Case Commentary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Case Commentary - Essay Example The bone of contention was that while domestic companies were allowed to set their own individual baselines, the foreign companies were not allowed to set their own baselines and had to comply with those established by the Act.12 The US government argued that while it was possible to evaluate the small number of domestic companies compliance with the Act based on their baselines, using the same approach for foreign companies that were more in number would place an unjustified quantitative pressure on the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The statutory baselines for the foreign companies were, therefore, necessary to allow EPA function. They further argued that the Act was absolutely necessary and in compliance with Article XX for human health protection, clean air and conservation of exhaustible natural resources. This case was unique in that while it pursued the greater environmentalist goals, it was based on trade disputes thus its arbitration by the WTO appellate body was justified.34 On 24th January 1995, Venezuela requested a WTO address while Brazil did the same on 10th April 1995. The two countries alleged that the US Clean Air Act discriminated against their rights and violated the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Articles 1 and 3, and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Article 2. On 10th April 1995, a panel was set up to review the complaints and evidence presented by Venezuela. The panel was finally formulated on 26th April 1995. Upon a request from Brazil, a third panel was set up on 19th June 1995 to specifically review Brazilian complaints and evidence. On 31st may 1995 it was decided that the two panels reviewing Venezuelan and Brazilian evidences and complaints be coalesced into a single panel. The decision to coalesce the two panels was reached in accordance with Article 9 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU).56 The panel concluded its review and

Business Operations and Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Business Operations and Systems - Essay Example However, the designing of a business model requires the effective use of human, tangible and intangible assets of the company. The conceptualization of a business model depends upon the efficiency of the manager and the employees. An effective implementation of a business model paves the path of success for the companies. A business model needs to change as per the changing market trends of the economy. A manager must possess certain qualities which can distinguish him/her form other managers of the companies (Birch, 2008). The managers should be able to perform activities within a particular time frame. The managers should be result oriented and be able to think in terms of results and not duties. The managers should be able to prioritize among various objectives and make effective decisions by examining various alternatives. The managers should be able to create learning atmosphere within the company to improve the knowledge base of the employees and translate visions into strategi es (Prahalad and Hamel, 1996). Leaders and managers are not synonymous because a manager may possess leadership qualities but a leader may or may not possess managerial qualities. A leader is an individual who influences the work and behaviour of his subordinates in group efforts towards the achievement of a certain goals and objectives. A leader motivates his subordinates to attain the goals and objectives in an effective manner. To attain the goals and objectives of a company the managers of a company need to establish a healthy relationship with their subordinates. Managers of the company should apply the â€Å"Social Capital† theory in their companies. The central point of the theory is that relationships constitute a valuable resource for the conduct of social affair. According to theorist Bourdieu, the application of social capital theory in the fields of management can help in harnessing the true potential of the employees (Bourdieu, 1993 cited in Lesser, 2000, p.121). Social capital theory helps in exploring the actual and potential intellectual capital of the employees. The manager of the company needs to utilize the human resource, tangible and intangible assets at the optimum level to determine the effectiveness of the company. Authors Hamel and Prahlad conceptualized the enterprise as a portfolio of knowledge, assets and resources and competencies. According to these authors, certain companies were more productive than the other companies because they utilized the knowledge, capacity and competence of their resources at the optimum level. The tangible assets of the company include fixed assets like plant and machinery, buildings etc and current assets such as inventory. Non tangible assets include patents, copyright etc. The human resource of the company includes the skill and competence level of the employees. The manager needs to establish juxtaposition between these three assets to achieve optimum level of efficiency. According to authors Hamel and Prahalad, resource leverage is defined as doing more (or adding more value) with what you have (Hamel and Prahalad, 1966 cited in Morden, 2007, p.445). One of the main task of the manager is to recruit qualified employees and give them proper training and guidance to utilize the company’s fixed assets and resources. The manager needs to ensure that the company has a right mix of skills and knowledge to meet the goals

Humans are rational. Critically discuss the theoretical and empirical Essay

Humans are rational. Critically discuss the theoretical and empirical evidence from psychology for and against this assertion - Essay Example These biases, such as confirmation bias, anchoring, base rate neglect and overconfidence, make up the first section of this essay. The biases are present in behavioral economics, which dictates that humans will behave in a way that is efficient for them in an economic sense, and this makes up the second portion of this essay. There is some indication that humans can be rational when it comes to domain specific tasks – such as exposing cheating or enforcing social contracts. Because of this, more study should be done regarding other domain specific tasks to indicate if there are pockets of rationality in other domain specific areas. Moreover, there is considerable thought that the irrational nature that is detected on the tests could be the result of something other than irrationality at work – such as poorly worded tests, computational errors, incorrect norms being applied, or inattention of the participants. Therefore, it is possible that humans are not as irrational a s these tests might presume. This analysis makes up the third and last portion of this essay. Discussion Reasoning is a part of cognition, which is virtually wholly made up of using inference. There is some question of whether or not reasoning has a separate cognitive system unto itself, or whether or not it is merely a part of the whole of cognition (Manktelow & Chung, 2004, p. 66). That said, reasoning must be distinguished from intuition. The main difference between reason and intuition is that reasoning is done deliberately and consciously, while intuition springs forth from the mind in a spontaneous fashion, without effort or a conscious search (Kahneman, 2003, p. 1450). Thus, when a person is doing an income tax form, he is using reasoning; when that same person revolts at eating a piece of chocolate that is the shape of a cockroach, that person is working from intuition (Kahneman, 2003, p. 1450). Reasoning is a function that is only in the higher order beings, as there has be en no evidence that reasoning is present in animals or children who are pre-verbal (Mercier & Sperber, p. 3). There are three basic types of reasoning, according to Samuels et al. (2004). They are descriptive, which describes how humans actually reason; normative, which describes how humans should reason; and evaluative, which describes the difference between how humans actually reason and how they should reason. In other words, there is an assumed standard that has been established by the normative project, so researchers interested in the evaluative project are interested in finding out how actual reasoning fit the assumed standard (Samuels et al., 2004, p. 1). These are the bases of deciding whether humans are rational or irrational – does their reasoning fit what is normative? If this is the case, then rationality can be presumed, for this would mean that the individual is making decisions that benefit him or herself. There are a series of normative rules that prescribe h ow humans should behave. One of these is cancellation, which means that a human will eliminate â€Å"any state of the world that yields the same results, regardless of one’s choice† (Tverskey & Kahneman, 1986, p. s252). Cancellation is important because only one state will be realized, which makes it easy to evaluate the other options separately for each state. Transivity is another rule, which means that each option in an

AM Transmitter Circuit Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

AM Transmitter Circuit - Assignment Example The amplitude modulation and transmission of modulated audio signal is carried out through AM Transmitter. Depending upon the type of application and level of operation, an AM Transmitter consists of following basic building blocks as shown in fig.1. Fig. 1 Block diagram of an AM Transmitter From fig.1 it is obvious that an AM Transmitter has following important building blocks. 1- Oscillator (OSC) 2- Buffer 3- Pre-Driver 4- Driver 5- Microphone Amplifier 6- Modulator 7- Power Amplifier 8- Transmitting Antenna For detail description of each block, the schematic diagram of a basic level AM Transmitter is given below in fig. 2. Fig. 2 Schematic circuit diagram of an AM Transmitter The circuit diagram given in fig. 2 can be broadly divided in two major sections namely; - The Oscillator section. - The audio amplifier section and The oscillator section (that comprises of an oscillator, buffer, pre-driver, driver and microphone amplifier and modulator) is built from the transistors Q1 (BC109) and biasing resistors (R1, R2, and R3). The components L1 and C1 constitutes the tank circuit that can be tuned in RF range of 500kHz to 1600KHz. The Q1 (BC109) that is the key component of oscillator circuit section is provided with regenerative feedback by connecting the base and collector of Q1 to opposite ends of the tank circuit.

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 17

Leadership - Essay Example An example of a transformational leader motivating followers is M. Fethullah GÃ ¼len. He has convinced a movement in Turkey promoting a different kind of Islam. GÃ ¼len motivates his followers with education, a promise of peace, and tolerance. He has built education centers world wide. These educational centers are based on the Islam faith, but do not require students to be Muslim. GÃ ¼len teaches of respect among all religions, Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Dialogue should be shared among all. Many of GÃ ¼len’s student and followers are motivated by the thought of peace between the religions and furthering of education. The vision is also important. Anyone can say they want to go to the moon, but it takes a leader to get followers to build a rocket ship. The vision must be practical and achievable, with benefits for the followers. It might be impossible to those not wanting change, but GÃ ¼len’s vision is achievable. Thousands of Muslims have heeded GÃ ¼len’s cause of non-violence. GÃ ¼len’s followers believe Islam is a religion and a way of life, just like Islamic terrorists. However, his followers believe that terror or forcing Islam on other cultures is morally wrong. GÃ ¼len’s vision is being carried out, maybe not by every Muslim, but by a good following in Turkey. Hopefully one day Muslims can achieve a lasting peace with each other and the world through transformational leaders like

The effect of freezing water Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The effect of freezing water - Essay Example The transition phase is the next stage in the process, and it occurs at the stage between freezing and formation of ice blocks. Where water now starts to expand after falling below the 39 degree mark, here, water molecules slow down and start moving away from each other. The molecules form a pattern which is really interesting. The last effect happens when it starts expanding to form ice. When the temperatures drop, the molecules separate and begin to expand in the form of ice; this explains why if water is kept in a water bottle, after ice forms, the bottle might explode. In conclusion, we may not know how just water turns into ice. In the past when fridges were not around, merchants used to sell ice after cutting blocks of ice from frozen lakes and selling them. But now we can actually make our own ice; this is possible through improvement in the technology sector of today. So the next time ice forms, you know what

Taoism, The Principle of Wu-Wei Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Taoism, The Principle of Wu-Wei - Research Paper Example This paper will shed more light upon Taoism and the principles of Wu-Wei. Confucianism is a term which is very closely related to Taoism, a lot of can be learned about the Chinese people just by knowing more about Taoism and Confucianism. These are terms which reflect the spirit of the Chinese people and what they are made up of. The ancient Chinese society must be given credit for coining the term Taoism, the ideology and the beliefs of the Han nationality is often portrayed when people talk of Taoism. Ancient people in China used to worship spirits and gods and this was how this term originated. â€Å"Daoism encompasses thought and practice that sometimes are viewed as philosophical, as religious, or as a combination of both.   While modern scholars, especially those in the West, have been preoccupied with classifying Daoist material as either â€Å"philosophical† or religious, historically Daoists themselves have been uninterested in such categories and dichotomies.  Ã ¢â‚¬Å"(IEP.UTM) Taoism has raised a debate for the scholars across Europe; they have been completely discombobulated as to whether Taoism falls under religion or whether it falls under philosophy. Some scholars in Europe say that it should be classified under religion while some others say that it should be classified under philosophy so there is no general consensus when it comes to the classification of Taoism and much debate is going on amongst top scholars in Europe. It is very important to know more about the Han dynasty in order to know more about Taoism, no traces of Taoism were found when the Han dynasty ruled China but the beginning of Taoism can be found in important texts like Daodejing and the Zhuangzi. The Chinese people unanimously believe that a teacher by the name Laozi was mainly responsible for writing Daodejing, he was a very dedicated teacher who also opened a school for the Chinese children and single-handedly wrote Daodejing, it was a great achievement but not too many people know of this incredible achievement. People who followed Taoism were called Taoists and they had some similar beliefs, they understood the connection between nature and their bodies and this again was a great achievement. They also knew that God had not made them immortal and they trotted on the difficult path to become immortal. Taoists also believed in experimenting with their bodies, they found new exercises to keep themselves fit; they were also responsible for discovering interesting and new sexual positions. Chemistry was one subject which fascinated the Taoists and quite a few of them tried new experiments to discover something new which would help them but these experiments did not go down too well and many of them lost their lives trying to do too much. There were emperors who were also fascinated with Chemistry and they met with the same fate when they tried doing the same experiments, this clearly goes to show that there were hungry for success and wanted to find new things which would help their fellow human beings. Self-cultivation was a major objective of Taoism, every Taoist wanted to inculcate this quality in him and pass it on to their family members. â€Å"The teachings that were later called Daoism were first known under the name of Huanglao Dao in the 3rd and 2nd cent. BCE. The thought world transmitted in this stream is what Sima Tan meant by Daojia. The Huanglao School was a center of Taoist practitioners in the state of Qi (modern Shandong). Huangdi was the name for the Yellow