Business Goals

Background of study The quick development in rivalry among firms of different kinds has represented a few difficulties for them with respect to keeping up their customers and accomplishing business goals. Because of that, firms have moved from customary ways of marketing towards social trading methods with customers that could return more prominent business benefits on the long haul. Consequently, concentrating on retention of customers has turned out to be vital for enhancing the competitiveness and performance of the organizations. Keeping in mind the end goal to accomplish the retention of customers, it must be noticed that customers have a tendency to assess their purchasing experiences regarding the perceived value that is followed by the measure of cash spent to receive an item or benefit and the advantages got in return. Along these lines, a positive experience of a customer significantly affects the purchasing behavior and retention of the customer. (Bapat and Thanigan, 2016). To manage customer relations and guarantee firm efficacy, it has happened to be very necessary to comprehend what leads to retention of the customers. (Afzali and Ahmed, 2016). Customer retention is defined as â€Å"the process of building customer loyalty towards a particular brand, thus resulting in repurchasing its products or services over time† (Cannie, 1994; Danish, Ahmad, Ateeq, Ali, and Humayon, 2015). Customer retention is the primary objective for the organizations that aides in keeping up their business (Coviello, 2002). There are an extensive number of firms that are associated with the retention of their customers. In order to achieve the maximum profitability, firms tend to focus on the retention of the customers (Kotler, 2003). Retention of the customers underlines on backing which is for the most part connected with repurchase conduct and brand devotion of the customers (Buttle, 2004). At the end of the day, retention of the customers involves a durable responsibility of a customer towards a brand and keeping up such relationship because of positive observations and past encounters (Boohene, 2013; Mohamed and Borhan, 2014). Customers who cheerfully make the majority of their buys from a specific brand for the most part have higher extent of fulfillment towards it than the individuals who indicate less loyalty. Anderson and Sullivan (1990) likewise represented that client maintenance gives monetary ramifications to firms on the grounds that increasing new customers is more exorbitant than keeping up existing ones because of the costs that they spend on publicizing and advancement to impact their purchase intention. Retention of the customers happens when the customers are completely happy with the benefits given by the inns (Grà ¸nhaug and Gilly,2001). On the other hand, the customers are particularly faithful towards their brands (inn) and it brings about the retention of the customers of that brand (Buttle, 2004). In order to achieve the maximum benefits and advantages, the firms tend to focus on retention of their customers. (Dawkins and Reichheld, 2009). There are few examinations that clarify the impact of the diverse variables that impact the client maintenance in inns. This is especially simple for the clients to get disappointed with the offers administrations to them (Colgate and Lang, 2001; Colgate and Norris, 2001) 1.2 Purpose of The Study The main and premier reason for this research is to discover the impact of the distinctive factors on the retention of the customers.Research ObjectivesThe fundamental goals for this article are as per the following:To find the impacts of the distinctive factors such as service quality, ambience, customer satisfaction and loyalty on retention of the customers.Significance of the studyThe significance of the study is that retention of the customers is the essential activity for any business for the most extreme yield. This investigation is done to clarify the connection between ambience, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, service quality and retention of the customers.Scope of the study This examination will assist the entrepreneurs with working on these elements in light of the fact that these variables are the fundamental need of each customer. What's more, with the assistance of this analysis, the entrepreneurs can thrive their business. This exploration is additionally valuable for similar firms who are confronting the issues in keeping up the customers.Research QuestionThe research question of this study is to find out what is the impact of ambience, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and service quality on the retention of the customers.

Traditions in British Culture

Traditions in Britain Culture Britain is full of various types of traditions. They have been around for hundreds of years. When most people think of Britain they think of eating Fish and Chips, or drinking tea and wearing bowler hats. There is a lot more to it than just that. St. George’s day is one of the most important days for England. It is known as their national day. April 23rd is when St. George’s day is celebrated. St. George is the patron saint of England, he protested against the Romans torture of Christians and died because of his beliefs.On Sundays the main meal of the day is often eaten at midday instead of in the evening. This meal usually is a Roast Dinner consisting of roast meat, Yorkshire pudding and two or three kinds of vegetables. Symbols that identify British Culture include: †¢The three national symbols: †¢The Union Jack: The flag of the United Kingdom, it dates back to 1603. When James VI (6th) of Scotland inherited the English and Iris h thrones. Joining together the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland in a personal union. The Red Rose: It is the national flower of England. †¢And the three Lions Crest also known as the Royal Arms of England: The three golden lions on a red background, symbolizing England †¢The Royal Family: Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry. †¢Royal Guards: Life Guard, Foot Guard and Beefeater †¢On the Streets of England: Red double decker buses, Black taxi cabs, Pillar box (Post Box) and Telephone Box †¢ Song:God Save the Queen is the English anthem, it can also be known as God save the King when the Monarch is a male. When sung people usually only sings one or two of the verses, since over the years many people have contributed into adding another verse into the song. The many candidates for authorship on this song include John Bull, Thomas Ravenscroft, Henry Purcell, and Henry Carey. Currency: The pound sterling, often simply called the pound, is the currency of the United Kingdom. It is subdivided into 100 pence. Singular form is a penny) Education: British children are required by law to have an education until they are 16 years old and after that they are free to not go to school. Education is compulsory, but school is not. Children aren’t required to attend school, but the only other option is to be educated at home. The main school holidays are: Christmas (2 weeks long), Spring- 2 weeks long, and summer that is 6 weeks long. There are also one-week holidays that are at the end of October, the middle of February and the end of may.

Organisational Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Organisational Leadership - Essay Example information and technology and one which is highly knowledge oriented, is one of the most significant outcomes of the transformation from the industrial to information age. Such far-reaching changes have revolutionized the manner in which organizations were initially managed, thereby leading to evolution of novel leadership styles, and in the process have completely redefined the scope and impact of institutionalized power and authority within organizations, thereby influencing the manner in which such organizations operate and function in the knowledge based post industrial developed economies. This paper seeks to discuss, analyze and explore the manner in which the leadership styles have transformed from the industrial age to the post industrial era, with the help of corresponding theories and models, and recent developments. In the industrial age the three critical factors of production included – land, labor and capital, however, the transition to the information age has added another crucial factor of production – â€Å"knowledge†. Knowledge revolution brought about by the development of new and state of the art technology which was previously unavailable to the leaders, have completely revolutionized the manner which organizations function and compete in the market place. Organizations such as Dell, Microsoft, Toyota, IBM, etc have excelled in this art, through sheer application of knowledge led leadership strategies. Automation – an outcome of technology, has facilitated the creation and development of highly skilled workforce, in the developed economies which is a vital factor of production and instrumental in redefining the human resource as mere labor – devoid of any critical skill and who are merely employed to follow the orders of their leaders, to a more know ledgeable and intellectual workforce who are employed to generate input in the form of ideas that can help the management in overcoming various organizational setbacks – both internal

Property Rules, Liability Rules and Inalienability Term Paper

Property Rules, Liability Rules and Inalienability - Term Paper Example The interpretation of some property laws however varies in different countries, but all work to promote order and coexistence of people in the societies. The society subject to the law have therefore an obligation to act in accordance to the property law, failure to which, they are indebted to the law as a liability for failing to comply to the legal expectation. Unlike the property rule, where the consent of the owners of the property is required for transfer of property, the liability rule is interfered by the legal system, who determine the cost incurred as the obligation to fulfill on the part of the liable person (â€Å"Property rule† 1- 4). The inalienability rule acts differently by preventing transfer of entitlements to protect and even regulate the activities of granting the property. It puts aside the parties involved (willing buyer and seller), and allow the government by authority to intervene the next actions (whether to stop the transfer, plan for compensation, o r determine ownership among others) depending on the investigation outcomes of the dispute. 2. Property Rules 2.1. Ownership Ownership of properties by the people receives varying degrees of protection from the legal government society. Whatever an individual, group, or community owns is prevented from the harassment and destruction that may be carried out by the excluded parties, so that the owners can freely enjoy their legal rights. Properties are lawfully recognized as a right that an individual or group has over an ownership of things, which they can use and can exclude others; it is divided into two, real (rights to land and anything attached to it) and personal property (chattels and intangible personal property as other possessions apart from land) (â€Å"LexisNexis† 2). Property rule emphasizes on the protection of an entitlement for an individual or persons, which they deserve with a property right. Since property entails a bundle of rights, the law itself protects the owner, so that he can exercise his rights over his property (rights to possess, use, transfer and pass on, transform and even block others from interference). â€Å"A property rule implies the prohibition on the invasion and a right to enjoin offenders† (Bergkamp 210). This possibly means that in a dispute where one violates the property rule, the offended can obtain a legal plea for a restoration. 2.2. Transfer Ownership is recognized as the primary right from which all the other rights attached to the property may be derived. Possession of the property refers to any object, whether tangible or intangible; this is however different in Dutch and German law that limit ownership of tangible objects (Bouckaert 34). Today software, systems, published work, stock, bonds and tangible assets (buildings, machines, and estates) can be owned as private properties. Take an example that P intends to use Q’s track against her wish. Q’s track being protected by the law, Q can prevent P from executing the illegal intension via a court order that forbids P’s action as the first protection measure. If P ignores the legal order and uses the Q’s property (as a violation of her right), P is issued with an order for restitution by the court. Suppose the restoration of the property is impossible to achieve (probably because it was destroyed while in P’s hands), then compensation to the owner (Q) is made through money damages determined by the court, which the Q has no option but

Cardiovascular disease Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Cardiovascular disease - Research Paper Example It is estimated that around 23.6 million people will die from this type of disease by the year 2030 (Global Atlas on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control). Because of the significant effect of cardiovascular disease to the health and well-being of a significant percentage of the population, the causes and controls of this illness is necessary to investigate and fathom. Cardiovascular disease refers to any ailment that implicates the cardiovascular system which is comprised of the heart and blood vessels including the arteries, veins and capillaries. This class of disease includes but not limited to coronary heart disease, also known as coronary or ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, cardiac dysrhythmias, cor pulmonale, valvular heart disease, inflammatory heart disease, stroke, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral arterial disease (Kelly 74). Usually, patients are not aware that they are prone or already have the diseases of this nature until they undergo a thorough medical examination. According to Seizer (27), examples of symptoms that signal the patients to seek medical attention are â€Å"sudden loss of consciousness, severe dizziness or faintness, severe chest pain, severe shortness of breath, or sudden onset of rapid heart action.† Chronic symptoms of shortness of breath, palpitations and chest pains are also common reasons for patients to go to hospitals. Undiagnosed heart problems often lead the patients to feel abnormal shortness of breath even when there is no strenuous activity being done. This is brought about by dyspenea, or the diseases of the heart and lungs associated to damaged function of the left ventricle, which leads to hyperventilation. Palpitations deals with the sudden and unusual heart action at unprovoked circumstances, affecting the heart to beat at an irregular pace. This abnormality is called arrhythmia. On the other hand, chest pain is the main symptom of

The development of a marketing plan for Deloitte Croatia Essay

The development of a marketing plan for Deloitte Croatia - Essay Example Deloitte Croatia is entering its 11th year of operation in Croatia. The audit service line is now recognised as the market leader in Croatia. The challenge now is where to go from here! The goal five years ago was to become number one in the local market which has now been achieved. Marketing per se has not been the major success factor in obtaining this achievement, however, as we seek to progress to the next level, the idea that marketing needs to take us to the next level has been recognised. Our success historically has been achieved by having the right people at the right place at the right time. Two years ago, we setup a marketing support function, and it is the belief of partners that we can now â€Å"pull away† from our competitors by having a more market orientation and adopting the holistic marketing concept in a more meaningful way. The market is still considered immature from the perspective of clients understanding the value that a global firm such as Deloitte can bring to their businesses. This is clear, as 50% of the market is still serviced by local auditors who are not internationally accredited and who are not able to â€Å"bring to the table† global solutions. It is in this area that the partnership believes that there is potential to obtain new and emerging businesses, and small businesses that will qualify for European Union funding for economic development once Croatia enters into the European Union in five years time.[Bamako, Ivan. 2008]... Last year Deloitte celebrated ten years of operations in Croatia. This was a high profile local event, with the Prime Minister of Croatia attending the celebrations and at the same time opened our new offices in the city of Zagreb. Deloitte Croatia is a partnership that forms part of Deloitte Central Europe. This regional partnership consists of seventeen countries within Central Europe. We are the only regional partnership made up of so many different countries. Most other partnerships consist of their own country, so in many ways we are unique within the Deloitte world. Deloitte Croatia is organised into five functions or service lines. The service line offerings are Audit and Advisory, Risk Advisory Services, Taxation Consulting, Financial Advisory and finally Management Consulting. The biggest service line is Audit and Advisory, which accounts for approximately 50% of the business. Deloitte's growth over the past five years has been spectacular. Five years ago, we were still the smallest of the "Big 4" in the Croatian market place. Today we are the biggest by revenue and by employees. The success of the practice over the past five years has been the result of bringing the right people into the practice from local Croatians but also bringing in international professionals who brought with them significant international expertise. This was very much appreciated by local business and it has resulted in significant growth for the practice over the past five years. The growth year on year has been 25%. This in itself has caused a few challenges for the practice in trying to find enough quality people to help with the workload. Local universities have not been able to generate a

WE 3 CRJ 545 rESPONSE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

WE 3 CRJ 545 rESPONSE - Essay Example Listing of the bodies involved in the crime scene investigations could also be imperative (Gardner, 2011). Owing to the complexity and disparity in various crimes, it is critical for the CSI teams and other forensic practitioners to have a well-constructed approach to the reconstruction of a Crime Scene, in order to ascertain the mode in which the exact crime occurred (Gardner, 2011). The writer portrays vast awareness of the processes that occur in the crime scene reconstruction. The systematic approach of crime scene reconstruction from the assessment to analysis of collected evidence seems appealing (Gardner, 2011). However, the writer ought to include the protocol observed in the reconstruction of various crime scenes. The ethics observed in crime scene reconstruction is also significant (Gardner, 2011). As indicated, crime scene documentation is critical in the reconstruction of the scene, or for the utilization as evidence in the courtrooms. The writer has a clear record of the significance of crime scene documentation, thereby highlighting the relevant information to be documented, while leaving insignificant information (Gardner, 2011). The tools and modes of documentation are also appealing. However, the writer is not exhaustive on the technological modes of the scene’s data collection and documentation. Besides, it will also be crucial to highlight the protocols and ethics involved in crime scene documentation (Gardner,

Proposal Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thesis Proposal Example se films use the surroundings in which we reside as their context makes them easier to understand, and likeable to a considerable section of the population. The fact that media products on gender equality such as Orange is the New Black have always simplified, and integrated key society values have been beneficial in terms of making them marketable. Some of the larger social and cultural values that these films have always agitated for include the belief that gender inequality is rather inhumane, inferring that no one should be made to go through it. In the same way, an individual’s gender should not determine how one is treated. Consuming such media products is far-reaching majorly because it warrants that societies respect human rights, by making certain that females are treated with dignity and are accorded the freedom they desire. At the same time, such media products guarantees that both genders are respected hence resulting in poverty reduction and maintenance of the hea lth of the whole family. One of the parts that the course included was how the media is a challenge to feminism. In as much as this topic has often been over-estimated, stakeholders hold the opinion that it is of great significance. Media products on gender equality, notably films and TV shows share similar ideologies with content covered in the course of the lecture, that some of the advertisements that have always been aired on our screens and print media, have always pointed to the fact that a portion of the population is better than the other. This is common in fashion magazines, which have asserted in their weekly or monthly pullouts that the skinny ladies are the ideal women as compared to the plumps. At one instance, Weetabix ran an advertisement in which the male child in a family was regarded as a superhero, while the female did not achieve such status in spite of the fact that both of them consumed Weetabix (Allen, 2009). While going through media products on gender equality, one

A Statistical Analysis of AIDS Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

A Statistical Analysis of AIDS - Research Paper Example The number of individuals acquiring the disease is also increasing. The growing concern today however, lies on the mounting difference in the number of African Americans and their White counterparts being infected or even dying from the disease. Women in particular, have constantly become the subject of people’s concerns regarding the matter of AIDS. This paper aims to present and discuss the statistics regarding the disparity between Blacks and Whites being diagnosed with AIDS. Moreover, the factors affecting this disparity will be presented. The importance of the role of the government in addressing this issue will be discussed and finally, a conclusion will be provided. The Statistics of AIDS in the United States In past statistics, African Americans were found to constitute the majority of individuals infected with AIDS1, 2. In the Black population, males comprised two-thirds or about 65% of new infections3. Furthermore, the rate at which Black men acquire new HIV infectio n is 6 times higher than White men and 2 times higher than black women4. On the other hand, the rate at which Black women acquire new HIV infection is 15 times higher than White women.5As such, the rate of death is also expected to be higher among Black women. Black females have a lower rate of infection in comparison to Black males. However, Black females are more affected by the disease in comparison to women from other races.6The large scale of Black womenbeing infected with, as well as dyingfrom AIDS has attracted attention from different areas and departments of the society. More so since there is yet to be a clear decline in the mortality rates of AIDS-infected African-American womenwhereas mortality rates of AIDS-infected White women have continually decreased. Ethnic disparities concerning HIV/AIDS infection and mortality are consistent in all states.7Figure 1 below presents a comparison of HIV/AIDS mortalities between Black and White populations in the United States. The hu ge difference between the races is evident except perhaps among the 15- to 24-year-old age group where the statistics were almost the same if not, slightly different. Figure 2 below presents the gender and racial comparisons with regards to new cases of HIV infectionin Massachusetts. The large disparity between Black females and White females as well as the large difference between the number of White males and Black males getting infected with AIDS are evident. According to Cole, Church, Fukuda et al.,8the percentage of Black women who have acquired HIV in the year 2006 – 2008 is 51% as compared to 20% of White women. This shows that Black women have almost twice the risk of acquiring the disease as compared to White women. However, it is also shown that from 2006 – 2008, White men have a higher percentage of new infections compared to Black malesin Massachusetts.This could be attributed to gay activities; however, not well-defined. In 2007, it has been reported that HIV was the third leading cause of mortality for black men and women aged 35-44.9 HIV also became the ninth leading cause of mortality for all blacks.10 In fact, about 233,624 Blacks who were diagnosed with AIDS had died in the United States.11 Moreover, African American women were known to be 22 times more likely to die

Teen Prevention Programs Teen Prevention of Sex Research Paper

Teen Prevention Programs Teen Prevention of Sex - Research Paper Example The study involved a randomized sample of 8430 students between the ages of 13 and 15 from 25 schools in Scotland. The students were evenly divided into two groups: control and experimental groups. The experimental group consisted of students who participated in the SHARE program and the control group consisted of students who participated in the sex-education program. The research was built around a conceptual framework reported in the literature. A review of the literature indicates that previous studies report that conventional sex-education programs have functioned to improve the sexual behavior of teens. However, those studies were based on methodologies involving experimental groups rather than randomized trial samples. Thus this study was intended to use a randomized trial sample as a means of determining whether or not conventional sex-education provided a benefit over and above new programs that were specifically aimed at altering the risky sexual behavior of teens. The research methodology involved participating schools to either implement the SHARE program or to continue with the sex-education program. The students were administered a self-reporting questionnaire within six months the completion of the programs. A further follow-up questionnaire was conducted two years later. An evaluation was conducted to determine the authenticity of the programs. The evaluation took into account variables such as context, delivery and students’ responses to the programs. Results indicated that there were no significant differences in sexual behavior after the completion of both programs based on the follow-up questionnaire. Vastly similar numbers of members of both control and experimental groups reported being sexually active by the time the programs were half-way through. Similar numbers also reported using condoms as well as engaged in unprotected sex. However, for students in both groups that had withdrawn from the school, there

Is the film version of Of Mice and Men inferior to the original novel Essay Example for Free

Is the film version of Of Mice and Men inferior to the original novel Essay Of Mice and Men was written in 1937 during the great depression, by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck was born in 1902 in California; some of his other novels are The Red Pony, Cup of Gold, To a God Unknown, In Dubious Battle, Canary Row, Sweet Thursday and various others. After months of ill health, John Steinbeck died of heart failure in December 1968 and is buried in Salinas, California. The film was directed by Gary Sinise, and runs for approximately 115 minutes and was made in the USA. Of Mice and Men is suitable for adaptation as the plot line is not too complicated and the scenes will be relatively easy to make, on the other hand there are several problems, a various amount of the scenes in the book cannot be adapted for the film, such as when Lennie hallucinates by the river. The opening sequence opens with George and Lennies escape from Weed, this is set in a big open field, with vibrant colours this will get the audiences attention as vibrant colours give the impression of danger. The camera starts of in a long shot, this is important as it shows the audience her ripped dress, then the camera zooms in to a close up to show the tears and fear on her face. The opening in the film is much more dramatic to the one of the novel, the director choose the include this section because it gives a contrast from George being in a combined place on the train, to having dramatic colours and wide open space, this makes the film more dramatic and exciting for the audience. In the novel Curleys wife and Curley are never seen together, they are always looking for each other, the incident with Crooks is not included. In the film Curleys wife does not have red mules, and is not heavily made up, she is wearing white and pink this gives her the look of femininity and innocence, which will give a different portrayal of the character to the novel. She is always seen in doorways, for example when she sees George, the camera uses a mid shot so the audience can see both their reactions, Curleys wife is looking outside like she is looking out for Curley, she is giving him no eye contact this shows us that she is not trying to lead him on. George is giving her eye contact, this might be making her feel nervous as she starts the fiddle with her dress. In the novel she is shown as being a dangerous, flirty character whereas in the film she is made to be totally different, the director has chosen to portray her sympathetically this is because this will enforce more of a reaction when she dies, this makes the audience feel sympathy for her. George and Lennie are presented with more sympathy in the film than the novel, the novel is less extreme. When Lennie has the fight with Curley the camera is in mid shot and Lennie is sitting down, this makes him look more vulnerable. The director uses a strong use of sound in the scenes of the fight, the punches are made to sound loud, this can make the audience relate to Lennie. A close up is then on Georges face to show his concern for Lennie, then a extreme close up of Lennie is used, this is very dramatic way of showing a characters emotions, the audience can see Lennies angry eyes and almost makes the audience feel scared as he has blood on his face when he is breaking Curleys hand, this makes the film superior the reading the novel as the camera shots and sound can make more of an effect on the audience and makes Lennie and George more three dimensional, whereas the novel makes them seem more one dimensional. The beginning of the novel is very different as Steinbeck sets the scene in clear detail, he creates a peaceful atmosphere by using nature the leaves lie so deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Unlike the novel the film shows an exciting and tense atmosphere. At the beginning of the film the director chooses to show George on a train, this scene is not included in the book because it would only work in a film, the director uses a haunting shilling melody lingering in the background, the camera shot focuses on a lonely figure crouched in the corner. By using this scene at the beginning it grabs the audiences attention and a spirited mood is set in the audience, he sets a stark contrast between that scene and the one that follows. This scene shows George sitting in the dark, which shows more about him than in the novel it shows that George is in the dark. The film relates to Steinbeck descriptive prose well, but some scenes could have been presented more like the book. In my opinion the film does do the film justice, but some characters could have been presented more like the characters in the book, for example Curleys wife, she is presented to be a flirty and dangerous character in the book and presented as a feminine vulnerable character in the film. The scenes are set in different ways but are successful in giving the audience the same amount of emotion as in the novel. The scenes that are in the novel that are not included in the film are not important and they are replaced with scene of the same importance that are easier to make. Overall the film is a good adaptation of the novel.

Weaknesses Of The Eurozone Economics Essay

Weaknesses Of The Eurozone Economics Essay Robert Mundell described the Bretton Woods System as Hamlet without the Prince due to the lack of a unified currency in the form of a monetary union expressed as Bancor or Unitas. Given the experience of EMU, does this analysis still hold theoretically and/or empirically? Discuss. Introduction of EMU In 1999, the European Central Bank (ECB) launched the single currency (euro) together with the foundation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The EMU is based on the existence of the euro as a common currency. The ECB supervises the implementation of a common monetary policy. At the beginning of 2002, euro replaced the national currencies of 12 member countries for all transactions. Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom joined European Union (EU) but did not join the euro. In 2004, there were ten new member countries joined the EU, five of them joined the euro. The prior monetary unions are unsuccessful as they rested on the value of metals (i.e. gold or silver). The money printed should be determined by the silver of gold stored, therefore the Metallism monetary system is a stable system since silver and gold are scarce resources. The EMU rests on the euro or chartalism, as fiat money which is issued by a central national bank. The credit level of the issuing body is important to determine the value and stability of the fiat money. The stability of the country in terms of economic and political will in turn determine the credit level. However, when the treasury is unable to finance the deficit, fiat monies can become unstable due to the temptation of the inflationary tax or seigniorage. In order to achieve and sustain the stability, the EMU needs an economic union and a monetary union. Economic union is achieved by complying with the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). The goal of SGP is to maintain fiscal stability through implementation of specific fiscal requirements among member states of EMU. The strength of the Eurozone rests completely on the credibility of the requirements set when the EMU was being implemented and the ECB was established. However, if member states are not respect or follow the set requirements, the credibility level of Eurozone will be affected and as a result negatively affect the euro. Mundells Theories The original idea of a common currency in Europe was derived from the theory of Robert Mundell on the areas of optimal currency. In his paper A plan for a European Currency in 1973, Mundell clarified the gains of European countries if they adopt a common currency. The works of Mundell have been classified into two categories by Ronald McKinnon (2004). Mundell I In 1961, Mundell published his paper entitled A Theory of Optimal Currency Areas which is rooted in Keynesian ideas. The theory of Optimum Currency Areas (OCAs) studies how countries with a monetary union and common currency adjust, if these countries are affected by asymmetric economic shocks. Mundell point out that adjustments are based on whether wages are rigid, labour mobility is limited, income transfers are difficult, and differences exist in the labour market and growth rates. Mundell claimed that when countries are in a monetary union and use a common currency, they cannot absorb asymmetric shocks properly unless, among other circumstances, labour mobility is unlimited. Mundell II In Mundells article Uncommon arguments for common currencies which published in 1973, an alternative theory is illustrated. Mundell emphasised the common currency assures an automatic and equal sharing of the risk of the fluctuation, a common currency has advantages in overcoming economic shocks. Mundell II argues that it is easier for member countries to stay inside a monetary union than outside it since the private insurance would assist against asymmetric shocks. More specifically, it will be easier for member countries to borrow in the capital markets of the monetary union when hitting by a negative shock, as a result it will be easier for member countries to smooth consumption. In addition, the exchange rate would be a source in arising asymmetric disturbances; especially capital mobility of financial market is very high. The criticism of Mundell II becomes more obvious in terms of political context. If financial markets in a monetary union provide insurance to reduce asymmetric shocks, the need to integrate national budgets for political means becomes weaker. Hence the motive to form a political union is even weaker. However, the Mundell II point out that if there is no budgetary union, it would be optimistic to say that private financial markets would provide insurance against asymmetric shocks. The financial markets will only provide insurance to those who possess high assets stock in the financial markets. Since wealth is not equally distributed, the private provision of insurance will overwhelmingly support the wealthy and keep the poor relatively uninsured. In addition, the Mundell II theory ignored the possibility that countries may involve in a position of a bad equilibrium. If there are not adequate instruments to lead the economy out of the bad equilibrium, countries would get caught in the bad equilibrium after a negative shock. It is a major problem for the future of EMU if there is no adequate instrument in a monetary union. This is reinforced by the fact that different member countries of EMU continue to work in different directions due to the absence of a political union. Weaknesses of the Eurozone In the last ten years, the euro has demonstrated that there are many efficiency gains by adopting a common currency (i.e. reduced transaction costs of exchanging currencies, eliminated exchange rate uncertainty, and increased transparency in prices), particularly if the currency becomes not only an international currency but also a global currency. However, maintaining various standards requires difficult adjustments and constant surveillance of every single member state in Eurozone. As the economic crisis has hit the world, certain Eurozone Member States Greece, Portugal and Spain are being seriously affected. The Greek tragedy is making the EU realize that highly indebted countries can put the EMU at risk and that measures must be taken without delay. Institutional Weakness Article 102.a of the Maastricht Treaty establishes that member states and the community should conduct their economic policies with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community. In order to guide Article 102.a, Article 103 highlights that the correct implementation of economic policies is a matter of common, stating that Member States [are to] coordinate them within the Council, in accordance with the provisions of Article 102a. Article 103 also highlights that it is important to avoid excessive deficits of each government. There is an obvious institutional weakness in terms of monetary policies. The Maastricht Treaty had defined the objectives of the ECB which is price stability. ECB has defined an inflation rate below 2% as the objective of price stability. In addition, in terms of unemployment, the rest of society is not convinced and will not easily accept the attempt of the ECB to release itself from any responsibility for unemployment. However, t he delegation of the responsibility of unemployment to the governments of each member country creates a political problem. The purposes of SGP contain that member countries should avoid excessive debt and deficits and each member country should maintain fiscal stability. There are two important two Council Regulations in SGP (i.e. Regulations 1466/97 and 1467/97). These two regulations require member countries of the EU must comply with to help contribute to the overall climate of stability and financial prudence underpinning the success of the EMU. The Council Regulation 1466/97 set out the details of stability programs (i.e. submission and monitoring regulations) and convergence programs. The ultimate purpose of the multilateral surveillance by the Council is to prevent, at an early stage, the occurrence of excessive general government deficits and to promote the surveillance and coordination of economic policies. The purpose of regulation 1467/97 is to clarify the excessive deficit procedure to deter excessive government deficits (European Navigator 1997, 2). However, the SGP is not sustainable due to the lack of accountability of the EU commission. Hence, the national governments are bound to win when conflict arises. The problem will exist as long as national governments continue to possess the sovereignty over spending and taxation. Political integration De Grauwe (2006) acknowledged that the EMU is a remarkable accomplishment, but the absence of a political union is a major weakness in the Eurozone governance. Grauwes view is consistent with the findings of Nitsch on the political integration. He conclude that political integration is not rapidly followed by economic integration (Nitsch and Wolf 1). Grauwe point out in his article that national governments holding most economic policies decision creates asymmetric shocks. The asymmetric shocks truly affect the sustainability of the monetary union. For example, member countries of the Eurozone have different competitive positions due to the uncoordinated policies of each member country in relation to national wage. Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain were in constant financial and economic turmoil before the adoption of the euro. The turmoil situation disappeared due to the economic booming of the past years. These five countries have barely met the requirements of monetary and economic stability and are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the stability. For the past years, these countries are not only suffering from excessive deficits and debts, but also economic unbalances (i.e. excessive current account deficits). The current account positions are becoming worse due to, among other reasons, their extremely uncompetitive trade position. As a consequence, they are beginning to blame the euro. The problem that these countries are facing originates from the fact that monetary union amplifies fiscal imbalances. Opting for devaluation of a competitive currency is not an option and the only other alternative stems from forcing differentials of bond yield reduced. In 2005 there were almost no yield differentials between the German Bund and the yields of those countries with excessive current-account deficits. In 2009, however, yield spreads has increased government default risks measured by a sudden increase in the demand for credit default swaps. Hence, the current economic crisis has demonstrated that currency risk is replaced by default risk in a monetary union. There are two reasons for this situation: 1) the sovereign debt of each member country is issued under the control of each Ministry of Finance, 2) there is no European Ministry of Finance. The Germans has proposed the creation of a European Monetary Fund, the French league has proposed the creation of a European Debt Agency which required that the Lisbon Treaty were amended or that a new treaty were negotiated. Many people blamed this situation due to the lack of a common bond market which would help to put all members together. Some people reject the suggestion based on the fact that a common bond market would lower borrowing costs for weaker countries and increase costs for stronger countries such as Germany. In addition, the common bond market would obtain the budget rights from each governments which would not be able to make national budgets by themselves. Exit clause For years some countries have not respect or followed the requirements listed in the Maastricht Treaty and are now facing extremely difficult economic situations. It is obvious in the current crisis that there is no political homogeneity among member countries from a political point of view. As a result, each member country has implemented its own particular economic model and how to conduct its own economic model. In addition, Greece, Spain, and Portugal do not truly realise that their economic models are embedded in a globalised economy and these countries need to implement a set of painful structural reforms to keep them competitive. From the economic point of view, the countries in trouble have two major common reasons. The reasons are the lack of respect for the requirements and the lack of appropriate implementation of the structural reforms required under an economic recession. Currently there are debates on what should or should not be done with these countries. However, there are not room to manoeuvre this situation under the current legal framework. Expulsion of these countries from the Eurozone is not a good choice as it would definitely hurt the image of the EU and its member countries. Many scholars, economists propose that voluntary withdrawal from only the Eurozone while staying in the EU to would be the most beneficial option. The legal framework the Treaty of Lisbon, does not provide the necessary methods to deal with problems of withdrawal, expulsion from Eurozone nor any other similar problem that might arrive soon. First, the Treaty of Lisbon has the no-bailout clause to prevent a budgetary problem in one country spilling over the EU as a whole. The no-bailout clause prohibits member countries from rescuing other countries or from accepting the debts of other countries. However, the Article 122 of Lisbon Treaty states that any member country seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control can receive financial assistance from other members. The question is whether a member countrys current debt crisis could qualify as an exceptional occurrence and not a man-made issue. This clause was inserted to strengthen unity and commitment of Eurozone. But the reality is that some countries are possessing extremely high level debts and defici ts far exceeding the requirements. Therefore, there are not many methods for to assist these financial troubled countries under the current circumstances. The Articles 4(2), 118, and 123(4) explicitly indicates that the process for adoption of the Euro is irreversible. Participation of the EMU becomes a legal obligation due to the irrevocability of the agreement and the monetary union process. Thus, the exit option of leaving EMU while staying in the EU is impossible. The exit option is only allowed to exit the EU and EMU altogether. In addition, there is no clear mechanism by which members could expel a fellow country. The expulsion could only be possible if the treaty were amended and provided that all member countries respond favourably to this amendment. Conclusion The EU and the Eurozone are suffering not only a financial crisis, but also a totally lack of appropriate structural reforms. The proper functioning of the EMU depends on the compliance with requirement provided in monetary and fiscal policies. Some member countries need to adopt urgently a number of structural reforms to promote economic growth of its own country and to stable euro as part of the EMU. Most importantly, the EMU should take this crisis as an opportunity to create a restructuring mechanism to strengthen and reform the economic, political foundations of the euro project.

Alliance Boots Pestel Analysis Business Essay

Alliance Boots Pestel Analysis Business Essay The global pharmaceutical industry has been overwhelmingly changing in the last decade creating rigorous globalization and increased competitiveness. The global market shares are creating new challenges for pharmaceutical companies strengthening the consolidation of the world pharmaceutical industry through alliancing and acquisitions as a strategic orientation for global pharmaceutical companies. Many global companies including pharmaceutical believe that alliance will not only create awareness but will also create successful strategic collaborations capable of creating more global interaction opportunities and integration with other markets. The aim of this report is to explore Alliance Boots future strategic directions. Organisation Background It is a multinational company with strong recognition and reputation as one of the leading pharmaceutical and beauty companies in the world. Alliance Boots revenue is more than  £22.5 billion in excess; it also has various outlets in more than 20 countries. Alliance Boots core areas of business are pharmaceutical and beauty, formed in 2006 as a merger Boots Group and Alliance UniChem and recently a global merger with Walgreens. The company main purpose is to help its customers to look and feel better than ever, by providing exceptional customer and patient care with great value for its customer. Product brands Alliance Boots Pharmaceutical Wholesale Division is experiencing a rapid growth and global sales; the company believes that its product innovation and development competences are some of the resourceful factors, which enable the company to develop new and existing products for global consumption. Some of these products are, No7, Soltan and Botanics, 17, Almus and Alvita that were successfully launched in recently. Organisation Structures Alliance Boots have over 185,000 employees and numerous pharmaceutical outlets. The aim of the company is to work closely with manufacturer of pharmaceutical, beauty and health products and use experienced pharmacists to provide services to their customers. Alliance Boots headquarters is in Zug Switzerland. Alliance Boots Strategy Options It is important that when a global business organisation wants to adopt a sustainable development strategy for its products and brands, such strategy needs to be applicable across a wide range of different product types, also has to be flexible to cope with the rapid turnover of products. Alliance Boots also believe that: The strategy also has to be robust so as to be able to cope with the main three routes by which products are introduced at Alliance Boots(own manufacture, third party supply of Alliance Boots brands and proprietary brand). Its strategy must provide leadership on where and how improvements and such improvement must be commercially successful. Marketing strategy Alliance Boots believe that by putting its customers first for all its pharmaceutical and beauty products with outstanding quality and service at a competitive cost will help the company to achieve excellent profitable margins in the global competitive market. Its unique strategy will also help Alliance Boots with continue profit growth through a balance of strong global sales growth. Ansoffs Matrix Ansoffs Matrix is a unique marketing tool, which provides strategic choices to business organisations in order to achieve the objective for growth. Ansoffs Matrix has for main categories namely: Market penetration: Market penetration creates a good avenue for a company like Alliance Boots to sell existing products into existing markets. It is important for Alliance Boots to continuing promoting its product with the new features and good quality .This is helping Alliance Boots to invest heavily and focus more on research and development in new market research creating more distribution channel. Market development: Alliance Boots uses Market development as a growth strategy to sell its existing products into new markets, including new geographical markets; for example product exportation to a new country. It also includes new product packaging new distribution channels (e.g. Boots Pharmacy stores across UK and selling via e-commerce and mail order). Its ability to target new market makes Market development a unique strategy. Product development: Alliance Boots uses Product development as growth strategy creating a unique avenue for its business to introduce new products into existing pharmaceutical markets with great expectation that they will gain more customers and market share. Such strategy may involve the development of new capabilities and requires Alliance Boots to develop modified products, which can appeal to existing markets. Diversification: Alliance Boots Diversification strategy allows the company to diversify easily to another geographical market. In 2012, Alliance Boot acquired Nanjing Pharmaceutical Company Limited; Nanjing has a strong market position and operating distribution centres in 12 cities and across eight provinces in China. Such diversification into China Pharmaceutical market now makes Alliance Boots, as the largest shareholder is Nanjing Pharmaceutical Group Limited creating new products and opportunities in the Chinese market. Alliance Boots SWOT Analysis Alliance Boots Swot analyses are: Strength: Alliance Boots has an excellent and long-standing relationship with all its customers. The company also has a strong historical reputation for all its quality, using nectar card to gather customer intelligence. Availability of Boots Pharmacy stores everywhere in the UK and Europe. Weaknesses: Due to strong competition with other pharmaceutical companies in the global market, Alliance Boots is struggling to cope with the increased competition in the market. Opportunities: Alliance Boots continue to use the internet opportunity to keep increasing its presence by using online shopping to transact with its domestic and global customers. Using it retail stores advantage across the global market such as Boots Pharmacy to create the right products with right combination of price and promotion to achieve the firms aims of long-term growth. Threats: The major threat to pharmaceutical industries including Alliance Boots is the government higher tax on the price on medicine that Alliance Boots and other retailers must deal with. Porters Five Forces: The five forces of Porter can be used to make an analysis and attraction of business organisation structure as follows: Supplier Power: It plays important role in competitive force, more suppliers one can greatly increase y bargaining power with these suppliers. For example, Alliance Boots successfully bargained with over 80 suppliers to lower prices of some of the drugs they sell over the counter in 2007. Buyer Power: Increasing customer loyalty is a way of reducing the power of the buyer, the introduction of nectar card by Alliance Boots is a way to reward its customers. Because of this, it allows the buyers to save considerably. It also allows Alliance Boots to capture useful information and monitor consumers purchasing habits. Threats of New entrants: There has been huge increase in the number of new entrants in the pharmaceutical marketing making difficult for Alliance Boots to expand in the way the company wants. For example, Tesco is planning various new supermarkets across Britain that would restrict Alliance Boots ability to expand. This poses a real threat, which means that Alliance Boots need to change its marketing strategy with possibility of reducing prices through advertising. Threat if substitute: In order to save money many businesses may decide to outsource their products and service to another company at a cheap cost. Alliance Boots did not outsource its products and services; instead, the company IT department was able to make changes in the way customers pay for their products by replacing its traditional till machines to touch screens capability giving customers a faster way to shop on their own. Competitive Rivalry: This affects many businesses in terms of price competition and products identification. For example, other rivals in the business like Lloyds Pharmacy, Superdrug are expanding rapidly. Because of this, Alliance Boots are constantly improving its stores marketing strategy making its products more affordable and available everywhere in the UK and continue to provide outstanding customer service. Alliance Boots PESTEL Analysis Political Factors: Various political decisions can have a huge impact in the business operate and its performance. For example the impact of government UK policies on the business allowing some major supermarkets to open numerous pharmaceutical stores within their stores. The government believes that such policy will increase NHS services and improved healthcare. Such move will not help Alliance Boots, instead, it will create a huge competition, which will eventually make Alliance Boots to lower its products prices and operate for longer hours. Economic Factors: The global economic recession is badly affecting every business sector including healthcare, with many businesses suffering. There has been a huge increase in the prices of global healthcare affecting the way customers spend and how much they want to spend in buying healthcare products especially Beauty products. In addition to this, the rising fuel costs also have a huge impact in the supply chain channel of Alliance Boots leading to an overall price increase increasing prices and passing over the cost to consumers. Social Factors: the prices of its The social factors is creating more awareness about how everyone should take care of himself or herself through, exercise, eating habit, type of food that is good for the body and many more. For example, government campaign that is promoting healthy eating (eatwell.gov.uk 2012 online) as a result in the rapid increasing level of obesity within the UK (Department of health 2012 online).Such information is boosting Alliance Boots sales by encouraging its customers to try its healthier products at a cheaper price than other companies. Technological Factors: The evolution of internet is helping online retail sales, Alliance Boots is making use of the internet technology to its advantage with internet is now generating more than a third of all revenue for Alliance Boots products and services. Alliance Boots Centre for Innovation is investing hugely for the development of inventive products and technologies that focus on: Ways to diagnose treat and monitor key aspects of health, beauty and wellbeing. Providing positive support to ageing products and working very hard to produce new products. Environmental Factors: Many countries are now committing to green energy ever than before due to the risk of global warming is becoming a reality, Many companies like Alliance Boots have been told to play key role in reducing carbon footprint and increasing energy efficiency (Bream 2008). Because of this, Alliance Boots will have to invest more on greener products (selling of organic healthy product) and reducing their impact of carbon footprint on the environment. Legal Factors: There are various legal issues that are facing the way companies operate globally, for example, Alliance Boot Cases include application to European Court of Justice in sex discrimination case of Neath versus Hugh Steeper Limited. New laws keep emerging everyday especially on healthy product and drinks, which mean Alliance Boots will have to be more cautious about it packaging and labelling policies, which will be extra financial liability on the Alliance Boots. Globalisation Drivers The drivers of globalisation can be classified into Market Drivers: Increasing travel create global consumers Growth of global and regional channels Establishment of world brands 2. Cost Drivers: Fast-tracking technological innovation Transportation and distribution channel 3. Government Drivers Reduction of tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers Privatisation in previously state-dominated economies 4. Competitive Drivers Strong rise in global strategic alliances with other companies. Rise of new competitors with intension of becoming global competitors Future Strategic Partnership Walgreen Co., US largest drug store chain is the latest future strategic partnership and direction that Alliance Boots is taking. Under this new strategy, Alliance Boots and Walgreen Co are bringing together the strengths and proficiency of both companies to create the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise. Recommendations In order for Alliance Boots to maintain its global presence and continue to be one of dominant forces in the Pharmaceutical companies, the following are the vibrant future strategic direction that Alliance Boots must take for its business. Delivering of new innovative medical research using the next generation technology. A new global approach to marketing by sponsoring various events related to wellbeing of Alliance Boots customers. Expansion of general merchandise ranges which in return will create sales with greater growth potential and effectiveness. Conclusion In conclusion, strategic management with a dedicated market focus is a driver to build a successful future globalization and merger processes of pharmaceutical industry. The greater the strength of the competitive drivers, the greater the tendency for an industry to globalise. Alliance Boots continues to internationalise its key product brands, selling them to distributors, independent pharmacies and retail partners including online shopping sites globally.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby - Conflicting Ideals Essay

Conflicting Ideals in The Great Gatsby  Ã‚      Throughout the world, societies can become cruel and unjustified machines. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the morality of a society is clearly revealed through the choices and consequences its characters experience. The two societies within the novel, West Egg and East Egg, create an atmosphere of mixed ideals and morals, so completely opposite of each other. Three examples will be given to support the above thesis. Firstly, Jay Gatsby, arguably the main character, is involved in a number of criminal activities. Secondly, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, are a true symbol of how the morals of their society are revealed through their actions. Finally Nick Carraway, the narrator, is truly and innocent in a society gone mad. These three points will be elaborated below. Firstly, Jay Gatsby, formerly known as Jay Gatz, is a figure of the the corruption of the American Dream. He is an illegal bootlegger, an acquaintance of gamblers and con artists. His activities are constantly denounced by Tom Buchanan throughout the novel. His criminal activies reveal the morality of yesteryears society. His lavish and extravagant parties are another symbol of the morality of his society. Early in the evening, people are happy, dancing the night away, and are generally having a good time. But, the facade of the party quickly departs, and the true nature of these events are revealed. People get drunk, douse themselves in the pool to sober up, spouses fight and bicker over nonsequential items. And when all of this is over, the floor is covered with orange rings, spilled cocktails, along with other party nostalgia. All of this is a setup, so that Gatsby can get Daisy's at... ...saddened by the coldness of the people who do not care unwillingly to the funeral. Out of all the people who attend the parties, four join the funeral. So, the choices and consequences of Nick's experience clearly define the morality of the two societies. To sum things up, the morals of a society are revealed by the actions of its inhabitants. Firstly, Jay Gatsby, is involved in a number of criminal activities, and is the father-figure of the corruption of the American Dream. Secondly, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, are a true symbol of how the morals of the East Egg society are revealed by their actions. Finally, Nick Carraway, is truly an innocent in a myriad of scheming, cheating con artists. Therefore, their unjustified beliefs truly define the morality of a society which is clearly revealed through the choices and consequences of its characters from within.   

Compare at least four poems from the ones you have studied where a Essa

Compare at least four poems from the ones you have studied where a strong dislike for another person is shown. Write about My Last Duches a poem from Duffy, one form Armitage and another from the pre 1914 poetry bank. My Last Duchess was written by Robert Browning and published in 1842. It is based on a real person. Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara (1537-1597), married fourteen year-old Lucrezia de Medici in 1158 when he was twenty one. Three years later she was killed, possibly poisoned. The Duke then arranged to marry the daughter of the count of Tyrol. As was customary at the time, the marriage arrangements were arranged between the Duke and a go between. ‘My Last Duchess’ is a poem in which the appearance of the poem is different from the reality. When read ‘My Last Duchess’ appears to be a civilised conversation between the Duke and a Nobleman in which the topic of conversation is brought about by the Dukes decision to show the his very privileged guest a great masterpiece and to recount something of his previous wife. Beneath the surface, however, is a ruthless story of ruthless power and the Dukes disapproval of the natural and innocent behaviour of his naà ¯ve wife, who apparently does not know the value of his great name. The poem has a very abrupt beginning and appears to be one half of a conversation. Browning opens with the Duke explaining why he has named the painter, and that the painting is kept behind a curtain which he alone is permitted to draw back. And when he does this it seems as though the viewer is keen to ask why only the Duke is allowed to draw the curtain, but is too frightened to ask. We also note he is not been the first to question this action. We learn that the Duke is very par... ...from Book of Matches. Like The laboratory & my last Duchess, Hitcher is a dramatic monologue in which a man confesses to murder. We notice that he is like, yet unlike, his victim. Briefly the man in the poem has been taking time off work – feigning illness and not answering the phone. As this man drives out of Leeds he picks up a hitchhiker who is travelling light and has no set destination. Some little way later he attacks he attacks his passenger, and throws him out of the still-moving car. The last he sees of the hiker, he is â€Å"bouncing off the kerb, and then disappearing down the verge† – we do not if he is dead or just badly injured. The driver does not care. Unlike My last Duchess & the Laboratory the man in Hitcher does not know the man that he has killed. He does not even have a real motive for killing like the Characters in the other poems do.

Wanting to be Beautiful Essay -- Magazines Media Self Image Essays

Wanting to be Beautiful How do women’s magazines influence how women think, look, and feel? What is so special about these magazines to get some women to center their lives around them? Personally, I didn’t really understand why any women would listen to anything a magazine says until I opened one up. While I was waiting in line at a department store, I picked up and flipped through a Cosmopolitan magazine, and found a story that caught my attention. The story was about the loss of a father, and for that reason I purchased the magazine. Although I do know there are many other women who have dealt with the loss of their father, I wanted to see if they felt the same way I did, how they were dealing with it every day, and how their lives have changed. Of course, after getting the magazine home I started flipping through it more and found many other interesting stories to read like â€Å"How to Make Sex Hotter† or â€Å"Get a Life You Really Love,† but what I really notic ed was diets, beauty, sex, and more sex. In â€Å"Help or Hindrance? Women’s Magazines Offers Readers Little but Fear, Failure,† Mary Kay Blakely states, â€Å"the current purge of serious issues means [a woman] must proceed without information.† It’s hard to imagine how much women’s magazines can influence someone, and for some women these magazines are like a bible; whatever it says, goes whether it’s on hair, make-up, or fashion, women do what these magazines say. However, when it comes to the important issues, magazines do not provide any type of support whereas with a bible anyone can turn to it for guidance or spiritual support, but sadly for women who read women’s magazines end up suffering the consequences. Being thin seems to be in style every ye... ...ply relating to the stories—but for other women it’s just entertainment. Blakely states, â€Å"instead of encouraging women to grow beyond childish myths and adapt to the changes of life, women’s magazines have readers running in place, exhausted.† Today we live in a world that is filled with silicone, plastic, and chemicals all of which women use to stay, look, and feel young and beautiful where they are able to be amongst the younger generation, knowing they look as young as they do. The world of women’s magazines has created women that truly don’t exist; young girls grew up wanting to look like a Barbie doll, and older women end up being one, plastic. It’s a shame what lengths some women go through to become this perfect creature instead of embracing the beauty that sits within them. Being happy with yourself is loving yourself, and loving yourself is being beautiful!

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a new multidisciplinary science interfering with many research areas and aspects. This technology deals with so small particles ranges from 1 to 100 nm (Birla et al., 2009; Husseiny et al., 2015). Nanoparticles of some metals like Au, Ag, Pt and Cu have paid more attention because of their biotechnological benefits (Rai and Duran, 2011). Research revealed the multiapplication of nanoparticle due to their unique properties in electronics, medicine, agriculture, pharmaceutic and environment (Nanda and Majeed, 2014; Dasgupta et al., 2015). Metal nanoparticles emerged as an alternative variety of antibacterial agents against strains of high resistance to the classical antibiotics (Naseem and Farrukh, 2015). Nanoparticles were used as antiviral agents (Gaikwad et al., 2013), effective antibacterial (Singh et al., 2013), cancer cells and antitumor (Daenen et al., 2014). Many researches have been directed to apply the nanoparticles of metals as anthelmintic (Garga and Chandrab, 2012), antifungal (Kim et al., 2012), antiprotozoal (Said et al., 2012), , acaricidal (Marimuthu et al., 2013) and larvicidal (Muthukumaran et al., 2015). Nanoparticles have many chemical and physical characteristics that differ from the metallic particles. Specific characteristics of nanoparticles such as their optical, physicochemical, mechanical properties make them crucial in many applications. Therefore, nanoparticles could be the key factor for the future technologies. Scientific as well as public associations are paying their attention for nanoparticles technology as a good investment source. Nanoparticles could be produced via physical, chemical or biological methods (Haider and Kang, 2015; Ebrahiminezhad et al., 2017). Both chemical and physical methods use reducing agents such as sodium borohydride, sodium citrate and alcohols (Rai and Duran, 2011). However, using of microorganisms in synthesis of nanoparticles represents another great achievement because of the economic and ease production (Shelar and Chavan, 2014; Patel et al., 2015). Research revealed that biological methods is an inexpensive and eco-friendly way for synthesis of nanoparticles. This method used biological agents including bacteria, fungi, yeast and plants (Mourato et al., 2011). Recently, emerging such microorganisms as eco-friendly nano-factories to manufacture inorganic nanoparticles was attractive (Lee et al., 2004; Lengke et al., 2007). Fungi were mentioned as excellent candidates for metal nanoparticle synthesis because they contain many of enzymes that induce the production (Sastry et al., 2003). It was assumed that the mechanism involved in nanoparticles production by fungi was due to cell wall sugars that could reduce the metal ions (Mukherjee et al., 2002) and because they have the high cell wall binding capacity, metal uptake and secrete more amounts of proteins lead to the higher productivity of nanoparticles (Vahabi et al., 2011). Fungi have some advantages over the other microorganisms regarding the synthesis of NPs, because fungal mycelia are able to resist pressure, high temperature and easy storage in the laboratory (Kiran et al., 2016). There are many of metals for biosynthesis (NPs) such as copper, zinc, iron, iron trichloride, lead carbonate, gold and silver (Siddiqi and Husen, 2016). In addition, silver NPs could be synthesized by fungi either intracellularly or extracellularly but the extracellular biosynthesis downstream process much easier and showed more activities against many pathogens (Ahmad et al., 2003). Among the active fungi that were reported to produce nanoparticles; Rhizopous oryzae produced nanoparticles intracellularly of gold (Das et al., 2012), Verticillium sp extracellularly peodcued gold and silver nanoparticles (Soni and Prakash, 2014) in the size range of 20–51 nm. However, F. oxysporum produced nanoparticles of silver of 5–15 nm and 8-14 nm in diameter extracellularly (Ahmad et al., 2003; Senapati et al., 2005). Many other fungi were approved for their productivity of nanoparticles of different metals either extracellularly or intracellularly including: Phoma sp. (Chen et al., 2003), the endophytic fungus Colletotrichum sp. (Shankar et al., 2003), Aspergillus fumigatus (Kuber and D'Souza, 2006) , Fusarium acuminatum (Ingle et al., 2008) , Trichoderma asperellum (Mukherjee et al., 2008), F. semitectum (Sawle et al., 2008), Phoma glomerate (Birla et al. 2009), F. solani (Ingle et al., 2009) , plant pathogenic fungi Aspergillus niger (Gade et al., 2008; Jaidev and Narasimha, 2010), Aspergillus flavus (Vigneshwaran et al., 2007; Jain et al., 2011) , Paecilomyces lilacinus (Devi and Joshi, 2012), endophytic fungus Pencillium sp. (Singh et al., 2013), Aspergillus foetidus (Roy and Das, 2014), Rhizopus stolonifer (AbdelRahim et al., 2017), Penicillium Oxalicum (Bhattacharjee et al., 2017) and Trichoderma atroviride (Saravanakumar and Wang, 2018). Many recent reports have shown that production of nanoparticles by fungi are could be affected by various condition of temperature, biomass weight, time and pH ( Balakumaran et al., 2016; Liang et al., 2017; Othman et al., 2017). Husseiny et al. (2015) reported that most important factors that were affecting the biosynthesis of AgNPs were the temperature, pH, time, the concentration of AgNO3 and amount biomass. Narayanan and Sakthivel (2010) approved that incubation at 27 0C for 72 h with 7 pH and 10 g of the fungal biomass and 1mM concentration of AgNPs were considered the optimum conditions for production of AgNPs from AgNO3 by fungi. Researches showed some variations in the characteristics of the biosynthesized AgNPs by different fungal species. These variations could be due to the source of fungal isolates or strains and types of medium (Devi and Joshi, 2012; Roy and Das, 2014). When Alam et al. (2017) compared the different types of media, they found Czapex dox broth was a good medium to produce enough mycelial biomass to synthesize AgNPs. This because this medium contains essential carbon and nitrogen source along with other vital macro and micronutrients such as magnesium, sodium, calcium, potassium, iron and zinc which are vital for fungal growth.Nowadays, application of AgNPs confirmed their effectiveness in treatment of cancer, bone implant, anti-inflammatory and their biocidal activity against many bacteria and pathogens (Husseiny et al., 2015; Majeed et al., 2016). The antibacterial properties of AgNPs are due to the oxidation and liberation of Ag+ ions into the environment that makes it an ideal biocidal agent (Sivakumar et al., 2015). It is expected that the large surface area to volume ratio as well as high fraction of the surface atoms of the nanoparticles increase their antimicrobial activity as compared with bulk silver metal (Joy and Johnson, 2015). Moreover, the small size of the nanoparticles facilitates their penetration inside the cell. Additionally, excellent antibacterial properties exhibited by AgNPs are due to their well-developed surface which provides maximum contact with the environment (Mitiku and Yilma, 2017). Recent research approved the antibacterial activity of the silver nanoparticles against many bacteria especially those having the capability to cause severe disease for the human such as Salmonella enterica, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Staphylococci and Pseudomonas sp (Devi and Joshi, 2012; Shelar and Chavan, 2014; Muhsin and Hachim, 2016; Madakka et al., 2018; Saravanakumar and Wang, 2018). However, shape, dimension, and the exterior charge as well as the concentration of the AgNPs are important factors that affect the antimicrobial activity the nanoparticles against the tested bacteria (Madakka et al., 2018). Devi and Joshi (2012) approved the antibacterial activity of AgNPs comparing with erythromycin, methicillin, chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin agents Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Salmonella enterica and Enterococcus faecalis. They showed that the diameter of inhibition zones obtained by the silver-nanoparticles, with 5-50 nm in diameter, were more than those obtained by the antibiotics. Shelar and Chavan, (2014) showed that Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus sp were inhibited by silver nanoparticles with diameter of 17-32 nm in very close pattern to the standard antibiotic streptomycin. Muhsin and Hachim (2016) reported the best concentration of silver nanoparticles with diameter 8-90 nm that showed strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus streptomycin was 100 Â µl/ ml. Based on the above-mentioned information, we assume that fungi as bio-factories for the biogenic synthesis of the silver nanoparticles are very interesting during eco-friendly and safe technology, also for future application as antimicrobial agents. Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is a new multidisciplinary science interfering with many research areas and aspects. This technology deals with so small particles ranges from 1 to 100 nm (Birla et al., 2009; Husseiny et al., 2015). Nanoparticles of some metals like Au, Ag, Pt and Cu have paid more attention because of their biotechnological benefits (Rai and Duran, 2011). Research revealed the multiapplication of nanoparticle due to their unique properties in electronics, medicine, agriculture, pharmaceutic and environment (Nanda and Majeed, 2014; Dasgupta et al., 2015). Metal nanoparticles emerged as an alternative variety of antibacterial agents against strains of high resistance to the classical antibiotics (Naseem and Farrukh, 2015). Nanoparticles were used as antiviral agents (Gaikwad et al., 2013), effective antibacterial (Singh et al., 2013), cancer cells and antitumor (Daenen et al., 2014). Many researches have been directed to apply the nanoparticles of metals as anthelmintic (Garga and Chandrab, 2012), antifungal (Kim et al., 2012), antiprotozoal (Said et al., 2012), , acaricidal (Marimuthu et al., 2013) and larvicidal (Muthukumaran et al., 2015). Nanoparticles have many chemical and physical characteristics that differ from the metallic particles. Specific characteristics of nanoparticles such as their optical, physicochemical, mechanical properties make them crucial in many applications. Therefore, nanoparticles could be the key factor for the future technologies. Scientific as well as public associations are paying their attention for nanoparticles technology as a good investment source. Nanoparticles could be produced via physical, chemical or biological methods (Haider and Kang, 2015; Ebrahiminezhad et al., 2017). Both chemical and physical methods use reducing agents such as sodium borohydride, sodium citrate and alcohols (Rai and Duran, 2011). However, using of microorganisms in synthesis of nanoparticles represents another great achievement because of the economic and ease production (Shelar and Chavan, 2014; Patel et al., 2015). Research revealed that biological methods is an inexpensive and eco-friendly way for synthesis of nanoparticles. This method used biological agents including bacteria, fungi, yeast and plants (Mourato et al., 2011). Recently, emerging such microorganisms as eco-friendly nano-factories to manufacture inorganic nanoparticles was attractive (Lee et al., 2004; Lengke et al., 2007). Fungi were mentioned as excellent candidates for metal nanoparticle synthesis because they contain many of enzymes that induce the production (Sastry et al., 2003). It was assumed that the mechanism involved in nanoparticles production by fungi was due to cell wall sugars that could reduce the metal ions (Mukherjee et al., 2002) and because they have the high cell wall binding capacity, metal uptake and secrete more amounts of proteins lead to the higher productivity of nanoparticles (Vahabi et al., 2011). Fungi have some advantages over the other microorganisms regarding the synthesis of NPs, because fungal mycelia are able to resist pressure, high temperature and easy storage in the laboratory (Kiran et al., 2016). There are many of metals for biosynthesis (NPs) such as copper, zinc, iron, iron trichloride, lead carbonate, gold and silver (Siddiqi and Husen, 2016). In addition, silver NPs could be synthesized by fungi either intracellularly or extracellularly but the extracellular biosynthesis downstream process much easier and showed more activities against many pathogens (Ahmad et al., 2003). Among the active fungi that were reported to produce nanoparticles; Rhizopous oryzae produced nanoparticles intracellularly of gold (Das et al., 2012), Verticillium sp extracellularly peodcued gold and silver nanoparticles (Soni and Prakash, 2014) in the size range of 20–51 nm. However, F. oxysporum produced nanoparticles of silver of 5–15 nm and 8-14 nm in diameter extracellularly (Ahmad et al., 2003; Senapati et al., 2005). Many other fungi were approved for their productivity of nanoparticles of different metals either extracellularly or intracellularly including: Phoma sp. (Chen et al., 2003), the endophytic fungus Colletotrichum sp. (Shankar et al., 2003), Aspergillus fumigatus (Kuber and D'Souza, 2006) , Fusarium acuminatum (Ingle et al., 2008) , Trichoderma asperellum (Mukherjee et al., 2008), F. semitectum (Sawle et al., 2008), Phoma glomerate (Birla et al. 2009), F. solani (Ingle et al., 2009) , plant pathogenic fungi Aspergillus niger (Gade et al., 2008; Jaidev and Narasimha, 2010), Aspergillus flavus (Vigneshwaran et al., 2007; Jain et al., 2011) , Paecilomyces lilacinus (Devi and Joshi, 2012), endophytic fungus Pencillium sp. (Singh et al., 2013), Aspergillus foetidus (Roy and Das, 2014), Rhizopus stolonifer (AbdelRahim et al., 2017), Penicillium Oxalicum (Bhattacharjee et al., 2017) and Trichoderma atroviride (Saravanakumar and Wang, 2018). Many recent reports have shown that production of nanoparticles by fungi are could be affected by various condition of temperature, biomass weight, time and pH ( Balakumaran et al., 2016; Liang et al., 2017; Othman et al., 2017). Husseiny et al. (2015) reported that most important factors that were affecting the biosynthesis of AgNPs were the temperature, pH, time, the concentration of AgNO3 and amount biomass. Narayanan and Sakthivel (2010) approved that incubation at 27 0C for 72 h with 7 pH and 10 g of the fungal biomass and 1mM concentration of AgNPs were considered the optimum conditions for production of AgNPs from AgNO3 by fungi. Researches showed some variations in the characteristics of the biosynthesized AgNPs by different fungal species. These variations could be due to the source of fungal isolates or strains and types of medium (Devi and Joshi, 2012; Roy and Das, 2014). When Alam et al. (2017) compared the different types of media, they found Czapex dox broth was a good medium to produce enough mycelial biomass to synthesize AgNPs. This because this medium contains essential carbon and nitrogen source along with other vital macro and micronutrients such as magnesium, sodium, calcium, potassium, iron and zinc which are vital for fungal growth.Nowadays, application of AgNPs confirmed their effectiveness in treatment of cancer, bone implant, anti-inflammatory and their biocidal activity against many bacteria and pathogens (Husseiny et al., 2015; Majeed et al., 2016). The antibacterial properties of AgNPs are due to the oxidation and liberation of Ag+ ions into the environment that makes it an ideal biocidal agent (Sivakumar et al., 2015). It is expected that the large surface area to volume ratio as well as high fraction of the surface atoms of the nanoparticles increase their antimicrobial activity as compared with bulk silver metal (Joy and Johnson, 2015). Moreover, the small size of the nanoparticles facilitates their penetration inside the cell. Additionally, excellent antibacterial properties exhibited by AgNPs are due to their well-developed surface which provides maximum contact with the environment (Mitiku and Yilma, 2017). Recent research approved the antibacterial activity of the silver nanoparticles against many bacteria especially those having the capability to cause severe disease for the human such as Salmonella enterica, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Staphylococci and Pseudomonas sp (Devi and Joshi, 2012; Shelar and Chavan, 2014; Muhsin and Hachim, 2016; Madakka et al., 2018; Saravanakumar and Wang, 2018). However, shape, dimension, and the exterior charge as well as the concentration of the AgNPs are important factors that affect the antimicrobial activity the nanoparticles against the tested bacteria (Madakka et al., 2018). Devi and Joshi (2012) approved the antibacterial activity of AgNPs comparing with erythromycin, methicillin, chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin agents Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Salmonella enterica and Enterococcus faecalis. They showed that the diameter of inhibition zones obtained by the silver-nanoparticles, with 5-50 nm in diameter, were more than those obtained by the antibiotics. Shelar and Chavan, (2014) showed that Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus sp were inhibited by silver nanoparticles with diameter of 17-32 nm in very close pattern to the standard antibiotic streptomycin. Muhsin and Hachim (2016) reported the best concentration of silver nanoparticles with diameter 8-90 nm that showed strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus streptomycin was 100 Â µl/ ml. Based on the above-mentioned information, we assume that fungi as bio-factories for the biogenic synthesis of the silver nanoparticles are very interesting during eco-friendly and safe technology, also for future application as antimicrobial agents.

All characters in the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ are lonely Essay

All characters in the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ are either lonely, bored or in need of escaping from the soulless existence of the itinerant labour. It is based on a society of men leading empty lives, trapped in a lonely life, consisting mainly of hard physical work. There was not enough happiness, love and affection in their lives. The novel is set in California, the Southern states of America, in the 1930’s around the time of the ‘Great Depression’. The ranch is based in ‘Soledad’; which is the Spanish word for ‘Loneliness’. The bunkhouse that the men sleep and live in is a long and rectangular building. The walls are white washed and the floor unpainted. In three of the four walls are small, square windows. In the fourth one was a solid door with a wooden latch. There are eight bunks, all with a nailed apple box over them with the opening forward. This made two small shelves for the personal belongings of each ranch hand occupying the certain bunk. On these shelves were little articles, soap, razors, talcum powder, Western magazines, medicines, little vials, combs and a few neckties. There was also a black cast iron stove, and a big square table in the centre of the room, with scattered playing cards across it, and surrounding the table were boxes for the men to sit on. The bunkhouse also had lice and roaches in it! Carlson and the other ranch hands all dream of owning their own land and living and working from this, resulting in wealth and happiness. This was known as the ‘American Dream’, this is shown as an opportunity to all people no matter how rich or poor they are. There is a lot of government propaganda, informing people that if they work hard and push their ambitions to the limit, they can make this dream reality. However they all knew, no matter how hard they worked or how successful they were, it was very unlikely of this dream ever becoming reality. Their way of escaping this disappointment was to collect their fifty bucks at the end of the month and of a weekend spend all of it on women and alcohol, usually at the nearest ‘cat-house’. During the week they play cards games or horseshoes. Crooks is very lonely, this is due to the fact that he is coloured and everyone knows him as a nigger! He is treated completely differently to all the others, an outsider. He is also crippled, after a horse kicked him and severely damaged his back. In the 1930’s it was very racist in America and the coloured people weren’t allowed to speak up or were too scared to defend themselves in fear of what the white people would do to them. This is the situation Crooks is in. However he is the only coloured person at the ranch, so he has to accept all racial comments on his own. He has his own separate room, which isn’t even a room it is a shed that leans off the side of the barn wall. He is isolated from everyone else, therefore unable to socialise. On one occasion Lennie entered the barn to see his pup. He saw Crooks’ light shining and stood in the doorway of Crooks’ room. Crooks saw him and said sharply ‘†you got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here, but me.† He then followed with â€Å"I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse and you ain’t wanted in my room†, â€Å"they play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you all of you stink to me.† Crooks reads to amuse himself when he has nothing better to do. This keeps his mind off of the atmosphere and situation he is surrounded by in his everyday life. Curley’s wife is perhaps one of the loneliest characters, trapped in her strict and original woman’s/wife’s role. Her daily routine only ever consists of her doing housework, such as cooking Curley’s dinner, washing Curley’s clothes, making Curley’s bed, cleaning Curley’s house, etc. If Curley catches her talking to the ranch hands he is always very annoyed by it, she is to stay in the house. She is known as ‘Curley’s wife’, no one knows her name so they cannot call her by it. One time when she enters the bunkhouse and begins to talk to the ranch hands, Crooks suggests † Maybe you better go along to your own house now. We don’t want no trouble.† It is this idea that she is ‘trouble’ that makes Curley’s wife so upset and angry. † Well, I ain’t giving you no trouble. Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?† Having a husband even makes her loneliness worse, because Curley is so strict about whom she socialises with and what she does. She calls him sarcastically a â€Å"Swell guy†, who † Spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to guy’s he don’t like, and he don’t like nobody.† Curley’s wife tries to escape her loneliness and sadness by dreaming of being an actress or a model. She had been offered the chance before â€Å"I tell you I could of went with shows† † An’ a guy tol’ me he could put me in pitchers†. Curley’s wife is also very good at flirting, this attracts male attention. Therefore just for a moment she is listened to and is the centre of attention, this moment matters so much to her because she is being paid attention to for once, that she makes a very bad habit of it. However the ranch hands have got used to her scheming ways and do not want to risk getting â€Å"canned† because of a â€Å"tart†. However Lennie and George are different to the other ranch hands, they may live a lonely existence, but they have each other. Other than the other ranch hands expressing their feelings about their hopes, dreams, lonely lives etc, George and Lennie are the only characters we really get to know. All other ranch hands haven’t got a family or anything to look forward to, but it is different with George and Lennie; they believe they have a future and as long as they have got each other, it doesn’t matter whether they have a family or not. These men love each other. They talk to each other and know that the other cares for them, because George looks after Lennie, and Lennie looks after George. However, George has a much greater job in looking after Lennie, than Lennie has in looking after George. Lennie is a bit of a dunce and is always forgetting things, but George has the brains. They both are physically well built, but Lennie does not realise his own strength sometimes, he is dangerously strong. Lennie is the physical side of the pair, whereas George is the mental. The fact that they have each other gives them more of a chance of success, than the other ranch hands. Lennie loves George to tell him what; one-day things will be like. Their dream is to one day buy a little house, with a ten acres, a â€Å"win’mill†, a kitchen, an orchard to grow â€Å"cherries, apples, peaches, ‘cots, nuts, and a few berries†, a section on the land to grow alfalfa that Lennie will use to feed the rabbits with, hutches and pens full with pigs, chickens, cows, goats, cats, pigeons, a dog and rabbits that Lennie could pet, a smoke house so they could kill the pigs and then smoke it, for smoked ham and bacon etc, and for them to literally â€Å"live off the fatta the lan'†. They would only work six or seven hours a day. Lennie likes to pet, smooth, soft, furry things, as a kind of comfort. Other than for George and animals, love and affection are withheld, not only from Lennie, but also for all the ranch hands. This is why they have their own individual comfort or way of escaping from the repetitive daily routine and loneliness. Candy is a dissimilar character from the other ranch hands. He is very lonely and sad. He has no hand, but a very old dog that he cares for very much. This dog is similar to Candy. They are both very old and when Carlson shoots the dog, because it smells, has no teeth, he cannot eat, is stiff with rheumatism, is nearly blind and Carlson thinks it will be better to put the dog out of his ageing misery. Candy wants people to treat him once he is canned like this. This is because he â€Å"won’t have no place to go, an’ he can’t get no more jobs†. The other ranch hands say that he can replace the dog with one of Lulu’s pups, but of course that wouldn’t be the same, never is anyone or anything the equivalent, everyone and everything is unique. Candy seems to think that when he is dead, people will say the same thing about him. When a new ranch hand comes and replaces him, he’ll be forgotten. For obvious reasons Candy is upset and hurt by this. It is as if the characteristics of his dog and the way the other men treat the dog, symbolises Candy. Candy wants to join George and Lennie in their ‘dream’. Candy has already got three hundred bucks and another fifty coming at the end of the month, when the men get paid. He explains that he â€Å"ain’t much good, but I could cook, tend the chickens, and hoe the garden some†. Then when George and Lennie get their fifty bucks each at the end of the month, they will have four hundred and fifty bucks, and although the woman wants six hundred bucks, George thinks she will accept their offer as a deposit and then George will get a job and start to collect the rest, while Candy and Lennie could work on the land as well as sell eggs etc, making more money. This is Candy’s route of escaping. Everything seems to be falling into place and their dream looks like it could become reality. This is everything a man wants and Candy is thrilled he is part of it. However much their dream looks real, it all ends when Curley’s wife tries her old tricks with Lennie. Curley’s wife enters the barn, as Lennie sits there mourning over his pup, he has just accidentally killed! George has already warned Lennie about Curley’s wife, says she is trouble, so Lennie refuses to talk to her, â€Å"George says I ain’t to have nothing to do with you- talk to you or nothing†. Curley’s wife says in a innocent voice, â€Å"All the guys got a horse-shoe tenement goin’ on†, so â€Å"Why can’t you talk to me?† She eventually persuades Lennie that it is safe to talk to her. They talk for ages and Lennie tells her how he â€Å"likes to pet nice things with my fingers, sof’ things†. She tells Lennie to â€Å"feel right here†, on her hair. Lennie was enjoying stroking her hair until she warned him not to â€Å"muss it up†. She then got angry because Lennie wasn’t listening to her. She went to pull away and Lennie clasped his fingers tightly in her hair and wouldn’t let go. She began to shout, â€Å"you let go†. Lennie began to get scared because he thought George would hear and go mad. He covered her mouth and nose to prevent her screaming, and continued to beg her to be quiet. She continued to struggle and he shook her. Suddenly â€Å"her body flopped like a fish†. She was dead! Lennie ran to the brush that George had told him to hide in when they first arrived in Soledad if he ever got into trouble. When Candy found Curley’s wife dead and told all the ranch hands, they all knew it was Lennie! Most of the men wanted to kill Lennie, but George got there first. George knew that Lennie would be scared if half a dozen men ran towards him shooting, but if George was to do it at the back of his head, just like Candy’s old dog it would be pain free. When George found him, Lennie asked for the story of their dream to be told to him and questioned George why he wasn’t mad at him, but obviously if this was George’s last moments with Lennie he didn’t want to be mad at him. As George told the story and paused every so often, Lennie would say â€Å"go on† or â€Å"Gonna do it soon† as if he knew what George was about to do and was encouraging George to get it over and done with. George finally shot Lennie. Lennie jarred forward and the settled peacefully as he lay on the sand. George just sat stiffly and silently n the bank, looking at his hand that had just pulled the trigger disgustedly. George knew it was for the best, where ever they were to go Lennie’s unrecognised strength would lead to trouble; it had already, both in Weed and Soledad. Lennie was trapped by his strength. Although, Lennie has now been released from pain by no longer being able to kill others and from not getting shot by half a dozen men cruelly, but peacefully by George. The upsetting thing is, that Lennie was so afraid of being alone and away from George, and now he was just that. It was all over!!! George is now free; he is no longer trapped by his want of freedom, of constantly looking after Lennie. I think the novel tries to give us the message that people try to lead their lives as successfully as possible, in order to result in the best possible outcome. However this is very hard to succeed. The ranch hands wanted the ‘American Dream’ to become reality, but is very unlikely and as shown does not happen. The novel gave a very positive view of the ‘American dream’, but this is erroneous and does not come true. The chances of finding true, lasting friendship and happiness are also very unlikely as it is always spoilt by misfortune, arguments, inconveniences and sometimes death, as in this case.