Sustainable tourism Essay Example for Free

Sustainable tourism EssayKenya is in Africa and is becoming a popular holiday destination with tourists and the number of advantages have increased and also the number of disadvantages. There ar more advantages for the local community to work and recognize money but in that location atomic number 18 also the large tourist companies which are taking a large chunk of the realms money out of the country via leakage. In this report I will recommend how to improve the disadvantages and to maximize the advantages for the income and welfare of Kenyan local communities and environments to keep sustainable tourism in Kenya. The offer Companies The tour companies are responsible for the package holidays, and making them up, deciding what to include in them and whether they are suitable. Tour companies need to make sure the packages they use are environmentally friendly and will be sustainable for the future. More and more people are visiting Kenya and want to go on safaris and get as close to the animals as they can, so the tour company drivers go off the track so they can get close to the animals and please the tourists.As a result of this the animals get scared. I recommend that they do a couple of things to ensure the safety of tourists and to keep the trips sustainable. First I think there should be strict rules as to where the drivers whitethorn go and when, at certain times some animals will become a lot more agitated and may even attack the safari vans. Drivers should remain on the tracks in doing this they are not scaring the animals or killing the environment so it remains sustainable.Secondly there should also be restrictions on the time of day safaris are so the animals are not constantly disturbed, this will help sustainability as the animals will be able to reproduce and keep the numbers up. Another ride that scares the animals is the hot air balloon rides. If the balloons go too low the animals are scared and may move from their normal terrain to get away from the hot air balloons. I recommend that there are fewer hot air balloons and there are height restrictions as to how low they can go. Sustainability is a major key that I think the tour companies need to think about and remember when creating

Product costing and cost accumulation in a batch production environment Essay Example for Free

Product termsing and cost accumulation in a batch production environment EssayAs production takes place, manufacturing be are tracked in the Work-in-Process history account. Every product is make up of three cost comp superstarnts educate materials, direct exertion, and manufacturing overhead. After products are completed, the corresponding cost leaves the Work-in-Process account and is debited to the Finished-Goods account. (A merchandising firm buys its goods already completed and directly debits the items cost to Merchandise Inventory.)When units are sold, the Finished-Goods Inventory account is credited and Cost of Goods Sold is debited. A product- be system must be adapted to match the environment in which it operates.A job-order cost system is used in an industry where products are made individu each(prenominal)y, or in relatively small batches, and one product or batch is readily distinguishable from the other.Candidates for job-costing systems would be custom homeb uilding, custom printing, custom article of furniture construction, legal cases, medical cases, audits, and research projects.A process-costing system is employed in an environment at the other end of the continuum the mass production of like units. Users power include manufacturers of chemicals, gasoline, and microchips. This topic is discussed fully in Chapter 4.4.ACCUMULATING COSTS IN A JOB-ORDER COSTING SYSTEMA job-cost record is used to accumulate the true(a) direct materials, actual direct labor, and applied manufacturing overhead cost for each job. The recording of costs on this record and in the general ledger is triggered by mingled source documents.Material requisition forms authorize the transfer of direct materials from the warehouse to production. In many firms, the requisitions are based on a bill of materials that lists all of the materials (e.g., parts) required.Supply chainthe flow of all goods, services, and discipline into and out of the organization. The supp ly chain often has ramifications for materials, as manufacturers work with vendors to achieve improved delivery schedules and reductions in material cost.Time records are used to gather the measure of direct labor worked on a specific job.Manufacturing overhead is entered on the job-cost record in the form of applied (i.e., estimated) overhead. Source documents, such as invoices for factory insurance and schedules for factory depreciation, trigger a general-ledger entry that debits the Manufacturing Overhead account.5.OVERHEAD APPLICATIONOverhead account statement involves a number of steps. Chapter 3 focuses on the final step the performance of overhead to jobs and products.Although overhead cannot be directly traced to the product, the use of an application rate should assign an equitable amount of cost to each job (known as overhead application).Step 1 Set a predetermined overhead rate at the beginning of the accounting period. This is done by dividing the periods estimated (budgeted) overhead by the periods estimated number of cost-driver units.Step 2 Use the predetermined overhead rate to apply an equitable portion of overhead to each job. As the actual number of cost-driver units used on a job becomes known, it is multiplied by the predetermined overhead rate. unquestionable overhead costs incurred during the year are debited to the Manufacturing Overhead control account. In contrast, applied overhead is debited to Work-in-Process Inventory and credited to Manufacturing Overhead.The year-end difference between actual and applied amounts is known as over-or underapplied overhead. This figure is adjusted in the process of closing the Manufacturing Overhead account to zero by eitherCharging or crediting the amount to cost of goods sold. This approach is acceptable if the over- or underapplication is small or if most of the products made during the period have been sold.Prorating the amount among work in process, perfect goods, and cost of goods sold.T eaching Tip Emphasize that under- and overapplied overhead is the difference between actual and applied overhead, not actual and budgeted overhead. The budgeted figure is used solely in the determination of the predetermined rate.6. EXTENDED ILLUSTRATION OF JOB COSTINGAs noted earlier, the Work-in-Process Inventory account contains charges for direct materials used, direct labor, and applied manufacturing overhead.Period costs are expensed and not charged to Manufacturing Overhead.A sale requires two journal entries one to record the sales revenue and another to transfer the goods cost from Finished-Goods Inventory to Cost of Goods Sold.Teaching Tip Although the text illustration appears relatively complicated, it is simply presenting the details that accompany the flow of goods (and costs) from work in process, to finished goods, to cost of goods sold.7.FINANCIAL SCHEDULES FOR MANAGERSThe schedule of cost of goods manufactured details the performance in the Work-in-Process account (beginning balance, direct materials used, direct labor, applied overhead, and ending balance).The schedule of cost of goods sold details the activity in the Finished- Goods Inventory account. It is similar to the cost-of-goods-sold schedule as shown in financial accounting courses for merchandising companies, except the purchases amount is replaced with cost of goods manufactured.8.FURTHER ASPECTS OF OVERHEAD APPLICATIONexisting and normal costingAccountants prefer predetermined application rates, which are used in a normal-costing system. Such rates help to smooth product costs over time and allow users to cost products/jobs upon completion.In contrast, users of actual-costing systems derive an actual overhead rate at the end of the accounting period. Product-cost information to management is thereof delayed.Choosing an appropriate cost driverDirect labor has been a very common and appropriate cost driver. Past processes were labor intensive, and products incurring more labor of ten produced higher amounts of manufacturing overhead.Today, many processes are automated and less dependent on labor. Thus, firms now use machine hours, process time, throughput (cycle) time (the average amount of time to convert raw materials into finished goods), and other measures as cost drivers.Single vs. multiple overhead ratesCompanies normally use multiple (rather than single) application rates. With computerized accounting systems, multiple rates are easily generated, thus lowering the cost of producing highly accurate information.A single overhead rate is commonly known as a plantwide rate multiple rates are often known as departmental rates.Two-stage cost allocationStage one Overhead is first accumulated in production departments. This frequently requires the allocation of service department costs to production departments.Stage two As a final step, production department costs are assigned to individual jobs and products via overhead application.9.PROJECT COSTINGProject costing refers to job costing in a nonmanufacturing environment. Jobs in this case refer to cases, contracts, and/or programs.Costing involves tracking the direct, easily traceable costs and subdividing them by project. Overhead is then applied by victimisation a predetermined rate, with a possible application base being a projects direct professional labor cost.Technology such as avoid coding may be used to track appropriate costs to projects, although this is just one of many possible applications. Service providers, along with manufacturers, are also making use ofElectronic data interchange (EDI), which involves the electronic transfer of information from one organization to another by using a computer-to-computer interface.extensible markup language (XML), which is web-based and allows users to share structured data such as product order lists and price data.Teaching OverviewI begin the topic of job costing by explaining that students should not expect to apply a so-called te xtbook system to any real-world company, because cost systems must be designed to meet a firms unique needs. However, the two traditional system models, job order and process costing, give users the ability to build-in various modifications for use in actual situations.The major clog that students encounter in job costing is the concept of manufacturing overhead. The first area needing clarification is terminology, namelyEstimated = budgetedApplied = allocatedIncurred = actualThe second area in need of illumination is the sequence of procedures for overhead application calculating predetermined overhead rates, using the rates, and adjusting the over- or underapplied amount. This problem stems from the fact that students are doing textbook assignments where all the information is given simultaneously. Therefore, the question arises, Why use an imperfect predetermined overhead rate when I have all the totally correct, actual data in the next paragraph? It is helpful to be on the loo kout for this line of thinking when discussing homework assignments and to remind students how and when information becomes available in the real world. (I untrusting this is a problem mainly for undergraduates with limited work experience.)Based on many years of teaching, I also find that students struggle with the journal entries required to handle a sale. Two entries are needed one to transfer the cost of units sold from finished goods to cost of goods sold another is needed to record revenue. Students often forget one or the other or exhibit some creativity, creating a new account entitled Profit on Sale. Be sure to spend a few extra minutes with this issue.After the preceding issues have been handled, students generally are quite interested in job-costing concepts, particularly those who have worked in a family business or who plan to start their own business. Students are also interested in job costing in a service enterprise (discuss something as basic as the activities of a sports agent who represents clients across the country) and the impact of changing manufacturing techniques (such as the acquisition of new, progressive production technology) on product-costing procedures.I recommend Exercise 3-35 (manufacturing overhead) and Problem 3-46 (job costing and journal entries) as lecture demonstration problems.

Legalizing Marijuana

Legalizing ganjaIntroductionMarijuana is likewise referred to as cannabis, marihuana, or ganja. Herbal form of marijuana is the most common medicine, consisting of flowers and leaves which subtend and mature pistillate stalks. Cannabis history dates back to 3rd millennium B.C. In the modern world, the drug has been applied for religious, recreational, medical exam or spiritual purposes. UNs estimation in fiscal 2004 revealed that 4% of the adults in the world population, which entails 162million people, use marijuana yearly, while 0.6% or 22.5million use it daily (Smith 50).Marijuana illegalityMarijuana use is termed to be illegal due to its addictive scenery since its rated to be ahighly abusive drug. When individuals start to abuse marijuana, they eventually function hooked up and the drug ends up dominating their lives. Marijuana has also been declared not to have an approved medical use. Although the drug has been associated with healings from glaucoma to cancer oddly amon g the Americans, the deal has not been accepted widely enough on international grounds (Connoly 55). Such an argument has therefore rendered the medical value of marijuana an developed controversy. Similarly, use of marijuana has been associated with narcotics like heroin believed to have serious health repercussions once abused. Narcotics had been on regulation under the early antidrug laws. Marijuana has been termed to be an atypical recreational drug, due to its links to narcotics. In addition, marijuana has been associated with hippies or losers hence rendering it unfashionable lifestyles. Imposition of turn sanctions to the drug possession acts as type tough love for the community. The drug has been associated with the oppressed ethnic groups. For example, within the Americans, it was associated with Mexican Americans. A ban on marijuana was therefore seen as a way of discouraging the community subcultures from developing. Similarly, court cases presented for marijuana legal isation has never been rendered appealing by the advocates. Advocates normally argue on the basis of its medical benefits, creativeness promotion and moral progression among others. Particularly, that does not seem convincing since the public image of a marijuana user is that of a loser at risks of all imprisonment or arrest (Smith 194).Advantages and Disadvantages of MarijuanaMarijuana has physical benefits that are widespread, retentive-term or far reaching. The drug is known to impact on the automated nervous system. Such an impact expands the breadth and gives the body a relaxation. Similarly, the drug has enormous healing and health potential which have actually not been pull in by the Western medicine. Opposing action of the drug is essential in balancing an individual entire system, which can be understood to be a charged equilibrium. Such a state is defined as a physiological expansion or psychological satisfaction which is responsible for our health. For example, a de bate by Costa Rican revealed that cancer developments are less within the smokers of chronic marijuana, considered to be cigarettes smokers as well (Smith 46). Psychologically, marijuanas balancing of the nervous system has an effect on the mind which is energising and relaxing in a simultaneous trend. This means that an individual thinking is more clear and efficient. Also, Marijuana is associated to poses spiritual benefits. Normally, whatever that enlivens is perceived to be a spirit. Marijuana has been found to facilitate the search for universal core values. Together with its ability to enhance the processes of our mind plus balancing of the body, the drug also assists in the understanding of the abiding reality by enhancing an individual consciousness.However, the drug has its disadvantages. First, the drug facilitates hindrance of shorter memory such that any complex or simple tasks may be quite demanding for the addict to undertake. Similarly, drug abuses result into decayed moral behaviour among users. For example, Marijuana users can be highly knotty in risky sexual behaviour such that the HIV spread will be inevitable. For students, marijuana will make learning and study toilsome and athletes performance maybe brought down since movements, timing or coordination will be affected is affected as well. Safe driving will also be affected since concentration, alertness, reaction time or coordination will interfere (Shohov 98). Thirdly, Combination of marijuana use and tobacco smoking will increase the risks of contracting lung diseases. Among first-class honours degree users, the drug can answer panic, anxiety, paranoia or feelings of Impending doom. Finally, short-term effects can also involve distortion in perception, thinking or occupation solving lapses plus change magnitude heart rate. Heart attacks are also evident among the marijuana users due to impact on the blood pressure or heart rate in addition to reduction in oxygen carrying capacity in the blood. Effects on the immune system may also reduce the ability in fighting infectious diseases or cancer. A marijuana addict may also experience anxiety, depression or personality disturbances. On pregnant women, marijuana can cause the babies born to show altered responses in visual stimuli, high pitched cries or increased tremulousness. Lastly, long term use of marijuana can cause an addictive potential to the users.Problems Associated with marijuanaDue to its illegal nature, the drug is associated with jails, courts or prison cases. Scientifically, the drug has been rated to be harmful due to its addictive value. Physiological effects are also problems linked to marijuana use which in addition entails effects on smell, gustatory sensation or even sound. Distortions on depth perception can result into serious accidents when driving. The drug use has resulted to uncontrolled system in its production to stock-purchase warrant consumers of a pure product through the use of d octors or pharmacist. Being an illegal product, the prices are very high causing the users to involve in criminal activities in search of good money to acquire the herb. Un-attainability caused by the high prices places the drug in the hands of the mobs, gangs or even drug lords increasing the detestation rate. Legalization would mean a widespread access by the general public hence unhealthy babies will be borne due to the perceived increased consumption among mothers (Shohov 118).Health Concerns/problemsMarijuana causes increased and rapid heart rate, initiating harmful irritation feelings to the respiratory airways or lungs. Cancer causing chemicals are said to be contained within the drug. Within the endocrine system, the drug triggers short term drop within the ductless glands responsible for development and growth (Smith 25). Similarly, sperm production is lowered among males and hormone balance is also affected, which is fully responsible in control of menstrual cycles among girls. In addition, marijuana affects the brain behavior and function since it affects the chemical balance in the brain responsible for energy, appetite, attention or normal mood. Similarly, effects are evident on the learning, memory processes concentration or forgetfulness. Lastly, marijuana has been found to cause miscarriage or still births among the pregnant women and also developmental problems to the fetus.Solutions to the problems Solutions to the problems that come by marijuana use can be achieved through legalizing the herb. Also, public school direction should be improved, investment on programs on drug treatment. Some other solutions may involve conducting and investing more time on anti-drug education within schools, encouraging more partnerships between the police and the community. In addition, increased drug interdiction efforts within the borders would also assist plus legalizing all types of drugs. different solutions would involve revising of our common laws on the marijuana trading in order to regulate the cultivation as well as commercial aspect of the drug (Connoly 33).ReferencesConnoly, Sean. Marijuana. South Broad St, Mankato Black Rabbit Books publishers, 2006.Smith, Sandra. Marijuana the drug abuse prevention. Princeton, U.S.A Rosen Pub. Group publishers, 1999.Shohov, Tatiana. Medical use of marijuana policy, regulatory, and legal issues. London, UK Nova Publishers, 2003.

Plant DCL Proteins

Plant DCL ProteinsAbstractDicer, a double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsribonucleic acid)-specific endoribonuclease, run aways an essential role in triggering both(prenominal) transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene silencing in eukaryotes by cleaving dsRNAs or single-stranded RNAs bearing obeisance- twine structures such as microRNA trumpeter transcripts into 21- to 24-nt small RNAs. Unlike animals, plants prepare evolved to utilise at least four Dicer-like (DCL) proteins. Extensive genetic studies wee revealed that to each one DCL protein participates in a specific gene silencing way, with some redundancy. However, a mechanistic understanding of how the specific action of each DCL protein is regulated in its respective channel is still in its infancy due to the limited number of biochemical studies on plant DCL proteins. In this review, we summarize and discuss the biochemical properties of plant DCL proteins revealed by studies using highly purified recombinant prot eins, crude shows, and immunoprecipitates. With help from co-factor proteins and an ATPase/DExH-box RNA-helicase reality, the microRNA-producing enzyme DCL1 recognizes bulges and terminal loop structures in its substrate transcripts to ensure accurate and efficient impact. DCL4 prefers long dsRNA substrates and requires the dsRNA- screening protein DRB4 for its drill. The short-dsRNA preference of DCL3 is well accommodate for short-RNA transcription and subsequent dsRNA formation by coupling mingled with a plant-specific DNA-dependent RNA-polymerase IV and RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase 2 in the transcriptional gene silencing track. Inorganic phosphate as well seems to play a role in diametricial regulation of DCL3 and DCL4 activities. Further development of biochemical approaches will be necessary for better understanding of how plant DCL proteins be fine-tuned in each small RNA biogenesis pathway under various physiological conditions.IntroductionRNA silencing, to a fault known as RNA interference (RNAi), is one of the fundamental molecular mechanisms conserved in almost eukaryotes to regulate gene expression both transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally. In both situations, what triggers the RNA silencing pathway is a small RNA molecule, 21 to 24 nt in length, called small interfering RNA (siRNA) or microRNA (miRNA) depending on its origin and the downstream pathways involved. The class 3 endoribonuclease (RNase) III enzymes known as Dicer are answerable for producing siRNA from longer double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) and miRNA from single-stranded RNAs with internal stem-loop structures by a dsRNA-specific endoribonuclease. Therefore, the application and regulation of Dicer-family proteins in a cellular telephone are vital to many biological summonses requiring flexible adjustments at the level of gene expression, such as development, organogenesis, the circadian rhythm, biotic and abiotic stress responses, and defense against viruses and tr ansposons.biochemical characterization of Dicers in animalsThe Dicer family is a unique class of RNase III enzymes due to the presence of an ATPase/DExD/H-box helicase range at the N-terminus, a Piwi/Argonaute/Zwille (PAZ) domain in the heart and soul and dual RNase III domains followed by one or two dsRNA-binding domains in the C-terminal half (exception Giardia intestinalis) (Figure 1) (Bernstein et al. 2001). In general, the helicase domain serves as a protein-protein interaction rally recruiting co-factor regulatory proteins (Lee et al. 2006 Ma et al. 2008 Ye et al. 2007). It also utilizes ATP hydrolysis to achieve processive cleavage of the long dsRNA substrate (Cenik et al. 2011 Welker et al. 2010). The PAZ domain contains a conserved pocket for recognizing the terminus of the dsRNA substrate, and the distance between PAZ and the RNase III catalytic center determines the product sizes (MacRae et al. 2007 MacRae et al. 2006). Each of the two RNase III domains cuts one of the dsRNA strands, leaving a characteristic 2-nt overhang at 3-end of the product (Elbashir et al. 2001 Takeshita et al. 2007 Zhang et al. 2004). The C-terminal dsRNA-binding domains (dsRBDs) serve as a protein-protein interaction interface and nuclear localization signals, in addition to having dsRNA-binding mesh (Doyle et al. 2013 Hiraguri et al. 2005 Wostenberg et al. 2012). The specific kick the bucketality of each domain differs depending on the Dicer protein.Since the first demonstration of in vitro small RNA-producing activity of Dicer in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (Bernstein et al. 2001), its biochemical properties and regulatory machinery have been extensively studied in humans, D. melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. In humans, there is only one Dicer-family protein (hDicer), which cleaves short-hairpin pre-miRNAs produced by Drosha and dsRNA substrates into 20- to 22-nt small RNAs in an ATP-independent manner (Myers et al. 2003 Provost et al. 2002 Zhang et a l. 2002). The cleavage activity requires a divalent metal cation such as Mg2+, Co2+ or Mn2+, and recognizes mainly the 5-end of the substrate to dictate the product length (Park et al. 2011). This 5-counting rule is reliant on the conserved 3-pocket motif within the PAZ domain and the 5-pocket motif, which is less(prenominal) conserved in Dicers of other eukaryotes. The binding of Dicer to a dsRNA substrate and its cleavage are uncoupled, because Dicer can bind to dsRNA without Mg2+ or under low temperature (Provost et al. 2002 Zhang et al. 2002). The helicase domain of hDicer has an autoinhibitory function (Ma et al. 2008). In line with this, the activity of recombinant full-length hDicer protein can be improved under limited proteolytic conditions (Zhang et al. 2002).hDicer is trusty for both siRNA and miRNA production, and co-factor dsRNA-binding proteins TRBP and PACT dictate hDicer function in the two unmistakable small RNA production pathways (Chendrimada et al. 2005 Haase e t al. 2005 Kok et al. 2007 Lee et al. 2013 Lee et al. 2006). In particular, the hDicer Byzantine containing PACT disfavors siRNA precursor dsRNA and shows opposite cleavage patterns on the kindred pre-miRNA substrate than the hDicer-TRBP complex (Lee et al. 2013). The interaction with TRBP occurs through the hDicer helicase domain, and stimulates the hDicers catalytic activity. (Ma et al. 2008). exchangeablely, it has been describe that the C. elegans Dcr-1 interacts with a dsRNA-binding protein RDE-4 which enhances the Dicer activity toward long dsRNA substrates in siRNA production, while RDE-4 is apparently dispensable in miRNA production pathway (Parker et al. 2006 Parker et al. 2008 Tabara et al. 2002).D. melanogaster has two Dicer proteins, Dcr-1 and Dcr-2, which produce miRNA and siRNA, respectively (Lee et al. 2004 Miyoshi et al. 2010). Dcr-1 alone can process dsRNA into siRNA in vitro, hardly its interaction with the dsRNA-binding protein Loquacious isoform PB (Loqs-PB ) confers pre-miRNA substrate specificity to the Dcr-1-Loqs complex by suppressing cleavage of long perfect dsRNAs and enhancing pre-miRNA treat activity (Saito et al. 2005 Zhou et al. 2009). Dcr-2 interacts with Loqs isoform PD and another dsRNA-binding protein, R2D2, in the siRNA production pathway (Liu et al. 2003 Liu et al. 2006 Miyoshi et al. 2010 Zhou et al. 2009). Dcr-2 alone is also capable of cleaving a pre-miRNA precursor in an ATP-independent manner, but R2D2 importantly suppresses Dcr-2 activity toward pre-miRNA, whereas Loqs-PD enhances the cleavage activity of Dcr-2 toward long perfect dsRNA precursors by boosting its affinity to the substrate (Cenik et al. 2011 Miyoshi et al. 2010). The processive touch on of long dsRNA substrates by Dcr-2 depends on ATP hydrolysis by its ATPase/helicase domain, implying that one of the functions of the helicase domain is to allow Dcr-2 to produce multiple siRNAs from a single long dsRNA molecule in the beginning it dissociates from the substrate (Cenik et al. 2011). Such differential regulation of Dicer activity through specific interaction with co-factor dsRNA-binding proteins in distinct pathways is commonly found in most of the systems studied, including plants.DCL proteins in plantsPlant genomes contain at least four distinct classes of DCL family proteins (DCL1-4). Like their animal counterparts, each class of DCL has evolved to participate in its direct pathway (Figure 2), but the three siRNA-producing DCLs (DCL2-4) function redundantly as well, because defects in one class of DCL can be compensated for by other classes in some cases (Gasciolli et al. 2005 Mukherjee et al. 2013 Xie et al. 2004). Because DCL1 is the only Dicer protein that produces most 21-nt miRNAs (Kurihara and Watanabe 2004 Reinhart et al. 2002), knockout mutants of DCL1 are embryonic lethal (Schauer et al. 2002). DCL4 is the major(ip) producer of 21-nt antiviral siRNA and endogenous siRNAs such as trans-acting siRNA and phased siRNA s (phasiRNA) (Bouche et al. 2006 Gasciolli et al. 2005 Mukherjee et al. 2013 Qu et al. 2008 Xie et al. 2005 Yoshikawa et al. 2005). DCL2 can compensate for the loss of DCL4 (Bouche et al. 2006 Gasciolli et al. 2005 Parent et al. 2015), although its major function remains unclear. DCL3 mainly produces 24-nt repeat-associated siRNAs derived from transposons and DNA repetitive elements, and participates in transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) through RNA-dependent DNA methylation, suppressing proliferation of these elements (Henderson et al. 2006 Pontes et al. 2006 Xie et al. 2004). In addition to the four classes of DCLs, monocots have another distinct class of Dicer, DCL5 (also known as DCL3b) (Margis et al. 2006). DCL5 is specifically expressed in developing panicles and is responsible for 24-nt re cultivable phasiRNAs, although the biological significance of a reproductive-organ-specific 24-nt phasiRNA pathway mediated by this specific Dicer remains to be elucidated (Borges and Mar tienssen 2015 Fei et al. 2013 Kapoor et al. 2008 stock et al. 2012). This pathway might be analogous to the Dicer-independent PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) pathway in vertebrates, which suppresses transposons and other genes specifically in generatorlines (Hirakata and Siomi 2016). both(prenominal) forward and reverse genetics and physiological studies have successfully dissected the major RNA silencing pathways and allowed identification of the function of DCL genes in each pathway in plants. However, investigations on the molecular and enzymatic characteristics underlying the functional diversification and specificity of the DCL proteins are still in their infancy.Detection of DCL activity in crude extracts of various plantsbiochemical characterization of plant Dicer activity was first demonstrated in wheat source extract (monocot) and caulif cut extract (dicot), which contain multiple DCL activities producing 21 nt and 24 nt small RNAs with 2-nt 3-overhangs in the double-stran ded form (Tang et al. 2003). These activities are weaker in the absence of ATP, consistent with characteristics of Dicer family proteins from Drosophila and C. elegans. Long dsRNA competitors effectively suppress both activities in wheat germ extract. The 24-nt small RNA producing activity was inhibited by 25-nt synthetic siRNA duplexes, whereas 21-nt small RNA production was unaffected by 21-nt synthetic siRNA duplex competitors, suggesting that two different enzymes with active sites that have distinct size-dependent binding properties are in the wheat germ extract (Tang et al. 2003). A recent study on wheat germ extract characterized these activities in further detail, revealing (1) that the 21-nt activity could be found in a much larger (950 kDa) complex than the 24-nt activity, which had maximum activity in an approximately 450 kDa complex and (2) the biochemical properties associated with the activities, such as divalent cation and NTP requirements, optimum NaCl concentration, temperature, and pH, and substrate length dependence (Shivaprasad et al. 2015). The identities of the DCL enzymes responsible for these activities in the wheat germ extract remain to be identified.A better understanding of the biochemical characteristics of individual plant Dicer proteins has come from the poser plant genus Arabidopsis thaliana, which has four DCL proteins DCL1, DCL2, DCL3 and DCL4 (summarized in tabularise 1). The first in vitro DCL activity in A. thaliana was demonstrated using a suspension cell lysate, a crude extract of efflorescence tissue, and an immunoaffinity-purified protein complex (Qi et al. 2005). Similar to the previous study using wheat germ extract or cauliflower, extracts from both Arabidopsis cultured cells and inflorescence tissue contained DCL dsRNA-cleaving activity producing 21- and 24-nt small RNAs from 400-bp dsRNA (Qi et al. 2005). The 21-nt producing activity and 24-nt producing activity were found in 660 kDa and 400 kDa fractions, respe ctively, suggesting that these Dicers reside in protein complexes composed of multiple co-factors (Qi et al. 2005).In agreement with previous genetic studies showing CARPEL FACTORY/DCL1 is responsible for 21-nt miRNA production in vivo (Kurihara and Watanabe 2004 Reinhart et al. 2002), the 21-nt small RNA producing activity was DCL1 immunoaffinity-purified from inflorescence-derived crude extract by an anti-DCL1 antibody (Qi et al. 2005). The 24-nt activity was associated with anti-DCL3 antibody immunoprecipitate, and the activity was abolished when purified from a dcl3-1 mutant, showing that DCL3 is responsible for the 24-nt activity in Arabidopsis inflorescence extract. The immunoaffinity-purified DCL1 activity required ATP, whereas the activity of the DCL3 immunoprecipitate was ATP-independent (Qi et al. 2005). Interestingly, the dcl1-7 transmutation did not abolish the 21-nt small RNA producing activity in the extract or immunoprecipitates, implying that the replacing (P415S) in its N-terminal helicase domain did not alter the enzymes catalytic activity itself (Qi et al. 2005) this study also found that the activity of DCL4 responsible for formation of 21-nt siRNA was present in the inflorescence extract. The presence of DCL4 activity in an Arabidopsis crude extract was demonstrated in later studies using 2-week-old seedlings as the starting material (Fukudome et al. 2011 Nagano et al. 2014), and will be discussed later in this review.In-depth biochemical characterization of DCL1, a microRNA-producing enzyme in plantsDCL1 activity requires DRB1/HYL1 and SERRATE for accurate process of the miRNA precursorBoth in wheat germ and Arabidopsis extracts, DCL activities are associated with size fractions larger than DCL monomeric form, implying that these DCLs form functional protein complexes composed of multiple co-factors in vivo. As summarized in an earlier section, such interactions between a Dicer and a co-factor protein are commonly found in mammals, nema todes and insects. One of the most characterized classes of co-factor proteins is a dsRNA-binding protein (dsRBP) harboring multiple dsRNA-binding domains or motifs. The A. thaliana genome encodes five dsRNA-binding (DRB) family proteins DRB1/HYL1, DRB2 DRB3, DRB4, and DRB5. Multiple genetic and biochemical studies have demonstrated two specific interactions between DCLs and DRBs in A. thaliana DCL1-DRB1/HYL1 and DCL4-DRB4 (Han et al. 2004 Hiraguri et al. 2005 Kurihara et al. 2006 Nakazawa et al. 2007).Arabidopsis DCL1, DRB1/HYL1, and another co-factor, SERRATE (SE), constitute an essential microRNA production pathway in vivo (Han et al. 2004 Lobbes et al. 2006). Unlike animals, which utilize two distinct RNase III enzymes, Drosha and Dicer, for the first and second cleavage of microRNA precursors, plants do not employ Drosha. Therefore, the DCL1-complex is responsible for the processing of both primary and precursor miRNA substrates. The detailed molecular machinery of the dual miR NA processing mediated by DCL1 and the co-factor proteins have been extensively studied biochemically using highly purified recombinant proteins produced in heterologous systems (summarized in Figure 3). One of the systems utilizes baculovirus-mediated recombinant protein production in Sf21 insect cells, followed by two-step affinity purification (Dong et al. 2008). The highly purified recombinant DCL1 protein alone could process a 94-bp dsRNA substrate with a 2-nt 3-overhang into 21-nt small RNA in an ATP/Mg2+ dependent manner. The optimum NaCl concentration for the activity was 25-50 mM, and a NaCl concentration higher than 100 mM severely afflicted the activity (Dong et al. 2008). While the recombinant DCL1 protein alone could produce 21-nt small RNA from both primary and precursor miRNA (pri-/pre-miR167b) substrates in vitro, DRB1/HYL1 and SE recombinant proteins co-incubated in the same reaction mixtures authoritatively increased both yield and accuracy of the processing (Dong et al. 2008). Without these co-factors, more than 80% of 21-nt small RNA products from the DCL1-alone reaction were due to in go down processing from the end of the primary miRNA substrate, whereas the processing mediated by the DCL1-DRB1/HYL1-SE complex produced accurate 21-nt products with a sequence identical to miR167b/miR167b*, amounting for up to 81% of the products (Dong et al. 2008). This demonstrated that accurate processing of miRNA precursors by DCL1 requires the co-factors DRB1/HYL1 and SE. self-consistent with a previous study, the interaction between DCL1-DRB1/HYL1 through the second dsRNA-binding motif of DCL1 is important for the precise processing of pri-miRNA in A. thaliana (Dong et al. 2008 Kurihara et al. 2006). Also, using highly purified recombinant proteins and surface plasmon reverberance analysis, it has been suggested that DCL1 changes its structural conformation when it binds RNA and exposes more binding sites for SE (Iwata et al. 2013). Binding to subs trate dsRNA or miRNA precursors might be an important regulatory step for DCL1 dicing activity, as its dsRNA-binding domains exhibit the strongest binding to dsRNA among the four Arabidopsis DCLs (Hiraguri et al. 2005).ATPase/DExH-box RNA-helicase domain of DCL1 suppresses its dicing activity, confers ATP dependence, and influences processing accuracyIn addition to its RNase III and dsRNA-binding domains, the helicase domain of DCL1 plays a significant role in regulating its dicing activity. Two independent forward genetic studies have identified two dcl1 mutant alleles, dcl1-13 (E395K) and dcl1-20 (R363K), as hyl1 suppressors, and the amino acid substitutions of both alleles occur within the ATPase/DExH-box RNA-helicase domain. These dcl1 mutations partially rescue the appeal of some miRNAs in a hyl1-2 mutant (Liu et al. 2012 Tagami et al. 2009), and dcl1-13 was at least partially able to restore the phenotypic defects of hyl1-2 such as a reduced number of rosette leaves and a le af shape (Tagami et al. 2009). Highly purified recombinant DCL1-20 protein exhibited enhanced catalytic activity (Kcat/Km) toward pri-miRNA156a compared to wild-type DCL1 (Liu et al. 2012). Similarly, the helicase domain-deleted DCL1 recombinant protein (DCL1Helicase) showed higher processing activity in vitro and was no longer dependent on ATP for its activity toward pri-miRNA156a (Liu et al. 2012), suggesting that the helicase domain of DCL1 might have an autoinhibitory function like that of human Dicer (Ma et al. 2008 Provost et al. 2002).The in vivo miRNA processing imprecision in hyl1-2, however, was not restored by a dcl1-20 mutation, implying that the partial recovery of the hyl1-2 mutant, including miRNA accumulation, was due to the enhanced catalytic activity resulting from the substitution in the helicase domain (Liu et al. 2012). Interestingly, the effect and magnitude of DRB1/HYL1 and DCL1 helicase domain seem to vary among miRNA precursors. For example, the in vivo proc essing accuracy of miR156a is much more severely affected by hyl1-2 mutation than miR166b is (Liu et al. 2012). pri-miR156a is polished from the loop-proximal site to the loop-distal base in vitro (Liu et al. 2012), which is considered unusual for plant miRNAs (Addo-Quaye et al. 2009 Mateos et al. 2010). Accurate processing of pri-miRNA166b by native DCL1 is largely dependent on the presence of ATP, and processing by DCL1Helicase is less accurate than that of native DCL1 (Liu et al. 2012). In contrast to miR156a, the processing precision of which is markedly affected by hyl1-2, that of miR166b was much more afflicted by dcl1-20 mutation than hyl1-2 (Liu et al. 2012). Also, the effect of the other helicase mutant allele, dcl1-13, on miRNA production was shown to depend on the presence or absence of DRB1/HYL1 in vivo (Tagami et al. 2009). These observations indicate that efficient processing of different miRNA precursors by DCL1 have different reliance upon DRB1/HYL1 and DCL1helicase domain that potentially depends on structural determinants of the miRNA precursors.Structural determinants for efficient and accurate processing of miRNA precursors by DCL1Primary transcripts of miRNA (pri-miRNA) have a characteristic secondary structure a loop-distal stem (lower stem), a miRNA duplex, a loop-proximal stem (upper stem) and a terminal loop (Figure 3). Typical miRNA maturation from these precursors requires at least two cleavages occurring at the lower and upper stems. In animals, the single-stranded base region of the loop-distal stem is recognized by the dsRNA-binding protein DGCR8, which guides the processing center of Drosha to the correct position, which is 11 nt from the base of the stem (Han et al. 2006). However, this distance-from-base rule is not sufficient for plants because the length of the loop-distal stem of plant pri-miRNAs is highly variable (Song et al. 2010). Several structural features of pri-miRNAs that influence the activity, binding position an d directionality of the processing by DCL1 have been elucidated genetically and biochemically (Figure 3a, b).One structural determinant lies within the loop-distal stem of pri-miRNA. For the first cleavage at the loop-distal stem, bulges and unpaired regions play a major role in the efficiency of miRNA processing. Mutant pri-miRNAs with closed bulges were processed at the correct position, but resulted in the accumulation of unprocessed pre-miRNAs in vivo, indicating that the rate of subsequent processing at the loop-proximal stem was impaired (Song et al. 2010). In pri-miR171a, which has a long loop-distal stem, the first cleavage position was resolute by the distance from a relatively un merged region instead of the base of the stem the conserved distance from an unstructured region of the lower stem important for miRNA processing was found to be approximately 15 nt (Figure 3a) (Mateos et al. 2010 Song et al. 2010 Werner et al. 2010). The 15-nt rule was essentially reproduced in an in vitro miRNA processing system using highly purified DCL1-DRB1/HYL1-SE recombinant proteins and an artificial pri-miRNA substrate bearing another unstructured region in the elongated lower stem. In addition to the canonical processing, another type of processing occurred at 15 nt from the artificially introduced unstructured region, validating the functionality of the 15-nt rule (Song et al. 2010). The importance of bulges and unpaired regions in the lower stem for processing by DCL1 might let off why some miRNAs with a near-perfect matched stem seem to be DCL4-dependent, rather than DCL1-dependent (Rajagopalan et al. 2006 Song et al. 2010).On the loop-proximal and terminal loop side, a branched terminal loop (BTL) or a large terminal loop was found to be an essential structural factor that may alter directionality of processing by DCL1 and the resultant miRNA-accumulation (Figure 3b). BTL induces abortive processing of pri-miR166c both in vivo and in vitro (Zhu et al. 2013), meaning the first cleavage of the pri-miRNA occurs in the loop-proximal stem as opposed to the normal productive processing beginning in the loop-distal stem. The molecular basis of this bidirectional processing by DCL1 was further investigated using an in vitro system that reconstitutes the DCL1-processing machinery. For this purpose, DCL1, DRB1/HYL1 and SE harboring Agrobacterium tumefaciens were co-infiltrated to genus Nicotiana benthamiana leaves, and the transiently expressed DCL1-DRB1/HYL1-SE complex was immunoaffinity-purified two days after infiltration (Zhu et al. 2013). The reconstituted DCL1 complex cleaves the substrate pri-miRNA 16-17 nt from the unpaired region of the lower stem, supporting previous studies (Mateos et al. 2010 Song et al. 2010 Werner et al. 2010). By disrupting one of the two RNase III domains of DCL1 alternately and using 5- or 3-end labeled pri-miR166c substrates, the bidirectional nature of both productive and abortive processing was demonstrated (Z hu et al. 2013 Figure 3b).The helicase domain of DCL1 fine-tunes the position of both productive and abortive processing by DCL1 in an ATP-dependent manner (Zhu et al. 2013). DCL1Helicase complex could not abortively process a substrate with BTL. Also, wild-type DCL1 required ATP for abortive processing, but not productive processing, indicating that the ATPase-driven helicase activity is necessary in abortive processing to unwind the structured BTL (Zhu et al. 2013 Figure 3b). In productive processing, the effect of helicase deletion and ATP depletion depend on the distance between the processing site and the bulge in the lower stem. Many potential byproducts of the abortive processing of pri-miRNA precursors with BTL can be found in publically available high-throughput small RNA sequencing data from both Arabidopsis and rice, implying that both substrate structure and the functionality of the ATPase/helicase domain of DCL1 are conserved mechanisms to regulate miRNA biogenesis in h igher plants (Zhu et al. 2013).Dissecting distinct characteristics of DCL3 and DCL4 activitiesDCL4 activity requires the dsRNA-binding protein DRB4In A. thaliana, DCL2, DCL3 and DCL4 are responsible for producing various siRNAs 21-24 nt in length. The dsRNA-cleaving activities of DCL3 and DCL4 can be detected in crude extracts prepared from 2-week-old seedlings (Fukudome et al. 2011). Extracts from wild-type seedlings cleave 500-bp dsRNA substrates into 21-nt and 24-nt small RNAs. In this system, the 21-nt and 24-nt small RNA-producing activities can be attributed to DCL4 and DCL3 respectively, because the dsRNA-cleaving activity of the corresponding size was abolished in each of the single mutants (Fukudome et al. 2011). Also, a mutation in the dsRNA-binding protein DRB4, which interacts with DCL4 (Hiraguri et al. 2005 Nakazawa et al. 2007), abolished DCL4 activity in seedling extracts. The DCL4 activity could be further purified by immunoprecipitation with anti-DCL4 or anti-DRB4 a ntibodies. The immunoaffinity-purified DCL4 requires Mg2+ and ATP for its activity, and is inhibited by 200 mM NaCl. This property is similar to that of recombinant DCL1 protein (Dong et al. 2008).The DCL4 complex immunoprecipitated from the drb4-1 mutant did not show dsRNA-cleaving activity, but the addition of recombinant DRB4 protein to the complex restored the 21-nt producing activity in vitro, showing that DRB4 functions as an essential co-factor for the dsRNA-cleaving activity of DCL4 (Figure 4b). In this system, mutant DRB4 proteins harboring substitutions in the conserved amino acid residues that form a hydrogen bond with the phosphodiester gritrock of dsRNA at the dsRNA-binding site (H32A in the first dsRBD and K133A in the second dsRBD of DRB4) lost their ability to interact with dsRNA and DCL4, and did not restore DCL4 activity. The second substitution (K133A) alone impaired its interaction with the C-terminal half of DCL4 containing two RNase III domains and two dsRBDs in a GST pull-down assay using recombinant proteins, but was not sufficient to block return key of DCL4 activity when added to DCL4 immunopurified from a drb4-1 mutant extract. There might be an additional interaction surface between DCL4 and DRB4 involving dsRBD1 of DRB4 and the N-terminal half of DCL4, which contains an ATPase/DExH-box RNA-helicase domain and an RNA-binding domain (formerly known as domain of unknown function DUF283 Figure 1), as their specific interaction was reported in vitro (Qin et al. 2010).Short dsRNA preference of DCL3 activity orchestrates 24-nt siRNA biogenesis in TGS pathwayCrude extracts from 2-week-old seedlings have also been used to characterize substrate specificity of DCL3 and DCL4. Consistent with the long dsRNA preference of Drosophila Dcr1 (Bernstein et al. 2001), DCL4 preferentially cleaves longer dsRNA substrates, and is less efficient in producing 21-nt siRNAs when the substrate is shorter than 50 nt (Nagano et al. 2014). On the other hand, DCL3 activity, producing 24-nt siRNAs, favors shorter substrates such as 30 nt and 37 nt dsRNA with a 1-nt or 2-nt 3-overhang (Nagano et al. 2014). It also favors substrate dsRNA with 5-adenosine or uridine. The 24-nt small RNA produced by DCL3 has a 2-nt 3-overhang, and the cleavage follows the 5-counting rule proposed for human Dicer (Park et al. 2011). DCL3 is not reliant on ATP hydrolysis for activity, as it can still process the short dsRNA substrate in the presence of a non-hydrolyzable ATP analog, adenosine 5-O-(3-thio)triphosphate (Nagano et al. 2014). Unlike DCL4, which targets long dsRNAs such as RDR6-dependent TAS dsRNAs or exogenous viral dsRNAs in vivo (Bouche et al. 2006 Dunoyer et al. 2005 Qu et al. 2008 Yoshikawa et al. 2005), DCL3 may not train to perform a processive cleavage, which requires ATP hydrolysis, because the length of its targets allows only a single cut (Figure 4a).The DCL3 preference for short dsRNA substrate is consistent with the one precursor, one siRNA model for RNA polymerase IV ( politician IV)-dependent 24-nt siRNA biogenesis (Blevins et al. 2015 Zhai et al. 2015). In this model, a remarkably short (30- to 40-nt) transcript with 5-adenosine is produced by Pol IV and is simultaneously converted into double-stranded form by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, RDR2. The short dsRNA substrate is processed into 24-nt siRNA preferentially by DCL3 due to its length specificity, facilitating the subsequent RNA-directed DNA methylation process (Blevins et al. 2015 Zhai et al. 2015). The transcription of short RNAs by Pol IV, and the length and 5-adenosine substrate preference of DCL3 might be essential mechanisms to prevent other DCLs from processing specific dsRNA substrate needed for the TGS pathway. Such coupling of RDR-Dicer-RNAi is also known in fission yeast, where a Dicer physically interacts with an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase to form coupled machinery that drives siRNA-mediated TGS (Colmenares et al. 2007).In addition, DCL3 can participate in 24-nt siRNA production from longer transcripts with encourage from another RNase III enzyme, RNase III-like 2 (RTL2). As a class II RNase III enzyme, RTL2 possesses one RNase III domain and two dsRBDs, and is involved in rRNA maturation in vivo is impliedin A. thaliana (Comella et al. 2008). Recombinant RTL2 protein can cleave long dsRNA substrates into 25 bp or longer dsRNA in vitro (Kiyota et al. 2011). Recently, it has been shown that RTL2 processes a subset of Pol IV-dependent dsRNA into shorter intermediates, which are preferent for DCL3 activity in vivo (Elvira-Matelot et al. 2016). Although no direct interaction has been reported, RTL2 and DCL3 can be considered other examples of coordinated action of a dsRBD-containing protein and a Dicer in plants. DCL3 is also reported to physically interact with the dsRNA-binding protein DRB3 in the antiviral RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway (Raja et al. 2014). The function of DRB3 in DCL3 activity remains elusiv e.Inorganic phosphate, NaCl and KCl differentially regulate DCL3 and DCL4 activitiesIn the same assay system using crude extracts, inorganic phosphate at a physiological concentration promotes DCL3 activity but suppresses DCL4 activity toward 50-nt dsRNA substrates (Nagano et al. 2014). The differential effe

General Electric Company And Its Leadership Short History Management Essay

worldwide Electric Company And Its Leadership Short storey Management EssayThomas Alva Edison established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. General Electric Company, cognise as and commonly abbreviated evidently to GE, was formed in 1892, as a result of a merger of the competing companies Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. Having its headquarters in United States, GE is a major technology conglomerate and is the only company listed in the Dow Jones industrial Index today that was alike included in the original indication of 1896. GE is a big multinational corporation and has a change infrastructure. Its business activities span a wide range of areas from aircraft engines, industrial products, water bear on products, power generation to financial serve, medical diagnostic imaging, security technology, consumer financing, and television programming. GE operates in to a greater extent than 100 countries and employs some 300,000 peopl e cosmeawide. In smaller and less developed countries, it operates through distributorship or dealership channel by giving the rights to its distributors companies to sell and service its products. Administratively, the General Electric Company is organized into 5 variants kn consume as Technology Infrastructure, Consumer Industrial Electronics, Energy Infrastructure, NBC Universal and Capital Finance. A sizable portion of its products manufacturing is done in countries outside United States. hitherto some products research work for GE is done in Japan.In 2009, GE delivered excellent financial results despite the hard economic conditions with earnings of $11.2 trillion. Industrial cash flow from operating activities for the year remained strong at over $16.6 zillion. Today the company is one of the largest in the world, and owns numerous research and manufacturing firms around the world as well as two television networks and other businesses (Hanna,).John F Welch eraWhen John F. ( diddly) Welch, Jr., became chairman and CEO in 1981, GE was in economicaland financial crisis. Under his leadershiphip, GE entered a period of radical change. asshole Welch restructured GE existing operations in an run to make GE more competitive and profitable in all of its businesses. He sold lot of GE unprofitable businesses and fired brutally thousands of GE employees not playing well or doing redundant jobs. Welchs first order of business was to return much of the control of the company to the periphery. He decentralized GE management and trim down hierarchical management layers. However, he retained his predecessor Reginald Joness system of classifying divisions according to their performance. His goal was to make GE number one or two in all field of its operation and to make any GE business division profitable. He acquired lot of successful and profitable companies. Over the next some(prenominal) years, GE bought 338 businesses and product lines for $11.1 billio n and sold 232 for $5.9 billion. Mr. Welch said that his aim was to make GE the nations largest company.In early 1990s, GEs operations were divided into tercet business groups of technology, service, and manufacturing. Its manufacturing division accounted for roughly one-third of the companys earnings then. However, the service sector was growing faster and represented more than three-quarters of the U.S. economy of mid-1990s. The company dumped an aggressive campaign to become overabundant in the growing services sector. Research and investment continued towards energy conservation much(prenominal) as more efficient light bulbs, jet engines and galvanising power transmission methods. Despite a world-wide economic downturn in the early 1990s, GE managed to keep aggregate sales from its technology, service, and manufacturing operations motionless at most $60 billion annually. Acquisitions in the late 1990s centered on two of the companys ontogenesis initiatives services and globalization. Under Welchs leadership, GE in the late 1990s also adopted Six Sigma, a quality control and improvement initiative pioneered by Motorola, Inc. and Allied Signal Inc. The program aimed at to cut costs by reducing defects in manufacturing. GE claimed that by 1998 Six Sigma was yielding $1 billion in annual savings. The company also continued to restructure where ever necessary, including taking a $2.3 billion charge in late 1997 to close redundant facilities and shift production to cheaper labor grocery stores. During 1999 General Electric adopted a ivth harvest-festival initiative i.e. e-business (globalization, services, and Six Sigma being the other three). In October 2000, Jack Welch planned a $40 billion merger of United Technologies Corporation and Honeywell International Inc. This was the largest acquisition in the companys history. However, the Honeywell deal blockadeed up in a sour ending for the Welch era. Jeff Immelt, who joined GE in 1982, was named as p resident and CEO of General Electric in September 2001.Immelt era 2001 and BeyondImmelt began to place his imprint in earnest on GE in 2002 through major restructurings and several(prenominal) significant acquisitions. He launched a reorganization of GE Capital. The financial services unit was divided into four separate units to streamline management, increase oversight, and improve transparency. GE began feeling the effects of the economic downturn that year as revenue enhancements fell nearly 3 percent, to $125.68 billion profits nevertheless increased 7.5 percent, r for each oneing $13.68 billion, though that was a far cry from the yearly 13 to 15 percent increases that Wall Street came to appear from GE during the Welch era. The stock ended the year trading at $24.35 per packet, less than half of the high price for 2001. Next year, profits rose modestly, to $14.12 billion, or about 3 percent. Taking advantage of the economic downturn to acquire desirable assets from distresse d sellers, GEs deal-making appetite grew only larger in 2003. As part of its effort to shift emphasis to higher egression fields, General Electric completed two significant acquisitions in healthcare. Continuing his transformative leadership, Immelt reorganized GEs 13 businesses units into 11 think on specific markets and guests. Also during 2001, GE Lighting had the largest product launch in its history when it introduced the GE Reveal line of light bulbs to generate a cleaner and crisper light. The reorganization, effective at the beginning of 2004, brought similar businesses together in an effort to increase sales and cut costs. Overall, through the myriad moves engineered during just a few years in charge, Immelt was seeking to cut General Electrics reliance on financial services and mature industrial businesses in favor of much(prenominal) higher crop areas as healthcare and entertainment. He built operations in fast-growing economies such as Chinas. GE was aiming to outso urce $5 billion by 2005 of split and services from China and simultaneously grow sales in China to a like figure.Top Leadership Team and their CharacteristicsGEs ending of integrity starts with their board of directors and touches every member of the company. Their board members, more than two third of whom are independent, remain in dialogue with GEs leaders. Together they focus on the areas of dodge and risk management bit monitoring strategic initiatives personally through site visits.GE leaders are at the forefront of GEs diversified portfolio of business, where they foster an environment that encourages employees integrity and master development. GE believes that change is the essence of what it means to lead. It is known for having one of the best leadership development moldings in the world. The end result is that GE is able to build a management core that is very knowledgeable and experienced in the operations of the giant corporation. Worldwide, GE spends $1B every yea r on training and education program for the people of GE.GE Leadership TeamJeff Immelt is GEs chairman and CEO. During his tenure since 2001, Jeff has worked to tie GE to the world development, such as emerging markets, environmental solutions, demographics and digital connections. He also fit(p) the vision for GEs ambitious Ecomagination initiative and has been named as one of the Worlds Best CEO three times by Barrons. Leadership to GE means listen to the people and work with them. GE leadership ( verbalize by Jeff Immelt) always believed that building strong leaders is strategic imperative. When market conditions are favourable and a company is on an upward growth then leadership is often taken for granted. However, the true political campaign of leadership is quite evident in turbulent times. Jeff ensured that GE maintained its market position even in turbulent times.Key ActionsBy Jack Welch LeadershipWhen John F. (Jack) Welch, Jr., took over as a chairman and CEO of GE in 198 1, GE was in bad economical and financial situation. He found GE was overgrown, laden with too many layers of management and too many people duplicating work. (Heskett, 2000)Jack Welch restructured GE existing operation extensively. He ruthlessly fired thousands of GE executives and employees and took out GE of hundreds of business lines. Soon he won the nickname of Neutron Jack means getting rid of people while retaining buildings. He decentralized GE management and dismantled the 29 layers of hierarchy and made GE an informal company. Jack opened the GE culture to ideas from everyone, every where by introducing the motto of Imagination at Work, and made boundary less behavior a reflexive, natural part of their culture. He made acquisition of several profitable companies and businesses to make GE more profitable. Jack believed in Globalization and hence implemented strongly. He mentioned that Globalization is good. Globalization makes countries more interdependent on each other. An d, the more interdependent we are, the better chances we have for peace. One of the theories of leadership that Welch perfected as CEO of GEl was his theory of the 4 Es. Officially known as E to the fourth power, Welch created a leadership dynamics that he employed both at GE and hopes others will employ at their own organizations as well. His program is, for people who have enormous personal energy, the ability to motivate and energize others, edgethe GE code word for being instinctively competitiveand the expertness to execute on those attributes. He very strongly enforced the process of Six Sigma. Six Sigma is a vision of quality which equates with only 3.4 defects per million opportunities for each product or service transaction, hence strives for perfection. With its services spanning from the services to the manufacturing sectors, GE accomplished that the only way they could achieve business excellence in what they were doing was by standardizing processes to minimize variat ions and hence defects. Todays competitive environment leaves no room for errors. GE is spoken of in the same breath as Motorola for the initiatives that it took on reengineering business processes by Six Sigma approach. It is this Six Sigma approach that has led to retention of old customers and acquisition of new ones to the GEs ever-growing list of customers. GEs success with Six Sigma has exceeded most optimistic predictions. Having taken GE with a market capitalization of about $12 billion, Jack Welch turned it into one of the largest and most admired companies in the world, with a market value of about $500 billion, when he stepped down as its CEO 20 years later, in 2000. (Google)By Jeff Immelt LeadershipIn 2001, shortly after Jeff Immelt took over as CEO, a series of events such terrorist attacks on American soil and corporate scandals (Enron, World com) occurred. These events created significant uncertainty and led to a crisis of confidence among investors community which in turn caused a slow down of the global economy. GEs stock price went down by 16% slightly more than SP 500 (GE 2001 Annual Report). Immelt recognize that managing GEs exposure to business cycles would be critical to organizations long term stability. With most of the productivity gains already achieved by his predecessor through extensive internal reforms, Immelt realized that organic growth is essential for upcoming profit growth. In 2002, Immelt set a goal for GE to achieve a sustained organic growth rate of two to three times the growth of global GDP. Hardly any company has achieved this kind of growth what GE was looking for, and none on a revenue base of $150 billion (Stewart, June 2006). Immelt identified the emerging global trends, uneven economic growth, increasingly interdependent global economy, global combat of emerging markets and a more volatile and uncertain world. He aimed at creating value for customers by leveraging GEs core competencies, particularly the ability to develop, test and position new products, highly customized products and services for high growth markets. In his letter to shareholders in 2003, Immelt articulated GEs three strategic imperatives as 1) sustaining GEs strong business model 2) strengthening the portfolio and 3) driving growth initiatives (GE 2003 Annual Report).To implement this strategy, GEs business portfolio was restructured through a series of acquisitions and divestments around five key growth initiatives Technical Leadership, Services, guest rivet, Globalization and Growth Platforms. Technical Leadership i.e. Technology and Innovation was at the heart of Immelts GE growth initiatives. Identifying new growth platforms was established as a central strategic challenge for all GEs businesses and involved analyzing the market to identify high-growth segments that offered potential for attractive returns.An important step towards developing growth potential has been the launch of the Ecomagination business init iative to help meet customers demand for more energy efficient products. In formulating his approach, Immelt viewed technology as a key gross outr to GEs future growth and took measures to expand GEs research and development capabilities and supported them with adequate financial backing. Another essential part of Immelts growth strategy has been implementation of the Customer Focus Initiative. This manifested in the renewal of GEs marketing function most notably through the creation of GEs Commercial Council and the deployment of a whole suite of customer-oriented programs. An important outcome of customer focus was the organizations ability to create new value for the customer in vertical selling by bundling products with support services and combining products and services across businesses to deliver highly customized solutions. This enhanced GEs capacity to meet customer specific needs (2003 Annual Report).Historically GE is known for developing professional managers who are broad problem solvers with experience in multiple businesses or functions (GE 2003 Annual Report). Immelt realized that he needs to transform GE into a growth oriented culture to achieve success in his growth initiatives, and initiated a management development program Leadership, Innovation, and Growth (LIG) for senior managers of the company to enable managers to effectively lead the change in culture from operational excellence to a growth culture at GE (Prokesch, Jan 2009). He aimed at raising a generation of growth leaders people with market depth, customer touch and technical understanding emphasizing the depth (GE 2003, Annual Report).GE has sold limited Western products to emerging markets for decades. But now, it has embraced the reverse innovation (develop in-expensive products for emerging economies and bring them to the developed nations) to pre-empt the emerging giants. For past 30 years of globalization of products, GEs major usable units like RD, manufacturing are centralized and are headquartered in the developed world which acts as a barrier for the success of reverse innovation strategy. However, changing a long established structure, practices and attitudes is an enormous task and to bring any major change requires companys top leaders to play a major role. Jeff Immelt and its leadership aggroup created a new organizational form Local Growth Teams (LGTs) by giving them special status, funding and personally monitoring them on a periodic basis to facilitate faster implementation of the reverse innovation strategy (Immelt, Oct 2009)GE realized that Marketing is an essential function to achieve long-term growth and has strengthened Marketing by doubling its size from 2,500 in 2003 to 5,000 today. CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) positions were created for all GE businesses and at the corporate level. Marketing has established a midst of Excellence (COE) that would gather and disseminate key competitor information. The COEs biggest contribut ion is its delineation of potential scenarios (Comstock et al, Oct 2010).GE gradually reduced its representation in certain parts of financial services industry as it continues to reposition itself in the market place around the key themes that Immelt has identified as emerging global trends. By 2010, its operating frame work was centered on four main businesses energy, technology infrastructure, finance, home business solutions and media.Effectiveness of Top LeadershipJack WelchJack Welch led the company to massive revenues. In 1980, the year before Welch became CEO, GE memorializeed revenues of approximately $26.8 billion in 2000, the year before he left, revenue blasted to nearly $130 billion almost five fold. When Jack Welch left GE the company had gone from a market value of $14 billion to one of more than $410 billion at the end of 2004, making it the most valuable and largest company in the world, up from Americas tenth largest by market cap in 1981. Through the 1980s, Wel ch worked to restructure GE and make it a more competitive and profitable company. He also pushed the managers of the businesses to become ever more productive. Welch worked to eliminate inefficiency by dismantling the bureaucracy and made GE a more informal company. He shut down factories and sold unprofitable businesses and laid off low productive staff. Welchs strategy was later adopted by other CEOs across corporate America. In 1999, he was named Manager of the Century by Fortune magazine.Some people believe that Welch is given too much credit for GEs success. They argue that individual managers are responsible for the companys success. It is also held that Welch did not delivery GE from great losses as the company had 16% annual earnings growth during the tenure of his predecessor, Reginald H. Jones. Each year, Welch would fire the bottom 10% of his managers. assuage GE hires and fires its employees very swiftly the continuation of same strategy. As soon as GE sees any losses of revenue or contracts, it fires employees or broadcast them on suspended employment. Critics also say that the pressure Welch imposes leads some employees to cut corners, possibly contributing to some of the defense-contracting scandals that have plagued GE or to the humiliating Kidder, Peabody Co. bond-trading purpose of the early 1990s that generated bogus profits. Welch has also received criticism over the years for his lack of compassion for the middle class and working class. Welch has publicly stated that he is not concerned with the discrepancy between the salaries of top-paid CEOs and those of average workers. Jack Welch had a record salary of $94 million a year, followed by his record retirement-plan of $8 million a year.Jeff ImmeltIn 2001, Immelt demonstrated his ability to recognize the changing business environment in the face of a sliding share price in the aftermath of 9/11 and Enron and World com scandals, and assured shareholders by communicating his commitment to good corporate governance and transparency by the introduction of more detailed financial disclosure. He developed and implemented organic growth strategy for organizations long-term sustainable growth considering the emerging global trends in the business environment. Jeff Immelt also addressed the alignment of the structure, systems, skills and staff to effectively achieve the organizational change to transform GE into a company with growth initiative as a core competency. In the context of global financial crisis of 2008, GEs repositioning towards technology and industry has played an important role in protecting GEs revenue and earnings base. Despite the global financial crisis of 2008 which impacted severely on GEs share price, its financial performance continued to show queer resilience through 2009. However, the GEs stock price is still down at $16 and has under-performed despite earnings growth. One reason could be its financial units comprehend exposure in financial markets. In these challenging economic times, the jury is still out on the long term success of Jeff Immelts growth strategy for GE. However, the time will be the ultimate judge.Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision and relentlessly drive it to completion. By imbibing all these qualities, Jeff Immelt has been successful as an effective leader in positioning GE for sustainable growth in the long term.

Classical vs. Keynes Essay -- essays papers

pure vs. Keynes The Classical model of the economy says that all markets always drop off. The labor market failing to clear does not exist in the Classical model be possess of competitive exchange equilibrium in which prices and quantities always adjust absolutely. The Classical model is of a unlikable economy and the variables are signifi johnt produce, employment, real and nominal absorbs, the price take, and the rate of interest. It is easier to understand the classical model using five plots that are numbered unity by dint of five in Appendix One, The Classical Model. These diagrams represent the separate parts of the model that together illustrate, for the most part, the entire Classical model. Diagram one represents the action function, which shows the assumption that real railroad siding, y, is determined by the level of employment, N. So y is a function of N and from the slope of the function we can see that output rises as employment is increased. But there is a diminishing marginal productivity of labor, which means that each time employment increases, the increase in output will get smaller and smaller. Diagram one illustrates the relationship between output and employment in the short run, but does not determine the level of output or the level of employment. But when used together with other diagrams of the model, diagram one can be used to figure these things out. Diagram deuce is the labor market with the real wage, w, on the vertical axis and employment, N, on the horizontal axis. In the classical model, the supply of labor depends upon the real-wage level because as the real wage rises, more people are willing to work. The line SN represents the labor supply function and the line DN represents the demand for labor. As the real wage increases so does the labor supply function, but as the labor supply function increases, the demand for labor decreases. Because the Classical model makes real wages perfectly flexible and allow s it to adjust to the level that clears the labor market, the real wage and the level of employment can be figured out by using diagram two. Once given the level of employment determined from diagram two, it is possible to use diagram one to figure out the level of output. So diagrams one and two, also know as the real sector, can be used to determine employment, real output, and the real wage without any knowledge of the monetary... ...se in hold fast prices. The decrease in interest rate causes an increase in investment and then this causes an increase in aggregate demand, which then causes income and employment to increase. This can be seen in diagram four, and then because of the increase in income, going back to graph three, we can see that this would cause an increase in consumption. From diagram five, we can see because of the increase in employment that this would cause a decrease in real wages. The decrease in real wages would then cause involuntary unemployment to decrea se. Because of the different effects that money has on the economy in these models, they arrive at different conclusions. The Classical economy seems to be in esteem of no policy since everything works itself out and ends up in equilibrium since all the markets clear. The opposite is true for the Keynes model, where they are in favor of government interpellation since it is not inherently self-regulating and the markets do not clear. The Keynes model needs a little help from the government, or the central bank, to achieve equilibrium, where as the Classical model, assuming all assumptions were realistic, is self-regulating and all markets clear.

An Experiment with an Air Pump :: Shelagh Stephenson Science Technology Essays

An Experiment with an Air PumpIs it ethical or even helpful to try to cut back order on a haphazard existence? Is it right to play God, to steal the limelight from the cosmos? Man used to ponder existence, merely with the increase possibilities of science, we now ponder our power over existence. In An Experiment with an Air Pump, Shelagh Stephenson uses symbolism associated with Isobel as a voice of foreboding in a club enraptured by the possibilities of science (3). Stephenson associates Isobel with a bird, a pile of bones, and a sheep to reveal the dark side of the light, the scientific revolution.The play commences in 1799 when Fenwick risks the life of Harriets bird in order to conduct an proveation with an air pump. Later in the play, Armstrong puts a different life on the line for the intoxication of find (3). This time the life is human. From the moment Armstrong sees Isobel he wants to examine her beautiful back in all its delicious, twisted glory (85). His infatuation with Isobel has nothing to do with matters of the heart, but he proceeds to woo her because of his sheer lust for science.Upon learning of Armstrongs motive, Isobel attempts to hang herself. As Isobel lies helpless on the floor, fighting for one last breath, Stephenson illustrates that Isobels heels flutter almost imperceptibly (92). Later, everyone gathers around Isobels dead body much like they did around the fluttering bird in the first experiment. solely this time Isobel, in her coffin, has taken the place of the bird in the air pump(96). The fact that now a dead Isobel symbolizes the bird implies that this time the experiment has gone dreadfully wrong. The fact that the second experiment fails harbors a much more solemn consequence than if the first had failed. If the bird in the first experiment had died, tears would have been shed only until the purchase of a new bird. Not only does Armstrong sacrifice a human life in the score of science, but he symbolically diminishes all that the bird and Isobel represent. Isobels death implies the demise of freedom, will, and humanity.Stephenson also associates Isobel with a sheep, to represent what can be lost in a future of industry, science, wealth, and reason (15). Harriet writes her own play within this play in which the future is exalted as a new Jerusalem (15).