The purpose of this exercise is to give you an opportunity to create peer groups using data found on a supervisory Web site and to use that data. When you have finished, you should be able to create peer groups. Additionally, you should be able to describe how asset size differences affect reported financial data.
Consider a product or service you highly recommend. Identify your audience. Perhaps you would like to recommend this product or service to accountants? A job recruiter? Cosmetologists? Plumbers? A family member?
Design and create a slide presentation to persuade an audience to purchase a product or service. Your presentation should include the following:
5-7 slides
A title page
3-5 slides explaining the benefits of the product or service
A concluding slide
Use least 4 of the following tools that you have not demonstrated in previous assignments:
Images / Photos
ClipArt
Audio
Transitions
Timing
Table
Video
Each slide should have presenter notes.
Show evidence that you have considered your audience when deciding how to effectively communicate your message.
Climate change is an important environmental issue to discuss. The issue affects people as well as animals, and this has caused people to think to seek for solutions. It is clear that the climate is undergoing some changes given the transformations that are observed in temperatures, winds, and other environmental indicators. There is a controversy on the topic of climate change in that there are many scientists as well as politicians who argue that humans primarily cause climate change. On the other hand, some scientist and politicians are of the idea that natural causes cause climate change.
The controversy that exists is the inability to point to one specific primary cause of climate change. Research has been conducted, but they do not attest to a specific cause of climate change. This act has led to various discussions as well debates to the topic by various stakeholders to find the main cause, but it has not been successful. The question is whether human beings are the main cause of climate change or whether natural causes are the primary causes.
The debate on the topic of climate change has raised varying views, opinions and contributions. Those that are of the opinion that human beings are the main cause of climate change try that to prove that human activities contribute to the largest percentage of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Such gasses are the major cause of today’s climate change (Agency, 2015).
Others support the idea that the major cause of climate change is natural occurrences. Some people suppose that natural events such as orbital changes as well as volcanism are the chief causes of global warming. They also believe that since natural occurrences cause climate change, nature has a way of regulating it. For instance, plants and animals will develop ways of coping with the consequences of climate change. These two arguments make sense in that both have points to be noted. But the determination of the major contributor to climate change is difficult to pinpoint.
The Major Players
Climate change has two key players that are, the natural causes as well as the humans. Human beings are engaged in various activities that contribute to the emission of gasses that contribute to global warming and other destructive practices. Human beings live on this continent and measuring the levels of harmful gasses it is clear that they contribute to climate change. Human beings are known to use fossil fuels as a source of energy, and the result is CO2 that is considered a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Human beings are the major players in climate change since they have increased in number as compared to a time back. Climate change continues to change when the populations is high since people continue to look for places to live. There is a close correlation between an increase in population and a climate change. Natural occurrences also have been linked to causing climate change. These activities cannot be controlled and, therefore, a major player in this topic. Natural causes include the volcanism, orbits around the sun, and other factors results in the emission of gasses that also contribute to climate change (Gillard, 2011).
The major players in the debate are politicians and the scientists. Scientists disagree what lead to climate change. Scientists are people who have the skills, knowledge and experience of climate change. These people disagree to this topic while they are the experts. How they address the topic is based on the findings that they obtain from research. Scientists are important since their conclusion will determine what steps the government will take to curb the problem. It is vital that scientist comes with one answer to the question that will be convincing and true to the topic to ensure that the best action is implemented. Politicians are also important as they will determine what will be implemented for the problem to be solved.
Politicians represent the government and it is depended upon to formulate policies that will determine the environmental condition presently and in the future. The government will also provide the resources need to implement the policies, and this puts the government as a key player in climate change problem. The government represents the interest of its people and, therefore, the policies to curb the climate change problem will affect everyone. It is, therefore, important that the government implements the best policy that will ensure that climate change is reversed.
Important Facts
There are important facts to note in this topic of climate change. It is clear that climate change is present in our world today climate change affects the lives of all living things on the face of the earth. The truth of the matter is that both natural and human are contributing to this problem. Natural causes have been witnessed by the different natural phenomenon such as volcanic events, the radiant from the sun, orbits around the sun, and other factors. These activities are there even at current times. These natural factors are hard to control as compared to human activities that can be controlled (Majumder, 2011).
Human causes are linked with changing the climate. These activities include the cutting down of trees found in forests so as to engage in agriculture. This activity causes the environment to change. The vegetation cover is absent since the forestry is gone. Another activity that causes climate change is fossil fuel that is normally used by them as a source of energy. Human activities have been on the rise due to increase in populations and also due to increasing in industries that pollute the environment in the air and environmental pollution. Pollution affects the environment by causing it to change in terms of how it looks. The effect of increased human activities has led to an increase in warming effect. The emissions of carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gasses that cause harm and result in changing the land surface as well as the whole environment.
Human causes and natural factors can be associated with climate change but between the two there is one that has resulted in causing climate change more than the other. The disagreements between the scientists as well as politicians are healthy as it will allow the topic to be excavated so that solutions to be implemented. Climate change has adverse effects on society, and the two causes have for one way or another affected our world. The problem can be solved if an agreement is reached concerning the main cause of climate change. Scientist needs to come up with one cause of the problem so as to know how to deal with it (McCaffrey, 2006).
Side One
Human beings have been accused of being the main cause of global warming and climate change. Most of the activities that people have engaged in have ended up contributing to the harmful effect of the environment. Human activities have given a first hand in the promotion of global warming and climate change. Some of these actions are performed by human beings out of negligence. There have been changes that have come into being as a result of deforestation that is one of the major activities of causing climate change and global warming. Cutting down of vegetation cover is also another human action that has caused increased albedo in the surface. Studies reveal that clearing the vegetation cover to use the cleared land for agricultural purposes and irrigating the arid areas have been mentioned of the major causes of the climate change. The reasoning behind this argument is that the cleared area will increase the energy absorption from the sun. In fact, since a bare land is left, the effects will be immense due to the direct heat of the sun leading to increased evaporation. Additionally, the water that is used for irrigation will be absorbed by the sun increasing the moisture content in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, when the forests are cleared, there will be increased effects of the sun that will cause increased heat in the soil and cause a reduction in the moisture in the atmosphere. The increased heat may cause drying of more trees causing imbalance hence the increased effect of the greenhouse gasses.
Aerosols are also finding their way to the atmosphere as a result of bi-product from agricultural activities. The effects of aerosols affect the climate in various ways. These aerosols can change the chemical properties of the clouds thus affecting the entire lifetime of the chemical components of the cloud. Further, the aerosols tend to scatter and form a blanket-like structure that absorbs the solar radiation and the infrared radiations. Aerosols may also result from the burning of the biomass. The burning results in organic droplets together with the soot particles. Industries dealing with chemical materials are notorious for emissions of aerosols. These emissions may result in various forms of aerosols depending on the materials that are being burned in that particular industry. Additionally, the exhausted gasses from vehicles are known to contribute to aerosol pollution.
Finally, human beings have contributed to climate change through the release of the greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. The main factor that contributed to the presence of these gasses to the atmosphere was the industrial revolution that occurred in the nineteenth century. Therefore, the increase in the gasses being released contributed to increased temperatures in the atmosphere. These gasses are known to absorb heat leading to that heat being retained in the atmosphere. The results of these gasses are that they lead to increased temperatures thus causing the global warming. In the past century, there have been increased industrial activities by over forty folds. However, the greenhouse gasses have increased by ten-folds (McDowell, 2014).
Side Two
There are various causes of global warming and climate change that are not in any way linked to the humans. Research reveals that an increase in the sun output over the recent years is causing global warming. The study that was conducted by scientists from various regions revealed that the output has doubled from what it used to be several millenniums ago. The effects of the increased output from the sun are the drying up of water in arid areas and increase in the area covered by the deserts. Additionally, the increased heat from the sun has contributed to the melting of ice in regions like the Antarctica. Melting of glacier cover has caused the sea levels to increase which is very dangerous. Another natural cause of climate change and global warming is the volcanic eruptions that cause increased expulsion of air and harmful gasses and dust into the atmosphere. The dust particles that are emitted during the volcanic activities act as a shield that prevents the sun’s radiations from reaching the earth. However, the shield formed by the dust prevents the heat from the earth from escaping into the atmosphere hence increasing the effects of global warming. Further, the dust is at times associated with the cooling of the atmosphere. Another cause of global warming that is not associated with the human activities is the natural forest fires. When these fires occur, they increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has widely been associated with global warming. Carbon dioxide also contributes to the composition of the greenhouse gasses and, therefore, increases global warming and pollution. These gasses have effects of trapping heat from the sun thus increasing the degree of warming. Melting of the permafrost is another contributing factor of global warming and the climate change. The melting at the polar region means that the carbon dioxide that is stored in frozen form is released thus increasing the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The carbon that has been stored in the permafrost is very harmful because it has been out of space for many years. Therefore, the sudden release of the gasses causes an imbalance in the geochemical processes as a result of the increase in the volumes of the gasses released (McNall, 2011).
Opinion and Rationale
In my view, I believe that natural causes of global warming had been in existence even before the humans came to being. The research conducted however revealed that most of these natural causes did not explain the most of the global warming that was experienced. Therefore, it was easy to conclude that humans bear the great responsibility for the causes of global warming. Global warming has been causing disturbing effects on the environment. However, human beings are doing little to contain the situation that many never imagined it would ever be pressing issues. Our responsibility towards causing and facilitating the global warming is so immense and should never be down looked. In fact, human beings are quickening global warming given the fact that almost every activity that they do involves the release of carbon dioxide. I feel strongly about this environmental controversy because it will be difficult to find effective ways of addressing the environmental problem if people in the society do not agree on its main cause. If the right cause of climate change is not found, wrong environmental policies may be implemented. Carbon can be released from the burning of fossil fuels such as the petrol and hydrocarbons. Further, carbon dioxide can result from burning the forests to use the area for agricultural purposes. Therefore, almost everything related to the global warming is to be blamed on human beings. Therefore, some measures need to be undertaken to increase the awareness regarding the global warming and also assist us in reducing the emissions of carbon. Therefore, the policy formulation must take into account the fact that the harmful effects have already taken place. These policies will greatly contribute to the creation of a self-sustaining environment away from the destruction of global warming (Pidwirny, 2013).
The finance department of a large corporation has evaluated a possible capital project using the NPV method, the Payback Method, and the IRR method. The analysts are puzzled, since the NPV indicated rejection, but the IRR and Payback methods both indicated acceptance. Explain why this conflicting situation might occur and what conclusions the analyst should accept, indicating the shortcomings and the advantages of each method. Assuming the data is correct, which method will most likely provide the most accurate decisions and why?
First source:
Group wants Shrek dropped from anti-obesity ad
By: DAVID CRARY
NEW YORK–A children’s advocacy group wants the Department of Health and Human Services to oust Shrek, the animated ogre, from his role as spokesman for an anti-obesity drive.
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood says the soon-to-open Shrek the Third has too many promotional ties with unhealthy foods to justify using Shrek as a health advocate.
“There is an inherent conflict of interest between marketing junk food and promoting public health,” Susan Linn, the group’s director, wrote in a letter sent today to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt.
“Surely Health and Human Services can find a better spokesperson for healthy living than a character who is a walking advertisement for McDonald’s, sugary cereals, cookies and candy,” said Linn, an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
HHS spokesman Bill Hall said the department had no intention of halting the public service ads, which were launched in February.
The ad campaign – which seeks to curtail childhood obesity – is a joint project of HHS, the Ad Council’s Coalition for Healthy Children and DreamWorks Animation SKG, creator of the three Shrek movies. It features ads in which Shrek, a stout and often clumsy ogre, and his fellow characters urge children to exercise at least an hour a day.
“Shrek is a very well known character in the target population of this campaign,” Hall said. “We have always promoted a balanced, healthy diet, which does not necessarily exclude the occasional treat.”
Linn’s organization – a nationwide coalition which monitors marketing aimed at children – said Shrek the Third, which opens May 18, has promotional deals with dozens of food products, including Mars Inc.’s Snickers and M&M’s candy; PepsiCo Inc.’s Sierra Mist drink; and Kellogg Co.’s Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, Cheez-Its and Keebler cookies.
Penelope Royall, the HHS deputy assistant secretary for disease prevention and health promotion, stressed that the public services ads were using Shrek to promote exercise, not foods.
“Shrek is a good model, especially for children who can benefit from more exercise,” Royall said. “He doesn’t have a perfect physique, he’s not a great athlete. … We hope children will understand that being physically fit doesn’t require being a great athlete.”
Second source:
Fighting obesity, but fronting for junk food
By Barbara F. Meltz,
Wanting to avoid the appearance of a government agency seeming to endorse a Hollywood movie, the US Department of Health and Human Services has temporarily halted its public service ad campaign in which the animated movie character Shrek urges children to exercise. “Shrek the Third,” released by DreamWorks, opened Friday.
But, says HHS spokesman Bill Hall , “We’ll pop them right back up there as soon as the hype for the movie dies down, in six weeks or so.”
Who knew that conflicts of interest come with expiration dates?
If that’s not bizarre enough, there’s also this: HHS sees no problem using Shrek as a frontman in the fight against childhood obesity at the very same time Shrek’s image is also licensed for use on more than 75 fast-food products including M&Ms, Pop-Tarts , and McDonald’s Happy Meals.
“I’d call that naive, disingenuous, or hypocritical — take your pick,” says psychologist Susan Linn , co founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood , based at the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston.
Last month CCFC called for HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt to “fire” Shrek, saying there is an inherent conflict of interest for a government agency that is mandated to protect the health and well-being of children to tie itself to a character that is also tied to energy-dense, low-nutrient foods. Hall’s counter is that the public service ads are not about diet.
“Shrek is conveying the message that, ‘Hey, I’m overweight, I’m out of shape, and I eat a lot of snacks. I’m adding physical activity to my lifestyle so I can be healthier. You should, too, ‘ ” Hall says. “If we were to pull the Shrek campaign completely, what kids would be left with is Shrek promoting only food products. That would be a very-one sided message.”
That thinking dumbfounds people such as child psychologist David Walsh . As it is, he says, children are only getting one message.
“When two messages undercut each other as these do, the one that is more prominent is the one that gets through,” says Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis. Not everyone blames HHS for wanting to stick with Shrek.
“He’s a character kids are powerfully drawn to,” says Kathy Merlock Jackson , a children’s media and culture specialist at Virginia Wesleyan College . “They identify with him. He’s kind, caring, funny, and he’s not perfect. They like that. They admire that. Just think how wonderful it would be if all of Shrek’s appeal were focused on one message: promoting children’s exercise.”
Jackson says the responsibility lies with DreamWorks. “I call on them to withdraw the licensing for the [fast-food] venues and do the right thing for kids: Let Shrek be a spokesperson only for exercise.”
Not a bad idea, says Walsh, especially considering that the Centers for Disease Control has labeled childhood obesity a public health emergency.
In a telephone interview Saturday, DreamWorks spokesperson Bob Feldman defended the choice of Shrek for both HHS and food products, noting that DreamWorks paid attention to the products Shrek appeared on.
“We made a conscious, thought-out effort to [license] the healthier choices of the fast food that is out there. Since when did candy become evil? People know candy is a treat, and parents know to dole it out carefully.”
What’s more, he noted, DreamWorks initiated the collaboration with HHS and the Ad Council.
“We want to be socially responsible. We support balanced diet and regular exercise,” Feldman said. “DreamWorks Animation is committed to responsible marketing and we are proud of our relationship with HHS, McDonald’s, and other companies.”
In your Week 3 Application, you conducted two observations as a part of your Child Observation Project. As you have been learning, the purpose of this project is to help you better understand and develop knowledge and skills related to effective observation and assessment strategies. Therefore, the project does not provide a holistic picture of the development and learning of the child whom you have been focusing your project on. Additionally, observation and assessment knowledge, skills, and data have little meaning in isolation—it is only when they are a part of ongoing assessment that they truly can be used for the intended purposes of supporting development and learning.
Portfolios represent “organized, purposeful compilation of evidence documenting a child’s development and learning over time” (McAfee & Leong, 2007, p. 100). Building portfolios requires careful planning that takes into account appropriate expectations for children’s learning and development and children’s unique developmental patterns and preferences. For this Application, you will have an opportunity to develop a plan for building a portfolio, by describing additional data and related strategies that you would need in order to complete a comprehensive assessment that covers all the developmental areas of one child’s development and learning.
Note: You will not be collecting the data that you identify in your plan.
Plan
Implement
Note: You can use more than one row for each area of development and learning.
Reflect
For this assignment, submit:
Assignment length: 2 pages
Discussion Topic
Scenario: Lei received a quick phone call from one of the location managers about replacing some equipment. She agreed in principle that the equipment should be replaced, but mentioned that Dalman was investigating another source for the equipment and perhaps they should wait until she and Dalman had reached a decision. Two weeks later, Lei received an invoice for the new equipment! Visibly angry, she called the manager to inquire why he had ordered the equipment after their conversation. The manager stated that Lei had agreed that the equipment needed to be replaced. He was adamant that this was what he heard Lei say. The equipment was expensive and Dalman was hoping to order several pieces from one source to maximize discounts per unit.
Based on the section about Communication Pitfalls in the Bateman and Snell text, describe some ways that Lei could have avoided this situation.
1.
What is Marketing?
Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers’ needs and wants. Critics, however, maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before. They feel marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they do not really need. With a minimum of 200 words; What is your understanding of the role of marketing and the marketing management process?
2.
Marketing Strategies
Compare Complete the “Think About It” activity in Section 1.2 of the text:
Select a consumer product of personal interest—one that you have purchased within the past six months. It can be anything, just as long you are familiar with the product and generally understand how it is marketed.
[Tree Hut Shea Body Butter Coconut Lime]
Using the matrix model of marketing management in Table 1.2, fill in the cells of the matrix as completely and thoroughly as you can for the brand that you purchased.
Be sure that your entries correspond to your perspective as a customer for this brand. In short, you are the target market.
You may wish to create one or more positioning maps to help illustrate how you perceive the competitive playing field. Once you’re done, examine the intersection of each cell.
How do the elements of the marketing mix align with the four strategy categories in the left-and column?
Does every one of the 4 P’s contribute to each of the strategic objectives established in the left-hand column?
Do you see room for improvement? How would this assessment be different for other types of customers?
The Internet is defined as a worldwide interconnection of individual networks operated by governments, industries, academia, and private parties (Internet World Stats, 2015). As the Internet grows and becomes more accessible to many people in the world, there is an increasing interest in forecasting its number of users as it helps improve the technology and its security.
In a recent study, researchers found that the rate of change of internet users in the world (in millions) is modeled by the function
where x is the number of years from 1994.
For the questions that require calculations, be sure to show your work details and if applicable, round your final answers to the nearest hundredths (2 digits after the decimal point) to receive full credit. For critical thinking questions, explain in detail how the answers were determined.
⦁ Using integration on, find the function P(x) that predicts the number of internet users in the world. (Note: Since this is an indefinite integral, do not forget to add a constant C in your final answer.)
⦁ Based on the first letter of your last name, calculate the value of C from #1 by choosing an ordered pair (x, P(x)) from the table below.
First letter of your last name x P(x) (in millions)
A–B 6 361
⦁ From your answers in #1 and #2, state the mathematical model, P(x) (in millions), that will predict the number of internet users in the world.
⦁ Using P(x), complete the following table.
Year x Predicted Number of Internet Users (in millions)
2016
2018
2020
⦁ Below is a graph of over the interval [2, 10]. Set up the definite integral that will calculate the area of the shaded region on the graph.