Studying Abroad or Studying At Home Essay

Studying abroad has become very fashionable for many residents. Many students seek the opportunities to study overseas to create a bright future and achieve childhood dreams. People who prefer to leave their home and study abroad seemed to be searching for educational satisfaction over their entire desire. Homesickness and culture shock besides unsafe environment are only a few problems of what an expat may face. It is believed that students shouldn’t leave their home to study abroad. The first reason why we should encourage students to pursue education locally is that a student studying locally doesn’t need to learn how to speak the local language of the foreign country that’s because they already known it. This will help avoid any communication problems between the students and their surroundings. Students can mix and blend with fellow classmates and teachers with ease. Moreover, students would be closer to home, being able to see and communicate with their loved people. Learning to live without a family is difficult and hard to cope with especially if someone was far alone from friends’ support and help. Another reason why a student shouldn’t leave their homeland to study abroad is the difficulties of moving. Studying locally is not as expensive compared to studying overseas. Students would not need to rent apartment as they can stay in the house they have been living in. Winter clothing, which also costs a lot of money, is not needed for those who are planning to study in western side. Local calls are also far cheaper than international calls for people who study outside of their country. More important, as a foreign student, students will experience distinct traditions and customs from that of their homeland and influence by their behaviors and norms. Students sometimes encounter with cultural shock. In different country things can be different than our habits. It is difficult  to get used to live in a foreign country. Traditions, habits and people are different and besides this it takes time to learn what their traditions and habits are. Culture shock also causes student not to be social and feel homesick. Students might miss their environment, family and friends. The opponents argue that studying abroad has many advantages, such as the advanced courses and developed approaches and facilities and the glory name of the western universities. They think that could expand student outlook and autonomy. However, local universities have encouraged students to study at home by opining international and famous worldwide university branches in its land. Furthermore, these universities branches are not less significance than the main branch in its original country. The counterarguments may think that speaking the language is better when someone lives between native people of the language. However, governments established many numbers of language institutes whose crew exclude native speakers. To conclude, studying locally is the best choice for students who are looking for satisfactory ad high level of education. People should be proud of pursuing education in homeland universities, where the difficulties of alienation can be avoided. By studying locally, there is no need to speak the language and moved on, only to enjoy studying among your loved people and to live dreams.

Polo Ralph Lauren Performance Measurement

Notes on the slides. Agenda – Our agenda follows exactly the guideline that was given to us in order to carry out this assignment. The Company – Short overview of the firm. The Fashion Industry – It is based mainly on intangible assets, rather than capital or knowledge-intensive assets.Moreover, nowadays fashion companies are less affected by the problem of seasonality: indeed they experience sales that are pretty much stable over the year; in spite of this, PRL experiences different levels of sales in the different quarters, due mainly to wholesales shipments and in coincidence with holiday periods. Industry Analysis – We used the Five Forces Model to assess the characteristics of the industry in which PRL competes in.The fashion industry is a very competitive one, rivalry among firms is high: some competitors are bigger than PRL, so they also have more resources, but still PRL is a pretty strong name and the company has a large customer base. The threat of new entrants is low because there are strong incumbents, brand loyalty in the high-price segment is high and access to suppliers and distributors is limited.Even though PRL has a high brand recognition which makes end customers less price sensitive, the bargaining power of the buyers is high as the direct customers of the firm are mainly large department stores (and the gist of the company’s revenues comes from the wholesale sector). The threat of substitutes is moderate as loyal customers tend to buy only from them but in general people may vary their purchases and also buy from the competitors.For what concerns the suppliers, it’s important to specify that PRL does not manufacture its products itself, but instead relies on licensees and other manufacturers to do so. Its suppliers are therefore manufacturers which supply the company with the finished goods. The bargaining power of suppliers is moderate: as the company doesn’t actually manufacture anything th at it sells under his brand, it has to rely pretty much on manufacturers and licensees; high quality suppliers are few and there’s high competition among high-quality firms to find such reliable manufacturers.On the other hand though, PRL produces in many different countries, mainly outside the US, thus working with many different suppliers, and this lowers the suppliers’ strength in bargaining. In total they have 350 manufacturers, with none of them providing more than 8% of total production. Internal and External Factors – In order to get a better understanding of the competitive environment from the firm’s perspective as well as of firm-specific resources and capabilities, we conducted a SWOT analysis.The company has successfully grown and expanded its range of product lines and brands, as well as his presence in the international market. One of its main strengths is the brand: it inspires a precise lifestyle and virtually everybody knows it: this high brand awareness and recognition, as stated above, make the end consumer less sensitive to the price. They decided to leverage on their strong brand in order to increase the profitability of the business and expand it by further diversifying the range of product offerings and apparel brands, which are divided into Polo brands and Collection brands (the most expensive).The firm manages to have high margins on its various brands, especially in the Collection brands. They also have no problem in accessing the end consumers as their presence is considerably high, thanks to what they call â€Å"multiple channel distribution†: this means that they have both their own stores and sell to third parties such as department stores, specialty stores and factory stores.Their major weakness is the high dependence on department stores: as stated above, their revenues depend highly on this form of retail store, especially in the US and Canada (their biggest market, we will see that from a pie chart later): they have little influence on what the department stores buy and offer to their customers, no influence on the way the merchandise is displayed and in general no creative control over the marketing.Department stores may exercise pressure on the firm to obtain merchandise at lower prices (in order to increase their own margin). Moreover, fashion firms compete for the floor space in the department stores, and the company stated in its Annual Report of 2009 that there may be competitors with greater resources which could therefore represent a threat to them under this point of view.Other weaknesses are that PRL depends on manufacturers for what concerns the quality of its products (they have to implement strict quality checks) and they have no direct control over the licensing partners: they don’t get the full revenues from sales, they can’t manage the retail stores directly and a consequence of this is that they cannot get direct feedback from customers an d cannot respond to market trends since they’re not the ones who actually sell the finished goods.They face many opportunities: the Asian market is growing, especially China’s; they may expand their presence in prestigious sport tournaments in order to further promote their brand; moreover, we think it’s of fundamental importance that they expand their e-commerce by selling online also in Europe and Asia, and not only in the United States as it is now: their web-site has the great potential to increase their sales. They could also expand their range of product offerings and develop private labels in collaboration with department stores, as the latter are creating private labels themselves and this threatens PRL’s shelf space.Thus this could be a good solution in order to decrease the likelihood of seeing their space reduced. As this document is supposed to be just an explanation of some points that might not be clearly explained in the slides, we won†™t go through all of the weaknesses, but we cite the worrying fact that the major department stores in US are undergoing a wave of M&A, and the consequence of this will be a higher â€Å"customer† power (because the number of customers will be lower). We will add more to this subject when we will talk about one of the main organizational tensions: Reliance on department stores.The 4 Ps of Strategy – Strategy as a Plan: unfortunately the company doesn’t provide any quantitative indicator of success or specific time frames for their main objectives. They only talk more specifically about their plan to transform their wholesale and retail businesses in Southeast Asia from a licensed to a wholly owned operation in January 1, 2010. Balancing Tensions – This slide describes the five major tensions every company needs to balance in order to implement a performance measurement and control system effectively.Revenue Sources – Assessing their revenue distr ibution among segments and geographical regions, we see that two tensions already emerge: their dependence on the wholesale segment (as mentioned before) and the fact that revenues are not evenly distributed among countries. Specifically, we see that Japan only makes up 8% of total revenues. Financial Data – This slide shows a comparison between PRL’s and PVH’s most important financial indicators of performance.We chose PVH because some of PVH’s fashion companies compete directly with PRL (like Calvin Klein) and also because it’s one of the few peers of PRL that has public financial statements. Besides the fact that revenues are distributed unevenly among segments and regions, the financial data does not show any other indicators of tensions. Main Organizational Tensions – We have identified four tensions, which should be taken into consideration when implementing a performance measurement system.The first tension is Revenue goals for the As ia- Pacific region: when comparing PRL’s market share in Asia to the market share of its main competitors, we see that it has just 3% of the market share compared, for example, to the 60% market share of LVMH, a group that owns fashion brands such as Luis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. The second chart shows that PRL generates small amount of its total revenue from Asia, while for example Hermes, which is a lot smaller than PRL comparing total revenues, manages to generate over 40% of their revenues in Asia.The high reliance on department store (second tension) is also negative because, as the chart shows, such retail stores are doing pretty badly, with their net income decreasing at a fast rate. If they have financial problems they would probably reduce their purchases and the likelihood of bad debt for PRL increases. The other two tensions are exhaustively addressed in the slides. How PRL Should Address These Problems – PRL should create its own Balanced Scorecard, and her e we explain why we think it’s the right performance measurement tool to use.The Balanced Scorecard – The Balanced Scorecard’s objectives address the main tensions that we identified in the company as well as provide guidance for future success. This strategic management tool anyways should be in line with the other performance measurement and control systems that the company implements. Control System – It is worth mentioning that we didn’t find any precise information about the performance measurement and control systems currently employed at PRL. Reading the Annual Report of 2009 we only found out that the company focuses on quality processes as well as licensee supervision.In addition, we believe that they should implement a control system for the wholesale segment (monitoring trends in consolidation and reacting to them, supervision of the department store’s financial situation etc. ) and for the Asia – Pacific market (benchmarki ng: how do competitors perform, adoption of best practice processes and strategies). Conclusion – With our Balanced Scorecard and the new control systems in place, we believe that PRL will be able to achieve its main goals and operate successfully in the next years.

The Nature of Organisational Change (Mod 5 Case Leadership and Change) Essay

The Nature of Organisational Change (Mod 5 Case Leadership and Change) - Essay Example These include shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees, societal groups as well as communities which are concerned with the legal and natural environment in which the business operates. The stakeholders have keen interest in the moves of the organization as they are positively and negatively affected by them. Stakeholders such as investors have put their money into the business and therefore, it is their right to stay informed on how the company is progressing and of course up to date knowledge of dividend/profit generation. Any decision that lowers the profit yield would never get appreciation from shareholders. Employees are the ones who work devotedly for the company to make a living; they have the right to know in what direction the company is going because they are concerned about securing their future. Before actually introducing change into the organization, the engagement and approval of all employees is essential so that they could work with motivation and commitment and demonstrate no negative productivity. In the same manner, the customers, who are the end users of the company’s products and services, must be educated about the strategic decisions of the organization. The reputation of any business lies in the hand of its customers. If any business is unable to deliver the promised value to its customers, it will lose its credibility and loyalty which would ultimately affect the financial performance. Suppliers are integral to the success of any business. Suppliers need to stay informed about the company’s activities so that they could estimate the demand for raw material as well as promptness in payments. In the same way, environmental groups are concerned about ensuring that the businesses are operating in an environmentally friendly manner. If the environmental rules are being violated by any business, strict actions are taken which can tarnish the brand image. Every decision that the CEO of an organization makes

Introduction to management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Introduction to management - Essay Example This scenario may be referred as dynamicity of the environment. The shorter termed opportunities and speculation points cannot be integrated in the previously designed strategic plan of the organization (Steed, 2013). Conventional strategic plans are not flexible to absorb the environmental developments while the previous plan is being implemented. The strategic plans are result oriented, but the minor flexible slots can provide the short term advantage to the competitors. The environment of the organization apparently remains unchanged and stationary. The previously stated phenomenon creates rigidity because of mission and vision statements. Mission and vision statement are the guides for future time period. The frame work for future time is usually for longer time period and once it is created, no one can add newer dynamics into the objectives’ timeline. However it is not a rule of thumb because some strategic plans have the capability to recognize the importance of the envi ronment but only to the extent of locked in objectives. The extent of absorbability is not significant to compete over the cutthroat bases (Burus, 2013). Strategic planning possesses vital importance in the strategic success of an organization. There are meaningful rationales behind creation of strategic plans. Foremost, the strategic plans provide an enlightened way to create the organizational goals fulfilled. It puts the synergy in to the organizational energies by providing a leading path definition. The leaders within the organizations have clear idea of expected output from the subordinate and the employees gain a transparent spirit of anticipations. The exchange of expectations creates a bridge like roadmap through which the organization personnel lead their tasks. The concept of cross functional work teams and self managed teams has significantly twisted the scenario. Increasing competition has augmented the need of organizational commitment and innovative environment. For e xample, Google Incorporation provides one an hour to its employees which is spare of the routine tasks so that they can have a brain storming session and come up with the innovative ideas. Recognizing the importance of the strategic planning, we cannot recommend letting the strategic plans go. It needs to create integration with dynamicity of the environment with the organizational strategic plan (Steed, 2013). Leading innovative organizations in the world are leaning to transfer their organizational structures from mechanistic to organic ones. The flatter organizational hierarchies provide a wider room for innovation and dynamicity absorption. At the same time it is required to create linkage between external changes and the current organizational strategy. However it still prevails like a major decision to be taken in the milieu of large organizations. The cultural and team work constraints are enough significant that organizational strategy has a little space to roll over the sma ll changes (Slezek, 2013). Dynamicity absorption is suggested to attain through flexible mission and vision statements. In the conventional settings, it almost seems to be impossible to stick with the environmental changes along with implementing a rigid, long term and result oriented organizational

Issues-based feature story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Issues-based feature story - Essay Example It has been reported that the number of abortions in the United States of America is decreasing but in other countries illegal abortions stay steady. A latest report by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice institute, states that the number of abortions fell from over 45 million in 1995 to fewer than 42 million in 2003. That drop is all the bigger given the 10 per cent growth in the worlds population over that period. Most of the decline is in countries where abortions are legal. Prohibitions on abortion are slowly coming towards moderation, though deprived countries stay much inflexible than prosperous ones. Previously, during the period from 1967 till 1973, one-third of the states in the US eased up on their criminal abortion laws. Nevertheless, the right to have an abortion in all the fifty states became accessible to the American women in 1973 when the Supreme Court overruled the remaining warning state laws with its decision in Roe v. Wade. As a result, the number of trained doctors in the procedure increased and a countrywide system of outpatient abortion treatment centers established that allowed women who would, until that time, have had an illegal abortion or would not have been able to get one by any means, to do so lawfully in a medical service. The 1973 decision disqualified any legislative intervention in the first trimester of pregnancy and put restrictions on what limitations could be approved on abortions in later stages of pregnancy. Opposition to abortions increased turning physical and even violent. Moreover, Roe vs. Wade states that women can abort the baby as long as it hasn’t become viable. Viability is defined by the Court as the potential to live outside the mothers womb, though with artificial aid, adding that viability is normally placed at about seven months or 28 weeks but can happen earlier i.e. even at 24 weeks. Dr. Neville Sender

Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 7

Summary - Essay Example The speech is especially memorable for its remark on firearm suicide, which when taken alongside his later suicide, leads to an increased emotional attachment to the text. In the words present in the speech, Foster makes a concise argument regarding the need for students of a capitalist society to be more aware of their surroundings and the generative possibilities that may be in existence behind antagonisms and frustrations encountered everyday. Wallace opens his speech with a parable-like story of two young fish. He says, â€Å"Two young fish are swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning boys. How's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit. Eventually, one of them looks over at the other and goes, what the hell is water (Wallace & Kenyon College 4). Wallace opens his speech in this way with an intended salute to the standard requirement for most speeches in America, which tend to use a parable to lead i nto the main idea. This becomes the theme of the entire speech. The most important and obvious realities are usually the most difficult to discuss. Wallace discards any mention on the importance of a University degree in moving the student forward, preferring to discuss knowledge that can be applied in the world. He goes on to make the point that a University degree does not reflect so much on one’s capacity to think, but instead it reflects the preference of what one will think. While this seems obvious, Wallace is candid in stressing the value of that which is obvious. Foster moves on to contend that all we know concerning the world is visible and under our noses in the media. He contends that, deep down, even when it does not show on us, we see ourselves as the universes’ center. The emotions and thoughts of other individuals must be communicated for us to know them, but it is only possible to focus on what is ours since it is the foremost urge and we consider it re al (Wallace & Kenyon College 4). Foster contends that hope exists if only we realize the hardwired setting that defaults to self-centeredness and make moves in resetting it. He moves that there is a need to shift views and see the world through new lenses while shattering the lens, which sees only the self. Wallace shifts gears while sticking to the original theme, and almost comers across as sympathizing with the graduating students in that they have little idea of the rat race that is ahead of them. He discusses a scenario that rarely makes it onto commencement speeches by giving a daily example that includes, in clear detail, waking up early, traffic jams and long hour days, shopping for dinner groceries, poor lighting in the stores, traffic jams back home, bed, and all this again (Wallace & Kenyon College 5). While graduates have witnessed this lifestyle with their parents, they have not gone through it personally. The reason that people are stuck into the cycle is due to the un iverse-center default setting, as well as one’s own emotions and needs dictating the priorities from the surroundings. However, again, individuals have the choice to place emphasis on the obvious. Wallace is especially emphatic on the need to shift to the obvious. He points out the day-to-day scenario using a different lens. For instance, why get mad in the traffic jam while everyone else is also unhappy? He also

Riordian Manufactoring Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Riordian Manufactoring Paper - Essay Example The Material Resource Planning (MRP) would consider the kind of materials that would need to be needed and used in the manufacturing process. In the context of Riordian, it is seen that the following are the main kinds of materials/utilities used in production. The various components forming part of the finished products, viz. fans, are molded and assembled and fitted together by Chinese workforce. Any excess plastics are sheared off using shearing machines. The finished products, inspected and certified by R&D are next sent for packing .Next, they are individually packed in plastic films with placed into boxes with generous amount of packing straw in order to avoid transit damages. A bar code identifying the recipient of the product is sprayed onto the box using ink. The bar code would provide full profile details of the product specifications inside the box, in order to tackle any issues that arise later. The box is then placed through a system of conveyor belts that separates the box by its destination and conveys it to the appropriate section of the loading dock, so it is ready to be loaded onto a professional commercial carrier for onward transmission. It is believed that use of RFID technology in the materials handling department could, to a large extent, solve the present issues that perturb the production team. This could keep track of various materials that are being used and their movements in the production process. It is also seen that nowadays the production of electric fans follows discrete, and separate processes, because of which there is considerable time lay between placing of items required for production and receipt of such critical production items. Therefore, it is necessary that new process introduces Just in Time methods, which could reduce issues connected with Inventory and stock controls. Since fan manufacturing is a process industry where materials move through various

Computer Based Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Computer Based Learning - Essay Example Others find that it hinders their efforts, as secondary education students tend to use it for entertainment and not as intended. Within the context of writing classes and writing research, Computer Based Learning (CBL) / Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) have been employed primarily to support collaborative writing endeavours. (Zakrzewski 2003) The feature sets of CBL and CAAs provide a rich environment for the activities of group writing tasks, peer reviewing, and information exchange. Further, CBL and CAAs provide opportunities for instructors to expose secondary education students to knowledge, as well as opportunities for secondary education students to build their own knowledge through interaction via an electronic communications medium. (Mccabe 2000) The exposure to and development of secondary education student knowledge transpires as a function of the dynamic interaction process within the learning environment. Thus, usage of CBL and CAAs may promote active learning of course material by engaging the secondary education student in communication activities and behaviours that stress interaction among secondary education students and between the secondary education student and the instructor(s). (Salmon 2003) However, secondary education students must use (and adapt usage of) the CBL and CAA in a manner that supports effective interaction to gain such benefits. (Zakrzewski 2003) Research has shown the following characteristics of some students who tend to have and unfair advantage in CBL and CAA, communicative interaction significantly influence such student's effectiveness: communication message content, communication exchange format, and communication exchange timing. The secondary educator of today faces a difficult challenge when given the choice of employing CBL and CAAs in traditional face-to-face or distance learning situations. Administrators facing pressures to cut university costs (and maximize usage of faculty resources) argue for the use of CBL and CAAs, whereas conventional secondary education students research presents conflicting results regarding the effects of CBL and CAA use in higher education settings (see, for example, Alavi; Alavi; Leidner and Ruberg). What is an educator to decide The purpose of this study is to shed light on this very real problem today is higher education faculty face. In this study, we focus on exploring secondary education student interaction within the context of CBL and CAA usage to gain a deeper, situated understanding of how secondary education students choose to use the CBL and CAA to meet assignment requirements, and ultimately to uncover factors that may influence secondary education student learnin g outcomes. (Mayer 2003) Nevertheless, before we can isolate factors that influence secondary education student learning, we must first have a well-grounded understanding of the type and kind of interaction that actually occurs when secondary education students complete computer-based communication assignments on their own, with minimal instructor intervention. (Mandinach et al.

Performer is a man of action. He is not somebody who plays another. He Essay

Performer is a man of action. He is not somebody who plays another. He is a doer, a priest, a warrior... What is Acting - Essay Example The works by Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles etc, are the treasures of the classical drama. In different times drama has unfolded several new facets that have brought revolution on the stage. In the Restoration era, drama featured absolutely different characteristics. (Jahn, 2003) It became more vulgar and vigorous, portraying the lecherous and degenerated society. The works of Wycherley, Etherege, Moliere enriched this age with their worthy contributions in drama. However, these were mostly comedies. The revenge tragedies such as Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, the Seneca’s bloodthirsty tragedies and many others of this genre, exhibited a gory and violent trait of stage performances. On the other hand in later period the classical notes are represented again, in the Shakespearean drama (both tragedies and comedies) with a close connection with the modern psychoanalytic traits, such as Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Ceaser etc. In the later period, nineteenth centur y ushered a whole new schools of drama with several innovative carves in it. The dramatists like G. B. Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, Brecht etc. came up with excellent notions that metamorphosed the entire figure of world drama. The versatility in the genre of drama has kept the definition of acting or performance moving continuously. Each genre exhibited his or her uniqueness. An actor cannot be captured in a certain frame of definition for a very general reason. He/ she always keeps changing their roles according to the drama. He is essentially a ‘doer’ and hence a performer too. Acting is an art that the performer procreates in each moment of his/ her lifetime by giving life to series of characters, and such a performer who cannot be categorized in any definite role because the art of acting is universal. Dissimilar from the actors in ancient Greece, who were honored, it is supposed that the actors of Rome in the

Team member encouragement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Team member encouragement - Research Paper Example The two members do not consider handing their reports to me as a matter of priority. Nevertheless, I have a strategy to encourage these team members to contribute to the project on time. It is essential for me to acquire team management skills, conflict resolution, and negotiation skills as a project manager (University of Technology Sydney, 2006). As a result, I seek to attend various workshops, seminars, and training sessions as a well continue practicing such skills with an aim of handling the team members in an effective manner. Specifically, for the sake of streamlining reporting, I will ensure that I negotiate and establish a reporting system with the sponsors and stakeholders at the beginning and throughout the project (University of Technology Sydney, 2006). Nevertheless, I will make sure that the reporting system is flexible and its content and frequency varies through the project running time. This will ensure that all the team members find it relevant and necessary to subm it their weekly reports to the right person and at the right time. I will involve the views of all stakeholders while formulating the reporting system to ensure that the team members value the reporting system and understand the reporting authority structure. Notably, team-involvement in planning a project remains the most important idea that project managers should consider (Spellman, 2011). In my context, this will help me to establish stepwise techniques that will foster the creation, development, and evaluation of relevant project management tools (Portny et al, 2007). This will derive substantial knowledge that will enable me to encourage and deal with the team members without jeopardizing the motivation and performance of the large multidisciplinary product testing team that I manage. At the same time, I will seek to build a strong project team delegation with a view of increasing the probability for a successful performance. To achieve this, I will determine and define the de legated duties, select the right personnel, determine the time of completion, and state the expected outcomes. This will encourage the team members to develop a sense of involvement and make significant and timely contributions to the project. To this effect, I will equally monitor performance by setting up strategic checkpoints to monitor performance that will encourage constant reporting, high performance, and completion of the project according to schedule (Portny et al, 2007). I will equally seek to establish project teams with a high sense of accountability and responsibility to foster timely reporting and successful completion of the project. Consequently, I will develop the project procedures that will promote effective relations among the team members. Moreover, I will define and establish the roles, identities, processes, and practices that will enable the team members to achieve individual and team goals within the stipulated time (Russell, 2011). Notably, team members val ue projects that will enhance their chances of achieving significant professional and personal goals. As such, I will explain the dynamics, sponsors, results, and possible effects of the project on the organization and to the individual members (Portny et al, 2

Leading a Diverse Workforce Essay Example for Free

Leading a Diverse Workforce Essay 1.0Introduction This report is an introduction to the circumstances of the diverse workforce. It explains the causes of diverse workforce leads into past, present trends. Where focus has centred on the consequences, there are some advantageous and disadvantageous outcomes which lead to â€Å"pay-off† of the organization. Therefore, discussion moves forward to the difficulties that managers would face and the management solution. The report concludes with a discussion 2.0Causes of Diverse Workforce â€Å"Workforce diversity is a workforce consisting of a broad mix of workers from different racial and ethnic background of different ages and genders, and of different domestic and national culture† (Naik, 2012). The emergency and development of diverse workforce is basically the result of globalisation, which is the current developing trend of the world. To meet the challenge of globalisation, it is extremely necessary for an organisation to have a diversity strategy than a domestic one (Naik, 2012). The diverse strategy enables the organisation to enlarge their customer base and market since the various backgrounds of employees make it much easier to communicate with global customers. There is also another cause of diverse workforce which is the requirement of the law and responsibility for the society (McInnes, 2013). There are usually some disadvantaged people in our communities who may suffer discrimination and a lot of hardships. In consider of that, the government has made anti-discrimination legislation to protect the rights of those disadvantaged people. Therefore, the organisation recruits people such as women, aboriginal and disabled individuals to form a diverse workforce as abid ance by the law and as a social obligation. 3.0Past and Present Trends The trends of the workforce diversity in the organisation are dramatically difference between past and present, for the aspect of gender, generation and cultural. As the globalisation is prevalent around the world, especially in Australia where the place is encouraging multiculturalism and immigration, there are more organisation engage the workers with different  cultural, it makes the workplace more diverse, such as the Vodafone and ANZ Bank. For example, ANZ Bank started to promote a diverse workplace since 1990s. They believed that the staff with a vibrant and diverse background and life experience can help to forge strong connections with all their customers. Besides, in the past, the women in the workplace were automatically assigned to temporary or part-time jobs because their first priority was taking care of their families. It shows that most of the gender work in an organisation is male. However, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2011, p.3) indicate s that â€Å"The proportion of women in the Australian workforce and in leadership positions is increasing since 1960 with 52% and compared with 70% in 2009†. Nowadays, most women tend to work as a permanent worker and do not see it as temporary because women are become more independent. Therefore, the gender diverse in the workplace has a huge change from homogeneous to diverse, thus the organisation have been learning to treat women as the equals of men and discrimination against female employees are now against the law. 4.0Consequences of Diverse Workforce 4.1The advantages of having diverse workforce First of all, it can increase an organisation’s creativity, flexibility and innovativeness (Cole, 2013). More fresh ideas and different perspectives could be provided by diverse employees from various cultural backgrounds and mind-sets since they are more willing to think outside of the box (Belcher, 2014). Secondly, the diverse workforce can attract more different customers as the employees are capable to communicate across cultural boundaries which therefore give the organisation a competitive edge and help meet the needs and wants of globalisation better (Belcher, 2014). What is more, the image and reputation of an organisation could be enhanced through a group of diverse people and then retention can be improved because it appeals to some other competent talents (Cole, 2013). Loyalty of employees would also be reinforced since they are in a fair and friendly working environment. Last but not lease, the proper utilisation of diverse workforce will result in greater producti vity (Belcher, 2014). 4.2 The disadvantages of having diverse workforce In fact, diverse can lead to a conflict and some negative effect. Jensen (2011, para. 10) demonstrates that â€Å"Communication is the key to breaking down the cultural; barriers between people†. As people with different cultural may easily have a communication problem, they will always cause misunderstanding which will harm working relationships and damage working environment and atmosphere. Therefore, a company ne beds a well planning to engage different background, culture, experience, ability and age of employees, and provide an effective policy on every member of the workplace. 5.0The â€Å"Pay-off† The advantages and disadvantages of diverse workforce are heatedly debated. As we mentioned above, a diverse workforce can assist an organisation in many aspects such as working environment, productivity and creativity. Generally speaking, a diverse workforce enables an organisation to be much better. Though a diverse workforce would cause some misunderstanding, the problems will be solved as long as the managers are able to handle it. Eventually, with the development of the diverse workforce, it turns out that the benefits outweigh the costs. 6.0Challenges for managers The change of workforce requires leaders to pay more attention to adjust policies for diverse employees made up of ages, genders, nationalities and more. Meanwhile, employees also need to know how to work and communicate with people who are different with dissimilar cultural background. â€Å"Diversity management practices are specific activities, programs, policies, and any other processes designed to improve management of diversity via communication, education and training, employee-involvement, career management, accountability and cultural change† (Cieri, Costa, Pettit, Buttigieg, 2008, p.6). The people with various cultural backgrounds a typical kind of diversity. They could forge strong connections with customers coming from diverse background; however, it might cause conflicts and misunderstandings because of their different understandings for things. In this case, in order to make full use of this kind of employees and force a nice working environment, managers are su pposed to deliver the concept of accepting and understanding other cultures and let the employees share  cultural value. Multigenerational team is another kind of the diverse workforce. Because of backgrounds, circumstances or the different education level, multigenerational workforce is much easier to bring about conflicts and misunderstandings. As a result, the function of leaders becomes significant and essential. They analyse and manage conflicts, organise all the work. More importantly, leaders know what kind of job each generation is qualified. For example, the younger generation is more likely to do the creative work while the older generation is better to do with the management. Conclusion As it enters the 21st century, workforce diversity has become an essential business concern. Diversity could be a positive factor to contribute to the local business, but misunderstanding is a major barrier. Australia as a developed country is attracting people from all over the world to come for study and work. Therefore, the government should make a comprehensive policy to improve diverse workforce issue, such as the working condition and foreign workers’ permission standard of the entrance system in Australia. Person with disability is a typical kind of diversity. They might have achievements that the normal people could not reach. Although they are not as efficient as others, they might have specific achievements that normal people could not reach. In this case, in order to make full use of them, leaders give this group more welfare as well as set up particular facilities to assistant them to work more efficiently and effectively. Reference list: Cieri, H., Costa, C., Pettit, T. Buttigieg, D. (2008). Managing a Diverse Workforce: Attraction and Retention of Older Workers. Retrieved from http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/mgt/research/acrew/ageing-workforce-wp-2008.pdf Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2011). Human Resources: Managing Diverse and Inclusive Workplaces, p.1-9. Retrieved from www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/Document/Mange-Diverse-Inclusive-Workplace.pdf Jensen, M. (2011). Special Issue on: Impacts of Diversity in the Workplace: Maintaining Open Communication. Aviary Group. Retrieved from www.aviarygroup.ca/special-issue-on-impacts-of-diversity-in-the-workplace-maintaining-open-communication/ McInnes, R. (2013). Workforce Diversity: Changing the Way You Do Business. Diversity World. Retrieved from http://www.diversityworld.com/Diversity/workforce_diversity.htm Naik, P. (n.d.). Challenge for Business Survival-Managing Workforce Diversity. IOSR Journal of Business and Management. Retrieved from http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/7th-ibrc-volume-2/15.pdf

Serum Urate Concentrations and the Risk of Hyperuricemia

Serum Urate Concentrations and the Risk of Hyperuricemia Common UCP2 variants contribute to serum urate concentrations and the risk of hyperuricemia Luyu Yang, Zheng Dong, Jingru zhou, Yanyun Ma, Weilin Pu, Dongbao Zhao, Hongjun He, Hengdong Ji, Yajun Yang, Xiaofeng Wang, Xia Xu, Yafei Pang, Hejian Zou,  Li Jin,  Chengde Yang*, Jiucun Wang* *Corresponding author These authors equally contributed to this study.   Abstract Elevated serum urate, which is regulated at multiple levels including genetic variants, is a risk factor for gout and other metabolic diseases. This study aimed to investigate the association between UCP2 variants and serum urate as well as hyperuricemia in a Chinese population. In total, 4332 individuals were genotyped for two common UCP2 variants, -866G/A and Ala55Val. These loci were not associated either serum urate level or with a risk of hyperuricemia in the total group of subjects. However, in females, -866G/A and Ala55Val were associated with a lower serum urate (P = 0.006 and 0.014à ¯Ã‚ ¼Ã…’seperately) and played a protective role against hyperuricemia (OR = 0.80, P = 0.018; OR = 0.79, P = 0.016). These associations were not observed in the males. After further stratification, the two loci were associated with serum urate in overweight, but not underweight females. The haplotype A-T (-866G/A-Ala55Val) was a protective factor for hyperuricemia in the female subgroup (OR = 0.80, P=0.017). This present study identified a novel gene, UCP2, that influences the serum urate concentration and the risk of hyperuricemia, and the degree of association varies with gender and BMI levels.   Introduction Uric acid is the final product of purine oxidation in humans. Elevated serum urate, or hyperuricemia, has long been recognized as an independent risk factor for gout [1-2]. There is a renewed interest in hyperuricemia and its association with a number of other clinical disorders including hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney diseases, and abdominal obesity, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia, which are often subsumed under the term metabolic syndrome [3]. Serum urate is balanced between uric acid production in the liver and its disposal via the kidney and gut [4]. The occurrence of hyperuricemia could be caused by disruptions in any part of this metabolic process. Both genetic and environmental factors, such as gender and body mass index (BMI), have a strong effect on the risk of hyperuricemia [3]. Among those factors, the attribution of genetic factors is estimated to be as high as 73% [5]. Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 28 loci associated with serum urate concentration [6]. However, only approximately 7% of the variation in serum urate concentration could be explained by those reported loci, suggesting the missing heritability remained to be explored [6]. Human uncoupling proteins (UCPs) are mitochondrial transporters present in the inner membrane of mitochondria [7]. UCPs are capable of uncoupling ATP production from mitochondrial respiration by causing proton leak and preventing mitochondrial hyperpolarization and the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) [8]. Among the five identified UCPs, UCP2 is widely expressed in almost all mammalian tissues including white adipose tissue, liver, kidney, pancreatic islets, macrophages and retinal endothelial cells, indicating its involvement in a variety of physiologic or pathologic events [9-12]. Two of the most common polymorphisms of this gene, -866G/A (rs659366) in the promoter and Ala55Val (rs660339) in codon 55, were identified as being associated with different phenotypes [7, 12], including obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particle size, coronary incidence and other metabolic disorders [9-10, 13-21]. Given the involvement of UCP2 and hyperuricemia in a variety of metabolic disorders, we selected the two common loci -866G/A and Ala55Val to explore the association between genetic UCP2 variants and hyperuricemia in a Chinese population, offering a new diagnostic or therapeutic target for hyperuricemia. Results There was no  association between SNPs and serum urate The two loci were proven in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (-866G/A: P = 0.990; Ala55Val: P = 0.690). For -866G/A, AA, AG, and GG genotypes accounted for 21.6%, 49.9%, and 28.6% of hyperuricemic patients, respectively; in healthy controls, the distribution was 21.2%, 49.6%, and 29.3%, respectively. As shown in Table 1, the -866G/A polymorphism was not found to be associated with serum urate (AA/GG: Beta = -0.008, P = 0.644; AG/GG:Beta = -0.012, P = 0.474) or with the risk of hyperuricemia (AA/GG: OR = 1.05, P = 0.603; AG/GG:OR = 1.03, P = 0.667). For Ala55Val, the TT, TC, and CC genotype distribution was 21.5%, 50.5% and 28.0% in hyperuricemic patients, respectively, and the distribution was 21.5%, 49.8% and 28.6% in healthy controls, respectively. No association was observed between Ala55Val polymorphism and serum urate (TT/CC: Beta = -0.013, P = 0.460; TC/CC:Beta = -0.017, P = 0.324). There was no difference in the distribution of the genotypes or alleles among hyperuricemic patients a nd healthy controls (TT/CC: OR = 1.02, P = 0.824; TC/CC:OR = 1.04, P = 0.652). Therefore, no statistically solid evidence supported the genetic effect of -866G/A and Ala55Val on serum urate or the risk of hyperuricemia in the total group of subjects. UCP2 variants were associated withserum urate andhyperuricemia in female subgroups As shown in Table 1, we stratified all subjects into male and female subgroups to further explore the gender-related genetic effects of the two polymorphisms. In the male subgroups, there were no significant associations between the two loci and serum urate or the risk of hyperuricemia (all P > 0.025). However, some nominal significant associations were found between -866G/A and the hyperuricemia risk (genotype AA: OR = 1.26, P = 0.038; allele A: OR = 1.12, P = 0.035), indicating a possible risky effect of the -866G/A variant on hyperuricemia incidence in males. A significant association was found between SNPs and serum urate and hyperuricemia in the female subgroups. The -866G/A genotypes were associated with a lower serum urate (AA/GG: Beta = -0.078, P = 0.015; AG/GG: Beta = -0.104, P = 0.001) and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (AG/GG: OR = 0.71, P = 0.025). The subjects carrying allele A had a lower serum urate and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (A/G: Beta = -0.054, P = 0.006; OR = 0.80, P = 0.018). For Ala55Val, genotype TT carriers showed a lower serum urate (TT/CC: Beta = -0.075, P = 0.022) and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (TT/CC: OR = 0.64, P = 0.020). Genotype TC carriers only had a lower serum urate (TC/CC: Beta = -0.082, P = 0.012) but no decreased risk of hyperuricemia (TC/CC: OR = 0.77, P = 0.093). Allele T was associated with a lower serum urate (T/C: Beta = -0.049, P = 0.016) and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (T/C: OR = 0.79, P = 0.016). Further analysis of associationin females  with different BMI levels Further analysis was performed regarding the genetic effect of UCP2 variants on serum urate and the risk of hyperuricemia among females with different BMI levels (Table 2). The majority of the females enrolled were stratified into normal- or overweight group (Table 2). In the underweight subgroup, whose sample size was limited after stratification, no significant association was observed between the two loci and serum urate or hyperuricemia risk (all P > 0.025, Table 2). In the normal weight subgroup, -866G/A genotype AA+AG carriers were associated with a lower serum urate (AA+AG/GG: Beta = -0.095, P = 0.022) but not with a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (AA+AG/GG: OR = 0.65, P = 0.076). However, the Ala55Val genotypes or alleles showed no statistical association with serum urate (TT+TC/CC: Beta = -0.070, P = 0.091; T/C: Beta = -0.047, P = 0.106) or hyperuricemia (TT+TC/CC: OR = 0.72, P = 0.173; T/C: OR = 0.72, P = 0.051). In the overweight subgroup, the genotypes of both loci were associated a lower serum urate (AA+AG/GG: Beta = -0.138, P = 0.001; TT+TC/CC: Beta = -0.130, P = 0.003) and a significant, or at least marginal, decreased risk of hyperuricemia (AA+AG/GG: OR = 0.62, P = 0.015; TT+TC/CC: OR = 0.74, P = 0.027). However, the alleles of the loci were associated with a lower serum urate level (A/G: Beta = -0.072, P = 0.019; T/C: Beta = -0.072, P = 0.019) but not with a decreased risk of hyperuricemia (A/G: OR = 0.75, P = 0.036; T/C: OR = 0.74, P = 0.027). Our results suggested a stronger effect of UCP2 variants on overweight females than on normal weight females (Table 2). Association between haplotypes and risk of hyperuricemia As listed in Table 3, the haplotypes of the two loci were estimated in the total group of subjects and after stratification by gender. The -866G/A and Ala55Val variants were in strong linkage disequilibrium (D = 0.974, r2 = 0.936). The wild type haplotype G-C (-866G/A-Ala55Val) was applied as the reference one. Haplotype A-T made up for the most frequent one, while single mutation at -866G/A or Ala55Val each accounted for less than 1 percent (Table 3). In the total group of subjects, no haplotypes were correlated with susceptibility of hyperuricemia. In the female subgroups, haplotype A-T (-866G/A-Ala55Val) was associated with a decreased risk of hyperuricemia; however, this association was null in males. No further significant associations between hyperuricemia and other two rare haplotypes were found in our study, partly due to the limited size of the rare haplotypes carriers (Table 3). These results correlated with the association between genotypes or alleles and hyperuricemia (Ta ble 1). Discussion Uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) is present in the inner mitochondrial membrane and mainly decreases the ATP level and ROS produced by electron transport; therefore, UCP2 is involved in a board range of pathological processes. In the present study, we first focused on the relationship between UCP2 variants and serum urate and hyperuricemia, potentially examining the scope of the loci related to hyperuricemia. The present study revealed no association between the two polymorphisms of UCP2 and serum urate or hyperuricemia in the total group of subjects. However, because serum urate is extensively influenced by gender differences, we stratified the total group of subjects and determined that -866G/A and Ala55Val were associated with serum urate and hyperuricemia in females [25-26]. Females with the -866G/A genotype AA+AG or allele A had lower serum urate and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia, indicating a protective role of -866G/A for hyperuricemia in females. The -866G/A variant is a functional polymorphism located in the promoter region and putatively changes the transcription factor binding sites [7]. The wild type G allele in -866G/A was associated with lower UCP2 mRNA expression [19, 27]. Increased UCP2 mRNA expression from the A allele was translated into an increased amount of UCP2 protein, with corresponding induced proton leak, decreased ATP/ADP ratio and enhanced elimination of ROS [10, 19]. Hypermethylation in the promoter region could affect the binding of transcripation factors, causing aberrant gene expression. Consistent with our expectations, we found a typical CpG island in the UCP2 promoter region, which included the locus of the -866G/A variant, using information from the University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC; Santa Cruz, CA, USA) database (http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgGateway). We believe the UCP2 promoter variant -866G/A could shape this CpG island and protect the UCP2 promoter region from DNA methylation, unco vering a novel underlying mechanism that determines -866G/A increases UCP2 transcription. Uric acid accumulation is caused by the acceleration of ATP degradation to AMP, a precursor of uric acid, and UCP2 could decrease the ATP level and lower redundant AMP for uric acid formation [7, 28]. Moreover, an elevation of serum urate concentration occurs as a physiologic response to increased oxidative stress [31]. Because the ROS level could be down-regulated by UCP2, a counter-regulatory increase of serum urate as an antioxidant defense is less urgent. Therefore, the -866G/A variant in the promoter region might serve as a protective factor through a higher UCP2 mRNA level and increased translation of the UCP2 protein, which might regulate ROS and modify the ATP/ADP ratio. The other locus, Ala55Val, is a missense variant in exon 4 and is associated with an altered degree of uncoupling [7]. In our study, a protective effect for hyperuricemia and lower serum urate were observed in genotype TT and allele T in the female subgroups. However, the genetic effect of the Ala55Val variant was less clear. Several researchers identified an association of Ala55Val with the BMI level and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), with controversial conclusions within cohorts, and few functional studies were performed [14, 32-33]. Similar to -866G/A, the protective role of the Ala55Val variant for hyperuricemia might also be attributed to altered UCP2 transcription. In the male subgroups, a less statistically significant but possible effect of -866G/A and Ala55Val was observed for hyperuricemia risk and higher serum urate. Similar gender-associated genetic effects of UCP2 variants were more or less observed for diseases other than hyperuricemia [7]. For example, Heidema et al. suggested a genetic effect of UCP2 on weight gain was regulated through different mechanism in males and females [34]. Lee, et al. demonstrated that the association between UCP2 variants and BMI was more apparent among female subjects [35]. Cheurfa et al. confirmed the association of UCP2 variants with coronary artery diseases in males but not females [36]. In the present study, we found UCP2 variants -866G/A and Ala55Val had a stronger effect on females with hyperuricemia. One possible explanation for the gender-associated genetic effects of UCP2 might be a regulation role of sex hormones such as estrogen. Estrogen was reported to repress UCP2 in a breast cancer cell line and papillary thyroid cancer cells [37-38]. Taken together, these results suggest the UCP2 protein level was down-regulated by estrogen in females but reversed by the variants of -866G/A and Ala55Val, providing a plausible explanation for the specific protective effects of UCP2 variants on females [37]. Genetic effects on hyperuricemia and obesity have been widely recognized [3]. In the present study, we found that -866G/A and Ala55Val were associated with lower serum urate and a decreased risk of hyperuricemia in overweight, but not underweight, females (Table 2). The relative small sample size might limit the correlation analysis in the underweight group. However, we did observe females with higher BMI level were more likely to benefit from the protective genetic effect of -866G/A and Ala55Val, where the association was significant between the two SNPs and serum urate level of risk of hyperuricemia. In the contrast, among the normal weight females, -866G/A, but not Ala55Val, showed a significant association with a low risk of hyperuricemia, indicating a less contribution from the protective effect of UCP2 variants than seen in overweight females. It was also implied from our results that the [tw1]functional à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢866G>A promoter variant displayed a stronger effect. The interactions between obesity, uric acid and UCP2 were complicated. BMI has long been viewed as an essential factor influencing uric acid [3]. UCP2 transcription was activated by fatty acids [16]. A recent meta-analysis revealed that UCP2 -866G/A and Ala55Val are associated with a risk of obesity [32]. Subtle intermediary obesity related phenotypes such as elevated triglycerides, total cholesterol concentrations, increased the risk of dyslipidemia and circulating leptin levels were also observed to be correlated with UCP2 variants [40]. Based on these results, we assumed lipid metabolism material such as fatty acids participated in and enhanced the genetic effect of UCP2 variants on serum urate regulation, explaining the stronger genetic effect of UCP2 variants on females with higher BMI levels observed in the present study. The -866G/A and Ala55Val variants were in strong linkage disequilibrium (D = 0.974, r2 = 0.936). The haplotype frequency analysis revealed that variants of the two loci were more in co-variant haplotype A-T (-866G/A-Ala55Val) compared with the single variant forms of G-T or A-C (Table 3). Haplotype A-T was associated with a decreased risk of hyperuricemia only in females, which was consistent with the genotype or alleles results. However, the small size of the two rare haplotypes might limit the power of association analysis with hyperuricemia risk to a certain extent. The susceptibility of hyperuricemia in the two rare haplotype carriers required validation in a larger cohort. Conclusion The present study identified a novel gene, UCP2, with two loci, -866G/A and Ala55Val; this gene influenced the serum urate concentrations and the risk of hyperuricemia in females. The associations of those loci were affected by gender and BMI. This study supported the potential involvement of this gene in the prevention, prediction and treatment of hyperuricemia. Materials and methods Experimental design A total of 4332 subjects were enrolled from the Taizhou Longitudinal Study [22] and included 1387 hyperuricemic patients and 2945 healthy controls. The associations of common UCP2 variants with serum urate and hyperuricemia were tested by linear regression and logistic regression with or without gender stratification, respectively. A body mass index (BMI) subgroup was also used for further analysis. Participants All subjects were enrolled from Taizhou Longitudinal Study [22], of which 1387 individuals had serum urate level over 7 mg/dl and were treated as hyperuricemic patients, and 2945 individuals had normal serum urate (à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ 7 mg/dl) and were treated as healthy controls [23]. The subjects were divided into subgroups (underweight: BMI à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¼ 18.5; normal weight: 18.50 à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ £ BMI Genetic analysis Genetic analysis was carried out in accordance with the written informed consent and guideline offered by the Ethical Committees of the School of Life Science of Fudan University. For genetic analysis, peripheral blood was collected from all the individuals included in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood using the QIAamp DNA Blood Mini kit (QIAGEN, Germany) and was stored at -20à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã†â€™. The DNA concentration and quality (including optical density (OD) 260/280 and 260/230 measurements) were determined using a Nanodrop Lite spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). Genotyping of -866G/A and Ala55Val in UCP2 were performed by SNPscan according to the manufacturers instructions. Statistical analysis The clinical characteristics were presented as the mean à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ± SD. Students t-test was used to test for a significant difference in the mean age, BMI and serum urate between hyperuricemic patients and healthy controls. The chi-square test was used to describe the gender distribution difference between hyperuricemic patients and healthy controls. The chi-square test was used to test Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) of the two loci. We conducted a logistic regression analysis to calculate adjusted odd ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) and P-values to describe the distribution of -866G/A and Ala55Val adjusted for age and gender between hyperuricemic patients and healthy controls. A linear regression was performed to calculate Beta and P-values to estimate the effect on serum urate in different genotypes and alleles. Genotype GG, allele G of -866G/A and genotype CC, allele C of Ala55Val were used as references, respectively. Stratification into subgroups was performed on the basis of gender and different BMI values for further analysis. Haplotype frequencies between the hyperuricemic patients and controls were estimated by OR (95% CI) and chi-square test. The haplotype of the most frequent (-866G/A-Ala55Val, G-C) was used as the reference. A 2-sided P-value less than 0.025 was considered statistically significant after multiple correlation by Bonferroni method. The PHASE program (V2.1) was used for haplotype frequencies estimation, and SPSS 19.0 was used for the statistical analysis. References 1. Choi HK, Mount DB, Reginato AM. Pathogenesis of gout. Ann Intern Med 2005;143(7):499-516. 2.  Weaver AL. Epidemiology of gout. Cleve Clin J Med 2008;75 Suppl 5:S9-12. 3.  Billiet L, Doaty S, Katz JD, Velasquez MT. Review of hyperuricemia as new marker for metabolic syndrome. ISRN Rheumatol 2014;2014:852954. 4.  Hediger MA, Johnson RJ, Miyazaki H, Endou H. Molecular physiology of urate transport. Physiology (Bethesda) 2005;20:125-33. 5.  Kolz M, Johnson T, Sanna S, Teumer A, Vitart V, Perola M, et al.. Meta-analysis of 28,141 individuals identifies common variants within five new loci that influence uric acid concentrations. PLoS Genet 2009;5(6):e1000504. 6.  Kà ¶ttgen A, Albrecht E, Teumer A, Vitart V, Krumsiek J, Hundertmark C, et al.. Genome-wide association analyses identify 18 new loci associated with serum urate concentrations. 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Diabetes 2008;57(4):1063-8. 35.Nadal-Serrano M, Sastre-Serra J, Pons DG, Miro AM, Oliver J, Roca P. The ERalpha/ERbeta ratio determines oxidative stress in breast cancer cell lines in response to 17beta-estradiol. J Cell Biochem 2012;113(10):3178-85. 36.Hima S, Sreeja S. Regulatory role of estrogen-induced reactive oxygen species in the modulatory function of UCP 2 in papillary thyroid cancer cells. IUBMB Life 2015. 37.Hamada T, Kotani K, Fujiwara S, Sano Y, Domichi M, Tsuzaki K, et al.. The UCP2-866 A/A genotype is associated with low density lipoprotein particle sizes in the general population. Med Sci Monit 2008;14(3):CR107-11. Acknowledgements This research was supported by grants from the Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (11DJ1400100), International ST Cooperation Program of China (2013DFA30870), Ministry of Science and Technology (2011BAI09B00), and Program for 2012 Outstanding Medical Academic Leader for Hejian Zou. The computations involved in this study were supported by Fudan University High-End Computing Center. Author contributions statement

McDonalds Global Expansion

McDonalds Global Expansion Companies all over the globe are looking for expansion and ways of entering new markets which are profitable through different entry modes (Deresky, 2006). Managers look at different strategies that can be used to expand internationally (Deresky, 2006). There are many reasons for companies to go global or expand overseas. There are reactive and proactive reasons for the same. Increased global competition, customer needs, potential opportunities, declining foreign trade barriers, increasing expenses in domestic markets are some of the reactive reasons for companies going global. To achieve economies of scale, expanding base for growth and profits, cost savings, access to different resources are some of the proactive reasons for companies going global (Deresky, 2006). An example of a company which looked to expand beyond its borders is McDonalds, one of the most successful companies in terms of implying international strategies successfully. 2.0 Company Overview McDonalds, the most renowned fast food chain of the world, started in 1955 by a visionary named Raymond Kroc (McDonalds : The Ray Kroc Story, 2010-2011). Kroc played a significant role in revolutionizing the fast food industry in America and currently Mc Donalds is serving over 60 million customers in over 117 countries on a daily basis (McDonalds : The Ray Kroc Story, 2010-2011). The company has a global brand value and worldwide recognition. It is one of the most widely recognized icons of the world in the fast food restaurant industry. By reaching saturation levels in the United States, McDonalds looked to expand internationally amidst increasing regulations. But they approached with a strategy by controlling standardized products, clean and green environments and American origin. With experience, localization started increasing and the entire model was redone to appeal the localites of the foreign country. This strategy has been a turnaround point for McDonalds but it has thed potential of losing brand equity in the future (McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). Inspite of an American base, McDonalds respects the markets, cultures, beliefs and likings of other nations. Customers identify with the brand name and the Golden Arches are recognized not only in America but in foreign countries as well (McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). 4.1 Franchise Model: McDonalds franchising process is that of a strategic network (Hitt, et.al 2007). Around 85% of the restaurants are operated by franchisees. McDonalds follows a standardized set of procedures across all its restaurants in terms of quality, service, cleanliness and value propositions. Basically, the central control is in its headquarters where different financial and strategic controls are used to create value for the entire network (Hitt, et.al 2007). 5.0 Expansion Strategies in Different countries 1. CHINA: The strategy used by McDonalds in China is quite different from the way the restaurants are otherwise managed in the United States. The prime reason for the success of McDonalds in China is the involvement of McDonalds to adapt to Chinese Culture. Local people manage the operations in McDonalds in China, thereby reaching out in an easier way to the locals of the country. Additionally, the managements ability in Europe slowly changed the taste of the Asian consumers towards fast food which is an unusual aspect of the Chinese culture. Locals in China responded positively to the fast food concept of McDonalds thereby making the investment in China a successful one. Some of the other ways the approach in China was different as compared to the United States was that McDonalds customized the menu by adding teriyaki burger which gave locals the flavour of their native food taste (McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). Customization of products to suit local needs is a key factor that sh ould be considered in the global expansion plan. 2. South Africa: A relatively unique strategy has been used by McDonalds to serve customers where they can enjoy their meal while shopping and playing. This approach is used in highly populated areas with busy lifestyles of South Africa. Additionally, the drive-through approach works well in the South African region. Therefore, there are superior number of drive-through as compared to Australia and United States. This particular facility gives McDonalds an upper hand in South Africa. The base of the approach is to provide comfort to the customers in shopping malls, towns and other areas. Different marketing strategies are used to attract people from different sections of the society. The returns for McDonalds in South Africa have surpassed the initial targets of turnover and profits. With over 90 branches in South Africa, employment opportunities are high for local people and are expected to rise. Furthermore, McDonalds is currently using the vertical integration approach to improve its productivity with efficient software packages. All these factors contribute to the high revenues and with advanced software systems; the aim is to enhance bottom line as well ((McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). 3. Brazil: McDonalds opened its first branch in Brazil in 1979. The franchise model has been successfully used in Brazil and the management team has been praised for consistent performance and high standards of quality. One of the accolades received by McDonalds in Brazil is the Hallmark of Quality. One of the challenges that exist for McDonalds in Brazil is bankruptcy because of which it is difficult to meet the expenses on a monthly basis. Inspite of the fast growth in Brazil, franchisees have difficulty in reducing costs ((McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). 4. Saudi Arabia: Another example of adaptation to the local culture is the way McDonalds has managed the business in Saudi Arabia. McDonalds closes five times in the day for prayers and they do not serve pork to respect the Islamic culture in Saudi Arabia. There are some exclusive outlets of McDonalds in the Holy City of Makkah which serve to Muslim customers only with only Muslim staff in every department ((McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). 5. India: The approach to adapt locally to the country has been a highlight for McDonalds success. In India, the menu is highly customized to suit the Indian tastes and this justifies the inclusion of aloo tikki and paneer burgers. The Big Mac becomes Maharaja Mac in India and another highlight of the menu is having separate vegetarian kitchens with separate utensils and cooks. This feature has been particularly taken care off for making sure that the needs and requirements of the vegetarian population are fulfilled ((McDonalds Fact File 2007, 2007). 6.0 Organizational capabilities Organizational capabilities look at a firms ability to manage resources in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage (Hitt, et.al 2007). The internal analysis of the firm are carried out to understand its strengths and weaknesses either which are existing or are potentially going to exist in the future as compared to its competitors (Deresky, 2006). 6.1 Strengths of McDonalds 1. Adaptability: It is one of the major strengths of McDonalds. Customization of activities and menu to suit local needs is the single most factor contributing to its success. This takes care of blending with the local culture and values of the foreign country. McDonalds is an example of a company which is centralized in its core but still customizes the menu and the operational activities for local needs. 2. Innovation: With wide variety of options available from snack wraps to coffee to burgers to McCafe, McDonalds is very innovative with reference to its products. Also, the processes or the way every country operations are managed are innovative in a way that they are suited to fulfill the local needs. 3. Corporate Social Responsibility: McDonalds has programmes for having a better society. Some of the programmes they have are the greener than ever programme; recycle, renew programme; animal welfare program to name a few. McDonalds believes in having sustainable supply chain consisting of 3 ES: Ethical Responsibility, Environmental Responsibility and Economic Responsibility (Sustainable Supply Chain, 2010-2011). 4. Marketing: The McDonalds logo is a popular one amongst children and adults all across the globe. This compliments the marketing efforts which are carried out through market analysis thereby giving positive returns to McDonalds. 6.2 Weaknesses: 1. Customer Service: Long queues, insufficient employees at the counters are frustrating for customers and many times the employees are rude in terms of their behaviour with customers. 2. Currency fluctuations: When companies go global, there is always a risk associated with currencies as they keep fluctuating based on the markets. This can cause difference in planned returns for McDonalds. 3. Franchisees Challenges: There is an increase in the fee that franchisees have to pay to McDonalds thus resulting in selling of the businesses and dissatisfied franchisees. Additionally, it is important to understand the opportunities and threats that potentially exist for McDonalds to consolidate its global position in the fast food industry. 6.3 Opportunities: 1. Expansion: Even though it serves over 60 Million people on a daily basis that accounts for just about 1% of the worlds total population. There are a lot of emerging markets particularly in the BRIC countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. 2. Increase in fast food category: Based on statistics from Euromonitor, there is a growing demand for fast food. For example: In Australia, sales of fast food grew by 7% in terms of value in 2008 to reach A$ 10,921 Million. This demand is increasing due to stressful lifestyles and constant time pressures (Consumer lifestyles- Australia, 2009). 3. Growing need for drive through facilities: Drive through facilities is highly visible in South Africa. They can look at expanding these facilities in other parts of the world with dense populations. 6.4 Threats 1. Competition: With globalisation and increased number of companies looking to expand internationally, it is a challenge for McDonalds to keep up to or enhance its already existing powerful status in the market. 2. Unexpected circumstances: Uncertainties such as natural calamities, unexpected diseases can affect the smooth flow of activities for McDonalds in terms of procurement of goods and food contents which can decline the sales drastically. 7.0 Organizational Structure to support the international Strategy While understanding the organizational capabilities and the external environment, it is crucial to understand the organizational structure of McDonalds. McDonalds sets an exemplary example of a company which implements global strategy and a centralized organizational structure. With operations in over 120 countries and a huge number of 31,000 restaurants, McDonalds procures its food and packaging from the same set of suppliers. It shows the uniformity of a branch in United States and India. The decision making takes place centrally in the United States (Hebert, 2011). In terms of the way McDonalds organizational structure is oriented, it is relatively organized in terms of how the growth and expansion takes place internationally. But to fulfill the ever changing customer demands and customization strategies in every country, the structure needs to be a combination of centralized and decentralized forms. It also means the structure is relatively a mix of formal and informal forms which is quite a challenge to manage successfully. 8.0 Recommendations As described in the above sections, McDonalds has huge potential in global markets to venture out in different areas specially the BRIC countries. As these cities are the centre of research and growth opportunities, McDonalds should focus their internationalization in these areas much more than they are currently doing. McDonalds should focus on high and low areas of population, reaching out to more and more sections of the society. Joint ventures can be taken up with established companies in foreign countries with inclusions of coffee shops, bakery, internet access add-ons in all high profile metropolitan cities McDonalds currently have restaurants. For example in Germany, McDonalds has a tie up with T mobile for hot spots. McDonalds should work on increasing these facilities in a lot of high profile, metropolitan cities across the world. McDonalds can look at diversifying into other areas of food industry for example; McDonalds Hotel in Zurich is a distinctive venture. The road ahead for McDonalds should be to increase the nutritive value of the burgers and look at certain health aspects to control the increasing waistlines among children because of high consumption of fast foods especially burgers (Consumer lifestyles- Australia, 2009). They should look at improving their customer services at the counters by avoiding long queues and providing high levels of customer satisfaction. 9.0 CONCLUSION McDonalds is the number one brand in the fast food industry. They have successfully implemented international strategies where in they have used localization and customization processes to adapt to the foreign countries along with maintaining its American origin by having centralized procedures as well. The organizational structure is in sync with the strategy used by McDonalds to be ahead of its competitors. It is challenging for managers to consistently keep in pace with the right balance of centralizing and decentralizing the operations. Even though weaknesses and threats exist, the strengths and opportunities make it a strong player in the market in the fast food industry.

The Puffy Chronicles :: Puff Daddy Music Musicians Rappers Essays

The Puffy Chronicles Puff Daddy, born Sean Combs on November 4, 1969 in Harlem to Melvin and Janice Combs, began his life of violence at a young age. When Sean was two years old, his father was tragically murdered. This forced Janice to move to a safer environment in Mt.Vernon, NY where she had to work three jobs in order to provide for her family. One can see that Sean’s broken home and the violence that constantly surrounded him influenced his lyrics and style of music throughout his life[I1] . His angry lyrics and shouts of aggression in his individual tracks certainly support the argument of his childhood having a big impact on his style of rap. Exploding onto the rap scene, Puffy soon found himself engulfed by the lifestyle of a rapper. For a short time, Puff Daddy was involved in one of the biggest East Coast vs. West Coast battles. Violence erupted, which lead to the death of two rappers: 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. During this whole time, Puffy was busy producing music and influencing the style of other artists.[I2] Biggie’s single â€Å"Hypnotize† soared up to number one and stayed there long after his death. It was not long until the world would get a taste of Puffy’s very[I3] own style. Puff Daddy released the solo album No Way Out in the summer of 97’. No Way Out is an odd mixture of gangsta rap, soul, and r&b. But, somehow it seems to work for Puffy and his crew. At times while listening to the tracks, one is confused as to which direction Puffy and such featured artists as Mase, Lil Kim, Notorious B.I.G., and Busta Rhymes are headed because the tracks are either violent, apologetic, or r&b. In â€Å"Victory†, Busta Rhymes spews out angry lyrics of violence about kidnapping rival West Coast Rapper families and gunning down enemies. Then in a spin-off of Sting’s â€Å"Every Breath You Take†, one can feel the pain and anguish as well as the regret in Puff’s voice as he raps about the death of his best friend, Notorious B.I.G. â€Å"I’ll Be Missing You†, a tribute to Biggie, won the award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (vh1.com 2). Biggie’s wife, Faith Evans, provided background vocals to th e song while Puffy raps, â€Å"Give anything to hear half your breath/I know you still living your life, after death.

The Growing Need For The Aware :: essays research papers fc

We as Americans need to become more sensitive to our use of language because with the increasing number of ethnic groups in the country one has to be cautious as to how they should define a certain group. Political correctness is a type of medium that helps us come to respect and communicate with the diverse group of races and cultures. Before we go on any further we must first define the meaning of political correctness. According to Webster's Dictionary, political correctness is the ideology that shows sensitivity, tolerance, and respect for another's race, gender, sexual preference, nationality, religion, age, physical handicap, or other especially if it differs from one's own. In other words, political correctness (better known as PC) is behavior and speech manifested in people of all race and culture that reflects an open-minded attitude towards other people present within the society today. For example, being 'PC'; refers to using phrases as 'physically challenged'; instead of 'disabled'; and 'Asian'; rather than 'Oriental.'; This term originated, interestingly enough, after the Civil Rights Movement and during the birth of modern feminism when many minority groups were fighting for their rights as Americans. The meaning of the words was not as significant back then as they are now. Political correctness has a completely different meaning today and it holds a lot of truths to it because it gives us that leverage to appropriately address someone without offending him or her. Many people these days are using the politically correct terms, especially business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, etc. It is sad to say that there are many more people whom simply do not realize what they say can be insulting. There are many examples in today's society where people haven't been considerate of other people's feelings and have been extremely un-PC. Most recently the so-called 'shock jock';, Doug Tracht who works in Washington DC, played music by Lauryn Hill on his radio show (MSNBC local news online). Hill is the black hip-hop artist nominated for 10 Grammy awards. On air, he remarked 'No wonder people drag them behind trucks.'; The statement referred to the brutal death of a black man in Texas who was dragged behind a truck. This is not the first time Tracht has gotten in trouble for a racial remark. In 1986 at another local radio station, Tracht made a derogatory remark about Martin Luther King day. That radio station was picketed and received bomb threats from angry people before Tracht made an on-air apology.

migration Essay -- essays research papers

The need to migrate from lower developed countries to developed countries is generally due largely in part to financial reasons. In most cases, the attractiveness of higher wages in urban environments usually outweighs the inconvenience of being away from family members and becoming acclimated in a new environment. In lower developed countries, under-employment is high and the demand for labor is low. As such the problems arises with rural to urban migration. This migration into urban cities is usually an attractive alternative for individuals with low education levels, generally with limited experience in the agricultural sector. Initially at first, an individual may feel uneasy since the risk factor involved with migrating into a different environment is high and the likelihood of finding a job is uncertain. As much of a concern as this may be, the willingness to take this risk and migrate is usually a better alternative than staying in the current environment with insufficient infrastructure with limited job opportunities. The role of government policies also plays a large role in affecting the level of migration into a country. If the government can increase the perceived probability of getter a job sooner, even more people would migrate from the rural sector to the urban sector. This being so, the same would also be true for the opposite scenario. Should the government fail to implement policies that would increase the level of perceived probability, the amount of peo...

Ohm’s law & resistors in parallel & in series Essay

Objectives: Our object is to confirm Ohm’s law by analyzing the dependence of the electrical current as a function of voltage and as a function of resistance. Also, we studied the current flow and voltage in series and parallel. Finally, the lab determined the equivalence resistance of series and parallel combination of resistors and compared the results with theoretical data. Theoretical Background: The first thing that needs to be described in this lab is what the electric current I: I =. The electric current is defined as charge over time and the unit is ampere (A). In a case where we have the voltage, resistance and current we can set the equation for resistance to be; R = where the unit is called Ohm (â„ ¦). â€Å"The current through a resistor is directly proportional to the applied voltage V and inversely proportional to the resistance† (College Physics Laboratory Experiments, 43) in our lab experiment we used some machinery to produce and to measure voltage and some current. We were then able to find its resistance. These apparatus are called ammeter which displays the amount of current in circuit, and the voltmeter to read the voltage (potential difference). Reminding that this diagram is named circuit and V is applied across the ends of the metallic conductors. The second part of our lab was dedicated to find the resistance in the resistors both in parallel and in series. The formula to find the resistance through series is fairly easy; it looks a lot like the formula in series for conductors. It’s basically RA+RB+RC = Req. When it comes to find the total  resistance when the resistors are in parallel we add the reciprocal of the combination of resistors. It will look like this; + + = Procedure: Part 1: Verification of Ohm’s Law 1 Investigate the variation of the current with potential difference when the resistance is constant. a Set up the circuit as shown in Fig 4.2 and chose the resistance of the variable resistor box of R = 1000 â„ ¦. Set the ammeter to the range of mA and the voltmeter across the resistor the range of 25V. b After the instructor has checked the circuits, turn on the power supply. c Vary the output voltage of the power supply from 4 V to 10 V in the increment of 1 V and record the readings of the voltage V across the resistor and the corresponding current I through the resistor in Table 1. d Using the same circuit setup, set resistance of the variable resistor box to R = 1200â„ ¦ and repeat the steps 2 and 3. 2 Investigate the variation of the current with resistance when the voltage is constant. a Use the same circuit setup and set the output voltage of power supply to 12V. b By keeping the output voltage of the power supply constant, vary the resistance of the resistor box from 700 â„ ¦ to 1700 â„ ¦ in increments of 200 â„ ¦. Record values of the current I through the resistor and the corresponding resistance R in table2. Data: Attached to report. Calculations: 1 Use the data from table 1 to plot a graph of current Vs. voltage for both values of the resistance. Determine the slope of the graph. From the slope of the graph find the resistance using: a) R = R = R =1000 â„ ¦ % diff = = 0% b) R = R = R =1250 â„ ¦ c) Slope = 12.7 V = 12 v Questions: 1. Does your resistance follow Ohm’s law? Base your answer on your experimental data. The resistance does closely follow Ohm’s law because when using the data mathematically it is closely related to the resistance present in the data. 2. A typical color television draws about 2.5 A when connected a 120V source. What is the effective resistance of the TV set? I = , R = = = 48 â„ ¦ 3. Explain the difference between series and parallel connections. In a series circuit the charge is 1/Q + 2/Q + while in a parallel connection, the charge is added to the total voltage. 4. Does your experiment present evidence that the current divides in a parallel circuit? No. 5. From your experimental observations of a series circuit, what relationship do you find between the voltages across the individual resistance and voltage across the entire series group? The voltage in a series compared to parallel is much lower 6. From your experimental observations of a series circuit, what relationship do you find between the voltages across the individual resistance and current flow across the entire series network? The resistance is constant. 7. Conclusion: Our results for both parts of this lab demonstrated the relationship outlined by Ohm’s Law and fostered a higher comprehension of the mechanisms driving circuit behavior. The direct relationships between voltage, current, and resistance allow measurements of the voltage and current without resistance being known. Additionally, the ability to manipulate voltage allowed the experiment to contain a sense of systematic collection of data to provide a contextual experimental example of the relationships in Ohm’s law. Moreover, the experiment also demonstrated how the different are configurations of resistors, parallel.

Advanced accounting Ch 1 solution Essay

1A business combination is a union of business entities in which two or more previously separate and independent companies are brought under the control of a single management team. Three situations establish the control necessary for a business combination, namely, when one or more corporations become subsidiaries, when one company transfers its net assets to another, and when each combining company transfers its net assets to a newly formed corporation. 2The dissolution of all but one of the separate legal entities is not necessary for a business combination. An example of one form of business combination in which the separate legal entities are not dissolved is when one corporation becomes a subsidiary of another. In the case of a parent-subsidiary relationship, each combining company continues to exist as a separate legal entity even though both companies are under the control of a single management team. 3A business combination occurs when two or more previously separate and independent companies are brought under the control of a single management team. Merger and consolidation in a generic sense are frequently used as synonyms for the term business combination. In a technical sense, however, a merger is a type of business combination in which all but one of the combining entities are dissolved and a consolidation is a type of business combination in which a new corporation is formed to take over the assets of two or more previously separate companies and all of the combining companies are dissolved. 4Goodwill arises in a business combination accounted for under the acquisition method when the cost of the investment (fair value of the consideration transferred) exceeds the fair value of identifiable net assets acquired. Under GAAP, goodwill is not amortized for financial reporting purposes and will have no effect on net income, unless the goodwill is deemed to be impaired. If goodwill is impaired, a loss will be recognized. 5A bargain purchase occurs when the acquisition price is less than the fair value of the identifiable net assets acquired. The acquirer records the gain from a bargain purchase as an ordinary gain during the period of the acquisition. The gain equals the difference between the investment cost and the fair value of the identifiable net assets acquired.

The atmosphere in which the modern business organization

The atmosphere in which the modern business organization operates is something which can change in no time at all.   In comparing Fortune Magazine’s â€Å"Most Admired Companies† from 2007, and in retrospect, 1987, some interesting facts emerge.   First, the two lists are compared as follows: 2007  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   1987 1. General Electric  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   General Motors 2. Starbucks  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Exxon 3. Toyota Motor  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Ford 4. Berkshire Hathaway  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   IBM 5. Southwest Airlines  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Mobil 6. FedEx  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  General Electric 7. Apple  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ATT 8. Google  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Texaco 9. Johnson & Johnson  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dupont 10 . Proctor & Gamble  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Chevron These two lists are characterized by a few common elements; first, the issue of profitability is something that is universal in the lists, even thought they are separated by a decade of time.   The companies that are in the lists, upon further research, are all companies which, while not constant, have been profitable overall.   In fact, some of these companies, such as Ford and Exxon, have fallen upon hard times occasionally, and their positive position in the mind of the public has allowed them to recover from some major catastrophes, such as Ford’s plant closings and Exxon’s Valdez disaster, which almost destroyed the company.   Interestingly, in the 2007 list, a new type of company, Starbuck’s appears.   It can be said that the company is different because much of what they sell is image, and not the tangibles offered by automotive manufacturers as a quick example. How much of the evaluation is dominated by the profitability of the company? In the present day evaluations, profitability of the company, of course is a key element as it has always been; however, the companies of today are evaluated more so on net income after taxes as a percentage of sales for a few key reasons.   First, some of the companies that are rated as top companies are those which offer non-durable products such as Starbuck’s, for which a measure such as return on assets is not the best evaluative tool. How many of these companies currently on the ‘Most Admired' list also appear on Fortune’s current list of â€Å"The 100 Best Companies to Work For†? As a matter of fact, three of the companies currently on the ‘Most Admired’ list also appear on Fortune’s current list of ‘The 100 Best Companies to Work For’; specifically, the companies are Google, Johnson & Johnson and Starbucks.   Based on this finding, there are several possible theories for the relationship between companies being ranked on both lists simultaneously.   Obviously, companies that are among the best to work for will generate a level of admiration.   Moreover, it is also likely that companies that are so admired will attract the kinds of talented and qualified people as employees who would be likely to speak well of companies.   Conversely, companies that are not good to work for are unlikely to be admired. Conclusion In conclusion, what can be seen in comparing popular companies from present and past is that some firms have great longevity, some do not, but all achieve greatness at one time or another.