Annual Sports Day Essay

The 16th Dec is the founation day of my school and besides other annual co-curricular events like the magic show, fun fair, annual sports day is the event that students wait for anxiously . This event develops competitiveness, sports man spirit and team work among the students. They are full of joy on this day. As usual an interesting programme was chalked out for the day and printed copies were distributed to the students. The parents were also invited alongwith other digniteries and the chief guest. All the participants of different events were short listed and encouraged to get practice before the event. The physical training instructor was the incharge of the whole show and a full dress rehearsal was carried out a day before to give the final touches to the preparations. A DJ was specially hired to add some musical flavour to the event. An ex-student of the school hosted the event and added excitement to the occasion by her fluent, graceful and spontaneous commentary of the proceedings. The show began exactly at 10 AM after the chief guest has arrived at he stage with big round of applause. Parents had already seated in a separate pavillion and looked excited to see their children partcipating in the sports. At the beginning a boy of 9th class recited few verses of the Holy Quraan which was folowed by Naat to pay homage to the Holy Prophet (PBUH). First of all the atheletes, taking part in diferent events staged a march-past and assembled in front of the main pavillion. A student of 9th class stepped forward and requested the chief guest to formally declare the sports day open with a loud beat of drum and music. To start with, different races were staged among students of junior sectionwhich included the banana race, cycle race, baloon race, and back-ball race. It was great fun watching little kids making funny moves. A wonderful display of physical exercise was exhibited by all the students of school. A photographer was busy in capturing the events. Then it was the  turn of lthe senior section to show their talent in the races like the spoon race, sack race, the three-legged race, the dress-up race, 100 meter race and the 4X100 meter relay race. The famous tug of war won by the 9th class boys who displayed their sheer power and team work to win the contest. Students, teachers and parents shouted and cheered to encourage participants while the DJ added more drama with his musical flashes. The host kept the audience interested and informed by her articulate and fluent commentary. After races children, clad in the karate uniforms, came running in with their hands of their hips to exhibit their skills i the martial arts and self defence. It was followed by a brave display of smashing tiles with their fists and foreheads. Our PTI himself performed a dangerous stunt by breaking a stack of burning tiles with his hand on fire. Every one was dumb founded to see this and gave him a big applause. The girls of senior section performed aerobic exercise with musical rhythm in a graceful style. After that, a boy from 10th class sang a popular song of the famous Junoon band while a grils also sang a sufi folk song and got cheered and applauded by all the audiences. Pre-nursary kids presented and fancy dress show and exhibited as a king & queen, an angel, a soldier, a supreman and few more characters which looked so innocent and cute. At the end the host requested the chief guest to give away prizes to the winners of the different events. To conclude the show the chief guest delivered a brief speech which was followed by ex-principals address who shared her views and experiences and also announced donation for the teaching staff. In the closing speech, the principal thanked all the guests and parents for their valued presence and lauded the students spirit of competition and participation specially to the students who volunteered alongwith teachers in making the whole event a great success.

Ryan Air Marketing Plan

————————————————- What do people think of RyanAir? Consumer Behavior ————————————————- Date: October 15th 2012 ————————————————- Table of contents Introduction3 The research design4 Sample description4 Method for interviewing4 Research structure4 Step 1: Collect pictures5 Step 2: Interview method5 Step 3: Concept map5 Step 4: Combined concept map5 Step 5: Consensus map5 Step 6: Communication idea6 The mental maps7 Dutch consensus mental map7 Romanian consensus mental map8 Combined consensus mental map9 Communication idea10Olympic Games 201210 TV Commercials10 Nadia Comaneci on Romanian Traditions11 Marian Dragulescu on Romanian Scenery11 Larisa Iordache on Dracula11 Camelia Potec on Romanian People11 Flags and banners11 Printed advertisement12 Conclusion and discussion13 Conclusion13 Discussion13 Future research13 References14 Websites14 Articles14 Appendix15 Interviews by Cristina Bataga15 Interviews by Jessica van der Hoeven17 Interviews by Ella van Leeuwen22 Interviews by Mehdia Shireen Talib27 Introduction With this paper we will offer insights in brand perceptions and attempt to create a perceptual map for a specific brand.To choose a brand for this assignment we had a group discussion about which brand we thought would be interesting to evaluate and analyse. After considering several options, we decided that we wanted a brand which is relevant at the moment, since this would make it easier for our participants to evaluate. After discussing multiple brands we decided to choose Ryanair. In this assignment participants evaluate Ryanair through interviews and conceptual maps. We will first conduct a simple interview with the resp ondents and we will let them draw a concept map afterwards.We will explain everything in more detail in the following chapters, but first we will elaborate on the brand Ryanair. Ryanair is an airline found in 1985 by the Ryan family and is currently active in 28 countries. Over the past few years there has been a significant growth in the number of customers, from 4 million in 1998 and 24 million in 2004, to 75 million to date(Barret, 2004 and Ryanair. nl). Ryanair is well known for their low offers. The average price of a flight with Ryanair was 38 euro’s in 2004. The Guardian even presented an article last year, which stated that the lowest ticket price of Ryanair this summer was only 12 euros.Ryanair has a team of over 8500 people, which is actually really low for the amount of passengers they transport every year. All these passengers are transported by one type of airplane, the Boeing 737-800. Ryanair its strategy is to offer the lowest price at all time on all routes an d provide an inexpensive and convenient service (Ryanair. nl). To accomplish this strategy, they maintain a certain business model. This business model is build up by 10 key points. The first point is operating from secondary airports. Secondary airports are (unknown) small airports which arrange for low airport fees.The second point is the lowest ticket price, which causes high volume of passengers. The third point is standardized fleets of the Boeing 737-800, which gives them bargaining power with the suppliers. Furthermore, there are no meals on board, nothing is free, low commission for travel agents, Spartan headquarters and there is a single-class which all helps with saving costs. Lastly, there are no unions and there are high powered incentives (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010). Precisely this strategy in combination with the business model Ryanair uses, makes it interesting to analyse Ryanair. Does this strategy really work?Do customers really think Ryanair is the cheap est Airline? Do customers really think Ryanair provides a convenient service? These are all questions we try to figure out in this assignment. At the end we will conclude if the strategy used by Ryanair is the right one, or if Ryanair should change or restate its strategy. This report will consist of chapters explaining the research design and the results we found. The first chapter will discuss the sample used for our research and the method for interviewing. It will explain about the various methods for interviewing and substantiate our decisions.The second chapter will discuss the brand consensus map. It will explain how we came to the consensus map and how the data provided by the interviews will be used as an input to make the brand consensus map. After creating the final brand consensus map, we will take a closer look at the brand consensus map to come up with solutions, improvements and or changes that Ryanair should take. This communication idea will be discussed in the fina l chapter. 1. Research design Sample description When we were discussing the brand Ryanair, we came to the conclusion that the sers are predominantly young people with small budgets. We wanted to create the concept maps based on the thoughts of users, rather than on people who are less likely to use Ryanair. Because of this reason, we chose to use HBO and WO students for our sample, as we believe they fit in this profile. They are relatively young and have no full time jobs, so they have budget restrictions. All four member of our group selected respondents from their own social environment. In total 15 respondents participated, all of them were Dutch. The range of the age of the respondents is between 18 and 26 years old.The experiment had a total of 7 male respondents and 8 female respondents. Method for interviewing To create brand concept maps we can use several techniques. One approach is the Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), which uses qualitative researc h techniques to identify key brand associations and then uses in-depth interviews with respondents to uncover the links between these brand associations (Zaltman and Coulter, 1995). This is a really thorough method due to its multiple uses of qualitative research techniques to tap both verbal and nonverbal aspects of consumer thinking.However, this method knows also some barriers as it is difficult to administer and the process is labour intensive. Other drawbacks of the ZMET are its accessibility and ease of administration. Due to these demerits of the ZMET, we chose for a more accessible and standardized method for producing brand maps. The Brand Concept Maps (BCM) approach. The Brand Concepts Maps (BCM) method is used to elicit people’s knowledge about concepts and how they are connected with each other. This method is easy to implement, flexible and can be done in an unstructured procedure.The respondent has to draw their own map with only few instructions from the resear cher (John et al. , 2006). We used the unstructured procedure of the BCM method, where the respondents have to draw their own map to show their associations with the brand and how they are linked to each other. To identify key brand associations, we used the funnelling technique in the first interviews. This method consists of a series of questions that aim to get the respondents discussing a particular topic. The first questions in the interview are very broad and about the topic in general.After the general part, the questions become more concrete and specific. Allowing the respondents to be prompt and to give their opinion about very specific items within the topic. Research structure As mentioned above, we used the BCM method for creating individual maps and eventually the final brand consensus map. This method will deliver a consensus brand map, which identifies the most important associations that consumers connect to the brand and how these associations are interconnected. We have chosen for this method because of the ease of use and the standardization of this method.Since the mapping stage is very structured it does not take that much time of our respondents to fulfil this stage. Also the aggregation process is more accessible. To obtain a consensus brand map we make use of decision rules, which is less time consuming and does not require specialized statistical training. In the following paragraphs we will explain the whole process in detail and explain more about the techniques we used. Stage 1: The elicitation stage In this first stage our goal was to find significant associations with the brand Ryanair. Therefore, we created a survey and interviewed 15 HBO and WO students.The survey existed of 17 open ended questions. Our purpose was to make these questions as objective as possible, to ensure we did not bias our interviewees. For example, we tried to cover both positive and negative associations. The structure of the questions was very basic, and easy to understand. We used the funnelling technique to structure our survey. With this technique the questions in the survey go from general to more specific, creating a metaphorical funnel. This survey gave us insight in the most salient associations with Ryanair (see appendix 1).After collecting the data from our survey, we created a list of the most mentioned associations. An association was added to the list when at least 50% of the participants mentioned it. This resulted in a list with 16 associations. The associations can be found in appendix 2. On this list is also the association ‘smart’. Many of our respondents mentioned this word in the survey, but during the mapping stage we found that it was unclear for respondents in which context it should be placed. Therefore we decided not to use this word in our final consensus map. Figure 1: BCM example Stage 2: The mapping stage:In the second stage we have asked the respondents to create individual brand maps for Ry anair. We used the same sample as in stage 1. We explained what a brand map is and showed them an example of a brand map for Volkswagen, which is shown in figure 1. We gave the respondents the list of associations with Ryanair that we defined in the elicitation stage and explained that they could use as many of the associations as they wanted, and they could also add any associations they thought were missing on the list. Furthermore, we explained the three different levels of connections between the brand and the associations.We asked them to put the number 1,2 or 3 next to the line, indicating the strength of the link, 1 meaning a weak link and 3 a strong link. After this briefing procedure the respondents were given a blank piece of paper with the word Ryanair in the middle. Participants could take as long as they wanted to complete the brand map. Finally, they were debriefed and thanked for their participation. Stage 3: The aggregation stage. In the final stage we collected all the brand maps to aggregate them and create a consensus map. The individual brand maps are combined on the basis of the of rules to obtain a brand consensus map.These rules require no specialized knowledge of quantitative or qualitative research methods. Frequencies are used to construct a consensus map, showing the most salient brand associations and their interconnections. We enhanced validity of the consensus map by creating inter-subjectivity. We let every team member make their own map based on their interviews. We then came together to compare and discuss the maps. After the discussion we created the final map based on the set of rules described by John et al (2006). How we created the consensus map is described in the next chapter, just as the details and description of the consensus map. . Description of consensus map and picture To create the final consensus map of the Ryanair brand, we used the article about Brand Concept Maps by John et al (2006). Beforehand, we coded the information from each of the individual brand maps in terms of (1) the presence of the brand associations, (2) the strength of the link between each association to the brand or to another association, (3) the level at which the association was placed in the map (directly linked to Ryanair, or directly linked to another association) and (4) which brand associations were linked above and below each association on the map.There were 2 brand associations that respondents added themselves and were not on the list. None of these words were used in more than 7% of the cases, which led to our decision not to use them in the final consensus map. All the coded information was inserted in a table that can be found in appendix 3. Based on this table we used a five step process to develop a consensus brand map of the individual brand concept maps. (John et al 2006) Step 1: In the first step we identified the core brand associations that we have to place on the consensus map.To determine the cor e brand associations we used the frequency of mention and the number of interconnections. If associations were mentioned on at least 50% of the maps we included them on the consensus map as a core brand association. We also included associations if the number of interconnections was equal to or higher than that of other core brand associations. By applying these rules we found 12 core brand associations which are shown the table in appendix 3. Step 2: In step two we decided which of the associations should be linked directly to Ryanair.For this step we used the frequency of first order mentions, the ratio of first order mentions, and the type of interconnections. We selected the associations that were mentioned at least 50% of the times as first-order associations of the total times that they were mentioned. We only selected them if they had more super ordinate than subordinate connections. This resulted in 5 associations that had to be directly linked to Ryanair. Step 3: In the thi rd step we placed the remaining core brand associations on the map. They needed to be linked to at least one of the first-order brand associations.Important links between the 12 core brand associations also needed to be placed on the final consensus map. We made these links by first counting how frequently links between specific associations occurred across maps. Then we did a frequency count of how many different association links were noted on one map, two maps, three maps, four maps etc. We used these frequencies to select which association links would be included in the consensus map. The inflection point occurred at four (see appendix 4). Therefore, we included all core association links found on at least four maps in the consensus brand map.Twelve links met the criteria, eleven of them were links between core brand associations. Step 4: In the fourth step we inserted links between core and non-core brand associations. As found in the previous step, there was only one link betw een a core and a non-core brand association that met the criteria. Step 5: In this final step we decided on the strength of the links between the associations and Ryanair. There are three levels of connections: weak (1), medium(2), strong(3). For each link we computed the mean of the strength. We rounded the number up or down to the next integer number.All the results of these steps led to the brand consensus map below, figure 2. Figure 2: Final Brand Concept Map Ryanair As we have mentioned, the thicker the line, the stronger the association. The strength of associations was measured by the number of times an association was mentioned and what the strength of the associations was in the several brand maps made by our respondents. In the centre of the brand concept map you can see the brand Ryanair. The primary associations with Ryanair are: ‘cheap’, ‘limited service’, ‘holiday’, ‘flies only in Europe’ and ‘airline’.Of these primary associations, ‘cheap’, ‘limited service’ and ‘airline’ have the strongest association with Ryanair. Apart from these primary associations being directly linked to Ryanair, some of these primary associations are also directly linked to each other. There is a direct link between ‘cheap’ and ‘limited service’, and there is a direct link between ‘airline’ and ‘flies only in Europe’. This means that people associate Ryanair being cheap with Ryanair offering limited service, and Ryanair being an airline with Ryanair only flying in Europe.When we look at the secondary associations that are directly linked to the primary associations, we can see that most associations are linked to ‘cheap’. The associations directly linked to ‘cheap’ are: ‘less qualified employees’, ‘price strategy’, ‘price sensitive customers’, ‘low comfort’, ‘low quality’, and ‘no food/drinks’. From these associations, ‘no food/drinks’ has the weakest association with Ryanair being cheap. However, ‘no food/drinks’ is strongly associated with Ryanair providing limited service. Booth primary associations ‘airline’ and ‘only flying in Europe’ are strongly linked with ‘secondary airports’.Finally, there is a strong link between the primary association ‘holiday’ and the non-core brand association ‘sun/summer’. This means that people strongly associate holidays with sun/summer. 3. Communication Idea The conclusion we derive from the Ryanair consensus map is twofold. On one side there are very strong, positive associations with Ryanair. We classify ‘Cheap’, ‘Airline’ and ‘Holiday’ as positive because these match the strategy that Ryanair carries. Ryanair wants to be a chea p airline that is convenient and easy to use. This strategy has definitely reached our sample of the population.Besides that, we think that ‘Holiday’ is a positive association. When consumers think of planning a holiday, there is a big chance they will think of Ryanair, and book a flight with them. It is an important goal for brands to be in the consideration set of consumers(Avery et al, 2012). Based on our consensus map, we can state that Ryanair achieved this goal. On the other side, our respondents also have negative associations with Ryanair. They associate ‘cheap’ with ‘low quality’, ‘low comfort’ and ‘less qualified employees’. Strikingly, there are no positive associations with ‘cheap’.This is definitely a point of improvement for Ryanair. At this moment cheap is associated with negative aspects. Ryanair could try to change this in a positive attitude towards cheap by emphasizing the advantages of cheap. Also, there is a strong association between ‘cheap’ and ‘limited service’. This can be seen as an negative aspect. However, we do not find this association emerging, it is well known that Ryanair indeed offers less service to its customers. It is part of its strategy to offer low prices to their customers. In the following paragraph we will elaborate on why and how Ryanair can change its strategy in more detail.Why Change the Current Map As explained in the last paragraph there are several negative associations with Ryanair. We found out that not all these associations were based on experience though, since some of our participants never used Ryanair before or they experienced low comfort on some flights, but not all. Another point is that they associated Ryanair with less qualified employees because Ryanair is a cheap airline, but they do not know the background of the employees and in some cases they never noticed a difference between the employees of Ryanair and competitors.Like mentioned in a previous chapter, Ryanair its strategy is to offer the lowest price at all time on all routes and provide an inexpensive and convenient service. This means that they do not want to be associated with inconvenient service or uncomfortable consumers. They mention their service as inexpensive on the other hand, so they know that their service is not as good as most competitors. So, the main reason why Ryanair should want to change the final brand map formed above is the fact that they do not want to be associated with low comfort and less qualified employees.And that the associations ‘cheap’ is a positive associations, but it is linked only to negative associations. How Change the Current Map One of Ryanair its goals is to provide their customers with the cheapest flights. Since everybody associates Ryanair with cheap, they seem to have reached this goal. Since we do not want to change this association we have to come up with a plan to change their quality/comfort/employee image without Ryanair becoming more expensive. As mentioned before, our consensus map shows a negative attitude towards cheap, one of the main attributes of Ryanair. If we can change this ttitude, this will have a positive influence on the overall attitude towards Ryanair. For this purpose we decided to use the TORA model. The basic belief of this model is that behaviour(using Ryanair) is a function of a person’s attitude, in this case attitude towards cheap. This multi attribute model for molding attitudes consists of 3 important steps. First we will explain these three steps, and how they apply to Ryanair. 1. Changing a specific component belief. In this step the believe about the specific component ‘cheap’ is tried to be changed. In the case of Ryanair, this should be done for the component ‘service’.Ryanair is assumed to have low service and less qualified employees, because they are cheap. As thes e beliefs are very subjective or even false, Ryanair should use their campaign to change these beliefs about service and quality of employees. 2. Changing the importance a consumer assigns to an attribute. The most important attribute of Ryanair is that they offer cheap flights. If customers fly cheap they will save money that they can spend on their destination. This is a very important feature of Ryanair, and they should try to get consumers to change the importance they weigh to this.When a low flight price becomes more important for consumers, they are more likely to choose Ryanair, as this airline is one of the cheapest in Europe. 3. Introducing a new attitude in the consumers evaluation process. Like we mentioned before, the overall attitude towards cheap at this moment is predominantly negative. In the consensus map there was not one mainly positive association with cheap. Ryanair should change this attitude and emphasize the advantages of flying cheap in their campaign. For instance they could make the connection between cheap and smart.The attitude towards cheap should change to: flying for cheap is smart because it saves you money. Based on these steps we have set up a campaign plan for Ryanair. We will discuss this campaign in detail in following paragraphs. Spring/ summer 2013 Campaign Ryanair Our campaign for Ryanair is mainly targeted at consumers who do not have Ryanair in their consideration set. This can either be because they don’t know the brand or because they have a negative attitude towards it. Our idea for Ryanair is to launch a campaign in the spring/summer of 2013 where they try to change consumer’s perception and attitude towards Ryanair.We decided that the campaign should be launched in the spring/summer of 2013 because this is when most customers start planning their holiday. As we could see in the consensus map holidays are strongly associated with Ryanair, so we believe this is the perfect timing. Since TV Commercial s are very expensive, which can increase the costs for Ryanair, and eventually ticket prices. We decided not to use TV commercials in our campaign. Instead, we think the campaign should consists of ads and commercials on the internet, where a big part of Ryanair’s target audience is active.When potential customers, people between 18-30, are planning their holiday they will first go online, as this is the main search tool for this generation. Seeing an Ryanair advertisement can give them an incentive to book a flight with Ryanair. Advertisements The benefit of using online advertisements is the fact that multiple advertisements can be used in multiple locations. The most important thing about the advertisements is the fact that they have to have a strong message but still needs to be simple. They have to change consumer attitude towards low prices so this will lead to the desired behaviour ,booking a flight.The ads have to be used frequently and placed in the right spots. The advertisements have to be placed on websites which are frequently visited by our target audience. If they click on the ad it should sent them to the Ryanair website. We want to use three types of advertisements; one advertisement with a so called â€Å"emotional appeal†, one with a â€Å"two-sided† approach and one with a â€Å"comparative† approach. Where each ad always shows the Ryanair logo, and the ad is always in the colors yellow and blue. If we use pictures the borders are in yellow and blue, and the text is always in the same blue colour.The main goal of the ads is to try and remove the low comfort and less qualified employees associations out of the customers head and change this into an attitude positive towards cheap. We decided to use the word smart in all the ads, because of earlier mentioned reasons. Furthermore, a lot of our participants used the word smart to identify the customers or founders of Ryanair. The customers because they fly cheap and save money, the founders because they came up with this business idea. Since we heard it multiple times we thought it was a good idea to use this word in the ads.Emotional Appeal ad: The advertisement shows a picture of a man standing in the airplane waiting for the stewardess to put his hand baggage in the locker above the seating’s. The man is tall, wearing a nice classy button down shirt with normal jeans. This shows a man with style, but it does not show too much richness which will clash with the cheap image of Ryanair. Both the stewardess and the man on the ad have a smile on their faces. The text provided underneath the picture says: â€Å"Be smart, save money, fly Ryan Air†. This ad will serve two goals.First because of the smiling, friendly and helpful stewardess it will take away the negative association people have of less service and less qualified employees of Ryanair. Second, by showing a man where our target audience can relate to and describing him as s mart, we make the association of customers of Ryanair are smart. Also it shows that the average customer is very mainstream, so it could be anyone. Two-Sided advertisement: The two-sided advertisement should show a negative association of Ryanair, but not the biggest and counter argue with it.What we mean by this is the fact that for instance secondary airports are sometimes associated negative since they are small and not always close to the city, but it can also be an advantage. Flying on secondary airports means less waiting time for your luggage, less walking time to board, less searching what gate you have to get to and for instance cheaper parking lots. The advertisement shows a small airport on the background. On the foreground it shows the text: â€Å"Yes, we don’t fly on main airports, can you come up with the benefits of this!? We can! † * Less waiting time * Cheaper parking lots No big crowds â€Å"Be smart, save time, fly Ryan Air†. This ad will serv e the goal of showing benefits of flying on secondary airports. Showing customers that it is not only cheaper, but it also saves time and it is customer friendly (less waiting time and no big crowds). Again we try to put a positive attitude toward the association cheap and we use the word smart again. Comparative advertisement: The comparative advertisement shows a picture of two airplanes flying in the air next to each other. It shows a clear sky with an orange sun on the background, as a nice summer evening.Both airplanes are Boeing 737-800’s. One airplane is a Ryanair airplane and the other is an airplane of one of the competitors, for instance one of KLM Royal Airlines. Underneath the picture it says: â€Å"Can you see the difference? Your wallet can†¦! † â€Å"Be smart, Save money, fly Ryan Air† The goal of this ad is the fact that less quality is associated with cheap. This ad shows that Ryanair uses the same airplanes as some of their competitors. We try to show that Ryanair should not be associated with less quality. We also use the word smart again and we associate Ryanair again with the positive association cheap.Internet Commercials Like we mentioned before we do not want to show any TV commercial during this summer campaign since that will costs too much. Instead, we want think it will be good to have a short commercial for on the internet. This will be used on the Ryan Air website, so the use of the commercial will almost be free of costs. When you enter the website this commercial will pop up and play. There should be an option to close the ad if , to make sure the customers do not have to watch it every time they enter the website. This can cause irritation and we do not want to irritate potential customers.We want the commercial to be in the same setting as the banner ads. If the commercials and advertisements are consistent this will reinforce the effect they have. Most important for this commercial is to, again, emph asize the positive consequences of flying cheap and linking this with being smart. For our internet commercial we will use the same man that we used in our online banner. This is an ordinary person, where most of Ryanair its audience can relate himself to. Because we want to reinforce the link between Ryanair and the association holiday, the man will be with his family.They check out a luxurious hotel where the employees are very friendly and helpful. The family gets into a car and drive to the airport. There they board on a Ryanair plane. When they board on the plane, the stewards are also very warm and welcoming and helping the family with storing their luggage. The camera zooms out and the final shot is the airplane taking off. On the screen the following text appears: ‘Be smart, save money, fly Ryanair. ’ With this commercial we want to make the link between the service in a luxurious hotel and the service in the Ryanair plane.We want to point out that there are sim ilarities between the two, in both cases the employees are warm, friendly and helpful. Furthermore we want to show that by saving money on the flight the family could afford to stay in a luxurious hotel, in other words they were smart because they saved money on their flight in order to stay in a luxurious hotel during their stay. Conclusions: To sum up the process to the final brand concept map. We conducted interviews based on the funnelling technique. After this we used the BCM method to come up with our final brand concept map.We found out that there were several positive and several negative associations with Ryanair. Especially the fact that the positive association ‘cheap’ was linked with only negative associations got our attention. We decided that this part of the brand concept map was the part we wanted to change by a communication idea. We came up with an Spring/Summer 2013 Campaign for Ryanair. This campaign would consist of several advertisements and a sing le commercial we wanted to use on the website. The main theme of our advertisements is to emphasize the positive elements of cheap and to use the word smart in every ad.Linking back to the TORA model we described before, in all the advertisements the steps of this model are taken into account. Step 1 of the TORA model is mainly processed in the emotional appeal ad we described. With this ad we try to change consumers’ beliefs about the service of Ryanair and the quality of their employees. In the ad we make the association of customers of Ryanair being smart, which represents step 3, making a new connection between the attribute ‘cheap’ and the (new) attribute ‘smart’. These arguments apply also for the advertisement about the benefits of secondary airports.The comparative commercial with another airline is more about changing the importance a consumer assigns to an attribute, like step 2 of the TORA model. When seeing two airplanes next to each othe r of different airlines, where one airline is much cheaper, the most important feature of Ryanair, flying cheap, is made clear. With this commercial we can try to get consumers to change the importance they weight to the attribute ‘cheap’. Finally we showed the purpose of the website commercial, where the purpose is to emphasize the positive consequences of flying cheap and linking this with being smart.Future research For future research we suggest to have a more varying sample and more participants. We focused on students, which can cause to give an image of Ryanair which is not really representative. Furthermore we would suggest to use the ZMET method instead of the BCM method because the first interview conducted in the ZMET method is much more in-depth than the one we used in the BCM method. We think that the associations with the brand would be different and more representative using the ZMET method. Appendices Appendix 1: Survey QuestionsName: Age: Gender 1. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Ryanair is †¦ 2. I fly with Ryanair because†¦ 3. Ryanair is†¦ 4. Ryanair makes me feel†¦ 5. I won’t fly with Ryanair because†¦ 6. When I see a commercial of Ryanair I think.. 7. Ryanair looks†¦ 8. I believe that other people think of Ryanair as†¦ 9. Ryanair is †¦.. compared to their competitors 10. I would choose competitors over Ryanair because†¦ 11. I would choose to fly with Ryanair if I fly with†¦(friends/ family etc) 12. I believe Ryanair thinks of their customers as†¦ 13.The founders of Ryanair are†¦ 14. I believe the strategy of Ryanair is†¦ 15. People who use Ryanair are†¦ 16. People who work for Ryanair are†¦ 17. The customers of Ryanair are.. Appendix 2: List with core associations 1. Holiday 2. Airline 3. Cheap 4. Less qualified employees 5. No Food / Drinks 6. Limited Service 7. Only in Europe 8. Yellow/Blue 9. Sun/Summer 10. Friends 11. Low qu ality 12. Price sensitive customers 13. Price strategy 14. Low comfort 15. Secondary airports 16. Smart Appendix 3: List with core associations | Core Associations| First-Order Associations|Brand Associations| Frequency of Mention| Number of Inter connections| Frequency of First-Order Mention| Ratio of First-Order Mention (%)| Subordinate Connection| Super-ordinate Connections| Cheap| 15| 46| 13| 86,7| 2| 44| Airline| 13| 16| 13| 100| | 16| Secondary Airports| 12| 13| 5| 41,7| 9| 4| Only in Europe| 12| 12| 7| 58,3| 5| 7| No Food/Drinks| 12| 12| 3| 25| 11| 1| Less qualified Employees| 11| 13| 2| 18,2| 10| 3| Holiday| 11| 15| 10| 90,9| 1| 14| Price Strategy| 11| 9| 7| 63,6| 5| 4| Price Sensitive Customers| 11| 13| 3| 27,3| 9| 4|Low Comfort| 10| 15| 1| 10| 9| 6| Limited Service| 8| 16| 4| 50| 4| 12| Low Quality| 8| 16| 3| 37,5| 5| 11| Fly with Friends| 7| 8| 3| 42,9| 5| 3| Sun/Summer| 7| 9| 1| 14,3| 6| 3| Yellow/Blue| 6| 2| 5| 83,3| 2| | City Trip| 2| 2| 2| 100| | 2| Airplanes| 1| 1| 1 | 100| | 1| Business People| 1| | 1| 100| | | Bad Customer Service| 1| | 1| 100| | | Low Budget| 1| 1| | 0| 1| | Nighttime bookings| 1| 1| | 0| 1| | Eindhoven| 1| | 1| 100| | | Limited destinations| 1| 1| 1| 100| | 1| Customers| 1| 1| 1| 100| | 1| Easy to book tickets| 1| 1| | 0| 1| | †¦| | | | | | |Appendix 4: Maps and the number of interconnections Number of maps| Number of interconnections| 1| 23| 2| 13| 3| 10| 4| 7| 5| 4 (inflection point)| 6| 6| Appendix 5: Summaries of individual interviews Interviews by Marc Buurman For this assignment I interviewed three Dutch Students: * Melvin Loggies, 21 years old, male * Jesse Driel, 22 years old, male * Eline Buurman, 19 years old, female I contacted the respondents by phone and asked them if they wanted to participate in our research. They all agreed, so I made an appointment with them for the first interview.In the first interview I asked the respondents several questions about Ryanair(see appendix 2). I explained them that they should simply say what came to their mind and that if they had any questions they were free to ask them. After conducting the interviews, that led to very interesting associations, I thanked the respondents and made the appointment for the second interview. In the second interview I showed the respondents a list of 16 associations (which resulted from the first interviews) and asked them if they could draw a mental map for me.As an example I gave them a mental map of Volkswagen. I also told the respondents that they were not forced to use all the associations, and if they thought of any associations that were missing, they were free to add them to their mental map. During the creation of the map I told them that they could also review their answers of the first interview, however, no one decided to review their first interview. When they finished drawing their mental map, I thanked them for their effort and wished them a pleasant day. The associations that the respondents gave were quite similar.The main associations that the respondents came up with were: â€Å"cheap†, â€Å"holiday†, and â€Å"Ryanair only flies in Europe†. These were quite positive associations. However, the respondents also came up with negative associations like: â€Å"low comfort†, â€Å"limited service† and â€Å"less qualified employees†. According to the respondents, the explanation for this is that: because Ryanair is one of the cheapest airlines(which they saw as a positive thing), they can’t provide the best service and don’t have the best employees. The respondents also gave some different associations.For instance, one respondent answered that the first thing that came to his mind when he thought of Ryanair was city trips. This was because he was planning to go on a city trip through Europe and would use Ryanair to fly from city to city. When I asked him why he would use Ryanair to fly from city to city, he simply answered: Because they are the cheapest. Interviews by Jesper Vieveen For this research I interviewed four people: * Robin Meeng, 22 years old, male * Nick Theisen, 21 years old, male * Sharen Vieveen, 18 years old, female * Kevin Smith, 25 years old, maleI contacted all of them by phone to ask if they wanted to participate in a research I had to conduct for my study Marketing Management, and for the course Consumer Behaviour. I told them I had to interview them twice about the brand Ryanair, they all agreed immediately. During the first interview I asked them questions, you can find these questions in appendix 2. I told them they had to try to come up with as many things as they could think of each question. I asked them if they had travelled with Ryanair before and I asked them to explain words if I did not understood the meaning of them in relation with the question.At the end I thanked them for their participations and I planned a second meeting with them. I did not tell them yet what the second interview was going to be about, the only thing I told them was the fact that it was about Ryanair again, and that it was going to be based on the first interview. During the second interview I showed them their answers of the first interview, I provided them with the list of the 16 associations that came out the first part of the BCM method. I gave them a piece of paper with the word Ryanair in the middle. I told them they had to create a brand concept map with those 16 associations.I told them they did not have to use all of them, and that they had the possibility to ad associations if the wanted. I also gave them their first interview so they could use it if they wanted. Before they started to draw the map I showed them an example of a brand concept map. After they were done with their map I asked them if they were sure this was their final map, the map they wanted to give to me. After this I thanked them for their participation. During the first interview a lot of the an swers to the questions involved the word; cheap.The main reason why they would fly Ryanair was because of the fact that it is a cheap airline, it saves money during their holiday. Two respondents tried to be very creative coming up with words associated with Ryanair, they mentioned the business strategies, the names of the founders, the colours of the airline and stuff like this. But most of the time all their answers involved the word cheap again. What got my attention was the fact that most of my respondents liked to fly with Ryanair but if the longer they thought about questions the more they came up with negative associations.Mostly not out of own experiences, but out of other people their experiences or out of stereotypes. All of my respondents also associated Ryanair with limited service. Three out of the four told me that they did not mind this though, they told me that flying those short distances were not about the service. Interviews by Chantal Verbeek For creating the bra nd maps I have interviewed four students, two female and two male. They are all four WO students and have a Dutch nationality First I have interviewed the participants by using the survey in the appendix. The purpose of this interview was to identify the core associations with Ryanair.First I told the participants what the purpose of the study was. I told them that me and my group were doing research about the associations students have with Ryanair. Then I told them that the end goal of the research was to create a consensus map. I explained to them the steps we needed to take in order to create the consensus map and what a consensus map is. The interview was relatively basic and no remarkable issues emerged. It was striking that the first association the participants had was cheap. One respondent used the word low budget instead of cheap.Most respondents asked for an explanation for the question: ‘I use Ryanair when I fly with’. As I did not want to guide them to much I told them this question was about the type of travel partner. I did not use examples such as parents and friends. In the answers to almost every survey question the word cheap was used. Other words that were commonly mentioned were holiday, friends, and low comfort. All four participants had experience with flying with Ryanair. They based the answers of their questions on experience. What came forward is that they all used Ryanair because it was much cheaper than the competitors.The respondents thought of Transavia as the main competitor, because this airline is also low budget. Only one respondent thought of Wizz Air as the main competitor. After the interview our group had a meeting to discuss the interviews and decide on which words to use for the brand maps. When this was decided I used the same four respondents to create an individual brand map. First I explained to them again what a brand map is and where we would use it for. After that I showed them the brand map of Volksw agen. I explained that there were three levels of association links: weak, medium and strong.I told them how to indicate the strength and referred to the Volkswagen example. If the respondents still had questions, I answered them. After that the respondents started with their brand maps. None of the respondents took longer than 5 minutes to finish. Some had very complex maps, with many interconnections. One participant only linked to Ryanair and did not use connections between the associations. No one had any difficulties with creating the map and the process went very smooth. When the respondents were finished I debriefed them and answered questions if they had any.Some of the respondents were interested in brand maps of other participants. If this was the case I showed them the brand maps of the others. Interviews by Eva Verhulst References: http://www. guardian. co. uk/business/2011/may/23/Ryanair-profits-rise-passenger-numbers http://www. airlinequality. com/Forum/ryan. htm Aver y, J. , Kozinets, R. , Mittal, B. , Raghubir, P. and Woodside, A. (2012), ‘Consumer Behaviour: Human Pursuit of Happiness in the World of Goods’, Open Mentis. John, Deborah R. et al (2006), ‘Brand Concept Maps: A Methodology for Indentifying Brand Association Networks’ Journal of Marketing Research,43(November), 549-563

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The Gay and Lesbian Movement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Gay and Lesbian Movement - Research Paper Example According to the research findings, it can, therefore, be said that politically, the gays and lesbians have been given a chance to lead other groups of people as they have been elected in some of the elections were carried out in the United States. These people have been elected as state legislators and as congressmen, and thus they have been able to get into high positions in the country. There are also communities which help in ensuring that the gays and lesbians needs are met. There has also been an establishment of businesses that helps in the making sure that the needs of these people are met and they live well and satisfied. The gays and lesbians have made a mainstream on the media such as television, in the music industry, and have also appeared in films which every other member of the society watches (Rimmerman 2). However, society does not consider gays and lesbians to be vital, and some of the public issues which the society may need to address are not addressed by the peop le who are in this movement. For example, the gays and lesbians are not allowed to carry out some activities such as adopting children, teaching in the public schools, and also taking care of foster children and serving in the public arena such as in the armed forces and as guards. During the early times, the gays and lesbians believed that they would progress if only they involved themselves in the media and had a connection with the public. Therefore, they would protest and fight for their rights and involved in political activities in order to ensure that they get attention from the other members of the public, and thus they believed they would get to progress in all their undertakings as the movement was being established. They did all that they did in order to ensure that they no longer hid from the public, and nether would they be afraid of getting to the public with their status. They would not live in silence any longer and thus would ensure that they have become visible and everyone else knows of their existence (Rimmerman 84). The issue of gay and lesbian movement has been controversial to the social life of the community. This means that there are factors which have to be considered in ensuring that the message of the existence of the movement is received well by the social community. Conflicts exist between the rights of the Christians and the rights of the gays and lesbians (Rimmerman 122). The Christian community in the United States is said to be composed of people who are anti-gay, and thus the two movements cannot come together either socially nor politically to bring out a notion of power. Differences between gay and lesbian, on one hand, and queer, on the other Gays and Lesbians are those people who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex. This means that a man may be sexually attracted to another man or a woman may be sexually attracted to another woman. On the other hand, the word queer explains an individual who is attracted to a nother individual of the same sex, but it does not have to be sexual attraction. Queers can be bisexual meaning that they are not content with the type of relationship that they involve themselves in.  

Nucor Corporation Case Essay Example for Free

Nucor Corporation Case Essay Summary: For more than 20 years the Nucor Corporation has been one of the leading manufacturers of steel and steel related products in the world. With their technology advancement, low debt ratio, decentralized type of organization and many more, this company still thrives to achieve better goals in their company. Aside from the positive views of the company, it also faced problems like bankruptcy. (te pakidagdagan n lng) History: Nucor traced its origins to auto manufacturer Ransom E. Olds, who founded Oldsmobile, and later, Reo Motor Cars. Through a series of transactions, the company eventually became the Nuclear Corporation of America, a company involved in the nuclear instrument and electronics business. In 1972, the firm changed its name to Nucor Corporation. By 1998, it had become America’s second-largest steel maker. Operations: Nucor related its diverse facilities in rural areas across the United States, establishing strong ties to its local communities and its work force. As a leading employer with the ability to pay top wages, it attracted hard-working, dedicated employees. These factors also allowed Nucor to select from among competing locales, siting its operations in states with tax structures that encouraged business growth and regulatory policies that favored the company’s commitment to remaining union-free. By mid-2008, Nucor operated 53 facilities throughout the United States and one in Point Lisas, Trinidad. The company also maintained operations through wholly owned subsidiaries, Harris Steel and the David J. Joseph Company (DJJ). Strategy: Nucor’s strategy focused on two major competencies: building steel manufacturing facilities economically and operating them productively. Organization Structure: Compared to the typical Fortune 500 company with 10 or more management layers, Nucor’s Structure was decentralized, with only the four management  layers illustrated below: Chairman / Vice Chairman / President Vice President / Plant General Manager Department Manager Supervisor Human Resource Policies: Employee relations at Nucor were based on four principles: 1. Management is obligated to manage Nucor in such a way that employee will have the opportunity to earn according to their productivity. 2. Employees should feel confident that if they do their jobs properly, they will have a job tomorrow. 3. Employees have the right to be treated fairly. 4. Employees must have an avenue of appeal when they believe they are being treated unfairly. Compensation: Nucor provided employees with a performance-related compensation system. All employees were covered under one of four compensation plan, each featuring incentives for meeting specific goals and targets. 1. Production Incentive Plan * employees directly involved in manufacturing were paid weekly bonuses based on actual output in relation to anticipated production tonnages produced. The bonuses were paid only for work that met the quality standards and were pegged to work group, rather than individual output. 2. Department Manager Incentive Plan * Department managers earned an annual incentive bonus based on the performance of the entire plan to which they belonged. The targeted performance criterion here was return on assets. 3. Non-Production and Non-Department Manager Incentive Plan * All employees not in the Production Incentive Plan or Department Manager Incentive Plan – including accountants, engineers, secretaries, clerks, and receptionists – received a bonus based primarily on each plant’s return on assets. It could total over 25% of an employee’s base salary. 4. Senior Officers Incentive Plan * Included all corporate executives and plant general managers. A portion of pre-tax earnings was placed into a pool that was divided among the officers. If Nucor did well, the officers’ bonuses, in the form of stock (about 60%) and cash (about 40%), could amount to several times their base salaries. If Nucor did poorly, an officer’s compensation was only base salary and, therefore, significantly below the average pay for this level of responsibility. Information Systems: Benefits: Nucor took an egalitarian approach toward employee benefits. Nucor’s benefit program also attested to the company’s commitment to education. Technology: Nucor did not have a formal RD department, a corporate engineering group, or a chief technology officer. Instead, it relied on equipment suppliers and other companies to do the RD, and they adopted the technological advancements they developed – whether in steel or iron making, or in fabrication. Teams composed of mangers, engineers, and machine operators decided what technology to adopt. 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Friction Experiment: Design and Results

Friction Experiment: Design and Results EXPERIMENT 37 Friction I. Introduction Whatever action you do whether it is walking, driving, or when any two surfaces meet there is friction between them. Friction opposes the applied force to an object and opposes the motion of an object. In many of the labs in this course we try to minimize it or neglect it in the lab, but it is there. When we use the air track, the friction is dramatically reduced due to the air cushion under the air car so the car stays in motion for an extended period of time, but it still stops. Or in the case of an oscillating object, we ignore the slowing of the oscillation, but it still slows down and stops. The actual cause of friction is complex atomic interaction but, the simple idea of friction is atoms rubbing against each other, adsorbing energy from the motion. Friction is a force; it prevents an object from moving or changes the motion of an object. This lab will cover two types of friction, static friction and kinetic friction. Static friction is a force that resists motion so that the surfaces are not in motion relative to each other. The maximum amount of force applied to the block, at the instant before the block moves, is referred to as the maximum static friction force, f S Max. One example of this type of friction is walking. Once enough force is applied to the system to overcome the static friction force, it starts to move. When the block is moving against the surface, then the friction force is called the kinetic friction force, f k. Kinetic friction appears when the two surfaces are sliding relative to each other. One example of this type of friction is pushing a file cabinet across the floor. In this lab you will pull a weighted block across the table and measure the force it takes to start moving the block (just an instant before it moves) and while the block is moving across the table. The forces in this lab are many, the block exerts a force on the table, the table exerts a force on the block ( fN ). And the earth exerts a force on the block (mg) and the block exerts a force on the earth. This experiment will consider the room and table as stationary objects and therefore having no accelerating force on them, then the net force on the stationary block is fnet = 0 (1). The force of the block on the table is equal to the force of the block on the earth, weight or mg, mg fN = fNet (2) thus mg = fN (3). Figure 1: Diagram of two blocks one stationary and one moving. The stationary object is held back by static fraction, while the moving object is acted on by friction and a  pulling force. The static friction force acts equal and opposite to the pulling force, as the pulling force increases the static friction force increases, resulting in no motion. Sometimes the pulling force will increases and it will exceed the static friction and the block will begin to move. The point of maximum force is called maximum static force, f SMax. An observation about static friction is that maximum static friction f SMax is proportional to the normal force, fN, through a constant  µs, f SMax =  µs fN. (4) The  µs term is referred to as the coefficient of static friction. This means as the normal force ( fN ) increases, the maximum force needed to move the block increases in a proportional amount. The coefficient of static friction is dependent on the two surfaces in contact so different surfaces will have different coefficients of friction. A second observation about friction is that friction is independent of the size of the contact area between the two solid surfaces, which means the same force spread over different areas still would have the same force of friction. Kinetic friction like static friction is a retarding force exerted on a sliding object in contact with a surface. When the object is sliding with a constant velocity the force of friction is equal to the pulling force. It follows the same equation as static friction but the relationship between kinetic friction and the normal force has a different coefficient. The coefficient is referred to as the kinetic coefficient of friction  µk. fk =  µk fN. (5) Kinetic friction also does not change when the surface area of the two surfaces changes. You will be measuring both static and kinetic friction forces in this lab and you should find that the kinetic friction is usually lower that the maximum static friction. II. Equipment and Procedure IIa. Equipment: Force sensor, block, motion sensor, laptop PC, 750 interface, friction surface aka table, string, pulley, weights and weight hanger. Figure 2: Equipment setup of the friction experiment. The hanging mass will pull the force sensor with a mass, while the motion sensor will measure the displacement of the force sensor. Once the hanging mass force exceeds the friction force, the force sensor will move, and the motion sensor will measure the displacement. The moving force sensor will have a velocity measured by the computer, and the net force on the force sensor will be measured. IIb. Procedure: The mass of the block and force sensor needs to be measured so that the total mass of the block/force sensor on the table can be determined. Hook the motion sensor and the force sensor to the 750 interface box and hook the interface box to the laptop. The force sensor is measuring the force exerted on the block while the motion sensor will measure the change in distance of the block. Turn on the computer and 750 interface, start the Data Studio program and create an experiment. Select a digital port and add the motion sensor to the experiment. Double click on the motion sensor to open the settings of the motion sensor, set the frequency rate to 25 Hz and close the window. Drag the motion sensor icon in the upper left to the graph icon in the lower left. Go to an analog port on the 750 interface box and add the force sensor to the experiment, double click on the force sensor to open the sensor settings, set the frequency to a minimum of 500 Hz. Drag the force sensor icon in the upper left to the lower left graph icon. One reminder is to hit the tare button every time before you run an experiment. This action resets the for ce sensor to zero Newtons before each run. Static Friction Experiment: part one Start the experiment, tare the force sensor. Add the hanger and add weight incrementally. As you try more runs use smaller masses for your increment. Keep adding weight until the block starts to move. Once the mass moves, stop the experiment. Repeat the experiment 6 times to get an average value and perform standard deviation (SD) on your values. Kinetic Friction Experiment: part two Start the experiment, tare the force sensor. Pull the force sensor using the string to make the block move. Once the block is moving at a constant velocity, this will indicate what force is needed to match the kinetic friction. Plot the displacement vs. time from the motion sensor. Fit the curve to a linear function to show that the block has a uniform velocity. Repeat the experiment 6 times to get an average value and perform SD error analysis. Kinetic Friction Experiment: part three Start the experiment and tare the force sensor. Add the mass required to move the block with 100 grams extra. The block will start to move with an accelerating velocity, if not add an extra 50 grams until it does. The plot of the position vs. time will determine if the block is accelerating. Question: What should the plot look like if the block is accelerating? Once a run is complete with the block accelerating along the table, stop the experiment. Plot the displacement vs. time from the motion sensor. Fit the curve to a quadratic function to find the acceleration of the block. Repeat the experiment 6 times to get an average value and perform SD error analysis. III. Data The graph of the force vs. time or determines the maximum value of the force. The maximum force is the static friction force. In part two (kinetic friction), drag the block at a uniform velocity. The plot of time vs. displacement will clearly identify the linear motion. Use a linear formula to fit the curve if necessary. Measure the force on the block when it is moving. In part three (kinetic friction), drag the block with an accelerating force and generate a plot time vs. displacement in a graph. Fit the curve to a quadratic formula and determine the acceleration of the block. The acceleration of the block is used to determine the net force on the block. The net force on the block is the difference between the force of the mass hanging down and the force of friction holding it back. One reminder is the displacement of a moving object is related to the acceleration through equation (6). = (6) IV. Results Calculate the coefficient of static friction of the block, from the force exerted on the block and the mass and force of the block on the table. Calculate the SD from the values obtained in the experiment. Calculate the kinetic friction force from the two different methods. First: calculate the kinetic friction from the constant velocity of the moving block. The force need to move the block at a constant velocity is equal to the kinetic friction force. Calculate the SD from the values obtained in the experiment. Second: calculate the kinetic friction difference from the accelerating block from the hanging force and the resultant force on the block. The mass of the block is known and the acceleration of the block is measured from the curve fit. The net force on the block can then be determined. The hanging force is known from mass times gravity (mg) and from that the force of kinetic friction can be calculated. V. Discussion What are values of the static and kinetic friction? Are the two values of kinetic friction similar? Are the kinetic friction values within the standard deviation? What happens when a sliding object has the pulling force reduced below the kinetic fiction force? How much force will it take to get it moving again? Is there a there large distribution in the values of static and kinetic friction? If so why? What would happen to the value of friction if the mass of the block is doubled? Is a wheel rolling, static or kinetic friction? Why can’t static friction be less that kinetic friction? Discuss the implication of this.

Jay Mcinerneys Bright Lights, Big City: You Are The Coma Baby :: essays research papers

Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: You are the Coma Baby The novel Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney relates the tale of a young man working for a prominent newspaper in Manhattan by day, while visiting many bars and nightclubs during the night. He manages to accomplish this through the help of his use of cocaine, to which he is powerfully addicted. Throughout the novel McInerney employs the use of the Coma Baby, a current story in the New York Post, a local tabloid, as a symbolic representation of the main character. The Coma Baby has been residing in its mother's womb after the mother suffered a car accident and entered a coma. The debate is to whether the Coma Baby will see the "light of the delivery room". In this passage the main character is experiencing a dream where he interacts with the Coma Baby in his workplace. This passage, through the words and phrases employed by McInerney as both dialogue and narration, is strong support for the concept that like the Coma Baby, the main character wants to avoid facing the harsh realities of life and continue living isolated in his world of narcotic-induced pleasure. The author uses the interaction of the main character and the Coma Baby as proof that the main character will not realize the fallacies of his ways until he has hit rock-bottom. The Coma Baby is shown to be the symbolic representation of the main character through his actions and philosophy toward life, a philosophy wholly irresponsible and unmotivated. As the main character approaches he asks the Baby if he's going to come out. The Baby responds with "No way Josà ©. I like it in here. Everything I need is pumped in."(line 11) This remark illustrates the main character's attitude toward life. With the condition that the Baby gets what he needs, he has no motivation to improve his situation. This parallels with the main character, who , provided he has his cocaine, does little to improve his situation. For example, he continually shows up late to work, and then after completely botching a project is fired from his job. The drugs have completely stolen his motivation towards life. After this, when the main character tries to reason with the Coma Baby about improving his situation, the Coma Baby plays a deaf-and -dumb routine(line14), highly symbolic of the main character's actions toward those that have been trying to help him. For example, the main character continues to avoid Clara Tillinghast, his boss, in her attempts to bring him to work on time.

The Metamorphosis of Macbeth Essay -- GCSE Coursework Macbeth Essays

The Metamorphosis of Macbeth  Ã‚   Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth demonstrates what can happen when one pursues power at the expense of everything else.     The main character, Macbeth begins the play as a strong character that is greatly admired, however as the play progresses, Macbeth's personality and actions become more and more deceitful. Macbeth’s deceit eventually leads to his destruction. Following the murder of Duncan, Macbeth realizes that the murder has put him into the control of demon forces which are the enemy of mankind. Macbeth recognizes that the conscious acts which torture him essentially reduce him to a human individual. This is the inescapable bond that keeps him "pale" and at Act 3 Scene 2, he states: "Come seeling night Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale" The above quote by Macbeth demonstrates that he imagines that the execution of more murderous deeds, (instigation of the murder of Banquo), will help him pursue his interest of personal safety and also destroy any personal humanity left within himself. Immediately after the death of Duncan, Macbeth is disgusted with himself for murdering Duncan. This is shown by Macbeth when he states: "I have done the deed" He says this instead of simply saying that he has murdered Duncan and is consequently almost trying to avoid the subject. This demonstrates that Macbeth is deeply ashamed of what he has done. Macbeth also feels that the killing of Duncan has cut him off from God, because before the murder the text is full of references to things being divine, but following the murder everything in the text becomes bleak and unhol... ...e prophecies give Macbeth a false sense of security. Macbeth is very insecure, which is an explanation as to why he feels he has to kill anyone who he remotely views as a threat to his reign including his plan to murder Macduff: "I'll make assurance double sure" I think this is because he is so insecure that he feels he needs to kill Macduff to make the prophecy come true. The multiple roles of Macbeth in the play demonstrate his changing character and illustrate the complete evolution of Macbeth's personality. Macbeth begins as a respectable person and gradually his personality descends until he eventually falls apart and loses control. Perhaps the message that Shakespeare is sending is that no good will come from evil -even if it first appears that you will not be found out. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.

Child Labor Essay -- Essays Papers

Child Labor Child labor has been around for long time and it still exists in today's world. Thiskind of labor provides problems or difficulties in the economic world. Child labor is social problem with the rise of industrial production and capitalism. It appeared in earlier ages in agricultural societies when the children all around the world had to work along with 19th century, spreading to many countries. The problems started when many children, younger than ten years old, were employed by factories. In this paper I will address the issues and history of child labor, the child labor laws, and my suggestions or solutions to child labor problems. Child labor is defined as the employment of children under the age of physical maturity for long hours. Child labor is often used in societies where industries are being developed. The governments and international organization usually consider a person economically active if the person works on a regular basis. A child is a laborer if the child is economically active. The children are used because they are agile, efficient at many unskilled and semi skilled work, quick learners, unprotected and easy for adults to exploit. Historically, children working is nothing new, it was and still is often described for a family's survival. Many of these children are forced into the workforce to become beggars, farm hands and factory workers. These children are denied an education and normal childhood, some children are confined and beaten. Some are denied freedom of movement or the right to leave the workplace and go to their families. Some are abducted and forced to work. Human rights abuses in these practices are existing. There are approximately 250 milli... ...ause criminal is always going to be a criminal. My opinion is that there should be a trade restriction because I want to see some changes in these countries thatuse child labor and trade restrictions on them would be my best choice. Bibliography: 1. â€Å"Child Labor†, http://1rights.igc.org/projects/childlabor/ 2. â€Å"History Of Child Labor†, http://www.atchison.K12.ks.us/gifted/childlabor.html 3. UNICEF, â€Å"Child Protection†, http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html 4. Human Rights Watch, â€Å"Child Labor†, http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.html 5. â€Å"Child Labor Laws†, http://www.doli.state.mn.us/childlbr.html 6. â€Å"US Child Labor Law†, http://www.cofc.edu/~muellerr/childlabor.html 7. â€Å"Children In Factories†, http://www.globalmarch.org/factory-lab/indonesia.html 8. â€Å"Kaushik Basu†,

Decision tree analysis Essay

Decision tree analysis known as an analytical tool applied to decision-making under condition of uncertainty, also clarifying where there are many possible outcomes for various alternatives and some outcomes are dependent on previous outcomes. However, decision tree will present as a diagram by showing the relationship among possible courses of action, possible events and the potential outcomes for each course of action in the decision (Drury, 2012). So decision tree analysis is useful for merchant navy company to understand in what direction their chance events are and what their values in terms of profits and losses are for each of the two tooling alternatives, also visualize the outcomes of different prospects in order make better decision under uncertainty Strengths of decision tree analysis Decision tree analysis will show all the alternatives, probabilities, costs and the possible outcomes that are not even consider by the company. The company can add the possible scenario into decision tree diagram, through the diagram can calculate the expected values and a probability distribution in more complex situations and the attributes can be chosen in any desired order (Kirkwood, 2002). Weaknesses of decision tree analysis However decision tree analysis brings sequential decisions and class-overlap problem that including categorical variable with different number of levels, and the information gain in decision tree analysis are biased in favour of those attribute with more levels. Also correlated data and complex production rules will occur in decision tree analysis, it can get very complex particularly if many values are uncertain and/or if many outcomes are linked (Kirkwood, 2002). Merchant navy industry background Merchant navy industry plays an important role in both domestic trade and international trade by transporting goods or passengers via sea to all around the world. There are different types of shipping service and kinds of cargo in order to serve different needs including feeder vessel, tankers, container ships, bulk carries and specialist ships (World Shipping Council, 2014). According to China Daily Information Co. (2012), there is high demand  in merchant navy industry due to freight transport capacity and loading volumes steadily rising in the moment. Therefore, it is important for merchant navy company to invest in new shipping service to cope with the demand. Company Background – China Shipping (Group) Company China Shipping (Group) Company is one of the largest shipping companies in China with approximately 47,000 employees worldwide. It was incorporated as international shipping line since 1997 and operates under the direct administration of Council of the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Li Shaode is the chairman of the company and it has over 100 branches across different regions and countries, also is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The another five holding companies owned by China Shipping (Group) Company are located in Hong Kong, north America, Europe, Southeast Asia and West Asia. The core business activities of China Shipping (Group) include shipping of oil tankers, special cargo ship passenger ships and container vessels as well as other related businesses like terminal management, finance and investment, engineering, integrated logistics, shipping agency, air cargo forwarding, container manufacturing, human resources, trading and information technology (China Shipping, 2 012). Case study China Shipping (Group) Company currently wants to decide whether to market new shipping service now. The marketing management estimated that if performs a market study (at a cost of  ¥30,000), there is a 60% chance that the study will return in favorable results (referred to as a local success) and a 40% chance that the study will return in unfavorable results (referred to as a local failure). If a local success is observed, there is an 80% chance that new shipping service will be national success. If a local failure is observed, there is only a 30% chance that new shipping service will be national success. The marketing management thinks that market shipping new service nationally successful that the expected profits (excluding the cost of the market study) will be  ¥1,600,000 however if the market shipping new service nationally failure then it expected loss of  ¥700,000(excluding the cost of the market study). However absence of market study, there are equal chances of natio nal success and national failure after if China Shipping (Group) Company decide to market nationally.  Therefore now the marketing management has to determine the best strategy that China Shipping (Group) Company should adopt. Excel According to the decision tree above, the optimal decision for China Shipping (Group) Company is to carry out test market and then market nationally if national success then the company will have return in expected profit of  ¥654,000 compared to do not conduct test market only have expected profit of  ¥450,000. Sensitivity analysis Assuming the probability of national success after the market study will decrease by 15% and the probability of national success without market study will increase by 10%. If a local success is observed, the new probability will decrease from 80% to 65% that new shipping service will be national success. If a local failure is observed, the new probability will decrease from 30% to 15% that new shipping service will be will be national success. However absence of market study and immediately market nationally, the new probability will increase from 50% to 60% to be national success. According to the sensitivity analysis above, after market study and market nationally the expected monetary value (EMV) of local success will decrease from profit  ¥1,110,000 to  ¥765,000 compared to the base case however the expected monetary value (EMV) of and market nationally after local failure will remain the same as loss of  ¥30,000 compared to the base case. The final expected monetary value (EMV) of conduct test market decision will have an expected profit of  ¥447,000 compared to the base case have  ¥654,000. However absence of market study and whether market nationally, the final expected monetary value (EMV) of local success will increase from profit  ¥450,000 to  ¥680,000 compared to the base case. Comparing the decision of conduct or do not conduct test market from the new probabilities, China Shipping (Group) Company’s optimal decision is do not conduct test market and then market nationally then the expected profit will be  ¥680,000. However according to the base case, China Shipping (Group) Company will only get the expected profit of  ¥654,000 after conduct test market and market nationally. Therefore, with the changes will allow the marketing management sees the impact of sensitivity analysis and compare to the base case. It allows the company to understand the overall decision whether market new shipping  service nationally with or without market study. Through sensitivity analysis, the company know that the value of the probabilities are sensitive and it will affect the expected profit and decision of the company market the new shipping service with or without test market. Conclusion To conclude, if a small change in the value of one of the causes a change in the recommended decision alternative, the company will have different outcome. However, the expected value is highly sensitive to the changes of probabilities and it will have significant effect on the decision making of the company. Therefore the expected values of each decision are evaluated to determine optimal model in order for company to do decision making. Decision tree is a diagram that shows the possible courses of actions, the potential event which is states of nature for each outcome together with the potential outcomes and associated possibilities. It is a useful analytical tool for carrying range of alternative courses of actions and the possible outcomes, also allow company to understand the uncertainty in decision making (Drury, 2012). Therefore, decision tree analysis is important for China Shipping (Group) Company to understand the how the different probabilities will affect the expected val ue under risk and uncertainty in order to make optimal decision in the investment. Recommendation From the decision tree analysis above carried out, it suggested China Shipping (Group) Company have to understand the risk and uncertainty in order to choose the optimal decision in the investment. However comparing the scenario to base case, if a local success is observed and the new probability will be 65% that new shipping service will be national success; if a local failure is observed and the new probability will be 15% that new shipping service will be will be national success. Absence of market study and immediately market nationally, the new probability will be 60% of national success. It showed that with the new probabilities, China Shipping (Group) Company’s optimal decision is do not conduct test market and then market nationally then the expected profit will be  ¥680,000. However according to the base case, China Shipping (Group) Company will only get the expected profit of  ¥654,000 after conduct test market and market nationally. Therefore, it suggested that China Shipping (Group) Company to look into the  probabilities of each decision and the expected value from its probabilities in order to maximize the investment with optimal decision. List of references Drury, C. (2012) Management and cost accounting. 8th edn. Andover: Cengage Learning, pp. 278-292. World Shipping Council. (2014) About the industry. [online] Available at: http://www.worldshipping.org/about-the-industry. [Accessed: 31 March 2014]. China Daily Information Co. (2012) China leads in shipping industry. [online] Available at: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-08/04/content_15644653.htm. [Accessed: 29 March 2014]. China Shipping. (2012) Company Profile. [online] Available at: http://www.cnshipping.com/en/aboutus/companyprofile/index.shtml. [Accessed: 29 March 2014]. Kirkwood, C.W. (2002) Decision Trees. [online] Available at: http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/ONLINECOURSE/R4Decision.pdf. [Accessed: 31 March 2014]. Bibliography Lucey, T.(2003). Management and cost accounting. 5th edn. London: Cengage. pp. 321-343. Pannell, David J.(2013). Sensitivity analysis: strategies, methods, concepts, examples. [online] Available at: http://dpannell.fnas.uwa.edu.au/dpap971f.htm.[Accessed: 31 March 2014].

Lord of the Flies Essay

In the novel Lord of the Flies, the author places a group of children in a situation where there are no grown ups to control them. On an island, faraway from civilisation, it is up to the schoolboys to establish a new society with new rules, so that they can live together. But their attempt at an ordered life soon falls apart and each of them is driven by an inner beast, which tempts them into evil. The novel suggests that even though man has evolved over the centuries, becoming civilized and leaving the cave for the city, the savage within him still remains. Disconnected from the restrictions of society, he slips back into a life where the strong dominate through fear, and there is no place for the weak other than as blind followers. It raises a very simple yet important question – do the strong always hurt the weak? Hunting is one clear theme from the text, which implies that the author’s answer to this question is ‘yes’. Since the beginning, the boys get classed according to their strength: Ralph is chosen as the chief, the littluns are left to themselves, Piggy and Simon are largely ignored and Jack becomes the leader of the hunters. Jack wants to be the one to provide ‘meat’ for the tribe. Yet, as time goes by, he seems to become more obsessed by the thrill of killing, feeling a â€Å"compulsion to track down and kill† that is â€Å"swallowing him up. † When the boys hunt the sow suckling its piglets, they choose the weakest and most innocent of preys. The killing is described almost as a sexual act indicating the amount of pleasure it gave them: â€Å"Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her†. In the island’s government, Jack also uses his power to hurt the weak to establish his authority. He shows off his hunting skills to convince the boys that he will be a better leader and give better protection against the feeble. When Roger kills Piggy, Jack screams, â€Å"See? See? That’s what you’ll get! † His set of laws is enforced through fear and punishment, and even when Ralph is alone and defenceless, he wants to hunt him down and kill him. Although Jack and Roger are the most obvious examples of strong hurting the weak, most of the other boys also have the same instinct. Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in! † they chant as they act out their hunt around the bonfire and do a savage dance. The performance seems to carry them into a hypnotic trance, which leads to the vicious killing of Simon. By the end of the novel, even the littluns have gone wild. Carried away by fear and violence, they join the hunt for Ralph. It is easy to see that Lord of the Flies reflects a very pessimistic view of human nature. The author seems to judge that the desire to hurt the weak is an inherent instinct in man. The thesis definitely holds true in the world showed in the book. But to fully understand whether it is true or not, it is important to apply it to the real world as well. There are countless examples in everyday life and history that support the thesis question. In 1996, the sports accessories giant Nike was hauled to court for exploiting children under sixteen to work in their sweatshops in Indonesia (Harsono, 1996). Not only was the company breaking Child Labor Laws, it was making the children work like slaves in terrible working conditions. They were being paid the official minimum wage, which was less that $2. 17 per day allowing Nike to make exorbitant profits. Children form the weakest section of human society and therefore are often hurt and exploited. But they in turn, can also become the tormentor for others weaker than themselves. We have all seen kids throwing stones at helpless dogs or stamping on ants just for fun. Playgrounds are filled with bullies who torment the meek. As Golding would say, the instinct to hurt seems to be present in us from birth. In another sensational example of people using their power to abuse the weak, The Independent (Coonan, 2006) recently featured an article revealing the ‘casting couch’ in the Chinese film industry. A Chinese actress Zhang Yu had blown the whistle on a number of famous directors and producers who only agreed to give roles in exchange for sex. And this is not an uncommon scenario. Life seems to be full of people who use their power to get what they want from those in their control. A recent film, The Hostel, explores this desire to hurt in humans, exposing it as a sickness. It is about a different kind of prostitution, where the powerless victims are sold to buyers who get pleasure torturing them. The movie shows the ‘beast’ in human nature at its worst. And the most terrifying is that the writer claims that its storyline is based on reports of true incidents. Yet, despite such strong evidence of support, one can’t help but find Golding’s worldview to be slightly one-sided as there are plenty of examples, which contradict it as well. It is true that people exist who enjoy hurting the weak. But it is also true that people exist who devote their entire life to protecting them. To accept unconditionally that the strong always want to harm the helpless, is to forget the Mother Theresas and the Nelson Mandelas of this world. The thesis ignores the human rights workers, lawyers, medical aides who work tirelessly for the cause of the weak. In the Genesis (1: 1-25), God is said to create light and darkness, water and earth, bird and beast. And so, just as there is evil, there is also good. It is a duality that is inherent in life. Is the desire to hurt the weak instinctive in man? In the imaginary world of the Lord of the Flies the answer is ‘yes’. But in real life, the issue is too complex for so absolute an answer. We cannot arrive at the truth by simply ignoring the better side of human nature and considering only the worst or vice versa. Golding’s outlook is all-inclusive and too generalized. The novel itself gives the first seed of doubt in the form of Simon. He helps the littluns collect fruit to eat. For every Jack in this world, there exists at least one Simon. If it were a universal truth that deep down all humans feel a desire to hurt the weak, his presence would be hard to explain indeed. Reference http://www.albionmonitor.com/9606a/nikelabor.html