The Shadow of the Gods Review Essay Example

The Shadow of the Gods Review Paper Essay on The Shadow of the Gods It should probably start with the fact that this author I am very impressed. He captivates and amazes plot intrigue and beauty of his verbal incarnations, he and his original philosophy. In his books, there is a certain ease and unobtrusiveness. You do not just read the book, you mean it literally swallow. His characters often say and think about quite banal and obvious things, but it is all so simple, understandable and easily, as if it were your own thoughts In Werber has a special talent -. It forces the reader to think about their lives, but to think with this is much wider than usual to think abstractly. And I thought born of a sudden and they are so obvious as if you recall what was once forgotten, or seemed to think about something before, and still could not form and finish your thought, and now Why is it and what! I had been thinking ?! Yes, Werber is a This is certainly not the first book Saga of the gods, which I read, I read them all, so there is something to compare. And with all my love for the author, I can not say that I like this book very much and I liked from her in delight. No, this is not. Perhaps partly because I had grown accustomed to the author and his heroes and now they do not plunge me into a frenzied enthusiasm as before. Previous books definitely liked more. The plot is still interesting, inconsistencies in it is still there, but much more in the breath of the gods is that for which we love Werber. We will write a custom essay sample on The Shadow of the Gods Review specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Shadow of the Gods Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Shadow of the Gods Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer And if someone had read the earlier books so far doubts whether this reading, I would say: Yes, to read, to read of course!

buy custom Southern Poverty Law essay

buy custom Southern Poverty Law essay Introduction Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPL), as widely known is an organization formed to champion for the rights of minority groups in the U.S. it is a nonprofit organization with its location in Montgomery, Alabama set up with the goal of fighting effects of poverty, intolerance, prejudice, and combating hate (Holland, n. d). It does its work by identifying hate groups, militia organizations, and providing tolerance-promoting educational programs. Founded in 1971 by Morris Dee, as a civil rights organization to advocate for the rights victims of hate actions, such as threats, and violence, today, SPL, as these paper discuses, plays a pivotal role in fighting hate groups. Discussion Primarily, SPL is geared toward serving justice to all. This, they do by ensuring that the less fortunate are adequately represented in courts and that justice is found to the satisfaction of both parties. The organization is based on a remarkably comprehensive legal system, which ensures its ability to intervene in cases within legal jurisdictions. Holland (n. d) argues that, using its legal system, it has filed successful cases involving hate groups in the U.S. By identifying and exposing these groups to the authorities, SPL plays a key role in reducing instances of hate-based violence across the U.S. By filing successful lawsuits against these groups, it eads to inevitable disbandment of such groups as it leaves the bankrupt Southern. Secondly, it plays the role of fighting hate groups through monitoring activities and membership of hate groups. The organization is recognized for its investigative ways of dealing with cases. Therefore, it does a comprehensive investigation to locate these groups, their source of funds, membership, including their leadership, and who runs them. It does not only dig into these groups, but also educate the public on extremists groups. However, SPLC is handicapped within its jurisdictions, in that it lacks the authority to make arrests. Therefore, once they locate these militia groups, they inform the concerned law enforcement agencies. What is evident from my research is that SPL engages in training of both the public and the law enforces. In the community, they identify capable individuals who can be trained on effective community policing. Currently, SPL has trained quite a sizeable number of police officers, and equipped them with specific skills on how to identify and deal with extremists. Looking further, SPL has incorporated its advocacy activities in school programs. Through establishment Teaching Tolerance, the organization promotes tolerance, empathy, and appreciating the diversity of the people of the U.S. The organization does this by developing teaching materials and programs for teachers to be used in schools. In addition, the organizaation, in 2001, developed Tolerance.org, a website aimed combating hate and related vices in the community. Recently, SPL released a report detailing the rapid rise in the number of hate groups. According to the findings, the number of hate groups in the U.S has risen by 54%. This is a tragic figure considering the effort put by SPL to eliminate these groups. It is evident that somebody is not playing his or her part well. To make significant progress in this fight, it is essential that the stakeholders intensify their efforts. The following, according SPL, is a list of the most pronounced hate groups in the U.S, and particularly Michigan: neo-Nazi, White Power skinhead, Christian Identity, patriot Movements, and the Ku Klux Klan. In overall, there are up to 1020 hate groups in the U.S, all of which are active. These groups are engaged in a variety of hate-based vices including, hate speeches, unlawful meetings, publishing leaflets, rallies among other acts of crime. Conclusion Looking closely at the report it is evident that these groups host a number of websites on which they publish hate materials. It is also evident that these groups, either because most of them exist amongst the poor, or are intrinsically established to act against the poor, perpetrate their vices against the poor. Therefore, this is where SPLC comes in to play; to champion for the rights of the poor. Buy custom Southern Poverty Law essay

Conceptual Entrepreneurial Business Plan Assignment

Conceptual Entrepreneurial Business Plan - Assignment Example However, when new policies were implemented, all the Passenger Service Vehicles (PSV) were required to be registered under different Sacco’s. In January 2015, all the PSVs were required to register their vehicles and the route to operate. A minimum of twenty vehicles were allowed to register as a Sacco. Ironically, most bus owners did not like the idea of working in a Sacco. As a result, they withdrew their buses in town and operated other routes outside the town. Indeed, it was a good idea to join a Sacco as it was easy to manage the fleet in town, but owners had a contrary opinion. This brought about a gap in the industry, leaving a lot of passengers frustrated. Approximately 6000 people travel in and out of the city daily. With the few buses remaining, this is not proportion to the need. To meet this demand, the company intends to buy 20 new 40-seater buses. Very stiff competition will be expected from the already operating bus companies. The City Hopper Company is currently the leading company within the town offering transport services. Nevertheless, it is not the only company. Other companies are: Best ways chopper - it one of the oldest companies that has been in operation and operate within the town only. It has a number of buses, but most of them have been grounded because of mismanagement and poor maintenance. City Hopper- it is the largest company that serves most parts of the city. It has installed bus terminus at strategic places within and outside the city. Nonetheless, there are a few buses owned by the company. On several occasions, they are opportunistic and escalate fares mainly at rush hours and on rainy season. Drivers, turn boys/ conductors, secretary, mechanics and accountant/cashier will be on the same level. They will all be answerable to the assistant manager. The entire management system will be supervised by the general manager assisted by his deputy. All the staff

Close Analysis of Citizen Kane Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Close Analysis of Citizen Kane - Assignment Example Strong backlighting is applied in making the characters appear anonymous to the viewers; for example, when Kane is told that Mariah has been packing the entire morning. Smoke was filled in a room to illustrate the light beams that emanate from the projectors and the lamps. Cinematography utilizes great composition. This is effectively through mirror reflection. The reflection shows, analysis of the life of the characters, and also illustrating adequately composed image. The mirror enables the camera to illustrate several reflections of the characters. The inventive application of lighting and shadow in the film shows a genre that has dark and moody environment to illustrate mysterious and violent scenes. Like the scene where Kane tries in vain to convince Susan to stay. Classical Hollywood narrative is a concept applied in film history. The narrative illustrates both visual and sound techniques for developing motion pictures and production techniques in the American film sector, during the period â€Å"golden age of Hollywood.† Citizen Kane is classic film; this is because it was produced during the â€Å"golden age of Hollywood.† Classical film style applies the continuity editing principle. This is because the sound recording and the camera do not concentrate on themselves. In Citizen Kane, the cameras also focus on the background, like the several statues at the beginning of the clip. The classical narration has psychological motivation. This illustrates the human character will, towards a given goal. Kane illustrates the great desire to convince Susan not to leave. But, Susan has made up her mind to leave, despite the pleas of Kane. Classical Hollywood narrations have continuous time flow. The flow is only interrupted during flashback. Flashback is applied in Citizen Kane to show the memory sequence. Classical Hollywood overcomes the two

Legal Environment Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Legal Environment Analysis - Essay Example London hotels generated daily profit - expressed as income before fixed charges (IBFC) - of 47.75 per available room compared to 57.46 the same month a year earlier." (Hospitality Trends, 2009) Although the trends in the hospitality industry at the levels of the hotel chains are not satisfactory the company is going to be the part of the small firms which comprises 99% of the UK business community. The tourism industry of UK comprises of 127,000 businesses in which 80% of the businesses have a turnover of 250,000 pounds per annum. "The London outlook by business segment has also been revised since the Q4 2007 Hotel Market Outlook report when it was expected that the luxury market would lead the sector in 2008. The model now suggests that the mid-market sector will be the front runner, seeing revPAR growth of 7.3% during the year, before falling back to 4.2% in 2009" (Hotel Market Outlook, 2008). The main source of competitive advantage in services industry is efficient service for th e customers. Supply chain plays an important role in the efficient service provision to the customers. "The goal of a supply chain should be to maximise overall supply chain profitability. Supply chain profitability is the difference between the revenue generated from the customer and the total cost incurred across all stages of the supply chain. Supply chain decisions have a large impact on the success or failure of each firm because they significantly influence both the revenue generated as well as the cost incurred. Successful supply chains manage flows of product, information, and funds to provide a high level of product availability to the customer while keeping costs low." (Chopra & Meindl, 2004; 44) The company will also use the same competitive technique in order to keep abreast with the challenges posed due to the high level of competition in the market. Industry Categories or types of establishment Hotels: These are the most luxurious provision of hospitality services (including conference and banqueting), resort, budget and bed and breakfast. Pubs, bars and nightclubs: These are the managed houses where alcoholic beverages are sold. Contract food service providers: These hospitality companies provide services such as schools or hospital catering provision; food and drink and facilities management at different organizations. They also provide services such as housekeeping linen and security. Hospitality services companies: These companies provide support to the provision of in house food and drink. They can be retailers or local authorities. Restaurants: Restaurants are the most popular category of the hospitality business found in UK. These include the Fast food establishments, cafes and coffee shops, mainstream restaurants and fine dining. The proposed business will belong to the same category. The hospitality business will be a restaurant with Oriental theme. Reason for

HSBC Pricing Strategy Analysis

HSBC Pricing Strategy Analysis As long as the wider economic situation remains doubtful, it is advisable for HSBC to adopt a wait-and-see approach and a careful look at their businesses, stress testing them for both economic downturn and full-blown recession. And it would be useful to factor in the wider commercial and operational impacts through combined risk, valuation, economics, operations and HR teams. Certainly, for financial services firms like HSBC, crisis management still necessary in the form of asset and portfolio revaluation on a mark-to model basis for both management and constitutional accounting purposes and this may need some independent validation. Within the last decade the best consumer bank HSBC garnered awards along with soaring rankings. This was just one of those awards won by the HSBC in its excellent performance. Such achievements, rankings, and awards can be directly resulting from HSBCs business strategies. As the last decades success is not ever lasting due to increased competition in the industry facilitated by globalization, trade liberalization rather is become more difficult for the corporation to maintain its leading position through offering the excellence in the service. The company needs to add diverse values to its strategy to establish its position in the target segment. Traditional views on competitive advantage have highlighted such barriers to entry as economies of scale, patent protection, access to capital, and regulated competition. More recent views have highlighted different aspects of competitive advantage, a firms human resources and human capital. New demands facing organizations as a result of heightened competition, globalization, and technological advances have put a premium on creativity and innovation, speed and flexibility, as well as efficiency. The UK government is amending its regulation in an aggressive manner to secure the industry from the future crisis. Operating environments in the economy have continued to improve as the effects of government and central bank policies work through the system and it may be that HSBC has passed, or are about to pass, the bottom of the cycle in the financial markets. Reducing branded activities that present high risks has become a key governing issue for the retail banking industry. After the crunch, the key challenges the banking industry facing is the shortages of capital liquidity/lack of funding, high credit costs, and global price volatility. HSBC may modify its strategy to comply with the economic down-turn and the tightened regulation. Financial projecting and strategy may need careful reappraisal as many expectations supporting HSBCs strategies, plans, budgets and transactions could well need revision and material change might also have to be disclosed under regulatory, statutory or stock exchange obligations. A comprehensive contingency strategy to overcome disaster and business continuity need to be organized to gain a transparent understanding of decision making process in the case of sharp market fall. Plenty effort may need to be considered to establish changes to models, policies, processes and operations in response to lessons learned. HSBC needs to be organized to comply with the next once in a lifetime financial shock. The UK government, which has been widely criticised in the wake of the near collapse of the Northern Rock, wants to reform the current system by imposing new rules and regulation. HSBC may follow a flexible strategy where it can easily adopt the regulation maintaining the higher customer satisfaction level. As the crunch could well shake out further changes in regulation, or prompt further demands for change from stakeholders. Reviewing risk model adequacy by transparency of exposures or by back-testing of model assumptions on asset volatility, correlation, and liquidity may be carried out by HSBC to maintain the safeguard. Reviewing the adequacy of the reporting system, focusing on the transparency, rationality and strength of valuation models; accuracy and quality of underlying reference data; adequacy of controls on model use and maintenance; consistency in the bases and assumptions of risk and valuation models (particularly as assumptions may not reflect recent experience); and effectiveness of risk escalation procedures in the event of serious market volatility or disruption. HSBC may check policies, procedures and availability of skilled people to respond quickly and effectively to serious market volatility or disruption to stem losses (or even make profits). It may also review the adequacy of: Limit framework; reporting framework; Stress-testing procedures. HSBC needs to play their pricing strategies very carefully; as it has generated many hundreds of millions of pounds per annum in revenue from these charges. Review operational capability to handle the situation, with particular focus on: effectiveness of the process, infrastructure along with functional capacity (front, middle, back office) and straight through process/workflow evaluation. Specifically, in response to a competitors pioneering new product introduction, academic research finds many conditions that suggest a greater desirability of immediate market entry while many other conditions suggest a greater desirability of a delayed response. The areas where there is a consensus among decision makers with the academic literature, as well as areas where views differ from that of the literature. Changes and discusses insights gained into the decision making processes of managers for market entry timing decisions. The study can help managers in follower firms achieve greater success in formulating market entry timing strategies by reducing ambiguity in the timing implications of many internal and external conditions, as well as by drawing attention to potential action biases. As the Crucial Official Government and Agency Economic and Financial Data are of highly questionable in terms of validity; HSBC may educate itself about the realities of the marketplace using Alternative Data Sources. Collecting and staying familiar to genuine information about the market can save one much financial grief as well as positioning one for profit. As technology plays an important role in the Banking industry, HSBC may integrate the latest features in their operational strategy to get the competitive advantage. Technology helps the company to introduce differentiation among the industry where it can help the bank to charge extra if that technology adds values to the customers. Customers Satisfaction by providing customized service to establish the bond with the customers so that they can rely on the Banks activities. By redesigning product with additional facilities HSBC can attract the lower and the mid-level customers. Customer-facing business requirements are also more easily accommodated, and if these principles are applied, operational productivity and operating performance can both be raised. The key to success relies on the quality customer interface and experience, with identifying the need to offer people/individuals something they want to be identified with; fits in with their own brand choices; gives them a sense of control; and is easy for them to use at the time that they want to use it. The expectations of the Customers of the Retail Banking industry towards the service providers is getting higher to get their transactional needs right for every time. With minimizing the tolerance level for error, politicians and regulators championing consumer rights and editors being ready to run headlines about banking mistakes, it is a must for HSBC to have resilient, available and effective transactions processing and management systems. These systems and the change environments within which they are maintained must also be capable of meeting the needs of the current and emerging market needs. It is observed that non-banks have achieved high levels of personalisation in their engagement with customers, and new entrants to the retail market such as PayPal have established the competitive standard. Although PayPal is now a bank, it has achieved a financial performance to rival that of a global banks transactions business by providing an interface to bank services, having an effec tive launch strategy and giving to customers the things that they valued: convenience and the ability to keep their financial accounts private. HSBC may create new channel to get the competitive advantage over the industry rivals. At this time all the organisations now understand the importance of knowing their customers as individually and uniquely as possible. This means understanding individual needs and then being able to relate those individual needs to the actual priorities of each customer at any given point in time. Few systems have the ability to provide insight into a customer lifecycle or into current customer priorities as transactions systems do. In mature markets with high barriers to entry and which display stable market share, data mining can be vastly effective in generating new revenue streams and in establishing a differentiated service proposition. Successful data mining will include the use of refined cross-examination tools and a periodic ad hoc analysis along with data warehouse. Success is determined by integrated process management, detailed transactions analysis and alignment with a clear customer segmentation and strategy. Small and Medium Enterprises have become key players in the retail banking industry as its segment it getting bigger day by day with the globalization and increased competition. A careful selection of SMEs and product modification to attract those SMEs can help HSBC may generate increased revenue. As interest rate is a parameter which plays a key role in the banking industry and investment industry, HSBC can tailor its product in a way where the customer will be attracted and communicate the benefit of the product to the target market to gain competitive advantage. Economic profit may be easier to manage though the environment is more competitive than before by simplifying the investment decision and clarifying the accountabilities. Understanding the value of the customers and identify the sacrifice the bank will have to make to that is the vital issue. Investing in understanding and developing this aspect of their service to customers is a parallel, to develop new products, services, markets and pricing strategies. Operational and business interactions may be obtained by bringing the transactions management at the same place, and these scale efficiencies may also be applied to effective risk and incident/ disaster management. Results for the affected banks are definitely substantial which damage to their good will, opportunity loss of potential revenue and also the cost of modification and remediation. For the people involved in managing the incident it was an uncomfortable time: dealing with imperfect and incomplete data while trying to provide coherent and reliable information to many internal and external stakeholders.

Biography of Ferdinand Porsche Essay -- essays research papers

Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorf, Austria (now in the Czech Republic) on September 3, 1875. At age 18 he found a job in Vienna. While working in Vienna he audited a few courses at the technical university for the only engineering training he ever received. A few years later he took his first job in the automotive industry with Jacob Lohner. There he was involved in the design of an electric car, the Lohner-Porsche. That first car by Porsche set land speed records in Austria, speeding up to a remarkable 35 miles per hour. Later he participated in the development of a mixed car using an internal combustion engine combined with electrical power. In 1905 he won the Austrian Poetting Prize as Austria?s outstanding automotive designer. On the strength of Porsche?s earlier work he was offered a position with the Austrian division of the Daimler automobile company (today Daimler/Chrysler) as its chief designer. After several successful designs of early Mercedes he also worked on airplane engines, fire trucks, buses, wind electric generators and even an agricultural tractor. By 1923 he moved to the company?s headquarters in Stuttgart as technical director. There he developed several more very successful Mercedes models. In 1924 the Technical College of Stuttgart awarded him an honorary doctoral degree in engineering on the basis of his achievements. Since his days at Austro-Daimler he had a personal dream of a mass produced automobile which could be produced cheaply enough to be affordable for the average citizen. He made a proposal for such a car to his employers at Mercedes-Benz, but was disappointed that there was no interest at Mercedes for his plan. Irritated, he left the company. In 1931 he founded his own compa... ...h the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1965 he was presented with an honorary doctoral degree by the Vienna Technical College. In 1972 Porsche converted the company into a stock company with shares available to the public. The family, however, retained essential control with family stock holdings and seats on the board of directors. The name of the company was retained, ?Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche? but now with the addition of the letters AG (Aktiengesellschaft: stock based company). Ferry Porsche was given numerous awards for achievement. In 1984 he was presented with the title of ?Professor? by the Minister-Prà ¤sident (Chief Minister) of the state of Baden-Wà ¼rttemberg, Lothar Spath. Porsche remained as the chairman of the board of Porsche until 1990 when he retired and became the honorary chairman. Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche died at the age of 88 on March 27, 1998. Biography of Ferdinand Porsche Essay -- essays research papers Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorf, Austria (now in the Czech Republic) on September 3, 1875. At age 18 he found a job in Vienna. While working in Vienna he audited a few courses at the technical university for the only engineering training he ever received. A few years later he took his first job in the automotive industry with Jacob Lohner. There he was involved in the design of an electric car, the Lohner-Porsche. That first car by Porsche set land speed records in Austria, speeding up to a remarkable 35 miles per hour. Later he participated in the development of a mixed car using an internal combustion engine combined with electrical power. In 1905 he won the Austrian Poetting Prize as Austria?s outstanding automotive designer. On the strength of Porsche?s earlier work he was offered a position with the Austrian division of the Daimler automobile company (today Daimler/Chrysler) as its chief designer. After several successful designs of early Mercedes he also worked on airplane engines, fire trucks, buses, wind electric generators and even an agricultural tractor. By 1923 he moved to the company?s headquarters in Stuttgart as technical director. There he developed several more very successful Mercedes models. In 1924 the Technical College of Stuttgart awarded him an honorary doctoral degree in engineering on the basis of his achievements. Since his days at Austro-Daimler he had a personal dream of a mass produced automobile which could be produced cheaply enough to be affordable for the average citizen. He made a proposal for such a car to his employers at Mercedes-Benz, but was disappointed that there was no interest at Mercedes for his plan. Irritated, he left the company. In 1931 he founded his own compa... ...h the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1965 he was presented with an honorary doctoral degree by the Vienna Technical College. In 1972 Porsche converted the company into a stock company with shares available to the public. The family, however, retained essential control with family stock holdings and seats on the board of directors. The name of the company was retained, ?Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche? but now with the addition of the letters AG (Aktiengesellschaft: stock based company). Ferry Porsche was given numerous awards for achievement. In 1984 he was presented with the title of ?Professor? by the Minister-Prà ¤sident (Chief Minister) of the state of Baden-Wà ¼rttemberg, Lothar Spath. Porsche remained as the chairman of the board of Porsche until 1990 when he retired and became the honorary chairman. Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche died at the age of 88 on March 27, 1998.