Habitat Destruction and Biodiversity Loss Essay -- Loss of Biodiversit

"If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us." -- David Suzuki Imagine this: bulldozers growl and grind through a local field, while the whine of chainsaws echoes from a nearby grove of trees. The trees crash to the ground, only to be cut up for firewood or sent to a sawmill, and the remaining ground is cleared of stumps and plowed. The tall grasses and brush in the field are demolished, leaving behind churned-up soil. Any birds or other small creatures that lived in the freshly cut trees have long since flown or run away in terror as their homes fell. The moles, mice, and other animals that lived in the field were either killed or forced to abandon the area in search of a new home. Soon to come on this land: a subdivision consisting of huge, two- or three-story houses with pristine front lawns and the occasional small, decorative tree placed by the main door. The scene painted above is becoming more and more common today; people want more space, more houses, more roads, more big buildings, more cities all over the world. However, what the population does not consider is that construction destroys natural habitat, or â€Å"the place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows† (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). While humans may think nothing of this habitat destruction, it is actually the number one cause of extinction worldwide (Dudley 17) and influences many other species, including humans, that are not endangered or threatened. Habitat loss causes loss of biodiversity, which adversely affects the health and economy of human life. We as humans need to take more ... ...vernment. 08 Nov. 2008 . "Biodiversity.† Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2007. Dudley, William, ed. Biodiversity. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2003. â€Å"Habitat.† Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2007. Heimlich, Joe E., and Mitchell Smith. "Environmental Impact Statements.† FactSheet. Ohio State University. 09 Nov. 2008 . Novacek, Michael J., ed. The Biodiversity Crisis. New York: The New Press, 2001. Primack, Richard B. Essentials of Conservation Biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc., 1993. David Suzuki Quote http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/biodiversity.html#xFwgQLK5MbhLMRjG.99

Humor and Irony in British Literature

The comic novel is a very English kind of fiction and does not always settles down in other national literatures well. Certainly the English novel tradition is remarkable for the number of comic novels among its classics from the work of Fielding, and Sterne and Smollett in the eighteenth century, through Jane Austen and Dickens in the nineteenth to Evelyn Waugh, Arnold Bennett and David Lodge in the twentieth.Even novelists whose primary intention is not to write funny novels such as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and E.  M. Forster have scenes in their fiction which make us laugh aloud. In this work we will define on the example of literary texts of British literature the notion of humor and irony both of which are based on the comic element.Comedy in fiction would appear to have two primary sources, though they are intimately connected: situation (which entails character – a situation that is comic for one character wouldn’t necessarily be so for another) and style.Bot h dependent upon timing, that is to say, the order in which the words, and the information they carry, are arranged. The principle can be illustrated by a single sentence from Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall. At the beginning of the novel, the shy, unassuming hero, Paul Pennyfeather, an Oxford undergraduate, is divested of his trousers by a party of drunken aristocratic hearties, and with monstrous injustice is sent down from the University for indecent behavior.The first chapter concludes: â€Å"God damn and blast them all to hell,† and Paul Pennyfeather meekly to himself as he drove to the station, and then he felt rather ashamed, because he rarely swore. (Waugh, 1929) We laugh at this because of the delayed appearance of the word â€Å"meekly†: what appears, as the sentence begins, to be a long-overdue explosion of righteous anger by the victimized hero turns out to be no such thing but a further exemplification of his timidity and passiveness.Lucky Jim of Ki ngsley Amis exhibits all properties of comic fiction in a highly polished form. As a temporary assistant lecturer at a province university, Jim Dixon is totally dependent for the continuance of his employment on his absent-minded professor’s patronage, which itself requires that Jim should demonstrate his professional competence by publishing a scholarly article. Jim despises both his professor and the rituals of academic scholarship, but cannot afford to say so.His resentment is therefore interiorized, sometimes in fantasies of violence: â€Å"to tie Welch up in his chair and beat him about the head and shoulders with a bottle until he disclosed why, without being French himself, he’d given his sons French names† (Amis) and at the other times, as here, in satirical mental commentary upon the behavior, discourses and institutional codes which oppress him. The style of Lucky Jim is full of little surprises, qualifications and reversals which satirically deconstru ct cliches. Jim’s powerlessness is physically epitomized by his being a passenger in Welch’s car, and a helpless victim of his appalling driving.The banal and apparently superfluous sentence â€Å"Dixon looked out of the window at the fields wheeling past, bright green after a wet April† (Amis) in fact proves to have a function. Looking from the same window moments later, Jim is startled to find â€Å"a man’s face staring in his from about nine inches away† Surprise is combined with conformity to Welch’s incompetence. â€Å"The face, which filled with alarm as he gazed, belonged to the driver of a van which Welch had elected to pass on a sharp bend between two stone walls.† (Amis) A slow motion effect is created by the leisurely precision of the language: â€Å"about nine inches away†, â€Å"filled with alarm†, â€Å"had elected to pass† contrasting comically with the speed with which the imminent collision approa ches. The reader is not told immediately what is happening, but made to infer it, re-enacting the character’s surprise and alarm. Another stylistic device based on humorous effect it creates is irony. Irony consists in saying the opposite of what you mean or inviting an interpretation different from the surface meaning of your words. Unlike other figures of speech – metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche etc.– irony is not distinguished from literal statement by any peculiarity of verbal form. An ironic statement is recognized as such in the act of interpretation. When, for example, the authorial narrator of Pride and Prejudice says â€Å"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a wife,† (Austen, Chapter I) the reader, alerted by the false logic of the proposition about single men with fortunes, interprets the â€Å"universal† generalization as an ironic comment on a particular social group obsessed with matchmaking.The same rule applies to action in narrative. When the reader is made aware of a disparity between the facts of a situation and the characters’ understanding of it, an effect called â€Å"dramatic irony† is generated. (Lodge, 179) Arnold Bennett in his The Old Wives’ Tale employs two different methods to put his characters’ behavior in an ironic perspective. Sophia, the beautiful passionate but inexperienced daughter of a draper in the Potteries, is sufficiently dazzled by Gerald Scales, a handsome commercial traveler who has inherited a small fortune, to elope with him.The embrace described in the passage below is their first in the privacy of their London lodgings. Her face, view so close that he could see the almost imperceptible down on those fruit-like cheeks, was astonishingly beautiful; †¦[and] he could feel the secret loyalty of her soul ascending to him. She was very slightly taller than her lover; but somehow she hung from him, her body curved backwards, and her bosom pressed against his, so that instead of looking up at her gaze he looked down at it. He preferred that; perfectly proportioned though he was, his stature was a delicate point with him.(Bennett, 278) What should be a moment of erotic rapture and emotional unity is revealed as the physical conjunction of two people whose thoughts are running on quite different tacks. Gerald in fact intends to seduce Sophia, though in the event he lacks the self-assurance to carry out his plan. Even in this embrace he is at first nervous and tentative, â€Å"perceiving that her ardour was exceeding his. † (Bennett, 278) But as the intimate contact continues he becomes more confident and masterful: â€Å"His fears slipped away; he began to be very satisfied with himself† (Bennett, 278).There is probably a sexual pun hidden in â€Å"His spirits rose by the uplift of his senses†, for Bennett frequently hinted in this fashion at things he dared not describe explicitly. Gerald sexual arousal has nothing to do with love, or even lust. It is a function of his vanity and self-esteem. â€Å"Something in him had forced her to lay her modesty on the altar of his desire†. Like â€Å"the secret loyalty of her soul ascending to him† (Bennett, 279) earlier, this florid metaphor mocks the complacent thought it expresses.The use of the word â€Å"altar† carries an extra ironic charge since at this point Gerald has no intention of leading Sophia to the altar of marriage. Up to this point, Bennett keeps to Gerald’s point of view, and uses the kind of language appropriate to that perspective, thus implying an ironic assessment of Gerald’s character. â€Å"So he kissed her yet more ardently, and with the slightest touch of a victor’s condescension; and her burning response more than restored the self-confidence which he had been losing.† (Bennett, 279) The description of his timidity, vanity and complacency – so very different from what he ought to be feeling in this situation is enough to condemn him in reader’s eyes. In the next paragraph Bennett uses the convention of the omniscient intrusive author to switch to Sophia’s point of view, and to comment explicitly on her misconceptions, adding to the layers of irony in the scene. Sophia’s words are more creditable than Gerald’s, but her words, â€Å"I’ve got no on but you now† , are partly calculated to endear him to her.This merely reveals her naivety, however. â€Å"She fancied in her ignorance that the expression of this sentiment would please him. She was not aware that a man is usually rather chilled by it, because it proves to him that the other is thinking about his responsibilities and not about his privileges. †¦ [He] smiled vaguely. † (Bennett, 279) As the â€Å"burning† Sophia utters this sentiment in a â€Å"meltingâ₠¬  voice, Gerald is â€Å"chilled† by the reminder of his responsibilities.He responds with non-committal smile, which the infatuated Sophia finds charming, but which, the narrator assures us, was an index of his unreliability and a portent of disillusionment to come: â€Å"A less innocent girl than Sophia might have divined from that adorable half-feminine smile that she could do anything with Gerald except rely on him. But Sophia had to learn. † (Bennett, 279) The reader is supplied with knowledge that helps to feel pity for Sophia and contempt for Gerald. This type of irony leaves us with little work of inference or interpretation to do; on the contrary, we are the passive recipients of the author’s wisdom.To conclude it is necessary to note the main difference between humor and irony. These two devices while both based on comic element apply different approaches to their object. Irony the funny object is hidden beyond the mask of seriousness, and the negati ve, derisive attitude to the object is expressed. The different is humor, where the serious thing is hidden beyond the mask of ridiculous and the attitude to the object of derision is predominantly positive. Works Cited List: Amis, Kinsley. Lucky Jim. London: Gollancz, 1954.Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Reissue edition, Bantam Classics, 1983. Bennett, Arnold. The Old Wives’ Tale. New York Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. Carens, James F. , The Satiric Art of Evelyn Waugh. Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 1966. Lodge, David & Wood, Nigel Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Harlow: Pearson, 2000 Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century British Literature. A Reference Guide, 1998. Waugh, Evelyn. Decline and Fall. London: Chapman & Hall, 1928.

Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan Essay

Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan Board: Hedging Foreign Currency Exposure Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan Board: Hedging Foreign Currency Exposure Issue Identification The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan (OTPP) is a defined contribution plan that was created in 1917 to provide and administer a pension plan for Ontario school teachers. Sponsored by the Ontario Government and the Ontario Teacher’s Federation, the plan currently supports 343,000 teachers, former teachers and pensioners. The recent government decision to eliminate the 30% constraint on foreign investments and the increased volatility in the currency market has prompted the OTPP Investment Committee to address the following: 1. Whether to continue the International Equity Swap Program 2. Whether to administer changes to the Foreign Exchange Hedging Policy Goals and Objectives In order to come to a decision, it is necessary that any solution put forth must align with the goals and objectives of the fund. OTPP is a long-term fund determined to minimize risk, costs and the additional contributions required to fund the plan while maximizing its returns. OTPP Investment Strategy In the early 1990’s the OTPP board realized that it was essential to begin investing abroad to diversify risk and to capitalize on international opportunities to achieve greater returns, given the size of the fund. However, it was not until 1996 that the Foreign Exchange Hedge Program (FX Hedge Program) was implemented in response to a significant rise in currency exposure. As the fund faced increased foreign currency risk, risk management became essential and thus, a hedging policy of 50% of its foreign currency exposure was introduced. Due to the fact that OTPP has a continual commitment in supporting its pensioners, it must expose itself to limited risk and effectively hedge against any unexpected changes in its investments. Hence, a conservative policy of hedging 50% of foreign exchange exposure was enforced. Additionally, the International Equity Swap Program (IE Swap Program) was implemented as a solution to the government restriction of 30% ownership of foreign investments. Since most assets were tied up in non-marketable Ontario Debentures, a swap program enabled OTPP to reallocate its assets. OTPP Performance Evaluation The strategic decision to diversify beyond Canada and into global markets has proved to be beneficial to the OTPP investment portfolio. It has contributed substantial value to the fund over the 10 year period (1995-2005) by reducing potential losses, since five of the six foreign currencies appreciated against the Canadian dollar. For the past 15 years, OTPP investments have also consistently outperformed the benchmark rate of returns, generating a 10-year average rate of return of 11. 4% and a gross return of $15. billion over benchmark returns. Despite the portfolio’s negative rate of returns in 2001-2002, it has still produced considerable investment growth in relation to the benchmark, demonstrating the strength of OTPP’s investment policies in risk management. However, since interest rates have declined by approximately 3% (1990-2004), the value of the pension fund has increased. This has resulted in larger amount of payments made to pen sioners. Additionally, the demographics of the OTPP plan membership have changed significantly over the past 30 years. The ratio of active members per retiree has decreased from 10:1 in the 1970s to the present ratio of 1. 6:1. Moreover, the expected years retirees rely on the pension have also increased to 29 years. All these factors have exerted a great deal of pressure on the pension plan to sustain its funding with contributions from fewer working teachers. With the foreign currency market being increasingly volatile, OTPP is concerned regarding its future ability to support pension payments. Decision Criteria The Investment Committee must consider the following criteria when deciding whether to implement changes to the International Equity Swap Program and Foreign Exchange Hedging Policy: the fund’s exposure to foreign exchange risk, transaction costs, and an alignment of goals and objectives of the fund. Alternative: Although OTPP has performed well in the past, the future outlook of the pension plan remains uncertain. Therefore, OTPP has four alternatives to the future direction of the fund. OTPP can continue or discontinue the IE Swap Program and maintain or revise the current 50% FX Hedge Policy. Continue/Discontinue the Swap Program Previously, the swap program was used as a means to bypass the government restriction on foreign investment. With the regulation being lifted, OTPP has to now evaluate whether the swap program remains necessary. The program has allowed OTPP to reallocate their assets cost-effectively as it eliminates OTPP’s cost of transacting directly in foreign exchange market. Moreover, since OTPP does not gain ownership of the securities, it has reduced the amount of cash required and limited its risk by transferring the risk to counter-parties (UBS, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, etc. ).

Design a Flow Chart for a Process

Design a flow chart for a process Zoey Johnson University of Phoenix OPS/571 October 27, 2012 One process that seems to be a never ending process in my daily life is doing laundry. With a household of six people, the laundry needs to be done daily or else it will overtake the house quickly. To help illustrate the laundry process I have used Microsoft Word to create a flowchart that depicts the process. Using flowcharts is valuable because the flow of logic is shown throughout the process. Much like a blueprint for a building, a flowchart depicts the development of a process.Factors that affect the process design Water temperature and water level are the factors that affect process of the design. Both factors will determine how the laundry gets done. Performing the process design for laundry is broken down into the following steps. 1. ) Sort the clothes between whites, light colors, and dark colors 2. ) Check that the pockets are empty a. If pockets are empty move to step 3 b. If pock ets are not empty, empty them then move to step 3 3. ) Measure out the desired amount of detergent 4. ) Pour the detergent into the washer . ) Determine if fabric softener is needed. If needed, measure and add. If not go straight to step 6 c. Add Fabric Softener 6. ) Select water temperature. If clothes are temperature sensitive move to step 7, if not move to step 8 7. )Are clothes durable, like cotton d. If Yes use hot water e. If No use cold water 8. ) Determine Washing cycle f. If fabrics are delicate select gentle wash g. If fabrics are not delicate select normal wash 9. ) Adjust the water level per load 10. ) Load the clothes into the washer 11. Turn on washer and wait 35 – 45 minutes for wash cycle 12. ) Take clothes out of washer and put into dryer 13. ) Turn on dryer and wait 60 minutes 14. ) Take clothes out of dryer and fold For the flow chart design, the oval shapes represent the start and end steps for the process. The rectangular shapes represent the process step s. Decision steps are depicted by a diamond shape. Arrows are used to act as a guide to show the flow of process. Identify metric to measure process For the purpose of the laundering process, I have chosen sorting time as the metric for the process.Separating everyone’s laundry into whites, light colors, and dark colors is a time consuming process that can be reduced to reduce the amount of time it takes to do laundry. The remaining steps are fairly automatic so decreasing the sorting time is the best way to improve the process. Start Start Flow Chart Sort clothes by colors: whites, light colors, and dark colors Sort clothes by colors: whites, light colors, and dark colors No No Are pockets empty? Are pockets empty? Empty pockets Empty pockets Yes Yes Measure out desired amount of detergentMeasure out desired amount of detergent Pour Detergent into washer Pour Detergent into washer Is Fabric Softener Needed? Is Fabric Softener Needed? Add Fabric Softener Add Fabric Softener Y es Yes No No Are clothes Durable? Are clothes Durable? Yes Yes Select water temperature. Are clothes temperature sensitive? Select water temperature. Are clothes temperature sensitive? No No Yes Yes Use cold water Use cold water Use hot water Use hot water No No Determine wash cycle. Are fabrics delicate? Determine wash cycle. Are fabrics delicate? No No Yes YesUse normal cycle Use normal cycle Use gentle cycle Use gentle cycle Adjust the water level Adjust the water level Turn on washer and wait 35 – 45 minutes for wash cycle to complete Turn on washer and wait 35 – 45 minutes for wash cycle to complete Load Clothes into washer Load Clothes into washer Take clothes out of washer and load into dryer Take clothes out of washer and load into dryer Turn on dryer and wait 60 minutes for clothes to dry Turn on dryer and wait 60 minutes for clothes to dry Take clothes out of dryer and fold Take clothes out of dryer and fold

Bottom of the Pyramid Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Bottom of the Pyramid - Essay Example By targeting the middle and lower incomes, they can hope to cash in on the phenomenon on the rising imbalance in wealth across the globe. What the article implies is that people who scrape together a living may well be the gold mine that marketers may want to look at. By scraping the bottom, the marketers may well find gold dust that has been neglected for so long.  The authors make the point that there are four tiers of the consuming classes. The tier 1 is the most affluent with annual incomes more than $20,000.   The next two tiers 2 and 3 have annual incomes in the range of $1,500 to $20,000, while the last tier makes up of those who have incomes less than $1,500 annually.   The article makes a strong case for devoting resources to target the tier 4 consumers.   The point about social unrest due to the ability of the tier 4 consumers disturbing the lifestyles of other tiers is discussed.  Therefore, it is in the interests of all sections to maintain the equitable balance in society to ensure that the tier 4 consumers are not neglected.   This is the social point of view.   However, as the article states, there are compelling reasons from the profit point of view as well to create a market for tier 4 consumers.   The wave of industrialization and globalization has created a category of consumers who are willing to try and experiment with new products but do not have the resources to buy premium products.   Thus, there is a need to create and make products that are suitable for this class of consumers.

Financial Resourcs Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Financial Resourcs Management - Essay Example It is therefore important to evaluate some of the risks and complications that arise as a result of operating in several countries when making capital financing decisions. Foreign exchange rates as a result of operations spanning several countries are a major risk for MNCs even when they are considering their capital structure and financing issues. A country with exchange rate controls means that the MNC will have difficulties with international capital low and the solution can only be the use of debt. The use of equity financing in such a country will affect the company’s ability to invest in other countries since there are limitations to the flow of capital from the country to another (Horcher, 2013). One of the major complications of financing MNCs related to the government or political environment is the taxation policies of the foreign country. Taxation has been viewed by various researchers as one of the major factors that influence the capital structure of an MNC. The debt to asset ratio of an MNC is positively related to the tax rate applicable in the host country and negatively related to that of the home country. This means that in case the corporate tax rate in a foreign country is high, a company will prefer to use debt financing in place of equity financing as a source of capital as it will reduce its tax liability and thus increased earnings (Huizinga, Laeven & Nicodame 2008). Legal issues may also bring about complications for MNCs such as the issue of repatriation of profits. If a country finances its operations using equity financing and the legal requirements in a country are that there are limitations to the repatriation of profits, this may affect the ability of the company to pay dividends to shareholders outside the country. Another issue is that using equity financing in a country that regulates operations in terms of employment of local people means that the MNC might

Case study of China Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Of China - Case Study Example The export led growth strategy in China began back in 1978 with the power acceded by Xiaoping Deng. During this period, China was an unsuccessful state of communist, a poor nation due to the sufferings in the era of Zedong Mao’s Cultural Revolution for ten years. With the inefficient collective agriculture, closed economy, and enterprises owned by the state losing money, the population of China that was fewer than 1 billion shown a per capita income of $353. The entire nation was in poverty. However, with the death of Mao Zedong, a series of Deng Xiaopong’s reforms that were aimed at promoting the growth of the economy of China took over and retained the power of politics in Beijing. This reformed the country. China failed to obtain membership of the World Trade Organization under the leadership of Xiaoping Deng. The nation needed the status of the most favored country from America in the 1990s. China, during the whole of this period, began privatization of TVEs and SOEs in large scale and considerably lowered its tariffs. The process of annual review apart from exposing issues of human rights became a source of Chinese government humiliation, with hard lined China officials remaining a problem just like the negotiators of the United States. The Chinese officials had anticipated that the membership with the World Trade Organization would possibly undo apparatus of institutional socialism. China gained membership of the World Trade Organization eventually in December 2001 despite all the mentioned concerns. The China reforms were however achieved through the membership of World Trade Organization that facilitated the setting of China tariffs and allowed estimation of the cost of production of goods in China based on the cost of inputs. The country also had facilitated specific reforms that promoted the trade in the