Troy Movie Notes

Troy= the movie(post classical depiction) * Troy is the most powerful alliance against the Greeks * Agamemnon wants ‘the world’ all the land * Achilles has disappeared from the army. A boy goes to find him, * Achilles mother is goddess as can’t be killed (Contemp) * Nester persueds Achilles to fight the big guy because of Time. He can’t stand to lose his pride * Achilles, son of Paris * Achilles kills the big guy with one stab * There is a huge feast , thrown by Agamemnon and Helen, to drink to peace, between troy and Sparta * Helen and Paris are lovers behind Menelaus’s back.Hektor goes to see what they are doing. * Helen is afraid to wear the necklace because she is afraid that she will be caught and Paris will be killed or shipped away. Before she met him, she was a ghost. * Agamemnon commands all the Greek forces to fight. * Hektor warns paris not to endanger Troy * Paris kidnapped Helen. Hektor is upset. He talks about his father’s love ( Paris and Helen were already in love with each other, the Gods didn’t give Helen to Paris) * Menelaus wants to kill Helen. â€Å"The Trojans spat in my eye† * He asks Agamemnon to go to war with him. He said yes. Menelaus is very angry and calls to sail after the Trojans * â€Å"If troy falls, I control everything†- Agamemnon. They need Achilles * Nestor said that â€Å"you don’t need to control him, you need to release him. † About Achilles * Achilles is like a secret weapon to the Trojans * Odysseus is in Greece. Agamemnon needs to ask him something. There is a difference to the PCD about how Odysseus is involved in the war * Achilles and Patrokolas are cousins * Achilles doesn’t want to fight for Agamemnon. Odysseus wants him to fight for Greece * Achilles talks to his mother. She thinks that he should fight.She wants his name to become TIME and KLEOS, if he fights â€Å"Your glory walks hand in hand with your doom† * He travels to Troy with the Greeks * Paris and Helen get married in Troy. Hektor and Paris are greeted by their father, Priam in Troy * Hektors wife is Andromache * Briseis is Paris and Hektors cousin * Hektor doesn’t want to see his country fall because of his brother’s selfishness. * Priam has worked 30 years for peace and he will still fight many wars if it means that Paris can be happy. * â€Å"Everything is in the will and hands of the Gods† Priam * Helen- â€Å"Sparta was never my home† * Priam prays to the Gods Hektor cares a lot about family. Everyone is preparing for war- the Trojans. Everyone gives offerings to the Gods * Hektor is incharge of the army * â€Å"honor the gods, love your woman and fight for your country† Hektor * . you know what is beyond that beach. Immortality, take its yours,† Achilles * Give him too many battles and the men will forget who is king. †- Agamemnon * They retreat back to the city and Achilles orders everyone to steal from the Trojans temple * He cuts off the head of the statue of Apollo at the Trojans temple. * Achilles sneaks inside the temple, and the Trojans follow him but they get ambushed.Their temple is destroyed * Achilles fights for him honor, hector fights for his country. â€Å"Why kill you now, prince of Troy when there is no one here to see you fall†- Achilles. He wants people to see it because killing a prince will give him great honor, fame and Time and Kleos * You speak of war as if it is a games, but how many wives for you think will be pained with the loss of their men†- hector * Agamemnon is worried that the thought of power will get to Achilles head and everyone will forget that he is their leader * They kidnap Brisis and give him to Achilles I want what all men want, i just want more† Achilles * Everyone is presenting gifts to Agamemnon even though he didn’t fight. * Young men dying and old men talking. You know to keep out of the politicsà ¢â‚¬ -Odysseus * You came here because you want your name to last the ages† Agamemnon * History remembers kings not soldiers† Agamemnon * Agamemnon takes Brisis for his own. Achilles gets very angry * They want a war, we will give them a war. * The Trojans are buring on the fire because of one youthful desire† * Paris and menlaus fight for Helen Helen tries to run away but hektor finds her. â€Å"Their husbands died because I’m here†-helen * This is about power not love†- hektor * Achilles smashes up his tent * I will stay until Agamemnon groans to have Achilles back†- Achilles * I blame you for nothing, everything is in the hands of the Gods. †- Priam * The Trojans seem very out numbered * The agreement between Agamemnon and Achilles didn’t happen on the second day like in the movie, it happened in the tenth year of the Iliad * The fight takes place in book three of the Iliad â€Å"I see 50,000 men bought here to fight for one man’s greed†- Hektor * I didn’t come here for your wife, I came here for troy† Agamemnon â€Å"I came here for my honour† –menelaus * In the Iliad, Paris was a man before Achilles was born because he got Helen at Theitis and Priams Wedding- Achilles parents. * There was a crow crowing before paris went to fight Menelaus * Because Paris didn’t fight, the Greeks attack the Trojans. Hektor kills MenelausHektor fights with Ajax. He takes a while to die because he is god-like. This happens in book 7 * Menelaus doesn’t die in the Iliad, neither does Ajax.Ajax committees suicide. Menelaus takes Helen back to Sparta in the Iliad * Odysseus and Achilles seem to have a better understanding about the practicalities of war unlike Agamemnon * Odysseus warms Agamemnon about retreating. * The first 8 books of the Iliad have been. * Agamemnon promises Menelaus that he will bring Troy to the ground * â€Å"Hetkor fights for his country, Achi lles fights for his pride† Agamemnon * The Greeks are about to burn Brisis, Achilles prize but Achilles rescues her. * Achilles develops a protective relationship with Brisis. â€Å"Gods envy us because we are mortal† Achilles * Brisis tries to kill Achilles but they end up sleeping with each other. If she wasn’t willing she would have had stabbed him. * It wasn’t until book ? that Achilles got Brisis back. Brisis is the cousin of Hekor in the movie and in the Iliad she isn’t royalty. * Achilles tells Odysseus to start loading the ship because they are going home. * â€Å"the world seems simple to you, but when you are king, there are very few choices which are simple† –Odysseus * â€Å"Sometimes you have to serve in order to lead†- Odysseus * Patricolus is very upset with Achilles. You betray all these men just to see Agamemnon lose†- Particolus * The gods favour our calls. Now it is time to destroy a weak army†- Pr iest * â€Å"Yesterday the Greeks underestimated us, we should not return the favour†- Hektor * Hektor thinks that attacking the Greeks is a mistake * The Greeks are packing up their ships and returning * Brisis and Achilles have developed a loving relationship. She wants him to stay but he is leaving. * The Trojans attack the Greeks with fire arrow s and they are caught of guard. Around book 15-16. The Greeks attack back.They send down balls of straw and stick with catch on fire from the fire arrows. They cause lots of destruction. They Greeks are outnumbered and off guard. * Odysseus seems scared and worried. * Menelaus doesn’t die in the Iliad but dies in the movie. Due to the relationship with Menelaus, Helen (in the movie) is seen as a Romeo and Juliet relationship due to the fact that the audience will understand this because Menelaus is portrayed as evil and bad * Time is no longer heroic. Giving the gifts to Agamemnon because he won the war is wrong because he didn’t fight and win the war. Patroclus pretends to be Achilles and Hektor believes him. He kills patroclus and everyone is quiet. They all now that Achilles is going to be very angry at this. * Patroclus wore his armor. Achilles didn’t know that Patroclus fought for him. In the Iliad, Achilles told him to fight for him. * Hektor knows that Achilles is going to come after him and so he tells his wife to save people. * Agamemnon â€Å"This boy has just save this war for us† about Patroclus’s death * Achilles agrees to fight again * All of Troy is deserted Achilles travels to the gates of troy to find Hektor * Hektor says good bye to his family because he knows that he has angred Achiiles. * Achilles stabs Hektor twice and then drags his body around the castle walls which his family is distraught over. His father collapses. He drags his body back to the greek camp. Briseis is distraught and cries. * â€Å"You lost your cousin and I had mine taken away† –Briseis * Priam comes in the night, as a secret. He kisses the hands of Achilles * â€Å"I have done what no other person on earth has done before.I have kissed that hands of the man who killed my son. † –Priam * Book 24 * â€Å"You’ve taken everything from me, my eldest son, my heir to my throne† –Priam * He begs to have Hektor’s body returned, * â€Å"You are still my enemy in the morning. †- Achilles â€Å"you are still my enemy tonight but even enemies can show respect â€Å"- Priam * Achilles cried over Hektor’s body * Achilles wraps him up and returns him * â€Å"He is the best man I have ever fought†¦ We will not fight for 12 days for the funeral† Achilles * He also lets Briseis go with Priam. If I hurt you, I didn’t mean to â€Å" * Achilles to Priam â€Å"you are a far better king than the one leading this army† * The funeral process for Hektor begins. This is the end of the Ilia d. The director continues with the movie * Odysseus watches a man make a horse for his son back home and he thinks about attacking Troy by using a Giant horse. * The anger in the movie is definitely less. * The Trojans go down to the beach and see no ships, dead men and a Giant horse * The priests thinks that it is a gift to the Gods.They think that they should bring it back home. * Paris thinks they should burn it. * They bring it back home to Troy and bring it inside the gates. Everyone is happy and dancing * The dog is a reoccurring theme in the movie. * A Trojan rides around the coast and sees all the Greek ships. He is shot before he has a chance to tell the people of troy. * Inside the Trojan gates, the Greeks are escaping from the Horse and killing everyone in the city. They send a signal to let all of the other Greeks into fight. They urn down houses * Agamemnon yells to let troy burn * Priam is very upset * Hetkors wife takes people down the passage way Hektor showed her. P aris wants to stay and fight. * Achilles is looking for Briseis * Paris is the archer * Odysseus kills nester * The Greeks destroy the temple. * Agamemon kills Priam * Agamemon i s killed suddenly by Briseis. Achilles save her but paris shoots him in the Achilles and in the chest. He dies. Briseis loved him. He still managed to stay alive. Chaos is brought to a standstill. The Greeks, using Troy cremate Achilles. The Trojans who escape find a new home in the mountain. * If they ever tell my story, let them tell that I walked with Giants. Let them stay that I lived in a time of Hetkor, breaker of Horses. Let them stay that I lived in the time of Achilles * There are many differences in the ending. They want to give the viewers a happy ending. Paris is killed before the Trojan horse and Helen went back to Sparta with Menelaus * There is no ‘villain’ in the iliad * Patricolus is older than Achilles in the Iliad but in the movie it is the other way around. Troy Movie Notes Troy, directed by Wolfgang Petersen (2004) is an epic war film based on Homer’s Iliad. In ancient Greece, the passion of two of literature's most notorious lovers, Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom) and Helen (Diane Kruger), Queen of Sparta, ignites a war that will devastate a civilization. When Paris spirits Helen away from her husband, King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), it is an insult that cannot be suffered.Familial pride dictates that an affront to Menelaus is an affront to his brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox), powerful King of the Mycenaeans, who soon unites all the massive tribes of Greece to steal Helen back from Troy in defense of his brother's honor. In truth, Agamemnon's pursuit of honor is corrupted by his overwhelming greed – he needs to conquer Troy to seize control of the Aegean, thus ensuring the supremacy of his already vast empire. The walled city, under the leadership of King Priamand (Peter O’Toole) defended by mighty Prince Hector (Eric Bana), is a citadel that no army has ever been able to breach.One man alone stands as the key to victory or defeat over Troy – Achilles (Brad Pitt), believed to be the greatest warrior alive. Arrogant, rebellious and seemingly invincible, Achilles has allegiance to nothing and no one, save his own glory. It is his insatiable hunger for eternal renown that leads him to attack the gates of Troy under Agamemnon's banner – but it will be love that ultimately decides his fate. Two worlds will go to war for honor and power. Thousands will fall in pursuit of glory. And for love, a nation will burn to the ground.This was an exciting action packed film, which had plenty of historical accuracies and inaccuracies and for the most part follows Homer’s Iliad. Many similar films in this time period portray the gods as more important and powerful than the humans. In fact, this movie almost completely ignores the gods and instead places the focus on the warriors themselves. I think th e film tries to portray the Trojan War in a manner in which it could have actually happened. Achilles acknowledges that he is not the son of a goddess and is not immortal or invulnerable. The movie basically shows us how a rumor can blossom into a legend unto itself.Achilles' legend becomes immortal. We see that the elders who continually refer to their so-called gods, and they come across as fools. When Hector refers to the fact that Apollo did not strike down Achilles for desecrating the statue. It is obvious that Hector seems to doubt the gods he has been taught to worship. Achilles disrespects the gods by decapitating the statue for the god Apollo, proving that both characters have little respect for the gods. Compared to the Iliad and historical facts the gods were always centered on everything. Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor – and some for love.

Costcp vs Sams Club

Sol Price’s Price Club emerged as the unchallenged leader in member warehouse retailing, with stores operating primarily on the West Coast. Although he originally conceived Price Club as a place where small local businesses could obtain needed merchandise at economical prices, Sol Price soon concluded that his fledgling operation could achieve far greater sales volumes and gain buying clout with suppliers by also granting membership to individuals—a conclusion that launched the deep discount warehouse club industry on a steep growth curve. Price Club was eventually merged with Costco in 1984.The same year, Walmart adopted the Warehouse Club concept and launched its first Sam’s Club stores. The Club warehouses typically have concrete floors, sparse decor, and goods displayed on pallets or simple wooden shelves. The Warehouse floor plans are designed for economy and efficiency in the use of selling space, in the handling of merchandise, and in the control of invent ory. Warehouse Business Model Warehouse Clubs are â€Å"big box stores that sell groceries as well as general merchandise at lower costs† The basic model is to maintain very low prices, sell high volumes, and maintain very high Operating efficiencies.The business idea is that low prices on a limited selection of national brand merchandise and selected private-label products in a wide range of merchandise categories produce high sales volume and rapid inventory turnover. All current warehouse Clubs operate under the following model: (Refer Figure 1): * low Profit margins. * Low prices * Limited selection (around 4000 items) * Wide range of merchandise categories (tires to baby wipes) creates the rapid inventory turnover. * Volume purchasing * efficient distribution * reduced handling of merchandise * no-frills warehousesWarehouse Clubs comprise a very big business opportunity and a current market of 500B+ (including Costco $71B, Sam’s Club $54B, BJs $11B and Walmart Sup erCenters – $390B. ) There is a combined Membership base of more than 130 million paying members across the existing warehouse clubs who pay membership fees in exchange for the privilege of shopping at the warehouse clubs. The typical sales for each SKU is $12M per SKU at Costco and $10M per SKU. This allows them to order massive amounts from manufacturers. Bulk packages sell larger quantities to consumers. The huge warehouse clubs eliminate the need for actual warehouses.At the same time, they reduce the need for handling. This greatly enhances distribution efficiency. Their large-scale membership base makes them strong. Figure 1 Warehouse Clubs are very popular with households with higher incomes(Refer Appendix C). Costco – Background Costco was founded by Jim Sinegal and Seattle entrepreneur Jeff Brotman. The first Costco store began operations in Seattle in 1983. Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco), with its subsidiaries operates membership warehouses that offer its members low prices on a limited selection of branded and selected private-label products in a range of merchandise categories.By offering quality merchandise at a low price, they attract mostly affluent shoppers. Its typical membership profile is a relatively well heeled customer with an average yearly income of $75K. Costco’s Strategy is to sell quality items at low prices and to create a treasure hunt like atmosphere with a set of variable famous brand items available at low prices each week that Its buyers had been able to procure. Costco's warehouse format averages approximately 141,000 square feet. Its warehouses operate on a seven-day, 69-hour week.It carries an average of approximately 3,600 active stock keeping units (SKUs) per warehouse in its core warehouse business. Many consumable products are offered for sale only in case, carton, or multiple-pack quantities only. It operates warehouses worldwide including countries such as Mexico, UK, Japan, Taiwan, Korea an d Australia. Costco and Sam’s Club are more similar than different. They have the same model. Costco is known as an Upscale Sam’s Club. Figure 2 Costco and Sam’s Club Comparison Memberships Offered: Costco offers memberships in the following formats. Gold Star Member = $ 55 Business Member = $ 55 Executive Member = $ 110Membership fees combined with its high member count (64M), allow Costco to maintain low prices. Sam’s Club Background Sams Club is part of the 3700 stores Walmart Chain. Walmart followed Costco into the warehouse club business and the first Sam’s Club store was opened in 1984. Sam’s Club has more products than Costco, but is smaller than Costco in total revenues. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Walmart) operates retail stores in various formats around globally. Everyday low prices (EDLP) is the Company's pricing philosophy under, which it price items at a low price everyday. The Company's operates in three business segments: the Walma rt U.S. segment, the Walmart International segment, and the Sam's Club segment. Its Sam's Club segment consists of membership warehouse clubs operated in the United States as well as countries such as Africa, Brazil, China and Mexico. Sam’s Club primary focus was Small Businesses until 2006. Currently, it targets all consumers, including small business. Many Sam’s Club locations are adjacent to Wal-Mart Supercenters. The concept of the Sam’s Club format is to sell merchandise at very low profit margins, resulting in low prices to members. Membership Offered: Advantage Member = $35 Business Member = $ 40 Plus Member = $ 100Membership cost less than Costco. Sam’s also has less members (48M versus 64M) Competition and Market Position of Rivals Sam’s Club has slightly more locations than Costco, but has overall lower revenues. This is due to Costco’s larger number of members and higher sales per customer per location. Costco maintains low margin s of less than 15% on each item as a strategy, to offer low prices to its members. In the discount warehouse retail segment, there are three main competitors—Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club. At the end of 2012, there were just over 1,200 warehouse locations across the United States and Canada.Figure 3 Market Positions of rival Warehouse Clubs Key Ratios Inventory turnover is an important metric in the wholesale club industry. Costco has the highest inventory turnover, but Sam’s Club and BJ’s, both are close. Costco has the lowest profit margin, due a combination of factors, including the high pay and benefits, it offers its employees. Figure 4 Key Ratios Comparison across Functional Areas We believe Supply Chain cannot be looked in isolation and it involves human capital, use of Information technology and Marketing. We compared Costco and Sam’s Club across 5 broad functional areas. We did not go deeply into the Finance a rea.Broadly, we found that warehouse clubs including Costco and Sam’s Club preferred to buy the real estate and buildings rather than lease it. 1) Human Capital Both warehouse clubs chose to * Promote from within * Empower Warehouse Manager. 2) Information Technology. Both warehouse clubs leverage technology to drive efficiencies and lower cost 3) Distribution and Supply Chain Both clubs broadly try to optimize and drive efficiencies in their distribution and supply chain processes. * Cross-dock, Planning and Forecasting, VMI. 4) Marketing Both do not spend as much on marketing. * Little to No marketing 5) Finance Own versus Lease of real-estate and buildings Even though the warehouse clubs are more similar than they different, differences do exist We will go through each functional area in more detail. 1) Human Capital Costco Employees are the highest paid in the industry with good benefits. They are well treated and are highly motivated. Costco covers 82% of its employers f or health insurance compared to only 47% by Sam’s Club Human Capital Advantage Costco: Costco is able to derive more benefits from keeping its employees happy. Costco has a higher sales per employee, Higher sales per store as well as a higher sales per SKU than Sam’s Club.This is clearly due to its highly motivated workforce. 2) Information Technology Both the warehouse Clubs are able to derive benefits of tracking membership information and sales associated with members through the use of their IT systems. This allows them to effectively track and predict/forecast seasonal demand information. Since all customers must swipe card when checking out, clubs know exactly who is buying what. Costco uses information technology to connect all its warehouse locations to corporate HQ. It provides real time information and the effective use of its inventory and control systems.It has outsourced 75% of its IT department to an India location and built effective interfaces from Cost co. com to UPS and Fedex to facilitate shipping. Costco has also tried to reduce operating costs through reduction in energy consumption. It has incorporated skylights in all warehouses and solar panel in 40 of the warehouses. It has also incorporated an extensive Recycling Program. Sams Club uses information technology more effectively due to Walmart’s support. It is able to leverage Walmart’s size and scale to its advantage. It uses a satellite system to collect data and observer merchandize flow.Wal Mart’s satellite network sends point of sale (POS) data directly to 4,000 vendors. It also has very strong system that support the CPFR process and allow for collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment with its suppliers. Information Technology Advantage: Walmart Sam’s Club Figure 5. CPFR process(Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment 3) Distribution and Supply Chain Costco and Sam’s Club both use Cross docking (Refer figure 6 below) to derive efficiencies. Merchandise is shipped directly from manufacturers to Warehouse. This allows them to eliminate multi-step distribution channels and thus lower costs.Goods in depot are distributed within 24 hours. Merchandise is placed right on the sales floor, typically above. Both leverage their large scale operations to get lowest prices from Manufacturers / Suppliers. Warehouse Manager has decision making to run each individual warehouse as a Investment Center. No one manufacturer supplied a significant percentage of the merchandise that warehouses stocked and management believed that if one or more of its current sources of supply became unavailable, the company could switch its purchases to alternative manufacturers without experiencing a substantial disruption of its business.Costco Supply Chain Costco has 9 cross-docking distribution centers and has direct buying relationships with many producers of national brand-name merchandise (including Canon, Casio, Coc a-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Fuji, Hewlett-Packard, Kimberly-Clark, Kodak, Levi Strauss, Michelin, Nestle, Panasonic, Procter ;amp; Gamble, Samsung, Sony, KitchenAid, and Jones of New York) and with manufacturers that supplied its Kirkland Signature products. Sam’s Club Supply ChainApproximately two-thirds of the merchandise at Sam’s Club was shipped from the division’s own distribution facilities and, in the case of perishable items, from some of Wal-Mart’s grocery distribution centers; the balance was shipped by suppliers direct to Sam’s Club locations. Like Costco, Sam’s Club distribution centers employed cross-docking techniques whereby incoming shipments were transferred immediately to outgoing trailers destined for Sam’s Club locations.The Sam’s Club distribution center network consisted of 7 company owned and operated distribution facilities, 13 third party owned and operated facilities(3PL’s), and 2 third par ty owned and operated import distribution centers. A combination of company owned trucks and independent trucking companies were used to transport merchandise from distribution centers to club locations. Sam’s Club has Vendor Managed Inventory(VMI) relationships with many of its large suppliers such as P;amp;G, GE and Wrangler. Sam’s Club due to its relationship with Walmart is very strong in the Distribution and Supply Chain and is very efficient.It also has a practice of dealing with only Manufacturers. * Costco Strengths * Buyers scour the business world to find overstock brand items that can be sold at a discount to create a Treasure Hunt atmosphere. * Sam’s Club Strengths * leverages large Walmart Hub and Spoke Distribution Network. * Vendor Managed Inventory(VMI) relationships with many suppliers such as Wrangler, P;amp;G and GE. * Deals only with Direct Manufacturers. Supply Chain systems Advantage: Walmart Sam’s Club. What is cross docking?Cross-d ocking is a practice in logistics of unloading materials from an incoming semi-trailer truck or railroad car and loading these materials directly into outbound trucks, trailers, or rail cars, with little or no storage in between. This may be done to change type of conveyance, to sort material intended for different destinations, or to combine material from different origins into transport vehicles (or containers) with the same, or similar destination. â€Å"Hub and spoke† are arrangements, where materials are brought in to one central location and then sorted for delivery to a variety of destinations.Figure 6 Cross-docking What is Vendor Managed Inventory(VMI) Vendor Managed Inventory(VMI) is a means of optimizing Supply Chain performance in which the manufacturer is responsible for maintaining the distributor’s inventory levels. The manufacturer has access to the distributor’s inventory data and is responsible for generating purchase orders. Please refer Figure 7 To further define it, let’s look at 2 business models (Refer Figure 8): Under the typical business model (Purchase Order driven): When a distributor needs product, they place an order against a manufacturer.The distributor is in total control of the timing and size of the order being placed. The distributor maintains the inventory plan. Vendor Managed Inventory model (Demand driven): The manufacturer receives electronic data (usually via EDI or the internet) that tells him the distributor’s sales and stock levels. The manufacturer can view every item that the distributor carries as well as true point of sale data. The manufacturer is responsible for creating and maintaining the inventory plan. Under VMI, the manufacturer generates the order*, not the distributor. Note: VMI does not change the â€Å"ownership† of inventory. It remains as it did prior to VMI. Figure 7 Vendor Managed Inventory Figure 8 Demand driven (Vendor Managed Inventory) versus Purchase Ord er driven system. 4) Marketing – Advertising Costco limits its advertising to cut marketing cost. Both warehouse clubs are engaged in direct mailing to potential and current consumers But Costco does not have a PR department and believes the most effective advertisement is â€Å"Word-of-Mouth†. Sam’s Club does advertise and through television and Cable media.Marketing Advantage: Costco Known for its great customer satisfaction and service. High Customer Loyalty(87% renewal rate. ) Vertical Integration and Alternative Sales Channels Both the warehouse have created their own private labels and rely on other manufacturers and suppliers to manufacturer their products and provide top quality at a low price. Costco’s private label is branded under the â€Å"Kirkland Signature† brand which is considered as a quality brand. Sam’s Clubs have several private labels such as Member’s Mark, Artisan Fresh, Daily Chef and Simply Right.Costco and Sam ’s Club , both have websites, which allow them to sell products that are typical not in the warehouse. It also allow them to sell services such as insurance and travel which leverages the companies information technology rather than the physical supply chain. Alternative services offered * Consumer Services * Travel * Optical * Automotive * Financial Services * 401(K) * Loans * Insurance * Pharmacy * Recycle electronics Conclusion Costco Wins Round One , but the Battle Continues. Costco has 64 million very loyal members and is known as a provider of top quality merchandise at low prices.Its buyers are able to scour the world to get acquire overstocked premium goods at low prices to create a treasure hunt atmosphere in its warehouses. It private label is considered a premium branded product that has top quality. Its employees are exceptional and Costco has a high performance workforce. * Best-Cost Provider * 64 million very loyal members * Top-quality merchandise * Low price * Treasure-hunt items * Kirkland Signature * Top-quality in-house brand * Exceptional employees * Economies of Scale Appendix A – Savings for Members Warehouse Clubs offered low prices in comparison to supermarkets.A sample comparison of frequent buys at Costco versus a local grocery store is attached. Costco price for the list is $171. Grocery Store price is $538, a savings of $367. Appendix B – Porter’s Five forces (Warehouse Clubs) Appendix C – Warehouses Popular with families with higher income Appendix D – Costco derives value from paying its employees more Appendix E – Costco and Sam’s Club Websites Appendix F – References WAL MART STORES INC (Form 10-K). † WAL MART STORES INC (Form 10-K, Received 03-27-2012) COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP -NEW (Form 10-K, Received 10-14-2011) Costco Deploys EnFlexA? EWebConnect for Enterprise Facility Information Management – EnergyVortex. † Costco Deploys EnFlexA? s EWebConnect for Enterprise Facility Information Management. N. p. , n. d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www. energyvortex. com/pages/headlinedetails. cfm? id=1003>. Standard&Poor(S&P) Report on Costco and Walmart Corporation. Reuter’s Report on Costco and Walmart Corporation â€Å"Distribution: Channels and Logistics. † Distribution: Channels and Logistics. N. p. , n. d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. <http://www. consumerpsychologist. com/intro_Distribution. html>. Consumer Reports – Costco and Sam's Club. Received 10-27-2011

Dashain

Dashain ( ) is the 15-day national (religious) festival of Nepal,[2] It is the longest and the most auspicious festival in the Nepalese annual calendar, celebrated by Nepalese Hindu of all castes throughout the globe. It is not only the longest festival of the country but is also the one which is most anticipated. The festival falls around September–October, starting from the bright lunar fortnight and ending on the day of full moon. Dasain is also popularly referred to as Bada Dasain, Dashera, Vijaya Dashami etc.Throughout the country the goddess Durga in all her manifestations is worshiped with innumerable pujas, abundant offerings and thousands of animal sacrifices for the ritual of holy bathing, drenching the goddess for days in blood. This festival is also known for its emphasis on the family gatherings, as well as on a renewal of community ties. [2] People return from all parts of the world, as well as different parts of the country, to celebrate together. [2] All govern ment offices, educational institutions and other offices remain closed during the festival period.Dashain commemorates the victories of the god and goddesses over the demons. IT symbolizes the victory of the good over the evil. Mahishasura, a demon, had created terror in the dev-lok (the world of gods). All the gods and saints prayed to the Adi-Shakti in order to kill Mahishasura, Goddess came as Durga emerged and killed the demon thus saving everyone from terror. [3][4][5] The first nine days of Dashain symbolizes the battle which took place between the different manifestations of goddess Durga and the demon Mahishasura. The tenth day is the day when Durga finally defeated Mahishasura.Goddess Durga is worshipped throughout the country as divine mother goddess. Throughout the festival people pay homage to the various forms of the Supreme Goddess, Durga. The festival is important since it reminds everyone of the universal principles of truth, justice and virtue that must prevail over deception, injus-tice and wickedness. It is believed that if she is worshiped properly and pleased then good luck is bound to happen. However, if the goddess is angered through negligence then misfortunes are said to happen. Dashain is the biggest festival for the Hindus.The followers of Shakta cult take it as the day of falling of demon Mahishasur by goddess Durga. For non-Shakta Hindus, this festival symbolizes the victory of Rama over Ravana, the characters of the epic Ramayana. The Buddhists remember this day as Emperor Ashoka of the Indian subcontinent abandoned violence on this day and entered the path of Buddhism. In the Kathmandu Valley, among the Newars, the festival is known as â€Å"Mohanee†, with slight difference in rituals and significance, thus more than often confused with the Dasain. Day 1: Ghatasthapana The tika (in red color) and jamara (green color) used in Dashain.Ghatasthapana marks the beginning of Dasain. [6] It literally means installing a pot which symbolizes Goddess Shakti. It falls on Aswin Shukla Pratipada, the first day of the bright half of the lunar calendar in the month of Ashvin. On this day the kalasha is filled with holy water which is then covered with cow dung and sewn with barley seeds. Then, the kalasha is put in the center of a rectangular sand block. The remaining bed of sand is also seeded with grains. The priest then starts the puja by calling goddess Durga to bless the vessel with her presence.This ritual is performed at a certain auspicious time which is determined by the astrologers. [7] Goddess Shakti is believed to reside in the Kalash vessel during the Navratri period. The room where all this is done is known as the ‘Dasain Ghar’. Generally, outsiders and women are not allowed to enter the Dasain Ghar. A male family member worships the Kalasha twice every day, once in the morning and then in the evening. It is kept away from direct sunlight,[8] and holy water is offered to it every day, so that by the tenth day of the festival the seed will have grown to five or six inches long yellow grass.This sacred grass is known as ‘Jamara’. These rituals continue till the seventh day. Day 7: Fulpati Fulpati is a major celebration occurring on the seventh day of Dasain. On this day the jamara to be used by the royal family is brought from Gorkha palace, their ancestral house. The Fulpati (jamara and the other items that is necessary for tika) is brought after a three day walk from Gorkha district which is about hundred and sixty nine kilometers away from the valley of Kathmandu. A parade is held in the Tundikhel ground in Kathmandu. 9] The royal Kalasha, banana stalks, jamara and the sugar cane tied with red cloth is brought by the Brahmans from Gorkha which is led by the royal priest's military platoon. Hundreds of government officials gather together in the Tundikhel grounds in conventional formal dress to witness the event. The king observes the ceremony in Tundik hel while the fulpati parade is headed towards the Hanuman Dhoka royal palace. Then there is a majestic display of the Nepalese Army along with a celebratory firing of weapons that continues for ten to fifteen minutes honoring Fulpati.The Fulpati is taken to the Hanuman Dhoka Royal palace by the time the occasion ends in Tundikhel. However, since 2008 when the monarchy system was removed from the country, the two-century old tradition is changed so that the holy offering of fulpati goes to the residence of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has taken over the king's social and religious roles after the fall of the royal government, as he is believed to be ruling the nation and not the king. Day 8: Maha Asthami The eighth day is called the ‘Maha Asthami'.This is the day when the most demonic of Goddess Durga’s manifestations, the blood-thirsty Kali, is appeased through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of buffaloes, goats, pigeons and ducks in temples throughout the nation. Blood, symbolic for its fertility, is offered to the Goddesses. Appropriately enough, the night of this day is called Kal Ratri (Black Night). It is also the norm for buffaloes to be sacrificed in the courtyards of all the land revenue offices in the country on this day. The old palace in Basantapur Hanuman Dhoka, is active throughout the night with worships and sacrifices in almost every courtyard.On the midnight of the very day the Dasain Ghar, a total of 54 buffaloes and 54 goats are sacrificed in observance of the rites. After the offering of the blood, the meat is taken home and cooked as â€Å"prasad†, or food blessed by divinity. This food is offered, in tiny leaf plates, to the household Gods, then distributed amongst the family. Eating this food is thought to be auspicious. While the puja is being carried out great feasts are held in the homes of common people. Day 9: Maha Navami People standing in queue to visit the Taleju Bhawani MandirThe ninth day is called Maha-navami which literally means the great ninth day. This day is the last day of Navarati. Ceremonies and rituals reach the peak on this day. On this day, official military ritual killings are held in one of the Hanuman Dhoka royal palace called the Kot courtyard. On this occasion, the state offers the sacrifices of buffaloes under the gunfire salutes. This day is also known as the demon-hunting day because members of the defeated demon army try to save themselves by hiding in the bodies of animals and fowls.On this day the Vishwakarma, the god of creativeness is also worshiped as it believed that all the things which help is in making a living should be kept happy. Artisans, craftsmen, traders, and mechanics worship and offer animal and fowl blood to their tools, equipment, and vehicles. Moreover, since it is believed that worshipping the vehicles on this day avoids accidents for the year all the vehicles from bikes, cars to trucks are worshiped on this day. The Taleju Te mple gates are opened for the general public on only this day of the year. Thousands of devotees go and pay respect to the goddess this day.The temple is filled with devotees all day long. [10] Day 10: Dashami An elder member of the family putting Tika to the younger one The tenth day of the festival is the ‘Dashami'. On this day, a mixture of rice, yogurt and vermilion is prepared by the women. This preparation is known as â€Å"tika†. Elders put this tika and jamara which is sewn in the ghatasthapana on the forehead of younger relatives to bless them with abundance in the upcoming years. The red also symbolizes the blood that ties the family together. Elders give â€Å"Dakshina†, or a small amount of money, to younger relatives at this time along with the blessings.This continues to be observed for five days till the full moon dur-ing which period families and relatives visit each other to exchange gifts and greetings. This ritual of taking tika from all the el der relatives (even the distant relatives)helps in the renewal of the community ties greatly. This is one reason why the festival is celebrated with so much of vigor and enthusiasm. Before the collapse of the monarchy system in Nepal, thousands of people ranging from the ministers, diplomats and general public used to gather in the old royal palace to take the tika and blessing from the king who is considered to be the incarnation of Lord Vishnu.However after the collapse of the monarchy system the president of the country who is considered the head of the state has been continuing the trend by offering the tika to the general public and ministers. [11] The last day of the festival which lies on the full moon day is called ‘Kojagrata' Purnima. The literal meaning of Kojagrata is ‘who is awake'. On this day Goddess Laxmi who is believed to be the goddess of wealth is worshiped as it believed that goddess Laxmi descends on earth and showers whoever is awake all night with wealth and prosperity. People enjoy over the night by playing cards and many more.Animal sacrifices are often the norms during this time, as the festival commemorates the mythical bloody battles between the â€Å"divine† and â€Å"demonic† powers. The proponents of animal sacrifice interpret that this sacrificial act as the symbolic sacrifice of our animal qualities, but those who are compassionate to the sacrificed victims think otherwise stressing that the sacrificial act is nothing but an excuse to fulfill the appetite for food/meat. [12] Forms of celebration 1. One gets to know that Dasain is around the corner when they see kites all over the sky.Flying kites has been a very important part of celebrating Dasain in the country as it is considered to be one way of reminding god not to send rain anymore. [13] Not only the children of the family but during the festival you can see people of all ages in their roofs flying kites. Colorful kites of different shapes and vo ices shouting out ‘Changa Chet' (this phrase is usually used when one is successful in cutting the other person's kite) fill the days during the festival. 2. Playing cards is another way of celebrating Dasain. Gambling is illegal in the country but it is usually permitted in public places only during this festival. 13] While children are busy flying kites during Dasain, the older members of the family pass their time by getting together and playing cards with each other for money and fun all day long. 3. Buying and wearing new clothes is an important part of the festival. As many people are living in the villages and are below the poverty line and for them it is often the case that new clothes come only with Dasain. [13] Almost all the shops in the country have festival offers and discounts. This makes shopping more attractive to people. Clothes is the item which has the highest sales during the festival. 10] Children playing on traditional bamboo swings 4. Bamboo swings are c onstructed in many parts of the country as a way of celebration. These bamboo swings is called ‘ping' in Nepali. These kind of swings present the best of local culture, tradition, community spirit and fun. [14] These swings are constructed with the help of community members using traditional methods which make the use of ropes made from tough grass, bamboo sticks and wood etc. Theses swings are normally constructed a week before Ghatasthapana and dismantled only after the festival of Tihar which comes after Dasain.Heights of some swings exceed twenty feet and one can swing really high. One can see people of all ages enjoying in the swing. It is specially famous with the children. 5. Different kinds of fairs and celebration events are also organized during the festival. Usually small fairs are organized in the villages with the Ferris wheels for children and other items of entertainment for the adults. However, in the city it is the commercial fairs and celebration events that is usually organized. 6. Thousands of animals such as buffaloes,ducks,he-goats, etc. are slaughtered in Dasain every year.It has been considered an important ritual since it is believed that the goddesses are appeased by such sacrifices. Almost all the temples, specially the Durga and Kali temples of the country are offered with thousands of sacrifices. Asthami and Navami are the days where the sacrifices reach the peak. While thousands of animals are sacrificed to appease the goddesses, people also slaughter animals for the purpose of feasts. Since a large number of feasts and gatherings are organized throughout the fifteen days of the festival, the demand for meat goes up considerably.Hence to meet the demands the slaughtering of animals becomes considerably high and necessary during the festival. However, for the past few years the animal rights activists in the country have been continuously opposing these acts of slaughtering of animals in such a manner. They have been requesti ng people to stop such inhuman acts of killing the innocent animals and instead have suggested them to offer fruits and vegetables to the Goddesses since they believe that it is mentioned no where in the Hindu religious books that such sacrifices appease the gods and goddesses.

The Rights of Children in Asylum under the UN Essay

The Rights of Children in Asylum under the UN - Essay Example Children who have separated such as the children who are far away from their states of derivation and alienated from parents or other relatives are not visible in this world. This invisibility is divided into two folds, first as children who frequently have no authority to raise their voice and secondly as asylum seekers, are prevented to have attention or power in the society. If these children are mostly invisible in the first case than who will become aware of them if they go missing Who will support on their behalf and participate as a substitute parent to prompt the state that its responsibilities under the UN Convention on the rights of the child relate to all children within its country, be they populace or not. Frequently, romantic concept of early days differentiates sharply with the severe actuality for a lot children globally. Amnesty international has recognized human rights infringement of children together with killing by death groups, agony, unfair imprisonment, obligatory genital disfigurement, slavery, trafficking on sensitive organs and cruelty of lane children. Additionally enforced marriage, forced recruitment and individuals trafficking and most of the children are repeatedly mistreated just because they are kids. Specific violation towards children of human rights has still to find clear example in government. Perhaps to guard the children. It is prefer to provide such children unseen rather than thinking about their encounters. However, the reason that they are grown-up adults and that going missing interprets as deciding to go secretive. While some may have a mature behavior as a result of their previous experiences it is these same experiences which have roughly overwhelme d the blameless child surrounded by. Maybe if they are called matured, they become grown-up and are called as asylum seekers. Although, these children should be observed as children initially and as primary plus their migration position should be less important. The best happiness of the child are dominant in any choice. For example, visualize that your family has been misplaced due to political brutality and eventually you become an orphan. You are only twelve years old and have soft retardation. A companion eventually protects a ticket and migration papers to dash you to the United States for refuge. Leading towards the entrance, you are under arrest for demeanor of a false passport. You are questioned single-handedly in a lingo you do not converse or understand. You discover yourself locked up in a mature prison with illegal criminals awaiting a managerial migration investigating on your allege to asylum. The system actually forgets to take you to see a migration judge for about eight to nine months. Yet while signified by in favor of bono advice, the migration court rejects you asylum and you stay locked up amongst the adults while you plea your case. You waste your initial three years in the United States, dragging your feet from jail to jail. At last you are free to a refugee protection and a new asylum consideration is prearranged. This strange step is the effect of worldwide media reporting and over seventy constituents of the assembly, several public notices is of foundations and thousands of people pleasing to migration systems for you. You then experience the greatest asylum tryout in U.S.

Account for the economic development of the Tokugawa period Essay

Account for the economic development of the Tokugawa period - Essay Example Japan had a very unsteady history with periods of civil wars and not much progress. The country was divided with poor developmental progress. But the scenario was greatly altered after Tokugawa Ieyasu took over the country. He provided for a new beginning in the history of Japan. The period during which he ruled was known as the Tokugawa period. It was also referred to as the Edo period because the capital of the country was moved to Edo after Ieyasu took over. The Tokugawa period was a period of modernization, expansion and progress for the country and thus was also given the name of the Modern Period. This period lasted for approximately two and a half centuries. It started from 1603and ended in 1868. During this entire episode the country was ruled by Tokugawa and then his family and hence the entire phase was given the name of the Tokugawa period. In the Tokugawa period, there was not much technological advance in the country but the economy of the country flourished. In this period Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world which can be a reason for its lesser technological advances. This period laid the foundations for today’s economically stable Japan. This period was a golden era. The population of the country remained constant for these two and a half centuries. According to a first population consensus which was conducted in 1720 the population of the country was thirty million which stayed almost the same during the entire period. It has been seen that now Japan depends greatly upon imports from other countries particularly for food and energy. But in the Tokugawa period Japan was very self sufficient in all its resources. Though Japan is not very rich in natural resources but it was seen in the late Modern Period that salt was produced from coal and still there was no shortage of the fossil fuels. Reasons that have been provided for this are that because of the isolation from the rest of the world, there was a realization

Law Offie - Marketing and Publicity Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Law Offie - Marketing and Publicity - Assignment Example the word-of-mouth advertising is not sufficient for the attraction and retention of clientele, and it is critical to introduce other modes of marketing within our firm. It is significant for our firm to implement a suitable business plan in accordance with the nation’s set rules. Owing to my 20 years in the field, my observation compelled me to conclude that numerous law firms do not clearly understand marketing within their firm. As such, failure has resulted in many firms thereby incurring significant losses. In a marketing plan, it will be imperative for ILaw Chambers LLC to look into the following: All members of the firm ought to improve on their impression while meeting with clients. It is also critical to focus on clients’ special needs, which are different from our fields (Roper 2007, 500). This aids in connecting with the client personally, and hence winning their trust. Additionally, though it may be imperative to hand out business cards, it is critical to consider individuals that you give the business cards. It is also crucial to form and maintain the contacts of target clients. It is critical for our firm to consider our target customer (Roper 2007, 500). This will significantly aid in the selection of a proper marketing option that will reach the larger number of clients. Choice of a proper advertising plan is crucial since reaching our target clients means an improvement in our client base, thereby leading to the growth of our firm. Failure to consider our target markets may result in wasting money on wrong forms of media advertisement, which may be costly and time wasting. Technology has capacitated various businesses to relate with their target customers. It also enables marketers to promote new products cheaply. As such, it will be critical for our firm to incorporate technology in advertising our firm. Various social media networks will assist us significantly in promoting our service to potential clients. This will aid in attracting and

Property law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Property law - Case Study Example The main disadvantages include sharing of profits among partners, has unlimited liabilities, long process of decision making due to disagreements ,and may have limited life and may end upon death or withdrawal of one of the partners(Miller,Ragazzo,& Hamilton,2011). Corporations If Betty opts for corporation as her form of business organization, the advantages she is likely to get are limited liability to debts and other obligations, it is easier to collect funds for capital and expenses, have continuous life, and easy transfer of corporate ownership. The main disadvantages include many legal and formalities procedures that may be costly and take long to complete, requires relatively large amount of capital to start, and long decision making process because it involves many people resulting in possibilities of disagreements (Dore?,2003). Franchise Setting a business as a franchise offers the benefit of operating it under the banner of an established entity hence enhanced security and support systems, working with a known branch hence less cost involved in brand creation, and establishing good business relationships especially with suppliers and creditors. The disadvantages of franchise include limited control of the business and how it is run because the owners of the brand set out the processes and rules regarding the operations of the franchise, tied to suppliers as one will be required to use the franchise supplier network, increased risk of damaging the reputation of the business if other franchise mess with the brand and reduced profits as one will be required to pay the owners of the franchise for using their brand(Miller,Ragazzo,& Hamilton,2011). Limited liability Company The advantages include limited liabilities to obligations and debts, flexible distribution of profit, and flexibility in management and decision making process. The disadvantages include limited life and hectic processes of legal and formality procedures (Dore?, 2003). Joint venture The advantage of Betty forming a joint venture include sharing of cost, access to relevant expertise, gain from innovative managerial skills and practices, spreading of risks and a large pool of capital. The disadvantages include extensive efforts and time to create the right relationship for partnership, imbalance in the levels of investment, expertise and assets invested by partners, and differences in business objectives that may hinder cooperation and integration (Miller,Ragazzo,& Hamilton,2011). In my opinion, sole- proprietorship is the best option that Betty should consider when establishing her business. Since she has a potential customer base of Christians in her area and a source of capital from her husband, she should set up a sole proprietorship business because it is easy to start, she will be the sole manager of her business and so she can apply her Christian values when running the business without interference from anyone, and since she is a mature Christian, she can eas ily attract her fellow Christians to be her loyal customers and enjoy all the profits alone (Jessup &Chipps, 1991). In case Betty opts for

Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 5

Art - Essay Example It makes individuals draw out the shape of an object and the viewpoint and the object determine shape. As individuals changes his or her view of the object, the contour also changes Option 1: Blind Contour To elaborate about my reflection, I went to the second floor of my balcony where I picked on the landscape I wanted to have a blind contour. I was having a lot of information, which I could see, as it comprised of staffs parking lots as well as residential houses. I observed the nature and the settlement of the neighborhood, which gave me insight information of what I should consider drawing. I stepped outside with my drawing brush and I wanted to airbrush what i was seeing. i did not having enough information on how to even airbrush the pictures I was seeing . It was difficult but not impossible using my arm to aid the drawing. If I wanted to move my hand, I would have with ease since I was prepared to do the drawing, as it was part of my class. As much as I was flexible and wante d to come up with an abstract figure, I had to follow the rules and be observant on what it entails. One of the things I imagined was never to move my arm when bowing. It was the first mindset to overcome to enable my hand to be free and for easy movement. I was not controlling my bow and I was simply controlling my drawing tools. During my initials stages, I was disappointed because the images I drew were very small and they did not reflect on what I wanted to have. My drawing focused on the transition of the sky and the trees. I took keen interest on the type of trees, the patterns of their trunk and ways of their droppings. On the side of the buildings, I had to recall the siding and the plants that grew next to them. As I observed on the Far East, there were around 6 trees in the foreground. I had the tendency of remembering what was in the environment, which consisted of the telephone posts and obscure details. When I settled to drawing, I resorted to blind contour as I loved i t and it was part of the instructions front the lecturer. I did not look at the paper and I had to draw the object in front of me. My experience during this drawing was that no matter what I did without looking at the paper, it looked awesome. This is because of the condition in which I drew the object; it was very pleasing to come out with as ketch as it is also not the same thing when you know exactly what you are doing. It was full of surprise coming out with a figure resembling what I was viewing. Throughout the picture, I would move my hands throughout the paper as I remember the details of what I was seeing. I could feel the paper edge though I initially had no idea in relation to that. My eyes were widely open as I was looking at what I was drawing, it was good for me to come up with such a drawing owing to the blind contour I was engaged in. The following is the first image I came out with. Option 2: Detail Reduction I chose the image, traced it source on a plain paper, and came with a complete composition like the one shown in the figure below. I chose the object because I am in love with nature more so animals. It was tempting to trace because my hand could not easily move on the paper as it could shift away from the paper. It was a good feeling tracing the images because it offered guidance since I was only to follow the laid framework and the layout. This was so easy and I could see the image I was tracing coming out. However, I was not always conscious of

Memory retention and retrieval in aging adults Term Paper

Memory retention and retrieval in aging adults - Term Paper Example Aging can affect both long term and short term memories of a person. Long term memories can act like the hard disk of a computer whereas short term memories can function like the Random Access Memory (RAM) of a computer. When the computer switches off all the information in the RAM will be lost whereas the information stored in the hard disk will be saved for future use. In the case of old people, both long term and short term memories can be exhausted if proper precautions are not taken. Long term memory consolidation occurs in human brain with the help of complex interactions among multiple brain systems like neurohormones. In the case of old people, these interactions among brain systems will be exhausted along with the exhausting of the body. Same way, short term memories may disappear once an old person completes a sleep cycle. Memory retention is essential for old people to conduct a normal life. Loss of memory may prevent them from identifying the objects or forgetting about t heir daily routine works. Thus their life becomes miserable when they approach their end of life period. Medical science has developed a lot and it is possible to reduce the pace of memory exhaustion among old people. In some cases, it is possible to regain the lost memory of the old people. This paper reviews the literature with respect to memory retention and retrieval among old people. Memory loss among old people There are many theories and views about the beginning of memory decline. Many people are of the view that memory mays started to decline from the age of sixty onwards. On the other hand many other are of the view that memory declining starts as early as thirty years of age itself. These contrasting views are the result of unawareness about the memory systems. Craik (2008) has succeeded in explaining these contrasting views with the help of the architecture and functioning of memory. He has explained that every human has at least five major memory systems and these syste ms show very distant rate of declining in the course of aging. â€Å"Episodic memory (memory for specific events) and working memory exhaust rapidly whereas memory for perceptual information, for highly practiced habits and procedures and for general knowledge (semantic memory) hold up relatively well†(Craik, 2008, p.343). In other words, some memory systems start to exhaust even in the early ages of thirties or forties whereas other memory systems exhaust only at a later period. People will take episodic memory loss and working memory loss as natural and less seriously than other types of memory loss and that is why these memory losses are often not catching the attention of people. Older people have relatively less abilities in keeping specific information in the memory compared to the younger generation. However, most of them are capable of retrieving general information. This is purely because of the dependency of various memory systems to age for the active functioning. Cognitive abilities such as attention, executive control, learning and problem solving etc can exhaust in the course of normal and pathological aging†. This is because of the growing inefficiency of the neurophysiological systems, blood supply, neural connectivity,

Organizational Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 3

Organizational Analysis - Essay Example The company offers a wide range of mobile communication, personal computing products, portable digital music players and media services, as well as a range of related software, services, networking solutions, peripherals, and third party software and hardware products. The apple company has a well thought out plan to create an apple culture by delivering strong products. Apples’ fascinating products has seen the company enjoy fanatical brand loyalty. Apple products are a result of extensive research and strong designs; they always consider what the customer wants and they are out to satisfy their customers. Apple Inc. is a multinational company that holds its headquarters in Cupertino, California. It is the second largest information technology company in the world, second to Samsung Electronics and the third largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung and Nokia. Apple inc. maintains over 394 retail stores across fourteen countries as well as the online Apple store and iTu nes stores. It sells its products worldwide through its online stores, retail stores, and direct sales force, as well as through third-party cellular network carriers, retailers, whole sellers, and value-added resellers. Apple not only enjoys the theoretical popularity in fact, it topped the list with annual revenue above $100 billion and since 2010 having a profit mark of above $20 billion. Apple accommodates approximately 60,400 people in different departments such as software development, assembly and design, distribution, marketing and sales etc. Apple’s mission statement: â€Å"Apple Inc. is determined and committed to deliver the best personal computing experience by offering technologically ingenious products and services to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its unique modern hardware and software.  Apple is  able to enhance resources for future generations and for continuous improvements.† Role of HR in accom plishing the Apple’s Mission: Employees of any organization play an important role in the organization's success and mission accomplishment. Moreover, they are the people who heightened the revenue generation and trades the company’s image worldwide to the people interested in their goods and services. Apple is fortunate in having a powerful human resource who is striving hard to maintain the positive image of Apple since its birth. The Apple’s workforce has marked the HR department as a highly goal-oriented and organized department. Apple’s HR is highly talented and knows how to implement latest HR practices to achieve company’s goal and mission. They appreciate the innovative behavior to establish a shared culture, nurture talent and to motivate the integration of mind and skill with the tasks a person performs. Being the leader in the gadget’s market Apple has introduced passion for work sort of attitude rather than employee-employer atti tude. (Snee, 1998). DELL, IBM and similar other gadget companies are not just a threat to this emerging company, but is a significant hindrance for the company to recognize its full abilities. In a walk to compete with these monstrous competitors Apple relies on the implementation of 3 vital strategies that is hiring, training and nurturing creative minds. Apple has

Faculty Members' Styles Of Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Faculty Members' Styles Of Leadership - Essay Example Scholars have identified various leadership styles and continue to refine concepts behind leadership to guide organisations in determining the appropriate leadership styles that will help organisations attain its goals. Huber states that school leaders are essential because they make a difference. Recognising the significance and crucial role of leadership in educational institution, this research will look into the various forms of leadership styles vis-a-vis its impact on the development of the faculty members. Specifically, this study intends to conduct a research on leadership styles and its impact on the development of faculty members at the College of Education at Ha'il University in Saudi Arabia to understand the connection between leadership styles and faculty development as the study centres on leadership and its impact on faculty development. The proposal will focus on the following areas. The introduction wherein research questions, the significance of the research and its aims are laid down. The literature review, which presents the discourses of scholars pertinent to the issue of educational leadership and faculty development. The research methodology that will be adopted in the conduct of the research. A qualitative case study will be used in this study as it attempts to answer the concerns of the research. In addition, the procedure for data collection, sampling of this research with great detail, validity and reliability, data analysis, ethical considerations, and conclusion will be discussed.... Huber (2004) states that school leaders are essential because they make a difference. Recognising the significance and crucial role of leadership in educational institution, this research will look into the various forms of leadership styles vis-a-vis its impact on the development of the faculty members. Specifically, this study intends to conduct a research on leadership styles and its impact on the development of faculty members at the College of Education at Ha'il University in Saudi Arabia to understand the connection between leadership styles and faculty development as the study centres on leadership and its impact on faculty development. The proposal will focus on the following areas. (1) The introduction wherein research questions, significance of the research and its aims are laid down. (2) The literature review, which presents the discourses of scholars pertinent to the issue of educational leadership and faculty development. (3) The research methodology that will be adopted in the conduct of the research. A qualitative case study will be used in this study as it attempts to answer the concerns of the research. In addition, the procedure for data collection, sampling of this research with great detail, validity and reliability, data analysis, ethical considerations and conclusion will be discussed. The Setting The research will be conducted on the College of Education at Ha’il University. The study will focus on the issue regarding the impact of styles of leadership in the College to the development of its faculty members. The research will involve the participation three (3) Department Heads of the College of Education at the Hail

Sorry for Disturbing You Essay Example for Free

Sorry for Disturbing You Essay Life is about many things. Some would say friendship is gold, others that money talks. But one main thing that many people isnt listing that high, is communication. We have the ability to talk and express what we feel. That can be the key to loving relationships and a happy life, if handled correctly. But if one is not able to express those feelings, and not able to obtain intimacy with someone else it will lead to loneliness. The short story â€Å"Sorry for Disturbing You† is written by Richard Knight and is dealing with the importance of communication. It is about a meeting between two men that seem different but really may not be that different after all. The story begins with the main character, Ian, reflecting and looking back upon his meeting with Michael Phelps. After that the story is chronologically built and is stretching across a couple of hours. The story is told by a third person narrator with a view inside of Ians head. There is no outer description of Ian and our portrait of Michael is painted by Ians view of him and how he appears to be through the dialogue. Ian sees Michael as a helpless and possibly an alcoholic person: â€Å"He seemed lost, hanging on to the doorframe for support† (l. 4) â€Å"He looked ill. Or very drunk. † (l. 11) Michael is also compared to â€Å"a sobbing child† (l. 55) and â€Å"a helpless foal† (l. 87) to emphasize the state he is in. There is something inside of Ian, reaching out for Michael. He really didnt want to let him in but still he did, because of his instincts telling him to. The same with starting a conversation with him. He still have some reluctance against Michael being in his house, so he finds him a chair that is â€Å"not too comfortable† (l. 6) It seems, through the dialogue, that Ian is not the best of communicators. For example: â€Å"What the hell am I supposed to talk about for ten minutes? † (l. 52) He dont know what to do about Michael and even less what to talk to him about. Michael is a mysterious man. There are hints that Michael may have an alcohol problem, since he seems drunk, he has a social worker and the fact that the taxi driver refuses to drive him home. He is rejected from society and he is not on good terms with his daughter. â€Å"Twenty-two years. The answer came immediately, like a time tables answer. (l. 73) The reason for his relationship to his daughter is suggested in this sentence. The reason might have been an event, something he was responsible of. Michael is a lonely man filled with so much regret it spills out in the form of tears. He is looking a lot at the photograph of Karen and Corinne, while hes probably thinking about his daughter and his family he no longer is in contact with. Karen and Corinne is not take up much space in the story but their absence are taking up a lot of space in Ians mind. When he think about Karen he gets a bit confused and ignorant. He is wondering how she would react to the whole thing but is not sure. He wants Karen to be there but he doesnt call her until the very end, as the very last way of getting Michael out of the house. In that way its because of Michael that Ian contacts his wife. What starts out as being a disturbance of Ians evening ends up being a help to him, because the communication between Ian and his wife was in a very bad condition. Suddenly the title of the short story has a different meaning than before. The meeting with Michael have definitely changed something inside Ian. When opening the door for Michael in the beginning of the story, the first thing he sees is the â€Å"icy rain running in beads down the mans face† (l. 1). But when he is looking back on the whole thing he is â€Å"no longer sure if it had been rain or tears† (l. 2) and the fact that he is now looking differently at the situation than he first did is showing that he have changed. When he met Michael it gave him a chance to reach out to Karen and to reflect on his own life. He realizes just how important family is and that he have to make an effort communicating with his wife and daughter. A physical example of Michaels great impact on Ian is when he grips Ians hand in the end, and holds it for a long time. The very last sentence of the short story: â€Å"He switched the television off, made two cups of tea and a glass of warm milk, and took the first careful steps up the stairs† (l. 171) shows that he is now quitting his former passiveness and is taking action so he wont lose the people he loves. Unfortunately, Michael is an example of many people across the world. It is sad, but you can only learn from this short story. It have a very strong morale: communicating is important.

The Poor But Efficient Hypothesis Economics Essay

The Poor But Efficient Hypothesis Economics Essay In Chapter one we set in motion the purpose for this research and explain to the reader the essence of quantifying the amount the household is willing to pay for abating malaria both in the present and in the future. In this chapter we go a step further by reviewing literature in this area. This chapter is important because it provides the reader with a sort of history into this area of research. It also gives the reader an opportunity to understand where our research stands vis-à  -vis other researches in this area. Obtaining a value for the marginal effect of malaria on farmers technical efficiency is one of the live wires on which precise estimates for our Willingness-To-Pay depend. We therefore want to start by reviewing literature in the area of efficiency measurement; afterwards, we will research into literature in the area of Willingness To Pay. Before we go ahead we highlight the purpose of measuring technical efficiency to the reader. Technical efficiency primarily enables one to understand the relationship between input used and the output (total harvested crop). It also enables us to measure the performance of individual farms in an industry as well as provide an index for the average performance of the overall industry. This then leads us to propose policy recommendations that could help shift the production frontier- the maximum attainable harvest from each input- of the farm closer to the industry frontier at the prevailing technology. As we progress in this research the reader will further appreciate this concept and the reason why it is one of the most talked about concepts in development/resource economics. At the moment, our aim is to examine some literature that relates to our area of research. We therefore start Section 2.1 by reviewing literature relating to the poor but efficient hypothesis of Schultz (1964). Section 2.2 reviews some agriculture-based literature on efficiency and health. In doing this we divide the study on inefficiency into two; the Frequentist (Section 2.2.1) and the Bayesian (Section 2.2.2) studies. Using another method of classification, we classify the study of efficiency into single output studies (Section 2.2.3) and multiple output studies (Section 2.2.4). This puts us in good standing to review literature on Willingness-To-Pay in Section 2.4. Productivity/Efficiency Studies in Agriculture The Poor but Efficient Hypothesis The huge volume of research on efficiency in agriculture draws motivation from Schultz (1964) book Transforming Traditional Agriculture. In the book he explains why rural farmers are efficient in the management and allocation of resources. He advances a hypothesis popularly called the poor but efficient hypothesis. Researchers try to verify this hypothesis quantitatively; in doing this, a lot of issues come to the fore, part of which is; the best way to measure productivity. Before the advent of the deterministic measure of productivity pioneered by Aigner and Chu (1968), and, Afriat (1972) researchers attempt to measure efficiency. Of great importance to us in this area are the works of Welsch (1965), Chennareddy (1967) and Lipton (1968) because they specifically test the validity of Schultzs poor but efficient hypothesis. Chennareddy (1967) utilizes the linear regression analysis on a data of one hundred and four rice and tobacco farmers in South India using a Cobb-Douglas production function. His findings were in accord with Schultz hypothesis. He recommends that South Indian farmers should adopt modern technology and extension education in order to move to a higher frontier. Lipton (1986)  [1]  disagrees with this recommendation. He argues that if Schultzs findings are correct then the rural farmers do not need any expert advice to improve their productivity in other words moving to a higher frontier should not be a problem for them. He further queries Schultzs assertion believing that it only works under a neo-classical theory of perfect competition; he affirms that if Schultz uses linear programming to analyse his data his findings would show that the rural farmer is inefficient. Welsch (1965) in his study on Abakaliki rice in Eastern Nigeria makes use of the linear regression to affirm that peasant farmers respond to economic inducement by allocating efficiently among several resources at their disposal. Hence, he supports Schultzs hypothesis. One thing we want the reader to note in the above groups of literature is; the writers who concur with Schultzs assertion use parametric techniques to arrive at their conclusion while Lipton (1968) employs a non-parametric linear programming technique that assumes at least one factor is not fully employed. Just as the argument is about to cease, Sauer and Mendoza-Escalante (2007) involve themselves in it. Their work serves to reconcile these diametrically opposing schools of thought. It puts to use a parametric normalized generalized Leontief (GL) profit function technique to analyse joint production of Cassava flour and maize by small-scale farmers in Brazil. The small-scale farmers are allocatively efficient, they assert, but they show considerable inefficiency in the scale of operation. At this juncture, we remind the reader that our digression is intentional. Our aim is to show how Schultzs assertion has brought an upsurge in the number of efficiency studies in agriculture with special focus on the developing economies of the world. We like to say that the work not only instigates research in development/resource economics but it also prompts research in anthropology and sociology (see Adams, 1986 and the review by Michelena, 1965 pp. 540-541). Proper measure of productivity starts with Aigner and Chu (1968), Afriat (1972) and Richmond (1974) where they propose a deterministic method of frontier measurement. Though their studies are obsolete they however underscore the popularity of the Cobb-Douglas functional form in the early literature to show the relationship between input and output. Aigner, Lovell and Schmidt (1977), Meeusen and van den Broeck (1977), and, Battese and Corra (1977)  [2]  introduce the modern stochastic frontier analysis as we know it today simultaneously. Their model apart from incorporating the efficiency term into the deterministic model it also includes the effect of random shock, hence, the name stochastic. Lau and Yotopoulos (1971) also introduce a dual profit function model to measure efficiency but their method is not as popular in production analysis because it only yields efficiency measures for a group of farms while the frontier method gives efficiency values for individual farms in the industry (Fà ¸rsund et al 1980). The reader should note that the linear regressions of Chennareddy (1967) and Welsch (1965) give the shape of the technology of an average farm in the industry while the stochastic frontier model gives the shape of the technology of the most productive farm in the industry against which the efficiency of every other farm is measured (Coelli 1995). In other words, Chennareddy (1967) and Welsch (1965) use an average response model for their analysis. The specification of a functional form and/or distributional assumption confers on a technique the nomenclature parametric while the non-specification of a functional/distributional form confers on a technique the non-parametric nomenclature. The non-parametric nomenclature means, in the words of Koop (2003), you are letting the data speak. This he says is very difficult to achieve as even in the non-parametric system, just like in the parametric, one need to impose certain structure on a particular problem in order to achieve ones objectives. The use of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) (another technique is the Free Disposal Hull, FDH) overshadows every other technique in the non-parametric class. Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes (1978) introduce this technique and gave it the name as we know it today. The data envelopment analysis technique uses the linear programming method to generate a piece-wise envelop over the data points. The technique is widely used in technical efficiency studies but it has the shortcoming of not incorporating randomness in measuring efficiency. Also, the envelop curve is not everywhere differentiable. Our focus in this research is the parametric technique. The parametric technique has progressed so much in the literature that there are now two different econometric schools of thought for estimating efficiency. The first school of thought are the Frequentists who dominate this field since its inception and the second school of thought are the Bayesians into which our research belongs. The Frequentist Studies The first set of Frequentist study is deterministic in nature and use the technological structure of the mathematical programming approach (see Aigner and Chu, 1968; Timmer, 1971; and, Fà ¸rsund and Hjalmarsson, 1979 for exposition on mathematical/goal programming). Richmond (1974) introduces the Modified Ordinary Least Square (MOLS) approach to analyse the efficiency of Norwegian manufacturing industries specifying a Cobb-Douglas production function. Richmond (1974) is a modification of the Corrected Ordinary Least Squares (COLS) approach. Winsten (1957) introduces this model by assuming a distribution (such as half normal or exponential) for the disturbance term. The Corrected Ordinary Least Square technique involves a two step process. The first step involves the use of the Ordinary Least Squares to obtain consistent and unbias estimates of the marginal effect parameters; on the contrary, the intercept parameters are consistent but bias. The second step involves the shifting of t he intercept upwards so the frontier envelops the data from above. Greene (1980) takes Richmond (1974) work a step further as he assumes a gamma distribution for the random error term using the maximum likelihood approach. He uses the data from Nerlove (1963) which is a sample of one hundred and fifty five firms producing electricity in the United States in 1955. Apart from replicating the results of Aigner and Chu (1963), Greene (1980) tries to explain the statistical relevance of his model. The reader should note that Greene (1980)s model is deterministic. One of the early applications of the deterministic frontier were Shapiro and Mà ¼ller (1977), Shapiro (1983), Belbase and Grabowski (1985). Shapiro and Mà ¼ller (1977) attempt to estimate the technical efficiency of forty farms in Geita district of Tanzania. They follow Timmer (1971) method of analysing technical efficiency by applying the linear programming to a Cobb Douglas production frontier. Their result which is similar to that of Chennareddy (1967) shows that the traditional farmer can improve his technical efficiency by adopting modern farming practices through easy access to information. This, they say, will be at the expense of non-economic costs like the farmer being branded unsociable by his community. Shapiro (1983) working in the same district as Shapiro and Mà ¼ller (1977) tries to confirm the poor but efficiency hypothesis but discovers the hypothesis may not be applicable in terms of peasant agriculture in Tanzania because their output could still be increased if all farmers had the same efficiency as the most efficient farmer in the sample. These assertions echo the conclusion of Lipton (1968). He uses the same model and method of analyses as Shapiro and Mà ¼ller (1977). Belbase and Grabowski (1985) introduce a technique that is different from the other two stated above. They apply the Corrected Ordinary Least Square (COLS) approach of Winsten (1957) on cross-sectional sample of farms in Nuwakot district of Nepal. They record an average technical efficiency value of 80% for joint production of rice, maize, millet and wheat. The average technical efficiency value for individual frontier calculation for rice and maize is given as 84% and 67% in that order. They find correlation between technical efficiency and other variables which are nutritional level, income and education. Technical efficiency is however not correlated with farming experience. Some studies investigate the impact of certain agricultural policies on productivity. A priori one expects these policies to actually increase productivity but this is not always the case. One of such study; Taylor, Drummond and Gomes (1986) use a deterministic production function and discover the World Bank sponsored credit programme PRODEMATA did not impact positively on the technical efficiency of farmers in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Their result shows that there is no difference between the technical efficiency of farmers who participate in the programme and those that did not participate. This paper is one of the few that compare both the results of the Corrected Ordinary Least Square and the maximum likelihood approaches. Unexpectedly, the participant farmers in the PRODEMATA programmes have slightly lesser allocative efficiency than non-participant farmers. The researchers also favour Schultzs hypothesis. We want the reader to note that the deterministic frontier is still popular in the literature for example, Alvarez and Arias (2004) use Lau and Yotopoulos (1971) dual profit function model to measure the effect of technical efficiency on farm size using data from one hundred and ninety-six dairy farms in Northern Spain. They introduce technical efficiency as a parameter to estimate in a simple production function. They observe a positive relationship between technical efficiency and farm size after they control for output prices, input prices and quasi-fixed inputs. Also Amara et al (1999) use the deterministic frontier to discover the relationship between technical efficiency and the adoption of conservation technologies by potato farmers in Quebec. They found that farming experience and the adoption of conservation technologies have positive influence on technical efficiency. Croppenstedt and Demeke (1997) use a fixed-random coefficients regression to analyse data for small-scale farmers growing cereal in Ethiopia. They observe that land size is a major constraint to crop production and large farms are relatively less productive than small farms other things being equal. They note that most of the farms are inefficient. They also observe inefficiency in the use of inputs especially labour and fertiliser. Share cropping is positively correlated to technical efficiency. Karagiannis et al (2002) propose an alternative for separating technical change form time varying technical inefficiency. Their proposition uses the general formulation index to model technical change (Karagiannis et al 2002 cites Baltagi and Griffin 1988). They also model technical change as quadratic function of time. Their proposition does not assume any distributional assumption for the one sided stochastic error term. They then apply their proposition to the United Kingdom dairy sector from 1982 to 1992 using a translog production frontier. They obtain a mean technical efficiency value of about seventy-eight per cent for the dairy industry with this period. One major disadvantage of the deterministic frontier model is that it over-values our inefficiency estimates. For example, Taylor and Shonkwiler (1986) discover the deterministic frontier gives over seventy per cent inefficiency while the stochastic frontier gives twenty per cent value for inefficiency. At present, a lot of papers utilize the stochastic frontier model in their analysis. Coelli et al (2003) makes use of the stochastic frontier to calculate the total factor productivity for a panel data of crop agriculture in Bangladesh. The data contains thirty-one observations collected between 1960/61 and 1991/92 from 16 regions and the result reveals technical change is convex in nature with increase starting about the time of the introduction of the green revolution varieties in the 1970s. Technical efficiency reduces at an annual rate of 0.47 per cent during the period they investigate. This has an effect on the total factor productivity which declines at the rate of 0.23 per cent per annum with the rate of reduction increasing in later years. This, they say, raises questions of food security and increase in agricultural productivity in Bangladesh. They point out the non-use of price data in their analysis which makes their work different from other authors (Coelli et al; 2003 c ites Pray and Ahmed, 1991, and, Dey and Evenson, 1991). Wadud and White (2000) compare the stochastic frontier approach with the data envelopment analysis and discover both methods indicate efficiency is significantly affected by irrigation and environmental degradation. There are a few papers that attempt to analyse technical, allocative and economic efficiencies at once in a single research. Bravo-Ureta and Pinheiro (1997) carry out a frontier analysis using the self-dual Cobb-Douglas production function to analyse farm data from Dominican Republic. They justify the use of the Cobb Douglas production function because the method they adopt requires both the use of the production and cost frontiers. Their research is important because they use the maximum likelihood technique to emphasize the essence of not only estimating the technical efficiency but also, the allocative and economic efficiency. Another paper that follows in this light is that of Bravo-Ureta (1994) who attempts to measure the technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of cotton and cassava farmers in eastern Paraguay. He estimates economic efficiency for cotton and cassava farmers to be around forty per cent and fifty-two per cent respectively. There could be spatial differences in the technical efficiencies of different farms based on ecological differences, farm size and interactions between these two variables. Tadesse and Krishnamoorthy (1997) set out to investigate this in their research on paddy rice farmers in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. They remark that the farmers still have opportunity of increasing their efficiency by seventeen per cent. They observe significant variation in the variation of mean technical efficiency in the four zones that make up Tamil Nadu. They use a two stage approach where the first task is to obtain farm-specific technical efficiency and then use a Tobit model to compare the differences in the technical efficiencies of each region and zone. Wang and Schmidt (2002) note a bias in the results obtained by this process and they went ahead to use the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique to prove that there is serious bias at every stage of the procedure. Chen et al (2009) also examine the technical efficiency of farms in four regions of China. The four regions are North, North-East, East and South-West. They observe that different inputs need to be put to efficient use in the different regions. For example, inefficient use of industrial input is the main problem in the East while in the North it is capital. They assert that farms in the North and North-East are relatively more efficient than farms in the East and South-West. They recommend a change in the land tenure system to eliminate land fragmentation in China. Other researchers have used the stochastic production frontiers to investigate the impact of government programmes on farmers efficiency. For example, Seyoum et al (1998) use the Battese and Coelli (1995) stochastic production function to compare between farmers that participate in Sasakawa-Global 2000 project and those who do not in Ethiopia. They collect twenty samples from two different districts (Keresa and Kombolcha) of eastern Ethiopia and show the difference in the levels of production in these two districts by use of a dummy for one district. The data is panel in nature which justifies their use of the Battese and Coelli (1995) model. Battese and Coelli (1995)  [3]  is a panel data extension of the Kumbhakar et al (1991) research work. Seyoum et al (1998) recommend that policy makers should expand the Sasakawa-Global 2000 project as farmers who participated have better output, productivity and efficiency than farmers that did not. Still on the impact of government programmes on efficiency, Abdulai and Huffman (2000) look at the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programme on the efficiency of rice farmers in Northern Ghana using a stochastic profit function. Their results show rice producers in the region are highly responsive to market prices for rice and inputs. They support the introduction of the structural adjustment programme because it makes the farmers more market oriented. Also, Ajibefun and Abdulkadri (1999) find the Cobb-Douglas production function as being adequate to represent the efficiency of Nigerias National Directorate of Employment Farmers Scheme. They reject the half-normal distribution assumption for the inefficiency term. Ajibefun (2002) simulates the impact of policy variables on the technical efficiency of small-scale farmers in Nigeria. He discovers that increase in education level and the farming experience would significantly improve the small-scale farmers technical efficiency. Ama za and Olayemi (2002) investigate the technical efficiency of food crop farmers in Gombe State, Nigeria and arrive at similar mean technical efficiency as Ajibefun and Abdulkadri (1999). However, the difference between the minimum and maximum technical efficiency score for Amaza and Olayemi (2002) is seventy-six per cent while for Ajibefun and Abdulkadri (1999) is about sixty-six per cent. Jara-Rojas et al (2012) look at the impact of the adoption of soil and water conservation practices on productivity and they discover a positive relation between soil and water conservation and technical efficiency. They discover that an enhancement of the technical efficiency also improves the net returns on investment. The use of the stochastic frontier model to estimate the effect of health on farmers efficiency is also very important in the literature. Croppenstedt and Mà ¼ller (2000) take up this challenge when they research into the role of the Ethiopian farmers health and nutritional status on their productivity and efficiency. They find that distance to the source of water as well as nutrition and morbidity affect agricultural productivity. Surprisingly, elasticities of labour productivity regarding their nutritional status are strong. They further affirm that this strong correlation continues with technology estimates and wage equations. However, they record considerable loss in production due to technical inefficiency even after accounting for health and nutrition of workers. Ajani and Ugwu (2008) look at the impact of adverse health on the productivity of farmers living in the Kainji basin of North-Central Nigeria. Their study shows the health variable as being positive, large and statistically significant. They therefore conclude that health capital is an essential input in agriculture. A paper that successfully combined the non-parametric technique of data envelopment analysis and an econometric model is Audibert et al (2003). They use a combination of the data envelopment analysis and the Tobit model to infer on the social and health determinants of the efficiency of cotton farmers in Northern Cà ´te dIvoire. They use the high density of the malaria parasite in the blood of an individual as a proxy for the health of the household. They use a two step process; firstly, they use the data envelopment analysis to arrive at relative technical efficiency values and then they regress this efficiency scores against factors they think will affect efficiency. The high density of malaria parasite in the blood variable enters the model at the second stage. Their results show that malaria greatly reduces farmers technical efficiency. They further conclude that it is intensity of infection by the disease that is important rather than its presence. Our research collects data on the prevalence of the disease in an area rather than just hospital reported cases; this we believe will give further credence to our results. Ajani and Ashagidigbi (2008) use numbers of days of incapacitation as a proxy for malaria incidence in Oyo State, Nigeria. Surprisingly, they ran a normal linear regression to investigate the effects of malaria on agricultural productivity. Their analysis shows that age and days of incapacitation are insignificant statistically. Olarinde et al (2008) explore the factors that affect bee keepers technical efficiency in Oyo state, Nigeria. They observe that the bee keepers are efficient by about eighty-five per cent there is still room for to increase their efficiency by fifteen per cent. They point out that some of the farmers do not take bee-keeping as their main occupation. This, they say, is a major determinant of efficiency. Marital status is also another variable that affects technical efficiency, they note. They observe that a farmer who is single is likely to be more efficient than a married farmer. Mochebelele and Winter-Nelson (2000) examine the effect of migratory labour (to mine fields in South Africa) on farm technical efficiency. They try to establish if migrant labour actually complement farm production or not. They establish that households with migrant farmers have higher production and are more efficient than households without migrant farmers. In the use of the panel data for efficiency estimation, some researchers try to see if differences exist in efficiency values between the fixed effect model and the stochastic frontiers. Ahmad and Bravo-Ureta (1996) use panel data of ninety-six Vermont dairy farms between the periods 1971 to 1984. They carry out statistical tests to investigate the better model between the fixed effect model and the stochastic frontier model. The fixed effect model gave better results than the stochastic frontier model. Hence, they conclude that the fixed effect model needs to be considered in panel data analysis. Reinhard et al (1999) estimate the technical and environmental efficiency of a panel of dairy farms. They assume the production of two outputs dairy and excessive use of Nitrogen. They analyse their efficiencies separately. Their objective involves investigating whether farmers can both be technically and environmentally efficient. They also examine the compatibility of these two types of efficiencies. They obtain a mean output-technical efficiency of 0.894 while the input-oriented environment efficiency is 0.441. They remark that intensive dairy farming is both technically and environmentally more efficient than extensive dairy farming. Reinhard et al (2000) examine comprehensive environmental efficiency in Dutch dairy farms. This paper is a continuation of Reinhard et al (1999) paper. In this paper, apart from surplus Nitrogen which they use in their earlier work, they also investigate excess use of phosphate and total energy use of these farms. They compare efficiency scores in the stochastic frontier analysis with the data envelopment analysis. The mean technical efficiency values for the two methods of analysis are different. The stochastic frontier has an output technical efficiency value of eighty-nine per cent while the data envelopment analysis has an efficiency value of seven-eight per cent. There is significant difference between their environmental efficiencies also. The stochastic frontier analysis records a value of eighty per cent while the data envelopment analysis records a value of fifty-two per cent. It is evident from the result of the two efficiencies that the stochastic frontier method over-valu es efficiency scores. Before we close this section we refer the reader to a work by Strauss (1986). The work is important because it attempts to investigate the effect of nutrition on farm labour productivity in Sierra Leone. He uses an average response model to capture this effect. He estimates a Cobb-Douglas production function which accounts for simultaneity in input and calorie choice. His exercise shows calorie intake has significant impact on labour productivity. He, however, places a caveat on this result because individual-level nutrient and anthropometric data are not included in the analysis. His result supports the nutrition productivity hypothesis to a great extent. In the last few pages we attempt to explain to the reader the preponderance of the Frequentist method of analysing the stochastic frontier especially in agriculture. We emphasize the diverse uses of the parametric method of efficiency measurement in agriculture. We believe that other literature in agriculture will fall into one of the categories we peruse above. Next, we take a look at the Bayesian econometrist view. The reader should note how few the literature is compared to the Frequentist method. Also, for a thorough perusal of the literature from the Frequentist perspective we refer the reader to Bravo-Ureta et al (2007) Delete. The Bayesian Studies The works of van den Broeck, Koop, Osiewalski and Steel (1994); Koop, Osielwalski and Steel (1994, 1997); Koop, Steel and Osielwalski (1992), and, Fernà ¡ndez, Osiewalski and Steel (1997) herald the Bayesian technique for estimating the compose-error model. van den Broeck, Koop, Osiewalski and Steel (1994) is a primer for estimating a Bayesian cross-sectional composed-error data. They resolve the problem of choosing the best functional form experienced in classical econometrics by mixing over a number of distributions. They use the Bayesian model averaging to average over the results of the Jondrow et al. (1982) and Greene (1990). In other words van den Broeck, Koop, Osiewalski and Steel (1994) solve the problem of choosing the better distribution between the two. They also carry out predictive inference on their results using the Monte Carlo technique of importance sampling. In continuation of van den Broeck, Koop, Osiewalski and Steel (1994) work; Koop, Osielwalski and Steel (1994) show how to use the Gibbs sampling Monte Carlo method to arrive at estimates for the stochastic cost frontier model. They fit an asymptotically ideal price aggregator, non-constant returns to scale composed error cost frontier. They use Barnett, Geweke, and Wolfe (1991) method for generating the asymptotically ideal price aggregator (Koop, Osielwalski and Steel, 1994 cite Barnett, Geweke, and Wolfe 1999). They caution that care should be taken in the choice of functional form for frontier analysis. We believe the use of the Bayesian model Averaging technique should circumvent this problem. Also, they discover that imposing regularity condition on the price aggregator is found to reduce the spread of the Mà ¼ntz- Szatz expansion. Koop, Steel and Osielwalski (1995) essentially show how to draw the different parameters in the composed-error model using the Gibbs sampler. They provide an algorithm to draw the different parameters of choice in the composed-error model. They show the ease with which this can be done using the Gibbs sampler. They also note the use of 0.875 as an informative prior for the inefficiency value. van den Broeck, Koop, Osielwalski and Steel (1994) propose this value. Fernà ¡ndez, Osiewalski and Steel (1997) introduce the Bayesian method for estimating panel data using a class of non- or partly-informative prior. They assert that using this type of priors for a cross-sectional data will make its posterior inference unreliable and inaccurate. This is because the total number of parameters in the entire model is larger than the sample size. They circumvent this problem in the panel data where the researcher can impose a structure on the inefficiency terms. Koop, Osielwalski and Steel (1997) take Fernà ¡ndez et al (1997)