Archimedes Profile - About the Ancient Mathematician

Archimedes Profile - About the Ancient Mathematician Name: ArchimedesPlace of Birth: Syracuse, SicilyFather: PhidiasDates: c.287-c.212 B.C.Main Occupation: Mathematician/ScientistThe Manner of Death: Probably killed by a Roman soldier in the aftermath of the Roman siege of Syracuse. Famous Quote Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world.- Archimedes Life of Archimedes: Archimedes, a mathematician, and scientist who determined the exact value of pi, is also known for his strategic role in the ancient war and the development of military techniques. First the Carthaginians, then the Romans besieged Syracuse, Sicily, the birthplace of Archimedes. While in the end Rome won and killed him (during the second Punic War, probably in 212 at the end of the Roman Siege of Syracuse), Archimedes put up a good, almost single-handed defense of his homeland. First, he invented an engine that threw stones at the enemy, then he used glass to set the Roman ships on fire well, at least according to legend. After he was killed, the regret-filled Romans had him buried with honor. Education of Archimedes: Archimedes probably traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, home of the famous library, to study mathematics with the successors of Euclid. Some of Archimedes Accomplishments: The name Archimedes is connected to a pumping device now known as a Archimedes Screw, which he may have seen in operation in Egypt.He described the principles behind the pulley,fulcrum andlever. Eureka!: The word eureka comes from the story that when Archimedes figured out a way to determine whether the king (Hiero II of Syracuse), a possible relative, had been duped, by measuring the buoyancy of the kings supposedly solid gold crown in water, he became very excited and exclaimed the Greek (Archimedes native language) for I have found it: Eureka. Here is the relevant passage from a public domain translation of the passage from Vitruvius who wrote two centuries later: ​But a report having been circulated, that some of the gold had been abstracted, and that the deficiency thus caused had been supplied with silver, Hiero was indignant at the fraud, and, unacquainted with the method by which the theft might be detected, requested Archimedes would undertake to give it his attention. Charged with this commission, he by chance went to a bath, and being in the vessel, perceived that, as his body became immersed, the water ran out of the vessel. Whence, catching at the method to be adopted for the solution of the proposition, he immediately followed it up, leapt out of the vessel in joy, and, returning home naked, cried out with a loud voice that he had found that of which he was in search, for he continued exclaiming, in Greek, ÃŽ µÃ¡ ½â€¢Ã ÃŽ ·ÃŽ ºÃŽ ± [heà ºrÄ“ka] (I have found it out). - Vitruvius The Archimedes Palimpsest: A medieval prayerbook contains at least 7 of Archimedes treatises: Equilibrium of Planes,Spiral Lines,The Measurement of the Circle,Sphere and Cylinder,On Floating Bodies,The Method of Mechanical Theorems, andStomachion. The parchment still contains the writing, but a scribe re-used the material as a palimpsest. See William Noel Revealing the Lost Codex of Archimedes video. References: URL www.archimedespalimpsest.org/palimpsest_making1.html The Archimedes Palimpsest and URL www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html Archimedes Palimpsest. Ancient Sources on the Weapons of Archimedes: Polybius Histories 8.2.3.2-8.4Livy AUC 24:34Plutarch Life of Marcellus 14:7 And yet even Archimedes, who was a kinsman and friend of King Hiero, wrote to him that with any given force it was possible to move any given weight; and emboldened, as we are told, by the strength of his demonstration, he declared that, if there were another world, and he could go to it, he could move this. 8 Hiero was astonished, and begged him to put his proposition into execution, and show him some great weight moved by a slight force. Archimedes therefore fixed upon a three-masted merchantman of the royal fleet, which had been dragged ashore by the great labours of many men, and after putting on board many passengers and the customary freight, he seated himself at a distance from her, and without any great effort, but quietly setting in motion with his hand a system of compound pulleys, drew her towards him smoothly and evenly, as though she were gliding through the water. 9 Amazed at this, then, and com prehending the power of his art, the king persuaded Archimedes to prepare for him offensive and defensive engines to be used in every kind of siege warfare. These he had never used himself, because he spent the greater part of his life in freedom from war and amid the festal rites of peace; but at the present time his apparatus stood the Syracusans in good stead, and, with the apparatus, its fabricator. Silius Italicus Punica 14:300-315Lucian Hippias 2 Reference:Archimedes and the Invention of Artillery and Gunpowder, by D. L. Simms; Technology and Culture, (1987), pp. 67-79. Archimedes is on the list of Most Important People to Know in Ancient History. Read more about Archimedes in Discoveries in Science Made by Ancient Greek Scientists.

Aboriginal People in the Canadian Military

According to records, more than 4,000 Indians were enlisted during the First World War, and about 35% of Indian soldiers were in the same age. This number does not include people other than Indians, Metis, other local people such as Inuit. In addition, many indigenous inhabitants witnessed more than average admission. 47% of indigenous soldiers in Prince Edward Island State and 53% of New Brunswick's volunteers volunteered. Amazingly, 100% of adult men in the Miku Mak Reserve in Sydney Nova Scotia have volunteered. In most cases, indigenous peoples and non-Earth soldiers shared similar experiences during the war. Some indigenous people initially had difficulty moving to military life. The reason is that many people came from remote areas of the country and followed their own cultural traditions. They have little contact with Canadians outside the area, and they often speak English and French. Most people believe indigenous men quickly adapt to new lives as soldiers and often become p recious members of their company. Like most Canadians, many indigenous peoples serve Canadian Corps of Canadian Expedition (CEF). The military role of indigenous peoples is influenced by traditional hunting and military skills, plus racial stereotypes of recruitment staff and executives. Many indigenous peoples play the most dangerous role in sniper, reconnaissance soldiers, military. The First National Army encountered a double cultural barrier in military: racial prejudice marked the modern non - native world, and the army class was almost completely moved in English. Records and memoirs indicate that most units finally accepted indigenous soldiers and even provided a welcome or progressive environment than other areas of modern society. The first national army left an amazing record of the wartime achievement. Some were appointed to officers, and many served as intensive platoon leaders and battle instructors. At least 50 people are decorated for bravery on the battlefield. Many people have gained a position close to legends as scouts and sniper soldiers, using pre-war hunting techniques and wilderness experience. Ten years ago, the armed conflict between indigenous peoples and the Oka Quebec Oka police and military pushed the relationship between indigenous peoples and non-indigenous Canadians to the forefront. At that time, the committee announced a federal indigenous policy statement named New Commitments. This statement calls for cooperation in redesigning the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada and finding new ways to solve essential problems for our coexistence. Although progress has been seen in the past decade, it is now clear that progress was too late and too late.

Coping with a diagnosis of breast cancer, what axilliary surgery is Essay

Coping with a diagnosis of breast cancer, what axilliary surgery is necessary and arm morbitity following surgery - Essay Example Non-invasive breast cancer does not have the ability to spread to other parts of the body, while the invasive type can spread to other body parts. There are no major known causes of breast cancer, but the aspects of age and family history among others increase the likelihood of developing it. Treatment of breast cancer employs a combination of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Nonetheless, this essay is divided into three major parts. The first part focuses on the coping strategies of women diagnosed with breast cancer. The second part discusses axillary dissection as an option for invasive cancer and sentinel node metastasis. Finally, the third part focuses on lymphoedema, and seeks to establish whether an individual diagnosed with breast cancer is at risk of arm mortality after breast cancer surgery. This essay draws from different journal articles that address the major issues in the essay. These articles provide knowledge that provides answers to the questions raised in ea ch of the three parts of this essay. What coping strategies are used by women when diagnosed with breast cancer? My aim in this section is to describe the paper by Drageset, Lindstrom & Underlid (2010) and consider how this work answers the question. In their work â€Å"Coping with breast cancer: between diagnosis and surgery† published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Drageset, Lindstrom & Underlid (2010) had the main aim of investigating and reporting on the coping strategies that women use in the period between when they are diagnosed with breast cancer and when they go for surgery. This therefore, includes the experiences of the women, their pain, and quality of life. In order to report on this, the researchers adopted the qualitative descriptive design, and data collection was by individual semi-structured questions. Only 21 Norwegian women newly diagnosed with breast cancer and awaiting surgery were interviewed. The findings of Drageset, Lindstrom & Underlid (2010)

Attachment between friend and romantic partner Case Study

Attachment between friend and romantic partner - Case Study Example The study has covered 50 respondents (students) of Bournemouth University age ranges from 18 to 25 with their academic qualifications of bachelor degree for survey. The selected respondents' versions in terms of their relationship status with their friends and romantic partners (now and then) are the findings of the study. The research survey was carried out in the month of '', 2009. On one hand, the study has explored the relationship status in terms of attachment level of students at their different ages with their friends and romantic partners considering their dependency level and competitiveness attitude towards them and on other hand, it has tried to analyse why the attachment style of students will differ as per their age variations with their friends and romantic partners. Through these two explorations, a substantial contribution to identify the behavior of students at different ages with their different relationship (Friends/Partners) status can be supposed to say. According to Bowlby (1973, 1980), experiences with attachment figures generate representational or "working models" that guide behaviour, affect, and perceptions in later relationships. The earliest working models are formed during infancy and early childhood, partly in response to interactions with parents and other significant caregivers (Van IJzendoorn, 1995). During social development, models of different attachment figures coalesce into more generalised, higher-order models of the self and significant others, even though models of central attachment relationships remain intact (Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985). Throughout childhood and adolescence, working models of new people and new relationships begin to develop based on these earlier models. New models, therefore, are not entirely independent of earlier ones given that earlier models guide how information about new persons and relationships is encoded, processed, interpreted, stored in memory, and eventually acted on (Bowlby, 1973; Collins, Guichard, Ford, & Feeney, 2004; Crittenden, 1985). Effective modulation of negative emotional experiences is fundamentally important to both mental and physical health. This process is associated with an individual's experiences of security within attachment relationships, and that this association is mediated by parasympathetic nervous system functioning. These findings open up a host of provocative questions regarding the basic biopsychology of the attachment system and the multiple ways in which interpersonal experiences with attachment figures become integrated, over time, into psychological, behavioral, and biological patterns of emotion regulation. Future research on these issues is important for integrating the increasingly sophisticated bodies of knowledge on social relationships and physiological functioning that have developed within the social-psychological, developmental, and behavioral medicine traditions. Such integration is critical for elucidating how and why humans' most intimate and important relationships shape bot h mental and p

Human abortion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Human abortion - Essay Example Recently there has been frequent talk in many states in opposition and in support of the abortion law. Abortion law some say is ethically incorrect as it takes away a life of a fetus which is growing inside a woman's womb in a sort abortion takes away a life while some say that abortion is right as they see the only way for eradicating any signs what a rape victim might hold to. The Roe Vs Wade case of 1973 is not for off from fortifying the fact that abortion is real and deadly issue which engulfs American cause of freedom. Roe v. Wade, (1973), was a landmark US supreme court case establishing that most laws against abortion violates the constitutional right to privacy, overturning all laws outlawing or restricting abortion. It is one of the most controversial decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history. The decision in Roe v. Wade prompted a decades-long national debate over whether terminating pregnancies should be legal (or more precisely, whether a state can deem the act illegal if it chooses to do so); the role of the Supreme Court in constitutional adjudication; and the role of religion in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade became one of the most politically significant Supreme Court decisions in history, reshaping national politics, dividing the nation into supporters and rival camps, and inspiring activism. Opposition to Roe comes prima... quality and personal freedom, and those who believe in the privacy of individual over collective rights, although the opposition to Roe often reference the privacy of the individual when referring to the unborn child. The case originated in Texas in March 1970 at the behest of Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, both young attorneys from central Texas. "Jane Roe and Richard Roe", a standard alias for anonymous plaintiffs, was used to protect Norma McCorvey's identity. After the initial lawsuit was filed, the case was expanded to include several other parties, including: James Hubert Hallford, a licensed physician who had been arrested for violations of the Texas abortion statutes; "John and Mary Doe," aliases for a married couple whose doctor had advised against pregnancy. At the time of the case, McCorvey claimed that she had become pregnant by rape. She has claimed and rescinded her support for the Supreme Court decision. During the case, Weddington kept private the fact that McCorvey had been raped. The law stated that having or trying to perform an abortion is a crime, except by "medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother." The suit claimed that the laws were unconstitutionally vague and omitted the rights guaranteed to pregnant women by the First,Fourth,Fifth,Ninth, Fourteenth Amendments. In Dallas County, Texas the district attorney Henry Wade was the defendant in the case. A three-judge district court ruled for "Jane Roe", but refused to grant against the enforcement of the laws. Both "Jane Roe" and defendant Wade appealed to the Supreme Court and the case was argued there by Weddington and Texas assistant attorney general Jay Floyd on December 13, 1971. Burger proposed that the case be put over for reargument, and the justices, unimpressed

LOreal Strategic Management Change

LOreal Strategic Management Change 1. INTRODUCTION. During the last years the organizations have been going through a process of expanding their barriers to reach new markets across the globe, this process in known as globalization, this describes the process by which societies, cultures, and economies happen to be integrated creating a massive market all over the world in which different companies can be part of. The following report was made upon LOreal analyzing how every acquisition made by the company was a fundamental part to become the leader and biggest cosmetic company in the beauty industry, how did they enter the US market by acquiring the main US brands at that particular time, and finally it will analyze their implemented strategies and market challenges showing how new strategic partners can make possible growth through globalization. The centre of attention of the report will be focused on the internal and external influences to LOreal, and how globalization could affect policies and decisions made by the company. LOreal was created by Eugene Schueller in France 1907 and named after his first product LAureole, the aim of this French chemist was to create the first synthetic hair-color product ever made and then start selling it within France and perhaps some parts of Europe, however, as the time goes by, LOreal positioned as the leader in European hair color market and skin care, but this wasnt good enough for them, as they wanted to reach new markets as the American, and Asian, therefore, LOreal made certain acquisitions, as well as the implementation of new market strategies and corporate strategies to successfully reach their goals. 1.1 SWOT ANALYSIS THEORY. Now the first part of the report will be focused on the primary internal and external influences that the company is subject to, to be able to analyze this influences, I would like to use the SWOT analysis which is a strategic planning method to identify the internal and external factors that are contributing or retaining the company to achieve their goals, The strengths and weaknesses refer to the company and its products whereas the opportunities and threats are usually taken to be external factors over which the company has no control. SWOT analysis involves understanding and analysing the strengths and weaknesses and identifying threats to the business as well as opportunities in the marketplace. Once that is done, we can then attempt to exploit strengths, overcome the weaknesses, grasp the opportunities and defend the organization against threats. This is one of the most important parts of the planning process. SWOT analysis asks the questions that will enable you to decide whet her your company and the product will really be able to fulfil your plan and what the constraints will be.[1] 1.2 STRENGTHS. LOreal has gone through different types of management from their creator, to the CEO Owen Jones, Jones management style has brought to the company a revolution from a French based cosmetic company to a world leader in the cosmetic industry, LOreal main ability is to acquire local cosmetic brands (Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Helena Rubinstein)[2] re-arrange their operational strategy and finally place them in a better location among the competitors, their brand management has been a massive tool to position LOreal in the place they are, as every single product and brand they manage is aiming to an specific segment of the different markets, rather than placing their products indiscriminately as every market has a different demand to be supplied. Another strength of LOreal that can be clearly identified is their patent desire to invest in Research and Development, with this we can assure that LOreal is an organization that is looking forward to implement the latest technology in all their products so that they can efficiently satisfy all their customer needs. They spent and average of 3% of their revenue in R D, when the average of the industry is less than 2%[3], LOreal is aware that in the days we live in, any advance in technology represents a competitive advantage and subsequently thats the best manner to own a market. LOreal has also shown their strength when it gets to marketing campaigns as they know that in order to be successful internationally you must be flexible and able to adapt to new environments, and to be more specific you must e able to produce exactly what a customer is demanding, which is the case of Savannah-Based Carson, which had a 35% share of the US ethnic hair care market and established presence in South Africa, this market has an estimated value of 1 billion dollars, according to LOreals product manager â€Å"You cant pretend to be No 1 in the world and forget about 1 billion consumers of African origin†[4] 1.3 WEAKNESSES. Now to look at the weaknesses of the company, even with the success of the globalization impact, LOreal havent done so much to diversify their products, rather than that, they have focused all their efforts in developing products for the main areas the work on (hair, skin, make up, and perfume). With the US brands acquisition, LOreal split into 3 main product divisions, consumer, professional, and luxury, in his objective to be the world leader in the beauty industry, CEO Jones has focused his efforts on the consumer brands as they are easier to retail, and relatively less expensive therefore is not that hard to build up a reliable data base, however the other 2 areas are very important as well an eventually if they focused their efforts on improving either one or even both of them the response may be positive and subsequently they will be able to reach a bigger portion of the market.[5] Another weakness of the company, and is commonly seen in this kind of organizations is the decentralized organizational structure, with this I am referring to the flow of information and control of the company due to many subdivision, this could affect the production level of the company because of the need of giving reference the other members of the board and directors of the company. 1.4 OPORTUNYTIES. Due to the good performance of LOreal, they have had certain opportunities which they knew how to use, for example the market in Africa, as they had the vision to recognize the enormous potential of this market, now LOreal is the leader of this segment, which wasnt very attractive to the competitors, at the first stage because they didnt know that people in Africa may be interested in this sort of products which lead them to lose interest for this segment and as a consequence LOreal settle down as the leader of the industry by implementing their acquiring strategy along with specific marketing strategies, basically, LOreal realized that the main thing to take over Africa was to develop a product which completely satisfy the population , due to this, LOreal invest in a multi million dollar research and development facility in Chicago to focus exclusively on the hair and skin needs of the people of African-American descent.[6] As stated before another big opportunity for LOreal to grow is to focus more on their line of dermocosmetics (anti-aging), as this area has a very small portion of the revenue and considering the research network they have, it would be interesting if the focused their efforts to create a new anti-aging product at affordable price and distributed through their channels to reach a bigger population. LOreal being the world leader of the beauty industry could diversify trying to enter new markets such like the clothing taking advantage of their well known name as they already have a strong influence over the new trends of fashion in terms of make up, hair and skin care. 1.5 THREATS. In relation to the threats and challenges, even that LOreal is the market world leader; there are some competitors in the industry and competitors for every single product division of LOreal (consumer professional luxury), competitors like Estee Lauder, Proctor Gamble, Revlon, and Max Factor, specially for the Japan market, which is the market that LOreal is aiming to control. LOreal is the world leader in the industry, however their competitors have been able to strategic place some of their products in the actual market, reason why LOreal is considering acquiring an other brand (Nivea) so that they can gain a better position in the European market. 1.6 SWOT MATRIX STRENGTHS * The ability to acquire new brands and transform then into new market leaders WEAKNESSES * Lack of diversity on their product catalogue OPPORTUNITIES * As they have all the knowledge and capacity they are able to explode new markets such like the African market THREATS * Some other competitors in the industry that currently are stronger in some other segments of the market like in Asia Now that the SWOT analysis has been done, its clear that the reason of success of LOreal is the focus they have implemented on their strategies, as they have been able to identify internal and external influences that gives them a competitive advantage over the rest of the competitors in the industry, as they know exactly where do they want to be, how are the going to achieve their goals, and what is the best way to get to that desire success. Profit margins are easily destroyed when companies focus on internal issues versus the external conditions that affect customers. Revenue comes from the outside, from customers buying products or services, not from implementing new technology, re-engineering business processes or building great teams. Focusing on external forces increases the bottom line. In fact, by shifting to an external focus, companies can often increase profits from 5 to 10 percent. An external focus, however, means more than just gathering competitive and market intelligence. It takes more than empty customer-centred rhetoric. It starts with the CEO and requires core behaviours to focus on where the money comes from.[7] 2. GLOBALIZATION. The second part of this report will be analyzing the following topics: * The impact of globalization in the organization. * How does it affect their policies and decision making, * How effective has LOreal been according to this new situation. 2.1 CONCEPT OF GLOBALIZATION As stated in Time International (1999), globalization means that countries, economies, companies or people in general are coming closer together. This is not because they are forced to do so, but because they want to do so. In fact they want so much to come closer to others that they cannot help themselves. As worldwide communications get better, information, technology, people and financial flows move faster. The cultural assumptions and premises of democracy and free markets spread and become more readily accepted. This very attractive and almost irresistible globalization process becomes more widespread[8]. Friedman (2000) states that the driving force behind globalization is free market capitalism, which uses free trade and competition to create virtual rulers of the world markets. These very powerful capitalists make economies to increase and be efficient. With the opening up of world markets, globalization has become a major force shaping both management theory and practice. Forces of globalization have been accelerating and, as such, are shaping policies and behaviours of nation states as well as corporate entities all over the world.[9] 2.2 How did LOreal become the biggest beauty company? The acquisition strategy implemented by LOreal guide them to be the world leader company in the beauty industry; all these US acquisition they made created a sub division within their products catalogue, consumer, professional, and luxury, LOreals success is a clear example of how to implement a corporate strategy and manage a brand internationally to achieve a massive growth even when the market they sell their products in isnt very steady, the key was to understand and successfully satisfy the needs of every customer through its products like they did with the Wet Lipstick in Japan, or the Research and Development process they carry out to satisfy the afro-American customer needs. LOreal has the capacity to reach more people across the world than any other beauty company thanks to their distribution channels and also is able to generate a bigger income rather than other companies due to their big products catalogue. 2.3 The Acquisition process. As stated in the case, the success of LOreal was achieved thanks to all the acquisitions made through out the world and especially in the US, all the process began by acquiring Ralph Lauren, and Helena Rubinstein which was a cosmetic maker with international distribution, after five years of negotiating process LOreal took full ownership of both companies. The next acquisition of the company was Redken in 1994 however the new products launched under LOreals ownership werent successful so they decide to rename the company to Redken 5th Avenue NY. Following their process the next company to be acquired was Maybelline which was the third largest company completely based in the US and it was very attractive due to their anti-aging line that was very eye-catching to young population, in the market this is very representative for LOreal as this will bring a new image to the company renewing the old French fashion, turning it into a fresh young image. Soft Sheen and Carson was a key element in the acquisition process as they brought a whole new market to the company that hasnt been taken care of because the current competitors didnt realize that that segment of the population may be interested in this sort of products, and in addition LOreal invested 3% of their revenues in research and development to create a new product specially for them. In the 2000 LOreal bought Matrix focusing on their professional line supplying the need of hairdressers and beauty saloons with a high quality standart. The most important acquisition made by LOreal was made in the 2000, they bought Kielhs after a three year countership, the owners finally agreed to sell their company after they realize that they couldnt meet the demand, however some of the employees werent very happy about the new acquisition as they thought that the company wont have any independence left after LOreals take over, this new acquisition was very important for the company as Kielhs could bring a better position related to the store high-end segment of the business. 2.4 WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF ACQUISITIONS IN THIS GROWTH? The prospect of increasing profitability and market share by acquisitions continues to exercise a more seductive and immediate appeal to business leaders than a reliance on growth alone. There has always been a substratum of mergers, acquisitions and, indeed, divestments in all developed economies. However, the extent of this depends on the buoyancy of the economy. The periodic rise and fall of such activity has heightened debate among managers, academics, politicians, and regulators about acquisition activity and their benefits, as well as ethical considerations (Vinten, 1992). Mergers and acquisitions (MA) have a unique potential to transform firms, and to contribute to corporate renewal (Angwin, 2001). They can help a firm renew its market position at a speed not achievable through internal development (Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1991; Harrison, 2002). [10] Value creation is the important objective in successful acquisitions. Yet, empirical and other studies continue to highlight the low success rates associated with acquisitions. No matter how attractive is the business opportunity associated with an acquisition process, value is not created until capabilities are transferred, and people from both organisations collaborate in order to create the expected benefits and the unpredicted opportunities. This collaboration relies on the will and ability of managers from both organisations to work together towards a new future. The key to integration is to obtain the participation of the people involved without compromising the strategic task. Finding similar organisational cultures and management styles has become a common panacea for avoiding employee dissatisfaction that could undermine MA performance. Different authors agree that it is important to consider cultural compatibility as a criterion for screening potential candidates for MA. On the other hand, managing the cultural differences has been proved as a more realistic and successful strategy in integration processes than finding the ideal culture fit. Buono and Bowditch consider that successful integration can be achieved even between diversified organisational cultures. This viewpoint is adopted in this exploratory study. It examines the strategies being used by executives that encourage employees diversity tolerance while allowing for learning to occur within parent and acquired firm. It looks at the strategies the firms implemented to facilitate the units to work together, and integrative practices involving firms within the same industry but from different countries and contrasting corporate values. In bringing together firms with different skills and knowledge bases, acquisitions create unique learning opportunities for the partner firms. As recently argued by management researchers, knowledge and the capacity to create, transfer, transform and utilise it are the most important sources of a firms sustainable competitive advantage[11]. Acquisitions have played a very important role in LOreals growth, particularly in their expansion through out the world, the more companies the acquire the bigger LOreal was getting as well as their profit, in 1996 they bought Maybelline for $758 million dollars and began a complete restructuration of the brand, starting from moving the headquarters within the USA. With all the restructuration LOreals CEO Owen Jones successfully achieved to reach from 3% to 15% on the nail market, they have also raise their sales in nearly a 100% and positioned Maybelline in over 70 countries. Globalization has had a very positive impact over LOreal as due to this they had the need to reorganize their company making some sort of decisions like relocating their headquarter for the USA operations in Chicago so that they can have control of all the operations taking place in America in a central place where they can keep track of all their progress, this has also brought another issue related to globalization which is the technology, LOreal has invested 3% of their revenue in developing new products where the average of investment in this field in the industry is around 2%, technology has also brought new channels of communication where they can easily be in touch within the company and also they have been able to use cost-efficient distribution channels thanks to their acquisition of Soft sheen-Carson as they had developed cheap delivery systems. 2.5 LOREAL EFFECTIVENESS LOreal has been going through a massive change since their beginning as they started their business creating a synthetic hair-color product to be sold in France and probably around Europe, the response of the people to the product was so good that the company decided to enter the beauty market, diversifying their product catalogue not only to hair care but to skin care as well, with the result of being the market leader. However the effectiveness of the company is not very clear at this stage as the product by itself cant guarantee the success of the company, instead of that, a good strategic management along with a visionary CEO can bring a major strength to the organization and will build confidence within the company to achieve their goals as they stated at the beginning, well, this is the case we are analyzing, as previously stated, CEO Owen Jones had the vision to expand the boundaries of the company by acquiring strategic partners that can contribute to a massive growth for LOr eal, his leadership enables him to see and opportunity of expansion taking advantage of the globalization boom and his vision of opportunities where the competitors didnt see anything was a key to succeed in some parts of the world, LOreal was bright enough to understand that the needs or likes of the people in America were not the same as the people in Asia or in Africa reason why they decided to create products for every single market and this gave them the opportunity to be the world leaders in the market. After all this facts it is clear that LOreal has had a very effective response to the new changing environment as they are prepared to adapt to new situations and is a company willing to deal with organizational change, this is a enormous benefit for the company as they can easily gain competitive advantage at a low cost of opportunity. 2.6 IMPROVEMENT AREAS. LOreal is the world leader company in the beauty industry thanks to their brilliant management and their products; however there is always a little extra that can be done to reach that additional little piece of the market. In my point of view I would suggest that the company hire an Asian Marketing Manager hopefully with a strong Japanese background in order to be able to completely take over this market as this market has a huge potential which was proved with the Wet Lipstick, perhaps if they invest some part of their revenue in research and development as the did with the African market, they might get a very good response as all the markets should be kept in mind as a big opportunity. LOreal could also consider expanding to the Latin American market and specially the South American, now that they control the US market (North America), they can implement their expansion strategy to take over central and south America which is a market that havent been explode yet or not as much as they could. LOreal could implement the same strategy implemented by Dell in Brazil, as they decided to relocate their plant in South America (Brazil) in order to manage all the market from there, taking advantage of the Mercosul market which enables the company to save on taxes within the continent. And finally LOreal should consider to extent their products catalogue to clothing and accessories as this may give them a competitive advantage over the rest of the companies in the same industry, it is very important to try to be always one step ahead of the company and be visionary in order to predict what the market wants and how to supply that demand. 2.7 CONCLUSION. After analyzing this case it is clear how important is to have a good strategic management and understand how the environment can affect every organization from the most insignificant change to any huge change that may involve any of the decisions of the company, its understandable that the vision of the CEO of the company can bring success to the organization and build a good know how that will enable the company to enter new markets. 2.8 REFERENCES. [1] Westwood, John. How to Write a Marketing Plan (3rd Edition).London, GBR: Kogan Page, Limited, 2006. p 27. [2] LOreal and the globalization of American beauty, Page 5. [3] LOreal and the globalization of American beauty, Page 15. [4] LOreal and the globalization of American beauty, Page 9. [5] LOreal and the globalization of American beauty, Page 2. [6] LOreal and the globalization of American beauty, Page 9. [7] Emerald Insight Staff (CB). Change Strategies.Bradford, GBR: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2004. p 4. [8] Samli, A. Coskun. In Search of an Equitable, Sustainable Globalization: The Bittersweet Dilemma. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2002. p 21. [9] Samli, A. Coskun. In Search of an Equitable, Sustainable Globalization: The Bittersweet Dilemma. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2002. p 34. [10] Emerald Insight Staff (CB). Mergers and Acquisitions. Bradford, , GBR: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005. p 4. [11] Emerald Insight Staff (CB). Mergers and Acquisitions. Bradford, , GBR: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005. p 5.

grendelbeo Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? Essay -- Epic Beo

Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? My first impression of Beowulf was that of an enigmatic, somewhat esoteric work, a necessary evil on the way to reading the more important works. After a closer reading of the much-celebrated epic, I had a revelation. And what a revelation: Beowulf is wonderful! Perhaps it was the translation, or it might have been the basic substance of the work itself, but I found myself devouring the poem. I discovered two specific areas of appeal: 1) The fundamental attraction of the archetypical super-hero and 2) the more contemporary trend in modern culture to attempt to recapture the experience of this particular era via popular fiction and film.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The ideal of the hero is a concept so completely integrated into the human psyche as to be virtually built-in. From Homer's Ulysses to Nietzsche's Ubermensch, we as a race of beings are fixated on the individual who makes things happen, who gets things done, p referably with a healthy dose of bravado. Perhaps this is attributable to an innate sense of vulnerability in each of us, that unsettling little voice which whispers to us that, despite all our efforts, we have overlooked some crucial factor which will lead to our ultimate demise. The hero has no such insecurities: he is invincible!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is interesting to note that not only has the hero figure continued to thrive in the collective human consciousness, but, in our own western culture, the Beowulf-prototype has come full circle: there is a whole genre of fantasy novels which center on one form or another of the Anglo-Saxon warrior tradition, as well as a veritable plethora of movies. Fleet upon fleet of ring-prowed ships sail ever-onward on the seas of our imagination, on qu... ...pand the characters, making them more whole, more three-dimensional.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Looking at the two works side by side, a question arises: Who is the true monster? Beowulf fans will, no doubt, assert that their hero is the undisputed good guy, and that Grendel was a vicious bastard who got what he deserved. But the Gardner perspective offers an interesting twist: Beowulf was insane! An unbalanced, obsessive weirdo babbling bizarre gibberish into Grendel's ear as he rended the unfortunate creature's arm from his torso. This latter interpretation is not as far-fetched as one might think; the police departments of every major city in this country contain a certain number of these so-called "heroes," men so mired in violence that their perceptions become distorted, that they ultimately become the very thing they've fought so hard to defeat.