Should Abortion Be Permissible - 1238 Words

Subject: Whether abortion is legalized or illegal, abortion is Immoral (Presidential debates) Abortion is a very delicate issue that we heard about a lot the last two years from the political debates of our country. Many people from the democrat and the republican parties had repetitively debated whether or not an abortion should be tolerable or not tolerable. Some considered that ending the life of a human fetus is very bad and should not be permissible at all. Republican Party alleged that abortion is like committing murder as it is killing a human fetus. The Democratic Party felt that the mother have the right to make a choice of keeping or aborting the fetus, and it is not assassination until the baby is brought to life. The†¦show more content†¦A living being does not have to be a person to have an intrinsic moral value and rights. By giving this argument, people might ask what about the mother? The mother has the right of ending her fetus’s life under any circum stance for any reason at any time in her pregnancy. During the debate, Pro-choice argued that there are moments when abortion is acceptable to be done. For example: when complications happen during pregnancy and the mother can be hurt then it is ok to abort. â€Å"It is Important to understand the numerous philosophies that go behind abortion† Hilary Clinton said. The right of ending fetus life for a mother must be left on her personal decision since she only understands her circumstance, not the government. The mother accepted to be the â€Å"host body† for the upcoming baby for the next nine months and according to Hillary Clinton the democratic presidential nominated, the mother should have the right to decide if she wants to keep a baby that she been rape from or end the pregnancy. But is that moral? Almost everyone believed that human fetus has intrinsic value and infinite worth, therefore has an absolute value to live. For example when pregnant women decided to g ive birth to a fetus that is inside her womb, then everyone in the society and the law gives value to the fetus. In the other hands, if the pregnantShow MoreRelatedWhy Should Sex Selection Abortions Are Morally Permissible?923 Words   |  4 Pagesplace myself and judge moral theories more as what a utilitarian would do. I feel that some of your decisions and actions should be based on what produces the best over evil, everyone considered. As I read the case study, Aborting Daughters, I instantly answer the question, â€Å"Do you think sex-selection abortions are morally permissible?† No, I do not think they are morally permissible. Not so much because of the utilitarian’s belief, which I will get into later, but because I do think a fetus is a personRead MoreAbortion : Should Abortion Under Any Circumstance But The Mother s Health Be Permissible?922 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"Should abortion under any circum stance but the mother’s health be permissible?† Abortion is the induced expulsion of a human embryo/fetus from the womb before it is capable of surviving independently. There are 2 main classifications of abortion, Surgical and medical . Surgical abortion - involve invasive procedures like Suction aspiration, a procedure most used in the first trimester of pregnancy. The abortionist inserts a suctionRead MoreWhy Abortion Is Permissible? Essay1587 Words   |  7 Pagesthe most widely debated moral issues is abortion, which is defined as the termination of a pregnancy followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. The point of contention on abortion is that we are putting two lives in jeopardy, the mother’s and fetus’ life. Although this issue is highly discussed, debaters, especially opponents, fail to provide explicit and extensive analysis as it is pointed out by Judith J. Thomson in her article ‘‘A Defense of Abortion.† In this article, I will be rehearsingRead MoreThe Moral Permissibility Of Abortion Essay1485 Words   |  6 PagesThe moral permissibility of abortion other than if necessary to save the life of the mother does not depend on whether the fetus is a person. This essay examines the argument to why abortion is morally permissible and defends this notion using three central impressions, to which the essay is organized by the following: first, abortion does not depend on whether the fetus is a person, because the fetus is not a person. Second, the moral permissibility of abortion cannot be exclusively contingent inRead MoreEssay On Abortion Permis sible1746 Words   |  7 PagesI will argue that abortion is permissible in all stages of the pregnancy before birth. Abortion should be permissible based on moral, health and women rights reasons. Abortion is an operation or procedure to terminate pregnancy before the fetus is viable. Pro-Choice argues that the choice to whether to have or not have an abortion is a woman’s right to choose, while Pro-Life argues that women should have the choice to her body, while Pro-Life argues abortion is impermissible. Morally, there canRead MoreThomsons View of Abortion Essay1099 Words   |  5 PagesThomsons View of Abortion In the article A Defense of Abortion Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous violinist argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one persons right to life outweighs another persons right to autonomyRead More A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson Essay1075 Words   |  5 PagesA Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson In the article A Defense of Abortion Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous violinist argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one persons right to life outweighs anotherRead MoreAbortion : An Argument For A Pregnancy Before Normal Childbirth1153 Words   |  5 PagesTerm Paper: Abortion Generally, abortion means the intentionally termination a pregnancy before normal childbirth. Now, the topic abortion is worldwide endless intentionally termination a pregnancy before normal childbirth. The debate mainly focuses on the rights and wrongs of the result of abortion which kills the fetus. It s one of the most opposing moral issues. Most people are on the side whether totally agree or totally disagree, negligible people are the middle liner. Pro-abortion groups, whoRead MoreEssay about Using Utilitarianism to Address Abortion1286 Words   |  6 PagesIn this paper, I will be defining act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism, use both standpoints from a rule utilitarian and an act utilitarian to decipher their responses to abortion, and investigate both claims to come to a conclusion if or if not utilitarianism is adequate enough argument to address abortion. First the definition of utilitarianism is, â€Å"An act is morally right if and only if it does more to improve overall happiness than any available alternative† (Farley). Overall happinessRead MoreArgument For Abortion : The Freedom Of Choose Life1263 Words   |  6 PagesMilsky Argument for Abortion: The Freedom to Choose Life Judith Jarvis Thomson argued that the â€Å"the impermissibility of abortion does not follow from the premises that every fetus is a person and that every person has a right to life† (Thomson) Thomson distinguishes between what we ought to do versus what we are morally required to. This essay will show how abortions are permissible and not permissible according to Thomson. Thomson first starts about her argument that abortion may still be morally

Science Periodic Table Essay Free Essays

The Periodic Table The periodic table has been updated all throughout history. Elements have been around us since the beginning of time. Elements, such as gold and silver, are examples of these elements that have been known for centuries. We will write a custom essay sample on Science Periodic Table Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now The periodic table allows us to see the elements in their families so we can understand what properties they have. It also allows us to see the atomic number, atomic mass, and the symbol of the element. The periodic table is a source of knowledge that is still being updated as of this day. That is why the periodic table is such a valuable resource. In ancient times, the elements gold and silver were discovered. Another element that was known at this time was copper. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle said that all elements were made out of these four â€Å"roots. † The philosopher, Plato, renamed the â€Å"four roots† earth, fire, water, and air. Although they introduced the concept of elements, they did nothing to advance the nature of the matter, which matter is made of. The age of enlightenment was a big adventure for the science world. Hennig Brand was the first person recorded to have discovered a new element. He was a German merchant who went bankrupt, while trying to discover the Philosopher’s Stone. The Philosopher’s stone was a mythical object that was supposed to turn inexpensive base metals into gold. He experimented with distilling human urine until he finally obtained a white substance which he named phosphorous in 1649. Brand did not go to the public with his discovery until another scientist named Robert Boyle rediscovered it and took it to the public. In 1661, Boyle defined an element has a substance that cannot be broken down by chemical means. Antoine Lavoisier developed the first chemistry textbook. This included the elements oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorous, mercury, zinc, and sulfur. Lavoisier’s descriptions of the elements only classified elements as metals or non-metals. Johann Dobereiner began to classify the elements in triads. These elements that belong to these triads had properties that were similar to each other. A few of these triads are as follows: 1. Chlorine, bromine, and iodine 2. Calcium, strontium, and barium 3. Sulfur, selenium, and tellurium 4. Lithium, sodium, and potassium. With all these triads, the atomic mass of the second element was almost exactly the average of the atomic weights of the first and third elements. By 1869, 69 elements had been discovered. Alexandre Chancourtois was the first to notice the periodicity of the elements. Similar elements seemed to occur at regular intervals when they were arranged by their atomic mass. He created an early version of the periodic table. He called it the telluric helix. When the elements were arranged on a cylinder by order of the increasing atomic mass, Chancourtois could tell that the elements with similar properties lined up vertically. He published this work in 1862, but there was little to go on. In 1865, John Newlands classified 56 elements that had been discovered previously into eleven groups based on similar physical properties. Newlands said that many pairs of similar elements existed differed by some multiple of eight in atomic number. Dimitri Mendeleev created the periodic table that we use today. He arranged the elements by their atomic mass and noticed that they lined up with the elements that had similar properties with each other. He also noticed that when they were arranged in this way, the valences lined up as well. When he published his table in 1869, it had many advantages. This table is more widely used in today’s time. The discovery of the periodic table is also the discoveries of the elements. As the elements were discovered, they were added to the periodic table. Since the beginning of time, more elements have been discovered. The most recent was ununpentium. It was discovered in 2011. As anyone can see the periodic table is continuing to grow and develop. It is a child of the elements. As each element is named, the periodic table grows. The periodic table will always be an ongoing process and the updating of it will never end. That is because new elements are discovered every day! How to cite Science Periodic Table Essay, Essay examples

Marketing Management of Woolworths South Africa

Question: Discuss about the Strategic Marketing Management of Woolworths South Africa. Answer: Introduction This report primarily focuses on the analysis of the marketing strategies and challenges facing Woolworths South Africa. Woolworths is a supermarket retailer that among the leading players in the retail industry. It offers a broad range of food, clothing and general merchandise to the customers (South African edition, 2012). However, the brand has failed to sustain the competitive advantage due to the unpleasing feedbacks from the customers from social media. There are several complaints regarding the poor quality of products sold and the low competency portrayed by the client service personnel of the organization. It is also said that the supermarket promises customers of instant response to their needs but fails. People prefer to seek alternatives from their competitors such as Shoprite Group, Spar, Pick ` Pay and Massmart that ensure efficiency in meeting the needs of the local market and convenient distribution (Ehimario, et al. 2012). For example, if the supermarket want to acce lerate the growth of its market share and exposure in the food retailing, the management has to implement new market strategies and principles that can lead to customer loyalty and satisfaction. Hence, the organization can reestablish its operations and maintain a reputable brand name across South Africa and the other locations. It is from this perspective that the report shall analysis the market situation using the SWOT analytical tool, the retailers current positioning, challenges, the marketing strategy and action plan to implement in the company. The marketing objective This report primarily aims at providing an insight situation analysis of Woolworths South Africa current marketing strategy and provide appropriate recommendations that can enable it to overcome its current challenges and limitations. Therefore, it can revitalize its brand to ensure sustainable growth in future. The achievement of this objective will majorly depend on the ideal marketing mix strategies used by Woolworths. The changing trends in the retail industry of South Africa are influenced by the consumers demand for best shopping experiences accompanied by value, loyalty and low prices (Vivek, et al. 2012, pp. 122-146). Also, the report will provide the management with excellent competencies in its strategic practices and action plan that ensure Woolworths brand name sustains its competitive edge across south Africa and worldwide. SWOT Situation Analysis Strengths Woolworths ability to generate adequate capital can facilitate faster expansion and opening of more stores across South Africa is a strength that can aid in improving its market share. Hence, over time it will outdo the central market leader, Shoprite whose market share is around 36% (Luiz, et al. 2011, p.1-21). Secondly, people trust the brand, and it has a good reputation. It is a result of its distinctive competency where they ensure freshness and high quality of products that they sustain a competitive edge. The implementation of the right business journey marketing strategy that aims at creating a multiplier effect that influence the buying behavior of customers. Moreover, the organization has maintained a better supply chain management due to its ability to establish a close relationship with the producers and its suppliers (Partrick, 2016). Weaknesses Over the past few years, the company has been facing negative responses from the customers regarding their products. Some of the complaints include plastic bags and cockroaches found in the food and the poor response from the incompetent customer personnel. Hence, the consumers perception of the quality of products is diminishing. The limited market share is also a weakness as the competitors have occupied a significant portion of the retail market, hence unable to compete other competitors internationally (Descubes McNamara, 2015). The company has failed when it comes to speeding up the new technologies, for example, the integrated marketing which can aid in dominating the South Africas retail market. The managers of the supermarket also fail in making strategic decisions that can improve the growth levels. Opportunities South Africas retail industry portrays excellent growth potentials due to various factors that includes; the advances in the supply chain, computerization, and the changes in the citizen's lifestyle. Its ability to invest appropriately in food prices gives it a competitive advantage (Hems, 2010). Hence, Woolworths utilizes this opportunity to formulate multi-option retailing to meet the emerging trends in the industry. The increased group sourcing gives them an opportunity to unlock the additional margin. The emerging economies give a chance for further strategic acquisitions and franchise. Moreover, a positive perception of customers regarding the companys attention to detail and modernization of its products gives it an opportunity to extend the distribution channels and technological advancements and offer a broad range of goods (Woolworth's integrated report, 2012). Threats There is stiff competition from other retailers both locally and internationally and from players like discounters and catalog-based retailers, hence making penetration to the market is quite difficult. Due to the increased oil prices in South Africa, it becomes quite difficult for Woolworths to continue with its competitive pricing strategy (Phambuka-Nsimbi, 2015). They also face the threat of high costs of raw materials which further impacts the profits margin negatively. The frequent economic recessions also hinder the organization from opening more stores. Finally, direct government interference cause uncertainties concerning the market changes and economic conditions. PESTEL analysis Political factors The political stability of the region allows the retail industry to prosper as the companies can carry out the business activities both national and internationally. The import of raw materials from suppliers outside the country and export of end products to customers at various destinations. The government encourages international trade, therefore giving an opportunity for Woolworths to operate both in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other continents where the brand has established stores. Economic factors The fluctuation of the South African rand negatively impact the growth of the Woolworths brand. Additionally, the economic recessions being experienced in the region leads to losses of, hence failure of many companies. Other economic factors that affect the retail industry include, low rate of savings, high oil prices and a decrease in the GDP which impacts the consumer spending patterns. Socio-cultural factors The South Africans are culturally diverse and they prefer high quality products. They believe that highly priced goods and services tend to satisfy customer needs and preferences and therefore the supermarket can gain a competitive advantage due to its competitive pricing strategy. The high demand for a better retail shopping experience is a factor that challenges the retailers to focus more on providing a broad range of products which consumers can select. The food security policy is a social factor that the country is achieving hence accelerating the exports to other countries. Technological factors The use of new technologies, e-retailing and the internet accelerates international competitiveness through expansion of the operations to other foreign markets. The advanced technologies is one of the strengths that enables Woolworths to let their customers have a lasting shopping experience and enables the company to develop a better supply chain management. Environmental factors Woolworths has put in place various measures that ensure protection of the natural environment and resources. For example, then combined waste initiatives that focus on the reduction of waste to the landfill, the recycling project and water management best practices in its supply chains. Legal factors The laws of the country require that all retailers put measures to protect employees, customers and the public at large. The increased taxation negatively impacts the performance of Woolworths. Further, the government laws protect the consumers from harmful food products that may impact the health status of its citizen. Corporate social responsibility is a mandatory fact that all retailers should comply with as per the regulations of the country. Current positioning of Woolworths Perhaps, Woolworths brand is still trusted and reliable to customers. The company is among the top 100 companies listed on the securities exchange of Johannesburg in South Africa (Mitchell, 2015). It has a strong market position in the southern hemisphere, however has failed to sustain its leadership which led to losses. The annual report of December 2015 showed that Woolworths earning per share increased by 30.6%, and the gross profits grew by 48.1%. It is evident that the company continues to expand across Africa and other continents at a high rate and hence increasing the market share from 11% (Woolworths, 2015). Despite the complaints on social media, it continues to provide quality products and services and uses various promotion strategies that aim at gaining a competitive advantage and increase the market share. However, it has not yet gained a greater market share since the Shoprite seems to dominate the food sector however they are leading in the retail industry of South Afr ica. The performance in 2016 evidenced that Woolworths recorded a customer base of 3.2 million and continued to attract young customers (WHL Integrated Report, 2016). They aim at becoming a leader in fashion and food retailing. Currently, statistics on the fresh produce and prepared food show a significant growth in the market share of the brand. Woolworth launched a brand campaign of fresh food people that aimed at freshening the positioning in the market. The target market of Woolworths constitutes the local consumers shopping both from the stores and online. Also, it targets high income earners and online shoppers and its future focuses on the black and upmarket (Chu Chiu, 2013). Their brand is gaining a better positioning in the market due to the following activities conducted by the company. Firstly, there is understanding customer needs through the world of difference loyalty program and product availability at the right place and time. Further the organization takes into consideration the environmental concerns and supporting the SA school. Woolworths strategic plans, goals and objectives show that they are customer centric and aim at providing quality products at cheaper prices. Hence, an essential step to grow the business and expand the product line (Rehan, 2014, pp.222-230). Current challenges Woolworths brand faces a slow market growth due to a slowdown in the South Africas economy since 2014 (Matsoma Ambe, 2016, pp.194-210). Hence there is a reduction in shopping confidence which has forced the company to cut its prices and focus on customer loyalty initiatives. Negative customer responses where product quality is the issue as discussed on the media. They also face the challenge of customer acquisition and retention. Moreover, the high employee turnover and weak staff morale is a great challenge which is as a result of failure to give compensation and benefits to employees accordingly (Hem Teslo, 2012). For example, the case that was raised on Facebook regarding a worker who injured herself but the organization failed to cater for her hospital bills. They also face the challenge of negative perception by customers regarding the price and value and inability to provide trans-seasonal merchandise. The market discounting led to profit downgrade of Woolworths. In addition, there is greater competitive pressure from the rivals. For example, Shoprite has come with new strategies of segmentation, and engaging customers thus shall continue maintaining its market leadership (Prinsloo, 2010). The impact of such challenges on Woolworths depends on how they control them. They may either build or destroy brand image and reputation and therefore the marketing managers should ensure that they retain customer by offering quality products that are free from defects. The adverse effects may include, reduction in repeat business, decrease in brand recognition and market share (Kapferer, 2008). However, this organization may use the following recommended strategies to overcome the challenges discussed above. The company should come up with innovative marketing strategies that differentiate their products from the competitors to change shopping habits and customer interaction with the brand. Additionally, the marketing managers have to increase the frequency of promotional campaigns and events which in turn improves sales volume. It can also ensure full participation in corporate social responsibilities activities and offer GM- free foods (Chowdhury, 2013). Moreover, the embrasure of Omni channel processes and advanced networks can result to a unified retailing and maintenance of employee efficiency. It may carry market surveys to identify areas that customers need improvement and convince them to continue shopping from their stores. Lastly, they should hire staff personnel that focus on better services to customers and respond to customers complaints on the spot rather than giving promises that cannot be fulfilled in the long run (Veneto, 2013). Effective marketing strategy to apply Revitalize the Woolworths brand There are six strategies that Woolworths South Africa can adopt to revitalize its brand from the current positioning in the market. First, it should refocus itself by defining the goals of the brand and improve the financial discipline. Secondly, it has to restore the brand relevance. This strategy requires that the organization has got a clear understanding of the marketplace, market segments, customer insight and brand promise (Hollebeek, 2011, pp.555-573). Thirdly, it should have to reinvent the brand experience which can either be emotional or functional hence leading to brand distinctiveness. Another strategy includes reinforcing the resulting culture. For Woolworths to revitalize its brand it has to identify the measurable and appropriate milestones, implement the reward and recognition systems. Next, it has to rebuild its brand trust by predicting the consumer behavior patterns. Thus, establishing a long lasting brand loyalty in its trademark. Lastly, Woolworths should realize the global alignment by rebuilding its internal and external marketing principles. Hence, by using the six strategies, it can be able to redesign the product range to satisfy the target market needs (Bose, 2012). Sustain the brand For the organization to revitalize its brand, it has to periodically monitor and change its pricing strategy from a competitive one to a market penetration pricing. New pricing can neutralize the competitors impact on sales. The measures to use may include but not restricted to, lower pricing, targeted customer offers and better range of the brands (Beneke, et al. 2012). The pricing strategy adopted by a company determines its profit and survival, and the adjustments impact the overall marketing strategy used by the firm. Therefore, they can give a discount on prices and promotion offers that can help in attracting more customers. Customers claim that Woolworths sets high prices which are not proportional to the quality. (WHL Integrated Report, 2016). Providing high-quality products can be a strategy that can change the minds of customers and be convinced that the brand is still healthy and wholesome. It is also paramount to place value on Woolworths privately labeled products to che rish the core shoppers. Hence, customers can have a new brand experience through unique brand attributes. However, it needs to expand its business by developing new stores and provide regular refurbishments of the existing ones in places where there is potential for growth. As a result, the demand for its products can increase which can lead to revitalization and sustainability of the brand. The use of the drive-thru collection techniques and new Click and Collect location facilitates convenience and customer loyalty through multi-channel customer experiences (Ferguson and Brown, 2012, pp.391-404). Grow the brands market share It is paramount to persuade and convince the customers that the brand is still of high quality and the management ensured that they addressed and rectified the issues regarding the quality of products offered by the company (Ghodeswar, 2008, pp.4-12). Revising of the pricing strategy leads to targeting a significant market share of the brand in South Africa and worldwide and survival afterward. For it to achieve growth of the brand, there is need to integrate both the traditional and emerging marketing communication channels that can lead to a successful conveyance of the message regarding the brand and its new features. The promotional tools may include social media, online and public relations to gain back customer trust and greater market share. (Kanagal, 2014). There is need to analyze the products life cycle and current positioning of Woolworths before embarking on the promotion strategies to use to revitalize, sustain and grow the market share of Woolworths. The marketing team should perform a thorough research on the people that is the target market and their demands. The company employees play a significant role in ensuring delivery of quality services especially the customer service personnel that always receives and responds to customers claims and feedbacks (Hollebeek, 2011, pp.555-573). Action plan Objectives Activities Evaluation criteria Control metrics Costs Brand awareness Contacting website owners of various industries to ask them place the Woolworths Ads on their webs. Creation of the emotional grabbing advertisement to enhance promotion of the brand. Displaying prominently the products in the store. Measuring the social media exposure. Consumers perception of value. Evaluating the engagement of customers to message regarding a new brand. The brand remains to be relevant and is properly positioned. Consumer feedback through the online polls. Level of customer loyalty and profits earned within a year Approximately $ 500,000 Increasing Sales volume Restructuring the pricing strategies Expansion of the distribution channels. Diversifying the offerings. Over-deliver quality to the prospective and existing customers Establishing clear and effective sales messages. Comparing actual sales to projected sales in the marketing plan. Increase in sales is a positive effect, Managing both variable and fixed costs Revenue earned after every financial year $ 800,000 Enhancing sustainability and growth Strengthening leadership practices in all the roles. Creating high value propositions in the overall strategy Benchmarking and measuring profitability. The rate of the revenue growth A firms reputation to crucial and regular customers. Renewed growth toward operational excellence. Insightful conversations on growth potential $ 10 million Conclusion In summary, Woolworths South Africa is facing challenges concerning the customers perception of the brand and the quality of the products. The marketing positioning is quite pleasing but it is appropriate for this organization to implement the above marketing strategy and action plan for it to achieve the goal and objective of sustaining its competitive advantage in the retail industry nationally and globally. Maximum utilization of its strengths, opportunities and competency can aid in attaining an increase in its market share. It is also important that they neutralize their weakness and threats from the external environment to achieve its goals and objectives. References Anderssen, S. (2015). Clothing retailers: winter is coming. Kagiso Asset Management accessed at https://www.kagisoam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Clothing-retailers-winter-is-coming.pdf Beneke, J., Hayworth, C., Hobson Z. (2012). Examining the effect of retail service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and loyalty: The case of the supermarket shopper.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Bose, T.K. (2012). Market Segmentation and Customer Focus Strategies and Their Contribution towards Effective Value Chain Management: International Journal of Marketing Studies Vol. 4, No. 3; Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education. Chu, M. Chiu, S. (2013). Effective Marketing Strategies to Attract Business Visitors at Trade Shows: International Journal of Business and Management Vol 8, No 24. Chowdhury, P.P. (2013). Key strategies and issues of positioning: A review of past studies. American Academic Scholarly Research Journal Vol. 5, No. 1. Descubes, I. McNamara, T. (2015). The consumer engagement process as it relates to a brands revival strategy. Ehimario U.I., David S., Thandi R.P., Lungiswa T., Cassandra S., Christopher P., Rina S.,Solange D. Corinna H. (2012 ).Big Food, the Consumer Food Environment, Health,and the Policy Response in South Africa. Ferguson, J.L. and Brown, B.P. (2012). Sizing up the retailer brand implementation gap and itseffects on brand-building outcomes. Journal of Brand Management 19 (5): 391404. Ghodeswar, M.B. (2008). Building brand identity in competitive markets: a conceptual model. Journal of Product Brand Management, Volume 17(1), pp. 412. Hem, A.F. Teslo, P.S. (2012). Brand Positioning Strategies: An Experimental Test of TwoTypes of Benefit Differentiation. Hollebeek, L. (2011). Exploring customer brand engagement: definition and themes. Journal of strategic Marketing, 19(7), 555-573. Janiszewska, K. Insch, A. (2012). The strategic importance of brand positioning in the place brand concept: elements, structure and application capabilities, Journal of InternationalStudies, Vol. 5, No 1, pp. 9-19. Kapferer, J. N. (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and sustaining brand equity long term 4th Edition. Kanagal, N.B. (2014). Conceptualizing objective setting and metrics in marketing strategy Journal of Management and Marketing Research Volume 16. Luiz, J., Bowen, A. and Beswick, C. (2011). Woolworths South Africa: Making sustainability sustainable. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 1 (1): 121. Matsoma, N. Ambe, I. (2016). Factors Affecting Demand Planning in the South African Clothing Industry Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies. Vol 8(5), P.194-210. Mitchell, S. (2015). Woolworths kicks off new marketing campaign, retrieved on 3rd May 2017 from https://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/woolworths-kicks-off-new-marketing-campaign-20151019-gkd4dl.html Partrick, D. (2016). Why Woolworths has to think fresh, marketing magazine accessed at https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/woolworths-think-fresh/ Prinsloo, D.A. (2010). Classification and Hierarchy of Retail Facilities in South Africa. Accessed on 1st March 2017 from www.urbanstudies.co.za/pdf/New-Retail-Classification-2010.pdf Phambuka-Nsimbi, C. (2015). Modern Retailing and its Implications for Developing Countries: Insights from Retail Managers Journal of Business Management and Strategy, Vol. 6, No.1 Helms, M. (2010). Exploring SWOT analysis where are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade, Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 3. Rehan, R.M. (2014). Urban branding as an effective sustainability tool in urban development. HBRC Journal Vol 10(2) pp. 222-230. South African edition, (2012). South African retail and consumer products outlook accessed at https://www.pwc.co.za/en/assets/pdf/retail-and-consumer-products-outlook-2012-2016.pdf Veneto P. (2013). Overview of the South African Retail Market https://www.tv.camcom.gov.it/docs/Corsi/Atti/2013_11_07/OverviewOFTHESOUTHAfrica.pdf Vivek, S.D., Beatty, S.E., Morgan, R.M. (2012). Customer engagement: Exploring customer relationships beyond purchase. The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(2), 122-146. Woolworths integrated report, (2012). Trends influencing our strategy, retrieved on 3rd May 2017 from https://www.woolworthsholdings.co.za/investor/annual_reports/ar2012/integrated/business/industry_trends.asp Woolworths, (2015). Company website, Good business journey report retrieved on 1st March 5, 2017 from https://www.woolworthsholdings.co.za/investor/annual_reports/ar2015/whl_2015_gbj.pdf WHL Integrated report, (2016). Company website, https://www.woolworthsholdings.co.za/downloads/2016/WHL-Integrated-Report-2016.pdf

Speech bruce dawe Essay Example

Speech bruce dawe Essay The underdog. These concepts are all key to the Australian experience. These are only some of the values that define Australians. After the war, poets like Banjo Patterson, were trying to lift peoples spirits, as one of the best ways to escape from reality is through literature. This was one of the best times for Australian poets as people wanted a way out, some alternate universe where everything ends in a happily ever after. One of the later toes, Bruce Dade saw this and reflected this in his poems, Life-cycle and homogeneousness. He did this by portraying a man in homogeneousness, who retreats to his garden, taking all his worries with him. One constant in a world of variables, Dade writes. There are many reasons for a man to retreat to his garden one of these reasons is because the world is changing to fast, as it did when the war took place. This is also shown in Life-cycle as Dade writes, They will not grow old as those from more northern States grow old, for them it will always be three- quarter- mime with the scores level and the wind advantage in the final term. We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Speech bruce dawe specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer By this I believe he is referring to the whole if you support this team you will not grow old, in other words sport is Just another way to cheat death. One of the main themes is the Australians see themselves as the Little Guy. The person who nobody expects to become anybody important in life. As depicted in The Man from Snowy River. A stripling on a small and weedy beast, a racehorse undersized. However the man from Snowy River does the unexpected When they reached the mountains summit, even Clan took a pull. The hidden ground was full of wombat holes, and any slip was death. But the man from Snowy River let the pony have its head. He raced down the mountain like a torrent down its bed. While the others stood and watched in very fear. And he ran him single- handedly. He turned their heads for home. Australia as a country is Just that, proven when Australia became independent of the United Kingdom in 1901. After that in 1931 they officially became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. These myths made it so. How well to quote Joseph Gobbles If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. Rarely in todays roll, would you see a situation where the under-dogs rises from the ashes of defeat, not backing down, till the final breath, where the people will undergo hardships to get the Job done. The reality of it all is much different; as most people will complain or procrastinate, do anything to delay the Job. These are however the story lines that inspire Australians to be more than they are. This is the main reason why these poems are important. Not because they remind people of their past. No, because they inspire our whole nation, to be the best they can be.

Alred Hitchcock essays

Alred Hitchcock essays Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in London on August 13, 1899. His father, William Hitchcock, a grocer, and his mother, Emma Whelan Hitchcock, brought him up. As a young boy he loved to travel, and by the time he was eight he had ridden every bus line in London and explored all of its docks and shipping terminals. His parents were devoted Catholics and made sure their son had a proper upbringing. He attended St. Ignatius College, a Jesuit preparatory school in London, where he started on a course that would prepare him to become an electrical engineer. He eventually was forced to give up his courses at the University of London to help support his family by working as a technical clerk in a cable-manufacturing company. Not to be deterred, he rose from the lowly job to the advertising department. But Alfred had a love for movies. He set out for a job in the filmmaking industry. In 1920, his first break came. With help from an actor, he was able to get a job as a title designer and before long he became head of the titling section of a newly organized American firm. By 1923, he was a scenario writer for Gainsborough Pictures in Islington, England, and that same year he saw his first credit as art director for a film called Woman to Woman. This came after he had tried his hand at directing a comedy about London low-life called Number Thirteen in 1922. The star of the picture, Clare Greet, put up some of the money for the project. However, it wasnt enough to sustain it and the film was never completed. He later became co-director on the film Always Tell Your Wife after the films original director became ill and could not complete shooting. He then acted as designer, script collaborator, and assistant director for two different films, The White Shadow (1923) and The Passionate Adventure (1924). A year later Hitchcock got his first break. He was asked to direct The Pleasure Garden, which would be his first c...

Culture Jamming - Definition and Examples

Culture Jamming s Culture jamming is the practice of disrupting the mundane nature of everyday life and the status quo with surprising, often comical or satirical acts or artworks. The practice was popularized by the anti-consumerist organization Adbusters, which often uses it to force those who encounter their work to question the presence and influence of advertising and consumerism in our lives. In particular, culture jamming often asks us to reflect on the pace and volume at which we consume and the unquestioned role that the consumption of goods plays in our lives, despite the many human and environmental costs of global mass production. Key Takeaways: Culture Jamming Culture jamming refers to the creation of images or practices that force viewers to question the status quo.Culture jamming disrupts social norms and is often used as a tool for social change. Activists have used culture jamming to raise awareness of issues including sweatshop labor, sexual assault on college campuses, and police brutality. The Critical Theory Behind Culture Jamming Culture jamming often involves the use of a meme that revises or plays off of a commonly recognized symbol of a corporate brand (such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike, and Apple, to name just a few). The meme is typically designed to call into question the brand image and values attached to the corporate logo, to question the consumer relationship to the brand, and to illuminate harmful actions on the part of the corporation. For example, when Apple launched the iPhone 6 in 2014, the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) staged a protest at a Hong Kong Apple Store where they unfurled a large banner that featured the image of the new device sandwiched between the words, iSlave. Harsher than harsher. Still made in sweatshops. The practice of culture jamming is inspired by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, which focused on the power of mass media and advertising to shape and direct our norms, values, expectations, and behavior  through unconscious and subconscious tactics. By subverting the image and values attached to a corporate brand, the memes deployed in culture jamming aim to produce feelings of shock, shame, fear, and ultimately anger in the viewer, because it is these emotions that lead to social change and political action. Sometimes, culture jamming uses a meme or a public performance to critique the norms and practices of social institutions or to question political assumptions that lead to inequality or injustice. The artist Banksy is a notable example of this type of culture jamming. Here, well examine some recent cases that do the same. Emma Sulkowicz and Rape Culture Emma Sulkowicz launched her performance piece and senior thesis project Mattress Performance: Carry That Weight at Columbia University in New York City  in September  2014, as a way to draw critical attention to the universitys mishandling of disciplinary proceedings for her alleged rapist, and its mishandling of sexual assault cases in general. Speaking about her performance and her experience of rape, Emma told the Columbia Spectator that the piece is designed to take her private experience of rape and shame in the aftermath of her attack into the public sphere and  to physically evoke the psychological weight she has carried since the alleged attack.  Emma vowed to carry the weight in public until her alleged rapist was expelled or left campus. This never happened, so Emma and supporters of the cause carried her mattress throughout her graduation ceremony. Emmas daily performance not only brought  her alleged assault  into the public sphere, it also jammed the notion  that sexual assault and its consequences are private matters, and illuminated the reality that they are often  hidden from view by the shame and fear that survivors experience. Refusing to suffer in silence and in private, Emma made  her fellow students, faculty, administrators, and staff at Columbia face the reality of sexual assault on college campuses by making the matter visible with her performance. In sociological terms, Emmas performance served to vanish the taboo on acknowledging and discussing the widespread problem of sexual violence by disrupting the social norms of daily campus behavior. She brought rape culture into sharp focus on Columbias campus, and in society in general. Emma received a heap of media coverage for her culture jamming performance piece, and fellow students and alumni of Columbia joined her in carrying the weight on a daily basis. Of the social and political power of her work and the widespread media attention it received, Ben Davis of ArtNet, the leader in global news about the art world, wrote, I can hardly think of an artwork in recent memory that justifies the belief that art can still help  lead a conversation  in quite the way  Mattress Performance  already has. Black Lives Matter and Justice for Michael Brown At the same time that Emma was carrying that weight around Columbias campus, halfway across the country in St. Louis, Missouri, protesters creatively demanded  justice for 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man  who was killed by a Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014. Wilson had at that point yet to be charged with a crime, and since the killing occurred, Ferguson, a predominantly Black city  with a predominantly white police force and a history of police harassment and brutality,  had been raked by daily and nightly protests. Just as intermission concluded during a performance of  Requiem  by Johannes Brahms by the St. Louis Symphony on October 4, a racially diverse group of singers stood from their seats, one by one, singing the classic Civil Rights anthem, Which Side Are You On? In a beautiful and haunting performance, protesters addressed the predominantly white audience with the songs titular question, and implored, Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all. In a recorded video of the event, some audience members look on disapprovingly while many clapped for the singers. Protesters dropped banners  from the balcony commemorating Michael Browns life  during the performance  and chanted Black lives matter! as they peacefully exited the symphony hall at the conclusion of the song. The surprising, creative, and beautiful nature of this culture jamming protest made it particularly effective. The protesters capitalized on the presence of a quiet and attentive audience to disrupt the norm of audience  silence and stillness  and instead made  the audience the site of a politically engaged performance. When social norms are disrupted in spaces in which they are usually strictly obeyed, we tend to quickly take notice and focus on the disruption, which makes this form of culture jamming successful. Further, this performance disrupts the privileged comfort that members of a symphony audience enjoy, given that they are primarily white and wealthy, or at least middle class. The performance was an effective way of reminding people who are not burdened by racism that the community in which they live is currently under assault by it in physical, institutional, and ideological ways  and that, as members of that community, they have a responsibility to fight those for ces. Both of these performances, by Emma Sulkowicz and the St. Louis protesters, are examples of culture jamming at its best. They surprise those who bear witness to them with their disruption of social norms, and in doing so, call those very norms, and the validity of the institutions that organize them  into question. Each offers a timely and deeply important  commentary on troubling social problems  and forces us to confront that which is more conveniently swept aside. This matters because viscerally confronting the social problems of our day is an important step in the direction of meaningful social change.

Terminal Design Concept Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Terminal Design Concept - Essay Example d namely; pier satellite design, pier finger design, remote satellite design, transporter design, semicircular (curvilinear) design and linear design. Having analyzed the concepts mentioned above, the most appropriate and efficient design was a hybrid of linear and pier satellite design configurations. By description, the linear design concept involves a configuration with one building hosting both the ticketing and waiting area especially for small aircraft airports. The pier satellite terminal includes the same design as linear only that it involves more concourses connected to this main building thus creating several satellite structures. Considerations of best practices in modern airports influenced the hybrid selection decision. The need for short walking distances, for example, for passengers was assured by incorporating linear design to counter the excessive walking distances created by the rotunda-like pier satellite concept. A linear design concept guarantees a precise orientation where aircrafts park nose-in with respect to the terminal building. However, the orientation occasioned by the rotunda-like layout in the pier satellite design configuration is not a straight forward one. Simple construction of the main linear terminal building and the piers influenced the selection of the hybrid design configuration. The layout is simple and enables passengers to park their vehicles even right in front of the terminals before they enter through for boarding the aircraft. Adequate curb length is made possible by the pier satellite system since it is dependent on dwell time called so to mean the time has taken to remove passengers and their baggage. Thanks to the piers for decentralizing the clearing area and the no hub volume type of airport under consideration. In this case, there was enough area for terminal curb for through vehicles, baggage, and the passengers’ pickup. Small baggage system costs using decentralized system helps achieve pier satellite

Small Business Plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Small Business Plan - Research Paper Example By using the online grant selector on: a total of 79 grants were identified. We are estimating that a grant or a combination of grants totaling 10 000 or less than 10% of start up costs would be possible2. The average cost of a lunch entree will be 10GBP, while the average cost of a dinner entree will be 15GBP. We expect the average lunch drink price to be 2GBP, with more lunch guests having coffee and tea than alcoholic beverages. During dinner we expect the average per person drink order to be 5GBP reflecting that the majority of guests will be having one or more alcoholic beverages. Thus the average per guest lunch ticket will be 12, and the average per guest dinner bill 20. The busiest month of the year is predicted to be December at 115% of average monthly revenue. The next busiest month will be November, bringing in 110% of the average monthly revenue. January is typically the slowest month (especially after holiday shoppers receive their December credit card statements. As such, we expect only 90% of the monthly revenue in January. February is also slow, but has one of the busiest evenings of the year in Valentines Day, so it will do a healthy 95% of average monthly revenue. Labour and food costs are tied to revenue, and will adjust up and down accordingly. For the first year we d... Sales forecasts SALES FORECAST Seating Capacity 30 Usable capacity 0.8 Lunch Turns 2 Customers served 48 Ave revenue/customer 12 Lunch Revenue 576 Dinner Turns 3 Customers served 72 Ave revenue/customer 20 Dinner Revenue 1440 Daily Revenue 2016 Yearly and seasonal fluctuations in Revenue The busiest month of the year is predicted to be December at 115% of average monthly revenue. The next busiest month will be November, bringing in 110% of the average monthly revenue. January is typically the slowest month (especially after holiday shoppers receive their December credit card statements. As such, we expect only 90% of the monthly revenue in January. February is also slow, but has one of the busiest evenings of the year in Valentines Day, so it will do a healthy 95% of average monthly revenue. Labour and food costs are tied to revenue, and will adjust up and down accordingly. For the first year we do not expect to make what will become our typical monthly revenues. It takes time to build up a steady clientele. As such, we have adjusted each month's revenue during the first year down to 85% of expected. This adjustment is done after the seasonal adjustments discussed immediately above. Details of Other costs Lease 30 000 Wages Manager (35 000 GBP/yr) 2916.66 Head Cook (25 000 GBP/yr) 2083.33 Assistant Cook (8.5 GBP/hr - 28hrs/day) 3570 Dishwasher (6.0GBP/hr - 14hrs/day) 2520 Servers (6.0GBP/hr - 28hrs/day) 5040 WAGES TOTAL 16129.99 WAGES ADJUSTED FOR USAGE LEVEL 14516.99 General Operating Costs Electricity 110 Heating 110 Telephone 60 Water 60 Office Supplies 40 Cleaning 300 Maintenance &

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay Example for Free

An analysis of the conventions the soap opera genre Essay In this essay I intend to explore the genre of Soap Opera and some of the conventions that determine the genre. The Soap Opera genre is defined as A serialized drama usually dealing with domestic problems. Eastenders and Coronation Street are prime examples of the Genre. Soap Operas originated in America in the late 1950s and started being shown in England in the late 1960s. Soap Operas are named after the sponsors of the shows were Soap Products. These shows were a marketing strategy to sell the soap products. The ratings for the 2 Soap Operas mentioned are constantly at the top of the list. The ratings for particular episodes in which a story line is thickening have been up to 10 million viewers watching one episode. Increasing popularity in this genre has provided a phenomenon in spin-off products such as magazines devoted to the soaps. Actors and actresses are becoming celebrities and are appearing on talk shows because of their increasing popularity. The Soap Opera Genre has its own identifiable conventions, some of which will be explored. My particular soap that I will be analyzing is Eastenders. The episode that I will be analyzing is the episode on Monday 25th of November 2002. The time this episode was on TV was 8:00pm. Eastenders has a great slot in the channel schedule. Prime time t. v. is from 7-9pm and Eastenders popularity has also come from the time it is broadcast. The episode is half an hour long. This soap opera is shown before the watershed, which means there are certain things, which cannot be shown. There is never any swearing and hardly any violence used. I selected this soap because it has been going on for over 30 years and is one of the most popular soaps in England. The story lines that are used in this episode are: Phil Mitchell wants to find out what the postcard from Lisa says. Laura and the Doctor are having a meeting to find who wrote the poison pen letters. In the scenes that I will be focusing on the conventions of character will now be explored. There are mostly characters that have a history and meaning they are more rounded characters. There are 2 or 3 stereotype characters. Phil Mitchell is a very aggressive person that few people like. When people that he doesnt like tell him what to do he gets angry and threatens them and doesnt care what trouble he can get in. When he talked to someone about a postcard that had been sent from Lisa he was very aggressive and demanded to read it. The other man said no and told him to stop interfering with his life. Phil told him maybe he would maybe he wouldnt. He does what ever he wants and doesnt care who he tramples along the way. He loves his mother and protects her. He thinks that he can control everybody in the square. He has got into trouble with the police before and is a recovering alcoholic. He has 2 children and when with them he is made to look as if he such a soft character and a loving father rather than what he is everywhere else. Different camera shots are used when filming Phil to make him look powerful and menacing. He is filmed to look as if he is more powerful than anybody else in the same room. He is one of the main characters of Eastenders and is there to cause trouble and tension in the soap. I will now analyze my chosen 5 minutes where there is tension and many conventions used. The 5 minutes that I have chosen are where some of the people from the square are having a meeting to try and find who is writing poison pen letters. As the tension builds up the scene changes to the pub breaking the tension and prolonging you from knowing what was going to come if the scene hadnt been changed. The camera shots used only show 1 or 2 peoples faces to let the viewer see the facial expression of the person. When the scene changes to the pub the camera shots change and a panning shot is used to distinguish who is in the pub. The shot stops to people having conversations in the pub. When the scene changes you can see the lighting is different. It gets darker but there is enough light to see the people and their expressions. The camera focuses in on one of the people when they have something to say. The camera at the beginning of the scene turns around showing all the people in the room but from then on the camera doesnt turn but cuts from person to person. As the scene gets to the end someone is walking in to the room hearing something that shouldnt have been heard. The camera changes back and forth from the person speaking, to the person walking into the room. Eventually when the person walks into the room the camera angle is changed and shows the person who walked into the room taller than anybody else making the rest of the people in the room feel small. The camera cuts very quickly to all the different peoples faces showing their surprise and emotion. The camera stays on the person who walked in on the people until she has finished what she has to say. Then the camera cuts back to the peoples faces. This gives the effect of the people being caught out and the person who wouldnt normally be in this situation the person who caught them out. I think that Soap Operas will be an important part in the TV industry for many years because it has domestic issues and provides entertainment for a whole variety of people and for most age groups. It will also be popular because it opens up many conversations on suggested story lines and what will happen next in the next episode. The soap opera has become more than a marketing strategy for selling soaps.

Bertolt Brecht :: Drama

Bertolt Brecht. Brecht was born Augsburg, Germany in 1898. He then attended university in Munich in 1917. It was while he was at university that he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution which was the first event to influence him. Brecht wanted what had occurred in Russia to repeat itself in Germany as he saw all there was to gain from a Revolution. This was the first influence that gave Brecht his voice in social and political issues. In 1918 Brecht was called up for World War 1 as a medical orderly. Here he witnessed some of the worst medical injuries created by the war. This experience made him an extreme pacifist. This was the second most influential event that took place which in turn caused him to be in opposition to those international opinionated political powers. He saw them as being capitalist populations, sending innocent men to be murdered meaninglessly, for their own efficient profitable gain. He felt misery as the human potential completely contradicted its entire meaning by the brute actions of humans around the world. Marxism was the influence that gave Brecht hope that there was good within humans although some needed re-awakening. He had seen the Russian Revolution and witnessed the collapse of Germany after World War 1 and the fall of the Royal Family of Europe. This all influenced Brecht to write his first play Baal in 1918. This raw play and episodic structure was the youth of Brecht’s later well-known work, which inhabited a more grotesque quality. His work looks at the incapability one has to have power over the lust and greed in the world. He uses the element of shock in his plays as he relates to his yearning for change and fury at his experiences. It was this yearning to bring change via the use of shock that bought us epic theatre. In 1922 Brecht went to Berlin and this experienced gave him the influence for all his later work. Here he observed real theatre and the cabaret, parts of theatre he never knew existed. This influence made him more culturally aware and gave him the knowledge to develop his work. Aesthetic theatre was influenced by expressionalism, the use of various scenes without any rational order. He discarded ‘Drawing room comedy’, realism and naturalism. Instead he took influences from Edwin Piscator whom considered theatre as a device for political education. Edwin Piscator used different means in which to convey his political message. He used news-real, projections and captions to portray the background knowledge of the play. He also used great chorus scenes, perceived in traditional Broadway or West- End performances, to demonstrate the significance of the play.

lightweight truss construction

The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues concerning the use of lightweight truss construction.   The use of this construction has increased greatly in recent years.   There are many benefits to using lightweight truss constructions.   However, there are also dangers, which will be presented. The main benefit of using lightweight truss wood construction is that it offers builders the opportunity to save lots of money (Pindelski, 2006).   Construction companies are in the business of making money, and therefore many of them prefer to use this new, cheaper construction.   This allows the builders to secure more contracts because they are able to offer lower prices.   Another benefit of using lightweight truss construction is that it makes it easier to install and run utilities and ventilation systems, it is also easy to assemble.   Moreover, this new construction is as strong as traditional structures under normal conditions (Pindelski, 2006). It is clear that there are indeed benefits to using lightweight truss construction, however, as with all types of construction, safety is a major concern.   Research has demonstrated that lightweight truss construction does measure up to desired safety standards.   For example, â€Å"Fire statistics suggest that there is an urgent need for improved performance of light-weight truss construction in fire scenarios,† (Ziemba, 2006, p.2). This creates a serious danger for firefighters and people who occupy buildings, which have caught on fire.   â€Å"Buildings that contain lightweight wood truss construction are susceptible to collapse from fire exposure in a very short amount of time,† (Pindelski, 2006).   This sentiment is further supported in the article Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death.   â€Å"Without training and building codes that specifically address the fire hazards and threats caused by lightweight truss construction, many civilian and firefighter lives may be lost due to early structural collapse during fire situations,† (Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death, 2005). Construction companies and builders are now left to decide if the benefits of using lightweight truss construction are worth the risks to human lives.   Firefighter argue that this construction is simply too dangerous, and has cause death for many firefighters.   Unfortunately, many builders to not agree and they assert that firefighters are simply misinformed and exaggerating the dangers of these construction materials.   This debate is likely to continue for years to come.   But there is no doubt that most people agree that saving lives is more important than saving money.   Using lightweight truss constructions is an unsafe practice and it is not worth the risk to human lives or safety. References Lightweight Truss May Cause Firefighter Death (2005).   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from http://singularity.pilsch.com/Squad514CasualArgument Pindelski, J. (2006).   Understanding the Dangers of Lightweight Truss Construction.   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?id=46749§ionld=14 Ziemba, G. (2006).   Theoretical Analysis of Light-Weight Truss Construction in Fire Conditions, Including the Use of Fire Retardant Treated Wood.   Retrieved May 8, 2007, from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-050506-114556/unrestricted/Gziemba.pdf   

The Wrestler by Dudley Talcott

Originally created in 1929 by Connecticut-born sculptor Dudley Talcott, The Wrestler is a testament to the power of the modern age. Nearly a century after its creation, its imposing presence is potent enough to earn itself the position as the symbol for the Florida International University Wolfsonian Art Museum. At nearly seven feet tall, the aluminum sculpture is oddly comforting. Its blend of a few key human features and a featureless facade gives it a quality of quiet strength, softening its powerful bulk. It seems only fitting that such an ominous figure of peaceful might would be displayed at the Olympic games in Los Angeles three years after its creation. This piece of art is one of subtle meaning, leaving it open to a variety of apt interpretations. Dudley Vail Talcott was born in 1899 into an artistic and encouraging family. He was supported in his artistic endeavors instead of being pushed to adopt a more commercial career. Talcott studied briefly at Yale University but never earned a degree. He opted instead to travel, attending open classes at Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris before traveling to Norway. Alcott spent his time in Norway exploring Norwegian fjords by canoe and working on a North Sea fishing boat. He later published two books documenting his experiences replete with his own drawings and photographs. By 1927, Talcott was exhibiting his work in New York and Chicago. He quickly gained repute as America’s premier sculpture, creating works in his own distinct style but still showing signs of more traditional approaches. By this point, Talcott was being commissioned for large-scale installations such as fountains while working on smaller pieces of a more personal nature. The Wrestler, one of his earlier works, already showed distinct signs of Talcott's style. The 1920s saw American artists being presented with competing mediums in which to express visual modernity. Modern applied arts of French influence were the modes of choice for architects and interior designers. Many sculptors chose to create works based on pre-classical Greek figures; this refers to the rendition of the human form in expressionless poses and facial features. Being born on the heels of the industrial revolution, Talcott was caught up with the rest of the country in the wave of awe and wonderment that came with experiencing such a radical change in the cultural and economic landscape. The advent of the automobile and the plane physically changed the American landscape. Jazz, considered to be one of the truly American art forms, was born shortly followed by the invention of the radio. Home refrigeration as well as penicillin, a cure-all antibiotic, was changing the way of life on the home front. Modernism, an artistic philosophy founded on the breaking of traditions and the abandonment of convention, was increasingly becoming less of a philosophy and more of a reality. Modernist art is characterized by sleek, minimalist design. It forgoes extravagance and ostentatious splendor for subtle elegance. A bloom in popularity of science fiction, introduced by films such as Metropolis, had introduced robots into popular culture and fueled an already rampant wonder of new technology. Talcott fused all these modernist ideas into The Wrestler. His faceless visage and geometric musculature are reminiscent of an automaton, yet the inclusion of ears, nipples, and male genitalia humanize what might have been an otherwise cold form. This humanization of his sculpture is evocative of nude Greek figures in the pre-classical eras. The use of aluminum as a medium allows Talcott to express a sense of futurism through material alone. Though it is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, it did not become commercially available until the early nineteenth century. It was initially isolated in 1845 but until the early 1900s was only used for small applications, most notably jewelry. Once techniques were developed to produce aluminum in industrial quantities, it becomes something of a wonder material for engineers. Its durability, relatively low density, and resistance to corrosion made aluminum ideal for architectural and aviation applications. Its resistance to corrosion and ductility in particular made it apt for public sculptures and architectural ornaments. Frank Lloyd Wright, acclaimed architect and modernist, is credited by some sources as being the first to use aluminum as a decorative medium in architecture in his design of the walkway of the Polk County Science Building of the Florida Southern College. The esplanade features tapered aluminum columns that give the appearance of mechanical function. Each column is divided into three sections that give the illusion that they can retract and extend. This esplanade reflects modernist appreciation for the aesthetic appeal of the machine. Combined with its robotic form that is only vaguely human, The Wrestler is a tribute to the power of progress. Talcott entered The Wrestler in the Sculpture division in the arts portion of the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Arts competitions based on sports-themed works were a part of the Olympic games from 1912 to 1948. This portion of the Games was discontinued due to concerns about amateurism and professionalism. The competition had divisions for music, literature, painting, architecture, and sculpture. In context of the Olympic games, The Wrestler can take on meaning in addition to the modernist ideals it embodies. It can be argued that in removing some of the distinguishing features of the form, this statue transcends humanity. In spirit with the Olympics, it is free from some of the unavoidable evils of the human experience such as political, religious, and racial prejudice. The choice of athletic event depicted also adds another layer of meaning. Wrestling is classically a sport of control, as opposed to outright dominance. This sense of control refers to more than just control over one’s opponent; it also refers to control oneself. An effective wrestler is equal parts brute and master strategist. A match can be said to resemble a game of chess played with the limbs. Many eastern cultures and the predecessors of our own western culture, the Greeks, valued wrestling as a means of transcendence and self-discovery. The Greek philosopher Plato, a wrestler himself, saw the sport as a means to keep the balance between intellect and brawn while simultaneously experiencing a microcosm of human existence. American anthropologist Clifford James Geertz noted in his study of Indian culture that they view wrestling as â€Å"a story they tell themselves about themselves†¦. When in the competitive pit, a wrestler stands alone as the distilled essence of his way of life. He stands alone with his own background, his own unique history of success and failure, his own strength and skill, and his own style and technique. † Indians collectively believed being a wrestler was as much a description as a title. They revere not only the competitor as a champion but as one who has â€Å"lived up to the ideals of a rigorous life,† implying that wrestling goes beyond the barrier of recreation and ventures into creed. It can be said it is viewed as a religion without a formal doctrine, something existent in all cultures in some form or another. Dr. Jospeh S. Alter, sociocultural anthropologist and professor of medical anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, stated in a similar study focusing on the symbolic meaning of the body in the practice of North Indian wrestling, â€Å"When in the competitive pit, a wrestler stands alone as the distilled essence of his way of life. He stands alone with his own background, his own unique history of success and failure, his own strength and skill, and his own style and technique. We find the paradoxical nature of life mirrored in wrestling: despite requiring the presence of an opponent and being a custom that spans across every culture, wrestling is a solitary practice. In light of this new meaning, The Wrestler can be seen as representing humankind’s control over its future through the balance of intellectual progress and unbridled force. Furthe rmore, The Wrestler is an icon of the solidarity of the modernist movement. Without centuries of precedence and influence to rely on, a subculture of artists devoted to testing preconceptions had charged themselves with creating things that until then had never been. One could argue that modernists influenced the establishment of existential philosophy for the very reason that they were the first to strip themselves of their preconceived notions and were completely free to create as they saw fit. The Wrestler can serve as an allegorical figure for the modernist movement as a whole. Modernists stand alone in the proverbial ring, alone with their opponent (convention and classical conformity) with nothing but their own skill, style, and technique. A similar ideal is embodied by the sculpture that took the silver that year. Wrestling, by Hungarian sculptor Miltiades Manno, depicts two wrestlers in the heat of combat. While The Wrestler is more of a stoic figure of progress and strength, Wrestling is extremely detailed. Each facial feature is carved into an expression of exertion and each muscle is anatomically accurate. This sculpture is an example of a neo-classical Greek figure. Historically, these figures are more expressive and much more anatomically correct due to a better understanding of the human body; the increasing realism of the sculptures coincide with medical advancements of the era. In contrast to Talcott’s piece, Manno’s statue is a more literal depiction of the sport it is based on. A portrayal that is more analogous in meaning to that of The Wrestler is the portrayal of Jacob’s wrestling match with God. In this rendering, the match is an allegory for the triumph of man (in this case) over a higher power. He is left permanently handicapped from the match implying that, though it is possible to prevail, there are severe consequences in wresting command from those above us; we are to allow ourselves to be controlled as opposed to taking control of our lives ourselves. The sentiment behind The Wrestler is that humankind is in control of itself. Though similar in the use of wrestling as a metaphor for control, the two depictions differ in their ultimate meaning. Another work of Talcott’s, his monument to renaissance astronomer Copernicus, is also closely related in significance to The Wrestler. The monument features a modernist representation of the heliocentric model, the sun symbolized by three interlocking discs and the Earth’s orbit symbolized by a sixteen-foot ring. At its time, Copernicus’ heliocentric model was innovative. It was a widely held belief that the Earth was the center of this solar system. It seems fitting that a modernist would be the one to commemorate Copernicus’ revolutionary concept. As with all things, ways of seeing The Wrestler have changed with time. Aluminum is no longer a new and futuristic material. Robots and advanced technology are now commonplace. Most people do not even leave their houses without a cell phone, a device that would have been more science fiction than nonfiction to people of the 1920s. Without the novelty of a new material and style, this statue is still a poignant testament to the enduring character of the human spirit. The Wrestler stands proud and resolute; his broad shoulders and intimidating musculature are symbolic of the force of willpower. It is this willpower that fueled the scientific and cultural progress that was so idolized by early nineteenth century modernists and subsequent artistic movement such as post-modernism. In regards to my personal reaction to this piece, to say that I was moved by this piece is a severe understatement. As a wrestler myself I have always found competition to be a exercise in both physical and mental faculties far surpassing the development of body and mind separately. In fact, I’m a firm believer that the most valuable gains from a life spent wrestling have nothing to do with athleticism. Once my body loses its ability to handle the demands of this sport, I will not miss it. When that day comes my mind will still retain its ability to strategize at the capacity I have trained it to do so. I will still have the iron will to turn my goals and aspirations into inevitabilities. I will still be able to grapple with the foes of peace and tranquility in my life and overcome them with ease. I will still be a wrestler. This is a sentiment shared by anyone that has ever defined him or herself through this sport. The fact that this piece uses wrestling to convey such a complex and layered message stirred up these emotions in me; I have been on a hiatus from actively competing due to several orthopedic injuries so these feelings have lay dormant until recently. Tascott’s use of wrestling to convey his point struck a chord in me, allowing me to relate to the concepts presented in his despite my birth being over sixty years after these ideas were relevant. I think it is his appeal to basic constituents of the human condition, though, that arrests the attention of what would be an otherwise oblivious passerby. I believe this is the reason it was selected to be the symbol of the Wolfsonian museum. It is intimidating yet approachable; it is simple yet alluring, cold yet inviting. To borrow a line form Winston Churchill, The Wrestler is â€Å"a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. †

Daniel Keyes Controversial Novel Questions for Study

Daniel Keyes Controversial Novel Questions for Study Flowers for Algernon is a famous 1966 novel by Daniel Keyes. It began as a short story, which Keyes later expanded into a full novel. Flowers for Algernon tells the story of a mentally challenged man, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes a surgical procedure that dramatically increases his IQ. Its the same procedure thats already been performed successfully on a mouse named Algernon. At first, Charlies life is improved by his expanded mental capacity, but he comes to realize people he thought were his friends were mocking him. He falls in love with his former teacher, Miss Kinnian, but soon surpasses her intellectually, leaving him feeling isolated. When Algernons intelligence begins to decline and he dies, Charlie sees the fate that awaits him, and soon he begins to regress as well. In his final letter, Charlie asks that someone leave flowers on Algernons grave, which is in Charlies backyard. Here are a few questions for study and discussion of Flowers for Algernon: What is important about the title? Is there a reference in the novel that explains the title?What statement does the novel make, directly or indirectly, about the treatment of the mentally challenged?Flowers for Algernon was published in the mid-1960s. Are Keyes views on mental disability and intelligence dated? Does he use terms to describe Charlie that are no longer considered appropriate?What passages could have been grounds for banning Flowers for Algernon (as it was several times)?Flowers for Algernon is whats known as an epistolary novel, told in letters and correspondence. Is this an effective technique for showing Charlies rise and decline? Why or why not? To whom do you think the letters and notes Charlie writes are written?Is Charlie consistent in his actions? What is unique about his situation?Consider the location and time period of the novel. Would changing one or both have changed the story significantly?How are women portrayed in Flowers for Algernon? What would have b een different about the story if Charlie had been a woman who underwent such a controversial surgery? Are the doctors who operate on Charlie acting in his best interests? Do you think Charlie would have gone through with the operation if he knew what the ultimate outcome would be?Several publishers rejected Flowers for Algernon, demanding Keyes rewrite it with a happier ending, with at least one suggesting Charlie should marry Alice Killian. Do you think that would have been a satisfying conclusion to the story? How would it have affected the integrity of the storys central theme?What is the central message of the novel? Is there more than one moral to the story of Charlies treatment?What does the novel suggest about the connection between intelligence and happiness?What genre do you think this novel belongs to: ​Science fiction or horror? Explain your answer. Here are some additional links to enhance your appreciation and understanding of Flowers for Algernon

Poetry Explication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Poetry Explication - Essay Example Thomas used words as a brick layer may use mortar, the words served to hold the meaning in place, â€Å"what the words stood for, symbolized, or meant, was of very secondary importance; what mattered was the sound of them as I heard them for the first time†(Ferris, pp. 25). It was not uncommon for Thomas to discuss the idea of death in his work. In one such poem, A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in London, Thomas deals directly with the death of a child and the emotions that follow, â€Å"The majesty and burning of the childs death./I shall not murder† (Thomas, lines 13-14). Thomas seems to pull the idea of challenging the finality of death into this piece just as he does in Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night. Thomas deals with the reoccurring theme of death in several of his works in such a way as to challenge death itself and the aftermath felt by people who lose loved ones. This is an essential way in which to deal with the natural reality of deat h and Thomas does so through the use of language. Ultimately, Thomas wrote the piece entitled A Refusal to Mourn the Death of a Child, By Fire, in London as a way of illustrating his detest for the Nazi’s and their actions in World War II. Thomas was very in favor of the allied forces, and though he loved love intrinsically and saw the death of a child as the ultimate horror, he was not going to acknowledge the actions of the German forces in any way. This poem was his way of embracing life and refusing to be defeated by the hatred of the Nazi forces and what they stood for. The very first line of Thomas’ poem Do Not GO Gently into that Good Night, imposes instructions to the reader, â€Å"Do not go gently into that good night† (Thomas, line 1). This is the heart of the poem in that Thomas is essentially illustrating that there is an inevitable journey to be made but that one should not make this journey without resistance. The next line establishes the

Keeping Animals in Zoos and Aquaria Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Keeping Animals in Zoos and Aquaria - Essay Example This essay stresses that the vast majority of zoos across the globe offer breeding programs for some animals that may be either endangered or lacking the capability to find mates. From a conservationist approach, this move helps to restore the diversity of the wild by saving the endangered species. From an animal rights point of view, keeping animals in captivity for breeding purposes helps the animal to pass its genes to its offspring. Medical and ecological reasons may force zoologists to put some animals under captivity, especially if the animals suffer from treatable conditions. Some animals have inherent characteristics that may prevent them from mating and breeding naturally. This paper makes a conclusion that animals should not be kept in zoos and aquaria for any other purposes other than those that protect the lives of such animals. Modern zoos and aquaria focus on profit ate the expense of the animals’ enjoyment of their surroundings. Animal rights activists and some conservationists oppose strongly, the idea of holding animals in captivity. However, some cases warrant the keeping of animals in aquaria and zoos, especially circumstances that stand to benefit the animal in terms of protection, health, and food. In this respect, animals should not be kept in any zoo or aquarium except when the lives of such animals are in danger. The deciding factor should be the right and benefit to the animal rather than the interest of zoo and aquaria managers.

SABMiller Strategic Marketing Plan Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

SABMiller Strategic Marketing Plan - Lab Report Example SABMiller’s vision is to be the most admired company in the global beer industry; they are slowly accomplishing this by becoming the world’s largest brewers. SABMiller own over 200 brands of beer, they employ around 70,000 people in 75 countries, on top of this they are also the largest bottlers of coca-cola products. In Australia, SABMiller own over 58 beer and cider brands that are in the Australian Market. In late 2011, SABMiller bought out Fosters Group Limited which provided them exposure to the Australian beer and cider market. SABMiller believe that their competitive edge comes from their superior marketing and branding as well as having an understanding that every brand has a story and heritage that will always sit close to home within the local communities. SABMiller is such a successful company because they believe in corporate social responsibility and looking after the local community. They know, to succeed, you must be aware of and be able to manage your st akeholders, whether their employees, management, local community groups, local breweries, government and the media. It is for this reason that SABMiller is successful and able to be the largest brewer globally, they understand the needs of their business, both internationally and locally. Fosters Group Limited Fosters was first developed in 1888 when two brothers, William and Ralph Foster, first brewed Fosters Lager. Fosters Group Limited is part of the world’s largest brewing groups SABMiller. Fosters places it primary focus on its brewing activities as the majority of its sales revenue is driven from Carlton United Brewery. The majority of their business is done in the Australian and Pacific regions. Fosters employs approximately 2000 people, with most of those employees being employed in Australia. Fosters does trading in more than 45 countries and is the leading provider of premium beverages in beer, cider, spirits and non alcoholic drinks. Fosters Group limited prides th emselves on being the leader of innovation by investing in their brands and maintaining the highest quality standards. They wish to remain steadfast in market. Carlton United Brewery Carlton United Brewery was founded in 1854 in Melbourne, Victoria. It was in 1907 that Carlton United Brewery and Fosters joined forces, in 1983 Fosters Group Limited bought out Carlton United Brewery making the merger official. Carlton United Brewery has more than a 50% market share in the off-premise beer category. Carlton United Brewery is the largest producer of cider in Australia, producing 3 of the top rated brands. In 2007 Carlton United Brewery transformed into a franchise distribution model creating an easier way to service customers and produce top quality customer service. Due to the franchise distribution model Carlton United Brewery is now able to service over 17,000 customers and 20,000 total including hotels, clubs, liquor stores, restaurants and bars with around 800,000 deliveries made a round Australia each year. Strongbow Cider Strongbow cider was first produced in 1887; it was not until 1970 that Strongbow was first introduced into the Australian market. Bulmers was the first company to produce Strongbow, they held onto Strongbow until 2003 when Fosters Group Limited bought them out. Fosters Group Limited continue to produce and distributes Australia’s leading cider brand, Strongbow consists of five different product types they are Strongbow clear, original, dry, sweet and pear cider. 3.2 SBU The Small Business

Goals in life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Goals in life - Essay Example Starting with what you know involves getting to know yourself a little better without all the hang-ups and expectations of the world you were brought up in. To get to know yourself better, you have to sit down and really think about what’s important to you, what your morals are and what you feel is ethically correct. This is all about those intangible things that are meaningful to you. If you’re thinking about how impressive a 15 bedroom house would be to your friends and family, you’re on the wrong track but if you’re thinking about how it might be necessary to have 15 bedrooms in order to house all those children you want to have, you might be onto something. Follow the thought a little deeper and you might discover that what is important to you is that you have a close relationship with a number of different people. The next step after figuring out what’s really important to you is to experiment with those areas that you aren’t all that familiar with. Do you like to do things outdoors? If you’ve grown up in the inner city, this might be a very difficult question to answer. While you’re young is the time to experiment with different ways of living, different ways of looking at the world and different ideas of what you might wish to do in life. Talk with people who are from different countries, different backgrounds and different socio-economic classes. You might learn something about yourself and you will certainly gain a greater appreciation for the diversity of the world around you. You may discover that your inner city dreams of the 15 bedroom house meant that you want close relationships with people but that you also desire more personal space, meaning an office job will not make you happy. Finally, knowing what is really important to you and having had the chance to experiment with a variety of viewpoints, you are ready to begin setting your goals. Envision what your life might look like in 20 years

Banking, Corporate Governance and the 2007 Financial Crisis

Banking, Corporate Governance and the 2007 Financial Crisis Throughout the world, by the end of 2008, many banks had seen most of their equity destroyed by the crisis that started in the US subprime sector in 2007. Yet, not all banks across the world performed equally poorly. In this paper, we investigate how banks that performed better during the crisis, measuring performance by stock returns, differed from other banks before the crisis. Academics, journalists, and policy-makers have argued that lax regulation, insufficient capital, excessive reliance on short-term financing, and poor governance all contributed to making the crisis as serious as it was. If these factors did contribute to making the crisis worse, we would expect that banks that were more exposed to these factors performed more poorly during the crisis. We investigate the relation between these factors and the stock return performance of large banks during the crisis, where large banks are defined as banks with assets in excess of $50 billion in 2006. With our definition of la rge banks, 32 countries had at least one large bank and our sample includes 164 large banks from these countries. Many analyses of the crisis emphasize the run on the funding of banks that relied on short-term finance in the capital markets for a substantial fraction of their financing (see, for instance, Adrian and Shin, 2008, Brunnermeier, 2009, Gorton, 2010, and Diamond and Rajan, 2009). We would expect banks that rely on short-term finance before the crisis to perform worse during the crisis. We find that this is the case with two different approaches. First, we find strong evidence that banks that relied more on deposits for their financing in 2006 fared better during the crisis. Second, following Demirg ¨ ucKunt and Huizinga (2010), we use a measure of short-term funding provided by sources other than customer deposits. We show that performance is strongly negatively related to that mea-sure both for the sample of large banks and the sample extended to include large financial institutions that are not depository banks, such as investment banks. These analyses also emphasize how losses fo rce banks to reduce their leverage, perhaps through fire sales of securities, and how this effect is greater for banks with more leverage. We find that large banks with less leverage in 2006 performed better during the crisis. An Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report argues that ‘‘the financial crisis can be to an important extent attributed to failures and weaknesses in corporate governance arrangements’’ (Kirkpatrick, 2008). More recently, the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States concluded that ‘‘dramatic failures of corporate governanceyat many systematically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis.’’ (The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, 2011, pp. xvii). Some academic studies also emphasize that flaws in bank governance played a key role in the performance of banks (Diamond and Rajan, 2009, and Bebchuk and Spamann, 2010). The idea is generally that banks with poor governance engaged in excessive risk taking, causing them to make larger losses during the crisis because they were riskier. We use two proxies for governance. The first one is the ownership of the controlling shareholder in 2006. The second one is whether the bank had a shareholder-friendly board. To the extent that governance played a role, we would expect banks with better governance to have performed better. It is generally believed that greater ownership by insiders aligns their incentives more closely with the interests of shareholders. However, a powerful controlling shareholder could use control of a bank to benefit other related entities, so that it is not necessarily the case that greater ownership by the controlling shareholder means better alignment of interests of management with shareholders. Some limited evidence shows that banks with higher ownership by the control-ling shareholder performed better. In contrast, a strong and unambiguous relation exists between the extent to which a board was shareholder friendly in 2006 and a bank’s performance during the crisis. Banks with a share-h older-friendly board performed worse during the crisis. The hypothesis that the crisis resulted from excessive risk taking made possible by poor governance would imply the opposite result, so that our evidence poses a considerable challenge to the proponents of that hypothesis. We also investigate whether banks with better governance were less risky in 2006 and find no evidence supportive of that hypothesis either. Banks with more shareholder-friendly boards had a lower distance to default in 2006 but did not have higher idiosyncratic risk or higher leverage than other banks. Like Laeven and Levine (2009), we find that banks with higher controlling shareholder ownership are riskier, as these banks had greater idiosyncratic risk and a lower distance to default before the crisis. Governance and board characteristics are endogenously determined (see, e.g., Hermalin and Weisbach, 1998). In the context of our study, an important form of endogeneity stressed in the literature seems to have little relevance. Though taking into account the possibility that good governance could be caused by expectations about future outcomes generally is important, the banks with more shareholder-friendly boards are highly unlikely to have had such boards because they anticipated the crisis and expected to require better governance during it. At the same time, the concern that governance is significantly related to performance because it is associated with unobserved bank characteristics is important in the context of our study. In fact, the existence of such a relation is the only way to explain the results we find. In other words, shareholder-friendly boards created more value for shareholders through their decisions before the crisis, but during the crisis these decisions were associated with poor outcomes that could not be forecasted. For this explanation to work, these risks must not have been captured by traditional measures because accounting for these measures does not eliminate the relation between governance and performance we document. An example that could explain what we find is that banks with more shareholder-friendly boards invested more aggressively in highly-rated tranches of subprime securitizations. Such investments did not appear risky in 2006 by traditional risk measures, but they did work out poorly for the banks that made them. An alternative explanation for our results is that certain banks optimally chose more shareholder-friendly governance before the crisis because they were exposed to risks that required more independent board monitoring. With this view, the risks were not chosen by the board but instead led to the choice of a shareholder-friendly board. These risks had adverse realizations during the crisis, but because the banks had a shareholder-friendly board, they performed better than they would have had otherwise. With this explanation, banks with good governance had poor returns because of the risks they had, but they would have had even lower returns had they had worse governance. Governance is negatively related to performance in this case because it is correlated with risks that had adverse realizations, but it led to better performance nevertheless. Though we find some support for the latter explanation, neither explanation is consistent with the view that po or bank governance was a first-order cause of the crisis. We use the 2008 World Bank survey on bank regulation to examine the hypothesis that lax regulation led banks to take excessive risks that caused large losses during the crisis (see, e.g.,Dooley, Folkerts-Landau, and Garber (2009), Stiglitz (2010)). We use indices for the power of the regulators, oversight of bank capital, restrictions on bank activities, and private monitoring of banks. There is no convincing evidence that tighter regulation in general was associated with better bank performance during the crisis or with less risky banks before the crisis. In all our regressions, only the index on restrictions of bank activities is positively related to the performance of banks during the crisis.Barth, Caprio, and Levine (1999) show that the banking system is more fragile in countries where banking activities are more restricted. However, some observers, perhaps most visibly the former chair-man of the Federal Reserve System Paul Volcker, have blamed the difficulties of banks during the crisis on their activities not related to making loans and taking deposits. Though we find that large banks in countries where bank activities were more restricted suffered less from the crisis, no evidence exists that such restrictions made banks less risky before the crisis using common measures of risk. Most likely, therefore, to the extent that restrictions on bank activities are associated with better performance of banks during the crisis, it is because traditional bank activities were less exposed to the risks that turned out poorly during the crisis than were newer or less traditional bank activities. In addition, we find that stronger regulations for bank capital were associated with less risk before the crisis. Given the attention paid to the moral hazard resulting from deposit insurance, we investigate whether banks in countries with a deposit insurance scheme performed worse and find no evidence supportive of this hypothesis. However, banks in countries with formal d eposit insurance schemes had higher idiosyncratic risk before the crisis. If banks are impeded from making loans because of poor financial health, economic growth is weaker. It is therefore important to understand whether the variables that help predict returns during the crisis also help explain loan growth. In a related paper,Cornett, McNutt, Strahan, and Tehranian (2011)find that US banks with more exposure to liquidity risk experienced less loan growth during the crisis. We have a much smaller sample than they have, so that our tests do not have as much power as theirs and are less definitive. Nevertheless, we find evidence that is supportive of their results on an international sample composed of much larger banks than the typical bank in their study. Banks with more shareholder friendly boards have lower loan growth during the crisis. Finally, a strong positive relation exists between loan growth and restrictions on bank activities. We also estimate regressions excluding US banks. With these regressions, we can evaluate whether the worse performers were banks from countries where the banking system was more exposed to the US according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) statistics. These regressions allow us to assess whether holding US exposures was a contagion channel [see, e.g.,Eichengreen,Mody, Nedeljkovic, and Sarno (2009)for the view that assets were a contagion channel]. We find that banks from countries where the banking system was more exposed to the US performed worse. Our main results hold up in a variety of robustness tests. Our study is limited by the data available. Ideally, we would like to have data on the nature of holdings of securities by banks. However, such data are generally not available. Another limitation of our study is that, in the fall of 2008, countries stepped in with capital injections and other forms of support of banks. Such intervention might have distorted returns. Yet, our results generally hold for returns measured from mid-2007 to just before the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008. Moreover, Panetta, Faeh, Grande, Ho, King, Levy, Sigboretti, Taboga, and Zaghini (2009) show that the announcement of rescue packages did not have a positive impact on bank stock prices across countries. We estimate our regression that includes the indicator variable for whether the board is shareholder-friendly for a sample that includes investment banks and other financial institutions not subject to the Basle Accords (i.e., financ ial institutions that do not report Tier 1 capital and are not subject to the regulations forming the basis for our regulatory variables). We find that our results hold for that sample. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2,we introduce the data that we use. In Section 3, we examine how the performance of banks during the crisis relates to governance, regulation, balance sheet composition, and country characteristics other than regulation. We also show how these attributes are related to bank risk before the crisis. We conclude in Section 4.