New Media Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

New Media Culture - Essay Example Indeed, social interactions and relationships have fulfilled several aims and social psychological aims of people. But in ages past, people have been more familiar with a traditional form of social relations whereby the people we come across in person become the only people we continue to relate to in our own unique social worlds. With technological advancement however, much of this trend has changed as technology has created an avenue for people to establish a social setting without really having to come to meet on a personal basis (Fiske, 1992). Sociality and communities have been digitized and advanced through technology and by the power of the internet through various social network platforms. In this essay, there is a careful scrutiny to new sociality and new communities as substitutes of old sociality and communities. As part of the scrutiny, the role of culture in technologically advanced societies shall be invested to come to conclusions with the merits and demerits associate d with new sociality and communities. Role of culture in technologically advanced societies Culture may generally be explained as the way in which a group of people live. This means it is the way of life of people and thus entails key variables that distinguish these people including language, meals, dressing, courtesy, social perception and interactivity. Culture has always been a key part of societies and communities. This is because most often than not, any given society is made up of people with core cultural similarities and the more these people are able to share these cultural similarities, the better it is for them to have their communities established (Wellman, B. et al., 2001). In cases where there are cultural differences, tolerance and acceptability have been identified to be the key to developing an effective community. Indeed, as much as this principle applies in the traditional setting, it has also been found to be useful and influential in this era of technologically advanced societies (Castells, 2001). Using various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Whatsapp as examples, it can be noted that there is virtually none of these social media network that allows an open form of networking that lacks permissiveness by end users to decide who will be their social members and those who will not. This means that hosts and makers of these social networks understand the need for any two people to get along culturally well before relationships can be established in a technologically advanced society. Culture therefore plays the role of defining the kind of societies that can be established and how effective these societies will be once they are advanced into communities. Culture also determines whether or not people will have their social psychological needs satisfied in technologically advanced societies. Approaches to Social Network Theory Generally, social network theory makes use of two major approaches or schemes namely nod es and ties. As far as nodes are concerned, reference made to individual actors who are found within the network, while ties refer to the nature of relationships that are established between these actors (Granovetter, 1983). Social network theory has actually been related to traditional sociological studies, where it has been said that

Comparing UK and US Gang Culture

Comparing UK and US Gang Culture Popular perceptions of gang activity are often based on sensationalized images created in the media. They vary from dramatic reports of â€Å"gangland† shootings to images of young men terrorizing the local neighborhood. Indeed, there are elements of gang culture that are criminal and threatening for the local population; however, gang culture is so complex that a single definition has yet to be agreed upon by social scientists. The primary issue of controversy is whether criminality is a central and causal. Thrasher’s (1927) pioneering study was the first to look at group processes and psychology of gang life. Through his study of 1,313 Chicago gangs, he concluded gangs are part of the psychological and group process of teenagers in economically deprived communities. He believed gangs are: group(s) originally formed spontaneously, and then integrated through conflict†¦.characterized by the following types of behavior: meeting face to face, milling, movement through space as a unit, conflict, and planning. The result†¦.is the development of tradition, unreflective internal structure, esprit de corps, solidarity, morale, group awareness, and attachment to a local territory. (pg 46) By the ‘50s and ‘60s, the popular view changed – the perception of gangs became one of fear and threat.. Miller (1975) and Klein (1971) published papers defining gangs as innately criminal. Miller’s pessimistic perspective is apparent in his classification of gangs as: â€Å"a group of recurrently associating individuals with identifiable leadership and internal organization, identifying with or claiming control over territory in the community, and engaging either individually or collectively in violent or other forms of illegal behavior† (pg 9). Miller was echoed by Klein (1971), who defined gangs as: â€Å"any denotable group of youngsters who†¦..recognize themselves as a notable group†¦. (and) have been involved in a sufficient number of delinquent incidents to call forth a consistent negative response from†¦..residents and/or law enforcement agencies† (pg 13) This theme was taken up by law enforcement agencies, and the idea of the gang as a part of the moral order of the community was subsequently gone. The sociological definition of gang was replaced by terms mainly useful to law enforcement, which are still used to this day. Brantley and DiRosa of the FBI (1994) describe gangs as groups of â€Å"individuals†¦..who associate on a continual basis for the purpose of committing criminal acts†. But other researchers maintain the Thrasher group process hypothesis. Moore argues against Miller and Kleins definitions, as she believes they are circular: the definitions include the very behaviour i.e. crime that they are trying to understand. Thrasher and Moores definitions differ significantly from Klein and Millers. Moore (1998) believes criminality is not inherent to gangs and views them instead as â€Å"unsupervised peer groups†¦socialized by the streets rather than by conventional institutions.† The debate continues, and the lack of agreement regarding the defining features of gangs has made consistent findings and generalizations problematic. Criminal activity remains a pivotal issue in the debate; the criminality of gangs waxes and wanes, and to use criminality to distinguish a group from a gangs is a misleading and unhelpful process. The Phenomenon â€Å"Gang† in the UK and USA Discuss. Anywhere in the world were there are unsettled neighborhoods or a transient population, there are likely to be gangs of youths, coming together to seek the security, sense of belonging and structure they lack in their communities. Traditionally, UK interventions to curtail gang activity have been based largely on the US model, where gang conflict has a long and complex history. However research into why youths join gangs in the UK found important differences between British gangs and their US counterparts, which has lead to a change in the British governments approach. British gangs tend to be gentler than those in America, which are more likely to generate distinct identities, rigid structures and be involved in criminal acts (Klein, 1995). UK gangs lack the American-style initiation ceremonies and specific styles of clothing. In the USA large portions of the population exist on the edge of communities, creating breading grounds for criminal street gangs. In certain urban ghettos men rejoice when they reach 25 years of age because gangland fighting kills more young people than illness or accidents (Community Cares, 1994). Often these areas will be economically deprived. The longstanding social security system in the UK has prevented the same situation occurring. The USA takes a different approach and makes frequent cuts in its social program, investing instead in its penal system. In 2003 the British government proposed to revamp youth services, in an effort to reverse the 18% decrease in youth services since the 1980’s. The new legislation places a requirement upon all local authorities to meet certain standards by 2005, and expects them to critically assessment the youth service provision within their area. Councils were asked to make a promise to youths to provide not only the usual meeting places for personal and social development, (i.e. youth clubs and activities), but also programmes related to peer education and ways of ensuring their views are heard. The government pledged  £83m to the programme. However, the British government are also taking a stronger stance against â€Å"antisocial behavior†, which frequently involves gangs of adolescents. Although the new anti-social behavior legislation is not aimed specifically at gangs, its purpose is to reduce feelings of intimidation within communities, which is often concurrent with gang formation. Once an Anti-Social Behavior Order (ASBO) is issued, the accused must abide by the stipulations in the ASBO or potentially face criminal proceedings. The US was similarly preoccupied with anti-social behavior in the 1990’s, when task forces such as Operation Weed and Seed, and the Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services anti-gang drive, had at it’s core the desire curb or contain street gangs. New legislation was passed and many states enacted statutes to assist law enforcers. In both the US and UK, this was a response to a concerned electorate, made anxious by the tabloid media. There must be a move in the US towards interventions that do not criminalize young people. The question that should be asked is why are young people joining gangs. The answer is well researched; the need for structure, nurturing, a sense of belonging and perceived economic opportunity create breeding grounds for gangs. If goverments adopt adequate social security programs to meet these basic needs, gangs will not evolve – they ultimatly reflect the society that has shaped them. References Brantley, A. C., DiRosa, A. (1994) Gangs: A National Perspective. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. New York Klein, M. W. (1995) The American Street Gang. Oxford University Press. New York. Koutos, L., Brotherton, D., Barrios, L. (2003) Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives. Columbia University Press. Miller, W. (1975) Violence by Youth Gangs and Youth Groups as a Crime problem in Major American Cities. Washington Department of Justice. Washington. Moore, J. W. 1998. â€Å"Understanding Youth Street Gangs: Economic Restructuring and the Urban Underclass.† In M. W. Watts (Ed.), Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth and Violence (pp. 65-78), Stamford, CT: JAI. Thrasher, F. M. (1927) The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago III. University of Chicago Press. USA (1994) Community Cares (1994). Socialist review, 179. Retrieved February 10, 2006, from http://pubs.socialist reviewindex.org.uk/sr179/msmith.htm

Justice After War :: essays research papers fc

Justice after War History – Wars – Writing Task Wartime is definitely a time of much violence and many things happen during this time, but what about after war†¦ â€Å"The just war tradition is typically evoked when discussing the decision to launch a war (justice of war) and when evaluating the conduct of forces during war (justice in war). But the tradition does not explicitly specify principles for assessing justice after war, nor does it discuss state obligations upon achieving military victory.† This excerpt was taken from an article by Tony Lang and Mary-Lea Cox. Once victory is earned by one side it must take responsibility to pave the road to peace in that country by building a new political system. This is summarized in Thomas L. Freidman’s view when he says â€Å"you break it, you own it†. But maintaining peace in war-trodden country is not easy. There is jealousy from that country, the urge to take revenge; while this is happening the victors have to discuss how to maintain justice. Maintaining the balance between these two is a tedious task. In many conflicts through history the aftermath has been more of a problem to the defeated than the war itself, becoming financially crippled, becoming underdogs of the world, being restricted. These are all problems faced by the dark horse of the battle, after a battle keeping a stability of even-handedness and retribution is a daunting task. Many trials through time have been subject to comments by critics that have made points that justice had no role in the final judgement. In the Nuremberg Trials, of the 21 defendants that were held in custody 11 were sentenced to death (over 50%), three were acquitted and the rest were subject to heavy jail terms. The Nazi atrocities that they were put on trial for were for good reason, though they had been wishing to give them all a fair trial it is obvious that excessive urges to take revenge caused an imbalance in the balance between revenge and justice. Those to be prosecuted were done so because of the brutal â€Å"war crimes†, â€Å"crimes against peace† and â€Å"crimes against humanity† they had committed. The prosecutors were dominated by a large percentage of Jews, who at this time, excusably, had a fervent hatred for the Nazis, since the Nazis had also had a fervent hatred for them. But this just shows how hard it would have been for these prosecutors to not have had revenge govern their thoughts throughout the trial.

Notes on How to Write a Good Essay

Robert Cormier’s book ‘Heroes’ opens by introducing us to the main character Francis Cassavant, a ex-military soldier, wounded by a grenade from when he fought in World War Two. There are three main characters in this book; Francis, Larry and Nicole. Throughout this book Cormier gives an insight into how all these characters interlock, with Francis’ mission, to kill Larry LaSalle. In the first chapter of this book Cormier introduces us to the main character of Francis Cassavant, and how he is presented as a hero; this chapter is based entirely on his appearance after a grenade attack from when he fought in the war. Francis’ appearance has obviously changed dramatically as he refers to his face as a ‘gargoyle’ and that he has ‘no face’. Francis also refers to himself as the ‘hunchback of Notre Dame’ and that he is ugly with ‘no ears to speak of’ and ‘the absence of my nose’. This suggests that that he has been in a terrible accident and instantly makes you empathise, and feel sorry for him, but as you further progress through the book you see that maybe that Francis isn’t the hero and as innocent as he seems at first glance. To add further detail Cormier describes his nostrils as ‘two small caves’. This portrays his face as almost like a monster or a mutant. We can infer from the text that Francis has low self esteem and has little or no confidence in himself and when his doctor says ‘don’t expect anyone to pick you for a dance’ doesn’t really help with the fact when he knows he’s ‘not normal’. Francis hides his face with scarves, a hat and a bandage fastened with safety pins, hiding his face tell us that he does not want to be recognised or perhaps to be seen by anyone he knows in Frenchtown. People glance at me in surprise’ and ‘I don’t blame them’ shows that Francis is obviously repulsed and disgusted by the way he looks but isn’t afraid to say so, and also if he looks terrifying and repulsive, he isn’t going to be thought of as a hero. After in depth of describing the physical description of Francis, Cormier then moves on to the main plot, Francis’ mission to kill Larry LaSalle, dropping in little hints and sending up an ‘our father’ and ‘ ail Mary’ and ‘glory be’ for Larry LaSalle, and sending up prayers for Nicole Renard, instantly bringing all the three main characters together but still keeping them separate and not knowing why they are interlocked and how everything is more complicated then it seems behind the eyes of Francis, Larry and Nicole, and how Francis and possibly Larry could either be heroes or cowards. Making Francis seem like an innocent war hero is an interesting and unusual move to make because it makes you feel sorry for Francis at the beginning but as the story unfolds you see that there is more than meets the eye about Francis and how his ‘heroic status’ isn’t as heroic as it seems. One of the ways Cormier presents the concept of heroes is in chapter nine, the chapter when Larry LaSalle reveals he is going off to the ‘fight the japs’ in the Second World War. So when the news first broke that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbour in an attack, a wave of frenzy and fear washed over America. People had ‘patriotic fever’ meaning that they weren’t just feeling patriotic about their country; it was as though a fever had taken over and had plagued through everyone. That day Larry LaSalle stood before everyone in the wreck centre, his ‘movie-star smile gone replace with grim faced determination’ he was ready to go and ‘fight the japs’ he announced that he was going to war, he had ‘anger that we had never seen before flashing in his eyes’. From the quote we realise that Larry is passionate about fighting for his country, but from the way he displays and announces that he is leaving and going to war and when he says ‘none of that kids’ (referring to when the kids clap when he announces he’s going to war) ‘I’m just doing what millions of others are doing’ he almost says it in a way that he wants to be recognised even more as a hero, and he also tries to make it seem as though it’s not important about what he’s doing, but by the way he flaunts it he makes it seem like he’s doing some great and powerful favour for America and the people of Frenchtown. This shows the concept of heroes because as soon as the opportunity comes along to be a hero, Larry will grab it in an instant and makes sure that everyone knows about it and about how it’s making him a hero. This chapter explains the events from Larry returning home, to the episode that happens at the end of the chapter and that is when we come to realise Francis’ hatred for Larry LaSalle. When the crowd are waiting for Larry’s arrival, we see that he is described as ‘Lt. Lawrence LaSalle, US Marines Corps, holder of the silver star’ from this quote we can immediately see that he is being shown as a hero. He is also the star of ‘newsreels’ and ‘radiobroadcasts’ making his seem very important; like a vip – almost a god as far as the town are concerned. They describe him as ‘a bright pied piper’ saying that he can get the towns children to follow him. It shows that he is quite a powerful and a big role model in the children of Frenchtown and maybe not only with children, the adults also seem to love, worship and adore him. In Larry’s actual arrival those there to greet him add the heroic atmosphere. The town goes to greet him at the station, adults, old people and children from the wreck centre are all there to meet this so called hero. When he arrives you instantly remember his ‘movie star smile’ revealing his popularity and confidence. ‘We cheered’ this shows that he is loved and respected by his fellow people and people look up to him as a ‘hero’. You could still see ‘a touch of Fred Astaire in his walk’ implying that he still is the same old Larry, but now ‘lethal’. Him being described as lethal implies that he has changed from coming back from the war; he’s thinner, sleeker. My war hero’ people shout from the crowd. People are proud of him for fighting for their country, they really respect him. ‘Ribbons and medals on his chest’ are a visible representation of him being a hero. Physically the descriptions of Larry show how much he has changed from being a cool dancer to a ‘slen der, knife like killing machine’ he has now changed into a ‘knife-like’ and ‘lethal’ with sharper details, the hero that we saw before has now become a ‘superhero’ in the town’s eyes. ‘You are our celebration’ the mayor proclaims to Larry, emphasising Larry’s heroic status. He is now the town’s hero when he is given ‘the silver key to the city’ people would immediately think that he is of high heroic status is the mayor gives him something so important to the city. When he gives his big speech he says ‘we need to keep the world safe for these young people’ saying this he is almost trying to cover up for what he does later. At the celebration, towards the end Larry tries to get Francis to leave the wreck centre, so he can have ‘one last dance’ with Nicole, he says that ‘this is important’ and he manipulates Francis. Just me and her alone’ makes it feel like something terrible is going to happen. So Francis leaves, ‘I’ve got to go, you and Larry stay. One last dance’ his words sounding false as though Larry placed them in his mouth. She wants him to ‘stay and watch’ but he leaves, to his and Nicole’s misfortune. When the attack happens, it shows just how unheroic and cowardly both Larry and Francis are. ‘In the shadows of the hallway’ Francis lurks waiting for Nicole to leave the Wreck centre, but then Larry does the most inexplicable, disgusting thing, he sexually assaulted her. A sound that could have been a moan and a rustle of clothing’ even though Francis knew something was going on in there, he still couldn’t pluck the courage to go see if his girlfriend was alright. When she ‘stumbles out of the hallway’ she sees Francis, and he saw ‘the betrayal of her in her eyes’ as she runs away, Francis hears Larry, this now shows how wrong people were about Larry and about how he is not a hero but something of the complete opposite ‘whistling the tune-‘dancing in the dark’ as though he had done nothing wrong, that this was no rmal. It’s amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks’ Francis is truly heartbroken, and it shows just how cowardly Francis and Larry can both be. In chapter 14, we see how much of a hero Francis could be when we finally get to the part where he goes to kill Larry LaSalle, Larry is no longer a hero. When he sees Larry you can see that Larry’s physical appearance has changed drastically as he’s ‘yellowed with age’, a bit ‘feeble now’, and ‘fragile now’, with ‘white hands’. Larry is not innocent’ and no longer a hero. Francis explains his unannounced visit, with a gun in his hands. Larry ‘rises slowly’ from his chair as Francis begins to question him. ‘You were our hero’ Larry was their hero, he did everything for the people of Frenchtown and now his heroic status had just fallen through the roof, ‘ no more sweet young things’ Larry says, saying as though its normal to sexually assault someone who’s young. Even there heat is sweet’ he says giving Francis even more of a reason to kill him, but he falters when Larry says ‘does that on sin wipe away all the good things. ’ He falters because he’s probably thinking about what he did for him, with the Table tennis and if it wasn’t for Larry renewing the Wreck Centre, Francis would never had been with Nicole, with all these mixed emotions and feelings Francis walks away. But when Francis walks away ‘the sound of a pistol shot cracks in the air’ Larry LaSalle had shot himself. Cormier presents the idea of heroes in his novel, one by setting it in the time of World War Two, which has lots of potential for heroes because theirs the concept of being a soldier. He also presents the idea of heroes by making two characters seem like heroes at first glance but then stripping them of their heroic status by things that come to haunt them from the past that had never been dealt with. Also with Nicole Renard and how she is the innocent victim in this and how one incident made both Francis and Larry cowards and very un-heroic.

Aligning IT Components To Achieve Agility In Globally Distributed

In GDSD project there three interdependent components of agility that include; the agile IT strategy which is used to suit changing needs, the agile IT infrastructure that enables the formulation and performance of flexible It strategies, and agile IT project management that is concerned with enabling coordination and control in the system development project.According to the author, the work of IT strategy to explore and exploit new technologies can result to agile IT infrastructure that facilitates the firms to realize business strategies in new different ways.Alternatively, agility in organizational IT infrastructure is important to the formulation of IT enabled corporate or local business strategies. This article shows that IT infrastructure is vital because it contributes to the agility of project management by enabling fast and flexible integration of multiple system components.In my view, it is important to for a firm to have good relationship with external partners because th ey provide awareness and opportunities that enables a firm to explore new technologies, which then leads to deployment of appropriate of IT infrastructure to suit local needs.In conclusion, this article states that global business environment provides firms with business opportunities where by as they are developing global business strategies, they should also support them with information systems aligned with these strategies.This brings need to the firma having good relationship with the external partners so that they can be able to explore the new technologies that lead to local targeted needs.ReferencesLee O., Lim, K., Banerjee P., Hillegersberg, J., Kumar K. & Wei K.   (2006). Aligning IT   Components to Achieve Agility in Globally Distributed System Development.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.   

The Monopoly Essays - Imperfect Competition, Market Structure

The Monopoly Essays - Imperfect Competition, Market Structure The Monopoly a) Using Australian examples describe the characteristics of the two of the following forms: Monopoly Oligopoly The main characteristics of an oligopoly are: ? The market is dominated by only a few companies, which are relatively large. ? The production of identical products which are similar. ? There are significant barriers to entry. ? The interdependence of production decisions within the market. An Oligopoly market exists in which a small number of firms dominate the supply to an entire market. Each firm producers a very similar product. In Australia the oligopoly is the major market form. It is because Australia is so small market located far from overseas markets and this thus requires producers to be larger, so they are more competitive. There are hundreds of examples of oligopolistic industries, e.g. cars (Holden), breakfast cereals (Kellogs) This market form does not only depend on the larger producers, but the recognition of their interdependence, the action of one producer will affect the actions of others and each oligopoly firm watches their rivals closely. Oligopolies compete fiercely for market share, therefore the competition for existing or new consumes is intense, as each producers products are very similar. As a result oligopolists have little influence over price. For example Shells petrol is very similar to Mobil petrol, therefore these two companies watch each other closely. Oligopoly firms attempt to make their products different in the eyes of consumers. This can be achieved in many different ways. Firstly by providing quality improvements in goods or services such as electrical sound equipment, secondly by different packaging or wrapping, thirdly by bonus offers or prizes on purchase, for example Just Jeans offering free sunglasses. The more product differentiation among oligopoly firms, there is a more chance of each firm has being independent from its rivals when setting price or output. It is hard for new firms with a small market share to enter the oligopoly market and produce enough to make the product cheap for consumers to buy. The small amount of large firms can often produce large amounts of quantity to provide for all consumers to purchase. It is difficult for new firms to win market shares form existing producers, particularly if those firms have large advertising budgets, licenses, design patents or restrict access to raw materials on one way or another. Oligopoly is a market structure, which is especially vulnerable to restrictive trade practices. The main characteristics of a pure monopoly are: ? Only one seller within the market. ? The goods produced have no close substitutes. ? There are extreme barriers to entry. ? Complete control over price. A monopoly is an industry in which there is one supplier of a good or service that has no close substitute and in which there is a barrier preventing new firms to enter. The supply of water and gas are local monopolies, while Australia Post, B.H.P and C.S.R. are examples of national monopolies. As there is only on supplier, the firms can chose where on the demand curve the industry will operate. They can either determine the price or the quantity traded. Either they can sell less at a higher price or sell more at a lower price; therefore their decision is based on maximizing their total profits. The key feature of a monopoly is the existence of barriers preventing the entry of new firms. It is once the firm has entry the market system that is losses the advantage of monopoly control. Some barriers to entry may include; control over vital raw materials, tariff protection from importers, protective government legislation, temporarily low price to force out competition and large research and development budgets to help monopolists maintain their technological advantages over potential rivals. As there is no existence of competition, advertising is mainly focused on public relations or sponsorship of major sports events. b) How effectively do the two markets forms that you described in part a meet the criteria for a successful market? A market system exists when producers and consumers interact with one another. For a successful market system to exist the following criteria needs to be meet: does the market? Deliver lower prices, provide greater choice, encourage improvements in the quality of the goods and services traded, encourage the implementation of new

Stability and Recovery in Weimar Germany 1925-9 essays

Stability and Recovery in Weimar Germany 1925-9 essays Explain the degree to which the years 1925-9 were a time of economic and political stability for the Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic was set up in Germany at the end of the First World War. It was a dramatic transformation from the highly undemocratic, authoritarian Kaiser Reich of the war, and pre war years. It was made up of an extremely democratic voting system, universal suffrage for the over 21s, and had a very proportionately representative Reichstag. With hindsight, we know that the system collapsed and gave way to Hitlers dictatorship in 1933. But it also inherited a broken, divided and demoralised Germany after WWI, and seemed to, at least partially, restore it to success. It is therefore arguable how weak or stable Weimar was. At the end of the Great War, Germany had lost much territory; it had lost 13% of its productivity, 24% of its coal, and 74% of its iron ore. It was paying 6.6 billion in reparations under the Treaty of Versailles. On top of this, Germany had 600,000 war widows and 1.2 million orphans, the government were spending 1/3 of its disposable funds on pensions. The hyperinflation of 1923and the subsequent re-establishment of the currency had brought great misery amongst most Germans, especially the middle classes who had lost their entire life savings. Recalling the economic mess Germany was in when Weimar was established, it seems a phenomenal regeneration had occurred. Helped by the Dawes Plan of 1924 - affordable reparations instalments and foreign investment Germany started to become more economically stable. Unemployment fell rapidly, and there were good conditions for the poor; a generous unemployment benefit and a good wage rise for workers. German industry became more and more profitable. In fact, by 1927 the Gross National Productivity of Germany exceeded that of the whole German empire in 1913. AJ Nicholls argues that the damaging effects of the Treaty o...

Facts and Key Figures in the Battle of Gettysburg

Facts and Key Figures in the Battle of Gettysburg Dates July 1-3, 1863 Location Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Key Individuals Involved in the Battle of Gettysburg Union: Major General George G. Meade Confederate: General Robert E. Lee Outcome Union Victory, with 51,000 casualties total. Of those, 28,000 were Confederate soldiers. Overview of the Battle General Robert E. Lee had succeeded at the Battle of Chancellorsville and decided to push north in his Gettysburg campaign. He met the Union forces in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lee concentrated his armys full strength against Major General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac at the Gettysburg crossroads. On July 1, Lees forces moved on the Union forces in the town from both the west and the north. This drove the Union defenders through the streets of the city to Cemetery Hill. During the night, reinforcements arrived for both sides of the battle. On July 2, struck the Lee attempted to surround the Union army. First, he sent Longstreets and Hills divisions to strike the Union left flank at the Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, the  Wheatfield, and the Round Tops. He then sent Ewells divisions against the Union right flank at Culp’s and East Cemetery Hills. By evening, the Union forces still held  Little Round Top  and had repulsed most of Ewell’s forces. During the morning of July 3, the Union struck back and were able to drive the Confederate infantry from their last toe-hold on Culp’s Hill. That  afternoon, after a short artillery bombardment, Lee decided to push the attack on the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. The Pickett-Pettigrew assault (more popularly, Pickett’s Charge) briefly struck through the Union line but was quickly repulsed with severe casualties. At the same time, Stuart’s cavalry tried to gain the Union rear, but his forces were also repulsed. On July 4, Lee began withdrawing his army toward Williamsport on the Potomac River. His train of wounded stretched more than fourteen miles. Significance of the Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg is seen as the turning point of the war. General Lee had  attempted and failed to invade the North. This was a move designed to remove pressure from Virginia and possibly emerge victorious so as to quickly end the war. The failure of Pickett’s Charge was the sign of the Souths loss. This loss for the Confederates was demoralizing. General Lee would never attempt another invasion of the North to this degree.

Behavioural Aspects of Budgeting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Behavioural Aspects of Budgeting - Essay Example However, before anything else, it is a good idea to understand something about the chosen company. The Southeast Asia (S.E.A.) Olympus Marketing Incorporated is one of the affiliates of S.E.A. Olympus Group of Companies, which was founded in the Philippines in 1983. The other affiliates are SPARKO, distributor of imported surface coatings and SCADE Industrial Corporation, a manufacturing plant of stainless water tanks such as storage water tanks and hydro pneumatic pressure tanks. The S.E.A. Olympus Marketing Incorporated is both a trading and manufacturing company which operates nationwide in the Philippines. It has branches in the three major islands of the Philippines. The S.E.A. Olympus Marketing Incorporated is responsible for the distribution of products produced by other affiliates. Originally, the company was a distributor of composite materials such as resin and fiber glass to the fishing and fashion industries. Today, the S.E.A. Olympus Marketing Incorporated is having a link with its main suppliers in Singapore, Taiwan and China. This year, it is planning to expand in the entire country and later in the Southeast regions in Asia. As of the moment, it has sub-business units (SBU) in the major cities in the Philippines as part of its strategic positioning. This year, its goal is to expand, but part of it is to carefully manage its finances. At the national level, the S.E.A. Olympus Incorporated might appear to have a very complicated organizational working structure of working departments. For the purpose of looking at the micro level of the organization’s activity, this paper examines the working business units in the country. S.E.A. Olympus Marketing Incorporated is composed of sub-business units working together for one goal. Each of this sub-business unit is composed of general support group and frontline group. The general support group is composed of the Accounting

Green in Shakespeares Tragedy of King Lear Essay

Green in Shakespeares Tragedy of King Lear - Essay Example William Shakespeare, a known English playwright, and poet are regarded widely as the greatest writer in the language of English and the pre-eminent world’s dramatist. Translation of his major plays has been done to almost all living language and more often performed than other playwrights. In his book, The Tragedy of King Lear, many aspects presage the green literature. The work of Shakespeare illuminates more about human nature that is more instructive for a green environment. With respect to the theory of Green literature, ecocriticism involves the study of the relationship between the environment and the research. The book is all about the British elderly king who decides to give out his power and realm to one of his daughters. Even though his preferred choice is the one who loves him most, the other two disguises him and acquire the wealth. The two later turns against him but through the friends of the other daughter, he manages to ascertain the reality. In relevance to nature, therefore, a habitat consists of different organisms’ co-existing together for mutual benefits. An organism can acquire help from the other community, for instance in support. Plants with tendrils, for example, get support from big trees to acquire sunlight. This paper, therefore, analyses the review of the play, The Tragedy of King Lear with regards to the theory of Green Literature, how ecocriticism relates both literature and the environment. The theory of green literature provides the vocabulary towards environmental ethics as well as an attitude in the story of King Lear. This offered a movement beyond symbolism and thematic which were widely characterized by the critical work of Shakespeare in relation to the environment representation.  

The Main Features and Problems Faced by Service organisations In Essay

The Main Features and Problems Faced by Service organisations In pursuing this Technique(Banks in the UK) - Essay Example More than 74% of the United States work force for example is employed on this sector (Li H. & Smith L.2001).With a dramatic fall in labour cost, the cost of processing information, overheads has become far more important in the present age of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) with direct labour representing 5%. Thus, it therefore now appears difficult to justify the use of direct labour or direct material as the basis for absorbing overheads.ABC was developed to overcome some of the major problems of the traditional cost accounting. The 80s witnessed an influx of research in to this concept. Activity based costing involves the identification of the factors which cause the costs of an organisations major activities (Lewis; J.R., 1993). In this regard overhead are charged on the basis of their usage of factor causing the overhead. In the UK and the US, information and manufacturing technology are widely used in both manufacturing and the service sector, with both sectors experiencing different degree of the usage (Palmer, A.2000). The four main characteristics inherent to services provide an answer to the main problem of ABC in the service industry. ... There is a strong possibility that the same enquiry would be answered slightly differently by different people. 1.2 Activity based costing and the service industry in the UK (Banking Sector). By the end of the 1980s, ABC became the focal point within the realms of academic researchers, consultants and managers as a means of overcoming the disadvantages of traditional cost allocation methods. Cost accounting was limited to it s usage of one volume sensitive driver (Cooper & Kaplan 1991). By 1990 initial followers of ABC in the manufacturing sector were able to reduce cost, identify opportunities for improvement and determine a more profitable product mix (Cooper & Kaplan 1991). Thus, the concept gradually gain grounds and became popular in the manufacturing sector. In the service sector, the adoption of ABC has been relatively slow, and the concept was rarely used apart from the health and banking sector. A recent study however, by Schultz & Rostocki (2004) concluded that, the rate of adoption of ABC in service and manufacturing industry was now similar. An essential part of managing and ensuring the long term competitiveness of banking institutions in the United Kingdom will be to configure, manage the service deliveries and their chain of distribution processes. The financial sector in the UK, like in any other country is characterised with the following characteristic Banking institutions and other financial houses are price takers. This is so because the prevailing market price has to be accepted. Large number of institutions offering the same services with none of these institutions being able to influence price. However, their actions are not negligible. As a move by institution A will trigger a whole chain of event, in the form of competitive service

Power of query optimization Asystematic Approach to cost-Based Dissertation

Power of query optimization Asystematic Approach to cost-Based optimization in Data Mining enviroment - Dissertation Example Up till now, there has been extensive research done in order to give database support to the mining operations. Nevertheless, the emphasis in such endeavors has been, most typically, laid upon the mining of a single data set although, most of the times, the user has to look up for multiple data sets that are acquired from various data sources. Thus, for such cases, it is extremely essential for the KDD process to compare the patterns from various data sets and comprehend their relationship with each other. For this purpose, the multiple data sets in a KDDMS require support for the complex queries. Due to this reason, new functionality and optimizations are needed that particularly emphasize over the frequent item set mining. Faster response to queries is the prime function of the query optimization. The data is better known to the semantic optimizer rather than the user. Thus, the semantic optimizer is able to replace the query of the user with another query that provides the same ou tcome more efficiently in lesser time. The efficiency of the new query is due to the execution of less work for the retrieval of the selected result tuples from the data base. The most advanced query optimizers select the one â€Å"best† plan during the time of the compilation to execute a given query (Ramakrishnan and Gehrke, 2000). The cost of execution for the alternative plans is calculated, out which the one is selected that has the overall cheapest cost. Conventionally, the cost is determined on the basis of the average statistics of the overall data since the prime purpose is to identify a single plan for all data. Nevertheless, the significant statistical variations of various data sub-sets may yield poor performance of the query execution (Christodoulakis, 1984). The basic disadvantage is the highly coarse optimization granularity in which just one execution plan is selected for the entire data. Important opportunities for effective query optimization are left out be cause of this sort of â€Å"monolithic† approach (Ramakrishnan and Gehrke, 2000). Thus, the research problem is to augment the cost-based optimization in data mining for patterns, in single and multiple databases. Therefore, the present study will focus on the cost-based optimization of the queries in data mining. 2. Topics covered There are numerous research papers that have been published in the area of Data mining, Data ware-housing and Query Optimization Techniques however the researches in the past do not clearly specify the conditions under which, what kind of query optimizer will probably possess more weight or points than the others. According Yu and Sub (n.d.), rules are deduced from the restriction clauses of the queries that are received at the database and also, from the outcome that they generate. It can also be stated that the cost of each query is different for the approaches through which the two syntactically distinct queries generate the same outcome. Ullman (1998), in his research, explained the principle of semantic query optimization that refers to the use of semantic rules, for instance, to re-generate a query into an equivalent but less expensive query, in order to minimize the cost of query evaluation. Subramanian and Venkataraman (n.d) in their work suggested the architecture to process the queries of complex decision support that incorporates various heterogeneous data sources and puts forward the concept of transient-views and moreover, formulates a cost-based algorithm that requires a query plan as an input and develops an optimized â€Å"covering plan† through reducing the redundancies in the original-input-query plan. According to the research work of Stefan Berchtold et.al (2001), the problem of extracting all objects

French Total company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

French Total company - Research Paper Example 16,075,861 debt ratio 0.131018748 0.102274444 0.09628153 The above trend shows an increase in the debt ratio, this means that companies creditworthiness is improving but this increase in the ratio indicates a reduction in the usage of assets. Debt equity ratio: The debt equity ratio indicates whether a company finances more using debts or equity, this is an important ratio in that it helps in decision making whereby a company may want to raise more capital either through debt or equity, the debt equity ratio is calculated by dividing total debt by total equity, the following is a summary of the debt equity ratio debt equity ratio 2007 December 2006 December 2005 December Long Term Debt 21,910,860 18,790,510 16,075,861 Total Stockholder Equity 66,071,348 94,908,445 86,526,342 debt ratio 0.331624231 0.197985648 0.185791525 From the above table it is evident that the debt equity ratio has increased over the years, this ratio shows that the company finances more through equity than debts, the trend also show that there has been a reduction in finance through equity and an increase in debt financing. Gross profit margin: The gross profit margin is a financial ratio that indicates the gross profit earned on sales, this ratio is calculated by dividing gross profits by sales, this ratio considers the costs of goods sold excluding other cost, the following table summarises the company gross profit margin: gross profit margin 2007 December 2006 December 2005 December Gross Profit 72,197,139 40,102,792 58,740,318 Total Revenue 233,825,821 175,189,287 145,228,759 gross profit margin 0.308764612 0.228911212 0.404467534 For the year 2007 the gross profit margin was 0.3038 which is an increase compared to the 2006 ratio. This ratio shows the proportion of gross profit in... The debt-equity ratio indicates whether a company finances more using debts or equity, this is an important ratio in that it helps in decision making whereby a company may want to raise more capital either through debt or equity, the debt equity ratio is calculated by dividing total debt by total equity, the following is a summary of the debt equity ratio. It is evident that the company fiancà ©s more suing equity, this is evident from the debt equity ratio, however, the trend of this ratio over the years show that the company equity level is declining and an increase in debts. The other observation is that the return on equity has improved over the years and this shows that this return ratio will increase in future. The other observation is that the return on assets has improved and shows an improvement in asset utilisation efficiency. The gross profit margin has declined over the years; this ratio was highest in 2005, declined in 2006 and slightly increased in 2007. This shows tha t the profitability of the company is expected to rise although the trend shows a decline in profitability.

Informative Speech on Current Marketing or Presentation

Informative on Current Marketing - Speech or Presentation Example Researchers have found that shopping habits are ingrained in consumers and they are often characterized by collecting certain items from one store and other items from a different store, that is, consumers will go to a toy store to get toys and go to a supermarket to get basic household commodities. Retailers must therefore place themselves in a position that allows them to take advantage of this complex environment (Krafft and Mantrala 7). Having been in existence for over a century, the Target Corporation an American retailing company has proved to be up to the challenge and has subsequently thrived in the retail industry. Through one of its employees, Target was able to create a model that allows the store to predict human behavior and thus preempt their competitors by meeting the individual needs of their customers. The challenge the store was facing was convincing their customers that they could shop for all they need at their store as opposed to getting specific items only wher e mostly it has been toiletries, cleaning supplies and socks. The biggest constraint was that consumers’ having their shopping habits ingrained which makes it difficult to convince them to adopt new ones. This restraint was presented by the marketers to one of the employees at the store that is a statistician. They explained that in every person’s life time there was a point at which their loyalties could be shifted. One such point is when expecting a baby where expectant mothers will look to brands offering them the best deals and in the past companies had caught up on this and resulted to sending them coupons. This was because companies can access birth records as they are made public. The challenge was now to preempt these companies by identifying a way to reach the expectant mothers while still in their early stages of pregnancy (Duhigg). The company already had a medium for collecting information but what they needed now was a way of predicting behavior. These two would then be integrated to allow the store capture customers as the data collected would be analyzed and be used to establish patterns that dictate shopping habits. This trend has been identified as predictive analytics and has been supported by a study that showed our thinking on issues such as dieting are influenced by habits rather than conscious decision-making which has allowed doctors to conjure up treatments for addictions, depression among other illnesses. Target tasked Andrew Pole the statistician employee with identifying when their customers’ shopping habits are particularly flexible so as to design suitable advertisements or coupons, which would lead the customers to have new, large spending habits. In essence, the store was striving to push psychological buttons after establishing a cue-routine-reward loop using a calculator designed by Pole. However, the issue of privacy came up as customers were bound to become worried about how Target was finding out such in formation. The company then decided to camouflage their intentions by sending ads for items that expectant mothers would need alongside other unrelated items so as to eliminate the fear of intrusion on privacy. Their most impressive story was where the company was able to determine a girl was pregnant even before her own father knew, leading them to send her coupons for expectant mothers (Duhigg). Predictive analytics raises the concept of shopper marketing as opposed to

French Total company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

French Total company - Research Paper Example 16,075,861 debt ratio 0.131018748 0.102274444 0.09628153 The above trend shows an increase in the debt ratio, this means that companies creditworthiness is improving but this increase in the ratio indicates a reduction in the usage of assets. Debt equity ratio: The debt equity ratio indicates whether a company finances more using debts or equity, this is an important ratio in that it helps in decision making whereby a company may want to raise more capital either through debt or equity, the debt equity ratio is calculated by dividing total debt by total equity, the following is a summary of the debt equity ratio debt equity ratio 2007 December 2006 December 2005 December Long Term Debt 21,910,860 18,790,510 16,075,861 Total Stockholder Equity 66,071,348 94,908,445 86,526,342 debt ratio 0.331624231 0.197985648 0.185791525 From the above table it is evident that the debt equity ratio has increased over the years, this ratio shows that the company finances more through equity than debts, the trend also show that there has been a reduction in finance through equity and an increase in debt financing. Gross profit margin: The gross profit margin is a financial ratio that indicates the gross profit earned on sales, this ratio is calculated by dividing gross profits by sales, this ratio considers the costs of goods sold excluding other cost, the following table summarises the company gross profit margin: gross profit margin 2007 December 2006 December 2005 December Gross Profit 72,197,139 40,102,792 58,740,318 Total Revenue 233,825,821 175,189,287 145,228,759 gross profit margin 0.308764612 0.228911212 0.404467534 For the year 2007 the gross profit margin was 0.3038 which is an increase compared to the 2006 ratio. This ratio shows the proportion of gross profit in... The debt-equity ratio indicates whether a company finances more using debts or equity, this is an important ratio in that it helps in decision making whereby a company may want to raise more capital either through debt or equity, the debt equity ratio is calculated by dividing total debt by total equity, the following is a summary of the debt equity ratio. It is evident that the company fiancà ©s more suing equity, this is evident from the debt equity ratio, however, the trend of this ratio over the years show that the company equity level is declining and an increase in debts. The other observation is that the return on equity has improved over the years and this shows that this return ratio will increase in future. The other observation is that the return on assets has improved and shows an improvement in asset utilisation efficiency. The gross profit margin has declined over the years; this ratio was highest in 2005, declined in 2006 and slightly increased in 2007. This shows tha t the profitability of the company is expected to rise although the trend shows a decline in profitability.

Describing demonstrative communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Describing demonstrative communication - Essay Example Thus, the essay will describe demonstrative communication by presenting its clear definition, the various ways through which it is conveyed and demonstrate how it can be effective and ineffective as well as positive and negative. The essay will also demonstrate how demonstrative communication involves listening and responding. According to Sonneborn (2012), demonstrative communication is the process of transmitting information using actions and human attributes that partake common significance and arouse particular meanings to others. Therefore, it is conveyed using various options which include; kinesics and visual cues such as facial expressions, eye movements, gestures and body movements; vocal cues which include; tone of voice, volume, and pitch variation; and proxemics traits involving space and distance during communication. It can also be conveyed through traits such as appearance, smell, color and time just to mention a few. It is estimated that 93 percent of the overall communication process involves demonstrative communication. Thus, it is used in a wide range of functions during communication which include; (1) contradicting verbal messages, which is mainly observed when the information being conveyed is in contradiction with the body movements being observed. (2) Emphasizing information being forwarded by the word of mouth. (3) Regulating interactions among individuals by demonstrating who should speak next. And (4) substituting some of the verbal words used to convey particular information. With that said demonstrative communication can be effective or ineffective depending on the context in which it is displayed. It is referred as effective whenever the listener is able to decode the nonverbal cues efficiently and obtain the required meaning put across. In return, this enables individuals to resolve conflicts, display affection, and build on trust and respect amongst themselves (Sonneborn, 2012). For instance, an

Strategies to Strengthen Memory Skills

Strategies to Strengthen Memory Skills Memory is the power or process of remembering what has been learned. It can be bunches of information that you’ve learned from school, internet, and experiences, either good or bad. Memory is like a very big storage in our head. You yourself will be shocked from the things that are in store with it. When we remember or recall something, our memory is involved to it. Our memory is an essential in our daily lives, because once our memory failed to function, we will experience difficulties in remembering faces, numbers, and even directions. Won’t it be a burden for us and for others too? As we get older, the capability of our memory fades away. As a human being, our memory will be needed for a lifetime in every simple ways we do. Our memory is very important in order for us to get into school, university, and get a career or profession that we want. The job of our memory does in remembering wholly depends on our actions. Daily intake of healthy foods will make our memory function properly. We don’t just eat to fill our stomach. We must consider the nutrients that we get from it to become physically healthy, and mind healthy. Food isn’t just enough. It requires teamwork with vitamins that will further make us healthy. Memory also needs energy to work. Aside from food, enough sleep after a long tiring day is a must. Just like our body, it also gets tired if overused. Physical and mental exercises also contribute to a good memory. Our memory also needs to be trained so it will be in good condition. We socialize every day, every hour, and every minute. Havi ng an active interaction with the same or opposite gender will pro-long the stored memories in our mind. Memory is very important yet, losing it is common these days. Humans are careless about their food intake. They just eat whatever they want or whatever satisfies their tummies. They’ll  stay in front of computer and manipulate their accounts in social networking sites for such a long time and forget to have an active lifestyle outside. Humans don’t mind if they sleep or not. Some don’t like analyzing or mind challenge because they are too bored to think. They don’t socialize that much because it will only be a hindrance on what they do. If this cycle continues, it wouldn’t be shocking that most of us can’t remember a single thing anymore. Before it become worse, we must enhance our memory as early as we can. Enhancing it will be a good prevention for memory loss. It will benefit not just us, but also the other people around us. Enhancing our memory will help us in every simple way as much as possible. Memory enhancement might not matter now, but we will realize later that it is a great investment for future. Considering the factors of memory enhancement like eating healthy foods and regular intake of vitamins, doing exercises, implementing good sleeping habits, and even socializing will result to a healthy remembering. When we take an examination, we think carefully of the answers. We know the answer a while ago but we forgot it just now. We need to take down notes or a memo but the pen went missing. We keep looking for it but it is just behind our ear. Isn’t it frustrating to experience these situations? It won’t be impossible to happen if we don’t enhance our memory, now. Review of Literature Memory plays an important part in our daily lives. It is involve in remembering faces, numbers, directions, facts and a lot of information we gather. Just like our body, our memory also have needs in order to live and do its purpose. Memory loss is so common these days. In order to improve our memory’s performance, we must consider taking care of our health, implementing good habits and often socializing. If it is used, it will continue to improve throughout your lifetime (Buzan T., 1991). According to (Eastway R., 1991), one thing that is fundamental to a good memory is the health of the brain in which it sits. If our body needs good diet, so does our brain. There are kinds of food that will help us in improving our memory. One example of that is fish. Oily fish is the top scorer in foods that contain Omega-3. Fish also contains a fatty acid called DHA, which increases the levels of acetylcholine, a vital carrier involved in the memory’s function. Another one is food that contains anti-oxidants. Some people are unaware of what they take. There are some toxics that we unconsciously eat that can cause fundamental damage in our bodies, including our brain which is mainly responsible for our memory. Carbohydrates from bread and cereals can help to improve alertness, and the ability to form new memories and to retrieve the old ones. We are physiology different from each other, and what benefits in one person will not necessarily be the same for each one of us. Fish, anti-oxidants and carbohydrates will boost an average memory performance. The newest or the modern way to enhance our memory nowadays is taking up drugs. It can help but we must be careful in differentiating memory boosting drug and drugs that don’t retrieve old memories. If we were really good thinkers, (Gordon B. Berger L., 2003) states that we won’t neglect mental workouts. Jigsaws, crosswords and Sudoku are can be seen in the newspaper every day to  entertain us. Behind those sheets are ways for an alert and smart mind. Regular mental exercises build ups the brain, same as how physical exercise builds muscles and strengthens the heart. Treating your body well can enhance your ability to process and recall information. Physical exercises reduce the risks of memory loss. Try to give your memory a workout, training it to keep it sharp (Harp T., 2003). After a long tiring day in school or office, a sleep is a must. When we sleep, we boost the capability of our brain in problem-solving and critical thinking skills. It is also an essential in learning new information. We find it hard to remember something especially if we need to input too much information. Socializing can be one of the simplest memory techniques. According to Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), socializing was just as effective as more traditional kinds of mental exercise in  improving memory  and intellectual performance. Interacting with others can sharpen your memory because social interaction itself is challenging already because you have to deal with variety of people. If socializing isn’t your habit, it can’t affect you now but it will in the future. One of the horrors of growing older is the certainty that you will lose memory and that the loss of vocabulary or incident or imagery is going to diminish your imagination (Eastway R., 2004). Memory is like a shadow. It will be always after us, but as soon as the darkness rose, it will fade away. Memory is a lifetime machine. It will continue to work for a lifetime as long as we take good care of it. Just like an ordinary machine, it needs to be maintained to function properly. According to Matlin (2005), memory is the process of maintaining information over time. â€Å"Memory† came from the Latin word memorariandmemor, meaning mindful or remembering. Memory is our ability to encode, store, and recall information or past experiences with the help of the human brain. It is like a filing cabinet with a limitless capacity and speed. The work that our memory does widely depends on the owner: the humans. Scientific research has shown that the human brain starts remembering things 20 weeks after conception. In order to form new memories, information must be changed into a usable form through the process known asencoding. Once the information has been successfully encoded, it must bestoredin memory for later use. Most of this stored memory lies out of our awareness most of the time, except when we really need to use it. The retrieval orrecalling process allows us to bring stored memories into conscious awareness and use it in the present. Memory relies largely on the cells in our brain, and as we get older, brain cells (neurons) die, and don’t get replaced. The number of connections between the calls (synapses) also tends to disappear with age. We typically have 100 billion neurons at the age of eighteen, but then proceed to lose them every day thereafter. Forgetting is a normal and inevitable part of the way that the brain works at any age. One benefit of forgetting is that it helps to remove unnecessary information from our minds. The brain is good at knowing how to forget information that it no longer needs. It is hard to know which would be worse- never being able to remember, or never being able to forget. Forgetting may be a natural part of how the brain works, but not all forgetting is beneficial. It’s frustrating not being able to remember all those things that you actually do want to remember. Forgetting happens most of the time for office workers, students, teacher or anyone, even those who don ’t have a profession. No one wants it, but just like what is  stated above, it is inevitable. Many people wish to improve it, but some of us become unconsciously careless. One thing that is important to a good memory is the health of the brain in which it sits. We want to keep our memory alive but we are the ones who are killing it. There are some factors on killing your memory. Trauma to the head can permanently damage brain cells. Players that involve their heads on a physical game are more prone to brain diseases. Another step is intoxication. Alcohol is the most available substance for this. It slows down the brain’s function when it is in the blood. The third way to decline the brain is to ignore it. The phrase ‘use it or lose it’ really does apply to the brain. Lastly, the food that you eat is very important for the brain. A diet of burgers and highly salted chips is probably the best combination for brain decay, because it avoids feeding the brain the nutrients that help it to function. Memory improvement is significant on someone’s lifetime. What’s the use of a happy event if you can’t recall? What’s the use of reviewing for exams if you have poor memory? As we grow older, we worry about how we will remember a particular thing, if there’s something we can do to prolong it. Well, worry no more! There are plenty of things we can do to improve our ability to remember things, but of course it requires effort from the people who wants it. There are some particular foods and vitamins that are helpful for memory improvement. The nutrients we get from it are responsible for the health of our brain. Exercises, physical or mental, will train our memory to be sharp. Lastly, as we socialize, the effect it gives in our memory is positive. Most of it was done in our daily lives. Enhancing our memory is very simple right? Eating well is good for your physical as well as your mental health. The brain requires nutrients just like your heart, lungs or muscles do. Like everything else in your body, the brain  cannot work without energy. But which foods are particularly important to keep our memory happy and healthy? There’s no doubt that diet plays a major role in brain health. Omega-3 fats that can be found on oily fish as DHA (if you have higher levels of DHA in the blood, then the brain will operate more efficiently), which enables the body to use it easily. If you’re allergic to fish, you don’t need to worry because there’s a good alternative like linseed (flaxseed) oil, soya bean oil, pumpkin seeds, walnut oil and soya beans. They are good for healthy brain function, the heart, joints and general well-being. Nuts and seeds are also on the list. They all contain another important antioxidant: vitamin E. In one study, researchers found that people who consumed moderate amo unts vitamin E—from food, not supplements—lowered their risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 67%. Here’s for all the sweet lovers- chocolate. Sweeten your brain-boosting diet with the dark kind (at least 70% cocoa); it contains flavonoids, another class of antioxidants that some research links to brain health. Let us all become healthy by eating veggies. Vegetables don’t just help our body to become healthy, but also our minds. Getting adequate amount of vegetables, especially broccoli, cabbage and dark leafy greens, may help improve memory. Can your diet make you smarter? You bet. Research shows that what you eat is one of the most powerful influences on everyday brain skills. So why don’t we try switching into a good diet? You’ve become healthy not just by body, but also by mind. Some people wonder if a tablet can really help boost a memory. Whether you suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or you just have memory problems, it’s been said that certain vitamins can help or prevent memory loss. There is no miracle cure for a bad memory, but there is still a way to improve it while it’s not yet bad. Research shows that B vitamins improve memory by creating a protective shield for the neurons in the brain. B vitamins break down homocysteine,  which is an amino acid that poisons nerve cells. This vitamin also aid in the production of red blood cells, which carry oxygen, an important brain nutrient. Known for its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, this amino acid, Acetyl L-Carnatine (also known as ALCAR) helps with energy production necessary for optimal brain function. Another thing is Gingko Biloba. This herb has been shown to improve blood flow to your organs including your brain. Research concerning its effectiveness is mixed, though som e studies indicated it may improve concentration. Unfortunately, much of the evidence for the popular cures isn’t very strong. Leaving the foods and vitamins aside, let’s check how our habits can help nor destroy our memory condition. Physical fitness and mental fitness go well together. People who get regular exercise also tend to stay mentally sharp in their 70s and 80s. A study from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine concluded that individuals who exercised by walking or by engaging in physically active hobbies had a lower risk for Alzheimers disease. So experts recommend that you build physical activity into your daily routine. Exercising in the morning before going to work not only spikes brain activity and prepares you for mental stresses for the rest of the day, but also produces increase of retention of new information, and better reaction to complex situations. Let’s just consider exercise as a drug. It can be good if is intake moderately. Most of the people believe that memory fades with age. Well, newsflash: it’s just partly true. Memory fades away because as we age, because we lower the activities in involving it. Increase our brainpower by doing mental exercises. Crosswords and Sudoku and variety of board games are proven to improve our memory’s condition. As we play these games, we’re like settling our  memory in a battle field to train, and be strong. As long as we live, we must not stop learning. Although people vary widely in their individual sleep needs, research suggests that six to eight  hours of sleep a night is ideal to improve our memory. Our memory gets tired too. Findings suggest that getting an average amount of sleep, may help maintain memory in later life. Both too much and too little aren’t good. Aim for the right amount. Social interaction is a key ingredient—along with proper nutrition,physical exercise, brain training, and  lifelong learning—in the recipe for cognitive sharpness. Socializing can be a challenge for people who live alone, but everyone must have a social life no matter where they live or how they feel. You don’t have to have numerous social events on the calendar or go to a party just to socialize. Simply talking to them is. Being with other people is good for your health and also for your memory. We’re not meant to survive alone. Relationships stimulate our brains—in fact, interacting with others may be the best kind of brain exercise. In one recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health, for example, researchers found that people with the most active social lives had the slowest rate of memory decline. This won’t be a hard thing to do since we’re talking in our everyday lives. Isn’t it simple?

Controlling Soil Fertility Essay -- Agriculture Farming Essays

Controlling Soil Fertility Approximately 2 billion hectares of land, 17% of the total vegetated area of the earth has been degraded for agricultural purposes since 1945 (Oldeman et al., 1990). Oldeman et al. (1990) classify about half of this degraded area as still permitting agricultural use, but with greatly reduced productivity, and in the rest no agriculture is deemed possible. The causes of this degradation are overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%), over exploitation (7%) and industrialization (1%). Wind and water erosion are the principal mechanisms of this soil degradation, accounting for about 56% and 28% respectively of the total; 12% is attributable to chemical degradation (due to insufficient manure and fertilizer returned to cropped areas, salinization by unwise irrigation or drainage, soil acidification not corrected by liming, and pollution caused by industrial and other urban uses) and the remaining 4% is physical degradation from compaction or flooding. (Oldeman et al., 1990) Moreover, it has become increasingly evident that although crop yields seem to be increasing, they are increasing at a decreasing rate. Krauss and Allmaras (1982) argue that this is largely due to the fact that in many areas, poor soil management is leading to soil degradation which is ignored as long as crop yields continue to rise. Technological advances such as improved cultivation systems, irrigation and pest control mask the negative effects of poor soil management on crop yields (Krauss and Allmaras, 1982, p85). What are the factors that contribute to the suitability of a soil for agricultural purposes? To what extent can people control these factors to halt soil degradation and maintain, enha... ..., L.R., V.W.P van Engelen, and J.H.M. Pulles. 1990. The extent of human induced soil degradation. Annex 5 of World Man of the Status of Human-Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note, rev. 2nd edn., International Soil Reference and Information Center, Wageningen, Netherlands as cited by J.Schnoor and V. Thomas, 1994, Soil as a Vulnerable Environmental System pp233-44 in R. Socolow, C. Andrews, F. Berkhour and V. Thomas (eds.), Industrial Ecology and Global Change: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, C.A., R.M. Cruse, and K.A. Kohler, 1994, Soil Management, pp 109-134 in J.L. Hatfield and D.L. Karlen (eds.) Sustainable Agricultural Systems: Boca Raton, Florida, Lewis Publishers, 316pp. USGS, 1988, Essential Elements and Soil Amendments for Plants: Sources and use for agriculture: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1017, U.S. Government Printing Office, 48pp

It’s Time to Ban the Use of Landmines :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

It’s Time to Ban the Use of Landmines      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   El Salvador, 6 April 1992--Three siblings died near the Guazapa volcano last weekend when they stepped on a mine planted during the period of civil warfare. Ironically, their parents had returned to the area only a few days earlier. The children were four, six and eight years old. Parts from the three children's bodies were found as far as 30 metres from the explosion site. (qtd. in Grant 25)    Antipersonnel landmines kill thousands of people every year. Antipersonnel landmines do not recognize a cease-fire; they continue killing or maiming for many years after the conflict is over. Antipersonnel landmines do not discriminate between soldiers or civilians. On the contrary, more and more they are being used in an indiscriminate way, terrorizing civilians and transforming agricultural fields into killing fields. In addition, de-mining is a very slow and very expensive process, and after a war most countries are not prepared to cope with the constant health care demands imposed by the number of injured by landmines. Finally, landmines make it very difficult for refugees to go back to their cities and villages. As response to the landmine problem, the international community has come up with a treaty to ban landmines. On March 1, 1999, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty came into effect; so far 134 countries have signed the treaty. Unfortunately, the U. S. is not one of them.    The Encarta Encyclopedia defines a landmine as "an encased explosive device that is concealed below the surface of the ground." It can be made of "metal, plastic, glass, or wood" (n. p.). Probably the concept of landmines is almost as old as the existence of organized armies. Philip C. Winslow, in his book Sowing the Dragon's Teeth, describes how Roman soldiers, before the beginning of the first millennium, used a plant with spikes as a landmine in order "to delay pursuers" (126). The Chinese, according to Delbruck, used "ground mines" made out of explosives in the year 1232 (qtd. in Winslow 126). Six hundred years later, in 1840, the use of landmines was introduced in the United States; they were used "in large quantities" during the Civil War (Winslow 126, 127).

Skywest Cas

eSkyWest, Inc. case Analysis Written Case Analysis Table of Contents 1. Introduction†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ pg. 2 2. External Analysis†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ pg. 3-10 3. Internal Analysis†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ pg. 10-14 4. Key Decisions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚ ¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. pg. 14- 15 5. Alternatives†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ pg. 15 6. Recommended Decisions†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ pg. 16 7. Appendices†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢ € ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. pg. 17-19 1-SkyWest Airline IntroductionSkyWest, Inc. was found in 1972 by Raplph Atkins in St. George, Utah. Initially this was only a charter type of flight and was mostly used by businessman travelling between Salt Lake City and St. George, Utah. But with business partnerships and merging with companies like Western Airlines and later with Delta airlines partnerships the network of SkyWest airlines were much broad. Later in near future with more partnerships with United Airlines and Midwest Airlines helped the company to grow rapidly and in 2005 SkyWest acquired Atlantic Southeast Airlines.Currently SkyWest is operating in overseas too for instance Canada meanwhile it runs its operations in 34 states and nearly in 158 cities. Sky West case analysis report will help the reader to understand especially about the SkyWest Inc. and the general economic conditions of the reg ional airline industry of US at a micro environmental level along with some introductions of market size and market growth of the airline industry. The report is organized under the following main topics as follows.External analysis, internal analysis, Key decisions, alternatives and recommended decisions along with some charts and tables that helps the arguments for better understanding. Moving on when we consider the industry as a whole it had a decline due to the economic recession in 2009 that affected the growth rate of the airline industry and in terms of market size the revenue from passenger per mile decreased in 2008 compared to 2007 and this is an early effect of the economic recession, we shall discuss the threats and alternatives as we go along.In five year period from 2004 to 2008 the industry’s combined revenue has increased almost with a double effect from $4. 7 billion to $8. 4 billion (Please refer the epilogue table # 1). As part of the introduction let†™s identify the vision statement and the company strategy. Company strategy is low-cist strategy and its competitive advantage is achieved by lower cost than its competitors. Vision statement is â€Å"Atlantic Southeast Airlines is committed to connecting more people, more often; to the places they love, by becoming the world's first super regional airline. Moving on we would concentrate on the external analysis of this company. 2-External Analysis Economic Factors The external analysis assess the company’s external environment by looking at its Marco-environmental factors including the size of the market in terms of unit sale and sales volume as well as the market growth. It also examines the number and size of buyers and sellers in the environment, the pace of technological change or innovation, the economies of scale, geographic boundaries, the market supply and demand conditions, learning curve effects of the market and the differential products available.We will now e valuate SkyWest’s external environment by first looking at its economic factors. Size and Market Growth rate: The first economic factor addressed is the size of the company and its growth rate. SkyWest is the largest independently owned regional airline that is partnered with two of the major airlines; United and Delta. Alone SkyWest has more than 11,000 people representing their company none of which are unionized. Through the partnership with United and Delta, SkyWest was imited to the size of the aircraft through scope clauses limiting seating of 76 with Delta and 70 with United. This would limit the amount of business they could capture from their partners. In order to take advantages of their efficiencies SkyWest could have purchased larger aircraft to expand its business had there been no limitations. Throughout the five years SkyWest contracted to Delta and United ending in December of 2008, their annual growth rate had increased to a compounded 29. 6% with the number of flights increasing from 1,500 to 2,300.The size of the market in terms of unit sale and sales volume will be discussed in the next paragraph defining its size of buyers and sellers. Number and Size of buyers and sellers: The number of buyers in the company can be defined by the number of customers the company serves per year. SkyWest has the ability to serve over 100,000 customers per year due to the contract with Delta and United. The number of sellers in the company can be defined as the partnering airlines using their regional services to operate their connecting flights for a fixed cost.SkyWest is a regional airline that operates the connecting flights of its major partners Delta and United. The regional flight as well as the connecting flights through Delta and United has them serving 158 cities in 42 states and five Canadian provinces and Mexico. Their Hubs are located in Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Portland, Denver and Salt Lake City. In o rder to maintain these airlines they have maintenance based in Atlanta, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Denver, Fresno, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Palm Springs, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Tucson.Through their contract with Delta they have increased their customer base by operating about 430 connecting flights per day between Salt Lake City and designated outlaying destination which is about 59. 9% of the company’s capacity. The other 40. 10% of capacity goes to their contract with United that has them operating about 900 scheduled departures per day. In January of 2008 SkyWest took over Midwest allowing them to service 70 and 90 seating customers per flight.When they partnered with these major airlines there were a lot of changes that took place including technical changes. We will now discuss the pace of these technical changes and innovation. Pace of technological change or innovation: Most of the technological changes happened after the 9/11 attack on the World Tr ade Center and the Pentagon. One of the changes SkyWest had implemented was the Stetson Quality Suite. The Stetson Quality Suite is a mobile data collection and reporting software SkyWest used to ensure they were meeting or exceeding their safety quality standards.SkyWest used this particular software to keep up with the Safety and maintenance standards for the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration. Now that we have discussed the pace of technological changes or innovation we will now go on to discuss the economies of scale. Economies of Scale: The economies of scale are the cost advantages company’s can obtain due to size, with cost per unit of output decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out over more units of output.SkyWest was able to capitalize on the economies of scale when it partnered with Delta and United which helped reduce the cost of providing the service over what others could do. Through these partnerships SkyW est was able to gain access to an established customer base that would help increase their business in size and also lower the costs through the contracts where the major airlines were responsible for all their jet fuel, ground handling and aircraft maintenance and ownership. Given the gained access to customers through the partnership made SkyWest heavily dependent on Delta and United.With the current recession causing a dramatic downfall in the economic condition put all airlines including the major ones like Delta and United at risk to airlines losses, bankruptcies and consolidations due to the decrease in operating revenues by 87% with a 64% drop in income, 77% drop in revenues and a 60% drop in operating income. Now that we have discussed the economies of scale in the industry we will go on to discuss the geographic boundaries. Geographic Boundaries: The geographic boundaries of an industry refer to the geographic boundary lines that are drawn whether they are local, regional, national or global.SkyWest’s geographic boundaries are regional representing only small cities and also servicing major airlines through connecting flights. The partnerships with Delta and United had allowed expansion to current and new routes as well and additional departures. SkyWest was looking to expand more and through the acquisition with ASA they were allowed to expand geographically allowing them access to the East Coast markets and comprehensive national coverage that greatly expanded their scope of operations by adding regional jets to their fleets and a $1 billion to operations.We will now move on to discuss the market supply and demand conditions. Market Supply/Demand Conditions: The market supply and demand conditions changed greatly with the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The 9/11 attack prevented people from flying due to the fear of crashing which translated into huge losses in the major airlines. People feared the larger airlines more than the smaller regional jets due to the fact that they felt the larger planes to be more susceptible to terrorist attacks.They assumed that smaller regional airlines would not be a target for terrorism but still saw them to be less safe than the larger airplanes. The second condition affecting the market demand was the recession starting in late 2007 that continued throughout 2009. The beginning of the recession had negative effects on participant’s income statements and balance sheets resulting in airlines losses, bankruptcies and consolidations. The recession continued into 2008 and 2009 causing a dramatic downturn in the company’s financial performance.This economic downfall of 2008 and 2009 caused a decrease in the number of scheduled flights, and passenger traffics by 3%, with cargo revenues dropping as well. The airline industry is highly sensitive to fluctuations in the economy because of the significant portion of business and leisure travelers . The recession had lowered the overall demand for airline services not only to the regional but all airlines in the United States. The most recent recession in 2009 had a strong impact on the credit markets preventing airlines from getting the needed credit to acquire new aircraft.Other things affecting the market supply/demand conditions were the seasonal fluctuations that increased travel during summer months and decreased travel during the winter due to flight cancelations and delays due to inclement weather. The weather related flight cancellations represented a loss to 2,850 of its flights with a decrease in pretax income of about $5. 2 million. Next we will discuss the learning curve effects in the industry. Learning/experience curve effects:The learning curve effects of the industry were outlined in the training offered to help pilots and maintenance personnel keep up to date on the new safety and maintenance regulations as well as their skills. The vast majority of training was at training facilities for both the company pilots and maintenance personnel through a six-week program. The six-week training program proved to be very comprehensive and respected that it attracted tuition paying Federal Aviation Administration personnel. Next we will discuss their differential products. Differential Products:The differential products discussed in this case were the Bombardier Regional Jets and the Embraer and ATR Turboprops. The Bombardier region jets were the main regional gets used in the industry. These were larger commercial jets used to service longer-haul flights to the destinations up to 1,200 miles away, which allowed regional carriers to operate new longer routes and run shorter routes more efficiently. The other product discussed was the Embraer and ATR Turboprop which seats 30 passengers. This jet was used for short- to medium-haul flights and was able to land on shorter runways.Several travelers were unsure of riding on the turboprops due to the p erception of them being loud and uncomfortable. To accommodate travelers that wanted to ride a smaller jet with a more comfortable ride they created the Bombardier Q series turboprop that was equipped with noise and vibration reduction devices to help reduce the noise and vibration levels to those of a regional jet. In the next section we will define the driving forces for change in the industry. Driving Forces The driving forces are the factors that are driving the industry to make changes.These changes within the industry will have impacts on globalization, product and marketing innovation, technological change, changes in long-term growth rates and new government regulations. To start off we will discuss the impact on globalization. Globalization: SkyWest decided to go international with their business and started working with regional carriers in Europe, Latin America and China. The push to go global was due to the increased interest in airline business from people in Brazil and China. The people from these two geographic areas had pursued SkyWest to help them build their own airline within their geographic region.SkyWest agreed to help them train people, and organize from a 10- to 20 aircraft operation to a major regional carrier in countries that really needed a major regional carrier. Through globalizing their company SkyWest would be able to increase their purchasing power and help buys things at a lower rate. However, through the limitations the foreign governments would place on U. S. carriers, the opportunities by the international joint ventures would be limited. Now that we discussed the globalization driving factor we will go on to discuss the product and marketing innovation. Product and marketing innovation:The first product and marketing innovation is the Bombardier Regional Jets. The Bombardier regional jets originally serviced flights with destinations of up to 1,200 miles away. The new innovated Bombardier Jet has the quietest commercial je t available with a range of up to 1,600 miles. This larger regional jet offers many amenities including flight attendant service, stand-up cabin, overhead and under-seat storage, lavatories, and in-flight snack and beverage service. These jets were able to operate at lower costs then a 120-seat or larger jet aircraft due to its smaller size and efficient design.The other product and marketing innovation is the Embraer and ATR Turboprop, many travelers were not very interested in these smaller jets due to their noise level and uncomfortable seating. The new Embraer and ATR Turboprop has a 30 seat 120 turboprop and a 74 seat ATR 72 turboprops that are able to operate more economically over short-haul routes than the larger jet aircrafts. These smaller jets had comfort features such as stand-up headroom, a lavatory, overhead baggage compartments and flight attendant services.The smaller jets were more economically feasible making it possible to provide high frequency service in markets with relatively low volumes of passenger traffic. We will now go on to discuss the technological changes. Technological Changes: The technological changes taking place are the implementation of Stetson Quality Suite for Safety used to ensure their standards were meeting or exceeding their safety quality standards. The changes to the Bombardier and Embraer Jet to increase the overall quality and service of the jets in reference to their range of flight and the services offered to the staff and the customers boarding the flight.Other technological changes taking place are the new ways of communicating creating less need for travel. With the economy still being in a vulnerable position people are very sensitive to the price of a flight and try to find other means of commuting to their destination or communicating to that particular party. These technological changes have caused a decrease in the airline market due to price sensitivity that even business travelers are looking to save m oney. Next we will discuss the changes in the long-term growth rate. Changes in the long-term growth rate:The changes in the long-term growth rate started to increase when SkyWest partnered with Delta and United Express. The partnership had increased their annual growth rate to a compounded 29. 6%. This partnership had increased the number of flights from 1,500 to 2,300, and increased their departures to 2,400 to 208 cities per day by adding connection flight through their major airlines that serviced the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. With the increased flights there were new government regulations that were applied. In the next paragraph we will discuss those regulations. New Government regulations:New Government regulations were in effect immediately after the 9/11 attack to ensure safety to the passengers by increasing the security regulations. The increased security also increased operational costs to the airline carriers due to the increased safety regulation s. The last increase that took place was the increased jet fuel cost, due to the economic recession in mid-2008. All these changes lead to a decrease in ticket sales due to fear of flying post 9/11 attack, and the incurred costs of flying in response to the threat of rising fuel costs. The next section will talk about the industry’s key success factors.Key Success factors: The key success factors are the competitive factors that most affect industry members’ ability to prosper in the marketplace. Different types of key success factors can be technology related, manufacturing related, distribution related, marketing related and skills and capability related. Technology related: The technology related key success factors that the SkyWest Inc. was defined by how they were able to acquire new aircraft. Regional airlines were required to find the needed capital and financing to increase the size of their fleets to service the longer routes being outsourced by the major airl ines.This had to be done without compromising their scope contracts with labor. SkyWest was able to overcome that by joining with ASA to acquire new aircraft. The next factors to success being discussed are the Manufacturing and Distribution related key success factors. Manufacturing/Distribution related: SkyWest’s manufacturing and or distribution related key success factors are defined by the ability to get their passengers to their destination on time. SkyWest was able to maximize their on-time arrivals by successfully getting all of their flyers to their sites on-time and making sure they did not miss their connecting flights as well.This gave them a good reputation with their customers in increasing satisfaction, naming them one of the highest rated regional carriers for on-time arrivals. Marketing-related The regional airline industry related its marketing key success factors to how they were able to maintain a strong safety image. In order to keep up with images of fly ing SkyWest increased safety standards and regulations to develop a much more safer image for those that were skeptical about flying smaller flights especially after the 9/11 attack.Passengers were unsure of the safety of the smaller jets preventing them from flying with the regional airlines, but after more safety had been implemented and other procedures had taken place to ensure everything was up to code they were able to maintain this strong image to passengers to ensure their safety when flying. Skills and capability-related SkyWest’s skills and capabilities were expressed in how they were able to maintain high levels of customer service. Typically regional airlines were not known for their customer service due to a large number of mishandled uggage that happened when transferring luggage from one plane to the next and an increased number of cancelled flights due to inclement weather. Most of these issues were not directly related to the regional due to their partnership s that handed all of their scheduling and majors taking priority in runways. SkyWest was able to maintain an average number of mishandled baggage, the second lowest number of involuntary denied boarding’s and the fourth in number of complaints per 100,00o passengers.This put them at the top to be named the Regional Airline Company of the Year for on-time arrivals by the Department of Transportation multiple times. Five Forces Model of Competition The five forces model evaluates the industries competition based on their level of Rivalry, threat of new entry, substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and bargaining power of suppliers to be either strong, moderate or weak. We will first discuss the first and most powerful of the five forces of competition; rivalry. Rivalry: Competition in the U. S. irline industry is very strong with their being a large number of competitors in the regional airlines. The success of low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines and JetBlue has incre ased the pressure on airlines to compete on price to attract sufficient numbers of passengers to keep flights full. In some regards, major airlines use contracts with regional carriers to keep costs and airfares low. Therefore, contracts for regional service are awarded by major carriers are to those having the lowest prices and reliable service. The overall rivalry in the airline industry is strong.Threat of new entry: The Threat of entry into the regional airline is define by the barriers to entry that include costs of acquiring a fleet of aircraft, acquiring contracts with major airline partners, and low industry profitability. Although the capital required to start up a modestly-sized small regional airline is fairly small, entering at a scale large enough to create a competitive threat requires substantial resources. The major threat of entry comes from major carriers which have the resources to start up their own regional airline. This threat is only moderate because the trend is for ajors airlines to sell off their regional airline operations and contract out service to regional carriers. Substitutes: Since regional airlines service short routes, passengers have more alternatives such as bus, automobile, or train travel than they do for long distance travel. This is particularly true when passengers are traveling only a few hundred miles. However, for major carriers that utilize regional carriers to execute hub and spoke strategies, there are few alternatives that they can use other than operating their own regional carrier.Substitutes are a weak to moderate force in the industry. Bargaining Power of Buyers: In the airline industry there are two types of customers; Leisure and business travelers. The business travelers tend to make up most of the market because they used the regional airlines to commute to and from locations that were considered too far to drive. They were also the most profitable because the larger customers purchased flights that were bought at a premium due to their short-notice or unexpected plan for flight.The Second type of buyers in the market were the leisure travelers that was a much smaller group of buyers because they traveled less often and were more price sensitive to the ticket sales. With their being several airline businesses in the industry all offering the same service, switching costs for tickets from airline to another tend to be very high. Airline industries have a fixed price on airline tickets preventing from buyers being able to bargain a lower price. Since most if not all customers search airline tickets based on price this makes the bargaining powers of buyers in the industry to be weak to moderate.Bargaining Power of Suppliers: In the regional airline industry there are two main types of suppliers Brazil’s Empresa Brasilerira de Aeronautica SA and Bombardier. With their only being two different types of suppliers in the regional airline industry that have two differentiated produc ts, makes the demand for them to be very high. Since these are the only two for the regional airlines it makes the bargaining power of suppliers to be very strong allowing them to change higher prices without losing their service to another manufacturer. 3-Internal AnalysisSWOT Analysis The SWOT analysis is an incredibly useful tool that helps review and analyzes the company’s current strategy. The SWOT analysis also identifies a potentially new direction for the company’s strategy to go. SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats. Strength and weaknesses generally relate to factors that are internal to the organization, while opportunities and weakness in contrast often relates to factors that are external to the organization. We will now analyze SkyWest, Inc. using the SWOT analysis. Strengths:A company’s strength is something that the company is good at doing, or an attribute that enhances its competitiveness in the marketplace. SkyWest le ads the industry in safety and maintenance by being a pillar in the industry for seeking safety prevention, and leading by example and getting involved to help the community overall be safer. SkyWest also has good statistics for safety and for on-time arrivals along with other factors that affect customer satisfaction. For years 2004 through 2009 SkyWest had the highest percentage for scheduled flights arriving on time.They also were second for the least amount of involuntary denied boarding’s. SkyWest also has a high level of employee satisfaction due to its workforce being nonunion. SkyWest owns jets like the Bombardier regional jet or the Embraer and ATR turboprops that are more economical and cost-efficient but also have speed that is comparable to those of larger jets; and they even have many of the same features that larger jets offer. A significant strength is that SkyWest has experienced a compounded annual growth rate of 29. 6 percent from 2003 to 2008.A key strength for SkyWest’s success is its ability to secure partnerships that expand its geographic and customer base. Now that we have completed analyzing SkyWest’s strengths we can take move on to analyzing their weaknesses. Weaknesses: A weakness is something a company lacks or does poorly; in comparison to competitors or a condition that puts the company at a competitive disadvantage. One weakness is SkyWest’s poor relationship with Delta Airlines which was caused by their disagreement over their contract and whether or not Delta owed SkyWest $25 million dollars.This inhibits SkyWest’s ability to fully function within that partnership, and of course being short changed $25 million dollars is also a significant loss. Another factor that contributes to SkyWest’s weaknesses was once considered a strength; SkyWest’s partnership with Midwest. After partnering together for two years Midwest filed for bankruptcy leaving a messy wind-down process for both c ompanies, which undoubtedly will take a toll on SkyWest’s competitive advantage. Unfortunately that’s not where the mess ends; in 2009, Midwest was purchased by Republic, a larger company that is considered a direct competitor of SkyWest.Another strategic issue for SkyWest is the fact that because they partner with larger airlines and even though their own statistics for safety and for on-time arrivals along with other factors that affect customer satisfaction are either average or above average, from the customer’s point of view they are connected with the major carriers. Therefore the larger airlines statistics are intertwined with their own; which, results in customers perceiving a poor reputation for customer service; mishandling baggage, canceling flights, delayed flights for both carriers.Another weakness caused by customer’s perceptions is that customers typically perceive that the planes regional carriers use are small, uncomfortable, noisy, and a lso unsafe. Now that we have finished evaluating SkyWest’s weakness, we can now move on to analyze opportunities. Finally the last weakness we will go over is the scope clauses with United ; Delta Airlines. In the labor contracts with their pilots union it is spelled out the maximum size of airplane that an outside partner can operate. This limits the size of aircrafts to 70-seat and 76-seat aircrafts.This translates into a limited amount of ticket sales which means its limiting profits and market share and the number of flights a company could support. Now that we have evaluated the different factors that put SkyWest at a disadvantage we will take a look at the external factors; starting with opportunities. Opportunities: Opportunities are found within the external environment and arise when a company can take advantage of current circumstances or changes in the environment to gain a competitive advantage and become more profitable. Generally the best opportunities are the o nes that match with your company’s strategic goals.One opportunity for SkyWest is with more and more major carriers that start outsourcing a portion of their routes to regional airlines this creates an opportunity for SkyWest to build those relationships and eventually become partners with those major airlines, giving SkyWest a chance to expand and grab more market share. Another opportunity for SkyWest to expand its market share is with United ; Delta Airlines filing for chapter 11 this creates a short window of opportunity for SkyWest to serve those customers and to do it with great service and low prices building an expanded loyal customer base.Another opportunity that SkyWest needs to watch the horizon for is if the scope cause liberation were to be approved it would create an opportunity for SkyWest to increase the number of routes flown in contract with other airlines and the seat capacity of those routes. It would be a wise decision to spend time making plans that coul d be quickly executed should the scope cause liberation get approved. It’s important to keep an eye on the horizon watching for changing technology, government policies, or social trends that way the company can respond quickly and seize the opportunity to gain the competitive advantage.A changing external environment doesn’t only mean possible opportunities it also means possible threats. We will now examine SkyWest’s possible threats. Threats: Threats are factors in a company’s external environment that pose a threat to the company’s profitability and competitive well-being. The 2007 economic recession is an example of a threat that many people did not see, because of this many industries including the airline industry suffered.Some people believe that we still have not fully felt the aftershocks of the recession and because the airline Industry is highly sensitive to the economy as a significant portion of travel; both leisure and business trave lers, are discretionary, it is still a potential threat. Another threat to the airline industry is the increasing costs for jet fuel and its general availability. This can have a crippling effect on a company’s profitability and threatens their overall business operations. Fuel expenses already account for 35-50 percent of an airlines operation cost in 2009.Another external threat is if either new or changes are made to the ASA Regulation for either weather related factors or safety inspections. Both would increase costs and could threaten the success and the competitive advantage of SkyWest, which in turn could lead to decreased customer satisfaction and fewer sales. Since SkyWest is a regional carrier they need to keep a careful watch not only on how they are performing but also how their major carriers whom they have partnerships with are performing.If a major carrier were to file for bankruptcy it would most certainly threaten SkyWest with loss of customers and profits an d could lead them to follow suit and file for bankruptcy as well. Another threat that could affect regional carriers in the industry is if two major carriers merge the result would most likely be consolidating of routes and possibly completely shutting down smaller hubs, which as we have explained would also affect their regional partners. Financial assessment Ratios: Financial data is important to analyze as it provides the concrete results as for how the company’s strategy is performing.Ratio analysis is often used to determine a company’s financial position. Ratio analysis breaks down into 5 key subgroups; profitability ratios, liquidity ratios, leverage ratios, activity ratios, and finally share-holder ratios. We will break down each one of these types of ratios starting with profit ratio. It should be noted that analyzing the individual companies financial performance alone, is not a complete analysis. To have a complete analysis, the ratios should be compared aga inst the industry’s average; however, we will not be covering that in our assessment with SkyWest. Profitability ratios:Profitability ratios generally tell us how well the company is using their resources efficiently. One of the several profitability ratios is the Operating profit margin. This ratio tells us how much profit is earned on each dollar of sales before paying interest charges and income taxes. | 2004| 2005| 2006| 2007| 2008| Operating Income| 144776| 220408| 339160| 344524| 255231| Total Operating Revenue| 1156044| 1964048| 3114656| 3374332| 3496249| Operating Profit Margin| 0. 1252| 0. 1122| 0. 1089| 0. 1021| 0. 0730| Here we see that the operating profit margin has been declining, while the total operating revenue is increasing.This can be interpreted as less money is being made on each dollar of sale. When looking at the operating profit margin ratio higher is better and you want to see an upward trend, since we don’t see that it is cause for concern and should be looked into. Liquidity ratios: Now let’s look into the liquidity ratios. Liquidity ratios measure a company’s ability to pay off short-term obligations by using their liquid assets, one of these ratios is the current ratio. The current ratio tells us how much of the company’s short-term obligation can be covered by using and converting their liquid assets. 12/31/2008| 12/31/2007| Current Assets| 125,892| 122,802| Current Liabilities| 129,783| 118,202| Current Ratio:| 0. 9700| 1. 0389| SkyWest’s current ratio had a small decrease from 2007 to 2008. For 2007 their ratio was 1. 04, and for 2008 it decreased to . 97. The ratio should be higher than 1, however what an acceptable ratio is depends on the type of industry as it varies. The fact that their ratio is decreasing could suggest impending insolvency. However to accurately analyze we would need to compare the current ratio to other companies in the airline industry. Leverage ratios:Next we wil l move on to analyze leverage ratios. Leverage ratios are concerned with the balance between debt and equity. One of the leverage ratios is the debt-to asset ratio. The debt-to asset ratio measure the extent to which borrowed funds have been used to finance the firm’s operations and investments. | 2007| 2008| Total Debt| 3990525| 4014291| Total Assests| 3990525| 4014291| Debt-to assets ratio| 1| 1| Here we see that for both 2007 and 2008 the debt-to asset ratio equals 1; however this is a cause for concern. It would be better if the debt-to assets ratio were a low fraction.A low fraction would indicate that the firm less debt then assets and therefor does not have a high risk of bankruptcy occurring. Activity Ratios: Another area to analyze is how effectively a company is managing its assets this group is called activity ratios. An example of an activity ratio is the inventory turnover ratio; which takes the cost of goods sold divided by the inventory to determine the number of times the inventory is turned over and whether they are carrying excess stock. One example of an activity ratio is the average collection ratio. | 2007| 2008| Accounts receivables| 81216| 55458|Total Sales (Total Revenue)| 3374332| 3496249| Average collection period| 8. 7851| 5. 7897| This measurement indicates the average length of time it takes SkyWest to receive a cash payment after making the sale. The shorter amount of time is optimal. From 2007 to 2008 SkyWest shortened the amount of time by almost 3 days, bringing it to roughly 6 days. Other important measures of financial performance: The last category is kind of a miscellaneous category; however this category is sometimes referred to as the shareholder-return ratio because many of the ratios measure the return earned by shareholders from holding stock in the company.There are other measures as well like the internal cash flow measurement. This measures how much cash a company’s business is generating after paying operating expenses, interest, and taxes (often referred to as NIAT). Years| 2004| 2005| 2006| 2007| 2008| Net income| $81,952 | $112,267 | $145,806 | $159,192 | $112,929 | Depreciation| $76,817 | $115,275 | $189,885 | $208,944 | $220,195 | NIAT| $158,769 | $227,542 | $335,691 | $368,136 | $333,124 | – Key Decisions 1. One of the main points the case covers is the state of the global and national economy. As previously discussed the airline industry and its success is highly correlated with the state of the economy. 2. Another main point that SkyWest should be concerned with is their ability to attract and retain partnerships. Its already been established that SkyWest’s relationship with Delta has been changed to â€Å"it’s complicated† over the disagreement of 25 million dollars unpaid and not going after Delta in a lawsuit for the unpaid money for fear of losing their partnership and connected business.As Delta Airlines contributed 59. 9% of SkyWest†™s customer capacity. Also their previous partnership with Midwest Airlines which then filed for bankrupt and later was purchased by a direct competitor, which could become larger and more capable; threatening SkyWest’s future. 3. Another issue plaguing SkyWest is the impact of high fuel prices. It is estimated that 30-50% of total costs are from the costs of fuel. This in conjunction with the scope clauses that limit the size of planes SkyWest can operate increases the costs and amount of fuel needed. . The Last problem the case covers is the issue of government legislation and regulations and the effect it has on the airline industry. Safety regulations and labor contracts that limit the number of passenger’s pilots can fly. Along with the issue of planes being grounded to perform safety inspections or the proposals of new legislation like the regulation that was going to require they provide oxygen for passengers that would have added a significant amount of addit ional costs. 5- Alternatives 1.Economy: Clearly one cannot control the state of the economy, but if SkyWest continues to take advantage of their strengths and repair weakness that are due to partner companies’ poor customer service, human resources and low profits they are likely to be successful when the economy is doing better. While the economic recession continues SkyWest should attempt to renegotiate their agreements with their major carrier partners and cancel flights, when capacity is low, in order to reduce their costs.They need to make sure they maintain competitive prices and not just meet customer’s expectations but also exceed them, this will lead to a stronger customer loyalty hopefully keeping SkyWest out of the red. 2. Partnerships: SkyWest needs to continue to develop their partnerships with major carriers to further diversify the amount of major partners, which would ultimately reduce the risk of being dependent on Delta and United. Also combining effo rts would reduce the companies overhead. . Fuel costs: The rising costs and fluctuations in fuel price pose a significant risk as they are the largest chunk of operation costs for the airline industry. SkyWest should plan their routes to maximize their fuel efficiency along with again trying to renegotiate their agreements with their major carrier partners to permit flying larger size planes with more seating capacity; which would therefor create larger economies of scale. 4.Regulations: SkyWest needs to continue to pay close attention to union activity within the ASA Corporation and also continue to avoid labor unions and instead focus on employees through effective benefit packages and employee engagement. 6- Recommended Decisions 1. SkyWest airlines considerably has cash in had it could make a risky move by starting to serve in new countries since they are already exposed to some of the foreign destinations it would not be a bad idea but they must be prepared to face new competit ors.This would help the company to offer more international connecting flights and strengthen the operations that already exists for instance in Canada. 2. As we discussed before as a whole the industry is enjoying an accumulated revenue, so at this point making new partnerships may increase the revenue share of SkyWest Airlines and this would help the company to face the unknown future challenges and lessen its affect to SkyWest airlines since the economy is not steady. . Even though SkyWest is well known for being the best at safety of the services rendered it should invest more on researches with the other industry competitors so they could split the cost and enjoy the benefits (joint research agreements). This would help the SkyWest to keep up to the new regulations that is set by FAA, TSA and DOT. 4. In the first quarter of 2009 they had a SkyWest had a revenue loss of $7. million which was merely by ASA because of poor maintains and inefficiency of the flights. Management shou ld take initiatives to reduce these types of inefficiency and integrate a successful system for sustainable growth of the company. 5. SkyWest Inc. should be concerned with the route maps and they should look for opportunities that could potentially help them to expand route coverage with the existing partnerships or to get into new business agreements with new partners. . Management should work closely with the finance department to cut down fuel and maintains cost to earn more revenues in the volatile economy. For instance management should be working together with finance department on hedging for fuel, and they could get into partnerships with smaller companies in the industry to share maintains cost rather than a large air carrier where SkyWest’s needs wouldn’t be considered upon a larger company.