Demographic Factors Research

Running head: DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS RESEARCH Demographic Factors Research University of Phoenix MMPBL 560 Managing in a Cross-Cultural Environment October 19, 2009 Organizations around the world are experiencing the effects of cultural and global diversity. Kellogg, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Arbor are four companies introduced in this paper. They have been researched in order to identify how each company is affected by demographic factors, how these factors are managed, and what systems are implemented to enhance the success of the business; thus, this paper illustrates the key course concepts and their application to the best practices of these companies. The dynamics and dimensions of diversity in an increasingly global business environment can challenge the demographic factors of most organizations. Basically, Kottak and Kozaitis (2003) declare, â€Å"In the 21st century, the overwhelming majority of the world's population, along with a large percentage of the populations of the United States and Canada, will be descendants of the non-Western groups† (Ch. 1, p. 29). In other words, organizations will need to learn how to manage the complexities of a diverse workforce. Among these complexities, organizations will encounter demographic factors such as age, race, education level, religion, political party preference, sexual orientation, and gender (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003). Because of these diverse factors, organizations need to be prepared to recognize the individuals’ behavior that is influenced by culture, values, and beliefs. To illustrate, culture refers to people’s identity in their traditions, customs, and way of life (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003). In fact, Kottak and Kozaitis (2003) declare that culture is all encompassing. In essence, it is important for organizations to know that individuals are influenced by popular culture as well. Therefore, individuals in a diverse workplace need to understand and respect each other’s differences. It is not enough to know that the workplace is composed of people with different views in life, values, and attitudes. Kottak and Kozaitis (2003) state that â€Å"Ethnic diversity may be associated with positive group interaction and coexistence or with conflict† (Ch. 5, p. 12). Knowing that diversity can be beneficial to the organization will help management integrate appropriate value systems within the company. However, in the event that conflict exists as a result of diversity, management would need to consider alternative best practices to address the organizational conflict. Given the complexities of a diverse workforce, organizations need to examine constantly alternative solutions to help them manage the demographic factors within the company. Kottak and Kozaitis (2003) declare that â€Å"Failure to achieve an accurate account and appreciation of a race-based group of people results in racism† (Ch. 6, p. 3). Certainly, organizations need to mitigate any potential and undesirable outcomes that can negatively affect the reputation and profitability of the business. To put it differently, â€Å"The great sociopolitical paradox of the contemporary world is that both integration and disintegration are increasing† (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003, Ch. 3, p. 5). In addition, globalization is contributing to the workforce diversity around the world, and organizations are continually being challenged to learn new ways to manage these changes. Organizations are not only challenged with internal changes but also with external forces such as economic and political factors. The importance of understanding the presence and influence of diversity that affect the contemporary American culture can prove enormously beneficial for any organization. In effect, organizations need to learn how to effectively manage the effects of demographic factors involving their planning and decision making in motivating and rewarding individuals (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003). Consider for instance, Kellogg started its business more than 100 years ago and has quickly expanded into new geographies, leading to a stead fast growth plan that provided them with a global business, which still stands strong today. While remaining a superior global food company, Kellogg’s management realized that they had to have the strongest possible resources to support their business growth in a diverse and competitive environment (Kellogg, 2009). Likewise, Starbucks is managing its competition challenges; the current economic conditions are factors that Starbucks needs to consider in order to market the new products to preserve its clientele and bring in new customers. Hence, Starbucks is wise to use the four P’s model; Price, Product, Place, and Promotion, to determine the course of action best suited to stay ahead of the competition. To be clear, both Kellogg and Starbucks are managing the effects of postmodernity; that is, â€Å"postmodertnity describes our time and situation—today's world in flux, with people on the move who have learned to manage multiple identities depending on place and context† (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2003, Ch. p. 29). To manage the influence of postmodernity within the context of demographic factors, Kellogg and Starbucks are implementing strategic approaches to aid them in their success involving global and cultural diversity. For example, Kellogg committed itself to developing a comprehensive and ground-breaking supplier diversity program. This program was to cultivate strategic procurement relationships with W/MBE-owned, controlled and operated businesses while supplying products and services Kellogg purchased; this would allow them to foster the growth of their business while marketing the long-term growth of Kellogg (Kellogg, 2009). Similarly, Starbucks expanded the menu to include products to target non-coffee drinkers, with the introduction of blended or iced cold coffee drinks, frappuccino’s, lattes, mocha’s, and teas. Starbucks creatively integrated a diverse menu consisting of bold aromas to creamy sweet flavors, attracting a range of customers to Starbucks at various times and for various reasons. Starbucks’ intention to satisfy the demographic factors has prompted management to add items on the menu for anyone willing to try; among them, Professionals heading to an early morning meeting needing a â€Å"stout† cup of coffee, housewives stopping for a late morning latte with friends after dropping the children at school and the high school and college students in search of Wi-Fi connection and snack (Kembell, 2002). Another company that has continued to strive for cultural adaptability in a diverse global environment is McDonald’s. This company is an organization that can be found in every country, servicing nearly 47 million customers around the world. Because of McDonald’s unique demographic factors, managers are trained through a comprehensive Management Development Program. This program encompasses McDonald’s core values and principles along with the dedication to serve customers, the community, and employees (McDonald’s, 2009). One of the demographic factors affecting McDonald’s management planning involves the aging population in Australia. In other words, McDonald’s management is challenged with having to change its marketing approach in order to reach the newly identified groups (Monash University, 2009). Similar to Kellogg and Starbucks, McDonald’s management is searching for effective systems to help aid the company in addressing the increasing changes in demographics. Fortunately, McDonald’s continues to find strength on its business models in which McDonald’s management is â€Å"committed to exceeding [†¦] customers' expectations in every restaurant every time† (McDonald’s, 2009). Accordingly, McDonald’s management recognizes that the company’s core values go beyond demographics, for this reason, McDonald’s philosophy declares, â€Å"We will seize every opportunity to innovate and lead the industry on behalf of our customers† (McDonald’s, 2009). Effectively, the best practices of McDonald’s, Starbucks and Kellogg demonstrate the dedication and commitment to learn and adopt successful systems that will help them serve customers regardless of demographic factors. Unquestionably, these organizations need to also integrate rewards and motivation systems to help them sustain a diverse workforce anywhere in the world. For example, Arbor Education and Training is a leading provider of workforce development services to job-seekers, workers, employers, and communities nationwide (Arbor E & T, 2009). Arbor employees come from many different walks of life, employees of all ages, religions, and other factors; these employees are treated equally within the organization in decisions concerning rewards and performance. Kottak and Kozaitis (2003) state that â€Å"Cultural diversity refers to variation in institutions, traditions, language, customs, rituals, beliefs, and values† (Ch. 4, p. 6). In summary, organizations are required to continually scan their business environment in order to identify the challenges that come with a diverse workforce. Overall, Kellogg, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Arbor are challenged with cultural diversity, yet each company is finding the way to integrate successful best practices in the workplace. As noted, the dimensions of diversity in relation to each demographic factor play a crucial role in how Kellogg, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Arbor cope with the increasing changes of the business environment. Accordingly, the practices of these companies serve to address the presence of a diverse workforce in a constantly changing society. Synopsis of Kellogg by Wendy Harris Kellogg Company, a company with many competitive advantages in global communications, started its company more than 100 years ago and quickly expanded into new geographies. With a stead fast growth plan that provided them with a global business which still stands strong today. While remaining a superior global food company, Kellogg Company realized that they had to have the strongest possible resources to support their business growth. A great deal of that strength was acquired through raw materials and other products and services from the widest and best foundation of resources. During the building process, Kellogg Company committed itself to developing a comprehensive and ground-breaking supplier diversity program. This program was to cultivate strategic procurement relationships with W/MBE-owned, controlled and operated businesses while supplying products and services Kellogg purchased; this would allow them to foster the growth of their business while marketing the long-term growth of the Kellogg Company. Kellogg’s code of conduct, their management staff is required to hold certain employees to special responsibilities under the Code. Kellogg believes it’s their managers’ responsibility to create and maintain a work environment in which all employees and agents know that ethical and legal behavior is expected of them at all times. Each manager is expected to model the highest standards of ethical business conduct and encourage discussion of the ethical and unethical as well as the legal implications of business decisions. It is the mangers responsibility to make sure that anyone needing additional information in an effort to do his or her job receives appropriate policies and training. It is the managers’ responsibility not to hire or retain any employee or agent who they feel may engage in unlawful conduct or unethical activities. In 2005, Kellogg incorporated an awards program called the W. K. Kellogg Values Award, which is given annually to one individual and one team of employees who best exhibit the K Values while working. This program initiated to support their code of conduct as well as the company’s mission. Synopsis of Starbucks by Colleen Holdahl Young urban professionals consuming specialized coffees were the first to patronize Starbucks. Today the popular coffee chain attracts 25 million people each week and draws a large demographic of patrons varying in age and ethnic backgrounds (Hanft, 2005). The most common customer Starbucks attracts is of course, the coffee drinker, yet the company expanded the menu to include products to target non-coffee drinkers, with the introduction of blended or iced cold coffee drinks, frappuccino’s, lattes, mocha’s, and teas. With the presence of bold aromas to creamy sweet flavors, a range of customers are frequenting Starbucks at various times and for various reasons. Starbucks has items on the menu for anyone willing to try: Professionals heading to an early morning meeting needing a â€Å"stout† cup of coffee, housewives stopping for a late morning latte with friends after dropping the children at school and the high school and college students in search of Wi-Fi connection and snack (Kembell, 2002). Adding new products is a challenge as Starbucks must consider many factors. For example when the new Creme Frappuccino was created, Starbucks took into consideration the demographic areas to launch the drink, the market to target, and the packaging of the new product. Introducing the Creme Frappuccino, Starbucks faces a competition that the company has not previously experienced, with competitors imitating the Creme Frappuccino. Competition and the current economic condition, both are factors Starbucks needs to consider how to market the new products to preserve current patrons and bring in new customers. Starbucks is wise to use the four P’s model; Price, Product, Place, and Promotion, to determine the course of action, best suited to stay ahead of the competition. Emotions are potent internal influences described by Hawkins, Mothersbaugh, and Best (2007) as â€Å"strong, relatively uncontrollable feelings that affect behavior† (p. 364). Starbucks is in a controversy over the supposed injustice and treatment toward coffee growers in Ethiopia. The controversy deals with negative emotions of customers, due to the report that Starbucks deprives the Ethiopian growers of $90 Million annually by opposing the Ethiopian government’s efforts to trademark three locally grown coffee beans (Economist, para. ). The Creme Frappucino gives Starbucks an opportunity to offer a guilt-free alternative to non-coffee drinkers or patrons who oppose the Ethiopian controversy, during the time the legal and public-relations situation is in transition. Synopsis of McDonald’s by Marisela Jimenez McDonald’s is an organization that can be found in every country, servicing nearly 47 million customers around the world. Because of McDonald’s unique demographic factors, managers are trained through a comprehensive Management Development Program. This program encompasses McDonald’s core values and principles along with the dedication to serve customers, the community, and employees (McDonald’s, 2009). Hence, the demographic factors affecting McDonald’s vary from each country, yet management understands that by following McDonald’s philosophy, their planning can help mitigate the effects of each demographic factor. To illustrate, some of the demographic factors affecting McDonald’s management planning involves the aging population in Australia, the decline in birth rate, the changing family, the increase in ethnic diversity, and the population growth. In other words, McDonald’s management is challenged with having to change its marketing approach in order to reach the newly identified groups (Monash University, 2009). To address this organizational conflict involving the demographic factors, McDonald’s management focuses on its services and products. Accordingly, McDonald’s management is trained to approach each conflict with honesty and integrity (Monash University, 2009). Not only is McDonald’s management keeping up with the rapid demographic changes, they are also continuing to manage conflict by remaining committed to their principles. This means that McDonald’s management is â€Å"committed to exceeding [†¦] customers' expectations in every restaurant every time† (McDonald’s, 2009). Fundamentally, McDonald’s best practices on dealing with organizational conflict are strongly carved on its philosophy; that is â€Å"We will seize every opportunity to innovate and lead the industry on behalf of our customers† (McDonald’s, 2009). Hence, McDonald’s management recognizes that their focus is every customer, regardless of age, ethnicity, sex, and location. McDonald’s is an organization that understands how to motivate and reward people. Consider for instance, McDonald’s has what is called People Promise. This means that McDonald’s promises to â€Å"value each and every employee, their growth and their contribution – every day in every way† (McDonald’s, 2009). McDonald’s managers recognize and respect each employee; each employee is empowered and coached. This organizational practice is found in every McDonald’s around the world, for this reason, McDonald's prides itself on offering â€Å"more than a pay check to our employees. Our Crew members enjoy flexible schedules, paid training and the chance to have fun working with friends while learning valuable life skills† (McDonald’s, 2009). Synopsis of Arbor E&T by Eduardo Mata Arbor Education and Training (Arbor E & T) is a company with offices throughout the United States and have a very diverse workforce that demonstrates a unique demographic factor. Arbor Education and Training is a leading provider of workforce development services to job-seekers, workers, employers and communities nationwide (Arbor E & T, 2009). Arbor employees come from many different walks of life, employees of all ages, religions, and other factors and these employees are treated equally within the organization when it comes to decisions concerning rewards and performance. Founded in 1968, Arbor E&T is now the largest single supplier of job-related education, counseling and employment assistance under federally funded programs such as the Workforce Investment Act and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs (Arbor E & T, 2009). Management planning for many of its customers receiving federally funded assistance requires that certain guidelines are followed and because of being federally funded and services provided must meet the customer’s requirements and expectations along with the government regulations. Arbor E & T provides services to a wide variety of customers seeking employment, education or training and also provide excellent services to migrant and seasonal farm workers and United States Veterans seeking employment and other services. Training is provided to the entire workforce in providing the best services possible to each group. Arbor management is committed to providing the leadership, training, and resources required to enable our employees to consistently adhere to regulatory requirements, to tirelessly seek improvement of our processes, and to continue to provide world-class services to all of our customers. We are dedicated and caring people who form a company providing excellent human services that enhance the lives of individuals. The company rewards its employees based on employee performance and whether their goals were met for the preceding year. As found in Arbor E & T (2009): Our goal is to be known by our clients and by the workforce development community as the leading provider of services in the markets we serve, i. e. , One-Stops, TANF, youth, early childhood education, and vocational training programs. Our quality management system is a critical element of our effort to achieve this goal. † References Arbor. (2009). Arbor education and training. Retrieved October 17, 2009 from http://w ww. arboret. com/ Hanft, Adam. (April 1, 2005). What you can learn from starbucks. Retrieved October 13, 2009 from http://www. inc. com/resources/marketing/articles/20050401/starbucks. html. Hawkins, D. , Mothersbaugh, D. and Best, R. (2007). The Economist. Consumer behavior: building marketing strategy. Retrieved October 13, 2009 from http://highered. mcgraw- hill. com/sites/0073101370/information_center_view0/revision_changes. html. Kellogg Company. (2009). Kellogg company. Retrieved October 17, 2009, from http://www2. kelloggs. com/General. aspx? ID=466 Kellogg Company. (2003). We act with integrity and show respect in everything we do. Retrieved from http://files. shareholder. com/downloads/K/749861120x0x196418/ ec25a03a-7081-450d- a942-16ee7ad2ee1b/GlobalCodeofEthic. df Kembell, B. (April 2002). Catching the starbucks fever: starbucks marketing strategy. Missouri State University. Kottak, C. P. , Kozaitis, K. A. (2003). On being different: diversity and multiculturalism in the north american mainstream. (2nd ed. ). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. McDonald’s. (2009). Our story. [Online]. Available: http://www. mcdonalds. ca/en/aboutus/index. aspx (2009, O ctober 16). Monash University. (2009). Briohny’s report. [Online]. Available: http://www. monash. edu. au/lls/llonline/writing/business-economics/marketing/3. 3. 2. xml (2009, October 16). | |MMPBL/560 Demographic Factors Research Rubric | |Week 2 | | | | | | | |Criterion |Unsatisfactory |Satisfactory |Exceptional |Score | |Knowledge of Course Concepts (40%) | |Describe the Effects of Demographic|Demonstrates a level of knowledge|Demonstrates a level of knowledge |Demonstrates a level of knowledge that |2. 00 | |Factors on Management Planning. that is below the requirement |that meets the requirement |meets or exceeds the requirement and is | | | | | |well supported | | |Analyze the Role Demographic |Demonstrates a level of knowledge|Demonstrates a level of knowledge |Demonstrates a level of knowledge that |1. 33 | |Factors Play in Contributing to |that is below the requirement |that meets the requirement |meets or exceeds the requirement and is | | |Organizational Conflict. | |well supported | | |Examine the Influence of |Demonstrates a level of knowledge|Demonstrates a level of knowledge |Demonstrates a level of knowledge that |1. 33 | |Demographic Factors on Individual |that is below the requirement |that meets the requirement |meets or exceeds the requirement and is | | |Rewards and Recognition. | | |well supported | | |Research (20%) | |Provide Benchmark Research on |The benchmarked companies’ |The benchmarked companies’ |In addition to meeting the requirements of|  2. 0 | |Organizational Applications of |situations do not relate to the |situations relate to the course |satisfactory, the benchmarked companies’ | | |Course Objectives |course concepts, or are not |concepts and are researched from |situations provide a thorough coverage of | | | |researched from academic or trade|academic or trade publication |course objectives | | | |publication sources |sources. The score is ranged | | | | | |between satisfactory and | | | | | |exceptional. | | | |Critical Thinking (15%) | |Demonstrate Critical Thought in |Does not demonstrate critical |Demonstrates critical thought in |In addition to meeting requirements of |1. 0 | |Analyzing Information |thought in the analysis of the |analyzing the information by |satisfactory, synthesizes information | | | |information, or analysis is |presenting various perspectives on|across concepts effectively | | | |disjointed |the concepts | | | |Written Communication (15%) | |Demonstrate Quality and |Written communication is |Written communication is effective|In addition to meeting requirements of |2. 5 | |Effectiveness in Written |ineffective, with numerous | |satisfactory, the paper is engaging to the| | |Communication |spelling and grammatical errors | |reader with concise and clear | | | |or poorly constructed sentences | |communication | | |Format, Style & Citation Standards (10%) | |Adhere to University of Phoenix |Numerous errors in format, style,|Few errors in for mat, style, or |Virtually no errors in format, style, or |1. 25 | |Writing Style (APA) Requirements |or reference citation |reference citation |reference citation | | |Final Score==> |12. 1 | | | |Team B, | | | |The overall submission was interesting and well written. The concept of management planning was thoroughly researched and discussed. All of the companies clearly | |described the organizational conflict except for Arbor and Starbucks omitted the section on research and recognition. All of the companies were demonstrated as | |benchmarked companies that addressed the concepts; however, in some instances a piece was omitted. The score was reduced under critical thought because only | |comparisons were addressed and not all concepts were covered. The written communication was well done and only a minor APA formatting issue was noted. Your research | |section as the instructor’s plagiarism checker noted consisted of an 13% plagiarism rate. The instructor’s plagiarism checker also checks past student papers, as well| |as a more thorough Internet search. Not everyone turned in their team evaluation; however, by the way it looks everyone participated equally in the group. Good | |work! | | |

I Used to Live Here Once by Jean Rhys †Analysis Essay

To what lengths will someone ever remember their home and recognize the things they’ve once known? Stories have been used throughout the ages to not only create a tale that can cause to the reader great imagination and wonders, it is also common for them to hide several meanings and twists to the adventure. Through the portraits of her life, and the perils of her adventures, Jean Rhys’ has incorporated many of the paths of her life into the illustrations she had developed into short stories. These representation of her original life represent the strong and key points of her journey where she had felt abundances of emotions; many of which were transcribed into very short tales such as ‘I Use To Live Here Once’ where you may notice the precision on the details, the excess of description on the author’s view and imagination, as well as the direct correlation with herself. The following story entitled as mentioned, tells the tale of a woman returning back to a distant memory, and finds two mysterious figures that will enlighten her truth. Further opinions will be referred to as a base to the literal analysis of the story, in order to understand the feelings of the author. Jean Rhys’ includes a particular genre and writing style in this short story that is built around her personality, the author’s use of the ending helps to symbolize the connection with her life whilst using specific types of imagery and juxtaposition throughout the story. The story debuts on a quite simple scale with one description leading to another where each receive a thorough scan, to which we may notice several types of similes and metaphors used in order to express the themes and tones of the short story. The gradual increase of the ‘truth’ hidden at the end of the story can be understood as you proceed the reading through the use of these writing techniques; these reverses of ‘meaning’ give away odd particularities throughout the whole story: â€Å"She stopped and looked towards the house that had been added to and painted white. It was strange to see a car standing in front of it. (The New Windmill Book, 1994). In this passage we understand that the main character is familiar with the house to begin with and have noticed several changes, this sets a doubt to the reader where the question is raised on what is the relation between the main character and this house. There have been some interference in her writing due to personal problems work as considered by Castro (2000), these interruptions have caused Jean Rhys’ novels to be highly influenced by her perils, she had reached a period of hiatus in her writing life due to alcoholism and financial status. The story ‘I Used To Live Here Once’ has been written shortly after the author had gone back to Dominica to revisit her home to only find it burnt down and different to what she had once known. Being the only visit she had made back to her hometown, this has affected Jean Rhys’ view of her origin and roots. We understand throughout the story many of the correlation of the story with her life, as in one part where she describes the stepping-stones that the character in the story needed to step on to cross the river (The New Windmill Book, 1994, p. 57). By identifying her events and the ones in the story, we can create a relation between these stones and the several encounters with men that the author had. More relation can be made on the similarities between the main character of the story and Jean Rhys herself, such as the feeling of nostalgia shown throughout the entire narrative, especially when the woman in the story is describing the house and children by the tree. In one piece in the story, the heroin had characterized the sky as â€Å"Glassy†. We may confirm that there are some strong emphasis on this particular part of the story as the description of the sky given by the author releases information on the characters being in between two separate worlds (Brady, 2009); the implications stated behind that gap is her eventual situation as a ghost. Whilst the identification began when the explanation on the magnificent blue day was made, there is a notice on the exaggeration and contradictions between what the women in the story felt as it was immediately followed by the unusual illustration of the sky. Moreover, when identifying the nature of the other descriptions made in the story, this confirms the confrontation with the ‘glassy’ comment of the sky. This interpretation showed very strong emotions released by Jean Rhys as it may reflect some feelings of transparency and a lack of presence to the heroin even though she feels being physically present. Considering her involvement in the tale, many features in the story give up nformation on how does the story reflect on the personality of the author. For instance, by looking at the way she had described the environment surrounding the heroin in this story, we can connect through this some of the descriptions, which are majorly contained of effects of degradation and undetected figures, which have been noticed by the main character. These are several hints in connection to some of the traumas Jean Rhys had experienced in her life, as said by author Maren Linett (2005) â€Å"consider Rhys’s exploration of the dark subject of/in female masochism – not, as has been argued by some critics, as an individual psychological kink from which Rhys suffered†¦Ã¢â‚¬  these traumas has therefore raise more questions on Jean Rhys’ writing influence. Furthermore, her incorporation of the two kids in front of the house shows a lot on what and how the author thinks. As stated by herself in the biography, she finds the color black warm and gay whereas she finds the color white cold and sad (The New Windmill Book, 1994, p. 156) considering that she had lived in Dominica and that this story is taking place there, we can identify some forms of irony as she observes and desribes the skin of the children (Brady, 2009) as most of the Europeans who had been born in there had similar skin. Whilst reading the story once, the ending of the story generates a shock to the reader. There is some is some sort of a build up in this narrative, from one description to another, the descriptions that the woman makes creates images to which can imply on beauty of the day. This implies to the lecturer to reconsider the whole journey that the author had used to create symbolisms with her life. Considering the involvement of Jean Rhys’ life in the story, her point of view is revealed through the use of symbolism, to which readers can interpret the types of feelings that she is having in addition to the ones of the character in the story. From this, the sudden appearance of her death helps the reader understand the different implications of what the heroin felt, thus relaying to the connection with Jean Rhys life. As said by Myranda Grencinger (2012) the use of symbolism in this tale allows the emphasis on the ending, which had transported the theme of the narrative to the eyes of the reader; in addition, it had not only showed but also set the tone of the story. All in all, considering the author’s use of her writing style and techniques, genre and personality, we may conclude that the short story â€Å"I Used To Live Here Once† holds many secrets upon the feelings of the character. She had succeeded to include her particular techniques so that the reader can attempt to understand and reevaluate their view on a story. Whilst using specific types of imagery and juxtaposition throughout the story, Jean Rhys has been able to symbolize the connections with her life, thus showing more to the reader of the correlation between the woman and the author. However, none of these writings would create much sense and order to the story without the use of the ending revealing the true nature of the tale. Therefore, many understandings can be made on the life of the author through reading this narrative – but to which extent can an author always create portraits of their life in stories, and how clear these can be understand will eventually depend on the imagination, styles and adventures of writers such as Jean Rhys.

What is British Cinema?

British cinema is the most respected industry in the world and has the impact on modern cinema. This industry is characterized by its constant debate about its distinctiveness which includes cultural and economic issues and the influence of American and European cinemas. The golden age of British cinema started in 1940 from the studios of Rank and Korda. This industry had given many actors, directors and many motion pictures (Curran and Porter, 1993). This paper covers certain aspects of British cinema industry and discusses two movies of the Drama genre released in 2009 and 2010.Both the movie is based on young generation that shows full of inspiration and enthusiasm for a particular dance form. The movies have been targeted to the youth and did good business. The movies also provided a good presentation of the present day’s culture in terms of settings, food, and clothing of characters, family types, issues faced by children in home and schools and others. These teenagers pr esented in this movie represent a different class of children altogether that have so much passion for their favorite art forms.In the recent past there have been lost of development in various forms of arts from music to dancing. Number of British, American, and Australian, Italian and many other singers and musicians are rocking the world with their music and the increased fan followings for these artists have increased. Teenagers are particularly inspired by them. The glamour of these arm forms attract millions to watch and perform. Discussion British cinema had faced the times of recession and boom. There are many factors which can be used to know the growth of this film industry.The growth can also be known by the number of movies produced. This cinema industry was boomed first time in 1910 but they again seen recession in 1920 just due to the competition with the US. The protective measures, which lead to the recovery and for the high production, Cinematograph Films Act 1927 h as been launched in 1936 Curran and Porter, 1993. As British cinema was just got recovered from the first waves of recession, it was hit by other recession waves in mid of 1970. This continued till 1980’s. Due to renewal of private and public investment, British cinema again got recovered in 1990’s.There were some movies produced during recession like Chariots of Fire (1981), which was the successful movie. Like this movie they have released many other movies and they were successful too. British industries have also launched the better technologies to edit the movie and now the movies are releasing in better picture quality. The movies have got worldwide success and these movies earn much higher as they have good picture quality, sound and the storyline like historical, cultural and artistic dimensions. These movies are also well known due to the educational behavior as these movies have some moral into it (Murphy, 2009).Many movies were produced in 2000’s but there were some movies which were highly appreciated by the viewers. Two of the movies are Fish Tank (2009) and Nowhere Boy (2009), which are from the same genre (drama) but the movies are based on the lives of teenage. Movie 1: Fish Tank (2009) Fish Tank is the movie which is based on the life of a teenage girl who got influenced by the street dancers and describes their dancing as being horrible. In this movie, Mia who is just 15 years old girl and living with her mother and sister on Essex Council Estate.She never go out of her estate as she was secured in her house because as she move out, the authorities starts troubling her and that’s why she had left her schooling. She just drinks cider most of the times, in her house. She only came out of her house when she does the street dancing otherwise she remain in her lonely flat and practice inside the house only. Once when she was roaming around in her estate, she saw a horse which was trying to get free but the horse was una ble to get free. She found it painful and brought the hammer to help the horse but she faced the anger of its three owners.Two of the owners have grabbed her to stop her but she get away from them after struggling with them. She got free just because of the dog of Mr. Billy, the third owner of the horse and explained everything to Mia. He told her that the horse is not thin but it is ill and it is in its last stage. After this meet they both have became friends. Connor, Mia’s mother’s boyfriend, while preparing the tea in the kitchen, interacted with Mia regarding the music video that Mia was watching. Connor works as the security guard in the hardware store and wanted to be a father figure for the two children.Connor always carries Mia to her room and also removes shoes and put blanket on her. Mia’s mother, Joanne, was enthusiastic as when she asked for the trip, both of the girls got ready to attend her mother and Tyler had shown much interest. When they were on trip, Connor asked about the animal and played the songs of California Dreaming. Mia always tried to impress Connor as when he was catching fish she helped him and also when her mother got hurt in the river, Connor avoided Joanne to give a piggy-back ride to Mia.Mia was slowly attracting towards Connor and she was having some thought in her mind related to Connor. She reacts angrily with the Connor and due to which Connor came to know that she is the witness of the intercourse between him and Mia’s mother. Connor borrowed the camera and gave that to Mia as she wants to go for the auditions of the local dance. In between that time Mia came across the social worker who was introduced by her mother to restart her schooling which she had left. But Mia refused to go and had a drink from kitchen and went out of house.She had seen the video on street dancing on YouTube and took the help of Billy to search the car parts to buy the alcohol for her self. After she sent her video, sh e received the call for the audition. When they were celebrating by having the drink, Connor asked Mia to show her dance steps. She performed on California dreaming and was asked by Connor to sit along with him. As Joanne went upstairs, Connor and Mia had sex and then he was embarrassed by the thing he had done with Mia. So he told her not to reveal the secret to Joanne.The very next day she came to know from her mother and Tyler that Connor had left and Mia knows the place where she can find Connor. Mia found him in his house in Tilbury and talked with him so he told her that he is unable to go back again to her mother which directly indicates that he doesn’t even want to meet Mia again. She didn’t made any issue of the age difference but Connor given her money before the goodbye kissing and left her to the station to get herself back home. She wasn’t ready to back her home but she again reached to the Connor’s home from the back window and entered into it as she found it empty.In Connor’s house, she came to know that Connor is married and also he’s having the daughter named, Keira and she had a call of nature over there on the floor. Mia then came out of the house and made a move but she have seen Keira playing on her scooter, also she convinced Keira to set off across the field along with her that she’ll give her an ice-cream as told by the Keira’s mother to Mia. Keira started kicking Mia as they were running through the field and approaching towards river. As Keira became upset, then she started troubling Mia, and as Mia got frustrated, she pushed her and Keira fallen down into the river.Then Mia saved Keira with the help of the Branch of the tree otherwise Keira might have drawn completely. After saving Keira, they both returned back towards the home as the Keira was wet and feeling cold too. Then in between their way to home, Connor arrived and slapped Mia and pushes back her. He then took Keira and drive back towards the home. Many days have been passed and then Mia came to the audition for which she had been called and seen the exotic dancer performing. Her turn came and she came on stage and music started.Then she had seen the fellow semi-nude auditionees and she walked off from the stage and went out to find Billy. She came to know that the horse which she cared for was dead and started weeping. Then Billy came and tried to stop her weeping and ask her to accompany him as he was leaving for Cardiff. Mia got ready and packed her bags and after having a dance with her mother and sister on the song â€Å"Life is a Bitch and then you die†, she went off. While she was leaving her mother didn’t reacted as she said good bye and then she sat with Billy and drive away for the new life.The movie is full of drama and sequence of events that keeps the interest of audiences. Mia in the Fish Tank is struggling with her own emotions, desires and issues of morality. The clim ax of the movie is a mixer of the feelings where in one hand she leaves the audition that was for erotic dancer, her favourite horse dies and she decides to move ahead to explore better opportunity and before that she enjoys with her family. Movie 2 Another movie which was also based on the same genre was â€Å"Nowhere Boy†. In this movie a teenage boy, Johnson, got success just because of his aunt and uncle.His aunt, Mimi, who is loving, inspirational and reserved kind of woman while her husband, George, is companion for the lively and intelligent boy. John was overwhelmed, when her uncle died due to cancer. During the funeral, John met his cousin Stan who showed him the place where his mother lives and was shocked that the house is nearby to his aunt’s and there he met Julia. Julia was fun loving girl whereas her aunt was strict. Julia’s clothes and her hair have the matching which work as the attraction for John towards Julia. The relationship became deeper b etween Julia and John which was unfair to Mimi.Julia teaches John to play Banjo and also introduced him to â€Å"Rock n Roll†. Mimi unknowingly bought a guitar for John and due to which he failed to improve in the school and was suspended. Then he moved along with Julia to her home where he met with Bobby. In that night he heard Julia and Bobby’s conversation with which he recognized that Julia is soft hearted and next day she again moved back to her aunt’s house. Then he met with the young guitarist who just looks like a twelve years old kid but he can play the guitar better than any other band.They started the rehearsals together and the band also started creating buzz. Soon he started getting fame and he enjoyed that. Then on Julia’s birthday, he met her after a long time span and found out the truth that why he got irritated in his life. And after that his life started moving smoothly and he got success to every point. The movie shows the struggle of the teenager to deal with the past and move ahead with life. The events and the presentation of events have been very impressive in entire movie.In both the movies, the main aspect was to show the life of the teenage girl and a boy that how the society deals with. In Fish Tank, Mia was the girl who got admired by the street dancers who were performing and in Nowhere Boy also, John got admired from the guitarist who can be able to play much better than the band. And in both the movies, director had shown clearly that the future is influenced by the past. So Mia got tensed in the movie Fish Tank as she heard that Connor had left them and in Nowhere Boy, John was also got irritated due to his past.These movies was generally built for the young generation people as they already have pressure of studies and their hobbies and what they want to be in their life. Society also provide pressure to them which result in making pressure in the mind of the child and due to this many children left studying and they got distracted from their hobbies too. Reference British Film Industry available at http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/in_depth/entertainment/2003/british_film_industry/default. stm Curran and Porter, 1993 British Cinema History, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 9-23Murphy, R. ed. , 2009 The British Cinema Book, London: BFI, 1-64, 65-142 Fish Tank official website http://www. michaelfassbender. org/episodesfte. html http://www. hollywoodreporter. com/hr/film-reviews/fish-tank-film-review-1003973214. story Image Fish Tank from http://www. movieroar. com/images/fish-tankpster1. jpg Nowhere Boy Movie Review http://www. futuremovies. co. uk/review. asp? ID=1110 No Where Boy movie details available at http://www. nowhereboy. co. uk/ http://www. hollywoodreporter. com/hr/film-reviews/nowhere-boy-film-review-1004031851. story

How the Internet has aided criminal activity Essay

How the Internet has aided criminal activity - Essay Example codes; the creation of false bank accounts; theft of personal information and misuse of the stolen information; the virus infection created on computers that can hamper the proper software operations and damage records (Computer-Based Crime, 2011). This paper will give specific examples of criminal activities through the use of computers and the internet; will cite how yesterday’s non-digital crime, as in the case of pornography, has become today’s menacing digital crime; and will discuss some types of computer crimes, such as identity theft, phishing scam, virus and malicious software. September 11 Attack. The execution of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, which claimed an estimated 3, 120 lives from over 90 countries around the world, (US Department of State, 2002), is a form of cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorism is the unauthorized attack and risk against computers, networks, and the stored information purposely executed to threaten or force a government, a nation or its people to advance one’s political or social intentions. Cyberterrorist attacks demonstrate power and aggressively threaten or harm persons or property (Denning, 2000). Juvenile Computer Hacker Disabled FAA Tower at Regional Airport. In Boston, Massachusetts, a juvenile hacked the computer system of a telephone company servicing the Worcester Airport. A series of commands sent from the hacker’s computer immobilized the FAA control tower for six hours in March 1997 (US Department of Justice, 1998). Release of Computer Worm Attacked Microsoft Corporation. In September 2003, a juvenile was arrested for releasing a variant of the Blaster computer worm that directly infected computers worldwide to commence a distributed denial of service attack against the Microsoft Corporation (US Department of Justice, 2003). More than four decades ago, open, unusual or violent pornography was restricted to adult bookstores and movie houses. It could be only be viewed and circulated in

Skull Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Skull - Essay Example The prosthion is the lowermost point on the maxilla, between the two front incisors. The inion is the place on the back of the skull that is the grates t distance away from the front of the skull. Indices calculated are the index of supraorbital height, index of nuchal area height and the index of condylar conditions. The index of supraorbital height is the relationship between the distance of the Frankfort plane to the highest point of the skull and the distance of the top of the eye orbit to the top of the skull; a high number indicates a high forehead or a tall head while a low number indicates a slanted skull. The index of nuchal area is the relationship between the distance of the Frankfort plane to where the inion lies on the back of the skull and the distance of the Frankfort to the highest point on the skull; a high number indicates a short nuchal area while a low number indicates a tall nuchal area. The index of the condylar position is the relationship between the porion and the back of the skull and porion and the front of the skull; a high number indicates the foramen magnum is at the center of the skull while a low number indicates the foramen is closer to the back of the skull. The marked locations were then connected with fine lines using a sharp pencil. A line was drawn to intersect the porion and the lowest point on the lower margin of the eye orbit. A line was also drawn to from the inion, perpendicular to the line drawn above (Frankfort Plane) and the point of intersection labeled as Y. Another line was drawn from the occipital condyles perpendicular to the Frankfurt Plane and the point of intersection labeled X. Another line was drawn from the prosthion perpendicular to the Frankfort plane and the point of intersection labeled Z. Another line was drawn from the Frankfort plane to the highest point of the upper margin of the eye and the point labeled V and U. The lengths of the line were then measured,

The theme of the story The Curse by Andre Dubus Essay

The theme of the story The Curse by Andre Dubus - Essay Example Mitchell Hayes is a forty-nine year old bartender who unexpectedly confronts an unfortunate event one evening right before closing. He is the stepfather of a teenage boy and girl. Five men arrive on motorcycles and order beers. Mitchell believes that they used drugs. Now one young woman comes to the bar to buy cigarettes and asks Mitchell for change. All of a sudden the bikers attack the woman and rape her brutally on the floor. Mitchell takes no action until the brutes leave the scene. He now approaches the woman and tries to comfort her. He now calls the police and his manager Bob. Mitchell is familiar with the police officer Smitty, for they were classmates in high school. Mitchell confesses that he could have done something to stop the crime. However, Smitty says that if he had intervened, he too would have been attacked by the thugs. Mitchell arrives home with a guilty mind. He tells his wife Susan what happened at the bar, and shares his thoughts with her. Susan also tells him that he has acted wisely by not responding to the criminals all by himself. However, their words do not pacify his soul as he believes that his nonresponsive was a sin. Mitchell is affected by guilty conscience despite his friend’s suggestion that intervention was the duty of police. He is â€Å"fatigue beyond relieving by rest, by sleep† after the incident (Dubus). The writer throws light on the rotten cultural facet of the US society and invites his readers to ponder the ethical parameters they have set. Mitchell represents the common man having tender feelings and compassion to his fellow creatures, but who at the same time is constrained by external pressures. The rapists symbolize male chauvinism and discrimination that are prevalent in every sphere of social life in the United States. Realism is the main feature of Dubus’ story. He deploys third person narration for the major part of the story with intent to give more

Lean Operations Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Lean Operations Assignment - Essay Example The market if affected by customer demands and availability of equipments. The industry has grown to be one of the largest aircraft assembles in the world. Most customers prefer boeing as their choice of aircraft assembling. Major changes in the boieng industry include the introduction of small and more efficient machines that take less time to assemble the aircraft. Other changes include new decisions by enginners that create better airplanes for the future. The Issues that surround Boeing include delays in incoming materials, defective parts, assembling errors that are related to excessive number of parts, lack of repeatability and action tracker issues. Other issues include the consolidation process by engineers. Single line consolidation is complex and costly to engineers in terms of installing and maintaining. Another issue is the lack of a hard focus on value stream identity for dominant plane configurations and the customers. Another issue is mixing Line 1 and Line 2 in the same value streams. Accommodating many orders into a single assembly line can stretch out the average lead times. The author suggests that if the product line is manufactured in four modestly sized buildings, then enlarge one of them enough to accommodate all the products under one roof, then this prevents complexities that come along in single line.The author further states that Line 1 and Line 2 should be organized into separate value streams. Line 1 should be dedicated to high runner configuration and Line 2 to dogs and cats configurations so as to prioritize the customer orders. To reduce the issue of time and delays on incoming materials, ship action trackers should be installed to monitor the progress of

Jackson Pollocks and Yunhee Tohs Painting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Jackson Pollocks and Yunhee Tohs Painting - Essay Example One of the most striking similarities between Pollock and YunheeToh in their paintings is that both of these artists took a divergent painting approach as compared to the common painting methods. Toh abandoned the materials that are usually used in painting, which were pencils and brushes and used her hands in creating this painting. Toh used her hands in an attempt to create artistic expressions that were accurate and direct. She opted to use her hands on this painting because she felt that graphite drawings were more time consuming and did not bring out the art form that she desired. Pollock on the other hand, was a liquid painter who later used paint pouring as an emerging technique on his canvases, which became his signature ‘drip’ technique. In this painting, Pollock paved the way for what was later to become the action painting term where the artist deviated from painting on a mounted canvas to working on it on the studio floor. The similarity between these two pai ntings is that the creation of both of them happened from new dimensions as these artists challenged the Western tradition of using the painting brush and easel. Pollock was an extremist, especially because he went against the conventional painting techniques meaning that he was not afraid to explore. The One: Number 31, 1950 is a unique painting as Pollock did not make his painting brush to interact with the canvas through the strokes being able to create the elements of art. Additionally, Pollock’s painting was quite extreme.

Merger and Acquisition Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Merger and Acquisition - Research Proposal Example This proposal considers the factors that drive firms to buy or merge with others, or to split-off or sell parts of their own businesses and the resulting tax consequences for firms and for investors. The main motive behind buying a firm is to create shareholder value above and over that of the sum of the two companies. The main assumption behind merging two companies is that two companies together are more productive than two separate companies. This underlying principle is particularly attractive to firms when the going is tough as has been the case for some of the companies in the prevailing economic crisis. Strong firms will opt buy other firms to create a more competitive, cost-efficient firm. The firms will merge with the intention of gaining a greater market share or to achieve greater efficiency. Due to these potential advantages, target firms will most of the time agree to be purchased when they are aware that they cannot survive alone. In fact merging or being acquired may b e the only way for some smaller and less established firms to survive this prevailing economic crisis. A merger occurs when two companies, most of the time roughly the same size, agree to proceed as a single new firm rather than be separately owned and operated. This sort of procedure is more accurately referred to as a "merger of equals". The stocks of both the firms are surrendered and novel company stock is issued in its place (Tibergien, 2006). For example, both Daimler-Benz and Chrysler ceased to exist when the two companies merged, and a new firm, DaimlerChrysler, was born. Although most of the time they are used in the same context and used as though they were synonymous, there is a slight difference in meaning the terms merger and acquisition. When a firm purchases and clearly establishes itself as the new owner, the taking over is called an acquisition. From a legal perspective, the target company ceases to exist, the buyer company takes over the business and the buyer's stock continues to be traded. In real world however, actual mergers of equals don't happen that regularly. Usually, one firm will buy another and, as part of the deal's terms, simply allow the acquired firm to declare that the action is a merger of equals, even though technically it's an acquisition (Donald, 2008). Being bought out most of the time has its negative implications, as a result, by defining the deal as a merger, deal makers and the top management attempt to make the acquisition more pleasant. A purchase deal will also be called a merger if both CEOs agree that joining together is in the best interest of both of their companies. But when the target company does not want to be purchased-that is when the deal is unfriendly - it is all the time considered as an acquisition. Whether a purchase is regarded a merger or an acquisition actually depends on whether the purchase is friendly or hostile and how it is announced. That is the actual difference is in how the purchase is communicated to and received by the target company's top management, other workers and shareholders. The economic crisis and anticipated slowdown in spending has made a number of firms that have great technology but weak balance sheets seek the shelter of a merger or an

Molecular biology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Molecular biology - Essay Example (Unemo & Nicholas, 2012). The developing multi drug resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the severe symptoms of the gonococcal infections, added to the socioeconomic burden and epidemiologically threatening aspects of the disease; drug resistance gonorrhea, its detection and diagnosis has acquired immense significance (Blomquist, et al., 2014). It is important to focus on preventing the spread of resistant forms as part of disease management. An essential requirement for controlling spread is enhancing surveillance through better diagnostic methods for identification and isolation of disease resistant pathogens. This project aims to introduce a novel method of diagnosis of drug resistance in clinical isolates of gonorrhea. The method presented in this paper involves the use of Tiling array for diagnosis of drug resistance in clinical isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The protocol is based on similar technology already used for development of protocols for drug resistance in other organisms. Tiling array is a derivation of microarray technology developed by Kapranov and colleagues (2002) and Shoemaker and colleagues (2001) that facilitates identification of previously unidentified transcripts through genome wide annotations. The initial euphoria associated with the utility and significance of antibacterial and antimicrobial drugs seems to fade with the rise in the bacterial strains exhibiting resistance to single as well as multiple drugs. Hence drug resistance has become an exponentially rising global health hazard rendering world population once again vulnerable to the threats of common diseases (Levy & Marshall, 2004). Both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria have been known to exhibit multi-drug resistance leaving health care providers with no antimicrobial therapeutic agents ensuring control and management of

Is Thai Airways going to bankruptcy Research Paper

Is Thai Airways going to bankruptcy - Research Paper Example uld take up shares with the business, beginning April 1, 1988, to be the major shareholder with an estimated 51.03% of the company’s shareholdings, while the remaining 48.97% is owned by investors in the domestic and foreign markets, also including the company’s employees (THAI, 2013). Through the years, the company has experienced various challenges, benefits, and implemented different strategies to remain competitive and profitable in a highly competitive international market (Shoffner, Shelly, & Cooke, 2011). There is speculation that Thai Airways may be going bankrupt, following several challenges in generation of revenue. Different scholars and publications have closely followed the progress of the company, often making speculations, and detailing the actions taken by various entities in an effort to prevent the company from going bankrupt. The impeding bankruptcy of the airline follows a number of decisions made by the company, with respect to the market forces. T he extent to which the investors are willing to get involved in the recovery efforts will determine the probability and possibility of the company failing. In this study, the aim is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the company finances and situation to establish the basis of bankruptcy claims and probabilities. Thai Airways is an entity in the transportation industry, such that the ministry of transport manages the domestic, regional and international routes. The nature of the venture means that the products and services offered include air passenger, cargo and mail transport, warehouse, ground passage, ground equipment, and catering and maintenance services. Although the company is renowned for the air passenger services, the other services serve to support this core service. Under the service, the company has witnessed growth in the customers as well as fleet of airplanes, but challenges have resulted in premonitions on the company’s bankruptcy. Improvements to the services offered and

Marble Chip Investigation Essay Example for Free

Marble Chip Investigation Essay Fair Test To make it a fair test and make my results more accurate I will try and keep all variables constant except the concentration of the acid. This will include weighing the marble chips every time and trying to use lumps of roughly the same size to keep the surface area fairly constant as a change in surface area will affect the rate of reaction. I will try and avoid a change in temperature and I will use the same equipment throughout the tests. Each concentration will be repeated at least once to improve accuracy as an average can be taken. Research The rate of reaction depends upon two factors, the number of collisions within a time between the reactants, and the fraction of these collisions that are successful. Therefore, the higher the concentration of the reactants, the higher the rate of reaction because there will be an increased number of collisions, this is called collision theory. However, for the reaction between the two reactants to be successful, they must collide with enough energy to react, the energy needed to react is known as  activation energy. This can be shown on a graph like the one below, I believe this graph is similar to what the energy diagram would be for my investigation. This shows that my chemical reaction will be exothermic, therefore it will release more energy than it uses to react. Therefore, at a higher concentration, there will be more reactions releasing energy in the form of heat that will enable more particles to reach their activation energy level and react. This shows that the rate of reaction will increase with the concentration of acid. Prediction After having done some research I feel that I can make an education prediction concerning what will happen during my investigation. I predict that the higher the concentration of acid I use, the faster the rate of reaction will be. I think this because the higher the concentration is, the more acid particles there will be to collide with the marble chip with enough energy to cause a reaction as explained in collision theory. I also believe that the rate of reaction will increase with concentration of acid because the chemical reaction I am doing is an exothermic reaction. Therefore, it will release energy as the reactions take place, this will give more energy to other particles around it and will cause the reaction to speed up as more particles reach their activation energy and collide with enough energy to react. Preliminary test results I started with 10g of marble chip and 100cm3 of 2M acid, the reaction was too fast and could not be accurately measured. I then tried 3g of marble chip with the same amount of 2M acid (100cm3), this worked fine, however, when the 0.4M concentration was tested the reaction was too slow and could not be accurately measured due to our scale. I then tried 6g of marble chip and it gave 135 cm3 of CO2 with the 2M concentration and 5 cm3 of CO2 with the 0.4M concentration. I felt that this would give us a good range of results so I  stuck with those measurements based on my preliminary tests. Observations When we had done our experiment we realised that we could benefit from some tests with other concentrations of acid to increase accuracy. Therefore we decided to do tests with 1.8M, 1.4M, 1M, 0.6M and 0.2M acid. However, when we did these tests they produced a much higher volume of carbon  dioxide than we would expect from our previous results. I came to the conclusion that this would have to be down to a change in one of the variables. Looking at the variables it was possible that it could have been temperature or surface area of the marble chips that caused the change, but as there had not been any large change in these variables it was unlikely that they would have such a clear affect on the results. After doing a few tests I found that it was the acid that I was using that had affected the results, I had started on a new batch of acid as the previous bottle had run out. Even though both batches of acid were labelled as being 2M, it was clear that one was stronger than the other and therefore increased the rate of reaction as the chance of acid particles colliding with the marble chip had been increased as there were more acid particles. Due to this, I plotted there results as a separate line, however, the results still show the same pattern and are therefore still useful in concluding the relation between gas given off and the concentration of acid, as explained by collision theory. Conclusion As you can see on the graph, both lines go up in a smooth curve. This shows that there is a correlation between concentration of acid and the volume of gas given off. As the concentration of acid increases so does the volume of gas, therefore they are proportional. The gradient of the line gets steeper as the concentration increases, this means that there was a larger increase of gas produced between 1.6M and 2M, than there was between 0.4M and 0.8M, even though the increase in concentration of acid was 0.4M in both. The graph shows that at higher concentrations of acid, more carbon dioxide was produced but in the same amount of time. This shows that at higher concentrations, the rate of reaction must have been faster to produce more products in the same time period. This can be explained by collision theory and the ideas on activation energy that I explained in my research and prediction. In my prediction I said that more gas would be given off with a higher  concentration, these results show that I was correct. This is because due to collision theory, in a low concentration of acid the acid particles are spread far apart. This means that there is very little chance of acid particles colliding with the marble chip with enough energy to react. In a high concentration, the acid particles are closer together as there is more of them within the same volume. This means that there is a much higher chance of collision with the marble chip, and there is more energy due to the energy being produced by the reaction, which is exothermic, this causes the reaction to be faster. This can be seen in my results, the 2M acid gave an average of 134.75cm3 of carbon dioxide, where the 0.4M concentration only gave an average of 4cm3 of carbon dioxide. The rate of reaction is reduced by a decrease of particles within the same space. Evaluation Accuracy of results I feel that my experiment was accurate because the results made a smooth curve on my graph. I did have a problem with the 1.8M, 1.4M, 1M, 0.6M and 0.2M acid results, as the acid appeared to be stronger than it was labelled. However, I resolved this problem by plotting the results as a separate line on my graph and they still showed a very similar curve to the other one showing the same relation between concentration of acid and the volume of gas given off. This shows that it was probably just the concentration of the acid that caused the problem and not my execution of the experiment that caused the results to be slightly different than what was expected. I think that my results could have been better as there was some variation between my four results for each of 2M, 1.6M, 1.2M, 0.8M, and 0.4M. However I do not feel this problem is major as the variations were relatively small as is shown by the error margins drawn on my graph, but there is still room for improvement. Possible Improvements If I was to do this investigation again I would try and keep some of the variables constant that I had less control over. The investigation was carried out over a few days so the classroom temperature may have varied. This could have had a slight effect on the rate of reaction making my results less accurate. Although the marble chips were roughly the same size they werent all exactly the same shape. If I could find a way to make the marble chips all the same shape and size then the investigation would be fairer as the surface area of the marble chips would be constant. If I was to do this investigation again I would try and use only one batch of acid for the whole experiment because as I found out, the acid supplied isnt always exactly the strength that it says it is. I would also try to use a more accurate piece of equipment to measure the volume of gas produced, using a measuring cylinder did not provide the best accuracy that was open to me. I could have achieved a higher level of accuracy with a buret.

Understanding Abuse Individual Assessment

Understanding Abuse Individual Assessment In day to day life abuse activities are growing rapidly and the measures to prevent them are also getting more specific .The exercise of power by the state on this sector is the most important thing to solve this problem. The government bodies are making different plans, policies to prevent abuse and create a healthier society and the nation. Mckibbin et al (2008) states that range of legislation and policies are designed to protect individual, groups, and vulnerable adults from abuse these are- The Care Standard Act 2000 Confidentiality policy Whistle Blowing Policy Physical Intervention Policy Complaint Procedure in Care Home Confidently and disclosure Trust is an integral part of our ability to provide consistent high standards of care and such it must not be broken. A persons trust is not a right but a special privilege, which means you must exercise care and thought in your handling of confidence. You must never divulge a confidence placed in you by a service user, colleague, relative etc. Only where the nature of the confidence may have a detrimental impact upon the standard of care should consider passing it on and then only to the registered Manager, never anyone else. Due to the nature of the work that is conducted within the home, and the confidentiality of information passes between residents, medical staff and statutory agencies and workers, all staff are required to sign a confidentiality agreement whereby you agree not to disclose any information relating to any resident without first obtaining permission from the resident and their assigned worker. Physical intervention policy Working with people who can behave aggressively has always presented management difficulties for staff. Some of the people that we work for occasionally behave in a way that leaves us no option but to intervene physically for their own or others safety. Every effort must be made to ensure that potentially volatile situations are avoided using non-confrontational approaches aimed at enabling the resident to take responsibility for his/her actions and consequences that follow. As a staff team we work together to reduce risks around violence and look at ways in which we can do this. Primarily, this is done by writing with Care Plans. The Care Plan needs to outline the aims and methods to be used with residents to gain achievements and life goals. When writing Care Plans, Risk Assessments will be a functional part of this process. Both Care Plans and Risk Assessments need to reflect the principles of OBrien and Wolfensberger regarding the provision of normalizing services. Once a comprehensive Care Plan package is in place the staff team are able to work with a clear and defined approach offering consistent care and support to the people we work with. The recording of incidents is a vital process in the safety of the staff. All episodes of violence must be recorded. Staff are made aware of these procedures and the following must always be completed:- Accident Book Incident and Violent Episodes Forms By the correct recording of Violent Episodes (VE) staff can look at the antecedents to behaviours in relation to the consequences. Often it is possible to develop strategies for reducing incidents in relation to this. Incident and Violent Episode Forms give the staff team the opportunity to reflect and access. Feedback and support is given in the form of supervision. All staff receives regular supervision every two to three weeks. This allows staff the opportunity to access their actions and reflect on work practice. When looking at violence toward staff, there are a number of preventive measures that need to be considered and put into practice. These are:- Ensuring the staffing levels is appropriate to the task. If there is a high risk, evaluate whether levels are adequate and if not have the flexibility to have extra staff on one given shift. Rotating high risk jobs thus ensuring the same person is not always at risk. The team should also have the ability to evaluate a task and decide what action if any is necessary. Make sure a senior member of staff on duty can make quick decisions if necessary. Ensuring the whole staff team is aware of particular guidelines, Risk Assessments and Care Plans. Making available the appropriate information for a particular task to be understood so that this can be undertaken with minimal risk. Staff training is essential for all aspects of our jobs and can give staff some of the necessary tools for coping with and lessening violence. This should encourage a more positive body language and this in turn should lessen violent episodes within the service. We clarify with all residents that violent behaviour is not acceptable however we shall not judge or condemn their behaviour. You must acquaint yourself with and abide by all and each of the issues current for the time being of the Companys Using Physical Intervention Policy. The Company revises all such policy and procedural documents on a regular basis responding to changes in contemporary care practice, the needs of the Company and the needs to ensure continued efficiency. The responsibility to maintain awareness of and act upon on-going revision of such documents remains wholly that of the individual staff member. Although these various statements and procedures are not formally expressed terms of your Contract of Employment, compliance is regarded as important by the Company and failure to abide by the same way lead to disciplinary action. Other policies Legislation implements by the Care Standard Act 2000 and the CQC aims to ensure that care home operates in a legal way in the release of care to the customers. Health and Safety at work Act 1974 is to give and preserve safe and healthy working conditions in workplace. Data Protection Act 1998, it is applies confidentiality. Disclosure Act 1998 about abuse and whistle blowing. The Human Rights Act 1998 shows a whole range of rights and freedom of people. DOH (1998) Strengths and weaknesses in current legislation and policies: In every policies and programmes there can be strength and weakness side so it s the important factor to identify which one is strength and weakness factor . We can make our strength more stronger and decrease or eliminate the weakness when we are well known about these factors. Here are some of the strength and weakness factors in current legislation and policies; CRB Check (Adult protection): CRB and POVA will give that the employee (candidate criminal offence report) but it is doing only in the UK. When candidate from abroad did crime there in his back home country, CRB in UK wont show those crimes, in that case its better to check the foreign police clearance certificate as well. Whistle Blowing Policy: Its the way to Improve the legislation practices and is a democratic option to build a healthier policy. But in some cases whistle blowing can create misunderstanding between the staffs and can decrease the motivation and security of the employees and can lead to worse condition as well. Complaint Procedure: It will improve the service at the same time most demented people wont be able to complaint due to their disability Residential Care Home Manager Managers may direct workers directly or they may direct several supervisors who direct the workers. The manager must be familiar with the work of all the groups he/she supervises, but does not need to be the best in any or all of the areas. It is more important for the manager to know how to manage the workers than to know how to do their work well. Annie Phillips (2003) Manager should have sufficient qualification and experience and no bad remark in Criminal record Bureau (CRB) records. (Frances 2004). Customers may be various and to meet the variety of their requirements, as a manager we have to be clear about what exactly each is seeking, what is needed is a way of thinking about the array of customers of residential care home. Social care council The general social care council is responsible for registration of all social care workers. The council regulates their conduct and their training. It will support for the setting and maintaining good practice standards. (Frances 2004). With having higher powers of operation in this sector social care council should be highly responsible for the better conduct and operation of the activities. Care Assistant These group of people are the direct responsible groups who cafà © the target group so they should be well trained, and to be as per the standard set by the council. Workers should free from CRB and required to register with the council and need to be appropriately qualified (minimum NVQ 2) Should be able to give personal care, followed best practice, allow the residents to maintain their dignity, privacy and respected their individuality through out. (Frances 2004) Working practice and strategies used to minimise abuse Answer 3 Approaches To Adult Protection There are many working practices implemented to minimise abuse in Health and Social Care Sectors the practices follows Adams (2007) states that in England, multiagency codes of practice aiming to tackle and prevent abuse of vulnerable adults developed in the light of the publication of the official guidance No Secrets (DOH and Home Office,2000). Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) Adams (2007) states that The protection of vulnerable adults (POVA) scheme was introduced in England and Wales in a phased programme from 2004,as required in the Care Standard Act 2000.This formed a list of persons considered not fitting to with vulnerable adults in England and Wales. People considered harmful to vulnerable adults could be referred by health and social care setting managers or employers of care for enclosure on the inventory These providers also could request for checks alongside the POVA list as part of an application for a CRB disclosure regarding persons apply for vacancies in care work. National minimum Standard were introduced for residential care Under the POVA actions safeguarding adults partnership have been set up from 2005 in each CQC area. Alerts may be triggered by inspectors, sometimes when inspecting or investigating a complaint. Safeguarding inspectors will deal with any safeguarding adults matters arising from this. Where there are concerns about the fitness of the manager of an establishment, registered person, or service or a breach of the Care Standard Act 2000, the CQC could be the main investigating agency. A safeguarding plan should be produced through a case conference, normally reviewed within six months. Complaint Procedures Registered providers of health and social care services are bound by law to produce a complaints procedure, specifying how service users, carers or patients can complain about the services. The procedure normally involves the complaint being investigated or responded to first by the service provider, although if the complaint is made to CQC inspection. The CQC may decide itself to carry out an investigation. Whistle blowing This usually involves a person making public some aspect of a group or organisation which they feel is wrong, dangerous, deficient or otherwise needing putting right through public attention. It is the activity of telling a third party, apart from colleagues or the employer, about malpractice. It will be unusual if any worker in the health and social care services does not come across some aspect of whistle blowing. This can arise directly or indirectly in three major ways, where: You are the whistleblower: you notice practice you feel is not acceptable and you consider telling a third party, outside the line management, about it. A colleague is the whistleblower: you see another person blowing the whistle on practices they consider unacceptable. The whistle is blown about practice involving you: where someone complains about, or blow the whistle on, some practice with which youre connected. Case Conferences Pritchard (1996) states that Case conference is very imp[ortant in to prevent abuse. A case conference brings people together to share their views and to discuss their work.It should be a forum where people can discuss their concerns,vent their feelings and anxieties and support each other. It is also a tool for organising future intervention. In summary the main purposes of a case conference are to: Exchange information in a multi disciplinary forum Assess the cliens situation and the degree of risk Make decidion and recommendation which are to be implemented Participants attending a case conference have several tasks to perform, namely: To give and share information The information given must be accurate.the participants gives factual information about the people they know( victim,abuser,or other important personnel). Obviousely participants voice their concerns,but they must also highlight the strength of a situation not just the negatives. Any gaps in information should always be identified and acknowledged. To assess the level of risk While handling a case of suspected abuse always need to do a risk assesment it is very important in case conference. Decide on registration Few authorities have at risk register for adults.where they do exist conference participants must know what know what the defined criteria are for putting a person name on the register. Co ordinate future intervention This will involve the formulation of a plan,which will state the tasks and responcibilities of everyone who will be involved. The keyworker will be responcible for ensuring that the plan s implemented and reconvening the case conference if there are difficulties in implementing the plan. Following are some suggestion for further improvements in working practices to minimise abuse in health and social care context When any one going to works for health and social care setting thet must check against POVA and CRB. POVA they can check new staffs with the provisional body whether they are free from Abusive offence in the United kingdom but here there is a drawback in case if the new employee is from outer United kingdom it will be harder to find whether the employee had any Abusive offence in their country. So we can ask particular employee to give references and police clearance from their own country. So as employer of the organisation get a full detail of the new employee further more every employee must have a proper relevant training such as Manual handling, Adult protection and many more so as manager of the organisation make sure all the staffs are well trained for the job and the manager must do supervision and appraisal the the employee. Whistle blowing is a good practice and it also got some disadvantages for an example in a residential care home all employees are from a certain country and in this team no one whistle blow about their country people to prevent this the manager always employ different ethnicity employees to the organisation and manager educate their staff about abuse. Communication and working in partnership is very important in minimising/preventing abuse in health and social care if not there are many more cases like Baby P,Victoria Climbie can happen future. 1 identify and review exiting working practice and strategies designed to minimalism abuse in health and social care context As we know abuse is a violation of an individuals human and civil rights by any other person or persons. So these violations should be restricted and some of the strategies to limit the abuse are being implemented everyday. Its very important to identify the practices and strategies to minimise abuse in health and social care sector. Some of the practices and strategies are as follows. Safeguarding vulnerable adults: These special group of people need support from the society and nation and its the responsibility of the nation to protect them and help them to live. Domestic violence: Domestic violence has remained as a chronic problem in social sector. Strong support of family, friends and society are the base for preventing this problem. Government has also made strict rules regarding the domestic violence. Racial harassment: Any type of behaviors that makes you feel distressed, alarmed or afraid can be categorized as harassment. This can include: verbal abuse, such as name-calling, insults or racist jokes vandalism and racist graffiti nuisance phone calls, texts or emails bullying, intimidation and threats Physical abuse or violence. Working practice Verbal and oral communication Communication both with the service provider and user, involved in their care and support is necessary if any potential for harm and abuse is to be minimised. Care must be taken when communicating information, verbally to ensure it remains confidential. For example that is not overheard by others. Written records must be kept in secure place and only accessible to that person who need to know or are responsible for those communications. Use of IT in sharing information between professionals Now days mostly health and social care organisation use computer to keep data about service user. It is important to make sure that data remains protected under the Data Protection Act 1998. Important information specially documents of abuses which are highly sensitive and disclosure of this information can be occurred harm for victims, should be stored by using password. Any kind of data share between professional must be informed individuals before sharing. Anti-oppressive practice In relation to supporting and protecting adult from abuse important information should not be withheld from those who have a right to that information. According to the British Law a person is innocent until it is proved that is guilty and it is important therefore that worker and other do not jump to conclusion or make assumption about a persons guilt. Adult Protection procedures are in place to make sure that no one is treated in oppressive manner which is abuse itself. So before knowing the abuser its not legal to assume them. Anti-discriminatory practice Everybody should take care in avoiding any kind of discriminatory practice when identifying, reporting and acting to protect individual from abuse. Individual legal right is that when investigating any case of abuse involve with them, they should free from any kind of blame and miss judgment. Frame work of assessment The aim of framework of assessment is protecting vulnerable people. There are different types of framework can save people from being abused. To minimise abuse in institutional care recruiting is so important. Proper selection of employee can reduce abuse in many ways, the process of selecting POVA employee can be clarified as follows; Is it a care position set out sub sec. 80(2) (c) of the Care Standard Act? Continue with recruitment/selection process including CRB disclosure where Appropriate Conduct recruitment /selection process including CRB check No Yes Await CRB disclosure and conformation of POVA check. Is it a care position set out sub sec. 80(2) (c) of the Care Standard Act? Yes No Apply for POVA first check as waiting would put provider of care breach of statutory staffing requirements POVA first check shows that a person with the same name and date of birth is on the POBA list Yes No No Do not offer employment in a care position in a care home or with a domiciliary agency No Offer employment subject to CRB disclosure and conformation of the POVA check Await CRB disclosure and final POVA check. Offer (or confirm) employment in a care position in a care home or with a domiciliary care agency Does CRB disclosure indicate that person should not be employed in a care position? Does conformation shows that applicant on the POVA list Strategies Working in partnership with service user Care sector agencies working in partnership is only part of the overall strategy to protect vulnerable adult from abuse. Enabling service users to recognise abuse and knowing how to alert others to this another important strategy. Decision making process and forums Local authority social service departments are responsible for adult protection and has set adult protection forum. If not then the local policy and procedure will describe the decision making process in situation where suspected or actual abuse require investigation. Strategy between professional and within organisation Working in partnership is also crucial, especially when the service user is accessing a number of different services. Effective communication between professional and organisation is important to ensure that the service user is protected. Communicating information about changes, significant event and action ensures that all those involved with supporting the service user are monitoring their well being so that they shouldnt be abused. Effectiveness of policies and strategies Use of IT in sharing information is protective and secure than traditional paper work besides to make quickest service use of technology is also important. Oral communication between care professional is remain confidential which means this information is not overheard by other people. Anti- oppressive practice and anti-discriminatory practice decrease chance of further abuse and frame work of assessment shows how to assess service user or assess employee before entering care work (POVA framework, diagram 1.1) Working in partnership within service user helps to stay closer with service user and give the opportunity to know their needs and demand. Multi agency working is very crucial to protect vulnerable adult from abuse which lacks in only one agency. Implications To do further improvement in care profession to protect vulnerable person from being abused local authority should closely monitor proper implementation of legislation. Care organisation shouldnt send care worker to the work, before making sure that they are skilled enough to work otherwise the same thing will happen what was happened in the case of Victoria climbie and Baby p. Those two children died in their early age under the same authority because of lack of experience of care worker. Conclusion: Abuse has very bad impact in the society. Without preventing abuse activities in the society its very hard to develop and development and civilization may get worst. It should be removed from our society by making sure the proper implementation of rules and legislation. We have to consider that abuse destroys individuals hopes, desires and interest of life and finally leads to a great social problem in the community and a nation. Recommendation Changing individuals mentality is most important to minimize abuse. Besides. working in partnership is also a way to diminish it. Step of government and help of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) is extremely needed to remove it and make it a permanent result. Thus as we know abuse is a social problem and cannot be solved through ones effort only so every members of society should play active roles in preventing abusive activities.

The Introduction Of Mamee Double Decker

The Introduction Of Mamee Double Decker Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad is a unique brand of good taste and fine quality. The company is recently listed in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchang (KLSE). The company manufactures many products which are Mamee Monster, Mamee Instant and Sllrrrp Noodles, Mister Potato Chips, Mister Potato Crisps and so on. All this products are already household names. The most famous product of the company is Mamee Monster. Mamee Monster is something like noodles with a pack of seasoning powder. This product consists of two flavours which are chicken and barbeque. Besides these two flavours, there is another new flavor like satay flavor. Between these three flavours, barbeque is the tastiest and many kids like it including us. Mamee Monster consists of jumbo pack; the jumbo packs are a new product and it is include two flavours like barbeque and the new one- curry flavour. These two flavours can stimulate our taste buds. Besides this honored, the company also promote a new product which is Mister Potato Rice Crisps. This new product can competes with others brand as well like Jacker and Pringles. Why do I say so? It is because this Mister Potato Rice Crisps is low fat and healthier compared with others potato chips. Jacker is good taste but salty and same goes to Pringles. This new product consists of four flavours such as, original, flame grilled bbq, hot and spicy as well as sour cream and onion. For people who likes chili can try hot and spicy flavor. For those who do not like heavy flavour can try original flavour. In an addition, Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad also has a product which is instant noodles-Mamee Sllrrrp. For this instant noodles have a variety of flavours such as ayam kampung, asam laksa, kari berapi and kari extra pedas. Any of the flavours will make people sllrrrp, sllrrp, sllrrrp when eating. Overall, Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad is a good quality brand and no doubt it can win the heart of the public range from kids and adults to old folks. This company is a very successful company and earns much profit from previous until now. Mamee Lekor After a thorough consideration, we as Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhads corporate finance advisors had decided to increase their shareholders wealth by introducing a new product keropok lekor. What is keropok lekor? This is it. The easiest way to describe Keropok Lekor is to call it as fish sausage. Its main ingredients are fish (Ikan Parang/Kembong/Selayang), sago flour, salt and water. We named our new product (keropok lekor) as Mamee Lekor. It can be served in crispy type or soft chewy type according to preferences.D:New folderMmuGamma 1st SemBBF 2124 FM 2keropok_lekor.jpgD:New folderMmuGamma 1st SemBBF 2124 FM 211.jpg Keropok lekor is originated from Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia and it is a popular and most visible fried snack in Terengganu. Lots of local there know how to make this keropok lekor. Therefore, there are many stalls in Malaysia that sells keropok lekor. However, there is none in hypermarket, cinemas and petrol station. This keropok lekor become very popular that we can find it in other states of Malaysia such as Johor and Melaka. Perhaps, we could not find this type of snacks in country other than Malaysia because keropok lekor is a local Malay delicacy and specialty of Malaysia. Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad introduces Mamee Lekor in two forms. First, the mini ball sized fried keropok lekor which packaging in a small plastic bag like Mamee Monster. Another one is raw keropok lekor. D:New folderMmuGamma 1st SemBBF 2124 FM 2keropak_lekor.jpg The fried keropok lekor in mini packing contains 10 mini balls of keropok lekor which sells RM1.50 per pack. The above picture is for illustration purpose only. To be more attrative, we will shape it into mini balls to attract customers. We also produce raw keropok lekor in 700g per pack which sells at RM10. This fried mini keropok lekor will expire in 4 to 5 days after production. How we are going to handle this situation? We will follow the Gardenias distribution strategy. We will send our workers to send new keropok lekor and collect back the expired one. Our workers are going to the retail store and supermarkets to send and collect Mamee Lekor 2 times per week. This is to ensure that our products are fresh before reaches to our customers and consumers. Also, we produce raw keropok lekor to fulfill some households demands. They can cut it into the thickness they prefer and fry or steam it. The main difference between the raw and ready fried mini packed keropok lekor is that the raw keropok lekor can keep for longer period. On the other hand, the ready fried mini packed keropok lekor can only last within 5 days. Some household may buy the raw keropok lekor and kept in their freezer and fried it whenever they want to eat. Since raw keropok lekor can be kept in a long period which is around one year, we plan to export it to other countries. We plan to export 700g of raw keropok lekor per pack to other countries selling at RM12 each. The selling price is slightly higher than in Malaysia because it already included the cost that related to export activities. We decided to export to Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. We export more to Australia because it is the largest and fastest growing export market compared to other countries. It ha s highest export rate of snack and confectionary from Mamee-Double Decker. We also export to Singapore and Hong Kong because we want to introduce Mamee Lekor to Western and Asian countries as well. Why we produce keropok lekor? This is because it is a local traditional delicacy which not available in other countries. It is a specialty to foreigners because their countries do not have this food. So, we can monopolize Mamee Lekor in other countries. Besides, according to research, Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad s snacks and confectionery occupied the highest demand compared to other catrgories. So we produce Mamee Lekor which is a kind of snacks to boost the demand. We will start our project by reaching out the children because no children dislike snacks and they like to try on new things. So, we decided to distribute Mamee Lekor to school canteens. It is packed in a mini package same as Mamee Monster. It is cute and can attract children to try it. It is also convenient to consume. Moreover, in order to expand new market, we will distribute our Mamee Lekor to all cinemas such as Golden Screen Cinemas and MBO Cinemas. Most of the people will carry a packet of snacks or a big box of popcorn into the theatre. As our Mamee Lekor is also a kind of snacks, we believe that the demand will be higher in cinemas. Also, Mamee Lekor can be a substitute good for those who do not like popcorn or other snacks for health conscious. As Our Mamee Lekor is made from fish and fried with unsaturated oil, it is high protein, monosodium glutamate (MSG)-free and less oily. Why we want to promote healthy lifestyle? It is to follow Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhads step. The company wants to produce products that are MSG-free, artificial colouring-free and oil-free. We produce keropok lekor in a healthy way to help consumers to consume without worries while maintaining a balance and healthy lifestyle. Initial Investment When we wanted to produce the Keropok Lekor, we used 3 types of machine like cartridge system, frying machine and packaging machine. The machines and the usages are shown below: Cartridge system is used to blend the filled up fish with some ingredients. This machine is the key in making Keropok Lekor and was the first step to produce the better product. The retail price of this type of machine is RM 15,000 each. It is a franchised system, so the price is fixed. We prepare keropok lekor from fish meat grounded with sago and salt; these are then rolled and made into the shape of long tubes similar to sausages by this machine.C:UsersPublicPicturesSample Picturesmoto_0117.jpg The frying machine is used to fry Keropok Lekor after it was shaped into mini size by our labours. This machine has many functions such as continuous fines removal for increased oil life and automatic oil level control. It is easy to clean. Its superior oil temperature control helps to maintain fryer quality stability. The cost of purchasing the machine is RM 6,000 each.http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/432764/3809036/0/1181816403/Gas_Frying_Machine.jpghttp://i03.i.aliimg.com/photo/104903103/Horizontal_Packaging_Machine_v0.jpg As shown the horizontal packaging machine. After the Keropok Lekor had been steam and fried, the packaging and leballing process happen. It is to keep keropok lekor last longer and maintain the taste. This machine costs RM 13,000 each. How many factories we have? We are going share some spaces in the existing Mamee-Double Decker factories rather than building extra factories. We choose to share capacity with factories in Selangor, Perak, Johor and Sarawak. This is the strategic location as we can cater the demands of North, East, West, and South of Malaysia. There are 2 cartridge system, 2 frying machines and 1 packaging machine in each factory. We use 2 catridge machine because one machine is not big enough to blend big amount of filled fish and other ingredient. When we use two of them together, the maintenance cost will become lower when some of the parts broken. Timing on processing will also reduce 20% compare to big cartridge machine. Other than that, we use 2 frying machines because we need to save cost especially in introducing the new product. The bigger and more technologically advance machine will cost higher. So we use 2 cartridge system and frying machine instead of the sophisticated one. The machines we use are expected to be able to serve large amount of production. Lastly, for an newly introduced project, we expect that 1 packaging machine is enough to cater our production. It produces around 70 to 100 packs of keropok lekor per hour. With one packaging machine only, we can save our budget and consume less space. We are going to promote our new product by advertising on The Star  [1]  newspaper. Why we choose to advertise on The Star rather than other newspapers? According to Audit Bureau of Circulations from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009, The Star newspaper is the most famous newspaper in Malaysia in term of readership. It has between 290,000 to 300,000 readers. Moreover, The Star newspaper is an English-language newspaper which is readable for all races, for instance Malays, Chinese, Indian and others, in Malaysia. Additionally, we need to buy new vans to implement our distribution network strategy. Each second hand van would cost us RM 80,000 each. We plan to buy 2 vans for each factory. We will hire driver to run our distribution network to distribute and collect back our keropok lekor. Year 1 In first year, we expect to sell 1,200 packs of Mini ball keropok lekor and raw keropok lekor each day. That means each factory has to produce 300 packs of Mini keropok lekor and raw keropok lekor respectively. Total quantity produce of mini and raw keropok lekor = 300 packs per day x 4 factories x 30 days per month x 12 months per year = 432,000 packs repectively. Sales Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Cash inflow in year 1 Unit selling price RM 1.50 RM 10.00 Quantity produce 432,000 432,000 Sales volume RM 648,000 RM 4,320,000 RM 4,968,000 The main ingredients of keropok lekor are ikan parang/kembong/selayang, sago flour, salt and water. The ingredient costs of mini and raw keropok lekor are RM 0.80 and RM 5.00 each while the packaging costs are RM 0.20 and RM 0.10 respectively. Packaging cost of mini keropok lekor is higher than raw keropok lekor because the packaging design will be more colourful and attractive. Also, we need labours to help us shape mini keropok lekor and fry it. Each labour cost is RM 800 per month. Each driver will have to travel 2 times per week to distribute and collect mini keropok lekor. Each trip will cost RM 150 including petrol cost. So, each driver costs us RM 150 x 2 times per week x 4 times per month x 12 months x 4 factories = RM 57,600. Costs Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Ingredient + packaging (RM0.80+RM0.20) x 432,000= RM 432,000 (RM5+RM0.10) x 432,000 = RM 2,203,200 Labor 6 labours X RM 800 X 12 months x 4 factories = RM 230,400 Driver 2 drivers x RM 57,600 = RM 115,200 Cash outflow (RM 432,000 + RM 2,203,200 + RM 230,400 + RM 115,200=RM 2,980,800 Net operating cash flow in year 1 = RM 4,968,000 RM 2,980,800 = RM 1,987,200 Year 2 Year 2, we estimate that our production will increase 5% as demand increases. Since first years production is 864,000 units (432,000 units for mini and raw keropok lekor respectively), year 2 our productions will be 907,200 units (864,000 + 5%). That means production for each type is 453,600 units. Besides, as Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad generated about 30% of its sales from the export markets which cover more than 80 countries across all continents, we plan to expand market and export raw keropok lekor to other countries. Each pack of raw keropok lekor, we will charge RM 12 which slightly higher than RM 10 to cover any expenses incur in export activities. In this year, we will export 100,000 units to Australia, 60,000 units to Hong Kong and 36,000 units to Singapore. In other words, we will export 25000, 15000 and 9000 units to these 3 countries in every 3 months. Why do we export more products to Australia? As Australia is the largest and fastest growing export market which contributed 18% of the total export sales in financial year 2009, we decided to export more products to the country. Other than Western country, we also export to Asian country such as Hong Kong. It not only helps to expand our market, but also introduce keropok lekor such a traditional cuisine to both Western and Asian countries. Besides, Singapore is our neighbour country and knows our cultures more as well as it contributed 9% of total export, so we choose to export to Singapore rather than other countries. Sales Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export raw keropok lekor Cash inflow in year 2 Unit selling price RM 1.50 RM 10.00 RM 12.00 Quantity produce 453,600 453,600 196,000 Sales volume RM 680,400 RM 4,536,000 RM 2,352,000 RM 7,568,400 Due to increase in production, we have to add in additional 2 labours, 1 driver, 1 cartridge system, 1 packaging machine and 1 frying machine in each factory. Costs Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export (raw keropok lekor Ingredient + packaging (RM0.80+RM0.20) x 453,600 = RM 453,600 (RM5+RM0.10) x 453,600 = RM 2,313,360 (RM7+RM0.10)x 196,000 = RM 1,391,600 Labor 8 labours X RM 800 X 12 months x 4 factories = RM 307,200 Driver 3 drivers x RM 57,600 = RM 172,800 Cartridge system RM 15,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 60,000 Packing machine RM 13,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 52,000 Frying machine RM 6,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 24,000 Cash outflow RM 453,600+ RM 2,313,360+ RM 1,391,600+ RM 307,200+ RM 172,800+ RM 60,000+ RM 52,000+ RM 24,000 =RM 4,774,560 Net operating cash flow in year 2 = RM 7,568,400 RM 4,774,560 = RM 2,793,840 Year 3 We estimate that our sales in this year keep increasing and probably reach maturity. Our expected production excluding export will increases from 907,200 to 950,400 units which increases around 5 % of year 2s production. In other words, production for mini and raw keropok lekor is 475,200 units respectively. Additionally, we expect export rate of keropok lekor will increase 4 %, which is from 196,000 to 204,000 units. In this year, we have to add in more technologically advance machine to cater the increase in production. We will purchase more innovative cartridge system, packing machine and frying machine to improve productivity. We also hire 2 more labours and 1 more driver to help us run our business smoother. The additional driver can help us widen our distribution network to other places. We expect that the cost of labour will become slightly higher which is from RM 800 to RM900. It is to increase their motivation to work and maybe due to inflation. Sales Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export raw keropok lekor Cash inflow in year 3 Unit selling price RM 1.50 RM 10.00 RM 12.00 Quantity produce 475,200 475,200 204,000 Sales volume RM 712,800 RM 4,752,000 RM 2,448,000 RM 7,912,800 Costs Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export (raw keropok lekor Ingredient + packaging (RM0.80+RM0.20) x 475,200 = RM 475,200 (RM5+RM0.10) x 475,200 = RM 2,423,520 (RM7+RM0.10)x 204,000 = RM 1,448,400 Labor 10 labours X RM 900 X 12 months x 4 factories = RM 432,000 Driver 4 drivers x RM 57,600 = RM 230,400 Cartridge system RM 20,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 80,000 Packing machine RM 20,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 80,000 Frying machine RM 10,000 x 1 unit x 4 factories = RM 40,000 Cash outflow RM 475,200+ RM 2,423,520+ RM 1,448,400+ RM 432,000+ RM 230,400+ RM 80,000+ RM 80,000+ RM 40,000 =RM 5,209,520 Net operating cash flow in year 3 = RM 7,912,800 RM 5,209,520 = RM 2,703,280 This year, although expected sales increases, net operating cash flow decreases. This is because we plan to do expansion by adding more technologically advance machines. This is logic as whenever a firm manages to cover up their initial investment, what they might do is to do expansion. Year 4 Out of expectation, probably the demand for our keropok lekor might go down. Perhaps there is new competitors exist in market. Who knows they envy of our high sales volume and might want to compete with us? With our 3 years brand recognition, perhaps our sales would not drop too badly. So, our expected production will be 920,000 units which are 3% less than previous year. Production of mini and raw keropok lekor will be 460,000 units respectively. As production decreases, we do not have to hire much driver for distribution network. We will cut down 1 driver to cut expense of RM 57,600. However, we will remain our existing labours. As we believe that, whenever there is an obstacle, we will find out a way to curb it and boost future sales as well as production. Thus, we do not want to loss any well- trained and loyal labour. Still, in order to handle any possible changes in future, we have a pessimistic view that the cost of ingredient will increase. We predict that the unit cost of mi ni keropok lekor will increase from RM0.80 to RM0.90 while raw keropok lekor will increase from RM5 to RM 5.50. On the other hand, our export rate will keep on increasing. We expect our production will be 210,000 units which is 3% higher than in year 3. Why do we forecast that the export rate will increase? Why not decrease? Because, even if foreign competitor wants to compete with us, they might need some times to figure out how to produce such a Malay local cuisine which is available in Malaysia only. This is our local special food, so of course there is some recipe that other countries do not know. Also, since there is a decrease in Malaysias sales and an increase of export rate, we do not have to add in any new machine. Sales Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export raw keropok lekor Cash inflow in year 4 Unit selling price RM 1.50 RM 10.00 RM 12.00 Quantity produce 460,000 460,000 210,000 Sales volume RM 690,000 RM 4,600,000 RM 2,520,000 RM 7,810,000 Costs Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export (raw keropok lekor Ingredient + packaging (RM0.90+RM0.20) x 460,000 = RM 506,000 (RM5.50+RM0.10) x 460,000 = RM 2,576,000 (RM7.50+RM0.10)x 210,000 = RM 1,596,000 Labor 10 labours X RM 900 X 12 months x 4 factories = RM 432,000 Driver 3 drivers x RM 57,600 = RM 172,800 Cash outflow RM 506,000 + RM 2,576,000 + RM 1,596,000 + RM 432,000 + RM 172,800 = RM 5,282,800 Net operating cash flow in year 4 = RM 7,810,000 RM 5,282,800 = RM 2,527,200 Year 5 Assume that there is a drop in sales, of course we will take some actions to increase the sales back. In this year, we plan to open kiosk in hypermarket. Together there will be one kiosk in Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bahru respectively. Rental of each kiosk is expected to be RM 800. We will hire 2 workers to help us operate the kiosk. Since we sell freshly cooked keropok lekor on the spot, we will need to purchase one frying machine for each kiosk. We also need some budgets for setup cost. With the above strategy, we believe that we able to boost our sales for at least 2%. Our expected production will be 940,000 units which is 470,000 units for each type of keropok lekor. Furthermore, we predict that our export rate of keropok lekor will grow at a decreasing rate which is 1% only. Our expected export rate will be 212,000 units. We are going to hire 2 more labours to help us to run our business to avoid supply shortage and to employ any future strategy. We need 1 more driver to widen our distribution network, and send raw keropok lekor to our kiosk to ensure there is no shortage problem. No additional machine is required as we already added in technologically advance machines in previous year which able to cater higher production. Sales Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export raw keropok lekor Cash inflow in year 5 Unit selling price RM 1.50 RM 10.00 RM 12.00 Quantity produce 470,000 470,000 212,000 Sales volume RM 705,000 RM 4,700,000 RM 2,544,000 RM 7,949,000 Costs Mini keropok lekor Raw keropok lekor Export (raw keropok lekor Ingredient + packaging (RM0.90+RM0.20) x 470,000 = RM 517,000 (RM5.50+RM0.10) x 470,000 = RM 2,632,000 (RM7.50+RM0.10)x 212,000 = RM 1,611,200 Labor 12 labours X RM 900 X 12 months x 4 factories = RM 518,400 Driver 4 drivers x RM 57,600 = RM 230,400 4 Kiosk Expenses Calculations Total Rental RM 800 x 4 kiosks x 12months RM 38,400 Workers RM 800 x 2workers x 4 kiosks x 12 months RM 76,800 Frying machine RM 3000 x 4 kiosks RM 12,000 Setup RM 1,500 x 4 kioks RM 6,000 Total expenses for kiosks RM 133,200 Cash outflow in year 5 RM 517,000 + RM 2,632,000 + RM 1,611,200 + RM 518,400 + RM 230,400 + RM 133,200 = RM 5,642,200 Net Operating cash flow in year 5 = RM 7,949,000 RM 5,642,200 = RM 2,306,800 Although expected sales increases, net operating cash flow slightly decreases, it is due to the investment in kiosks. Yet, we believe that next years sales and net operating cash flow will increase simultaneously. RM 1,987,200 RM 2,793,840 RM 2,703,280 RM 2,527,200 RM 2,306,800 o 1 2 3 4 5 year RM 1,140,000 The time line above depicts the conventional cash flow of our project. There is only one cash outflow for initial investment in year 0. From year 2 to 5, there is positive net operating cash flow. The net cash flow rises from year 1 to 2 because we export raw keropok lekor to other countries and increase revenues. In year 3, the sales keep on increasing but net cash flows drop as we do expansion by purchasing additional machines for technology advancement. During year 4, we predict that there will be new competitors exist to compete with us. Our sales drop slightly but net cash flow increases, because we try to cut cost and do not need to add in new capital. The next year, we employ a new strategy which is to open kiosk in hypermarket to sell freshly fried keropok lekor. We predict that our sales will increase slightly. But why net cash flow descend? Because we need some costs on operating the kioks. In short, our net cash flow thoroughout the year is up and down, but we manage to ke ep it at positive level. From other point of view, there will be up and down, because when any unfavourable things incur, we try to solve it and up the net cash flow again. Cost of Capital The cost of capital acts as a link between Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad s long term investment decisions (keropok lekor project) and the wealth of their owners as determined by investors in the marketplace. It is the magic number that is used to decide whether a proposed investment will increase or decrease the firms stock price. The cost of capital is the rate of return that Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad must earn on the keropok lekor project in which it invests to maintain the market value of its stock. In this project, we will use Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhads retained earnings to cover our new project. Cost of retained earnings is a cost of internally generated funds. It is an imputed or opportunity cost or the dividends given up by the common stockholders. It is the rate that investors can earn elsewhere on investments of comparable risk. Why we choose to use cost of retained earnings rather than issuing new shares or bonds? The main reason is that we notice Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad is proposing share buy-back. According to research, they plan to buy back the shares by using their retained earnings. So, why do we still want to use its retained earnings to support our new project? This is because we cannot issue additional shares or bonds to raise capital. Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad proposed share buy-back is to reduce number of shares outstanding and increase their share price. So, we do not want to do the opposite way. Moreover, Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad is very strong. It holds RM 43,457,000 cash, deposit and bank balances without borrowing any long term debt. It finances itself with cash only. That is why we do not want to raise capital by issuing bond which is a type of long term debt. Although tax is deductible when we issue bonds/debts/loans, we do not want to break the rules and rise their financ ial risk. They do not finance themselves with any debt, perhaps they want to reduce their risk for no need to pay out coupon payment and principal to their debtors. Besides, we choose to raise capital by using retained earnings because our initial investment only takes 9% of their overall retaining earnings. Their retained earnings in financial year 2009 are RM 83,977,000 while our initial investment is RM 1,140,000. Our payback period shows that we could cover it up within 1 year. Yet, without being over optimistic, there is always something unfavourable happen, so we predict that we could cover up the initial investment within 2 years. Cost of retained earnings= D1 / P0 + g The dividend per share from year 2000 to 2009 is shown below: Year Dividend per share Year Dividend per share 2000 5.5 cents 2005 14 cents 2001 5.5 cents 2006 20 cents 2002 5.5 cents 2007 25 cents 2003 6.0 cents 2008 5 cents 2004 10 cents 2009 7 cents Input Function -5.5 PV 7.0 FV 9 N Growth of dividends = 2.71% (by using financial calculator) According to Bloomberg Businessweek  [2]  , expected dividend in 2010 is RM 0.10 while share price of Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhad is RM 3.70. Cost of retained earnings = (RM 0.10 / RM 3.70) + 2.71% = 5.41 % In short, our cost of raising capital by using Mamee Double-Decker (M) Berhads retained earnings is 5.41%. The cost of capital will be applied when calculating NPV of the company. Payback Period Payback period can be defined as the amount of time required for a firm to recover its initial investment in a project, as calculated from cash flow. Payback period which also calculated as: Payback period = RM 1,140,000 / RM 1,987,000 = 0.57 years Basically, payback period is used by small firms to evaluate most projects or small projects in larger firms. The computation is simple and easy to apply. By measuring how quickly the firms get to recover from its initial investment, payback period gives implicit consideration to the timing of cash flows. Many firms use payback period as a decision criterion to other decision as it can be viewed as a measure of risk exposure. The longer the firm must wait to recover its invested fund, the greater the possibility of a calamity. So, the shorter the payback period, the lower the firms exposure to such risk. Payback period cannot be specified in light of wealth maximization goal because it is not based on discounting cash flows to determine whether they add to the firms value. Payback period is viewed as an unsophisticated capital budgeting technique because it does not explicitly consider the time value of money. The calculation above shows that payback period for our new project is one year. Why is it so short? It is because our cash inflow in year 1 which is RM 1,987,200 is higher than the initial investment which is RM1,140,000. So, we get to cover back our initial investment and have an extra of RM 847,200 of revenue in year one. We should be glad that we able to pay back the initial investment within one year but please do not forget that it does ignore the time value of money. In finance, we always mention time value of money. But, do we really know what does it mean? Well,