer behaviour patterns and spending habits, the analysis of its target customer segment and finally the acceptability test of its new line before its launch all in term one by one allowed levi to review and change its key messages, communication tactics and finally its objectives. Ths led to the final decision to focus mostly on the jackets and trousers market rather than the tailored suits market because of the lack of the consumer confidence in Levi’s ability to produce tailored suits that meets individual reuqirements. Overall the assessment and evaluation process contributed to a great extent in the final decision to introduce the new line in a much differ ent form than intitally percieved.

CyberLaw & the use of cookies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

CyberLaw & the use of cookies - Essay Example Many of the e-commerce sites directly ask users for personal information such as name, date of birth, e-mail address, credit card details etc, through forms which the users need to fill up online. However, in addition to such information, many sites also record data about their users browsing habits. This data can be matched with personal and demographic information to create a profile of user preferences. This information collected by theses sites might be used to target advertising or offer customized services. Or, sites might engage in web lining, where different users are offered different prices based on their profiles (Lin, N.D). Unauthorized access to personal information on the Internet remains relatively easy in the absence of encryption technology. Encryption is the process of obscuring data to make it unreadable without special knowledge or technology. Encryption is the method used to protect communications for centuries. But only organizations and individuals with an extraordinary need for privacy had made use of the technology for example: Government establishment, Banks etc. Now a days encryption technology is used in protecting widely-used systems, such as Internet e-commerce, mobile telephone networks and bank ATM. Encryption can be used to ensure secrecy, but other techniques are still needed to make communications secure, particularly to verify the integrity and authenticity of a message (Wikipedia, 2006). Whether or not the exposure of privacy on the Internet is overstated, it is undisputed that there are security risks associated with its use. It is safer to assume, for the present, that the Internet is not yet a secure medium over which to communicate financial and personal information without having due consideration of the risks and legal issues involved. Apart from traditional privacy concerns like surveillance and unauthorized access to information, the

Response to students post on external Environment Research Paper

Response to students post on external Environment - Research Paper Example This equipment is demanded by the health care consumers who call for the reduction of health care costs by the health care organization, thus striking a balance between the two has been difficult (Studer, 2008). In the political sector, various government bodies have an impact on health care organizations through regulations that are meant to ensure quality and safety in the delivery of health care services. The occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) ensures environmental safety in the health care organization. The US food and drug administration (FDA) approves new drugs that are marketed or sold to the public. These regulatory bodies thus keep a close look on the health care organizations therefore affecting their operation. In Africa, the posting highlights the healthcare organization market being affected by the economic status of the population. The Greater percentage of the population who are low-income earners seeks health care services from the public hospital while the middle and high-income earners seek healthcare services from the private hospitals. The government in this region seeks to increase accessibility to health care through the creation of a national health insurance fund (NHIF). The NHIF will enable increased accessibility of quality healthcare for all population thus expanding the health care market. The article has highlighted how the economic, political and technological factors have impacted on the healthcare organization in the United States and Africa. It does not clearly indicate how sociocultural and financial factors have impacted on the healthcare organization considering that the two have had tremendous trends. This trends ranges from cultural diversification, increased population and increased accessibility to information on health care. Africa is also made up of 53 countries each with the unique external

General Biology I - Human Perspectives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

General Biology I - Human Perspectives - Essay Example The heart rate was minimum (51) at rest under normal conditions but found maximum (71) after drinking caffeine in the shape of coffee. Exercise for a minute did not significantly change heart rate as compare to working in the office as hypothesised. This indicated that working in the office also needed extra energy comparable with short exercise. Heart rate after eating and digesting food was similar to exercise for one minute. This is why cardiologists advise heart patients to avoid exercise or walk for at least two hours after taking meals. Drinking coffee increases heart rate but the recent research indicated that it is beneficial for heart diseases in moderate quantity in elderly people ( James et el, 2007). Coffee has oxidative properties which keep the LDL cholesterol level under low levels and chances of getting cardiovascular disease are minimal. Heart beats per minute were expected to be equal to or lower than resting time but in my case it was higher. The probable cause for this change may be dreams immediately before wake up which resulted in elevated heart rate. 3. Trained athletes have resting pulse rate at 40-60 as their metabolism has adjusted to exercise. Therefore exercise is recommended for proper body functioning and keeping healthy heart. My resting pulse rate is also low because I exercise regularly. It means my heart need to work less as compare to persons whose heart rate at resting is 70-72 beats per minute. 4. I calculated my BMI using standard BMI calculator given by National Institute of Health. My height is 5’ 5† and weight 152 pounds. The BMI come to 25.3 which are on the higher side of the normal range (18.5 – 24.9) of NIH standards. My BMI does surprise me because I have kept my body weight within limit. I take care of my food and exercise regularly. Therefore, my heart rate is lower and it is expected that I have low risk of mortality due to heart problems. 5. People who have criticized BMI have

Gun Control in the US Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Gun Control in the US - Research Paper Example Between the years 1997 and 2001, there were more than 30 such incidents that took place in schools, offices, and various other places, all over US, which resulted in the deaths of 139 people and another 188 being wounded. However, it was after the Columbine High School incident, public outrage reached its peak and there was a mass outcry to bring in stringent laws for gun control. After the initial outpour of rage and massive protests against the National Rifle Association (the champion of liberal gun usage in US), things have drifted back to their original conditions. In June 2010 we find a disturbing piece of news that tells us â€Å"The US Supreme Court found Monday a Chicago handgun ban to be unconstitutional in a far-reaching ruling that makes it much harder for states and city governments to limit gun ownership† (Ogle, US Supreme Court limits gun control by states). So again its status quo and we are back to where we had started, with the court giving a free hand to all potential killers. This article will take an in-depth look at this issue of gun control and the related controversies in US. It will explore as to why US have more gun violence than other countries, and will suggest measures to reduce this peril. From various studies and reports it has been seen that almost 40% of US homes have some sort of guns or fire ammunitions in their possession. Krug, Powell and Dahlberg in their research papers have come to the conclusion that the homicide rates in the American countries is almost 2-10 times higher than any other country in the developed world (Krug, Powell and Dahlberg, 214-221). There is no doubt that violence in some form or the other is present in almost all countries worldwide, but what increases the death rate in US is the rampant presence of guns. This relation between easy availability of guns in US and the high mortality rate has been proven in their research work by the famous

Fannie Mae Accounting Scandal Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fannie Mae Accounting Scandal - Case Study Example In 2004, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) found out that the firm Fannie Mae was violating the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This practice, as per the government investigation took place from 1998-2004, while in the year 1998, the management over stated revenues and understated the expenses. In accordance with a report that has been recently presented by OFHEO, there was involvement of high level executives that led to the misinterpretation and violation of accounting standards, which was a massive scale 'organized-accounting-robbery' mounting the dollar amount to 11 billion. The director of OFHEO took an immediate note and directed correction, which was turned down by Fannie Mae making an excuse that it could have been an end-user issue as the company is not fully automated. What truly went improper was the fact that loans and mortgage are fairly risky games and there are always chances of customers defaulting, alongside the interest rate risk makes the venture further riskier. For securing their investment and giving better return to stakeholders, Fannie Mae undertook risky ventures and investment for better returns and compensating the main stream line of business. When there were phenomenal profits, the shareholders and executives remain satisfied due to income (dividend yield and capital gains) and bonuses respectively. Violation of GAAP In the recently presented report by OFHEO, after three years of extensive investigations, there was a major accounting flaws in the accounting practices of Fannie Mae noticed and marked. The major ones are highlighted as the violation of the following GAAP standards: 1. SFAS-91: Accounting for Nonrefundable Fees and Costs Associated with Originating or Acquiring Loans and Initial Direct Costs of Leases 2. SFAS-133: Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities As mentioned previously, that there was too much over-estimation of income and underestimated expenses that mainly contributed to increased bottom-line of the financial statements. The excess income was mainly recorded by means of non-refundable fees. Alongside, the future in-flows of cash were adjusted by using hedging and futures counters that introduced lesser risk with fluctuating interest rates, however, these also increased the risk by means of gambling over the same counters with excess money. Official Involvement & Auditors The major player/official involved in this scandal was the Chief Executive of Fannie Mae i.e. Franklin Raines. He always defended the company in good terms by making others responsible by tarnishing the repute of the company. The CFO (Chief Financial Officer) also defended the company in good terms by stating that the financial statements were as per the GAAP requirements. The audit of this firm was KPMG who backed out after sometime. The denial of having the firm involved in such a violation gave a view of KPMG being involved them in the issue but it could have been a case of negligence as well as the auditors drew their hands from this case soon. OFHEO

Project 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Project 2 - Essay Example The second step is for the temperature to be allocated in various topological areas, using a model through which a single cell affects the next cell’s temperature. Alterations in the temperature of the whole plate goes on to the last spot when it attains equilibrium point. There are various tools to be used when plotting temperatures on a given scale. In this context, the contour plotting tool will be used to determine temperature distribution across diversified topologies in cases where different basic temperatures are utilized for the walls of a specified grid. In order to avoid too much theoretical work, tables and figures will be used to summarize some points in this assignment, and to clarify complex explanations. Four instance, the four types of topologies that have been used to explore temperature distribution are represented in the figure below and the table shows their matching details. This is simply to ease understanding and guide the

Jewish Culture Essay Example for Free

Jewish Culture Essay The first Jewish custom, Brit Milah also known as circumcision, takes places at the birth of a boy baby. It is carried out on the eighth day after the baby has been born; it is performed by a Mohel, where the baby’s foreskin of the penis is removed. The second Jewish custom is called The Naming Ceremony, which takes place on the first Sabbath that immediately follows the birth of a baby girl. This event takes place inside of a synagogue. On this day either parents or just the father is called for a blessing and a reading to the torah. The third Jewish custom is the Bat/ Bar Mitzvah, this ceremony marks and commemorates the entry of a young Jew into the Jewish adult community. This ceremony has been in practice for the last 450 years. The person concerned in the Mitzvah is required to read the Haftorah which is the portion of the Torah for the week and then give a scholarly comment or speech. Bat Mitzvah is the name of the ceremony for girls, and Bar Mitzvah is the name of the ceremony for boys. Ideal gift would include; Mezuzah cases, Charity boxes, and or Kiddush cups. The fourth Jewish custom is called a Simcha, which is also known as Marriage, and it is performed under a canopy. The fifth Jewish customs is called The Mikovaot this ceremony is a cleansing bath that is a ritual and is one of the longest standing practices in Jewish customs. This ceremony is performed to endow marriages. Orthodox Jewish women are required to dip themselves in this bathe very month after their menstruation before they resume relations of marriage with their husbands. Language: there are various Jewish languages and dialects that developed in the Jewish communities around the world. Hebrew was the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries, but by the fifth century the closely related Aramaic joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea. By the third century Jews of diaspora were speaking Greek and soon afterwards Hebrew was no longer used as a mother tongue. For centuries Jews worldwide spoke the local or dominant languages of the region migrated to, where they would develop distinctive dialectal forms or branching off as independent languages. Among the most widely spoken Jewish languages to develop in the diaspora are; Yiddish and Ladino. Yiddish is the Judeo- German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to central Europe. Ladino is also called Judezmo and Muestra Spanyol is the Judeo- Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula. Religion: the Jewish religion is the monotheistic based on the belief in a single all powerful God. The Jewish doctrine is based on the Ten Commandments as spelt out in the Old Testament. The Hebrew bible had provided the foundations for Christianity. Jesus, Mary and the Apostles were all Jews and the origin of many Christian festivals, psalms and beliefs lay in Judaism. The Jews refused to convert to the new faith of Christianity which is called the New Testament, so they stubbornly maintained their separate religious beliefs and their distinct customs and laws. The Jews also have a Shabbat which takes place on the seventh day of the Jewish week and is the Jewish day for rest. Jew recall the biblical creation account in Genesis in which God creates the Heaven and Earth in six days and rests on the seventh day. Immigration trends: the Jews of Eastern Europe began to emigrate in large numbers from their homelands, beginning in the 1880’s. Between 1881 and 1914 about 2,370,000 Jews fled from poverty and oppression, especially from Trarist Russia notorious for its violent anti- Jewish mobs and pogroms. A great number of these Jews reached the United States and a small minority would establish the first modern Jewish settlements in Palestine. By 1924 the United States had placed strict limits on immigration and the number of Jews admitted was drastically decreased. Other countries soon followed suit and Jews desiring to emigrate or flee from the Nazis found themselves faced with sealed boarders throughout most of the world in the 1930’s. Foods: the Jews have a set of laws about the food they can and cannot eat, these laws are called Kashrut, and a food that is not in accordance with the Jewish law is called Treif. In the Kashrut law, there are prohibitions to consume species (such as pork and most insects), the mixtures of meat and milk, and the commandment to slaughter mammals and birds according to a process known as Shechita. Most of the basic laws of Kashrut are from the Torah’s books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The Torah does not state the reason for most of the Kashurt laws, but for every law that the Kashurt has each one is biblically written in the bible. Some of the Jewish favourite foods include the following; Babka which is a chocolate – filled challah (egg) bread. Bagel is another favourite Jewish food that is boiled and baked yeast bread. Bialy which similar to bagel, filled with onions and other ingredients there is also Brisket it is a raised meat from the chest area of a cow. Challah is another favourite food it is braided egg bread, Charoset is an apple and nut dish generally served at Passover. Cholent/ Chamin are a slow- cooked stew meat, potatoes, beans and barley. Another favourite dish is Chopped liver, Chrain and pickled horseradish. Farfel is small pellet- shaped egg pasta, used in dishes like kugel. Goulash is a meat stew matzaball soup, and last but not least the Jews love to drink Chicken soup on Friday and Saturday nights. Community events: the Jews have their Synagogues where they have their Jewish celebrations. The Jewish community also celebrates Passover, when the Jews celebrate Passover they are not allowed to use any electricity, and they light candles. The Hanukah is the festival of lights; they also celebrate the Rosh Hashanah which is the Jewish New Year.

Vicarious Living Essay Example for Free

Vicarious Living Essay In Gabriel Garcia Marquezs book Chronicle of a Death Foretold our heroine is a young woman, one of many children in a poor family. Her name is Angela Vicario. Angelas last name is Vicario as in vicarious living it is clearly connotated in this passage to show its meaning of a representative, or not the real one. In this passage of the Chronicle of a Death Foretold Marquez very efficiently utilizes his writing skills and literary devices to present us Angelas thoughts. Angelas role in this stereotypical romance is that of an underprivileged woman who has found herself a husband, who is flashy and a wealthy outsider. Angela herself, however, resists this role until after she had been returned to the family. This resistance involves rejecting the refined marital relationship that everyone else seems to accept. Her mother is urging her to marry Bayardo San Roman for his wealth because love can be learned. This indicates a belief that one husband is as good as another and that money is what separates them. Angela finally accepts her role in this stereotypical romance along with its refined relationships. Her mother is right. Love can be learned. It is learned by Angela under the influence of rejection and the lash. She begins loving the man she rightfully hated. She starts writing hundreds of letters to try and convince him to return to her. The letters that Angela sends to Bayardo explore the notion of love letter. Whereas the function of love letters is traditionally to express emotion or convey longing, Bayardo does not value Angelas love letters for their content. By not opening any of the love letters, Bayardo shows that the repeated act of sending a love letter, rather than the love letters actual content, demonstrates the love that Angela feels for him. Love letters are often similar and interchangeable; their content is less persuasive to Bayardo than the fact that they continue to arrive. His attitude makes the love letters part of the ritual of love, and underscores his relationship with Angela as another ritual within the story. The readers realization that the marriage of the hero and the heroine will be founded on the quantities of stereotypes not the conversations. This removes the whole aspect of a happy ending. The sentence structure in this passage is very important and used very skilfully by Marquez. The narrator describes Angela writing her letters as though he is able to feel her raw emotions. He employs longer sentences when describing scenes of her writing her letters, and switches back to short sentences when describing her dismay. Marquez also uses many words twice in a row to emphasize the anxiousness of Angela in wait On Friday she gave it (letter) to the postmistress who came Friday However, when describing the day Bayardo had returned he only described it as halfway through one August day. This lack of information shows how little affection Angela feels for Bayardo. Also Angela weighs her love as more passionate than Bayardos. She was trying to put a value on her love. Her name is a very good metaphor which described this. Her name meaning not the real one represents how her love is not real. Also the use of literary devises gave the reader a more realistic view of the story. Marquez uses magic realism and depicts a world where Angela is convinced that she has slept with Bayardo and lost her virginity for the first time. She is unashamed to reveal this in her letter and talks about it with full feeling and passion. Marquez describes her feelings as very real and has exaggerated a few details. This gives this passage a sense of magic realism making the reader believe Angela. Marquezs use of imagery in the description of Bayardos return is very significant. He returns just as he had first met Angela. Nothing about him has changed, except for the obvious exterior. This implies to the reader that Bayardo that had not changed his way of thinking nor has his character or personality. The contrast Marquez provides between the past and present represents to the reader his love and passion for Angela. Moreover, Marquez also uses embroidery several times in this passage. Embroidery is connotated positively in this passage to symbolize an invisible thread that ties together both Angela and Bayardo. The letters are the invisible thread between the two. Angela reaches consciousness through a protracted process of letter writing. This is clearly the function of the letters, which are never opened by her Bayardo. As the letters progress they mature and grow with Angela. Each letter has a beautiful crescendo quality and each letter shows Angelas growth spiritually and mentally. This passage is not one of the major important passages in the story, since it does not give more information on the murder of Santiago; however, what this passage does provide is a key understanding of how Angelas mind works. She has been like a prisoner, just writing letters and just hoping to be free one day. Writing all those letters Angela comes out at the end as a liberated woman, individuated and separate. She achieves the emancipation through the magic of the letter.

The Aircraft Structural Layout Engineering Essay

The Aircraft Structural Layout Engineering Essay Introduction The A380, when first produced was one of the newest and most technologically advanced civil airliners in the world, hosting the use of new materials, new manufacturing techniques and overcoming many engineering problems that the sheer size of the aircraft procured. The requirement for an ultra high capacity aircraft, UHCA , came about at the conclusion of the cold war; international conflict and tensions were dissipating and international travel became more viable. Airports were becoming more and more congested and Boeing was monopolising the civil air transport market Airbus needed something to new and preferably big to combat these issues. The A3XX was conceived in 1988 and developed over the years until what we know now as the largest passenger airliner in the world; the A380. The eight was chosen to reflect the structure of the airframe, the two floor arrangement and the fact that in many Asian countries the number eight is considered as a lucky number. At the time, the aircraft was the latest feat of engineering for the aviation industry; if not for engineering in general. Its technological advances are something to admire but there were several problems to face this pioneering project. Many new manufacturing practices and techniques had to be developed; along with the logistical problems of combining over one hundred international partners contributing parts. Then the huge task of transporting the various oversized parts to the assembly line in Toulouse, France. Designers were confronted with countless questions, how to transfer the immense loads the aircraft would come under? How will the undercarriage distribute the weight of such and still be manoeuvre efficiently in existing airports? How much power would an aircraft of such size require? Noise levels to comply with newly implemented restrictions? The 3Es were imposed during the design process; environment, economy and energy. This report will discuss the options and solutions that were chosen to overcome the many problems mentioned above. DESCRIPTION OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE AIRFRAME The complex number of airframe components were all put together as one part and were analysed and optimised using very advanced computational fluid dynamics. The A380 is quite a blunt aircraft and this helps by cutting drag by 2% as opposed to other desings. The designer enhanced many aspects of the A380 such as the wing body fairing and the wing. This enabled weight to be saved without creating drag consequences. The airframe of the A380 was built to last 25 years. On Page 5 of Appendix F a detailed cutaway can be seen of the A380. Also in Appendix A Figure 3 an overview of the components of the A380 can be seen. Full specifications of the A380 can be seen in Appendix E. Nose Section The nose section was difficult to engineer as the double deck design created a deep profile requirement. There is a large pressure bulkhead which is above and behind the nose gear bay. It is made from a double curved panel stiffened by longitudinal stringers which are locally welded. This bulkhead panel is unique as it is designed to form part of the cock pit floor. The unpressurized nose gear bay is in the forward lower part. Fuselage The fuselage of the A380 is the biggest in the world and the most complex ever made by Airbus. For example, just taking the middle section of the fuselage, there is a large amount of components. There are three doors, the belly fairing, main landing gear bay, centre wing box, two wing gears and the body gears. Although the structure of the A380 is relatively traditional new materials were used. This will be discussed in more detail later in the report, here is a summary; the semi monocoque structure of the fuselage is formed from very advanced aluminium alloy. There are plastic frames in the tail cone section reinforced with CFRP, carbon fibre reinforced polymer. The skins of the upper and lateral fuselage, forward and aft, are made from GLARE, glass fibre reinforced aluminium laminate. The centre fuselage however is made from aluminium alloys and glass fibres with imbedded adhesive. This is a very advanced way to save weight. This was not the only reason advanced composites were used; they also have better damage tolerance and fatigue. The fuselage is 230ft long and has two main types of cross section. It is spherical until frame 31 then aft of this it becomes ovoid. This can be seen in figure 3 of appendix B where four possible cross sections for the A380 are compared. For interest only there is a sketch in Appendix C which shows what the A380 could have looked like with the horizontal double bubble fuselage cross section. Also in Appendix A Figure 2 a comparison can be seen of the A380 (marked A3xx) and the Boeing 747 cross section. The rear section is unpressurized. The tail section and the forward unit section form this. The tail section is separated from the rest of the fuselage by a CFRP reinforced plastic rear pressure bulkhead. The rear section is attached to aft section of the fuselage. This runs from frame 74 to 95. The rear fuselage section is a very complex set up. This is because it has to support the fin and horizontal tailplane. The substructure is reinforced with highly loaded aluminium frames as well as resin frames. The panels that attach to the substructure are chemically milled CFRP skins. Welded stringer panels are used in the lower fuselage. They are machined with integrated stringers in tandem. This creates stronger panels. The upper shell is strengthened by GLARE. There are areas of high stress within the fuselage such as around the wing root area and the frames that run the length of the fuselage. These areas are machined. Areas which are less loaded are extruded, for example the upper shell. The upper deck and the main deck are constructed in a similar manner, a floor grid supported by cross beams and frames in turn supported by vertical struts, but use different materials. The upper deck uses CFRP crossbeams which connect to the frames by a shear joint. The main decks cross beam is made from advanced aluminium lithium alloy. There are two stairways within the fuselage. By door one is the double width stairway for in flight activity. In the curvature of the rear pressure bulkhead is another stairway made wide enough for service equipment and a stretcher. The belly fairing has an aluminium substructure which supports panels made of a nomex honeycomb and hybrid epoxy skin sandwich. Deformation occurs between the fuselage structure and the belly fairing and this means loads from the fuselage are transferred to the fairing. Also there is a metallic strip in the rear section of the fairing it allows bending loads to be absorbed as it enables the composite shell to flex. Wings Due to the above wings of the A380 are the biggest ever made. They cover 9104sqft with a chord of 13ft and a 261ft6inch span and have an aspect ratio of 7.52. The sweep angle is 33.5 degrees at the 25% chord mark. The dihedral is 5.6 degrees at the tip. The wings are very complex. The leading edge has six slat sections and two droop noses. The trailing edge has three single slotted fowler flaps. The ailerons, outer flaps and spoilers are made from composites. The inner flap is metallic. The wing itself has three ailerons and eight spoilers. Also the wing supports two engine pylons and the wing landing gear. A kruger flap would have been on the inboard leading edge but because of the huge depth of the A380 wing a droop nose device was included. It is completely sealed which means it makes the wing stall inboard and it pivots around a fixed point. The wings frame is made from a CFRP and aluminium alloy hybrid centre box and a metallic outer part. The centre box consists of a root rib, rear, front and centre spars with skins above and below. The centre box is joined to the fuselage by frame fittings. Diagonally orientated struts support the floor structure above. The wing frame can be split into two parts the inboard frame, from ribs 1 to 17, and outboard frame, from ribs 17 to 49.They are differentiated by the fact that the outboard from has no centre spar, only front and rear. The spar material changes from aluminium at the middle point between the engines as a weight saving device. Twenty three of the forty nine ribs are made partly from CFRP. The winglets take aerodynamic loads in roll. The A380 winglets have a 13ft chord, are at a length of 119ft away from the fuselage and are an optional item in the specification. Tail The tailplane in totality is a height of 79ft5inches and has a 99ft span. To put this into perspective this is almost the span of an A320 wing and the same chord as the A340. The tailplanes support from the fuselage has been spoken about previously. The tailplane is attached to the fuselage using two rows of lug and shear bolts. This is a similar concept the A340 design of this area. The frame that supports the tailplane is before the first row of lug bolts at frame 108. There is also double curvature of the skin at the root of the tailplane. This is because the airflow locally around the stabilizer will be greater than mach 1. The double curvature enables any drag rise to be dispersed. Between frames 99 and 100 is the single trim screw. Rear of the tail cone is the rear fairing made up of titanium firewalls and is home to the APU (Auxillary Processing Unit) exhaust. The APU itself sits just forward of this within the tailcones CFRP frame and stringers. A revolutionary design that utilises a single torsion box with a lower and upper rudder has been used for both the fin and rudder. The fin box for example consists of a rear and front spar that span the whole fin with a framework of ribs made from CFRP and resin. The end fittings are made from aluminium alloy. The vertical stabiliser is 48ft high and has a chord of 39ft6inches with a taper ratio of 0.39 and an aspect ratio of 1.74. The horizontal stabilizer has an integral fuel tank. The lateral loads of this stabilizer are taken by a heavily reinforced structure. The landing gear bays surround the cargo compartment between the aft cargo section and the centre wing box. The walls (inner and upper) are made from self stiffened panels. DISCUSSION OF THE PRODUCTION AND ASSEMBLY PROCESS With an aircraft of such size choosing the final assembly site was going to cause problems. The decision would have to involve a political and logistical discussion as to decide the options that were going to be best for the whole process. A collaboration between many companies throughout the airbus group and some other specialist companies was going to be vital to getting the highest quality for the aircraft. . The five largest contributors to A380, by value, are Rolls-Royce, SAFRAN, United Technologies, General Electric, and Goodrich. Airbus sized the production facilities and supply chain for a production rate of four A380s. Many newly created and some most advanced manufacturing techniques were used in the production of the A380 to allow this rate to be achieved. Production Companies across Europe built the major structural sections in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom; other components came from across the world. JAMCO made the upper deck floor carbon cross beams and the stiffners and stringers for the fin centre box. Shin Maywa was contracted for the main wing root fillet fairing and the wing ramp surfaces. Yokohama made the water and waste tanks. Korean Aerospace Industries constructed the lower outer wing skin panels. Australian company Hawker de Havilland built the large wingtip fences. Chinese company AVIC make the panels of the landing gear bay. Hamilton Sundstrand produced the air generation system. Canadian Pratt and Whitney make the Auxillary Power Unit. Honeywell made the flight management system. American company Eaton provided the high pressure hydraulic system and the high pressure hoses. Parkers Aerospaces Electronic Systems Division provides the fuel management systems. Rockwell Collins supplies the avionics full duplex AFDX Ethernet switch. A final example of the multi-corporate build is Goodrich developing the evacuation slides. The construction of such an aircraft required huge amounts of money to be spent in order to design and build the sites that could cater for the A380 components. For example Airbus UKs build site at Broughton received a brand new  £35million building to contain the wing construction. Each manufacture site was delegated different areas of manufacture; these were split into or aircraft component management teams (ACMTs) then further split into combined design build teams (CDBTs). carrying on from above the wing construction was in Broughton but the Wing assembly was delegated to Filton. ACMTs were created for wing nose, centre fuselage, forward and aft fuselage, propulsion, empennage, landing gear, systems, interior and final assembly. The use of breaking down the ACMTs into CDBT allowed for responsibility if components had issues, late deadlines etc. As stated earlier, new production techniques were introduced. Laser beam welding; involves a highly accurate automated laser beam, typically carbon dioxide or solid state YAG (yttrium-aluminium-garnet) laser, which was introduced into manufacture in 2001. It has a built in inspection unit leading to much quicker and quality welds. This technique was used to attach the stringers of the lower fuselage shell skins, reducing dramatically the weight, need for fasteners and time taken of previous technique (reaching a production speed of 26ft a minute when welding the stringers it). This manufacturing process was also used for the curved bulkhead panel and lower fuselage skin. Another manufacturing technique which revolutionised the A380 manufacture was an advanced robotic milling machine. It had a fixed axis and spun up to 24000 rpm and operated under a shower of lubricant. This was utilised in the manufacture of the aluminium alloy cockpit window frames. Assembly Assembly of such an aircraft was going to be an epic logistical journey. Getting the parts to the final assembly hall in Toulouse was going to be the hardest part as a new technique for spatial alignment had been created. This groundbreaking feature of the assembly was vital; the positioning system aided by lasers (41/40 single station unit) aligned jigs to subassemblies with high tech optics to attach the fuselage and the wings together. It was very advanced as it calculates exact dimensions of sections and is interfaced with a CAD system which could derive structural qualities and average tolerances. Techniques adopted by previous Airbus models used the A300-600ST Beluga aircraft to transport large parts; however this was not going to be as much use for the A380. This meant another option of travel was going to be used. Land and water was going to have to be used to get all components to Toulouse. The decision as to where the final assembly should be located caused friction within the airbus family at first. The German airbus section had to be appeased by using its Ville de Bordeaux, Roll-on Roll-off sea vessel (RORO) as seen in Figure 5, to allow the choice of Toulouse as Final Assembly. Parts from across the world where transported to Europe to respective manufacturing areas and eventually moved to France. Two main transport systems were utilised in the assembly of the A380. Air transport used of a number of guppy aircraft, devised by Felix Kracht, to manufacturing sites. By sea the RORO vessel travels to four different countries in Europe collecting parts; then transfers them to Paupac. From there it is transported by canal and road to Toulouse. The front and rear sections of the fuselage are loaded on to RORO in Hamburg, northern Germany, whence they are shipped to the United Kingdom. The wings; transported by barge to Mostyn from Filton in Bristol and Broughton in North Wales, where the ship adds them to its cargo. In Saint-Nazaire in western France, the ship trades the fuselage sections from Hamburg for larger, assembled sections, some of which include the nose. The ship unloads in Bordeaux. Afterwards, the ship picks up the belly and tail sections by Construcciones Aeronà ¡uticas SA in Cadiz in southern Spain, and delivers them to Bordeaux. From there, the A380 parts are transported by barge to Langon, and by oversize road convoys to the assembly hall in Toulouse. The original pathways that were going to be used for transportation were simply not sufficient enough; therefore new wider roads, canal systems and barges were developed to deliver the A380 parts. After assembly, the aircraft are flown to Hamburg to be furnished and painted. It takes 3,600 litres of paint to cover the 3,100 m ² exterior of an A380. DISCUSSION OF THE CHOSEN MATERIALS USED IN THE STRUCTURE The A380 was very progressive in its design. Forty percent of its structure consisted of carbon composites and advanced metal alloys. The wing structure for example was constructed with a carbon fibre wing box. They used monolithic CFRP as it was found to be one and a half tonnes lighter than using aluminium alloys. The fin also created in this manner with a solid laminate CFRP fin box cured in an autoclave. This was also utilised in the rudder, horizontal stabilizer and elevators. CFRP was employed in other areas of the plane too not just external components. Pressure bulkheads and upper deck floor beams were also made of this material. The vertical tail is made of a CFRP truss structure. The wing skin was changed from aluminium alloys to composites in the design process. Thermoplastics were used for lots of components. For example the ribs in the fixed leading edges of the vertical and horizontal stabilisers. Also for the secondary support holding the interior furnishing and the cabin trim. Impact resistant thermoplastics were used on the wing leading edges. The A380 as an engineering feat used revolutionary materials. For example GLARE. The acronym stands for glass fibre reinforced aluminium laminate. It was used for the upper fuselage shell. The material was tested in 1990 and consists of alternation layers of 0.015inch aluminium sheet and glass fibre reinforced bond film. This material is revolutionary because it has better corrosion, fatigue and damage resistance properties than aluminium. It is also less dense with a weight saving of between fifteen and thirty percent. The weight saving was about 500kg in construction. This material is exceptional as the glass fibre layers between the aluminium stop cracks propagating and even operate as a load path. Aluminium alloy was utilised massively within the production of the A380. One area where it was exploited was the windows in the cockpit. The frames were made from AL7040 aluminium alloy. A strengthened variant of the alloy was used as the bird impact shield. The windshield fairing was also redesigned to use aluminium. It consists of aluminium skins, which were chemically milled, covering machined ribs and extruded stringers. Aluminium alloy was used as a substructure for the massive belly fairing. It supported panels which utilised modern materials. The panel core is a nomex honeycomb core which is covered in a hybrid carbon glass fibre epoxy skin. Titanium was utilised in the fairing also with a corrosion resistant variant being used for stringers and frame roots. The intuitive designers saved weight and increased performance wherever they could. The engines pylons where mostly made from titanium, however they had a secondary structure made from thermoplastic carbon and aluminium. An epoxy CFRP was used for the nacelle cowl and fan cowl skin. These advanced materials were used as they reduced the weight of the structural form, made it more aerodynamic and improved the performance of the aircraft. Take the centre wing box as a case study. 2,200 pounds of weight was saved by using composites, mainly carbon fibre, for 50% of the 23ft by 20ft by 7ft structure. Component weight reductions also reduce stresses on the planes structure. However the designers did not always go for the composite option. They considered the benefits and disadvantages carefully. For example the wing. There were many drawbacks to having a fully composite wing which were not balanced by being 1500 pounds lighter. For example the huge structural join now required would weigh more than the composite weight loss. This additional weight then required the wing to be strengthened as it had lost the bending relief moment. A more obvious drawback is the greater manufacturing costs of using composites. DISCUSSION OF THE WEIGHT GROWTH WITH SERIES DEVELOPMENT Throughout out the design phase the aircraft had been considered as passenger aircraft, with a freighter option considered as a sustainable use for the aircraft as well. However this was put on hold being postponed in March 2006 after both launch customers cancelled their orders. With an aircraft this size small component changes were going to have huge effects on weight. An example of this is when the engines had to comply with the QC/2 noise regulations many changes occurred to the engine. This had a knock on effect with the wings, fuel volume, control surfaces and the structure that holds the wing; greatly affecting the weight of the aircraft. The passenger variants of this aircraft are very versatile, but having the ability to carry up to 555 passengers and luggage, as is the case with the main A380-800 model, into an aircraft is going to significantly increase the weight. Other variants of the passenger are an extended range model with a shorter fuselage and only 481 passengers is the A380-700. Also a VIP aircraft has been ordered by HRH Prince Alaweed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud which is known as the A380-Flying Palace. Also the United States Air Force is looking at the A380 as a replacement for the Presidential Air Force One aircraft; which is a Boeing 747 at present. A proposed stretch version the A380-900 has been proposed; it would be 12 frames longer be able to carry 656 passengers (three class layout) and would have an increase MTOW. The A380-800C11 a passenger/cargo plane is an in between variant which can carry 11 cargo pallets as well as passengers. The other main variant is the A380-800F dedicated freighter, a shelled out A380-800 model, with a capacity of 25 pallets on the upper deck, 33 pallets on the main deck, and 13 pallets on the lower deck. With a total available volume of 948.m3 it allows for a payload up to 150,000kg over 10,371km; this is almost double the capability of the Boeing 747-400F. The large range means no need for stopovers when crossing large oceans meaning quicker delivery times.But this required some of the composites to be replaced by aluminium-lithium alloys to allow for this greater loading; inevitably increasing the weight of the aircraft. More structural strengthening was undertaken fortified frames, more substantial skins and stronger landing gear. Figure 9 shows a comparison between the weights of the two main variants mentioned above. CONCLUSION The A380 is a world leading aircraft in not only in the ability to carry more passengers than any other aircraft it the market but because of the ground breaking technologies, new manufacturing techniques and the use many new materials. It is a very unique aircraft. The airframe structure is an engineering feat; the high loads and stresses due to the sheer size of the A380 were dealt with by an innovative airframe made viable by the use of advanced computational fluid dynamics. These allowed for big decreases in weight due to the design and helped reduce the effects of drag. The production and assembly process was a fairly political global project which involved the coordination of more than 100 companies. New techniques such as 41/40 single station unit used in assembly along with the laser beam welding. Collaboration of all the companies brought together by the Ville de Bordeaux the RORO ship, overland road convoys and fleet of guppy aircraft. Mad from 40% composite materials with a host of new materials being utilized across all areas of the aircraft. They reduced the weight dramatically and aided in aerodynamic properties. These are the main reasons that allow the A380 to be such a mammoth. The undercarriage design consists of a two wheel forward retracting nose bogie a six wheel rear retracting body bogie and two four wheel sideways retracting wing bogies. Extremely clever in design creating highly ground maneuverable aircraft. At the moment only the A380-800 model is in production and being used to travel to many worldwide destinations. The A380-800F model is still on hold due to companies cancelling. In this report I have discussed the structure of the airframe. I have also considered the influences of the production and assembly process, the structural materials used and the reasons behind them, the undercarriage design in terms of position and retraction and the weight growth with series development. Figure bank Figure 1: Airbus A380 Cutaway Figure 2: A380 Cutaway (Flight Global)

Marketing Strategies :: essays research papers

Title:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Guidelines in Increasing the Number of Sales (applicable in any Industry; most Applicable in the Food Industry) Researcher:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  RuthLenlea B. Villela Professor:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Dr. M. Pangilinan School:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Technological University of the Philippines Year:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1st Sem School Year 2004 Problem How to increase the Sales in a Local Ice Cream Parlor Summary / Findings PROBLEM ONE: NO SUNDAE DESCRIPTIONS The first problem we saw was that he was only listing the names of his sundaes, since there was no room for a description of each sundae. While this wasn't a problem for his Basic Sundaes, after all, everyone knows what's in a Pineapple Sundae, or a Hot Fudge Sundae, it was a huge problem with his Specialty Sundaes. Many of his Specialty Sundaes had fun, 'creative' names, like The Lala Palooza, The Zombie and The Razzana. Maybe Frank and his staff, and a few of his long-time customers, knew what those sundaes were, but we were certain that most of his customers didn't have a clue. Frank had assumed that his customers knew what those sundaes contained, or if they didn't, they would simply ask. People don't buy what they don't understand. And few are going to ask. They will take the path of least resistance and just buy what they are familiar with -- Pineapple Sundaes, Hot Fudge Sundaes, etc. PROBLEM TWO: NO PICTURES We've all heard that a 'picture is worth a thousand words.' Well, that saying is especially true when it comes to food. When you show pictures of desserts in restaurants, you will sell a lot more desserts. Some restaurants are even more savvy, and actually display the desserts or bring them right to your table for you to see. The bottom line -- visuals sell! Frank had never really thought about his menu system. The plain white letters on the black display boards had been his system since the day his business opened. He never considered adding pictures to his menu. Conclusion: Our experience in marketing, and our knowledge of how people buy, made it clear to us, that these two problems -- obscure sundae names with no descriptions, and no pictures of the sundaes themselves -- were making it nearly impossible for Frank's customers to order his higher-priced sundaes. Having pinpointed the problems, the solution was relatively easy. We suggested that Frank take pictures of each of his Specialty Sundaes, and have them enlarged. Frank then had two large signs made to be placed at both ends of his ordering counter, above his cashiers to make it easy for his customers to see the Specialty Sundaes and what they contained.

Animal Instinct :: essays research papers

Animal Instinct What would life be like without a mother or a father? What would life be like without any adult supervision? How would a person act if they did not have society to tell them what is right and wrong? Author William Golding believes that a person that wasn't brought up by society would only act using their basic human nature. It is also a part of his believes that this nature is evil. In his novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding proves his ideas on the evil at the base of the human nature through the lives of Piggy, Ralph, Roger, and Jack, whom are all young boys trapped on a deserted island in the Pacific. Piggy was a nonathletic, fat child with glasses and asthma. He was the child who was least effected by the evil inside of himself. Piggy was also the most intelligent child on the island, and this intelligence is what kept him from giving in to his evil. This intelligence was also thought by Jack to be a threat. Piggy lived in fear of Jack because he knew what type of person he was and that he could not be trusted. On page 93 Piggy expresses his fears by telling Ralph, â€Å" I'm scared of him and that is why I know him. If your scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him.† In this it is obvious that Piggy is scared of Jack, so much so that he thinks about him constantly and now he has him figured out. This is why Piggy is unaffected by his evil. He sees what is happening to everyone else through Jack. The other person who wasn't overcome by their evil is Ralph. Ralph was an older child, and he was an athletic born leader. He was the leader of the tribe until the children began doing what Jack said. Although he never completely surcame to it, Ralph was tempted by evil. One instance happened when Jack and his hunters came back from a hunt and began to dance. The story on page 75 says, â€Å"Ralph watched them enviously and resentful.† He was envious of the other children because they got to dance and chant, but he knew that it was wrong, so he did not join in, and during this time while he was being tempted he treated Piggy terribly. He began to do what Jack said. Once when Jack brought the meat back from one of the hunts he gave everyone a piece except for Piggy, and when he complained

Agency conflicts

The genius of public corporations teems from their capacity to allow efficient sharing or spreading of risk among many investors, who appoint a professional manager run the company on the behalf of shareholders. However, the public corporation has a key weakness – namely, the conflicts of Interest between managers and shareholders. The separation of the company ownership and control, which Is especially prevalent where corporate ownership Is highly diffused, gives rise to possible conflicts between shareholders and managers.In theory, shareholders elect the board of directors of the company, which in turn ire's managers to run the company for the Interests of shareholders. Managers are supposed to be agents working for their principals, that Is, shareholders, who are the real owners of the company. In a public company with diffused ownership, the board of directors is entrusted with the vital tasks of monitoring the management and safeguarding the interests of shareholders. Un fortunately, with diffused ownership, few shareholders have strong enough incentive to incur the costs of monitoring management themselves when the benefits from such monitoring accrue to all shareholders alike. The benefits are shared, but not the costs. When company ownership is highly diffused, this â€Å"free-rider† problem discourages shareholder activism. As a result, the interests of managers and shareholders are often allowed to diverge. With an ineffective and unmotivated board of directors, shareholders are basically left without effective recourse to control managerial self-dealings.Recognition of this key weakness of the public corporation can be traced at least as far back as to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1 776), which stated: The directors of such Joint-stocks companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be the partners of a private cooperator frequently watch over their own†¦. Negligence and p rofusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company.Agency theory in a formal sense originated in the early asses, but the concepts behind it have a long and varied history. Among the influences are property-rights theories, organization economics, contract law, and political philosophy, including the works of Locke and Hobbes. Some noteworthy scholars involved in agency theory's roommate period in the asses included Airmen Lucian, Harold Demesne, S. A. Ross and the famous paper â€Å"Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure. † of Michael Jensen and William Neckline.In an ideal situation the manager (or entrepreneur) and the investors sign a contract that specifies how the manager will use the funds and also how the investment returns will be divided between the manager and the investors. If the two sides can write a complete contract that specifies exactly what the manager will do un der each of all possible future unforeseen events, there will be no room for any inflicts of interest or managerial discretion. Thus, under a complete contract, there will be no agency problem. However, it is practically impossible to foresee all future contingencies and write a complete contract.This means that the manager and the investors will have to set up the control rights to make decisions under those contingencies that are not specifically covered by the contract. Because the outside investors may be neither qualified nor interested in making business decisions, or if there will be too many of investors, the manager often ends up acquiring most of this residual control right. The investors supply funds to the company but are not involved in the company's daily decision making. As a result, many public companies come to have â€Å"strong managers and weak shareholders. The agency problem refers to the possible conflicts of interest between self – interested managers as agents and shareholders of the firm, who are the principals. In the described circumstances the manager will end up with residual control rights to allocate investors' funds, and sometimes the disclosure of investment channels may not be clear and full. So the investors are not longer assured of achieving fair returns on their funds, in other words the agency problem lies in a loss of trust for the manager by the shareholders of the company.In the following paper examples of the agency problem, proposed ways of solving and controlling methods and their analysis will be presented and discussed. Chapter 1 . Prerequisites of the agency problem and different approaches to solving it 1. 1 . How we detect an agency problem Agency theory suggests that the firm can be viewed as a combination of different relationships – some of them well and others can be loosely defined – between resource holders. The primary agency relationship in business is between stockholders and mana gers.The relationships are not necessarily harmonious; indeed, the agency theory is concerned with so-called agency conflicts, or conflicts of interest between agents and principals. This has implications for, among other things, corporate governance and business ethics. When the agency problem occurs sustain an effective agency relationship, those will be discussed a bit later. So what can be signals for managerial self-interested behavior? Sometimes, the manager simply steals investors' funds.Alternatively, the manager may use a more pesticides scheme, setting up an independent company that he owns and diverting to it the main company's cash and assets through transfer pricing. For example, the manager can sell the main company's output to the company he owns at below market prices, or buy the output of the company he owns at above market prices. Some oil companies are known to sell oil to manager-owned trading companies at below market prices and not always bother to collect the bills.Self- interested managers may also waste funds by undertaking unprofitable projects that benefit themselves but not investors. For example, managers may allocate funds the ay to take over other companies and overpay for the targets if it serves their private interests. Needless to say, this type of investment will destroy shareholders' value. What is more, the same managers may take anti-takeover measures for their own company in order to secure their personal Job and perpetuate private benefits.In the same vein, managers may resist any attempts to be replaced even if shareholders' interests will be better served by their resignation. These managerial entrenchment efforts are clear signs of the agency problem. One of the clearest signals for the existence of the agency problem can be management of free cash-flow. High level of free cash-flows are usually presented in companies on a maturity stage of life cycle, with a low level of growth, so those free cash?flows are supposed to be distributed as dividends or should be invested in some projects, both of the actions can probably increase the firm's value.But there are a few important incentives for managers to retain cash flows. First, cash reserves provide corporate managers with a measure of independence from the capital markets, insulating them from external scrutiny and discipline. This will make life easier for managers. Second, growing the size of the company via retention of cash tends to have the effect of raising managerial compensation. As is well known, executive compensation depends as much on the size of the company as on its profitability, if not more.Third, senior executives can boost their social and political power and prestige by increasing the size of their company. Executives presiding over large companies are likely to enjoy greater social prominence and visibility than those running small companies. Also, the company's size itself can be a way of satisfying the executive ego. Consequ ently, managers of those companies either sit n a huge bunch of money, or bound to invest in a lot of not so successful projects or to take over some other firms in attempt to diversify and not to pay dividends or at least too high dividends.In the contrast in high-growth industries, such as biotechnology, financial services, and pharmaceuticals, where companies internally generate funds, which fall short of profitable investment opportunities, managers are less likely to waste funds in unprofitable projects. After all, managers in these industries need to have a â€Å"good reputation†, as they must repeatedly come back to capital markets for funding. Once the managers of a company are known for wasting funds for private benefits, external funding for the company may dry up quickly.The managers in these industries thus have an incentive to serve the interests of outside undertaking their â€Å"good† investment projects. Generally, the heart of the agency problem is the conflicts of interest between managers and the outside investors over the disposition of free cash-flows, so in the following part I would like to present different approaches on how owners of the firm can hedge and maintain managers of the firm to lower the risk of agency problem ND, subsequently, agency costs. 1. 2.Remedies of agency problem Obviously, it is a matter of vital importance for shareholders to control the agency problem; otherwise, they may not be able to get their money back. It is also important for society as a whole to solve the agency problem, since the agency problem leads to waste of scarce resources, hampers capital market functions, and retards economic growth. Several main governance mechanisms exist to manage or completely remove an agency problem: 1. Board of directors 2. Incentive contracts 3. Concentrated ownership 4. Debt 5.Overseas stock listings 6. Market for corporate control (takeovers) In most of the countries, shareholders have the right to elect the board of directors, which is legally charged with representing the interests of shareholders. If the board of directors remains independent of management, it can serve as an effective mechanism for curbing the agency problem. For example, studies showed that the appointment of outside directors is associated with a higher turnover rate of Coos following poor firm performances, thus curbing managerial entrenchment.In the same vein, in a study of corporate governance in the United Kingdom, Daddy and McConnell report that the board of directors is more likely to appoint an outside CEO after an increase in outsiders' representation on the board. But due to the diffused ownership structure of the public company, management often gets to choose board members who are likely to be friendly to management. The structure and legal charge of corporate boards vary greatly across countries.In Germany, for instance, the corporate board is not legally charged with representing the interests of shareholders. Rather, it is charged with looking after the interests of stakeholders (e. G. , workers, creditors, etc. ) in general, not Just hardliners. In Germany, there are two-tier boards consisting of supervisory and management boards. Based on the German extermination system, the law requires that workers be represented on the supervisory board. Likewise, some U. S. Companies have labor union representatives on their boards, although it is not legally mandated.In the United Kingdom, the majority of public companies voluntarily abide by the Code of Best Practice on corporate governance recommended by the Catbird Committee. The code recommends that there should be at least three outside directors and that the board chairman and the CEO should be different individuals in USA there are a lot of examples of CEO and chairman being the same individual, what is in author's opinion, can be one of the most crucial factors of top-managerial frauds).Apart from outside directors, separati on of the chairman and CEO positions can further enhance the independence of the board of directors. In Japan, most welfare of the keiretsu to which the company belongs. As previously discussed, managers capture residual control rights and thus have enormous discretion over how to run the company. But they own relatively little of the equity of the company they manage. To the extent that managers do not own equity shares, they do not have cash flow rights.Although managers run the company at their own discretion, they may not significantly benefit from the profit generated from their efforts and expertise. In the end of sees researches showed that the pay of American executives changes only by about $3 per every $1,000 change of shareholder wealth; executive pay is nearly insensitive to changes in shareholder wealth. This situation implies that managers may not be very interested in the minimization of shareholder wealth. This â€Å"gap† between managerial control rights and cash flow rights may enlarge the agency problem.When professional managers have small equity positions of their own in a company with diffused ownership, they have both power and a motive to engage in self-dealings. Aware of this situation, many companies provide managers with incentive contracts, such as stocks and stock options, in order to reduce this gap and align better the interests of managers with investors'. With the grant of stocks or stock options, managers can be given an incentive to run the company in such a way that enhances shareholder wealth as well as their own.Against this backdrop, incentive contracts for senior executives have become common among public companies in the United States. As will be shown in the second chapter of the paper, however, senior executives can abuse incentive contracts by artificially manipulating accounting numbers, sometimes with the connivance of auditors (for example, Arthur Andersen's involvement's with the Enron debacle), or by alte ring investment policies so that they can reap enormous personal benefits.It is thus important for the board of directors to set up an independent compensation committee that can carefully design incentive contracts for executives and regularly monitor their actions, and these incentives contracts should be composed in accordance to the characteristics of firm's operational activity, as will be demonstrated in the third part of the chapter. An effective way to mitigate an agency problem is to concentrate shareholdings. If one or a few large investors own significant portions of the company, they will have a strong incentive to monitor management.For example, if an investor owns 51 percent of the company, he or she can definitely control the management (he can easily hire or fire managers) and will make sure that shareholders' rights are respected in the conduct of the company's affairs. With concentrated ownership and high stakes, the free-rider problem afflicting small, atomistic s hareholders dissipates. In the United States and the United Kingdom, concentrated ownership of a public company is relatively rare. Elsewhere in the world, however, concentrated ownership is regularly implemented.In Germany, for example, commercial banks, insurance and other companies, even families often own significant blocks of company stock. Similarly, extensive cross-holdings of equities among keiretsu member companies and main banks are commonplace in Japan. Also in France, cross-holdings and â€Å"core† investors are common. In Asia and Latin America, many companies are controlled by founders or their family members. In China, the government is often the controlling ownership has a positive effect on a company's performance and value, examples of Japan and Germany.This suggests that large shareholders indeed play a significant governance role. Of particular interest here is the effect of managerial equity holdings. Previous studies suggest that there can be a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership share and firm value and performance. Specifically, as the managerial ownership share increases, firm value may initially increase, since he interests of managers and outside investors become better aligned (thus reducing agency costs).But if the managerial ownership share exceeds a certain point, firm value may actually start to decline as managers become more entrenched. With larger shareholdings, for example, managers may be able to more effectively resist takeover bids and extract larger private benefits at the expense of outside investors. If the managerial ownership share continues to rise, however, the alignment effect may become dominant again. When managers are large shareholders, they do not want to rob themselves. To summarize, there can be an interim range† of managerial ownership share over which the entrenchment effect is dominant.Studies showed (Merck, Shellfire, and Vishnu) that the â€Å"entrenchment effect† is roughly dominant over the range of managerial ownership between 5 percent and 25 percent, whereas the â€Å"alignment effect† is dominant for the ownership shares less than 5 percent and exceeding 25 percent. A relationship between managerial ownership and firm value is likely to vary across countries. Although managers have discretion over how much of a dividend to pay to shareholders, debt does not allow such managerial discretion.If managers fail to pay interest and principal to creditors, the company can be forced into bankruptcy and its managers may lose their Jobs. Borrowing and the subsequent obligation to make interest payments on time can have a major disciplinary effect on managers, motivating them to curb private perks and wasteful investments and trim bloated organizations. In fact, debt can serve as a substitute for dividends by forcing managers to disgorge free cash flow to outside investors rather than wasting it.For firms with free cash flows, debt can be a s tronger mechanism than stocks for credibly bonding managers to release cash flows to investors. Excessive debt, however, can create its own problem. In turbulent economic conditions, equities can buffer the company against adversity. Managers can pare down or skip dividend payments until the situation improves. With debt, however, managers do not have such flexibility and the company's survival can be threatened. Excessive debt may also induce the risk-averse managers to forgo profitable but risky investment projects, causing an underinvestment problem.For this reason, debt may not be such a desirable governance mechanism for young companies with few cash reserves or tangible assets. In addition, companies can misuse debt to finance corporate empire building. Companies domiciled in countries with weak investor protection, such as Italy, Korea, and Russia, can bond themselves credibly to better investor protection by listing their stocks in countries with strong investor protection, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.In other words, foreign firms with weak governance mechanisms can opt to outsource a superior corporate governance regime available decision to list its stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Since the level of shareholder protection afforded by the U. S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the NYSE is much higher than that provided in Italy, the action will be interpreted as signaling the company's commitment to shareholder rights. Then, investors both in Italy and abroad will be more willing to provide capital to the company and value the company shares more.Generally speaking, the beneficial effects from U. S. Listings will be greater for firms from countries with weaker governance mechanisms. Studies confirm the effects of cross-border listings. Specifically, Dodge, Karol, and Stall (2002) report that foreign firms listed in the United States are valued more Han those from the same countries that are not listed in the U nited States. They argue that firms listed in the United States can take better advantage of growth opportunities and that controlling shareholders cannot extract as many private benefits.It is pointed out, however, that foreign firms in mature industries with limited growth opportunities are not very likely to seek U. S. Listings, even though these firms face more serious agency problems than firms with growth opportunities that are more likely to seek U. S. Listings. In other words, firms with more serious problems are less likely to seek the remedies. Suppose a company continually performs poorly and all of its internal governance mechanisms fail to correct the problem. This situation may prompt an outsider (another company or investor) to mount a takeover bid.In a hostile takeover attempt, the bidder typically makes a tender offer to the target shareholders at a price substantially exceeding the prevailing share price. The target shareholders thus have an opportunity to sell the ir shares at a substantial premium. If the bid is successful, the bidder will acquire the control rights of the target and restructure the company. Following a successful takeover, the bidder often replaces the management team, divests some assets or divisions, and trims employment in effort to enhance efficiency.If these efforts are successful, the combined market value of the acquirer and target companies will become higher than the sum of stand-alone values of the two companies, reflecting the synergies created. The market for corporate control, if it exists, can have a disciplinary effect on managers and enhance company efficiency. In the United States and the United Kingdom, hostile takeovers can serve as a rustic governance mechanism of the last resort. Under the potential threat of takeover, managers cannot take their control of the company for granted. In many other countries, however, hostile takeovers are quite rare.This is so partly because of concentrated ownership in th ese countries and partly because of cultural values and political environments disapproving hostile corporate takeovers. But even in these countries, the incidence of corporate takeovers has been gradually increasing. This can be due, in part, to the spreading of equity culture and the opening and deregulation of capital markets. In Germany, for instance, takeovers are carried out through transfer of block holdings. In Japan, as in Germany, inter firm cross-holdings of equities are loosening, creating capital market conditions that are more conducive to takeover activities.To the extent that companies with poor investment opportunities and excess cash initiate takeovers, it is a symptom, rather than a cure, 1. 3. Different approach for different types of companies In the Journal of Financial and Strategic Decisions Robert L. Lippies wrote an article named â€Å"Agency conflicts, managerial compensation and firm variance†, where e described different situations where one type of managerial compensation would be more effective than others as a solution for an agency problem.The recent literature on agency conflicts between managers and shareholders is characterized by studies that test whether the implementation of incentive compensation schemes mitigate the manager-shareholder conflict. While these studies present evidence that incentives do influence managerial decision-making, no dominant class of incentives has been found. This finding is consistent with evidence that suggests firms must compensate according to their particular characteristics.The article of Robert Lippies will consider incentive compensation in relation to the manager's ability to increase the risk of future cash flows. In this context the relationship between compensation, risk taking, and managerial behavior can be evaluated. I would like to introduce some of his findings with short arguments. 1. Managers who receive a large portion of their total compensation in fixed wages will m ake efforts to reduce the variance of future cash flows. 2. Managers who receive a large portion of their total compensation in the form of fixed wages will have interests aligned to those of bondholders.Both wage and bond payoffs are negatively affected by increased dispersion because any values beyond these fixed claims are of no concern. This result implies that the interests of the manager and the bondholder become increasingly aligned as the manager's fixed wage increases. In the case of the pure fixed wage earner or pure bondholder, minimizing variance increases expected utility. Specifically, in this scenario, bondholders and wage earners have interests that are naturally aligned, and that is in direct conflict with the manager's role as an agent for the shareholders.The manager should consider bondholders interests to the extent that they impact the value of the firm but there should not be a direct alignment of interest between the manager and bondholders because this would violate the agency agreement between the shareholders and the manager and ultimately lower the value of common equity. Thus, the incentive compensation scheme must encourage the fulfillment of the principal-agent relationship. 3. Managers who receive a large portion of their total compensation in equity-related securities will make efforts to increase the variance of future cash flows. Managers who receive a large portion of their total compensation in equity-related securities will have interests aligned to those of shareholders. If the manager has significant control over the dispersion of firm values, the compensation scheme should reflect this fact by providing a lower fixed wage and more equity-related rewards. Of course, when the firm compensate its manager by equity-related reward, there is always a threat that the manager will manipulate with a price of shares, those manipulations may harm the real market value of the firm and may even lead to the firm's edge.If, however, t he manager has little control over the dispersion, a different type of remuneration package should be developed which limits the manager's exposure to risk which is beyond his control. 5. Managers of earning high wages will choose to hold larger amounts of the firm's equity-related securities. Assuming that a manager receives a wage, in case of high level of variance the manager should hold enough stock to offset any potential loss in wages.For example, if a firm is subject to large dispersions in value over which the manager has no control, the manager could hedge against a possible loss in wages by holding an mount of stock proportional to his wage claim. This wealth allocation would allow him to offset his potential loss of wages with potential capital gains. 6. Managers of stable firms who have little control over the dispersion of future cash flows and who earn high wages should receive fewer equity-related rewards from the firm.Clearly, if a manager has a little control over a firm's cash-flows, there is no need to connect his reward to the particular indexes of the firm, but as far as the firm is stable and has a lot of cash, it can allow high wage for its manager, what in turn is expected to be fair reward for the manger to prevent him from wrong-doings. 7. Firms which provide their managers with the ability to increase the dispersion of future cash flows should include more equity related rewards in the manager's compensation system. 8.The existence of compensation in the form of stock options lowers the incentive of managers to expropriate wealth from shareholders and increases the incentive to expropriate wealth from bondholders. While prior research has focused on managerial compensation and its motivational qualities; this model suggests that firm-specific characteristics relating o the propensity for firm variance and the degree of control that the manager has over this variance should be the fundamental determinants of managerial reward.In the s econd chapter of my paper various examples of agency problem will be presented, also how different aforementioned solutions were implemented for these examples will be analyzed and discussed. Chapter 2. Practical examples of agency problem's solution 2. 1. Good intentions usually backfire Executive loans. In the asses and early asses, loans by companies to executives with low interest rates and â€Å"forgiveness† often served as a form of compensation. Before ewe loans were banned in 2002, more than 30 percent of the 1500 largest US firms disclosed cash loans to executives in their regulatory filings, sum totaled $4. Billion, with the average loan being about $11 million. Half of these companies, charged no interest on executive loans, and half charged below market rates, and in either case the loans were often â€Å"forgiven†. An estimated $1 billion of the loans extended before 2002 (when they were banned) will eventually be forgiven, either while the executives are still at their companies or when they leave. For executives in companies that went bankrupt during the informational genealogy bubble collapse (when in the most of cases value of Internet-based or oriented companies could have been created by adding e- in front of their names or . Mom after), when investors lost of billions of dollars, this was very useful. According to the Financial Times, executives at the 25 largest US public firms that went bankrupt between January 2001 and August 2001 sold almost $3 billion worth of their companies' stock during that time and two preceding years as the collective shares fell by at least 75 percent, 25 had executives sell a total of â€Å"$23 billion before their stocks plummeted†.Large loans to executives were involved in more than a couple of these companies, one of the most notable being World. World loaned (directly or indirectly) hundreds of millions of dollars?approximately 20 percent of the cash on the firm's balance sheet?to its C EO Bernard Beers to help him pay off margin debt in his personal brokerage account. The loans were both unsecured and about half the normal interest rate a brokerage firm would have charged.World filed for bankruptcy a few months after the last loans were made. As a reaction to these scandals and clear frauds by top-management of huge impasses, the Serbians-Solely Act was passed in mid-2002 to improve financial disclosures from corporations and prevent accounting fraud, but also involved executive compensation. It banned loans by companies to directors and executives, also included the return of executive stock sale profit if overstating earnings will be revealed.Enron's compensation and performance management system was designed to retain and reward its most valuable employees, the system contributed to a dysfunctional corporate culture that became obsessed with short-term earnings to maximize bonuses. Employees constantly tried to start deals, often disregarding the laity of cash flow or profits, in order to get a better rating for their performance review, such actions helped ensure deal-makers and executives received large cash bonuses and stock options. The company was constantly emphasizing its stock price.Management was compensated extensively using stock options. This policy of stock option awards caused management to create expectations of rapid growth in efforts to give the appearance of reported earnings to meet Wall Street's expectations. At budget meetings, target earnings were developed on the basis â€Å"What earnings do you need to keep our stock price up? And that number would be used, even if it was not feasible. At December 31, 2000, Enron had 96 million shares outstanding as stock option plans (approximately 13% of common shares outstanding).Enron's proxy statement stated that, within three years, these awards were expected to be exercised. Using Enron's January 2001 stock price of $83. 13 and the directors' beneficial ownership reported i n the 2001 proxy, the value of director stock ownership was $659 million for the chairman of Enron Kenneth Lay, and $174 million for the CEO Jeffrey Killing. Employees had large expense accounts and many executives were paid moieties twice as much as competitors. In 1998, the top 200 highest-paid employees received $193 million from salaries, bonuses, and stock.Two years later, in 2000 the figure Jumped to $1. 4 billion. As we all know Enron had gone bankrupt on November 30, 2001, before that the price of Enron's share fell to 0,61 $, yet Just in the beginning of the year the CEO promised 2001 will be â€Å"their easiest year†. All in all we can conclude that pay-for-performance policy in combination with excessive stock- options for top-management result in shadowy deals and non-deliberated decisions on all levels of the company.

John Locke Essay

The topic that I chose for my philosophy paper is empiricism. Empiricism is the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. This idea was developed from a famous English philosopher, John Locke, states that knowledge can only come from our sensory experience, nowhere else. Empiricists believe that getting knowledge without the experience is unachievable. There are three subcategories of Empiricism; Classical, Moderate, and Radical. Classical Empiricism completely rejects the thought of â€Å"in-born† knowledge. It states that at birth, we are born as a blank slate. Throughout the years, the more experience the more we learn. Radical empiricism is a dividend of the theory that concludes that knowledge comes from our senses. When we experience certain things, the sense that comes along with it is what gives us the knowledge that we take from it. Moderate empiricism is a more improved on and fits today’s philosophical and psychological findings. Moderate empiricism writes that not all knowledge should come from what you live through; some of it is simply learned. A valid example that they used to further prove their theory is the understanding of school subjects such as math or history. A person doesn’t have to live through anything to understand that a triangle has three sides or that George Washington became president in 1789. I interpret this theory the way it was written. I understand where john Locke’s idea of empiricism evolved from and there are many pieces of evidence to support it. I think what this theory states is that our experiences define us as humans. What we live through is what gives us the knowledge on either how to improve on it, to learn from it, or to continue doing it. In many ways, I believe that this is true in sculpting our personality. I think this theory goes in search of why people are so different, despite that they are taught the same material in school, and they answer that with the fact that every individual goes through incomparable experiences and that’s what makes us different and therefore gives us our knowledge. There are numerous examples of empiricism. Any experience in which a lesson is taken from is proof of empiricism. That may include a job experience in which the employee disappointed their manager and now knows to do everything he can to avoid doing what it is that he did. This goes along with Classical and Radical empiricism. The individual has learned something based solely on experience, but also through the sense of embarrassment and disappointment. A student who puts in a large amount of effort in his work and then receives praise on it from his teacher will want to go through that experience again and feel accomplishment. I feel very diverse about this theory. In many ways I do agree with it because our experiences are what give us our beliefs and set us as different individuals. However, the theory in ways contradicts itself because it underestimates the power of learning in class and knowing  not to do certain things even. An example that I have lived through that goes along with my opinion on this is my health class in the seventh grade where we were taught all the vital effects of drugs. Therefore, I have learned, but not through experience, not to do drugs. I did not have to go through addiction or even experimentation of illegal substances in order to get the knowledge not to do them. The theory that more closely relates to my belief is rationalism. Rationalism states that knowledge is based off of reason. Examples of that is mathematical problems,  knowing an illusion isn’t real and that your mind is actually being deceived, and why things happen the way they do. We don’t touch a pot of boiling water because we’ve done it before and experienced pain, we don’t touch it because we see the steam coming out of it and with that, we imply our reasoning that it would burn if we do touch it. There is also a flaw in empiricism. We all perceive things differently, and therefore our knowledge may be inaccurate. A student presenting might think he did awful and never volunteer again because his experience gave him the false knowledge that he wasn’t able to do good. Meanwhile, his fellow classmates might have thought greatly of his presentation. Empiricism can give off false knowledge of our experience, making us self-conscious, and even changing our personality completely, all because of how we perceived it. That is why I apply rationalism to my life and personality. I don’t have to experience something in order to gain knowledge from it. I am able to make decisions based off of reasoning, knowing the effect of an action without having to experience it, and knowing what is right without having to do what is wrong first.