Essay --

J.A. is an 82 year old male of German-American descent. He speaks English and does not know any German. He lives in a single family home with 2 floors, and a basement. He is 5’9†, married, appears well groomed and dressed. J.A. is alert and oriented x 3 and is currently retired. I met with J.A. on Saturday, 2/8/14 at 10:15am and was introduced to him and his spouse by his son. The interview was done at the home of J.A. in an office that he has in his home. J.A. seems very technological savvy with the use of a computer, scanner/printer, e-mail and the internet. Overall, he seems very calm, well mannered, optimistic and has a very good memory. He was able to remember where certain items were placed in the home when his wife asked about it. There were certificates around the home which seems like he received it from volunteering as well as paintings and pictures throughout the house. The interview lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes. General Assessment J.A. had a steady gait, his speech was clear and audible, skin looked intact, and has short white hair but was slowly becoming bald. J.A. states that he feels that his â€Å"health is not great, but not that bad either.† He states that â€Å"overall he feels his health is fair for his age.† There are some medical problems which he states that does affect him. His knees suffer from arthritis and can’t walk as much as he used to. When he tries to walk, he cannot walk as fast as he used to due to a heart problem. According to J.A., his knees affect him the most when it is cold or when it is really damp/humid. He states that he has slipped and broken a bone in his ankle about 4 months ago which is not helping with his arthritis. His neighbors would help shovel his house when there ... ...ily is a bit more traditional, we do use some Chinese herbal medications and also believe that when we are sick to not eat certain foods or even when someone is pregnant to not eat certain foods. Usually when someone is sick or recovering from a surgery we would tell them not to eat some food and to eat certain foods that would help them recover. There are a lot of other beliefs which my family practices which I do not. However, I would follow it if asked of from my parents. Also, there is a belief that usually men would bring home more money and women would stay home and cook. However, nowadays that is not always the case and I also don’t believe that is the case. My family practices Buddhism on and off which is quite different from Roman Catholic. Prior to having a big meal before a big holiday, we would offer food to the Gods and then partake in that food.

Ratio Analysis Essay -- essays research papers

Companies strive from day to day to make their business publicly strong, financially strong, and appeasing and profitable for its shareholders. Shareholders as well as the company’s management use several tools to determine a company’s health and direction. These tools are better known as ratio analysis. Ratios are among the more widely used tools of financial analysis because they provide clues to and symptoms of underlying conditions.2 Ratios help measure a company’s liquidity, activity, profitability, leverage and coverage.1 These five measured sections show how ratio analysis is used in decision-making, how a firm can measure its financial situation and financial performance, and the strengths and weaknesses of the company. The term ratio analysis can be broken down into smaller sections. The first is a current ratio which is the ratio of current assets to current liabilities. This ratio shows how well a company’s current liabilities are covered.1 Even though this ratio is used often, it does have its limitations. Since it shows all current assets it does not differentiate among the assets with regard to their degrees of liquidity, show it can show skued results .Another commonly used ratio is the acid-test ratio, also known as the quick ratio. This ratio shows an investor how the short-term liquidity, or how quickly the company’s assets can be turned into cash.2 Inventory turnover is an important and often overlooked ratio that indicates inventory levels. A low turnover...

The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 44

Elena was wakened by shouting. She'd already once awakened to unbelievable bliss. Now she was awake again – but surely that was Damon's voice. Shouting? Damon didn't shout! Throwing on a robe, she went dashing out the door and downstairs. Raised voices – confusion. Damon was kneeling on the floor. His face was blue-white. There wasn't a plant in the room that could be strangling him. Poisoned, was the next thing Elena thought and immediately her eyes darted around the room to see a spilled drink, a dropped plate, any sign that poison had done this. There was nothing. Sage was clapping Damon on the back. Oh, God, could he have choked? But that was idiocy. Vampires didn't breathe, except for talking and building Power. But then what was happening? â€Å"You have to breathe,† Sage was shouting in Damon's ear. â€Å"Take a breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold on to it, as if for raising your Power. Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!† The words only confused Elena. â€Å"There!† cried Sage. â€Å"You see?† â€Å"But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again.† â€Å"But, yes, that is the point!† â€Å"I tell you I'm dying and you laugh at me?† a disheveled Damon shouted. â€Å"I'm blind, deaf, my senses are haywire – and you laugh!† Disheveled, thought Elena, bothered by something. â€Å"Well.† Sage seemed to be at least trying not to laugh. â€Å"Perhaps, mon petit chou, you should not have opened something that was not addressed to you?† â€Å"I put wards all around me before I did it. The house was safe.† â€Å"But you were not – breathe! Breathe, Damon!† â€Å"It looked completely harmless – and admit it – we were all going – to open it last night – when we got too tired – !† â€Å"But to do it alone, to open a present from a kitsune†¦that was foolish, yes?† A choking Damon snapped, â€Å"Don't lecture me. Help me. Why am I muffled in cotton wool? Why can't I see? Or hear? Or smell – anything? I'm telling you I can't smell a thing!† â€Å"You are fit and sharp as any human could be. You could probably defeat most vampires if you fought with one right now. But human senses are very few and very dull.† Words were swimming in Elena's head†¦opening things not addressed to you†¦bouquet from a kitsune†¦human†¦ Oh, my God! Apparently, the same words were going through the mind of someone else, because suddenly a figure dashed in from the kitchen area. Stefan. â€Å"You stole my bouquet? From the kitsune?† â€Å"I was very careful – â€Å" â€Å"Do you realize what you've done?† Stefan shook Damon. â€Å"Ow. That hurts! Do you want to break my neck?† â€Å"That hurts? Damon, you're in for a world of hurt! Do you understand? I talked to that kitsune. Told him the whole story of my life. Elena came to visit and he saw her practically†¦well, never mind – he saw her crying over me! Do†¦you†¦realize†¦what†¦you†¦have†¦ done?† It was as if Stefan had started climbing a series of steps, and that each one lifted him to a higher level of fury than the last. And here, at the top†¦ â€Å"I'll KILL YOU!† Stefan shouted. â€Å"You took it – my humanity! He gave it to me – and you took it!† â€Å"You'll kill me? I'll kill you, you – you bastard! There was one flower in the middle. A black rose, bigger than I have ever seen. And it smelled†¦heavenly†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"It's gone!† Matt reported, producing the bouquet. He displayed it. There was a gaping hole in the center of the mixed flower arrangement. Despite the hole, Stefan ran to it, and stuck his face into the bouquet, sucking in great heaving breaths of air. He kept coming up and snapping his fingers and each time lightning flared between his fingertips. â€Å"Sorry, bud,† Matt said. â€Å"I think it's gone.† Elena could see it all now. That kitsune†¦he was one of the good ones, like the stories Meredith had told them about. Or at least good enough to sympathize with Stefan's plight. And so, when he had gotten free, he had made up a bouquet – kitsune could do anything with plants, although surely this was a great feat, something like finding the secret of eternal youth†¦to turn vampires into humans. And after Stefan had endured and endured and endured and should have finally gotten his reward†¦right now†¦ â€Å"I'm going back,† Stefan shouted. â€Å"I'm going to find him!† Meredith said quietly, â€Å"With or without Elena?† Stefan stopped. He looked up at the stairway, and his eyes met Elena's. Elena†¦ We'll go together. â€Å"No,† Stefan shouted. â€Å"I would never put you through that. I'm not going after all. I'm just going to murder you!† He swung back on his brother. â€Å"Been there, done that. Besides, I'm the one that's going to kill you, you bastard! You took my world away from me! I am a vampire! I'm not a† – some creative cursing – â€Å"human!† â€Å"Well you are now,† Matt said. He was just barely not laughing out loud. â€Å"So I'd say you'd better get used to it.† Damon leaped at Stefan. Stefan didn't step aside. In an instant there was a ball of thrashing, kicking, and punching, and cursing in Italian that made it sound as if there were at least four vampires fighting five or six humans. Elena sat down helplessly. Damon†¦a human? How were they going to deal with this? Elena looked up to see that Bonnie had carefully made up a tray of all sorts of things that tasted good to humans, and that she'd undoubtedly done it for Damon before he had worked his way into hysteria. â€Å"Bonnie,† Elena said quietly, â€Å"don't give it to him yet. He'll just throw it at you. But perhaps later†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Later he won't throw it?† Elena winced. â€Å"How is Damon going to deal with being human?† she asked herself aloud. Bonnie looked at the cursing, spitting ball of vampire/human fury. â€Å"I'd say†¦kicking and screaming the whole way.† Just then Mrs. Flowers came out of the kitchen. She had a huge mound of fluffy waffles stacked on several plates on a tray. She saw the rolling, swearing, snarling ball that was Stefan and Damon. â€Å"Oh, my,† she said. â€Å"Did something go wrong?† Elena looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked at Meredith. Meredith looked at Elena. â€Å"You†¦could say so,† gasped Elena. And then the three of them gave way to it. Gales and gales of helpless laughter. You've lost a powerful ally, said a voice in Elena's mind. Do you know that? Can you foresee the consequences? Today, when you have just come back from a world of Shinichis? We'll win, Elena thought. We have to.

A Book Review on Martin Jacques’ When China Rules the World

A Book Review On Martin Jacques’ When China Rules the World By Abhinav Pathak â€Å"The underlying argument of the book is that China's impact on the world will be as great as that of the United States over the last century, probably far greater†¦. China, with continuing economic growth (albeit at a reduced rate) is destined to become one of the two major global powers and ultimately the major global power†- Martin JacquesMartin Jacques' above statement is a bold one, but shouldn’t come much of a surprise as Goldman Sachs gave such conclusions credibility in 2007 when it concluded that China would surpass U. S. GDP in 2027, and double it by 2050. I believe that Jacques, in a serious and comprehensive analysis, puts modern-day China into a long historic context and explores contemporary (and possible future) relations between a resurgent China and other East Asian states, the United States, and other parts of the world. The book is split into two parts, The E nd of the Western World and the Age of China.The Age of China section is much better than the End of the Western World. It gives the reader a background of China in relatively decent depth. It describes biases and history. It describes issues like racism; the repercussions of Confucianism are described in depth. A lot of the statistics seem to be from earlier in the decade suggesting this book was written over a long period of time but only recently completed. That being said, the main forms of argument of this section and the book, are images, not real facts.Chinese proverbs are used as evidence of the perspective, which I think is very ineffective, as for each one which supports a point, one can find another proverb which offers a different perspective. The Rise of China is an incredibly important and seemingly irreversible process, this could have been a great opportunity to back up claims with case evidence, but that was really not done in any convincing fashion. The author ofte n makes hyperbolized points, which within a paragraph become qualified with a much more balanced perspective.An example is the description of China and democracy. China it is claimed has no need for democracy and there is no reason to expect it, based on their historical citizens arrangement with government, and the fact that the people are not demanding it today (there are several times when it is stated that the Chinese need 8-9% growth as not to cause civil unrest implicitly stating that it is the growth that excuses the lack of demand for political rights and that citizens are willing to forgive political rights for economic growth)†¦Most people who make convincing arguments about China and democracy make the claim that democracy in China will follow from socio-economic development. When people move to the point from having to worry about subsistence to worrying about their leisure time, their priorities of governance chance. The allusions to history are just not convincing arguments, they can be dismissed as contextual and the authors own description of growth needed to prevent civil unrest makes the same point as stated above.The author sure knows this, so after making a claim which is not backed up, qualifies it by saying, it probably will democratize, but not the way you expect. Well, I don’t know what that means. Points like this should be argued with case studies, look at the political associations and power that the well off have vs. the poor, look at how those have changed. If there has been no change in political ideals of a person/group as their socio-economic condition has changed, make a point.Unfortunately the book does not take this approach, it looks to the past when the world was little changing in a relative context to today, and makes inferences. To quote Park Chung Hee from Korea which also took a state centered followed by democracy approach – â€Å"In human life, economics precedes politics and culture. † If o ne is going to dispute this, one should be doing it with cases not words with any evidence. However, there are many illustrations that Jacques, the author, gives us to back his claim of the Chinese domination.Since the economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 (just two years after the death of Mao), the Chinese economy has been growing at an average rate of 9. 5% a year which represents a doubling in size every seven years. Jacques comments: â€Å"Given its scale and speed, China's economic transformation is surely the most extraordinary in human history†¦ The country has borne witness to the greatest poverty reduction programme ever seen†.He further observes that the most important single characteristic of China is its unity. It has been relatively unified for over two millennia, attaches compelling priority to the maintenance of this unity, and is not prepared to compromise on the sovereignty – as opposed to the forms of governance – of Tibet or Xinjiang or the ‘lost territories' of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Jacques argues that â€Å"the Chinese have a pathological fear of division and instability†.China will become modern not by simply replicating the established modernity of Europe and North America, but by creating its own distinctive modernity in what will become a world of what he calls †contested modernity†. In many respects, the coming global supremacy of China is seen by the Chinese themselves as simply re-establishing the natural order of things, since they have always seen Chinese civilization as the greatest in the world and the ‘century of humiliation' (1850-1950), involving the ‘unequal treaties', colonialism and occupation, is regarded as an aberration which is now being corrected.This sense of superiority is underlined by a specifically racial view of the Chinese in which the Han Chinese, who comprise 92% of the total population, are seen as a single race and even the 100M non-Han are described as different nationalities rather than races. Indeed there is a view in some quarters than the origins of the Chinese are discrete and unconnected with that of other branches of humankind. All of these form the main themes of the book, â€Å"When China Rules the World† and it does sound that the 21st century will witness a paradigm shift in the centre of world power and influence.I do have couple of criticisms though. I feel the author is inconsistent at times and does not draw conclusions based on the evidence he presents rather than the feelings that he has about the subject. It often seems like the author is describing a zero-sum world, China moving up is the west moving down. The West has started growing again, given there are major issues still being worked through (though the author says the West is in a depression†¦ ) and there is a title called the end of the Western world. In my opinion if he US manages to grow, then that doesn’ t mark the end of the western world. As long as the quality of life per person is greater than in China or wherever, it is a model for something right? Otherwise one should just join the country with the greatest number of citizens. The end of strict western hegemony seems inevitable, but the west is a model for something as again, it has the highest living standards in the world. If china doesn’t dominate the US GDP that would be a tragedy, it has 5 times the people†¦This balance of power perspective is what drives a lot of the commentary. It is an important perspective and it would be naive to dismiss it, but as long as the model for economic growth is yielding good results, it is a valuable model for how a society should run. One cannot compare China and the US/Western Europe. They are not anywhere close on a GDP per capita. The rise of Chinese nationalism is very much a result of the great things China is achieving and the desire to be a part of it and to show the wo rld what the Chinese are capable of.It is not a we are better, any average Chinese citizen would with a high degree of confidence switch place with a US citizen of Chinese origin- as long as that is the case, we haven’t seen the end of the west. That phenomenon will be around for a long time and the end of that situation isn’t even contemplated in this book, the more defining data point to the author is, when china’s GDP will exceed the US. So as not to bore people, the book gives good history, discusses central aspects of Chinese culture that aren’t prevalent in the west, and discusses how they might manifest themselves on a global scale.That perspective is an important one, as the strategic power of China grows, so will its use of influence and it is important to understand the context of its perspectives. Another criticism that I have is that he not infrequently darts backwards and forwards in time. Perhaps this is unavoidable and I might not have been better pleased with a strict chronological account which would necessarily have hopped about between geography, military and economical viewpoints. In conclusion, I believe that China will change the world.However, the future is seen here mainly through the prism of a somewhat overstated China-centric historical determinism. The clamor of conflicting voices within China, with their potential to shape coming events, is barely considered. A more symbiotic development – that of China reaching an accommodation with the world in mutual self interest – is played down. China is locked into global systems that it will be difficult to fully extricate itself from – or replace – and which will mitigate its actions.Jacques himself convinced me that China’s rise is not a new paradigm but one of many burgeoning hybrids of existing modernity which will be eventually assimilated, albeit at great cost to Western global dominance. This book is a valuable addition t o an important debate. But at times the author stares so long and hard at China’s history that he seems to develop tunnel vision. Surely China’s past, although important, will not shape the global future in the overwhelming way that Jacques clearly believes that it will!

A Comparison Of Perfect Competition And Monopoly Economics Essay

A Comparison Of Perfect Competition And Monopoly Economics Essay Introduction In order to answer the question of whether ‘the competition is always necessarily beneficial to consumers’, it is vital to address the operation of two extreme sides of the market organisation. The extreme sides of the market organisation are Perfect competition and Monopoly. Once we accustom ourselves with the working of this dichotomy of market organisation, only then we can compare monopoly and perfect competition on the basis of efficiency in the market and specifically its impact on the consumers. Thus, in this essay we would first go through a brief description of perfect competition and monopoly and how the resources are organised in these two different market structures to achieve the goal of profit maximisation. By the allocation of resources and the level of output to be produced in these two different markets, we would compare their efficiency and inefficiency and the possible benefits and limitations of these market structures in different indus tries to the consumers. Perfect Competition Perfect competitive markets are those where there are large number of small buyers and sellers dealing with a homogeneous product and a single small firm do not have influence on the price allocation and acts as a price taker (Mankiw & Taylor, 2006). In addition to this, in a perfectly competitive market the mobility of the factors of production is perfect in the long run and both the producers and the consumers have perfect information regarding the product (Frank, 2003). A competitive firm being the price taker, to achieve the goal of profit maximisation, it produces a certain level of output where the price is equal to the marginal cost of producing an extra unit of product, a ‘Pareto efficient’ output level (Varian, 2006). As the price is also the marginal revenue for a competitive firm, so the profit is maximised at the condition where marginal revenue is equal to the marginal cost (Frank, 2003). This means that for a com pany to remain in business, it has to cover its cost, which is to say the price must be at least greater than the ‘minimum value of the average variable cost’ (ibid.) Monopoly At the extreme opposite end of the market organisation is monopoly. Monopoly is a market structure, where a single firm serves the entire market and is the only seller of a particular product with no close substitutes (Frank, 2003). Moreover, being the only firm in the market, it does not take any price but instead it has influence over the market price and produces a level of output at a particular price where the firms’ profits are the highest (Varian, 2006). Monopoly is created when a firm either takes control of key resources or the government issues a license and give them exclusive right for the production of goods and services. An economy of scale is another source of monopoly for a firm, where a single firm has more efficient cost of production as compared to a large number of firms and creates a natural monopoly that arises with public utilities like gas, electricity etc (ibid.). Furthermore, a monopolist will set his price higher than his marginal cost at a point where his marginal revenue is equal to marginal cost, in order to make positive economic profit (Frank, 2003). However the demand curve is negative for a monopolist and being a ‘price setter’, it cannot just randomly set a high price. It would rather set a price that the market could bear and maximises its profit (Mankiw & Taylor, 2006).

Corporate governance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Corporate governance - Essay Example ehalf of all shareholders of the Company and hence is responsible for every matter related to the firm that is the establishment of the firm itself and then providing every possible help so that it can achieve every business and organizational objectives and that too under continuous guidance with proper review and timely counseling. The set of purposes for which the board has been established are: To approve and monitor various critical business and the corresponding financial strategies of the company thereby assessing every major risks which the Company might face and the ways through which it can be mitigated. To oversee processes that have been designed to ensure that the Company; its employees etc are very much functioning under the law of the land as well as the applicable laws and regulations and the Companys conduct manual that is applicable equally at all places. The company’s power structure has been clearly defined along with the responsibilities of the head of the company is in between the functioning of the board and the executives withholding the responsibilities of the various businesses, departments and projects of the company. The decision making is a joint work with none of the individual having superior powers of decision. The appointment of new directors to the board is being done after a formal, rigorous and transparent procedure. The appointment is being achieved while depending on the information that board are being supplied on periodic basis that too in form of skills and qualification which is most suitable as well as appropriate so that the complete board including the new individual will get enabled to form a unit while discharging its duties. All directors over here receive induction on joining the board and are regularly updated to refresh their skills and knowledge. Corporate governance and the associated system is quite necessary for ensuring better performance of the whole corporate entity so that shareholders interest

Nuclear power Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Nuclear power - Essay Example Thermal reactors are common in many nuclear plants in the world since they mainly use thermal fission. Thermal neutrons move within thermal equilibrium at a temperature of about 550F, corresponding to a velocity of 3700 meters per second (Virtual Nuclear Tourist 1). On striking a uranium- 235 nucleus with the fuel, the nucleus sometimes split or fission into two unequally sized nuclei known as fission fragments. The fission products comprise large positively charged particles of elements such as Iodine or Strontium. The fission products slow down immediately and producing heat in the fuel. Moreover, 2 and 3 neutrons are produced in the process. The moderator decelerates the neutrons to the thermal energy. Neutrons do not travel very far within the reactor. They are generated from fission in the fuel, jump around in the moderator, then lose a large amount of their energies and later causes fission (Virtual Nuclear Tourist 1). The aim of nuclear fission is to generate heat. Thus, the coolant removes the heat and maintains the temperature of the fuel within tolerable limits (Virtual Nuclear Tourist 1). It also cools the moderator, which can also be used to cool the fuel. In some cases, it also cools the fuel by moving round the rods holding the fuel. The fuel within the reactor exists in the form of pellets of made of uranium dioxide or metal dioxide. There exists two or more isotopes of uranium and includes U- 235 and U 238 (Virtual Nuclear Tourist 1). U -238 is common in nature and has 146 neutrons and 92 protons. The remaining portion comprise of U – 235 and U 234. In commercial nuclear reactors, the fuel has a higher concentration of U- 235 compared to the level found in nature. It will undergo thermal and fast fission when struck by neutrons. Consequently, U – 238 will also undergo fission when struck by quick moving neutrons of specific energies and can in some case absorb