Disruptive Changes in the Business Sector

AN IDLE BEFORE THE YOUTH

AN IDLE BEFORE THE YOUTH AN IDEAL BEFORE THE YOUTH - Dr.S.RadhakrishnanIntroduction: Dr.S.Radhakrishnan was one of the most distinguished men of India. From a humble origin, he rose to hold the highest office in India. In him we see a rare combination of Indian tradition and scientific thinking. Dr.Radhakrishnan has contributed much to the cause of education in our country. In this essay he points out the importance of the right kind of education for the youth of the country. He looks at the needs of India as related to education in a perspective that is historical, political, economic, philosophic and religious. Challenges facing our Country: Political freedom has brought us a great opportunity. It has brought us the sacred responsibility of building up a new India which will be free from want and disease and the curse of caste and creed. Our country is passing through a great revolutionary period in human history.English: Photograph of Radhakrishnan taken at a re...It is facing a many sided challenge, poli tical and economic, social and cultural. Education is the means by which our youth can be trained to face this great challenge and build the new India of our dreams. The Constructive Side of Science: Dr.Radhakrishnan believes that scientific and technological studies develop in us an attitude of tolerance, freedom from prejudice and hospitality to new ideas. Only by developing our heart and intelligence and our own moral values can we save the world from total destruction. If we do so, science can lead us to such a degree of material wealth as has never before been possible in human history. But this will be possible only if we develop our moral values and take the right judgments. The Real Aim of Education: Any satisfactory system of education should aim at a balanced growth of the...

Tougher than two Muthaf Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Tougher than two Muthaf - Essay Example The other shapes used are triangles, oval, and circles to create various features. For instance, the face has been masked with triangles in black and yellow creating a pattern. The lines include diagonal, vertical, and horizontal while another cross one another. The lines join to create the desired shapes in the image such as the coat and the mask. The composition is the arrangement of elements in the image to draw the attention of the viewer and in this image, the elements have been arranged to create unity by bringing everything together. The painting has a symmetrical balance creating the sense of calmness, as the man appears cool. The arrangement of lines, shapes, and texture in the image creates a focal point on the face. The different shapes used in the image create a rhythm moving the viewer’s eye to different parts of the image. All the elements in the image have unity, as they seem stuck together. Special attention has been given to the face to create an emphasis of a n African man. The masking of the face and use of blue glasses attracts the attention of the viewer towards the face. The pose on the man’s face also has been emphasized by unmasking the lips, which makes the image appear real since the rest of the face is masked. The image is painted to scale, and the size of the man is not exaggerated. Everything is in proportion, but the hair is abnormally rough and sluggish compared to that of a human being. This creates some emphasis and attracts the attention of the viewer to scrutinize it.

Classification and division essay on types of colleges (ex. Public,

Classification and division on types of colleges (ex. Public, Private, State or University) - Essay Example Moreover, it only offers a two-year associates degree after the completion of which, it is to the discretion of the student to transfer to another college or work based on the degree provided by the community college. However, many students have been opting for a baccalaureate degree after completing a two-year program at the community college (Bridget, & Kurlaender, pp. 1-5). However, a liberal arts college is different. The basic focus is to polish the students’ abilities in terms of writing and analysis. It does not delve too much into the intricacies of specialized teaching or learning. Liberal arts colleges offer a bachelors degree at the completion of the four-year program (Aldrich, pp. 29-35). The college does not offer any program beyond the bachelors level, but it creates too interactive an environment for the limited population of students it caters to. Side by side, the United States offers public as well as private colleges. The local governments run public colleges by the taxes they collect. This is their major source of funding, and by virtue of it, they can afford a significantly lower fees than privately run colleges. Moreover, due to the lower cost it accrues to the student, it attracts many people and public colleges generally have a bigger student body than state colleges. Private colleges, on the other hand, depend on self-generated money for operating and so have a higher cost. However, the higher cost is often associated with better facilities for students and staff as well (Aldrich, pp. 49-58). Moreover, public and private universities offer courses ranging from sciences to liberal arts. Students from a broader background tend to attend these due to the diversity of offered courses at the institutions. In addition, the degrees offered are of Master’s and PhD level too. The different types of colleges discussed have been unique in one aspect or the other. The system of education

Eng 105 unheard HW Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Eng 105 unheard HW - Essay Example Though it seems bad, the colored folk are being accepted though it a journey I know. LYON: [uncomfortable at the direction the talk is taking] It’s my music, finally started to show progress. Some producer saw me on stage at my regular club say I got talent. Next thing you know am off making something for myself. Fences is a play that focuses deeply on relationships that are strained by personal decisions and by the times they are in. the discrimination of the colored community is clearly highlighted as a theme in the play and it is portrayed as having a major role in the lives of the characters. Troy, the main character in the play, makes many mistakes in his lifetime and has learnt to live with the old ones he made as a youth. In so doing, he is able to create a family, which is relatively happy and gets a stable job. These and the friendship he has with his workmates give him something to be thankful about. The event that occurs towards the closing of the climax of the play exposes the stained relationship existing between the members of his family. Rose and Lyon have such a relationship, which is made even more difficult by introduction of Raynell in the family. Lyon and Cory are okay with each other, but there is a barrier between them where Lyon expresses a form of crippled thinking and his younger brother is more focused and sharp. In this particular instance, Lyon expresses his regard for his father when he refers his brother to their father in respect to finding a job. In this manner, he indirectly accepts that he is the one at odds with his father because he had refused an offer for a job by him. Lyon is the main focus of the act and he is exposed as having been involved with an incident he is ashamed of. He lies to his family on the source of the money he reinstates to his father knowing that if he disclosed the truth, he would be rejected. This instance goes further to show that the stereotypic

General Happiness Equation Using Econometric Models Of Panel Data Methods Philosophy Essay

General Happiness Equation Using Econometric Models Of Panel Data Methods Philosophy Essay This study presents a general happiness equation using econometric models of panel data methods. The model tries to observe and estimate the relationship between income and happiness after controlling for other factors. With advanced methods, we also test for the presence of personality bias and whether it correlates with income. Finally, we provide some analysis of our estimation results and briefly discuss alternative approaches in the literature. Introduction Empirical research on human happiness have only recently in the last few decades received serious attention from both economists and non-economists. The lack of national-level representative survey data and the difficulty to apply econometric techniques were the stumbling blocks for further research in the past. With the establishments of national socio-economic panel surveys as well as technological advancements that gave birth to neat econometric software packages, the literature experienced a surge in the amount of research as well as the popularity drawn to these works. Things began to look brighter and brighter, and as a result came the birth of a new field called happiness economics. What happiness economists typically try to do is to estimate what they call happiness equations. Using econometric techniques, they could test for a causal link between income and happiness. After controlling for other factors that can cause happiness (eg. education, marital status, disability, unemployment etc.), early work which used simple cross sectional methods suggest a positive and statistically significant correlation. To run Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions on cross sectional data sounds decent, but is in actual fact highly inadequate. What if happiness is also caused by another factor that is unobservable in the data, such as personality? Could it be that ones happiness strongly depends on who he is as a person? On face value, it seems plausible or at least interesting to suggest that peoples capacity to be happy vary from individual to individual. Perhaps some people are born extrovert and optimistic, and as a result tend to be happier than others even if they have less income than them. Then simple OLS will suffer from an omitted variable bias problem, which causes one or more of its classical assumptions to be violated and hence estimates to be biased. To solve this problem of unobserved heterogeneity bias, we can use panel data and propose a fixed effects model. We can run a pooled OLS regression on panel data, but it would still be susceptible to the omitted variable bias problem. Firstly, we can think of the personality variable as a time-constant effect. By exploiting the nature of panel data, which follows the same individual over time, we can eliminate this unobserved time-constant effect by doing some transformation on the data. The simplest way is to perform first-differencing. Namely, we take observations on an individual for two time periods and we calculate the differences. Then we run an OLS regression on these transformed values. In effect, we have removed all unobserved time-constant variables not only limited to personality. Maybe an individuals thumbprints or DNA may be correlated with happiness, we do not know for sure. But the elegance of first-differencing makes it sure that we remove all nuisance unobserved time -constant variables that disturb our primary goal. Through transforming the data in such a way that we are now dealing with relative rather than absolute values, we have also mitigated the problem of heterogeneous scaling in subjective responses. Every individual have their own perception on the happiness score. A score of 7 may be others score of 6, and so on. This would make interpersonal (cross-sectional) comparisons meaningless, and is part of the reason why in the past empirical work on this literature have been viewed with scepticism by many economists. By reasonably assuming that a persons metric or perception is time-invariant, this issue is dealt with in a fixed effects model. There are other advanced transformation techniques that uses data on multiple time periods. One technique performs a time-demeaning transformation on the data. Again, all unobserved time-constant variables will be eliminated. But for details presented later, OLS regression on these transformed values provides more efficient estimators than on the first-differenced values for our purposes. Estimators that result from this method are called fixed effects (FE) estimators. While the fixed effects model allows for arbitrary correlation between the explanatory variables and the unobserved time-constant effect, a random effects model explicitly assumes that there is no such correlation. Estimation on this model is typically done by transforming the data using a method of quasi-demeaning, and then a Generalised Least Squares (GLS) regression is run on the transformed values. The resulting estimators are called random effects (RE) estimators. How these techniques are performed as well as the intuition behind them is explained with technical detail in Section 3. Why we may want to use a random effects model over a fixed effects model is because we may believe that personality has no effect on any of the independent variables, including income. If this is true, then using FE estimators will result in relatively inefficient estimates than RE estimators. But intuitively, personality is likely to be correlated with the ability to make money, and thus income. Studies have shown that happy people tend to earn more in general (eg. see Lyubomirsky et al. 2005). If this were true, simple pooled OLS methods will lead to inaccurate estimates where the effect of income on happiness will be overstated or biased upwards. The fixed effects model allows for this correlation, and is thus more widely accepted in the literature to fit the data better. Lastly, can we test for this assumption? Is the unobserved time-constant variable correlated with any of the explanatory variables? Which model fits the data better? We can do what is called a Hausman test, which tests for statistically significant differences in the coefficients on the time-varying explanatory variables between fixed effects and random effects. The intuition and decision rule on which model to accept will be described in detail later. For comparison, we present the results for pooled OLS, FE and RE estimations together. Although this approach is one of the most popular one in the literature when it comes to estimating happiness equations, there are other alternatives ways. Powdthavee (2009)s work was quite similar to this study, but in addition he used a method of instrumental variables (IV) which involved using another variable to instrument for income. Happiness equations may suffer from the problem of simultaneity, whereby the causal link between happiness and income runs both ways. To address this, he used data on the proportion of household members whose payslip has been shown to the interviewer as the instrument for income. He reasoned that household income is bound to be measured more accurately with a higher proportion of household members showing their payslip. With this direct correlation, as well as reasonably assuming that this proportion has little correlation with happiness, it would allow for an estimation based on an exogenous income effect. Besides his work, other work (eg. Frijters et al. 2004, Gardner Oswald 2007) has attempted to address the endogeneity effect more directly using different types of exogeneous income effects. Another line of thinking interprets the happiness scores as ordinal rather than cardinal. Here, simple OLS estimation would be inadequate. One solution to this would be to use ordered latent response models. Winkelmann (2004) was one example of this in which he performed an ordered probit regression with multiple random effects on subjective well-being data in Germany. To date, there is no statistical software package that could implement a fixed effects ordered probit regression. An alternative to this would be to convert the happiness scoring scale into a (0,1) dummy, thereby roughly cutting the sample into half, and then estimate by conditional logit regression, as attempted by Winkelmann Winkelmann (1998) and later Powdthavee (2009). However, their work combined with Ferrer-i-Carbonell Frijters (2004) seems to suggest that it makes no difference qualitatively whether to assume cardinality or ordinality on the happiness scores. There is no one perfect model that can address all the problems. We believe that the FE RE approach, not only simple, is also elegant and easier to understand. Coefficient estimates can be interpreted easily and the approach also addresses the most important of problems in the estimation, especially that of unobserved heterogeneity bias. Although bias in happiness equations come from many different sources, it is our belief that this source is one of the major ones and is easily removed using simple techniques. Data We use data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a widely used data source for empirical studies in the UK. The BHPS surveys a nationally representative sample of the UK population aged 16 and above. The survey interviews both individual respondents and households as a whole every year in waves since 1991. To date has been 18 waves in total. Survey questions are comprehensive and they include income, marital status, employment status, health, opinions on social attitudes and so on. The data set is also an unbalanced panel; there is entry into and exit from the panel. Data can be obtained through the UK Data Archive website. Our dependent variable, happiness, uses data on the question of individual life satisfaction. From Wave 6 onwards, the survey included a question which asks respondents to rate how satisfied they are with their lives from a rating of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied). This question is strategically located at the end of the survey after respondents had been asked about their household and individual responses in order to avoid any framing effects of a particular event dominating responses to the LS question. For ease of representation, we now refer to happiness as life satisfaction (LS). For income, we use data on the total household net income, deflated by consumer price index and equivalised using the Modified-OECD equivalence scale. The initial value is worked out through responses in the Household Finance section which includes question on sources and amount of incomes received in a year. Inflation would seriously distort our estimation and so is accounted for. Equivalisation involves dividing the total household net income by a value worked out according to an equivalence scale. For example, a household with two adults would have their total household income divided by 1.5. The more adults are there in the household, the higher this value would be. Children would add relatively less to the value than adults. This method would provide an equivalent household income variable, which would account for the fact that different household sizes enjoy different standards of living on the same level of income per household member. Due to economies of scale in consumption, a household with three adults would typically have needs more than triple than that of a single member household. Equivalisation would make comparisons between households a lot fairer or more accurate. Lastly, we use the log form. We use data on the years 2002-2006 (Waves 12-16). There are in total [unconfirmed] respondents with [unconfirmed] observations that have nonmissing information on LS. Descriptive statistics are provided in the Appendix section. Econometric Method We denote as our dependent variable. We have explanatory (binary and non-binary) variables which includes income, employment status, marital status and so on. There are respondents , where . A simple pooled cross-section model would look like (1) where the first subscript denotes the cross-sectional units, the second denotes the time period and the third denotes the explanatory variables. As mentioned earlier, this simple model does not address the issue of unobserved heterogeneity bias. To see why, we can view the unobserved variables affecting the dependent variable, or the error, as consisting of two parts; a time-constant (the heterogeneity bias) and time-varying component. (2) Thus if we regress by simple pooled OLS, we obtain (3) Here one of the key assumptions for OLS estimation to be unbiased has been violated, since the error term is correlated with . The above model is called a fixed effects model. The variable captures all unobserved, time-constant factors that affect . In our analysis, personality falls under this variable. is the idiosyncratic error that represents other unobserved factors that change over time and affect . The simplest method to eliminate is as follows. First, we write the equation for two years as By subtracting the equation on the first period from the second, we obtain (4) where denotes the change from to . In effect, we have transformed the model in such a way that we are only dealing with relative rather than absolute values. This technique is called first-differencing. We can then proceed to estimate the equation at (4) via OLS. Essentially, the error term here is no longer correlated with , as the time-constant effect has been differenced away or minused out of the equation. However this is only the case if and only if the strict exogeneity assumption holds. This assumption requires that the idiosyncratic error at each time, is uncorrelated with the explanatory variables in every time period. If this holds, then OLS estimation will be unbiased. A more popular transformation technique in the literature is the time-demeaning method. Again, we begin from equation (3), and using (2) we rewrite it as (5) Then we perform the following transformation. First, we average (5) over time, giving (6) where and so on. Next, we subtract (6) from (5) for every time period, giving or (7) where is the time-demeaned value of LS, and so on. Essentially again, has disappeared from the equation. With these new, transformed values, we can then use standard OLS estimation. Conditions for unbiasedness remain the same as in the first-differencing method, including the strict exogeneity assumption. As mentioned earlier, the resulting estimators are called FE estimators. In our analysis, we decided to use FE over first-differencing. It is important to state why we do this. The reasoning is as follows. When , their estimation is fundamentally the same. When , both estimations are still unbiased (and in fact consistent), but they differ in terms of relative efficiency. The crucial point to note here is the degree of serial correlation between the idiosyncratic errors, . When there is no serial correlation, FE is more efficient than first-differencing. We have confidence that we have included sufficient controls for other factors in our happiness equation, so that whatever that is left in the error term should be minimal and serially uncorrelated. In addition, FE is safer in the sense that if the strict exogeneity assumption is somehow violated, the bias tends to zero at the rate whereas the bias in first-differencing does not depend on T. With multiple time periods, FE can exploit this fact and be better than first-differencing. Another reason why FE i s more popular is that it is easier to implement in standard statistical software packages, and is even more so when we have an unbalanced panel. With multiple time periods, the first-differencing transformation requires more computation and is less elegant overall than FE. As mentioned earlier, if is uncorrelated with each explanatory variable in every time period, the transformation in FE will lead to inefficient estimators. We can use a random effects model to address this. We begin from (5), writing it as (8) with an intercept explicitly included. This is so that, without loss of generality, we can make the assumption that has zero mean. The other fundamental assumption is that is uncorrelated with each explanatory variable at every time period, or (9) With (9), the equation at (8) is called a random effects model. If the assumption at (9) holds, even simple cross section OLS estimation will provide us with consistent results. With multiple time periods, pooled OLS can be even better and also still achieve consistency. However, because is in the composite error from (2), then the are serially correlated across time. The correlation between two time periods will be (10) where and . This correlation can be quite substantial, and thus causes standard errors in pooled OLS estimation to be incorrect. To solve this problem, we can use the method of Generalized Least Squares (GLS). First, we transform the data in a way that eliminates serial correlation in the errors. We define a constant as . (11) Then in a similar way to the FE transformation, we quasi-demean the data for each variable, or, (12) where is the quasi-demeaned value of LS, and so on. takes a value between zero and one. As mentioned earlier, estimations on these values produce RE estimators. This transformation basically subtracts a fraction of the time average. That fraction, from (11), depends on , and . We can see here that FE and pooled OLS are in fact a special cases of RE; in FE, and in pooled OLS, . In a way, measures how much of the unobserved effect is kept in the error term. Now that the errors are serially uncorrelated, we can proceed by feasible GLS estimation. This will give us consistent estimators with large N and fixed T, which is suitable for our data set. To summarize, if we believe that personality is an unobserved heterogeneous factor affecting LS then pooled OLS will give us biased estimators. To address this issue, we can use a fixed effects or random effects model. In the former case, we prefer the FE transformation over first-differencing. The choice between FE and RE depends on whether this factor is also correlated with one of our explanatory variables. We think that personality may be correlated with income. If so, then we use the transformation in FE to completely remove it. If this factor is uncorrelated with all explanatory variables at all time periods, then we do a transformation in RE to partially remove it as a complete removal will lead to inefficient estimates. In this scenario, RE is still better or more efficient than pooled OLS because of the serial correlation problem. An additional characteristic that RE has over FE is that RE allows for time-constant explanatory variables in the regression equation. Remember in FE that every variable is time-demeaned; so variables like gender (does not vary) as well as age (varies very little) will not provide us with useful information. In RE, these variables are only quasi-demeaned, so we can still include these variables in our estimation. Estimation Results We produce results for estimation by pooled OLS, FE and RE. Besides our key explanatory income variable, other control variables are included in the regression. They are gender, age, marital status,

Tidal Energy Alleviating Mans Demand for Energy Essay -- Water Hydro

Tidal Energy Alleviating Man’s Demand for Energy ABSTRACT The demand for energy has increased rapidly, while its supply has continued to decrease rapidly. Inventors have only worsened the energy crisis by creating â€Å"energy savers† that run on fossil fuels. Yet, the answer is quite simple and lies in the ocean’s tides that can be used as a safer and alternative for energy. France has invented a tidal barrage that now powers 240,000 homes ten hours a day. Other countries are following France’s lead by beginning the construction of their own tidal barrages. However, the world still needs a longer lasting energy source. INTRODUCTION The demand for energy has increased rapidly, while its supply has continued to decrease rapidly. Inventors have created â€Å"energy savers† such as hybrid cars only worsening the problem with its increase in pollution and incredible energy consumption. Hybrid cars run on petroleum and electricity. Meanwhile, people desperately accept it as the Earth’s fossil fuels are rapidly consumed. Yet, the answer is quite simple and lies in the ocean’s tides that can be used as a safer and alternative for energy. The ocean’s tides run through tidal barrages in which turbines rapidly spin and transform low tides into energy. This energy does not pollute the atmosphere nor does it produce any greenhouse effects. Even though tidal barrages are expensive to build and maintain, they produce a lot of safe and free energy. Of course tidal barrages appear to be the ideal solution for the world’s energy crisis. However, tidal barrages effect the environment. Birds migrate away from tidal barrages in order to find ideal living conditions. Fish are caught and killed by the Tidal Energy 2 spinning turbines.... ...oduction to Ocean Energy. Retrieved July 20, 2005, from National Renewable Energy Laboratory Website: http://www.nrel.gov/clean_energy/ocean.html Economically Viable Energy from the World’s Oceans. Retrieved July 20, 2005, from Eco World Website: http://www.ecoworld.rog/water/articles/articles2.cfm?TID=334 Tidal Power. Retrieved July 20, 2005, from Energy Quest Website: http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/story/chapter14.html Tidal Power. Retrieved July 20, 2005, from Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power Tidal Energy. Retrieved July 20, 2005 from Vision Engineer Website: http://www.visionengineer.com/env/tidal.shtml Ocean Tidal Technical FAQ. Retrieved August 1, 2005, from Poemsinc Website: http://www.poemsinc.org/FAQtidal.html, Technology. Retrieved August 2, 2005, form Marine Turbines Website: http://www.marineturbines.com/technical.htm

Fundamental Breach According to the Cisg

Article 25 A breach of contract committed by one of the parties is fundamental if it results in such detriment to the other party as substantially to deprive him of what he is entitled to expect under the contract, unless the party in breach did not foresee and a reasonable person of the same kind in the same circumstances would not have foreseen such a result. (CISG 1980) Used when: One of the parties suffers damages due to a breach of contract. The breach becomes fundamental when it is due to the other parties fault.This article could be interpreted as to whether or not the breaching party was ‘guilty’ of any form of neglect which caused the damages. If they could have prevented the damages, by handling reasonably, they are guilty of a fundamental breach of contract. Case: Tribunal: Court of Arbitration of the ICC Case#: 7531 of 1994 Seller’s Country: China (defendant) Buyer’s Country: Austria (claimant) Goods involved: Scaffold fittings Summary of the ca se: The plaintiff bought 80. 00 scaffold fittings from the Chinese seller. Upon delivery it turned out a substantial amount of the fittings were of bad quality. The buyer was only able to sell the goods partially and at a reduced price. Sorting out the good ones from the bad ones would have added an estimated third of the purchase-price. The Tribunal ruled in favour of the plaintiff as ‘an important part’ of the fittings did not conform to the sample which therefore resulted in a fundamental breach of contract.What was the effect of Article 25: It was proven that the plaintiff had suffered substantial damages due to the breach of contract. This enabled him to use art 25 and sue for damages. ? Article 35 (1) The seller must deliver goods which are of the quantity, quality and description required by the contract and which are contained or packaged in the manner required by the contract. 2) Except where the parties have agreed otherwise, the goods do not conform with the contract unless they: (a) are fit for the purposes for which goods of the same description would ordinarily be used; (b) are fit for any particular purpose expressly or impliedly made known to the seller at the time of the conclusion of the contract, except where the circumstances show that the buyer did not rely, or that it was unreasonable for him to rely, on the seller's skill and judgement; (c) possess the qualities of goods which the seller has held out to the buyer as a sample or model; (d) are contained or packaged in the manner usual for such goods or, where there is no such manner, in a manner adequate to preserve and protect the goods. 3) The seller is not liable under subparagraphs (a) to (d) of the preceding paragraph for any lack of conformity of the goods if at the time of the conclusion of the contract the buyer knew or could not have been unaware of such lack of conformity. (CISG 1980) Used when: This article is used when the goods delivered are not fit for the purpo se intended for them or when they are not of the same quality as the sample provided by the seller. They also need to be packed in a manner adequate to preserve and protect the goods. If they are not fit for purpose due to adequate packing, this the sellers fault. Note though that fitness for purpose is a broad term. For instance if meat has been purchased by a butcher in France he might deem the goods unfit as he meant to use them for Kosher meat. This does not count as the seller could not have foreseen this, unless it was mentioned.When selling it to a butcher in Israel however, the seller could have/ should have known these requirements. In fitness for purpose we look at the average quality required for products, unless expressly mentioned otherwise. Case: Tribunal: Bundesgerichthof (Federal Supreme Court) Case#: VIII ZR 159/94 Seller’s Country: Switzerland (Plaintiff) Buyer’s Country: Germany (Defendant) Goods involved: New Zealand Mussels Summary of the case: In this case the buyer bought mussels from a Swiss seller; the buyer later found they contained a cadmium level higher than the German health authorities allowed. Therefore he was not allowed to sell and he refused to pay due to a lack of conformity.The courts decided that though the cadmium levels in the mussels was higher than allowed in Germany, they were still eatable and did meet the standard required by the Swiss health authorities. It was therefore decided that the goods were of the required quality and the buyer should have mentioned the maximum cadmium levels allowed. What was the effect of Article 35: In this case it meant that the products did meet the required standard for quality of goods and the buyer had to pay for the products. ? Article 36 (1) The seller is liable in accordance with the contract and this Convention for any lack of conformity which exists at the time when the risk passes to the buyer, even though the lack of conformity becomes apparent only after that t ime. 2) The seller is also liable for any lack of conformity which occurs after the time indicated in the preceding paragraph and which is due to a breach of any of his obligations, including a breach of any guarantee that for a period of time the goods will remain fit for their ordinary purpose or for some particular purpose or will retain specified qualities or characteristics. (CISG 1980) Used when: The goods sold initially seem to be in good order, however after some time a lack of quality shows. This is only viable when the reason for this is due the sellers fault (e. g. When cars are sold and the paint starts to faint a month after the buyer obtained them, this could be the sellers fault due to using the wrong paint). Case:Tribunal: Bundesgerichtshof [Federal Supreme Court] Case#: VIII ZR 67/04 Seller’s Country: Belgium (Plaintiff) Buyer’s Country: Germany (Defendant) Goods involved: Frozen Pork Summary of the case: The buyer bought the goods to sell them on into Bosnia- Herzegovina. There were to be three deliveries of pork. In between deliveries a new ordinance was enacted in Germany (due to concerns regarding contamination of the meat) which stated that Belgian pork was no longer marketable unless a health certificated was provided. The defendants refuse to pay after they had been prohibited to resale the meats, which were then taken by customs and ultimately disposed of.The plaintiff argued that the risk had passed to the buyer when the goods were transported and therefor was liable for the events that took place. The court held however, that if the concerns were regarding to the harmfulness of the foodstuff to human health, the goods cannot be sold and therefor lack the required fitness for purpose. What was the effect of Article 36: Art 36 could be used in this case because the meat would already have been contaminated upon leaving the seller. Despite the fact that it was not detected until much later, when the risk had already passed to the buyer, the seller was still responsible as it was an initial breach of contract. ? Reference List: CISG 1980, United Nations, Accessed 26th of march 2013, ; http://www. cisg. law. pace. edu;

Victims, Offenders, and the Law essays

Victims, Offenders, and the Law essays By the time most of us reach adulthood we have undergone countless experiences which bring home the fact that life issues can rarely and conclusively be categorized as good or bad. The older we get, the larger are the grey areas' amongst our collection of absolutes. This fact is made most apparent in the field of criminal justice. It is while trying to analyze, evaluate and adjudicate amongst the foibles, frailties, and passions of humanity that it becomes increasingly difficult to draw a clear line between the innocent and the guilty, or the victim and the offender. Laws are formulated to ensure the safety and security of all members of society. In crimes involving force often more complex elements than mere malice are present. Statistics show that most violent crimes are perpetrated by individuals that have close relationships with the victims. About 50% of all homicides are perpetrated by a member of the victim's close family, often parent or spouse. When murders by more distant relatives, friends and acquaintances are taken into account, this figure rises to about 80%. Whether these are cases of child, wife or parent abuse, the ultimate crime is usually the consequence of a chronic problem. Should a battered and abused woman who kills her abuser be tried on the same grounds as a person who murders an innocent for self-gratification alone' Should a person who has been intolerably humiliated or terrified before he attacks his or her antagonist be considered a victim or an offender' The lines and limits of correct behavior are easily blurred. Such controversial questions are the reason clauses such as the Defense of Provocation' were introduced. It is due to the changes in societal values, culture, and ethical perceptions that such laws need constant review and modification. The main question remains however that; should any provocation ever be enough to justify r...

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Essays - Chernobyl Disaster, Free Essays

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Essays - Chernobyl Disaster, Free Essays Period 3 Chemistry May 19, 2013 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster On April 26, 1986 a disastrous nuclear power plant exploded, causing a volcano of deadly radioactivity that rose into the atmosphere and rained upon the nearby cities, towns, and farms of Pripyat, Ukraine. This resulted to become the largest nuclear energy disaster to have ever occurred in the history of mankind. The horrors of this catastrophe lead many people at risk of receiving severe radiation at an instant as the days went on. This major accident then initiated people to be evacuated almost immediately. But as the years pass by, the city of Pripyat continued to deteriorate and became ghost town. This tragedy altered not only the lives of the people that lived around the area, but tons of different things surrounding the city. Chernobyl suffered a massive amount of radioactive substances that were shot up into the sky. After what seemed to be just a minor situation, it turned out to become very dangerous. But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon of April 26, 1986 a potentially life threating incident occurred which is now known as the Chernobyl disaster. At about 1:23 in the afternoon, the Number Four RBMK (Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosty Kanalny) reactor at the nuclear power plant unexpectedly went out of control during a test procedure at their lowest power. Therefore, it provoked an uncontrollable power surge and lead to an immense violent explosion that nearly demolished the entire reactor building releasing the radiation out from the site and into the atmosphere. The uranium fuel in the reactor melted and overheated the protective barriers. The moderating material in the RBMK also caught fire at a high temperature just as the air entered the reactor core, all of which contributed to the emission of plutonium , strontium, iodine, caesium and hundreds of other elements that were scattered throughout the area of the blast. These reactors lacked with what is known now as a containment structure, which is a steel and concrete dome designed to keep radiation inside incase of such a tragic accident. These deadly radioactive substances initially traveled in a northwest direction toward, Finland, Sweden, and Eastern Europe. It then exposed the population to levels up of up to 100 times that of normal background radiation. Thirty-six hours after the horrific incident occurred, the entire town of Pripyat with a population of about 49,360 was immediately evacuated due to safety procedures for the protection of the lives of the infants, children, adults and senior citizens of that city. Almost 200,000 people that were at a range of 30 km, were believed to have evacuated after weeks and months as a result. But after the initial explosion of the fourth reactor of RMBK it resulted to an immediate death of two workers. About twenty-eight fireman and emergency clean up employees that were rushed onto the scene not knowing what happened past away three months after the blast occurred due to Acute Radiation Sickness and one fatality to cardiac arrest. Other parts of the world were all affect ed from the radioactive releases from Chernobyl but the level of radiation in the atmosphere in several areas of the world was not normal, they then began to quickly and completely recede away. After the initial nuclear plant explosion, mutations did begin to occur to the surrounding environment. Plants and animals were affected. Rare species of animals are now returning in large numbers such as moose, wolves, wild boar, birds, and even beavers. Leaves were then changing their shapes and the animals born came with physical deformities due to the blast. Decades after, tourists go to Chernobyl to find more of an experience and see the city and areas of what is now deserted from what happened years ago. The country did change its nuclear policies and lessons have been learned from this accident. Countries now have made the effort to identify the weaknesses and started to improve the design safety for the nuclear reactors so that such a tragedy wont happen again. Cleaning up after the accident wasnt an easy task to do, but individuals that helped received special benefits from their involvement with their involvement of the aftermath. They specifically worked on major construct ion projects as well as decontamination to

International intercultural management Assignment

International intercultural management - Assignment Example 2. Hofstede’s Model in Relation to Cultural Aspects Every nation has its own set of standards that define the culture in terms of thinking, being and acting, and these differences have a very strong impact on the business communication and workplace values in any organization. Something that may be considered perfectly normal and natural in an organization of one country can be frowned upon and seen as offensive in another. Values will always differ across cultures. Therefore, we have to understand these varying differences in order to describe and forecast employee behaviour from various countries. Some cultures value decisions that are made in a group, while others think that the leader should take control of the decision-making. For almost all business organizations, it is crucial to be aware of how the cultures will affect the workplace values because it will provide them with a framework of assessing the different dimensions. One of the most determined studies of the cult ural differences and how they influence organizational issues was commenced by Geert Hofstede, a Dutch scholar which involved data on more than 116,000 employees of IBM representing forty countries. Many of these dimensions will be based on Geert Hofstede’s framework for assessing cultures (Brown, 2009). It is important to understand where the values across cultures stem from, or what the source is. Previous research has identified two clear forces that have an impact on the formation of values that managers who are engaged in international business possess (Ronen, 1986; Webber, 1969). These two forces can be categorized into national culture as well as business environment. Both the culture of the nation and the environment the business operates in will have a significant influence on the values that an organization will possess. Triandis et al. (1986) brings forth the proposal that a way to have an understanding of the culture is to identify the dimensions of the variations in the culture of the organization such as Hofstede (1980). In a study including more by Geert Hofstede, it was found out there were four basic dimensions along with work-related values that differed across cultures: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and individualism/collectivism. Later on, work by Bond presented with a fifth dimension i.e. the long-term/short-term orientation. Power Distance is related to the extent to which a culture’s members accept an imbalanced distribution of power. Hofstede’s Power distance Index measures the degree to which the less dominant members of establishments and institutions accept the unequal distribution. This will almost always represent discrimination, but defined from below instead of above. It proposes that a society’s level of variation is recognised by the followers as much as by the leaders. If we look at France, we see that the power distance index is comparatively higher than the rest of the countries; around 68. This means that in the management as well as the general lifestyle of France there is a big gap between the social classes, and there are clear definitions of status involved.

Term paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Term paper - Assignment Example Non verbal communication includes the use of gestures, body languages, the dressing code and even the scent. All these convey very significant information which at times speaks even louder than verbal communication. There is also the written communication which may be in the form of letters, memos, reports, minutes, books, emails, internet and magazines. Another form of communication is the use of visuals such as graphs, maps, logos, charts among others (Alvesson 45-9). The key elements of communication include the message, the sender, the receiver, encoding, decoding, medium of transmission, and the feedback. The message is the information that is being transmitted. For communication to be effective, the message has to be very accurate, clear and correct. The central idea ought to be necessarily communicated very clearly so that the receiver is able to understand and utilize the content of the message. The sender is the person who is transmitting the message. He is the one to determine the medium to use in sending the information. The sender is therefore very important in the process of communication since he is able to determine the success or failure of communication. If the sender uses a wrong channel, the information may not reach the intended audience. Similarly, if he does not embrace the clarity of the ideas that are to be communicated, the information may get distorted and therefore not serve its intended purpose. Communication is very essential at the work place. Without effective communication in an organization, several problems are bound to arise. As such, for any organization to realize its objectives effectively there ought to be effective transmission and communication. Effective and efficient communication is critical for managers in organizations so as to perform the basic functions of management including: leading, planning, organizing, and controlling. Communication