Price Elasticity free essay sample

There are several examples that come to mind when I think of price elasticity. Included in my list are fuel, cigarettes, electricity, and toilet paper. Price elasticity means that the behaviors of supply and demand are not affected when the price of that particular item rises (changes). Our local power companies experience price elasticity on the energy that we demand, when they continually raise prices but the amount of consumer usage is unaffected.In some parts of the country their may be alternatives such as gas heat and fire places which would all contribute to less usage thereby decreasing the likelihood of the price of being inelastic since there would be substitutions. So, rate increases to our power bills increases revenue for the power companies. There is little to analyze since there are no complements. The demand for energy is inelastic so total revenue increases. Elasticity is when there are few variables to change the consumption habits in this particular example, thereby resulting in increased total revenues. We will write a custom essay sample on Price Elasticity or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page However, when there are considerably more variables affecting supply and demand; substitutions is one variable that may actually cause a decrease in total revenue because the price of power has now become elastic when consumers refuse to use power because of the rate increases and they have an alternative source. According to our text and investopedia price elasticity means that supply and demand are affected by changes in the price of an item. A small change in price is accompanied by a large change in demand for the product when the product is elastic.

Jussive (Clauses) Definition and Examples

Jussive (Clauses) Definition and Examples A jussive is a type of clause (or a form of a verb) that expresses an order or command. In Semantics (1977), John Lyons notes that the term imperative sentence is often employed by other writers in the broader sense that we have given here to jussive sentence; and this can lead to confusion. Etymology: from the Latin, command Example Jussives include not only imperatives, as narrowly defined, but also related non-imperative clauses, including some in subjunctive mood: Be sensible.You be quiet.Everybody listen.Lets forget it.Heaven help us.It is important that he keep this a secret. The term jussive is, however, used to some extent as a syntactic label, and in this use would not include commands expressed as straight declaratives, e.g. You will do what I say. In popular grammars, where the term is not used, such structures would be dealt with under an expanded imperative label and under subjunctives. (Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner, Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1994) Commentary Jussive: A term sometimes used in the grammatical analysis of verbs, to refer to a type of mood often equated with an imperative (leave!), but in some languages needing to be distinguished from it. For example, in Amharic, a jussive paradigm is used for wishes (May God give you strength), greetings, and certain other contexts, and this is formally distinct from the imperative. (David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 4th ed. Blackwell, 1997)Imperatives constitute a subclass of a somewhat larger class of jussive clauses. . . . Non-imperative jussives include main clauses like The devil take the hindmost, God save the queen, So be it, and subordinate clauses like [It is essential] that he accompany her, [I insist] that they not be told. The construction exemplified here is productive only in subordinate clauses: the main clauses are virtually restricted to fixed expressions or formulae. Like imperatives they have a base form as first verb... A number of other relative ly minor main clause constructions might be included in the jussive category: May you be forgiven!, If that is what the premier intends, let him say so, and so on. (Rodney Huddleston, English Grammar: An Outline. Cambridge University Press, 1988) [John] Lyons [Semantics, 1977: 747] argues that the imperative can only be, strictly, second person, and never third person (or first person). This may, however, be no more than a terminological issue, since first and third person imperatives are often simply called jussives. Bybee (1985: 171) suggests that where there is a full set of person-number forms the term optative is used, but this is not entirely suitable in view of the fact that the term is used traditionally for the optative mood in Classical Greek (8.2.2)...  The term Jussive (plus Imperative) is preferred here. (F. R. Palmer, Mood and Modality, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Symbiotic Ants and Aphids Have a Strong Relationship

Symbiotic Ants and Aphids Have a Strong Relationship Ants and aphids share a well-documented symbiotic relationship, which means they both benefit mutually from their working relationship. Aphids produce a sugary food for the ants, in exchange, ants care for and protect the aphids from predators and parasites. Aphids Produce a Sugary Meal Aphids are also known as plant lice, they are very small sap-sucking insects that collect the sugar-rich fluids from host plants. Aphids are also the bane of farmers the whole world over. Aphids are known crop destroyers. The aphids must consume large quantities of a plant to gain adequate nutrition. The aphids then excrete equally large quantities of waste, called honeydew, which in turn becomes a sugar-rich meal for ants. Ants Turn Into Dairy Farmers As most people know, where there is sugar, there is bound to be ants. Some ants are so hungry for the aphid honeydew, that they will milk the aphids to make them excrete the sugary substance. The ants stroke the aphids with their antennae, stimulating them to release the honeydew. Some aphid species have lost the ability to excrete waste  on their own and depend entirely on caretaker ants to milk them. Aphids in an Ants Care Aphid-herding ants make sure aphids stay well-fed and safe. When the host plant is depleted of nutrients, the ants carry their aphids to a new food source. If predatory insects or parasites attempt to harm the aphids, the ants will defend them aggressively. Some ants even go so far as to destroy the eggs of known aphid predators like ladybugs. Some species of ants continue to care for aphids during winter. The ants carry the aphid eggs to their nests for the winter months. They store the precious aphids where temperatures and humidity are optimal, and move them as needed when conditions in the nest change. In spring, when the aphids hatch, the ants carry them to a host plant to feed. A well-documented example of the extraordinary mutualistic relationship of a corn root aphid, from the species Aphis middletonii,  and their caretaker cornfield ants,  Lasius. Corn root aphids, as their name suggests, live and feed on the roots of corn plants. At the end of the growing season, the aphids deposit eggs in the soil where the corn plants have withered. The cornfield ants collect the aphid eggs and store them for the winter. Smartweed is a fast-growing weed that can grow in the spring in the cornfields. Cornfield ants carry the newly hatched aphids to the field and deposit them on the temporary host smartweed plants so they can begin feeding. Once the corn plants are growing, the ants move their honeydew-producing partners to the corn plants, their preferred host plant. Ants Enslave Aphids While it appears the ants are generous caretakers of aphids, ants are more concerned about maintaining their steady honeydew source than anything else. Aphids are almost always wingless, but certain environmental conditions will trigger them to develop wings. If the aphid population becomes too dense, or food sources decline, aphids can grow wings to fly to a new location. Ants, however, do not look favorably upon losing their food source. Ants can prevent aphids from dispersing. Ants have been observed tearing the wings from aphids before they can become airborne. Also, a recent study has shown that ants can use semiochemicals to stop the aphids from developing wings and to impede their ability to walk away. Resources and Further Reading Cranshaw, Whitney, and Richard Redak. Bugs Rule!: An Introduction to the World of Insects. Princeton University, 2013.

Whole foods SWAT analysis organization design class Essay

Whole foods SWAT analysis organization design class - Essay Example The explicit set of core values underscore the commitment of Whole Foods personnel in delivering foods that abide by the highest quality standards and adhere to compliance with the following: organic farming, seafood sustainability, animal welfare standards, caring for communities, and whole trade guarantee (Whole Foods Market: Mission & Values); The financial success of Whole Foods over the last five years, as measured by its net income figure had been on the uptrend, from $49.68 million in December 31, 2009 up to $146.00 million in the same period in 2012; which is indicative of a 194% growth rate of the three-year period (Whole Foods Market Net Income Quarterly); The management team and leaders of Whole Foods have continued to stir the company towards success through a proactive stance in leadership, strategies design and implementation, as well as in applying the most effective management styles. Likewise, it was evident that the management team has consistently provided appropriate motivation, rewards, and incentives for all its personnel to accord them professional growth and continuous development; Has always and consistently been recognized by Fortune among the 100 Best Companies to Work For (Whole Foods Market) for 16 consecutive years; attesting to the high job satisfaction and exemplary motivation accorded by the management to all of its personnel. Although the organization has manifested steady and continuous growth in strategic store locations, it could be deduced that the locations are confined to three main areas: the USA, Canada and the UK; as such, there is a lack of market expansion and exposure to other international markets; Since the ingredients are all natural and organic, the prices of their products are relatively more expensive than other traditional food items and therefore, the target market is limited to the middle-to-higher income groups. Whole Foods is continually looking for strategic store locations, and it

Cross-cultural Training literature review ( International HRM) Essay

Cross-cultural Training literature review ( International HRM) - Essay Example Although cross-cultural study proceeded throughout the 1980s, the 1990s faced an ups and down in the account of research committed to Cross-cultural training. The increasing rate of economy globalization was one accelerator for the expanded interest in CCT. Moreover, research pointed to cross-cultural problems in the workplace has expanded in importance because researchers have been unable to find out the minor issues and to specify their research advances into an implementation. Particularly, multinational corporations (MNCs) have not yet designed many of the CCT policies that researchers present because the researches by the researchers have not completely solved the issues and the controversies lying under the goals, content, objectives of Cross culture training. The programs designed for encouraging cross culture environment is an objective to train people to live and survive in a cross culture environment. In early days, it was hard to cope up with different cultures at workplac e. Usually, people from developing countries feel depressed while working at multi cultural environment. People feel more pressure especially people from under developed countries. There was a need to cope up with the cultural difference and to treat all employees on the basis of their work and progress, rather than rating them on the basis of culture, race and religion. First study on Cross culture training was done by Brislon with the topic â€Å"Cross culture Orientation program† (Brislin, 1981). In the end of the year, other researchers realized the fact that there is more effort required to train the people to live abroad comfortably, with the passage of time, the field is now being referred as Cross culture or intercultural training worldwide. Paige (1986) described cross culture training as the program designed to prepare people to live outside their country and to work with confidence without being in the pressure of other cultures. Other researchers define cross cult ure training as the program to prepare people for the success in their jobs and to improve their interpersonal skills. The main idea of the programmers is to train people for the moment when they deal extensively with the people belongs to culture than their own. There are several training programs are in progress under different organizations and groups. These programs are influenced by experts who have great knowledge about the range of issues people face while working in the cross culture environment. These programrs do not train people only for any other country but also for their home land. In 1950’s, Oberg introduces the term â€Å"Cultural shock† describing the issues people face when they deal with people from other cultures. He described the term† Cultural shock† as a disease of people who have suddenly been transported aboard and presented as the predicated by the anxiety that results from losing all familiar signs and symbols of social intercours e. Thus, he described the term as the issues people face while moving or dealing with other cultures. The symptoms of cultural shock include both physical and physiological complaints. Physical person may feel headache, dyeria and psychological a person might feel depression. The concept of cultural shock encouraged people to provide training in this domain. The contrast American Method, taps on

Kate Chopins The Storm :: essays research papers

A Storm Within the Storm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are two storms in Kate Chopin’s â€Å"The Storm.† The first happens as Bobinot (Calixta’s husband) and Bibi (Calixta’s son) are at Freidheimer’s store. Unable to walk home in such a downpour, they remain there waiting for the storm to pass. Meanwhile, â€Å"Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety† (108). Preparing for the storm, Calixta goes to gather the clothes on the line outside. â€Å"As she stepped outside, Alcee Laballiere rode in at the gate. She had not seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone† (108). As they both took refuge in the house from the storm outside, the second storm begins to brew.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Calixta, scared from the storm, finds herself in Alcee’s arms. â€Å"Do you remember-in Assumption, Calixta? he asked...Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed her and kissed her† (109). As both storms begin to peak, they retreat to her bedroom. â€Å"They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily† (110).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This second storm seems to pass with the first. â€Å"The rain is over...Calixta, on the gallery, watched Alcee ride away. He turned and smiled; and she lifted her pretty chin in the air and laughed aloud† (110). As Bobinot and Bibi return, they enter in the backdoor expecting the wrath of Calixta for being muddy. To their surprise, she is rather carefree and seems only interested in their safe return. Bobinot pulls out from his pocket, shrimp he had purchased earlier, and they prepare to feast that night. The feast was full of laughter and relaxation. In the meantime, Alcee writes his wife, Clarisse, in Beloxi. â€Å"It was a loving letter, full of tender solitude† (111).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  How does everything just go back to normal without difficulty of any kind?

Competition in the Movie Rental Industry: Netflix and Redbox

The competitive forces in the movie rental industry are quite strong, as I will explain through the five forces model. There are a vast amount of substitutes for watching a movie. You can go to a play, sporting event, concert, out the lake/beach, go for a run, watch regular television, go shopping; I could go on and on. Also, torrenting or pirating movies is growing increasingly popular. Buyers have a strong presence in this industry mainly because they are picky about how much they will pay to rent or stream a movie.With the amount of substitutes and their pickiness, they make this industry more competitive than what it may seem. Suppliers can make this industry very difficult because there is so much red tape in the movie industry. There are copyrights and restrictions on everything. This gives the supplier a lot of leverage and for the most part, they know that they can demand a price of just about anything. I see the potential and threat of new entrants being moderate to strong. First off; many customers have their loyalties whether it be to Netflix, Redbox or a local hometown movie rental.Secondly; pricing, availability and quality are all key factors. Lastly you have to have a large sum of money upfront in order to get the ball rolling. As I mentioned prior, gaining rights from movie companies is not cheap. The rivalry among the competitors is rather intense as they are battling for the best prices, biggest variety, quickest accessibility for the customer, and quality movies (HD streaming, few scratches and number of blu-rays). With the growing increases in technology and home entertainment, there are major forces pushing for change in the movie rental industry.In addition to this; we now live in a world where people want something and they want it NOW. I work in retail and this â€Å"in the now† era is changing everything and is putting a lot of pressure on almost any company. This has increased the push for expansion of online streaming and or th e ease of access to movie rental kiosks. Also in this new world, there is a huge demand for entertainment. Our generation spends more time in front of the TV and now computers, tablets and smart phones than ever before.The increase in the quality of televisions, surround sounds and filming capabilities is pushing the envelope. People are also always looking for the biggest bargain while maintaining quality. When looking at a strategic map the two variables would be price and how quickly the product can be attained. Netflix and Redbox rank high within each category. On the other hand Blockbuster and Movie gallery would be ranked much lower due to their high prices and the fact that you have to go out of your way to a brick and mortar store.The biggest key success factor to me over the next 3-5 years will be the capability to stream HD content at home. I understand that this hinders on your internet provider due to bandwidth. But I believe that if a customer can stream HD content it w ill save them the cost of purchasing a blu-ray player and blu-ray videos. To stem off of this idea, it’s going to depend upon how quickly the customer can obtain the video. After those two factors, I think that price (low) will then come into play. People want things to be as simple and as user-friendly as possible.Whether this is how it easy is to navigate a website or make purchase at a kiosk machine. Lastly I foresee the variety being a component of success; I don’t know about you but I do miss some of the movies from the 90s. After performing a SWOT analysis of Netflix, the company looks increasingly more popular. First off, lets look at Netflix’s strengths. Overall Netflix has had strong financial stability as they have grown their margins year over year. They definitely have their brand name out on the market; much of this can be attributed to their amount of advertising.You can say that they have alliances given that their videos can be streamed on virtua lly any device (phone, tablet, and computer). This also allows their content to be viewed virtually anywhere. The fact that they teamed up with Oracle to work on their website was a very beneficial move as this gives them somewhat propitiatory technology. I personally enjoy their recommendations and it is obvious that with their next arrival that they have strong logistics. They have a big cost advantage too.If I can stream a whole season of How I Met Your Mother in one day, I feel as though the $8. 9 that I spent was a good investment and yet I still have another 29 or 30 days to go. The two times that I had to deal with their customer service; they quality of service was outstanding and I’ve heard many other wonderful testimonials. When looking at weaknesses, I feel that their inability to provide new releases is a major drawback. In addition to this, they need to amp the selection for online streaming since streaming is expanding rapidly. The issue at hand with streaming i s that it can potentially lead to server crashes if there are too many users on at once.Netflix can also be very enticing to hackers since there is so much personal information stored. I would say that the biggest opportunity for Netflix would to be to make deals with the movie production companies to allow Netflix to offer new releases. To feed off of that, they need to increase their variety; particularly in the selection of indie and international films. With as big as they have become Netflix should try to gain rights to more countries. They could try to test out the video rental industry. This would help them out as gamers can stream Netflix on their consoles.Since they have software to offer recommendations based off of likes, they could look into developing a music streaming service similar to Pandora. Lastly, they need to set up kiosks in high traffic shopping areas. Maybe they could start this by putting up kiosks in each of the 50 towns in which they have a distribution ce nter. I see the biggest threat being the increasing amount of pirating movies and people performing illegal downloads. The supplier has a lot pulling power as they can quote big prices. If other companies began to enter the online streaming idea; Netflix will have to look for ways to distinguish itself.Redbox’s SWOT analysis does not make it look as attractive as Netlfix, however it is still pretty strong. Again starting with strengths; Redbox has its kiosks placed in prime locations. It is much more convenient for a customer to pick up a movie as they are walking out of the grocery store or McDonald’s than it is for them to drive to a physical store location. It is good for both the store and Redbox. I feel that their prices give them a large competitive advantage especially when comparing to the price of a rental from Blockbuster or Movie Gallery.Their smartphone app allows the customer to decide whether or not they can go out and pick up a certain film. I know that many people appreciate the fact that Redbox has many new release films. Moving on to weaknesses; the biggest issue with kiosks is the amount of variety and inventory. There are only 20 to 30 films to choose and I feel that folks enjoy more choices. The other issue with kiosks is that nobody is there to inspect the condition of the disks therefore a customer can potentially rent a scratched up disk.The beauty of Netflix is that your movie will arrive on your doorstep or you can stream it instantly. With the increasing price in gas, it can be seen as somewhat of an inconvenience to drive out to a kiosk. On a positive note, Redbox has many opportunities available to it. They can start off by offering online streaming. Like Netflix, I suggest that they look into tapping into the video game market at their kiosks. After lifting their lawsuits from Universal and Warner bros, they should renegotiating the length of time that it takes to get their hands on new release films.Redbox’s biggest threat would if/when other companies also begin to offer rentals via kiosk locations. The advances in technology may one day lead us away from using discs and virtually everything will be done online. They also face uncontrollable threats such as snow days. It is much easier for the customer to stream a video with Netflix than it is for them to bundle up, clear off their vehicle and risk their lives in hazardous driving conditions. Financially Netflix has been quite sound since its creation.I am rather impressed with how well its gross profit and net income have steadily increased year over year. On the other hand, it does somewhat bother me that their stockholder’s equity has decreased each year since 2005. Recommendation: Netflix: I recommend to Netflix that they look into adding kiosk locations in attempt to drive out Redbox as much as possible. This will pull in any more customers because not everyone enjoys being on a subscription and paying monthly rates. By the time everything turns completely towards online streaming, you will be leaving Redbox in the dust with almost nothing.To further help with pulling customers away from Redbox, Netflix needs to look into gaining access to new release films. With their powerful software, Netflix should look into a streaming service similar to Pandora and or create something like iTunes where customers can purchase and download music. Redbox: Redbox has got to get with the program and offer online content. Along with this, they should offer some sort of subscription service to ensure that they are holding onto their customer base. They could also look into having a rental service via online so that they can offer their customers more variety in movies.