Should Violent Media Be Banned Essay - 818 Words

Should violent media be banned? Many teenagers are now being introduced into playing or watching violent media at very young ages and society are wondering if they should be concerned about it; they are wondering whether it can cause aggressive behaviour within the children/teenagers. Violent video games and violent action films normally have age restriction son them so that children under the age of 15 or in some cases 18 cannot buy them. You see many teenagers with these games and movies as parents to buy the media for them, this can then be argued if they have parents consent it is okay for them to play them on the other hand the age restrictions are there for a reason and should be listened to. As well as being bought by parents,†¦show more content†¦The result of this shown that those children who observed the aggressive behaviour from the role models were more aggressive towards the Bobo doll that the children that were not exposed to any violent behaviour. This study does have some disadvantages as it lacks ecological validity and is not a real life situation. This illuminates that aggression can be developed through watching violent actions. Therefore watching and playing violent media could have the same effect on teenagers. Exposing them to this kind of material could lead to them being more aggressive. If the media was banned there could be a possibility that there would be that there would be a decrease in violent behaviour in society. However it could be argued against banning violent media. Some teenagers do enjoy playing popular games and for them it could be a quite enjoyable experience what they can play with their friends and socialise. The teenagers do have their parents consent to play these games so therefore should be able to play these games and watch movies. Only some teenagers of society are seriously aggressive to a point it would be a problem so some teenagers could argue that not all teenagers are aggressive and violent media shouldn’t be banned as it is not fair to most of the population who is not dangerously aggressive from being exposed to this media who want to enjoy the media. It could be said that aggression in teenagers could be aShow MoreRelatedBanning Violent Video Games On Children1545 Words   |  7 Pages Banning Violent Video Games A child is killing police officers. A teenager is hiring prostitutes to potentially kill them. He is using weapons such as guns, chainsaws, and knives to kill and commit horrible crimes. Thousands of children and teens participate in these actions daily. How? Violent Video games such as Doom, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto are just a few of the games that are full of these awful actions. The Harvard Mental Health Letter states, â€Å"The Pew Research Center reportedRead MoreViolent Video Games Should Not Be Banned1170 Words   |  5 Pages2014 Violent Video Games Should Not be Banned Violent acts committed by children seem to occur on a monthly basis. What is to blame for this trend? Many people try to find, what they would believe to be, a likely source for the violence once. Some people turn to violent video games as the reason why violent acts occur amongst children. Some would even argue, that violent video games in general should be banned. Violent video games should not be banned because they do not cause violent behaviorsRead MoreResearch Paper on Video Game Violence1483 Words   |  6 PagesKendal Hill Mrs. Van Fleet Block 3 10 December 2011 Video games and Violent Behavior True or False: Violent videogames cause children to become more aggressive. Sorry, that was a trick question. Despite much bandying of statistics and loud talking by critics on both sides of the argument, the real answer is that there is no real answer—at least not one that’s been proved scientifically (Zipp). Video games are an appealing target for a public figure in search of a crusade. Movies and musicRead MoreThe Negative Impact of Pornography on Society Essay924 Words   |  4 PagesMcDonalds restaurants in the United States by a margin of at least three to one. In 1985, nearly 100 full-length pornographic films were distributed to adult theaters providing estimated annual box office sales of $50 million. Pornography in the media is understood as a violation, through the use of audio-visual techniques, of the right to privacy of the human body in its male or female nature, a violation which reduces the human person and human body to an anonymous object of misuse for the purposeRead MoreViolent Video Games Should Be Banned Essay1432 Words   |  6 Pagestechnology of violent video game become more and more advanced. The effects of media violence on video games has been increasing in people’s daily life. It is still be an issue and have a lot of debate on whether or not violent video games should be banned. In this essay, violent video games can be defined by RWJF Blog Team as those video game which represent violence as the best or only way to resolve conflict.( Pioneering ideas 2010). This essay will discussed by two reasons for violent video gameRead MoreEssay on censorship846 Words   |  4 Pagesplays, letters, and so on that are considered to be obscene, blasphemous, or politically unacceptable† (MccGwire 4). Censorship should be enforced because it is needed into today’s society. Censorship needs to be used in media, hate speech, and obscene material. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;To begin with, the media has very negative effect on society as a whole. â€Å"The mass media—movies, television, and recordings—need to be regulated, and not only because of appeals to irresponsible lust†(Lowenthal 19)Read More`` Not Here : If We re Truly Serious About Stopping Massacres Like1687 Words   |  7 Pagesoften take violent steps when they face these issues. Muller and other researchers claim that when incidents like ‘running amok’ are decreasing among Malay tribes, violence and killing in industrial societies were rising. In order to stop mass shooting and massacre it is important to eliminate evil from society. Argument presented by the Metcalf seems right and accurate because incidents of mass killings are driven by the evil residing inside the human brain. Increasing popularity of violent video gamesRead MoreViolent Video Games Should Not Be Banned821 Words   |  4 PagesIntroduction From my opinion video games violent video games should not be banned. Today I will convince you why violent video games should not be banned. I will cover three points about risk factors, nature of the game and the studies claiming they have no link these all have things in common and they obviously will make you change your mind. First point Many Risk Factors are Associated with Youth Violence, but Video Games Have Nothing to do with it One of the main Surgeon generals has madeRead MoreThe Importance Of Violent Music805 Words   |  4 PagesViolent music; many people have different opinions about it. Can music create violence or can it not? Is is non harmful or is it destroying the youth of the world? Should it be banned for being violent and provoking violent behavior or it should not? No matter the opinion, recent studies have shown that violent music can create violence. Violence in all types of media can create violence. Music should stop provoking violence with their harmful lyrics. Instead of writing about guns, drugs, alcoholRead MoreThe Media And Its Effects On The United States1372 Words   |  6 Pagesof guns because of rare mass shootings that the media portrays to the general public. The media never shows the public the good that firearms do, the way firearms saves lives and keeps people safe. Gun control advocates believe that minimizing the availability of purchasing guns will decrease gun violenc e. This is ignorant and not a fool-proof answer. This issue has no definite answer; many people are misinformed and willingly accept what the media portrays as they attempt to minimize what many

Analyzing How Businesses Cook The Books With Reference For...

Introduction There is no such thing as a perfect business. Although many enterprises express the illusion that they internal workings are flawless, the majority of them are being torn apart from within. This can be through many different ways, but all end in a hefty court case, possible bankruptcy or similar punishments which are associated with financial crimes. One such crime is the manipulation and misrepresentation of financial statements of a business, to hide expenses, improve earnings per share (EPS) or to attract new investors. This is known as financial statement fraud or colloquially labelled â€Å"cooking the books†. (Grossman St Amour, 2014) These crimes can have a significant impact on the business, as their stock could be driven†¦show more content†¦However, any type of fraud is a crime and therefore must be dealt with accordingly. The most common varieties of financial statement fraud are: Improper Revenue Recognition Recording revenues before a sale is made, or before payment has been received seems like a feeble way to alter the books, but the method is highly effective and can accumulate to large sums of money over the long term. Listing items which are not sales, as sales, or resending tax invoices to debtors (to renew the terms and improve the accounts receivable account) in order to boast revenues which are yet to exist is the most common method of financial statement fraud. In fact, a study showed that 38% of the 403 cases involved this type of fraud. (Bradford C, 2014) Manipulating Expenses or Liabilities Businesses can also remove some accounts and reinsert them somewhere else in order to increase EPS or reduce tax liability. This can be done by listing expense accounts as capital acquisitions, thus, essentially listing ordinary debited expenses as credited owner’s equity and in turn falsely boosting profits. Other methods of manipulating accounts involve excluding accounts payables from the books altogether to reduce liability. The same fraud is also performed with loans and other short term liabilities by listing them as non-current, improving the equity of the business and increasing the share price. (ACFE, 2014) This was the method of fraud implemented in the WorldCom scandal, which is still

Responsible Leadership Business Communication

Question: Describe about the Responsible Leadership for Business Communication. Answer: Responsible Leadership- It is well said with power lot of responsibilities naturally come. This is true in case of Leadership, it is expected from a Leader to be a Responsible Leader. A responsible Leader should have qualities of Motivation, Good Communication, should be empowering and convincing to its peoples and engage in new vision of bringing development and growth. Leader is also responsible for following ethics, considering culture, environment, social impact, Stakeholders view and most importantly possess high level of Decision Making Capability. In this assignment we have to prepare an Info graphic to depict the Model of Responsible Leadership- Info graphic Info graphic is the form of technology to represent the information graphically with visual display of Information, data or knowledge to be presented in a clear and well understood form. Info graphic has mainly these sections- Theme, visual colours and graphics and Information. People use Info graphic tool to present their information globally. At present there are several online Interfaces available for designing Info graphic. We have selected Venn age for designing Info graphic. Venngage- Venggage provides a user friendly Interface with facility of Templates and Editor to design the Info graph conveniently. It is one of the popular Interfaces available online. It also provides the facility to publish the Info graphic on Internet after creating on its platform too. Snap shot of Info graph Theme Model Main Model Conclusion- Info graphic designing is one of the popular technique to present Information Globally. Designing a good Info graphic requires a good level of Expertise of technical, graphical as well knowledge representation. This was a simple Student level Knowledge and expertise of depiction of Info graphic. This assignment has no doubt increased my level of professional skills and will be beneficial in my entire career. References Crevani, L, Lindgren, M and Packendorff , J 2007, Leadership Virtues and Management Knowledge: Questioning the Unitary Command perspective in Leadership Research,Moral Foundations of Management Knowledge, UK, pp159-176. Eberly, MB, Johnson, MD, Hernandez, M and Avolio BJ 2013, An integrative process model of leadership, American Psychologist, 68, 6, pp.427-443. Owens, BP and Hekman DR 2012, Modeling how to grow: an inductive examination of humble leader behaviors, contingencies, and outcomes, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 55. No. 4, 787-818 Pulakos and OLeary, 2011. Why is Performance Management Broken?, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4, 146-164 Venngage platform- www.venngage .com

Liberal Principles and Minority Rights free essay sample

Liberal Principles and Minority Rights BY shax0521 We live in a world with differences, biases and hindrances we tend to take into account to be able to cope up with the changes happening around us. These differences could be between races,religion, culture, language, etc. But within a country, these differences also exist. Most countries are composed of diversed culture that divides the society to the majority and the minorities that establishes cultural differences related problems. It is often heard that minorities are deprived from certain freedom and the majority avails most of the best previleges that could e given. Minorities are often Judged by different steoreotypes and prejudices that establishes conflict between the groups. The main point of Prof. Hans Ingvar Roth, head of the sweden research team of the University of Lund in his article Liberal Principles and Minority rights, minority groups particularly in a liberal democratic society should be able to deal with the existing problems confronting their existence and culture in relation to the liberal principles through group-targeted measures. We will write a custom essay sample on Liberal Principles and Minority Rights or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page These group-targeted measures will be further explained throughout the article critique. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief summary of Roths article Liberal Principles and Minority Rights, what are the liberal principles of a liberal democratic society how it affects the condition of the minorities and my point of view as a reader. It will also tackle the different features of a liberal society, the problems encountered by minorities and the possible solution to the problems. In other words, the life of the minorities in a liberal democratic society. According to Roth, inequalities in modern western societies are faced by the inorities particularly ethnic, racial and religious which sometimes seen to result to discrimination. The minorities are confronted by social, political and cultural inequalities which were percieved to be the consequences as a memberofa liberal democratic society. Moreover, the majority enjoys the benefits and priveleges that were given by the society. In relation to this, to know the reason why these inequalities occur, we must know the grass roots of this condition. Roth stated in his article his definition ofa liberal democratic society. According to him, a liberal democratic society is charcterized by the certain institutions or norms that are seen among many of its citizens as essential guidelines for the organization of society. A liberal democratic society has its liberal principles namely, majoritarian democracy, free moblity, market economy, meritocracy and neutrality. The first principle is the majoritarian democracy or the rule of many . This concept of democracy implies disadvantages to the minorities because literally, it shows how minorities are outnumbered by the majority in terms of their cultural survival. As stated in the article, this idea of democracy have serious consequences for defenseless minorities. Furthermore, another liberal principle which is a burden to minorities is free mobility where people get to move freely without any intent hindrances but it has its limit in reality. Roth expounded it as the ideal of open borders for refugees from non- european countries in contrast to the migration policies implemented on various principle is the easy access of majority population into minority territories that could threaten the cultural survivability of the latter which is also dependent upon its eography. Moreover, the market economy as a principle which assumes freedom of choice that is considered to be the prevailing model for arranging economic activities systems in liberal societies. Roth added that according to many of his critics, the market economy could lead the majority to cultural supremacy over the minorities where the former has more access to important resources that could affect the cultural life of a country. It is considered to be the most efficient among other economic systems. Another liberal principle is meritocracy. According to Roth, merit should administer the appropriation of employment and places in higher education. This implies that the majority will dominate the labour-market of the society and eventually earn the highest ranks in offices. This would result to the alienation of the minorities in any encounter of several forms of higher education because the majority gets the best priveleges they could have in the society. In addition, Roth cited another principle which is neutrality or even-handedness. This occurs when the government doesnt interfere with certain policy decisions uided by religious views or substantial philiosophies of life and this kind of action implies contradiction to relgious minorities and securalism in some way influence the society. The abovementioned principles in any circumstances could stand in conflict with one another. As we have tackled the 5 principles of a liberal democratic society, it is also important to know some features of this kind of society which could have significant consequences on the cultural standing of different minorities in the society. The first feature is lingua franca which refers to having a common language in the society for he people have one language they could use to communicate with each other. Roth stated in his article that the language is an important element for the cultural identity of a group. Eventually, the language of the majority will be the lingua franca due to its long history in the country and the minorities must accept it and use to be able to communicate with others. However, this doesnt mean that the languages from the minorities cannot be recognized as official languages in significant bailiwick of society such as education or law. Another feature of a liberal democratic society is nation building. Roth referred it as the creation of various institutions, traditions and spheres of society in which it will be affected by the long history of the majority group. In this case, it stresses that even without ethnic or cultural nationalism; the majority culture is advantageous because of its historical standing in the society. According to Roth, cultural preservation of minority groups depend on the members itself. They should have the best interest in maintaining and preserving their culture. A part from Roths article tackled about the shared values in the ulticultural debate for minority rights where possessing a secure cultural belonging could be valuable in a way that it is an important condition to an individual well being or it could be a crucial part of a ones personal identity or as a framework adapting the majoritys culture and integration or affiliate with the majority on the other side. However, they have one common view that minority groups should not face anu unfair or excessive burdens in maintaining their cultures. Furthermore, if a minority group had encountered am intense discrimination from the other groups in he society, they should pay for the serious cultural disadvantage that the minority group faces. In other words, cultural diversity should be reagarded as a valuable objective for the whole society and a shared public responsibility to secure the preservation of the minority culture. However, if a certain minority in question have encountered no grim history of discrimination, and its cultural changes was due to voluntary change of its own members, it conditions become more unclear. The members itself should pay the price of maintaining or preserving their culture given hat they have been attracted to the majority culture. In addition, the majority is not coerced to share a costs of preserving that particular minority. As discussed earlier, there are ethnic and religious minorities in a society and their situation could be less favourable in certain conditions. Roth emphasized in his article that cultural influence by the majority usually occurs to the minorities that live in so-called open agricultural territories, small in size and the history of discrimination. Furthermore, it was stressed that shared language, religion and a istory of discrimination or an idea of geographical location make the minorit group maintain their culture. There are minority groups that prefer to attain independence and others to lower their claims and instead strive for various forms of cultural autonomy. In the entire article, the two main problems of minorities in relation to the liberal principles are cultural preservation and problems of integration. According to him, problems of preservation arise when liberal principles such as free mobility and the endorsement of a market economy may threaten a traditional form of community life. Due to the dominance of the majority in terms of size, resources and historical standing, these principles work to their cultural advantage. Furthermore, the practice of having a lingua franca gives more disadvantage to the minorities in terms of preservation of their own language. The abovementioned problems has its group-targeted measures so that the minority culture will survive. These are metaphors the fence, the ladder, the springboard and the plane. With these meaures, there could be a continous existence of minority groups in liberal democratic societies. Through the fence it ould take form of exceptions from laws that burden traditional cultural practices or even property rights that would prevent majority population from buying lands from the minority territories. In addition, Roth used the cultural autonomy with regards to certain forms of legislation such as family as an example of a fence which protects the minority from being influenced by the family customs of the majority. Another measure is the ladder wherein group representation should be practiced by religious and ethnic groups in order to have a level of representation in the society. This metaphor can neutralize and attenuate unfair thresholds or hindrances such as blind spots, various forms of animosity, stereotypes and nepotism. To be able to gain entrance in the main sphere of society in spite of the diminish this hindrances in the remote future. The first measure or method is called the springboard that would present opportunities to minorities such as labour market and higher education in instances that they face discrimination and prJudices in the society. According to Roth, the springboard is not enough for minorities to be able to enter to such society that is hy the plane was created. It is considered to be the supplementary method of the springboard. It aims to alter engrained and stubborn attitudes and habits among the majority population through information campaigns and cross-cultural meeting places. From what I understand in the Roths article, inequalities of minorities in the society are caused by the liberal principles. I agree on it due to the different situations presented in the article. These principles namely majoritarian democracy, free mobility, meritocracy, market economy and neutrality are advantageous to the ajority population and affect the minoritys cultural preservation. The articles premises are still valid according to the current situations in most western countries. His interpretation of the evidences presented were likely to lead us to the same conclusion that the liberal principles should be improved rather than to replace them with something different in order to solve such inequalities in such society. His arguments regarding the disadvantages of the minorities in the society such as the lingua franca where the majoritys language will be the official language of the ociety and meritocracy where the majority gets the highest ranks in the offices had the biggest impact to me which I agree on. If we compare it to the philippines, a non- liberal democratic country but compose of a majority and minorities, due to the geographical boundary and size of population of christians with tagalog as their language is considered to be the official language of the country, officially called as Filipino and in terms of meritocracy, the muslims as a minority experience biases regarding employment in government and other fields of offices because of different stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination.

L.L. Bean Item forecasting case study Essay Example

L.L. Bean Item forecasting case study Paper Harvard Business School 9-893-003 Rev. September 7, 1993 L. L. Bean, Inc. Item Forecasting and Inventory Management When you order an item from an L. L. Bean catalog and were out of stock, Im the guy to blame. And if we end up liquidating a bunch of womens wool cashmere blazers, its my fault. No one understands how tough it is. Mark Fasold, Vice President† Inventory Management, was describing the challenge of item forecasting at L. L. Bean. Forecasting demand at the aggregate level is a piece of cake†if were running short of expectations, we Just dip deeper into our customer list and send out some more atalogs. But we have to decide how many chamois shirts and how many chino trousers to buy, and if were too high on one and too low on the other, its no solace to know that we were exactly right on the average. Top management understands this in principle, but they are understandably disturbed that errors at the item level are so large. In a catalog business like ours, you really capture demand. Thats the good news. The bad news is, you learn what a lousy Job youre doing trying to match demand with supply. Its not like that in a department store, say, where a customer ay come in looking for a dress shirt and lets the display of available shirts generate the demand for a particular item. Or if a customer has some particular item in mind but its not available, he or she may Just walk out of the store. In a department store you never know the real demand or the consequences of understocking. But in our business every sale is generated by a customer demanding a particular item, either by mail or by phone. If we havent got it, and the customer cancels the order, we know it. Rol Fessenden, Manager†Inventory Systems, added: We know that forecast errors are inevitable. Competition, the economy, weather are all factors. But demand at the item level is also affected by customer behavior, which is very hard to predict, or even to explain in retrospect. Every so often some item takes off and becomes a runaway, far exceeding our demand forecasts. Once in a while we can detect the trend early on and, with a cooperative vendor, get more product manufactured in a hurry and chase demand; most of the time, however, the runaways leave us Just turning customers away. We will write a custom essay sample on L.L. Bean Item forecasting case study specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on L.L. Bean Item forecasting case study specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on L.L. Bean Item forecasting case study specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer And for every runaway, theres a dog item that sells way below expectations and that you couldnt even give away to customers. Annual costs of lost sales and backorders were conservatively estimated to be $11 million; costs associated with having too much of the wrong inventory were an additional $10 million. This case was prepared by Professor Arthur Schleifer, Jr. as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 1992 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to ttp://www. hbsp. harvard. edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means†electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise†without the permission of Harvard Business School. 893-003 L. L. Bean Background In 1912 Leon Leonwood Bean invented the Maine Hunting Shoe (a combination of lightweight leather uppers and rubber bottoms). He obtained a list of nonresident Maine hunting license holders, prepared a descriptive mail-order circular, set up hop in his brothers basement in Freeport, Maine, and started a nationwide mail- order business. The inauguration of the U. S. Post Offices domestic parcel post service in that year provided a means of delivering orders to customers. When L. L. Bean died in 1967, at the age of 94, sales had reached $4. 75 million, his company employed 200 people, and an annual catalog was distributed to a mailing list of 600,000 people. L. L. s Golden Rule had been Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings, and theyll always come back for more. When Leon Gorman, L. L. s grandson, succeeded him as president in 1967, he sought to expand and modernize the business without deviating from his grandfathers Golden Rule. By 1991, L. L. Bean, Inc. as a major cataloger, manufacturer, and retailer in the outdoor sporting specialty field: Catalog sales in 1990 were $528 million, with an additional $71 million in sales from the companys 50,000 square-foot retail store in Freeport. Twenty-two different catalogs (often referred to as books by company employees)†114 million pieces in all†were mailed that year. There were six million active customers. The mail-order business had been giving way to tele phone orders after the company installed nationwide 800 service in 1986. By 1991, 80% of all orders came in by telephone. Major direct- mail competitors included Lands End, Eddie Bauer, Talbots, and Orvis. A 1991 Consumer Reports survey on customer satisfaction with mail-order companies found L. L. Bean heading the list for overall satisfaction in every category for which they offered merchandise. In explaining why L. L. Bean had not expanded its retail operations beyond the one store in Freeport, Leon Gorman contrasted the direct- arketing (catalog) and retail businesses. The two approaches require very different kinds of management. Mail-order marketers are very analytic, quantitatively oriented. Retailers have to be creative, promotional, pizzazzy, merchandise-oriented. Its tough to assemble one management team that can handle both functions. 1 Product Lines L. L. Beans product line was classified hierarchically (see Exhibit 1). At the highest level of aggregation were Merchandise Groups: mens and womens accessories, mens and womens apparel, mens and womens footwear, camping equipment, etc. Within each Group were Demand Centers; for instance, womens apparel had as Demand Centers knit shirts, sweaters, pants, skirts, Jackets and pullovers, etc. Each Demand Center was further broken down into Item Sequences; for example, womens sweaters consisted of Midnight Mesa Handknit Cardigans, Indian Point Pullovers, Lambswool Turtlenecks, and about twenty other products. Item Sequences were further broken down into individual items, distinguished primarily by color; it was at this item level that forecasts had to be issued and, ultimately, purchase commitments had to be made. About 6,000 items appeared in one or another of the catalogs that were issued in the course of a year. 1 L. L. Bean, Inc. Corporate Strategy, Harvard Business School Case (581-159), 1981. 21tems were further broken down by size into stock-keeping units, or SWs. This was done by applying standard size-distribution breakdowns. Although an inappropriate distribution could lead to excessive inventory of some sizes and stockouts of others, management concern was directed to the item level, since there was no evidence of a better system than assuming that the distribut ion of demand by size would behave in the uture as it had in the past, and would be indistinguishable from one item to another. Items were also classified into three seasonal categories (spring, fall, and all year), and into two additional categories (new or never out) that described whether the item was a recent or more permanent member of the companys offerings, and consequently characterized the amount of historical demand data available for the item. The Bean Catalogs The major catalogs†spring, summer, fall, and Christmas†each came out in several versions. A full catalog, running from 116 to 152 pages, went to Beans regular ustomers. A smaller prospect catalog was circulated to potential customers; it contained primarily a subset of items from the full catalog. (Bean identified such prospect customers in a variety of ways, for example, through the purchase of mailing lists, or by recording recipients of gifts from other Bean customers. ) In addition, a number of specialty catalogs†Spring Weekend, Summer Camp, Fly Fishing, etc. † presented items that were unique to that catalog, as well as some items found in the major catalogs. There was some overlap in circulation: the best ustomers received almost all the catalogs, and those customers known, through past purchasing behavior, to be interested in various specialties might receive an appropriate specialty catalog in addition to the seasonal full catalogs. Item Forecasting Each catalog had a gestation period of about nine months, and its creation involved merchandising, design, product, and inventory specialists. For example, the initial conceptualization for the Fall, 1991 season began in October, 1990. Preliminary forecasts of total sales for each catalog were made in December. Product managers eveloped preliminary item forecasts by book in the December, 1990 to March, 1991 time frame. Layout and pagination of the books began in January, 1991. Initial commitments to vendors were made in January and February. In the subsequent months, as the catalogs took shape, item forecasts were repeatedly revised and finally frozen by May 1. By early July a black-and-white version of the layout was available internally. At this point, the product managers handed off their product line to the inventory managers. The completed Fall 1991 catalogs were in the hands of customers around August 1 . As the catalog generated demand, inventory managers decided on additional commitments to vendors, scheduled replenishments, handled backorders, etc. This catalog remained active through January, 1992; inventory left over at that time might be liquidated, marked down and sold through special L. L. Bean promotions, or carried over to the next year. Scott Sklar was a buyer for mens shirts. He described the forecasting process as follows: Four or five of us†my inventory buyer, some product people, and I†meet to forecast shirt sales by book. We start by ranking various items in terms of expected ollar sales. Then we actually assign dollars in accordance with the ranking. Theres discussion, arguments, complaints. People invent rules of thumb. I say invent, because there arent any good rules of thumb. We set this up on an Excel spreadsheet. We look at the book forecast and make adjustments accordingly. We look at the total of forecasted shirt sales and check it for reality. Does it feel good? Does it make sense? We do it book by book, item by item, and thats how we get an item level forecast. Of course, when we add a new item, we have to make a Judgment: will this item enerate incremental demand, and if not, from what items is it going to steal demand? And then those items need to be adjusted accordingly. 3 Barbara Hamaluk, a buyer for mens knit shirts, observed that the sum of the item forecasts for a catalog was often at variance with the dollar target for that book. Usually this roll-up comes in on the high side, so you try to reduce forecasts on certain items. Or you can Just say, if were too high by 10%, well Just slash everything across the board by 10%. We really ought to have an intermediate level of forecasts t the Demand Center level, reconcile item forecasts with Demand Center forecasts, and the latter with the book forecast. Production Commitments The typical producti on lead time for most domestic orders was eight to twelve weeks. (Of course, deliveries against a commitment could be scheduled to conform to the anticipated pattern of in-season demand. With some vendors who cooperated with L. L. Beans Quick Response initiative, it was possible, after observing some early- season demand, to place a second order, which would be delivered in sufficient time to meet late-season demand. However, with many domestic and most offshore vendors, lead times were sufficiently long so that it was impractical to place a second commitment order in the course of the season. (In the remainder of this case, then, discussion will be limited to these one-shot commitments. The commitments were generally not equal in size to the forecasts, but were determined in two steps as follows: First, historical forecast errors (expressed as AIF ratios the ratio of actual demand to forecast demand) were computed for each item in the previous year, and the frequency distribution o f these errors was compiled cross items. 3 The frequency distribution of past forecast errors was then used as a probability distribution for the as yet unrealized future forecast errors. For example, if 50% of the forecast errors for new items in the past year had been between 0. and 1. 6, then it would be assumed that with probability 0. 5, the forecast error for any new item in the current year also would fall between 0. 7 and 1. 6. So in such a case, if the frozen forecast for a particular item were 1,000 units, it was then assumed that with probability 0. 5, actual demand for that item would end up being between 700 nd 1,600 units. Next, each items commitment quantity was determined by balancing the individual items contribution margin if demanded against its liquidation cost (or value) if not demanded. Suppose, for example, that an item cost Bean $1 5, would regularly sell for $30, and could be sold at liquidation for $10. The gain for selling a marginal unit would be $30 15 = $15; the loss for failing to sell the marginal unit would be the cost less the liquidation value, i. e. $15 10 = $5. Accordingly, the optimal order size should be the 0. 75 fractile of the items probability distribution of demand. Suppose the 0. 75 fractile of the distribution of forecast errors was 1. 3, and the frozen forecast for that item was for 1,000 units. Then the 0. 75 fractile of the demand distribution would be 1,000 x 1. = 1,300, and Bean would make a commitment for 1,300 units. Rol Fessenden expressed concern that the methodology treated the errors associated with all never out items as equally representative of the forecast errors that might be anticipated for the forecast demand of any never out item (and similarly for new items). mioud think that the error distribution for some of our buyers might be ighter than for other buyers, or that the distribution for womens sweaters might have more dispersion than the distribution for mens footwear, but we cant find any real differences. Also, Im not entirely convinced that we go about estimating contribution margin and liquidation cost correctly. Mark Fasold was worried about the wide dispersion in forecast errors, both for never outs and new items. He was also concerned about the implications of the methodology: If the cost 3This was done separately for new items and for never outs; not surprisingly, the historical error istribution of never outs had less dispersion than that of new items. No other way of segmenting items had revealed significantly different distributions of forecast errors. 4 associated with understocking exceeds the cost of overstocking, which is the usual case here, we end up committing to more than the frozen forecast. And for new items, about which we obviously know very little, the excess over the frozen forecast is even greater than for never outs. The buyers are understandably upset when we commit to more than they forecast; they perceive us as going way out on a limb for new items. Exhibit 1 5

Analyse how Frayn presents relationships between adults and children in Spies Essay Example

Analyse how Frayn presents relationships between adults and children in Spies Essay Example Analyse how Frayn presents relationships between adults and children in Spies Essay Analyse how Frayn presents relationships between adults and children in Spies Essay Known, he is known to be in the RAF but his exact whereabouts are unknown to the reader. Stephen catches Mrs. Hayward in the tunnel which commences the gradual uncovering of her secret. When Mr. Hayward is looking for the thermos flask, he at once suspects Keith took it and gives him an ultimatum of either giving back the thermos flask or be given beatings from him. Stephen rushes towards the tunnel and inadvertently bumps into Mrs. Hayward. She responds angrily to Stephen- why are you doing this (pg. 147), but he keeps on repeating the word Thermos. The communication gulf is epitomised through this encounter as Stephen struggles to make out a sentence but still makes Mrs. Hayward understand him. Stephen will not disobey Keith as he is the true comrade and would rather die than go against his chiefs wishes. His attitude relates back to the oath he was forced to say by Keith. As readers, we can see the absurdity of a statement such as Greens the right colour for a bicycle, just as its wrong one for a belt or a bus (pg.17).Clearly, what makes something right or wrong here is simply whether Keith or Stephen do it. We recognise and empathise with the childhood insecurity in Stephen that enables Keith to impose his own Rightness. Paradoxically, he is reluctant to do what Mrs. Hayward and Uncle Peter ask of him. This again expressively highlights the subservience of Stephen and indicates he only follows those who dominate him physically and intellectually (Keith).No adult will dominate a young innocent boy like Stephen. Furthermore, we can see the gradual metamorphosis of Stephen to an adult at the ending of the novel when Stephen decides to take rations to the man (Uncle Peter) living in the barns under the corrugated iron. His behaviour contrasts with the banging on the iron with sticks which we see earlier in the book. Stephen shows his ever-growing manhood as even though the man is sick and hidden and could not compel Stephen physically, Stephen is incapable of ignoring his innate authority as an adult. It also emphasises the fact that Spies is a bildungsroman as it shows the development in maturity of the protagonist Stephen.

The energy flow among organisms of a food chain Assignment

The energy flow among organisms of a food chain - Assignment Example The red squirrel is also well adapted. Firstly, the skin is adapted well for camouflage and protection from the predators. Secondly, their eyes are sensitive to such an extent that they have clear vision in the night and thus can hunt for food. The wood land vole adapts to the changing climate of the deciduous forest via their ability to hibernate. The rodent builds a furrow and enters into a state of dormancy during harsh climates and decreases its metabolic rate and finally coming out of the hibernacula at the time of spring. The weasels are mainly adapted in the ecosystem through their ability change fur color via molting. During molting the weasel sheds the existing layer of fur and slowly alters it to a color that fits the environment. This adaptation makes these organisms successful predators particularly with their ability to blend into the pure white snow Almost all deciduous forests have been a subject to human impact. Due to changes in the atmosphere chemistry, indirect elevation of CO2 has shifted the forest productivity as well as the composition of the forest species has been shifted. A greater factor affecting the population of animal species in the ecosystem is the raised levels of nitrogen deposition. This could have an impact on the specie population within the habitat, litter quality and nutrient mass cycling rates. The major hazard caused by human population is the deforestation. This affects the climate of the ecosystem and is observed to cause changes in the evaporation rate as well as the precipitation rate. Â  In those areas where evaporation increases more than precipitation, soil will tend to become drier, the lake levels will drop, and the rivers will carry less water. Other threats involve the air pollution, global warming and human development. Regarding the population growth of the ecosystem is concerned; the bi otic potential can produce an