ENVS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

ENVS - Essay Example Hayes, astrazine cause development of ovaries in male frogs. One advantage of animal testing is that it helps researchers to discover treatments for both animals and humans. One of the disadvantages of animal testing is that it can be misleading since animals may react to drugs in different ways as humans. In addition, animal testing leads to mistreatment of animals. Testing on animals is justified because it has helped researchers to discover many effective treatments. Additionally, animals should be used because their lives have less value compared to humans. Testing upon animals can give accurate results because the bodies of most animals used for tests function like humans. Scientists have proved that lab animals and humans do not have big difference. In addition, most of the drugs used today were discovered through animals testing. For instance, antibiotics and HIV drugs used by humans today gave positive results when tested on animals. Other methods of testing are less effective compared to animal testing. In addition, surgery and organ transplant techniques used on humans today were acquired through animals testing. Tyrone says that rats are the most relevant animals used to simulate humans in laboratories. Humans cannot be used in labs tests because it will be unethical to expose to humans chemicals during lab tests. According to him, the use of rats produces accurate results because rats have regular reproduction, genetic purity and many resemblances to human biology (Hayes). If I were a farmer, would not use atrazine to increase my crop yield. This is because the herbicide will only increase yields for a short period since it causes land degradation. Additionally, it will negatively affect my health. Research outcomes show that it causes obesity and cell mutation. Additional ways of increasing crop yield apart from using chemicals encompass organic farming. In organic farming, one uses decomposed animal products or plants to fertilize

Fahrenheit 451: The Hope Of The Phoenix :: essays research papers

Fahrenheit 451: The Hope of the Phoenix The word phoenix had symbolize immortality, but for the people in Fahrenheit 451, their only hope was that the phoenix would be burn out, and be reborn again. The myth of the phoenix gave optimism to the life of Montag, to the books, and to the world of Fahrenheit 451. The world was now dying, and nobody seemed to care, because the government had brainwashed the people. It was a situation, where not only the brave, but the ones who can think for themselves, who can help break the government's control. The life Montag had been a bumpy road. He thought he had a good life, because he enjoyed his job, and was happy. Soon Montag discovered that he was not happy at all, and that his life was nothing. His wife Mildred did not love him at all, and his only friend (that he could remember) Clarisse died in a car crash. All of sudden, he was not happy, but he did not know why. He thought maybe because his wife had pulled the fire alarm on him, but really it was he did not love her at all. "It's strange, I don't miss her at all(155)" Montag had uncertainly about his marriage, because marriage was suppose to be bonded with love, but with his marriage love was extinct and nowhere to be seen. His life had died, when his wife Mildred pulled the alarm and had told the firemen that Montag had books. To Montag, the books was like a sweet piece of candy. He did not know why he liked them, but he always wanted more. But when Captain Beatty forced Montag to burn his own house, Montag's soul had died, but then resurrected. His life which was suppose to be happy was burning right in front of his eyes. How ironic, that Montag was a fireman himself but like the phoenix, Montag rose from his own ashes. Montag was now reborn, because he knew his life was wrong, and that the world was wrong. He did not know why it was wrong, but he knew that he had to do something about it. He started that by burning Captain Beatty into "a charred wax doll(119)". Montag now had the feeling of hope, not much since he believed he could not do anything. But Montag had now broken the control of the government and was using the books as his aid. How ironic, in the real world, people were always talking about how people wasted paper, which mean wasting trees, but in the world of

Mercedes Benz All Activity Vehicle Essay

The target costing case literature contains numerous examples of Japanese cost management practices; however, few cases describe the use of target costing by large companies outside Japan. The purpose of the Mercedes-Benz AAV case is to consider the competitive environment of a leading German automotive manufacturer and the company’s response to changing competitive conditions. The teaching plan generally follows the suggested student assignment questions. In places, I recommend considering additional material during the case discussion. These questions are identified by a check mark. Student Assignment Questions 1. What is the competitive environment faced by MB? Students will identify a number of changes, including significant market share lost to Japanese companies such as Lexus. Stress the importance of a cultural change taking place within top management at Mercedes. Reinforce that Mercedes is a company that had never lost money. They simply built the best car their engineers could design and priced it above cost. Demand often exceeded supply. As a result, cost had never been a primary consideration. Changes include: cost competition; product innovation. 2. How has MB reacted to the changing world market for luxury automobiles? Students should identify the following changes implemented by management at Mercedes; try to get them to explain how different these approaches were from traditional strategies at Mercedes: many new product introductions; partnering with suppliers; reduced system complexity; new emphasis on cost control; layers of management reduced; lead time from concept to introduction reduced. 3. Using Cooper’s cost, quality, functionality chart, discuss the factors on which MB competes with other automobile producers such as Jeep, Ford, and GM. If the instructor wishes to give a brief mini-lecture on Robin Cooper’s  survival triplet and confrontation strategy, this is a good point in the case discussion to do so. (Robin Cooper, When Lean Enterprises Collide, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1995.) The factors are: price-at mid to upper range of zone; quality-at upper range of zone; functionality-at upper range of zone. An interesting point to discuss is that Mercedes does not produce the most expensive sports utility vehicle. This distinction is reserved for the Land Rover; however, they strategically placed themselves toward the luxury end of the spectrum. Also, unlike many Japanese examples, Mercedes does not use target costing as a strict cost control mechanism to produce the lowest priced product in its class. 4. How does the AAV project link with MB strategy in terms of market coverage? The new introductions expand the product line of the traditionally luxury-oriented manufacturer. Recent product introductions include the following: A class; C class; SLK; E class; M class. These new introductions include new sports cars and off-road vehicles. The C-class is a mid-sized vehicle sometimes referred to as the baby-Benz. Let’s discuss the elements of the target costing model and how these elements are developed. At this point in the discussion I usually write the target costing formula on the board and ask students to consider sources of various inputs: selling price; margin; target cost. What are the sources of input for the projected selling price? Students will most likely identify the following sources of information: customer focus groups comparable products: – existing; – potential. Stress the broad, cross-functional aspects of acquiring consumer information. To compare products, the company had to evaluate existing competitive vehicles as well as vehicles under development. What factors are considered when developing the required margin? This question provides a link to finance classes. Most students have studied the concepts of weighted-average cost of capital. I recommend spending a few minutes reviewing these concepts and linking cost of capital to net present value (NPV) analysis. Because of the capital-intensive structure of automobile manufacturing, production volume is a critical factor in determining each model’s NPV. Students may identify the following points for determining a required margin. long-run profitability; cost of capital; profitability across the entire product mix (classes of vehicles); sales volume by class. The MB case suggests the target cost is â€Å"alive.† Is this consistent with the ideals of target costing? I generally emphasize that Mercedes did not consider the target cost to be locked in. It was a moving target. As engineering changes became necessary, the target cost was allowed to move. However, before making a change, market forces were considered. For example, changes included the addition of side airbags. In addition, the European press was critical of a simulated wood-grain part. Management decided the part would remain plastic because costs could not be passed on to the consumer. The main point to emphasize is the design of the vehicle is dynamic; thus costs must evolve to reflect the changing design characteristics. 5. Explain the process of developing a component importance index. How can such an index guide managers in making cost reduction decisions? The index development process has five steps, as follows: consumer importance category rankings; target cost percentage by function group; category: function group matrix; importance index; target cost index; I recommend making slides of Tables 1-5 to facilitate discussion. Index development is an important element in the early conceptualization phase of the AAV. The indexes help to quantify some very abstract concepts. Table 1. From conversations with potential consumer groups, a list of key categories was developed. Next, potential customers were asked to rate the importance of each category. Their responses were computed as a percentage. Thus, safety and comfort of the AAV were viewed as significantly more important than economy and styling. Table 2 represents a rough estimate of the cost by function group and the relative percentage. The information is used later to create a target cost index. Table 3 is best understood by reading each category as a column. The rows explain the relative importance of each function group to satisfying each category defined by customers. An interesting aspect of this table is that the link between consumer preferences and engineering components is made explicit. Table 4 builds on Table 3 by weighting the percentages computed in Table 3 by the importance percentage calculated in Table 1. The key point is to understand which function groups contribute the most (least) to important (less important) consumer categories. Table 5 results in a target cost index that attempts to capture cost and benefit trade-offs. As discussed in the case, this index may indicate a cost in excess of the perceived value of a function group. Thus, opportunities for cost reduction (aligned with customer requirements) may be identified. 6. How does MB approach cost reduction to achieve target costs? At this point, ask students to identify various value-engineering strategies. At Mercedes, reducing the cost of each function group was accomplished by reducing costs of various components that make up the function group. Stress the importance of this approach over an â€Å"across-the-board† cut. 7. How do suppliers factor into the target costing process? Why are they so critically important to the success of the MB AAV? From the conceptual phase through the production phase, the suppliers of systems for the AAV truly were partners. Suppliers attended regular meetings with the cost planners throughout the entire process. Thus, suppliers were design and development partners from very early stages of development, responsible for meeting cost targets. Why is the relationship with suppliers a crucial element in the success of the AAV? Suppliers provide entire systems for the AAV. The facility uses a JIT production system. In fact, many suppliers deliver directly to the assembly line, rather than to a small warehouse. The Black Warrior River separated Mercedes and a major system supplier. This supplier built a new production facility on the same side of the river as the Mercedes Benz plant to avoid possible delays associated with accidents on a major bridge. 8. What role does the accounting department play in the target costing process? Stress the fact that accountants were watchdogs in the target costing process. Their primary responsibility was to ensure costs did not exceed targets during the production phase. Thus, the accountants’ role was as follows: cost control; actual vs. target: development stage; production stage. What are some of the organizational barriers that may challenge managers attempting to introduce TC systems? Try to get students to identify various impediments to target costing systems in the United States. Examples may include: willingness to share cost data with suppliers; suppliers treated as adversaries; government regulations affecting exchange of information.

F. Scott Fitzgerald s The Great Gatsby - 1740 Words

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby Ever since the formation of America, cultural values and ideals have been strongly centered on the belief that any man, no matter his initial station in life, can achieve greatness and prosperity, should he be willing to work hard and have initiative. Americans had trust in the idea that they would find a certain level of success, as long as the aforementioned traits were put into practice; no prerequisites were required to obtain these goals, and all people had a chance to better their situation. However, this long held belief was put into question in the aftermath of the First World War; millions of soldiers and civilians were killed, advanced methods of warfare destroyed homes and cities, and the†¦show more content†¦Values such as hard work and ambition became twisted into something entirely different and negative. A display of materialism is seen in the decadence of both Old Egg and West Egg; examples such as the Buchanans’ Colonial style mansion, Gatsby’s luxury sports car, and Gatsby’s mansion. Also seen are poor moral values to achieve goals, such as Gatsby’s being part of a criminal enterprise to attain wealth or Jordan Baker cheating in a golf tournament to further her career. All actions are done to achieve their version of the American Dream, but the method taken contradicts traditional morals and values associated with the American Dream, such as hard, honest work. In addition, the American Dream is shown to be largely unattainable for most. Almost all characters’ attempts to find happiness end in failure. Wilson toils in his garage to have a comfortable life with his wife, but she has an affair with another man, and dies in a hit and run. Gatsby goes through the archetypical rags to riches experience in an effort to reconnect with Daisy, but loses her and dies along with his dream. No matter what lengths characters go to, their dreams are just out of reach. At the e nd of the novel, the narrator, Nick Carraway, reflects on this dying dream, saying â€Å"†¦his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled